I seem to be the asshole/idiot magnet at Sears.  I work in the Hardware/Lawn and Garden departments, and I am the most knowledgable person in my department, by a long shot.  Anyway, the one that's sticking in my mind happened on the 4th of July.  The customer had actually called the night before wanting to speak to a manager and I explained that neither one of my department supervisors were in, but that one of them would be in the next day.  July 4th rolls around and this guy comes walking in about 11:30AM or so, he had his son with him who was about 18 or 19.

The story goes that he had purchased a large Craftsman Professional walk-behind lawnmower the previous August, and has had nothing but problems with it, blah, blah, blah.  Well, my manager asked me to stay and listen to this guy in case he had a technical question that I could answer, or something along those lines.  Anyway, he goes on this long rant about how the mower's a piece of shit and he wants to return it, and that our service technician has replaced the frame on it once already, yada, yada, yada.  It's at this point that the guy is starting to piss me off, so I start being a dick to him.  We have a very strict, at the time, 90 day return policy, and then it must go to service, and he was outside his 90 days by a considerable amount of time.

After about 15 minutes, he says that he doesn't want the lawnmower and can he leave it here, at which point I tell him, "Sure, you can leave it here.  You won't get your money back, but by all means, leave it here."  Now, before people start bashing me for having bad customer service, let me explain.  I'm a real easy guy to get along with, but you have to be willing to compromise, the same as I'm willing to compromise.  It's not all give, and no take.

Well after about another 5 minutes his son gets involved.  Nothing pisses me off faster than when I'm trying to help somebody and another person interrupts me.  I tell the customer that if service allows us to return it, that he could get our regular Craftsman branded large walk-behind lawnmower (only difference is 2hp in the motor).  Well, idiot son decides to add his two cents at this point, and this is the exchange that occurs:
Idiot Son (IS):  The Craftsman one only has 10.5 hp, I know
Me: Alright....
IS: I don't think it'll cut as well as the Craftsman Professional
Me:  It has to cut better than the one you, yours doesn't work.

It was at this point that I walked away to help one of my fellow associates from Merchandise Pick-Up try to find a snowthrower, and also before I said anything that might have gotten me fired.

Will update when I think of more

I can definitely see that happening with some of the customers I had at HD.

I work as a sysadmin and dba. Stupid people are a daily hazard.



Let's see some of the highlights that spring to mind are the secretary (admin) who was given the job of backing up a large critical server. It went down and after restoring the server and finding the disk arrays (several hundred Gb, this was early 90's) were corrupted we asked for the back up tapes. This woman shows up with a single DAT tape. It was blank. For shits and grins my cohort in crime asked her how she did her backups. She puts the tape in the drive, watches the light on the drive flash and when it goes solid green she ejects the tape. "Like that."



We did user accounts audits with a script on the home directory disk array. We searched for .exe, .xls, .jpg, .mpg and large files. Any files we found were scp'ed to another machine and a message sent to all of the admins. One of us would then look through what the script had found and if anything problematic was found we'd go have a chat with the user. Usually we'd just find that someone had tried to open an executable or spreadsheet someone had emailed them. Our mail tool would just dump the file into their home directory since there was no app to open the file. One day I was going through the audit directories and found that one of them had about 500 Mbs in it. Yep, porn. I go to talk to the user. I tell him I'm deleting all of it and that will be the end of it, don't do it again. He is absolutely furious. Tells me I had no right to remove his "property" and if I didn't put it back he'd report me to HR. He did. It didn't work out like he thought it would.

