Nightmare customers and general bat shittery - what are your stories?

[saywhatnow1]

I have my own business doing dog boarding in my home. It's really successful and I love it. I also used to feed cats when I started, but I stopped that several years ago. Another thread I've been reading today, reminded me about some of my batshit customers, and what it can be like to deal with the public. Would love to hear some stories from others. Here are a few from me to start :

Was looking after a tiny dog, who kept biting me. The customer insisted that the dog must NOT eat from a bowl, but must be hand fed, and wanted it to be fed chocolate buttons! Obviously chocolate is poisonous to dogs, but this dog had been eating them for over 10 years at this point, so was obviouly used to them. Every time I tried to feed the dog it bit me. And proper nasty bites. My hand swelled up so big I couldn't drive, and I had to get a tetanus booster. If you walked past the dog, it would lunge at you and sink it's teeth into your ankles. After about 5 days of this, I e-mailed the customer who was abroad, and they called me that night. When I explained what was happening, and asked whether the dog could perhaps get collected by someone it would be more comfortable with, they said "Oh no. Buddy has been biting everyone for years. It bites my kids and my grandkids. No one will have him, they all hate him. Just go and get him put down please" 😳

Another lady wanted to put her dog in for daycare when she was at work. She wanted to drop her dog off at 5am, and collect it at 11pm! I explained that our opening hours were 7am-7pm, but that she was welcome to board the dog when she had long days at work. She was unhappy with this, and tried over and over again with long rambling texts, to get me to accept the dog from 5am till 11pm, because she "didn't want to pay any extra for boarding". 😵

I have had LOADS of customers pushing me, to let them collect their dog after 7pm. Sometimes wanting to stop by as late as midnight. No! I am not sitting here in my day clothes until that time. I want to get my jammies on at 7pm and have some semblance of a normal life.

I was feeding a lady's cat, and often it wouldn't come back for days on end. She kept texting me at 10pm, asking me to do a free second visit, to see if the cat was home. No! I was in my jammies and enjoying some wine. No, I'm not going back!

Oh, and there was the lady who said she'd be back at 5pm to collect her dog. 5pm came and went. I really needed to go out at 530pm to drop my car in for repairs. Tried calling her. Her phone was off. She didn't come back till 8pm!

Also had a lady come along with a beagle called Lucifer. She explained that he can't be left alone AT ALL. At the last boarder he was at, the boarder had gone out for 15 minutes to get milk from the shop, and when he got back his front door had been half eaten. Then she expected me to say, no problem, when would you like him to stay (what happens when you sleep, or maybe I wasn't meant to sleep?!"

Oh, and the last minute texts before a stay is about to start, with it casually thrown in that the dog isn't house trained. What? And you're telling me this the day before the stay? Well, he can't come then. Now what are you going to do?

These are probably quite minor compared to some examples others have!!

Not everyone has spare cash in their bank account, it might have been the day she was paid.

I don’t think the mum had no money as she spent about £30 on stuff. One of them was a birthday present for OH which was after the kids go back to school

Obviously doesn’t think about priorities

@Auburngal
Anyway anyone who drinks beer should have beer or other alcoholic drinks at home at all times.I always have alcohol at home

you can't be serious? some people only drink on certain occasions.

Back in the day the customer wasn’t always right. Apparently that is one thing Tim Martin gets right now .Wetherspoons staff do not have to be polite to rude customers. I did ask one of their staff members and he said that company policy was that if people were rude to staff they would not be tolerated. And yes I know there’s lots of anti Wetherspoon feeling.

I'm very lucky that the company I work for takes the same view. We don't have to put up with any abuse. If people are abusive we are entitled to just put the phone down. Our MD always reminds us we're not there to be screamed at. And my direct manager always has our backs. Much much nicer than my previous job where there was no such policy.

More companies need to back their staff up and protect them better.

