I worked at the BIG movie rental store. Before they got rid of late fines, it was my job to call customers and tell them about late movies. I had an account with one of the big, really popular older Disney movies (think like Cinderella) checked out.

I called the customer, and he claimed:

Customer: “I don’t have any kids, so why would I rent that?”

I called every few days and kept getting the same thing. Then the guy started threatening to have me and my boss [Store Manager] fired for harassment and even arrested. So we stopped calling for a bit.

I called him back a few weeks later to remind him that the movie was still on the account. He said, and I quote:

Customer: “My daughter checked the movie out. She took it to school, but she’s on spring break. I’ll return it on Monday when she goes back to school.”

Me: “Thanks.”

Come Monday, he returned the movie. Of course, his fine was HUGE.

Customer: “Can you do anything about the fine?”

Me: “That decision is up to the manager.”

Our store manager was awesome. His usual response was to cut the fine in half. Don’t want to lose a customer, but don’t want them to think they can keep stuff forever with no consequences. We just wanted the movie back. Also, the Disney movies back then couldn’t be easily replaced because they were only available at certain times (they got put in a vault for years at a time).

He happened to be in the store at that time, and I went to get him. He came out and said:

Store Manager: “Usually, I would help you, but since you tried to get me and my best employee fired and arrested because you were LYING, I’m not going to do anything.”

And he walked away. The customer paid the fine. When the store manager went back to the office, he called his boss, the District Manager, and let him know what had happened.

The customer called the District Manager the next day to complain. The District Manager’s response was:

District Manager: “Not sure what you want from me. I wouldn’t have been that nice.”

The customer ended up being one of our regular customers. His family of five (yes, he had three kids) was in the store all the time.

Back in the eighties, I was a collector and trader of Grateful Dead bootleg tapes. This was a thing back then: taping their concerts was allowed by the band, and they even set aside a section of the audience for tapers.

My boss knew that I had the equipment to copy cassette tapes, and he asked me to duplicate a tape of a motivational speaker he had for each of his project managers to listen to.

The speech didn’t fill an entire cassette, so I added a few minutes of a raucous Grateful Dead concert to fill up the remaining blank tape, and I told my boss what I had done.

The cassettes got handed out, and every manager claimed to have listened all the way through. But nobody mentioned the gratuitous Grateful Dead concert at the end.

Due to my family, I grew up speaking English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Tagalog. I’m learning Italian and Greek through my boyfriend and his heritage. From high school, I have conversational French. I know a few basic customer service phrases in about twenty languages.

Basically, I love languages! I’m the one who gets called if a coworker is struggling with a language barrier with a customer. I’m called over to a specific checkout lane.

Cashier: “Can you help me explain to this customer that the coupon isn’t valid?”

I look at the customer, and am initially confused. I remember seeing her walking into the store with her daughters, all talking loudly in English, and with the local area’s accent to boot.

Customer: “No hablo ingles.”

I fight the urge to cringe. This customer speaks Spanish like a first-grade language student. There’s no way this customer can speak Spanish. Likely, this is a scam where the customer pretends not to speak English and delays the line so much that the store just gives them the discount anyway to get them out of here. It is surprisingly common.

Anyhoo, benefit of the doubt and all that:

Me: *In Spanish.* “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that coupon has expired, and we cannot accept it.”

The customer blinks for a second, and then tries:

Customer: “No… uh… e-span-y’all? I… uh… arrivederci?”

Yes, she really did just switch to saying goodbye in Italian.

Me: *In Italian.* “Oh, you speak Italian? Amazing. I’m sorry, ma’am, but that coupon has expired, and we cannot accept it.”

The customer blinks again, but she’s not giving up.

Customer: “No… uh… Auf Wiedersehen?”

Does this woman only know various forms of goodbyes in other languages? German isn’t a language I am fluent in, but I doubt she is either, and I know a couple of sentences.

