While working at Knott’s:
“Where’s Space Mountain (or Thunder Mountain, or Small World, or the Haunted Mansion)?”
At Disneyland. This is Knott’s.
This wasn’t a customer. This was an employee. But it’s golden.
Me (at drive-through): I’d like a 9-piece McNuggets with hot mustard sauce and a small coke.
Her: What size coke?
Me (I know it’s hard to hear through those things, no sweat): A small.
Her: And a nine-piece what?
Uh…
Nine pieces of hamburger. Nine french fries. Eventually the phrase “Nine pieces of your head on a stick” became a catch-phrase for a few friends and me.
Does McRestaurant HAVE a nine-piece anything else?
They have Chicken Selects, too, but as I recall, the new incarnation comes in 4 or 6, and the old one came 5 or 10. Maybe those wings?
We still get the occasional person here who wants ‘the Internet’ on their computer. Haven’t come up with a sufficiently snappy response to that one yet.
My all-time favourite is the guy who asked me how to connect his stand-alone fax machine (purchased elsewhere) to his computer (also purchased elswhere.) Being abnormally dedicated to the concept of Customer Service, I spent half an hour consulting service manuals for products we didn’t carry, because the customer insisted that his wee thermal fax was “compatible.” After confirming that there was no RS232IF upgrade available for his tiny fax, I asked him why he was so certain that he should be able to connect it to his computer-- perhaps the salesman that sold it to him led him astray? No: “Well, it’s beige, and my computer is beige, so it should be compatible. It’s false advertising if it’s not.” :smack:
Also a fave: The customer who insisted that repairs to their colour-laser copier should be covered under the terms of their service contract, after they ruined two of the drums & some other parts by trying to feed a T-shirt wrapped around a piece of cardboard through the damned thing. “But you said it could handle T-shirt transfers!” Sorry, chump, but you’d best be investing in some Freakin’ Moron Insurance.
“How much is a hundred-dollar gift certificate?”
Larry Mudd: I have a black laptop talking to a white printer just fine. Apparently, your moron never heard of integration.
What would Dr. King say?
(LET ME OUT OF THIS COFFIN! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I’M STILL ALIVE!)
When I was working as a floormat, er receptionist, at a local animal hospital, we would often get phone calls from distraught owners certain that their little fuzzywuzzy was going to suffer a painful and untimely death if not seen immediately by one of our esteemed docs. We found it easier to schedule them in to an already tight schedule than to try to reason with them.
One of these owners arrived for the appointment with her little Bichon.
I asked, “What are you here for today?”
Her (distressed) response: “Pookie has dandruff!”
My brain melted.
A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers told me she was having computer problems and asked me if I could e-mail her what she needed. So I asked her what files she wanted.
She told me I needed to send her the network because she accidentally deleted it from her computer.
I tried to explain that the network was separate and she just needed to restart and reconnect. She kept insisting that she deleted the network from her computer and wouldn’t be able to do any work the next day unless I sent her another copy.
After about five minutes I gave up trying to explain it and sent her a few files. To this day, I think she thinks I was just being a bitch about it.
(I know she wasn’t a customer, but she made my head hurt).
I used to work in a hobby shop. At the register I stood in front of an enormous battery display. Of course, people would, at least once a week ask me: “Do you have batteries?”
My two best retorts:
- “No” to which I usually received a puzzled look as they realized there were batteries staring them in the face. Some merely walked away.
- “No, I’m the new plug-in model”, an outside-the-box answer which left them either thoroughly confused or jumpstarted their critical reasoning center (which all good satire should do).
May I suggest you all out there in retail land use these responces when appropriate!
Oh man, I’ve got two gems from today alone.
I work in an auto parts store. We had some hippies come in today and ask if they could borrow some tools (we will loan out basic tools, but not enough to disassemble your car in the parking lot). When I said “No”, he said “Oh man, you gotta, like, buy stuff here?!?!”
And then some slimy man called me “Goddess-face”. Goddess face? What kind of tumor does it take to warp a brain to the point that it thinks calling anyone "Goddess-face** is a good idea???
Let’s see…my favorites from the video store was when The Mexican was out and someone asked “Do you have an Mexicans under the counter”. Of course, it was also great fun to watch people constantly ask us “Where can I find Snatch?”
originally posted by SisterCoyote
Give him directions to a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps.
