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 work in travel, so I have many, many, many stories.

A notable one though is the lady who took the time to complain that she didn't get to have her (and I quote) 'holiday Prosecco' before her short flight landed. Obviously I assured her that next time we'd have the pilot circle for half an hour before landing so she could enjoy it fully

@WindsorBlues she’s been reading too much Tiger Who Came To Tea.

a lady who couldnt understand why i couldnt refund her very expensive dress as she had her receipt ,yes you have and the details match, but you didnt actually buy it from here you bought it from the department store across the road

Wow lots of crazies!

I'm a manager for a number of specialties in a small hospital. In about early May the switchboard put an upset patient of one of the specialties through to speak to me (should go through complaints team, but I don't mind taking these calls if it helps the patient and avoids a full blown complaint. Very angry gent comes on, pissed off that his (bog standard, non urgent) appointment was cancelled in April (due to this little problem you may have heard of called, the Covid 19 pandemic) and he wasn't happy. He was rescheduled for May but cancelled again. He really wasn't happy.

Bit of background: covid strikes and NHS England decree all non essential appointments are postponed by 4 weeks from 20th ish of March. This is to reduce risk of transmission between doc and patient, and to redeploy said docs onto covid wards as sickness level is through the rough, additional wards needing additional medical cover etc, awful and sad for patients , but necessary and quite frankly a decision well above me. 4 weeks later we were told to extend this for another 4 weeks (and this just kept continuing) so this poor gent was cancelled and rebooked twice. All patients affected were reviewed by docs (letters/results etc) to determine who was safe to move and this guy was the lowest priority ie least urgent).

Unfortunately on his 3rd arrange appointment, the doctor he was due to see rang in sick (with covid - later confirmed positive and off for months really unwell). So he was cancelled again (before anyone asks, all the other docs from this specialty were either on the ward or sick themselves).

Anyway, so this patient comes through to me, outraged - fully understand this, but my god he was rude and down right mean!!!
He said he held me personally entirely responsible for not only the outbreak of covid in our area by not acting quick enough (on what I don't know), but directly seen as a failure and an embarrassment for not hiring more medics so he could have seen one of those instead. When I explained it's not that simple and requires funding. He again held me responsible for not fighting harder to get more money for the trust and I should be ashamed of myself.

I understand his upset, but covid being my fault, and lack of funding for unlimited doctors (think small small local hospital) my fault? Hardly think so crazy man!

I was accused by a colleague of peddling pornography because I showed Polanski’s Macbeth to my Y11 class. There is a tiny amount of nudity but he decided it was pornographic because the Executive producer was Hugh Hefner (Playboy) He took his complaint to the Chair of Governors and I had the nickname of Miss Whiplash for months

Not me but today where I work. A client rang and requested an appointment with person A. They were given an appointment with person A on the date they had requested (fully booked out but squeezed in). They then went nuclear because they were not give an appointment with person B who is on leave and cannot legally or training wise perform the task required.

I worked in a shop once and during a sale a woman came in and demanded a refund for a product she’d bought that was now in the sale. Unfortunately she had bought the product several months earlier, used it, and hadn’t bought the product in to get a refund! After explaining this to her several times, she told me I was useless and demanded to speak to the manager. The manager also explained we couldn’t refund a product she didn’t have with her, she stormed out. She wrote to our head office to make a formal complaint about it though 🤦🏼‍♀️

the last few weeks have mainly been disputes about where the customer should be standing at my checkout ,they dont think they should have to stand on the "wait here spot" and would rather be practically sitting on my knee, maybe they just want my job ,if i give them my work jacket im sure noone would notice

Oh I had one guy argue over the spelling of my surname. Erm I think I should know how to spell it. It’s also a super common surname and a word used very regularly by everyone. Example if the name was Grey and he said it should be Gray as that’s more common. In the case of my name it’s not more common and it isn’t how my name is spelled .

@IWillWearThatGlitteryWoolly I read that as gynecologist initially and was sooo confused 🤣😅

I once had a parent complain that I was teaching the GCSE syllabus and clearly knew what I was talking about. Apparently their DC didn't like the content so could I do something else for them.

had batshit customer years ago who wanted her goods delivered, but she refused to give us her details .when asked how we could do that she demanded the details of the delivery person so she could call him direct when she was willing to accept delivery. We refused and she wrote to head office (with no contact details) to complain. Came into store weeks later to complain we had not dealt with her complaint letter.

Got many many more from years of "serving" the public

Colleague put in a formal complaint that I put my own, bought by me, not part of the tea fund, used teabag in the bin and didn’t leave it for her to reuse.

I work in a shop and went into another shop that has a very similar uniform to ours, woman asks me a question about a product so I explain to her I don’t work here I work in the “other one” , she gets really huffy and throws her shopping down on a shelf, and flounces off. Completely batshit.

