I work in a well-known furniture chain. While we have a great refund service, we don’t do refunds on items and furniture sold through our re-use section.

I am at the register and my colleague is at the self-checkout service, keeping an eye on the customers in case they need assistance.

While she is doing her part, a customer approaches her from behind, wanting to get a refund for an item. She tells him she can’t help him and he has to go to the customer service that also handles refunds.

Customer: “I just was there and they didn’t want to take it back.”

She then notices what he wants to return.

Colleague: “I’m sorry, but we don’t do refunds on furniture from our re-use section.”

Customer: “I did not know that. You have to take it back.”

Colleague: “It says so at the section, so it’s not our fault you didn’t see that a refund isn’t possible. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

She then turns her back on him, as to say she’s done with talking to him. After all, she can’t help him, even if she wanted to, as we don’t do refunds at the checkout.

He gets angry and kicks his furniture off the cart, which, of course, causes everyone to jump a little. He then starts picking it up, but when he sees that my colleague doesn’t pay him any attention, he throws it onto the floor again. At this point, another colleague calls for a manager to deal with this man.

The man then approaches my colleague he spoke to first and comes off as threatening. My colleague proceeds to tell him that a manager is on their way to help him. He seems angry that my colleague isn’t taking him seriously but settles to wait for the manager.

When the manager arrives, she too tells the man what he has been told by everyone: that he can’t get a refund, that it says so in the section, and it’s not our responsibility that he didn’t read the signs about refund from this section.

It ends with him leaving with his furniture, no refund.

Seems we at the checkout now have to explain to each customer buying something from the re-use section that it’s not refundable, all because some customers can’t bother to read.

I work in a hotel. A few minutes after I clock in, a woman walks in to rent a room. She requests a specific room, which is occupied, so I put her next door. Her room is adjoining to the one she requested. As I’m finishing up:

Guest: “I stayed in [room she first requested] and I’m absolutely sure I left my phone charger in there. I have no doubt that it was in there and should have been turned in by housekeeping; check your logs.”

We keep a written log with tickets we staple to lost and found items, and there are no entries for today. All the housekeepers have clocked out except for the head housekeeper, who is finishing up laundry.

Me: “Nothing was logged into lost and found today, but if somehow we missed something, I’ll let you know.”

Guest: “No. I’m absolutely sure I left it in the room. It’s behind the desk. I left it plugged in and you missed it.”

The problem is that none of our desks are placed in front of an outlet. So, I radio the head housekeeper and she comes to the desk.

Head Housekeeper: “Hello, I’m the head housekeeper. I understand you left something in your room last night?”

Guest: “Yes, and—” *points to me* “—told me ‘that you all didn’t find my charger in the room last night.’ I know I left it in there and I need it back. I paid $35 for that charger.”

Head Housekeeper: “We didn’t find any lost and found items in that room, and it is currently occupied. If they find anything, we will let you know. If not, we will double-check the room to see if it’s there.”

Guest: “It is there. I’m sure someone ‘found’ it.”

Head Housekeeper: “If we find a lost and found item in a room, it is logged into our lost and found book. We have no entries for today, so I’m sorry, we didn’t find your charger, but once the room is vacated, we will double-check the room.”

Guest: “Okay, so can I get credit for my charger? It cost me like $35.”

Me: “We do not give credit for lost and find items. We hold the items for a set amount of time for the guest to pick up at their convenience.”

Guest: “But I left the charger in the room and no one ‘found’ it, so I guess BYEEEEE, CHARGERRRRR. I hope y’all enjoy it.”

She then tries to make some BS complaint about people next to her partying all night and keeping her up.

Me: “Did you call the desk?”

Guest: “I was too tired to, but they were, like, super awful.”

Me: “If that happens again, please call us and we’ll address the issue. If we don’t know about it, we can’t do anything about it.”

About fifteen minutes later, the guests in the room next to her call and say someone is banging on their door, and someone is trying to pick the adjoining room door’s lock. I reassure them that that is impossible and that I will check into it.

I go to [Guest]’s room.

Me: “You can’t knock on other guests’ doors. If you’re trying to enter another guest’s room via the adjoining door, I will call the police.”

She brushes me off.

Guest: “I just wanted to ask them about my charger.”

Me: “We will deal with it as was explained to you earlier. If you continue to disturb other guests, I will have you removed.”

I called my general manager, and she is now on our Do Not Rent list. Everything is notated on her file. I’m kinda hoping I will be given the chance to remove her.

I work in a hotel. I get a guest checking in, and I go through the entire spiel and give him a room. His room is on the eighth floor, and I send him on his way. Twenty minutes later, he returns.

Guest: “The elevator will only go to the seventh floor! I’m very unhappy!”

Me: “I can make new keys for you, but I need your name.”

Guest: “[Last Name].”

Me: “Can I have your first name, please?”

Guest: “Unhappy.”

Me: “I don’t have any guest registered by the name Unhappy.”

