Working in retail, you get many dumb questions, but nothing bothers me more than a guy like this. I work at a large hardware store. A customer called in earlier and wanted some agricultural lime and some mulch put aside for quick pickup.

Five minutes later, he shows up to the store.

Me: “How are you today? Would you like help finding something?”

Customer: “Where the f*** is my stuff?!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what your stuff is.”

Customer: “Really? You all don’t remember me from last year or the year before? I get the same stuff every year!”

Me: “Sir, I’ve only been working here for six months. I wasn’t here at this time last year.”

He eventually tells me what he needs. He has a little bit more shopping to do. One of my coworkers and I rush to get his stuff ready. We have it on a pallet, per his request, sitting on the forklift with the forks up a foot away from his truck waiting for him to pay. For obvious reasons, we can’t load merchandise until it’s been paid for. He comes back outside in a fit of rage.

Customer: “What the f*** is this?”

Me: “It’s your stuff.”

Customer: “Why isn’t it already loaded onto my truck? Where am I going to go with it?”

Internally: “This new place called ‘anywhere.’”

Me: “I don’t know.”

I now have to sit through about two minutes of him cursing and telling me how worthless I am until he asks me to get my manager. As he is completing his transaction, we put the stuff onto his truck. It’s ready for him to go before he’s even done checking out.

He continues to scream at my manager, who has my back because he sees that I’ve done nothing wrong and have, in fact, provided excellent customer service. The guy finally leaves.

Customer: “I’m going to [Competitor] from now on, and I’m going to spread the word about how horrible this store is so that nobody comes here again.”

Me: “Go ahead; it’s right across the street.”

I’m clearly frustrated. This is the first time I have had a customer be so rude for literally no reason. My manager pulls me aside and tells me:

Manager: “These things happen in retail on a regular basis. I’ve survived twenty-two years, mostly at the customer service desk. Do you know how I’ve made it this far?”

Me: “No.”

Manager: “You only have to remember one thing: liars, thieves, cheats, and a**holes all go to Hell. That’s the only way you’ll get through.”

I’ll never quite understand why everyone lives their lives thinking everybody should bow down before them, but ever since then, I have been a lot better at dealing with horrible people, of which there are entirely too many.

I go in and out of the department manager’s office all day every day. However, because I’m part-time, I have not been issued a key, despite working there for over a year.

Today, someone from corporate is visiting the store. I knock on the door and she lets me in.

Corporate Worker: “Welcome to the department manager’s office, serving you since 2007. How can I help you?”

I’m next in line waiting to check out, and the customer in front of me has inserted her card into the card reader and hit a button. She is staring blankly at the screen.

Cashier: “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

Customer: “I think something is wrong with the machine; it doesn’t make any sense.”

The cashier flips the screen around toward her.

Cashier: “Oh, it’s all right, ma’am; you’ve just selected Spanish language. Just enter your PIN and press the green button.”

The woman continues to stare blankly at the machine and then looks up at the cashier with a crestfallen face.

Customer: “I don’t know what my PIN is in Spanish!”

The cashier and I just looked at one another, speechless, as the woman walked away, leaving her entire cart of groceries behind.

Related:
Totally Estupido, Part 10
Totally Estupido, Part 9
Totally Estupido, Part 8

I work in a historic home that was built in the 1770s. I was giving a family a tour of the home and we started in the passage (entry hall). I was describing to them what furnishings would have been in the room. I then pointed to the hanging lamp above their heads that has lights that look like candles; we are not allowed to use real candles for obvious reasons.

The father, a teacher, looked at me and said, “So, they had electricity.” I was waiting for him to laugh or say he was joking, but no, he was quite serious. So, I had to reply to him politely and without making him feel stupid. I simply replied, “No, electricity came a bit later.”

I then pointed out the lamp and told visitors that it would have been candles and not electric lights.

My grandmother falls prey to an Internet scam that results in a recurring charge on her credit card every month for $100. After a few months, she asks my mother and me for help, so we call the credit card company.

Employee #1: “Okay, we have issues like this all the time. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to cancel this card and send you a new one, but I’ll put a security hold on your account so that your new information isn’t forwarded to the scammers. Then, I’ll start the paperwork to see if we can refund the fraudulent charges, and I’ll open an investigation into the scammers. Does that sound good?”

We thank him profusely for his help and even agree to pay extra to have my grandmother’s new card overnighted to her so we can put this mess behind us. But the next month, we see the fraudulent charges again. Because my grandmother has updater services — when she gets a new card, her company automatically sends the information to the companies that she has recurring charges with — we realize that the security block must have failed, so we call again.

Employee #2: “I’m looking at the account, and I see that a new card was issued, but there’s nothing in the file about a security block for these charges, no paperwork started at all about the fraud, and no open investigation.”

Grandmother: “So, what you’re telling me is that your coworker openly lied to me over the phone when he said he was taking care of all that?”

It turns out that was pretty much the case. The second employee was very helpful. She stayed on the line with us while she did each step and confirmed that she’d completed each one as she did. We spoke to her supervisor — who also confirmed that everything had been handled — and told him that she did a great job, but we lodged a very strong complaint about the first employee who’d helped us.