Aibu to ask for the most "WTF" complaints

@user1486131602. Can’t think why you divorced him

@fluffiny31 Oat?! Typo?!

I worked for a catalogue retailer, customer wrote to the Managing Director that I didn't offer a carrier bag to HIDE the present she bought her DIL. It was an Ironing Board.

@MrsCrunchy I work in an area where a lot of the patients have quite disordered lives so I make allowances for lateness and tend to see people on a slightly complicated system of mostly first come first served basis with some tweaks to make sure on-time people aren’t seen late. The number of times I’ve called someone in early as my patient isn’t there and is unlikely to be any time soon and they’ve complained they don’t have enough time to read their book
It’s mostly lighthearted but not always! I usually tell them they’re more than welcome to sit in the waiting room afterwards instead!

A parent once complained about the time I caught her son cheating in an exam. She ranted at me for about 30 minutes about how 'nowhere did it say that he couldn't write the answers on his arm.' She complained to the head teacher.

Headteacher then claimed I was the first teacher in 20 years to catch students cheating and told me off.

And another time, a student handed in work obviously written by several different people. I was told to just give him a good grade and stop complaining.

Then there was the time 2 parents of a student said they'd come after me for chastising their son.

Left teaching after that.

A few years later I was doing preliminary telephone interviews for a job in my office. One of the key things we needed was people who were basically good at getting info across quickly and being polite on the phone and in person, and having excellent attention to detail. I interviewed one girl who was so rude when I asked her any questions in relation to her work history and why she wanted to work for us. She emailed in a complaint about me (but gave a completely random name) and started slating the company. Not exactly what we wanted and was so stupid.

Working in a university library several decades ago...
A student came up to the counter, "Have you got any books about the exhibition?"
I asked which one (there were a few on in the Uni, and lots on in the big city we were in.
"The one that's on now"
I asked if she knew what it was about.
"No. But it's really good."
Did she know how long the exhibition might be on for, even roughly?(With no name or subject it was going to be challenging, but if I knew dates I could possibly narrow it down.
"No. It's on now. Surely you know."
I asked if she knew who it was that was exhibiting.
"I don't know his name!"
She got really snappy with me when I politely pointed out that we covered 6 major subjects, that out library held several thousand books, and that the information she had wouldn't narrow it down.

When I was 17, and looked about 12, I worked stacking shelves in my local supermarket in the evenings. One evening I was working on the chilled aisles i had a complaint from a customer because I couldn't tell them a recipe for a piece of fish that they were thinking of buying. At that stage in my life I was just about capable of making a sandwich.

I work for a housing association taking emergency housing repairs calls out of hours. Some of the low high points include:

Being told they hope I died because I wouldn’t send someone out to look at their tv ariel. At half 8 at night. On Boxing Day. In the rain. SHe got her mum to call back and she tried the sympathy card, “but there’s 3 kids in there. What are they supposed to do with no tv?”.

A man phoned in with no water supply. Called the water board and they confirmed there was a burst pipe. Called him back and he demanded I personally come to his house to deliver him bottled water. When I explained I couldn’t he wrote a formal complaint about the fact that I was clearly racist and ableist as he was welsh and uses a cane (I didn’t know he had one!)

When I worked for a Scottish council I took a call from a local councillor in the middle of winter demanding I get the gritters out to grit his street. I explained it wasn’t possible as they were out doing the main roads and once they were satisfactorily gritted they’d move on to smaller roads. He then played the “do you know who I am” card and threatened my job. He demanded a supervisor when I responded that he was mr _ and that he lived on bla street and that all calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes. Apparently he called me an impudent upstart in his complaint. My boss made a complaint against him for threatening a member of staff with unemployment if they didn’t break the rules for him. One of us got reprimanded by the head of the council and it wasn’t me

@Yabadabadont

How could the bill not be split 4 ways?

Have told this before on here but I had a patient complain about me because I told her to “ go away & no I wouldn’t make her a cup of coffee “ - I was performing chest compressions on another patient who had arrested at the time .

We had a medical emergency in our small, family run, shop. We had two ambulances in attendance and it was all a bit crazy. A customer emailed the next day to complain that the service had been a bit slow!

I know someone who complained that there were too many Americans in Hawaii! 🤭

I had sort of similar MarySibley'sFamiliar but in relation to a property I was renovating in order to let out. It was reasonably far advanced and I used to stay in it and work on it in the evenings while I was working in X city. A temporary colleague on placement and I were quite friendly and we used to chat about our lives. It came out in conversation that I was going to be away for two weeks over Christmas and New Year and he pestered and pestered me until I reluctantly relented and said he could stay in my flat for 2 weeks for a tiny sum, I think it was £40 for him and his girlfriend per week, so £80 in total. This was 11 years ago.

I stressed to him and put it in writing that the property was not fully ready for occupation yet and that although safe, had no refrigerator and an incompletely stocked kitchen. (I had ordered a fridge which was due after New Year).