Worked selling guns at a now- bankrupt -and -under- another -name sporting goods store in Salem, OR.One night about 20 mins to closing a guy starts the paperwork to buy a S&W 500.The other guy working the counter was handling it, so I started closing.When my co-worker checks the 4473, he starts to motion me over.The customer has put yes to the domestic violence conviction question.My partner asks me to back him up in case it gets ugly."Sir, are you sure this is the right answer?".He says yes.We inform him we cannot sell him this or any gun.He gets pissed, wants to know why.I inform him it's because of the domestic violence conviction.He goes "it was only a misdemeanor".I tell him I don't care, it's not going to happen, and he leaves.
The next day he shows up with a buddy.He gets a smug look on his face and points at his friend and goes"he's buying it for me".I tell him no, he's not, and explain straw purchases and their felony status.They leave.......and show up 2 hrs later.With a third guy.This time he goes "my other friend is buying it for himself".I told them to get the fuck out and not to come back.
Honorable mention goes to all the idiots who bought reloading bullets thinking they were live ammo and came back complaining "these are all duds, they won't fire in my gun".

OOH!! remembered a great one.
Back when I managed Little Caesars I had a guy call in and order a Supreme and a Pepperoni. He came and picked them up and was on his way. About 10 minutes later he calls up and says that he got a ham and onion pizza instead of the supreme, which was true, because we had already discovered that the counter employee had grabbed someone elses order and gave it to him.

I told him to come back in and we'll give him a Supreme and a bread for his troubles AND he can keep the other one, too.

Soooo.... he comes struttin' in all tough-guy style holding TWO pizza boxes sideways (now both pizzas are mangled and smushed up to one side of the box) and say's "THIS ONE'S WRONG, TOO!! There's NO PEPPERONI on here!!"  I knew damned well there was because I had made it myself, so I pop open the box and take a peek. Sure enough, pepperoni galore, albeit all over the fucking place due to his dickish manhandling. So I show him and say, "Sir, do you see all those big red circles all over the place?"
He says, "yeah, so?!?"
Me: "Those are pepperoni, sir...."
Him: "Nuh-uh. pepperoni are little yellow peppers!"
Me: Do you mean "PEPPERONCINI", like Banana Peppers?
Him: Oh.... Uhhhhh, yeah.
Me: Here's your Supreme and bread. Have a nice night.

That bullet thing...is anyone really that dumb? I am scared now.

Needs moar lulz.

a crack head, a hooker, a old yankee lady who wrecked her car, a smartass teenager

Back at RadioShack had a lady with a heavy French accent come in and toss a bag on the counter. "I wish to return zeez." she says.
I look in the bag and find 3 Archer branded cable splitters that are unopened, but beat to fuck and in yellowed plastic and a reciept. R.S. hadn't sold under the Archer brand in eons so I look at the reciept. It's dated FIVE years ago.
I nicely explain to her that our return policy is 90 DAYS. SHe immediately gets all pissy and says, "But I hava reciept!"
me: Fom FIVE YEARS AGO.
(repeat five or six times)
her: In France they would take it back!
Me: Well, if you need the six bucks that bad go ahead and book the flight.

Yes they are I know first hand.





 

Had a lady ask me how to rewind a DVD.

Man, sometime in the late 90's Gateway 2000 started selling computers for less than $1000. If you didn't actually have the money, they would "hook you up" with $200 down and a 13% interest rate... I was working phone support for them at the time.  



Floppy disk in the CD-ROM drive... seen it

Using the mouse on the floor as a "foot switch"... yup

Running the mouse on the monitor and getting mad because the pointer didn't follow it... took that call.

Hooking the UPS into itself and then hooking the computer into the UPS... Yep, he was mad as hell that it only ran for 10 minutes.

Running the phone cord out the modem jack and into the NIC... Mad because it wouldn't dial out.



Dear god tech support isn't for the faint of heart. After two years at that job I got angry at the mention of any "computer problem." To this day, I would rather fix something myself than try to explain it to someone else.



It's far from the worst possible ID10T magnet job though:



I could not work the counter at USPS, FedEx or UPS. I would go to jail in a matter of minutes.

One of my co-workers had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago.
Lady brought in an Expedition to have a noise in the frontend checked out.  He jacks it up out in the lot, sets it on a safety stand, pulls off the front tire.  She asks if she can leave it running because its hot as hell out.  He says "yeah, no problem".

