The Customer Is Not Always Right: Hilarious and Horrific Tales of Customers Gone Wrong (16 page)
Read The Customer Is Not Always Right: Hilarious and Horrific Tales of Customers Gone Wrong Online
Authors: A.J. Adams
M
OTHER:
“She’s probably right, dear. Just look at him!”
M
E:
“You should be glad I’ll get fired if I say what I’m feeling.”
(Hearing the commotion, my boss walks up.)
Boss: “Is there a problem here?”
M
OTHER:
“Your waiter is quite unsanitary. I demand you make us a new pizza and have someone else bring it to the table.”
Boss: “Sorry, ma’am, but it’s dinnertime. Everyone else is busy. Besides, he’s just ugly! Ain’t nothing wrong with him.”
M
E:
“Yeah, I told her the Hot Stud Pizza Brigade was off today.”
B
OSS
: *laughs* “Oh yeah, they work on Thursday and Saturday.”
M
OTHER:
“Then we’ll be back Thursday!”
F
ATHER:
“Do we have to leave?”
M
OTHER:
“Let’s go, now!”
M
E:
“Bye!”
L
ITTLE GIRL:
“Fire the piggy!”
(The family walks out the door, and the boss hands me five bucks.)
B
OSS
: “The tip you missed. Anyway, back to work, piggy.” *laughs*
J
EWELRY
S
TORE |
P
UERTO
R
ICO
(I have a bag of large crystal beads salvaged from a chandelier. The beads are the size of my palm and very heavy. As I put them away in one of my bead boxes, a teenage girl walks up to my booth at a craft fair.)
G
IRL:
“Hi! I love your stuff! Do you do custom orders?”
M
E:
“Yes, I do! Here, look through some of these bead boxes and tell me what you like.”
G
IRL:
“Okay!”
(She looks though some boxes and gasps as she discovers the large crystal beads.)
G
IRL:
“I LOVE THESE! Can you make a pair of earrings with these?!”
M
E:
“Oh! Ha ha, those beads are for a lamp I’m making. They’re too heavy to use as earrings. May I interest you in a much smaller and lighter version of those beads?”
G
IRL:
“NO! I want these! They’re so pretty and … bling-bling!”
M
E:
“Your piercings would sag if you wore those. Let me—”
G
IRL:
“NO! I’M THE CUSTOMER AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT!”
M
E:
*sighing* “Fine. Come back in a few minutes, and I’ll have them done. It’ll be $12.”
(The girl looks at some other booths while I make her earrings. She returns, asks for her earrings, and pays for them.)
G
IRL:
*putting on earrings “I LOVE THEM! Thank you so much!”
M
E:
“Okay. Thank you, and remember what I said about the beads.”
G
IRL:
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. The beads are like crazy light!”
(The girl leaves, looking ridiculous with the earrings, but then returns about half an hour later.)
G
IRL:
“MY EARS ARE KILLING ME!”
M
E:
“I told you the beads were too heavy, but you still wanted them!”
G
IRL:
“IT’S NOT THE BEADS! IT’S THE WIRE! I must be allergic to it.”
M
E:
“There’s no need to yell. I use hypoallergenic materials in all my pieces. There’s no way you can be allergic to it. It’s because the beads are too heavy. I can give you a refund, but you have to give me the earrings back.”
G
IRL:
“NO! IT MUST BE THE GLASS THEN! I’M ALLERGIC TO THE GLASS! WHAT KIND OF GLASS IS THIS?!”
M
E:
“… Allergic to glass? Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘with beauty comes pain’? Well, this explains it.”
G
IRL:
“Oh! I get it now! Wow, if it hurts this much I must look A-MA-ZING!”*skips off*
L
IQUOR
S
TORE |
H
ONOLULU,
H
AWAII
(Standing in line behind a tourist, while she is getting rung up.)
C
ASHIER:
“Aloha, how are you today?”
T
OURIST:
“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. Could you talk in English, please?”
C
ASHIER:
“Hello, how are you today?”
T
OURIST:
“Fine, we just flew here from America today.”
(The cashier rings up the tourist’s few items.)
C
ASHIER:
“That will be $25.85.”
