My line of call centre work deals mainly with businesses. So you’d think they’d be more… on the ball if you know what I mean?

This caller gave me his order number.

Me: “No orders are showing up on my system. Can I have your account number?”

He gave me his account number and every other account number for his company’s branches throughout the UK. That’s a lot of account numbers and orders.

Still nothing.

Me: “How did you make the order?”

Caller: “Email.”

Me: “Can I have the email address used for the order?”

I go digging for this particular email. I read the email, and it literally says:

Email: “This order hasn’t been placed due to an issue with your account.”

It says that along with providing the next steps.

Me: “Can you read the email back to me?”

I ask this to make sure he has the same email up as me, and also to be a bit of a d***.

He had me on a call for one hour, with the email in front of him. He had me digging through thousands of branches for his company, thousands of orders… Dude was waiting two months for this order too…

I used to work in a really nice Indian restaurant, and I would ask people:

Me: “Would you like your curry mild, medium, or hot?”

Sometimes people would get angry at me even for asking, and would say:

Customer: “Make it VERY VERY MILD!”

I’m not judging, I have mine mild too, whatever.

One guy comes in, stinking of booze, and I take his order and ask him the question.

Boozy Customer: “No spice.”

So, I get him a mild one. A few minutes after serving him, my manager pulls me aside.

Manager: “The guy complained about you. He said you got his order wrong.”

Me: *Confused.* “He said he wanted no spice, so it’s not spicy.”

Manager: “No, he wants, like, literally no spice whatsoever in his curry. Not even non-chilli spices.”

I just stare at my manager, who’s actually from India, and ask:

Me: “Uhm, does that exist?”

Manager: “No.”

Me: “So, did you tell him?”

Manager: “Nope!”

The owner had to actually come out and explain to the customer how curry works.

I had been working as a technician for this small company when I was asked to do a normal, usual, nothing-special job.

During the course of this job, I was asked by my boss to send a picture of my work (our relationship was already very strained by this point). In this picture, I included my work and the ladder I was working on because I wasn’t going to move it just for a picture for my boss.

As I arrive back at the office, my boss calls me into his office, with a paper to sign, saying I performed an unsafe work act (his goal was to try to give me three strikes so he could fire me without severance). The act in question: I used a customer’s ladder, something that we as a company had done for the four years that I had been there, including this very same boss.

He talks to me about ladder grades, how I shouldn’t have used the ladder since I didn’t know its grade, and how much weight it can support. And then he sent me home early and told me not to come in the next day as a suspension.

I was angry. Luckily, I know union reps from other companies that handle safety regulations. So, I get a hold of the official government booklet and begin my day of study.

The very first day back, my boss again asked me to take the company ladder and go do a job. I look at every company ladder and identify that they are all classified as Grade 3 household ladders. None are within grade to support my weight of 250lbs, let alone my tools.

I break the news to my boss. It turns out none of the jobs he wanted me to do that day could be done, since he needed to instead provide ladder training that he failed to provide when I joined the company, and find a few very expensive A1-grade ladders.

I work at the front desk at a brand-new hotel. We opened in the middle of the pandemic (we were going to wait, but said f*** it). When we opened, we were steadily considering how the provinces around me are in a bubble with us, and we can travel within each other, following the guidelines set in place. If you are outside of these three provinces, you are required to self-isolate for fourteen days, which means people like to book hotels to do this.

Our hotel is brand new, not a chain or part of a corporation. We have a sister property down the street that is more expensive and luxurious, whereas we are the budget version, putting emphasis on our low price with high-quality beds, extremely fast Wi-Fi (it’s amazing), and rainfall fancy showers. Little to no complaints from anyone so far in the four months we have been open.

And then in comes this guy. 

He moved to Canada before the pandemic and wanted to rent our room for a fourteen-day isolation for his wife, who is flying in from another country to live with him. He also would like to stay as a monthly rental for a few months after isolation until they find an apartment. 

He sits with our manager, and they come up with a contract agreeing on the price, the guidelines for her stay, and what we will allow them to put in the room for their stay (small appliances such microwave, toaster, their own bedsheets and pillows if they prefer), all signed and agreed upon in great detail. We do not have a fridge or kitchen in the room, but we put a minifridge in for her. 

He stayed in the room the night before she would arrive and start her fourteen days alone. Payment was taken in full for their first month. He brought up bedsheets and whatnot and stayed the night 

I come in for my 7 AM – 3 PM shift on Saturday and am the only one usually here. He comes downstairs.

Me: “Good morning, how was everything with the room?”

Guest: “May I move my mattress into the room?”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, unfortunately, I can’t let you put your own furniture in our rooms.”

Guest: “Well, can’t I just put the bed that’s in there in your hallway?”

Me: “No, you are not allowed to take the bed out of the room. It is also a big no with public health to allow that.”

Guest: “Well, your manager said I could do whatever in the room; you’d better go get him.”

Me: “Unfortunately, he is not here right now, as it is Saturday, but I do have a copy of your signed contract, and it does not state you can add your own bed into the room.”

I hold it up.

Guest: “You call him right now! I am so unhappy with this level of unprofessionalism!”

He is now yelling at me in the lobby. I caved and called my manager (he is super chill with staff, but firm and a great manager when he needs to play that card), and he told me on the phone that I am correct, he is not to put anything in the room or move our bed.

I reiterate to the guest what was said. Now he is really mad that he isn’t getting his way, he proceeds to get closer to my desk, puts his hand on his lower back, and raises his voice to tell me:

Guest: “I had back problems months ago that were fixed, but since sleeping on your bed for one night, it came back, and I am in extreme pain!  You’d better do something about it!”

