I work as a cashier in a supermarket. A popular candy maker has just released a new chocolate which comes in bars, bags, and boxes. We have a separate stand for the new products with a special offer of four candy bars for 1€. The offer is clearly marked, and the word “chocolate bars” is written twice on the ad sheet next to the bars.

A grumpy-looking lady and her teenage son come to my register with a full cart. Everything goes fine, they pay, and then the lady looks at the receipt.

Customer: “This is the wrong price!”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry, I will check that right away. Could you tell me which product it is?”

Customer: “This is always a problem here! Always! Your discounts never scan right!”

Me: “I am very sorry, I will—”

Customer: *Interrupting me* “I feel like you are trying to cheat me every time! Look here, I have four boxes of [Brand] chocolate. They were meant to be four for 1€, and you charged me the full price!”

That’s about 3.5€ per box.

Me: “I am sorry for the misunderstanding, but the ad clearly states that the discount is for four chocolate bars. Boxes are more expensive and unfortunately not part of the discount.”

Customer: “No, it does not! It said all new [Brand] chocolate products are four for 1€. This is a scam! I can’t believe this! You have no idea about your own campaigns. I want you to go and check the ad next to the chocolate. It will prove that I am right!”

A long line has formed behind the lady and people are starting to look annoyed. I am not permitted to leave my register while it’s open, so I have to call and ask a colleague to go and check the ad.

Me: “My colleague will go and check the ad for you. Could it be possible for me to serve the person behind you while you wait? They only have a few items.”

Customer: “No! You are serving me now. Unbelievable! They always try to cheat you about discounts…”

She goes on in a similar vein and tries to get the customers behind her to agree with her. My colleague calls and confirms that — surprise, surprise — the ad says, “Chocolate bars”.

Me: “I am sorry, but the ad clearly states that the discount is for chocolate bars. Would you like to return the boxes?”

Customer: “It does not!”

The customer’s son, who looks really embarrassed, speaks up.

Customer’s Son: “Yeah, it did, Mom. I saw it.”

Customer: *Pauses* “Well… I… The ad was placed misleadingly! It was right next to the stand with all the new chocolates. How was I supposed to know which are discounted and which are not?!”

Me: “Because it is written on the ad sheet?”

Customer: *Condescendingly* “Do you think that I have time to read all the ads? I would be here for hours!”

The customer behind her in line speaks up now.

Customer #2: “If it takes you hours to read the words ‘chocolate bar,’ maybe you should do less shopping and go back to f****** primary school?”

The lady just glared and left with her bags and full-priced chocolates. Unfortunately, she became our regular after that for some reason and was almost always as cheerful as in this story.

I work in southwest Florida on the beach. Right now, we are closed, as the hotel is completely unlivable due to a hurricane. However, I’m working overnight security, keeping the riffraff away.

I’m sitting in my “guard shack” watching a movie, and a car drives up. That’s not unusual. It’s midnight, but there are still a lot of FEMA workers, state, county, and city officials, police, and contractors running around. The person in this car is none of the above.

Tourist: “Hi, I’m looking to check in.”

Me: “You’re kidding, right?”

I’m hoping this is a FEMA guy messing with me.

Tourist: “I have a reservation.”

I look back at the ruins of the hotel.

Me: “Ah, we canceled all reservations before the storm. Hotel’s closed.”

Tourist: “But I have a reservation.”

Me: “Sir, I don’t care. The building is unsafe, and even if it was safe, I have no way of checking you in.”

Tourist: *Getting angry* “I have a reservation; you have to check me in! I want to speak you your supervisor.”

Me: “No, sir. I’m just gonna call a deputy to escort you off the island if you don’t leave.”

Tourist: “Fine!”

He proceeds to sit there. I call for a deputy, who shows up right quick; they’re crawling all over the island looking for looters.

Tourist: “He won’t check me in!” *Points at me*

Deputy: “Sir, are you stupid? You’re not even supposed to be allowed here. You’re either going to follow me out or I’ll arrest you for trespassing.”

Long story short, the tourist didn’t argue with the sheriff’s deputy, although I kind of wish he had; I kind of wanted to see him get tased. The tourist begrudgingly followed the deputy away.

