Stupid Customer Stories.....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

in the past few days, i’ve had more than my fair share of STUPID customers, must be idiot season…

Customer #1, Ms. Schoolteacher
Ms. Schoolteacher, yes, i understand your data is important, you have some exams on your PowerBook’s hard drive that you need to give to students this week, if these exams are as important as you say they are, i would think you would have the presence of mind to have BACKUP COPIES of these exams, in case you find yourself in the situation you’re in now, with a 'Book with a dying hard drive and no way to recover the data short of sending the drive to DriveSavers for data recovery…

i imagine your students will be quite happy by this turn of events… how would you respond to your students if one of them said “my computer ate my homework assignment”, i wonder…

I am trying to help you recover your data, so it would help me if you weren’t fighting me every step of the way by whining about how much labor time you’re racking up, yes i appreciate you bringing me a spare computer and FireWire hard drive, but in order to get the data off the bad drive, i’ll have to erase one of them so i can clone the other drive, you’ll have to decide what data is more important, the data on your sick 'Book, or the data on your external drive…

yes, there is a chance that cloning your drive will clone over the corrupted data, nothing i can do about that, sorry, it’s a risk you’ll have to take

okay, okay, i’ll be nice (dear Og, why am i doing this for this whiny little prima-donna) and clone your data over to my external drive first, so i can see if it’s possible, that way you won’t have to risk your <Gollum> Precioussss Datasess</Gollum> on your external drive in case it doesn’t work (it didn’t)

and no, screaming and yelling at me and going into hysterics will not;

A; bring your data back from the dead, it’s gone, deal with it, use this as a learning experience, something you should be intimately familiar with, what with you being a TEACHER and all…
B; make you look very mature in the eyes of other customers on the floor, your hard drive dies, yes it’s very unfortunate (or to use the more common vernacular, it “sucks”), now be an adult here, suck it up and deal with it, hysterics will not bring your data back
C; make me more sympathetic to your cause, and while we’re at it, stop with the entitlement bullshit, technically, i should have billed you for more hours than i did, but i felt bad for your data (not for you) and decided to cut you a little break, if you insist on being a demanding, whining baby, i will charge you the full price of the labor, here’s a clue, quit while you’re ahead…

(next day, machine is locked up, data unrecoverable) So sorry, Ms. Schoolteacher, i hate to be the bearer of bad news, your data is not retrievable, you can send it to DriveSavers but they’re expensive, okay, i understand, you’re declining the repair, yes i will have to bill you for the labor time involved, i am cutting you a break though, just don’t whine or bitch about it, just to let you know, i should still be charging you, your bad hard drive actually killed my transfer machine’s hard drive, i had to repartition, reinstall the OS, and transfer over my old settings from my backup drive to get up and running again, and I didn’t lose any critical data, because I was prepared for this eventuality…

two more stories to come, i’ll post them as seperate entries to keep the post length down

2

Story #2, “Mr. Stripped Screws” (this’ll be a short one (thank Og!))

So, Mr. Stripped Screws, you have an iMac G5 20" that you tried to install RAM in but couldn’t get the case open?, hold on, let me take a look here…

Well, HERE’S your problem, the heads of all THREE Phillips-head captive screws are COMPLETELY stripped out, there are no points for a screwdriver of any kind, Phillips, Torx, square-bit, flathead, to grab, the screws are completely rounded out…

No, i highly doubt it came from the Apple factory that way, no, it didn’t, yes i’m sure, why?, oh maybe because…

I CAN STILL SEE IRON FILINGS AROUND THE SCREWS STRIPPED HEADS!, no, there’s NO way it left the Apple factory that way, especially not with visible piles of iron filings around the screw holes

okay, okay, you say you didn’t strip out the screws, okay yeah, sure you didn’t…

how can it be repaired?, it’s going to be tough, as those screws are captive screws and not designed to come out, i might be able to drill them out, but it’ll be risky, either way you’re going to need to purchase a new chassis, yes, PURCHASE, this is clearly end-user damage (Abuse) more likely a defective end-user, and NOT covered by Apple warranty

yes, i’m sure

absolutely sure, there’s no way that machine left the factory with stripped screws

yes, you can call Apple to see if they can give you a warranty exception yeah, like that’ll bloody happen…, but they’ll probably decline it, worst thaey can say is “no” well, actually the worst they could do is laugh hysterically and make fun of you for damaging your own machine thru the force of sheer stupidity, but…

okay, thanks for coming in, sorry i didn’t have any better news for you…moron

3

I used to work as a waitress at a restaurant in a small touristy mountain town. The restaurant faced the lake, and customers often requested to sit by the window.

