I work at a carwash and it’s the prime of winter. We usually close when the temps get below a certain temp to avoid car damages and upset customers, but the company decided we won’t be closing for that anymore. Apparently, money is more important than safety and quality.

It’s about thirteen degrees outside, I just opened up, and my first customer was right there waiting for us to do so. She purchases her wash and goes through, and when she pulls around to vacuum, she notices that ice has formed on her wheels and back windshield. She slams her door, throws down the vacuum hose, and stomps up to the office.

Customer: “I paid [total] and your wash put ice all over my car! I want my money back! You shouldn’t be open for business if you can’t control the ice, you f****** moron! What kind of place is this?!”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t control the temps any more than you can. It is thirteen degrees outside and we use water to clean your vehicle. Water freezes at or below thirty-two degrees, so I’m just confused as to why you’re confused. I’ll give you your money back, however, as I guess with the heat blaring in your car you maybe forgot we’re in the middle of winter?”

Customer: “It’s not my job as the customer to know what temperature water will freeze at, nor is it my job to know when to wash my car and when not to! You say all this like it’s just common sense, and it’s not!”

Me: “You’re absolutely right. Here’s your money. Have a great day and come back to see us when it warms up!”

She rolled her eyes at me, snatched the money out of my hand, and stomped off back to her car. She got to her car and tried to open the door and it wouldn’t budge. She tried all the doors and none of them would budge. They were frozen shut! 

I was amazed that she didn’t stomp back up to me and say it was all my fault and I needed to pay to have her towed. But she didn’t. She stood out there in the cold waiting for a tow truck to arrive in her shameful karma.

I did wave for her to come up front and I was going to offer for her to sit in the heated office until the tow truck arrived, but she flipped me the bird when she saw me waving.

Unfortunately, I have been unemployed for a while. I decide to start to deliver a free Sunday newspaper to earn some extra money. Usually, the company demands that all papers be delivered by noon, but preferably ten am.

Many people, mostly elderly, wait impatiently for it.

One Sunday, the printing company has some issues and the paper is delivered late to me, so they give me three pm that day. Many people wonder why the paper wasn’t delivered on time but when I explain, most people understand.

Two weeks later, there is a heavy snowstorm and the paper is only brought to me at noon. Due to the weather, the company gives me until seven pm.

So, as I am rolling my newspaper trolley through the snow, one customer runs toward me and starts to complain.

Customer #1: “This is the second time that you have delivered the paper so late. I will miss all the advertisements for free stuff because of your lazy butt! No wonder you don’t have a real job!”

Sadly, similar encounters happen a few times that day.

Customer #2: “Are you even able to read the newspaper or are you too dumb for it?”

Then, some religious group stops me.

Customer #3: “If you have some time, we would like to pray for your poor soul, that you would find a better job.”

Me: “The papers don’t deliver themselves. But if you’d like, you could help me.”

They just looked at me with disgusted expressions and ran off.

Luckily, after two weeks, I found a new job.

I still can’t understand how people can act so rude over a free newspaper.

I am used to people calling in angry because the website would say that they were outside of our delivery area. One caller is outside the delivery area by two blocks. Of course, she is furious.

Customer: “I always get delivery from this store! I am an excellent tipper! My babies are hungry, how dare you not feed them!”

Me: *Calmly* “Ma’am, if you want your food, you’re more than welcome to place a pick-up order and the food will be ready when you got here.”

She rages at me a bit, but places the order anyway. She comes in, pays, picks up her food and leaves. She makes some nasty comments but I have completed the transaction and moved on.

I am taking another delivery phone call when I hear her scream for the manager.

Me: “Ma’am, that is me, and I will be right with you after completing this order.”

I turn back to the order screen to finish a customer transaction when I see a hand reach for the phone and press the tab thing that ends the phone call. 

I turned around and see my employees just staring at this woman who has walked behind the counter and cornered me in. She is screaming at me about suing me and the business.

Customer: “I’ve called the cops on you and you’re personally going to jail. You need to pay for my car!”

I am a bit confused, so I step outside to look at her car. As soon as the door opens I am hit by a gust of wind. I look over and see a bright red BMW with one of our very heavy umbrellas upside down in the front windshield. The customer, of course, keeps screaming at me.

I poke my head inside and call some employees out to take the other umbrellas inside so that it doesn’t happen to a decent person’s car.

The officer pulls up shortly after the other umbrellas are taken in. The customer is still screaming and the officer takes notes. I just stand there wondering how long this will take. As she starts pointing at me and demanding I be arrested, the officer looks up and sighs.

