To ask for your most "You couldn't make this shit up" stories...

[TurtleCavalryIsSeriousShit]

I work for a retail company at our head office. We received a call from a man who wanted to exchange 2 garments as he bought the wrong size.

No problem.

I ask for the product codes on the labels.... took a while but he found them. All the while he is telling me that it is for his customers in Brazil. How he likes to get them presents, etc, etc. So sounds like a competent manager type, possibly business owner.

I ask what sizes does he have and what would he like to swap them for. This is when it got a little odd.

For some reason he just couldn't find the size on the label. Next minute I hear him shout:

"Jessica! Jessica! Susan!! Oi, I need a woman here! You woman know size labels! Susan!"

So 'Jessica' comes running up on the other side and finds the size for him. It's a size 3-4 kids t-shirt.

Then he starts saying to 'Jessica': "This won't fit, will it? Do you think it will fit?" 'Jessica' sounds unsure.

Next minute I hear him shout: "Bring me a child! Get me a 3 year old! Yes, yes, just get me a child! A 3 year old!"

He says: "Turtle, I'll phone you back in a minute" and puts the phone down

Dumbfounded, we're all wondering what the hell kind of business this man is in if he can just conjure up a child of a specific age? My colleagues make me promise to ask him his business, just to put our minds at rest.

He never phoned back! I guess it fit the 3 year old child they found for him?

It was just such a bizarre conversation. Have you had any weird or wonderful stories to tell?

I had a parent make an appointment to discuss her daughter’s recent assessment mark (secondary science. I thought she had performed quite well (for her) but mum insisted my absence or a few weeks the previous term had been detrimental to her daughter’s learning. To be fair, I did get a bit snarky and told her that I was sorry my miscarriage had been an inconvenience. Instead of being embarrassed she thanked me for the apology and then requested that I ‘plan ahead’ and time any future pregnancies with the school holidays.

She was a fucking high school teacher too. Bitch.

Years ago I was travelling with my niece back from France (to Ireland) on a car ferry There's was a sort of buffet you could choose from which was very expensive, but I paid for myself and niece as a treat. We couldn't find a single thing we could eat, everything was absolutely horrible, rice that was still hard in the middle as if it had just been put into boiling water briefly, then kept warm all day. Eventually we went up to the person sitting taking the money at the entrance, and I asked for my money back. He refused, said there was nothing wrong with the food. I stood my ground and said the food wasn't edible. He said "Just a moment" went off and came back with a huge belligerent chef who came out with a cleaver hanging by his side, and his hand on it. He loomed at me, moved into my personal space, and said "There's nothing wrong with that food". At that stage I knew I wasn't going to win, so I left.

I fumed all night, and first thing in the morning I went to see the purser to complain about the intimidation. The purser turned out to be the one who'd brought the chef out to terrorise me, so I took one look and gave up.

Roll on six months, and I saw a news item that the purser and chef were found guilty of drug smuggling, following months of investigation.

I love this thread!

Whilst working in property management for a London-based estate agent many (many) years ago, we had a tenant who would regularly call us to demand we send tradespeople round to undertake the most menial of tasks.

She demanded bulbs be changed, picture hooks "installed" and, most bizarrely, the door mat be changed for one that didn't make such a 'scrunchy' noise when she wiped her feet.

Looking back, I think this woman probably had some kind of obsessive/compulsive disorder, but at the time I was young and ignorant of such things and just assumed she was a fussy, lazy pain in the arse.

I have a couple of ones. A customer at a supermarket i worked at returned an empty bottle of brandy, its contents he'd consumed the previous night. Entitled to a refund apparently as he'd woken up with a bad headache and sickness.

Working for an investment firm I had a woman telling me that her husband had died. I said that I was sorry about her loss and that i'd do everything to make her claim as straightforward as possible. 'Why are you sorry?' she asked: 'i hated the bastard, just wanna know how much he was worth'

Glorious weather just as the school holidays start 😁

Once worked in a clothing shop. Elderly Lady of crutches goes into changing room. Awful smell. She leaves shops clothes on the floor in a pile. Pick them up and she's wiped her arse on them! But no sign on a turd. Our manager sends us all on a game of hunt the turd. Eventually it was found rolled up in a t shirt shoved at the back of a shelf.

OMG!

