Nightmare customers and general bat shittery - what are your stories?

Brainless idiots who leave things to the last minute on Christmas Eve.

Try to buy gift cards but the system that activates them is overloaded and crashes. Think it’s one system for all retailers that sell 3rd party gift cards. They kick off with us

Then those who moan at us because we have ran out of turkeys. I remember one man saying where did this lady get her turkey from. I said she pre ordered it and you had ten weeks to do this.

I do hate it when people say when their turkey is off and think Christmas was ruined. This was the year when about a thousand homes were flooded (can’t remember where) on 23/24 Dec. I thought to myself that those families had Xmas and other things ruined. Surely they had more food to feed the family than a turkey

@3kids3dogs That's reminded me. A student wrote an essay about hygiene and one of the things she put is that you should not touch dogs because they had rabbis.

All these posts are horrific but this one makes me really hate people! I'm so sorry you had to go through all this.

Working for the NHS.

A patient phoned to cancel his appointment because, "any fool could see that was the day before his birthday".

Part off my job was recording ECGs. I would explain I needed to get to their chest so could they undress from the waist up.

You would be surprized how many men thought this meant remove trousers and underwear. Only ever men and only ever when it was a female member of staff.

After the NHS I worked in a private hospital in London. Had a patient refuse to attend because there was no patient parking. They were booked in for a pacemaker!

Then for my sins I became a teacher.

I often start a lessen by telling students the subject and asking what they already know. An adult, a fully grown adult complained to my manager that I was making then do my job because I asked questions.

I had another who complained I was racist because I didn't give her a pass grade. I had not met the student, I was trying to clear the backlog of marking from someone who had left,

THe student didn't have a name that you would associate with a particular background, nut no, I was obviously racist.

My dad was inadvertently 'that' customer in a sweet shop.

My dad loves toffee and fudge.

We had recently moved from West Yorkshire to Lancashire. In Yorkshire sweets were sweets, spice or spegs. My brother and I were surprised to find out, at school, that all sweets in this part of lancashire were described as 'toffees'. Boiled sweets, chocolate buttons, licorice were all described as toffees.

So my dad went into a sweet shop and asked for, "a quarter of toffees please" and couldn't understand why the shop keeper kept asking what he wanted with my dad saying, "toffee".

Eventually my dad left the shop empty handed and quite puzzled.

We used to get shoplifters in the supermarket that would cut open the meat trays and stuff the meat into their pockets and walk out.

I'm a nursery manager and have so, so, so many stories of parents with ridiculous requests.

One that stands out was a mum who came in one day to let us know "James" would now be called "Oscar". This child was 4 years old with SEND and had in the last month started responding to his name. He had been with us since he was 6 months old. The reason for this was because dad hasn't proposed yet so she decided to go with the name that she originally wanted as dad had chose James. They were still together but she wanted to piss dad off

Another parent broke a door. I was showing them around the nursery as prospective parents and the mum was anxious about door handles being opened by children. The doors had handles at the top and middle to open so children couldn't reach them both to open a door. She tried to open one door by pulling on the middle handle and seemed satisfied that a child couldn't do it. I carried on talking to dad who had asked a question and then put the corner of my eye see her climbing the door, both feet where the middle handle was and pulling down on the top handle whilst sort of rocking her body. Dad managed to get his words out before I could and told her to get down just as the door cracked and her foot went straight through it. I still can't understand what she was trying to do or how she managed to break a door. Dad was so apologetic and she blamed the door saying that it was obviously too flimsy. Luckily someone was on hand to take the door off immediately and there were no children in the room.

Exactly.

I once worked in a garden centre and this couple bought loads of expensive baubles. There was over 200 of them and we did not have scanners so each had to inputted by hand. When I told her the total she went mad saying I was incompetent and didn’t know what was doing and it was obviously too much. My supervisor came over and had a discussion with the women still calling me names. The supervisor then put it all through the till again with this women watching her like a hawk. The supervisor asked if she was happy she had inputted everything correctly. The women said yes- it came to £3.50 more!!!! I had obviously missed a bauble
The women went blood red, paid very quickly and left. I may have been a bit smug.