Officer: “Ms., I cannot arrest this girl. She did not do anything to you or your car. The wind picked up the umbrella. This was an Act of God. No one can be blamed for this.”

Customer: “She did this! If this b**** had just delivered to me like she was supposed to, I never would have had to drive up here! She knew this would happen!”

I ignore her rant, look at the officer and say:

Me: “So, I have done nothing wrong? I have got to get back to shift change inside so my employees can go home.”

The officer just nods at me while the customer continues screaming. I give a polite half bow, and a big smile.

Me: “Thanks! Hope that you guy’s day gets better! You can keep the umbrella.”

I turn on my heel and walked back inside. She tries to follow me in, but the officer stops her.

When she leaves she throws the umbrella against the shop front window. She is too weak to actually do any damage, but I guess it makes her feel better.

Related:
It’s All In The Delivery

Please note that at the time of this story I was running on hope and caffeine, and had been awake for thirty hours, so some details might have changed due to my recollection.

It is the winter of 2018. I work at a call center for a power and natural gas company. The worst polar vortex storm the state has seen in ages hits us, with temperatures frequently hitting -25 or below for over a week.

Even the waffle houses closed; waffle houses are so reliable FEMA uses something called “the waffle house index” to rate disasters!

I was living close enough to work that they called me in a few times and all hours of the day over the weeks because the number of people who could arrive safely is small.

At the beginning, our queue could be over 500 people. By day three it is mostly just shouting that we need to reconnect their power before anyone else because of any number of reasons, none of which changed the reality that we couldn’t do that. The power grid is like a vascular system. If the end of the line isn’t getting blood it isn’t because the immediate juncture is stopped up. This is compounded by weather and reconnection surges frying an entire second batch of equipment and causing a second wave of outages.

Me: *Taking a call* “Thank you for calling [Power Company], my name is [My Name]; how may I help you today?”

Caller: “I’m not sure you can help, please let me know if you need to get a supervisor. My name is [Caller’s Name] and I am with [Major cellular company]. We donate facilities to be used as 911 relays and switchboards, and the 911 branch in Minnesota town has a problem. See, we have generators and fuel, but only enough for 86 hours. We are currently at about 76 hours without power. We have a fuel delivery being made on an emergency basis tomorrow after they will have been out of power for about 90 hours. With this weather, we need to remain active so our last-ditch hope was to contact you guys and see what can be done.”

I am staring blankly at the address search screen trying to process this.

Me: “Well… let me put you on hold for just a second, I want to see if we have a protocol for… this. Can I get the address of your building?”

Caller: “Oh yeah, absolutely, ask around! Anything that may help. Our address is [Very Minnesota road in very mid-west town].”

At this point, I just mute and ask the girl next to me what the h*** I do. The supervisors are beyond busy, sometimes even taking calls themselves, but she had worked there for six years and just gave me a blank stare for a moment.

Supervisor: “Huh, that’s new, call dispatch I guess. It is an emergency. Several actually.”

I hop on the line, check to make sure an order to investigate the outage is already there, check-in with the caller and get his callback line, all that, then call dispatch.

Dispatch: “Dispatch, what’s the issue?”

Me: “So I know we don’t prioritize who gets reconnected b—”

Dispatch: “Ya d*** right we don’t!”

Me: “Yes I understand that, but I have a fellow from 911 on my line. He says they’ve exhausted their options for keeping the lights on themselves. They won’t get fuel for the generator until they’ve been offline for several hours. That town was hit some of the worst, the last thing they need is to not be able to contact emergency services.”

There is a long pause.

Dispatch: “Okay, I need to put you on hold.”

I hear a bunch of shouting into different rooms because he didn’t put me on hold or even mute me. The dispatcher’s boss gets on the line.

Dispatch Boss: “This is [Dispatch Boss], I hear you’ve got 911 on your line?”

We go back and forth, I bring the cell rep into the call and hop around in the system getting our protocol stuff done, and letting my team lead know what’s going on. I never heard about the issue again, so I have to assume it worked out.

Honestly, I think that dispatch actually giving a hoot was more surreal than being called by 911. Those guys always sound like every request you make is like squeezing lemon juice in their eyes.

On a warm summer’s day:

Customer: “Hey! Why aren’t these drinks colder?”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, I’m afraid this store is subject to the laws of thermodynamics.”

Customer: “Well, there’s no need to be a jobsworth!”