The Customer Is Always Wrong

[GrimRox]

I've had some really annoying customers in my time working for McDonalds and a local newsagent. No particularly interesting stories but a few things do stick out. When at McDonalds I worked in the kitchens and a customer came in claiming we bodged his special order and wanted his money back. The manager took the bag and the bloke ran off. He had rather hilariously (sarcasm free with every post) switched his burger with a live crayfish.We named him Krabs.

Another event, a woman came in cursing us because she had found a hair in her food. Not only were me and the other kitchen guys wearing hairnets but the hair in the burger was ginger, not one of us was ginger. We politely told her that we would not be refunding her.

I will also say it works both ways. When I went to a newsagent recently to buy a pack of cigarettes (retailing at £4.99) I paid with a tenner. The crabby old ***** behind the counter looked at me as if I'd walked in her house on Christmas morning and ceremoniously crapped on her kids then demanded I pay with something smaller, which I couldn't. It's a tenner! She gave in eventually but why she had to be so rude I have no idea.

 

[DGenius]

Actual conversation with a old customer at my old job in Atlanta.

Customer: "I need a coax cable for my TV"

Me: (walks the customer over to the cables) "Here you go"

Customer: "So you are telling me if I take this cable and plug it from the cable box to the tv then it will work?"

Me: "Yes you need a coax cable to plug it into the TV so it will show on your tv, you know usually the cable company hooks your box up for you and they give you the cables."

Customer: "I know they just shut me off and I thought if I could change the cables on the TV it would let me watch it without having to pay for it"


There you go. Theres proof enough for you.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Reasons I have for not going into specific shops:

Pizza Hut : Tried to throw out a group of Down's Syndrome sufferers because they were being too loud.
W.H.Smiths: Asked me if I wanted a bag with my purchase of a stamp. And charge £6.50 for cigarettes in the train station where their normal price is £5.80. Oh and won't sell you matches.
Burger King : Refused to let me order a meal with my 'get a whopper free' discount because it was 'holding up the queue'. Queue being 3 people with 5 servers.
McDonalds : Let me count the ways...Staff not listening, staff spilling the drink over everything, getting my order wrong EVERY time I've been in there, overhot coffee.
Subway : Telling me that "No-one uses credit cards to order food"
Bella Pasta : 30 shells of pasta should not cost £6.99
Spalding Leisure Centre : Burger and Chips does not cost £8.00. No matter what you serve it with.
Leicester Leisure Centre : My friend having concussion from one of your badly maintained water slides actually does excuse him from bleeding in the pool.
First Leicester : When a rival bus company can get me there for half the price, in comfort and half the time, you really need to look at your bus routes.
Baker's Oven : Handling hot food with your bare hands does not influence me into buying it.
Sainsbury's, Boots, Tesco's : There is nothing wrong with me not wanting to use a loyalty card, I just don't want to.
Boots, Sainsbury's : They are not 'colleagues' unless they get paid the same wages as you. Equally, Subways does not have "Sandwich Artistes".
Cafe Nero : A Small Coffee does not mean a slightly wet cup. And Black Coffee does not have milk in it. Ever.
Lush : I would like to be able to smell something for the next two days, thank you.
HSBC : If you had more cashiers on I wouldn't have to be so upset with your floorwalkers.

I may add more later.

 

[BladesofReason]

We get stupid people ALL the time at Blockbuster. ALL the time. When a man comes it to rent a couple of movies and says "I thought I got one free" and I say "no, sorry not this time" and he says "Well I got a coupon in the mail" and I say "Give it here" and he says "Well I left it at home" and I say "Well then you're out of luck sir" and he gets pissed at me because he HAS the coupon...just not with him...

Yes I'm going to go to a super market and say I would like these bananas but hold on a sec, they're free because I have a coupon sitting at home that you've got to honor for me.

 

[Xhumed]

Working at a Budgen's/ Total petrol station shop, I had plenty of underage kids trying to by cigarettes (underage then was under 16.) Many of them did the whole "this shop is rubbish" Vicky Pollard routine when I refused to serve them without I.D. One of them though, reacted a little differently. I was due back at univerity in just over a week, so I had just handed my notice in (it felt good, that place was a dreadful place to work), so I had ceased putting up with any more little kiddie bullshit. Hence:

Me: Do you have any I.D?
Toe-rag(clearly 14 and trying to buy cigarettes): What?
Me: Do you have any I.D? I can't serve you if you don't show me some proof you're over 16.
Toe-rag: Do you know who I am?
Me: No. Perhaps if you show me some I.D. I'll know.
Toe-rag: You being funny?
Me: Apparently not.
Toe-rag: You'd better watch it mate. You know who I am?
Me: Someone with no I.D. and no cigarettes?
Toe-rag: My Dad is [local known gangster].
Me: Really.
Toe-rag: I'm going to burn down your shop.
Me: Oh dear.
Toe-rag: I'm gonna get you fired.
Me: Good luck, I handed my week's notice in about an hour ago.