My friend works for BT and had a woman screaming at him that her engineer hadn’t appeared during the estimated time window . He calmed her down and fit her detains, it was 7/7 and BC she lived 2 miles from where the bus had been attacked. He tried to point out that the area was shut down so he couldn’t guarantee when the engineer would be able to find out. She went nad saying she didn’t care what had happened she wanted her appointment. He very nearly told her to go fuck herself as people were injured and dead!

Lol at the 7 ft wide family tree!

Ex holiday rep here.

The lemons (in Cyprus) have too many pips.
No bacon for breakfast (Egypt)
Too much curry (Goa)
and my personal favourite......
‘I want to go on the Israel trip, but I refuse to be circumcised to do it’.

Disclaimer: my customers did not need to be circumcised to go on a two day mini cruise to Israel from Cyprus.

Someone once complained that I had laughed at him at interview; he said that he found it humiliating and belittling, and claimed that I had already decided not to employ him before the interview had even started. Somewhat embarrassingly for him, by the time my boss received the complaint, I had already offered him the job

I did laugh in the interview because I genuinely thought he was making a joke and I was trying to be polite. What he was saying was so ridiculous that it didn't even cross my mind that he was being serious. Had I realised at the time that he wasn't being ironic, I would have never offered him the job!

I work in a DIY shop.
Customer wanted to return a faulty lawnmower, but we did not sell that brand of lawnmower.
He kicked off for about 20 minutes about how he 100% bought it from us and as we sold other items of the same brand (eg leaf blowers) we should refund his lawnmower.
Eventually he found the receipt out and it was for a completely different DIY shop.
He didn't even apologise, just flounced out in a strop.

I used to work in retail and one Christmas (Boxing Day sales I think) it was extremely busy . I was working the tills and had ran out of change . I needed to give a lady 1 pence change and was waiting for the cashier to bring me change so asked her politely to stand to the side for a moment so I could continue serving the long queue behind her . She refused . Demanding her 1pence right there and then . Even out of my pocket (we weren’t allowed to keep cash on us anyway)

She was getting more and more irate and angry screaming at me that I was stealing from her !
People in the queue behind her started throwing pennies at her to get her to move on .

She continued to scream in my face until the cashier turned up with her penny change .

Bizarre behaviour. I was only 16 at the time and it was quite terrifying tbh!

Oh and more recently - I now work in health care . A patient complained that I didn’t keep eye contact with them for 100% of the time . I even had the absolute gall to turn my back on them when leaving the room .

I need to learn how to walk backwards evidently.

I've posted about this before.
I used to work in corporate banking and had helped a client with a compliance issue. He thanked me and said he wanted to let my boss know how helpful I had been. I said that was very kind of him.
He asked for my name, which I gave.
"No, I mean your full name."
"That is my full name. RiftGibbon [Surname]"
"But I don't know if you're Miss or Mrs, how will they know I mean you?"
"I'm the only RiftGibbon in the company."
"But is it Miss or Mrs?"
I declined to tell him as it had no relevance, and then he complained about me not telling him my marital status.

Oh god, so many crazies.
New year's eve, playing music at a pub party. I play here often. (Well I did until bastard covid). So I put a message out in their popular social media page and NYE ticket event page asking if anyone has any requests. Got quite a few, happy days.
Due to the location of the pub the net is shoddy to say the least so I can't download something like I can do at other times.
Guy comes over, round the strategically placed speakers and round practically into my booth. This immediately puts me on edge due to the expensive equipment I use being within one dropped glass of booze related carnage.
He's clearly had a few, and is slurring semi incoherently in my ear. Cannot hear him due to it being loud back behind my booth. So I say, "can't hear you mate ask at the bar". He proceeds to holler in my ear some obscure early 90s (apparently) dance track from a techno club the guy went to in Bracknell which he would now like to hear as he's not heard it in 30 years.
I'm 38. I've no clue what this track is. I very definitely wasn't in a techno club in Bracknell in 92. So I say, sorry don't have it.
He then gets the right hump, asking what sort of effing DJ am I.
Off he goes back to the dance floor and I think I've got off light. Accept he comes back, twice, within 45 minutes, with no clear indication that he realises we've already had this conversation. He's clearly got alcohol related memory loss. He then on the last time when my dp who is my roadie clocks, tells him "she's a shit DJ isn't she, I'm going to complain to the landlord". He then called me an effing c word.
Well. If you're going to bitch at someone it's wise to make sure it's not their dp
To say he got swiftly moved out the pub by dp and one of the lovely bar staff is an understatement. He's now barred.
But jeeze. I'm not iTunes. I can't have every tune going, especially not an obscure techno tune from when I was at primary school at a family friendly new year's party.
I've been running an old skool balaeric house night once when I've event managed and had a guy moan that they wouldn't play Status Quo