I get so tired of clients calling up and asking if they need to send maternal blood along with the amniotic fluid for Rh factor genotyping, then, when I answer that it’s optional, they want to know why they would choose to send the blood then!
But hey, we’ve all been there, right?
I work at a help desk. I love my clients, but nothing puts dread into my heart like hearing a variation of this phrase:
“My teenager\spouse\SO\random person I know is really good at computers and they helped me *fix my computer\setup a home network\remove a virus * and now my computer won’t boot\doesn’t work right\is on fire.”
I also hate it when they call me up and say, “Is the network down?” before I can even finish my greeting. Nine times out of ten, the network is not down, they’ve just gotten in a hurry and need to re-connect.
[QUOTE=racinchikki]
…I have one customer in particular who comes in every month, shoves a blueprint at me, and says "My secretary always does this for me. "(…)Oooh, that burns me up, and so far I haven’t figured out a way to use my cheerfully repetitive chirping against him because he leaves the room…
When he returns, gesture helplessly at the blueprint and say, “I’m sorry sir, but your secretary, who always does this for you, hasn’t shown up yet.”
[QUOTE=racinchikki]
I have one customer in particular who comes in every month, shoves a blueprint at me, and says "My secretary always does this for me. " He doesn’t say “Can you help me,” he doesn’t say “I need a copy of this,” he just shoves it into my hands and says “My secretary always does this” and then goes into the other room and gets himself a cup of our complimentary coffee. Oooh, that burns me up, and so far I haven’t figured out a way to use my cheerfully repetitive chirping against him because he leaves the room and to follow him would be considered starting shit. I AM NOT YOUR FUCKING SECRETARY. Your secretary probably gets paid at least half again as much as I do. Do you SEE the ten other people in the store who also need my help? /QUOTE]
Could you get away with taking his blue print to the full service desk and telling them “That gentleman over there needs work done, I believe he went to go get some coffee and he should be right over to give details.”
When he returns to you and asks if you’re done, you could smile innocently and tell him that Full Service is awaiting his instruction.
Well, I was all set to rant, but FilmGeek’s reference to thrown money and credit cards :eek: took some of the edge off my frustration!
“Do you work here?” I swear, almost every interation starts that way. I did like (seriously, not sarcasm), the woman who saw me remaking a bed and said, “Well, you must work here, unless you have OCD!”
Gum in the water fountain. Blech.
Drink cups and other garbage left lying around.
Messing up the display beds. Yesterday, a family of five was in. Youngest son was lying sideways on a bed while older brother wrapped him up in the duvet and mom, dad and grandma looked on, chuckling. Wonderful; I can’t even count on adults to warn their kids off of horseplay.
Okay, so you have a “quick question”. Great, but I answer at least two dozen “quick questions” a day, and meanwhile, the person who stood in line to get their order rung up has earned my full attention. Then, when you decide you do want the item, you’re going to have to get in line to pay for it, not keep hovering off to the side. Day before yesterday, I pitched my voice up to say, “I need everyone to form one solid line, 'kay?” Moe told me, sotto voce, that I shouldn’t say that again, because it sounded like “a bouncer at a club or something”. :rolleyes:
I really want to know who some people think they are, that they can take a quilt or a duvet cover completely out of its package, spread it out over a bed, and leave it. We had two such occurences today, and I never did find the bag for the quilt. We’ve had cops at the store on almost a daily basis since school let out, because of shoplifters 
. I wish I could call them on the package-openers.
Umm… wouldn’t the animal rights types be upset about exploitation of poor dumb beasts? :eek:
Other than that, I like the idea…
Oh God… where do I start?
I work at a cafe where you place your order at a counter. After you pay we give you a number which you place on your table so the runner can bring out the food to you. The order goes back to the kitchen after you pay for it. Sometimes two people will come in and place their order on two seperate checks. They will stand up at the counter and talk to each other or discuss what they are getting or other various things that create time between when the two orders are placed. Then they get mad when the orders don’t come to the table at the exact same time. :rolleyes:
I also have these customers who will not. shut. up. I like talking to people. Interesting people are especially fun to talk to. As a resturant manager I get to walk around and ask everyone how their food is and make sure everything is fine when I am not busy. I enjoy having little chit-chats, but some people will tell me their whole life stories if I let them. I hate cutting off people mid-sentance, it is something that I regard as completely rude, but these people don’t even breath between words! What’s worse is every time I walk by they try to get me to come over and sit down and have a long conversation with them. Or when there will be a huge long line behind them and they will just stand there blabbing away. I am working! I don’t go to your work and bother you so stop bothering me!
I also hate it when guys get this idea that because I am friendly to them it means that I am somehow interested in them. I get a lot of guys that give off kinda creepy vibes and try to ask me out. I am always polite but firm to them but they just don’t get it! I wish I could be rude, but unfortunately, they are always one level from being to the point where I can just refuse them service.
