I can understand why she was unhappy but there wasn't anything I could do.  Her attitude is what really annoyed me.  It was basically "You will do what i say or I'm telling on you"

( False Advertising )
I'm not worried.  The Boss will back me up because I did what she would do.

To the dude behind the kid

Yes the kid was just buying a piece of candy (why a shoe store sells candy I don't know).  However that is no excuse for pushing you pair of shoes on to the counter before i was finished with that sell.  Wait your turn. Oh well, the lady behind you did the same thing to you.

Cute head cashier at a midwest-based hardware store.

Dear Plumbing Guy,
I was crouched down in an aisle, shopping basket containing my (large and purple) purse, keys, and a few random (non-plumbing) selections on the floor in front of me, mobile in hand, texting my bff, not a stitch of $store clothing on me, rummaging for the perfect size o-ring for part of my Halloween costume.

For the love of all things chocolate and peanut butter, what the FUCK made you think I was working? Like, at all? Even if you KNEW that I worked there, you'd know that we wear BRIGHT BLUE aprons/vests with $store logo on them (for the record, I had on a plain polo, jeans, and tennis shoes), and that I work up in the front, by the registers, not back in plumbing.

Yes, I did ignore you when you came down the aisle. That's because I'M NOT WORKING.

Yes, my answer to your, "Time to restock, huh? Har har" was a quick, "Nope." That's because I'M NOT WORKING.

Go ahead and complain to management that I'm "not being helpful!" Even if I DID work in plumbing and knew what the fuck you needed, I'm still NOT WORKING.

Oh, and I heard you complain to another department manager, who happens to be the former plumbing manager, that I was rude to you. I hope you felt like a moron when he responded, "Well, sir, she doesn't work in plumbing, but she's out for the night, anyway, so she's just shopping."

I hate youuuu,
the cute girl who still doesn't work in plumbing

I'm a copy center and occasional cashier monkey at an office supply store.

Now, I love old people. We had a 93 year-old man in today making puns about his walking cane and John McCain, and he was awesome. But jesus christ, I'm the one working the Photoshop, not you.

This late-middle aged/ younger elderly woman comes in, and immediately one of my coworkers whispers in our handy little earpiece radios that she's a regular and will talk my ear off and never let me go ever. I'm like, okay, whatever, I'm cool with that. So I sit down to consult her about what exactly she wants done. It's this fuckbunch of really really old photos from a small town south of us, and she's submitting them to a museum or something, and she wants captions printed on the photos, and all of it on glossy paper. Right off the bat, that right there took her like ten minutes to get out. I kept asking her in the simplest terms what she wanted and she'd tell me, then add all these other stipulations every second, most of it about price.

I should say right now that once I start working on Photoshop, we charge for every minute I do it.

It took twenty minutes for her to hand over the photos so I could put them in the scanner. I finally get everything scanned up, sit back down to work on it, I swear to god every single time I made a keystroke she would go on about how no, it needs to be centered, I don't want it like that, make it a smaller font, yes that font is fine but you forgot to center it, it's too dark, it's too light, I want it bigger even though the photo is tiny, make it 8.5x11", no no make it 6x8" I want to frame it, no 8.5x11" is fine. Shit. Much less annoyingly, the whole time she went on these five-minute history lessons about Andrew Jackson. It took me a bloody hour to finish two pages of edited photos and captions.

Kind of sucky.


Much much much worse, though, was a mother that came in with her three boys asking about poster prints. Again I have to preface: I like kids. On a whole they don't bother me, and some of them are really cute.

So she's talking to me about stuff, and suddenly one of the kids goes running off into furniture at top speed. One of my coworkers goes to grab him so he doesn't break any lamps or anything, and suddenly the youngest kid starts crying about something. Okay, I can deal with that even if it's obnoxious because of the horrible echo in the store. I continue to consult her, and the second kid starts like, teasing the shit out of the youngest one, and the cry turns into an earsplitting wail. My coworkers are all like "jesus shit make it stop" into my radio, and I just kind of try not to laugh nervously while she deal with the kids. The bawling went on for like another few minutes and finally she screamed at her other kid to get the hell out of furniture, then spanked the crap out of the crying one. As they were finally leaving after a ten minute ordeal, one of the kids steals the shoes of another one and like, throws them across the damn entryway. ...Then she screamed at them some more =\


#3: I know this is testy territory, but I have no problem with obesity. My brother has a serious weight problem, etc. But please, please, don't come in at 500+ lbs and rather nastily complain that the plastic chair you bought collapsed under you. It's not our company's fault.

