The Customer Is Always Wrong

[dantheman931]

This happened the day after an armed robbery that took place across town. A customer was waiting for his service to be completed, and he was reading a newspaper. All of a sudden, from nowhere, he said "F***in *slur against Mexicans*, comin here and robbin us hard-workin Americans." (Except it came out more like "merkins." A merkin, in case you were unaware, is a pubic wig, but I digress.)

Normally I would have held my tongue, but for some reason that just hit me the wrong way. I very calmly asked him, "Would you feel any better about it if it had been a white man, sir?" I figured it was a mistake as soon as I said it, but wonder of wonders, he actually apologized and said something like "I'm just havin a bad day." Sometimes the universe is actually nice to you.

And the punch line? It turns out the robber was a white guy.

 

[abtrogdor]

Having spent three of my teenage years working in a McDonald's, I had my fair share of morons to deal with. The ones who would put through their order, and then at the last possible second before i cashed it up would go "and thats large", making me delete the entire fucking order and put it through again when i asked them if they wanted large and they said no. i would seriously get at least ten of these a day.

The retards who would ask for free stuff. yeah sure buddy, they don't let ME have free food, but why not? not like im gonna lose my job or anything. oh, wait....

The kid who took a dump in the playground slide.

Or one morning when I had to open the store on my own, and do not only the front counter work, but cash up in the drivethru and give them their orders as well, because my manager was too damn lazy to give me a hand. most of the customers were pretty good about it, but I had a few who were assholes about having to wait while i served the other fifteen people who got there before them.

I think the one I wanted to hurt the most was when I was on drive-thru one morning, and handed him the eftpos machine out the window so he could put his transaction through. when he was done, he simply dropped it out the window, so it swung by it's cable into the outside wall, smashing it and rendering the machine useless. And we had no spares. And the guy laughed when i told him what he had just done to me. i wanted to drag him from his truck and stick his face into the deep fryer. asshole! so, for the rest of the day i could take no debit or credit transactions, a phenomenon thet nobody managed to understand, and would give me shit about.


Seriously, i'm so glad i have a job now that i don't have to deal with customers any more. Fuck customers. For all you poor souls still working in fast food, I feel your pain, so I am always extra nice when eat anywhere like Maccas or BK.

My mum used to work for WINZ (thats like our welfare office here in New Zealand) in Porirua, one of the most horrible, ghetto-ass places in the entire damn county. the place got trashed on a regular basis by assholes who got their dole money denied for whatever reason. this one time, a guy left and came back with a machete and started smashing up all the computers. they called the cops and he got arrested.

My girlfriend works in the lingerie department of a department store, she's had some horror stories as well. the children who decide the changing rooms are bathrooms. or the customers who get angry and scream at her for no good reason. It doesn't help that most of her managers are uncaring assholes. Luckily she's friends with the security guards.

Her worst story is about the creepy guy they noticed coming out of the changing area and running out of the store, they went to investigate and he'd jerked off into a pair of women's underwear he'd taken off the rack. Needless to say they went straight in the bin.

 

[Notashrimp09]

These stories are always entertaining. There's also notalwaysright.com which is a website dedicated to this very topic.

I work in a dorm hall, and a girl came up to me during my night shift who got locked out of her room. After a semester and a half, she did not know her own room number, and guessed wrong.

For every one of these stories I read, however, I lose a little piece of faith in humanity. It's so sad.

 

[Erzengel]

Good lord this is a long thread. I worked at Wendy's for ~6 months, and was honestly surprised by how few idiotic customers we had. Then literally the day before I shipped out to the USAF, a customer drives up, orders a 32 oz Dr. Pepper. After I gave it to him, he asked for a straw, and when I went to hand it to him he threw the entire thing in my face. I was very calm about it, but my co-workers went out after him as he and his friends drove away laughing. They looked like they were ready to beat the crap out of the guys, but I was more concerned about BMT that I'd endure the next few months.

