I am a piano and organ salesman. Yes, I’ve heard all the jokes.

A lady comes into the store and proceeds to play (badly) every new piano we have.

Customer: *Loudly proclaiming* “None of these new pianos are any good! They’re all junk!”

Me: “Ma’am, these are Steinways, one of the world’s greatest pianos. I don’t see what the problem is.”

Customer: “My piano at home is much better; I can sing along with it. I can’t sing with these!”

I’m a bit perplexed. Can’t sing along with a new piano? Then, it hits me.

Me: “Ma’am, when’s the last time you had your piano tuned?”

Customer: “It’s never been tuned in all the years I’ve had it! It doesn’t need it!”

The piano had uniformly detuned over the years — not an unusual occurrence in our very dry climate — instead of certain strings detuning.

I offered to set her up with an appointment with our tuner, but she just said, “NO!” and stomped out of the store, complaining about how all our pianos were junk.

I work at a musical instrument store. A customer is trying to buy something when the checkout shows me a code indicating that the card is registered as stolen.

Me: “Sorry, the checkout is buggy today and it’s locked. I just need to fetch my manager to fix it.”

I tell my manager, and he and the salesman stall long enough for the cops to get there. Three or four officers come in, ask the guy a few questions, and then arrest him.

The best part is that, as the guy is being hauled out in handcuffs, he starts shouting back at us.

Thief: “The service here is terrible! I’m going to tell everyone I know not to shop here!”

I work at a mom-and-pop musical instrument store.

Customer: “Can I rent a guitar amplifier from you? I have a gig tonight.”

Me: “We don’t do rentals because we only sell new gear and consignment gear, which isn’t ours to loan out.”

He responds perfectly reasonably, saying he understands, and decides to buy the most expensive guitar amplifier of its kind that we have and proceed on his merry way.

The next weekend, he comes in with his wife.

Customer: “The amplifier broke during my gig!”

Being a small store, we try to accommodate our customers because if we don’t give them good service, they’ll just start buying all their stuff online for less. My manager agrees to start the return process, but the way this guy’s wife is ranting and raving about how the amp stopped working is making me suspicious.

While my manager is at the computer, I grab a guitar, plug it into the amp, plug in the amp, turn on the amp, crank the volume up to ten, and then play the loudest, most obnoxious chord I can. This startles the guy and his wife, who immediately turn around.

Me: *Smiling politely* “Huh. Seems to be working just fine.”

Yeah, f*** you, buddy. You’re not getting a free amp rental.

I work in a music store. A mom comes in and immediately starts yelling at me.

Mom: “My son’s new saxophone is broken!”

I’m about to start walking her through the usual warranty questions when she tells me:

Mom: “I took it out of the packing material and the keys don’t close.”

Me: “But… those saxes just come in their cases.”

She had taken great pains to tear all the pads off all the keys of a brand-new sax. And of course, it was my fault for not telling her not to do that.

Our store is in the mall, and we have a tiny employee-only bathroom in the back office. It isn’t available to the public, but every once and a while we’ll get someone doing the pee-dance who can’t make it to the public restroom a few hundred feet away.

A woman comes in and uses the restroom, and then:

Customer: “I’m going to have to demand a discount on my DVDs.”

Me: “Why is that, ma’am?”

Customer: “The soap in your bathroom made my hands smell like flowers. I hate when my hands smell like flowers. You need to offer a citrus soap option to your customers!”

Me: “Well, that’s not a public restroom, so we can choose whatever soap we like. None of this has any bearing on your DVD purchase.”

She didn’t care. After a few more minutes of this nonsense, my spineless manager just gave her a 10% discount to get her out of the store for a whopping savings of $3.50.