Man: I'm waiting for a colleague, and she's running late. Can I leave her ticket here for her?
Me: Sure! :) *takes ticket* Can I have her name for--
Man: Oh, you'll know her when you see her. She'll stand out. She's black.
Me: :| ... ... ... ... Can I have her name for the ticket, please?

More of a WTF than anything. He was pleasant about it and all. But... no, dude, just no.

as a cashier one of the more irritating things is when i ring up a purchase and grab a cold drool soaked item "the customer neglected to tell me about" and right after i ring it she gives it right back to her child.
i know the child doesn't know any better it's not thier fault, it's when the customer knowingly places the item on the checkstand and fails to let me know that bugs me.
there are a few times when they do let me know and even hold the item while i scan it. i greatly appreciate it and thank them for thier consideration. if only the rest of the customers can do likewise.

I'm a pharmacy technician.

Dear Old Hag,

As frustrating as it is when your doctor told you, you were going to take your Valium three times a day, versus the twice a day that was faxed to us, yelling at the other tech really isn't necessary. At all. Especially, since she's one of the nicest people I've come across and will never get rude with a customer. And No. We cannot change it. That's ILLEGAL.

Stop being rude, alright? Yell at your doctor, maybe?

 -  worldinmy_eyes 

Dear Asshole,

I realize that you're used to paying "X" price, but when the company that gives us meds changes the price, we HAVE to accommodate. It's kind of like the price of gas?  Telling the pharmacist that "THIS IS BULLSHIT! I'M GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!" isn't going to make us want to change the price for you. 

  -worldinmy_eyes 

Dear People With Poison Ivy,

STOP TOUCHING EVERYTHING! LIKE YOUR FACE! This would be why you have it AROUND YOUR EYES. D=

-The Tech who bathed the counter, the products you touched, and herself  in soap and anti-bacterial

I just want to say that I put my two weeks in today at the store where you "get the max for the minimum". I will be working at a nice hotel close to my house now,and I am ever so happy to be getting out of my retail job.

I will not miss the neurotic lady with makeup 4 shades too dark for her face, who always hinders me from what I am doing to tell me the most inane things,like how bees are attacking her in out parking lot(I have never seen a bee in our lot)

I will not miss the babymommas in search of Baby Phat and Roca Wear,who rip open my cologne boxes like they don't give a damn about the next customer who wants to purchase unopened,unsprayed perfume.Yet they seem to expect a discount for opened packages themselves. I will also not miss their mewling,half naked offspring who tear the shit out of my department while their mothers fondle the handbags,oblivious.

I will not miss the EB's who try to return crap without a receipt,with a date code telling me that the items in question are well over a year old. The subsequent shitfit that follows when I tell them "no" will be just a dim memory.

I am sure there will be more sucks to share in the future. Hopefully,my years of retail experience will have left me with nerves of steel,enough to handle anything that the hotel job might throw at me.

Dear patrons of the Green Bookstore,

If I am drinking a coffee, carrying a large bag of purchases, have my purse and coat on, and am chatting about non-work related things with my assistant-manager: I am not on the clock. So no I will not wrap your item, no I will not help you find a book, and I will absolutely not recommend a movie for your five year old grandson who apparently doesn't like anything. I will tell you politely but firmly that I am not on the clock and I will direct you to the proper person to assist you. This is not an invitation for you to start screaming at me for being lazy or to demand a manager to fire me. If you do decide to take this course of action, don't be surprised when my assistant-manager tells you that I am not on the clock and cannot help you. When you demand to speak to the general manager and try to get us both fired you're just being plain ridiculous.

No Love,
The Music Lead Who Was Very Much Off the Clock

A while back, a guy came in with some old shorts that had a hole in the crotch beside the zipper, on the side opposite the flap. At the time, the way to repair it (which he agreed to) was to pinch it closed on the inside and run a seam down it using little stitches for strength.

