Ridiculous work complaints - tell me yours!

[YourFinestPantaloons]

I'm a teacher and Head told me this morning that a parent has complained because she saw me last Saturday night in the local cocktail bar having shots.

Apparently it's despicable that an educator of her child would behave in such a way and lead such a terrible example to pupils - as it turns out, her underage DD was with her (must have been at 11pm IIRC) in the adults-only pub and was 'appalled' at Miss Pantaloons' behaviour

Thankfully my Head is normal and we just laughed our heads off about it. these complaints happen very frequently. A colleague once got a complaint because she was seen with penis paraphernalia in town on her hen do. I think some people think teachers are just robots that turn off at 4pm and have to stay in the classroom over the weekend.

What's the most amusing complaint you've ever got at work?

I once had a complaint against me because I am female. I work in a shop that's mostly male dominated as it's a hobby type place, motorbike type thing. Anyway more than once I've had men complain because I am female and they refuse to speak to a woman about said hobby. Even so much that a customer once came in asking about my specialist subject. I'm the only one who works there that this particular thing is my speciality. He kept asking my make work mate who told him I was the one to ask as he didn't know, he literally looked down and sneered at me, asked my co worker again and once again was directed to me. So he irately announced as a woman I don't know what I'm talking about and stormed angrily out of the shop.

colleague complained about me receiving work calls on my work phone on my desk, which was why she couldn't concentrate. so I began talking in a whisper on calls.
not good enough she went to our manager who took her seriously and asked me "are you getting any phone calls today?" I said I really had no idea....

I used to work in a supermarket. One day I was shopping on my day off, not in uniform, and a customer asked me to get some milk out the back. I politely declined and directed her towards the colleague in uniform, filling the milk, and the woman went mad. Demanded a manager. I wasn't even on shift 🤣 I just sidled away 😂
She made an official complaint, hand written letter to head office the lot. Was well bonkers.

When I was admitted straight to surgical ward from A&E for an infected cyst which had burst inside, the nurse on duty told me my crying was disturbing the other patients think weeping rather than wailing.
Being somewhat delirious from the pain and infection, I managed to convey in clear language that pain relief may be helpful in reducing the pain. Oh the sheer joy that followed when the intravenous paracetamol kicked in!

I had a man complain that I spoke to his wife and not him, regarding a matter that concerned his wife. He was sat next to her, but apparently it was disrespectful of me to direct the question to her and not him

My MIL runs a property company abroad (European holiday destination). One of her clients complained that she didn't warn her that it would rain (it rained one afternoon in two weeks)

Oh at another job it was my appearance that caused the complaint. Basically my CV was sent but with someone else's photo attached for some reason. I was on agency at the time and showed up to this gig after being short listed. Turns out she hadn't picked me based on my CV but had picked based on some other woman's photo. She literally complained to my face about how my hair was nothing like the girl in the picture, the girl didn't have piercings or tattoos and my face looked nothing like her. I had to point out that of course I didn't look like the random woman as she wasn't me!

When I worked in an off license many years ago, a man complained that I wouldn't serve his underage son cigarettes!! This was because he was too lazy to come to the shop himself!

I worked in a bank many years ago and a customer complained about me not dealing with the glare of the sun on the ATM. Possibly I was supposed to hold up a parasol or a banana leaf or something? All the while kissing her feet...

My dh ran a kids football team. He would swap the players so that all the kids would get a chance to play in a match. He often had parents furious that DH would take off their child and didn't we know how talented they were. This happened at least once every couple of months.
He also had a parent complain that DH should just sneak a 12th player onto the pitch because her boy wanted to play with all his friends. He explained that this would be against the rules but she said he was unreasonable.
I worked in a supermarket. It was a Sunday morning. I said "good morning" and smiled at a customer. Said customer complained to the manager that I should not presume people are having a good morning and not be so happy because not everyone is happy. 🙈
Now I'm a teacher the most common complaint is that I have lost a child's jumper or water bottle. Not the child. Me. I repeatedly suggest things are labelled but unlabelled items go missing and it is always apparently the teacher's fault.
My favourite complaint was that I stole a very important moment in a child's life. It should have been the mum with them. I had no right to interfere. My crime? I was the one who wrapped up a child's tooth after it fell out at school. I should have somehow reattached so that mummy could have witnessed this monumental moment in their child's life.

During uni I worked part tim in crown court taking notes/recordings of hearings and trials and would sit in front and lower than the judge facing the court (in line with the clerk).

My manager one day told me that one of the clerks/ushers had reported me for inappropriately dressed for court because the (black and professional) wrap top I wore meant that she was concerned that the judges would be distracted during court staring down onto my boobs 😂 we had a good laugh over that …

No judges/no one else had even complained to her of being distracted… it was just her fear that they COULD be distracted … they’d obviously captivated her!

A customer complained that we (by not doing something she wanted us to do) had stressed her out so much she locked herself out of the house when she went out.

She demanded we cover the cost of the locksmith.

And my mother, something like 15 years later, still complains about the Virgin flight she took, when they gave her a newspaper that was too big. She has refused to fly with them ever since.

Worked in a private nursery for years and had a parent complain that it was a disgrace that we weren't open on Christmas Day for at least a couple of hours to allow him to cook the dinner without the children getting under his feet. Like we didn't have families of our own to celebrate with or anything!