Well he's got his head in the wheelwell and she slaps it into reverse and starts backing out.  He flies out of the wheelwell yelling "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

The safety stand was leaning back on two legs I have no idea how it didn't come down and squash him.

Scary shit.  He won't make that mistake again.

Sometimes I'd work a Torrington, WY run at UPS. We had a crotchety old cowboy who made some of the most beautiful saddles you'd ever seen. He was the last stop on the route, since he was a

pickup account as well. He often shipped saddles to Alaska and Hawaii and those destinations were an automatic 2nd Day Air shipment. He'd always go ballistic about it as the cost was pretty

expensive for something as big and heavy as a saddle. We all knew about his temper and tirades. I get to his shop and pickup 4 saddles. I notice that they are all marked Ground shipment, one is

going to Hilo, HI. I tell him, "Sir, this one has to go 2nd Day Air"

Cowboy: 'God damnit, how much is that going to cost me!?"

I grit my teeth because I know he knows better and tell him the cost.

Cowboy: "How come it can't go Ground, isn't Hawaii part of the United States!?"

Me: "Well, Sir, when they build a bridge to Hawaii, we'll ship it Ground!"

Cowboy, looks all pissed and ready to kick my ass, then he busts up laughing.

You would be amazed at how a restroom sign with a great big fucking arrow pointing right somehow makes people go left.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I work in loss mitigation at a large bank, home lending dept. The stupidity and arrogance of the average person, plus the added fact that they are about to loose their house makes for a lot of interesting phone calls.

what was her reason for doing that?





 

Had a guy come in the store, barely speaking english wanting some good used brake shoes for his domp trock.

Had another needing a new driveshaft built, but wanted to re use the old u-joints.

At about 10:00pm I had a weird lady come into my CVS, she was really nice, I had a feeling she was kind of stupid for some reason which was confirmed quciky. She goes to walk outside to her car and double backs and walks back inside and asks me something, here's how that conversation went...

Lady: Are there cameras outside?

me:.....umm I'm not sure, why?

Lady: For safety! It's dark outside you know!

me: eeerm.......cameras do not make anything safe, you could still get robbed or murdered out there, the only difference would be that you would get to smile for the camera first.

She proceeded to give me a look that I have never seen before, sort of a "you just ruined my whole world" look. I felt like a douche but I felt she needed to be awoken from her coma of the stupid.


I always get customers that take the little Sudafed card of the shelf that says "Available at the pharmacy" on it and bring it to me up front and ask for Sudafed, I point out that it says "AVAILABLE AT THE PHARMACY" on it and they get an attitude and fucking bitch about it not being at the front of the store, idiots.

Then I get the geniuses who are going to pay by credit card. Although this particular breed of genius is unique and goes out of their way to show their stupidity, instead of using the credit card machine right in front of my register they go down about 4 feet and grab the credit card machine that is turned around and move the fucking "next register please" sign out from in front of it and ask me "is it this one?", I usually politely tell them "no, it would be the one in front of my register that does not have the little sign in front of it and is not turned backwards", but sometimes I'm just so incredulous that they are that stupid that I just stare at them and wonder if there are any signals transmitting in their brain.

My personal favorite is when I ring all of a customers stuff and tell them the total and they just fucking stare at me, they don't question the total, they don't make a move for cash or a card, they just fucking stare at me until I ask them if they feel like paying, to which they respond with a fucking attitude.

I worked in an electrical supply place in college.  A guy came in wanting and "adapter" to plug one 220 cord into a different outlet.  I looked up what plugs he had and there is a reason why they were different.  The wall outlet he was trying to use was for something like 30 amps and the plug was for something like 50 amps.  I explained to him why it was a bad idea to do this.  My boss said to go ahead and sell him the parts, but don't assemble it for him.  

Russian? I have seen some serious jerry rigging on their trucks

Bank customers that don't know WTF "overdraft protection" is. They thought they could swipe their debit cards with impunity wherever they damn well pleased until it got declined.