I don’t know how he was gonna move a mattress with that bad back of his.

He walked out of the door and got into his car. We have massive glass windows that are right in front of my desk, and street parking, so his car is visible; we could lock eyes if we wanted to. I watched him pick up his phone and put it to his ear.

The front desk phone rings.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Brand New Hotel], this is [My Name] speaking, how may I help you?”

Guest: “Yes, I was just in your hotel, and I demand to speak to your manager; your hotel broke my back.”

Me: “Oh, hello, [Guest’s Name], we just spoke in person. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in the last few minutes, and I am still the only one here.”

Keep in mind, I’m watching him from my desk yell at me through his phone.

Guest: “I tried to call your manager myself, but no one answered, so put me through to him.”

Me: “Sir, it is his day off, and I already spoke to him in regard to your situation, in which he agrees with me that we can’t allow the bed.”

He proceeded to cuss me out over the phone; how wrong it is that I can’t make a decision about the mattress (sorry, the decision he would like). He went on about his back pain, and that if I don’t figure this out instantly, he will leave, and that the service here was so unacceptable for his wife. He hung up on me.

So now he gets out of his car and comes back into my lobby, and he yelled again.

Guest: “I’m not going to leave until you call your manager again.”

I called him again.

Me: “Hi, manager, sorry for calling again, this guest refuses to stop harassing me until I speak with you again. How would you like me to proceed?”

Manager: “Inform him that if he is not pleased, then he is more than welcome to take his business elsewhere, and we will refund the month minus the one-night stay.”

Surprisingly, the guest agrees to those terms and leaves to find other accommodation.

Honestly, good luck. At the time, you needed public health to approve your isolation location ahead of time, so I don’t know if he’s gonna pull that off on short notice.

Thinking that this was the end, he came back one hour later, this time with a friend.

Guest’s Friend: *Calmly and kindly.* “Would you please explain what was said by your manager?”

Me: “We can’t allow a guest to put their own bed in the room.”

Guest’s Friend: “Do you have a different, more therapeutic mattress you can swap out?”

Me: “No, we don’t have any other types or extras right now, since we are a brand new hotel and everything was purchased brand new.”

Guest: *Going off again.* “Your manager said he could put the mattress in, and now you’re lying!”

Guest’s Friend: *To me.* “May I see a copy of the agreement?”

The guest’s friend reads it and says to the guest:

Guest’s Friend: “No, [Guest], it doesn’t state that at all.”

They asked about four more times if there was any solution to get their bed in the room, and I said it’s always going to be a no, even after they told me that they couldn’t find alternative accommodation for his wife (shocker).

They both left. 

I sent an email about what happened to the manager so that we’d have all the facts and the story. He ended up coming in later on in the afternoon to check up on the situation and me. The guest must have been close by and watching, because as soon as the manager walks in, so does he.

He doesn’t even look at me when he walks in; he goes straight for the manager.

Guest: “I will not stay here or allow my wife to break her back too!”

Manager: “Okay, that is probably for the best, you might hurt your back moving a mattress around anyway. We will gladly refund your money minus last night’s stay. [My Name] would be more than happy to refund that after an apology.”

He apologized rudely, and in my best customer service voice, I refunded him and gave him the receipt. 

Off he went. No idea where his wife ended up.

Years ago, I became manager of tech support for a small startup with a half dozen techs. I’d worked in support for a dozen years by then, and I always told them that my job was to advocate for both them and the company equally and that by doing both, we’d get the best results.

My boss was the owner of the company. He got excited about things quickly but had the retention of a fruit fly. When he came up with ideas, stopping him was difficult, and more than once it became detrimental to the success of the company.

At one point in time, he managed to wander into a Best Buy when the Microsoft Surfaces had first been released. He was smitten with them and, after a few days, decided that everyone in the office should be using them.

So began the rollout meeting where I first heard his intention of replacing my tech’s desktops with three monitors and laptops with a single Surface Pro. I politely tried to steer him away from this idea, for at least tech support by suggesting maybe a pilot program, a usability study, or anything really would be a better idea.

Undeterred, he kept things moving along, talking about licensing and timelines for adoption. Whenever I was asked anything, my hesitation was noticeable and soon became an issue.

Boss: “What’s your problem? Everyone else is on board with this. Why aren’t you?”

Me: *Calmly.* “My techs required a significant amount of screen real estate to do things like work in SQL, do remote connections, and interface with upper support tiers.”

Boss: “So if I take away their computers and make them use Surface Pros, what are they going to do?”

At this point in time, it would have been more comical if his past whims hadn’t been detrimental to the company and us. But it wasn’t. He was dead serious.

Me: “Are you familiar with the term ‘mutiny,’ sir?”

English wasn’t his first language, but I think he finally understood what the results would be if he went through with this. I made a calm statement about what happens when you take away the tools that techs need to get their jobs done.

I was asked to leave the meeting, and I returned to my cubicle. Within a few days, the Surface Pros started to show up around the office. Everyone was enamored with the new shiny objects they’d been issued, while my techs never for a second considered that those would have been their fate had it not been for my advocacy.

Over time, the Surface Pros eventually all died in one way or another: broken screens, overheating, etc. If anyone knows anything about these, they were essentially unrepairable. The head of sales told his staff to keep important files on a USB stick in case theirs died, and when they needed a replacement, they could just get what they wanted at Best Buy as long as it wasn’t another Surface Pro.