I work at a burger chain. An elderly customer walks up.

Customer: “I’d like the ten-piece chicken.”

Me: “Oh, the ten-piece chicken nuggets?”

Customer: “No, I want the ten-piece chicken.”

Me: “That’s… pretty much the ten-piece chicken nuggets, sir. Or did you want the chicken fries?”

Customer: “No! I don’t want that tiny stuff; I want your chicken!”

I am assuming he’s confused the number of a combo with pieces somehow.

Me: “Were you looking for one of our chicken sandwiches, then?”

I start listing off those sandwiches.

Customer: “No! I want chicken! The… the thighs and the breast and whatnot!”

Me: “We don’t serve that here, sir.”

Customer: “Ridiculous. What kind of [Chicken Chain] doesn’t sell chicken?!”

Me: *Pauses* “This isn’t [Chicken Chain], sir; it’s [Burger Chain].”

The customer looks around for a few seconds and then leaves. About three minutes later, he shows up again.

Customer: “Do you know where [Chicken Chain] is?”

Me: “No, I don’t, sorry.”

He leaves again. Afterward, he comes in a couple of times a week, usually just ordering a burger or something. Nothing much happens until about a month after our exchange, at which point:

Customer: “Can I get some chicken?”

Me: “Sure, what kind?”

I list off the chicken sandwiches.

Customer: “No, I just want the chicken. Like the chicken thighs?”

Me: *Pauses* “Sir, this is [Burger Chain]; we don’t do just chicken.”

The customer looked around again before placing his regular order. Hopefully, he has someone to keep an eye on him.

Related:
Getting A Piece Meal By Piecemeal

I work as a chef, and I’m mainly on the salads. I get an order for a salad with added grilled salmon, cooked well done. I call out the salmon, because the grill is on the other side of the kitchen, so I work on the salad.

I get it done, and it’s just waiting on the salmon. Normally, our orders take less than ten minutes, but the salmon takes a while. Eventually, it goes out.

A couple of minutes later, it comes back and the people working in the front of the house say it has too much dressing. Not a big deal, but they want a new salmon, still well done.

Salmon isn’t cheap, so it’s strange that the people in front told us to remake it without them having to pay for the extra. We remake it, but it comes back again with the same problem, and the people in front tell us to just put the dressing on the side… again with a new salmon.

Two weeks later, we had the same issue. I didn’t find out if it’s the same person, but I have a hunch. Each time, the person complained about how the salmon wasn’t well done. The salmon was cooked well done each of the six times that we made the salad!

I work for a vet and pet groomers. It is near the beginning of the global health crisis and a lot of non-essential businesses are shut down, such as hair salons. However, our veterinary practice is still open, and as a result, we are able to take bookings for basic cleaning for most domestic pets.

A middle-aged woman comes in with the look that you know she’s going to be trouble. She is wearing oversized sunglasses, she’s carrying an angry-looking Pomeranian in a designer bag, and she has THAT hairstyle.

Customer: “Your grooming salon is still open?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. We can do basic bathing and shampoo duties. For your little—”

Customer: “How much will you charge me?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. I was about to say, for Toy Dog breeds, we charge—”

Customer: “No! Not the dog. Me. How much will you charge for me?”

Me: “I’m not sure I understand.”

She just stares at me for a moment, and even though her sunglasses are obscuring her eyes, I know she is looking me up and down. Then, she puts her bag down and bends over slightly, showing me her scalp.

Customer: “My roots are beginning to show. I need you to put my color back in.”

Me: “You want me to redo your highlights?”

Customer: “Yes! Finally, you understand. How much? Can we do it now? I’m on a schedule.”

Me: “Ma’am, I can bathe and shampoo your dog, and your dog only! I can’t do humans, and I certainly can’t do coloring! We don’t even do that to the dogs!”

Customer: “But the salons have been closed for weeks! I’m desperate! I can’t go out in public like this!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. You’ll just have to manage on your own for a while.”

Customer: “Not even a shampoo or conditioning?”

Me: “No, ma’am. Dogs only.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous!”

She tuts, takes the dog out of her bag, and begins to stomp off.

Me: “Ma’am! Your Pomeranian!”

Customer: “Oh, that thing isn’t mine; I just used it to get in here. I found it tied to the post outside the store across the street.”

And with that, she was gone. In a moment of shock, I locked eyes with the little fluff ball, who was just sitting there staring at me nonchalantly. Then, I realized that its leash seemed to have been cut off from the end, almost as if an entitled woman had cut it from a post with a pair of scissors…

Thankfully, I was able to make a mad dash to the convenience store across the street and inform a panicking woman who had lost her little dog that I was about to make her day.

This story is part of our Best Of December 2020 roundup!

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I work in a call center, taking calls for various Internet Service Providers. Most of the calls are due to people’s Internet going out.