People that don’t think that the rules apply to them. We close at 10. That means that we stop serving food from our kitchen at 9:30. This is written on our special board and has been that way for a year or two. Sometimes we will still serve stuff until 9:45, but after that you can’t get anything from the kitchen. We’ve had people that will CONSTANTLY come in after we are closed and get mad because we won’t serve them. Or they will look at our croissants and ask why we can’t make a sandwich or just demand that we give them free soup so that we don’t “just throw it out”. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Customers that get unreasonably pissed off after some tiny mistake. Once a customer asked for diet pepsi. The cashier mishead and served him regular. He took one sip and poured out the rest of the pepsi onto the floor! Or they will take someone else’s number and when the wrong order gets brought out flip out and throw things.
Our cafe is in a little shopping center. The shopping center has public restrooms but most people are either too lazy to walk over to them or just prefer to use our restroom. We don’t really mind during the day as long as they don’t mess things up (that’s a whole rant in of itself) but after we close we don’t let anyone in the resturant for any reason. First of all, most robberies occur during closing time and having random people in our darkened resturant is not a good idea. Secondly, we’ve just cleaned and scrubbed the bathroom and people swear they won’t make a mess but they somehow always do. And finally, we want to go home. You might be just a minute, but that’s another minute that we have sit around and wait for you. And one minute always manages to stretch out to 5 or 10. But yeah, people get REALLY pissed because we won’t let them use the restroom. I always politely explain that there are public restrooms but they get mad and say “that’s too far!” although it’s less than a minute walk.
well, it was fun to rant. 
But… how? 90 wpm is… wow!
(I haven’t tested myself in years, and I don’t even know where I could online or anything, but I averaged 30-40.)
Well, nothing that any other fast-food employee would find annoying. Our McDonald’s here started accepting credit cards about 3 months ago. Tonight, in 7 hours, I had three (3) people come through the drive-thru and ask me “Do y’all take credit/check cards???”
Me: “Yeah, we take 'em.” Because we have a huge, probably 9 foot high sign right by our menuboard that says the same, and they’re also listed on the menu board itself, and also on our huge readerboard/marquee/what’sitcalled? outside. I also had a woman who asked that, and then said “Good. Ok, kids, whaddya want? They don’t have macaroni. Nuggets? No, cheeseburger? Ok so you want… etc.” She ended up ordering like 3 bucks worth of food off of the Dollar Menu.
People who order huge quantities of food through the drive-thru and then complain when we ask them to pull forward while we make it. (Sadly, my dad’s included.) “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s gonna take us a couple minutes to make your 8 McChickens, one no mayo, one plain, one add cheese, one light lettuce, one no lettuce, two extra extra mayo and one that’s only mustard mayo ketchup bigmac sauce tartar sauce both kinds of onions and lettuce EXTRA pickle and then your 12 double cheeseburgers.” "Whaddya mean? I just paid for it! <Generic yelling>’
Or customers who get bitchy when you repeat part of their order back to them wrong, so they repeat the WHOLE order back as if they were speaking to a 5 year old, ignoring the fact that you missed the cream and sugar when taking their order while taking money for another one and yelling at the kitchen to make stuff faster. I actually cut someone off tonight when he was doing this. I said something to the effect of “Sir, it’s not necessary to get an attitude with me, I simply missed part of your order because I was doing the jobs of three people at once (while walking on my hands on a bed of hot coals and doing the Macarena.)*” And all that because he wanted FOOOOUURRRR. SEEEENNNNNNIIIOOORRR. COOOOOFFFFFFEEEEEEESSSSSS. instead of one.
Customers who get mad because you won’t give them free food. Or won’t “forget” to ring up the 6 slices of cheese you want added to those 6 McChickens through Drive-thru, while also giving you 4 packets of ranch dressing for your one side salad that will absolutely drown in one anyway.
Customers who tell you how to do your job. I think everyone can relate to this, though. I was out in the lobby cleaning tables the other day and this old lady stops me in my duties and tells me I should clean up the table I’m standing by (there are drinks and condiments left on it.) “Oh, thanks, I’m out here cleaning up a bit anyways, I’ll get to it.” “Actually, you need to do it right now; it’s bothering me.” “Ok, no problem, ma’am.” Never mind she was 20 feet away from this horrible mess. And then she didn’t thank me or anything for making her eating experience more enjoyable.
Customers who come in at 10:50 wondering if they can get breakfast. “Well, sure, you can, if you want to eat half-hour old food out of the fucking trash can. What will you have? I think we threw away a lot of sausage today!”