I used to work for a finance company and we had a fancy waiting room for clients. This retired solicitor used to come in every Thursday and sit for hours and read our newspapers like you would in a library. When they barred him he tried to sue us for breaking his human rights to read the paper

The morning of my wedding my Father asked me to phone and book his car in for a repair, when I suggested maybe I was rather busy today he said it would only only take five minutes, he fully expected me to do it

I teach Reception and in my second year had a lovely little boy who was in full control of his bowels and never once had an accident in school (this is relevant). One parents evening he came in with his parents at the allotted time and decided to shit in the classroom on the floor while his parents and I chatted. All of us (his Mum, Dad, me and the little boy) stared at this huge pile of shit he'd liberally sprinkled about the carpet and his Mum stood up, shook my hand and announced "lovely meeting you, thanks for your hard work" and left, never once mentioning the fact that her child had shat in the middle of my class.

Not often I'm left speechless but that was astounding.

@Puzzledandpissedoff I'd definitely believe your council ones. I've posted one upthread but probably have loads more.

She was a fucking high school teacher too. Bitch.

Worse than a bitch. That's absolutely outrageous.

Friend of mine had just moved into his new flat, broadband not sorted but the phone was. No problem, he could borrow my laptop for emails.
Then, on his nice new phone, he receives a call, of the "your computer has a problem, follow our instructions" variety. The cold caller, who sounded Eastern European, could not accept that my friend did not have a computer, let alone any problems with one.
He got increasingly irritated, finally asking if my friend wore women's clothes, "because you sound like cross-dresser"
To which he received the rather ungentlemanly riposte "Well you sound like an ae" before my friend hung up....

@Ijustwanttoretire haha I've done exactly that too! One of those company's have caught me on a bad day - think it was for "we have heard you have been in a car accident" and I said something along the lines of oh ffs why do you keep calling piss off and hung up! He rang back nearly 8 times and I kept blocking the number and it would come through on a different one! He also called me a bitch 😂 I just kept laughing which made him angrier 🙊

MyHeadIsBursting Not the exact same, but similar. My SIL is a teacher and after she got married she changed her name. One of the parents called up to complain about her son's mark in a recent test and said: "He was doing so well with Ms. Maidenname, but now that Mrs. Marriedname is teaching him he has gone downhill". She didn't realise that the teacher hadn't changed, just the name

An elderly lady I know got one of those calls about 'something wrong with her computer' and politely did everything the caller asked her to. Unfortunately she never uses the computer, has no information on it, I don't think she even has email. What a disappointment that must have been.

I used to be a deputy manager in a shop which had toilets up the back behind the counter, one day this horrid stench of poo came right down to the front and all our customers left! I walked up the back and I could see one of the toilet doors opened and someone cleaning something up on the ground so I though "oh crap a pipe has broken or something" so I asked "are you ok?" And the door got slammed, I then assumed that someone had an accident and was cleaning it up. 5 min later I had opened the shop door and went behind the counter to find air freshener when my cashier told me the guy had just ran out. I went up to the toilets it was horrendous there was shit EVERYWHERE!!!! I had to close the door as I was starting to be sick!! Then I realised there was lumps of poo all the way down the shop and out the door 😱 I ended up using a Henry hoover (we had a spare) to get the lumps and the manager came in for his shift and helped me clean the bathroom. The actual cleaner found the guys pants stuck in the sanitary bin. Genuinely though I fully understand that accidents happen but the guy had the gall to come back in the next day and was heading to the toilets when me and the manager shouted him over and told him no chance was he using it!!

I worked for a huge world renowned bank many years ago. At this point fraudsters were well ahead of the game and the banks were struggling to keep up with them. It was found after much research that the name Khan was causing a lot of bother in the credit card department, it was the top surname given for fraudulent credit card applications.

The floor manager in the fraud department of credit card releases at the time decided that’s it, no more cards to go to anyone named Khan. At all.
So any unsuspecting genuine people with the name Khan would have to apply elsewhere. I don’t suppose that would happen these days though.

I once worked in a call centre and a team leader. We had a storage room that held the office stationary and other bits. A woman called Susan (not real name) looked after the stationary and was really anal about it.

One evening a team that used to stor stuff in there asked me to help take some boxes to the storage room. I carried a box over and left it outside. I refused to go as I knew Susan was prone to angry stationary related outbursts.

