(I work in a mainstream pizza chain. I have already dealt with one person who flat-out lied and got caught trying to get free food. My policy is that if you want it replaced, you bring it back.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Pizza Place]. Could I interest you in [current special]?”

Caller: “No, I need to speak to the manager.”

Me: “Speaking.”

Caller: “I was in there like ten or fifteen minutes ago and my pizzas are soggy. I come in there all the time.”

(I don’t recognize her voice or name at all.)

Me: “I’m sorry about that. If you bring them back, we would be more than happy to replace them for you.”

Caller: “I have to bring them back? I could just bring one and show you.”

Me: “No, you have to bring all three if you want all three replaced.”

Caller: “So, I have to put my four kids in the car and bring all three back?”

Me: “Well, were you just going to bring one and leave your kids home alone with the other two?”

Caller: “I used to work there. I know the f****** policy. I don’t have to bring it back. And you aren’t taking it. You can’t take food back over the counter.”

(I get her name. She’s never worked for me and she didn’t work for the manager before me. Honestly, I’m quite concerned that she’s cursing in front of her kids that I can hear in the background.)

Me: “Well, that’s nice, but you aren’t getting anything without bringing the product back, because the policy on replacements is manager specific and it’s been this way for almost a year now. And now you’re going to bring in your ID to verify who you are, because I just got off the phone with someone trying to scam food.”

Caller: “Well, if I bring it back, then I get new f****** pizzas and you aren’t f****** taking the old ones. I could just put those in the oven and crisp them up.”

Me: “Fine, but you’re still bringing all three back and bringing your ID in.”

(She hung up. I don’t know if she just wanted me to bend to her will or what. The replacement policy is done to lower the number of scammers, which it does. I told my co-manager to keep an eye out for the crazy lady with the soggy pizzas and four kids. She still hasn’t shown up.)

(My store has recently had to crack down on theft. Deworming medicine, flea medicine, and bark collars are frequently stolen and then returned. The district manager has told us to refuse all returns of those products without an original receipt. Furthermore, if someone returns the product with their receipt, we are supposed to mark on the receipt that the item was returned. One evening, I get paged to the front. The customer has deworming medicine and calming medicine, about $80 worth of product.)

Cashier: “She wants to return these items. I tried looking up her transaction with two different account numbers she gave me, and neither of them pulled up anything.”

Me: *to customer* “We can still look up the transaction by date. Do you know when you purchased them?”

Customer: “No, but I have my receipt!”

(She hands me the receipt. I look over it and see that the transaction was almost two months ago, and it happened at a store about forty minutes away. However, what really stands out is the large, BURNT hole in the middle, right where the scanned items are listed. I can see pen marks at the edges of the hole where a cashier previously crossed off the items.)

Me: “I’m afraid I can’t accept this receipt because there are pen marks where a cashier crossed them off. These items have already been returned.”

Customer: “What? No, they haven’t! Where do you see that? My receipt got burned by a cigarette!”

Me: *holds out the receipt and points at the pen marks* “See? Someone crossed these items off with a pen, which means they’ve already been returned.”

Customer: “That was my kid playing with a crayon! This is ridiculous! What is your name? I want your store number and your district manager’s name! I’m going to call him and get you in big trouble!”

Me: “Uh-huh.”

Customer: “Write all that information down! I’m a retail manager, so I know how returns are supposed to work! You are not doing your job correctly!”

Me: “Okay.”

Customer: “I’m going to call [Newspaper] and get you arrested! I’m a retail manager!“

(She stormed out. Amazingly, I did not get arrested.)

My district manager has pushed “the customer is always right” for years now, so we managers are expected to do everything possible to keep a sale. We match competitor prices, we change the price if a customer argues that it rang up wrong, and we accept coupons even if they don’t apply to the purchase. Recently, the company has resumed its survey features, so a customer can fill out a survey about our store through the link sent to their email. The district manager reminds us again to do everything possible to keep a customer happy so we don’t get bad reviews.

About five minutes before closing one night, while I’m in the middle of shutting down a register, my cashier pages me to override a coupon that isn’t scanning. When I arrive, the customer shows me his phone, where there’s a barcode for $5 off a bag of [Brand] cat food. I recognize the coupon from earlier that day from when someone else tried to use the same coupon for [Slightly Different Brand] cat food. I assume that we have the same problem and start to explain it while I override the coupon, “The reason it’s not working is that it’s for [Slightly Different Brand], but I’ll go ahead and take care of that for you!”

The cashier gives me a funny look and points out that the food the customer is buying actually is the correct brand, and I didn’t look closely enough at the bag. I admit my mistake: “Oh, whoops. In that case, I’m not sure why the coupon isn’t working. But as I said, I went ahead and took care of it.”

Two days later, we get a negative survey from the customer, who is upset that I “didn’t care enough” about his coupon not scanning correctly, even though I overrode it and took $5 off his purchase anyway. I guess you can’t please some people!

(I have a demolition business, and I get the following call.)

Me: “Hello, this is [Business].”

Customer: “I see you do demolition and I was wondering how it worked.”

Me: “What do you have that needs to be demolished?”

Customer: “A mobile home.”

Me: “Well, we come out and take a look at it, and then let you know how much it would be to do the work and haul off the debris. If you want to proceed with the work, then we would do it.”

Customer: “What, you mean I would have to pay you to get rid of it for me?”

Me: “Yes, that is our business. We do the work for money.”

Customer: “Well, I’m not going to pay to get it done when I can just give it to someone and they can tear it down for free.”

Me: “We are a business that gets paid for our services, but good luck with your project and thanks for calling.”

Customer: “Yeah, not going to pay you to do it, so thanks for nothing.” *click*

(Just wondering why he was calling a professional business in the first place when he had no intention of paying.)

When I was about three, my aunt and her then-boyfriend had just started dating. He was a notorious litterer and was always dropping garbage everywhere. My aunt would get onto him about it, but he wouldn’t stop.

One day, they took me to a local aquarium which I went to a lot, to give my parents a break.

This aquarium had what we called the Trash Tank in the lobby — basically a bunch of tires, plastic, and assorted garbage in an empty tank that simulated a river to tell people not to throw trash in the local river.

For some reason, tiny me was obsessed with this tank, and I would always spend as long as I could, playing I Spy, looking for weird things, etc.

When we passed the tank, I ran to it and began pointing out things in it and talking about not “being a litterbug” and always throwing your trash away. My aunt’s boyfriend was looking around awkwardly.

My aunt later told me that my now-uncle suddenly stopped littering after that day. I wonder why…