Me: *In German.* “Ah! Deutsch! Okay! I fed the dog all my biscuits, and now I am sad as I have no biscuits.”

The customer sighs. One of her daughters pats her on the shoulder and speaks in English:

Customer’s Daughter: “Mom, I don’t think they’re going to take your coupon.”

Customer: *Angrily.* “Well, they would have if they hadn’t hired Mr. F****** Duolingo here!”

She paid, and they left. I was laughing in every language I knew for the rest of the day.

My very first customer of the day comes in and tries to pay with a $100 bill.

Me: “We don’t have the change for that, since we just opened.”

He gives me the puppy eyes and says:

Customer: “It’s all I have.”

With a sigh, I take it and, of course, there’s no change for it in the register, and my manager says there isn’t enough in the safe. We go through the lengthy process of reversing the old order.

Customer: “Ugh, okay, fine, I’ll pay with my card.”

Are you freaking serious, you lying little gremlin?!

But it didn’t end there. Oh no. 

My next customer orders a meal for $19. But does he hand me a $20? Of course not. $100.

Me: “Sir, I’m sorry, but we definitely don’t have the change for this. We just opened, and I know for sure we don’t have it.”

Naturally, the LITERAL IMPOSSIBILITY of this transaction isn’t going to deter him. After all, it’s all he has! He insists I get my manager, who again comes and says we don’t have change.

Customer #2: “Ugh, okay, fine, I’ll pay with this $20.”

Two coworkers called out that day, and we definitely didn’t have time for this foolishness. These kinds of customers can eat rocks!

A customer brought in a computer with a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) problem, and apparently, completely ignoring the signage everywhere (including on the form he signed to drop it off) stating there would be a minimum cost, was furious that there was actually a charge to fix his computer, upon his return.

Customer: “You’re a bunch of scam artists! You can’t expect people to see and read everything. I bet you don’t read the terms and conditions all the time either, do you? You should have told me verbally!”

Funny enough, though, I had only literally just fixed it (it was a corrupt file, which you just renamed, and Windows fixed it with a scandisk on restart), so the computer was on the bench, and actually still on.

The dude was still furious and continued to loudly declare statements like:

Customer: “This isn’t right! If I’d have known there was a charge, I wouldn’t have bothered!” 

I calmly told him:

Me: “I will see what I can do.”

I go into the workshop, straight to his computer, and simply rename the restored/fixed version and revert to the original corrupt file. I then turned the computer off, unplugged it, and brought it out a short while later. As soon as I came out with it:

Customer: “There’s no way I’m paying for it, though!”

Me: *Smugly, smiling happily.* “My apologies for the misunderstanding. Here’s your computer back, and there is no charge.”

Customer: “That’s d*** right there isn’t. But you fixed it, right?”

Me: “Well, it was fixed, but you made it clear you had no intention of paying anything to fix the computer.”

He was about to continue his rant when I just cut him off and continued.

Me: “It’s an honest mistake; you somehow managed to completely miss all the signs trying to make it clear we’re a business, and you simply don’t understand that a business needs to charge people for their services to stay open. So, in accordance with your wishes, I’ve reverted my work, and I’m giving it back to you in the state you brought it in, which has incurred no charge to you.”

Customer: “Yeah, but for this inconvenience I expect it to be fixed… you’re telling me it’s still broken?!”

Me: “Well, yes. As you literally just made clear, quite belligerently, you didn’t want to spend any money on this computer to fix it. I’ve literally done what you wanted.”

This confused him for a moment, and I could see he was about to simply continue his tantrum until he got his way, before I again cut him off.

Me: “Unless you’re a scam artist and never intended to pay for the repair, this is exactly what you wanted. We have literally no more reason to continue this discussion unless you intend to pay for our services to have the computer fixed.”

I could see he was still angry and was probably going to continue to be an a**hole, but thankfully, the phone rang, and I picked it up.

He then took the computer and, cursing under his breath, left the store… only to have his wife drop it off to be repaired, at cost, the next day.