Customers who come in at 10:31 wondering if they can get breakfast. Well, sure, you can, if you want to eat food out of the fucking trash can. What will you have? I think we threw away a lot of sausage today!"
*things asterisked in parentheses may or may not have been said.
I hear that one.
Being in the Portland Oregon area, I always heard the variation of “My brother/uncle/cousin works for Intel and they said…”
Of course, whatever the Intel employe said countered what I, the computer guy, said. Of course I don’t know what I’m talking about because… I’m just the computer guy… who they are calling… to fix their shit…
I always wanted to say “my mother worked for Boeing for 20 years. That doesn’t mean she can fly a fucking plane!”
Just don’t say that to this guy: http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/reviews/fallingdown.htm
Oh man. I saw the reverse once. We were on an international ferry travelling from Denmark (where we’d been on vacation) and Norway. Because it sees travellers from many countries, all important notices on the ship are in Norwegian, German, and English, and all the shops and restaurants take kroner (both Norwegian and Danish) or euros. The cash registers are equipped to handle this, in fact they can handle a single transaction in multiple currencies, and the exchange rate is posted prominently and updated daily.
So I was standing in line in the cafeteria, waiting to pay for our lunches, and the cashier asked the woman in front of me what currency she would be paying with. She started having a fit, she’d just SPOKEN Norwegian to the cashier, couldn’t the woman TELL she wanted to pay in Norwegian kroner??!
I just said, low and in Norsk, “You know, I’m glad they ask, because I have a pocketful of Danish small change here and I was hoping this cashier would be willing to take it off my hands.” The woman ahead of me muttered something I couldn’t hear, I’ll assume it was rude, but she stopped bugging the cashier.
The cashier was happy to take my Danish change and let me pay for the rest in Norskie kroner with my bank card. When I got back to the table and looked at the receipt I noticed she hadn’t charged me for the sodas
I get frustrated with the elderly.
There are some great ones, like the woman who wanted to buy a new TV and told me all she needed it to do was get channel 33 for the Tigers games. She was great, and I use her as a counter when I start to think poorly of all old people.
Then there are some total bastards. Racist old men, people who assume that I must not know anything because I have longer hair (not long, just shaggy), and just plain bitchy people.
But the absolute worst group of the elderly are those who must tell me their life story. Look, I’m sure it’s fascinating, but I have work to do. I want to get out of the store as soon as possible tonight, not because I have plans, but just so I can chill out after a day of working. I can’t afford to listen to you talk about your grandson for 45 minutes.
And I second whoever mentioned being called by name by total strangers. Makes me want to get violent.
Ooohhh… I almost hit submit.
Don’t ever, ever, ever, beckon me like a dog. Do not whistle, yell “Hey”, or do the finger thing. I’ll just yell down to you that I’m not a dog or a slave, and I only deal with people who treat me like a human being.
And finally, for anyone who has ever worked at a Target, Wal-Mart, or KMart, I have three words: Hot Wheel Guys.
A cool site to check out (although it hasn’t been updated in a while) for stories about rude customers, celebrities, and people in general is The Stained Apron.
I work in technical support so I can totally relate to a lot of the PC stories out there, especially the customer who calls in for help and then refuses to do anything you ask them to. I’ve actually had people flat out refuse to do something, usually completely minor too, just because they are fed up and ‘want it fixed RIGHT NOW!’.
Well DUH! What do you think I am trying to do???
It makes me want to say: “Sir, you are absolutely right. The truth is I have a magic command I can type into your PC that will fix everything. I’m just not telling you because I enjoy troubleshooting so danged much.” Except these people would probably miss the irony and demand I tell them what the secret command was.
I put in six years at OfficeMax in the electronics deparment. I haven’t worked there in nearly four years, but I documented plenty of specific cases of customer rudeness and/or stupidity. I’m not home right now to copy these stories, so I’ll just cover the more general annoyances I had to put up with on a daily basis:
People who expected us to provide free tech support- Some people would think that because we sell it, we know everything there is to know about it. Either that, or they thought we read and studied all the product manuals in our spare time. When people called about something specific to help them over the phone 99% of the time we’d tell them to call tech support. Sometimes they’d offer excuses for calling us instead: “But I tried them and I was on hold for 45 minutes! Isn’t there some number you guys can call for me?” (yeah, like we can get through any faster :rolleyes: ) “I called them but they couldn’t help me!” (And what makes you think we’re going to do any better? :rolleyes: ) The worst ones were people who never even bought the item from our store in the first place but just figured we’d know because, hey, we sell stuff like it!
People who compare us to the competitors- The other guys sell it, why don’t you? The other guys sell it for less. The other guys have a one-year warranty and you don’t. If you like the “other guys” so much, then go there!
People who threaten to never shop at our store again- If you’re being a complete ass and a waste of everyone’s time by complaining about shit we can’t do anything about, do you really think we’re going to miss you? Hell, we’re damn glad you won’t be back!
