A lot of the issues are that there will be a reason people are asking/offering something or wanting things done a certain way but either customer's don't want to hear the detailed reasons behind the policies, they just don't care or the employee doesn't want to get into a big discussion explaining it all so customer's think staff are being awkward/inflexible/rude for the sake of it.
I have worked in retail where head office insist every customer is greeted within 20 seconds of entering the store and you must make at least one approach to every customer to ask if they need help/offer advice. Staff hate it, store management hate it, customer's hate it but we get mystery shoppers multiple times a week and if we don't follow the script with every customer we fail (even if we greeted/approached the mystery shopper but they saw us not greet/approach another customer then it would be a fail) and that would lead to employees being disciplined and would affect the employees bonuses. We were on little more than NMW and the annual bonus could be up to about £500 so nobody wanted to risk losing their bonus which was over two weeks wages.
I returned an item to a shop; a gift from a friend that was the wrong size. The assistant checks the date on the receipt, starts processing the return and then says ‘You know today is the absolute last day you could have brought it back?’ I said yes, that’s why I’d come! He sort of laughed as if this was somehow cheeky, rather than me just returning something within the set period.
Or maybe he was trying to make conversation during the transaction but when you spoke to him it was clear in your tone that you would object to whatever was said so decoded to say nothing further - I work in retail customer services and after a while you just know from a customer's tone that they are going to find fault no matter what you say. I will always highlight to people if they are at/very close to the limit for returns (especially so if they have other items on the receipt) as many people don't always pay attention to return limits and get pissed off when they come back past the limit and you won't make an exception for them.
I don't usually open the conversation the way this person did but they were probably expecting the conversation to go:
"You know today is the absolute last day you could have brought this back?"
"Oh is it? I didn't realise"/"Yes, I checked to make sure I was still in the returns period."
"Yes, our policy is X days for returns, just for future reference, so its good luck you came today and not tomorrow ...anyway your refund due is £X"/"That's good, you'd be surprised how many people don't and then end up being a day or two out but you timed it perfectly ... anyway your refund due is £X"
In a restaurant I asked for the salt when they brought out the food. Waitress narrows her eyes, pauses and then says ‘Have you tried it?’ I said ‘Not yet - but when I do, I might want salt. Please can you bring the salt?’ I don’t want her opinion, just the bloody salt!
Whilst the waitress could have been more tactful and just brought the salt immediately we don't know the context. I have worked as a waitress in the past and it would be 7pm on a Friday night, the dining room would be full, we would be short staffed, three tables meals would all be ready at the same time and someone would be asking you to immediately bring something they "might" need.
I'd still get it but I'd be muttering under my breath the whole time as I was already busy and many people think "its just salt" but don't realise there are other tables waiting and/or that it's not like at home where you just walk in the kitchen and grab the salt from the cupboard - they may be out of the way or stored in an awkward place/there may not be spares just sitting at the server station so the waitress may have to go and make one up (all while others are waiting) just so you "might" use it.
Another restaurant. The waiter brings out the card machine; I move to take it so I can insert my card to pay. He pulls it away from me and says ‘You can use contactless’. I say ‘No, I can’t; I need to use the PIN’ and go to take the machine again. He pulls it back again and says ‘No, you can for that amount’. I say ‘Yes, for that amount - but not with this card’. He then finally lets me have the machine. If he’d just let me pay how I wanted it would have taken seconds.
Especially since covid a lot of places are asking that if you're using a card then you use contactless payments to reduce reduce amount of people handling the machines and/or amount of sanitising required for the machine. Also a lot of places don't like customer's handling card readers unless they have to in case they're dropped/broken/wrong buttons are pressed etc that can either damage the machines or make the transaction take longer. The staff have probably been told to encourage people to use contactless and only hand over the machine if absolutely necessary- ie if they have no contactless, it's over the contactless limit or contactless fails.
If you can't use contactless as opposed to being able to but choosing not to then it's not difficult to be explicitly clear as the number of cards which genuinely have no contactless functionality are in a tiny minority (I now work in a supermarket and I maybe get one card transaction every few months where they have to use the PIN due to no contactless)
"You can use contactless"
"This card doesn't have contactless, I have to use chip and PIN"
Local leisure centre - there’s a counter where you get a basket for your things and hand it to the cloakroom attendant. I take my bag over to put in a basket and the attendant tries to grab it before I can. ‘All bagged up?’, she says, then ‘Ooh no, one of your zips is open’. I say ‘I know, it’s broken. But it’ll be in the basket anyway.’ She says ‘Oh, you don’t need a basket; I’ll just put it on the side’. I say no, something might fall out; I’ll take a basket. She says ‘No, it’ll be fine on the side; nothing will fall out’. I say I’d still prefer a basket. She says ‘Can I ask what the issue is with me just putting the bag on the side?’ I say - pretty coldly by this point - ‘Please can you just give me a basket?’ She eventually does, muttering something about ‘It just makes more work for us’. There would have been zero extra work if she’d just let me hand her a basket like everyone else instead of picking an argument!
Genuinely don't understand why you insisted on a basket. It's a bag going in a shelf, why do you need a basket for it? If you had a gym bag, yoga mat and a raincoat that you wanted to keep together I could see why you would insist on a basket to make sure they stayed together and didn't get separated accidentally but for a single bag then it makes no difference whether it was in a basket or not.
I went to get my mobile phone screen fixed. When I return later to collect it, he asks ‘How long have you had the device?’ I say ‘Abour four months; why?’ He says, ‘And this is your first repair?’ None of your damn business! I’m not asking you to do it for free - you don’t need to know if I’ve dropped my phone once or do it on a weekly basis!
The repair guy may have been asking for many reasons but again, if you were snippy and brusque with him he may have decided it wasnt worth it.
It could have been idle curiosity; he wanted to advise how best to prevent further/repeated screen damage; market research - trying to find out if you'd used another repair service previously and why you changed to him; there may have been something unusual/not right he found inside the phone when he opened it up and was trying to find out if it could be another repair man's work to advise you to keep an eye on xyz; trying to find out if you had a warranty/insurance he could advise you to claim the cost back from etc etc.