what’s the strangest customer feedback you’ve heard?

by Alison Green on July 11, 2024

This week’s “ask the readers” question comes courtesy of this reader:

I was talking to one of my friends the other day and the topic of hilarious customer comments/complaints came up. I had one that I’ve carried with me for about a decade now and I wanted to share it:

“The worst paper in all of human history. Quite like cheap construction paper, but with unpredictable reactions to wet and dry media. Extremely fragile. Breaks into rubbish at the slightest application of compressed charcoal, an eraser, or water. Could dig a hole to China in minutes if the earth was made of this material. Unusable for nearly all art media. ZERO similarity to last production run.”

It makes me laugh every time I read it and I was wondering just how many other people out there have something like this.

Let’s discuss funny customer complaints/reviews/feedback in the comments!

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{ 1,512 comments }

{ 1,512 comments… read them below }

  1. Nanni dislikes Ea-nasir*

    So good it’s echoed down the millennia:

    Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message: ​ When you came, you said to me as follows : “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!” ​ What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and Šumi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Shamash. ​ How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full. ​ Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Thank you for posting this, I’ve never actually read the source material despite seeing people jokingly refer to this guy all over the place.

        1. 1LFTW*

          Same, and I’ve been on the Internet for decades. I’m glad to have finally made the acquaintance of Nanni and Ea-Nasir.

      2. Jennifer Snow*

        The one that stuck in my head from working online customer service was the guy who called to complain that his protein powder didn’t have a scoop in it. I asked if he could use the scoop from his previous purchase. No. So I suggested he just measure it with a measuring cup since the packaging listed the amount in grams and *quick math* it was just over a third of a cup. His response? “I dunno I guess I’ll see if I can find a YouTube video or something.”

    2. Cubicles & Chimeras*

      A true classic. And Ea-nasir kept his complaints! He’s like those companies who use their terrible Google Reviews as framed art in their bathrooms.

      1. So Nerd*

        So these tablets were generally unfired clay; they were meant to be reused (they could be soaked to make the clay soft again). Any clay tablets that are preserved, it’s usually because there was a fire in the building where they were kept.

        So… does Nanni have an alibi?

        1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

          He could have formed a mob with everyone else who’d been cheated…

        2. Cubicles & Chimeras*

          They were, but he just had them kept in a pile with other complaints. That to me reads keeping your hate mail to laugh at later.

            1. Reluctant Mezzo*

              Beats having a pash note corrected for grammar and spelling (cf UP THE DOWN STAIR CASE).

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      Lordy, it’s like all the complaints about how The Youth these days are unserious.

    4. Siege*

      I was looking for new office decor a few weeks ago and got a sticker that says “Well-behaved copper ingot merchants rarely make history.” I framed it. I’m still hoping someone will ask about it despite the fact we’re basically fully remote.

      1. WantonSeedStitch*

        NICE. I love the XKCD parody of “My Favorite Things”:

        Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
        Bright copper kettles leave flakes on my mittens?
        Hey, this is stone with a copper veneer!
        I’ve been bamboozled by Ea-Nasir!

        3. Pterodactyls are under-cited in the psychological literature*

          I remember that one! I burst out laughing and my daughter came running upstairs to ask what was funny so she got an impromptu history lesson.

    5. Zoe Karvounopsina*

      And poor Ea-Nasir doesn’t seem to have been that bad! Here’s this guy, complaining that Ea-Nasir’s holding out, just because he’s owed money…

      (In all seriousness, Ea-Nasir was a copper merchant in an era when quality copper was declining, and we know that most of his contracts were government. His complaints, which he kept, were from the small number of private merchants he sold to.)

      1. ecnaseener*

        Yes, it’s such a good illustration of how little we can know for sure even with primary sources. Was Ea-Nasir a grifter? Or were his customers trashing him unfairly to try to get refunds? Or something in between?

        1. Miette*

          It’s like reading Glassdoor reviews…you have to take the rants AND the raves with a grain of salt…

    6. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Now is when I really wish we had a like button. The original and still one of the best.

    9. not nice, don't care*

      My black copper marans rooster is named Ea-nasir (Enos for short). Complaints about him are more noise related than copper quality though.

    10. Miette*

      OMG I was clicking through hoping someone would mention everyone’s (least) favorite purveyor of sh*tty copper…

    12. Julia K*

      Ea-Nasir is without a doubt the worst copper merchant I’ve ever heard of.

      But I HAVE heard of him.

  2. Sally*

    As a teenager I worked in a deli. I once received a complaint directed at me personally – a customer thought I “didn’t explain the sausages” to him sufficiently when he asked.

    1. Nerds!*

      How on earth does one not explain sausages sufficiently? They are sausages, what more do you need to know?

      1. zinzarin*

        There are so many kinds of sausages. Seriously. I’m not saying the customer’s feedback was right, but sausage is a category, and the category is both wide and deep.

        If OP had said “they’re sausages; what more do you need to know,” the customer’s feedback would probably be appropriate.

        2. AngryOctopus*

          OP does say “not sufficiently” which makes me believe that they explained what they knew, and the customer just decided that wasn’t enough.

        3. Vaca*

          A million years ago a foodie friend of mine went to a deli in Astoria. It was Greek owned and had a vast assortment of feta. He went up to the counter and asked, “can you tell me about these? How are they different, which one should I put on my Greek salad, which one should I eat by itself?” The man shrugged irritably and answered, “Is Feta.” Then he walked away.

          2. Cheese-a-holic*

            Im in Australia and people of Greek decent seem to value the Dodoni brand feta, marvelling at is superiority and authentic taste, but then also complaining that eye watering price compared to the cheaper Australian, Danish and Bulgarian feta varieties.

        4. Macropodidae*

          There’s a small local meat shop near me…it’s not exactly a butcher, more like a local meat farm started a little store, then expanded a bit into doing other stuff, including making their own sausages.

          They offer “Sausage Roulette”. You say how many you want and they just choose for you. It’s super fun! You have to cut them up though, so one person (my Dad) isn’t stuck with an entire jalapeno cheddar one. It’s like wine tasting, only with sausage.

          1. Susan Calvin*

            If I got a jalapeno cheddar sausage randomly assigned to me you’d have to physically fight me to get to share it, that sounds *amazing*

      2. Irina*

        I might want to know if there’s nutmeg in a sausage before I eat it, because I’m somewhat allergic to that. But I’ll ask, not expect the waitperson to “explain” unasked.

        1. Ro*

          Is nutmeg commonly in sausages? I assume so if this is something you need to check for but I had never thought about it.

        2. Leeky Cauldron*

          My friend has a fructose intolerance and can’t consume too much of the allium family, but it seems most restaurants wont list garlic or onion in their dishes cause I suppose pretty much everything has garlic and/or onion it it

          1. Suzie*

            I also have an allium intolerance. Restaurants are very difficult because they don’t list it on the menu but if you ASK, they tell you you can’t eat anything on the menu because of possible cross contamination… but it’s not an allergy. I’m fine if you chop up my peppers on the same chopping board as an onion, it just can’t be an INGREDIENT. But they always have to check because it’s in so many prepared sauces etc.

            I now try to just go to pubs and have fish and chips or a burger every time.

      3. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

        Maybe it’s a philosophical question… but WHY does the sausage exist?

        1. Macropodidae*

          Because it’s delicious?

          Historically, it was the true nose-to-tail (use all the edible parts, including the intestines as the casing) solution to feeding your loved ones. Plus it could be preserved via drying or curing.

        3. Ineffable Bastard*

          They exist as a reference to the ouroboros and the concept of self, where the pig’s tripes are filled with their own other parts, in a long, convoluted, interlinked performance of the ephemeral art of food.

          Also they are a means of using pretty much all parts of an animal (fat, skin, blood, etc), and can be dried/cured/smoked, which means that they can be eaten in the months one is not slaughtering animals. They are also kinda portable, because of their shape and dryness, not needing refrigeration or a brine barrel to carry on trips, while still being filling and caloric.

      4. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Are you serious? There are so. many. sausages. Links. Patties. Loose. Cured. Uncured. How are they seasoned? What meats are in them? What are they good for? I probably have four or five types of sausage in my fridge or freezer right now (andouille, lamb merguez, salami, breakfast patties, and bratwurst for the grill).

      5. Artemesia*

        Paulina market here in Chicago has at least 35 types of sausage at any one time and they are dramatically different. Some are cooked and need only reheating; others are raw and need to be well cooked to be safe. There are summer sausages that can be thrown in the backpack for a hike without concern for refrigeration. They are made with different kinds of meat; some have cheese in them — I love their lamb sausages and they have at least six kinds of brats. when I shopped there years ago I needed someone who could explain the differences to me. Now of course I have my favorites.

        1. Sevenrider*

          I love Paulina Meat Market!!! I don’t live in Chicago anymore but I really miss those kinds of places found in Chicago.

      7. Abroad again*

        Oh man, don’t say that to the Germans. I didn’t know there were so many kinds before moving here. And they’re different than the American ones, to boot!

      8. Seeking Second Childhood*

        “Sausages are where the butcher hides his mistakes.”
        – Matilda Bone, by Karen Cushman

    2. Trout 'Waver*

      This is especially funny to me because “how sausage is made” is an expression for something that people don’t want explained.

      1. Dragon_Dreamer*

        And then there’s scrapple, “everything they won’t put into the sausage.” ;)

          1. One Potato Two Potato Three Potato Four*

            I live in eastern PA though not a native Pennsylvanian and I love scrapple. Especially with a fried egg or two.

          1. Dragon_Dreamer*

            More like a pork loaf of *everything* left over after the sausage is made. Mostly the head, heart, and liver. Sometimes eaten with maple syrup. Sometimes ketchup.

            Sometimes both.

            I once talked to a friend from California who’d tried it while drunk at midnight the week before. Halfway through, he was sober. A week later, he told me about it.

            So I told him what he’d actually eaten, because no one else would tell him. THEN he threw up. ;)

            1. Boof*

              We admire cultures that use “every part of the animal” in some comments, and lament foods that use “every part of the animal” in others… XD
              … not that I’m usually a fan of highly processed meats, admittedly!

            2. Give it a try. . .*

              We also eat it with apple butter–if you are in eastern PA and can get it, Bauman’s apple butter on scrapple is the top of the line for our family.

          3. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

            Thank you for that explanation, Mr Dibbler. I trust your throat remains uncut!

            The other explanatory description is “emulsified high-fat offal tube”, à la Yes, Prime Minister.

            1. Chuffing along like Mr. Pancks*

              I firmly believe that the greatest gain Britons will ever see from Brexit is the freedom to once more label the aforementioned meats of questionable provenance as “sausage.”

        3. College Career Counselor*

          Was coming here to say this! That’s almost exactly how I describe scrapple to someone who has never heard of it.

        4. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

          I always say that scrapple is everything they sweep up off the charnel house floor.

          1. Jasmine*

            I had scrapple once. Tasted good but would have tasted better if my friend hadn’t told me what it was.

        5. Cherry Sours*

          Hey, do you think Spam doesn’t use the same parts? The manufacturer of Scrapple simply believes in putting the truth out there.

          I once had a post on a different group entitled “Spam or Scrapple? The Great Debate”

      2. Gritter*

        “Laws are like sausages. It is best not to see them being made”

        Often attribute to Otto Von Bismark, I don’t think he ever said it, but it’s a useful phrase non the less.

      3. Hashtag Destigmatize Therapy*

        IMO this is why veggie sausage works so well. It doesn’t feel as weird as other imitation meats because the ingredients were “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” all along anyway.

        1. Christine*

          I didn’t much like animal sausage when I ate meat, and I don’t much like vegan sausage now. My husband loves the stuff, though, so loads of Field Roast is on the shopping list.

        2. Managercanuck*

          Oh, we had veggie sausage in England that was just like eating stuffing. It was soooo good!

    3. Irish Teacher.*

      When I worked retail, I once had a teenage girl come in looking for a specific type of bacon her Home Economics teacher had asked them to get for a cookery lesson, except she couldn’t remember what it was that the teacher had asked for and seemed to expect us to be able to tell her.

      She wasn’t blaming us though, to be fair. More like “um, do you have anything that fits this description of what my teacher wants us to get.”

    4. WantonSeedStitch*

      “Hot sausages, two for a dollar, made of genuine pig, why not buy one for the lady?”

      “Don’t you mean pork, sir?” said Carrot warily, eyeing the glistening tubes.

