Not Always Right: Unfiltered

Gas Station
Fort Wayne, IN, USA

I came into work one damp morning, and the night shift person asked me if I noticed the puddle by the door. Confused, he explains how he had the following encounter.

Customer, comes inside, wet, and nearly slips: You should put out a wet floor sign! Your floor is all wet!

Co-worker looks and sees it’s only wet where she has stood, and has to bite back the sarcastic responses he’d rather make: Sorry about that, I’ll get it mopped up.

Yes, the woman basically complained that we were unable to prevent the water she was covered in from following her into our perfectly dry store. Our floor wasn’t wet lady, your feet were.

Drug Store
Burnaby, BC, Canada

(I work in a nation-wide drug store as the evening clerk. Typically if a customer can not find an item, we call the locations closest to us and where they live to find the item. An elderly lady came in asking about a book we did not have; and I’ve just been put on hold by the location down the street from us.)

Lady: “Have you gotten through to them yet?”

Me: “No ma’am, I’ve been put on hold.”

(Lady walks away and I decide to pick up the phone in the stock room. Which is directly behind a set of doors and has a couple of windows into the main store area. Couple of minutes have passed and she has walked by the doors a couple of times. Then while looking for the phone numbers for the location closest to her, she surprised me by pushing the doors open)

Lady: “Have you tried calling (location closest to her)?”

Me: “Uhh… no, I’m still on hold for the location across the street.”

Lady: “But its so far, and I take the SkyTrain home.”

(I’m about to say that its not that far of a walk, when a clerk from the beauty department pauses seeing the lady with one door open and then walks through the other door. The lady steps away from the door and the clerk comes back about a minute later)

Clerk: “Did she just walk in here?”

Me: “Nope, she just pushed the door open”

Clerk: “Why? It says staff only.”

Me: “There’s a book that she really wants, and she just asked if I tried calling (Other location)”

Clerk: “Ah…”

(Clerk walks off. I’m taken off hold and they don’t have it. So I try calling the location closest to where she lives. As I’m going through the automated menu system, the lady comes back again.)

Lady: “If you’re going to put it on hold at least get my name down.”

Me: “I’ll do that as soon as they pick up their phone.”

(Same clerk walks in along with the assistant pharmacist. And she walks away again)

Clerk: “Does she now work here or something?”

Me: “I have no idea, guess she’s just visiting.”

(At this point I’ve reached them, but they have a problem of not picking up their phone. And the lady comes back again)

Lady: “My name is (Name-withheld)”

Me: “…Thanks…”

(Clerk and assistant pharmacist walk by, and she walks away. At this point I’ve finally gotten through to a person and have been put on hold, couple minutes later they say they’ve got two copies.)

Me: “Awesome, you mind putting on hold till Friday?”

Other location: “Absolutely, can I get the customers name?”

(I tell them the customers name and end the call and walk to go find the customer. I find her standing in front of the eye glass section)

Me: “So that location has two copies, they’ll be on hold till Friday.”

Lady: *Gives me a hug* “YAY!!! Thank you so very much!”

Me: *Speechless*

(I would later find her buying gift cards and find out that both the Pharmacist and the other Clerk saw the exchange. Folks like that are part of the reason I work the holidays.)

Coffee Shop
Canada

(In the drive-thru, after taking four minutes counting miscellaneous change with, he hands me a lump of change for a medium coffee he ordered.)

Me: (After counting change in my hand) Sir, it looks like you’re a penny short here.

Man: *completely serious* You’re going to waste my time for a f***ing PENNY?

Me: *shocked* Umm, I guess not?

(I take a penny out of the tip jar, and proceed to take a LOOOONG time putting the change way in the drawer ;) By the end, he had a penny in hand with an annoyed/embarrassed look on his face.)

Me: No thank you, sir, you can keep that ;) Enjoy your coffee!

Pharmacy
OH, USA

(I work at a popular Pharmacy. Right now most of our Christmas stuff is on sale. On Sunday when the sale started I made sure to only put the signs on the things that were listed, which doesn’t include velvet ribbons.)

Customer: “I’d like to return these ribbons. You charged me too much.”

Me: “Well ma’am, the ribbons aren’t on sale, so I did not charge you extra.”

Customer: “Yes you did. That entire aisle has signs up.”

Me: “The entire aisle minus the velet ribbons, ma’am.”

Customer: “No I was just down there, I know everything has a sale tag.”

Me: “Well, ma’am, I just put those signs up the other day and I spent a good deal of time making sure that the things not on sale did not get sale signs, so if you’d like to show me how I wasted my time, please show me the sale tag on the ribbons.”

(We walk over to the aisle, none of the ribbons or even anything remotely near the ribbons have sale signs on them.)

Customer: “Well the rest of the aisle has sale tags.”

Me: “So because the rest of the aisle has tags, you assumed. That doesn’t mean I did my job wrong because you were unable to read which items were on sale, or even go by which ones had sale tags. Would you still like to return those?”

Customer: “Yeah whatever, just give me my money back.”

Me: “I’ll be happy to do that.”

(I process the transaction and as she’s signing her receipt she had to have the last word.)

Customer: “You should probably make it more obvious which things are on sale and which ones aren’t. The sign were over the entire aisle. (She leaves the store)

Coworker: “Really? Weren’t the closest sale signs on the next 8 foot shelf over?”

Me: “Yes, and we both looked at that together. Some people….”

Retail
UK

(I’m browsing in a shop when I pass a couple, a man and woman around their mid-50s looking at novelty cups. Note that “Where’s Wally” is the UK equivalent to “Where’s Waldo”)

Woman: What a lovely Where’s Wally cup, do you want one dear?

Man: No, if it’s anything like the book I’ll never be able to find the f&%£ing thing.