(In my two last high school science classes, I am notorious for sitting alone in the back corner at what is supposed to be the teacher’s desk, messing around on my laptop and blatantly not paying attention. But I take my textbook home, do the classwork there, and make 100s on all my tests, so the teacher doesn’t care. Other students aren’t doing so well with their grades. One day, I raise my hand and ask to go to the restroom; the teacher gives me permission but the other students don’t hear her. I walk out of the room.)

Student: *screaming* “Oh, my gosh. [My Name] sits back in the corner and never does any work in here, but we get in trouble if we’re talking or don’t pay attention for one second! She just gets up and leaves the room and you don’t even say anything!”

(The teacher found the outburst so funny she gave me permission to leave the room whenever I wanted without asking.)

My district manager has pushed “the customer is always right” for years now, so we managers are expected to do everything possible to keep a sale. We match competitor prices, we change the price if a customer argues that it rang up wrong, and we accept coupons even if they don’t apply to the purchase. Recently, the company has resumed its survey features, so a customer can fill out a survey about our store through the link sent to their email. The district manager reminds us again to do everything possible to keep a customer happy so we don’t get bad reviews.

About five minutes before closing one night, while I’m in the middle of shutting down a register, my cashier pages me to override a coupon that isn’t scanning. When I arrive, the customer shows me his phone, where there’s a barcode for $5 off a bag of [Brand] cat food. I recognize the coupon from earlier that day from when someone else tried to use the same coupon for [Slightly Different Brand] cat food. I assume that we have the same problem and start to explain it while I override the coupon, “The reason it’s not working is that it’s for [Slightly Different Brand], but I’ll go ahead and take care of that for you!”

The cashier gives me a funny look and points out that the food the customer is buying actually is the correct brand, and I didn’t look closely enough at the bag. I admit my mistake: “Oh, whoops. In that case, I’m not sure why the coupon isn’t working. But as I said, I went ahead and took care of it.”

Two days later, we get a negative survey from the customer, who is upset that I “didn’t care enough” about his coupon not scanning correctly, even though I overrode it and took $5 off his purchase anyway. I guess you can’t please some people!

(I run a face-painting booth at an annual fair for charity. Every year there seems to be a design that all the kids want; this year, it’s a certain spider-themed superhero. A mother has been waiting in line with her son, and it’s their turn.)

Mother: “He wants to be [Superhero].”

(She pushes him towards the chair. The kid sits down but looks quite unhappy, so I decide to check with him.)

Me: “Is that what you want?”

Kid: “Wannabegreen.”

Mother: *talking over him* “He wants to be [Superhero]!”

(He looks resigned, and I feel bad for him, so I ignore Mum and keep talking to him.)

Me: “Do you mean like [Famously Angry Green Superhero]?”

Kid: “No, I just wanna be green.”

Mother: “You can’t be green. He wants to be [Superhero], like the other kids. Tell her you want to be [Superhero].”

Me: “If he says he wants to be green, I’ll paint him green.”

Kid: “Green!”

Mother: *rolling her eyes* “Oh, fine, whatever!”

(She turned around and stalked off. I went with the kid’s request, and he was absolutely ecstatic… and very green.)

(We offer some additional insurance on our website, as there are a few things the standard warranty does not cover and we do not legally have to accept returns for. We have made the description of this insurance five short sentences, the second of which says that in the event you want to make a claim, we need photos of [document] and the item itself. It is the end of a very stressful week with customers not reading the warnings on our website and at the checkout about our current shipping delays, and about 90% of our job this week has been dealing with customers upset that their stuff hasn’t been shipped within three days, so we are all slowly losing patience.)

Customer: “My item was delivered last week, but I need a replacement item due to [reason]. If you check my order, you will see that I purchased the insurance, so I need it sent out as soon as possible.”

Coworker: “No problem. If you could just email a photo or scanned image of [documentation] and the [item], we will get that arranged for you.”

Customer: “I disposed of them when they arrived last week.”

Coworker: “Would it be possible to retrieve them? It does state on the insurance page that we require this evidence to arrange a replacement for you.”

Customer: “They are at the bottom of my rubbish bin. Do you seriously expect me to dig through and get it?”

Coworker: “If you want a replacement item, yes.”

Customer: “Fine. I will get them. I’m sure I am not the only customer who would not appreciate having to go through this just for the insurance.” *rants for a couple of minutes about how disgusting his bin is and how this is awful customer service* “Do you not think that your company should make this policy about evidence clearer?”

Coworker: *with about a week’s worth of frustration that has now evolved into pure sarcasm* “We always appreciate feedback and suggestions from customers. We took great care making the insurance information as short and concise as possible as we know that not all of our customers like to read things before purchasing. We even made the requirement for photo evidence the second sentence so that customers wouldn’t have to read the whole thing. But if you have any suggestions on how we can make this even clearer to our customers, by all means, please enlighten us so that we can save others having to go through their bins instead of keeping [document] somewhere safe.”

(There is a pause.)

Customer: “I want the name of your manager and how to contact them.”

Coworker: “Certainly. His name is [Manager]. You can email [email address] and make sure that you put, ‘For attention of [Manager],’ in the subject to ensure that he gets it.”

Customer: “Good. He will be hearing about this.” *click*

(Our coworker did not get in trouble over this, especially as this was not the first time the customer had tried complaining about something after failing to read the information on our website.)

(I’m preparing to move out of state with two cats. My boyfriend already lives where I’m going, but is with me to help. I go into a pet store to pick up some treats for their ride out.)

Employee: “Hi there. Anything we can help you find today?”

Me: “Yeah, do you have a [size] container of [Brand] cat treats?”

Employee: “They should be over here! Do you have a lot of cats?”

Me: “Oh, no, just two. But we’re moving out of state next week and I want to make sure I have plenty.”

Employee: “Oh, you’re bringing them with you?”

Me: “Yes? I couldn’t ever leave them; they’re like my kids at this point.”

(The employee looks at my boyfriend.)

Employee: “You’re with a crazy cat lady!”

Boyfriend: “Not really. Those two have just really been great for her and they seem to love her back.”

Employee: “You should just dump them on somebody else! People do it all the time, and it’s so much easier!”

Me: “Ma’am, no offense, but I’m not dumping two amazing animals anywhere. They mean the world to me. Can I just get my treats and go? I have to get things ready to move.”

Employee: “Ugh, fine.”

(The move went smoothly, and my two cats are happy in their new place.)