We manufacture made-to-order garage doors and deliver them across the UK. One particular model takes up to six weeks to be manufactured and delivered; this is always made clear with the customer at the time of order.

One gentleman calls two weeks into the manufacturing of his door, demanding delivery by the end of week two because he needs it fitted for the first of December at the latest. We explain that this would be almost impossible but he complains to everyone and anyone he can. He starts calling the office once an hour every hour about his order, and despite him knowing full well that it could take six weeks, he threatens to report us to Watchdog and Trading Standards.

To get him off our backs, we break protocol to push his order through and we have it delivered to him by the end of week two so he can fit it before the first of December.

All over, yes? Well, no. 

THREE MONTHS later, in February, I get a phone call from the same gentleman. 

Customer: “I’ve just opened the packaging and found the door damaged.”

Me: “The door that was delivered on December first. We are now at the end of February.”

Customer: “Yeah…”

Me: “So, you’re telling me that we pulled out all the stops so you could have delivery on December first to fit the door… only to have it left on site for three months in its packaging and now you tell me it’s damaged?!”

Customer: *Long silence* “Erm… yeah.”

I’m a head cashier at a home improvement store, and I’m closing up the outside garden registers for the night. Our cashiers know when the registers out there close, and they know to announce to all customers present that they will be closing soon. After confirming with my cashier that she’s informed all customers present of the closing, and seeing no one present in the vicinity, I lock the gates and begin to close out the registers. After I’ve closed out the very last till, about ten minutes after closing the gates, a customer who neither of us saw approaches the register.

Customer: “What’s going on? I need to check out!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but these registers are closed for tonight. The registers at the front of the store are still open for two more hours; you can check out inside.”

Customer: “NO! I have a heavy cart full of stones, and you want me to go inside?! I demand that you reopen the registers and let me pay here!  No one told me you were closing out here! Someone should have told me!”

The cashier looks at me, worried she’ll get in trouble.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. We didn’t see you out here; otherwise, we would have told you. However, I can’t reopen the registers. You’ll have to go inside to pay.”

Customer: “OPEN THE REGISTERS BACK UP! I PARKED OUT HERE SO I WOULDN’T HAVE TO WALK!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t reopen the registers. If you’d like, we can go inside, ring up your purchase, and then come back out here, and I’ll open the gates for you so you can wheel your cart to your car more easily, but you’ll still have to pay inside.”

Customer: “No! You have to reopen the registers! This cart is too heavy! I can’t just push it inside! OPEN THE REGISTERS! WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME?!”

I am a skinny, 4’11” female, but everyone in my store — and most of my regulars — knows that I am more than strong enough to perform most tasks on the job. The customer is a man at least 6’1″ and healthy-looking.

Seeing my cashier becoming visibly upset and concerned, I am getting annoyed.

Me: “I am sorry for that, sir, but if you’ll just wait one moment to let me finish my till, I’ll be glad to push your cart inside for you, and after you’ve paid, I’ll even push it out to your car and load it up.”

Customer: *Turns beet red* “That’s not the point! THAT’S NOT THE POINT!”

The customer turns and pushes his cart inside dramatically.

Cashier: “I told everyone I saw that we were closing, I swear! I never even saw him until he came up here. It had been dead for the last half-hour we were open.”

Me: “Don’t even worry about it, love. Enjoy the rest of your night off!”

I later told my manager about the exchange and the offers I made to the customer to try and rectify the situation. He said I did the best I could, and that no, I was NOT required to reopen the tills.

I am living with my parents. My father has a strict philosophy stating that if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it, no matter how bad its condition, and he always complains when my mother tries to buy new things to replace the barely-working existing ones, much to her irritation. Here are just a few examples of the headaches we’ve put up with.

Example 1:

Our kitchen faucet develops a leak around the base of the spigot, which gets worse and worse over time. My mom buys a new faucet to replace it, but by the time she comes home, my dad has already “fixed” the spigot… by duct-taping it. Because we could no longer turn the spigot due to my dad’s “fix,” we had to use the sprayer to fill the dish tub from then on.

Example 2:

One of our toilets develops a leak. As it turns out, the fill valve has a faulty gasket. My dad isn’t aware of this, so my mom buys a new fill valve and has her older brother, a plumber, install it while my dad is at work. My dad comes home while my uncle is installing the new valve and begins berating my mom for changing it out. He then rips the new valve out and installs the old valve. The leak worsens, but my dad just puts down a bucket and tells us to deal with it.

Example 3:

The same leaky toilet now develops a crack near the base. My mom decides that the toilet has to be replaced and has my uncle come over again to install a new one. My uncle has just removed the old toilet when all of a sudden, we hear a loud smashing sound. My dad has come home from work early again and has just smashed the brand-new, $3600 luxury toilet my uncle bought for my mom. My enraged uncle begins chewing my dad out, but my dad simply screams back at him and my mom and gives them a “lecture” about not fixing what isn’t broken. My uncle then storms off as my dad starts reinstalling the old toilet, causing the crack on the base to worsen as he does.