Then they'd come to the bank all indignant and complain about their overdraft charges: "BUT I HAVE OVERDRAFT PROTECTION!! You should be able to SEE that on my account, it should be in plain English. RIGHT?!" Yes, I see that, dumb ass. You must not have read your account agreement stating that each of those overdrafts incurs a $30 fee.

It happened a lot... but one woman insisted she would sue our bank because writing hot checks was apparently a right to which she was entitled.

Air Force full bird Colonel who tried to track me down over the weekend for a water line repair I did on Friday. My business cell was off on sunday so he looked up my PARENTS in the phone book and they email me on Sunday morning.







Being all about customer satisfaction, I drive over to his house on Sunday afternoon for this earth shattering emergency and find him standing in his front yard with his hands on his hips holding a static pressure gauge.



"You messed with my pressure regulator and now the water pressure is 100 psi. It is supposed to be 80 psi"







I tell him that is impossible. The pressure regulator only works on dynamic pressure, ie, when the water is RUNNING. The city must have raised the pressure in the main since the last time he checked it.



"But now it is 100 psi. Before you came it was 80 psi"



FACEPALM.



So I go to mess with the regulator to prove to him it doesn't change the static pressure, when I find he has already done me the courtesy of stripping the bolt head.



I don't even remember how that ended, except that after a half an hour he still didn't understand what static and dynamic pressure was, and he was giving me his best korean scowl as I left. God help the air force.

Wiring a new dentist office, the owners wife was a F-N BITCH, as per plans 1 area was wired for a FUTURE dentist chair / area. Unfortunately someone forgot to cap the circuits in a J-box in this room, she happened to be standing in it when we did the initial power up of the building, it sparked and popped the breaker feeding it. At this point she demanded to know why the entire office was not wired for EXPLOSION PROOF because they use GAS so it should be . I told her I could give her a price to change it but that she would still have smelly gas. I was removed from the project, Thank You Very Much

10-12 Years ago I had to talk a customer out of running fiber to every last desktop computer in a VERY large rollout

Of course this was after I got to convince him that redundant fiber was not really a good idea later

5 years ago I was interviewing people for a job (turns out it was MY job but I didn't know this at the time) one particular candidate didn't trust WFi - I asked for specifics he said it just didn't work - yeah he got my job

I'm currently a self employed contractor so you want something stupid you get it, all be it at a pretty good hourly rate

Back in the 90's I worked at a CompUSA during college.

My favorite was people asking me, "I want to check out the internet, but don't want to get ONLINE (they'd say that with emphasis) just yet. Did we have a CD-ROM with all the stuff on the Internet from last year?"

Not as much as they love to call the police.



 

You're really not going to like this.It happened multiple times, not every month but usually a couple of times a year.Occaisionally they'd have an attitude: "you guys should label this stuff better."And I would think "maybe your mother shouldn't have dropped you on your head so much."

BWaahahahhaha



 

I used to rebuild cylinder heads. Had a customer bring a head back and say You put a bent valve in this head. I was like ???? Yeah it was bent all right. I asked him how I could reface a bent valve though?  He had put it on the engine with out setting the timing up.OHC of course and it was an interference engine.(Putting the cam on mark and the crank on mark before torqueing down the head) When he turned the engine over to line up his marks the piston hit the open intake valve. He understood what happened when we explained it to him and he wasn't pissed at us. Some people know just enough to be dangerous.

Had a guy try to rebuild his refrigeration compressor by himself, he failed, three times resulting in 3 shattered pistons / connecting rods. Called me in and then stood over my shoulder arguing with me the whole time about how things should be done.

Let's see here:

I've got a hand-written letter from a customer requesting 2 products.  Damn near every word is misspelled.  I really need to type this up for you guys.  She wants us to mail the products out, and then she'll mail us a check.  How about no there, skippy.

The customer who lectured me on how not having middle-eastern artists was discriminatory and totally at odds with our duty to help spread Islam.  I responded that if she could leave me that extremely lengthy list of popular Muslim artists, I would have the manager look at it and he would decide what to order.

