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.

When I worked in a children's library, someone complained that the pictures in the books about dinosaurs were only artists impressions!

I overheard this in the doctors reception. Patient came out of his consultation and went straight to reception to complain, at some considerable length, that not only had he had to wait a long time before his appointment, but that when he did eventually get in there, he didn't have enough time with the doctor.

He needed another appointment, so the receptionist offered to book him a double appointment, so he had longer with the doctor. Patient, obviously horrified, said "ooh no, I don't want to take up too much of the doctor's time...."

Reading the 'no problem' debate has really highlighted for me that anyone working with the public can't really win. We don't automatically know everyone's preferred language, or that the first person in the queue doesn't mind something like that when the next person hates it enough to make a complaint about it.
You can gauge certain things like if a customer wants to chat to you, or really doesn't want the upsell spiel you're instructed to give, but not everything.
I really don't like being called 'love' either side of the till, but if it's not being used in a derogatory way, and overall the person is polite and what needed to be done is done then what does it matter really?

He got one driver suspended until the tracking record and CCTV showed him to be lying about indecent exposure.

Unjustified complaints* like this and the previous ones regarding stealing and harassment are particularly horrible because they could not only get someone sacked for something they haven't done, but because "mud sticks" and people who know them might believe the lies told against them (after all, there's no smoke etc). People's lives and marriages could be destroyed by one of these spiteful tossers!

*or "lies" as we reasonable human beings call them

Boris Yeltsin himself believed that drinking a bottle of vodka, stripping naked in the snow and trying to fight a bear were signs of true masculinity

I wouldn't be at all surprised Floella. There are so many amazing stories about him, but my favourite is that during a state visit to Washington in the mid-1990s, when Yeltsin was staying at the White House, he was found by the Secret Service in the early hours of the morning, blind drunk, standing on Pennsylvania Ave wearing only his underpants, trying to hail a cab so he could get a pizza.

When I worked in customer service we sold workwear. One customer called to complain that the zip on his back pocket had punctured and ruined his car seat. He wanted us to pay for his reupholstery.

When I was a nurse working in children's MH services there were some ludicrous complaints.

One parent made a complaint because I was wearing jeans (not ripped or anything, just black skinny jeans and a jumper) when I assessed their child on the paediatric ward after they'd been admitted for attempting suicide. I was wearing jeans because I'd come in on my day off after getting a pleading phonecall because everyone else had gone off sick. They even said in their letter that they felt I was brilliant with their child, that they were really happy with the support given etc, it was purely the jeans that upset them.

Another parent made a complaint because I had the audacity to suggest that his insistence on calling his son a "faggot" for enjoying drama, and doing sneering impressions of the way he walks, talks etc. might possibly be contributing to his anxiety and low self esteem.

My friend had a complaint from divorced parents who were indignant when he wouldn't agree to their demand that he see offer their child two appointments a week instead of one because they both wanted to come to every appointment but weren't prepared to be in the same room as one another. They literally expected him to duplicate every session.

So glad to be out of the NHS.

im regularly ranted at by people who have called the wrong company

Or when Company A has given completely incorrect information and I have to correct them even though I work for company B and I'm the one who's right

I had someone make a formal complaint because I corrected her false assumption about a company product to give her the correct information

I had a parent complain that the whiteboard in my classroom was in the wrong place. She even came to show me where it should be.

I couldn't for the life of me see how moving it would make any difference. I think she just wanting to assert her authority over me so that I would know exactly who I was dealing with.

I was a young teacher in my 20s, she was something important at the local British Embassy.

I didn't move the whiteboard.

A very posh sounding lady who had an impressive title once complained bitterly to me that the phone engineer hadn't turned up as promised to fix her phone line. Her address sounded like she lived in a country mansion and she was very polite, but furious.

I rang the engineer who was allocated the job - he told me in graphic detail that he had been out to her that morning. He had refused to do the work for health and safety reasons - the whole house was practically waist deep in rotting rubbish and the phone socket itself was smeared with human faeces! He'd explained exactly why he couldn't do the work to her earlier.

I then had the delight of phoning her back and explaining we wouldn't be fixing it until it was deemed safe to do so (she still denied all knowledge and hung up on me).

the phone socket itself was smeared with human faeces!

