Customer: “I need paint to match this color I saw.”

Me: “We can try to match that, sir. Do you have the sample?”

Customer: “I saw it on TV yesterday! It was that home renovation show with that guy with the face. He put up some lamps. I need the paint to be the color of the lampshade.”

He stares at me expectantly.

Me: “Sir, I need you to bring in a sample of the color for me to match. I can’t make a paint color from that… description.”

Customer: “But it was only on TV yesterday! I want it to match the lamps!”

Me: “I don’t really watch TV, sir.”

Customer: “Don’t lie; everyone watches TV!”

Me: “What was the name of the show? Maybe I can find it online—”

Customer: “You know! The home renovation show! With the guy! The guy with—”

Me: “—the face. Yes. One moment.”

Against my better judgment, I use my work phone to Google last night’s television schedule and try to find anything that looks like a home renovation show. There are a lot of channels!

Me: “What channel was it on?”

Customer: “HGTV.”

Me: “The channel that’s nothing but home renovation shows?”

Customer: “Did you find it yet?”

I show him the schedule.

Me: “Sir, can you pick which show it was from this list? All the people in it have… faces.”

Shockingly, the customer can actually name the show! I look at the episode name and number and, luckily, can find it recapped on YouTube. Against all odds, I find some clips of some lamps.

Me: “Was this the lamp, sir?”

Customer: “Yes! Finally! Now was that so painful?”

Me: “Not in ways you could imagine, sir.”

I work at a building supply store, as a delivery driver. I’m the only one where I work who is licensed and certified to operate and drive a boom truck – a large transport truck with a crane on it for unloading material.

My coworker told me they’ve been dealing with a customer for several days, who can’t make up their minds on what material they want to use to redo their roof. Today alone, this customer has called five times.

About an hour before the store is closing, the customer finally decides what they want.

Customer: “I want it delivered tomorrow and boomed up to my roof.”

Coworker: “We will be unable to deliver tomorrow with a boom because our only driver licensed to operate the vehicle is off tomorrow.”

I worked five days this week, so this is my weekend off. The customer isn’t happy.

Customer: “Well, that’s no good. I need this delivered tomorrow. I’m sure you can have your driver come in just to do my delivery.”

Coworker: *Snaps back.* “No. We aren’t gonna ask him to come in for a delivery. It’s the driver’s weekend off. He’s worked the whole week. He’s earned his time off. The soonest we can get it delivered if you want it boomed will be Monday.”

Customer: “No good. We need the material tomorrow.”

Coworker: “If you need something boomed, we need adequate notice.”

Customer: “Well, I am giving you adequate notice.”

Coworker: “It isn’t adequate notice because you’re placing your order within an hour of closing, expecting next-day delivery.”

Eventually, the customer backed down and agreed to have everything delivered tomorrow, but it would only be dropped on the ground, and not taken up to the roof.

Customer: “And when I pay with cash, I get a discount right?”

Coworker: *Bluntly.* “No.”

As my coworker was telling me that, I told them they could throw the law at the customer. I had already worked five days and was near the end of my hours for what I am legally allowed to drive with that truck, just in case this customer decided to make things more difficult in the future.

I work at a lighting store.

Customer: “I need cordless extension cords.”

Me: “We don’t sell those.”

Customer: “Oh, do you know who does?”

Me: “No one. They don’t exist.”

Customer: “Yes, they do! My brother told me about them!”

Me: “It’s in the name, sir.”

Customer: “What do you mean?”

Me: “A cord can’t be cordless.”

Customer: “Well… they should be!” *Storms out*

I work as a customer service representative for a finance company. The company provides loans for home improvements, decks, sidings, bathrooms, and the sort.

Today, I received a call from a woman demanding to know who did her siding. This is not an uncommon situation; lots of customers call because they’ve lost the contractor information, and it’s usually an easy call to handle. All I need to do is ask for their loan number and verify the customer, and then I can provide the contractor’s information.

Me: “May I have your loan number?”

Caller: “I don’t have a loan number.”

I thought she just didn’t have the loan number handy, so I tried to look up her account by other means.

Me: “May I have your social security number?”

Caller: “I’m not going to give you my social. Why do you want my social?”

Me: “I’m trying to find your account. If you don’t have your loan number handy and don’t feel comfortable providing your social, may I have your address?”

Caller: “I’m not going to give you any information. I don’t even have a loan with you.”

When she said that, I thought I may have misheard her; why would she be calling us if she doesn’t have a loan with us?

Me: “You don’t have a loan with us?”

Caller: “I just said that.”

Me: “Then how can I help you?”

I thought maybe I was wrong about the reason for the call.

Caller: “I told you already; I just want to know who did my siding. Why do I have to keep repeating myself?”

Me: “I’m sorry, Ms. [Customer], but I don’t have a way of knowing who did your siding.”

Caller: “Why?”

I really couldn’t believe I had to explain this.

Me: “You don’t have a loan with us, so we don’t have a record of who did your siding.”

Caller: “But you guys work with the people who did my siding. They offered me to finance through you, but I decided to pay in cash instead of taking a loan.”

Me: “They are a different company. We are just a finance company; we provide loans for home improvements. We work with lots of contractors who offer their customers to finance through us. If you paid in cash, you didn’t do business with us, only with your contractor, and I don’t have a way of knowing who the contractor was.”

Caller: “So, I’m being punished for paying in cash instead of getting myself into debt. Wow!”

Then, she hung up on me.

I don’t even know how she remembered our company’s name and not the contractor’s name.

I ordered some wallpaper through [Home Improvement Store]’s website and paid for it via [Digital Wallet]. It arrived with one roll badly damaged, so I went into the store to return it.

The eighty-year-old woman inexplicably tasked with manning the computer simply could not figure out how to process the return. I stood there for fifteen minutes while she made various attempts, and I was trying not to give off any sense of impatience or make her feel rushed or flustered.

And then, she ultimately concluded:

Employee: “There’s nothing I can do. You should just go away and come back another day.”

Me: “Is there anyone else here who might be able to try?”

She just refused to call anyone. That was a bulls*** experience.

Me: “Just take the wallpaper and my receipt, issue me a store credit for the amount, and then leave a note for someone who knows what they’re doing that explains the situation.”

It shouldn’t be up to me to drive thirty minutes home, only to have to come back the next day and hope that she’s not working and that something magical happened overnight to fix the computers. I was surprised that someone working in customer service thought saying, “Go away and come back another day,” was an adequate resolution.