People who came into the store needing a cartridge and not knowing anything about their machine- You know, when you come in to buy a toner cartridge, ink cartridge, ribbon or whatever, it makes a tremendous difference when you know which brand and model it’s for! It amazed me to see so many people come in and ask for cartridges and then, when I asked them which printer/fax, etc. it was for, they had no idea. Some couldn’t even tell me the brand for crissakes! They’d look at the display and say, “I think it’s an HP, no wait-- it’s a Canon! Or is it an Epson? Let me call my husband …” (whips out cell phone, I stand and wait impatiently). At least bring in the old cartridge so I can try to match it up with what we sell.
People asking why we don’t carry something- Do I look like the CEO? Do you think I’m the one who decides what the store carries? How the fuck am I supposed to know why we don’t carry something?!
People who would not believe me when I told them we were out of stock- Go ahead and ask me if there’s more in back. I’d be glad to check! (anything to get off the sales floor for two minutes so I can at least partially restore my sanity). If the customer insisted I’d go look then I’d go back there and bullshit with the recieving folks and ask them about the item just in case by some off-chance some more units arrived. I’d sometimes rub some dust onto my shirt before returning to the customer just so they’d think I really searched high and low for the item. How I wish I could have said, “See? Told you so!” to them.
Unoriginal wannabe comedians- No price shown? Yep, you’re right, that means it’s free! :rolleyes:
And I’ll agree that any customers who asks an employee who is obviously working and wearing a nametag (and in some cases a uniform), “Do you work here?” deserves instant death.
I’m hoping Guinastasia will chime in here. She could offer plenty of horror stories about working at K-Mart.
Good thing I’m not in your place. I’d probably tell them it was “format c:”.
I work in a college bookstore. I absolutely cannot stand people who bring in a credit card number written on a piece of paper and expect us to accept that. I’m sure that is your daddy’s credit card number, but did it ever cross your mind that we might be wary of accepting some numbers we can’t verify?
Two incidents stand out. In one, a girl handed it over after I’d rung up an entire basket of books, notebooks, pencils, highlighters and just plain crap (though I can totally understand why no one wanted her to have a physical card). In the other, guy asked me for help in finding all four of his textbooks (we’ve fiendishly arranged the store alpha by subject, and then you have to match numbers and letters to find out which book you need. We understand it’s a lot to ask from someone who’s a mere 18 years old), only to say at the end “I’ve got my mom’s credit card number, is that okay?” No, you thick bastard, it’s not okay.
My mobil DJ Blues
The Country/Rocker wedding wars
Whiny guy: When are you going to quit playing this Country crap and put on some good dance music (this said when I have half the people at the reception happily dancing on the dance floor)
Whiny girl: Can you play some country music. People want to dance. (this said while half the people are happily dancing to a rock song)
Idiot guy : We need to get this thing going. It’s kind of died here (this said during the first slow dance after an hour of fast dance music. And yes, now 75% of the people are dancing to this one while twit-boy makes his stupid remark)
Drunk/stoner groomsman Do you have anything good? (No sir, this complete crap that I’ve been playing all night has seemed to work well judging by the filled dance floor and the five people who came up to me to get my business cards for future gigs. I’m afraid to play any music that you consider good for fear of running off the other folks)
Drunk Girl : You’re stopping now? You suck! (Said at the end of the evening, an hour after last call, house lights have been turned on by the hall proprieter, cleanup crews are clearing the tables etc)
Thanks for letting me vent
And i thought they just sold gas…
It 263 when I started. A couple of the bastards kept replicating themselves, so by the time I finally found a program (the eighth one I downloaded from the internet) that could permanently kill the little bastards we had removed over 300 copies.
Clueless user, no security, Norton AV, IE, and the user visiting X-rated sites on the company PC.
Heh. I’m mostly trying to forget those days. (I swear, I STILL have nightmares that I’m back at Kmart, still working there. shudder)
How about people who assume that I’m in charge of EVERYTHING? “You don’t have enough people working-why don’t you hire more people!” Um…yeah. I used to ask them if they wanted to fill out an application.
Hehehehe…or the woman who said, “You should pay your employees more so more people would apply!” Oh right lady, like I’m in charge of how much we get paid. If ONLY!"
People who ask me to break store rules, and then get pissed when I refuse. I used to say, “Well, are you going to help pay my college tuition when I get fired?” THAT usually shut them up.
We used to close at 10 pm. People would come to the doors and BANG on them, even though it was obvious we had been closed for ten minutes or more. The worst though was the few times people would send their kids to bang on the door-some as young as four years old! Hello-what kind of assclown parent lets small children walk around dark, deserted parking lots late at night? WTF?