When I was fourteen, I in no way dressed feminine; I wore baggy 2000s sports clothes (always black if possible) and a crappy cap. Yeah, I was very cool.

I had been to the toilet in the mall and was whistling a tune to myself while washing my hands. An older cleaning lady in the room turned toward me with a scowl and said, in the nastiest tone only grumpy old ladies can produce:

Old Lady: “Girls don’t whistle!”

And then, she left with her cleaning trolley, while I just stood there looking dumbfounded at the encounter. It still baffles me to this day how much low whistling apparently could offend someone… and that whistling is gendered.

I get a phone call from a customer.

Customer: “The monitor plug on the computer I bought is the wrong size and broke the cable on my monitor. You’re going to replace both my computer and my monitor.”

I’m a bit confused since monitor plugs (generally) only come in one size.

Me: “Bring it in, and we’ll take a look at it and see what’s up.”

The next day, he brings it in and plops it down on the counter.

Customer: “I will be back in two hours to pick up my new computer, and you’d better have a monitor for me, as well, to replace the one you damaged.”

This is back in the day when monitors have fixed video cables. He storms out of the shop, but we take it into the service area and check the video card plugs. They look pretty normal to us, so we plug in a monitor and test it out and everything seems fine. We’re rather confused as to what the issue could have been.

The guy comes back in, and we show him the system working fine with a monitor plugged in.

Customer: “Well, that must be some special monitor, because it totally broke the plug on mine!”

Me: “Can you bring your monitor in? We have no idea how it could be a different size, nor how it could break your plug.”

The next day, he brings his monitor in, and it’s got a standard VGA connector on the cable, but the pins are all bent to h***. I can’t imagine what the h*** he did to it, but we straighten the pins and plug it in, and it works fine. I unplug the monitor.

Me: “Show me how you plugged it in.”

Customer: “I can’t. The connector is still all screwed up!”

I’m sitting there looking at the VGA plug on the video card, and it looks perfectly fine.

Me: “What is wrong with it?”

Customer: “It’s all bent out of shape! Are you blind?!“

Me: “No, I’m looking at it, and it looks perfectly fine. Where does it look bent out of shape to you?”

He reaches over and points at the RS232 serial port, which we hadn’t noticed before; it has all of its pins bent out of shape.

Customer: “The pins are all bent! How am I going to plug my monitor in?!”

Me: *Calmly* “Sir, that’s not where the monitor goes; that’s just a serial port. It doesn’t have the same number of pins, and it’s not even the right gender.”

Customer: “What?! You’re just trying to rip me off! I’m going to sue you unless you take the computer back and refund me and give me $350 for my monitor!”

We refused, and he stormed out of the shop, leaving his computer and his monitor.

Two weeks later, he filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which we responded to and explained the situation, including photos of the trashed serial port. The BBB administratively closed the case, so we contacted the customer and asked him to pick up his computer. He started yelling at us, accusing us of “being in cahoots” with the BBB, and saying that he was going to take us to small claims court over this.

Strangely, we didn’t hear a WORD from him about it again for TWO YEARS, at which point he showed up with his receipt and wanted his computer back. Luckily for him, we still had it (covered in dust) and he took it back.

Related:
Not Properly Monitoring The Situation, Part 3
Not Properly Monitoring The Situation, Part 2
Not Properly Monitoring The Situation

My old coworkers used to deliver furniture, and they told me this really annoying tale.

A woman had apparently bought a couch and asked for it to be delivered. Unfortunately, this customer did zero measuring to make sure it would fit through her doorways. When my coworkers got there, they discovered it was going into a large mobile home — the kind that look more like regular houses.

They struggled for over an hour to carefully squeeze the couch through the narrow doors and hallways until they finally got it into her living room.

As they were setting it up, the customer suddenly asked:

Customer: “What’s your return policy?”

They were hoping this wasn’t going where they thought, so they asked her why.

Customer: “Now that it’s in my living room, I don’t really like how the colour looks in here.”

They were livid.

Coworker: “We just spent over an hour trying to get this couch into your home. You’ll have to take the matter up with the associate who sold you the couch at the store.”

My coworkers phoned the store, gave the associate the heads up, and let them know how much they had struggled to get the couch in.

Then, it came time for the customer to talk. She explained why she wanted to return it.

Associate: “You can return it, but given how hard it was for the guys to get the couch in and the inconvenience it caused, you’ll be looking at a refund that’s around [a quarter of the couch’s cost].”

The customer changed her mind on it and decided to try and live with the colour.

My husband and I are taking our dog to the vet. We can see by the number of people in the waiting room that it is going to be quite a wait, but we aren’t sure how severe our dog’s issue is, so we decide to wait anyway. 

I go to the counter to check in and see that one nicely-dressed old woman isn’t wearing a mask. Everyone still masks up indoors here, so I’m sure my displeasure shows on my face when we make eye contact. My husband and I decide to wait outside. 

Eventually, the waiting room is starting to clear out, and the old lady puts a mask on, so we move inside to wait. The old lady is talking exasperatedly to her dog.

Old Lady: “Do you want to sit on my lap or on the floor? Make up your mind! Okay, you want to go here?” *sigh* “Fine, then sit still!”

Some time passes and someone else is called up to see the vet. The old lady goes to the counter to complain about the wait, and the young staff apologizes earnestly and disappears.

A woman in scrubs comes out and approaches the old woman. 

Vet: “I’m really sorry about the wait, but you see, that person was before you. They came in and left their name and then went back to get their pet, so that’s why you didn’t see them. Also, the reason that there is a long wait today is that their pet died, so it’s taking some time. Thank you for your understanding.”

Old Lady: *Embarrassed* “Oh, it’s no problem… I understand…”

A woman in regular clothes came out then, her eyes red from crying and visibly distressed. The vet talked to her quietly for a bit and then the woman left.

I couldn’t help but glare at the old lady again. There’s never a good reason for a long wait at the vet’s office, and she could only think of the inconvenience to herself!

I am collecting carts when I witness some guy drive his Ford Explorer into a tree in the parking lot. The driver gets out of the vehicle and starts screaming at the sky.

He then storms over to me.

Customer: “The store needs to pay for that!”

Me: “You would need to talk to the manager for that, sir.”

Luckily for me, the manager is outside taking a cigarette break and has already walked over. He introduces himself.

Customer: “You need to compensate me for this! I wasn’t expecting you to have trees in a parking lot! Who puts trees in a parking lot?!”

Manager: “Sir, the store can’t be held responsible for you driving into a tree.”

Customer: “Then I’ll sue! It’s the tree’s fault!”

Manager: “We’ll be sure to tell the trees to get out of the way next time, sir.”

With that statement, the customer realized how ridiculous he was being and stormed off to drive his dented car away. My manager lit another cigarette and casually strolled back toward the store.