Then after being discharged from the USAF, I worked at Fry's Electronics (a large electronics warehouse-store on the western half of the USA) for ~10 months. Again, 95% of customers were fine. For the remaining 5% it was always a quick, "Here's my supervisor, talk to him/her."
I was told a tale about one guy who had a complaint, and when we kicked it up to the supervisor it happened to be a short, female one. He complained loudly that he didn't want to talk to "some kid", and so we kicked it up to a manager. Which happened to be the shortest manager in the store. He asked "God is this store run by kids or something?" I don't know if his complaint was resolved, but I have this happy belief he left an unhappy customer.

My personal favorite was when Wii fit came out. We had a limit of 1 per person, and they were selling like... well, like Wiis. We couldn't keep them stocked for more than a day, and they were easily selling for twice as much on E-Bay. So a customer comes up with OUR ENTIRE STOCK in his basket. The cashier went, "Ummm. Sir, there's a limit of one per customer on these." He tried to get around this, so a supervisor came over. He said, "Uhhhhhh. Sorry sir, but it's one per customer. If you want one, fine, but not 50. We have to be fair to our other customers." He kept arguing, so we called over a manager. He looked at the basket, looked at the customer, and said, "No. You are the reason it's one per customer. Please leave." By this time a Loss Prevention Officer had taken up position behind the customer, just in case. He left.

Thankfully I've moved on to the game industry. Which doesn't mean I no longer have to deal with human stupidity. Even the best of us can get a bit... crazy when working 16 hours a day 7 days a week.

 

[dantheman931]

I have a McDonald's story! Ooo ooo, me next!

This group of three or four guys came in, ordered a huge amount of food, and paid. Just as they were leaving, one of the guys noticed the next person in line ordering and was like, "Hey, that looks good." The rest of the guys agreed, so they made us refund their money, throw all that food away, and re-ring them. And let me tell you, the registers at McDonald's are not designed to make refunds easy because, at least judging by my paltry couple months there, refunds are almost never necessary because customers are usually compensated with a replacement meal. Consequently, my drawer was almost certainly off that night; luckily the manager who pulled my drawer was the one who had done the refund, so he didn't try to blame me.

 

[dantheman931]

By the way, quick question. Am I wrong, or do shoplifters seem unusually fond of stealing condoms? When I worked at The Mart, that was easily the number one item that got stolen, at least judging by the number of empty boxes I found stashed behind stuff. The funny part is, about half the time it was the Magnums (plus-sized rubbers) that got stolen; I'm sorry, but wouldn't you want to be seen buying those?

 

[brynnflynn]

You poor thing. Your blood pressure must be, like, whoa.

My favourite story goes a little like this:

Couple of days after Christmas, I was working in GameStop. Dealing with the usual returns, when a woman comes in...
"Hi...*peers at nametag* James, I have a broken game here".

"Ok *takes game: a copy of Nintendogs* What's the problem with it?"

"It's broken."

"Uh...huh. Do you mean it doesn't work, it won't load properly...?"

"No, it's broken."

"Hang on, I'll check it. *fires game into DS. Works perfectly well* sorry, but this game is working perfectly well."

"No, the dog won't listen to my child."

"...what is the dog's name?"

"I gave it to 3 people who play this game, and they all said it's broken! The dog is called Lucky, but it won't listen!"

For those of you unfamiliar with Nintendogs, at the start of the game you have to teach the dog its name and how to sit down, using the microphone.

Queue 15 minutes of shouting at a bundle of pixels, attempting to teach it how to sit. It learned. I'm a 6ft 2" 18 year old man. I had to imitate the voice of a 10 year old girl. I hate people who refuse to accept their wrongness.

HOLY CRAP. I swear to god, the same thing happened to me! Except I'm a woman, and had to imitate the voice of a 10 year old boy. I spent ten minutes with the boy and his mother getting the buggering dog to listen.

/not a dog person
//even less of one after trying to get that damn thing to listen

 

[Ignignokt]

I love messing with Starbucks.