Not technically customers but some of the batshittery you deal with from some parents when you work in a school is very much in the same vein! Parents who believe everything their child says despite plenty of evidence to the contrary and parents who expect us to attend private parties outside school to manage behaviour are particularly notable. And there is a special place in hell reserved for parents who complain about children with SEND without any justification.

I received 2 crazy requests when I delivered milked years ago.

1st one I delivered milk to schools as an add on to my own customers, I'd told the dairy I couldn't do it anymore but they just kept leaving the milk in my fridge. I'd got to the stage I was starting work 12.30am just to get round. A schoolteacher came running at me shouting and balling that they needed the milk earlier and that I would just have to get up earlier despite it being delivered within the time stated on the contract. When I got back I told the dairy as I'd already quit and only delivered it out of concern for the kids I wasn't being abused through no fault of my own.

2nd one I delivered milk to a care home but was in hospital 50 miles away when I received a frantic phone call, they'd misordered the milk that morning and I need to rectify their mistake immediately. When she finally let me get a word in edgeways I explained there wasn't much I could do from hospital, as my relief driver had finished work and wasn't available to correct the mistake. It was long before online shopping but there was a nearby that sold milk.

I used to be a waitress and memorably had a panini thrown at me once because it was 5pm and not 4.30pm as the customer had thought it was and she was most upset I hadn't told her the time when I served her.

I've had similar, there's plenty of incidents recounted about first aid being given and people complaining that they had to wait to be served because the person serving was administering it. Staggering selfishness to expect someone to break off what could be lifesaving first aid so someone else can get served. I mean it might be nice if they offered to help but most people are of the attitude that "It's not my problem, I'm a paying customer" but being unable to cope with a wait while someone's life or health is at risk is just pathetic.

Some people are so single minded as customers and what they deserve, they can't behave like normal human beings. I'm not sure when people started to believe that customer service should override everything, health, safety, the law, decency and common sense 🤷🏼‍♀️ but it would seem that's the expectation.

Just thought of another, a lady wanted to return a leather jacket a day after buying it ( retail not pub this time) as it was faulty and sticky and marked, tried to tell her It wasn't like them when it was sold, and that I would need the manager, I hadn't finished my sentence when her daughter appeared at the tills kicking off.
At this point I realise that her charming daughter had a fight in the club last night (seen by quite a few of us staff + caught on video on a few people's phones) Like a proper fight hair pulling pints thrown out and out brawl rolling around on the floor the works .
She didn't get the refund :)

A drunk man urinated on my bar, when I refused to serve him as he was already "well in drink" not served by my staff , just walked in shouting he wanted a Fosters.

too many cuntomers over the years , most recent was asking an abusive person to leave the premises, eventually they went and the couple who were standing watching approached and said " we have been waiting to be served for ages and you don't even have the decency to apologise to us"

When I was still at school, I had a job in a chain that sold curtains, duvets etc. One of my jobs was to cut net curtains by the yard. Each design would come in on a roll and each roll was a different length, because windows obviously come in different sizes and have different drops and widths.

On a weekly basis someone would come in insisting that their windows were standard size. Or they’d tell me that they lived in a particular road, like I’d been to all the roads in our town, taken measurements of the windows and would be able to recall them from memory. And they were genuinely shocked when told that there was no such thing as a standard sized window. Mate, you’ve just driven through roads with architecture ranging from the 15th century to new build estates to get to the town centre. How can you not have noticed that the windows weren’t all the same size?!

Or there was the giant of a man who didn’t know his window measurements but knew he could just about squeeze through it, so I’m 14 years old, standing on a step ladder, wrapping a tape measure around him, trying to get his window width, while he’s trying to keep his jacket pockets kept closed so I couldn’t see what was in them.

Or the woman who didn’t have a tape measure so had measured all of her windows by cutting lengths of string for the width and the drop. Which would have been fine if she’d separated each pair of strings instead of shoving them all in a plastic bag and expecting me to know which strings went together and which were drops/lengths.

