Most bonkers complaint/dispute you’ve had at work?

[ChooseYourLameName]

Someone rang me today to complain I’d sent them a letter in an envelope I’d licked!

I don’t have any envelopes to lick. They all have a sticky bit you expose by removing the seal.

I couldn’t quite believe it. When I said it really wasn’t licked, he said ‘‘I can smell mouthwash you know!’’ Only satisfied when I said although I really didn’t lick it, I would post any future letters with tape to avoid misunderstanding. The strangest professional call I’ve had to ever take, bloody hell.

What’s your most bonkers dispute?

I once had a colleague complain that my bap was too close to her drink in the fridge and she was vegetarian. I quickly agreed to move it to another shelf but she still didn’t seem pleased it was still close by!

I used to work in a mobile phone shop in Stockport. A well-dressed well-spoken middle aged man came in to complain he had to go to the bottom of his garden in Wilmslow (place where large expensive houses are common) to get a signal strong enough to make a call on his mobile. This was a problem as his garden was 100 feet long and he wasn't happy.
I confirmed that (at that time) the network he was on offered the best signal in that area so changing networks wouldn't help (as he knew anyway from taking to neighbours) but he was still having problems and that was not ideal.
I sympathised and showed him the map of upcoming (planning permission granted but not installed yet) and proposed (planning permission sought but not granted) mobile phone masts for his area. Commiserated that I couldn't solve the problem today but at least I could show him the network were working on it and he should get a better signal soon.
He explained that he was a staunch local activist against any masts getting installed anywhere within miles of his house, he regularly rallied the community against any attempt to put a mobile mast within range, he knew councillors and leaned on them, he organised petitions... the full works.
I gently pointed out that without a mast in the area the signal couldn't improve but he could not make the connection. He stayed in the shop over an hour demanding I improve the signal while stating that a mast would be put in the area over his dead body.
He was an articulate moneyed man but could not compute that his personal activism was standing in the way of his own demands.

I got a verbal warning because the customer complained I'd walked away after serving her!

This was 45 years ago, but remains fresh in the memory. I was a WPC in a large Northern town. Man came in to make a complaint to my inspector because I had got him out of bed at 10:30am for a description/photo of his 5 year old daughter whom his wife had reported missing from home for 2 days. Mum telephoned the the report in from her work cleaning at a local pub. Dad refused, but sent his older daughter, aged 7, to tour the streets with us and point out where she might be. Dad went back to bed. Mum continued her cleaning job at the pub. We found 5 year old safe and well, staying with her grandma 5 miles away. Nobody had thought to check. Dad came in later in the day. He wanted to make a formal complaint about me waking him (he was unemployed). Inspector said: "Get oota my police station afore aa lock ye oop for child neglect, and nivva come complainin boot ma policewomen again, or ye'll see the inside of the cells."

I once was complained about by a patient for not bringing them a cup of tea on duty: I had agreed to make the tea but was then called to a respiratory arrest.

I apologised and explained the situation to the patient in question and they told me it wasn't a valid excuse and I was failing in my duty of care.

People like this exist more than you realise.

Client complained the main image on his website wasn't big enough.

1. It was the template he himself had picked from over 300 options.

1. He couldn't get his head around responsive design. On a PC the picture took up 70% of the page height. On mobile it was 20%. He thought this was a bug and demanded it fill the screen on mobile.

1. He was utterly immune to the line of argument that people would visit his website in order to read the text therein, not to look at stock images. Yes, all the images on the site were stock images. The site was for a professional services firm.

My manager had 6 months going round in circles with him. Passed it to me, I had a further 3 months. Finally I said "do you want to launch this site, or do we need to start again?" And STFU while the cogs turned in his head.

I'm a midwife, and I once had a genuine written complaint from a man that I didn't offer him a cup of tea until they'd been there at least an hour. His wife walked in to the hospital pushing and then immediately after delivering had a massive haemorrhage! I was a bit too busy to play tea maid!

to be fair, i wouldn't understand much about the website issues either.
not everyone is tech savvy.

What an interesting read!

I had just finished work and went to the local garden centre for a mooch around. A very well dressed lady came and asked me where the garden canes were, I said I didn't know and that I didn't work there. She absolutely refused to believe that I didn't work there. The uniform for my old job was a purple polo shirt and the uniform for the garden centre was green polo shirt. She said that clearly I did work there as I was wearing a polo shirt and that she was going to complain to the manager that I was unhelpful.

Not me but DH earlier this year;he's a operations manager for a company.He advertised for staff on the company's Facebook page with his work email address for applications.

He had a bloke email him with his CV.A few hours later said bloke sent DH a Facebook message on DH's personal profile demanding to know when he could start his new job,where it was and how much he'd be paid.This was about 8pm at night

My DH politely thanked him for sending his CV,said he'd review it during office hours and would contact him via email if the company wanted to take his application further.

Over the next 24 hours DH had a dozen messages from this bloke;they started out with "have you read my CV yet?" to "I can only work x days in x area and I expect to be paid x amount per hour" followed by "why aren't you replying" to then a barrage of abuse calling my DH all the names under the sun and peppering said messages with lots of swearing and a few threats.As you can tell DH and his manager who owns the company declined to hire said prince of a potential employee.

