A woman comes in with a letter. It has an address and a used, voided stamp on it.

Customer: “I brought this letter to you yesterday to send to [Company]! You said you could do that! Now this morning it was in my mailbox!”

I look at the letter and notice that it is addressed to a house just around the corner from the post office, as well as to a woman’s name instead of a company.

Me: “I’m sorry, but is this your address?”

Customer: “Yes, it is! Why?”

Me: “That explains why the letter came back to you. It is addressed to you, not to [Company].”

Customer: “So? I told you where it needed to go! You said you could do that!”

We are in a small town where customers often make small talk while posting their letters, so I didn’t pay much attention yesterday when she told me where she wanted the letter to go.

Me: “I’m sorry, but you still need to put the address on the letter yourself. It is not my job to do that. We can only accept the letter, sell you the stamp, and send it to the address that’s on it.”

Customer: “But I don’t know the address!”

Me: “Neither do I. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you here. You need to come back when you have found out the address, and then I can send the letter again for you.”

Customer: “So can I have a refund for the stamp?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry. We don’t give refunds for stamps, and besides, you have already used this one.”

Customer: “So I’ll have to buy another stamp when I come back?”

Me: “Yes, I’m afraid you will.”

Customer: “I want to speak to [My Manager]!”

As I said, it’s a small town; most customers know my manager by name, but I haven’t worked here for very long, so I’m still the “new girl.” But that doesn’t mean I have to put up with people trying to blame me for their mistakes.

Me: “Sorry, she’s not here today. But I assure you that she would tell you the same as I did.”

A line has formed behind the woman and I am getting impatient.

Customer: “This is unbelievable! Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? You saw the letter!”

Me: “Look, it is not my job to read every address of every letter that goes over this counter. Actually, it’s none of my business where you send your post, so I usually only look at the country, because that’s the only thing that changes anything about how much I need to charge.”

Customer: “So I’ll have to pay twice to send this one letter. Interesting. [My Manager] will hear of it!” *Storms off*

I work at a call center for opinion polling. The survey today lasted about five to ten minutes, depending how fast we ask and the pollee answers.

Me: “I’m calling for a small survey; it shouldn‘t take longer than ten minutes.”

Pollee: “Okay, that‘s fine. I‘m glad to help.”

The first few questions are about politics and the pollee answers very excessively. I only ask about seven questions and it takes nearly nine minutes. Even in this time, he asks about the remaining time several times and I tell him to stick to my answers for a faster end.

Pollee: “So now we are at ten minutes, so we’re finished, right?”

Me: “No, sir. I’m afraid we’re not nearly halfway through.”

Pollee: “But you said it’s not more than ten minutes!”

Me: “Yes, but only if you answer my questions directly. Your answers are pretty long, so we will need longer for the survey.”

Pollee: “But you said it’s only ten minutes! I’m not doing that survey if it lasts longer than the promised ten minutes!”

Me: “Sir, please calm down. I said it’s ten minutes, but not if you tell a story to answer every question. If you stick to my answers, we can end this in no more than five more minutes.”

Pollee: “Five more? I already lost ten minutes to you! I’m not gonna do this. I’m ending this now!” 

I heard him putting the phone down, but it was not completely hung up. He screamed to his wife about me, asking how I dared to lie to him. I hung up my phone and continued my work.

One of my duties is answering the phone that’s connected to the “help button” of the company parking lot. Customers are allowed to park there. To enter, you have to push a button to get a ticket and so the barrier opens up. You cannot drive into the parking lot without pushing this button and taking the ticket. To exit, you have to insert the ticket into an automatic pay station and then again insert it into the exit barrier so it opens. The entry and exit are clearly marked by posted signs as well as markings on the actual road.

I get a call and answer it, routinely checking the corresponding security camera on my computer. There’s a man standing in front of the exit, talking to me. No car to be seen.

Customer: “Hey, the barrier does not open up. Can you help me, please?”

Me: “Sure thing, just drive up with your car and I’ll see what I can do.”

Customer: “I can’t. The barrier is not opening!”

Me: “It won’t open unless there is a car standing on the pressure plate, right where you’re standing.”

