I’m lifeguarding on my tower and I feel a stabby poke on my calves. I see a woman whose scowl is apparent even behind her sunglasses and huge hat.
Woman: “You need to turn up the temperature of the water! It’s far too cold!”
Me: “I’m afraid I can’t do that, ma’am.”
Woman: “Ugh! Totally useless! Why can’t you?!”
Me: “Because… because it’s the ocean, ma’am.”
Customer: “Why are you people still calling me?! I paid everything off with you already!”
Me: “No, ma’am, you only paid the accounts on your credit report. We gave you the leftover balance.”
Customer: “Well, I don’t remember that!”
Me: “Ma’am, the original balance was $1,500. You paid $1,200. $1,500 minus $1,200 does not equal $0. We absolutely told you about this.”
In the mid-1980s, I worked for a naval architecture firm. Our building didn’t have a secure entrance; you could just call an elevator from the garage or walk in the front lobby door at any time. Our office suite, however, did have a mechanical cipher lock. It had five buttons, and the office manager regularly reset it to a three-digit code for security purposes. Due to the mechanics of it, duplicate digits weren’t possible for an entry code.
One Saturday, I went in to finish some work because I’d left early on Friday. But when I got to the suite, the code that had worked Friday didn’t work today. I really needed to finish my work, and I didn’t think anyone else would be in the suite, so knocking wouldn’t help. This was before cell phones, so I couldn’t call anyone. Even if I’d had a cell phone, I knew only one coworker’s number, our receptionist.
I went down to our lobby, which had a payphone, and called her apartment. There was no answer. I then started thinking about the cipher lock. With only five possible digits, and using only three uniquely, there were only sixty permutations possible. So, I went up to the suite and started trying all the permutations: 1-2-3, 1-2-4, 1-2-5, 1-3-2, 1-3-4, etc. In less than a minute, I’d hit upon the new code. I went in and finished my work.
On Monday, I went to my office manager and told her how easy it was to crack the cipher lock. She then looked at the lock manual and decided to incorporate simultaneous button presses to make it more secure. I then noticed that we had a new receptionist. The office manager said our previous receptionist had been fired late Friday, and that’s why the door code had been changed.
It was a good thing, then, that she didn’t answer her phone. That would’ve been an awkward conversation.
A couple of years back, I had a customer that wanted to purchase 1,5 meters of a fabric that had 2,8 meters width to split and make two pieces of curtain that he wanted to measure 1,50 by 1,80.
Me: “You’ll need more fabric; splitting the 2,80 in half as you’re requesting would leave two pieces of 1,40, and you would end up with even smaller curtains as sewing takes some fabric, too.”
He got offended and started screaming at me.
Customer: “I’m a math teacher! A r******d salesgirl like you couldn’t know better than me!”
He made a huge show for everyone in the shop to watch.
Customer: “This is why you’re just a retail worker. You don’t have enough brains for even this simple job, while I am a respected teacher!”
I was seriously considering quitting at that moment, as I don’t handle being yelled at by strangers well (especially with no warning signs), but something magical happened.
The man’s wife came in to see what was taking him so long! That saint of a woman asked what was going on.
Customer: “This fat r****d doesn’t understand me!”
I explained the problem. She got mad — used-his-full-name mad.
Wife: “Is this the math you’re teaching your students?! Multiply 1,8 by 2 for me.”
The guy was embarrassed as he realised he was indeed wrong and left without another word. His wife finished the transaction without a problem and my faith in humanity was restored — for now.
Earlier this year, I started working in a local grocery store. When this story happened, I was still fairly new to everything, and I wasn’t wearing a headset at the time, so if something were to happen, I’d have to ask a colleague to call someone. We have extra screens that show the customers the items that are scanned and their total, and the registers are shared by two people facing away from each other.
I already know the lady this story is about because the first time she was at my register, she snatched the receipt out of my hand telling me to just put it down. When I see her in the line to my register again, I know I have to make everything perfect.
She comes up, I scan her items — 100 cans of cat food and some other stuff — and I tell her the total. She looks at the screen and then looks at me.
Customer: “That can’t be my total. I calculated it and the register is wrong.”
She then proceeds to recalculate the items in her head — props to her; I couldn’t do this — and tells me the total she comes up with, which is about 4€ less. I’m kind of lost since, if the register tells me the price, I can’t change anything about it.
In comes the manager of the evening, who backs me up, after checking if I did everything right. The customer still says it can’t be and recalculates at least three more times. She asks for the manager not knowing she is already there, then asks for someone higher up. It’s late; the manager is the highest person in the store.
Customer: “I’m going to take the receipt with me. I want my receipt.”
Manager: “You can have the receipt, but you have to pay first.”
She has taken so much time with complaining and recalculating and everything that another customer in line offers to pay the difference. She finally decides to pay, once again snatching the receipt out of my hand, and she leaves.
But the story doesn’t end here.
The next time I work, she comes into the store and directly up to my register while I am scanning another customer’s items.
Me: “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
I am already looking for a way to get someone to help me if she gets rude again, but I get a really pleasant surprise.
Customer: “I came to apologise to you. I calculated wrong and the register was right.”
Then, she proceeded to tell me her life story, which I had to cut short as other customers were waiting. And now, every time I work and she is in the store, she comes to my register and is actually rather nice now.
