Dealing with literally the most unpleasant person in the world

[Blackadderspants]

Not really an AIBU but more of a rant.

I work in the service industry for my sins....and have been dealing with someone I can only assume is the devil incarnate. They are the most unpleasant client I have ever dealt with in well over 20 years in the same job.

Because I'm in the service industry I have to adopt the "customer is always right" and smile sweetly while they spew poison but today I am right on the edge of telling them they can just feck off for themselves. Which of course would result in me being fired.

ARGH.

Always listen if more than one person warns you of someones awfulness. I was warned discreetly before accepting a job offer by several different people I didn't know that well about the woman I would be working for. Arrogantly I thought "well I get on with most people am sure it will be fine". Ahem. Big mistake.

I had a client once years ago when I used to do divorce work. At the beginning I felt sorry for her but after a few weeks my sympathies switched entirely to her husband who I had never met. She was the most frustrating annoying awful person ever.

Yep Kerala as an ex-divorce lawyer I feel your pain.

I often used to cheer myself up by reminding myself that at least I wasn't married to them. So glad I don't do family law now!

I once worked as a (lowly and very poorly paid) production assistant at a magazine publishing company. The magazine would often run competitions and it would be a case of a company would offer a prize in return for exposure or free advertising (arranged by the sales team, not myself). Well a woman won a competition, I was asked to write and tell her she had won (which I was happy to do as it's always nice to give good news) and we informed the company who was providing the prize so they could send it directly to her - but they didn't. I chased and chased them and they were basically crap, cue lots of apologies from us to the lady etc and then one morning I opened my post and I had a letter from the lady. It was a horrible poisonous rant directed personally at me in which she said that not getting her competition prize had caused her so much stress that she now had cancer and it was all my fault . It was just horrible, and I was quite young at the time and ended up in tears - my manager took over dealing with her after that and she did get sent a prize, although I can't remember what it was.

I had a parent of a student once who told me he'd sue me if his daughter got a B in her Maths A level. I teach English. He meant it, nonetheless.

We don't get much of it in our industry but to my surprise we ended up spending most of last week defending our business systems to a woman who insisted our payment facility had taken her money early (it hadn't) she confirmed it hadn't declared our system to be 'strange' and not very good, then changed the complaint to something else. Found out that hadn't happened either. Two days later, she said she didn't know when her service was booked for (we'd already arranged it with her) She also confirmed she'd received her invoice on that message. I let her know when her service was, she then told my colleague I'd ignored her and she hadn't known at all, I proved with a copy of the email so she changed the complaint to the fact she hadn't been told she would have to pay VAT, colleague brought up her quote on the system which clearly stated price before and total to pay after VAT, so she then changed the complaint to not liking our invoice system as she hadn't received (the one she had confirmed receipt of) .... and so on and so forth, lying and then chagning her story when proved wrong. Apparently she was AWFUL to the staff at her home making them go back and 'look at things they did wrong' - so we let her fire us as she 'didn't like our systems'! (Thankfully she did, I dread to think the backlash if we'd have fired her, which we would have done!) She still didn't go away so we stopped engaging. Then she went away!

Been in this business 20 years now and never known anything like it!! It was sooo confusing at the time, trying to handle complaints that kept twisting and changing.

Oh yes, we had one client who wrote regular letters of complaint about everything from the colour of the seats in the waiting room to the length of time he had to wait. The all female public facing staff were a particular problem for him - especially the youngest one (me). I got it in the neck for my attitude towards him (possibly a bit world weary but I did try) and weirdly my accent. Which considering we lived in the same place was remarkably similar to his - a strong northern accent! He got very irate about it to the extent that none of us actually knew what his issue was, it's not like I greeted him with 'ay up chuck' or had ferrets poking out of my shirt! Utter dick.
His letters used to go on the wall out of sight from the clients and get read out at team lunches just for fun
Thankfully the boss also thought he was an arse but he never stepped over the line to the extent that we could get rid.

DH's friend's ex-wife was so awful she actually got banned from several restaurants in their home town. This was during the recession when you'd pretty much have to run amok with an axe to get banned from a restaurant things were so bad. I think one manager phrased it as 'As we do not seem to be able to satisfy you it would be better if you took your business elsewhere'.

She sued her boss for not inviting her to the boss's personal Christmas party, that's the type of person she is. Can you imagine having to work with these people? Or be related to them?

pansydePotter - Oh my gosh. That made me laugh. There is no hope with these people!

I actually think they get a perverse pleasure out or complaining and being mean/nasty.

I worked for a partner in a firm of solicitors years ago. We had a number of very, very difficult clients. At the time you could arrange joke phone calls from angry, ranting people and staff downstairs would book me calls regularly. They would then make an excuse to walk through the room as I took the ranty call. They said it never ceased to amaze them that I merely held the phone away from my ear and thanked them politely for their call. It was nowhere near as bad as my daily reality.

One woman, who I had spent so much time with, had something very minor go wrong and rang me full of venom, accusing me of making her divorce far worse as though I was responsible for it. Another used to call me "girl" and another excused her dh's paedophilia by likening it to a disease (do not judge me, I don't think this). Beyond gross. My boss used to ask the other staff to buy me chocolate and I would stuff it in my mouth often crying. Very professional.

