The gem I wish I could have thrown out this morning was “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the reason you haven’t received your order is because the UPS station it was routed to last week is underfuckingwater right now. Or did you not notice the wind and the rain and stuff? I have a direct number for contacting God, you can lodge your complaint with her.”
I’m fortunate to work in a field where I can do some good “talking down” to people and get away with it. Ya see, I’m a misdemeanor prosecutor.
So, when people come in with all kinds of excuses for why they done wrong, why they haven’t straightened out their lives yet, why they couldn’t make their payments, I get to say stuff like, “I’m hearing a lot of ‘I was gonna’ but no ‘I actually did something.’” Or “This is your one chance. And if you screw up on probation, it won’t be me putting you in jail, it’ll be you. You have no one else to blame.” Or “Tell me one reason why you shouldn’t sit in jail for the whole year.”
Ahh, it’s a good job.
Then there’s :
Why do I want your son/daughter’s name? Why??? Because my boss is going to fucking ask me before she agrees to speak with you, that’s why!!!
Ever so slight hijack to ->things you* did * say to customers at work.
On what turned out to be my very last day working the cash register at Penney’s: “Shut up and get your fat ass in line like every one else.”
I still say it was worth it.
[end hijack]
Well, it would be possible to not know that. I haven’t always gotten a tracking number for everything I’ve ordered that shipped UPS, so if something was routed through the hurricane zone, I would have no clue until I called.
asterion, would you call calmly to start with or start yelling? Not fully sure, but I believe the customer in question started yelling a LOT.
This woman lived in the hurricane zone. I thought she might be a little more patient, is all.
Calmly. I actually had to call UPS the other day to fix an address problem. I bought a textbook online and I didn’t realize that I had my PO Box set as the default address instead of the house. So I got on the phone, wound up getting transferred to the international deliveries people, gave them the correct address, and got my textbook the next day. (Though I realize in this case this was my screwup to begin with, so I couldn’t exactly get mad at UPS anyway.)
Now if you live in the hurricane zone I don’t know what to say to that kind of behavior.
Working retail on the day after Thanksgiving is fun as a manager. It’s so chaotic you can get away with a lot of stuff.
One customer who was getting in my face because we ran out of the door-buster computer package that was “free” after rebate and I wouldn’t give him a substitue told me I had to or he was going to get his lawyer, sue the store and get me fired. I bluntly told him “well, your going to have to do that because I’m not doing shit for you, goodbye.” turned my back on him and walked away.
Another customer who wanted my help (along with 50 others) proceeded to grab my wrist to get my attention. I told him to “please, don’t touch me.” and when he insisted I help him I told him “well, since you felt the need to grab my wrist I will not be helping you at all today, goodbye.”
What I wish I could have said this morning:
Oh, you say our driver left your invoice but didn’t actually deliver the goods? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the driver got so fed up with you berating him that he left? Now, I just told you that we had a problem with our driver and had to get a new one - so your order wont be delivered until 5:00pm. What I didn’t say is that the poor driver was so fed up with your attitude that he QUIT HIS FUCKING JOB TO GET AWAY FROM YOU!!! Now, you’re lucky you’re even getting your damn order today. You’re even luckier we’re not charging you an extra shipping charge. You’re also very lucky that I’m not directing the last 4 customers who share the delivery route to you when they ask WHY their driver is 10 hours late. You stupid shit, it wasn’t the driver’s fault he was half an hour late this morning and our contract states that we have an hour window anyway. Yet you had to be a dick and now we’re short a driver and the poor guy (who was being laid off in a month with the rest of us poor schlubs) isn’t eligible for unemployment. So a big fuck you to you too and no, I’m not adding anything else to the truck - since it’s sitting in our driveway waiting for a new driver. You can try to borrow the damn cups you forgot to order from another store. Why don’t you call the last stop on your route. I’m sure they’d LOVE to hear from you.
Ass.
What I wish I said this afternoon:
A) Stop your damn yelling, I didn’t screw up your order. My coworkers didn’t screw up your order, and it’s not my damn fault that you don’t understand what I’m saying. You’re the one who decided to own a company which requires speaking English on a regular basis.
B) We did not FORCE you to buy the damn toys. Your corporate office FORCED us to send you the damn toys. If you don’t like it, sell your franchise and start your own - original - restaurant.
C) We, and your Corporate office did not FORCE you to buy the second delivery of toys. You asked for them - in error because you can’t correctly pronounce the numbers representing the items you do want. You also did NOT allow us to read back your order to confirm accuracy so the mistake was not caught. The reason you didn’t want a readback? Because you don’t understand the accent of your CSR. Maybe if you had one of your English speaking employees place the orders for you, we wouldn’t have to go through this every damn week. You barely speak the language and you don’t understand it at all. So don’t yell at me, 5 minutes before I’m supposed to go home, on a day I’m not even supposed to be working, because you screwed up your order. And yes, I will have the toys picked up but no you will not be getting a full credit because it was not our fault that you screwed up.
This is the last damn time I waste my day off at work just to help my coworkers. Next time one of their kids needs a damn filling, the kid can take the bus by themselves - like I did when I was their age.
