(Note: The women’s bathroom in our store has a large handicapped stall which also holds an eight-foot-tall locked wooden storage cabinet for supplies. )
Coworker: “Thanks for calling [Coffee Place]. How can I help you?”
Customer: “Hi, is this [Coffee Place]?”
Coworker: “Yes, it is. How can I help you?”
Customer: “This is the [Coffee Place] in [Public Square]?”
Coworker: “Yes, it is.”
Customer: “The one with the bathroom?”
Coworker: “Uh… yes?”
Customer: “Oh, well, I’m calling from the women’s room. The door is locked and I can’t get out.”
Coworker: “Well, if you turn the handle of the door and pull it should open.”
Customer: “There is no handle! I’m locked in!”
Coworker: “Okay, I’ll have someone over in a moment.”
Coworker: *to me* “Ummm… so some lady locked herself in the bathroom and can’t get out.”
Me: “Seriously?”
(I head over to the bathroom, letting myself in with the spare keys. There is, in fact, a woman in the large stall, yelling for help.)
Me: “Can I help you, ma’am?”
Customer: “Well, your stupid door locked me into the stall and now I’m stuck in here! ”
(I can hear her fumbling with something, but it isn’t the stall door latch.)
Me: “Okay. Well, if you’ll just come over to the stall door, turning the knob should open it.”
Customer: “There is nothing to turn! The door only has a handle!”
Me: “It does. I’m standing on the other side of it.”
Customer: “Well, then why don’t YOU open it! You’ve already kept me locked in here for a half hour!”
(I fiddle with the lock and manage to open it from the outside after a moment, only to see the woman prying at the supply cabinet door.)
Customer: “Oh, I came in this door. I thought that one…” *points to supply cabinet* “… led to the men’s room.”
(Without another word, she walks out of the bathroom and out of the store.)
Coworker: “Maybe she was trying to get to Narnia?”
This story is part of the Totally Unobservant Customers roundup!
Me: “Sir, we have a lot of customers on a daily basis. I can’t go on that alone…”
Caller: “I dropped it off this morning!”
Me: “Sir, lots of people dropped their cars off this morning. You need to tell me more. The license plate number, or what you dropped it off for, for example?”
Caller: “It’s the car that I dropped off this morning!”
This story is part of the Auto-Shop roundup! This is the last story in the roundup, but we have plenty of others you might enjoy!
Customer: “Hey, I’m booked to get the train tomorrow at 0800 to Manchester. Can you tell me if the train will be on time?”
Me: “Good morning. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to predict if it will be on time, but this one is fairly reliable.”
Customer: “How come you can’t just tell me if it’s going to be on time?
Me: “Well, there’s any number of things that could go wrong on the day that I couldn’t predict. For example flooding, the train breaking down, maybe even a sick dri–”
Customer: “Oh, my god! All those things are going to be wrong with the train?”
Me: “No, I’m sure not all that will happen at once. Those are just examples.”
Customer: “So it’s on time, then?”
Me: *Giving up* “Yes, it’ll be on time.”
Customer: “Great, why didn’t you just say that?”
(Sure enough the next day the whole mainline was brought to a standstill by a lorry hitting a rail bridge.)
Customer: “YOU SAID IT WOULD BE ON TIME! NOW I’M GOING TO BE F****** LATE!”
Me: “Sorry, sir, but I doubt I would have been able to predict that! There will be a bus coming to take you to a different station where you can–”
Customer:*rants abusively*
Manager: “Look, would you just piss off? We are not omniscient! Next time you need to book a train, book it somewhere else!”
(Before a performance of Spamalot, I was watching a young attendant walking up and down the aisle selling spam sandwiches the way other plays would sell ice cream.)
Sandwich Seller: “Spam sandwiches! Anyone care for a spam sandwich? Would anyone like to buy a spam sandwich?”
