I work in a children’s clothing store. A grandmother comes in to return shoes she bought for her granddaughter.

Granny: “I want to return these shoes.”

I check her receipt and see that they were purchased over sixty days ago, way beyond the return policy. The shoes look very well worn, so I ask her what is wrong with them.

Granny: “Nothing. My granddaughter loved them so much that she wore them every day, and now they are just dirty.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I cannot return these. We can only accept returns on shoes if it’s within seven business days, and they have to be unused or proven defective within those seven days.”

Granny: “They are defective! She wore them, and now the bottoms of the soles are dirty!”

Me: “So, let me get this straight. Your granddaughter wore them every day since you got them two months ago, and now they are defective because the soles are dirty?”

Granny: “Exactly. Your company should know that kids do not know how to keep their shoes clean, so it’s defective. I already told her that the store would give her new shoes.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I cannot accept this return. We can pick out a new pair of shoes for you to buy and possibly add a 15% coupon to it so you get some savings.”

Granny: “I am not buying another pair here when they are just gonna get dirty so quickly.”

She grabbed the bag back and left.

I just stood there and wondered what the bottoms of her shoes looked like!

Years ago, I worked for a big Canadian coffee and donut shop, mostly working the evening shift. If you aren’t familiar with [Coffee Shop], the cream and sugar are dispensed by a machine that is calibrated to an amount determined by corporate. If you are used to ordering at other coffee and/or donut chains, the number of sugar and creams you order may need to change depending on how much you actually want.

One night, we had these three bikers drive in, and we could tell they had been on the road for a while. Their ringleader was your stereotypical biker: tall, wide shoulders, big beard, and covered in leather. His friends were shorter but otherwise still had the whole tough but tired look going on.

My coworker was in the back working on soup and sandwiches, but it was only three people and it had been a slow night. No worries. I just needed to get these tired boys some caffeine and wish them a good night.

Ringleader: “I want an extra large twelve and twelve.”

Me: “Are you sur—”

Ringleader: “Did I stutter?”

Me: “Okay, but that’s only—”

Friend #1: “Did he stutter?!”

No. No, he did not…

So, off I went to make him exactly what he’d asked for. I grabbed a cup, put it under the sugar dispenser, and pressed the times-three button four times — twelve extra-large shots of sugar. Then, I went over to the cream dispenser and did the same thing. Now, fun fact: the cream and sugars are measured to dispense a twelfth of the cup size you are selecting. So, by the time all twelve shots of creamer were dispensed, the cup was basically full.

I stirred the creamy sugar mixture around before I poured an itty bitty splash of coffee into his cup, just enough to bring it up to the safety line on the cup. I tried asking him if he wanted me to heat it up or anything, but I basically got the same exact runaround from him and his friend.

Obviously, the guy knew what he wanted and he didn’t need me to tell him what he was ordering. They grabbed the rest of their order and drove out into the night.

Now, you would think that was the end of the story. The big, angry biker man got his nasty sugar-cream drink and left me sitting there wondering if the rest of the world had been drinking their coffee wrong this entire time.

But no, I was lucky to be working the next afternoon when he came back in! Mr. Ringleader came back in all by himself the next day and shuffled up to the counter. I could tell he must have been embarrassed because his voice was a lot softer this time; he knew he’d f***ed up.

The glorious aftermath is that he apologized and confirmed that the drink had been utterly disgusting. It turned out that he was used to ordering from another coffee chain where they use way smaller measurements for their cream and sugar. Once I knew where he was used to ordering from, I made him the approximately same drink using our measurements (roughly a triple-triple) and sent him on his way.

I only wish I could have seen his face when he took that first sip.

I am working at a store that sells gifts, decorations, and a bit of everything except food, and it’s a pretty busy day. A lady comes up to my register and shows me some magnets with cartoon fish on them. To be fair, they are pretty flat magnets. This will be relevant later.

Customer: “Do you have these but with different motifs? I want flower or food motifs for the kitchen.”

Me: “No, these are the only ones we’re carrying right now.”

She huffs and is obviously annoyed, but she doesn’t leave the store. She just goes to look for other things, or so I assume.

Then minutes later, the same lady is at my register, slapping some stickers with flowers on them onto my counter and shouting at me.

Customer: “You lied to me when you said you didn’t have what I wanted!”

Me: *Confused* “But you asked me for magnets? These are stickers.”

Customer: *Getting angrier* “No, I asked for stickers! I showed you! How dare you lie to me?!”

Me: *Getting more annoyed* “You showed me magnets. It says ‘magnets’ right there on the packaging.”

