20+ Workers who realized the customer was not always right: 'An unhappy customer? Oh no'

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    The customer is not always right, as these workers can attest to

    [deleted] Late to the party, but here I go: I worked in retail for about 4 years: Circuit City, some bulls "surf clothing" store, another bulls "surf clothing" store, and some other nonsense for a few months. What I hated more than anything else in retail, was
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    when management and/or corporate implemented a new policy that was aribitrary, bogus and pl ed off customers. What would happen is that you would enforce this new rule "Sorry, all sunglasses must be returned within 3 days for a full refund," and then the customer would flip out, "What the f ?! How am I supposed to know if they fit in only 3 days?!"
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    The manager would hear the commotion, "An unhappy customer? Oh no!" The manager would waive the arbitrary rule and talk to you as if you're vindictive to the customer. "Oh, come on! Give 'em a break!" the manager might say with a smile. Then comes the reassurance from the customer, "Thank you," they'd say to the manager.
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    So you looked like an a h_le for a policy that management asked you to enforce, and when sh hits the fan they decide not to enforce it. Good a h le. And that's why I job, walked out on my manager with no explanation other than "go f yourself" at the age of 19. I was an angry kid.
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    mangonel I strongly believe that the customer is always right. This means that if someone comes along who is wrong, then they are clearly not a customer, and can f off and stop wasting my time.
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    D... Noone will see this anyway so here goes. I was at Fry's electronics the return line because of some bad RAM (never buy RAM from fry's) and the lady in 2 positions in front of me got called up next. She seemed normal at first she was trying to return this vacuum cleaner because it wasn't sucking anymore...
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    the thing looked like it had been used outside to clean a construction site. There was caked on white patches of dirt all over it, the cord had several knots in it, and the clear container for dust was packed full, no room for shaking at all. The person told her the problem looked to be that she just needed to empty it and it would work fine, and also mentioned that they could not take a return on it because the
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    purchase was 7 months earlier. She wasn't having this, she took an exaggerated deep breath and started yelling obscenities and curses. Everyone in the line and working the section as well as a few people walking into the store froze and stared at the spectacle. This was no small woman either, this woman was
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    about 5'6"-5'7" and looked like a rather large globe of cellulite. I'm guessing 4- 500lbs Her voice had gone from sweet to rabid shrieking harpy instantaneously, no building no rising in volume, just straight screeching noise. It's like someone threw a mic in front of it's own speaker with the volume on 11.
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    Her face made a similar transformation from white to red. The poor little girl who was tending to her literally took a step back in recoil and fell into the chair behind her. Then started looking side to side for further routes of escape. The manager came sprinting. out of the office hands in front of him pumping palm open towards her asking her to settle down. This did not
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    work, it made Butterball the orca more angry and she started hitting the counter with one of the vacuum cleaners brush attachments. She was calling the girl a 'useless manager a ', the toad' and kept threatening to sue them. This went on for about 2 minutes with nothing managing to calm her down. There was a large crowd gathering now.
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    She proclaimed "FINE IF YOU DON'T WANNA GIVE ME MY GOD DAMNED MONEY..." raised the long brush attachment up as if she were gonna strike the girl "IM GONNA.." I'd had it, I wasn't about to watch this woman get violent I yelled "HEY! She stopped mid sentence jerked her head at me and shot eye daggers in my face,
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    all I could do was stare at the gobbler on her chin follow her jerky head movement and keep swinging around as if it were jello. The words that came out were not the ones I'd intended "PUT THE FORK DOWN!" her eyes went wider than they already were, eyes bulged, which seemed an odd reaction to what I thought I'd said in my
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    mind. The whole area burst into laughter, then I realized what I'd said. I was about to correct myself, but she started stomping towards me vacuum rod attachment high over head. So I decided to roll with it. I happened to be wearing a red jacket so I dropped my bag, swung it off and started acting like a Bull fighting matador. The woman saw me
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    mocking her and just shrieked... she started galloping at me at me swinging the thing in circles above her head. She never even made it close, | was running like h I. I got about 20 feet away when security confronted her with tazers drawn. They didn't taze her but the sound of one calling the cops on her for attempted assault calmed her down
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    instantly. She immediately went into defensive mode. She ended up getting arrested and I had my hand shook by 4 or 5 people including the manager, I even got a girls number out of the ordeal. The cow stepped on my ram and crushed it though but the manager understood and took the return anyway.
