AIBU to ask for your best examples of times when the customer most definitely hasn't been right? (Lighthearted).

[KitKat1985]

Just that really. During my student days I did a number of crappy customer service jobs to enable me to afford to study (supermarkets, cafes, that type of thing). Now although most members of public are fine, there were definitely some who were ridiculously difficult, or would come up with the most stupid complaints. I was recently reminded of a incident when I was working in a café and we had a special of the day of four cheese pasta, which was under display under the hotplate. A customer ordered a portion which was served to her and she went to eat it at a table. A couple of minutes later she came back to the counter to complain about it. When asked by the manager what was wrong with it she said it was "too cheesy". What would you expect from a four cheese pasta?

Anyway, since it's cold and I can't be bothered to go out, I thought I'd ask the good people of Mumsnet if you had any more funny examples of times when the customer most definitely hasn't been right to help cheer up my cold afternoon with a slightly grumpy teething baby.

Vodka isn't it? The law I mean?

Thanks for explaining my story FruViking. You are right. Can I make one corection though. I'm a bloke.

From citizens advice -

If the trader makes a genuine mistake when pricing something, they won’t have committed an offence. ,The trader doesn’t have to sell you the goods at that price. If you find out the price is higher than you want to pay you can change your mind about buying it.

snatchoo I was referring back to my previous post about chicken piri piri not carbonara

Oh dear (blush) that'll teach me to revisit a thread and not re-read!

I used to own and run an Amerian style beef burger restaurant in the 80s. Oh, the stories I could tel!

Once after we opened, a lad came I and marched up to the counter (open style kitchen) and demanded a takeaway menu. He studied it then slapped it down and said I'll have chicken chow mein and fried rice. ........ He was really angry when we couldn't provide it. (Only afterwards did we realise he couldn't read though )

The ten twats who came in, not booked, probably as a post-shooting party. Now bear in mind we were a classless upmarket burger restaurant. Half of them had ribs and demanded 'finger bowls' (we always gave extra napkins to those who chose to eat with their fingers). They also clicked their fingers at the staff.......

My staff were extremely professional, despite provocation. When they paid the bill, their tip was 23p. The waitress, looked at it in her hand and looked and the twat who gave it to her, and handed it back saying 'I think you may need this more than me'. Perfect!

Worked in a quite a nice jeweller for a while. One day I sold an emerald and diamond ring to a chap who was in with his kids. He was all excited and was telling me as I was putting it through the till and processing payment that his girlfriend had given birth to their baby that morning and he was going straight to the hospital to propose and that this ring was to be her engagement ring. I offered my congratulations and filled out the form for the year's free insurance our store offered on diamonds, polished the ring, showed it to him in it's posh box, bagged it up and sent him on his way all chuffed with himself.
A while later I noticed him again looking thunderous behind the queue. He stormed up and stated at high volume that he had just gone to propose and when his intended opened the box it was in fact ......empty and where was his bloody ring? Now we as a staff panicked big time, looked all round the counter and till point, checked the trays of empty ring boxes we stored under the counter in case I had made a terrible mistake and had swapped the boxes somehow. He was furious and we were grovelling, the manager was telling him to calm down as he was insured with us and we would replace it. I knew I hadn't cocked the sale up but he seemed genuinely terribly upset and angry.
The boss asked him to tell her what he had done exactly when he had left the store to go to the hospital- nothing it seemed, he'd got in his car and gone straight there. She asked that he went away to search his car as a last resort and allow us to properly hunt around the sales point.
I went to the office with the boss and I was DISTRAUGHT I tell you, bawling my eyes out. A wee while later he came back very sheepishly to say that he had found the ring, his two little children had investigated the bag in the back seat ( where he had tossed it on entering the car) and had dropped the ring on the floor. They'd been to small to understand what was going on and didn't say they'd been playing with the bag and box.
I felt so embarrassed about the crying etc and felt very sorry for myself. Then that evening at home upon recounting the whole sorry tale it hit me that although he was horrible to me ( he'd called me stupid and incompetent in front of the whole shop) his big gesture for his poor girlfriend and brand new mother of his latest baby was RUINED! The big proposal was forever tainted, his embarrassment in proudly presenting an empty box to a confused and hormonal brand new mother, the having to leave her while he went to come and berate me, the scene he had caused in public, making a stranger cry and the anger he had displayed, then having to go back and admit to her what he'd done- that it was his fault leaving the precious bag in the back seat with two rather little kids- it must have really taken the shine off what should have been a beautiful day for them as a family.
I bawled all evening after these thoughts struck me......