      “Manner of speaking, manner of speaking,” said Throat quickly. “Certainly your actual pig products. Genuine pig.”
      -Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            And then there’s rat onna stick, with or without ketchup. Plus fine mica for the discerning troll.

    7. Morte*

      I would think folks would complain more about the opposite, too much info about what was in a sausage XD

  3. Anon for this*

    Because I’ve shared this before, I’m going anon for this. My favorite customer response happened 10 years ago, and to be fair they were 100% correct that our tech was behind the times a bit due to our delay in getting off of Java:

    “…will you guys be supporting Chrome at all? That’s all I ever use any more…explorer is all but gone — and firefox is so passe.”

    I have the screenshot saved as “Passe” in my files.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      I don’t follow which browsers are “in” but I do seem to recall Firefox being relegated to the second-tier class when I was much younger. It seems to have had a resurgence since.

      1. Clisby*

        And rightfully so. Not because of its amazing features, but because, at least in my experience, Firefox is much more reliable in just WORKING with online forms. Anytime I have trouble with a website while using Chrome, my go-to is to start up Firefox.

      2. Great Frogs of Literature*

        I’d say that Firefox is a little scrappier (reputation-wise) than other modern browsers, because it’s the only fully open-source mainstream option, but it’s very much a modern browser, and preferred by many people because it’s open-source. I always side-eye sites that tell you to use them with Chrome or Edge and not Firefox.

        1. Sharpie*

          I’ve been a Firefox user ever since Internet Explorer was the browser most used to download other browsers.

          It’s good, does what it needs to, doesn’t track you across the web, and it’s open source. Which for me is pretty important in a day when Google and Microsoft want to know every single thing you do on the net.

          1. Chonky*

            Absolutely! But I also remember the time when Firefox was more than a bit chonky. Used lots of space and ram when those were scarce and expensive. It was definitely an issue that kept folks off of it at the time. Almost a non issue now, of course.

            1. Worldwalker*

              I ought to try Firefox again. I got fed up with memory leaks and switched to Vivaldi.

              1. Cherry Sours*

                I like Firefox for most things, but am destined to use Chrome until I complete the last two years of my degree, it’s the only one that works well with our school computer platform.

          2. Mornington Crescent*

            Same! I’m the only person in our team to use Firefox, everyone else uses Chrome, but it’s very heartening that our head of website development also uses Firefox as his primary browser!

          3. Rocket Raccoon*

            I don’t think I’ve ever used a browser other than Firefox, except to cross-check problems with my internet. I am very, very tech unsavvy and all my IT work is done by my coder brother. He set up Firefox, so Firefox it shall be.

      3. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

        There was a moment (I want to say like 10 years ago but don’t quote me) where Firefox got slow and memory hungry and a large number of people switched to Chrome. Then a few years later Chrome got super memory hungry and had all the privacy issues so folks started switching back to Firefox which had solved its own speed/memory issues and was now pitching its privacy as a major selling point.

        All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.

      4. Vio*

        I used to love firefox but they made a massive change at one point (I think it was around version 50-something) that not only broke every extension (some of which were never updated) but also changed pretty much everything about it. For some reason (probably has something to do with being neurodivergent) I just couldn’t connect with the change and eventually discovered Pale Moon which was based on the version I was used to.

      5. jasmine*

        chrome is leagues behind firefox when it comes to user privacy. plus firefox has cooler extensions

    2. Dragon_Dreamer*

      Reminds me of the one I got when I did phone support for a brown shipping company in the early 2000s. He kept referring to “Intersh!t Exploder” and “Netscr@pe” (except replace the first e with a u.)

      The only annoying part is that he kept trying to get me to use those terms as well. He was mildly upset that I wasn’t playing along with his “joke.”

      1. Siege*

        I hate that nonsense. When I worked in fast food in the 90s we had a regular for a couple of weeks who always tried to mess with the drive-through order taker on lunch – things like ordering some perfectly reasonable thing and then “joking” at the speaker that he actually wanted six or whatever’s he also called Dr Pepper Dr Pecker, and it’s like, do you honestly, HONESTLY, think you are either funny or original? Do you think we appreciate you? Do you think you are a bright spot in my day?

        I now know why we make fast food jobs so terrible; as the person I am now, there are so many customers I would just absolutely send packing because I have no time for you to screw up my lunch rush. Except for the guy who drove around in the open top convertible with his shirt halfway undone and chest hair everywhere who called me “doll” and “babe”. Him, I’d light his stupid Miata on fire.

        2. Vio*

          I had it from the opposite side once. We went to a certain popular American burger place and I ordered chicken nuggets with fries. The woman insisted that they didn’t have chicken nuggets, they never sold chicken nuggets and never would. They only had MAC-nuggets and if I wanted them I had to ask for McNuggets and not nuggets. For some reason I was feeling particularly stubborn and just went to a different server and asked for nuggets which they delivered with no problems.

          1. Broadway Duchess*

            I unreasonably MAC-hate this person. It’s like when Starbucks was really committed to getting everyone on board with its ridiculous drink names and sizes. You’d order a small and they’d be like, “Small? Hmm, did you mean a tall?”

          2. Madre del becchino*

            I once worked for the *other* popular American burger chain and had to tell people at the drive-through that ‘no, we don’t have Big Macs here.’

            1. Siege*

              We would just say “we don’t have Big Macs. Do you want a Jumbo Jack?” If they didn’t, that was a them problem because the nearest McDonald’s was literally miles away. But typically they did, and we didn’t mess around trying to make them say the name of the actual burger.

          3. Parakeet*

            When I was about eight and ordering for myself at the rival popular American burger place, I ordered chicken nuggets, and they insisted that they didn’t carry any such thing. I knew that they carried the thing I was trying to order because I’d had them many times before. But I didn’t understand what they wanted me to say, and gave up and ordered something else. I guess that particular company’s nugget-like things are called chicken fingers or chicken tenders or something.

            To this day, I think the server was being a jerk to pull that with a little kid just learning to order for themselves. It’s hard for me to imagine that they truly didn’t know what I was referring to.

        3. Distracted Procrastinator*

          I had a coworker who would use the derogatory nickname for the city I live in every time he needed to name the city. Not once did he use the actual name.. It was so childish and dumb. it wasn’t offensive but it was annoying. Not shocking, but he was also condescending and as misogynistic as he thought he could get away with being (not a lot because my company keeps a lid on that crap.) Luckily dude got his butt fired for incompetence and I didn’t have to listen to his “jokes” anymore.

      2. ThatOtherClare*

        I will admit that I referred to Explorer as simply ‘Exploder’, no profanity. In fact, I now say ‘Exploder’ when referring to Edge (so long as it’s clear from context to what I am referring), because I still find it amusing.

    3. We're BtWBH*

      Where I used to work we referred to it as Internet Exploder because it was so crashy.

      1. Tasha*

        My husband calls the Ford Explorer the Exploder for their tendency to burst into flame

        1. Rocket Raccoon*

          Same. Also insists that FORD stands for Fix Or Repair Daily. In all fairness we had a bad run of luck with Ford that culminated in switching to Dodge.

          2. Cherry Sours*

            We’ve done well with our 4 Ford vehicles, no major issues. Well, except all 4 were totaled by other drivers. In one case, the driver was attempting to turn a corner, give the baby a pacifier and restrain an unleashed puppy.

          3. Jellyfish Catcher*

            I heard it as Found On the Road Dead.
            I had a terrible run with the one ford I ever bought; Never Again.

    4. Vertigo*

      That’s so funny! I mentioned to my boss once a few years ago that a tool we used for remote recording didn’t support Firefox and he replied with “Isn’t Firefox a bit….2014?”

      I had no idea how to respond to that besides “no, it’s still popular?”, but I guess there’s at least one other person who felt the same way he did.

  4. Fluffy Fish*

    Not me but a colleague. Their job involves posting on social media. It is gov so obviously people have feelings, but generally the posts are mild and not remotely controversial.

    I can even remember what the post was other than in was totally innocuous – think a long the lines of a post sharing a buildings operating hours.

    A guy responded and called them “a greasy-palmed shyster”

    1. Nerds!*

      Wait, we can accept bribes for posting operating hours? Hot damn, I’m gonna make sooo much money off this!

      2. blerg*

        Just remember to delay receipt of payment until AFTER you post. Then it’s not even a bribe, it’s a gratuity!

    2. Political Nonsense*

      My state auditor (elected position) posted on X about an innocuous debate on a regional food item and someone responded “Go audit something. Stop the political nonsense.”

      1. blerg*

        That’s funny. It shows how pretty much anything an elected official says while on the job can be considered political. Including “nice day, isn’t it?” or “I like hot dogs.”

        1. CheeseHead*

          My county government job has paid volunteer hours, but has restrictions on which organizations you can volunteer for. My request was turned down since it was “too political”.

          I had asked to volunteer for the city to staff the upcoming election. Which I guess is, by definition, political.

    3. Zipperhead*

      I once worked on the social media team for a university, and we got so many oddly infuriated complaints about inoffensive posts we made. We announced a therapy dog day at the library during finals week — a dozen therapy dogs available for pets and hugs from students — and people posted in a rage about pampered weakling college kids wanting to pet dogs! This is why America is so weak! Petting dogs! (gnash gnash gnash)

      Another time, we posted about a very large monetary gift for the university’s engineering college. So much rage! You’re not known as an engineering school, you’re known as a music school! Stop posting about engineering! (They also got mad when we posted anything about the college of music, of course.)

      We should’ve banned so many of our commenters, but the boss thought we were required to let trolls run wild on our page.

      1. Me, I think*

        “…the boss thought we were required to let trolls run wild on our page.”

        Yeah, no, it’s your page. The place I worked just removed the bad posts for the most part. The trolls can get their own page, it’s easy, and they can write whatever they want.

    4. FricketyFrack*

      Trade you! We have one frequent flyer on our gov facebook page, and he’s both a bigot (who says everyone else is racist against *him*, a white dude) and his relationship with reality is…complicated. A post on a city page about fireworks being illegal turned into him talking about drug cartels, human trafficking, and a proposed county tax increase to fund a new prison. He also routinely refers to himself as “the George Floyd of [city]” even though he’s never even been arrested afaik. Even the most boring, routine post gets lunacy.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        we have one of those! he comments on pretty much every agency’s posts similar to that.

        my favorite part is he doesn’t live here. he lives a state over.

    5. Marz*

      I worked for a local government that posted an April fools joke video that involved Bigfoot. someone immediately commented about the waste of taxpayer dollars in buying a Bigfoot costume. and so they had to respond all jolly “whaaat that’s Bigfoot but if there were, say, it would’ve been borrowed for free.”

      i would find it absolutely exhausting being social media for government. give me a break, let people have some fun

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        There is always someone out there determined to ruin everybody’s good time.

    6. But maybe not*

      Please know that I was able to work “greasy-palmed shyster” into a conversation with my boss immediately following reading this.

    7. Lydia*

      This, and this alone, is why we are directed to turn off the Discussion on NextDoor posts.

      1. Fluffy Fish*

        we’re not allowed unfortunately. i would like to be able to on at least certain posts but our elected leaders does not want to restrict people’s free speech in any way.

        the workaround is social media sites have their own terms of service so if people violate them and say Facebook removes them? not a violation of free speech.

        1. Chick-n-Boots*

          Sadly, it won’t stop them (or their ilk) from complaining about their loss of free speech because they do not understand what the 1st Amendment means or how it applies.

  5. KHB*

    Not mine, but one of my colleagues’. We’re in the magazine world, and she handles letters to the editor. She wrote back to one letter writer to let him know that we were rejecting his submission. His reply: “Thanks. Good decision.”

  6. Judge Judy and Executioner*

    Many years ago I worked in a retail establishment known for plus-size clothes that rhymes with Borrid. Multiple customers complained that we didn’t have their size, and only had plus sizes.

    2. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

      YUP. Happened when I worked at Borrid, too. “You’re discriminating.”

    3. Hush42*

      I kind of understand this one, their clothes are super cute and I was a *tiny* bit disappointed that I couldn’t wear their clothes anymore when I lost weight. However, it would never occur to me to complain to an employee about it.

      1. I'm A Little Teapot*

        There have been times that I wished they carried smaller sizes, because they had the item of clothing that I wanted.

        1. Quill*

          There have been times that I wished they went one or two sizes smaller because there’s still a gap between what they carry and what is actually, instead of theoretically, available at the rest of the mall. This was back when I couldn’t find a size 10 or 12 anywhere.

