(I am eating lunch at my college when a couple of young men sit down at the table nearest me with some snacks of their own. They are close enough that I can hear them talking, and although I don’t speak it, I recognize the language they are speaking is Vietnamese.

It’s also necessary to note that I have Asperger’s Syndrome and one of my peculiarities is noticing and remembering someone’s handedness. It is kind of like noticing someone’s hair color; if you use your hands in a way that demonstrates your laterality, I can’t NOT note your dominant hand, I just do.

So, I can’t help but notice that one of the men nearby is left-handed by the way he eats. They finish quickly and get up to leave, but I notice that the left-handed man has taken his backpack, but neglected to pick up a smaller bag by his chair.)

Me: “Excuse me… Excuse me, sir? Sir?“

(The two are too engaged in their conversation to realize I’m talking to them and are quickly walking to the door to the building. Out of desperation to get his attention, I blurt out the first thing I can think of.)

Me: “Uh… Left-handed Vietnamese guy!”

(The two men stop and slowly turn to look at me with bewildered expressions.)

Me: *awkwardly* “Um… y-you left your bag behind.” *points to the sack by the chair*

(The young man looked surprised when he saw it there, jogged over to pick it up, and thanked me, and they left.)

(I’m the supervisor in a retail copy center. I am notified that someone has filed a complaint.)

Me: “Hello, ma’am. I’m sorry to hear you were dissatisfied with our services. Can I ask what happened?”

Customer: “Well, I asked for your clerk to cut my wedding invitations, and she cut them all wrong! We had to fix everything ourselves!”

Me: “My apologies! When was this order placed?”

Customer: “Oh, a couple of weeks ago.”

Me: “We would have been happy to fix the cuts for you free of charge, ma’am. Did you inspect the invitations before you paid for them?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Did you contact the store once you got home and realized you didn’t like the way they were cut?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Unfortunately, I don’t have any record of this order. Do you know which associate it was that completed your order for you?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Do you still have the invitations?”

Customer: “No, we sent them out already! After we had to spend hours fixing them! I want to know how you’re going to make this right!”

Me: “Well, I can offer a refund. Do you have your receipt so I can refund your purchase total?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Well, ma’am, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do without any of those things.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous! I want to talk to your manager!”

(I was only too happy to oblige!)

Related:
Refunder Blunder, Part 43
Refunder Blunder, Part 42
Refunder Blunder, Part 41

(I am working at a zoo and am holding a tenrec — a small mammal that looks like a hedgehog with spines on its back — for guests to touch and ask questions about. A mother and her son walk up.)

Mother: *jokingly* “It’s half porcupine and half rat!”

Son: “Is it half porcupine?”

Me: “No, it’s all tenrec.”

Son: “Well, what’s a tenrec?”

Me: “This is. It’s related to hedgehogs, and this one lives in Madagascar.”

Son: “Is it half rat?”

Me: “No, it’s just a tenrec, not related to a porcupine or a rat.”

Son: “Well, what’s a tenrec?”

Me: *looks at his mother desperately*

(I have just arrived at the store and started the opening procedures. A guest walks up and starts trying to open the doors, which are locked. He looks inside and sees me.)

Customer: “Hey! Are you open?”

Me: “No. Not until 11.”

Customer: “Not until 11? Okay. So, should I come back?”

Me: “Yes?”

(I’m the supervisor in a copy center that’s part of a larger retail chain. Unlike some other similar copy centers from competing chains, ours does not have PCs available for public use. A man rushes up to the PC just as I step away from it, sits down, and begins browsing the Internet.)

Me: “Sir, did you need copies?”

(The customer ignores me.)

Me: “Maybe some color prints, or duplicates of something you already have…?”

(He shoves a stack of papers at me.)

Customer: “I need twenty copies of this.”

Me: “In color or black and white, sir?”

(The customer ignores me.)

Me: “Because if you want the blue sections to show up, I’ll have to make them in color.”

(He continues to ignore me, so I decide I’ll make black and white copies. I bring him the finished prints.)

Customer: “No! These are wrong! Useless! They’re garbage now! I want it to look like this!”

(Since his original document was already a copy, the set I made is of noticeably poorer quality.)

Me: “Sir, any time you copy a copy, it’s going to—”

Customer: “When I print it from the computer, it doesn’t look like that!”

Me: “That’s because you were printing from a digital version. That’s always going to be a better print qual—”

(He interrupts me again to demand more copies, and ignores me any time I try to intervene. Several associates approach him and each time we’re ignored. The customer stays for a full two hours before I have had enough. I call the store manager over to assist me, since he has the authority to kick customers out of the store.)

Manager: “Listen, buddy. This PC isn’t for customer use. You’re preventing us from completing other customers’ orders and from doing work that needs doing around the store. I need you to wrap up what you’re doing here and leave.”

(There’s a heated argument about whether or not the customer is allowed to continue using the PC, and the store manager eventually convinces the customer to get up out of the chair and pay for his copies. Once everything is settled, the store manager goes back to his interrupted conference. The customer waits until the office door closes, and then approaches the PC again.)

Customer: *to me* “How long are you going to be using that computer? Because I have stuff to print.”

Me: *incredulous* “Sir, as the store manager just told you, this PC is not for customer use. Unless you have your documents print-ready and saved to a flash drive or CD, I can’t help you. Just because he’s not standing here, that doesn’t mean I can let you back on the PC.”

Customer: “Fine! I’m going somewhere else!”

(He collected his things and stormed out, but not before taking down the names of all the associates who were present for the episode.)