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!”

We are currently in a national change shortage and are asking customers to pay in exact change when possible. 

Customer: “Can I get $3 in quarters so my kids can use the candy machines?”

The candy machines aren’t even a part of our store, just inside the mall.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, we currently don’t have many quarters in the store, so I’m unable to give change at this time.”

Customer: “It’s okay, I’ll just take it from your tip jar.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but please don’t take money out of the tip jar. If there are quarters in there, I genuinely need them for our business. You can maybe try the business next door for quarters.”

Customer: “Fine! Thanks for upsetting my kids.”

Later at close, I counted the tips; we only had two quarters in the tip jar anyway.

My wife used to be a corporate travel agent. She handled software companies and airplane companies. She had done this for over a decade and was really, really good at it.

One day, out of the blue, she was let go. Apparently, she was talking to someone on the phone and let out a sigh. The bigwig on the other end took this as a slight and asked that she be fired. My wife was the only person who handled these accounts for years, so there were no notes or guides on how to handle these clients.

After this, I noticed that, day after day, she would get a call and instruct the person on the other end of the call how to do her old job.

Me: “What’s up with those phone calls?”

Wife: “They keep asking for my help because they don’t know what to do.”

At the end of the week, she’d put in at least twenty hours talking to her replacement, trying to help them out.

The following Monday rolled around, and she got another call. My wife was away from the phone and I picked up. As I suspected, it was her old employer. I can be a nice guy, but this had been pissing me off. They asked for my wife and I confirmed that it was her old employer.

Me: “She doesn’t work there anymore.”

Former Employer: “I just needed to ask her a few questions.”

Me: “Your company fired her for sighing.”

Former Employer: “I’m sorry about that, but we have a few questions.”

Me: “She spent over half her week last week talking to you. She doesn’t work there anymore. If you want her to train your staff, you will need to bring her in as a consultant.”

Silence.

Me: “The hourly fee for her consulting with you will be $45 an hour. I’ll be sending your company an invoice for the twenty hours she has already spent with you. After receipt of the $900.00 from your company, we can talk about further training. Any further communication will be also billed at $45 an hour.”

Former Employer: “Okay, thank you.”

They hung up.

I could’ve been nicer, but having worked many contract jobs in my past, I’ve found that if you keep helping them after you are let go out of a sense of loyalty, they will keep using you at no cost. I never sent the invoice; just having them not call gave us a sense of freedom and peace worth way more than the $900.

The best thing is that my wife wound up getting a job at one of the software companies she’d dealt with before, testing a travel agency app they were designing. She got a substantial raise, as well.

This story is part of our Best Of July 2021 roundup!

Read the next Best Of July 2021 roundup story!

Read the Best Of July 2021 roundup!

I’m at a campground. I’m on my way to take a shower because I got sweaty while hiking. I find the last open shower. I am about to get undressed when I hear a knock at the door.

Me: “Who is it?”

Woman: “Ugh, can you hurry up? My darling [Child] needs his shower before he goes to bed.”

Me: “Ma’am, I was just about to start. You can look for another shower if you want.”

Woman: “Ugh, but there are no bathrooms left! You can go after my darling [Child]! And I won’t take no for an answer!”

Jeez, this lady is persistent. I hear a tinier voice.

Child: “Mom, it’s fine. I can go after him.”

Woman: “No! Gentlemen are supposed to let ladies go first always! You should get out of there, b*****d!”

I just ignored her after that. Little did I know, I forgot to lock the door.

This lady just walked in like nobody’s business, and even worse, her kid came pre-naked. I shielded my eyes and yelled, “Get OUT!”

She ran out of the shower and finally let me be. I don’t know why she thought she could come in anyway, or why anyone would undress their kid in their RV and let them run around naked, but I’ll always lock my door from now on.