      2. PhyllisB*

        I wish people wouldn’t get cute with store names. I can’t possibly imagine what store you are referring to (and I would like to know because I am plus size.) I can understand if you’re saying something extremely critical, but this is a very innocuous comment.

    4. AnotherOne*

      My mom worked at a different plus size store back in the day, which was always hilarious cuz she’s tiny. And they required employees always have on at least one item from the store.

      Customers would get annoyed sometimes when they’d walk into this store and see my sz 4 mom- which i totally get. But sometimes they’d make comments annoyed that someone not plus size worked at a plus size store.

      My mom would just go- yeah, I used to be larger but than I started working here.

      1. Elitist Semicolon*

        I’m not sure what she meant by that comment but it seems like it could be interpreted as insulting to the customers?

        1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

          I took it to mean that the job is physically demanding and so she lost weight because of all the activity. If you’ve never worked retail you don’t know how active it is.

        2. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

          nah, it’s just because you run around all day if you work retail. It can be pretty dramatic- I started wearing out shoes faster and definitely went down a couple of dress sizes.

      2. allathian*

        All the salespeople I’ve ever seen ay the plus size store I buy nearly everything from are also plus sized. I like it because they understand the issues of finding nice and well-fitting clothes that I face. They can also wear the clothes from the store. Last time I went in to buy some jeans, the cashier looked so good in an ankle-length summer dress that I immediately tried on the dress in my size and bought it.

        I also don’t object to another plus size woman estimating my size the way I would if a smaller woman did the same. Body shame is irrational.

    5. Nancy*

      In a way, that’s kind of a compliment. Your clothing must’ve looked like clothing that anyone could wear not just stuff meant for plus size people.

      1. The OG Sleepless*

        A sales person handled this with me very graciously once. I walked into a plus size store by accident because the clothes were really cute. I was immediately approached by a pleasant sales person who said, “Hi! Are you shopping for yourself today?”

        me: “…uh, yes?”

        Her: “OK! Just to let you know, our sizes do start at 16.”

        Me: Oh! OK. Now that I look around, I see that. But there would have been no reason to actually complain!

    6. WantonSeedStitch*

      I’ve complained at some times in my life that I was too busty for standard sizes and not large enough all over for plus sizes, but I never griped about the mere existence of plus-size stores!

      1. Aleae*

        I think we have the same problems! Any tips on how you solve this, professional clothing wise?

        2. Distracted Procrastinator*

          Get a good tailor or hire custom made. eShakti.com is a good place to start for that. You can order according to your measurements. (and customize skirt/pant length, sleeve length and style, and necklines on most styles.) Lots of cute professional styles priced around the same as Lands End or Ann Taylor.

          1. Sociology rocks!*

            Man this looks great. I need a mens version. But at least I can pass it along to some tall friends.

          2. WantonSeedStitch*

            Just as a warning, I’ve heard eShakti has gone severely downhill in terms of actually delivering what people order. Stuff is not arriving for MONTHS. I’ve heard a lot of outrage.

            1. AnnyFlavash*

              I’m so bummed to hear that! I have a couple of their dresses and I adore them. It’s so nice to have things that just freaking fit.

            2. Kitry*

              As a 6’1″ woman I use Shakti religiously. They can be VERY slow (months at times) but they do reliably deliver. This isn’t a new thing; they have struggled with slow shipping times on and of for years.

            3. Walk on the Left Side*

              Can confirm — ordered a dress on 05/09/2024 and they haven’t updated status since, and also did not respond to my attempts to contact customer service.

              Had to get a dress somewhere else for my event. Considering waiting to see if eShakti ever gets to my order, because it is kind of an awesome dress…I guess we’ll see. I was very, very disappointed as their website still specifically says delivery time is approximately 2-4 weeks.

            4. Sarah Mae*

              Yep. I am a loyal Eshakti customer and am still waiting for an order I placed in February. They did finally reply to my inquiry as to why it was taking so long but I had to email a couple times. When I checked last week, it looked like my order was almost ready to ship. *fingers crossed*

          3. Chick-n-Boots*

            Holy crap – I’ve never heard about this site and you just totally made my day. THANK YOU!!!!

        3. Anonymous Rex*

          With button downs, I either sew them shut or I slip a large safety pin in from behind and run it between the top two layers to pin it down, doing that between each button.

          Sewing pros: permanent, never worry about losing a pin, can use in washing machine without worry.
          Sewing cons: permanent, more holes needing to be made, tying them off is annoying if done by hand, machine sewing success is highly dependent on various factors.

          Safety pin pros: removable if you don’t want it to be a pull-over anymore, easy and fast with practice and can be done anywhere.
          Safety pin cons: pins will eventually bend and need replacing, can create larger holes, though technically can be thrown in the wash with the pins in it’s a gamble on thinner fabrics.

        4. WantonSeedStitch*

          Mostly stretchy knit dresses! And there’s a shirt from Riders by Lee Indigo (go to Amazon and search for that and “3/4 sleeve shirt”) that has a surprising amount of room in the bust and an extra button to prevent gapping.

      2. Annika Hansen*

        So if you are at the larger side of standard sizes like 12 or 14, you actually may be able to shop at that store. They go down to a 10 (but it is more like a 12 or 14 but with actual boob room). My best fitting dress is from that store. I have similar issues. If it fits across the bust, it too wide in the shoulders.

    7. Beebis*

      When I was 14 or so my friends and I accidentally wandered in there not realizing it was a plus size focused store for a minute. So we just turned around and left to go to another store.

    8. JSPA*

      And not even true? Some of their “0” sizes overlapped with other brands’ L, from what I remember?

  7. Elle*

    My first job in high school was a counselor at a nursery school summer camp. I was assigned to the two year olds. A mom complained to me that we weren’t teaching the kids to read. The kids couldn’t hold a paper cup without spilling it and she wanted them to read.

    1. ferrina*

      yeah….back when I worked at a nursery school, most of the parents were absolutely lovely, but there were a couple odd ones.

      One toddler (boy) had lovely, long hair. His mother loved his long hair and would always leave it down. Except since this kid also had a perpetually runny nose, and his hair constantly ended up sticking in the snot beneath his nose. I gave it about a week, then put his hair in a ponytail so we wouldn’t have to constantly clean snot out of his hair (just from under his nose). His mother was livid- she said I was trying to make her son look like a girl. I simply told her that it was an issue of hygiene and she was welcome to bring her son in with any hairstyle that kept the hair out of his face when he had a runny nose. She kept bringing him in with hair lose, and I kept putting it in a ponytail (only if it actually got snot on it, which unfortunately would happen usually within an hour), but she never tried to argue with me again. It also helped that he was learning by leaps and bounds in my classroom, so she couldn’t accuse me of doing a bad job.
      You could also tell the poor kid wasn’t interacted with much at home- not neglected, but not really talked with or had parents that were interested in him as an individual. I never saw his mom attempt to listen to him- she’d talk at him, but wouldn’t look at him while he responded (she’d usually turn her gaze to the adult and just keep talking). He was pretty confused when adults interacted with him, and he had slight speech delays that are common when young kids don’t actually get to practice conversations (on the flip side, I had one kid that had 4 older siblings that clearly practiced his talking with him all. the. time. and that kid was talking in full sentences before he was 2.)

      1. SarahKay*

        I remember a downstairs neighbour saying that her third child was talking way, way more quickly than the first two, and it was because the older two talked. Lots. To anyone, really, (they were very friendly chatterboxes) but child three was obviously the easiest target.

        1. Ghee Buttersnaps*

          That might explain the extreme loquaciousness of my family’s fourth (and final) sister.

        2. Jasmine*

          I spent time with a friend and her 10 yo son who chatted a lot. She said, He never stops talking but it’s because I talked to him constantly from the day he was born. The child was quite pleasant and rather entertaining!

          1. The OG Sleepless*

            My son spent a lot of time in speech therapy for pragmatics (he’s neurodiverse and had a hard time coming up with his own words for things). At age 24, he’s very chatty and has a vaguely stylized way of speaking, either from the neurodiversity itself or spending all that time talking to speech professionals.

      2. CommanderBanana*

        Haha yes, I nannied for a delightful toddler and I’m a big talker, so all we did was chat, and she could speak in full, clear sentences before she was two.

        Having a two year old who can speak clearly is a double-edged sword though, as they have no filter and will comment on everything and everyone they see.

        1. Ally McBeal*

          My cousin is an amazing SAHM so all three kids were highly verbal at an early age. I remember visiting them once when their oldest was about 4 and had to have a conversation with cousin & husband afterward because his favorite phrase was “um, actually…” and I was not going to be repeatedly (and incorrectly) mansplained to by a toddler! Fortunately neither of his younger siblings picked up that habit.

          1. AnneCordelia*

            Yeah, I still remember the time I was venting about something or other and my three-year-old looked at me and said “Well, Mom, you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

      3. Baby Yoda*

        I sold shoes in high school, and one mother refused to buy socks for her kids to try on shoes with. (there were no free footies back then). Then she got mad and told the manager I’d shoved their feet into the shoes. He took over the transaction then.

      4. SeaGirl*

        My sister is 18 months younger than me. My mother was beginning to wonder if she was developmentally delayed when suddenly, she started speaking in full sentences! Turns out having an older sibling talking for you means you skip the baby talk.

      5. Suzie*

        THANK YOU. My #3 is an early and verbose talker but I encountered this weird stereotype that younger siblings have speech delays because everyone ignores them. I was like… are you kidding?!?? #3 can find someone to chat to for every waking minute of her life, whereas poor #1 had to deal with me getting all talked out and lying on the sofa grunting.

    2. ImHereForTheUpdates*

      Some parents are something else. Not only are they 2 year olds but it’s summer camp!!!

      1. Chili*

        It is definitely a type of parent. I know people who were very attached to the idea that their kid needed to be reading by 3.5 years old. Eventually, the child did learn at least some reading skills by age 3.5 and the parents talked about it as if she had done so spontaneously instead of after serious effort on their part. This did not result in a kid who was academically ahead of their peers. At a slightly older age, kids picked up the same reading skills faster.

    3. Wolf*

      Yeah, some daycare parents are special. A friend of mine works in a daycare, and they had one set of parents insist that their kid eats his morning snack at 9.45am. The whole group eats at 9.30am. There was no reason given except “because we say so”. No medical or other reason for the kid not to eat with the group.

      Luckily, 3 year olds are terrible at reading the clock, but they do enjoy snack time with the group.

    4. Bast*

      I had a gig as a camp counselor for 5 & 6 year olds one summer as a teenager. There was a rule that if there was thunder and lightning, we could not be outside. Rain was “use your best judgment” so long as there was no thunder or lightning — so a light sprinkle may have been okay, playing in a torrential downpour was not. We had parents regularly complain about “not paying all this money to have our kids sit inside all day” when it was thundering outside, and the on the flip side, parents who complained about their kid getting a drop of water on them. There was no winning.

  8. Cease and D6*

    I teach undergraduates (whether or not they count as ‘customers’ is hotly debated, but let’s say they do for the purposes of this comment).
    You get lots of weird stuff in end-of-term evaluations. I’ve been called names, had my own name misspelled, compared to Velma from Scooby Doo, received excessive criticism of my fashion sense, the usual. You get used to that.
    But one year I had a student who said that I clearly had poor time-management skills because the my class overran by half an hour every week.
    Reader, the class did not overrun by half an hour. Not even once. The student just never checked what time the class was scheduled to end.

    1. Dr. Rebecca*

      mmmmHMM.

      Everything from comments that made it clear who they were, to “Dr. Rebecca is obviously unqualified to teach [subject in which I have a doctorate.]”

      1. anonny for this*

        to be fair, just because you know a lot about something doesn’t mean you can teach it.

        1. AnotherOne*

          my income law prof comes to mind. we were all assured he was brilliant. that we were so lucky to have him teaching us.

          he was terrible. it was likely a case of it made so much sense to him that he didn’t understand why it didn’t make as much sense to us. and i’ll admit- i do understand the basics of the material 10 yrs later w/o having ever worked in tax. so it got in there somehow.

          but no one looked forward to going to that class.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            I never really understood this until I tried to remotely teach basic computer skills to someone (e.g. “this is a window, this is how you double-click”). There was a lot of pantomiming, because I couldn’t figure out how to explain things in words they understood.

            “The rectangle. Uh, no, the other rectangle. Um.”