He came in today (weeks later) at 4pm because the repair didn't hold. Now, it wasn't poor workmanship on my part. It is just that the particular area that it was damaged in, is in a high stress area. Guys sit with their legs spread wide, this pulls on the fabric a lot. Also, reefing the zipper up will pull on the fabric.

The fabric was VERY tired. This means that it was really old and rips easily. At the time, we said that he was better off just buying new shorts, but he wouldn't listen because they were his 'favorite shorts ever' and paid to have them fixed.

Anyway, he came in at 4pm (we close at 5pm) and was SUUUUUUPER mad. He cut in front of the customer that was there before him and started right into SW. He wanted us to repair them RIGHT NOW!!! and was belittling my skills as a seamstress despite SW trying to tell him why the fabric shredded away from the repair.

He started demanding his money back... which we don't do if a job has been completed because the customer is paying for our labor. We will try to redo the job if possible at no extra cost. SW offered to take the shorts back in so I could redo the repair... but in the uglier way (attaching a piece of material on the inside, then making a huge patch of stitching on the outside). He started yelling that we "Don't stand by [our] work" and stuff, but finally agreed to let us redo them.

Then he started in again on wanting them RIGHT NOW when SW said that he could have them next Saturday. Heck, if I didn't have very much to do, I would have done them before the end of the day. However, we are so incredibly busy that there was really no time to do them at all, and won't be until next Friday afternoon.

I mean, I was supposed to hem six curtain panels this morning and by 5pm I had so much other crap to do first, that I was only able to get four of them finished with a bit of hand stitching left on the fifth one. I couldn't even do the sixth one because the lame wad customer didn't show up today when he was SUPPOSED to bring the last panel in BEFORE noon... but that is another story.
___

On a more fun note... I might be buying the business soon. Then I get to be the boss and make the rules. Hooray.

A lady walks in one day and looks at our menu. We're a Mexican restaurant, and we have several different kinds of nachos listed. She asks me, AFTER looking at it, "Do you all have any nachos?"

DOH!

Customer: I'd like a grilled burrito.
Me: Do you want Mexicali style or Fajita style?
Customer: Is there a difference?

DOH!

Customer: What's the difference between beef nachos and beef supreme nachos?

DOH!

Recap: Customer Service Girl at Midsized Midwest Grocery Store Chain.

The girl on UScan called off today. Since I was sort of an 'extra' person, I wound up being pressed into service to work it.

While there were the normal 'minor' sucks (people who can't follow directions, people who can't figure things out, people who insist on removing their items from the scale, etc) there was one major suck.

I was fairly dead and two men walked up with a cart. They had a laptop bag in the cart (and I realized after the fact that they probably stuck stuff in there, but that's not the suck) and a single large can of Beer. The older of the two looked like he could have been in his early 30s. The younger one I would have been surprised if he was 21. His body language during the following exchange just reinforced that impression. Note too, that he was quite the entire time.

Older Man: "Do you need ID for the Beer?"
Me: 0_o "Uh yeah."
OM: "Why? I'm over 40 years old!"
Me: "Cause it's the LAW."
OM: "Pfh. I'm over 40! I shouldn't still need to be carded for buying beer!"
Me: "Well, unfortunately I can't just take your word for it. That's against the Law."
OM: "They should make the law based on how old people look*." I assume he meant rather than carding them. IE if they look 21, then you give it to them.
Me: "Well sir, I knew 16 year olds who could have passed for 21. So that wouldn't work."
OM: "Fine whatever." *Hands the Beer back to the younger man who went to put it back. Had I been thinking, I would have made him give it to me, since I didn't trust that he was over 21.

There was some mumbling and bitching while the younger man went back. It isn't worth repeating.

OM: "Well do you need ID for cigarettes?"
Me: 0_o "Yes sir, you do."
OM: "Well, I guess we aren't buying anything then!" Starts to walk out, then turns and 'mumbles' "F**ing Fat C**t."

I really wanted to shout out that I wasn't fat, just pregnant, but I figured they weren't worth my time.

* - To stop the wank I see. I am aware that technically we don't have to card if they look over 27 (or 29, I can't recall). I am also aware that if I choose to card a 54 year old, then the law is on my side. My rule of thumb is if someone looks under 40, I should probably card them because it can be difficult to tell an 18, 21, and 27 year old apart. Generally people are more than willing to be helpful.

