I pass a customer who is looking at kettles with a look of confusion and annoyance.

Me: “Hi. Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for? You seem to be struggling a little bit.”

Customer: “Hi. I’m looking for a kettle with no plastic in it. Your selection leaves a lot to be desired.”

I’m confused by the concept of a plastic-less electric kettle. However, our range of display items is small; perhaps she knows something I don’t.

Me: “I can’t guarantee that any of these don’t have plastic in them, sadly. Have you seen a kettle advertised with no plastic?”

Customer: “No. I decided this morning to live an eco-friendlier way, but apparently, you don’t support such lifestyles.”

She walked away. I was left standing there confounded at the concept of someone deciding that something exists, then being annoyed when it doesn’t, and THEN being all high and mighty that we don’t stock it!

I work for a bottle shop. Where I live, we have very strict rules on buying alcohol; you MUST have a permit to purchase it, and on top of that, in our store, we are not allowed to accept licenses more than two months out of date. We can be fined and fired and have the business’s liquor license revoked for doing so.

A customer comes in attempting to buy several bottles of wine. She hands me over a license that has expired outside of the okay range.

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’ll have to refuse this sale. Our company policy doesn’t allow us to accept licenses that are this expired.”

Customer: “The new license is in the mail! I have the paper right here saying so.”

Me: “I can’t accept that. We have to use in-date photo IDs, and this paper is not that.”

She leaves in a huff without putting anything back. I hope this will be the end of it.

But a few days later, the woman comes back. She comes up to my register with her items and starts accosting me.

Customer: “I can’t believe how you wasted my time the other day! I had to go out of my way to get my new license. [Other Shop] let me use my old one! And your coworker let me use it, too! You’re just not very good at your job.”

She continued to grumble about how bad I was at my job.

The other shop we mentioned isn’t affiliated with us at all. My coworker admitted to the customer that letting her use her old ID was a mistake on his part, and that if he had caught it, he wouldn’t have served her.

I got a phone call at work.

Customer: “I have a water dispenser, and it’s no longer making hot water. What’s wrong with it?”

He didn’t say if it was purchased from us or how long ago. I gave him the best response I could.

Me: “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you what’s wrong with it. It could be dozens of different things that could make it no longer make hot water. I can’t tell you what the issue is over the phone. You’d have to bring it in for us to see if we can figure out what’s wrong.”

Customer: “I have to bring it in?”

Me: “Yes. Unless you know somebody who has experience fixing these, I can’t do anything without seeing the unit here and looking at it.”

He never brought it in.

My husband was the general manager of a homestyle resort in Las Vegas: rooms with living rooms and full kitchens. As such, he frequently had people who would have extended stays of a week or more. It was not your typical extended-stay hotel; it was very upscale. At one point, his night auditor had a minor health scare, and my husband asked me if I didn’t mind filling in two nights a week to give the auditor some time to take care of himself. Well, his minor health scare turned into a major health scare, and I ended up working seven nights a week for nearly three months while he recovered. That was a nightmare in itself, but I adored the auditor, and by me filling in, it ensured he would have a job to come back to.

We had one guest who had booked for five nights, and then she extended her stay an additional two nights. She came to check out early in the morning, when I was still the only one at the desk. She was irate about the amount she was being charged for her room.

Guest: “I was given a special rate, and my special rate is all that I should be charged!”

I don’t remember the actual total, but to keep it simple it was something like this. She was paying $500 for a five-night stay. She extended her stay two extra nights, and instead of charging her the current rate, we extended her at the lower rate. Her seven-night stay meant she owed $700.00.

She was adamant that her special rate was $500 and that was all she should pay, no matter how many nights she actually stayed. She simply could not grasp the math that if you stay extra nights you do, in fact, owe for those nights.

I was trying to explain it to her as best I could, despite my internal monolog of “This woman is a twit,” when she stuck her finger in my face.

Guest: “You don’t understand! I know your general manager, and I am going to tell him how you are treating me and trying to scam me of money! I’m going to have your job for this! You don’t know who you are talking to!”

I smiled as sweetly as I could at her.

Me: “Well, ma’am, when I go home and crawl into bed next to him, I will be sure to relay that message to him. Have a fantastic day.”

She sputtered and left — without signing the credit card receipt. When I told my husband, he laughed and knew exactly who the woman was. Apparently, she had been harassing the day staff all week long with stupid requests.

Related:
Getting Owned By The Owner, Part 19
Getting Owned By The Owner, Part 18
Getting Owned By The Owner, Part 17
Getting Owned By The Owner, Part 16
Getting Owned By The Owner, Part 15

I work for a hotel in pre-arrival/prior reservations. I’m not at the hotel itself; I’m in a call center a few miles away.

Caller: “I’m concerned about credit card fraud; I just got an email about a stay at your hotel, but I don’t have anything planned.”

For security purposes, I can’t just reveal details about the order, but I ask her to confirm the details she has. Her husband has a relatively common name, so she thinks maybe it is just that someone selected the wrong profile, but she says they have had a credit card fraud incident in the past.

Me: “Can you please confirm the email, phone, and billing address in the email?”

She does, and she also tells me the address of the person who stole their card before. All the information is her husband’s work address except for the email, which is hers. The last four digits of the card are not any that she knows offhand, but she does say she doesn’t know her husband’s work cards.

The more we talk, the more it looks like her husband booked everything under his work information except for the email, and then, when he checked in with a second adult and upgraded the room to a king suite, the system pulled her email because they’d stayed there together in the past.

My support team advises me to just tell her it isn’t any of the last four digits she gave us and it’s a case of the wrong profile. I do so.

Caller: “Okay, thanks for checking. My husband is out of town on business until the nineteenth, so I know it’s not him.”

The room was set to be checked out on the nineteenth. I really wanted to tell her, “Call your husband to make sure he doesn’t see suspicious activity on his company cards and let him know why you’re asking. I’m sure he’ll understand.”