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.

One from when I worked in the NHS. In the labs, urgent blood get sent from wards and departments by a pod system. Our section of the lab was responsible for sorting and processing incoming samples for testing. We also gave out the results.
On one occasion, we had a doctor phone from A&E saying that they were waiting for results. We logged onto the system, entered the details of the patient and found that there was no result on the system yet.
"But these bloods were sent ages ago. The results should be on the system by now. This is ridiculous."
Turns out, after we had put him through to the duty biochemist (who told us in fits of laughter) that they had only sent the bloods 10 minutes previously and expected tests that took upwards of 30 minutes to have results already.

I love this thread so much! Trying to think what I can add..,

I thought of this thread yesterday. I was in a shop and the assistant was very friendly/casual. She served me with a stream of 'here you go love/hun/mate'' and then served the woman after me with 'thats for you beautiful'
I imagined the complainers described on this thread exploding

Jasmin82

In a similar frame, we used to put holter monitors on patients, this records their ECG continuously for 24 hours.

We would occasionally get requests for results while the patient was still wearing the monitor.

Read through the rest of the thread remembering my time as a GP receptionist. Complaints were a fact of life in that job!

• Doctors wouldn’t do the exact px the patient wanted - our fault, they would have our job (bloody have if you think you can do better love!)
• appointment not available, our fault, we were preventing patients from seeing doctors (no, everybody is full and the practice manager has closed the appointments down for the day unless it’s an emergency). Got threatened one time for that, apparently they knew where I lived and where my kids went to school. Well yes they did because their kids went there as well. The senior partner was very good at supporting us when that happened, she got told and when I saw her in the playground she wouldn’t even look at me.

Also once got dragged over the counter and spat at because the doctor wasn’t in. Because he was on paternity leave. No way could you pay me enough to do that job again!

I was thinking about this thread yesterday. I was out and about having a blood test done at a local hospital and there was a big queue - over 20 people before me and only 3 phlebotomists. I overheard someone complaining loudly that they'd had to wait a whole 15 minutes for their blood to be taken - people going in before them had included a very elderly disabled lady on sticks, a couple of people in wheelchairs and a clearly very nervous child, so people who couldn't just be quickly sat & blood taken in a couple of minutes.

When I went in I apologised for being a wibbling idiot who hates needles, complimented the vampire on how gentle she'd been, and said to the whole room what a good job they were doing getting through the big queue. They were surprised, but very appreciative.

I always try to say something nice to people who have IMO done things particularly well, because I know that staff at the "blunt end" will always get the abuse and blame whether it's anything they can affect or not, and know perfectly well that the majority of customer feedback will only be given if there's been a problem.

Not really a horrible complaint, more a daft one – but for the fact the guy tried to set me up in front of everyone (and it backfired on him).
I write business software for our company. Just a couple of months before year 2000 one of the sales team wrote an email to me – but he copied in every single mobile salesman, the whole IT team and every member of the board of directors.

He complained that our mobile ordering software wouldn’t work in the year 2000, despite my work to change it, as he had tested it with an advance order and the date had not been accepted – what was I going to do about it?

I re-read his email and politely replied (cc’ing everyone on the original list) telling him it was working fine, had been fully tested before release. And if he entered 2/1/2000 this VALID date would be accepted no problem - instead of 2/1/0000 (a date which doesn’t exist) as he’d written in his email……

Not exactly a complaint, but the lady complaining about the sexist use of pink post it notes reminded me of the first social event we ever took DS1 to. We'd received and accepted an invitation to a friend's 50th, which should have been when I was 38 weeks pregnant.
However, he arrived unexpectedly 5 weeks premature so was 3 weeks old when the date of the party came round. We'd had 10 days in hospital and by this time he was still tiny and not feeding well. I was seriously sleep deprived, but we made a super human effort to make a brief appearance at the party with DS wearing the only outfit he had which fitted him. (Back then "tiny baby" sizes weren't so easily available and I'd had no time to get to the shops anyway.)
Most friends there including the hosts were really happy to see us and meet the new arrival, but one guest (not someone I even knew) looked disdainfully at the baby in my arms and said "What a pity you've dressed him in blue, stereotyping him already"
It just seemed a really unkind thing to say to a new Mum!

I gave someone an FPN gif cycling in area it wasn’t allowed. I’d previously spoke to her on more than one occasion and she complained

FPN?

I was 15/16 and working in a chemist. It was a small shop with 4 employees, one of whom was the dispensing chemist, and there were several signs which stated when prescriptions couldn't be dispensed. Obviously, I wasn't allowed to dispense medicine but apparently this was unreasonable when the chemist was at lunch. The manager told me I should direct people to the signs. I did!

Same job. An older lady approached me in the shopping aisle as I was shelf stocking and wanted me to look "down there" as she had "all white blobby bobbly bits" in her "lady area" and didn't know if it was normal as "I've never been married." I suggested she speak to the pharmacist as they had medical knowledge but no, the manager was informed how unhelpful I was.

