I used to work the help desk for a local community college. We tried to make signing up for classes easy for users, and the college installed these touchscreen kiosks all around campus for users to log into the web portal and check their schedules and sign up for classes.

A woman called the help desk

Woman: “I’m having trouble signing up for my classes. This kiosk is broken; it’s not responding.”

I tried to troubleshoot the problem with her but was not having any luck. I finally just asked:

Me: “Can you give me the kiosk number displayed at the top of the kiosk? Then I can dispatch a technician to take a look at the problem.”

Woman: “There isn’t one.”

Me: “What building are you in, and what room are you near?”

The floor and building she gave me didn’t ring a bell, so I looked at the map of where all the kiosks were located, and there wasn’t one where she was telling me.

I put the woman on hold, brought up the camera system interface, and went to the hallway where she said she was. There stood a woman in front of an unplugged TV sitting on a TV cart, just tapping away at the screen. I tried not to laugh, but it was pretty funny — especially since she was visibly annoyed with the lack of response from the TV.

I got back on the phone and tried to make light of the situation.

Me: “Ma’am, I just found you on the camera system… and you’re trying to sign up for classes on a TV.”

She hung up the phone and then promptly gave the camera the finger.

You know when a customer approaches you and you can already tell by their face that they’re just looking for a reason to yell at you? This lady once came up to me with that face while I was attending the self-scan.

Customer: “Where are the chopsticks?!”

Me: “Those are on aisle twenty, ma’am.”

Customer: “Do you expect me to go get them?”

I thought, “Of course I do; that’s how grocery stores work.”

Me: *Politely* I can’t leave my self-scan machines.”

She left, muttering about how her feet hurt and how unhelpful I was. She came back a few minutes later just screaming at me. I mean, she was really letting me have it.

Customer: “Why did you send me to the d*** ethnic aisle when my feet hurt and you knew that you were sending me to the wrong place?!”

I was pretty confused because there should be chopsticks in that aisle.

Me: “It’s a few minutes before closing, so maybe we are out of chopsticks?”

She dismissed me rudely, still screaming that she was going to report me to customer service. Customer service sent a price checker with her to find chopsticks. He came back with her and she was holding a d*** pack of TOOTHPICKS.

She avoided eye contact with me while she checked out.

One of our regulars makes it a point to always get soy milk for their coffee as they’re lactose intolerant. They tell us this EVERY time they order. They’re also an impatient a**hole who thinks the whole world revolves around them.

The regular is waiting for their strong soy latte when I call out another customer’s drink.

Me: “Strong latte for—”

Regular: “Finally!”

The regular grabs the drink and storms out of the store muttering about how it took too long to make the drink. I call over the customer the drink was originally intended for.

Me: “Sorry, that was your drink. The strong latte with regular whole milk, right?”

Customer: “Yeah, that was mine.”

Me: “Yeah, we’ll get that remade for you.”

I then call over my manager.

Me: “Just a heads-up, you’ll be getting a complaint called in from you-know-who later on today.”

Manager: “Oh, man, what is it this time?”

Me: “They’re about to have a s***ty morning. Literally.”

I work at a large real estate office as an accountant and IT person. Two full-timers that handle phones all day are sick, so my boss asks me to handle phones all day. Typically, we get lots of calls from people wanting information about homes we list — number of beds or baths, square footage, etc. — or asking questions about the steps to home ownership. It’s not hard, and most people are easy to deal with.

A guy calls from a listing sign, and he doesn’t know where he is. He can’t read the realtor’s name — he blames the sign — and he can’t describe the property for crap. He starts getting really impatient with me, but I finally get enough information to McGyver his location by intuition and the hard science of assuming he’s looking at one of our cheapest listings because of his demeanor. I am right, and after I answer his basic questions about the home’s layout, this conversation ensues.

Caller: “How much is the rent? I’m interested in making it my home.”

Me: “Sir, the house is not for rent. You can only buy it.”

Caller: “Well, that’s dumb. Why did you put the sign here, then?”

Me: “I’m not the realtor listing the house. [Realtor] is out of the office, but the sign clearly says, ‘For sale,’ with the number to get assistance right away.”

Caller: “That’s why I called. I want the house, and I’ll pay rent on time.”

