I work at a call center for a financial institution. A customer calls in and, after questions and her rambling for about seven of the most confusing minutes of my life, I’m able to determine that she has a credit card and a debit card and she doesn’t know the difference between the two.

The credit card is one that earns points. She got the card six months ago and started spending like there’s no tomorrow so she could earn herself a bunch of reward points.

That alone takes a kind of logic I dare not give myself a stroke trying to figure out. But I digress.

She calls to check on her expected many, many reward points and it turns out that she has… none. This is because she hasn’t been using her credit card, but instead, her debit card.

So now, her checking account is way overdrawn, half her bills didn’t get paid and she wants us — I kid you not — to take all the transactions that have been done on the debit card for the last six months, undo them, and redo them using the credit card so her checking account will be fixed, the bills will get paid, and she’ll have her precious rewards points.

She literally wants us to go back in time and change history.

At least once a week I’ll say to myself, “That’s the most ridiculous, unbelievable thing I’ve ever been asked,” and somewhere a person like this is waiting by the phone going, “Hold my beer.”

I work at the customer service desk/money center. We ask that customers wear masks that cover their nose and mouth, and some people seem to think wearing the blue paper masks until they are literally falling apart is okay.

I’m approached by an older gentleman wearing a filthy mask on his face with a clean one poking out from his shirt somewhere near his belly button.

Customer: “You got a stapler?”

Me: “Yes, sir, what do you need stapled?”

I’m slightly confused as he doesn’t have any papers or envelopes in his hands that would usually signal a bill that needs to be attached together.

Customer: “You need to staple this d*** strap back on my mask.”

He pulls his face mask off and shoves it in my face. I can see it’s been knotted sloppily in one corner. The straps are brown instead of white and the mask itself is practically one layer, it’s been used so much.

Me: “For health and safety reasons, I’m not allowed to do that. I can’t touch your mask.”

I put my stapler back in front of me, out of his reach, and step back to avoid him shoving the mask further into my face.

Customer: “You need to provide customer service! This is customer service!”

Me: “You have a perfectly good—”

He cuts me off as I point at the one poking out of his shirt and thumps the counter with two fingers.

Customer: “You put that stapler down there and I won’t tell nobody.”

Me: “I’m afraid the six cameras above your head will tattle on me. I’m not stapling your mask.”

Customer: “This is the customer service desk! You need to provide customer service!”

He thumps the counter again and I grab both staplers I can reach and shove them into a drawer, well out of his reach.

Me: “How does a piece of tape sound, if you’re so concerned about that specific mask?”

I rip a piece of tape off the dispenser and hold it out to him.

Customer: “Well… I want a staple, but tape will work.”

He frowned but took the tape from me. When he put the tape on the mask, he didn’t even attempt to cover the knot with it but put it smack-dab across the little metal piece that pinches the nose.

Related:
You Have Become The Very Thing You Sought To Destroy!, Part 2
You Have Become The Very Thing You Sought To Destroy!

Many moons ago, I was working at a company with around employees. I worked in the design department as a design engineer. I’d receive job forms from sales and project managers, complete the drawings within the two-day time frame, and send them back. Drawings could be either done for “Client Approval” or “For Production”; the production files always took the longest.

We had some pretty hotshot sales guys who were completely up themselves; they were the most important people in the building and screw everyone else. They were the ones the saying “when everything is important, nothing is important” was modeled after. Everything was always in a rush and last-minute.

The king jerk of the sales team, [Sales Guy], and I actually got along okay. I did most of his jobs and I was happy to circumnavigate the “job form” policy to help him out of a bind for jobs that would take me a short amount of time to complete.

One day, [Sales Guy] came to me and asked me to help him out with one of his “binds”; he’d over-promised a client on time frames for drawings.

Me: “I’ll do what I can, but I can’t promise anything. You might need to wait for them until the end of the day.”

[Sales Guy] was not having any of this. He sent out an email to my boss, my boss’s boss, the sales manager, and me, complaining about how I was uncooperative and incompetent because I couldn’t do this work for him. I saw the email and I went straight to my boss and explained to him that there was no job form.

My boss replied to the email, CCing everyone.

