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?

Running emergency overnight cover at a vets. If someone needed to bring their animal in during out of hours it was policy to tell them In advance how much the call out charge would be.

A lady complained because I told her twice what the call out charge was whilst paging a vet to attend (I had run the emergency service for 3 nights in a row in between working day shifts and had about 2 hours sleep). Apparently all I cared about was her money

@Badlytornfrube

I had a mum complain that her daughter’s knickers were filthy and I should teach her to change them more frequently.

The girl was 12 and I was her history teacher.

The others I can all believe, but this one ! What planet did the mother live on??

A man once rang our call centre to complain that the housing association hadn't been out to change his light bulb and now he couldn't see in his hallway.

I worked for an ISP at the time. No amount of talking to him would make him understand this.

Same job - a woman rang me, kicking off to the nth degree because we 'dared to' restrict her broadband services. She hadn't paid her bill. Her response? "well what am I supposed to do with my 2 year old if s/he can't watch YouTube on the ipad!?" 🤔

I’ve had two.

The first was when a colleague had disappeared and I asked the lady who sat next to him where he was. Turns out she had made a bullying complaint against him and he had been suspended, and she then complained that I breached confidentiality by asking about him. I obviously had no idea. I was then investigated by HR for breach of confidentiality. Fortunately it wasn’t upheld because I had no clue but my upcoming promotion was on the line!

The second was when someone told me our HR rep was pregnant (we were talking about who is currently pregnant). I mentioned that to someone else later in the day and she went to congratulate her. When asked, she obviously said she heard it from me. Again, I was investigated for breach of confidentiality. The person who told me she was pregnant wasn’t even thought of.

That all happened in the headquarters of a Christian church and charity…a horrible place to work.

My daughter works at some holiday accommodation. A guest complained that the car park was on a slope. Well they halfway up a mountain!

I was a beauty therapist
Woman walks in 20 minutes late for a 15 minute wax
I explained I could fit her in if she could wait for 15 minutes whilst I do the next client, and work through my lunch break.
She went nuts!!! Any way I refused in the end when she called me a bitch. And my boss had to Chuck her out

Patient kicked off because I wouldn’t get her a Chinese meal… it was midnight and on a hospital ward 😂

We had a client complain that motability had taken his car back because he had invalidated the insurance by letting someone else other than himself drive it and he admitted driving the car himself under the influence of some heavy sedation pills! Apparently it was all our fault and he was going to take everyone to court.....

In contract to the OP's situation- I bumped into DS's class's teaching assistant out in a pub this weekend and I bought her and her partner a drink.

Then they got involved in the sambuca shots we were doing 🤣

The teachers and TAs do a fab job and need to be supported in letting their hair down once in a while 🥳🍷

I had a complaint that I didn't dance on the table during lesson time. I was teaching a Year 5 class who had had 2 lockdowns where school was closed so they had HUGE gaps. I didn't have time to dance on the table even if I wanted to.

Housing officer in local government;customer complained he had been housed on the wrong side of the road. One side was ok to him the other wasn't, houses all the same, so I didn't get that. And the people who won't accept a house/flat if it's number 13!! 11A ok, but not 13.

@Chilver I wish that was the most ridiculous complaint I had received as a teacher. This mum expected us to do every part of parenting for her. She honestly could not see what her daughter’s development had to do with her as a mum. She thought the school should do it all.

She also complained to me that her daughter had a boyfriend outside school (who didn’t go to our school). I was apparently supposed to phone the boyfriend and warn him off. Again, I was just her history teacher.

I lived in Scotland all my adult life but grew up in England and have an English accent. In my LA job it was not uncommon when answering the phone for members of the public to complain loudly to me about the phone being answered by an English person, and having to speak to an English person.

I didn't it funny then and don't now.

@MinnieMountain

Not a complaint exactly but I used to work in the legal department of our local water company. Heard that a customer couldn’t pay his water/sewerage bill as “it’s Christmas”.

Sounds like the complaint I heard about how someone couldn't afford to pay their council tax as they'd just come back from Disney World in Florida!

Was highly pissed off when they didn't get any sympathy!

This is true….

Years ago l worked in the rag trade. We made some little girls pants with My Little Pony on. Unfortunately the name of the pony was Lickerty Split. A zillion complaints and whole lot pulled off shop floor.

Another customer complained we’d made shirts for little boys as her son was playing with himself through the leg. As little boys do…,,🤷🏼‍♀️

Shorts!

Someone once came to me in tears because a fan was blowing them from another desk. They weren't happy when I suggested asking the fan owner if they could move it an inch

I work in a nursery and we once had someone complain to the nursery owner that a small group of staff members had been seen out drinking in a pub.

They should see what we get up to at our private Christmas parties!!

I used to be a GP receptionist (I was a nice one - honest!).

I cannot tell you the number of people who would kick off when I couldn't order their medication for them when all they could tell me was - it's the little white ones. They could not understand why I couldn't simply pick one from their list of 5 or 6 medications and get it sent to them.

Another common one was women requesting a prescription for the pill, never having been on it before, never discussing it with the GP and wanting it the same day then saying it would be my fault if they got pregnant.

I worked in a bank years ago and a woman complained because when she'd banked a cheque, she'd wanted the cleared funds to be available to spend and it shouldn't have reduced her overdraft instead. Can fix stupid

Working in a computer shop/repair centre during uni.

Complaint from a woman who was upset that I wouldn’t sell her white ink. I went to great lengths to explain to her that there was no such thing as white ink for her home printer and she just needed black ink that would work on white paper.
She actually wrote a letter of complaint. Printed in black ink onto white paper.

Did not compute.

And also the woman who put her foot through our glass door when I told her we didn’t do the Lottery. She refused to believe me. Said I was discriminating against her (on what grounds, she wouldn’t elaborate) and she “could see all of the computers” so knew I could sell her a Lottery ticket.

Oh, and the countless people who would drop in to say they had a computer they wanted repaired and then hand you just the monitor, nothing connected to it. So many people believed that this was the actual computer part. Most would get very irate when I’d have to tell them I couldn’t fix their computer without the actual computer.

That said, we did have a man once who brought in the monitor, CPU, mouse, keyboard, and all cables, still on his home desk. He actually rolled it into the store, using the desk ad a trolley and apologising for not being able to fit the swivel chair into his car.

I worked in a shop in a small arcade with a big car park at the back. Some bloke came in ranting that we needed to pay for the damage caused to his car because he had driven (forwards, not even reversing) into one of our bright red industrial sized bins. I was tempted to tell him he should have been grateful the bins were there because if they weren't he would have driven into the wall of the shop.

@Macaroni46

How dare you give birth at the start of a new term. Do you know how your need to have a time human has greatly inconvenienced and traumatized your students? Very selfish macaroni.. very selfish of you.

Tiny human*

@Redredwiney I know the feeling of working in one of those!