What's more epic is the fact that a very similar story unfolds at the start of the movie "Role Models"

What's even more epic is that there is no such drink as an orange mocha frappuccino except in the movie Zoolander. Which means that the story's more than a little bit made up.

Also, "It's America, speak American" is the dumbest fucking thing a human being can say short of, "I'm an Objectivist."

It took a long time before anyone else seemed to think he was making his stories up.

 

[tsb247]

Okay I know I was saying the one above was the last one but i do have one more.

Happened on Black Friday in 2006. A consumer walked in with a camera. At Best Buy we put a sticker on any electronics or anythign that can get mixed up with other merchandise.
We put the sticker on and I asked what we could help with.

Customer: We would like to return this camera.
Me: Do you have a receipt.
Customer: No. But that shouldn't matter.
Me: How old is it?
Customer: Four Years.
Me: I am sorry but our return policy is only 30 days and it needs to be in the original packaging with the reciept.
Customer: Well we don't have that!
Me: Well I am sorry we can't take the camera back.
Customer: Well why not Sears said that you would.
Me: Where did you buy the Camera?
Customer: Sears.
Me: Ahhh... yeah this is Best Buy.
Customer: I know.
Me: We can't take back merchandise that is sold from competetor stores... especially ones that are over our 30 day return policy and without a reciept.
Customer: I want to speak to your manager.

Manager was the one that put the sticker on their camera. He told them what I told them... which they responded saying that was stupid and left.

Manager: Well that wasn't too bad.
Me: What do you mean?
Manager: You should of see the lady that came in angry we didn't sell 2X4s.

Wow... I often wonder how people can really be that dense.

 

[dantheman931]

I love messing with Starbucks.

What's more epic is the fact that a very similar story unfolds at the start of the movie "Role Models"

What's even more epic is that there is no such drink as an orange mocha frappuccino except in the movie Zoolander. Which means that the story's more than a little bit made up.

Also, "It's America, speak American" is the dumbest fucking thing a human being can say short of, "I'm an Objectivist."

It took a long time before anyone else seemed to think he was making his stories up.

I never saw Zoolander, and I figured he must be writing from another country or something where you can get an orange mocha whatever. (Starbucks sells different stuff in different countries, y'see.) That being said, yes, I feel a little bit silly now.

But I'll say it again: If you don't like Starbucks, or any other store, don't go there. 'Tis not rocket surgery.

 

[Ignignokt]

I love messing with Starbucks.

What's more epic is the fact that a very similar story unfolds at the start of the movie "Role Models"

What's even more epic is that there is no such drink as an orange mocha frappuccino except in the movie Zoolander.

It took a long time before anyone else seemed to think he was making his stories up.

I never saw Zoolander, and I figured he must be writing from another country or something where you can get an orange mocha whatever. (Starbucks sells different stuff in different countries, y'see.) That being said, yes, I feel a little bit silly now.

But I'll say it again: If you don't like Starbucks, or any other store, don't go there. 'Tis not rocket surgery.

I was suspicious up to his story about the porn shop and the super hot lady asking him for sex and to teach her employee the law. That put it over the top.

 

[dantheman931]

Wow, that just went on, didn't it? I'll post more later if anyone particularly cares.

Ugh, I used to work there too, and good lord did that happen a lot... People don't know their tire size, make OR Model? How the Fuck? Mine is EASY: 1992 Cadillac DeVille with a 4.9 Liter V-8, 275/70R15. Takes 5 quarts of Castrol High Mileage 5W-30. People would look at me surprised when I rattled off Engine code (V) AND License plate number as well. Of course, my favorite is to go in there and request the Fuel Injection cleaning for free because they ALMOST ALWAYS forget to ask me. Well, the ONE TIME I actually wanted it, they forgot, and I forgot until I was walking away... So yeah.

I used to wonder about people who didn't know their license plate number. Like, what the hell would they do if their car ever got stolen? (I must admit, I don't have my tire size or VIN memorized. But I at least know where to find them.)