Another job, in a library. Customer complained that I had asked them to leave. They were reading in a corner and a fire bell was going off. It was standard practice to evacuate the building. I did suggest under my breath that I could just leave them there to burn. They didn't want to leave because it was 'cold outside'.

FPN = Fixed Penalty Notice

I saw a post on a MN thread a few years ago. The person had attended a HCP appointment with a friend who was deaf and at the end, the HCP said 'you'll be hearing from us' and the person complained (not the deaf person) that it was insensitive and offensive as the person wouldn't hear anything all, because they were deaf.

The deaf person took it as just a turn of phrase with no particular intent but their friend took it upon themselves to launch a complaint.

AAAH! Thank you Allergic

My DD is working in a toyshop for Christmas and now hates The Great British Public.
Someone complained that her hair was too short .
Last week someone threw a strop because the coins in her change weren't shiny enough.

Friend sent back her seared tuna salad because the fish wasn't cooked in the middle

I'm in retail and try not to say "honey, my lovely, no problem" etc although occasionally it slips out!

Recently had a customer who came in and barked orders. She rather unnerved me and I said "my love" to her without thinking when I asked if she was ready to pay. No idea why! Probably to just try and lighten the atmosphere. She asked me to repeat myself word for word and then asked me how DARE I talk to her like that? She was NOT my CHATTEL and people like me devalued her partner calling her that. I apologised profusely and still she shouted on about how awful I was.

The other best one was being told I was being purposely awkward and spiteful by someone who had spent under the minimum amount to use a money off voucher. She was 5p short and my till wouldn't put the discount on as she hadn't hit total. She demanded I sell her a bag for 5p then- I couldn't as the retailer didn't charge. Apparently I was lying!

DS - if I owned or ran the establishment you work in I would take great pleasure in banning that absolute cunt for DARING to speak to a member of staff like that.

I was discussing women’s magazines with a year 9 Media Studies class. I asked the group to suggest items commonly found in such magazines and put their suggestions on the board. The list included Horoscopes. The next day I had a letter from a parent complaining that the word had been on the board and asking that her son be removed from any lesson where there could be any mention of such things.

I've done at least ten years in retail but two complaints stand out.

One was a woman complaining that receipts were pointless if we didn't honour the price on them. She was trying to return a bra set in the new year, but they were bought as a Christmas gift in the middle of summer. Unsurprisingly they had been reduced in the 6 months+ since they had been bought and could only be retuned at the new price.

The other was a woman who called the store and wanted to buy a dress. It wasn't available in store but it was on the website. She didn't have her own computer, so I suggested she come into a store and we could do the order for her with free home delivery. She complained that the last time she was in store we had offered to order her something, but we hadn't said it could only be done in store. She wanted to place the order there and then over the phone and was quite willing to give me all of her personal details including card number and the cvc!

When I was a very newly qualified personal trainer, my second-ever client complained to my gym manager because according to her, my uniform wasn't revealing enough.

I have others - you get some very odd complaints, remarks and requests as a PT - but I can't share them as they're a) identifying and b) usually occurred under trainer-client confidentiality (I know, I'm a spoil-sport).

NinaMarieP

'One was a woman complaining that receipts were pointless if we didn't honour the price on them. She was trying to return a bra set in the new year, but they were bought as a Christmas gift in the middle of summer. Unsurprisingly they had been reduced in the 6 months+ since they had been bought and could only be retuned at the new price'

In fairness to her everywhere I have taken something back to has honoured the receipt price if I have had the receipt and sale price if not (in stores that accept returns without receipts)

Possibly not six months later though!

Most stores have a policy of refunding at the purchase price for 28 days or one month. After that your receipt isn't valid (unless the item is faulty) otherwise people would constantly return old stock that wouldn't sell. Or return items months later and rebut at s reduced price.

The policy was clear on the receipt, on signage at the till point and I explained it to her at least three times. She was angry and verbally abusive too, over about £6.

I work with the public and once had 3 different people, in the same morning, tell me that I was far too cheerful/happy .

My line manager once had a customer complain that he didn't like it when the staff said Hiya to him, can't remember what he wanted us to say instead.

My ex-manager was using a walk-about phone at the front of the store to check stock for a customer and nodded and mouthed "good morning" to someone who had just walked in whilst she listened to whoever was on the phone. The person who walked in took extreme offence at this and shouted at my manager when she got off the phone and said she'd been really rude!

WRT to really out of date receipts, when I worked somewhere lenient we used to exchange at price on receipt as a goodwill gesture and to make life easier. We didn't have a set guideline to follow and were usually too busy to deal with drama. But other places are stricter. One of the most aggressive people I ever served once shouted "NO" so close to my face that I foy when I had to explain I couldn't take a price label as proof of purchase and proof of purchase price