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!

As a student I had a part time job in a well known newsagents in a fairly small city centre railway station.

One customer came in asking to use our toilet. I explained the shop didn't have a toilet, the only toilets were on the platforms.
No, she wanted to use our staff toilet. She was desperate.
I explained we didn't have a staff toilet, we had to go down to the platforms and use the public ones if we needed to go.
She told me I was being ridiculous, I was a liar, I was a 'jobsworth', she was desperate, why wouldn't I let her use our toilet? She actually started pulling on the door to the storage rooms, which was locked. It escalated to her yelling in my face that I was a liar and she KNEW there was a toilet back there.
She must have spent a good five minutes yelling directly into my face that she was desperate and I HAD to let her use our non-existent toilet. The platform toilets were about 60 seconds' walk away. I gave her directions Naturally my manager sat in the back room watching the whole thing on the CCTV and doing nothing.

I also had the woman who physically shoved me aside as I was trying to lock the doors at closing time. She wanted to buy milk. I told her we didn't sell milk, and we were closed, and directed her to Tesco next door to the station.
"How dare you lie to me?! Do you think I'm stupid? I can see it right there!"
She shoved me to the side and stomped over to the fridge.
"This isn't milk! This is water! Why didn't you tell me you didn't sell milk?!"
She called me a 'stupid girl' as she left.

It's hard to narrow it down but here are some of my favourites;

• Working in Jessops, woman complained that she was expected to use the self service machines herself (I had shown her how to use them, but had then walked away to serve another customer rather than staying to watch her use it)
• Another Jessops one, woman has paid for a colour correcting service on a print. I corrected the colours, she complained the colours were wrong and produced an example of how she wanted the print to look. It was a house in a field and the grass was luminous, like how cartons depict radioactive material.
• Working customer services for an online clothes store, had a bloke complain that he couldn't see when his order was due to be delivered. So I asked for his order number - he didn't know it. Asked for his email address so I could find his account, he told me he didn't know. Turns out he made up a new account with a fake name and email address every time he ordered, so had no way to log in or receive emails about his orders. He couldn't understand how I couldn't find info about his order without any identifying info.
• Another Jessops one, had a bloke yell that I'd ruined his Christmas because he wanted a camera we didn't have in stock. It was Christmas Eve and he wanted us to get it in stock so he could pick it up Christmas morning.
• Lockdown brought out some fun ones too, working for a company who arranged collections and unfortunately one ladies collection got delayed because the agent due to come out had to self isolate. We were trying to rearrange it, but the customer demanded we fulfil the original collection slot (which had already passed, so short of using a time machine I'm not sure how we were meant to have managed that?) and then told me she hoped my family died of covid - to make it worse she was a nurse!

Oh The3rdWatermelon the toilet story reminds me of a woman who came into a clothes shop where I worked and demanded to use our toilets, the toilet was through the stock room so we couldn't let her, plus the store a few doors down did have public toilets. She was not happy with that, so went and shat on the floor of the changing room.

As a trainee solicitor I told a client he couldn't get a divorce during his first year of marriage, and only an annulment if it hadn't been consummated. He complained about me telling him what the law was, and talking about a subject inappropriate for a young lady (consummation of a marriage). FFS!

I was wirking dor a credit rarings agency and had a customer who was angry about his low credit score. The issue was that he had never taken credit out. He was extremely angry that I couldn't personally change his score. He couldn't poosibly have liw credit because 'he had three degrees and had bought his own house outright. He had never even had to borrow any money!'. He clearly did not understand what a credit score was. Despite his three degrees

I also had another customer try and mansplain to me what a legal precedent was in a dispute about a refund. He also called me 'uneducated' because I was working un a call centre. I'm well aware od how legal precedent works thanks, I have a law degree. I wasn't even the only person on my team with a law degree either - most of the people I worked with were working their way through masters degrees or PHD's at one or other of the local uni's

DD works in a bank.
An elderly couple came in and the man said he wanted to transfer some money to his wife's account.
DD had a look at his account - it was a joint account with his wife.
She explained to the man that he didn't need to transfer any money - his wife could just withdraw whatever money she wanted.
To cut a long story short, he insisted that DD gave him cash as she couldn't transfer any money to his wife. They then went to another teller and the wife deposited the money back into her account - the joint account it just came out of!
At least they left the bank happy

I used to work in a shop where you could trade in DVDs, blu ray, console games etc. We had some brilliant complaints in there.

