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?

2toe
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
How odd. In the time it took him to call you and ask you, your DF could have made the booking himself.. why did he think you should do it?

Generally (other) people are weird!

DH used to work for a well known tv and broadband supplier.
Everyday the same man would call to complain about the hold music......

After I left school I did six months in the school office where my mother taught. We werent far from where the offices of Ragdoll productions were based.There was a huge maths thing at a few of the schools so on a bright idea we decided to ring to see if we could either get the Teletubbies or Rosie and Jim to do some promotional bits.

The young lady on the phone informed us that the problem with asking the TT to come out of Teletubbie land was that their tummytellies would not work and also were we aware that the rabbits in the opening credits are a lot bigger that normal rabbits. So TT were a no go, then we asked if it was possible R&J might like to come along. They were also a no go as they were very hard worked so they were going on a small holiday.

She was totally serious.

I worked somewhere years ago that has a very famous sale. During the sale the fitting rooms are not open. Someone went into them on the children's department and came out and left a horrible smell. They had pooped in there and wiped it on the fitting room curtain. Laaaaaavly.

@LittleTopic

There’s always one! I used to work as a temporary receptionist at The Arts Council. At the time their remit was only funding for new works. Every week, on a Tuesday morning, a woman would phone and demand to be put through to someone to discuss her sculptures. By the time I got there the sculpture guys was sick of her and had me accidentally put her through to the puppet specialist or someone else. Occasionally I would have to persuade her that he wasn’t in the office (he was).

It turns out that she could absolutely not understand why the Arts Council wouldn’t pay for her sculpture collection to be shipped to Australia so she could show it. She thought they should pay the shipping for her! Like some sort of art based post office. Bizarre.

I was only there six months and she called every week and may well still be.

I once took a call from an irate professor who was convinced that we had stolen his money as he had paid ££££ for some shares and we had only sent him a certicate for 100 shares with a nominal value of 10p.

As a student I was waiting for a night bus home late one night on a busy main road. A guy in a little street cleaning vehicle pulls up at the bus stop and asks me directions. One of those tiny vehicles with the circular brushes cleaning the road as you drive. He then tries to engage me in conversation. I wasn't very assertive then and didn't want to seem rude, so I reluctantly chatted back, until he offered me a lift home in the street cleaning vehicle

I tried to turn him down politely but he was very persistent, eventually saying he would turn his vehicle around by going round the block then pick me up. I could see my bus coming to I agreed, then leapt onto the bus whilst he was turning round.

The bus took quite a few turns as I lived in a quieter residential area. Ten minutes into the journey I look out the back window of the bus and see the street cleaning vehicle behind us! There is no way that was his route to clean.

The bus was obviously faster, but whenever we stopped at a bus stop he caught up. We took three more turns and each time he followed. .

I was getting really worried as I didn't want him to know where I lived and I had to walk down a dark alley to my house. But if I stayed on the bus after my stop, we were heading to an area of outer London I was unfamiliar with. Fortunately the bus didn't stop at the stop before mine, so we pulled ahead and I got off at my stop and raced inside.

And I learnt that it's OK to be rude to random men hassling you in the street!

Everyday the same man would call to complain about the hold music......

We had one of those. Would call every morning to tell us her boiler had broken and ask for an appointment. Turned out she as we said we got an engineer to a property the same day in 96% of cases she wasnt calling to check that was accurate. New staff would always try and book her an appointment then be bemused when she just hung up on them. Those that been there while would not even bother just tell her we were coming out that day.

She would also give us updates on how we were tracking and wether we were above or below the 96%.

@TheInvestigator sun got to you today or are you just miserable in general. 🙄🙄
Maybe shagging on a public road was slightly more worrying should said child have been walking down there.
He was an excitable dog with crap recall.

@Ratbagcatbag
Which is exactly why you keep him on his lead and within sight. You don't give an unruly dog enough rope to hang himself.

What a lovely thread, so good to have a laugh on MN.

My mother did some unbelievable things.

We were in a clothes shop, & I fancied this expensive jumper. Mum checked the shop floor, it was the only one in that size & colour, so she rubbed a chocolate bar on it & persuaded the Manager that we would "take it off his hands" as it was shop-soiled for half-price ! We did.

She was once given a Euro coin in change instead of £1. Her bank refused to exchange it of course, so she went into a travel agent. I should add she'd become one of those old girls who say "I'm 83, you know". They took pity on her, & swapped it. Lovely, kind people. She then told everyone she knew & was surprised when they were all turned away.

Not as good as most of these but one horrendous Christmas, we were struck down with Norovirus. Out of 11 of us, 9 were ill and it obviously ruined all plans.

Called Dear Aunt from ooop north to explain, who spent 30 minutes trying to persuade me to let her still come as she had been looking forward to seeing us. I nearly let her until I came to my senses! It still baffles me when I remember it. On many levels!

I once did a temp job for a building society HQ. We used to authorise requests for cashing in various investments. I got a letter requesting such a liquidation which had a signature which looked nothing like the account holder's on file so I wrote to notify her of this. I then got a telephone call from the husband who told me that his wife had had a stroke and could no longer sign so he had signed her name. I told him that we would need this in writing and that we could not pay it straight into an account as usual but would send a cheque in her name to her address on file to ensure that this was above board which was our policy. I duly got another form with his signature so authorised the cheque. Two weeks later I was questioned by the complaints department as he had complained that I had sent a cheque instead of the bank transfer that he had requested. It wasn't upheld.