The customers who stand in front of a 4 foot tall lighted sign, after having walked under a similar sign, and ask where a product is.  Situational awareness FTW!

The pothead who stood in front of me for 120 very long seconds and finally said "You...have to...pay for things here?"  No dumbass, I give them away for free.

The Mexican who had his 5yo translate his request for a CD by "The Illegals."  I deserve sainthood for not laughing hysterically.

I had a guy that was convinced a 3 year old was trying to get his car's electrical system torn apart by packrats.  His rational? The child dropped an orange next to his car..... said guy told me he went on-line and did some research.... he found out packrats like oranges.    I almost asked him what his ARFCOM s/n was.



 

Went to customers house to check no heat call. Tell them boiler needs parts. She says "we have a boiler???" yes. "really, I thought we had a furnace???" I ask have you ever seen your curtains moving when the furnace comes on? No. That's because you have a boiler....as I touch a radiator with my wedding ring and it clangs.

When I was in high school and college I worked in an auto parts and machine shop. We did everything in automotive machining from crankshaft grinding to head surfacing, and a full machine shop.

The idiot I had come in wanted a complete engine rebuild kit for a 283 FORD. After a couple of minutes of discussion, I ask "don't you mean a 289?" He gets real shitty and says "If I wanted parts for a 289, I would have asked for them. Give me the parts for a 283." I tried to explain it to him, and so did the shop manager. He was adamant that it was a 283, and I had "better bring him the right parts". So, being the customer service kind of guy I am, I brought him out all 283 parts.

You should have seen the look on that idiots face when he brought all that stuff back in the next day.

Lets see:  Guy calls to report domestic.  Cars run hot all the way there get there and the guy is sitting in his garage listening to music having a beer.  They ask what happened. "Oh, we weren't having a fight I was just bored/lonely and wanted someone to talk too.  You guys want some coffee?"     Here's your ticket dumbass.



Guy that told me I could come onto his driveway, when I was two blocks away and could hear them yelling (sounded like fighting) so I walked up his driveway to talk to them because they were all on the driveway out front.  Insisted I call the Chief of Police at 0200 on 4th of July morning.  I told him I wasn't going to, but I think he's in the book if you think it's a good idea to call him about now.



Guy that jumped out of his car when I stopped him and squared off with me and proceeded to scream about how it was fucking bullshit and I was harassing people blah blah blah.  He started listening when he noticed the business end of my .40 and realized I was screaming at him to get back in the car.



Lady that calls 911 for an ambulance because she stubbed her toe.



Lady that calls 911 for an ambulance because "She couldn't feel her pulse and wanted the ambulance to bringer that defibrillator thingy"





Lets see if I can remember a few more.

Thats no lie!  

Had a guy call to report his kid as a runaway, except he knew where the kid was.  When the operator tells dad to pick up his own kid, the guy gets pissed and insists they send an officer.  He says its OUR job to get his kid...you know...protect and serve?  Another lady calls to complain that her neighbor mowed her yard.  When told that he was just trying to be "neighborly", she thanked him by requesting that we issue him a criminal trespass warning.  Another guy called to complain that the snow plow pushed his neighbors snow into his driveway.  He wanted us to make the neighbor shovel his driveway.  We all have hundreds of stories like this!

. Back when I was repairing auto radiators, had a customer bring me a cross flow (tubes run horizantally, tanks vertically) from a  late model chevy pickup. I repaired it, he picked it up. Half hour later the dude shows up with the same radiator and claims it aint his. I check invoice number with number I engrave on the tank, and sure enough it was the radiator he had brought in. I told him it was his, but he was adamant. So I jumped in my PU drove to his place, took the radiator and installed it. Fkr looks at me and states that aint my radiator. I say what do you mean, he grabs the radiator out of the PU and stands it up so the tubes are in the vertical. I infomed of his erro and left.