At the theatre box office:

Woman: I want tickets for this show, somewhere near the front but not too near.
Me: How about these lovely seats on Row C?
Woman: Oh no, that is too far back.
Me: Well, I do have seats on Row B, would that be ok for you?
Woman: Oh no, that is too far forward.
Me:

In my first proper job I worked next door to a jewellers. A man came in walked straight up to my colleague and started ranting about the watch battery she had changed not working. She said it wasn't her and he needed to ho next door to the jewellers. He got angrier shouting he knew where he was and it was definitely her that had served him. Eventually I think she accompanied him next door where he was recognised and they sorted him out. I was working in an opticians I can't remember if he came back for an eye test, he did come back to apologise though.

In my very first job my training colleague once explained to me that the customer was always right. I was nineteen years old, he just a few months older. I sighed, disagreed and left just a few months later.

Fact is the customer is frequently wrong and should be made aware.

As a teenager, a long long time ago, I worked in a well-known chain store, renowned for its customer service. An older lady came in to bring back a pair of big pants for a refund, although she had no receipt. She swore blind she'd bought them the previous day and that I'd served her. I hadn't been working that day, but worse than that, the pants were clearly ancient. They were grey, mis-shapen, the elastic had gone in the waistband and there were stains in the crotch! Ew. Also, unbeknownst to her, the code on the label told us exactly that they weren't current stock, as if we needed proof. The supervisor argued and argued, as she told me she was fed up with people taking the piss with the returns policy, but in the end, after referring it to Management, they said "give the refund. Customer satisfaction is more important."
We were furious.

Crap boss rather than customer but I was once asked, after the entire shopping centre was evacuated due to a bomb scare, to go back in and check our bit for bombs.

For two pound fifty an hour. Yeah, fuck off.

Vodka Jelly - when working in a department store one of my customers moved labels around on the shelf in an attempt to save himself all of a pound (by saying it says such and such on the display when I charged him the correct price). Luckily a colleague had seen what he was doing and swapped them back whilst he was at the till.

When I was at uni I workedin a card shop in a city centre. My till was right next to the shop window. Busy saturday before Christmas we notice 3 large rucksacks outside the window and about 5-10 minutes later a group of police literally eu into the shop telling everyone to get out and go to our rally point ( off the Main Street) because there has been a bomb threat - we are told not to look up just leave right that second.

The guy I was serving started trying to physically hold me at the till because he wanted me to check out the Christmas cards he had first so he could finish shopping and go home

• lock up

I've worked in a shop and a call centre, surely I must have some stupid customer tales?

My friend works behind the counter at a supermarket deli. Her favourite thing to do when bored is to play what she calls 'the sixes'.

Customer: 'Can I have six slices of ham?'
Her: 'Half a dozen slices of ham, no problem.'
Customer: 'No! I said six slices.'
Her: 'Yes, half a dozen slices of ham.'
Customer: (some variation of:) 'Are you deaf? I said six!'

And so on it goes.

Some beardy twat tried to return a perfectly good paper skeleton to my bookshop this week because it 'wasn't a bleeding skeleton'

I was worked in a small solicitor's office...

A man came in one morning telling us that he needed to bury his wife.

We were next door to the undertaker's and pointed him in that direction and didn't mention that we had a spade out back

Sorry, Tobyjugg, I thought I 'knew' who most of the male MNers were - clearly not

Bit off topic but still gives me the rage. One bank branch I worked in was a few doors down from the chip shop.

A family came into the bank with their chips, sat at the table in the banking hall, shoved the pens on chains to one side and ate their chippy dinner.

They weren't even customers.

YAAABOB ... that made me laugh far more than it should, I snorted so hard that tea got stuck somewhere between my nose and throat, woke sleeping 4 month ds and terrified dd! Are you sure it was anatomically correct?

Daft staff member rather than customer here. I worked in payroll for x company. A couple of days after payday I got an irate phone call from a staff member, demanding to know why I had deducted 50 quid from their wages. Is that what it said on your payslip? I queried. No, payslip stated the amount that had been paid in to her account on payday. She was talking about the £50 we'd taken off her the next day. I thought for a moment.

"You didn't happen to buy something from an x company shop did you?" says I. Met with sheepish silence.

I saw her a few days later and she was still

at YoureAll I love The Apprentice!

As a receptionist I once had a customer telephoning and getting extremely cross because he had tried to collect something from the office first thing in the morning and no one was there. He ranted that he had waited a full 30 minutes and what sort of business were we running anyway, time keeping was paramount to keeping customers, and lateness was the height of bad manners, etc, etc.

When he finally ran out of steam I said we were running a business who had correctly adjusted our clocks the previous week.

You could almost hear the cogs whirring in his head as he processed this. Tbf he was very apologetic about it and was suitably embarrassed. Every clock in his house was still on BST, and he and his wife had been oblivious for a week! We chuckled over it as we rearranged a new time.