Or the woman who told me she’d made a wooden frame for the inside of her window, she’d put chicken wire over it and she wanted a few yards of net because she was going to poke it through the chicken wire, rather than hang it from a wire or rail. Ok. Not my cup of tea, but each to their own. She could not understand that net curtains came in all different drops and that if I sold her a 24” drop (which was the one she wanted because it was the shortest and therefore the cheapest) it clearly wasn’t going to be big enough if her window was longer than a 12” drop. I remember her literally screaming at me that she didn’t want a drop and why was I being so stupid. Yeah, I’m not the one sticking chicken wire in my windows, but you crack on 🙄

Anyone who works in any customer facing role soon works out very early on that not only is the customer frequently not right they are often complete weapons grade cunts to boot.

But they are not pushing for sustainability.

They are using it as a marketing tool and paying lip service to it.

An old colleague at an upmarket supermarket was on the deli counter. Woman asked him for some ham. When he asked her how she would like her ham sliced, she replied "thick, like you"

He was the nicest guy and not thick in the slightest.

Did you work at the same mothercare as me?

I’m a part time photographer. I always explain to my clients both before and after they book that due to time constraints, it normally takes me about two or three weeks to edit their photos and send them over. I make it very clear. For those who don’t know, editing photos can be a very lengthy process.

One customer texted to ask if I had edited her photos before I had even made the half hour drive home from our location shoot.

I volunteer in a charity shop, it never ceases to amaze me that people seem to think we a. Have an item in a different size, b. Have a very specific themed item and c. Think we should sell it to them for £1 then complain ... my funniest customers (who are lovely though) are the men, always men, who need a black suit, themed outfit or similar for that night and have me running all around trying to get the perfect 80's night outfit for the rugby club dinner 2 hours later!

I've been a dog groomer since leaving school.
Had some delights over the years, the most common being "don't make my doodle who is 50% poodle look like a poodle" or "I brush him with a pritstick every day, I don't know how he can be matted!"

Had a bloke explain that his dog had fallen out of his open van window en route to be groomed. But he was sure the dog would be fine because he was only doing 40 and the dog had alot of hair so was well protected from injury.
The poor bugger was limping badly so I refused to groom and insisted on a vet check. Turned out he'd broken a leg and had some other injuries and serious bruising under all that super protective hair!

Some people are just utterly batshit though.
I used to groom a lovely cockerpoo belonging to an estate agent. She was always a bit flakey and often late so I started sending reminder texts the day before and the morning of her appointment.

On this particular day she didn't show up despite the reminders so I rang to see if she was on her way. She was not but said she could be with me in 45 mins!
I told her that wouldn't work for me as I had other appointments. She hung up on me and I assumed that would be the end of it.

She turned up about 1.5hrs later and tried to hand me the lead so I could take the dog to be groomed. I politely refused and explained again the she had missed her slot and would need to rebook.
She lost it at that point. Screamed at me that I was a jumped up little cunt and that she had a viewing to do in 10 minutes and what was she supposed to do with the dog now?
My suggestion that she take him home resulted in her picking him up and literally shoving him over the counter at me (thankfully I managed to catch him before he fell off the other side) and telling me that I could fucking watch him for a bit. It was the least I could do since I was too lazy to groom her dog. She marched straight out the door to her car and wheelspan out of the carpark while I just stood there open-mouthed with her poor dog.
She came back for him about 5 hours later and wouldn't (couldn't?) look me in the eye. She didn't say a word and she never tried to book back in.
I saw her a few years later when I was house hunting. She obviously remembered me as she was very sheepish. They sent a different agent for all my viewings after that!

When I worked on the cafe in tesco a customer came in I was in the back and heard someone pick a tray up so walked out went to smile and he said why have you got a gap between your lips? I f*King hate mouth breathers learn to breathe through your f*ing nose you sg and threw the tray over the top of the counter at me and ran so I shouted something him like what a p**k and he went and complained that I'd called him that I can't even remember if it was that but it was something along those lines. Tesco gave him a £25 gift voucher as an apology and got me a written warning. Well tried to, I walked during the written warning meeting. People are mad.

You laugh, but a colleague was going mad that her sister slipped her dog a pig’s ear: the family is Jewish, she was fuming! Her sister is obviously not kosher, she is.