            (Just to up the difficulty level to “impossible”, the tutorial was for someone with a PC and external mouse, and she had a mac laptop with trackpad. Trying to teach someone to right-click when there is no right-click button…)

            1. Anonymous Rex*

              Years ago, I tried to root my phone. It was a locked Verizon phone that was notorious for being anti-rootable but someone had figured it out and posted the steps on the tech forum. I tried for weeks to do it to no avail. When I asked questions, I got virtual eyerolls and comments that I was “just like all the other housewives who want it handed to them and pretend they are good at tech.”

              I finally figured out the problem: The instructions were missing one step. One very crucial step. It was the kind of step that, if you did this all the time, you wouldn’t even think about it being a step. And even an experienced tech person who had never rooted a phone before or had never done it on this type of device would not have even known there was a step missing because it was so far outside their usual experience.

              It’s like teaching someone to drive who had never seen a car before getting frustrated when they can’t make the car go forward even though you told them how to take off the brake and put it into gear and press on the gas, only to discover you forgot to tell them how to start the engine. That was eye-opening and certainly helped me better assist others when I was doing tech support for people who barely understood what a mouse was.

              1. Chas*

                I recently had a similar issue when I was trying to figure out how to play a Windows game on my Steamdeck. All the forums I found discussing if it was possible to play the game on it just said “Yeah, it’s easy. Just run it through Proton” without giving any info on how you actually do that (Because it’s the sort of thing that once you’ve done it once you’ll be able to do it with every game, but the setting to do is well-hidden and not at all intuitive to find).

                Hmm, now I’m starting to understand why my mother would always ask me for help with tech stuff, instead of my brother-in-law who has a degree in computer sciences and lived in the same house as us!

                1. Brain Flogged*

                  “We know this is not your job, but we call you because you don’t treat us like idiots.” -> best “customer” review I ever received. I’m a developer, but I was constantly being called to the adjacent call center to things like excel formatting, setting auto-reply, etc. Why those people don’t call help desk, I wondered. That response humbled me down a few pegs.

              2. Ari Flynn*

                Let me guess: You had to turn on either “USB debugging” or “developer options”. They forgot to mention that because that’s the first thing techies do to their own stuff, the instant it lets you into the settings. (I paid for it, I should be able to break it whenever I want.)

                And Verizon is terrible about letting you unlock their phones – they flat out won’t do it at all unless the phone is 100% paid off AND has been active on their own network for 60 days. I was annoyed that they wouldn’t even just take my money and let me have the phone *I now owned* to use as I pleased.

            2. Stella*

              When I was tutoring, I made the Mac users go buy a mouse with two buttons because the right click works on the Mac. you just need a PC mouse.

          2. skeptic53*

            My medical school curriculum was in blocks. The statistics block was taught by statisticians employed by the school, who worked with research scientists. They were awful at teaching, and set an exam that was so hard only 6 out of 151 students passed it. And those 6 had worked as statisticians at some point in the past. The 145 who failed were all very bright, very driven, very competitive med students. The school had to throw the exam out. They didn’t have us repeat the course, so I was terrible at statistics forever…

          3. Chas*

            In my first year of Uni we once had a lecturer who was clearly only used to teaching the 3rd year + students, because his lectures were all way ahead of what we were expecting, and he also spoke at a gazillion words per minute (I suspect someone had said he needed to include some background and instead of cutting the advance stuff he just decided to speak faster to fit it all in) and didn’t have any sort of notes to hand out, so we were spending the hour’s lecture writing at breakneck speeds to try and get it all down on paper.

            Now I can’t even remember what subject he was supposed to be teaching us!

        2. Kesnit*

          Very much this.

          My Property professor in law school was a national expert in property law. The only reason any of us survived the class was that the TA was actually a good teacher. We would go to class and frantically take notes, trying to figure out what was going on. Then we would go to the TA’s office hours and things started to make sense. (As much sense as Property law ever does…) As the semester went on, the crowd around the TA would get bigger. (Office hours were held at a multi-media booth on one of the upper floors of the building, so there was plenty of room for people to sit on the floor and listen.)

        3. AnotherEmily*

          To be fair, these responses are ignoring the well-documented pattern where female-presenting professors regularly have their expertise denigrated and challenged by students in comparison to the student evaluations their male-presenting colleagues receive.

          1. HigherEd more like DireEd*

            this. my colleague was critiqued in a student eval because “the professor’s sleeves were too distracting.” she was wearing a normal long sleeved shirt.

          2. Star Trek Nutcase*

            Not in my experience. For over 12 years, I coordinated, compiled and tracked student evaluations for a department of 15 professors (4 F, 11 M) at a major research university. Personal comments as well as subject matter comments were comparable regarding professors’ sex. Teaching-related comments were more favorable for the females and also skewed to the younger professors overall. Of course, this is one small sample and student composition was pretty 50% F/M.

            Personally, I (65+F) don’t think every, even most, situations warrant a concern about impact of sex – neither do comments. I’ve experienced harassment & other crap at work & in my personal life, the “why” never mattered – how to stop it did. Admittedly, I also don’t agree with “hate” laws – I’m no more or less assaulted if the person hates my sex, race or religious views.

          3. Polite Pothead*

            Yeah, pretty uncool to see all these replies to someone who *just said* they’d been hit with this kind of feedback. So the idea is that what, the student who put down Dr. Rebecca’s experience and knowledge had a point?

            1. anonny for this*

              No, it was that ‘well I have a PhD in this’ is not a rebuttal to ‘they can’t teach this’.

        4. Ace in the Hole*

          Not to mention that just because you got a doctorate in something a few decades ago, it doesn’t mean you still have a good enough understanding of the basics to teach it.

          I went back to school to get a degree in my field… a handful of professors taught things that were just plain incorrect, 10+ years out of date, or were technically true but completely out of touch with any practical application in the field.

      2. AnonForThis*

        To be fair, being an expert in the subject matter doesn’t mean someone is qualified to teach it (source: 8 years of university classes).

        My favourite teacher evaluation was received by a colleague. To this day, decades later, he gets a haircut before exams every year, after once receiving the comment “professor should comb what little hair he has”, during the period he was compensating for a receding hairline with a scruffy pony tail.

        1. Ann Onymous*

          Yeah, I had a professor in grad school who was knowledgeable about the subject matter and did extremely cool, ground-breaking research, but wasn’t good at teaching, didn’t like teaching, and didn’t care to become better at teaching.

          1. FricketyFrack*

            Ughhh my World History professor my freshman year of college was like that. She actually liked her grad-level classes, as seen in the start difference in reviews on ratemyprofessor, but she visibly hated teaching undergrad and would just put her lecture on the overhead and read it verbatim, then post it online later. God forbid someone asked a question – she clearly hated that, too. But of course she had an attendance requirement, so we were forced to listen to her monotone for 3 hours a week.

          2. anotherfan*

            Not just academics. I was at a music camp one year when world-famous-niche-instrument genius was teaching a class and by the end of the week, pretty nearly everybody had bailed to another class. H
            e knew how to play all right. He had no idea how to show everybody else what he did and why he did it and how to do it yourself.

            1. 1LFTW*

              Kind of like my father trying to teach me to swing a baseball bat. He was a reasonably accomplished baseball player when he was in high school, has “a natural swing” whatever TF that means, and his feedback was always “No, no, no! Not like that, like THIS!”.

              Reader, I never learned how to swing a bat.

            2. Me, I think*

              Yeah, lots of experience with music workshops with well known professional musicians who stand up and demonstrate what they do, but don’t know how to break it down or explain it to us mere mortals.

          3. Worldwalker*

            I had one like that. I ended up switching sections to first period (I’m a night owl) with a TA.

            The tenured full professor was so far beyond the basic course that he was teaching, and such a poor teacher—he was accustomed to collaborative work with grad students, not teaching the basics to undergrads — that his section was useless. He was a brilliant scientist and researcher, but totally the wrong person to be teaching that class.

          4. Bananapants Circus with Dysfunctional Monkeys*

            Oh you met my International Relations prof?

            Absolutely amazing knowledge about the intricacies of IR, absolutely godawful at actually explaining them to anyone sub PhD level.

      3. Anonymous Demi ISFJ*

        My father has been teaching at the university level for longer than I’ve been alive and also teaches continuing education classes. He paces while he’s teaching. He found this gem in one of his continuing ed class evaluations: “Nail his shoes to the floor.” Once he stopped laughing, Dad said he’d just take off the nailed shoes and keep pacing!

      4. Pescadero*

        Eh… As someone who attended an R1 engineering college, and now works in the same R1 engineering college:

        Anyone with a PhD in subject is extremely knowledgeable and expert about that subject.
        That doesn’t mean they’re qualified to teach anyone, anything.

        I had a couple different professors as a student who were experts in their field, and couldn’t teach a lick.

      5. Dr. Rebecca*

        Jesus you guys, I wouldn’t have posted it here if it was an accurate critique…

        1. AnotherEmily*

          Apparently everyone has decided to conveniently forget the vast numbers of studies about the validity and usefulness of student evaluations, especially when gender or race might happen to be a factor…

          2. JHunz*

            Not everyone has read the vast number of studies, but everyone has had at least one bad teacher

            1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

              Let’s see, in the US that’s K-6 (7 teachers); 7-9, 7 classes/day (7*3 = 21 teachers); 10-12, 6 classes/day (6*3 = 18 teachers); 4 years undergrad, 4 classes per semester & 1 summerschool (4*4*2 + 4 = 36). 82 teachers minimum (not counting someone like me who changed major twice and uni once – for a total of 7.5 years to finish my BS). It would be a miracle if anyone didn’t have at least one bad teacher.
              But… the good teachers are worth their weight in gold!
              Thank you, Dr. Rebecca for your compassion and patience with your students.

        2. the frogs are okay*

          Not sure why you are getting such strange/negative replies. I assumed that based on the topic at hand that the student’s feedback wasn’t accurate or in good faith.

          2. AGD*

            Seconding – why is everyone assuming that you can’t possibly have considered the possibility of a subject-matter expert who can’t teach well? This is academia. EVERYONE knows someone like that.

        3. Texas Teacher*

          I’m guessing it’s just the direction the conversation took in this thread, not that they were doubting your teaching skills.

          1. dawbs*

            Yeah, this is the kind of birdwalking conversation that happens in the AAM comments.
            I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of educator feedback and it’s a wild ride.
            (I did get one recently that was “we can’t remember the special teacher’s name but the kids loved that she dressed up as Miss Frizzle”.
            Y’all, that’s just my wardrobe and hair, but, I’ll take it as a compliment. And the dress has pockets because Miss Frizzle wouldn’t wear a dress without effing pockets)

        4. FluterDale*

          I don’t think you can fully prepare a non-teacher for the absolute … whatever … that is teaching evaluations.

          I teach music, which is a subject most folks have some familiarity with. I know this, because every time I introduce myself to someone and it involves what I do, they say, “Oh, I played [whatever instrument] for [insert arbitrary number of years.]” The closer it is to 1 or 2, the more profoundly they understand my field, what I do, and what my day to day life is like.

          All this to say: everyone has had a teacher, so everyone knows in their bones exactly what it must be like to be a teacher. (I thought your eval was hilarious. One of mine last year complained that I didn’t teach X part of the subfield, but just focused on Y … because X is a totally different class, and if you read the state-mandated course description, this course focuses exclusively on Y …..)

    2. S*

      Early in my teaching career, I had the habit of going too fast and got a good number of complaints about it on the evals. I’ve since gotten better about this, but the best version of the complaint was “He writes on the board faster than Sonic on crack.”

      2. Quinalla*

        Haha, I definitely had a professor like this. And this was before smartphones, so not like you could snap a photo of the notes for some chance. He’d fill all 4 chalkboards and then start erasing and writing more and we’d be like NO WAIT!!!

    3. Midwest Manager too!*

      I work in higher ed. One of our instructors for a STEM course once received student feedback that said: “Attending lecture is like listening to an AI audio recording of the textbook.”

      1. Elitist Semicolon*

        I used a textbook written by a colleague for a course I taught and one of my students wrote on the eval that it was more effective as a doorstop.

          1. Elitist Semicolon*

            100% true, but that’s only because it was so useless as a textbook that literally anything would have been a better use.

      2. Loreli*

        I had a professor who, if you asked for more explanation, would repeat word for word what he just said, only at twice the volume. Smart dude, horrible teacher.

        Had another who would answer requests for help with “I don’t know why you don’t get this, it’s very easy”.

      3. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

        And now I know what I should have put on my student evaluation of a former professor. Lovely woman, very knowledgeable, but her lecture style was to recite the textbook verbatim in a very flat voice.