One morning, a family of four from Texas stopped in for breakfast. There were many deer, mountain goat and elk heads mounted on the walls of the restaurant, and the family asked me what kind of animals they were and where we got them. I told them that most of the animals were killed by local hunters.

I saw the wife looking back and forth from a deer to an elk with a confused look on her face. Finally she says, “At what age do the deer become elk?”

:rolleyes:

Wait. It gets better.

They came back later that afternoon, and as I came to greet them, the husband–pointing at the boats moored on the lake–asked me, “Who’s job is it to turn all the boats around?”

Bewildered, I looked out over the lake. “What do you mean, ‘turn the boats around’?”

To which he replies: “Well, when we were in here this morning, all the boats were pointing south, but now they’re all pointing north.”

Oh. Dear. Gawd.

At first, I thought he was kidding. When I realized he wasn’t, I slowly explained that the wind pushes so that they all point in the same direction.

Then I went in the kitchen and told the staff and we all had a long, hearty laugh.

4

Working at a grocery store gave me many opportunities to observe idiocy. Once, around 11PM, I bagged a customers order as normal and when she left, the cashier started laughing pretty hard. This lane was the “No Candy Lane” with a sign stating so. The customer had been in another lane and when the cashier invited her over to use the vacant lane, she said, “But I have candy.” Apparently, she thought the sign meant that you couldn’t bring candy through the lane.

5

I once had to try to explain, in vain and in increasing exasperation, that I could not fax a credit card.

6

Hee! My cousin (he’s from Colorado) was telling me of some incident - apparently some lady asked, “At what elevation do deer turn into elk?”

I can just see some deer, walking happily along, until he ventures too high on the mountain, then has to go through some horrible and painful transformation. Then the now poor elk, coming down the mountain, and BOOM! Transforms again! Must be bothersome.

7

I had a lady come in asking for art supplies for her niece. Explained that she was just starting out and wanted something easy to use but interesting.

Okay, fine. So I pointed out some gel mediums we have that you can mix with acrylics to get all sorts of different cool textures. Then, to get a better idea of what might be good for her niece, I asked the lady how old her niece is.

She says, “2 1/2.” :eek:

I explained to her that these supplies weren’t appropriate for young children, and she TOTALLY couldn’t believe it. She said, “Well, it says they’re non-toxic!”

Lady, you don’t get semi-professional art supplies for a toddler. Yes, they’re non-toxic, but when a toddler eats a tub of acrylic polymer absorbent ground, I can assure you they’ll puke. Anyone would. And you have to apply this stuff with a palette knife. Somehow I doubt that the kid’s got the dexterity to handle one. :rolleyes:

8

:confused: What is a “no candy lane”?

9

You know those displays at the checkout with all the candy bars? And sometimes they have other stuff, like flashlights and nail files and little things?

If you’ve ever taken a kid through the checkout line, notice that you stop there, next to the candy, for however long it takes to check out the person in front of you, which is, say, 5 minutes. In this 5 minutes, your kid will ask you approximately 50 squillion times if they can have candy.

In the no candy lane, there is no visible candy. And they’re not gonna beg for flashlights and nail files in quite the same way. It’s really a sanity measure.

10

My husband had a customer recently who came in looking for a particuar accessory for his cellular phone. My husband explained that he did not have it, but that that a store such as Wal-Mart or KMart might. The customer said he had already checked those stores, so my husband said he might be able to find it on the Internet. “Where’s that?” the customer asked.

11

That’s the weirdest thing I’ll hear all week.

12

Sanity for the cashiers, because the parents with the whiny kids haven’t learned that little word “No” yet. :smiley:

My father and step-mom work RV, and the summer before last they were in Alaska. They’re retired, this is their fun, and my dad likes to mess with people’s heads. So when tourists came into his store asking where the mammoths were, he said, “Oh, they’re on the other side of the mountain today. The way the wind is blowing, you’d be knocked out by the stench of their dung.” He’d say this with a perfectly straight face, and the tourists would nod knowingly, because, as we all know, mammoth dung DOES stink. :wink:

13

Back in college, I worked phone support for AT&T’s internet service. Those are always good for stories, aren’t they?