Anyway, next day I was at my managers desk talking over some work. My general manager was behing us. Susan come running up to me, interrupted and started shouting that I had been seen in her cupboard and I had left a mess. I was shocked then just said 'susan, I didnt go in. X team put boxes in there. I carried a box but didnt go in' she then told me to fuck off and stormed off.

Me and my manager just say and laughed a but uncomfortably. Then Susan's manager came over interrupted again and started having a go at me 'how dare you tell Susan to fuck off, who do you think you are'.

I started laughing at this point and told her that she needed to calm down. I hadnt told Susan to fuck off. She had told me to fuck off after screaming that I had been seen in the cupboard. My manager confirmed it. The general manager then pointed out he witnessed it and Susan was lying.

I then told the manager to go away. I was going to speak to HR and raise a complaint about both of them. I didnt and wouldnt have done. But she grumbled an apology and walked off.

I worked there 10 years and that fucking stationary cupboard caused more problems. Easier to buy my own.

I worked in Clarks for a long time and fitted kid’s shoes a lot. I once had a lady come in and ask if I could measure her children’s feet, of course no problem. I asked which were hers (there were loads wandering around) and she said they weren’t there. Bit weird but we had sometimes had people bring cut outs of their kids feet so I wondered if I’d was that sort of scenario. She then asked if I could phone her kids and measure their feet over the phone... It was so bizarre and I was only about 19 so I didn’t really know what to say. She just couldn’t understand why I might need the kids (and their feet) in front of me...

I worked on a medical helpline.
I regularly took calls from people demanding an ambulance as they had no money to get a taxi to the hospital AND demanded that said ambulance wait for them while they are being seen in hospital to take them home... because they have no money.
Even when they did not need hospital treatment.
Regularly and on numerous occasions this happened.
I have been sworn at and shouted at when I explained that this was not an option.

People becoming abusive when out of hours emergency Dr appointment is an hour away rather than NOW...this happened ALL. THE. TIME.

My most favourite calls were those that ended in an absent minded “thankyou, love you, bye”. They made my day.

Was at an outdoor event in France, saw a woman hoist her dress and take a shit on the ground, thankfully the spectator hill she was on was not too busy

I once did an online order from domino's. It hadnt turned up an hour later so I called and got told it was on it's way.

Half an hour later called again and it was just leaving the shop. Another half an hour later I called again and told them not to bother. The store manager started shouting that I would take this food. I calmly said 'no I wont'.

20 minutes later he turned up on the door step and started shouting at me with the order that I would take it. I told him I had put food in the oven and I didnt want it. He called me a fucking bitch. At this point 6ft 4 security officer Dp came out. Dp didnt even say anything and The man started apologising profusely and ran off.

I called the franchise company and complained. Turns out I wasnt the only one he had done it to that night and got £100 of dominos vouchers.

I worked in the HO of a national fashion retailer, and often helped run the on site discount outlet on the weekends.

One day a lady came over complaining that she had sat her bag down in the changing room and it was damp, customer (adult woman) before her had done a wee in there - I took customer aside asking one of the lads to close the changing room until I could deal, he decides to be 'helpful' and declares on my return that he had cleaned it, I foolishly didn't check he had left it locked to dry etc, few mins later a woman is demanding a manager because her top is ruined, she hands me a green stained gloopy top - he had sprayed Toilet Duck and left the thing open. I gave away a few freebies that day!

We also had a family that came in at least once a month and swapped labels, no matter how many times I explained the whole refusal to sell, explained why yes I could refuse etc, they did it again and again knowing I was on the cash desk.

A friend of mine who taught in another school arrived one morning to find that there had been a fire overnight. (Back in the day when media alerts were not common).
The staff embarked on the grim task of salvaging what could be salvaged, and the children, as they arrived at the gate, were turned back with an explanation.
Of course , I understand that this was a huge inconvenience to the parents, but it was a SAHM who couldn't see why her son couldn't be left in the playground, which was undamaged by the fire, as she had her Christmas shopping to undertake......

Another one from when I was at The Pru
I went to sort out the paperwork for a death claim. I was met by a very genteel old lady, very well spoken in a twin set and pearls. I said I was sorry for her loss and she replied “don’t be, it was the happiest day of my life when they carried that fucker out of here in a coffin”
Turns out he was abusive, she was absolutely lovely and I was there for ages while she told me all about how vile he was. She thanked me and said she had never told anyone about him before, even her children thought he was great and she had felt ashamed to admit the truth
Sad story really