      4. KTB2*

        Oh, my god, that was my Statistics prof in my MBA program. He wrote the book, which he also taught from, and the class was basically just him reading what he wrote, or having an AI program read what he wrote with the occasional (and largely scripted, based on convos with the other cohort) aside taking a dig at his ex-wife.

        That class SUCKED.

      5. Lexi Vipond*

        The best review I ever overheard, I don’t even know who it was about – I was standing at one of the west end bus stops in the days when the Edinburgh book festival was still in Charlotte Square.

        “The way he read from the book, it was as if he didnae know he’d wrote it.”

    5. Writing Teacher*

      I once had a student eval say that I did a lot of Dad jokes. Given that I was in my 40’s at the time and male (though not a father), I’m not sure what they were expecting. :)

    6. WeirdChemist*

      From the inverse, I once got to write a student evaluation that read “The person who’s lab reports he’s cheating off of writes terrible lab reports” which made the prof I was TA-ing for laugh (and agree)

    7. Dr. Vibrissae*

      On my first evaluations in teaching the feedback was evenly divided between people who thought my delivery was calm, reassuring and good at explaining complex material, and those who though I should speed it up as my voice was soo soothing as to put them to sleep.

      WE are required to address every bit of negative feed back, but I’m still not sure how to address the fact that there seem to be two opposite camps on whether I’m a pleasure or an agonizing endurance test to listen to.

      1. Project Maniac-ger*

        I’m almost done with a masters and have had profs with soothing voices, but I consider it my fault when I get sleepy because I’ve trained myself to fall asleep to true crime podcasts when I travel… I bet some of those students also Pavlov’s dogged themselves into their situation.

      2. FluterDale*

        “I will work harder at being everyone’s cup of tea …”

        I love the spirit of the rule, but also … who thinks that’s feasible?

    8. UncleFrank*

      One of my favourite evals was when a student said (paraphrasing, but close) “This class was impossibly hard [Prof] goes way too fast, but it did get better when I started reading the textbook” Why yes, I’m sure class is easier if you’ve done the reading! So close to learning a valuable lesson here…

      1. WeirdChemist*

        I once had a classmate who, after a quiz, complained “what, so now he’s testing us on things he talks about in class??” Yes, that is generally how quizzes work!

          1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

            Not WeirdChemist, but my guess is that classmate meant, “material that only came up in class and isn’t in the written materials”.

            My sibling teaches some university courses, and nowadays they’re all recorded for later use (very helpful for revision, etc). But for privacy reasons the Q&A at the end is not recorded, only the lecture itself. So there is absolutely added value in showing up in person at least occasionally!

    9. Nesprin*

      I was told in one memorable student evaluation that I always looked like I was ready to kick puppies.

      This same student evaluation also mentioned how mean I was in accepting late homework, when the class policy and syllabus stated very very clearly, that no late homework will be accepted.

    10. Butterfly Counter*

      I had a student complain to me, then my department chair, the college dean, and finally the university president (cc-ing me on every email) that I was improperly scheduling an in-class exam. It was scheduled during our regular class time. (It was the first class after a mid-semester break and she wanted to relax, not study during the break.)

      I had a professor friend get an anonymous student evaluation that said, “She’s got a few extra pounds on her, but I like more cushion for the pushin’.” Yikes.

      1. S*

        One semester I had a few students complain that I was violating a “rule” against holding quizzes in the last week of class. Never did figure out where that rumor started.

    11. Elle Woods*

      I taught undergrads while attending grad school. One semester I had a student who said I was TOO prepared for class because I did things like have an outline of the day’s lecture on the board, post study guides after class, and distribute handouts (when needed). Maybe this student would’ve preferred me to wing it every day?

    12. In Pieces*

      I used to be an adjunct, teaching at the graduate level. Course feedback tended to follow a normal curve – for very few I was either The Worst or The Best. One memorable comment “I barely had a social life during this class!” Oops, sorry; didn’t meant to take up your time.

      1. Pescadero*

        I sort of get it…

        As an undergrad I had 4 credit hour classes I spent 4 hours a week on.

        As an undergrad I also had a 4 credit class I, and my 3 teammates, all averaged 40 hours per week (each) outside of class time.

        Sometimes the credit hours are not appropriate for the amount of effort necessary.

        1. Peekskill*

          A credit hour is how much time you spend attending the class each week, not how much time you spend on it outside of class. I agree that 40 hours for a 4-credit class is excessive, but 4 hours might be too little.

          1. 2e asteroid*

            The general rule I’ve always heard (obviously with significant variation) is that you ought to spend 2 hours outside class for every hour in class, so 4-credit hour classes should average about 12 hours/week of total time.

    13. Ann O'Nemity*

      I received a negative student evaluation because our class time of 8 am did not accommodate the fraternity’s late night parties. (This was a general ed course that had dozens of sections throughout the day, so maybe just choose a later class time so you can sleep in and sober up?)

      1. Evan Þ*

        Reminds me of my freshman-year calc class where I signed up for the 8 AM section. Class was in a large lecture hall. By week three, there were only about a dozen of us still there.

    14. LaurCha*

      When I was teaching art history, nearly all of my lectures were accompanied by a power point because, you know, ART, it’s VISUAL. I had a student evaluation complaint that “all she ever does is show slides.”

      Like, what was I supposed to do? Grab a TARDIS and take them to the Louvre every week?? Bring the Mona Lisa in for my Italian Renaissance lecture? Of COURSE there were slides.

      I remain baffled, all these years later.

      1. In the provinces*

        In the course of 39 years of teaching undergraduates, I have received many interesting student evaluations. One, when I had just started: “Prof is so cute I don’t know whether to listen to the lecture or rush to the stage and pinch his cheeks.” Then there was this, in the very last class I taught before retirement: “Prof spends most of his time in lecture cracking jokes like a comedian. Actually, he’s funnier than most comedians.”

    15. Union Rep*

      One of the hardest-fought sections in our contract says that student evaluations can’t be the sole or primary criterion for personnel decisions. This is why. 50% of people (not just students) don’t know what they want, and 98% of them don’t know what they need. Not to mention that what a lot of students actually want is “the same class but taught by a white man,” even if they don’t say it (or even know it).

        1. Your Former Password Resetter*

          *Waves at everything that happened in the last 500 years*

          Racism and sexism are alive and well. If you managed to dodge them, great! But you’d be an exception or a white man.

    16. Hyaline*

      A colleague got an eval in which the student “did her colors” for her, like “you wear a lot of black but it’s not your best color—it makes you washed out. You look much better in deep blues and emerald green…have you considered trying purple or berry?” It didn’t make it any less inappropriate to the context, but the student’s assessment was actually pretty accurate. We got a laugh out of it!

        1. UncleFrank*

          Honestly, I would really enjoy getting my colors done but would never pay for it so I would love this!

      2. Sociology rocks!*

        It’s definitely weird and not appropriate to the context, but I can appreciate the sentiment of a student who noticed and just couldn’t leave it unacknowledged, and figured of all the ways to mention it this was the safest.

        And I guess it means they actually paid attention to the professor

        1. Sociology rocks!*

          I posted then realized the reason this is sticking with me as not a horrible thing to do is cause as a trans guy who passes, I can no longer just compliment people on their outfits or when they wear a color that’s really good on them. It’s very disappointing to only be able to compliment people I know really well, brightening stranger’s day always feels good and is harder now

    17. kjinsea*

      Oh, I have a teaching one too! I teach a child development class at my university. It is literally billed as being about child development from birth to age 13. My mid-term feedback from one student was “The professor talks about children too much.” The person who reviews my midterm evals and I got a HUGE chuckle out of that one.

    18. Prudence Snooter*

      When I was an undergrad I once added “It doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes” to a college professor’s review. I cringe HARD at that memory. To make matters worse, I’m pretty sure I put information in there that made it not difficult to identify me.

    19. Sleeping Panther*

      When I was in grad school, serving as a teaching assistant for an undergrad literature course, I had two memorable student interactions:

      1. A student who wanted to dispute his score on a test and wasn’t satisfied with my scoring (which I had tried to be really generous with) told me that he “knew how to get around TAs like me.” It turned out that he did not, since the professor told him that not only did he agree with me, he actually would have given the student fewer points on that question than I did.
      2. A student whose essay I’d graded emailed the professor saying she felt “cheated and lied to” because she didn’t get an A on the essay. I’d given her an 85/100, a respectable effort and a solid B.

      1. Anonymous 5*

        years ago, a student who failed my course fair and square emailed me a LONG list of reasons why he was entitled to a higher grade, and demands for how I would go about giving it to him. The whole email was a work of, ahem, gumption. But perhaps the most impressive part was when he demanded that I recalculate the class average without the scores from another student who had testing accommodations on exams, as those accommodations would lead to the scores being outliers.

        Never mind that, ahem, that’s not how testing accommodations work: there was no curve in the course. But even if there had been, the only scores that were actual “outliers” were…the scores of the student who failed.

        1. Venus*

          When I was a TA, I had a college student who failed a big project and he came to argue why he should have got more marks on various questions. I flipped to the end of the report, asked him why his results were from the software used last year and not available this year, and pointed out that his answers were clearly copied off a report from the previous year and didn’t line up with the current year’s. At that point he stopped arguing and left.

          The professor was very kind and asked me if I felt justified in failing the student on the project, and thankfully he laughed and agreed when I showed him the software difference.

      2. Academic Anon*

        I had a student come to my office hours to dispute the grade that they got on their assignment. Once we went through the assignment, the student complained that most professors gave points for showing up to office hours. I wish that I was quick enough to say that I wasn’t that lonely. Only thought of it many hours later.

    20. FuzzBunny*

      Another college prof here. My favorites include:
      * Student took two quizzes, got B’s, didn’t complete any other work the entire semester. Complained to my department chair that I’d failed him even though he had clearly demonstrated he was a B-level student, and in his heart of hearts he just knew he would have continued to get B’s if he did the other assignments, and it’s not his fault he didn’t because he was prioritizing other classes.
      * Student was caught blatantly cheating on an exam. Got mad that I’d failed her, because “if Jesus can forgive all then so should you.” I was able to overhear the conversation when she complained to the chair – that was a fun one :)
      * “She’s too short to be an effective teacher.” I’m 5-foot-nothing, but how is that relevant?
      * “She spent too much time talking about kids.” The course is Child Development, wtf did you expect?

    21. Academic Anon*

      One of the people I knew in my undergrad gave the evaluation that the class was like all of the students assembled on the tarmac next to a plane and watch the professor take off in it. Needless to say, he and his fellow students learned nothing from the lectures.

    22. eternity*

      This reminds me of an eval comment someone posted on the internet that read “If I only had six months to live, I would want it to be spent in your class because it would feel like an eternity.”

    23. Texas Teacher*

      When I was in college, I had a history class in which the professor had us fill out Evals midterm, so he could address and improve valid criticisms. We had a weekly lab in that class, and the TA was a terrible lecturer, speaking very quietly with his back turned to the class the whole time.
      The week after the Evals were done, he (the TA) read some of the ones aloud that pertained to him. Most of them softpedaled the issue, but one person had written, “The only thing I’m fettyfrom the lab hour is an urge to skip.”
      We laughed, and the TA made a visible effort to improve for the remainder of the semester.

    24. talos*

      In 2020, I got an eval about how I was “relatable”. (This was as a grad adjunct teaching freshmen/sophomores).

      iirc, this is the same semester I had a student ask me if I was okay before I started class. Turns out 12 grad credits and 30 hours/week of work will take a lot out of you!

    25. Leaving academia*

      For the longest time, my favorite was the one that wrote “math” for every question. What is the instructor best at? Math. What is the instructor worst at? Math. Also, as a second year grad student, I must have made a lot of comments about my circle drawing abilities (trig), because one section commented how good they were and the other commented how bad they were. You don’t really get these types of comments on the online forms (or, not overwhelming numbers of comments about circles in a calc class). My grad department was only forced to switch in 2020, it was amazing.

      But now my favorite is the student who wrote multiple paragraphs about how terrible it was that I required them to use full sentences, and by providing a guide for how to write in my class and the proper format for their homework, I was insulting them because they had all taken [a list of courses that definitely weren’t prerequisite and really should be taken after the class I was teaching]

    26. Sharp-dressed Boston Terrier*

      My grandmother studied at what is now Bridgewater State University in the late 1930s. She recalled one lecturer who was apparently fairly terrible, so on the end-of-term evaluation when asked what she’d gotten out of the class, she spent the remainder of the class elaborately decorating an ornate question mark. The details of this story are a bit fuzzy, but apparently the lecturer made a point of trying to find out who had the audacity…

  9. wondermint*

    Recently saw one where someone complained about their new laptop:

    “The 14″ screen is smaller than described.”

