(I work as a customer service representative. Our company manages prescription plans for a government-run insurance primarily for seniors. We also function as a mail-order pharmacy. This call takes place while I’m still in training during my first week taking calls.)

Me: “This is [My Name]; how can I help you?”

Customer: “Yeah. My husband needs to start taking [drug]. I want to know if his plan will cover it.”

Me: “I can certainly check that for you, ma’am. May I have some information?”

(After I verify her husband’s account information, I look up the medication.)

Me: “Okay. Your husband’s insurance will cover that for an approximate cost of [total].”

Customer: “Well, that seems like too much, but he needs it. Can you send it to him, please?”

Me: “Let me see.”

(I check, and we do not have a prescription for it, nor has another pharmacy filed a claim.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. We will need your husband’s doctor to send us a new prescription before we can fill it.”

Customer: “Oh. Well, his doctor won’t write it. You have to stop drinking for six months, and my husband likes to have a beer or two every night, so the doctor won’t write one.”

Me: “I’m sorry. But without a prescription, we cannot send a medication.”

Customer: *getting angry* “But I told you that his doctor won’t write the prescription! Can’t you just send it if we pay full price?”

Me: “Again, ma’am, I’m sorry, but we must have a prescription before we can send the medication.”

Customer: “Well, why can’t you just send it?!”

Me: *rubbing my temples at this point* “Ma’am, that would be illegal.”

Customer: “Where are your tiles for sale?”

Me: “We don’t sell tiles, sir. We’re a bookstore.”

Customer: “The ones you advertised on your sign out front. It says you have tiles for sale. Well, where are they?”

Me: “Sir, I’m afraid I have no idea of what you are speaking about. Again, we are a bookstore.”

Customer: “Well, one of your staff must be selling tiles, as you have it written on your sign.”

Me: “Let me just take a look at the sign, shall I?”

(I go outside and see written on the sign in big, clear letters, “New TITLES for sale,” along with our masthead of “BOOKSTORE.”)

Customer: “So, you don’t have any tiles, then?”

(A church associate has decided for me that she will be driving me to and from an event at another church. It’s a terrifying two-hour drive there as I find out that she’s a terrible driver; the way back is not much better. We are approaching an exit from the motorway that is just five minutes from my house. I do not realise just how inflexible she is until that moment.)

Me: “If you take the next turn to the left, I can give you the directions to my house.”

Associate: “No, I can’t do that. I only know one way to your house and have to use that. If I go this way, I won’t know how to get back to my place.”

Me: “But you would go the same way you always go home from my house; it’s only five minutes to my house from here.”

Associate: *getting upset* “No, no, no! I would be so confused. I have to go the only way I know.”

(She drives past the exit, and I wonder if she’s going to take the next exit, but she also speeds past it. Twenty minutes later, we pull up at her house.)

Associate: “Now I can take you home; I only know the way to your house from my house.”

(Twenty-five minutes later, I was so glad to finally get myself out of that car.)

I am a very experienced, expensive lawyer who has worked in the area of family law for over nineteen years. I am well known in my field, and have acted for people in expensive, protracted disputes.

I say this because the capacity of some clients to think that for “reasons” they know more about family law than I never ceases to amaze me.

My favourite was when a client was determined to take a course of action (involving the commencement of litigation rather than trying to resolve matters by way of a negotiation) which I had no doubt would cost him more in legal costs and result in a less favourable outcome.

Because I’m not an idiot, I advised him against his preferred course of action clearly, and confirmed my advice by way of letter, which he countersigned.

About a year later, the client had spent maybe $30,000.00 more in legal costs than he should have, and received the same, if not worse, outcome than would have occurred in a negotiated outcome.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, he was furious with me, although he knew that my advice had been clear and, because he’d countersigned the letter, he couldn’t deny receiving it.

I asked what on earth I had done wrong. His response will live with me until my dying day:

“YOU SHOULD HAVE WORKED HARDER TO CONVINCE ME.”

Sometimes… I just can’t.

(I work in a call center that handles computer problems for a government agency, their contractors, and their business partners.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Help Desk]. This is [My Name]. How may I assist you?”

(The customer describes the issue, which involves needing to remote in to the computer to see what’s going on exactly. I get the information required and remote in.)

Customer: “It’s not doing it now. I’ve been seeing this issue over and over, and now that you’ve logged in, it’s gone away. What happened?”

(Having seen no issue, I use a figure of speech common to computer techs while half-chuckling.)

Me: “Eh, you probably just weren’t holding your mouth the right way.”

Customer: *pause, then surprise* “Can that really affect it?”

Me: “No, ma’am, it’s a figure of speech meaning that sometimes issues arise, and correct themselves for no obvious reason.”

Customer: “Oh…”