I’m on vacation to Rome with my best friend from the USA. After a long visit to the Vatican Museums, it’s time to visit the gift shop. My friend wants a replica of the Keys of St. Peter’s, so I pick them up and try to pay in contactless form with my card, but the transaction is refused. I try to pay with my card by inserting it into the machine, but it’s still refused. At this point, the shop clerk pipes up.

Clerk: “Are you sure your card is enabled for abroad transactions?”

Me: “No, it’s not, but how’s that— Oh!”

And that’s how I managed to claim the Vatican was part of Italy in front of everyone! My friend had to pay for it herself, but she was gracious enough to accept the offer of a sandwich to make up for it.

A customer and her husband come in right around 10:00 pm.

Customer: “We’ll have two tickets to [Movie] at 10:00 pm.”

Me: “I apologize, but our last showing of [Movie] was at 9:30. I can still sell you tickets to it, but it’s probably about five minutes in at this point.”

Customer: “No, it says right on your website that it’s at 10:00 pm.”

I always cringe when I hear this because it usually means they’ve gotten the times for the other local theater, which is run by a different company and has different showtimes. And unfortunately, when people are informed of this, they get super defensive, aggressive, and rude, and try to blame it on us even though it was their mistake.

Me: “Unfortunately, our last showtime for [Movie] was at 9:30. It’s entirely possible that you looked up the wrong theater. Sometimes when you Google movie showtimes, it’ll display the showtimes for [Competing Theater] that’s about ten minutes down the road.”

Customer: *Becoming irate* “No, I looked it up on your website.”

Customer’s Husband: “It’s not a big deal. Even if the website was wrong, it’s not like the theater can change their showtimes on a whim. Let’s just get tickets since it’s only a few minutes in.”

Customer: *Pulling out her phone* “I’m gonna show you, and you’re gonna sell me tickets to the 10:00 pm showing!”

Me: “Again, ma’am, I apologize, but there is no 10:00 pm showing that I can sell you tickets to.”

She turns her phone and shows it to me. It is indeed our website. At first, I’m shocked… but then I notice the issue right away.

Me: “Ma’am… you have the wrong day pulled up.”

Customer: *Not even listening* “No! It’s your website. I want tickets to the 10:00 pm showing!”

Me: “Yes, that is our website…”

Customer: *Triumphant* “Ha!”

Me: “…but you have it on the wrong day. You have it on Friday’s showtimes. And today is Wednesday. Our showtimes change on Thursdays and Fridays because that’s when we get new movies.”

She turns and stares at her phone.

Customer: “No, it’s your… Oh.”

She then tries to argue a little more, including claiming that “the website changed the days,” and that “she knows it said we had a 10:00 pm showtime today,” before finally relenting and buying the tickets. She also tried to get out of paying since, by the time she bought them, she had wasted almost five minutes arguing, but of course, I denied this.

Her husband later came up and apologized for her. He knew it was total bullcrap and said she probably wasn’t paying attention and just picked a random day on the website.

I work in a busy tax accounting firm. It’s morbid to say, but our area has a large retiree population, so something I see more prevalently here than at other firms is the number of deceased estate returns we prepare.

The usual procedure when we find out a client has died is to make a note of it and a note to not send information requests to the family for a period of time. Tax departments move slowly, so why rush a grieving family when this process will still take months to finalise?

One day, I answer a call from our admin officer.

Admin Officer: “Hi, I’ve got [Deceased Client] on the line. They’re just after an update to where their tax work is.”

Me: “Uh, are you sure that’s who is calling?”

Admin Officer: “Hold on. I’ll double-check the name.”

I’m put on a brief hold.

Admin Officer: “Yes, it’s [Deceased Client]. Did you want to take the call?”

Me: “Umm, okay. Yes, let’s do that.”

I frantically look for a pen and paper and open his file, thinking it must be his son or something.

I take the call. It turns out that we have two clients with similar names, and when we got the death notice, the admin officer at the time put the deceased marker next to the wrong name. [Client] is very much alive and is just checking where his tax work is because he hasn’t heard from us.

The admin officer came up to me, after the call, to check because I’d sounded so confused on the phone.

Admin Officer: “What was the go with [Client]? Had we forgotten his work or something?”

Me: “No! I thought he was dead!”