Boss: “What is the job form number, [Sales Guy], so we can look this one up and see where it’s at?”

Obviously, [Sales Guy] couldn’t come up with a number because — shock, horror — he didn’t have one.

Everything blew over, I got in no trouble, and [Sales Guy] was given a stern talking-to.

The next day, [Sales Guy] came up to me all happy and cheery, asking about my weekend, complimenting my shirt, and, of course, asking if I could get this job done for him quickly for client approval. Honestly, it would have taken me ten minutes, but I replied:

Me: “Yeah, no worries. Just chuck in a job form and I’ll see how I go.”

His face kind of scrunched up, and I could see he wanted to have a go at me, but he walked off and into my boss’s office. I heard them start to yell and [Sales Guy] left the office fuming. Five minutes later, I got an Outlook notification of a new job form from [Sales Guy].

I bend the rules to help you out and then you try to screw me over? Enjoy your two-day wait time on drawings for your client!

I work in a call center for a major cell phone carrier.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Company]; my name is [My Name]. Can I get your first and last name to get started?”

Customer: “[Customer].”

Me: “Thank you so much. And how are you doing today?”

Customer: “Terrible! How can [Company] get away with hiring such f****** incompetent employees? Get me a supervisor.”

Me: “I’m sorry that you have had such a hard time before reaching me. I’m happy to get you a supervisor, but I will need to fill them in on what is going on. Could you tell me a little bit about the issue you are having?”

Customer: “My f****** bill is too low!”

Me: *Pauses* “Your bill is too low?”

Customer: “I can’t believe the audacity of your company. I was told my bill would be $92 and you are charging me $82. This is an insult to me! I am a world-famous doctor, missy. I am fifty-two years old and my twenty-two-year-old girlfriend is a major soap opera star in the largest city in America, Chicago. You are all so incompetent, I bet you thought the largest city was New York, but you’re wrong. It is Chicago. You all had better make my bill higher, or I’m going to use my influence as the President’s best friend to shut down [Company].”

Me: “Let me assure you that I am here to help. I looked over your bill. It appears to be a little lower this month than expected because of an autopay discount you were due last month which did not appear on your last statement.”

Customer: “I don’t care why it is lower. If you don’t make it what you quoted me, I will shut you down!”

Me: “All right, I don’t normally do this, but as a one-time courtesy for such a long-time and loyal customer, I’ll go ahead and charge you the additional $10. Is there anything else I can help with?”

Customer: *Suddenly very cheerful and accommodating* “No, thank you so much! I spoke with five reps before you, and you have been the only one to actually fix my issue. I’d like to speak with your supervisor to give good feedback!”

Me: “No problem; let me grab someone for you. One moment, please.”

A family comes to my little motel in rural Minnesota. It’s the weekend of a massive event and every hotel for fifty miles is sold out.

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry we are completely sold out. Every room we have is currently occupied.”

Lady: “I know you hold some. I’ll take one that you hold.”

Me: “Every room currently has a person in it. You might want to try [Hotel] across the street.”

Lady: “We tried there. We tried everywhere. Even a closet would be fine!”

Me: “We don’t even have any closets with beds. Nothing is available here.”

Lady: “I don’t believe you. Every hotel has closets at the ends of every floor. I will take one of those.”

I realize she is talking about our housekeeping closets!

Me: “Those aren’t rooms. Legally, we can’t sell them.”

She doesn’t even listen to me say this.

Lady: “I’m a five-diamond member! I’m going to call corporate. I know the owner!”

And so on.

Me: “Okay, I’ll show you one of the closets you’re interested in!”

We go on a little field trip to the second floor, and I open up a housekeeping closet so she can see what I’m talking about. It’s a housekeeping closet filled with carts, sheets, plungers, boxes, etc.

Lady: “This is terrible! I have never seen such a filthy room at a hotel! There aren’t even beds!”

Me: “Yeah, that’s a housekeeping closet right there.”

The lady leaves in a huff. Two days later we get an online review saying something like:

Review: “I was shown to my room and there wasn’t even a bed! It was a janitor’s closet and we decided not to stay! Terrible hotel!”