I work in a bakery in a grocery store that advertises freshly-made food. I am a packager, so I package and label all the food the bakers make and put it on display. One of our most popular items is the croissants, of which we have many varieties that come in single packages, three, four, or six depending on the size and flavor.

Some items we can ring up as single items when asked, but we don’t display them because they rarely sell. Nine out of ten times when someone asks for a single pastry, the rest will end up expiring in two to four days and being thrown out if no employee wants them. I am cutting a pie for one customer when another lady interrupts me as I’m boxing it up.

Customer: “Can you make me one croissant? Or do you not do that?”

Me: “If you get me the box, I can do that as soon as I finish with this customer.”

The lady returns a minute later with two boxes: an almond croissant and a cherry strudel, both in boxes of three.

I box up one of each, give them to her, and then box up the remaining four pastries. A moment later, I’m stocking something else and the lady comes back up to me.

Customer: “There is a mistake. You charged me $2.50 for one, but three is $5.”

Me: “Right, they cost less when you buy more.”

Customer: *Clearly annoyed* “Okay.”

Twenty minutes later, I found her single cherry strudel abandoned with the three-packs, so she wasted not only my time but the boxes. I didn’t find the croissant, so I guess she took it?

I am working as a math tutor part-time while I’m taking online classes. Our department chair who oversees my boss is often unreasonable and unkind to us, as most of us do not have more than an associate’s degree. But this story really gave me a warning to get out of the place.

Due to a botched adenoid surgery I had as a toddler, I am prone to horrific sinus infections that cause unbelievable amounts of pain and can quickly progress to the point where I have to go to the ER. On this particular day, I woke up feeling the beginning signs, and throughout the day they worsened to the point that the over-the-counter painkillers I had in my purse did nothing.

My shift ended and I clocked out, intending to go to Urgent Care for antibiotics and painkillers. But on my way out, the department head stopped me.

Department Head: “I need you to go outside the testing room and watch a student we think is cheating.”

Students have up to two hours to complete a test, meaning I could potentially be in pain in the hall the entire time.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’m on my way to urgent care. Maybe [Coworker] can do it?”

Department Head: “No, he doesn’t look like a student. We need you to do it. “

Me: “I have a really bad sinus infection and I really need to get to urgent care.”

Department Head: “I’m sorry you scheduled a doctor’s appointment so close to your work hours, but you should have expected that you might have to stay after.”

Nowhere in my contract does it say this. Hours are sent out the week before, and excepting illness or emergency, they are set in stone.

Me: “[Department Head], I’m really sorry I can’t help, but I’m in extreme pain and I really need to get medical attention.”

Department Head: “You seem to be perfectly fine to me. But if you won’t do it, I guess I’ll find someone.”

I got the heck out of there and rushed to Urgent Care where I was given antibiotics and prescription painkillers. I was also given a note not to go to work the next day, as I needed to be resting. 

The next week, I found that my hours had been cut to half their usual, leaving the tutoring center short-staffed. When I asked my boss if I could work more hours to help, she told me that [Department Head] had asked her to “shorten my schedule due to my medical emergency”.

This persisted for another week, with the short-staffing continuing as many tutors were students and had set up their work schedules around their classes and studying. Then, suddenly, I was back to my full hours.

This is only the first story I could tell about this place, and I finally ended up quitting when they refused to do anything about workplace harassment because the harasser was [Department Head]’s friend.

My mother was having a tough week, so I decided to send her a bag of treats because she’d never buy them for herself. Unfortunately, the street she lives on is a case of here-be-dragons as far as GPSs are concerned. Map apps always, always send you to the rear entrance, which is on a different road, and it’s a pain to get from this wrong road to the right road in a vehicle. My parents have a back gate opening onto the wrong road, but it (justifiably) irritates delivery people. That said, usually, they are not too bothered. If anything, they’re relieved when the correct person appears, and maybe a bit hurried because they’ve spent extra time looking for this benighted location (hence, we tip well). Except for this one guy.

I’m at my desk, forty km away, when my phone rings. The man on the other end is already steamed.

Caller: “I’m at the police station on Bird Road. Where’s the entrance?”