  1. I’m very sorry, sir, if your account was deactivated because your laptop was stolen, I’m going to need some identity validation before I can reactivate it. If you can’t remember your password or security phrase, and don’t have your credit card information (because you charged it to your wife’s card and she’s at home and you’re calling on your cell phone driving to work), then I can’t do anything for you. For all I know, you’re the person who stole the laptop and are trying to scam free internet service.

  2. Sir, I understand that you’ve been having some trouble with your account. Yes, it’s a pain when you have to keep having to call back with our long call queues. I really don’t appreciate that kind of language, it’s not going to make things go any faster. Wow, you’re a lawyer?!? It really must impress your clients that you’re using a service that’s barely a step up from AOL for critical communication. Sure, I can bring up your account to reset your password yet again. That’ll take a few seconds, while that’s coming up, could you check whether your Caps lock light is on.
    {many seconds of dead air}
    I’m glad to hear you can connect now. Thank you for calling.

  3. Yes, I realize that we provide service for your internet. No, that doesn’t mean we can do anything for what appears to be a hardware problem with your modem. You’ll have to call your computer’s manufaturer or go to a computer repair shop. You say you had a lightning strike to the phone pole outside your house last night? And there’s no surge protection between your computer and the phone jack? Yes, the hardware technicians may want to be informed of that.

14

Way back when I worked at a music store that also sold event tickets. We used to get a bunch of idiots in. We had a running list of some of the funnier ones. It ran ~20 pages over about 2 years.

I think one of the best incidents was the person who asked if the Reno Air Races were indoors.

15

First off I’m a girl and I worked in a small hardware store for a few years. On more than one occasion someone, older farmer male usualy, would walk in and flat out ask to talk to a man ignoring me completely.

Another time I was working I got a call from someone that had bought a wireless door bell. It turned out that their neighbor had the same one so whenever either button was pushed they both rang. I told the man to change the frequency, the concept of which confused him greatly, and the problem was of course fixed.

16

My brother has some great stories from when he worked tech support at a local ISP. One of my favorites involves a woman who called because she’d had an account for three months and still couldn’t get online.

My brother: OK, ma’am, we’ll need to check for a few problems here. Are you on a phone near the computer so that you can look at the screen while you talk to me?

Caller: I don’t have a computer.

Apparently the woman had seen a WebTV commercial and assumed she could use her old television to surf the 'Net.

17

I’ve got a new one from someone who should know better.

I do support for reservation software. Hotels run their business using our software. In the past month or so I have had 3 properties that lost their servers hard drives. Out of the the three, two did not have valid backups.

Now, these are not little Mom and Pop places, they are (for the most part) multi-million dollar, four and five star hotels. I recently saw a reservation at one of these places for over $500,000, and that was for two people.

The most recent of these had an IT person who yanked one hard drive out of the server while it was running. The drive was not, apparently, hot swappable and it killed all the drives on the system and apparently fried some other components.

Now, on to the stupidity. The drives were shot. It had their all their hotel reservation information, all their point of sale information, all their restaurant information and all the interfaces (like the phone interface, the movie interface, etc) on it. The last backup they ran was over a month old. So, to resolve this issue, they had to restore the month old backup, re-enter every days data for a month (think a couple hundred reservations a day, a couple thousand POS and restaurant tickets, thousands of interface charges, etc). The process to do this isn’t hard but it takes up a lot of time. They had to pull each days reports, enter the data then end the day and start on the next day.

The IT manager, who makes roughly 3 times what I do, wanted to start with a fresh system, let the staff use it for the day and then have us append the data from the backup onto the new live system. That wasn’t going to happen. We don’t a) fix data unless it was caused by a program error b) don’t cover for inept IT staff and c) don’t do data entry.

The IT manager was upset. He basically begged us to help with bouts of trying to badger us into fixing his huge mess. That didn’t help. (Hint, be nice to the support people, the results are better). The answer (and it is written into the contract) is that we will assist with verifying the data from the backup is good and that is it.

So this guy took down his properties reservation/POS/restaurant system for about 3 days because he, or his minions, couldn’t be bothered to do a backup. On top of that the property isn’t going to be in balance anytime soon because they are going to miss stuff during the data re-entry.

Now that is stupid.