Not a customer but an applicant. Back in the days when I placed temps, I had a boss who was a real sow, and there came a time when we were looking for a sales rep to work in the office. So, this woman comes in and it’s clear she’s a little nuts so the sow boss lady gives her the bums rush and then writes that she’s friggin’ crazy on her resume.
WELL, the nutty applicant decides she wants her resume BACK, but we can’t give it back because it says she’s friggin crazy on it. So, the boss, who I may have mentioned is a sow, won’t take her calls and keeps making me “take a message”, which means she’s really making me take her abuse.
So, after weeks of this, I finally, in imitation of her voice, said “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” and slammed the phone down.
She called corporate headquarters. At this point, I had given several week’s notice, so when the sow told me the nutty lady had called corporate on me I said, “Who the fuck cares. I hope they fire YOU over it.” And, strangely, she still gave me $150 as a wedding gift.
Really? We never even saw it in hardback, until the superspecial extended with oooh colour pictures edition came out. Where do you work?
**To my coworkers: **
No, I will not take the escalated call. I don’t care if she wants to speak with your supervisor. If you would remove your head from your ass and stop being such a complete dipshit, the customer might care to listen to you.
**
To the customers: **
You say you don’t know how you became overdrawn but it must be our fault? I’ll be happy to help you fix that! Put down the fu**ing checkcard! Stop writing checks! Get your head out of your ass and pay attention to the fact that you only make a thousand bucks a month and maybe it’ll click that spending fifteen hundred will overdraw you!
Well, since you obviously don’t know your PIN, it doesn’t matter that your card has been cancelled due to excessive incorrect PIN entries because you couldn’t fu**ing use the card anyway, could you?
*(And especially to those who call at 7PM on a Friday night complaining that the ATM will not allow them to withdraw $200 of the check they deposited this afternoon, even though we have had next-day availability for-freakin’-ever, and they have to have that $200 to pay…an important bill…that’ll only accept cash…) *Sure. Important bill. Right. Just tell your crack dealer to start taking checks, okay?
Read. The. Fucking. Manual.
READ IT!
So, to save literally $5 on your luxury hotel room, you decided to book through Expedia. Guess what? You were not guaranteed a king bed. You were not guaranteed a non smoking room. Remember when you were clicking all those buttons to proceed with booking? It clearly stated that none of your requests are guaranteed with Expedia. NONE. I can’t do anything for you. And you’d like to change your dates? You need to cancel? You need to add a name to the reservation? I can’t touch your reservation. You are now a client of Expedia. They’re going to charge you for these services? Not my problem. Enjoy your savings!
Oh, you say it’s cheaper at XYZ Super Mart Store? Oh, the store where no one loads you car, helps you find the perfect gift or knows your children’s names? Yeah, go shop there. By the way, NO I won’t match prices and “THEY” don’t have it in stock anyway. Duh.
No, I’m not bitter.
If students are customers, then . . .
“You want to know the URL of the course webpage? Here it is. I guess I handed out copies of the syllabus FOR MY FUCKING HEALTH.”
“You want to know when the final exam is? It’s at 1:00 PM 4th of Smarch. I guess I handed out copies of the syllabus FOR MY FUCKING HEALTH.”
“You want to know what the attendance policy is? It’s in the syllabus, which I guess I handed out of FOR MY FUCKING HEALTH.”
Repeat until the end of the semester.
Ahh I remember my summer job at a liquor store fondly. I was the one that got to deal with the drunken alcoholics and underage smucks who got all riled when I refused to sell to them. Near the end of the summer the rest of the staff got me whenever there was a “problem” customer. It was great I got to be openly rude to them, and a wonderful stress relief. I will never forget the guy who called me a bitch because I wouldn’t give him an extra stamp on his card (there were cards where if you spent over $20 you got a stamp, and you eventually go a discount on a purchase). He was buying a case of beer and it was about 7:00pm. His argument was that he was in here all the time and this was his second case today. To which I replied that if he had already gone through a case of beer then he must be drunk and I can not sell him the next one. Man was he pissed. It was fun. 
Or the teenagers who stand right outside the window, pass someone money and get the person buying for them gets pissed off when I wouldnt sell them anything, not even their own order.
I used to work in a bookstore which is no protection from idiots.
When having to deal with an extremely stupid and abusive customer in search of a book he only vaguely knows the title of, and has no frelling clue as to who wrote it:
I thought but never said, " Here’s your book, Sir/Ma’am. Who’s going to read it to you when you get home?
To a customer holding a hardback book that he/she just grabbed from the freshly opened box who asks “Is this in paperback yet?” I wanted to rip the boards off the book and say “It is now.”
To a customer looking for a book with no clue about the author or title who says"Well, I’m not sure about either of those things but I do know it has a blue cover." I’d would’ve liked to say “Oh yes. I’ll show where we keep all the blue books. We try to keep them organized by shade of blue though sometimes people don’t agree on the shade of blue on the cover. Don’t you just hate shopping in those old-fashioned stores that make you know the author or title?”
What I did say to a particularly obnoxious drunk who’d wandered in late on a Saturday night, slammed his fist on the counter inches from my hand and said “Call me a taxi.”
I said “All right, you’re a taxi.” The woman I was working with who was standing next to me fell on the floor, she was laughing so hard.
This eventually was reported ot the store’s manager who almost fired me, but it was worth it.