I’ve been helping a woman shop for gifts for her daughter. She finds them cheaper on our website, but I’m unable to price-match due to stupid corporate rules. The woman buys three items and orders the other three online. After I ring her up for her three, she looks at me expectantly.

Customer: “So, now that I’ve bought these online, do I just pick them up now or…?” 

Me: “Well, you ordered them online so they’ll be shipped to the store in a few days.” 

Customer: “WHAT?! BUT I NEED THEM TODAY!” 

I’m staring in disbelief, not sure what she thought was going to happen. 

Me: “I apologize for the confusion, but you did order them online to get the sale price, so you’ll have to wait for them to come in, or you can buy them full price now and we can refund the difference when your order arrives.” 

Customer: “No, no, that won’t work for me. You will return and refund all of this right this instant.” 

I manage to keep my cool, despite her comments that we’re a scam and don’t know what good customer service means. I refund the three items she bought and she leaves, knocking over a display as she goes. 

Next Customer: “Jesus Christ, what a moron!”

One night, around midnight, I realized that I’d left a book in my truck, so I headed out to retrieve it. As I stepped out the door, I spotted someone trying to wiggle out from under my truck in my driveway. At first, I thought it was a dog or something, but then he shifted into the light enough for me to realize it was a man. I shouted, and he managed to wiggle his way out and try to run off, only to trip and slam face-first into the short brick wall that borders our yard. He managed to stagger up and vault the wall, running off, but he obviously broke his nose or something, given the blood splatter that was left on the wall where he hit.

I checked under my truck and quickly worked out he’d been trying to cut off the catalytic converter, leaving some damage to the exhaust. I managed to get that patched up, shuffled some things around so I had enough space to actually pull my truck into the garage, and felt that would be the end of it. I made a report to the police and moved on.

But then, around three days after it happened, a brick got thrown through my front window with a note tied to it, telling me that I would be in “big legal problems” if I didn’t pay for the “medical damages” I’d caused, and listing a PO box that I was supposed to send a check to.

Naturally, I did not do that. Instead, I called the police and provided them with the note as well as my suspicions about what it was regarding. And, it turns out, that was enough of a lead for them to track the guy down. They got me to come in to identify him, and he was apparently linked to several other thefts and break-ins in the area. So, off he went to jail.

But wait, it doesn’t stop there. About a month after all of this happened, I came out to find a paper taped to my front door. On it was a picture of a sad-looking kid and the sentence, “I hope u proudlee like that u make child cry for papa.” It took me a second to figure out what the h*** this was talking about, but once it clicked, I took a pen and wrote, “Very, very proudly,” on the bottom of the paper, and then left it taped on the outside of the brick wall, right about the point where the would-be thief broke his nose.

The paper was gone within a couple of days. I don’t know if one of the neighbors saw it and took it down, but I like to think that whoever posted it came by and got to see that I wasn’t shedding any tears that her “baby daddy” or whatever was in jail.

I work for a small company that services industrial laser cutting machines. Since there are only a handful of us service engineers, most of our clients’ employees know all of us. They also know that I’m the least experienced one by far, having joined the company less than two years ago.

One day, I come to service a client complaining that his machine is suddenly cutting very poorly.

Me: “Good morning. What seems to be the issue?”

The client’s employee, who’s the one usually operating the machine, responds.

Employee: “All was fine until yesterday evening, and then it suddenly started cutting like crap. One of the mirrors must have cracked.”

Older laser cutting machines use moving mirrors to deliver the laser beam to the cutting point, and those do occasionally crack due to overheating.

Me: “This may very well be the case, but I need to do some testing first to see what’s going on.”

Employee: “You’re wasting your time. We’re behind schedule already because of this breakdown. Just check the mirrors.”

I ignore him and do my tests. True to his word, the cutting is, indeed, of unacceptably poor quality, but not evenly so across the cutting area, which suggests an entirely different problem.

Me: “It seems that your mirrors somehow got misaligned, not that one of them cracked.”

Employee: “But you didn’t even open the casings to look at them! And why would the mirrors move? Do you know what you’re doing?”

Me: “I’m not going to open the casings, expose the mirrors to dust, and then spend a couple of hours cleaning them if that’s not the issue. Please, let me do my job.”

The employee leaves for a break while I realign the mirrors. He comes back when I’m just about finished.

Employee: “Are you still with that crap? Why don’t you look at the mirrors already?”

Me: “Just finished. Now, time to verify that the alignment is correct. Please load up any of your programs and try cutting.”

Muttering that I don’t know what I’m doing, he does as I ask. The machine cuts perfectly.

Employee: “Well, I’ll be d***ed. But why would the mirrors move?”

Me: “I don’t know. Did anyone hit them by accident?”

Employee: “Not that I know of. What do you think we are, a bunch of apes? We take care of our machines.”

I’m about to leave it at that and write off the reason for the alignment issue as unknown, but then I decide to have a closer look. I’m glad that I did because I notice that the whole laser generator, which weighs over a ton, is not exactly where it used to be judging by the marks on the dirty floor and the bent bolts that hold it in place. Lightbulb moment.

Me: “[Employee], did anyone, by any chance, drive a forklift into the generator just prior to when you started having issues?”

Employee: *Sheepishly* “Um, yeah. Something like that may have happened yesterday.”

Cue me banging my head on the wall. Thankfully, the manager didn’t write off my conclusions as “inexperience” and agreed to install a barrier to prevent this from happening again.

I’m being trained as a cashier. An older woman comes up and puts her things on the cart.

Customer: “I have a gift card.“

Me: “All right, you can use that first, and then your regular card.“

Customer: “I hope you get this right. The last girl messed up my order, and I was so embarrassed!“

Me: “Oh, hope I don’t do that.“

I ring up her order while my supervisor helps her with a separate purchase she wants to make.

Me: “Which card do you want to use?“

Customer: “That’s up to you.“

Me: *Confused* “Uh, actually, that’s up to you.“

She puts her card in and groans. She put in her regular card first.

Customer: “Oh, no! You messed it up! You people never get this right!“

Me: “That… wasn’t your gift card?“

Customer: *To my supervisor* “You need to train her better! This happens every time! I’m never coming back again!“

While customer service smoothed it out, I was just wondering how the heck this was my fault. She knew which card was which, but she didn’t know to put in the gift card first? Some people have no sense of personal responsibility.

Related:
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 21
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 20
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 19
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 18
The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving, Part 17

My friend is a police officer. He and his partner are driving behind a car that isn’t doing much to attract their attention, but their onboard computer tells them that the owner’s driving licence has been suspended for multiple DUI offences.

They pull the car over for a licence check, and the young man driving explains that it is his mother’s car and she allows him to use it. That’s no problem, but just to make sure, they ask for his licence as identification.

The Provisional Licence — one step up from a Learner’s Permit — he only had for three months has been cancelled for many unpaid speeding fines.

Police Officer: “Since you are driving without a valid licence, we are impounding the vehicle.”

Young Man: “Do you have to? I need to take the car home so that my mother will have it to go to work tomorrow.”

Police Officer: *Stunned* “You want me to let you drive home tonight, without a licence, so that your mother can drive to work tomorrow, also without a licence?”

The young man apparently doesn’t see any problem with this.

Young Man: “Yes, that would be very good of you. It would save me getting told off by my mom and she wouldn’t stop me borrowing the car.”

The officer turns to his partner, who is trying to stifle a laugh.

Police Officer: “It’s not funny!”

Trying not to laugh himself, he shakes his head and turns to the young man.

Police Officer: “I think we had better take you into the station and have a long talk with you and your mother when she comes to get you.”