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    lordcheesus I worked at McDonald's for a while during high school to fund an overseas trip. I was about 3 seconds into my shift when a man storms into the store with a cup and slams it down on the counter, yelling "WHAT THE HL IS THIS???". I wasn't even working when he purchased it, so I didn't know. I told him so, and he said "I ASKED FOR A
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    CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE, A CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE!!!". I looked inside it. "Sir, this is a chocolate milkshake." "WELL IT'S NOT CHOCOLATEY ENOUGH!!! | WANT A REFUND!!" I refunded his money, and as he was walking out of the store he called me a
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    Later that evening, he came back to buy dinner, and made a beeline straight for me. He seemed rational and calm. He asked for a free VIP drink with his meal, and the chaos began again.... I asked to see his VIP card, and he screamed and ran out of the store. I thought he was gone, so I was about to cancel his order, but he ran back in with a VIP sticker obviously torn from his car. We aren't allowed to accept
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    drive-through VIP stickers in store, customers have to use a VIP card. He waved the sticker in my face screaming "IS THIS GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, B ?". I was scared, so I just let it go and gave him. the free drink. Unfortunately, the guys in the back had neglected to put more fries. in the fryer, so there was going to be a 5 minute wait on the fries. Inconvenient, but not at all my fault. The
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    guy screams some more, and then sits in the corner of the store. When the fries are ready, we served them up really quickly and gave them to him. They were still very hot and covered in oil, straight from the fryer. He noticed this, and decided it would be appropriate to throw the fries into my face and run out of the store.
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    [….. its a shame this is going to be so buried but whatever. (EDIT: thanks to raid18 for finding this in the depths of comment h I and bestofing me) while working the registers at america's number one organic foods retailer, a friend and i were working, him on register, me bagging. this also happens to be in a
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    city with an equal proportion very cool, and very bitchy people. so a woman comes up and this is what happens. for brevities sake we'll call my friend and i A (register) and B (bagger) A: hey, how are you today? customer: listen. i don't want you to say a single thing to me during this. i
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    don't want to talk to you. A and B look at each other. shrug. order continues as any other...until payment as woman struggles with credit card machine customer: how does this work? your machine is broken. how do i do this? A and B make complete and total eye contact with
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    woman. and say nothing customer to cashier: can you help me with this? i can't figure this out. A gives the coldest stare you've ever seen. crosses arms customer looking at B: can you... cold stare. customer realizes what shes done.
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    customer: moment of silence while she takes several minutes to work the machine. customer leaves. next customer: well done guys.
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    Carokhan When asked about this, Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines said "No, they are not, and I think that's one of the biggest betrayals of employees a boss can possibly commit. The customer is sometimes wrong. We don't carry those sorts of customers. We write to them and say, 'Fly somebody else. Don't abl e our people.""
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    [deleted] I would like to share a story of how I was once an a hole customer. This was some years ago - I had recently gotten cable internet or phone or some such thing (can't remember exactly) and set it up on some kind of autopay scheme. These usually take one or two billing cycles to kick in. After about two
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    months I got a letter saying I needed to pay or they would disconnect the service. I called in, got the payment taken care of over the phone, and thought everything was hunky dory. A few days after that, the service was disconnected. I was furious. I called the support 1-800 number, and yelled at the customer service representative. After about 5 minutes of me being
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    a complete a hle to this guy, it turned out the disconnection had nothing to do with the billing issue. It was a technical, unrelated matter that was my fault. The rep was calm throughout my tirade, just trying to help me.
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    I apologized profusely as soon as I realized this, but that was after 5 minutes of me refusing to listen to what the guy was saying because I was so busy being furious and yelling.
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    [... Back in the day, I used to work for Musicland (before they all became Sam Goody). The bane of my existence* was some kid who would come through the store spitting sunflower seeds on the carpet as he browsed around the sections. Since the seed shells are pointed, they would get caught in the carpet and I would have to
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    get down on the floor and pick up by hand the soggy, hooked ones that the vacuum couldn't get (around 50%). The pattern of leavings was always the same: a small pile in New Releases, a trail leading back to Clearance, then a trail leading to a large pile in Rap & Hip Hop -- thus, convincing me that it was always the same kid spitting his saliva-soaked garbage on my floor.