He stomped off, shouting he was going to get his Dad to beat me up, blah blah blah.
Never did get around to it. Shop mysteriously didn't burn down either.

 

[Mephistophilis]

Hah, what must go through these people's minds. 'nother woolworths one here, towards the end of the day we close the tills upstairs because it's not busy enough to merit staffing them. So there is a handy sign up requesting customers take their goods downstairs, as well as a barrier encircling the entire queue area, yet the amount of people who will come to this, actively move the barrier out of the way and go and stand in front of an empty till expecting to be served, followed by them snapping at us when we politely (maybe a li'l condescendingly...) point out the sign and tell them they will have to pay downstairs. Grah, fury and rage.

 

[bp1986]

We currently have this sorta-contest of who can find the weirdest thing in the treasure boxes. (treasure boxes being the little trash cans in the womens room)

Some of the funnier things found were a poop-filled pair of underwear, and one that I found... a half eaten piece of bread. But the current winner... a poop filled green g-string!

Everything that I have been fed about women being perfect and clean... is a complete lie. If you ever have to clean a womens restroom, you will know.

But seriously... if you clog the toilet, don't fill it with toilet paper and further clog it!

Subway : Telling me that "No-one uses credit cards to order food"

I love running credit cards for food purchases. It is MUCH easier and takes less than a fourth of the time as cash.

 

[Sayvara]

"I'm sorry madam, but you obviously aren't aware of the ruling that came in 5 years ago that specifically states that the price of the item is only advertised at the POS, and that the price itself is not confirmed until an agreement is reached at the point where you buy it under a negotiation between the cashier, which is me, and the consumer, which is you. Now, as this sticker has obviously been placed on this item in an illegal manner, I will be more than happy to re-run todays CCTV footage to make sure we can prosecute..."

*purrrrrs with delight*

There is nothing more beautiful that seeing a person that knows what they are talking about slapping an ignoramus around with a +5 Two-handed Club Of Knowledge. It's... poetic.

/S

 

[ThaBenMan]

Everything that I have been fed about women being perfect and clean... is a complete lie. If you ever have to clean a womens restroom, you will know.

QFT. The women's bathroom at my place of work was always in atrocious condition at the end of the day. And guess who usually had to clean it? *points at self* Yep, this guy...

 

[Volucer]

I work in retail at the minute, pretty much every customer I've served has some annoying trait just to tick me off. But the worst was the day I was being trained in the food hall of my shop, first day there, a saturday so it's incredibly busy. In order to put fruit and veg through we've got this book of like 50 different items we sell that we have to scan. Some guy's bought radishes, so I scan raddishes through. Comes up at 75p for a bunch. Finish serving him, he leaves. 2 minutes later he's back claiming i've overcharged him for the radishes by 5p. Now this wasn't my fault as it's all done through the system, radishes are charged by the bunch at a certain price, no weighing, no nothing apart from just scanning the code, which I did, it came up saying radishes and everything, I hadn't done anything wrong it was the system. Despite this I apologise to the customer, call a supervisor to come and issue a refund for the 10p, he then goes off at her about how it is illegal to overcharge and blah blah and how I cannot do my job and blah blah blah, holding up the queue. Then my supervisor manages to get him to the side so I can deal with the rest of the customers, next thing I know he's managed to get the duty manager to talk to because apparently he didn't like my supervisors tone. I'm not sure what happened next, but he was there yelling at the duty manager for the next 5 minutes...all because of 10p...

 

[Xhumed]

McDonalds : Let me count the ways...Staff not listening, staff spilling the drink over everything, getting my order wrong EVERY time I've been in there, overhot coffee.