In all truth, I probably wouldn't have carded him. I've seen him in the store before buying booze. That said, it was him who brought it up. When someone else brings up the issue, I'm more likely to err on the side of caution, because his $12 (the amount of the can of beer) isn't worth my job.

But right after being told that we card for booze, what makes anyone think that they could just walk and buy cigarettes without an ID as well? And yes, we are WAY more lax on tobacco then we probably should be. I'd say something like 90% of people who buy tobacco never get carded. That said, again, he brought up the issue. I'm going to stay with the law and party line on the issue, even if he probably could have gotten away with it.

Background: I am a sales associate at a Protestant bookstore. Note: This happened on Thursday.

( Read more... )

TL;DR, a customer wants to use a coupon that isn't valid yet and goes looking for someone who give her the discount anyways.

Dear Customer,

I have not even met you yet and already I want to tear my hair out. I run an independant tutoring business for myself to make a bit of extra scratch on the side. I posted a lovely ad that said I will tutor children in the K-8 levels, in English or in French for $15 an hour, and I will teach adults either English or French for $25 an hour. My ad is fairly popular - I'm pretty cheap compared to large companies!

When you asked me if I was interested in teaching a 4th grade immersion student, of course I responded enthusiastically! I asked you how often you wanted me to tutor and what sort of help your child needed.

You replied once a week and told me Sunday evening was a good day for you, and instead of telling me what help your child needed, you snarkily asked me if I was familiar with the French Immersion curriculum. My insides twitched and I made a little frowning face at your email. Alas I replied to you, that yes, I was familiar with the curriculum, but that French Immersion covers every single class that's not English with the goal of immersing kids in French so that they learn it.* So I asked, to clarify, if it was the French material then that your child needed help with, because it could be the language stuff or it could be science class for all I know, but they're not in the same curriculum book!

Finally I get a response that is semi-useful. He needs help in French. Okay, I can certainly help with that. Then you go on to prove you didn't even read my ad by asking how much I charge per hour and then demand references.

Again I twitch because although I could give you references without a problem, I'm not entirely sure I want to work with you madam, because frankly you're coming off as an EB and seeing as it's my business, I don't have to tolerate customers I don't want. After sleeping on it however, I figure I might have jumped the gun a little thinking this and against better judgement I send you the information you want - a reference and the hourly rate. I try to narrow down just what it is your child needs help with - reading, writing, comprehension, speaking or all of the above? I just want to prepare before I see him.

You once again side step my question and instead send me this information. 'Come to my house at 4:00 Sunday. My address is ****** , Phone number is *****, please give me your number in case there is a change in the time.' I'm pretty sure you didn't mean a change on my end.

Madam, you did not ask me what time was good for me. (Considering that's not even evening.) Do you book your doctor's appointments that way? 
Instead of answering my questions, you side stepped them and tried to steamroll me.
You are pretty much commanding me as though I were your servant, and you know what? I'm not. I'm someone with rather valuable skills and there are a lot nicer people to deal with than you and if you do not clean up your manner, I am not teaching your poor child.

Not Pleased With You,
akira_chan

*Whether this immersion bullshit works or not is another matter.

Hey I'm new here. Yesyes.
I was at returns today, and this old man came in wanting to return some paint. Okay super. I scanned the receipt, then the paint and the computer said it wasn't on the receipt. The paint he brought in had a totally different barcode than the one on the receipt. I told him that I could give him store credit back, and not cash. He was like, "This is the only thing I got this week and I want cash back! I come here all the time." Um okay, then why won't you take store credit? And he kept saying that it was the only thing he bought and that was definitely the receipt. He said the cashier probably manually typed it in. Tthe cashier isn't completely stupid and wouldn't have gotten the UPC wrong. It is clearly a completely different paint.  I kept telling him he couldn't get cash back and that didnt' fly with him and asked. to talk to my boss. So she talked to him for a while and she got tired of this circular argument they had going on. So he wanted a manager to come up. Well the manager was busy so he let him return it for cash. Then we had to mark it down and all that fun stuff. The dumbass more than likely brought in the wrong can of paint.