    Ma’am????

    1. Cease and D6*

      See, this one I do actually understand. Computer screens are sized based on the diagonal measurement, corner to corner. If you didn’t know that, bought a screen advertised as 14″, and then measured along one of the sides, it would be smaller than you’d expect.

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Yeah. It’s not your fault, and it is mentioned in the fine print somewhere, but it’s a case where the marketing material is, if not precisely dishonest, choosing to use potentially misleading terminology that casts their products in the best light.

    2. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      Back when ratios varied, if you thought you were buying a 14″@4:3 (11.2″ x 8.4″, so ~94 sq in) and received 14″@16:9 (12.2″ x 6.8625″, ~84 sq in), that’s 10% less area and the complaint would be perfectly valid.

      14″ could also be anywhere from 13.55″ to 14.45″, although everyone loves to round up to make the value look better…

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        It can be hard explaining ratios: when I tell people that our large pie is seventeen inches, I have to specify that means ACROSS, not the circumference of the thing.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Wow, really? I worked in a pizza place, and I never ran into that confusion. I would need a calculator to figure out the circumference of our 14″ pepperoni pizza, it just seems such a weird thing to measure. (I can more easily see a radius vs. diameter confusion.)

              1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

                I know there are limits to the approximation’s value, but I use 22/7 any time I need pi and that almost always gets the job done.

            2. MigraineMonth*

              Yes, and I would use a calculator to multiply 14 * 3.142. It was not something that came up often enough for me to have memorized.

              Though, embarrassingly, it was several days before I realized that I didn’t need to look up the price for each sandwich because they were *all* priced at $4.95.

  10. Fleur*

    I worked as a barista. One time, a customer ordered “iced coffee,” which she received. She returned to the counter and said “When I ordered iced coffee, I expected hot coffee with some ice. Can you warm this up?”
    Another time, we received an online review from an upset man. He said the employees were “emo white trash” because they forgot to put whipped cream on his latte.

    1. bagels r us*

      Not exactly the same, but the iced coffee reminded me of when I used to work at a bagel store and someone once asked me to microwave their bagel. I tried to explain that we had toasters, but they insisted I warn the bagel via microwave. The customer is not always right!

      2. Strawberry Snarkcake*

        My husband microwaves his bagels. I have considered contacting the authorities.

        2. Ali + Nino*

          Next thing you know you’re putting blueberry cream cheese on those things. stop the madness!

      3. I don’t know*

        I microwave my bagels sometimes. Toasters get em too crunchy! So I understand this one.

        1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          A short stint in the microwave also reverse minimal staleness temporarily–easily long enough to enjoy the last bagel in the bag.

        2. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

          Agreed — although I don’t normally microwave bagels — but other reheated bready things like last night’s dinner roll or breadsticks, I wrap a damp paper towel around it and pop it in the microwave for no more than 10 seconds and that actually softens and warms the bread enough to enjoy it.

        3. Steve for Work Purposes*

          Yeah and often it’s the best way to make GF bagels tasty – I’ve found it works better than toasting them. There’s this one brand of gluten-free sourdough bagels I love but the texture is way better if they’re microwaved rather than toasted.

      4. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        The customer is not always right, but in matters of personal taste? If they like their bagels microwaved (shudder) that’s what they like.

        1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          The customer is not always right. The customer has never been always right.

          The customer is never wrong. I.e. If the customer is wrong, you do not contradict their wrongness; the customer’s wrongness is to be humored.

          (Irony duly noted, but the wrong version of that axiom just does so much collateral damage to Service Workers as a captive audience that I make the exception).

          1. Petty_Boop*

            I had a manager who used to say, “the customer is always right, but seldom correct.”

      5. Liane*

        The full quote is, “The customer is always right in matters of taste.” So I guess somebody doesn’t like how toasted bagels taste?

        (Also, I have my doubts about whether even the full quote should be a customer service rule, given some of my customers’ food & condiment pairings.)

        1. Shiara*

          The “full quote” appears to be an Internet myth. See link to follow for what we know about the origins of the phrase.

          2. Vio*

            I think it’s more of a clarification than a ‘true source’. “In matters of taste” was implied but is frequently ignored and the phrase is used in an extremely different context to how it was meant.

        2. Vio*

          So long as they don’t ask you to try any of their weird choices I say let them enjoy having custard to pour on their curry.
          When I first heard of cheesecake I thought the idea was disgusting, although I initially assumed it was just a silly name like Toad In The Hole but upon discovering that it does in fact contain cheese I was convinced it would be awful. But I tried some and discovered that it’s actually one of the single best inventions in human history. So now I’m tempted to try any odd combinations I spot.

          The wasabi ice cream on the other hand was… interesting but not enjoyable.

          1. MagicEyes*

            I just found a recipe for microwave mug cheesecake. If it’s good, it could be life-changing. ;-)

        3. Worldwalker*

          No, good bagels absolutely do not.

          Bad bagels do, which is why their only use is as emergency lawnmower tires. But good bagels are soft and fluffy inside a delectable chewy skin and blast it now I want a bagel so bad!

        4. Worldwalker*

          As a person who puts ketchup on my lightly browned scrambled eggs, I have no standing to criticize other people’s food choices.

      6. Butterfly Counter*

        I love a microwaved bagel!

        I only zap them for a few seconds, enough that the cream cheese spreads easily. That way, they’re chewy, not crunchy.

      7. metadata minion*

        But this is exactly the situation “the customer is always right [in matters of taste]” was intended to cover! Microwaving a bagel is indeed a travesty, but if you are generally able to microwave things for customers and your customer wants a microwaved bagel, then by golly they get a microwaved bagel.

    3. Applesauced*

      Ok, but one time – about 20 years ago – I (from the northeast) was looking at colleges in the deep south and was served hot coffee next to a glass of ice when I ordered iced coffee at a diner in Georgia.

      1. sparkle emoji*

        Ordering iced coffee abroad can deliver that, or frappes. The way coffee culture varies country to country can be fascinating.

        1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

          Iced coffee in Germany in the 1980s. Room temperature coffee, sweetened with sugar, add 2 scoops of (high quality) vanilla ice cream, whipped cream on top. Served with a straw and a spoon.
          Absolutely fabulous!

          2. londonedit*

            One of my favourite cafes in Portugal does iced coffee in a long glass with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. It is indeed excellent.

          3. Susan Calvin*

            I am happy to inform you that this has survived until today! (although I’m ambivalent on if there is typically any additional sugar involved or if the vanilla ice cream does the job)

      1. biobotb*

        I received something similar once when I ordered iced tea (which was listed on their menu). But they didn’t fully brew the tea and then pour it over ice. They poured hot water over ice cubes, then stuck a tea bag in. No, tea doesn’t brew well in lukewarm water.

        1. Sapientia*

          I was in a similar situation once – they simply brought a cup of cold water and a tea bag. I first thought it might be a special kind of tea bag that works well with cold water, but that wasn’t the case. SMH, I still don’t understand why they would advertise cold tea when they don’t prepare it beforehand.

      2. MikeM_inMD*

        My mother-in-law attended a Methodist church in Baltimore in the 1970s. The church got a new pastor and he held a small meet-and-greet where his British wife served hot tea and coffee on a hot, humid summer day. My MIL asked if there was any iced tea. The pastor’s wife looked confused for a moment, but fetched up a couple of ice cubes. This confused and amused my MIL. In the 1990s, I worked in the UK for a couple of years and now fully understand the pastor’s wife’s confusion.

        1. Vio*

          Even now iced tea isn’t very popular in UK, though it has actually had some acceptance. Supposedly we don’t get the ‘kind of heat’ where it’s as refreshing, according to an American friend.

          1. londonedit*

            Yeah, you can get that Lipton stuff in bottles in the supermarket, but I don’t know anyone who drinks it! Pretty sure the vast majority of British people wouldn’t have a clue how to make iced tea (I don’t know – do you just put tea bags in water with ice?) Then again most Americans can’t make a proper cup of builder’s tea, so we’re equal.

            1. Lexi Vipond*

              I do occasionally, but I don’t really consider it a relation of tea – it’s just less overpoweringly sweet than a lot of juice in bottles if I’m feeling the need for something other than water.

            2. PaulaMomOfTwo*

              Iced tea is made simply by making tea. Once made, if you want it sweetened, add sugar, then you add ice.

    5. Keyboard Cowboy*

      My partner knows that for me, getting a fresh cup of coffee in the morning is my best-understood expression of love. It’s just great, it makes me feel nice. So the first time I asked him for an iced coffee, about a year into our relationship, he looked at me kind of confused, then went downstairs and dutifully made a hot americano plus 3 ice cubes. He brought it back and said “I tried, is this what you wanted?” He’s very sweet, but no :)

    6. BCat*

      Two similar instances: A negative Yelp comment about not liking the breakfast burrito from a customer who admitted they “didn’t usually like burritos” but “ordered the breakfast burrito” anyway. We had many, many other menu options. Another time at a different cafe, where we were more than happy to give a sample, a customer orders chili (as in, a stew named after a hot pepper) and complained about it being too spicy. As a heat-adverse person myself, totally understand a low tolerance, but scratch my head at ordering the *one* menu item that could be spicy without asking about spice level/asking for a sample.

      1. bmorepm*

        I’ve ordered a lot of chili in restaurants, and never eaten a spicy one. it’s definitely something that would normally be labeled as such.

        1. Worldwalker*

          I like live in the US South. Chili around here will set your eyebrows on fire.

          I can see someone from the Midwest not expecting that.

          (I make my own wimpy chili; I do not like smoldering eyebrows)

    7. Kara*

      I feel the first customer. I like my coffee warm or luke-warm. Ice hurts my teeth and hot is lava. I’ve found over time that the easiest way to get a cup close to my preferences is to order a hot with ice in it.

  11. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

    This isn’t really about product so much as my customer service skills. Within a few years of a racially motivated uprising in my city, a white customer complained that I, a white woman, would have treated him better if he were black. This was because I wouldn’t let him load furniture into his car before he paid for it. I stammered that I was sorry that he felt that way, but that no really, he couldn’t load the furniture into his car before paying.

    The customer I was actually waiting on at the time was absolutely aghast and asked me, “Did that man just accuse you of being racist against white people?” I replied, “I guess?” To which the complaining costumer overheard, since he was standing behind me (he refused to come around to the front of the customer; I’ve been robbed before, so this already raised my hackles) and then he complained to my manager about my behavior.

    This was the early 00’s and it was easily the most baffling retail encounter I had.

    1. dulcinea47*

      I love when they take their nonsense complaints to the manager. Go ahead, my manager also knows that’s ridiculous. I was once reported to mine for not having higher magnification lenses for the microfilm machines. Didn’t change the fact that we didn’t have them!

  12. D'oh!*

    Oh, the joys of working in a regional theater box office. I’ve forgotten most of them, as it’s been eons, but a couple come to mind:

    “Could I have a seat facing the stage?” and, during a production of Patsy Cline music produced in the 90’s: “Is Patsy going to be in the show?”

    1. Paint N Drip*

      We actually try to have ALL of the seats facing the stage, we find it improves the customer experience

      1. Rex Libris*

        On the other hand, I once saw a truly terrible production of Man of La Mancha that I think might have been improved by rear facing seats.

        1. Phony Genius*

          I believe a theatre critic once wrote a review akin to this. Something like “I had the misfortune of having a seat which faced the stage.”

          And the classic: “I did not like it, but perhaps this judgment is unfair. I saw it under adverse conditions — the curtain was up.” Attributed to Walter Winchell, Groucho Marx, and others.

    2. Elle*

      I volunteered to sell tickets day off at my kids HS musical production. The show is held in our HS auditorium. The complaints and requests were insane. Never again. I don’t know why people expect a HS auditorium and production to be like Broadway.

      1. ferrina*

        I’ll second this- most parents I’ve interacted with are lovely and know what they’re in for, but there are a few that expect a world-class production (usually starring Their Child).
        It’s one of the few situations where I’ll channel the full PTA Karen energy in self-defense.

      2. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        The weekend after 9/11, my university had their family weekend and I was working in the office that planned it. We had the least amount of medium t-shirts because we ordered them based on what people indicated on the order form that they wanted. People who did not sign up for mediums started asking them. My boss started handing out mediums to whomever wanted them. Eventually, I asked, “But what if people who ordered mediums don’t get them?” My boss looked at me, dead serious, and said, “Resident, we’ve just been through a national tragedy. T-shirt sizes are not that important.”