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    One day I'm at the cashwrap ringing some lady out and my white whale sidles up to the rap section and begins to spit a heroic amount of empty, sodden seed shells onto the floor with a thpthpthp sound. He has so much to let go, he has to lean over to the side so they don't cover the front of him on the way down. I stop what I'm doing, turn to the kid in shock and say, "Don't
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    spit on my floor, you piece of sh !" The woman at the wrap is his mother. She starts getting indignant with me, swearing and shouting and demanding an apology for calling her delicate son bad words (meanwhile, the naïf is studying a CD whose cover depicts a little person with a gunshot wound to the eye). I
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    respond by asking whether he spits on the floors at home. That doesn't soothe her and she starts demanding to see the manager. I call up the manager (who was the best man at my wedding), and explain the matter to him. She says, "Well, are you going to make him apologize?" To which he replies, "Do you apologize when he spits on the floors at home?" She grabbed her
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    son and stormed out. Two weeks later, I busted him in the back of the store stuffing CDs into his oversized pants (but sans sunflower seeds). His mother refused to come get him when the cops called her. Good times.
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    cobaltmetal I was accused of body slamming a customer when i wasn't even working that day.
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    itsbri I can list hundreds, but here's one I keep at the front of my mind so I can have a giggle. A guy orders "Hot and Spicy Onion Rings" with a subheading of "Onion rings coated in a hot chilli batter". These were one of the favourites at the restaurant I used to manage, same recipe was used for as long as I remember the place
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    existing. I notice one of his toddlers gasping for air, so instinctively I run over with a glass of water, hand it to him and check on the kid. I ask him what's up and the boy says "burns!! hot!!". The young lad's about 3 or 4... I clear up any debris on the table from the ordeal and walk back to the bar to check on staff, closely
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    followed by his father. The father claims he's going to seek legal action because I served the onion rings to the table and didn't make him aware that they had chilli in. He stated that every other time he'd been to the restaurant they never served them with chilli and the last time he visited, he said, was 1 month ago. It was my responsibility to make sure he knew they were hot,
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    apparently. F that -- I pointed out that the item on the menu contained the word hot, spicy and chilli more than once and that it was his responsibility to ensure the food that HE fed to his kids was suitable, not mine. He blushed after seeing the menu information and blushed even more when I showed him the printed on
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    date on the back of the menu. Nearly a year prior to the incident. Needless to say, I enjoyed every second of knowing I, the manager, was 100% right.
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    captjameswest i used to work at gamestop and you would not believe the idiots that dont understand how a buy 2 get 1 free sale works. it is countless how many times i had to explain to fully grown adults that they couldn't buy
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    two 99 cent copies of some jampack summer demo disc and get a new copy of whatever $60 madden or midnight club bulls wanted. they
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    iaacp I work at Trader Joe's. This one lady came through my line one day. I say hi, she mutters a hello. "How are you doing today?" "good." "Any plans for the weekend?" "Why are you asking? You don't even care. This is rediculous. Every time I come in this store, YOU GUYS ALWAYS ASK HOW I AM. YOU DON'T GIVE A SH. YOU'RE JUST
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    DOING IT BECAUSE YOUR MANAGERS TELL YOU TO." At this point, I'm like, aww sh this b is insane. I look across my register to one of my managers, who's facing me. I kind of eye him a "dude, help me out" kind of look. He shrugs, smiles, and goes back to helping his customer. At this point, I'm dumbfounded by this
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    woman who is still at me. I look around, at other customers, who are wide- eyed and can't believe this b is for real. I'm halfway smiling/laughing because I can't believe this person is so offended that I was making conversation with her. I snap back into it after a few seconds, to hear her close with "blah blah blah, you guys are so fake." I tell
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    her "okay", look down, and continue scanning/bagging her stuff. No apology, because I wasn't sorry. Super awkward silence for a good 10 seconds. Then I hear a customer in the line behind her say "Well I'm having a great day, Evan! Thanks for asking" and gives me a big smile. The lady next to her then said "me too! Thanks for being so nice here."
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    The face at this point was PRICELESS. You could tell she wanted to burst with the rage of one thousands suns, but nay, held it in. She was absolutely livid that other strangers were ganging up on her. I finish bagging her stuff, push her cart to her, and ignore her. She then goes to the pit (for those of that shop TJ's, it's that boxed off area where
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    the managers sit around and drink Starbucks) and she makes a complaint about me, and the store in general. I talk to the assistant manager (who she talked to) afterwards, he can hardly believed that just happened, gave me a high five, and told me to pray for her. To this day, she comes in every Saturday. IF YOU HATE THE STORE SO MUCH, WHY DO YOU COME
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    EVERY SINGLE WEEK? That day I learned there are some really this world - people in very sad individuals. I also learned that, although not common, there are some total badal strangers to be found. Thank you ladies who stuck up for me!