T
OURIST:
“Do you take American money here? I only have American money. I have not been able to get to the currency exchange yet.”
C
ASHIER:
“Ma’am, we are in the United States. We take dollars here.”
T
OURIST:
“Oh really? You take this money?” *holds up her $20 bill*
C
ASHIER:
“Yes, ma’am, those are dollars, and being a U. S. state we do accept those.”
T
OURIST:
“Well, that’s very nice of you to accept foreign money.”
C
ASHIER:
*puzzled* “Mahalo, have a great day!”
T
OURIST:
*under her breath* “I told her I didn’t speak Spanish!”
T
RAVEL
C
OMPANY |
H
OME
C
OUNTIES,
U
NITED
K
INGDOM
M
E:
“Good morning, [travel company]. How can I help?”
C
USTOMER:
“I’ve a complaint about your park.”
M
E:
“Okay, what’s the area of concern?”
C
USTOMER:
“Ducks! There weren’t enough ducks!”
M
E:
“I’m sorry, did you say ‘ducks’?”
C
USTOMER:
“Yes, your images in your brochure show lots of images of ducks. That’s the only reason we booked and there were hardly any there when we arrived.”
M
E:
“I’m incredibly sorry but the ducks are wild. They don’t live on the park full time.”
C
USTOMER:
“This is false advertising. Can you not trim their wings or something?”
M
E:
“Erm … then they’d be, and pardon the pun, sitting ducks for foxes.”
C
USTOMER:
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Okay, bye!”
R
ETAIL |
C
INCINNATI,
O
HIO
(My coworker and I are standing at the cash register when a customer comes up. There are two doors just beyond the register that can be entered or exited through.)
C
USTOMER:
“Where do you go if you don’t want to buy anything?”
C
OWORKER:
“Um … to your car.”
C
USTOMER:
“No, if you don’t buy anything. Where do you go?”
M
E:
“Home, presumably.”
C
USTOMER:
“No, I mean where are you supposed to go if—”
(Suddenly he notices people exiting out the door.)
C
USTOMER:
“Oh wait, I see. Never mind!” *leaves through the magic customer portal*
R
ETAIL |
O
RANGE,
C
ALIFORNIA
K
ID:
“Mommy, I want this candy!”
M
OM:
“No, you can’t have the candy. Put it back.”
K
ID:
“I WANT THIS CANDY!”
M
OM:
“You can’t have it!”
K
ID:
“I WANT THIS CANDY!”
(At this point, the mom takes the candy from the kid and hands it to me.)
M
OM:
*points at me* “The bad man took the candy! You can’t have it because the bad man took it!”
K
ID:
*in tears* “Why did you take the candy?!”
M
E:
*speechless*
G
ROCERY
S
TORE |
P
ITTSBURGH,
C
ALIFORNIA
(I’m a customer standing in a checkout line on a busy afternoon, with several people behind me. An elderly lady approaches.)
E
LDERLY CUSTOMER:
“H
OW
many items do you have?”
M
E:
“About twenty.”
(The elderly customer goes up the line and asks the three people in front of me the same thing and apparently does some math. She repeats this in three other lines. After that, she comes and stands behind me.)
C
USTOMER BEHIND ME:
“Um, ma’am? You need to go to the back of the line.”
E
LDERLY CUSTOMER:
“You can’t just walk up and push an old woman around!”
C
USTOMER:
“We’ve been here for a while now, ma’am.”
E
LDERLY CUSTOMER:
“Hrmph. You kids these days … tricking an old woman to jump in front of her in line. Fine, I’ll just go to another line!”*walks to the next line and starts her scam all over again*
T
ECH
S
UPPORT |
D
ALLAS,
T
EXAS
M
E:
“Thank you for calling ******, how can I help you?”
C
USTOMER:
“I am in the back office and someone told me that we were supposed to be able to use wireless keyboards, so I cut the cable.”
M
E:
“You … cut the cable?”
C
USTOMER:
“Yes, and now it doesn’t work.”
M
E:
“You cut the cable on your keyboard, and now it doesn’t work?”
C
USTOMER:
“Yes.”
M
E:
“You’re going to have to buy a new keyboard.”
C
USTOMER:
“Why? I was told we could use wireless keyboards.”