The guest books a room with two king beds. He checks in. Goes to the room. Comes back angry because the room has only two king beds.

Guest: “But we are five.”

Me: “Yes, sir, the room allows up to five people in it, but as the description says, it has only two king beds.”

Guest: “But we are five.”

Me: “Yes, sir. Some people bring inflatable mattresses, some sleep three in a king bed, or we can also rent you a folding bed for [price per night].”

Guest: “This is infuriating! I pay [price] a night! There should be more beds!”

Me: “So do you want the folding bed? It’s going to be [price] with the tax.”

Guest: “Can’t we make a deal? I pay [lower price] a night!”

Me: “I have to follow the policy, sir; if not, my boss isn’t happy.”

Guest: *Grumbles.* “I pay [price] a night! Unbelievable!” *Grumbling continues.*

I go to get him his folding bed and bring it to the room. He opens it, still infuriated, and doesn’t say anything.

Me: *Rolling it in.* “Have a nice day, sir.”

I hear him grumble while I close the door.

Guest: “I pay [price] a night! Unbelievable!”

Unbelievable situation indeed, that what is in the room corresponds exactly to the description of the room.

When I used to work in the call center of a phone company back when everyone had landlines, and only rich people had cellphones, I was talking to one angry guy:

Caller: “Why are you still charging me?!”

Me: “For your phone service?”

Caller: “Yeah!”

Me: “Because we’re still providing it. You still have an active number.”

Caller: “No, I don’t! I unplugged my phone from the wall a month ago!”

Customer: “Do you have a list of ingredients for your oranges?”

Me: “They’re just oranges.”

Customer: “Yes, but are they free of chemicals?”

Me: “The organic ones are pesticide-free.”

Customer: “Yes… but are they free… of chemicals?”

Me: “What do you mean by chemicals?”

Customer: “Well, I was at Trader Joe’s last week, and I saw that their oranges had ascorbic acid in them, and I don’t want any of that in my body!”

Me: “Ascorbic acid is the chemical name for vitamin C.”

Customer: *Ignoring me.* “So anyway, I want only things without chemicals! No chemicals are ever going to go into my body!”

I told her the organic fruits are free of “harmful chemicals” and that seemed to do the trick, which is good because I’d hate to have to start selling items that are not made up of atoms, as sourcing those would be really tough…

Customer: *Handing over a bank card.* “I want to withdraw $1,000.”

Me: “Can I see some ID, please?”

Customer: “I’m a VIP member of the bank; don’t you know who I am?!”

Me: “No, sir, and even if I did, I would still need to see ID for a withdrawal.”

Customer: “I am [Full Name]! You should all recognize me by now based on how much business I do with the bank! Don’t you know how much money I have in here?!”

Me: “How happy would you be if any of that money could be withdrawn by someone who picked up your bank card if you lost it or got your wallet stolen?”

Customer: “It’s still very inconvenient! You should have morning briefings with all the workers here and go over who your VIPs are so you can recognize us on sight!”

Me: “[Bank] currently has over 100,000 customers in the VIP scheme. How long would that meeting be?”

Customer: “100,000? Preposterous! That can’t be right! There should only be like a few dozen of us at most!”

He did eventually show me his ID and make his withdrawal. Meanwhile, I’m laughing at the idea that this guy thinks that because he pays fifty bucks a year for a special VIP account, we’re going to memorize his face and name, and that only a “few dozen” people in the country can afford said fifty bucks a year…

A guy reserved a room for two weeks. He had the do-not-disturb sign on the door the whole stay (pretty common for longer stays). A couple of weeks later, I got a call from the guest, absolutely furious.

Guest: “You charged me for a two-week stay when I only stayed at your hotel for two days!”

Me: “Do you remember who you spoke to at checkout?”

I’m thinking maybe one of our employees made a mistake and just didn’t properly check him out of the system for some reason.

Guest: “No one!”

Me: “You didn’t check out?”

Guest: “No, I just left.”

Me: “If you have a room reserved for a length of time and leave earlier than you had registered for, then you actually have to let the staff know.”

Guest: “You should have known I had left! The room was empty!”

Me: “I recall you had a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door, but even if that hadn’t been on there, we are still not just going to guess that a guest checked out and rent their room to another person.”

He tried filing a chargeback for the remainder of the stay but did not get his money refunded. As this was midsummer, we were turning people away daily due to being sold out, and that room sat empty because he expected us to psychically know that he left.