This happened yesterday. This post has bad_service, horrific customers_suck and terrible co_workers_suck. I was in DT when this happened, the only part of this conversation I actually heard was when the customer started screaming. I heard him from the booth I was in. My co-worker filled me in on the rest of this.

Cashier: *places apple juice on tray for customer's order*
Customer: This apple juice is frozen! I want another one.
Cashier: I'll go get you one from the fridge. *goes, comes back.* All the apple juice we have is frozen, do you want something else instead?
Customer: Give me an orange juice.
Cashier: *makes orange juice*
Customer: No, nevermind, just give me the apple juice!
Cashier: Alright. *places another apple juice on the tray* (Now, apparently she had given him attitude when she did this, because he was getting snappy over the apple juice the entire time)
Customer: You fucking bitch.
Cashier: ?...Fuck you.
Customer: WHAT'D YOU FUCKING SAY TO ME YOU FUCKING BITCH. DO YOU WANT ME TO SHOOT YOU IN THE FUCKING FACE. DON'T FUCK WITH ME, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU YOU CUNT 838236128@^##&*@(@!(!(!!(@&#^%###^291264

The cashier was horrified, she begged management to call the police. And they didn't want to call the cops. And they didn't call despite how scared everyone was in the restaurant. Half the staff agreed that the police should be involved but the managers didn't want us to. I'm extremely disappointed with them.

Well, a small bit of back story - I work at a new healing arts center and 2 days a week I play receptionist.  We have had this phone number since like January, 2008.  However, the company that used to have the phone number changed their numbers even before that, but I still get calls for them and this is one example of a call gone wrong.

Players:
Me: Hi-lo!
Crazy Old Guy:  C.O.G.

( Script Format Under Cut to save F-lists )
So, like I said - a WTF in that he was expecting me to automatically know the oil company's ph #.  I am still "new" to this town (if you weren't born and raised here, or have lived here for like less than 30 years, you're still "new" - me, 5 years now :/), thus I don't know all the phone numbers of all the "important" businesses. 

*Note:  Matilda is just the "name of the day" i chose for this posting *laugh*

This is definitely a WTF, and not a suck, and very funny.

I work as a supervisor in a call center, and my department also answers e-mails from our customers. We have a high number of international customers, and most will e-mail us rather than call. Most of these international customers are not native English speakers/writers, which leads to the following e-mail we received today.

The bolded words are my emphasis.

"message: Hello.
I am (Name),
I took XXXXX exam on Augst 23th,however I was attacked by rubber before taking exam.
I was stolen my wallet,at the same time my credit card was also stolen.
I appky for XXXXX by this mastercard, and I stopped the usage of the card.
Then,I do not understand how the payment will be conducted.

While I feel bad for this person, it's not every day you read about someone being attacked by a rubber.

Two quick sucks, both happened within days of each other. People apparently have a lot of difficulty understanding what trash bags are.

Recap: I work at a small gas station.

First....

Dear Traveling Customers,

Yes, I do understand that one of the things you might want to do at a gas station is clean out your car. That's fine by me, just, WHY, do you need to throw your trash ALL OVER THE PARKING LOT? There is a garbage can RIGHT in front of you. I know it wasn't full, because I just changed it. It's not that hard to actually stop your car for 2 minutes, walk to, OR EVEN, pull up to the garbage can, and empty it there. But no, you must pull trough the parking lot without stopping your car, throw your shit all over the place, and pull out of there like you're in such a huge hurry. There is no reason why you need to open the windows, throw your trash on the lot, and leave. I wish you had come in, or at least got gas so I would of had time to say something to you about it. Yes, you were nice enough to put garbage in a small plastic bags, but when you threw it out the door, it went everywhere :D Not just one bag, but at least 3! I had to spend about 15 minutes cleaning that shit up because there were several broken glass bottles that needed to be cleaned up immediately so people didn't step on or pop their tires on.

I'm not your fucking maid and those garbage cans are there for a reason,

-dreamaria

And a witnessed suck, that happened at my work just the other day.

