The Customer’s Always Right? These Stories Beg to Differ

Late Night Special

I’m a cook at this mom-and-pop grill in a small town that closes at 9 on Monday-Thursdays. Every Wednesday we have this couple that shows up at 8:50 (and sometimes later) and repeatedly orders something weird or makes us alter their meals. Every single Wednesday never fails. For those who don’t know or don’t care showing up ten minutes to close really pisses the cooks off seeing as how we have most of the stuff cleaned and broken down as it takes a while to clean the kitchen and we’re tired and want to go home. Well, the most recent f*ckery they pulled was they ordered an appetizer of our black bean nachos, which has the beans already mixed with beef. They decided they didn’t want the beans and proceeded to have our waitress ring back the nachos but with 2 ground up hamburgers, and patty instead. After the server brought it to them they claimed it tasted like Taco Bell nachos (which doesn’t sound that bad to me) and made her take it back and bring them the regular black bean nachos instead. It’s well past closing time at this point and I inform the server that we tossed the old nacho meat and didn’t have any left. They got pretty pissed, refused to pay for the drinks they already finished, and stormed out. Haven’t seen them in 3 weeks.

Change is Hard to Come By

As a grocery store cashier, I had an old man giving me his money not giving me enough (he was like eighty cents short). I politely told him that he still owed me eighty cents, but he looked at me, and in a weak voice, told me to keep the change.

Once again, I reminded him he was short. “Keep the change!” His voice grew more and more frustrated. “But sir…” “Keep the change!” He began to slowly trudge out of the store.

I just paid the rest of the eighty cents myself.

Etab

Refund Roulette

A woman came into my store and asked if her computer had finished being worked on. We’d barely had the computer for 24 hours and told her it was still being worked on. She immediately flipped out when we told her it would be done that day. Looking at her work order it said that we would call the next day once the computer had been diagnosed. We were on track to have the computer fixed by the next morning, but she demanded we give her the computer back and refund her for the repair. I oblige and ask if she has her receipt. She gives me a stern, “No.” So I ask if she has her claim check. To which I get another stern “No!” So I ask if she has a driver’s license. She replies, “I don’t drive!” At the end of my rope, I say, “Do you have any form of identification on you?” Her reply was, “Why are you making this so difficult?” Knowing all heck is about to break loose I as calmly as possible state, “I can’t give you a computer without some kind of ID.” She totally flies off the handle and starts screaming for a manager and tells me to go away. I get our manager and an employee who was working at her time of check-in. He vouches for her, so my manager starts the refund process. Of course, she wrote a check for $250, way over the $150 cash return limit. The manager explains that we have to mail her a check. Now the woman is threatening to call the police saying that we’re trying to steal from her. As a total exception, General Manager comes out and breaks the sale into 3 returns that can each be returned as cash. Obviously, this takes a little while to break apart the transactions and get enough cash into the register. So of course she starts yelling at the GM for taking his “sweet time.” And it gets better. We had several visiting GM’s walking through at the time. She grabs another GM from a different store and starts screaming at him. He’s a total deer in headlights and has no idea what’s going on. Finally my GM snaps and in a half-yelling voice tells her to get out of the store. Obviously, she’s gravely offended by this, scoffs at my GM, and walks out after silently collecting her computer and cash. Totally unnecessary! The customer is not always right! People need to be reasonable in all aspects of life.

Plastic Bag Panic

I’m a produce guy at a grocery store. There are literally 15 rolls of plastic bags in the department. I got yelled at by an elder customer (mid 70’s)because we were empty in one spot. When he asked me to fill the empty roll bags so he could shop I had to explain to him that the supply shipment was late. The customer being a total a**h*le stomped his feet like a 5-year-old and screamed at me… “I JUST NEED YOU TO DO YOUR JOB!” My response was, you can get yourself a bag from over here or if you really want a bag and there’s a roll here and here and here and here and there and here and there. He literally went to the store manager to complain about the plastic roll bag being empty where he wanted to shop, so I took a full roll off of another display and put it where the empty spot was. Let’s just say history repeated itself.

The All Shoe Lady

Back when I was a shoe store manager, I was working alone one day about a month before Christmas.

I’d like you to note my store had the name ‘Moc’ for Moccasin in it.

This woman came in saying her granddaughter was a size 6. What did I have in a size 6 moccasin?

“About 50 different styles, each in multiple colours and beading patterns”, I said. “It amounts to probably about 120 pairs I could potentially have in my back room. Any particular colour? With beads, or without? With a rubber or plastic sole so she could wear them outside, or a leather sole for indoors? Suede or smooth leather? Deerskin, cowhide, moose hide? With rabbit fur, or not? Sheepskin lining, or unlined?”