        So, later, when I was being screamed at by people who ordered mediums and were peeved to be told we were all out, I firmly blamed my boss, who had decamped to have a few margaritas after a long morning.

        I gave grace to the people who were mad because 1) they ordered a specific size and then we ran out; 2) everyone was stressed because this was Friday and 9/11 had happened on Tuesday; and 3) A LOT of those people traveled in from out of town when travel was…highly precarious. (Obviously, no flights, but I imagine car rental places were a nightmare.)

        1. AnotherOne*

          My mom flew that weekend- it was my first year at college out of state and it was my birthday weekend.

          My parents and I had decided early on that they wouldn’t do parents weekend but instead would come up a random weekend. (It was a lot more cost effective cuz I went to school in the Boston area and most schools had their parent weekends on a handful of dates so hotels and flights got very expensive.)

          My mom loves me a lot and I have the proof because of the number of hours she spent in security lines flying right after 9/11 so she could spend maybe 48 hours with me.

          When people are like why are you so close to your parents, especially your mom- I’m like that. That right there.

    4. Robbie*

      I preach in my job. I have been told my voice is too high pitched, it is too low pitched, I speak to slowly and too quickly, and that if I just spoke like their current minister who was on vacation I could be heard just fine.

      their current preacher is a lovely man in his 60’s with a deep baritone. I am a 33-year old woman with a mid-range pitch. I will happily accept feedback to make my voice heard, but I won’t be changing my voice to match a man twice my age. this did not go over well.

      2. ferrina*

        I have a female relative who is a former pastor, and apparently a lot of people think that being a young, female clergy member is an invitation for commentary on EVERYTHING. She got comments on her voice, her clothes, her hair, her shoes….surprisingly little on the actual content of her sermons. It would usually be something like “We love how unique your style is! But have you tried [clothing/hairstyle/speaking mannerism that isn’t like her at all]?”

        Eventually she dyed her hair pink, and a year later quit the clergy. She now works in tech, which she says has less condescending people and less drama.

        1. RLC*

          My late mother in law was a pastor, I recall one commenter pointing out how the communion loaf dropped crumbs on the floor and made a mess, that she should have selected a different sort of bread which did not drop crumbs.

          1. Evan Þ*

            I heard that, a little before I joined my church, there was a tussle about a new recipe for our Communion bread.

            When I heard this, I shrugged and said “It tastes good to me now.”

            My friend replied, “That’s because you weren’t here to taste the old recipe.”

        3. Bossy*

          People think that being female in any stage of life is an invitation for their commentary on EVERYTHING.

          1. Star Trek Nutcase*

            Unfortunately, a significant number of those commenting on females are themselves female. When I was young & attended church, some of the older women were so disparaging but I never heard any man do so. In college both as student and staff, it was female students who made such verbal comments while both sexes would on evaluations. In my work & personal life, some of both sexes made comments – men more sex related, females more appearance related. But I would note some females (including me) also made both sex & appearance comments about men. I always thought it was naive to think such comments only flow one way or to think only those from men are wrong or worse.

      3. Marzipan Dragon*

        They probably know the woman who repeatedly complained that I answered the phone “too cheerfully.” I spoke with my supervisor and we had no idea what she was complaining about, I was just using a standard customer service voice. The woman wasn’t even a customer, she was calling in to bother her daughter who was an employee. If the switchboard had caller ID all those years ago I would have answered her calls in the most funereal voice possible.

        1. 1LFTW*

          You could have answered the phone like Lurch: “… You rang?”. What a missed opportunity.

        2. MigraineMonth*

          Repeated customer service complaints… from someone who isn’t a customer. I don’t understand people.

    5. MCL*

      Oh yeah, I was a college kid earning a couple of bucks ushering for (IIRC) a performance of Handel’s Messiah. I was on autopilot being polite and trying to keep traffic flowing and was chirping “Enjoy the show!” every so often as I handed out programs, at which point a grumpy dude informed me “It’s NOT A SHOW, it is a CONCERT.” Fun guy.

    6. Ally McBeal*

      Lord. I worked at a regional theatre box office in college and on one sold-out night I started a tally sheet of everyone who stood in the very long line just to ask if we were “really” sold out. As if the large “SOLD OUT TONIGHT” signs posted over every poster and hung over every box office window was just a silly marketing trick.

    8. Lexi Vipond*

      A lot of the concert venues round here have seats round three sides of a rectangle, with more seats or standing space in the middle and the stage as the fourth side – not the places that are mainly theatres putting on plays, though.

    9. Sophia Brooks*

      Is it terrible I have a nostalgia for Box Office? I was pretty good at it and I did walk-in assigned seats with no computer for children’s theatre. That is a skill that is no longer usable! I think the biggest complaint was that I could not magically make four or more seats together available in the good seats. Like, the seats were pre-reserved. I did my best to make sure people were bunched together, but sometimes the Tetris just couldn’t be done.

  13. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

    We were making significant changes and improvements to our website, including adding functionality that our users had been asking for. The feedback from one of those users can best be summed up as “How dare you give me exactly what I’ve been asking for!”

    1. House On The Rock*

      Years of working in user experience and interface design taught me that doing exactly what the customer asks for is a sure fire way to not give them what they want (although what they want is frequently very bad from a design perspective!).

      1. Daughter of Ada and Grace*

        I don’t remember the exact quote (it’s been a long time), but it was very all over the place: thanking us for implementing the (functional) changes that he’d been asking for (and they were useful and necessary changes), and then concluding with something like “I don’t like it”.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      I think the best assumption from the start is that users don’t actually want what they ask for. If they knew, they’d be web designers.

    3. FormerLibrarian*

      I used to do the website at my former job. Soooo many items of feedback that boiled down to “It changed and I don’t like it!”

      Most of the complaints were also from people who used the (academic library) website in one way and assumed everyone used it that way. The researchers who used physical books, for instance, were offended that the library catalog search screen wasn’t front-and-center. We had a federated search screen that searched the catalog *and* most of the databases because the vast, vast majority of library usage these days involves the article databases and not the physical books, but that wasn’t what these researchers used and they howled about making one click to get to the catalog search screen. (I gave them a link they could bookmark to spare them the extra click.)

      I can see that the emotions behind that were primarily distress at the rapid change from physical media to digital, and I can sympathize, but it is what it is.

      And then there was the professor whose error report was, and I quote, “Your website doesn’t work. Fix it!” and refused to comment further or help me troubleshoot because he didn’t have time for that. So he had to live with a broken site until one of his colleagues helped me. Turned out to be a setting in one browser set by his department’s IT group to allow them to access one database that department had purchased, that only showed up if you used that browser (not the most common on campus) in that building on a university-owned computer. I was able to put a setting into the HTML header as a fix until they stopped using that database.

      1. Wolf*

        >Soooo many items of feedback that boiled down to “It changed and I don’t like it!”

        Even if you change something they previously hated, they’ll suddenly have nostalgia for it.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          The funniest thing for me is that as a software developer who makes bug fixes I know how important patches are, but as a user I still hate it every time the software I’m using changes even a little. I’m generally the last person to adopt new technology, because I want to wait until they’ve worked out the major bugs/workflow issues.

  14. aebhel*

    I had a man come in, march up to the front desk, and demand to know what we were going to do about the bus stop out front. The sign was misleading and he couldn’t tell what route he was supposed to be on, and it was our responsibility to Do Something About It, didn’t we take any pride in our work at all????

    I work in a public library.

    2. NotActuallyALibrarian*

      Ah, libraries. I once had a member of the public come in to the library and ask where an event was. It was not in our library building, or even our borough. She got annoyed with me that the name of the nearest railway station to our building was misleading, then cross when I couldn’t tell her exactly which bus to catch to get to the other borough’s library.

    3. Magic Violins*

      I work in a college library and you’d be surprised (or maybe unsurprised) at how many students think we can adjust their class schedule.

      1. La Triviata*

        I know someone who works at a law school library and one student was appalled to discover they were going to have to do their research in BOOKS. (rather than exclusively online)

        1. LaurCha*

          I worked in a med school library in the 90s, so there were online catalogs, but only just barely. I had two kinds of people: olds who declared “I don’t do computers” and students who were shocked that they had to go pull the items off the shelves and use the copier all by their little selves.

      2. Academic Librarian, you say?*

        I once had a student ask where their room was. We had to break it to her that the library and a dorm had the same name (different people) and she would not be sleeping with the books. She didn’t complain much but was very, very disappointed. Me too, kiddo.

        Did I mention that the doom also hosted the mail room for several dorms, so at the beginning of each academic year, we also had to break it to new students that we didn’t have their mail, although we had plenty for them to read.

    4. Libby Mae*

      I was working as the admin at a public library and had recorded the greeting on our phone system. We had a lady write an entire letter to complain that my message said “liberry” and not “liBRary.” She may have had a mild point; I certainly didn’t emphasis the “r” in the word. But I didn’t change it, out of spite.

      1. Spitebrarian*

        I would have only pronounced it “liberry” as long as I worked there after that.

    5. Blue Spoon*

      Oh man, public library complaints. I’m eternally shocked at how many people blame me for their password problems. I understand that remembering usernames and passwords can be difficult and two-factor authentication can be a hassle or obstacle as much as it can be a help, but I’ve had patrons who act as if the very notion of passwords is an insult to them personally and that I should be able to get them to their email login be damned.

      1. Name Anxiety*

        A patron came in once and asked for help with his email (common), so being the librarian on the desk and no tech help that day I went over to the computer where he had the browser open to create a new account. I asked him if he needed to set up an email or if he already had one. He insisted that he already had one, but when I asked if it was Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail or anything else he could remember he said that I should know because he set it up here (the library). I told him that I couldn’t help him if he didn’t know what his email address was at all and he angrily stood up and literally shouted “Jane [name of part time library tech] would have known my email and password!” and stormed out. He never came back to our library because he would call in in advance to see if Jane was in, but since we didn’t give out that info he wouldn’t risk having to deal with me again

    6. not nice, don't care*

      Hopefully not a public library like the one my spouse works at. Patron complaints often involve hate crimes, verbal & physical assaults, and broken windows/furniture.

  15. Former Retail Lifer*

    I was a manager at an office supply store. A lady called in to complain: “I just bought a whole box of pencils and not a single one of them was sharpened.”

    First of all, wouldn’t it be weird if some were sharpened and some were not? Second of all, it’s standard that they come unsharpened. But also, did she really buy an entire box of pencils without having a sharpener at home?

    1. Clisby*

      It’s not uncommon for office supply stores to sell packs of sharpened pencils (maybe especially around back-to-school sales?) but yeah – you can clearly see that they’re (all) sharpened.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      I bought a box of pencils from Amazon. They were presharpened but did not have erasers. The pictures all clearly showed pencils without erasers. The description clearly stated that they did not have erasers.

      So many complaints in the reviews that “these don’t have erasers!”

      People can be dim, sometimes.

      1. Boof*

        Honestly amazon is a little frustrating sometimes I feel like it’s easy to accidentally end up in a different – but very similar – product than intended if you start using the “consider ___ instead of the thing you got before but is out of stock!” link. I had to send back a second set of curtains I was trying to get like, at least 2x because the size and the rod type kept going wrong despite my best efforts to order the exact same thing I got before!

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Amazon is “a little” frustrating “sometimes”? I feel like it’s become almost unusable! Ten years ago, if I wanted to buy something like an extension cord, I could search Amazon and it would return a reasonable number of results, all of which were extension cords from reputable sellers and came with free shipping. I could just decide how many plugs I wanted and select the cheapest, and it would be delivered within a few days.

          Now there are ten thousand results, a lot of which aren’t actually extension cords that would work for my power source, and it’s so much harder to sort through them to find the best one. Every time I give up on finding a better one and go to checkout, I realize that the shipping cost is double what the item costs, or that the item ships in 6-11 weeks. Eventually I give up and walk to a store instead.

          Amazon got us all hooked because of the convenience, but if it doesn’t do something about its “marketplace” I don’t think it will keep us.

          1. Sociology rocks!*

            This is exactly why I vastly prefer to shop in store. I get the time immediately, and I have the vague clue it’s not completed and utter nonsense of a product

          2. Worldwalker*

            I’m part of Amazon Vine — they send us free stuff in exchange for reviewing it. (We get to choose from a list of stuff) Pay particular attention to reviews that say the reviewers got the item via Vine: we were selected because we’re good reviewers in the first place, and we don’t want to lose our Vine status, so we write good and accurate reviews so we don’t get booted. After a few months of this, I’d trust a Bine Voice’s review over others.