One of my good friends and I work together, she doesn't drive, so I often pick her up at work. I was outside smoking a cigarette (I'm not on duty, just picking up my buddy) with one of the guys from the garage while my friend was changing the trash bags. A customer was heading for the store to pay for gas or whatever, so my friend left the trash bag off to the side of the pump to go help them. (It was the one closest to the store, so maybe about 10 feet away.) A 20-something year old guy pulls in to the spot behind where the trash bag was. Okay, whatever, right? After getting his gas, (which, why he had to pick that pump is a mystery, because EVERY other pump was open, except the one that the aforementioned customer was at. We have 16 pumps) instead of backing out of his spot, he looks RIGHT AT my friend, who was standing at the window, finishing up her sale, meets eye contact with her, and RUNS OVER THE TRASH BAG. Maybe it was bad judgment of her to leave the bag right next to a pump...but come on. It's almost 10:30 at night. It's not like she was taking up valuable pump space.

Why. Seriously, just, why? I swear that he saw her put the bag there before he pulled in and then formulated his plan to be an asshole.

We spent quite a while cleaning that shit up.

Some years ago I used to work front-of-house at one of Edinburgh's larger theatres. We prided ourselves on having a family & slightly old-fashioned atmosphere and service-ethic which included actually showing people to their seats wherever possible. For some reason there were those who objected to this as well as those who objected to being asked to show us their tickets in the first place.

One night I get this guy who just tries to brush past me, so I stop him and ask to see his ticket which is then briefly waved at me and he tries to head off again I stop him & the following takes place:

Me: Excuse me, Sir, I need to see your tickets, please.
Eejit: I just showed you them.
Me: No, sir, I actually need to see it not just that you have them.
Eejit: For f***'s sake I had to show it to one of you idiots in the foyer!
Me: (Showing remarkable restraint by now) Yes sir, but they would just have checked which level you were booked for and directed you here. I'll now show you to your seat.
Eejit: I know where my seats are; I come here all the time. I can find them without your bloody help.
Me: That's certainly your choice, Sir. However, I still need to take the stubs from your tickets. (We didn't actually bother most of the time, but it's a good way to make them hand the thing over to be checked.)
Eejit: Oh for f***'s sake this is ridiculous!

The ticket is thrust at me, quickly checked that it's the right show and the correct theatre (you'd be surprised how many people came to the wrong one), the stub is removed and it is then snatched back out of my hand. He stamps off complaining loudly about what a show of incompetent a-holes we are in this sh***y dump. TIme passes and a few minutes before curtain I see some people standing half-way up the aisle looking bewildered. I went up to them, asked if I could help and was told that this was their row, but it was full. I check the tickets and they are by the correct row and it is full. I take the tickets and move into the row to see what the problem is. It's usually someone in the wrong place - kinda why we try to usher people to the seats occasionally it was a double-booking. So I get to the right spot and who do you think is sitting in the seat?

Got it in one.

Me: Sorry, sir but may I see your ticket again, please?
Eejit: You've already seen it.
Me: I know sir, but there seems to be some confusion here and I need to check it again.
Eejit: This is my seat and we're not moving.
Me: It may well be sir, but I still need to re-examine your ticket to make sure that there hasn't been some kind of booking error. So if I could just see it for a moment I would appreciate it.

There followed some grumbling and swearing as the tickets were recovered from the pocket and they were thrust at me. I check the seat numbers and, sure enough, they were in the correct place. Just as I was about to admit to a booking error and start trying to get the other folks new seats I noticed the information that allowed me to say the following:

Me: These are your (couple in aisle) seats, you (Eejit) should have been here yesterday.

I even managed to say it without a triumphant grin. Under other circumstances I'd even have found him another seat or offered a refund - hey we all make mistakes and we preferred people to come back - but I really enjoyed showing him the door.

Me: Tech support, this is me, how can I help you?
Lady: Yeah, I wanted to check on the status of my application? Name is ___.
Me: Sure thing! Let me just look that up….looks like we just sent your approval letter to (home address) yesterday, so you should be getting it in the next couple days :)
Lady: ….how do you know my home address?
Me: …? You, uh, put it into your online application, ma’am…
Lady: You have my PERSONAL information?!
Me: Yes ma’am? We uh…asked for all of it in your online application that you filled out?
Lady: @#(*@&#*@( *click*

And then, as luck would have it, I happen to get this next call too…( Rar!! )