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

I own a cat boarding establishment. I have many stories akin to OP!
Animal owners are crazy sometimes!!

Work in a nursery. One bloody family always arrive in a couple or with a grandparent etc. When they are there they talk to the people in the office for ages then when they come for their kids they spend ages talking to every nursery nurse and kids then run around saying they won’t leave pulling out toys that are tidy ready for us to leave. No staff can leave until all kids have so we are often there 15 mins late while they rounds up their kids. A tantrum is common then staff have to help control them or cajole them out the building. Been there all day and just want to go home. Practically every fucking day.

Oh - and as an ex GP receptionist, if you tell me the strategic comment of "I might not be here then" when I offer you an appointment for next week - l am not stupid. I know you are trying to be sarcastic in the fact that you might be dead by then.

But you are leaving yourself wide open "I can offer you an appointment in 10 days time". Patient "I might not be here then". Me -"oh are you off on holiday. Are you going anywhere nice?"

I've heard it all. Sadly I am hardened to it. I cant help the fact that the NHS is on its knees - don't take it out on me doing my minimum wage job!

Very very tame compared to pps but years ago I had a lady trying to return a corset to our underwear dept. We didn't sell them which was just as well because it was ancient, filthy, and it had a big rip in it that was held together by a plaster.

Ex GP receptionist here.

If I tell you we havent got any appointments) left - we havent got any appointments left. I'm not just telling you that for fun because I really want you to have a go at me at 8.20am. Its pointless ranting and raving at me as I cant magic something up. Telling me well you have chest pains so you need to see a doctor is just going to make me tell you to ring 999. Telling me they arent "those" sort of chest pains isnt going to change my mind!

If you tell me that if you die it will be my fault (a daily comment) I am hardened to it and am not going to be sympathetic. I am secretly thinking well if you die you wont need an appointment then will you!

@RedFolder 😂😂😂😂 laughing so much.

A work one - I use to work for a supplier of M&S. One day we had a pair of curtains returned with a giant hole cutout where they’d made themselves a cushion cover.
M&S accepted the return.

A request for a cat sitter on the local Facebook group for a couple of weeks- I like cats but my dogs don’t so I can’t have one. Ok I thought, 2 weeks if cat cuddles yes please.

They arranged for me to meet puss in advance. I felt like I was at an interview.
I had instructions about heating up his various meals and snacks, how to top up his massive automatic litter tray which they then decided was too complicated for me, but most importantly was play time and cuddles - GOOD.

No, not good. Puss hated being touched, picked up, anything. He was not a friendly cat. He’d leave the room as soon as you entered.
Unfortunately the whole house was rigged with CCTV and doorbell cameras so they were watching and messaging me and saying I needed to try x, y, and z.
My hands were shredded by the time they were back. I never offered again. I don’t want a cat anymore.

I worked in childcare. I had many parents who wanted me to help them falsely claim tax credits.
I had one woman text me her notice as I was driving to the airport for my week holiday. Her reasoning was she wanted to get it in quick (holidays are not included in notice periods)
I had a divorced couple, dad turned up despite there being a restraining order against him (I lived on same street) he grabbed the child from my doorstep. When I rang the police they said there was nothing they could do.

That happens daily where I work

Boxers shoved down the loo,in the pedal bin or just dumped on the floor

I swear they come in,shit at the table,wander into the gents and dump their pants

If its not shitty boxers,its used pregnancy tests,used tampons/towels,shitty loo roll,vomit and on more than one occasion,people having sex-from teens to older people (what it is about our place turning people on,I do not know-its fast food,not a brothel)

I once walked into the loo,only to find a gent had injected god knows what,somehow burst a vein and was blue on the floor

Teens who are plastered,vomiting all over the floor,we call their parents,who rock up and refuse to deal with their own child-I'm not doing it

99% of the time,they put in a complaint about us not wanting to touch their vomiting,pissed up,often gobby teen

I work a min wage job

Anyone who deals with the public deserves a bloody medal

I worked for a season in the booking office / gift shop for the theatre on the end of the Pier. The booking office / gift shop was at the land end of the pier. The theatre was clearly visible from just outside of the shop, which was literally connected to the theatre by the Pier. On numerous occasions I was asked by people booking their tickets where the theatre was and on more than one occasion was greeted with utter amazement that the Pier Theatre was actually -- you know - on the Pier.....

Part of the gift shop stock included inflatables like paddling pools, dinghies etc. I had a long, awkward exchange with a young chap who wanted to know if his girlfriend would fit in the smallest child sized dinghy. When we reached an impasse regarding her size / height / weight, none of which he knew with any certainty, he asked if I could get one out and inflate it so he could judge it by eye......

