(A customer comes up to the customer service desk.)

Customer: “I need to make a complaint about that woman!” *points to colleague*

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help?”

Customer: “She was very abusive to me. She completely ignored me when I asked for help. Then she got right in my face, like this—“ *literally pushes her face into mine* “—and screamed that I was fat!”

Me: “Oh, my.”

Customer: “Yes, and I’ve fought anorexia for years! It’s very upsetting and I will need counselling that your company must pay for.”

Me: “I can certainly understand if she ignored you, but I sincerely doubt she shouted at you or called you fat.”

Customer: “Well, that is what she did! I demand retribution!”

(I call the colleague over with my pager and we have a conversation using sign language. The woman stares at us dumbfounded.)

Me: “My colleague says she has never seen you before.”

Customer: “But, you didn’t even speak to her. You just stood there making funny gestures!”

Me: *internally* “Really? You’ve never seen sign language?” *out loud* “She’s deaf, madam. She is incapable of speaking, which is why I know she didn’t call you fat.”

Customer: “Well… she… YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DEAF PEOPLE WORKING WHEN I NEED HELP!”

Me: “It’s two am and we are night staff. It’s rare any customer bothers to speak to us.”

(The customer shakes her head as though I’m speaking in riddles. She starts to leave before running back to me.)

Customer: “IF SHE’S DEAF, HOW DID YOU CALL HER? I HEARD HER PAGER, YOU LYING COW!”

(She turns to my colleague and screams — just screams, no words — in her face. My colleague just backs away and gestures that her breath stinks.)

Me: “Pagers vibrate. Now, get out before I call the police!”

(The customer became very aggressive and started assaulting one of the theft detectors at the entrance. By the time police arrived, two of the burly stockroom attendants had subdued her outside. It was here we learned that she had an anti-social behaviour order against her, which meant she wasn’t allowed to be outside during nighttime hours. She was swiftly arrested.)

(I work in a tyre shop just off the main shopping street in a small holiday town. The town has a similar name to several other similarly-sized towns in the UK. One Saturday morning I take this phone call:)

Customer: “Hi, I’ve got a puncture; are you close to the high street?”

Me: “Yes, we’re about fifty metres off it. Turn down the side of the old, blue chapel and you’ll see us on your right.”

Customer: “Okay, I’m parked in the high street and I can’t see a chapel. I’m by the white tower.”

Me: *thinking he must mean our lighthouse, which is actually a little way out of town* “Okay, you need to head south, then at the roundabout take the third exit, and then turn right when you’ve passed the supermarket.”

Customer: *angrily* “WHAT? No! I’m in the high street now, I can see the white tower. Where are you?”

Me: “We’re about a mile from the lighthouse tower.”

Customer: “NO! NOT A LIGHTHOUSE, THE WHITE TOWER!”

Me: “Sir, I don’t know any white tower other than the lighthouse.”

Customer: “THE BIG WHITE TOWER IN THE HIGH STREET!”

Me: “I’ve lived here all my life and there is no white tower on the high street.”

Customer: “There’s a clock at the top of it! I passed a pub called The Star! THE WHITE TOWER!”

Me: *catches on, and hits Google* “Sir, you’ve phoned a company in Burnham on Sea, Somerset; you appear to be in Burnham on Crouch in Essex, 220 miles away…”

Customer: *hangs up*

(Still, he’s not the only one to have made the mistake. Our local paper printed a photo of the post office in the “wrong” Burnham recently!)

Customer: “How much is your hot chocolate?”

Me: *moving boxes* “It’s on the sign in front of you.”

(She looks at it while I put the boxes down. When I get to the register…)

Woman: “So how much is a hot chocolate?”

Me: *giving up* “Which size?”

Woman: *blank stare*

Me: “There’s small, medium, and large.”

Woman: “Umm, a small, I guess.”

(I make her hot chocolate and she pays.)

Woman: *as if noticing the sign for the first time* “Oh, it’s all right here. You really should tell customers about it. Saves you breathing on us.” *leaves*

Customer: “I found these yesterday and they were half off. I hid them in the Men’s department, but someone moved them. I had to go looking for them again, and the price is now different.”