Also high-larious: "I don't know my phone number, I never call myself." Apparently no one else calls you either if you can't give your number to anyone, ya putz.

One more. Customer comes up to my register with a pack of gum. I could tell something was up because of the way he was acting, i.e., way too polite, but I didn't think anything of it until he tried to pay with a $100 bill. This sets off alarms in Dan's skull, because that's a sign that the customer is going to attempt a quick-change (I can explain what that is if anyone needs me to), so I ask him, "Just checking, you're aware this is a $100 bill, right?"

The customer falls silent, pays for his gum with a normal-sized bill, and leaves. A few minutes later, I joke to my manager, "You know, I just prevented a quick-change. Give Dan a bonus." Manager asks what the hell a quick-change is, I roll my eyes hard enough to fire them across the room, and after explaining what it is, he says, "You got quick-changed?" Cue *facepalm* while manager pulls drawer like a madman and counts it to see how much money I lost, which turned out to be none at all--my drawer was off by less than 25 cents. Then again, this is the same manager who once pulled me back from lunch less than ten minutes after sending me because he forgot his other cashier was getting ready to leave, and he told me I had no choice but to skip lunch. I would have told him to spin on my mid digit, but I didn't want to make waves.

 

[dantheman931]

I was suspicious up to his story about the porn shop and the super hot lady asking him for sex and to teach her employee the law. That put it over the top.

I'll admit, that one set my bullshit meter all aflutter as well.

 

[Ignignokt]

This sets off alarms in Dan's skull, because that's a sign that the customer is going to attempt a quick-change (I can explain what that is if anyone needs me to)

I need it explained

 

[dantheman931]

This sets off alarms in Dan's skull, because that's a sign that the customer is going to attempt a quick-change (I can explain what that is if anyone needs me to)

I need it explained

Here's how a quick-change works:

1. Customer attempts to pay for something small (like gum) with a large bill.

2. Cashier rings up sale, opens drawer.

3. Customer suddenly says something like, "Ooo, I didn't realize this was a *whatever*. Can I take it back and give you *whatever else* instead? This is meant to confuse the cashier.

4. Customer then furthers the confusion by trying to use yet another bill, asking for change, or whatever. (The one and only time I had it done to me, the customer even grabbed cash out of the register, and I was young 'n' foolish at the time and didn't try to stop her.)

5. End result: Customer has taken advantage of the cashier's confusion to scam said cashier out of a large amount of cash. Cashier is later fired like a ***** for losing money (or at least that's what happened to me).

 

[Mookie_Magnus]

no, the customer is always right if you dont want to get fired or sued

they should change it to "the customer is always right because he/she is an idiot" or "the idiot is always right...wtf"

You just missed the entire point of this thread.

 

[dantheman931]

no, the customer is always right if you dont want to get fired or sued

they should change it to "the customer is always right because he/she is an idiot" or "the idiot is always right...wtf"

You just missed the entire point of this thread.

I think he's referring to the earlier discussion about whether "The customer is always right" is an outdated concept. Which, incidentally, it is.

 

[seamusotorain]

This happened the day after an armed robbery that took place across town. A customer was waiting for his service to be completed, and he was reading a newspaper. All of a sudden, from nowhere, he said "F***in *slur against Mexicans*, comin here and robbin us hard-workin Americans." (Except it came out more like "merkins." A merkin, in case you were unaware, is a pubic wig, but I digress.)

Normally I would have held my tongue, but for some reason that just hit me the wrong way. I very calmly asked him, "Would you feel any better about it if it had been a white man, sir?" I figured it was a mistake as soon as I said it, but wonder of wonders, he actually apologized and said something like "I'm just havin a bad day." Sometimes the universe is actually nice to you.

And the punch line? It turns out the robber was a white guy.

Dey took der jobs!

