(It’s not long before the end of my very last call centre shift and my tolerance for stupidity is at an all-time low.)

Me: “Hello, you’re through to [Bank], [My Name] speaking. How can I help?”

Caller: “Reset my online password. Your stupid system blocked it.”

Me: “Can I take your account number, please?”

Caller: “I don’t have it.”

Me: “Okay, is this for a credit or a debit account?”

Caller: “Credit.”

Me: “Perfect. And is it a personal or business account?”

Caller: *tutting* “Personal.”

Me: “Let me just bring up the credit card system. Can I take your name and the first line of your address so I can search for you?”

Caller: “It’s [Caller] and [address].”

Me: “Nothing is coming back with those details. Let me just search the business credit card system.”

Caller: “It’s not a business card. Jesus.” *to person in background* “How hard is it to listen to what I’m saying?”

Me: “All right. Well, there’s nothing with your details coming up on the credit card system. Is it definitely a credit card?”

Caller: “No! Jesus Christ. It’s a debit card. Why is this taking so long?” *to person in background* “She isn’t listening to anything I say.”

Me: “All right, I’ll search the debit card system. Again, nothing is coming up on that system. Are you definitely a [Bank] customer?”

Caller: “This is ridiculous. Yes, I am a customer.”

Me: “Okay. By any chance is it a business account?” *even though she already said it isn’t*

Caller: “Yes! Are you stupid? I told you already that it is!” *to person in the background* “This idiot is the stupidest person I’ve ever spoken to.”

Me: *starting to see red* “What’s the business name?”

Caller: “[Business].”

Me: “Nothing is coming up under that name, either. Please double-check and give me the right business name.”

Caller: “F***’s sake. It’s [Other Name].” 

Me: “Okay, I finally have your account. Can I take your security number to verify you?”

Caller: “It’s [number].”

Me: “Nope, that’s not right. Try again.”

Caller: “Try [number].”

Me: “That’s not correct, either, so now I need to ask you some security questions. Can I get [details]?

Caller: “Is this call ever going to f****** end? It’s [details].

(By now I am completely confused and I’ve forgotten that she wants to reset a password. It’s almost 11:00 pm and at this time of night, 99% of calls are for lost cards, so I automatically assume that’s what the call is for.)

Me: “Those details were actually correct, so I can cancel your lost card now.”

Caller: “WHY THE F*** ARE YOU CANCELLING MY CARD?! Jesus, are you completely stupid? I want to reset my password. Is that too difficult for your dumb brain to comprehend?”

Me: “I’m sorry. There has been so much back and forth while I try to find your account that I forgot the call reason.”

Caller: “That’s not good enough. You’re a stupid f****** idiot who hasn’t listened to anything I’ve said. You’re a moron.”

Me: *finally reaching my limit* “DO NOT SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT! I am not stupid and I have listened to everything you’ve said. You said it was a credit card when it was a debit card. You said it was a personal account when it was a business account. You said the business name was [Business] when it’s actually [Other Name]. You rang the bank without any account details or account information. And finally, you’re the one who doesn’t know their verification details. I’ve spent nearly fifteen minutes trying to find your account when this entire call should have only taken two or three minutes, all because you’re too stupid to know a single thing about your account.”

Caller: “Well, I, uh, just…”.

Me: “I’ve reset your online password now, and since you’re soooooo smart, I’m sure you’ll figure out how to create a new one yourself. Goodbye.”

(I then hung up on her. The password reset process is extremely difficult without help, but my shift was over so I never found out if she had to call back.)

(I’ve been cosplaying for a few years and my dad has always been a little weirded out by my hobby. Back when I first started, I submitted a story. I just moved back in with my parents after grad school and this September was the first convention preparation period that my parents were privy to. This year one, of my costumes was done in greyscale, with heavy face paint and makeup done to resemble a black and white photo. My parents are chatting in the kitchen when I walk in to fetch something. Neither of them realises I’m practising my face paint.)

Dad: “Ah, [My Name]—!”

Me: *facing away* “Evenin’.”

(With as straight a face as I can, I turn towards him.)

Dad: *pauses a moment then shakes his head* “You’ve missed your ears, you eejit. They’re still pink.”

(Character development!)

My old broadband company was hopeless. My net was down more than it was up, often for hours to days. Family friends were almost ready to sue them as their “service” was so bad locally. I decided it was finally time to switch to a faster and more reliable company.

