I worked in customer service for a fence company. A customer ordered new fancy lighted post caps for a party they were hosting at their property. They weren’t very far away, but still had anxiety that their items wouldn’t arrive in time. They called me.

Me: “Let me reassure you that standard shipping is typically one day. Unless there’s an emergency, the caps will arrive in time.”

Customer: “Isn’t there any way of getting them here faster? We don’t want to risk an emergency happening!”

Me: “I can change the shipping to overnight to ensure the shipment will be delivered ASAP tomorrow, but there will be a fee.”

They were fine with that, so I walked the order through our stations myself to ensure it shipped out as requested. The order arrived the next day, as promised, and the customer called back.

Customer: “So the caps arrived this morning.”

Me: “That’s great to hear!”

Customer: “But they would have arrived today anyway if we’d stuck to the original shipping method, right?”

Me: “They would have arrived later in the day, but yes.”

Customer: “I want a refund for the expedited shipping fee.”

Me: “Sir, you got the item delivered as requested. I can’t refund you for a service that performed as advertised.”

Customer: “No, you tricked me! You said it would arrive today as long as there wasn’t an emergency! You made me think an emergency was gonna happen and tricked me into paying more! I want that money back!”

Me: “Sir, I can’t do that. You paid for delivery first thing today, and that’s what you have received. You got the service you paid for.”

Customer: “Well then, that’s terrible customer service!” *Click.*

Several years ago, I was a bookkeeper for a huge home improvement store. As a bookkeeper, I arrived at 5 AM to prepare for the store opening, and/or stayed until 11 PM for closing. There were two of us. The scheduler and management would have one of us close and open the following day. We had a part-timer who worked four to six nights a month because she was in school. She did not open.

The other bookkeeper closed and opened without complaining. But for me, that was absurd! Leaving the store at 11 PM and returning at 5 AM is unreasonable (also illegal). We spoke with the scheduler and management to no avail. So, whenever the schedule came out, we switched if one of us was scheduled to close and open. The scheduler and management noticed but kept quiet because someone was there to do the work, although they continued scheduling us to close and open for years.

Eventually, we got a new scheduler and manager who wanted to flex their authority over all departments and demanded that the other bookkeeper and I work the printed scheduled hours. We weren’t allowed to switch schedules. We maliciously complied.

The following schedule had me closing and opening. I closed and called in the next morning. They tried calling the other bookkeeper, but she did not answer (I asked her not to respond). The part-timer could not work because she had school.

No one else was trained in bookkeeping (not even management). This meant they needed to contact me for instructions on opening the store. I was paid a minimum of fifteen minutes for each call they made. If the call exceeded fifteen minutes, I was paid a minimum of thirty minutes. You get the picture. By the end of the day, I was paid for a full day.

After that day, neither the scheduler nor the manager meddled in our hours again.

I work in a large hardware store, one of the big two. A customer brings in a mower.

Customer: “I need to return this.”

The mower was so old that most of the body and handles were covered in rust and dirt.

Me: “Sir, I don’t think this qualifies as a returnable item. It looks… old.”

Customer: “I still have the receipt!”

He shows me the very yellow receipt. This item was purchased in 1990!

Me: “Sir, this is way outside our return window.”

Customer: “But it’s stopped working. What do you suggest I do, buy a new one?”

He says this as if it’s the most ridiculous idea in the world.

Me: “Well, yes, sir. That is generally how it works.”

Customer: “So you’re refusing to stand by your products?!”

Me: “When this product came out, I hadn’t learned how to stand yet… so yeah.”

I work in sales for a kitchen and bath remodeling company. The following type of customer is getting increasingly more common:

Customer: “I’m looking to remodel everything! Kitchen, bathroom, windows, all of it!”

Me: “Do you have your measurements?”

Customer: “I have a picture.”

Picture… singular.

Me: *Ignoring the picture.* “Do you have the sizes of the kitchen? The windows, the stove, the refrigerator?”

Customer: *Slides picture over.* “It’s all there.”

Me: “This is just a single photo. You can’t even see all of the kitchen in this picture.”

Customer: “Can’t you just…” *Waves hand.* “…get the computer to figure out the rest. You have AI now, don’t you?”

Me: “That isn’t a service we offer. We could send someone over to take all the measurements we need if you like, ma’am.”

Customer: “No, I’d rather you use the computer and get a quote for me now.”

Me: “Without anything to go on, I can’t give you a quote.”

Customer: *Slides picture even closer.* “Come on! It’s like you’re not even trying!”

This story takes place at the end of my eighth and final year at a home improvement store with an affinity for the color orange. I am about to leave not only my job, but the state for greener pastures (and a better paycheck), and I’m on my last few weeks.

During the last few years, the quality of life at my store was going downhill past the rate of terminal velocity, with bad management, zero advancement opportunities, insane demands, half-skeleton crews, and horrible self-checkout lanes that make literally every aspect of the job worse. I resolved to spend my final days doing everything in my power to drive my superiors to either alcoholism or mental breakdowns, including but not limited to:

• Randomly changing accents during transactions.
• Forgetting how to speak any known language.
• Very liberal interpretations of the dress code.
• Using a mobility cart to go through the local drive-through fast food.
• Suggesting DIY flamethrowers and military ordinance as pest control. 

One day, I am relegated to the checkout near the lumber section in the hopes of minimizing my capacity for shenanigans. While looking up the prices to hire a Mariachi Band to follow around my supervisors and play whenever they try to talk, I notice two young boys who have acquired dowel rods and are engaged in swordplay while their parents are otherwise occupied. This being decidedly unsafe, I decide to intervene in my own special way.

Me: *Heading over to the boys, waving my arms.* “WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! STOP! STOP!”

The boys look at me, a bit miffed, and I call over several of the lumber workers, all of whom have long since lost the ability to give a metric tenth of a f***.

Me: “We got a duel in aisle thirty-four. You want in on this?”

Worker #1: “Five on [kid in black shirt].”

Worker #2: “Ten on [kid in red shirt].”

Worker #3: “I’ll sit this one out.”

I queued up the Star Wars “Duel of the Fates” theme on my phone, put it to max volume, and nodded to the two kids.

Me: “Proceed.” 

They obligingly resume their sword fight, not maliciously, mind- until a supervisor comes and breaks it up. Regrettably, there was no clear victory and thus no payout, but it made for a nice diversion.

I’m now in a much better position job-wise, which is good, because I don’t think I’m going to have much luck returning to that company.