This goes around and around, with me using analogies comparing buying versus leasing in other situations like cars and equipment. Trying to make him understand makes it worse.

Me: “If you really like it, I will have a realtor get in touch with you to show you the inside and explain the buying process. Remember, though, it can’t be rented. The owner only wants to sell it.”

Caller: “Look, idiot, I know this may be hard for you to understand, but I just want to rent it. I think I can come up with the $130,000, but I need to know what the rent will be after that. It shouldn’t be hard for an educated person to figure out.”

I once again try to explain loans, mortgages, and buying a home.

Caller: “So, what happens after I come up with the money? I won’t get a loan like you tried to sell me on; that sounds like a scam, and I don’t want to pay rent to a bank. What will I be paying per month, and who do I pay it to?”

Me: “So, you’re wanting to buy the house for cash? And now you want an estimate of the monthly costs? Is that right?”

I start pulling up Excel to estimate closing costs and taxes.

Caller: “Yes, finally, you understand. I need to know what the rent will be.”

Me: “That is not called rent. Those are monthly expenses, not rent. If you pay cash to buy the house, you won’t have a rent payment; you’ll be the home’s owner. You’ll only pay the taxes and utilities if you occupy it, and you’ll have to pay closing costs and title insurance.”

Caller: “So, you mean if I pay cash, I won’t pay rent? Just that other stuff? What about cable?”

Me: “That’s up to you. Nobody is forcing cable on you.”

Caller: “This sounds great. Tell me more. This will be cheaper than I thought.”

Me: “Is this a joke? This is [My Boss], right? You’re hazing me or something?”

Caller: “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Back to cable…”

Me: “You can hire a company to mow your lawn, get a satellite dish, or anything you want as long as it’s not illegal or against neighborhood rules. It’s your house to decide what services you want.”

Caller: “Those are great ideas. And I’m going to rent this house. You are smarter than I thought. God bless you, son. Jesus loves you. Praise the Lord, I can retire!” *Hangs up*

Related:
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 4
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 3
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets, Part 2
The More You Read, The Worse It Gets

I go to an art school. A big part of our majors is giving and receiving critique, regardless of which major you’re in.

All professors tend to emphasize that if you plan to work professionally in your field, you will likely be given criticism of your work and advice on how to improve it. While you don’t have to take ALL of the advice or listen to all the criticisms, being able to do so graciously and not being overly harsh — i.e., not being a raging a**hole about it — is a good skill to have. They teach methods of critique and the general language of going about it, and a good chunk of your grade falls into whether or not you give critique at all during class.

My very first taste of critique came from one of my very first classes: a color theory class. Enter [Classmate]. During one of our first-ever critiques in class, [Classmate] got very excited and said, and I quote:

Classmate: “Ooh, I love criticizing people!”

And then she proceeded to rip another poor classmate apart. She criticized the composition, the color choice, and how ugly his art style was. Yes, she straight-up said that to his face!

It literally got to the point where the professor had to step in and tell her — well, the entire class, but everyone could tell that it was directed specifically at her — that that wasn’t constructive or actually useful.

[Classmate] continued to have an “I’m-better-than-everyone” attitude with everyone. She always rolled her eyes whenever someone critiqued her project, and she would laze around during class work periods, insisting that she’d ace the “very easy first project”. Also, she never updated her work based on the critique she’d received.

This was a few years ago, so I don’t remember exactly what [Classmate]’s final piece looked like when the final critique rolled around, but I do remember a very long, awkward pause when it was displayed at the front of the class for everyone to go over.

As more and more people critiqued it, it looked like she was about to pop. She just looked madder and madder.

That lasted right up until the professor gave her own opinion on the piece. Then, [Classmate] just looked comically shocked, as if she hadn’t expected the professor to agree with the rest of us.

There was a fun note in the syllabus that [Classmate] had overlooked. Around twenty percent of our grade was our professionalism, which did include coming to class and participating… but it also involved how we reacted to critique, how we gave it, and if we were implementing any critique.

[Classmate] looked very deflated in the class after grades had been posted. Then, she didn’t attend class for the rest of the quarter. After the first week she didn’t attend class, the professor stopped calling her name while doing the roll call. 

The remaining six weeks of class were practically blissful.