The changeover was due at midnight and was to have a new router in the post before it. The post came that day and there was no new router in it, so I sighed and resigned myself to using Twitter to complain yet again about broadband issues. 

The new company responded to tweets quickly and found there was a system error, so the automatic release of the router when I signed up had not happened for some reason. For the inconvenience, he would credit my account with £8 for being without the Internet for what could be up to five days, but he put an urgency request on it.

The next day, to my surprise, a router and parcel came in the post. The parcel was a bar of chocolate from a local supplier with an apology note from the new broadband company, written by the guy I had spoken with on Twitter. After setting up my new router, the first thing I did was sent a DM to acknowledge that the router had arrived and thank him for the chocolate.

The next day, a second router arrived! I went back on Twitter to announce my routers were breeding. I was sent a free postage bag a few days later to return it and was thanked for telling them as so many kept them.

(I work in a small family cinema on the west coast of Scotland. The afternoon matinee has just finished and it’s a couple of hours before the early evening shows, so I am looking after the box office while the staff go for lunch.)

Kids: “Hi, can we use your phone to call a taxi home?”

Me: “Sorry, this phone is internal only, but if you go next door to the bingo hall, they have some payphones there you can use.”

Kids: “Thanks.”

Me: “No problem.”

(Ten minutes later, an angry man rushes in and stands in front of me.)

Me: “Hi. What can I do for you?”

Angry Man: “Are you the one who threw my kids out onto the street?”

Me: “I haven’t thrown anyone out today. Did they say why they were ejected?”

Angry Man: “Don’t lie to me. They asked if they could use your phone to call for a ride home and you told them to get out. “

Me: “No, that didn’t happen. Two of our younger customers asked to use the box office phone to call a taxi, and I advised them that the phone was internal only and that they could use the payphones in the building next door.”

Angry Man: “Don’t give me that! Why didn’t you let them use that phone?” *points to the internal phone*

Me: “Sir, that phone is internal only; it will only connect to the manager’s office, the concession stand, and the projection room. It can’t get an outside line.”

Angry Man: “That’s bulls***; you should have let them use the office phone.”

Me: “The office is strictly for staff only for security reasons, sir.”

Angry Man: “What do you think the owners of the bingo hall would say if I told them you were sending people into use their phones?”

Me: “I don’t know. ‘Thanks,’ probably, since they are spending money on the payphones there.”

Angry Man: “You should have a payphone for your customers here!”

Me: “We did have a payphone. It used to sit on the counter over there, but it was vandalized twice, and then it was stolen.”

Angry Man: “Then you should have replaced it. It’s a service your customers want and you should give your customers what they want. Are you too stupid to understand how business works?”

Me: “It was costing us more money to keep it working than it took in in revenue. It’s not good business to run at a loss.”

Angry Man: *grabs the magazine that describes upcoming features and features a lot of local ads and begins to flick through it* “I’m going to see if any of my friends advertise in here and tell them not to advertise in such a shoddy business’s publication.”

Me: “Go ahead. The magazine rep was in here the other day gloating about how advertisers were queuing up to get published in there.”

Angry Man: *slams magazine down hard and starts yelling* “THAT’S IT! I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!”

Me: “Actually, sir, I am the manager.”

Angry Man: “WELL, I DEMAND TO SEE SOMEONE HIGHER THAN YOU!”

Me: “Okay, if you go out the doors and turn left, cross the street, and take the third right, you’ll find a church; in there you can talk to a person higher up than me, but I can’t guarantee he’ll answer you.”

Angry Man: “I’M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED! YOU’LL NEVER WORK AGAIN IN YOUR LIFE!

(He attempted to storm out, pushed hard on the door clearly marked “Pull,” and bounced off the door. My loud snigger probably didn’t help his temper. I told the owner about it later. His reply was, “Good for you.”)

(My daughters and I are fans of the show “Red Dwarf” and meeting the cast would be amazing, but times in the 90s are tough for us so conventions are beyond us. One of the actors from the show, Craig Charles, is doing a reading from one of his books in a major book store in our city, so I have the idea of taking the daughter that likes it the most.)

Me: “Hi, Mr. Charles! Could my bairn have your autograph, please?”

(Craig, noticing my daughter is around five years old, asks if she knows who he is.)

Daughter: *quite clearly* “Yeah! Smeghead!”

Craig: “That’s ‘Mister Smeghead, sir’!”

(He signed her book, “Craig Charles, SMEGHEAD!”)