To want to hear your stories from customer facing jobs?

[TillyMint81]

I work in retail. Customers are for the most part lovely but there are some absolute idiots out there.
Like the one who brought back a pack of bacon because it said four slices and it had five. Or the one who complained about the oranges on Bogof because she only wanted one pack not two. and, oh, by the way, could she have the free one?
We also had a bloke who would walk round looking for low stock on the buy one get one free lines. If he found one that was down to one item he would ask if we had any in stock. If we did he would walk away but if we didn't he wanted that one for free..

Oh, and the market stall was in a very wealthy area too. It did used to sting quite a lot having all these ladies with their Mulberry handbags laying into me (a student earning minimum wage on the stall) all over paying a couple of quid for a sodding brownie.

I used to work in a very well-regarded Chinese Restaurant. It was quite posh and a bit on the pricey side but that's because there was a live musician, koi carp pond and really good food.

A middle aged couple came in one evening, looking completely out of their depth. They'd clearly never set foot in a Chinese restaurant before and were completely baffled by the menu. The waiter spent ages with them, explaining what things were and making recommendations. They ignored his suggestions and ordered crispy beef and stir-fried vegetables. These were duly brought out, only to be picked at gingerly while they grimaced at each other.

When it was time to pay they complained that it was horrible, that the restaurant doesn't deserve its glowing recommendation and it's a complete rip-off charging such prices for "this crap." Then they moaned that there wasn't even any gravy.

I think they actually expected a roast dinner.

I love this thread. It made me think of a few, from my years working retail:
Working in Ethel Austin, we had to promote these poxy teddies for a fiver for every ten pounds spent. We had a huge sale and this woman bought just over £150 worth of clothing, to send to deprived children abroad. Great. Mentioned the offer and she wanted 15. Great, so she then spent half hour choosing through the sodding teddies. Then when it added £75 to her bill she lost the plot. Didn't I know these were for children in a war-torn country!! How dare I charge so much! 🙄🙄 she tried to storm off with the lot including the clothes without paying. She got done for shoplifting, was a regular at it apparently.

The elderly lady who bought her grandchildren raunchy underwear sets (department store) for Christmas. I served her and informed her that they were not returnable unless faulty due to hygiene reasons.
Boxing Day she's back in and at my till demanding a refund on the lot. She'd cut the tags off as they were gifts too. I asked what the faults were. She said her dc had gone mad at her for buying their dds underwear 'like that'. To be fair, it's not stuff I'd have chosen for young teenagers. I couldn't do anything, and she wanted manager. Manager just parroted what I'd said. The woman came round the counter and started attacking me with her stick. Black and blue for weeks I was. Manager actually laughed.

Customers are funny creatures!

Working in a call centre, customer calls chasing a refund. She hadn't returned the product.
She had given it away to a couple, who had seen a review complaining their purchase was faulty (not the customer herself), and so they decided to throw it away. Couple told the customer this, who then called up for a refund without the product.
Asked if she still had it, no she had thrown it away, wouldn't that be what I would have done etc...
Advised I couldn't refund her product that was not faulty even if a review from another customer said their purchase was. Her product had no evidence it was faulty and she had decided to throw away a perfectly usable item.
She couldn't understand this, was going to make a formal complaint that I was refusing her refund and go to trading standards...

I did a 4 week contract in a hotel resort in Spain. Very popular with Brits...
Several people in my very short stint complained about things that were nothing to do with the hotel.
"X y and z is in spanish!" Yes, you are in Spain.
A balding middle aged man once said to me that he felt like a filthy fucking foreigner among all this foreign food and foreign this and that and the signs were in SPANISH and how dare they not have English signs etc. i was we did have a cafe on site and served some British food eg fish and chips and some simple med/Spanish dishes too. A lot of people would stick with the British food which is ok if a bit baffling but so many people would eat the Spanish food and complain it was too exotic or "too Spanish"

Cocklodger....this seems to happen a lot judging by the reviews I have seen on some pages! What on earth do they expect?

"...And the idiot who thought it was funny to shake the 7foot ladder I was standing at the top of getting a baseball bat down making me fall to the ground..."

That is horrifying, @MummaTwinkleToes - I hope he got a bollocking, at the very least!

Questioning everything
I was assaulted by an old bloke too! My manager found it equally amusing, but luckily the store manager didn't and barred him. My manager thought I'd caused it myself (by showing him a free checkout) apparently I should have known he wouldn't like that. She wanted to unbar him.

Jim Davidson, not surprise there. Always thought he was a cunt.

My god, all the pervs, racists and weirdos. We need medals to work in retail!

I'm also amazed by people who go abroad, but don't like foreigners.
A week in a pub and a quick sunbed would suit them better I'm sure.
Friends of my DM went to Goa, and were surprised that they predominantly eat curries. She wasn't expecting that, because she only likes chips and white bread.
What a waste of a fab holiday. She hated every minute of it.
Well I say friends of my mum, they were. Don't think she's seen them since as they ruined her holiday too!

Worked in a video shop donkeys years back and one of the regulars who hung around far too much for all our liking, especially considering he had manky teeth and was covered in oil most of the time couldn't understand why a colleague had said no to his perfectly reasonable request of taking him & his missus on a 5hr round trip to Liverpool so they could get their passports sorted last minute. He seemed to be under the impression that as well as hiring Titanic for 2 nights for any customers, we offered a free taxi service too.

