(I am working in a grocery store when I overhear a woman and her two young kids. They’re currently looking at the eggs.)

Customer: “Why are there no organic eggs?”

Customer’s Son: “Mom, can’t we take these?” *holds up a box of regular eggs*

Customer: *looks at the “best before” date* “No, we can’t take these! Just look at how long these stay good. There must be tons of preservatives! “

(I left to go to the back room before laughing. Apparently the customer has never looked at the date on the organic eggs that’s just as long. It’s still a mystery to just how she imagined the preservatives are put on eggs.)

In my mid-twenties I left my hometown — a medium-sized city — to do a four-year university program in a small town an hour and a half away. As is now the norm, my program required high-speed Internet, so I investigated what was available. There weren’t many options for a reasonable price, and I ended up opting for [Unknown Company], which contracted out installation to [Slightly Better Known — but more expensive — Company].

The afternoon before the full day I had to set aside for installation, I had cell phone trouble and wasn’t able to use my phone for a few hours. When I got back the ability to check my messages, I had one from [Unknown Company] “reminding” me — they’d never told me — that I needed to pick up a modem from their office prior to installation. They had already closed for the day when I got the message, so the next morning I was at their office five minutes before they opened, at the exact start of the potential installation window. Unfortunately, the only person working there didn’t show up until twenty minutes after they opened, and by the time I got back to my apartment, the tech had already come and gone. Apparently, they installed my Internet, just without attaching the modem. I tried the modem. It failed. I called the company. They couldn’t find my system. They told me to book off the next day to have a tech come by. I waited around for ten hours and no one showed. I called them. They booked off the next day. I again waited around for ten hours and no one showed.

I showed up at their office again and told the employee there that I was sitting in that d*** waiting room until I got Internet service. I was near tears, frustrated, home sick, and lacking the only connection I had with family and friends — my cell was crap. The employee made calls, but because [Slightly Better Known Company] was the one doing the installation, [Unknown Company] “couldn’t do anything.” Finally she told me that I had been booked for another service day and I gave up. My building superintendent agreed to let the tech in if they showed because I needed to actually go to classes. He mentioned then that he had looked at the splitter that the tech had installed and thought that it looked like it was backwards, but, “What do I know? I know nothing about technology.”

The next day a tech actually called me saying he was on his way, and actually showed up at the door. He took one look at the splitter, turned it around, and the problem was fixed. They did end up giving me a month of free Internet… but I still switched companies as soon as I could afford it.

Related:
When The Internet Is Internot

(The place where I work does balloons as well as flowers. A guy comes up to me.)

Customer: “How much are balloons?”

Me: “They’re [price] each.”

Customer: “All right, can I get some of those?”

Me: “Sure! What colors would you like, and how many?”

Customer: “Uh, can I get… uh… red ones and blue ones?”

Me: “How many?”

Customer: “Yeah, red and blue.”

Me: “So… two red and two blue, or…”

Customer: “Yeah, something like that.”

(I inflate four balloons for Mr. Vague.)

Me: “And do you want a balloon weight for those?”

Customer: “Yeah. I’m gonna put them on the ground, so they need to be—” *gestures vaguely*

Me: “I can make the strings pretty long. That’s no problem.”

Customer: “Well, I’m getting ’em to mark a sign, see, so I guess I’m going to tie them to the sign or something.”

Me: “Oh, right, sure! So you don’t need a balloon weight, then?”

Customer: “Oh. I guess I don’t.”

Me: “Should I put these in a bag for you?”

Customer: “Um… Maybe.”

(It took a lot of willpower not to bang my head on the counter.)

I work in a pharmacy and we have the store divided into sections: Front Store and Pharmacy. When you give us a call, the prompts will tell you to press one number to talk to Pharmacy, and to press another number for general store questions.

I have just finished helping a customer find an item, and my coworker is on break, which means that I’m all alone up front, and that’s when I get a line of customers and the phone starts ringing.

I pick up the phone while one customer is paying and ask if it’s all right if I put them on hold for a moment. The customer yells, “No, you cannot! I’ve been waiting twenty minutes for my prescription and that is unacceptable!”

The woman tries to keep ranting at me, but I firmly interrupt her to tell her that she’s called the front part of the store and that I’ll have to transfer her to the Pharmacy.

Later, I catch one of the Pharmacy techs and apologize for sending the irate customer their way. The tech looks at me and laughs, and tells me that the woman on the phone wasn’t even in our system, and that her friend who dropped off her prescription dropped it off at another pharmacy altogether.

So, not only did that woman reach the wrong part of the store, but also she didn’t even get the right store!

(I arrive at work to find the assistant store manager looking frazzled.)

Manager: “You just missed the police.”

Me: “Why were the police here?”

Manager: “I had a customer call for a manager. He was very upset that an employee wouldn’t call the valet to return his car.”

Me: “We don’t have a valet…”

Manager: “Yup. He refused to believe that because he had given his keys to the valet and they drove away when he got here.”

Me: “Oh… oh, no.”

Manager: “Yeah, hence… police.”