He and the girlfriend moved in. The very next day, I got a series of text messages complaining about the lack of wine glasses. The day after, they complained about the lack of fridge and asked if I could just buy and install a cheap one to keep them going. The day after that, they complained that the cutlery was quite cheap and there wasn't a full range of cooking utensils. On and on it went. Phone calls, text messages, it was never ending. They upset my DH so much they ruined our Christmas. I only didn't lose my temper with them because I was beginning to fear they would refuse to move out and would turn into squatters, and I didn't want him kicking off in my workplace or spreading rumours.

Thankfully, they did move out after the New Year.

I still got a phone call from his years later asking if I could write him a letter saying he had lived there for 6 months, to assist with some claim he was making. I said no, and put the phone down on him.

I teach a university course on Russian foreign policy. Once had a Russian student complain that I was not respectful enough of Vladimir Putin.

But you wouldn't rock up at a catholic venue to just gawp if they were holding a service. It's disrespectful.

THIS ^

I would have assumed that the enquirer was wondering if the cathedral was open for visitors/ tours on the Sunday, as opposed to services.

Hot day, put jugs of water with plenty of ice on the tables of a large party we had in. Water was too cold apparently 🙄

But you wouldn't rock up at a catholic venue to just gawp if they were holding a service. It's disrespectful.

American Bacon is amazing. Ocado used to sell it but don't anymore so if you can tell me where you're buying it from please?! Ta.

On topic.

Every Thursday at have half four a strange Gent used to pop his head around our shop door and ask if we sold chicken wire, then complain loudly when we told him no.

It was a Toy Shop.

.

I work in a bureau de change....its a small kiosk and we work alone.....our working hours are 8.30am till 6.00pm.....by law i have to take a lunch break and i put a clock up to advise customers of when i will return from my break....most days i return to angry customers demanding to know why im not open...ive even had customers contacting head office and making official complaints lol.

What's wrong with that? And what's British got to do with it?

She asked the question about whether the church would be ope the following day on a Saturday. Christian churches have to be open on Sunday to conduct worship services. They are not just tourist attractions. St. Patrick's has thousands of people attending Catholic mass every Sunday. Churches in the US also commonly have a sign (as St. Patrick's does) by the main entrance that announces the times for such services. The sign at St. Pat's also offers tour times and the gift shop hours for everyday of the week.

Her nationality had some relevance simply do to the fact that she was from a country with a large Christian population cohort, so might reasonably be assumed to know that churches are generally open on a Sunday. If she had been Japanese the question would have been more understandable. Also, if you go up thread a bit, you'll see several posts where people specifically identified tourists saying or doing silly or odd things as American, so I assumed that MN'ers would consider it relevant.

Asking if a cathedral would be open on a Sunday? It's a bit.....obvious.

If we're on to tourist stories I have dozens. I was coming out of St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC on a Saturday and a British tourist rocked up and said she wanted to see the inside but didn't have time and wanted to know if it would be open the following day.

What's wrong with that? And what's British got to do with it?

I used to run a B&B and got some bloody awful guests.

My first was a belter. We hadn't opened yet for business but a man came banging on our kitchen window around 10pm wanting two rooms, one for him and one for his two friends. I explained that we weren't open yet (paint wasn't even dry in some rooms) but he said they had nowhere else to go. I agreed but warned him that although we had fruit juices, porridge, muesli, cereals (huge selection) and plenty of bread/toast, we only had bacon and a couple of eggs. No full breakfasts. I offered the rooms at a reduced rate because of that.

In the morning he did nothing but complain. The bed was lumpy (it wasn't. It was very expensive and was brand new, never been slept in). He said the rooms were too dark (wtf?). We should have fresh milk in the rooms, not UHT portions.
His room didn't have a bin (his en-suite did), the kettle was cheap, the bed moved (they didn't), we should have a map of the local area on the wall, and then oddest of all, the little alarm clocks we provided didn't light up in the dark so you couldn't see the time. Bearing in mind they were on the bedside table under the lamp. All he needed to do was touch the base of the lamp and poof! An illuminated room and therefore, clock!

Breakfast was like a professional eating competition. All three ate over a dozen rashers of bacon each and complained when we ran out (huge catering pack gone in one sitting) and they somehow managed to go through two variety packs of cereals and a full Warburtons loaf. Honestly I don't know how they didn't throw up. I'm sure they took cereal packets away too.
So the complaining man and his friends got cheap rooms, stuffed themselves silly and even nicked extra food for later.

My first customers were dreadful. It almost put me off opening up the B&B.

Many years ago I worked in a council office. It was near a waterworks, and one morning a huge water main burst. I ad to walk to work as the railway line was under feet of water. When I reached the town I found the building I worked in was also surrounded by feet of water, so I went to the nearest council building and was sent to help out in yet another place.
However, when our building opened later on, someone complained that we should have waded through it to open up. He had fishing waders and had ploughed through the flood, he was irate that none of us had done the same :) I should add, this was years before the 'net, so I had no idea about any of this until the train never showed up.