Subway : Telling me that "No-one uses credit cards to order food"

First one: Yes, agreed, in the UK they constantly got my order wrong. Hasn't happened in Australia yet, but I think they have a specific button for "Just the meat and cheese." I don't want the rest of the crap they shove in there.
Although I did get a free cheeseburger the other day, since the guy had quickly made it up while I was paying with my card. My card declined (I'd lost track of the balance somehow... I swear I had A$3 on there...), and he said "Eh, just take it." Which was nice of him.
Speaking of paying for things by cards, apparently in the UK its illegal to buy just alcohol in a pub with a credit card... though since most people don't know that, most pubs don't either.

As to your previous post- yeah, I've worked in a bookshop too (I was an Xmas temp at Ottakars october 2002 til feb. 2003) and the number of people who removed and re-applied special stickers was ridiculous. Everytime it would happen, I would ask the section manager or assitant manager (loudly) "Are we offering this money off/BOGOF/etc. on this book now?"
"No, we aren't. Where did you find this?"
At this point they usually start back-pedaling, as the people queueing behind them start tutting. Usually they either just said "Oh thats fine, sorry I didn't realise, I found it like that" *coughbullshit* or decided they didn't want it after all. No-one ever got aggro about it.
One of the more unpleasant aspects was having to persuade tramps not to sit in the chairs provided for customers and have a snooze, especially when we went to late-trading on thursdays near xmas.
Oh, and having a shoplifter pull a syringe on me and threatening to give me AIDS was fun too. We got a security guard after that, but he was useless, he spent most of his time either oggling the female members of staff or reading the sports biographies.

 

[meatloaf231]

McDonalds : Let me count the ways...Staff not listening, staff spilling the drink over everything, getting my order wrong EVERY time I've been in there, overhot coffee.

Subway : Telling me that "No-one uses credit cards to order food"

First one: Yes, agreed, in the UK they constantly got my order wrong. Hasn't happened in Australia yet, but I think they have a specific button for "Just the meat and cheese." I don't want the rest of the crap they shove in there.
Although I did get a free cheeseburger the other day, since the guy had quickly made it up while I was paying with my card. My card declined (I'd lost track of the balance somehow... I swear I had A$3 on there...), and he said "Eh, just take it." Which was nice of him.
Speaking of paying for things by cards, apparently in the UK its illegal to buy just alcohol in a pub with a credit card... though since most people don't know that, most pubs don't either.

Ordering via the drive-through, my friend driving the car ordered a $6.90 meal, but only had $5. He actually haggled the cashier down to $5, who was a complete stranger. He was young-ish, probably late teens, and we go back there once in a while just because he's awesome. The food is rubbish, but the clerk is great.

 

[TaborMallory]

As a manager for burger king, ive got some real winners in the customer department. Ive had people go through the drive through and refuse to roll down their window or open their door to order, insisting that shouting through the glass would work. Customers who want a random combo but say the wrong one and expect me to know what they want, and that they shouldnt have to pay the difference cause it was my mistake. People bringing in food from other fast food places and telling me i need to replace them. Ive had people try to seriously order pizzas, donuts, popcorn, hotdogs, corn on the cob and chicken wings.
Ive seperated more then one crackhead fight because they didnt want to show the other crackheads in the car how much money they had. One time they even grabbed a pick axe from a work truck out side and almost killed the guy. Ive had crackheads come in and say my bathrooms were filthy after they decided to leave their crapped-in, gold tinted, speedo underwear floating in my toilet.
I had one lady start a fight with me over a canada penny. She refused to accept it, even after i told her that i cant open my drawers after the transaction is complete. Her change was exactly one penny. She decided her only recourse was to wait for me to open the window and toss it at my head and demand a new penny. So i grabbed my keys from my office, open the drawer, grab a penny and throw it at her. It slid down her chest and into her cleavage.
Many people come in asking for refunds on items. I always ask for a receipt. Some people give me receipts from other burger kings, some people give me reciepts from 3 months ago, but this guy brings in a hand written receipt after i asked him if he had one. He went out to his truck and wrote it out and told me that is what he ordered. He was extremely unhappy when i told him that wasnt a reciept.

Ive got millions of 'em... ive been working the fast food world for almost ten years now

Wow.... just, wow. Some of my peers still wonder why I'm not getting a job at McDonald's. For the record, I will never work in a fast food joint. I will never work with the general public.

wimp

no u

 

[gamebrain89]

Working in a radioshack part time while im in college, I deal with alot of computer illiterate people. Many of them openly profess to be such, and ask for help, and are very nice. but every day I get people who have a PBKC, ( or Problem Between Keyboard and Chair). We get people who return laptops and say they wont turn on, and they never plugged it in or put in the battery. God I'll be happy when I get my CIS degree and get out of retail.