Slee

18

Me and my father ran a kitchen in a bar quite a few years ago, a few extra bucks and kept me away from the live in girlfriend. Anyways, there was one miserable bitch of a customer and she didn’t like our chicken wings, they were never done enough. They were done plenty, she just had an addiction to bitching about everything. So since we obviously had no clue what we were doing she wanted her wings fried for 25 minutes, becuase that was how long they needed to be fried. The end result was crunchy chicken jerky on a bone.

With the same lovely person (who by the way insisted on a dark brown, chocolate syrup brown, Kahlua Sombrero in a 16 ounce glass, no ice, heavy cream, for the standard price of $3.25.) ordered a cheese burger with fries, $4.50, 8oz real burger, not that single ground pre-made crap, seasoned nicely, medium rare, and fries, those nice carnival kind, brown blistered and crispy, moist in the middle, perfect with vinegar, all the normal fixins, garlic dill pickle and pepperoncini garnish. After one bite decided that $4.50 was too expensive, so my old man who is a little more blunt than me, said “fine” picked up the whole plate and threw the whole meal in the trash plate and all before she could say anything. There’s a mastercard commercial in there somewhere.

19

I had a phone call today. It’s a long one - and very stupid.

Me: Flooring, this is Congodwarf - how can I help you?

Crochety Old Man: Is this the flooring dept?
Me: Yes sir ( that would be why I said flooring)

COM: What is your name miss?

Me: (Oh, for the love of Christ - you’re gonna be one of those people aren’t you?) My name is Congodwarf sir.

COM: I have a Prego floor in my kitchen. We had some leaking and now the floor needs to be fixed. Will you send someone out to give me an estimate.

Me: (first of all, it’s Pergo goddammit. If one more person calls it Prego, I’m gonna slap them). First, did we install the floor?

COM: Yes, about 4 or 5 years ago. It was a glue down install.

Me: Ok, you’ll need to come in the store with your original install contract. We’ll set you up for an estimate, which costs $30. Then, you’ll have to come back to the store after the estimate is done to go over the contract. After everything is signed and paid for, we’ll get the damage fixed.

COM: Well, you installed the floor but someone else replaced it.

Me: (huh?)Then we wont do anything. We only repair floors we installed.

COM: But you did install it. Then we had some leaking and another company took it up, fixed the damage and put it back. But I don’t like how they put it down so I want you to fix it.

Me: (They put back a damaged floor?)I’m sorry sir. We only repair floors we installed. If someone else removes the floor and reinstalls it, it becomes their install. Also, if it was a glue down install, and the new installer ripped it up, they probably damaged the planks.

COM: Well, I bought a second floor from you and that’s the one they installed.

Me: (And how exactly is this our responsibility?) So, you had us install a floor, had someone else rip it up and install a totally new floor. Now, you want us to fix the bad job they did?

COM: Exactly.

Me: I’m sorry, we still don’t repair other contractors’ work.

COM: You’ve got to be kidding me. I bought two floors from you and you wont fix it?

Me: Here’s how it works. If we install the floor, we will repair it. If you install the floor or any other contractor does it, we will not repair it. If you or another contractor starts the job but doesn’t finish it, we will not finish it. We only finish and repair the work we do. You can buy a whole houseload of flooring from us, but if someone else starts the job, we will not and can not finish it.

COM: Why the hell not?

Me: Because we guarantee all our work. If some other contractor has had their hands on the job, we can’t guarantee it - because we don’t know them our how they work.

COM: Well, can you recommend another installer?

Me: No sir. I don’t know any installer but the one we use.

COM: Well, who are they?

Me: They are Acme Carpet Installs .

COM: I already talked to them. They told me to call you. Why would they tell me to call you if they can’t do the job?

Me: Because it’s not their policy to enforce. It’s ours. It’s not their job to have these arguments with customers. It’s mine.

COM: Well, you must know another installer.

Me: Actually, I don’t. Before I started this job, I had never dealt with flooring installs. I still only deal with the company we use. I’m sure you could find an installer in the phone book.

COM: How am I supposed to find an installer like that.

Me: (You don’t know how to use a phone book? No wonder this is conversation is going so badly.) Look in the Yellow Pages under flooring installers.

COM: Surely you must know of another installer.

Me: (Don’t call me Shirley.) Sir, I’m very sorry. Not only do I not know of any other installers but I’m not even allowed to recommend someone else (not that I know any).

COM: Well then, I want you to do the repair.

