I am working as a court clerk in civil cases. Our courthouse is in the middle of the city and is several storeys high. Modern development has built up around the court, so that from levels four up, the back of the court overlooks and looks into a flashy five-star hotel.

One day, I am assisting in a settlement conference, and the judge and I are sitting at opposite ends of a long table, with the parties down either side. The judge is sitting in front of the window with his back to it, and I can see clearly everything going on behind him.

The judge recalls to me later that suddenly my face changes and contorts, and I busy myself in a piece of paper, looking horrified. 

He decides we should have a break and when the lawyers have cleared, he asks what happened. I raise a shaky hand to the hotel across the way, which does not have frosted or tinted windows, and the very large, naked man doing Zumba. In front of the windows. 

The judge laughs so hard he extends the break for an extra fifteen minutes so he can calm down, and he teases me about it for the rest of the week.

I will put my hand up to this. I had some red wine at lunch with a friend. While I am past the time limit for drunk driving laws in terms of alcohol consumed and operating a motor vehicle, red wine smell has always just stuck to me. I am attempting to buy wine for later in the week from a wine store at about 6:30 pm, well after the wine at lunchtime has passed my system.

However…

Cashier: “Have you been drinking today?”

Me: “Yes. At lunch.”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, but as you still smell of alcohol, I cannot sell this to you.”

Me: “Even if it was at lunchtime?”

The cashier nods awkwardly while moving the wine I was going to purchase out the way.

Me: “Fair enough. Thank you anyway.”

I left at that point. The cashier seemed amazed I was so quiet about it. I have worked with alcohol sales in my time in retail and knew her pain.

Seriously, if you smell of alcohol, cashiers won’t sell to you. Better to refuse than lose their job. I bought my wine later in the week with no drama.

I have since been back to that wine store with the same worker, and I complimented her that she was indeed doing her job and doing it well. The moral is: don’t be a pain if you have been denied.

I’m working the counter on a very, very slow Monday morning. Two customers walk in at about 8:00 am, laden down with suitcases and bags.

Me: “Hi, how can I help today?”

The customer has a very obvious American accent.

Customer: “Oh, hi! We were just wondering if we could sit in the corner over here and just rest up for a bit? We’ve just come in off the train and we have a few hours before our flight out of here.”

I’m pretty impressed, because the train station is about twenty minute’s walk, and they carried all that luggage from there.

Me: “That’s no problem at all! Just take one of the booth seats in the corner there, and let me know if you need anything at all.”

Over the course of the next few hours, they order coffee, brunch, and lunch from me, asking only to deal with me and not with my coworker. They tell me all about how they are a cruising couple who take cruises all over the world, and they are visiting New Zealand for the first time after an extended stay in Africa. They are incredibly polite and very interesting to listen to, and they always apologise for “interrupting” me whenever they want to order something.

At about 1:00 pm:

Customer’s Husband: “We’re just about to head off now; would you be able to call that taxi that you mentioned? Our flight’s in about an hour.”

Me: “Certainly. One moment.”

I go into the back, and when I come back out front I see my coworker finishing a transaction with the customer’s husband.

Customer: “You’ve been such an absolute dear to us, we’ve bought you lunch. [Coworker] here told us what you usually order; it’s on us today. Thank you so much for your amazing service today, and I’ll be filing a good conduct report with your management.”

Best. Customers. Ever.

This story was included in our May 2020 Inspirational Roundup.

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I take a call in the university office. The way the call is going, I am under the impression that he is looking for an alternative way to pay his tuition fees.

Customer: “I was told you can go to the post office and get a card you can put money on to pay for stuff.”

Caller: “Like a prezzy card?”

Customer: I dunno.”

Caller: “If you’re looking to pay for your fees, the easiest way to do it is through direct credit; you can pay us your fees with your student number in the reference field.”

Customer: “I don’t think you understand, love. I’m trying to put money on my account.”

Caller: “Which account?”

Customer: “I want to put money on my Texas Hold ‘Em account.”

Caller: “You do realise you’ve rung [Polytechnic], right?”

Customer: “Yeah, well, you’re a computer place, aren’t you?”

I work in a sales business with offices all over the country. I am the hardware technician at the head office, but I often deal with basic IT requests.

I get a call one morning from an “Anonymous” number.

Flag 1: We have an internal and external helpdesk number. If a call comes in from external, it shows the caller ID. Our staff don’t block their numbers as they do a lot of calling and their clients like to know it’s them calling.

The anonymous caller says they are trying to log in to email, and they can’t seem to get in. They want to know if we can reset the email password for them.

Flag 2: Our emails are linked into our database, and the laptops we issue out have emails already set up for them. If they can login to the laptop they can login to the emails.

Flag 2a: If it was a mobile device, we have a process for that, as well, and they need to send through a mobile request form, which their manager handles.

I have a look in our database for the username they have given, and I can’t find it. I then look in our email server for the email address, just in case there was a special case where they had an email but not a local account.

Nothing.

Flag 3: Why are you requesting a password reset for someone who we don’t seem to have?

I let them know that they will need to get their manager to send through a request, and they say,

“Okay, sure. I’ll get onto that and get back to you. See ya!” and hang up.

I think that is odd, and I tell my manager about it and he laughs it off and agrees that it was odd, but there’s nothing really we can do.

We think it is the end of it, but then, sure enough, a few moments later, I get a call back. The same anonymous caller says, “Hey, it’s [Caller] again. Turns out I don’t have an email set up. Could you make one for me?”

Our user accounts are more than just emails; we have the local account for logging into computers, permissions based on what location they are, even alternative emails for the locations.

We have a process which the manager needs to go through in order for a user to be added, and we have a ten-day wait time to get everything approved from their end, as well as mine: hiring team, accountants, my manager, etc.

I let him know that if he is a new starter, then his manager should have sent through a request for a new user. He says he will get onto it again and hangs up.

Sure enough, a few moments later, a request comes through from one of the “assistant managers” for an email account setup for this guy.

Once again, we have policies and procedures which need following for new user accounts, paperwork, and such.

The email I got literally just says, “Hiya, just needing a new email for [Caller], cheers.”

I forward it on to my manager again and leave him to deal with it.

I have no idea if something had gone wrong, or if it was just a manager who had no idea how to do things. But at this point, I didn’t want to deal with it.