Another client who I was warned about was nowhere near as bad as I had been led to believe. She was vulnerable, had clear learning difficulties and was awoken most days by her husband spitting in her face.

Just remember they must have a very small and unpleasant life to treat people like this. Plus the moral high ground is all yours.

In my last retail job a customer was so nasty to me because I wouldn't give her a refund that she actually made me cry.

While waiting for the manager, I served the next customer, who was so lovely and kind to me that it just made my crying worse! When the manager appeared I disappeared into the back, but it took a while to be able to calm down.

Thankfully my manager did not give her the refund either.

In a health care setting we once had the most unpleasant woman ever. She ranted at me so hard ( over something she wanted that was impossible to achieve ) that she gave herself a nosebleed.

She became That Patient that literally nobody wanted to deal with. She had a brilliant outcome and wrote a ten page letter of complaint including the shoes one person was wearing (too clumpy).

She was a barrister

Oh thank you lovely Mumsnetters, this is exactly what I needed. I think what's got to me is I worked my tits off to get everything perfect for them (which it is), and this is how they thank me! And everything is directed to me personally - I'm useless, I don't care, I have deliberately told them the wrong detail because I'm trying to spoil things, I'm lying to them. They have this scary quiet voice they use on the phone which is really difficult to hear, almost like whispering, and when I had to ask them to repeat what they'd said they then raised their voice and spoke in a loud s-l-o-w tone like I was some sort of imbecile! And then said I have no time to speak to you now. YOU CALLED ME!!!!

I know I do it because it's my job, and it's a job I love but when you've gone the extra extra mile for someone and they chuck it back in your face you just wonder why on earth you did it.

I know someone who had this sort of behaviour from a well-known astronomer (who does NOT play keyboards in a pop band). He would ring up to complain about having to pay his bills, and even wrote a vicious letter of complaint dated 25th December.

I work in a call centre and we have a list of notoriously mean customers, In fact we've just had a warning email that one has been in touch today. I hope I don't get that bloody call

I worked all my uni holidays on the refunds / returns counter at M&S so I have a little experience of vile customers. You have my sympathies OP.

I was once really snippy with a women at my insurance company (in fairness they had been crap but it wasn't her fault). I was so mortified I called back, they tracked her down and I apologised for being so horrible. She laughed and said "if you think you've been my most horrible customer today, or even this hour, you're mistaken!" and we parted as friends but I felt so sad about how shit her day must have been

You might like this website

notalwaysright.com

DD works in a call centre, and does a bloody good job. I'm proud of her. She has come home in tears a few times because people have been so horrible on the phone (and she has a reputation for being able to deal with anything). Some of the public suck quite frankly.

Blackadder you have my sympathies.

I've dealt with a few folks like that in my time and they are just plain nasty. What's worse is they're usually sly enough to be unpleasant in such a way that you can't pull them up in eg swearing or making direct threats. A very different kettle of fish to people who get shouty because they're frustrated or stressed (which is still not great of course but you can understand why it happens).

I remember one such individual in a previous job. They had a very unusual name (relevant) and was calling on behalf of someone else. They were so viciously nasty that I was left in tears. One memorable quote "you're really stupid aren't you flippin, is that why you can't do your job properly?" - that type of thing, all the way through the call - delivered in a very calm tone, as if they were reading a shopping list. Brrrr. I'm shuddering just remembering it.

Anyway, a couple of months later, I noticed a news article and the name jumped out at me. This person was still young and had died very suddenly in a very unpleasant way - there were lots of fulsome tributes about what a wonderful person they were.

Another place I worked, we had a frequent flyer who we all absolutely dreaded calling as they were so horrible. People would be physically left shaking and crying after speaking to them, it was that bad - and I'm not exaggerating. Thankfully, they were eventually banned from contacting us. It turned out this particular character had been blacklisted by various agencies due to their behaviour.

Urgh OP I understand. I'm in a service industry and people can be utterly vile, they seem to turn everything around to my fault even when there is no issue. I can't understand some people but when it comes to parting with money people can be dicks.

The best thing is when they request all of the information you hold on them, a pain in the backside to compile and a complete waste of time in resolving any issues because it doesn't prove or disprove anything. We get the same reasons excuses hour after hour about why people can't or won't pay it's laughable.

Surely, you choose a service provider, use their service and pay the bill. Unless the service is bad then it's not difficult!

Too many people like this around.

I'm an estate agent so I'll leave you to imagine how lots of people feel entitled to speak to me. There was one man who worked for another company we had to deal with who left three members of my team in tears before I took over. I have never in my life experiences such vitriol and been attacked on such a personal level. He was, as others have said, very careful not to swear or anything that would have given me grounds to terminate the call but he was just awful I ended up going to our MD and having to say I just couldn't deal with him, I've been doing the job 12 years and I've got a very thick skin but I couldn't cope and he left me shaking.

I guess that things can only get better TheQueen

Back in the day, someone phoned with a complaint and wasn't happy with my response. He demanded to speak to my superior. So I said ,Sir, there is nobody superior to me! And I cut him off. I never heard anything more about it, luckily.