We had a goodwill policy of returns to the full value on a voucher if an item was returned within 2 days. We had one customer who would basically come in every two days and use this as a free blu ray rental service, which the management got a bit pissed off with and asked us to explain the next time he came in that we'd do it this one last time but in future if he wanted to get another blu Ray he'd need to trade in the one he'd previously bought for credit (which was obviously a lower value than the return). He couldn't understand this at all and was really angry about why we wouldn't just keep lending him our stock for free. He would try and come back with different members of staff and pretend he didn't know about the new policy. He was really pissed off when I'd pop up out of seemingly nowhere and remind him of the conversation we had had previously about it being a goodwill gesture and not a service to be used freely, and would shout "This is discrimination!" to by other customer who cared to listen.

For electrical items we had to inspect the condition of the item before we would accept it in to buy. People were frequently incensed to discover that their scratched four year old phone with accessories missing was not considered "as new" condition.

We also used to physically run out of cash to pay out sometimes and while this was annoying, there wasn't much we could do about it as only managers had the authority to withdraw more cash from the bank. Some customers would get really irate about this as well. One complained that they had come into town without the bus fare to get home and now they were stranded! We directed them to cash converters down the road.

One patient complained that some seagulls outside on the roof were making too much noise... he suggested I shoot them!
No, he did not have dementia.

@The3rdWatermelon

As a student I had a part time job in a well known newsagents in a fairly small city centre railway station.

One customer came in asking to use our toilet. I explained the shop didn't have a toilet, the only toilets were on the platforms.
No, she wanted to use our staff toilet. She was desperate.
I explained we didn't have a staff toilet, we had to go down to the platforms and use the public ones if we needed to go.
She told me I was being ridiculous, I was a liar, I was a 'jobsworth', she was desperate, why wouldn't I let her use our toilet? She actually started pulling on the door to the storage rooms, which was locked. It escalated to her yelling in my face that I was a liar and she KNEW there was a toilet back there.
She must have spent a good five minutes yelling directly into my face that she was desperate and I HAD to let her use our non-existent toilet. The platform toilets were about 60 seconds' walk away. I gave her directions Naturally my manager sat in the back room watching the whole thing on the CCTV and doing nothing.

I also had the woman who physically shoved me aside as I was trying to lock the doors at closing time. She wanted to buy milk. I told her we didn't sell milk, and we were closed, and directed her to Tesco next door to the station.
"How dare you lie to me?! Do you think I'm stupid? I can see it right there!"
She shoved me to the side and stomped over to the fridge.
"This isn't milk! This is water! Why didn't you tell me you didn't sell milk?!"
She called me a 'stupid girl' as she left.

i just dont get these batshit people whats worse is the managers that do fuck all or apologise to the customer even though theyre wrong

@MillieVanilla

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

The only nightclub I remember in Bracknell from that era was underneath a multi-storey car park.

@MedusasBadHairDay

Oh The3rdWatermelon the toilet story reminds me of a woman who came into a clothes shop where I worked and demanded to use our toilets, the toilet was through the stock room so we couldn't let her, plus the store a few doors down did have public toilets. She was not happy with that, so went and shat on the floor of the changing room.

I'm not saying what this woman did was right in any way, but I wondered if she maybe had a condition like IBS where she suddenly had to go. But you can get cards for these which allow you to use any loo I believe (I may have that wrong). Or she was just rude.

longtompot Well she went around the store pretending to pick clothes to try on before heading for the changing rooms, in that time she could have walked a couple of doors down to the public loos, so I don't think she was driven by desperation.

@GabsAlot

that is quite shocking what did you do *@venusclaptrap*

I can’t remember exactly - it was twenty years ago! I vaguely remember it being played down by the senior crew member though. And I never heard anything in response to my report. It was a different world...