Me: “Yes, the sale ended yesterday, and any clothes found to be in another department is moved when we tidy the store every night.”

Customer: “Well, that’s just ridiculous. I want them for half price, as they said yesterday!”

Me: “But the sale ended yesterday. They’re full price again.”

Customer: “Well, make them half price. It doesn’t take an idiot to do that!”

Me: “I’m afraid I don’t have the administrative powers to do that.”

Customer: “Then get me a manager, you idiot!”

(I call one down and she explains the situation to him.)

Manager: “The sale ended yesterday. You either pay the price they are now or leave them.”

Customer: “But I wanted them yesterday. You should honour the price they were when I wanted them.”

Manager: “Why didn’t you buy them yesterday?”

Customer: “Because I’m buying them today!”

Manager: “Then you will be paying full price.”

Customer: “Well… you… you should make it obvious when sales are going to stop.”

Manager: “We make announcements all day for end of sales, and there are signs throughout the entire store. If you didn’t realise from that I cannot help you.”

(The manager walks away, ending any chance of her getting the price reduced. She folds her arms and harrumphs. I ask if she still wants them, but she doesn’t answer and just glares at me. I take it as a no and leave her. She stands there for nearly an hour, blocking mostly people using wheelchairs from using the aisle as they leave. My manager refuses to move her as he finds it hilarious how childish she is acting. As I’m on my way out for lunch she finally moves again.)

Woman: *throwing her arms up* “YOU’RE ALL MISOGYNISTS!”

(She storms up to me.)

Woman: “Except for you, dear. You’re just a blonde r******d bimbo.”

(She spat on the sliding doors as she left. Throughout the rest of the day, we got constant calls from someone who hung up the second we answered. We got in touch with the police who eventually found out it was the same woman, trying to harass us. We have her CCTV picture posted on the wall now as you come into the store. She tries to come in every other week, but when she sees she is still up on the wall, she harrumphs and storms out.)

(I have recurring nosebleeds. I’m at school when I get my first one this year, and I ask to go down to the nurse’s office. The nurse isn’t there, so I just wait around with a tissue under my nose to catch any leakage. After ten minutes, a nurse comes in. I have never seen her before.)

Nurse: “Look at all the mess you’re making! Didn’t your mother ever teach you manners?”

Me: “I have a nosebleed. I can’t exactly stop it. All the blood is in the tissue, anyway.”

(She huffs and leaves the room. A few minutes later, she comes back with a plaster and attaches it to my nose — as in, over the nostrils — pushing so hard it makes the bleeding worse. I protest, but she leaves the room again. I yank the plaster off and some of the blood drips onto the floor. I’m in too bad a mood to clean it up. She comes back in.)

Nurse: “You messy boy! Look at all the blood on the floor!”

Me: “It’s one drop. I’ll clean it up before I go.”

Nurse: “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d kept the plaster on!”

(I swear at her — admittedly, this was wrong — and she storms out, returning with my tutor.)

Tutor: “[My Name], I hear you’ve been swearing at [Nurse]. You know our policy on this kind of behaviour.”

Me: “I’ll be more than happy to apologise, after she apologises for insulting me and acting like my nosebleed has been a personal grievance to her. She even stuck a plaster on my nose!”

Tutor: “[My Name]! You will apologise this instant, and I’m giving you a detention tomorrow. This is unacceptable behaviour. [Nurse] is the best nurse we’ve ever had!”

(I look between him and the nurse, who is looking triumphantly smug.)

Me: “That isn’t something you should be proud of.”

(I ended up with a week’s worth of detentions or that, but I refused to go — which my parents agreed with after I told them. The last straw was when they sent a letter home saying I had been suspended. My mum went down to the school to speak with the head teacher and the nurse. Apparently, she had only been in the building a couple of minutes when the nurse ran out in tears. The school retracted the suspension, but my parents moved me to a better school equipped with more competent staff.)