That last incident ended up being the final straw for my mom, who filed for divorce a week later. She won full custody of me and we moved out of town. My uncle also sued my dad for the destruction of the new toilet and won about $10,000 in damages.

For about six years after the divorce, I did not visit or hear from my father again, until recently when I got a call from my grandfather — the only person to stay in touch with him. According to my grandpa, my dad was moving in with him; the township had seized and condemned my dad’s house after they found that the property was in terrible shape. The faucet and toilet had never been replaced since the divorce and were leaking more than ever before, causing significant water damage to the walls and floor. There was also additional damage from a leak in the roof above the kitchen and several leaky window frames throughout the house, many of which just had trash bags duct-taped over them.

Most importantly, however, there was a large patch of black mold behind the shower in the bathroom, which had apparently been there since just before my mom and I moved out; luckily, we never showed any symptoms of it. The property was demolished by the township three months after my dad was forced to leave it. Incredibly, he still insists to this day that the property was perfectly fine and should never have been torn down.

I am a young trans guy working as a cashier at a popular hardware store. I happen to have my ears gauged and I am wearing pink plugs. A young lady in her early twenties walks up to my register.

Me: “Hi, how are you?”

Customer: “I’m fine, miss.”

I deepen my voice and absently strokes my beard.

Me: “I see you found our pansies that are on sale.”

Customer: “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

Me: “Okay, I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m clearly a guy. And I would really appreciate it if you would stop calling me ‘ma’am’ and ‘miss.’”

Customer: *Sharp tone* “But you are wearing earrings! Pink ones!”

Me: “Yes, but that doesn’t make me a girl.”

I finish her transaction.

Me: “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

Customer: “You, too, young lady!”

My aunt recently moved into a new house and has to do some renovations, so she’s hired a worker from a local construction company to do so.

He set off a big red flag on his first day on the job; he was asked to clean out the gutters, and yet he didn’t bring a ladder. This meant he had to climb out of the window onto the roof to clean them, dealing some damage to the shingles in the process.

For some reason, my aunt still goes with this guy. Unsurprisingly, it only gets worse.

The next day, he comes in to install a curtain pole on one of her second-floor windows. When it comes out crooked, this happens.

Aunt: “Why is this thing crooked?”

Worker: “What do you mean? It’s up the right way.”

Aunt: *Sighs* “Okay, measure it again, then.”

The worker uses a TAPE MEASURE instead of a bubble level to see if the curtain pole is level on both ends, using the SOFT CARPET to base it on.

Worker: “Again, it looks level to me, ma’am.”

Aunt: *Pause* “Okay, repeat what you just said to me and think about it.”

Worker: *Pause* “I said it’s level?”

Aunt: *mental facepalm*

At this stage of the renovations, she now has several big, ugly holes in her wall due to the worker having to realign the curtain pole.

On another day on the job, the guy says he’ll install plumbing and connect them to some washing machines in an upstairs room, which my aunt bought specifically FOR the new house. She gets back from an errand, and no progress has been made on the room OR the washing machines. My aunt looks on her back porch and catches this guy talking on the phone to one of his friends about a potentially lucrative music commission he got assigned, as he is apparently a composer, as well. My aunt, who the guy still hasn’t noticed, loudly announces that she would like to see how it turns out. The guy doesn’t last too much longer after this.

When my aunt texts the guy to tell him that she is changing to a different company — no surprise there — he still has the gall to try to guilt-trip my aunt into paying through their last series of texts.

Worker: “I would like to remind you that you still have not paid for my services. Please do so as soon as possible, as I’m struggling and need to put food on the table for my family.”

Aunt: “Man, are you serious right now?! I told you in person why I’m not paying you, and apparently, I have to tell you again! When I asked you to clean the gutters out, you didn’t even bother to bring a ladder.

“When you installed my curtain pole, you didn’t even bother to use the proper equipment to see if it was level, instead half-a**ing it using a tape measure and the carpet, and left a bunch of holes in the wall you didn’t even bother, nor offer to fix!

“When you were told to install plumbing upstairs, you not only did nothing during the time I was gone, which should have been more than enough for you to get started at least; no, you spent that time talking on the phone about another job!

“That’s an entire month down the drain with almost no progress on my house! You want your money? Go find a client for a commission; of course, with an experience like this, it sure as h*** won’t be me! Do you want to know why you’re not getting a d*** cent out of me for this job? There’s your reason! There are your reasons, plural!

“And I’m sure as h*** not going to regret this. I am more than perfectly capable of doing most of these tasks; I’ve moved into multiple houses and performed repairs on all or most of them. I hired you because I wanted to, not because I needed to. Goodbye, and do not contact me again.”

A few days later, she got a call from the construction company itself, saying she had been “constantly rude and abusive” to one of their employees, and they were also inquiring about the payment. She cleared the situation up and they said they’d look into it. They also said they were now VERY interested in talking to [Worker]. Apparently, he had been getting similar complaints from lots of his clients.

A few weeks later, when she checked the website of the construction company, [Worker]’s contact information was no longer there. Thankfully, the company she switched to actually did the work they were assigned, and her new house looks amazing!