I’ve recently started working in-house tech support for a large company. I’ve spent eighteen years in call centers and offices, but never once tried my hand at tech support. My employer hired me basically because they wanted to try employing good customer service people they can train to do tech stuff, as opposed to trying to teach the very smart but frankly quite rude staff to be better at talking to people.

Anyway, most users are fine. They can’t do basic stuff like clearing cookies and cache, but we have some that know a little too much for their own good. I get a caller who works in one of our call centers.

Caller: “Hey, I’ve got a Citrix freeze so I shut down. I’ll need a ticket for the ten minutes you need to reset the session.”

Me: “Alright, got the ticket filled out. Let me check your session and see what’s lagging it.”

Caller: “You don’t need to do that; just reset it and give me the ticket number.”

Now users do this because they know that a Citrix reset will take ten minutes to ensure it’s a new session, and they just want ten minutes off the phones. Some users have daily tickets for this. I know what she’s aiming for, and I won’t be an accessory to her trying to avoid work.

I look at her session, and there’s no indication it’s frozen. Everything is exactly as it should be, except she’s shut down her softphone. I remote into her station and see that she’s set her comms to appear offline, and closed her softphone. She’s sending someone a message on Teams to say she’s calling IT to lodge a ticket for downtime and will combine it with her break so she gets longer off.

Me: “Everything appears fine to me, no frozen session.”

Caller: “No, no, I told you. It’s frozen. No calls are coming in at all. I just need a ticket!”

Me: “Well we need to justify resetting the session, and I’m not seeing any reason why you’d need to spend that time in downtime.”

Caller: “Okay, I don’t understand why you’re not listening to me. My session froze. I can’t move the keyboard or mouse. I can’t take calls. You. Need. To. Reset. It!”

Me: “Alright, let’s test that theory.”

I take control and make her available on Teams, then open up her softphone and put her in an available status. A call starts ringing immediately and I even answer it for her. 

I attached the screenshots of the chat to the ticket and document what happened, then put her team leader on the CC list for the ticket.

I wonder if we’ll get an offboarding request for her this week?

I worked for a bank in their contract loans department. We were a small team and the work was actually fun.

And then we got bought by a bigger bank.

Our open-plan office was remodelled, and closed-door offices were added around the sides of the “shop floor”. This also cut off all natural daylight to us ordinary workers.

Our managers moved into the new offices. Immediately, they became impossible to talk to in a job that required a lot of “refer it upward” decisions.

So, the managers hired supervisors to work on the shop floor. We’d ask the supervisors our questions, and they’d go ask the managers.

Then, the bank rented the floor above us, and the managers moved to a new “executive suite”. The supervisors moved into the old offices around the shop floor. Immediately, they became impossible to talk to.

So, the supervisors hired team leaders to work on the shop floor. We’d ask the team leaders our questions, they’d go ask the supervisors, and the supervisors would go upstairs and ask the managers.

Then, the bank opened new offices across town from us. Our managers moved to the new “executive building”. The supervisors moved upstairs to the old “executive suite”. The team leaders moved into the old offices around the shop floor. Immediately, they became impossible to talk to.

So, the team leaders hired controllers to work on the shop floor. We’d ask the controllers our questions, they’d go ask the team leaders, the team leaders would go upstairs to ask the supervisors, and the supervisors would go across town and ask the managers.

Then, the bank opened a new “executive suite” in the “executive building” and the managers moved there. The supervisors moved to the previous management offices in the “executive building”. The team leaders moved upstairs to the old “executive suite”. The controllers moved into the old offices around the shop floor. Immediately, they became impossible to talk to.

So, the controllers advertised jobs in a new layer, associates, to work on the shop floor.

And then, the 2008 financial crisis happened, and we on the shop floor were all made redundant.

As far as I know, the Matryoshka nesting doll layers of controllers, team leaders, supervisors, and managers carried on in their jobs. I’ve no idea what they did all day.

I went to an all-you-can-eat pizza chain on a Saturday. They open at 11:00 am, and I got there around 11:15. As I walked in, there were already seven tables completely full of people. Out of those seven, two were hands down the worst customers I have ever seen.

For around twenty minutes, the first group hovered around the buffet and shooed people away. When a pizza was cooked and placed down, they just grabbed the whole pizza and walked away. This was a table of six. At one point, they had twelve pizzas at their table. The manager had to come out and tell them that they couldn’t do that. That led to the customers yelling and screaming that the restaurant was racist and trying to starve them. They threw two pizzas on the ground and stormed out.

Now, that was bad. What came next was worse. As this group was making a scene and walking out, another group came in with five kids. The kids were terrors, yelling, screaming, and running all over the place. They ran into other customers, and the parents simply shrugged it off. But I guess the patrons were used to this kind of thing… because they didn’t say anything and let it be.

I guess when the kids realized that the customers didn’t care, they moved to a brand-new tactic: once the pizzas were placed on the buffet, they would run up to the pizza and scream, “MINE!” Then, they would shove their hands into the pizza and run away, destroying the pizza that was just made.

Now, some of you might see where this is going. Brand-New Pizza Out Of the Oven + Child Hands Touching Pizza = Burns. This is apparently what happened. On the second round of pizzas, one of the children slammed his hands on the pizza and then immediately screamed and started crying. Cue the angry mother. She stormed up to the buffet and demanded to talk to the manager.

Manager: “Yes, ma’am?”

Mother: “You did nothing to protect my child from burning his hands. You did this!”

Manager: “Ma’am, your child ran to the buffet line and slammed their hand on a pizza that just came out of the oven. We have utensils out to prevent burning.”

Mother: “I spent $11 a person here! It is your job to keep my kids safe! You burned my baby!”

This went on and on and eventually led to the mother picking up plates and throwing them on the ground, breaking a few. As I was walking out, the manager was threatening to call the police due to the threats and the damage being caused by the tantrum being thrown.

Yet another parent customer whose lack of doing any actual parenting is both the establishment’s fault and putting the poor child in danger. Just like in these other 10 Stories About Parents Who Are Going To Get Their Children Killed!

I’m at a casual dining restaurant chain with my father. He orders a bowl of New England clam chowder, a thick soup that’s full of clams and heavy cream.

As soon as the waitress puts the soup on the table, my father realizes it’s spoiled. The chowder smells horrendous!

He tells the waitress that the soup has gone off and she immediately brings over the manager.

Manager: “The waitress said you had a problem with your soup.”

Father: “Yes. It’s completely spoiled.”

Manager: “You’re like the third or fourth person today that said the same thing!”

My father, in shock, says nothing.

Manager: “Would you like me to bring you another bowl?”

Father: “Is it from the same pot this bowl came from?”

Manager: “Yeah, of course. We have one big pot of chowder.”

Father: *Still shocked* “I don’t want another bowl. And you shouldn’t be serving the chowder to anybody anymore. The whole pot is bad. You can’t mess around with spoiled seafood and dairy. People could get really, really sick from that.”

The manager seems surprised but also unfazed by this information.

Manager: “No worries. I’ll just take it off your check.”

I really hope no one else ordered the clam chowder that night.

I’m a waitress at a restaurant, and at the beginning and end of every shift, we have to count a cash register.

I see that [Coworker] has a lot of change and gets through the register surprisingly fast.

Me: “Wow, you count fast.”

Coworker: “What? Oh, yeah, sometimes when I don’t feel like it, I don’t count the change and just guess how much is in there.”

Me: “That… that explains the countless times that the drawer has ended up being short at the beginning and ending of the shifts!”

Coworker: “Oh… You think so?”