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    slowpoke257 My daughter, who has partial paralysis in one arm, is a cashier in a supermarket. One day she very nicely helped a customer load a big bag of dogfood into the shopping cart, even though it isn't easy for her. The lady then
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    went immediately to the customer service desk and asked them "why the helll they have a cashier with a jacked-up arm." The manager threw the lady out of the store.
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    Megling1285 This may get buried but It's a good one. I worked at Bath and Body Works for many many years. Fragrances tend to come and go, some stick around forever like cucumber meleon and sweet pea but most eventually go so new ones can come in. This upsets a lot of customers because they get used to a certain scent they enjoy, most people when
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    told their fragrance has been discontinued are like oh wow that s ks, I suggest one that may be similiar and they move on. One time this lady came in looking for a scent we no longer carried. I told her this, and she just looked at me with this sort of sociopathic stare and said " I know you have some in the back" I very kindly explained to her that, we do not have
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    any, our semi-annual sale in which we do sometimes have some older fragrances has ended and what you see is what we have. She didn't believe me. I went to back to "look" to humor her but our backroom is the size of a closet and I was well aware we did not have this.
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    She threw an absolute fit, accusing me of lying, insisting the scent was not discontinued, and somehow she got the idea I was just "too _lazy" to climb the ladder because it was probably on the top shelf. She blamed me personally that we didn't have it, and basically told me she knew about my conspiracy to hide sh in the backroom. She was completely nuts.
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    PunkRockMakes... I was working at an ice cream shop a few years back. This one ridiculous b came in one day and evidently had the intention of sampling EVERY SINGLE G D IN FLAVOR IN THE FREEZER. She literally stood around for like 20 minutes, holding up a line that was forming behind her while she had me systematically serve her up one miniature
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    spoonfull at a time. Fortunately, before i resorted to smashing her face through the counter, some handsome, eloquent gent behind her administered a much- needed wake-up call and got her a the f out the door. My whole life I've been told the customer is always right, when in fact, usually, the customer is a moron and an a hole.
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    cursoryusername A long time ago in a galaxy far away I worked in a department store. One day this lady comes in and while she is buying something, is just being A HUGE B . I forget what her beef was specifically, but it was nothing relevant to the products or services we were providing, she was
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    trying to pick a fight with me specifically. I'm having a good day and am completely unfazed by this. So while I'm ringing her up, I proceed to very politely inform her that my function at the store is not to absorb the anger from her bad day, and she might want to go have a chamomile or something.
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    This just freakin sets her off to the point of yelling. As my co-worker who was bagging her stuff is now hiding behind the counter, I re- iterate my opinion that its wrong to take things out on random people. Then she yells at me for smiling, as I was smiling the whole time, and storms off to customer service, threatening to get me fired.
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    So, they told me that when she shows up at the service desk, she says she wants to make a complaint about someone, and they ask the name... and as soon as she says my name all three girls at the counter start laughing at her, cause they know I'm the nicest guy in the whole store. She walks out of the store crying.
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    I was a hero in the break room for weeks.
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    [deleted] You know, it's worse because you're getting paid minimum wage... but wait until you have that college. degree, that education, and are making that bigger paycheck. After years of education to get that piece. of paper, years of finding a job that pays well and building your career, you still have to put up with dickwads that will give you
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    sh, just because they can. And you know what? You'll be able to do even less about it then, for fear of losing a job that's a lot harder to get than your local barrista. Your boss will be probably an even bigger a h le, and since your lifestyle will change with your paycheck, it will almost be like you aren't really making more money at all.
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    Look forward to the future, where the bulls thinker and more convoluted. just gets
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    Cheezburger Image 10528381952
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    [deleted] Web designer here, I get a very special brand of annoying customer: the guy who makes last minute changes to huge projects because he can. Oh, you don't like the logo | revised 3 times for you? You want to use the one made in 1998, with the gradient- studded golf ball that looks. like what someone makes on
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    their first try using Illustrator? Awesome. Thanks for that. Oh? I'm not allowed to change the colors either? Because beige and off-white are hot right now? Clearly you know better than I do, I've only been doing this for 6 years. Nooo... this logo will look great! It's not like I based the color palette
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    of your site off of the logo I painstakingly made for you over the last 2 weeks. Oh wait, that's exactly what I did.