 

[dantheman931]

This happened the day after an armed robbery that took place across town. A customer was waiting for his service to be completed, and he was reading a newspaper. All of a sudden, from nowhere, he said "F***in *slur against Mexicans*, comin here and robbin us hard-workin Americans." (Except it came out more like "merkins." A merkin, in case you were unaware, is a pubic wig, but I digress.)

Normally I would have held my tongue, but for some reason that just hit me the wrong way. I very calmly asked him, "Would you feel any better about it if it had been a white man, sir?" I figured it was a mistake as soon as I said it, but wonder of wonders, he actually apologized and said something like "I'm just havin a bad day." Sometimes the universe is actually nice to you.

And the punch line? It turns out the robber was a white guy.

Dey took der jobs!

I know. I hate those damn merkins.

 

[catboytrades]

Anyone ever had the race card played on them? (That's when someone who isn't getting their way decides to call you racist, not because they seriously believe you're racist or even give a flying fuck if you are but because they think racial guilt is a good way to get you to do shit for them.) I've had it done to me twice: once by a Hispanic lady who accused me of stealing her keys because I don't like Mexicans (not true, and plus they were in her fucking pocket the whole time), and once by an east Indian guy who said I didn't like Indians because I refused to make a copy of his hotel key.

Okay, that last one demands some explanation. I used to work in the tire & lube joint at Wal-Mart, and one of the things we had was a machine that could copy (most) house and car keys. This guy comes in and claims he owns the hotel and wants a copy of a particular room key. Strike one. Company policy forbids it (and anyway, if he really was the owner, he should have been contracted with a locksmith for just such an emergency). So I politely refuse the sale and explain the policy, and he accuses me of being racist. Strike two. I kick him out of my line, page management, and demand that they get him out of my line. (I believe my exact words were, "Get this fucker out of my line RIGHT NOW.") Miracle of miracles, the manager (a hispanic woman, incidentally) actually stood by me on that one, and I never saw him again.

Of all the things that customers did to piss me off, I think that one pissed me off the worst. I can handle being called incompetent or whatever, but nothing makes me want to violate someone's personal safety worse than being called racist when the real issue is that the person in question is a fucking entitlement whore who's pissed off that they're not getting their way. But it was funny when it blew up in their faces; I had a black woman accuse the entire company of being racist because we couldn't do her service (the tires she wanted were the wrong size), so I went and got the black tech who had refused the service to explain it to her. Suddenly she was fine with it, and the tech and I laughed our asses off at her when she left.

Edit: If anyone wants to hear more stories about selling auto parts, let me know, I've got a million of em.

When I worked for Whirlpool as a Customer Service rep I had the race card placed on me twice.
One was by a lady who said that I was on crack and that I hate black people. My manager got on the phone and after explaining that when you touch the burners on the top of your stove when they are on and red hot... they are hot and will burn your hand... he was told that we are nothing but a bunch of fucking white people on crack and then hung up.

Second one was a lady that called in and was asking how to use her washing machine. I advised her on what she was asking and thought that would be the end of it. She then asked me what I was. I said I was a consumer support rep. She said no what nationality. Well I replied, " I am native americ-" She then cut in saying that I should get help with my drinking problem. I told the woman on the other end that I do not have a drinking problem nor do I drink. She then went on a rant on how all natives drink, beat their wives, and hate white people. When she finished I was quiet ( I honestly didn't know where the hell this came from). She then asked if I had anything to say. So I responded, " Yes some due thanks to the liquor brought over by settlers after their land was stolen from them after their tribes were slaughtered by the government I can see why someone would be angry about that. Though I know alot more caucasian people with drinking problems then native americans. As for the beating wives and such... I haven't heard anything like that since I have been alive and we have a few women on the council."

She then began to say that I hate white people and screaming that is why I wasn't helping her. She demanded a supervisor... who took the call... told her that she needed to get psychological help and hung up on her.

If your wondering... I am a Heinz 57... a true mutt. I am nearly every nationality out there... except Asian and Hispanic. I just like to say I am Native because I was born and raised on the Yakama Reservation.