Today I was outside a large Asda store (closes at 5pm) , the number of people who wanted in at 1 minute to 5 I only want to buy one thing or even a few minutes after 5 , still only wanting to buy one thing

Answer was "No" .
Is it such a surprise to people that on a Sunday the shops close and maybe people want to go home most shops close at 4pm , Adsa is later )

I used to work at my store til closing time 9pm. It was dead last hour-1.5 hours. Then 2 mins before we closed, the same people used to come in from the council flats back of the store to buy cigs

I see where you're coming from - and it's part of the reason people are so combative because if they wear you down enough, you'll give in, because people are well, humans, and being in a weaker position as the service giver, you are on the backfoot to start with, enough hostility and you'll give in because it's become the best course of action, not because they're right - but because you have to balance the fact that you're there for everyone and your time is being taken up by them while no one else is getting anything, which in a case like that could be life threatening, and in other situations means while you're dealing with the gobshite, other people are getting nothing - and getting frustrated, and you're probably going to be on the recieving end of that, because of someone else's shitty behaviour.

It was probably the lesser of two evils to give in to your ex, because if it continued to escalate then an arrest may have been likely, taking that officer away from what they were actually there to do, have to have more officers attend - reducing numbers out responding to other incidents, deal with the arrest and paperwork afterwards - the knock on effects, I don't suppose they gave in 'so' easily but rather weighed the situation and decided that it was better for everyone if the ambulance could be moved and therefore your ex out of the situation so everyone else could get on with what they were there to do in the first place.

It really does take a special kind of selfish entitlement to behave like that, make a nuisance of yourself to get your own way, knowing if you go on long enough, they may well back down because you're getting in the way of what they need to do, what they're there to do.

I've had a few incidents like that where people have commandeered my attention, doing so because they know that they're inconveniencing other people who are likely to have a go themselves because of their wait, and I'm more likely to give in. Unfortunately for some recent ones my peri menopausal stubbornness has seen me cut them off mid flow and refuse point blank to engage with them any further and they've got nothing - where had they been calm and reasonable, I'd have solved the situation quickly - bending over backwards to do what I could to solve it, as it was they got nothing.

‘Karen’ is a misogynistic insult.

There's a whole thread on this. If you don't like the opinion, criticise the opinion. Don't tar an entire cohort of women of a certain age with the same views. It's just an extension of the boomer/Gen Z nonsense, but more personal because there are a lot of women called Karen (probably not anymore).

I tend to find men of a certain age are the most likely to moan in shops, followed by yummy mummies in their 30s. Neither of whom fit in the "Karen" demographic of Gen X women anyway!

So if you are going to insult people, at least use the right insult.

Wow. I’m exhausted after reading that 😀

I think anyone who has had a job that involves a publicly accessible toilet soon realises that men do not have a monopoly on disgusting behaviour in bathrooms.

I worked in a restaurant and two elderly ladies ordered a pot of tea. I filled the pot, brought it to them immediately (it wasn't sitting around waiting). I put the pot down in front of them, one lady opened the pot and as the steam billowed out she said "it's not hot enough". I told my manager who said 1 in 10 customers are just looking to complain, make them another pot. In a resigned way, not blaming me.

A friend worked at a deli counter and a customer came back in and threw a roll at her head because it didn't have enough/had too much Mayo. At her head!!!

I’ve just finished my nightshift (7am) and went to the supermarket to get a few things. Car park normally empty at this time of the morning as supermarket just opened,only a couple of working men buying their grub for the day (who both parked in drop off&pick up bay)

Parked at parent&child space(unforgivable crime) as close to the entrance and started my shopping only to be met with very agitated supermarket worker demanding me to stop my shopping and go and move my car NOW.

I refused. Tired after 12hours,just wanted to grab a few bits and go home. The woman was an absolute menace to me. I didn’t want to argue with her and waste my time but I asked her “how many parents with children did she see shopping at 7am”(there were none) and how many p&c parking bays were occupied (just 1 that I used). Was she going to tackle 2 other guys who parked in wrong place?No.
She was following me right to the checkout talking at me how wrong I was and actually managed to upset me.