Ex holiday rep here.....
"There's no bacon for breakfast"
"Yes that's right Sir, Egypt is a Muslim country"
"What's that got to do with it, it should say in the brochure that the hotel has no bacon".

Cyprus

"Is there something wrong with the lemons in this country"
"Why do you ask Sir?"
"They all have too many pips"

Cyprus

"I'd like to ask you a question Maddie about the mini cruise to Israel that I'd like to book with you'
"Fire away Sir"
"Do they circumcise me on the cruise before we reach the Holy Land?"
I paused......
"only if you want them to" (I couldn't resist it).

99.5% of my guests were flippin brilliant but I still recall actual surnames of those who screamed at me, assaulted me during flight delays and generally spoke to a 22 year old girl like something on the sole of their shoe.

Working on Customer Service in a well known supermarket, on Sunday every bastard week a man would come in at lunchtime with a trolley, walk around, buy one thing and then circle back and go round again. And again.
Then, as clockwork at 3.30pm he'd arrive at Customer Service with short-date reduced items.
"You see this sandwich for 20p?"
"Yes?"
"Well...can I have it for 10?"
"I'm afraid they are already priced to go"
"But you close in half an hour. You can't even sell them tomorrow so I'm actually doing you a favour"
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't mark the price down further than it has already been"
"Okay. What about the yogurt then?"

Every week.

Ooh so many from working at a lifestyle brand.

Someone who returned a top she'd worn and washed because the cut wasn't right- . She wanted a refund and had a screaming tantrum when we said no. If she'd just pretended it had shrunk in the wash it would have been no problem!!

Someone who searched desperately to find a loose thread on every gilet. Didn't even try to hide the grabby. She eventually give up even told "we don't reduce them, just cut the thread off"!

Anyone who wanted a discount on the last item of clothing because it's the last one. This isn't Greggs and the last lonely pasty. Be off with you.

Had a bloke try on shorts with no pants on. Left the curtain slightly open so we could see his underwhelming cock between pairs. No one (young all female staff) knew what to say so we ignored it and faultied them. He came back a week later and bought boxers.

People who ignore floating/free staff and only want to deal with whoever is up a ladder, with their arms full. Usually with something heavy. An old lady who couldn't reach something and tried to drag me away from someone I was in the middle of serving. Told her I'd be there in a second and she tutted and nicked my stepladder!

My boss had to ban "Silky lining guy" from her last job once they knew who he was, as his spunking in silky pockets or linings rendered stock unsellable.

Screaming, proper screaming, because I declined to giftwrap 6 items 30 minutes after closing on Christmas Eve. I stopped being payed at close of day. I was finishing wrapping a customers pile of purchases that I'd started 10 or so minutes before closing still, no way on earth was I starting a new pile. They asked for a manager, by chance the regional manager was in the department, he got the 3 people most famed for their inability to giftwrap to do it (funnily enough, it did not look great...) and had a tannoy put out to say that there would be no further giftwrapping that evening. I liked him, he always remembered who I was despite covering an area with well over a 1000 staff. My own line manager never failed to side with the customer, regardless of how ridiculous their complaint was and often called me the wrong name.

Oh, and the comedy style outrage at a bottle of perfume costing more than the last time she'd bought it (5 years before), returning used items because they didn't like them, and stating that this was why they wanted a refund. The person who said that I shouldn't be allowed to work with the general public - her card had been declined and she was angry. The one who spent a full hour trying to get me to see her psychotherapist for reasons unknown to me. The customer who spent £1000 on a massive pile of things, asked for help to her car, fine, not a problem but too much for me to carry on my own (it filled 2 stock cages) so I got someone from stock handling to help me. They made me do the trip twice because they didn't trust the poor stock handling bloke not to steal their stuff, so insisted I escort him and then come back for the next lot. Did give us a £2 tip to share though...

Fanjo I mentioned my degree because people hold us assistants up as some example to their kids 'if you don't study hard you'll end up like her'

ie, with a first class honours degree, doing a retail job in my 'spare time' from my proper self-employed job, to get me out of the house!

It's the general assumption from the public that we're all thick and only doing the job because it's the only thing we can get that I like to challenge.

The one time I was called "stupid" to my face by a customer was the day that I received a letter confirming my first class honours degree... The irony...

Agreed, Fanjo. The stupid ones are the customers who assume that someone working in job that doesn't require a gazillion qualifications is dumb.

I remember another one! Working in a shop and helping a little old lady choose something suitable for presents for family. Manager came over and had a go at me for helping her when he'd told me to assist her(!)
She turned round and said to him that he was a fucking jumped up twat having a go at minimum wage employees for no other reason other than that his wife wouldn't shag him without him wearing a paperbag over his ugly face. I turned into a pile of clothing unable to stop laughing and had to fake a coughing fit. Bloody brilliant, the lady was about 80 too.
She ended up buying over £500 worth of stock and submitting a complaint to the company about my manager, citing (my name) as brilliant customer service support. Manager hated me, company owner came down and gave the manager a bollocking and me a promotion. Still see the lady occasionally. Love her, she's like my adopted granny now

The fact I had a degree came up in passing conversation with a customer. She said "And you're working here"? It was crushing. I felt so dumb and it brought back all the dark feelings I had when my initial (qualification based) career went wrong. I told her I'd had a nervous breakdown doing my second degree but was feeling better now and might feel confident enough to get a "real job" soon. (Worked full time in the management at this point so wasn't exactly idle). The woman was mortified and falling overself to be nice to me/praise me after that!