When I worked in a gallery / picture framers, I got very used to people coming in and asking if we framed pictures....or even if we were open, despite them having entered the premises through a door with a sign proclaiming "open" in big letters right in front if them.

Our speciality was bespoke framing. You choose from 400 styles of frame in five different price bands. There are maybe 150 shades of mount and several types of glass. Sympathetic framing is about combining them in the most aesthetically pleasing way and helping preserve sometimes valuable artwork to archival standards.

The bane of my life was people ringing up for a "rough quote". Invariably I'd start with asking about the size and invariably they weren't sure. Working from pretty vague dimensions, I'd ask for the sort of artwork it was - oil painting? Print? Original watercolour? Subject matter? Colour palette? Then what sort of frame they were looking for - invariably it was "the cheapest". Pricing was by linear inch and used a formula to calculate with different results if it was "trade" or "public" as both sorts of business were undertaken.

Inevitably I would encourage the customer to bring the artwork in for a more tailored and accurate quote and inevitably I'd be told that their decision to do that would be based on the likely price . It was the most tortuous Catch 22 exercise every time and obviously in the days before technology was in use to provide a virtual service.

I also used to get people coming in, getting me to price things up, and then be told they would come back to see the framer himself despite me having worked there every weekend for 20 years and having an arts based qualification, because he was the expert....

That said, I had alot if regulars who did appreciate my "eye" so I didn't take it too personally..

I can't believe some of these.
Wow OP the biting dog owner's response!

This isn't something I've experienced but I read it today and thought wtf. A place on trip advisor had someone write in their review that the forest nearby is haunted and the atmosphere of the place is ruined by what happened in the past. The reply from the hotel was that of laughter. They actually wrote your review made us laugh.

DH has had human shit thrown at him by an angry customer. He's customer facing and thinks most people are cunts.

I used to work for a senator in California - part of my job was helping people, kind of like customer service.
By the time most people called my office, their problems were complicated and enormous.
One very young couple came in because they had nothing. No food, no housing, no medical care.
I spent several hours connecting them with social services, emergency housing, and the agencies that could provide them with food and medical.
The next day the husband (or whatever he was) arrived back in my office and threatened to kill me because I didn’t get them any “free money.”
He also threatened to kill the staff at the social services office - after he finally left, I called the state police and he was arrested at the SS office, threatening to kill the person who had helped him the day before.

The dog is Jewish 😂😂😂😂😂😂

I’ve worked in a vets for 15 years and had daily a abuse for most of that time.

Usually it’s not fair that the costs are so high, if we loved animals we wouldn’t charge. It’s not their fault they don’t have insurance so we should just let them be treated for free. It’s not really their cat they have just been feeding it in the garden for 15 years so we are cruel for not treating strays. Etc etc etc The worst are the people who have bred their animals and then claim to have no money for breeding related complications (usually some type of bulldog) We’ve been slated on Facebook more than once for ‘wanting to kill puppies’ 🙄

Last week though I did get very wrong by a client for feeding a dog a small piece of pork. It was the first thing the dog had eaten in days after major surgery but the owner was furious because the dog is Jewish and can’t eat it for religious reasons. Apparently my mind reading skills weren’t up to scratch.

So many stories from retail, pubs and the entertainment business I now work for.

Pubs are the worst. I've had multiple bottles and glasses thrown at me because I've refused someone a drink (got really good at ducking)!
Someone tried to punch me because I asked him to stop fingering his girlfriend in one of our booths.
I was pushed over a table, western film style, because I asked a man to refrain from pissing in a corner of the pub.

These are the worst ones. There are a hundred more over my 25 years of employment. No idea how I am not in prison for nutting someone.

I was a cleaner in a shopping centre when I was a teenager. The mens toilets were always pretty bad but one day I found one of them blocked.

Noticed something checked and pulled out an effing shirt and a pair of boxers covered in sh*t.

I mean how bad was it he had to stuff his clothes down there???

i used to work in customer service in quite a ‘posh’ (read entitled) city. The business was a little outside the city centre but still within walking distance. The staff car park was at the back and had the usual card entry barrier system. Chap came in one Saturday to tell us he has parked in front of the barrier but don’t worry, there was enough room for us to ‘squeeze out’. When we pointed out that not only was he illegally blocking us all in but also preventing fire engine access he said he would rather pay the fine as it was ‘cheaper than paying for parking’. He turned out to be very wrong as we called the police who towed his car and charged him a couple of hundred to get it back. Apparently that was our fault as well 🙄

I think customers have always been batshit. I used to work for M&S and we had some horrors. The ones that stand out are;

• the man who's collected his mothers items from the car home after she's died. He brought the suitcase straight to us, included in it were her jewellery and letters - everything she owned. He told me to 'sort out the M&S gear love and then I'm off to Littlewoods'. Dreadful man.
• the man who insisted he's bought the trousers the week before and that I'd served him. I checked the microfiche machine in the office and they were sold in 1976! I wasn't even born!
• lots of people bringing back dirty underwear. Thank God M&S have tightened up the rules now!