I complained about her. Not only she was agitated,she was very argumentative and started being verbally aggresive.She refused to give her name but I gave very accurate description in my complaint.

I’ve never seen again.

For the record- if I go to the supermarket later in a day I never park in p&c spaces.

Sorry, in this instance, I think you are in the wrong. We all have various reasons for "needing" to be closer, quicker, etc. But they're the rules.

"Thems the rules" and "computer says no" instead of using your own judgement and morality are how corrupt dictatorships gain so much movement (or how people end up stranded on tide banks because they follow their sat nav).

In 18 years of driving I have parked once in a disabled space. It was 9.35pm, torrential rain and the supermarket closed at 10pm. The car park design means there are about 10 disabled spaces near the shop and then all the other parking space are over the road, so not just a quick dash. All ten spaces were empty. I would do exactly the same in those circumstances because the chance of 9 other people needing those spaces at that time for the 3 minutes I was dashing in was so unlikely I judged that my actions wouldn't inconvenience others and therefore there would be absolutely no detriment to anyone if I broke "the rules."

However if I'd turned up and 9 or even 8 of those spaces were already full, I wouldn't have risked it, because the chances of someone needing it, while still low, would have been high enough for me to follow "the rules."

It's like the winding queue markers in an airport. If the airport is busy you obviously have to join the queue at the back and wait your turn, because its fair. Even if you're in a rush or have small kids or whatever reason.
BUT
If the airport is deserted nobody winds their way back and forth through the whole empty queue for five minutes, you just walk straight to the front.

Tbf working in a bingo hall doesn't sound bad to me. I've had a laugh in similar jobs while at Uni. I'm hoping to get a part time job (at then 60) as an extra to my private pension/inheritance, when I'm not needed for childcare. I fancy B&Q etc, but I know if I see people from my past better paid jobs they'll probably think like you. Life doesn't suck just because you aren't earning over a certain amount.

I always wanted to have a crack at reading out the numbers but do it deliberately wrong.

"Two little ducks...........41"

"Unlucky for some.........12"

"Legs fourteen"

Childish I know.

Fancy naming them, so the rest of us can vote with our feet?
I hate companies who won't back up their staff in the face of assault and crappy behaviour from punters. Their directors should spend six months on the shop floor and see what it's like...

I get that, and I'm not by nature a rule follower, neither do I have little kids and need a P&C parking space. It's just that particular post kind of reads like the sort of customer we are all complaining about!

I am enjoying this mental image - thank you 😁

The thing is, as much as I agree at that point there was no 'harm' for want of a better word in the OP using that space, and wanting people to use their own judgement and mortality, and dare I say it, common sense 🤣, and turn a blind eye or go against a policy to make someone else's life a bit easier, you can and do come a cropper because of other people complaining that the policy has been allowed to be breached.
It wouldn't be beyond imagination for someone else, who maybe did have a child with them (but not limited to that), and yes could have parked in any of the other free spaces to kick up a fuss and demand the policy is adhered to - simply because they are aggrieved and want someone to offload that to and see an easy target in 'the staff'.
We all want the policies to be bent, for people to use their common sense and judgement, until them doing so negatively affects us - then it's all about staff should be making sure the policies are adhered to. You can't win in some situations because whatever you do, someone is going to be unhappy about it.

I agree, the post isn’t about her working in a bingo hall, rather that she said my husband would amount to nothing, but she is living her own definition of nothing (NOT MY DEFINITION OF NOTHING!!!!)

I loved working my part time jobs during college and uni, and I’m from a part of the country where we don’t have great opportunities to do much more than retail jobs etc, and I have no issue whatsoever with that being what she does. It is just the idea that she was telling him he was going to work in retail all his life, no family, no career, and this is actually her life not his.

I think that the point has been missed in some replies I’ve got (not yours) is that she behaved like an arse, and he proved her wrong