I’m waiting for my wife outside the toilets at a park. The queue for the ladies is quite long and people are getting agitated.

Some random guy asks me if the corridor behind me is for the toilets and I answer, so then some woman in the line somehow takes me for staff. I am not wearing anything like staff clothes.

Woman: “How come he can go in and we have to wait?”

Me: “What?”

Woman: “How come all the men are allowed to go through and we have to wait?”

I realise that she is probably stressed and not thinking straight; it is stupidly hot and it really is bad that there are such few facilities around. I manage to reply:

Me: “Can you even hear yourself? The men are going to the men’s toilet.”

I point to the big signpost right behind me. She seems to stew this one over for a while, and then:

Woman: “Right! That’s it. I’m not waiting anymore. This is just discrimination! Why do we have to wait?!”

I decide not to say anything. I don’t think it is right, but I still don’t want to get into a shouting match. I’m also not going to warn her that the men’s toilets are disgusting. The few cubicles that seem to work look like they have been used solely by barn animals.

She disappears only to reappear moments later.

Woman: “You need to clean those toilets up; they are disgusting.”

My wife finally emerges.

Wife: “You all right, babe?”

Me: “Yeah, fine. Shall we get something to eat?”

Woman: “What? No! Clean those toilets!”

Wife: “Who is she?”

Me: “No idea. Let’s go.”

We left her looking utterly lost, and thankfully, I didn’t see her again.

I worked for a shoe company and in the team that took inbound USA calls. The USA customers were… different. 

A frequent misunderstanding was the Buy one get one free offer. For example, a customer may return their free item for a replacement, one customer did this twice one the same order. Unfortunately, they did not call before returning it and we were out of stock.

Caller: “This is terrible; just issue me a refund!”

Me: “I apologise, as this is a free item, there is no money to refund. We can offer you a different shoe as a replacement, there may be a slight charge.”

Caller: *Now irate.* “I have lost money! This is unacceptable; I want a manager. I have been violated!”

Me: “I can certainly do that, but if I may say you will still be receiving a good discount and the bought pair of shoe had already been discounted as well.”

Hence, several minutes of raging till they begrudgingly paid $12 different for the replacement they wanted.

After she hung up, I had to take a minute to realise during all the crisis the in the world with people dying, someone had the gall to bead over shoes and to actually use the word “violated!”

A customer is trying to get a return.

Coworker: “Can I ask the reason for the return?”

Customer: “The petrol lawnmower won’t start, it isn’t sparking, I’m a gardener by trade I know what I’m talking about, we haven’t even used it or put petrol into it.”

At this point, my coworker goes to get the manager as we aren’t sure about the policy for returning a petrol lawnmower.

Manager: “So it isn’t sparking.”

My manager proceeds to open the sealed box to get said lawnmower out, only for us to smell petrol.

Customer: “I did empty all the petrol out, but I didn’t want to flip it over and cause more damage just in case you blame me for that.”

The customer states again that he is a gardener and that he knows what he is talking about. I step in as my coworker is getting flustered.

Me: “If it isn’t sparking it’s a sparkplug issue.”

Customer: “No it just won’t start at all, I’ve not even used it.”

Manager: “I’m not sure if we can do a return because there is still petrol in the tank.”

Customer: “But I emptied it there should be nothing in there.”

Indeed there was a ton of petrol that me, my manager and two other coworkers had to drain out. It got all over the floor and stank the shop out, the customer got his refund and a brand-new petrol lawnmower

We tried to point out that he may want to watch the instructional video that the box has a QR code for – that way there are no problems. Turns out he had overfilled the petrol tank and flooded it.

About ten years ago, I worked at a bookshop. There was going to be a changeover with the website, so I created a very simple placeholder webpage that listed the contact details for the store. I double-checked all the contact details and, satisfied it was correct, put the page online.

The next day, I received a call while at home.

Me: *Answering on autopilot* “Hello, [Bookshop]. How can I help you?”

As I spoke, I realised what I had done and readied myself for an explanation.

Caller: “Ah, yes, hello. Can you tell me if you have [Book] in stock?”

Me: “Uh… of course! However, can you please call this number, instead?” *Gives the actual store number* “I’m afraid the number on the website isn’t for the shop front.”

Caller: *Slightly confused* “Okay… Thanks!”

After the call ended, I immediately contacted my colleague, who managed to update the site. Somehow, in checking the contact details, I hadn’t noticed that I’d entered my personal address and landline instead of the bookshop’s! In fairness, however, they were on the same road and shared an area code.

Thankfully, there were no other calls to my home number… and I never answered the phone in the same way again!

I used to work in a managed office space building. We had a communal conference room where I handled the bookings. The rule of thumb was that I would receive the booking by email, and I would either confirm or decline the booking. This also ensured that I had seen and received their email.

One day, one of the tenants from the office came down to my office.

Tenant: “Oh, we have the meeting room booked today.”

Me: “Um, no, another tenant has it booked for the entire day today.”

Tenant: “But I sent an email to reserve it.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I didn’t receive an email from you about that booking. As I’ve said before, the general rule is that you send an email to reserve and I send one back either declining or accepting the booking. On this occasion, I guess you didn’t receive a decline or confirmation as I hadn’t received the email.”

The tenant disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared with a printed copy of the email they’d sent me.

Tenant: “Here! This is the email I sent you!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I did not receive this email!”

Tenant: “Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t receive it?”

Me: “Would you like to walk away for a few minutes and think about what you’ve just asked me?”