He then relented and gave his full name, I remade the keys, and then I escorted him to the elevator. He never pushed the button for the eighth floor. The reason the elevator went to the seventh floor was that somebody on the seventh floor called for the elevator.

I understand that elderly people can have some issues with technology, but elevators have been around since before they were born.

I work in a hotel. I’ve been watching the cameras as any night auditor does, and I’ve been watching these people for about five minutes now. There are about three of them and they’re just hanging around the car. The woman with them came in an hour ago attempting to make a reservation with cash. We do not take cash.

She comes in again.

Lady: “Hi, I just made a reservation online.”

She shows her confirmation number and booking information.

Me: “Perfect! I’ll just need to see your vaccination card and ID. Will it only be you in the room?”

Lady: “Yes, it’ll just be me.”

She provides the documents I asked for.

Me: “All righty.”

I say to myself, “Who’re the people outside, then?”

It’s at this moment I realize I don’t have a booking for this lady. Sometimes things happen, and the reservations don’t transfer over.

Me: “I’m not seeing a booking under your name. Is it possibly under another name?”

Lady: “Nope. It’ll be under my name.”

Me: “All right… Give me one moment.”

I check our emails, websites we’re affiliated with, and everything else I can. I’m starting to feel bad for this lady as it’s been about ten minutes of me navigating and trying to find her reservation.

Me: “All right. I’m going to contact [Website] support and see what I can do. I apologize for the wait; sometimes the reservations just don’t come through for a little. Let me see if they know why it hasn’t gone through.”

The lady rolls her eyes and sighs.

I contact [Website] and see if they have a reservation under the lady’s name, and guess what? They don’t. So, after about a ten-minute phone call with the support call line, I give up and hang up and ask the lady for her confirmation number again. She provides it, and it comes up with another person’s name.

Me: “I found a booking, but it’s not under your name. Do you know anyone named [Man]?”

Lady: “Yes, that’s my friend who made the booking.”

Cue the dirtiest professional look I can give someone with only my eyes. LADY, I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR CLOSE TO TWENTY MINUTES NOW! COULDN’T YOU HAVE STARTED WITH THAT?!

Me: “All right. Will he be staying here tonight, as well?”

Lady: “Yes, he’ll be staying.”

WHAT?! Didn’t you just say twenty minutes ago that it was just you?

Me: “Okay. I’ll need to see his ID and vaccination report, as well.”

In comes [Man].

Me: “All right, I’ll just need to see the ID and vaccination card, please.”

Man: “I have my ID but not my vaccination card. Can I fax it to you?”

Me: “Unfortunately not. I’ll need to see either a photo or hardcopy.”

Man: “I just wanna get the booking set and ready to go. Why can’t I just fax it to you? We’ve been waiting here long enough.”

I decide to be a little petty and decide to tell the truth about why it took so long.

Me: “I apologize for how long it took, but your friend told me the reservation was under her name. I contacted support looking for her name, but she didn’t mention it was under yours. We will need a photo or a hard copy of your vaccination card, and I’ll also need a card on file for the payment for [amount].”

Man: *Completely unfazed* “Yeah, she’s a bit of an idiot.”

He shows me a picture of his vaccination card and a card for the booking.

Me: “All right, perfect. Here’re your keys. Have a great night!”

Man: “Oh, could I also get a key for our friend who’s staying with us tonight, as well?”

Me: *Crying inside*

I work in tech support. Early Tuesday morning, I’m sitting with a few workmates who are in remote in our daily standup before the actual standup meeting. Suddenly, I get bombarded with Teams messages by a user.

Employee: “I need you to come upstairs and check on my computer. It’s acting up again.”

Me: “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, after my standup.”

Employee: “That won’t do. I have a very important meeting to attend! I need you now!”

I just sigh, excuse myself from my colleagues, drink the remainder of my coffee, and head up.

She’s already standing at the doorway of her office, gesturing for me to hurry up.

Employee: “None of the programs respond. Everything is acting weird. Nothing works!”

Me: “Have you tried restarting the laptop?”

Employee: “No, I can’t do that. It won’t let me!”

I then try to restart the computer and indeed, it is acting weird. Opening the start menu only immediately opens the search query and then shows a constant space being input.

I look down and see that [Employee]’s headset is resting on top of the spacebar of the external keyboard. I remove them.

Me: “Hey, look. Your headset was resting against the spacebar.”

A look of mild panic settles on her face.

Employee: “That can’t be it! I just set those there before you came over!”

Me: “Can you tell me about some of the issues you’ve been having?

Employee: “When I opened Outlook, it kept scrolling through the mails on its own!”

I ask her to open Outlook, and then I hold down the spacebar, and to nobody’s surprise, the “error” she reported replicates.

Employee: “Huh. That’s weird. It does the same now.”

She’s trying her hardest to look surprised.

Me: “Yeah, that’s crazy. Anyway, whatever caused it, it’s gone now. If you’ve got any other problems, let me know.”

As I left, she was opening Teams to join her “extremely important meeting”.

It was her daily standup.