“Oh, just bring out every size 6 you have.”

“But ma’am”, I said, “I have about 120 possible pairs. I am also helping several other customers at the moment. Can you please help narrow down the selection?”

“No. Bring out every pair of 6’s you have.”

At this point, even the other customers are looking incredulous or sniggering.

F*ck it, I thought. There was no way I’d leave the storefront empty while I climbed ladders and pulled every godd*mn size six in stock. I was the boss, I was alone. I said unless she would narrow down her preferences, I couldn’t help. She freaked out at me, but I just shrugged and went on helping the reasonable people.

She called the next day, asking to speak to the manager. I replied “Oh! You’re the All the Shoe lady. That was me yesterday, and I am the manager. Have a nice day.” And I hung up.

Nothing ever came of it, and to this day we all remember the All the Shoe lady.

“Can You Try This On?”

A woman walks into the store, loudly talking using an obviously fake Hispanic accent. She immediately finds 3 outfits she likes, then makes eye contact with me and tells whoever she’s talking to she’ll call them later. The following conversation went like this…

Me: Can I help you find anything?

Lady: It’s my cousin’s birthday and I’m surprising her with a 3-day trip to Salem. I’m buying her some outfits for the trip.

Me: Oh well how nice of you! I wish I had a cousin as great as you.

Lady: Thing is, she’s not my size and I have no idea if any of this is going to fit her.

Me: We have a 60-day return policy and all our items come in sizes xxs-4xl. If it doesn’t fit you can return it as long as the tags are intact and you have a receipt.

Lady: abruptly walks away to speak to my manager in a hushed tone. She cuts off my manager as she’s talking and walks away, leaving my manager looking pissed off and confused

Lady: I need you to try these on for me. You’re the same size as my cousin and I can see how they fit before she gets them

My manager had to step in to tell her that my job is to man the register, not model for customers. And she actually had the deep-fried audacity to be offended that I was not there to help her in that way.

Money Back Madness

When I used to work the Customer Service counter at a grocery I got screamed at for refusing to give a guy his money back on some bad bread we sold him. Dude didn’t have his receipt, the bread, or even the packaging the bread was sold in.

Just walked up and said, “I want my money back.”

“Sure, you got a receipt or the packaging?”

“No, and I shouldn’t have to!”

“How can I return it, or know how much to give you if you don’t have a receipt or the packaging?”

“Are you some sort of IDIOT?!!?!?!?! GIVE ME BACK MY MONEY, RIGHT NOW!”

“MANAGER! MANAGER!” x10 times until the manager came up. I was promptly told to give the dude three bucks. When I pointed out that I can’t even open the till until a transaction was made, the manager just deep sighed, walked around the counter and used his key to open the till.

The angry customer then yelled, “SEE? WAS THAT SO F*CKING HARD?” as he stormed out.

“Fruit Salad” Drink

I bartended all through college at this bayside bar in Ocean City, MD.

Every Tuesday, we had a “Senior Deck Party,” where we’d set up a free buffet with all the mushy foods you can think of. The seniors would come through, grab a couple of happy hour drinks, gorge on potato salad, and head out.

There was this one lady named Rose that would come, take up 2 seats at the bar (one for her and one for her purse) and sit there all day, demanding the following:

A ginger ale in a highball glass with 2 orange slices, one lime slice, a lemon slice, 3 cherries, and 2 straws.

She never touched the fruit, it was only a status thing, and I was supposed to fill up her ginger ale every time it got to half a glass to restore carbonation.

Any bartender will tell you, fruit is a precious commodity. This routine caused me extreme mental anguish.

I should also add, SHE NEVER TIPPED.

No Salad for You

I waitressed at a pizza place by myself during the day on the weekends. Usually, on Sundays, we would get busy and on this particular Sunday, I had a few large tables and a couple of small tables by myself. It was to the point where I was running to place orders and every time I went back to the kitchen I had at least 4-5 things I had to do (place orders for table A, table E, G, and B need refills, table H’s order just came out, etc.)

So I’m literally running to place an order and grab things when this table pulls me aside. It was two elderly couples and they had already made things complicated when their friends came in and joined them so I had to place another order and they had a lot of requests. So they stop me on my way to the kitchen and one woman asked me to place an order for a salad. Her friend got one so now she wanted one. Except she didn’t want the “dark green stuff.” She literally asked for salad but without half the salad because of its color. I told her the salads came pre-packaged as a mix. She said, “Well you can just pick it out for me then.”

Sorry picking the bits out of your salad that you don’t want, isn’t my job. Especially when I’m waitressing 5 other tables.