Me: (Someone stab me in the eye with a spoon. It would probably be less annoying than you are.) We can’t do the repair because we can’t guarantee someone else’s install. I can’t recommend another installer because if they do a bad job, you could try to blame it on us.

COM: You’ve got to be kidding me. I buy two whole floors from you and you wont cut me a break?

Me: I’m very sorry sir. I can not cut you a break. It’s not my policy. Even if I set you up for an estimate, the installer would not do it. So, you’d be out the $30 for the estimate.

COM: Well, I’m going to call your corporate headquarters. I’m sure they care a bit more about the customer than you do.

Me: (Actually, I love my customers. I just don’t like you) You are welcome to call Atlanta if you like. But, since they are the ones who decided on this policy, I can’t say you’ll get the results you’re looking for. Would you like to try talking to our expeditor? She’s our primary contact with the installers. Her name is Chris T.

COM: Chris T? She’s the one I’ve been talking to for the last 4 years. She’s the one I asked to talk to. You mean you’re not her?

Me: No sir, I am Congodarf (for the third friggen time).
Anyway, I talked to Chris T later that day and asked her to call him. She heard his name and started cracking up. She said that she will not call him. She hasn’t talked to him in 4 years but she still remembers him. She was going to con someone else into calling him.

20

Another from today. It wasn’t the customer who annoyed me, it was her boyfriend - and he wasn’t even there.

A young woman came in to my department today with the name of a mortar written on a piece of paper. It’s not one we carry.

Me: I’m sorry ma’am. We don’t carry this brand. I can show you the ones we have if you like.

Young Woman: Please do.

Me: What type of install is this?

YW: It’s a shower - the walls only.

Me: Ok, you can use Brand X or Brand Y.

YW: Which is better?

Me: Well, brand Y is better, which is why it’s more expensive. But, the properties which make it better really only matter if it’s a floor install so you’d be fine if you got Brand X.

YW: Neither of them say they’re good for walls.

Me: It doesn’t say it on the front of the bag but it says on the back all the different applications. Walls are listed.

YW: I can’t get something that doesn’t say wall installs on the front of the bag. My boyfriend wouldn’t like that.

Me: (dammit. this was going pretty well up to this point.) It doesn’t say anything on the front of the bag about the applications. It’s all listed on the back. It really is a good product for wall installs.

YW: It has to say it on the front of the bag. My boyfriend won’t use it if it doesn’t say it on the front.

Me: ( why the hell does it matter?) Ok then, well - the premixed thinset says it on the front of the tub.

YW: No, he doesn’t want a premix.

Me: Ok, Brand A says it one the front - but it’s only for marble and granite installs. So, if you’re using Ceramic, I wouldn’t recommend it.

YW: It’s ceramic.

Me: That one is out then. Well, Brand B says right on the front that it’s good for wall installs but it needs to be mixed with additives. It’s also very expensive because it’s the best product. It’s also much more than you need - as far as guarantees go. You’d be paying for things you don’t need.

YW: I can’t get that anyway. My boyfriend wants something he can just mix with water.

Me: I’m sorry then, I can’t help you. The only products we have which is not premixed, is good for ceramic, and is mixed with water - is the first two I showed you. And they don’t say walls on the front of the bag so you’re boyfriend won’t use them ( still don’t understand this one).

YW: What about this one? (points to Brand M). It says walls on it.

Me: That’s a mastic. It’s water soluable. If you put it in your shower, the tiles will pop off the wall.

YW: Oh, this is really bad. He’s going to be annoyed.

Me: ( well, give him a swift kick in the ass for me) Well, you can always try another store. If you can find the exact product he sent you to get, he’ll be happy. But, I’d recommend calling them first so you don’t waste your time driving all over Western Massachusetts trying to find it.

YW: I think I’ll go over to Lowe’s to see if they have it.

Me: (I know you have a cell phone. I saw you use it.) For your sake, I’d call them first. They are 30 minutes away. At this time of day, it might take as long as an hour to get there.

YW: That’s a good idea.

Me: And if they don’t have it, I’d tell your boyfriend to do is own damn shopping if he’s gonna be so picky. (Yes, I can usually gauge when I can get away with comments like these.)

YW: (Laughing) You’re so right. How often do you get customers like me?

Me: More often than I care to think about.
Poor women like this are just as bad as the color blind men who have been sent to choose a carpet which matches the walls. They don’t even know what color the walls are!!!

I had an unusually large number of idiotic, circular conversations today.