Customer: “But how do I get it past the barrier?”

This prompts me to check another camera that shows a small part of the street in front of the exit. Sure enough, there’s a car standing there with its hazard light flashing and blocking all of the other cars.

Me: “Sir, is the [Make and Model of the obstructive car] yours?”

Customer: “Yes, I can’t enter. Please hurry, the other people are getting angry.”

By now I can hear the frustrated honking and shouts of the other people. I explain to him that he’s standing in front of the exit and how to get to the entry, but he does not seem to understand.

In the end, I have to get out and guide him to the next street corner about fifty meters away, from where he can enter the parking lot. I still don’t understand how he could have thought the exit was the entry.

I work at a public library. The DMV has just moved next door due to their office being renovated. Since both they and the library belong to the city administration, we both have the city logo on our front door. This seems to confuse people, and they enter the library while looking for the DMV on a regular basis.

I’ve just closed the front door behind one of our maintenance guys as a woman with the stereotypical entitled look approaches. She stops right in front of the door when they won’t open and starts reading our opening hours, as well as the sign posted saying that you need to call ahead before visiting because of visitor limitations due to the current health crisis.

Foolishly, I think she’ll recognize that we won’t open until almost an hour later, but she spots me and starts knocking on the glass. We usually just point to the opening hours and wait for them to go, but then I remember that my boss told me about a phone call she had earlier that day and that she’s waiting for some kind of inspector, so I open the door.

Woman: “Finally! I need to deregister my car since I’m moving next week.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry but this is the wrong building. The DMV is—”

Woman: *Interrupting* “—next door, I know. I’ve just been there. But they gave me this ticket and said it’ll be about an hour wait! Can you believe that? So I wanted to stay here until I can go back and sort this out.”

This isn’t an unreasonable request… if we were already open.

Me: “I’m sorry, but we’re not open for another hour today.”

Woman: “Oh, that’s not a problem. I can stay here, right?”

Me: “Unfortunately, I can’t allow you to be in the building as long as we’re still closed. You’d need to call ahead anyway due to the heal—”

Woman: *Huffs* “Well, where the f*** am I supposed to go, then? I thought this was a library!

Me: “There is a nice café just down the road. Maybe you’d like to wait there?”

Woman: *Huffs again* “How useless. At least you could give me some of those papers to make up for that!”

She gestures to our magazine rack.

Me: “I’m sorry, but those are for loan only. I can’t give them to you if you aren’t a registered member of the library, and especially not for free.”

Woman: “Oh, my God!”

She storms off.

Woman: “How useless!”

I locked the doors behind her and escaped to my office, out of sight from the front door. Well, at least she wore a mask?

Related:
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 41
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 40
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 39
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 38
Not Very Closed Minded, Part 37

I’ve been running around all day trying to get all my shopping done. It’s warm and having to wear a mask doesn’t make the warm and humid weather any more bearable.

The last place I have to go is the pharmacy.

I step through the door, tired, sweaty, stressed out, and far too warm beneath my mask. Luckily, I’m the only customer, so I step up to the pharmacist and look into her eyes… and my brain freezes.

Me: “I… I am so sorry, but I totally forgot what the stuff I came here for is called.”

I manage to ramble. She just looks at me a little strangely.

Pharmacist: “Maybe you could just describe what you need it for?”

After some awkward descriptions and lots of genius guesswork from a very calm and patient pharmacist who dealt willingly with my nearly useless brain and interpreted my babbling and awkward explaining just right, as well as a very shameful payment process where I tried to pay with a library card and my ID before finally swiping my card, I’m the proud owner of some over-the-counter painkillers, some Medigel, and an ointment against sunburn. The pharmacist wishes me a good day.

Me: “I really wish you a good day, too! Thank you for putting up with me, and I hope your other customers are less stupid than me.”

The pharmacist smiles at me behind her plastic screen and replies:

Pharmacist: “If they are as nice as you, they can be as confused as they want. It was a pleasure to help you out.”

Dear Lady Pharmacist, queen of encouragement on bad days, you made my day. Thank you for being so patient.

This story is part of our Feel Good roundup for November 2020!

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Read the Feel Good roundup for November 2020!