The Customer Is Not Always Right: Hilarious and Horrific Tales of Customers Gone Wrong (21 page)
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Authors: A.J. Adams
G
AS
S
TATION
| M
ELBOURNE
, A
USTRALIA
(It’s late at night and a solitary customer pulls up outside and fills her car at the pump. She calmly opens the station’s door and comes inside to pay at the booth, but realizes she left her wallet in the car.)
C
USTOMER
: “OH MY GOD! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! MY WALLET IS IN THE CAR, UNLOCK THIS DOOR!”
M
E
: “It is unlocked.”
C
USTOMER
: “But it says you’re closed!”
M
E
: “What does the other side of the sign say?”
C
USTOMER
: *looks at me like I’m stupid* “Open, but it says you’re closed!”
M
E
: “Why does it say ‘Open’ on the other side of the sign?”
C
USTOMER
: “Look, you …”*pauses, then blushes bright red* “… oh.”
M
E
: “You need some chocolate.”
C
USTOMER
: *smiles* “Yes, I do.”
C
ASHIER
| D
UBLIN
, I
RELAND
C
USTOMER
: “Here listen! I see you are selling that new flavor of microwave noodles.”
M
E
: “Yeah, we are. Do you like them?”
C
USTOMER
: “No! NO, I don’t. Have you not heard the news?”
M
E
: “What news?”
C
USTOMER
: “They are saying on the news that there are chemicals in that new flavor that cause cancer.”
M
E
: “Oh, really? I hadn’t heard that.”
C
USTOMER
: “You should tell your boss to get them taken off the shelves!”
M
E
: “Okay, I’ll let him know. Was there anything else?”
C
USTOMER
: “Yeah, I’ll have a pack of twenty cigarettes …”
D
RUG
S
TORE
| O
RLANDO
, F
LORIDA
(I am helping a regular customer who had wandered in, as he does daily, from the nursing home across the street.)
O
LD MAN
: “You’re working again?”
M
E
: “Yes, every day.”
O
LD MAN
: “You know what? Every time I see you, there’s a big smile on your face.”
M
E
: “What can I say, I love my job.”
O
LD MAN
: “Yes, you have a wonderful smile. You’ll make a good-looking corpse.”
(He got a wide berth after that.)
V
IDEO
R
ENTAL
| P
ENNSYLVANIA
C
USTOMER
: “What movie just came out on video that’s like
Lord of the Rings?”
M
E
: “I’m not sure. We haven’t gotten any big titles this week and definitely nothing that’s like
Lord of the Rings …”
.
C
USTOMER
: “Well, I saw a commercial that said, ‘Now available at your local *** Video’… and this is my local *** Video.”
M
E
: “Hmmm, let me check with another manager.”
(I call up to the office.)
M
E
(
TO MANAGER
): “What came out this week besides
Jeepers Creepers?”
C
USTOMER
:
“JEEPERS CREEPERS!
That’s it!”
M
E
: “We have that, but it’s nothing like
Lord of the Rings.”
C
USTOMER
: “Yeah, it has monsters in it, it’s like
Lord of the Rings.”
*customer walks away*
A
NOTHER EMPLOYEE
: “You should tell him to rent
The English Patient
too. It has talking in it, so it’s like
Lord of the Rings.”
E
LECTRONICS
S
TORE
| T
EXAS
C
USTOMER
: “Hi, my son says that I have Spartans on my laptop and I should bring it to you guys.”
M
E
: “… Ma’am? Spartans?”
C
USTOMER
: “Yes, I called my son at school and told him that screens keep popping up all the time, and he said that I have Spartans.”
M
E
: “Oh! You mean Trojans! That’s a possibility; let me run this analyzer on your laptop real quick and we’ll see what’s going on.”
C
USTOMER
: “Young man, my son is in college and he says it has Spartans. You just stand here in a little uniform and make minimum wage. I think my son knows what he is talking about.”
M
E
: “You’re right, ma’am. I was hoping to run a diagnostic and find out that it wasn’t Spartans, but just by looking at the log-in screen, I can tell that you probably have about three hundred of the little guys running around.”
C
USTOMER
: “Three hundred?! Is that bad?”
M
E
: “It’s horrible. They cram themselves into a bottleneck and kill wave after wave of data, until there is a wall of dead programs blocking any more traffic through your computer.”
