The worst complaint you have ever received

[planetclom]

I’ll start.
Someone complained they when they arrived early for an appointment I saw them early, they did not want to be seen early ...
Someone complained that I was only interested in box ticking and in the next sentence complained I spend to long trying to sort out their issue...

Work in the NHS if that is relevant, I suspect it is.

I was a reporter and wanted to write an opinion column. This request was finally granted and after the first installment my newpaper received (and published) a letter from a reader telling me that I was stupid, had no brain, was childish, etc... (:-)
Either that or it was the editor who wanted an excuse not to let me write opinion pieces!

Worked at a tourist information center on an island. Woman came in to complain about lack of sea water in the harbour making it less picturesque for photos. I had to explain tides.

Worked in McDonalds in my very early years and a customer returned a milkshake for being too thick. I was at a genuine loss as to what she expected me to do about a thick milkshake.

That I couldn't do the shirt printing for him because I didn't have the letters available because it was a popular footballer and it was Christmas. I had also told him I wasnt trained to use the machine.
This guy yelled at me for 5 mins solid, then suddenly stopped, told me it wasn't my fault in a normal voice, then continued to yell at me for another couple of minutes before stomping down the stairs.

Manager and another colleague had to check on me to make sure i was ok. I was almost in tears. It was my first job nd had only been working there for maybe 4 weeks and was running that floor by myself that evening as it was pretty quiet.

Another one I had was a customer coming in complaining his shows were soaked through and weren't waterproof. We pointed out that they weren't supposed to be waterproof and that they were never designed with it in mind and had he tried a waterproofing product on them? He said no, they were definitely supposed to be waterproof. Had to point it out to him on the labels on both the shoes and the box that it did indeed say that they were NOT waterproof. He still kicked up a fuss.

I wouldn't accept an old £20 note (in year 2017, it was withdrawn in 2010)
I couldn't give them a discount on their wine because the deal had been on for 7 days and finished a few days prior. Apparently I was stupid because I should have told them it was ending in 7 days (as all the advertising states) when they did their weeks shop the week prior at a different till and because I hadn't should put the discount through anyway.
Best till last, I wouldn't accept being called a cunt because they had forgotten to pay for fuel and the police had been called (all on my day off). Apparently we should have known that they would be coming back to pay when they remembered instead of notifying the police. I asked them to leave (and pressed our manager alarm) when they began calling me the above at which point they actually became worse and the police had to be called by the manager who came up to see why I had pressed my alarm. Cue letter to head office about me. Needless to say head office and my managers were on my side and the "gentleman" has been barred.
(I work in a supermarket and the attached petrol station.)

A customer complained to my manager that I was "far happier than I had a right to be"

I was at a genuine loss as to what she expected me to do about a thick milkshake.

Calibrate the machine to make sure it's working as it should be.

I once had someone order a fathers day gift to be sent directly to the recipient. A few days later I received a handwritten note from the recipient complaining I had out my return address on the parcel on a tiny company address stickerp. Quite why this had offended him so much I'm not sure. Apart from the factors good practice to do this (so undelivered items are returned) I post glass and it is a requirement of the royal mail I list the sender address on the parcel. I felt pretty sorry for his daughter to have such an arsehole as a dad.

WhatToDoAboutThis...

Thanks for that advice but the machine had been calibrated and it was this individuals opinion that the milkshake was too thick as she was used to drinking chocolate milk like yazoo

FIL sent his cheese sandwich back because i put the cheese in vertically rather than horizontally. I kid you not. MIL pandered for nearly 50 years. With hindsight I suspect he had aspergers.

VelvetKK If we get a complaint about the thickness of our milkshakes we always recalibrate.

A simple "I'm really sorry about that; we'll recalibrate the machine. Would you like another drink instead?" usually sends them off with a smile.

However, there are just some people who prefer "thinner" milkshakes.

And a young paed when dd was admitted with bronchiolitis complained because I couldn't tell her how many mls of milk dd was drinking. She went on and on about how I must know how much was in my breasts due to the full/empty weight. Would not accept it didn't work like that when the baby was 8 months old. It was quite upsetting.

I’m a retired nurse and I have soooo many complaints lodged....one for not following the policy of BRAIDING hair for patients going into surgery...not enough hair to braid...
One for my shoes not being white enough...
One for putting a gown on someone the wrong way....(a woman in labour running about the ward naked, I slipped it on over her back side, open at the front)...she was trying to exit the building...thought it better than nothing...

Parent yelling at me because his delightful daughter didn't pass her BTEC- despite me only taking over the class 3 weeks before she finished year 11 and she didn't show up to any of my after school, during study leave or school holiday catch up sessions. Letters and emails were sent out before every session but apparently it was my fault for not 'making' her go

A colleague in A&E received a complaint because a family whose relative had died saw her carrying a sandwich when she later went on her break. They said it was insensitive

A customer once came in to the till, saw me and sighed "Oh, it's you."

Apparently they didn't like my accent (I'm from the north and was working down south). Whenever I saw him after that I made sure to thicken it up for him 😂😂

The patients who turn up, say, half an hour for an appointment, then are called in on or just before the actual appointment time, then complain that they've been waiting for half an hour!

Calibrate the machine to make sure it's working as it should be

It's a cheap milkshake, not time travel.

The world is divided into people who have to work with the public and those who don’t

When I worked at a supermarket, someone once complained that they had left their cheese in the fridge as instructed but it had gone mouldy after six weeks.

I used to work in customer services for a while.

A customer complained about his free gift.

He was insulted about the free gift and how crap it was - it was an insult to him, and when advised to please put it in the bin, told my colleague 'the bin is too good for it' My worthy colleague advised him, in that case, to return it to us.

To be fair, it was pretty crap. But to take the time to ring up and moan about something free...?

I recommended treatment A.
They really wanted treatment B.
I told them that treatment B almost certainly wouldn't work, and explained why.
They chose treatment B anyway.

One week later they made a complaint against me because treatment B had not worked. They then sought a second opinion and duly received treatment A from the second clinician.

Not the worst, but the most bizarre was, in my teenage years working in a fast food joint, a customer who’d ordered chicken nuggets returned demanding a refund because they ‘weren’t suitable for vegetarians’ 😂

This list of complaints received by Thomas Cook makes me laugh every time

I used to work in a drycleaners and one day a man came in and handed me a ticket to collect his clothes asking me to please hurry because he was in a rush.

Except the ticket wasn't one of ours. He would not believe me that the ticket he'd given me was for any other dry cleaners and he argued with me about it until his wife came in, reminded him they'd gone to a different shop and apologised!