@saywhatnow1
"Another lady wanted to put her dog in for daycare when she was at work. She wanted to drop her dog off at 5am, and collect it at 11pm! I explained that our opening hours were 7am-7pm, but that she was welcome to board the dog when she had long days at work. She was unhappy with this, and tried over and over again with long rambling texts, to get me to accept the dog from 5am till 11pm, because she "didn't want to pay any extra for boarding". 😵"

My parents owned a Boarding kennels and Cattery and had a long term customer with a jack russel that could not be trusted at home, it would rip everything to pieces. The set up was that we had kennels in a converted stable block so he basically rented one, it was his for exclusive use and he had a combination padlock on it that he and we could open. He'd get to the kennels before we opened, put the dog in and lock the door, when we opened for the day we'd do walks and food and stuff, then he'd come along in the evening and take the dog home.

It worked really well and meant there was a consistent customer even during quieter periods of the year.

We also had the people calling at 3am to say they'd had an emergency or wanting to pick their pets up at stupid o'clock, or calls from social services asking if we could help them find roughly 40ish (they think) cats in the house of a woman they'd just admitted for psychiatric care. Those were always fun and a lot more common than they should have been!

God people are fucking batshit aren’t they. I don’t work in retail but I think you must see all
levels of crazy in this field of work. Hats off to you all

Oh I forgot about the Christmas food. All those times I ‘ruined Christmas’ because their Turkey was off.
What, that massive frozen one you defrosted on the work top/in the garage/in the boot of the car for 3 days, instead of in the fridge as instructed, because there wasn’t enough room in the fridge? Every bloody year. We’d even hear them tell the acquaintance they’d seen whilst they were waiting in the queue that they defrosted it on the worktop ‘but it still shouldn’t have gone off’.

We had a regular that would fly over to Denmark to visit family then bring her receipt in for her expensive Christmas crackers demanding a refund ‘because they didn’t bang’. Well of course not, you can’t fly with the gunpowder coated bang in crackers so she’d have to take them out before flying. Spineless managers would give her a refund and a gift voucher ‘as a gesture of goodwill’. Drove me nuts.

A memorable one was when I worked in a local shop. Two lads came in and went up the meat isle. I was on the tills. Next thing I know the pair of them are legging it towards the front doors. The front doors were those automatic openers but they didn't open and the pair went crashing into the doors. Before they could get up the manager and two police officers had come out of the back office. Manager had clocked them on cctv and locked the front doors remotely and then shouted to the two on the beat officers who were out the back smoking in our yard! 😂

I have worked in customer service for 35 years. I could write a book on how vile people can be.

The two that spring to mind...

I was a hotel receptionist when I was 21. We had a rugby club event one night, and I was on the bar. One guy tried to get an extension, but we couldn't do it due to licensing hours. He already had about 5 pints lined up anyway. He told me that his dad earned more in a day than I earned in a year 🙄and shouted at me for ages. When we left, about 2am, after clearing up, he was waiting in the car park, and he came over and knocked on the car window - I thought he was going to apologise. Silly me. What he actually did was spit in my face.

I was a taxi operator for few years, not long ago. One guy, because he couldn't get a taxi, when he hadn't pre-booked one, at about 1am on a Saturday night, said he was coming to the office to cut my throat. I was so angry, I said "come on then, I'll wait for you in the car park"... I don't know why I did that. God only knows what could have happened if he'd turned up 😳

I worked in Starbucks as a student and a woman came in and asked if we could make her a sandwich without tomatoes I said oh the sandwiches are pre packed so we can only do what's on the shelf so if all the ones left have tomato in them then unfortunately I can't make her something else.
She seemed to understand this and toddled off to have a look in the cooler, then a moment later packs of sandwiches came sailing at my head and she threw them across the counter whole screaming 'these ALL have tomatoes, I'm ALLERGIC to tomatoes, what am I supposed to EAT'.
The branch was in the middle of a shopping mall with at least 10 other food outlets she could have gone to, including a second Starbucks.