I thought this was a phenonoma (spelling), until my old man told me that the same thing happend to him twice.

I work for Walgreen's and you would not believe how many people come up to the register and say "Oh! I have a CVS card, can I give you my phone number?"

In the beginning I would just politely say, "Sir/Ma'am, you're at Walgreen's." That got pretty old though. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to go into any given business and think you're in a different one? I have NEVER done that before. So now I'll fuck with them a little bit. When they ask if they can give me my phone number, sometimes I'll just stare at them with a straight face and say "No." Sometimes I tell them that corporate has discontinued the discount card, and everything in CVS stores is now full price. Sometimes I'll take the number and pretend to punch it in, and then say "Hmm, it looks like you missed your membership payment this month." and then look at them like they're fucking deadbeats. (CVS membership is free )

Anyone that has been on the profesional side of the counter of a gun shop that sells bullets has seen this, complete down to multiple firing pin strikes on the bullets bases,
and takes measures to stop it.....Such as....
Customer: Need a box of .38 bullets.
Me: Yes sir, is that bullets for reloading, or ammunition?
Customer: Bullets, you know, to shoot.
Me: Ok, I think you mean ammunition, what particular type of .38 do you need?
Customer: No! bullets for my pistol!
Me: Yes sir, that would (mostly) eliminate 38-55, but might not preclude 38-40, would your handgun be a revolver, or an auto?
Customer:You mean there's different kinds?
Me : Well yes sir, there are many...38 short Colt,.38 long Colt, .38 Smith&Wesson,.38 Smith&wesson special, and 38-40 Winchester would be the more common cartridges that We stock for revolvers, ........38 Colt auto, and .38 Super would be the more common for autos.
Customer: Wut?
Me: Perhaps, if it's not to much trouble, could you bring this gun in and we could fugure all this out for you??.....
Coustomer:Wut?why?Ijust want a box of bullets.................Can't you just sell me some bullets?
Me:Yes sir I;d be glad to sell you a box of Hornaday158's but I don't think that you'll be happy with them.
Coustomer: How much ? Then guys at Walmart tried to fuck me.
Me:I don't think Walmart sells bullets...




I had this conversation a thousand times when I worked retail,mostly on the phone, often second person ––-thouugh a "wife"...

Then of course one time a guy called to ask......."what caliber is my 30-06"...........In reference to an unknown bolt gun........This one turned out to be an 8x57 with excesive headspace............Go figure.

better tag this bound to have some lulz

52

I remember a college girl coming in and requesting to hook up her cable. I asked her if she would need 6 or 12 feet cables. She replied "OK, but how long are they?". I replied "There are 12 inches per foot." She just looked at me and took one at random. I doubt she was well versed in metric system :)



 

sniper73 post number 5

I cannot say "post count––check" because your story is believable.

51

I'm a security officer at a community college in Albuquerque. I wear a "hard" uniform: black 5.11s, badge, duty belt with the standard stuff: asp baton, cuffs, flashlight holder, donut dispenser, etc.  THREE TIMES I have had people ask me, :"Are you a security officer?" One of these people was a TEACHER AT THE COLLEGE!

ETA
Each time I looked at my uniform then back into her face (ALL 3 were women) and said, "No, ma'am, I'm an undercover burglar." Everyone laffed.

http://clientsfromhell.net/

Tail end is pointier. Jus' sayin'...

 

way too many. Recently there was a woman at the register of the retail store, her total for all her junk was $43.46. I had to keep telling her the total

mdguy: The total is fourty three fourty six
her: ok...how much?
mdguy: 43 dollars and 46 cents
her: one more time
mdguy: $43.46
her: ok
*ten seconds pass*
her: did you say $40.46?

it went on like that, she wasn't old, maybe in her early 40's.

Best part was in the end when I gave her the change from $45 she gave me and then she thought i didnt give enough and asked how much everything cost.

Oh, got called an anti-gun communist the other day because the outdoor gear store I work at doesn't sell ammo or have a shooting section at all.