C
USTOMER
: “Oh, that just figures. I’m going to go buy a new computer.”
M
E
: “Okay, ma’am, I think that would be best.”
H
OTEL
| T
HUNDER
B
AY
, O
NTARIO
M
E
: “Thank you for calling [hotel]. How may I help you?”
C
ALLER
: “Yeah, I want to complain about these towels of yours. They’re really rough and scratchy.”
M
E
: “I’m sorry about that, sir … wait a second, are you calling from outside the hotel?”
(I double-check the incoming call info and see that it’s coming in on our toll-free line.)
C
ALLER
: “Yeah, I’m at home.”
M
E
: “And you’re calling to complain about towels you took from the hotel?”
C
ALLER
: “Yeah, they’re terrible. They’re not very soft.”
M
E
: “Well, I certainly apologize for that, sir. If you’ll give me your name and address, I’ll have housekeeping send you some new ones.”
(Surprisingly, he actually gave me his info; not surprisingly, he called a couple weeks later to complain about the bill we sent him for the towels.)
M
OVIE
T
HEATER
| B
UFFALO
, N
EW
Y
ORK
C
USTOMER
: “Does the small or medium popcorn come with butter?”
C
OWORKER
: “We can put butter on any size.”
C
USTOMER
: “Okay, I’ll have a medium.”
M
E
: “With butter?”
C
USTOMER
: “Yeah, and make it extra, extra butter … I don’t have any future plans.”
F
AST
F
OOD
| T
RENTON
, O
NTARIO
(I work at a fast food restaurant and am taking money. My coworker is taking drive-through orders right beside me.)
C
OWORKER
: “Hi there, welcome to ***. What can I get for you today?”
C
USTOMER
: “Give me one ranch wrap. That’s all.”
C
OWORKER
: “Would you like your wrap crispy or grilled?”
C
USTOMER
: “No, I want it ranch.”
C
OWORKER
: “Yes, but would you like the chicken crispy or grilled?”
C
USTOMER
: “RANCH!”
C
OWORKER
: “CRISPY OR GRILLED?”
C
USTOMER
: “LISTEN TO ME, YOU LITTLE—oh, um, crispy…”
E
LECTRONICS
S
TORE
| M
OBILE
, A
LABAMA
(It’s the Christmas season and one of our products is a learning computer for children.)
C
USTOMER
: “Excuse me, how does this work?”
M
E
: “It’s kind of like a little laptop. It’s designed to help kids learn.”
(The customer turns it on and randomly chooses “past-tense verbs.”)
C
OMPUTER
: “What is the past tense of blow?_____”
C
USTOMER
: *enters B-L-O-W-E-D*
M
E
: “Um, no, ma’am. It’s ‘blew.’”
C
USTOMER
: *enters B-L-U-E*
M
E
: “Um, actually, it’s B-L-E—”
C
USTOMER
: “This is too hard!”
(Embarrassed, the customer hands me the computer and hurriedly leaves the store.)
V
IDEO
R
ENTAL
| L
ANSING
, M
ICHIGAN
C
USTOMER
: “I want a free rental on my account for this movie!”
M
E
: “Was the movie damaged? Did it skip or something?”
C
USTOMER
: “No, it sucked. I don’t want to pay for a bad movie.”
M
E
: “I’m sorry, ma’am. But we don’t give free rentals on account of bad movies.”
C
USTOMER
: “But you people should have told me it was bad!”
M
E
: “Well, I’m sorry. But we don’t get to see all the movies we have here.”
C
USTOMER
: “I don’t care. This doesn’t change the fact I want a free movie!”
M
E
: “Like I said before, we don’t give free rentals based on bad movies …” *looks at movie* “… or bad taste.”
C
USTOMER
: “Huh? What do you mean?”
M
E
: “You rented
Ninja Cheerleaders.
This would be like me going to a restaurant, ordering a rat on a stick, eating it, and then asking to get the meal free.”
C
ALL
C
ENTER
| U
NITED
S
TATES
(I’m helping a customer who is having issues with his software. It becomes clear that he’ll need to reinstall it.)
M
E
: “Sir, just reinstall the software and that should fix the issue.”
C
USTOMER
: “I don’t have this disk anymore. I need you to send me a new one.”
M
E
: “Okay, there will be a $10 fee associated with that.”