It is New Year’s day. Me and my family go out to eat at a fast food restaurant. When we arrive, the place is completely empty of customers.

Employee 1: “Welcome to [restaurant].”

Me: “Pretty quiet in here.”

Employee 1: “Yeah, most people are at home, hungover.

I then make my order. I ask for a bottle of water with my meal. Employee 1 goes to check something, and then comes back.

Employer 1: “Sorry, we don’t actually have any bottles of water right now.”

Me: “Um… you know what, I’m not bothered about a drink.”

Employer 1: “I could get you extra fries instead if you want.”

Me: “Sure, thanks!”

A second employee brings the order out to us. Afterwards, a third employee wearing a headset comes from the back.

Employee 1: *to Employee 3* “Hey, we don’t have any water.”

Employee 3: *turns to the ice tray next to the drinks dispenser* “What do you mean?”

Employer 1: “No, water.”

Employee 1 and 2 start laughing.

(This comes from a friend, we will call him Bob…)

Bob goes to fit a smoke alarm, no sooner had he put the battery in and fitted it, the alarm sounded.

Bob: (on the phone) this smoke alarm keeps going off.

Sales team: i’m sorry sir, it must be faulty, please come back to the store and we will replace it.

(Bob goes down to the store and get another one, again no sooner was the battery fitted and placed on the bracket, the alarm goes off, he tries to reset it and refit the battery but it happens again.)

Bob: (on the phone) I have been down once already to replace this smoke alarm and the new one keeps going off.

Sales team: I am sorry sir, we must have a had a faulty batch, we have one of the old ones in stock, please come down and we will give you one of them.

(Bob goes down and replaces it once more, but yes the alarm keeps going on, I pop round to see him and he tells me the story.)

Me; Ok, so show me what is happening, I know a bit about these things, maybe I can spot something.

Bob: ok, so watch. (He gets the alarm, fits the battery and raises it above his head, the alarm goes off immediately.) See total rubbish!

Me; (sigh) yeah, it will go off if you are smoking at the time.

(Bob put the cigarette out and amazingly fitted the alarm without any further issue.)

So I transferred a call today. The Customers last name was Dial…This is how it went…..

CSP: Thank you for calling Blue _____, How are you today?

Member: Mrs. Dial

CSP: I’m  sorry ?

Member: Mrs. Dial

CSP: Are you asking what did you dial?

Member:  *Screaming* NO! ARE YOU ASKING ME MY NAME?

CSP: No ma’am im asking you how are you?……..

(I work at a cell phone store as a sales rep. A couple and their child, I assume, walk in and head straight to a display of basic phones. They are dressed kind of poorly, and seem hard to approach. After some time, since no other employees seem to want to go up to them, I do and greet them.)

Me: hello welcome to [phone company]! What brings you in today?

Male customer: Yes, I’d like…uh…this one. (Points to our slider phone and smiles a toothless/rotten smile)

Me: Great! Do you have an existing account, or would you like to go over pricing for a new account?

Male customer: No.
(He goes back to touching and playing with the slider phone. By this point the woman and child are playing with different smart phones.)

Me: alright? Well we offer two options to go ahead and get that phone. Are you a new customer? Or should I pull up your account?

Male customer: Oh I don’t want an account here. I have [other phone company]. I just want this phone cuz it’s basic and I hate smart phones.

Female customer: (pointing to an obvious smart phone) Is this a touch screen phone?

Me: …ye-

Male customer: (to his female partner) of course that’s a smart screen touch phone. Use your brain. (To me) Do you have this slider phone in [other phone company] brand, so I can use it at [other phone company]

Me: Well we are [my phone company] so I only have our brand of phones.

Male customer: Oh, well [another phone company] would also work on [his phone company] so do you have any of that brand either?

Me: Again, we are [my phone company]. That means I can set you up with that phone and a new account here in [my phone company] or you can look at another store that isn’t [my phone company].

(They looked at me dumbfounded and turned to play with the phone again before leaving.)

I work in a boutique that sells made to order evening and special occasion gowns. Occasionally if we don’t have a particular gown in stock, we can borrow a sample from our designers for a customer to try on before ordering. One day a customer calls us asking to borrow a dress we don’t have a sample of for her to try on the following week.

Me: Sure, we can borrow that gown for you! Please send us an email at info@[storename].com with the style code and designer name of the dress and we’ll let you know when it comes in.

Customer: Sure, I’ll send it right now!

[ten minutes pass and the phone rings again]

Me: [Store Name], this is [My Name] speaking, how can I help you?

Customer: Hi, I just called about borrowing a dress and you told me to email you, but I keep getting an error message when I try to send it to the address you gave me.

Me: Oh, I’m sorry. Are you sure you sent the message to info@[storename].com?

Customer: Yes, of course!

Me: [I decide to spell it out because our store name can be difficult to spell and people make mistakes all the time.] I-N-F-O-@-[S-T-O-R-E-N-A-M-E].C-O-M?

Customer: Oh, no – you said imfo@[storename].com. I-M-F-O.

She re-sent it and the email came through, but she sincerely believed “imfo” was a completely normal email address and I was the weird one for insisting it was “info.” After we hung up I couldn’t stop laughing, and my coworker asked me what had happened. After I told her the story she said:

COWORKER: And this is why we can’t have nice things.