Customer: *Shouting* “Stop lying to me!“

At that point, I kind of snapped because, customer service or no customer service, the lady was making a scene and I wasn’t having it. I left the register, got one of the magnet packets that she had shown me earlier, and pointed to what it said on the front: “MAGNETS” in all caps and bold font.

The woman spluttered and left in a huff, and she didn’t even buy her stickers. I never saw or heard from her ever again.

I work in a hotel. A local church rented a few adjoining rooms for a week or so for their pastor or other church officials. I’m not sure what their business is, but they seem like they’re busy with meetings, etc. There are always people coming and going, and they like to congregate in our breakfast area by the lounge. They make coffee, bring snacks and refreshments, and meet for a few hours or so. This hasn’t been an issue as we haven’t been particularly busy, but as the holidays approach, we’re steadily getting busier and busier.

They’re not rude per se, but they aren’t exactly pleasant, either. They’ve asked me a number of times for plates, cutlery, etc., which I provide from our stores. After the third time or so, I told them our supplies are running low, so I could only provide so much. They gave me a look like they were thinking, “What kind of place is this?” and took what I offered.

Sometimes, they don’t completely clean up after themselves, either, which is annoying. A few times, they asked me to ask other guests to leave their “meeting area” because they were disturbing them. I informed them that other guests are free to use our public spaces as they like. I didn’t want to sound rude, but I suggested that if they held their meeting in their rooms, no one would disturb them there. I was met with more “What kind of rathole is this?” stares.

We sold out fairly early yesterday, and I was running through the bucket checking information, helping with guests’ phone calls, etc., when one of the church members came to the desk looking grumpier than usual. He was glaring at me with a sour bulldog face as I was hanging up with a guest. I braced and internally prepared for whatever this was going to be.

Guest: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Helping guests at the moment. What can I do for you?”

Guest: “While you’ve been doing whatever you’re doing, people have been eating our cupcakes from our meeting area. They were meant for later.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but what meeting area?”

He pointed to the breakfast area.

Me: “I apologize, sir, but that is our breakfast area, which is open to all our guests. If food is left there unattended, we are not responsible for what happens to it.”

Guest: “So, what should we do, then?”

I’m thinking, “I don’t know. Keep it in one of your rooms until you’re ready for your meeting, maybe?”

Guest: “I saw some dirty-looking kid grab one; now we have to throw the rest out! And there are people drinking at the bar, being loud, and causing a disturbance!”

He went on for a bit, I guess fully expecting me to clear out the area so they could have their meeting in their “meeting area.” I just repeated that it was a public space, so we were not responsible for whatever they left out; my job is to attend to guests and I can’t police their cupcakes or whatever. I didn’t say it like that, but I made my point.

Guest: “I at least expect full compensation for the cupcakes!”

Me: “I can’t clear that because you chose to leave your stuff in a public area, and that isn’t our responsibility at all.”

He got my name and my manager’s cards and left. He didn’t do anything more about the cupcakes, and he didn’t say if they were going to meet there or not, so I just left it.

Near the end of my shift, no one from the church had been by, and the cupcakes were still there, so I just threw them away.

They are only here through Saturday, thank God, and I’m off tomorrow so I don’t have to see them. Praise!

I work in a call centre. It’s a small-ish, family-owned business, so we managers wear many hats.

In the UK, for businesses, all electricity suppliers are done under contract, and there are a lot of suppliers (over thirty) you can choose to go with. In order to stay competitive, suppliers update their prices every week or two, all with different schedules — more right now due to the energy crisis. As a result, any price is that day’s price.

One day, I had to take an escalated complaint call (the buck stops here). They were complaining that our agent had used high-pressure sales tactics to try and sign a customer.

I immediately saw that something was off as we don’t do that.

It took quite some conversation with the customer, but we were getting nowhere as she couldn’t figure out how to explain her problem.

I made it easier for her and explained what our staff was supposed to do and how everything worked.

When I got to the point about any price being that day’s price, she lost it, saying that that’s how we’d pressured her.

It transpired that the customer was of the opinion that providing that information was pressuring her. She thought she should have a couple of weeks to think on those prices and make a decision. She would only sign with a company that gave her that.

And when I told her that no UK business supplier was offering prices that way, I was apparently pressuring her again.

I pointed out that, according to the way that things actually work, informing her honestly of the situation so she could make an informed decision could not be considered pressuring her, and if she had a problem, she needed to take it up with the dictionary people.

She hung up on me at that point, but I reasoned that if that didn’t get the reality of the situation through her head, we’d not win her as a customer anyway.