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!!

A work one - I use to work for a supplier of M&S. One day we had a pair of curtains returned with a giant hole cutout where they’d made themselves a cushion cover.
M&S accepted the return.

@RedFolder 😂😂😂😂 laughing so much.

Ex GP receptionist here.

If I tell you we havent got any appointments) left - we havent got any appointments left. I'm not just telling you that for fun because I really want you to have a go at me at 8.20am. Its pointless ranting and raving at me as I cant magic something up. Telling me well you have chest pains so you need to see a doctor is just going to make me tell you to ring 999. Telling me they arent "those" sort of chest pains isnt going to change my mind!

If you tell me that if you die it will be my fault (a daily comment) I am hardened to it and am not going to be sympathetic. I am secretly thinking well if you die you wont need an appointment then will you!

Very very tame compared to pps but years ago I had a lady trying to return a corset to our underwear dept. We didn't sell them which was just as well because it was ancient, filthy, and it had a big rip in it that was held together by a plaster.

Oh - and as an ex GP receptionist, if you tell me the strategic comment of "I might not be here then" when I offer you an appointment for next week - l am not stupid. I know you are trying to be sarcastic in the fact that you might be dead by then.

But you are leaving yourself wide open "I can offer you an appointment in 10 days time". Patient "I might not be here then". Me -"oh are you off on holiday. Are you going anywhere nice?"

I've heard it all. Sadly I am hardened to it. I cant help the fact that the NHS is on its knees - don't take it out on me doing my minimum wage job!

Work in a nursery. One bloody family always arrive in a couple or with a grandparent etc. When they are there they talk to the people in the office for ages then when they come for their kids they spend ages talking to every nursery nurse and kids then run around saying they won’t leave pulling out toys that are tidy ready for us to leave. No staff can leave until all kids have so we are often there 15 mins late while they rounds up their kids. A tantrum is common then staff have to help control them or cajole them out the building. Been there all day and just want to go home. Practically every fucking day.

I own a cat boarding establishment. I have many stories akin to OP!
Animal owners are crazy sometimes!!

You laugh, but a colleague was going mad that her sister slipped her dog a pig’s ear: the family is Jewish, she was fuming! Her sister is obviously not kosher, she is.

When I worked on the cafe in tesco a customer came in I was in the back and heard someone pick a tray up so walked out went to smile and he said why have you got a gap between your lips? I f*King hate mouth breathers learn to breathe through your f*ing nose you sg and threw the tray over the top of the counter at me and ran so I shouted something him like what a p**k and he went and complained that I'd called him that I can't even remember if it was that but it was something along those lines. Tesco gave him a £25 gift voucher as an apology and got me a written warning. Well tried to, I walked during the written warning meeting. People are mad.

I've been a dog groomer since leaving school.
Had some delights over the years, the most common being "don't make my doodle who is 50% poodle look like a poodle" or "I brush him with a pritstick every day, I don't know how he can be matted!"

Had a bloke explain that his dog had fallen out of his open van window en route to be groomed. But he was sure the dog would be fine because he was only doing 40 and the dog had alot of hair so was well protected from injury.
The poor bugger was limping badly so I refused to groom and insisted on a vet check. Turned out he'd broken a leg and had some other injuries and serious bruising under all that super protective hair!

Some people are just utterly batshit though.
I used to groom a lovely cockerpoo belonging to an estate agent. She was always a bit flakey and often late so I started sending reminder texts the day before and the morning of her appointment.

On this particular day she didn't show up despite the reminders so I rang to see if she was on her way. She was not but said she could be with me in 45 mins!
I told her that wouldn't work for me as I had other appointments. She hung up on me and I assumed that would be the end of it.

She turned up about 1.5hrs later and tried to hand me the lead so I could take the dog to be groomed. I politely refused and explained again the she had missed her slot and would need to rebook.
She lost it at that point. Screamed at me that I was a jumped up little cunt and that she had a viewing to do in 10 minutes and what was she supposed to do with the dog now?
My suggestion that she take him home resulted in her picking him up and literally shoving him over the counter at me (thankfully I managed to catch him before he fell off the other side) and telling me that I could fucking watch him for a bit. It was the least I could do since I was too lazy to groom her dog. She marched straight out the door to her car and wheelspan out of the carpark while I just stood there open-mouthed with her poor dog.
She came back for him about 5 hours later and wouldn't (couldn't?) look me in the eye. She didn't say a word and she never tried to book back in.
I saw her a few years later when I was house hunting. She obviously remembered me as she was very sheepish. They sent a different agent for all my viewings after that!

I volunteer in a charity shop, it never ceases to amaze me that people seem to think we a. Have an item in a different size, b. Have a very specific themed item and c. Think we should sell it to them for £1 then complain ... my funniest customers (who are lovely though) are the men, always men, who need a black suit, themed outfit or similar for that night and have me running all around trying to get the perfect 80's night outfit for the rugby club dinner 2 hours later!

I’m a part time photographer. I always explain to my clients both before and after they book that due to time constraints, it normally takes me about two or three weeks to edit their photos and send them over. I make it very clear. For those who don’t know, editing photos can be a very lengthy process.

One customer texted to ask if I had edited her photos before I had even made the half hour drive home from our location shoot.

Did you work at the same mothercare as me?

An old colleague at an upmarket supermarket was on the deli counter. Woman asked him for some ham. When he asked her how she would like her ham sliced, she replied "thick, like you"

He was the nicest guy and not thick in the slightest.