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    PShap I was working in the produce section of a supermarket. An older man comes up to me and asks where the mini watermelons are. I show him.
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    He looks at them for a few seconds and says "A few days ago you had some that are bigger. Do you have any bigger ones?" I said, stunned "The watermelons are over there."
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    droptune When I was 17 I worked at Walgreens and the dress code stated that men had to wear a collared shirt and tie. So me being a smart a | used to wear a polka dot shirt with a black bow-tie once a week. The old ladies loved it and commented on how its a shame nobody wears bow-ties anymore. One day a grumpy middle aged lady came in and was
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    infuriated that her prescription was not ready yet and proceeded to yell at me at tell me how stupid my tie and shirt were and my mother should be beat for letting me leave the house like that. I told her its not nice to bring someone's mom into this. The store
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    manager heard the lady yelling and came over, this is when the lady started telling the manager its "unprofessional" for me to wear a polka dot shirt and bow-tie. Sadly I was told not to wear them anymore to appease the customer.
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    taylortsides Oh god, I had so many of these stories when I worked at a family portrait studio... The one that comes to mind is this woman who made me photograph her baby for two hours. The baby was not smiling. I am GREAT at making kids smile, but it just wasn't going to happen. The average sitting at the portrait studio is 30-45
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    minutes. But no joke, I looked at the clock, and this woman made me take pictures of her baby for two. hours. She kept insisting that she was going to buy a lot of pictures. At one point she turned to me and said, "It's ok though, you're paid by the hour, right?" (YES BUT I ALSO GET PAID COMMISSION). After the two hours, she used a coupon for a free photo, I
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    tried to push her - she ended up buying $20. Meanwhile, my coworkers. had done several $100+ sales in that time. Gah. We also sold pre-paid packages, which were really cheap, but had limitations. SO MANY DEBATES over the rules of the packages. I quit retail/customer service in May and could not be happier.
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    betterscientist I was a witness to this story: I was writing a report about the fast food industry for a class. I hadn't been inside a fast food joint for years and I strolled inside a McDonalds to grab a nutrition brochure. As I walk in I hear a loud pop sound from under the ketchup dispenser (it was a pressurized one, I suppose pumping the "old fashioned" ones was too much work)
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    anyways ketchup is gushing out from under some cabinets and the manager sends a mentally challenged employee to go clean up the mess. While she is on her hands and knees in ketchup customers start telling her to clean up the spill faster, I suppose as it was impeding them from obtaining ketchup. After a while customers start raising their voices and scoffing, not to long after that a couple of
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    them start yelling at her to "clean up the god mess." I was young then but that is no excuse for what I did next; I just left. I didn't do anything, I just looked at everyone felt a horrible clenching in my stomach and swiftly walked out the doors. If I could relive the moment again I would have scolded the individuals for acting so inappropriately and then get down on the
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    ground to help that poor girl out. I should at least written a letter to that god managers supervisor for just standing there while my already dwindling faith in humanity got even more microscopic.
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    Justyce54 Believe it or not, there are some bosses, particularly we self employed dudes, that would have had your back. I had a mom come in and yell at one of my teenage employees one day when I wasn't there. When I heard about it, I picked up the phone, called the parent and told them to NEVER come
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    back. The parent was flabbergasted and stated that she hadn't been ride to my staff at all. While saying this, I could tell she was trying to get her dander up for a fight. I just got mine up too and said "You don't pay me enough to put up with this sh. I don't give a how you treat other people in town, but you can't do that bulls at my place. You are just glad I wasn't there
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    because I would have embarrassed your ass if front of everyone." At this point, she starts back peddling big time, telling me how much her kids love us, Was there anything she could do, etc. Since I did like her kids, I told her if she apologized to the employee | might let her stay. But if there was even one cross word, even one, "I am going
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    to bounce your a like a super ball!" After that, she was so easy to deal with.
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    zerocool90 I work at a Panera Bread and this summer we just got a "re-imagining" of an old salad. So this lady walks in and orders the salad. I make the salad, call out her name and wait for her to come pick up her order. She comes picks it up and asks, "What the h I is this?" I told her it was our new salad.
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    She states that she doesn't want this and she wants the old salad. I get that, its fine whatever. I make her the old salad, I give it to her, she sits down. Now, she gets back up and goes straight to my general manager and I about how the salad has too many onions. My
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    general manager apologizes and offers to make her another one, but no this wasn't good enough for her and wants her money back. She storms out and I get bitched at by my general manager about how I put too much onion in the salad.

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