Had a temp job once in a paper factory, in the office was a very officious jobs worth who was obsessed with health and safety ( would have been understandable on the factory floor but we worked in the office). They complained we did not have the same health and safety meetings as those who worked with large rollers, hoists and chemicals.

So we started having monthly H&S meetings involving; the safe use of a stapler, how not to remove the safety guard from the paper guillotine during routine use, not getting ones fingers caught in the rollers of the large printer, and a whole 30 minutes on the dangers of the paper shredder. Luckily the briefings were so dull it removed the temptation to snigger through them.

Needless to say officious jobs worth was not popular!

God knows, I'm from Kent originally, I've only been to Bracknell once to go bowling
DP used to go raving but in Windsor and not techno so he was no help either

Not me but I once stayed at a very posh hotel. There was a huge queue the next morning because some man was going through every line item on his room tab and querying the lot.

I bet you were desperately hoping that he'd watched some 'premium' TV content - like when Alan Partridge disputed the 'miscellaneous' charge on his bill and suggested they were trying to rip him off, when it was actually them trying to be discreet rather than clearly detailing his viewing of 'Bangkok Ladyboys'

This thread has to end up in Classics!

I used to work in a theatre and had people complain about the nazi references in Cabaret. IIRC they actually left in the interval because they found it too offensive.

I'm not saying what this woman did was right in any way, but I wondered if she maybe had a condition like IBS where she suddenly had to go. But you can get cards for these which allow you to use any loo I believe (I may have that wrong).

These cards aren't worth the card paper they're written on. Anybody flashing one in my face (I've had it happen) still won't get access to the staff toilets. We're not insured for members of public in private areas and I'd risk getting sacked if I'm caught allowing it.

I was once on the other end of having to deliver news of a bonkers decision by management. I worked as an advisor in the accounts payable department and we provided facilities in outlets throughout the UK, with each outlet managing their own budget spending but with the payments coming out centrally - eventually.

The standard line, when an outlet was getting grief, being put on stop and sometimes threatened with legal action, was for us to tell them that if they'd used one of our large nationwide 'approved' suppliers, they would be on agreed preferential payment terms and happy to keep supplying the outlet without any hitches.

We frequently had calls from one poor outlet manager who was unable to get any more taxis for their important visiting clients, to take them from the very small airport to the facility, as previous invoices remained unpaid. Needless to say, the big nominated 'nationwide' taxi company did not operate on this tiny Hebridean island, with a population of under 2,000 people.

Every time a taxi was needed, the outlet manager had been thinking long and hard, considering all of the possible options and carefully selecting.... the solitary bloke who drove the only taxi that there was on the island!

These cards aren't worth the card paper they're written on. Anybody flashing one in my face (I've had it happen) still won't get access to the staff toilets. We're not insured for members of public in private areas and I'd risk getting sacked if I'm caught allowing it.

No, I gather they don't actually bring you any additional 'rights' but are mainly intended to spare you the embarrassment of explaining your personal medical needs, where a toilet might be available at the discretion of the person working there. I think they're probably chiefly aimed at places which have toilets for customers, but where you aren't buying anything (maybe don't have time to make a purchase, depending on the urgency). Nobody is under any obligation to let you use their staff toilet, with potential insurance, privacy and security issues for non-staff; much less to magic up a toilet where there isn't one at all.

As the PP said, some people just like to make a scene or want a power trip for the sake of it - spending 10 minutes trying to wear you down, demanding to use yours when there's one half a minute away that's free for anybody to use.

I had to wear a hi viz jacket a t work, popped to Asda on my lunch break and someone in the carpark had a go at me about someone else's parking and asked me what l was going to about it. Of course my answer was absolutely nothing!

I worked at an outdoor venue once and a very irate lady once came up and demanded to know what I was going to do about 'this' with her hands gesturing towards the sky.

It was raining.

Also had a couple leave an outdoor event because it was too hot and we should warn people about that before they book.

I cannot offer anything as remotely strange as most of the incidents recalled in this thread. Thank you for the laughs they have brought me.

Definitely suitable for Mumsnet Classics.

Yes please can we nominate for Classics @MNHQ