Sorry I have nothing to add, except to say this is one of the more entertaining threads I’ve read in a while. You could all take standup comic Bill Engvall’s (sp?) advice and just say, “Here’s your sign.”
One from today…
I work in the fraud unit at a credit card company. People committing fraud will call in and try to pull stuff with us. Morons.
This assclown calls in and is trying to pretend to be his father in order to take the account over. I can tell just by the voice - he sounds about 20, our true customer is 56 - he’s full of it.
So I pry a little further. I ask him where he has his checking account (gives wrong answer) and where his social security number was issued (no clue). He still claims to be the customer even when I ask “I know you’re not Mr Smith, who are you?”.
So I tell him I need to review the account, conference call the true customer, explain the issue and bring on the idiot.
Exact exchange …
me : Mr Smith?
both men : yes?
True customer : Gary, YOU BASTARD!
I had to hit mute and stuff a hand over my mouth.
OK, I’ll bite…how do I know where my social security number was issued? My card doesn’t say…
I work in a framing store. We have about three hundred custom frame samples on the wall behind the counter, and the entire store is absolutely nothing but frames of all shapes and sizes, except for a very tiny section with some art supplies. There are frames in the middle of the store, and all around you no matter where you stand.
This woman came in last week and walked up to the counter, and one of the other girls says “Can I help you?” and the woman says “Yeah… I’m looking for a frame…” and then she must’ve had a brain fart because it took her about three minutes before she described what she was looking for exactly.
I was walking by at the time, so I see this lady walk up and say “I’m looking for a frame…” with this kind of spaced-out expression on her face. I laughed about it then, but we actually have this quite a bit. I’ve also been asked “Where are your frames?”
I work at a small drugstore of a national chain. Most stores in the chain are much bigger, many 2-3 times larger. There is a large chain supermarket across the street from my store. We don’t stock much in the way of produce or milk. We don’t stock any. I got into the following arguement with a customer one day.
“Where’s your milk?”
“We don’t carry milk [grocery store] is across the street and they even have a generator.”
“I hate going in there, seriously, where’s your milk?”
“We seriously don’t have any.”
“Not even in the back?”
“No. Sorry. Here, let me grab a flashlight to show you out.”
Our power had been out for a good 15 hours at this point, in 70-80ºF weather. I don’t know about you, but I refuse to drink milk that is that spoiled.
I made an ice cream cone for an order, however I unlike some of our crew made it the proper size. I hand the cone to the customer. She tells me the cone is Too Small. I assure her she was getting cones which were Too Big. She asks for the manager. I smile and reply," That would be me. ".
After several seconds of muttering and sputtering she replies.
" You can’t be the manager. "
After more argument I turn to the crewperson in the window and told her I was going home, I couldn’t be the manager.
Unfortunately it didn’t work.
Hey, don’t laugh, that happened to me last year, after my kid decided to screw around with the 'puter one day, compressing files and generally creating mayhem. While I could ‘connect’ via my ISP, there was no data coming through, and so, effectively, the internet had been ‘deleted’. Big pain in the arse that was!
My favorite call ever.
I work at a college. We had a problem with one of our dorms, the phone service was out for quite a while, a few weeks. To make up for this inconvenience, we put a FREE cell phone in every RA’s office (one per floor) for the students to use. I admit it was not as good as having your own phone, but it was FREE. In order to keep them from going missing, the students had to use them in the RA’s office.
I got a call from a mother. She was hysterical. They were paying good money (she tells me) to send her son to college, and we have no phones, and so he has to call home on his own cell phone, and his cell phone bill is now $700 and she thinks we should pay it.
Me: But there are free phones!
Mom: No, there aren’t. You owe us $700.
Me: Yes, there are. Every floor has one free phone. Your son can use it any time, 24 hours a day.
Mom: There are no free phones. My son has no free phone on his floor. You owe us $700.
Me: Ma’am, I’ve seen the phone with my own eyes.
Mom: I’m going to get my son on the line, and he’s going to tell you there is no free phone on his floor.
Mom (to son): Tell this woman that there is no free phone on your floor.
Son (shocked): Mom! I would have to GET DRESSED if I wanted to use the free phone!
(pause)
Mom: YOU GEE DEE (she said “gee dee,” which I love, because I say it too) LITTLE PISSPOT! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD YOUR FATHER BUSTS HIS HUMP TO SEND YOU TO THAT SCHOOL?? (and on and on)
Man, she completely forgot I was still on the line and finally calmed down and made her son apologize.
I loved that phone call.