I work in retail and have done the last 16 years, so you can imagine I’ve heard all sorts. A lady tried to bring back underwear, I politely told her it’s not returnable, she claimed the person who served her never clarified this was the case. A classic he said she said. So I looked at the receipt and saw who served her and radioed said person to reiterate the policy. She then complained about me despite me helping her. The first complaint I’ve ever got in my 12 years with current company... over me helping....

I think maybe you should read the full post to see where the poster works...

Can’t see it. Is it somewhere that their fresh fish magically acts differently to all other fresh fish?

I think maybe you should read the full post to see where the poster works...

@Anothermuddywalk, I think you're confusing two posts about fish. The post where someone complained about fish being too fishy didn't mention where the poster worked.

Once had a customer complain (after being so rude to her young server that the server ended up in tears) that I should train my staff properly. If she works in a restaurant she should at least know what wine we offer.

Then she repeated her request for a bottle (spelling phonetically) Ch-eye-ant-eye. In the end I had to ask her to point out on the menu what she wanted and she, rolling her eyes and voicing her disgust as my stupidity, pointed to the Chianti. I took great pleasure in prouncing it correctly and assuring her I would bring the CHIANTI asap. I also asked if her CHIANTI was ok when I did the table check. She never came back oddly enough and her threatened email to HO never materialised, nor the scathing Trip Advisor review she was posting when I refused to comp her the whole meal for the terrible service :o

Oh and as a manager I had a staff member who made repeated complaints about her 2 colleagues.

Once she complained that they'd go out for coffee without her. They kindly decided to include her in future her even though they were terrified of her finding something else to complain about.

She then complained they were being 'fake' by suddenly inviting her out for coffee.

Company secretary for a small charity-related company filed some erroneous information with Companies House and for some reason refused to correct it. When it was pointed out the company had to correct it otherwise they'd have committed a criminal offence, he went into a massive huff, said he'd been libelled and resigned. To this day apparently he goes around complaining how mean everyone was to him, he doesn't know what he's supposed to have done and he doesn't understand why he isn't company secretary any more, and seems to have forgotten that that is because he resigned.

A colleague once complained about me to my manager, saying I'd unfairly blaimed her team for something going wrong.

The reality was, she was running a construction project that was delayed due to the weather. The project happened to be in an area that my team (team A) and another team (B) both had events. It meant there was only space for one of us to have an event. The team B were kicking up a fuss and were going to cause further delays to the project to ensure their event happened. I offered to move my event (and worked extremely late!) to prevent the project being delayed and ensure team B's event could go ahead.

So basically, I did her a MASSIVE favour and she went and complained about me. I was having none of it, and nor was my manager once I explained the actual situation.

I sell online and 98% of my items go international.

When it gets near Christmas I always point out to buyers that international mail can run slow and offer them courier delivery, which obviously costs extra. One customer in the USA ordered an item for her daughter 1 week before Christmas. She declined courier service - which can overnight to USA. It did not arrive until afterwards and I had ruined her daughters Christmas.

A customer (again in USA) ordered an item and I included a small barrette as a free gift. She complained "I have two daughters so Im wondering how that will work out." I told her that here is an opportunity for her daughters to learn to share.

Another customer ordered a pair of blue hair combs. She complained that the third comb was not blue but purple. I pointed out it was a free gift and not part of the order.

Nowadays I close my shop 3 weeks before christmas and never send free gifts except to special customers. Too much hassle.

I used to work for a Community Alarm System for elderly and vulnerable people. We covered a large rural area of over 100 miles wide by 50 miles broad? Clients would press a button and come through to the centre if they needed help and we would call their responders. It was always explained that they had to have 2 responders who would attend if called. We also explained to the responders that by giving us their details and signing the form they took on the responsibility of attending to the client if needed.

One night I had a call from a client, requesting I call her responder as she had spilt water over her clothes and was wet and cold. When I called her responder she said she was busy so could I just go and see to the client instead. I explained that I was in an office 75 miles away and obviously couldn’t see to the client. She then said that I would have to call one of my colleagues in that case. I explained that that wasn’t possible and it had been explained to her and she had signed a form saying she would attend to the client if necessary. The responder then said, yes she had signed the form as the client wouldn’t have been able to have the alarm put in without her doing that, but she didn’t think she would actually be called!

Another one was when I took calls for a housing partnership. A lady called me at 5 o’clock in the morning, saying that her heating wasn’t working. I took her details and passed them on to the out of hours team. 5 minutes later the lady called again, complaining that no one had turned up yet, and threatening to report me. I said that someone had been called but that it would take longer than 5 minutes. The lady then said I was breaking the terms of her let by not having someone there by now. I was puzzled about this and said that the agreement was someone would attend within 4 hours, but I expected it would be much quicker than this. Turns out she thought the agreement said that someone would be there within 4 minutes, not 4 hours!!

A parent who claimed her child was being discriminated against because he wasn’t getting extra supports for kids with additional needs. We were discriminating against him because he didn’t have any additional needs so wasn’t given the additional supports he didn’t need.

About 40 years ago, when homophobia was open and rampant, my manager got a complaint from another employee about me, stating that I always wore loose clothing, and was certainly a lesbian, and that it brought down the moral tone of the work place. And this from a woman who had met my husband on several occasions! This was working in a medical lab. The manager simply said, "I hear your concern," called me in, and laughed like a hyena.

My husband's colleague complained about my husband because he wasn't able to step in to cover for his colleague while his wife was having a baby.

Because I was in the same hospital at the same time having our baby.