But they are not pushing for sustainability.

They are using it as a marketing tool and paying lip service to it.

Anyone who works in any customer facing role soon works out very early on that not only is the customer frequently not right they are often complete weapons grade cunts to boot.

When I was still at school, I had a job in a chain that sold curtains, duvets etc. One of my jobs was to cut net curtains by the yard. Each design would come in on a roll and each roll was a different length, because windows obviously come in different sizes and have different drops and widths.

On a weekly basis someone would come in insisting that their windows were standard size. Or they’d tell me that they lived in a particular road, like I’d been to all the roads in our town, taken measurements of the windows and would be able to recall them from memory. And they were genuinely shocked when told that there was no such thing as a standard sized window. Mate, you’ve just driven through roads with architecture ranging from the 15th century to new build estates to get to the town centre. How can you not have noticed that the windows weren’t all the same size?!

Or there was the giant of a man who didn’t know his window measurements but knew he could just about squeeze through it, so I’m 14 years old, standing on a step ladder, wrapping a tape measure around him, trying to get his window width, while he’s trying to keep his jacket pockets kept closed so I couldn’t see what was in them.

Or the woman who didn’t have a tape measure so had measured all of her windows by cutting lengths of string for the width and the drop. Which would have been fine if she’d separated each pair of strings instead of shoving them all in a plastic bag and expecting me to know which strings went together and which were drops/lengths.

Or the woman who told me she’d made a wooden frame for the inside of her window, she’d put chicken wire over it and she wanted a few yards of net because she was going to poke it through the chicken wire, rather than hang it from a wire or rail. Ok. Not my cup of tea, but each to their own. She could not understand that net curtains came in all different drops and that if I sold her a 24” drop (which was the one she wanted because it was the shortest and therefore the cheapest) it clearly wasn’t going to be big enough if her window was longer than a 12” drop. I remember her literally screaming at me that she didn’t want a drop and why was I being so stupid. Yeah, I’m not the one sticking chicken wire in my windows, but you crack on 🙄

too many cuntomers over the years , most recent was asking an abusive person to leave the premises, eventually they went and the couple who were standing watching approached and said " we have been waiting to be served for ages and you don't even have the decency to apologise to us"

A drunk man urinated on my bar, when I refused to serve him as he was already "well in drink" not served by my staff , just walked in shouting he wanted a Fosters.

Just thought of another, a lady wanted to return a leather jacket a day after buying it ( retail not pub this time) as it was faulty and sticky and marked, tried to tell her It wasn't like them when it was sold, and that I would need the manager, I hadn't finished my sentence when her daughter appeared at the tills kicking off.
At this point I realise that her charming daughter had a fight in the club last night (seen by quite a few of us staff + caught on video on a few people's phones) Like a proper fight hair pulling pints thrown out and out brawl rolling around on the floor the works .
She didn't get the refund :)

I've had similar, there's plenty of incidents recounted about first aid being given and people complaining that they had to wait to be served because the person serving was administering it. Staggering selfishness to expect someone to break off what could be lifesaving first aid so someone else can get served. I mean it might be nice if they offered to help but most people are of the attitude that "It's not my problem, I'm a paying customer" but being unable to cope with a wait while someone's life or health is at risk is just pathetic.

Some people are so single minded as customers and what they deserve, they can't behave like normal human beings. I'm not sure when people started to believe that customer service should override everything, health, safety, the law, decency and common sense 🤷🏼‍♀️ but it would seem that's the expectation.

I used to be a waitress and memorably had a panini thrown at me once because it was 5pm and not 4.30pm as the customer had thought it was and she was most upset I hadn't told her the time when I served her.

I received 2 crazy requests when I delivered milked years ago.

1st one I delivered milk to schools as an add on to my own customers, I'd told the dairy I couldn't do it anymore but they just kept leaving the milk in my fridge. I'd got to the stage I was starting work 12.30am just to get round. A schoolteacher came running at me shouting and balling that they needed the milk earlier and that I would just have to get up earlier despite it being delivered within the time stated on the contract. When I got back I told the dairy as I'd already quit and only delivered it out of concern for the kids I wasn't being abused through no fault of my own.

2nd one I delivered milk to a care home but was in hospital 50 miles away when I received a frantic phone call, they'd misordered the milk that morning and I need to rectify their mistake immediately. When she finally let me get a word in edgeways I explained there wasn't much I could do from hospital, as my relief driver had finished work and wasn't available to correct the mistake. It was long before online shopping but there was a nearby that sold milk.

Not technically customers but some of the batshittery you deal with from some parents when you work in a school is very much in the same vein! Parents who believe everything their child says despite plenty of evidence to the contrary and parents who expect us to attend private parties outside school to manage behaviour are particularly notable. And there is a special place in hell reserved for parents who complain about children with SEND without any justification.

I once worked in a garden centre and this couple bought loads of expensive baubles. There was over 200 of them and we did not have scanners so each had to inputted by hand. When I told her the total she went mad saying I was incompetent and didn’t know what was doing and it was obviously too much. My supervisor came over and had a discussion with the women still calling me names. The supervisor then put it all through the till again with this women watching her like a hawk. The supervisor asked if she was happy she had inputted everything correctly. The women said yes- it came to £3.50 more!!!! I had obviously missed a bauble
The women went blood red, paid very quickly and left. I may have been a bit smug.