This nutjob then decided to go onto Facebook and comment on every post about what a terrible unprofessional company they are and how they treat employees badly and no one should work for them or use their services and then left a vile review on their reviews section too.He was the gift that kept on giving.He then disappeared.

A few months later he messaged my DH again on Facebook asking him if they had any work for him then!

You couldn't make this up.

Betting shop manager
A customer accused me of knowing that the horse he selected would win and that's why I froze my till to prevent him putting it on. He actually rang up to complain.
Nah mate A) The decrepit till randomly chooses when to malfunction all by itself.
B) My crystal ball's capabilities don't extend to firstly knowing the winner and secondly, blindly predicting which horse you'd chosen!
Fool!
We often get accused of having magic win/lose buttons linked to the games machines too.

I used to work in Customer Relations at Tesco HQ. We had many ridiculous, but amusing complaints, but by far the best was this one:

One of my team started howling with laughter, and ended up face down on the desk.

A store manager had phoned in, and said: "I have a customer here who says her vegetable crown supper has a severed penis in it" Colleague asked what exactly it was: "A pancake roll" was the answer.....

Worked as a Nurse in a busy Neuro outpatients. One shift heard hell of a commotion coming from Reception where a married couple were being verbally abusive to the staff. They were upset because they had been up since the crack of dawn to travel across the county border (15 miles) to attend the 1330hrs appt. And they weren't on the clinic list to be seen that day! We were "all incompetent wastes of space, bloody NHS" and on and on. They were going to make a formal complaint, "heads will roll". So I asked for their letter inviting them for an appointment which they smugly handed over. As I read it I was sooo happy! I asked them if they had brought a sleeping bag or tent with them because THEY WERE A MONTH EARLY for the appointment. Rather shamefaced half hearted apology from them and they left the department!

They were a while ago but re the 1p ones - I used to work in a well known chain of 70s nightclubs. The manager was v dodgy and scamming money wherever he could. One of the many ingenious ways he did this was to never have pennies in the tills. We were supposed to apologise and if anyone kicked up a fuss (never) we'd give them 2p. On an average night we'd have 1000 people come through our doors. Even of they each only bought one drink then that's £10 a night he was making on top of the till totals. £10 per night is roughly £300 a month. Unaccounted for and untaxed! Since then I always take my penny change. Even if I have to wait 10 minutes for it!

Work in health care on the graveyard shift , client sim called the office to complain that when I went at 2 am I didn’t chat enough to his father, I didn’t said goodbye on leaving. Son was at adjacent room while we were cleaning his father, but I didn’t chat enough. Blood he’ll at 2 am. Made sure the next time to say hello and goodbye so pound that the sim could hear, when the point was not try to wake up the neighbours.

@Mikki69

Worked as a Nurse in a busy Neuro outpatients. One shift heard hell of a commotion coming from Reception where a married couple were being verbally abusive to the staff. They were upset because they had been up since the crack of dawn to travel across the county border (15 miles) to attend the 1330hrs appt. And they weren't on the clinic list to be seen that day! We were "all incompetent wastes of space, bloody NHS" and on and on. They were going to make a formal complaint, "heads will roll". So I asked for their letter inviting them for an appointment which they smugly handed over. As I read it I was sooo happy! I asked them if they had brought a sleeping bag or tent with them because THEY WERE A MONTH EARLY for the appointment. Rather shamefaced half hearted apology from them and they left the department!

@Mikki69, I, as a hospital receptionist have been on the receiving end of the same complaint.

Wrong date, wrong month, wrong TRUST !! Oh the relief !!

slowly working my way through this thread and its hilarious. I wish I could say I'm amazed but after years or working in customer facing roles I can beleive all of it.

I have a few but one that stands out. decades ago I worked at M&S, a lady wanted a refund on some very well worn, unwashed tights because they had a ladder in them. They'd got footmarks in them and stunk

And also, a member of staff (nurse) complained to our manager as I had the audacity to reduce my hours.

After all, I shouldn’t have been able to afford to, due to being a mere receptionist ....🙄.

Got chased out of the office as I was headed to my car one evening to be informed by an utter muckfuppet about a used sanitary towel on the floor of the ladies toilets. She wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I'm not a cleaner, I'm on the senior leadership team.

I am a solicitor and work in an office fileld with other solicitors.

We actually brought back a colleague from furlough because none of us could work out how to change the fucking toner in the phorocopying machine.

The scanning of the plain white piece of paper reminded me.

I was taken aside by manager for an email I'd sent to a (batshit) colleague. Apparently wishing her luck with a tricky client was sarcastic.

DH was sent to do some decorating work on a rental property that it appeared the tenants had done a runner from.

When he moved one of the wardrobes he discovered a hole right through the wall into the building next door (a commercial property, small warehouse type building) which was full of cannabis plants!

As a union rep, I got to hear some pretty wild and wacky complaints, but I had to deal with someone who took a grievance out against her manager for not inviting her to her birthday party. That's it. Another staff member wanted me to defend him for distributing BNP leaflets at work.

I could write a book about my retail days , but my favourite was when I worked for a large well known animal rehoming centre. And someone returned a golden retriever dog they had rehomed last week because it kept “ retrieving “ lol. Clues in the name ...
Also a kitten that was returned for taking the flat screen tv off the wall 🤣