A customer brings back in a cat scratcher that is completely destroyed.

Customer: “I would like to return this, please.”

Me: “Ah, did it come that way? Do you have your receipt?”

Customer: “No, I don’t. My cat tore this all up; I’d like another one.”

Me: “Was it defective in any way?”

Customer: “Well, my cat tore it up.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not able to return this.”

Customer: “But it didn’t work. Look at it!”

Me: “But it’s a cat scratcher. It seems as though the product worked as intended.”

I work as a teller for a major bank. I am one of only two tellers on this particular day, and when there are no customers in line, I take the opportunity to use the restroom. I’m gone no more than three minutes. There is one man in line when I get back.

Me: “I’d be happy to help you here, sir.”

Customer: “Do I get a free coffee card for having to wait so long?”

Me: “I’m sorry but we don’t have coffee.”

Customer: “I don’t want coffee; I want a coffee card for having to wait so long.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have any coffee cards. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I’d like to make a deposit.”

The customer proceeds to pull out several envelopes with cash and checks in them. He has not filled out a deposit slip and does not know how much his deposit will be for. I begin to count the cash and prepare the deposit. In the meantime, the line is growing.

Customer: “You know, [Competitor] serves coffee, hot chocolate, and tea. They have couches, too. It’s so relaxing when I go there. Sometimes I go there just to relax and don’t even do my banking.”

Me: “That’s nice.”

Customer: “Where do you bank?”

Me: “Here.”

Customer: “What? They don’t allow you to bank wherever you want?!”

Me: “Sir, I am allowed to bank wherever I please.”

Customer: “Well, you should bank with [Competitor]. I never had to wait so long to be helped there. And they have coffee.”

By this time, I’ve completed his deposit and a good five minutes have passed since he came to my window. There are now at least seven or eight people in line behind him at this point.

Me: “Have a nice day.”

I drive a truck and deliver feed to dairies and feedlots. One night, I am pulling into a dairy that I have delivered to dozens of times, usually in the middle of the night, and where I rarely ever see anyone.

As I am pulling in, I see an old truck parked in front of the bin for the feed I have on. I line up and back to about twenty feet from the truck and get out. As I walk up to the very old pickup, someone gets out. It is an ancient woman that is weather-beaten and hard-crusted with a voice that would scare the devil.

She tells me that there was a mixup and I am supposed to deliver to a dairy about a mile down the road. I check my dispatch papers and there is nothing about this. I explain that without an order from my dispatch I can do no such thing. I politely ask her to move her truck so I can finish this job and go to sleep. She refuses.

I call my dispatcher. They sometimes answer late, but they don’t this time. Then, I call the dairy even though I know they won’t answer.

After arguing with her for almost an hour, I tell her goodnight and go to my truck and start to go to bed. She starts banging on the truck and obviously isn’t going to let me sleep.

After ignoring her for a while, I call her over and discuss the situation. I let her talk me into delivering to this other place but tell her I have never been here before and I am afraid to drive around looking for it. She assures me she will show me and that I can follow, and I agree. She gets in her truck and pulls over by the exit, and I put my truck in reverse and back into the bin, get out, and start unloading. 

She drives up so fast I think she might run me over, then jumps out and starts screaming and hollering. Then, she starts hitting me. I grab her arms and tell her to stop or I am going to call the sheriff.

That seems to take the wind out of her sails and she leaves.

After I call in the next day, we find out she was trying to get me to deliver her neighbors feed to her small dairy down the road and had actually gotten away with it in the past.

Related:
Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary, Part 2
Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary

I work in a fast-paced local restaurant and we are extremely busy. There is a line so long that it’s waiting out the door and I’m the only one at the front counter to assist all customers.

Me: “What can I get started for you?”

Customer: “Yeah, can I get a chocolate shake but without the chocolate?”

Me: “So, you mean you want a vanilla shake?”

She begins giving me a glare like I never went to school and must be the stupidest person alive.

Customer: “Are you f****** deaf?”

Me: “Nope. I heard you say you wanted a chocolate shake without the chocolate; that’s a vanilla shake since that’s the base of the milkshake.”

Customer: “So you are deaf. I said I wanted a chocolate shake without the chocolate! Did you hear me this time?! This is exactly why you work here: because you are stupid!”

Me: “Okay, that will be $2.50.”

Customer: “See?! It wasn’t that hard, was it, you uneducated child?”

I end up just making her a vanilla shake. I hand it to her and she finishes the whole thing at a table and doesn’t even complain.

Next Customer: *Sarcastically* “Can I get a strawberry shake without the strawberry? Make sure to add extra no strawberries!”

Related:
A Shake As Thick As Your Skull

I work at a large electronics retailer with a very well-known computer repair and technical service department. I work in the computer department. I am approached by a very irate-looking customer.

Me: “Can I help you with anything today, sir?”

Customer: “You sure as h*** can! I been waitin’ up there fer yer [Technical Service] fer forty-five minutes! I got things to do!”

Me: “Well, that is an oddly long time to wait; usually, they are much quicker than that. What is it that they are doing for you?”

Customer: “I BEEN WAITIN’ ON THEM FER FORTY-FIVE MINUTES! THEY BEEN ALL KISSY-KISSY IN LINE!”

The customer holds up his minutely folded receipt.

Customer: “When I signed this, I considered that a contract for service! I HAVE [Electronics Retailer] IN A CONTRACT!”

Me: “Well, sir, again, they usually don’t take that long. Let me go up and talk to them and see what the issue is.”

I accompany the man, who continues to yell about people in line and such, up to the support counter. I try the entire way to figure out what kind of service he’s waiting for to be done.

Customer: “I was guaranteed twenty minutes by the gal! I been waitin’ for over forty-five!”

As I approach the counter, I see that they are well backed-up due to call-outs, and I get immediately waved over behind the counter by one of my tech coworkers.

Coworker: “He hasn’t been waiting that long. He’s been up here ten minutes; I’ve been counting.”

Me: “Okay… what all is he waiting to have done?”

Coworker: “Just to get his new computer set up. There are at least three customers waiting ahead of him.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

I go back to the customer, who’s not far away.

Me: “Sir, how long did you say you’ve been waiting?”

Customer: “For f***’s sake! Far too long! I WAS GUARANTEED TWENTY MINUTES BY THE GAL!”

Me: “Well, as you can see, they are quite backed up—”

Customer: “THEY BEEN LETTIN’ PEOPLE GO AHEAD OF ME!”

Me: “Well, sometimes they have scheduled appointments they have to make. May I just see your receipt to verify who guaranteed you twenty minutes?”

The customer hands me his uber-folded receipt.

Customer: “Sure, but they broke their guarantee!”

I take a look at the receipt, first at the employee number and then the time stamp on the transactions. It reads 17:06. I have been working with him for nearly five minutes already.

Me: “How long did you say you’ve been waiting, sir?”

Customer: I was guaranteed twenty minutes by the gal; it’s been over twenty minutes!”

He has noticeably changed from “over forty-five minutes.”

Me: “Well, sir, if they did guarantee you a twenty-minute wait, then they are still within that time period. The receipt says the transaction ended at 5:06 pm. I have, on my watch, 5:21 pm. So, they still have five minutes left.”

Customer: “Really? Is that the stance you’re going to take?”

Me: “Well, I’m afraid that time doesn’t lie, sir. You are still within that time frame.”

Customer: “If that’s the way you’re going to be, then you’re gonna lose a lot of business!”

The customer then took his receipt in a huff and went to sit on the bench, just like that. He probably extended his wait by acting so childish, since no tech really wanted to work with him.