How did he know? (that it was human, I mean)

Not that it would be much less disgusting if it was the cat's, obviously . . .

A random mother screamed at me after a school chess tournament - apparently DS1 had beaten her DS in the final round on purpose (well yeah!) just to make her son look bad. I was so surprised by her outburst I just stood there gaping like a fish. DS was

I didn't ask how the engineer knew that particular detail, I can only assume no pets there? He was quite specific but maybe he was just assuming and just trying to convey the horror. Let's face it, it's not like any faeces are a usual thing to have smeared all over your phone socket...

I have so many mad complaints from my brief time working in a Jobcentre, particularly when I had to do crisis loan applications. The general public can be a very odd lot sometimes!

I once sent out an e-mail about an intra-departmental meeting that i titled; 'Dear Colleagues'.

I got a written warning from my boss because apparently I was just a lowly project officer and had no business assuming myself to be on the same station as those higher up on the food chain than me.

(It was just the start of a long series of harrassment from him though which culminated in him telephoning my landlady and asking if I had men staying over at the weekend in my flat. A formal complaint from me to HRwth supporting evidence resulted in me being dismissed and him being promoted though. That was a fun 9 months.)

Heckneck - my friend worked for M&S customer service. A woman complained that the dark blue jeans she bought there had dyed the cream, kid leather seat of her expensive sports car. M&S offered to pay to replace the leather on that seat, but that leather option wasn't available any more so it wouldn't match the other seats exactly. So they paid for the entire car to be recovered at a cost of thousands.

They began putting those labels warning of dye transfer on their jeans after that one!

Oh secret! What an utter psycho bastard! So these psychologists who study psychopaths are right, there are more in the boardroom than in prisons.

I don’t think anyone has complained about ‘No problem’ . I certainly wouldn’t.

It arose because a poster complained that her employer, a major bank, I think, asked them not to say this to customers because of the potential psychology.

Curmudgeonly (but uncomplaining) types like me understand and welcome the instruction.

If they could now ban upspeak and asking me to sign on the dotted line “for me” I will be very happy!

I think I'll use 'you're welcome' henceforth just to be on the safe side.

You should know by now Space - there is no "safe side" . . . . .

A parent phoned to complain extremely strongly that I had encouraged the class to self harm. I had offered ideas on how to learn long chunks of text (as per the crappy exam requirements). One idea was to gently tap a rhythm on their arm whilst reciting it, an idea from a successful student the year before. Ihad added that they shouldn’t do it hard, it was literally gentle touches. Apparently I was telling children to hurt themselves. He was fucking disgraceful, the way he spoke to me.

One of my favourite complaints is a one star review on Amazon for a pair of ear defenders I bought for my son.

I love that two people found it helpful.

Schadenfreude
I actually haven't had any ridiculous complaints about me (I'm asking for it by saying that!) although I have had my fair share of obnoxious customers who have treated me like shit because things were going wrong in their lives at that moment.

Also people telling us they were going to sue the organisation for following French law. No, sorry, we can't make an exception for English mother tongue customers just because they happen to be from a different country.

Someone came into the shop and asked to see the manager, I stopped for about 10 seconds before he smugly said ‘you’re the manager?’ He couldn’t believe a 18 year old woman could be the manager of a store!! Said that ‘times have changed’ and ‘that wouldn’t happen in my day’..effing tw*t

I used to work in a pub, & a customer complained to me that his peas were too green.

I also worked in boots for a while and somebody tried to bring back half a box of tampons, saying she’d tried them and they were not the right absorption for her ‘heavy flow’

Disgrace - that reminds of my DH, who went through a phase a few years ago of complaining (but only to me!) whenever there was a delivery van/lorry blocking the road so he couldn’t get his car out of our driveway. He was retired by then, so no pressing need to pop out Right This Minute to buy bird seed or whatever.

I eventually pointed out that we live on a street that is one-way because it is narrow, with all resident parking down one side and just about enough room for a lorry to get through. So all deliveries, including our own, would block the street. And, AND, we’d been living there since the 1980s, so he should have got a clue by then.