I have no idea who I’m talking to.

Me: “To the police station?”

Caller: “To 30 Lark Street! You said the entrance is on Bird Road!”

Me: “Oh, no, sorry, I said you get to Lark Street from Bird Road. If you go up a block, you’ll see Wings Road on the right, and then Lark is the first right off that.”

Caller: “You said it was on Bird Road.”

Me: “No, I said it’s 30 Lark Street; you get there from Bird Road, because—”

And this was a mistake on my part…

Me: “—if you try to get there from Fish and Mammal Road, you end up on the wrong—”

Caller: “YOU SAID IT WAS BIRD ROAD!”

Me: “No, but Bird Road is the right direction, if you—”

He hangs up. I’m old enough to remember slamming down a phone, and this guy does a really good job of approximating that with a touchscreen. Well, okay. I’ve worked in customer-facing jobs. It can suck. He probably gets crapped on all the time. Whatever.

I let my mother know what’s going on, prep her for a potentially angry deliveryman, and go back to my work. 

Two minutes later, he calls back. 

Caller: “I AM ON FISH ROAD!”

Cursing Google, Apple Maps, and whichever lunatic designed my parents’ neighbourhood, I say:

Me: “Okay, just go until you find Mammal—”

Caller: “YOU SAID IT WAS BIRD!”

Me: “Dude, just go on a bit and you’ll see Mammal, and then it’s left onto Parrot. It’s okay; we’ll hear you coming.”

Caller: “YOU SAID IT WAS BIRD!”

And he hangs up. 

Ten minutes later, my mother messages me to say thank you. I ask how the delivery guy was. She says he was perfectly pleasant. Ten minutes after that, he calls me. 

Me: *Quickly* “Thank you for getting the delivery to the right place. I’m sorry it’s so confusing.”

There’s a pause. 

Caller: *Whispering* “You said… it was Bird Road.”

I live in the UK. A while ago, while working as a copywriter, I wrote and proofed about sixty pages of web content. After chasing the client for sign-off on that stage of the project for a week, they turned around and said this:

Client: “The copy isn’t good enough. There are a number of spelling and grammatical errors.”

Me: “Can you be more specific?”

Client: “Well, here, ‘focused’ is spelled wrong: ‘focussed’.”

That was the only error they could find.

Client: “I’m sure there were more when I last looked.”

For the record, focused/focussed can be spelled both ways in the UK. And I’m still out quite a bit of money. 

A man walks in and just exclaims as loudly as possible:

Customer: “PAPERCLIPS, STAPLES, AND RECEIPTS!”

I walk with him to buy these three things. I start by showing him the receipts, and he starts moaning how they are way too expensive, but he picks them up anyway. The same goes for the other two items.

We get to the register, and after he exclaims that he has a discount, I ask him the name of his company and type it in, but it doesn’t come up. I try everything I can to find it but to no avail. I then ask him if he remembers how high his discount is so I can put it in manually.

Customer: “Well, I shop here almost every day, so it’s got to be 50%.”

I had never seen him here before, so he can’t shop here that much! Also, NO ONE HAS A DISCOUNT OF 50%!

Me: “I’m sorry, but it’s not possible. We have government departments that shop with us, and even they don’t even get 50% off.”

Customer: *Yelling* “I get 50% off at your competitors! You’re just stupid! You have just cost your company millions of dollars in purchases!”

Me: *Bored by his rant* “You are welcome to go to our competitors to shop there.”

He stormed out without his items.

I used to work at my now-competitor store and I know that they have REALLY STRICT rules about discounts: if you’re not in the system, you get none!

Lo and behold, he came back five minutes later and bought everything from me at 10% off. I gave him my brightest smile and served him politely, all the while laughing evilly inside.

I then phoned my boss and asked her about the guy, and she told me that he only shops with us about twice a month, so she only signed him up for the 5% discount. I had the pleasure of being at work when she explained to him that she did not appreciate customers berating her employees and that he would only get a 5% from now on.

Related:
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 20
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 19
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 18
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 17
Don’t Discount The Customer’s Ability To Discount, Part 16