When I was at uni I worked for the local council a couple of days a week and on a Saturday. They'd just launched their 'customer contact centre' where you could ring up and complain that your bin hadn't been emptied, pay your council tax, report your noisy neighbours and buy tickets for the local theatre all at the same time.

They put a big banner up when the concert hall and theatre ticket bookings could be done. Just advertising it.

One Saturday a guy phones and tells me he wants to book tickets for a big band. I'd been on holiday so I was really surprised to hear they were playing, but duly went into the system and couldn't find them anywhere. Asked the guy the date as the system could be shit and he said it was December 1st. At that point I asked where they were playing as the theatre runs a panto every year in December (which we all hated as you'd have schools ringing to book 180 tickets a time and the system was so shit you had to click on each seat to select them and then hope noone else sold one whilst you were filling it in) and he said the name of a big arena about 10 miles away.

He threatened to sue for false advertising when I told him we only did tickets for the council owned venues. So many people made the mistake that two of the lads ended up stealing the banner on their way home from a night out as it was a pain in the backside.

My neighbour drove her car through the side of my house because she felt like it. What made it worse was that the insurance company did such a bad job at the repair, it was condemned and we had to move to a hotel while the repair was being re repaired.

I used to work in a school office and we were having big problems with parents not paying for school dinners but expecting their child to still be given hot meals.
So the head put in place the ‘if you don’t pay for a school dinner before 12pm that day your child will be given a sandwich’ rule.
It became my job to buy (with my own money, but it was better than me paying for their school dinners with my own money which the head expected!!!) and make these sandwiches.
One day I received a call from a parent who, apoplectic with rage, shouted at me repeatedly that her son had only had a cheese sandwich for lunch and that wasn’t enough for a growing boy. How could I do that and live with myself?
When I could get a word in I replied with ‘If you’d given your child dinner money or a packed lunch he wouldn’t have had to have just a cheese sandwich for lunch.’
Funnily enough I never had to make that child another sandwich.

I used to work somewhere that a customer refused to have her invoices emailed because she said I'm not using my paper to print a invoice . The thing was she happily excepted it faxing to her .
Another time I worked for a paint company, someone bought paint 10 minutes later he came back to complain the paint had gone everywhere in his car ( not sealed properly according to him) .
Anyway I had no idea what to do so tried to get a manager / customer services but no one wanted to know . I was in finance and had just answered the door. it was a very small paint company so just said wait for someone to see you and hid . It's very high end paint and the early days ( not sure now ) but customer service was shit and would let anyone from me to the cleaner to deal with anyone regarding paint problems.

A man called me querying his water bill and asking specifically what the sewerage charge was for. I explained it was for taking waste away from the home when he flushes his toilet. He asked for me to remove this charge from his account as he would be shitting in a carrier bag and burying it in his garden from now on
Ironic I'm on the loo while laughing at this!

Mine- I used to work in Ravel. One day a man comes in, walks the length of the store and asks us at the till 'is this Radio Rentals?'
For those not old enough to know either shop, Ravel was a shoe shop. The walls either side were covered in shoes! Radio Rentals was the Brighthouse of its day .

sorryisntgoodenough I think £25 but it was more she wanted to prove to the doctor that you could see a chicken bone in a throat. I pointed out a neck has more bones than a melon so it wouldn't really be comparable.

British politics since 2016.

No-one could make that up.

@sundaylast that guy would prob have been a substance misuser. Classic side affect.

In the NHS - a patient irate I'd sent an appointment when, 'any fool can see it's my birthday the day after'.

Private hospital a patient refused to have his pacemaker fitted unless there was a single room. Another complained he was forced to share his twin room with a German!

At uni we had one of those awful group projects, one person left uni but handed over what she had done before quitting, and she had good reason. Another member of the group didn't pull her weight, couldn't make meetings etc so it ended up with two of us completing the project and getting a top grade.

The non weight pulling person then complained to the uni. A meeting was called with the group and our lecturer. We asked her what she wanted. She had an A grade because of our work, we were happy for her to have that grade. She said that wasn't fair so she was offered an opportunity to complete her own work, she complained about that.

None of us could work out what she wanted. I'm not sure she knew.

I once found a usb on the street. Took it home and looked at it (no regard for viruses!). It was full of letters written by a man calling himself 'the most prolific artist in the south west', that he'd been sending out to galleries to get them to show his work. One of them was a reply to a gallery's reply - he was angry that they had replied to him on toilet paper. Clearly although prolific, he was shit.
There were no jpegs of his work, sadly.

DH is a fireman, gets called to assist paramedics help a guy out of his car who has thrown his back out and can't move.

They get there and it's a brand new (can't remember the make, but DH said best part of £100k sports car). Anyway, this guy in his 60's is stuck on top of a woman mid shag.

They soon realise that the only way to get him out is to cut the roof off. Guy is pleading with them not to, it's his wife's car, she'll be devastated. One of them jokes that I bet she would just like to be freed from underneath him... it wasn't his wife he was shagging.

Like DH said, he got what he deserved really having to explain that one away.