On Saturday night, I get another such call. I get the customer’s name and callback number, and we establish which of her two properties she’s calling about; she’s a landlady. Before we even get the call underway, it’s clear she’s already angry.

Me: “Okay, looks like I have the right account here. How can I help you tonight?”

Customer: “I’m calling because your Internet isn’t working.”

Me: “Okay, let me take a look at your account, and we’ll see if we can figure out what the problem might be.”

As I do a bit of troubleshooting on my end, she’s swearing at people in the background and snapping at her kid whenever the kid says anything at all. Her mood definitely doesn’t improve when I ask her if she’s onsite to do the troubleshooting.

Customer: “No, I’m in the car; I just left that place. But I’ll have my husband call the people there.” *To her husband* “Call them right now! This lady’s gonna tell me what to do to fix the s*** Internet!”

Me: “Um, just so you know, ma’am, it might be easier to just have them call us directly; that way you don’t—”

Customer: “I am the only one authorized on this account!”

I’m about to tell her that it’s okay, we don’t require people to be authorized to call in for troubleshooting, when she cuts me off.

Customer: “And I am not interested in authorizing anyone else!”

I try to calm her down a bit.

Me: “Oh, okay, ma’am, that’s fine.”

So, for the next ten to fifteen minutes, I get to take part in the most stressful game of Telephone ever. For the whole customer troubleshooting part of the call, I have to tell her what needs to be done next, she tells her husband, and he tells the people on the other line. This makes it so the call lasts a lot longer than it needs to, and I can tell that she and her husband aren’t passing on all the details I am giving her to the tenants.

Surprise, surprise, the initial troubleshooting doesn’t work. Our protocol then is to have the customer text us some pictures of how they have things hooked up. This makes it so we can check that everything’s plugged in correctly, as well as making it much easier for us to instruct the customer on what to do next.

I explain this to the caller, but she yet again insists on making things harder than they need to be, saying that she will have the tenants text the photos to her husband, and her husband will then text those photos to us. So the call drags on even longer. Meanwhile, we’ve gone way past the goal that management has set for us on how long our calls should be, on average. This is the one thing they’re always on me to get better about, so I’m getting a little nervous.

I know that sometimes people call in stressed because their service isn’t working, and it’s really messing up their day. I totally understand that. So I try really hard to make them laugh, help them feel cared about, and break up some of the tension they’re bringing to the call.

As the call progresses, I think I might be making some progress in that regard with the customer, since she seems to be a little less loud and snippy with me. That is, up until the very end of the call, when it becomes clear that I won’t be able to help them over the phone, so I’ll have to have someone in the main office call her back. Because it’s the weekend, this means they’ll have to wait until Monday. After a bit more swearing, she decides to take out her frustrations on me, personally.

Customer: “Oh, and before I go, I want to tell you that your attitude during this call has been horrible.”

I am shocked and confused since I’ve been putting extra effort into trying to be extra nice and calm her down throughout the call and was thinking I may have partially succeeded.

Me: “Um, I’m very sorry, ma’am; that certainly wasn’t my intention, and I apologize if I came across that way.”

Customer: *Still angry* “Yeah, you sound as if you really hate working there!”

No, I just hate having to deal with control freaks who insist on doing things the hardest way possible… Yeah, I definitely had to take a break after that call to cool down.

Come payday, I get my check on a card and usually hit the ATM to pull out cash for bills. As the card and ATM charge two different fees, I try to only hit the ATM once each payday. This time, I have a thirty-dollar bill due and a fifty-dollar bill due. Easy enough; I just need to split a twenty.

I go into the store to buy food with my card and split the twenty.

Me: *To the cashier* “How are you today, sir?”

The cashier is new; I’ve never seen him before. He says nothing to me but rings everything up silently.

Me: “I’d like to pay by card, but can y’all split this twenty for me?”

Cashier: “No. You can use cash or card, not both.”

Me: “Okie doke, no problem.”

I pay with a card and we finish the transaction.

Me: “Now can you split this twenty?”

Cashier: “Nope. You have to buy something first.”

Me: “Okay?”

I grab a candy which comes out to eighty-eight cents after tax, and I lay down twenty-one dollars.

Me: “I’d like that change in fives or tens, please.”

Cashier: “I don’t have any tens.”

Me: “Okay, fives are fine, too.”

The cashier hits the button for exact change, the drawer pops out, and he tries to hand me the twenty back with no coins.

Me: “Sorry, but I need fives. Or even ones. I don’t need a twenty.” 

The manager comes over and redoes the transaction, having to tell the cashier to type in that I gave him twenty-one dollars for the eighty-eight-cent candy.

The cashier hands me four fives, zero coins. Then, he slams the drawer, turns away without a word, and simply walks off.

Me: “I didn’t get… Never mind.” 

If that’s how he acts to polite customers, he won’t last long.