 

[internutt]

I used to work in a British Red Cross. The job itself was great, the catch was sorting out the donations. The general public gave us some interesting stuff during my time there:

Moldy stuffed toys
Unwashed and soiled old clothes
Half used subscription pills
Bin bags, yes we were actually given trash every so often

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

My fellow retail employees! UNITE! *raises fist, clenching a nametag*

I've got a good one for you all. I've worked at a particular major pet-supply chain for going on eight years now. A while back, I fielded a call from a woman. "I'm looking for Noble's Dog Food," she says. "Do you have it in stock?"

I have to think. Never heard of that one. Maybe it's new? "I'm not familiar with that brand, ma'am, but I'll see if we have it."

So I put her on hold and go to check the shelves. Sure enough, no such brand of dog food resides in my store. I go back to the phone. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but it doesn't look like we carry that brand."

"Yes you do. I just bought it from there last week."

Confusing. I'd been working at the store for two and a half years and had never so much as heard of the brand. So I say I'll double-check, just to be on the safe side. Sure enough, it fails to materialize. "Ma'am," I say, "It's not on the shelves. I don't recall ever having heard of that brand. Maybe you have the wrong store?"

"No, I KNOW I bought it from there last week, I KNOW you have it, now go find it!"

By now I'm suspecting that it isn't me who's completely wrong here. Just to be sure, I go find one of our stockers. Now this guy has been working there since the store OPENED, knows the place inside and out. I ask him if he's ever heard of Noble's Dog Food. He hasn't.

I go back to the phone. "Ma'am, look. I've worked here two and a half years. My co-worker has worked here for FIVE years. Neither of us has ever heard of that brand. I have to believe you've called the wrong store."

"No, I KNOW I bought it from there! I'm coming over, and when I find it I'm going to come find you!"

When I moved out of the state a half-year later, I still had yet to see her. I feel sorry for the employees of whatever store she went to looking for me. Still, my co-worked and I had many a fun time wondering whatever happened to "Mrs. Noble".

What is it about stupid people that makes them unable to entertain the idea that they might just be wrong?

 

[MRMIdAS2k]

I used to work in a comedy club, Said club was located underneath Ponds Forge, a massively famous sports centre in the UK.

We're just off a roundabout, that is the busiest roundabout in Sheffield, due to the fact it's connected to the parkway, which is connected to the M1, which runs london to Scotland.

NOW, we get miss "I'm in a comedy club and I'm so fucking funny, but I can't take a goddamn joke" ordering food from me, convo goes like this:

Her: "do your hotdogs have real dog in them?" (cue hysterical laughter from her friends)
Me: "no, we're WAY to cheap for that, we tend to go out onto the roundabout and scrape up roadkill, it's fine once you pick the gravel out, although there is sometimes a faint taste of rubber that the bleach won't shift".
Her: "Can I see your manager please?"

I MEAN WTF! YOU MADE A GODDAMN JOKE, I COUNTERED WITH MY OWN JOKE! Apparently I was rude and upset her. *****.

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

I used to work in a comedy club, Said club was located underneath Ponds Forge, a massively famous sports centre in the UK.

We're just off a roundabout, that is the busiest roundabout in Sheffield, due to the fact it's connected to the parkway, which is connected to the M1, which runs london to Scotland.

NOW, we get miss "I'm in a comedy club and I'm so fucking funny, but I can't take a goddamn joke" ordering food from me, convo goes like this:

Her: "do your hotdogs have real dog in them?" (cue hysterical laughter from her friends)
Me: "no, we're WAY to cheap for that, we tend to go out onto the roundabout and scrape up roadkill, it's fine once you pick the gravel out, although there is sometimes a faint taste of rubber that the bleach won't shift".
Her: "Can I see your manager please?"

I MEAN WTF! YOU MADE A GODDAMN JOKE, I COUNTERED WITH MY OWN JOKE! Apparently I was rude and upset her. *****.

lol, what did your manager say?

 

[Xhumed]

I used to work in a British Red Cross. The job itself was great, the catch was sorting out the donations. The general public gave us some interesting stuff during my time there:

Moldy stuffed toys
Unwashed and soiled old clothes
Half used subscription pills
Bin bags, yes we were actually given trash every so often

I remember doing some volunteer work for the local British Heart Foundation shop, which mostly involved steaming the creases out of donated clothes. The number of slightly soiled (after being washed no less) trench coats we got given was staggering...