            Among the stupid reasons I’ve seen for poor reviews: people ordered the wrong size, and the mail lost/delayed the shipment. One I remember posted a picture of a crushed box that had clearly had something very heavy dropped on it in the back of the mail truck, and rated the item one star.

  16. EmF*

    “Thanks for calling (car company), how can I help you?”
    “Yeah, my new truck’s a lemon.”
    “… I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with your truck. Can you tell me more about what’s going on?”
    “It’s the chrome.”
    (A slight pause here while I try to figure out what about the chrome could be rendering the truck undriveable.)
    “… the chrome?”
    “Yeah. It’s dangerous!”
    “… I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand. Can you elaborate?”
    “It’s too shiny.”
    “…”
    “It could blind someone!”

    1. Former Auto Gal*

      That is actually a real issue and there are government regulations in the US around it and there have been recalls. The sun reflects off the shiny accents into the driver’s eyes.

      1. Llellayena*

        I wonder how the Tesla truck that someone shined to mirror-bright is getting away with it then. I mean…making it damn near invisible is a definite improvement in appearance, but I’d think that would be dangerous for reflections…

        2. zinzarin*

          Regulations cover what comes out of a manufacturer’s factory, not a customer’s garage. While the customer is probably in violation of those same regulations or other laws, there’s no inspection process whereby the customer’s modification gets reviewed.

          I.e. they get away with it because nobody’s checking.

          1. Ally McBeal*

            Depends on local law enforcement. When I was in high school one of my buddies had a tricked-out yellow Mustang – he told me that he wanted his aftermarket undercarriage LEDs in yellow (no idea what they’re actually called but they’re mounted under the car so it looks like its undercarriage is glowing) but yellow LEDs were illegal in our area so he had to opt for blue. Granted we lived in a state that also mandated annual inspections so enforcement is probably more strict there than it is where I live now (which bizarrely has no inspection requirement).

          2. Meghan*

            Yesterday on the way home I saw a Mustang that had been customized and wrapped (I mean it had to be a wrap, right?!) in silver holographic print. The back bumper was black holographic. It was wild. And yes, hurt my eyes. Luckily I was stopped at a red light.

      2. Lady_Lessa*

        I wish that they would do something about the very bright headlights on pickup trucks and other vehicles what have them high(from road) enough to nearly blind a driver in a lower set car.

        1. KaciHall*

          combination of getting older (though I’m not even 40!) and brighter headlights mean I cannot drive at night anymore. This basically means I’m stuck home in my small town all winter because it’s dark before I get off work. My husband can drive us some places, but he HATES driving to the nearest city, so I have to drive if we’re going there.

        2. Ally McBeal*

          This is the sort of thing that’s only going to be fixed through grassroots outreach to federal-level elected officials. I have astigmatism and it really bothers me, but all the automakers insist the LED technology has improved sooooo much – they’re not going to reverse course unless a law gets passed.

      3. EmF*

        FWIW, this was in around 2005 – I’m not sure when the recalls were (I tried googling, and got a lot of Chrome extensions to assist blind users.) This particular customer, after I referred her to the dealership to see if they had any suggestions, turned out to have been someone who had very recently purchased the Extra Chrome package on a fully-loaded pickup and possibly suffering from sticker shock.

        That said – I didn’t know there had been recalls! That’s fascinating, and I’m glad to hear it.

      4. Another Jen*

        Yes! One of our cars has a reflective metal around the cupholders, and when the sun hits it a certain way, it’s blinding for the driver. I hate it so much!

  17. Peanut Hamper*

    I don’t know if this counts, but here goes.

    I used to work at Menard’s (it’s like a midwestern Lowe’s). Every single week people would come in and ask for something that they said was on sale in our ad, but which we didn’t even stock. I eventually learned that there was no point in trying to prove this to them, so this is the script I eventually settled on. It worked great.

    Me: “How can I help you today?”

    Customer (angrily): “I’m looking for that Dewalt drill that’s on sale and I can’t find it!”

    Me (pleasantly): “Hmm…are you sure it was Dewalt? We don’t carry that brand.”

    Customer (even more angrily): “Yes you do! It was in your ad!”

    Me (even more pleasantly): “Hmm….what color was that ad?”

    Customer (still angrily): “It was orange!”

    Me (still pleasantly): “Oh, our ad is green. The orange ad is from Home Depot. They’re across the street.”

    Me: (smiles pleasantly).

    Customer: (gets embarassed, stumbles off).

    Friends, I derived a great deal of satisfaction from these encounters.

    1. Cubicles & Chimeras*

      As a former Menards employee to another: Menards customers tend to be dim bulbs. So many customers not understanding the rebate stuff…

      2. Peanut Hamper*

        I had one who complained that it wasn’t really a rebate, just a store credit. I had to remind him that he was a contractor and was in here almost every day.

        It later occurred to me that he just wanted the cash to spend at the liquor store (which would also make the liquor a tax deduction!).

        1. Cubicles & Chimeras*

          I could fill a novel with some of the contractor bs I put up with. Not to mention our useless store manager. And the terrible practices of the company itself.

          The hate I developed working there and the horror when they tried to make me management track propelled me into getting the heck out of dodge which eventually landed me in my current career, so I’m thankful for that.

      3. Pescadero*

        As a Michigander… EVERYTHING about Menard’s is the worst.

        Worst management, worst employees, worst stocking levels, worst quality products… basically the equivalent of the Dollar Store for home improvement.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          But… I heard you can save big money at Menard’s. Are you saying the ads lied to me?

          1. dawbs*

            And we can all hear the jingle while reading your comment.

            (I do gripe about the rebates. I have one sitting on my desk and I don’t WANT to go use it.
            But they were, for a long time, the only place I could find my candy weakness [starburst jellybeans] year round. So Mr. Dawbs stopped there semi-frequently)

      4. Anonymel*

        For a long time, I didn’t understand how Menards didn’t get sued for saying “Save 11% everyday” or whatever. A rebate that MUST be spent in their store is NOT a savings and it used to p*ss me off every single time I heard it. We shopped there once for an expensive item because of the 11% savings, (as military we only get 10% at Lowe’s and Home Depot) and then at the register when she said “oh no you have to mail in to get the rebate and they’ll send you a check,” I was annoyed a little but when she added, “that you can use for your next purchase here,” we just stared at her and said ‘Oh NO, you can void this purchase. I do NOT do rebates. Nope.” Have never gone back. The ads are clearer NOW about saying “in the form of a rebate” or something but like 10 years ago, they weren’t that up front in the commercials.

    2. Fluffy Fish*

      eons ago i had a receptionist type position. the amount of people who called looking for something that had absolutely nothing to do with us AND expecting me to find the right number for them (i am not in fact a phone book) made me fear for our education system.

      Anyway, if they were NICE, I helped them find the correct number. If they were rude or nasty, I also helped them by placing them on hold while I searched for the right number. It took a very very very long time for me to find that number. In fact it took so long that usually they hung up.

      1. JanetM*

        When I first started working at the university, I would occasionally get calls from another university number asking for [Unusual Name]. I consistently apologized and assured the caller that the person she was looking for didn’t work in my department, but if she had a last name or a department, I could look her up in the phone book.

        The caller always hung up rather than providing any further information.

        One day, by pure chance, I was looking up someone *else* in the phone book and spotted [Unusual Name], who worked on the other side of campus and had a phone number that was, IIRC, the same as mine but with the last two digits transposed.

        The next time I got that call, I said, “I’m so sorry, but she works in Other Department, and her number is Number. Would you like me to transfer you?”

        She hung up.

        A few minutes later, I got a call from a male voice, who started the conversation with, “What the hell is your problem that you won’t let my secretary talk to [Unusual Name]?”

        I apologized and explained that the person he was looking for worked in a different department, and that her number was ABDC whereas mine was ABCD.

        He hung up.

        However, no one ever called me back looking for [Unusual Name].

        ————–

        Unrelated, but again, shortly after I started working at the university, someone called and asked if we had summer programs for preschoolers. I said that no, she needed the public library, and offered to look up the number.

        She asked, “If this isn’t the library, what is it?”

        I said, “This is the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at University. We offer master’s degrees for people who want to become librarians.”

        She said, “You need a DEGREE to be a LIBRARIAN? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!” And slammed down the phone.

      2. Lily C*

        When I was a receptionist, we had to put visitors’ names into the system that building security used, but there was about an hour’s delay before approved names would show up downstairs, so I’d pretty frequently get calls from the security desk when people showed up with short notice. One day I got a call about “Jane, who wants to see Kim in accounting.” We didn’t have a Kim in accounting, so I said no. Security officer said that Jane used to work in our office, and she’s sure that Kim still does. I said no again, we’ve had the same solo accountant for 20 years, and they’re not named Kim or have ever had an assistant. Security guard started getting upset, and I suggested maybe he’d called the wrong office. His response: “Isn’t this the British Consulate?” Nope, this is a law firm in an entirely different building. What part of “Good afternoon, [name of] Law Office” did you not catch, sir?

      3. Playing telephone*

        I once had someone call me and go on an extended rant about how their shelter was full and that they were calling me to take on some more intakes and if I wasn’t going to take them he didn’t know what they would do and several other places that were full and couldn’t help. The run on sentence gives you an idea of the speech and the speed.

        I said no. The unhappy silence at the other end was my revenge for him calling my home phone number at 2 a.m. mistaking it for a shelter and I also wasn’t going to accept people into my apartment. I then put him out of his misery and offered to get him the phone number for the actual shelter.

        Nothing quite matches the person that called my home phone number at 3 a.m. and listened to my answering machine to taunt someone else that they had found her drugs and taken them all. Guess that was obvious since you didn’t dial correctly or listen to the answering message.

    3. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

      Something similar happened to me a long time ago, back in the days of answering machines. The “please leave a message” recording at my house was a parody of Ghostbusters, complete with music and background noises asking you to leave a message that we’d answer when the latest spook was in containment.

      …and then Circuit City misprinted their phone number in an ad.

      Y’all can guess where this is going, but it was amazing the number of people who listened all the way through and put in a phone order anyway. My favorite was the one who added “And I think your message is very unprofessional!”

      1. aceowl*

        This still happens SO often! I think the county lawyer’s office is similar to the library’s, because I get voicemails all the time for people looking for their lawyer. I’m a librarian. At the library. Which I say in my voicemail message. They don’t listen!

        1. Zephy*

          It’s been years since I’ve gotten a really-really-wrong number call, but a while back I had a lady call me to complain about her recycling pickup. Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s university financial aid office. I’m not sure you could have called a wronger number.

          1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

            I called a wronger number once. Did you know that in my area UPS and a sex call line are one digit off? When I first heard a woman enthusiastically telling me she’d make me SO GLAD I called I first thought “Wow, they’ve really upped their customer service!”

            1. LCH*

              haha, i had a friend accidentally send executives at his work to a sex line instead of a conference call line once.

              1. AngryOctopus*

                My old boss dialed into our conference line but hit a 9 instead of an 8 the first time. It’s a sex line.

                Also, according to a colleague, the help line for EndNote and the “help” line for “naughty gentlemen” are very similar (transposed digits, IIRC). She was very startled to call the help line at like 8PM only to get the “help” line.

                1. Willem Dafriend*

                  My high school thought they put the school office phone number on our student IDs. Reader, it was a sex line. My family still jokes about that one. (I wonder why so many people have “transposed phone numbers got a sex line” stories.)

              3. Clisby*

                At one workplace, the monthly newsletter sent around by the communications department included a phone number for something pretty anodyne … only if you called it, you got a phone sex number. This spread around like wildfire, with people calling the number just to listen to the intro (at least that’s what they said). I don’t know whether anyone was disciplined for this mistake.

          2. Ally McBeal*

            In the year 2004 – literally 20 years ago, yikes – I got my first cellphone. I apparently took over the number from a woman who is an immigration attorney or similar. I do not speak Spanish. I still occasionally get calls from people looking for Sandra and it’s very hard to explain to them that the business card their aunt (or whoever) collected 25 years ago is incorrect.

          3. Cedrus Libani*

            On the plus side, the wronger the number, the faster you figure it out…

            I was the guilty party recently. Was trying to call a doctor’s office, got an automated phone system, which…promptly went into a sales pitch for a mobility scooter. Okay, I get it, it’s an advertisement; target rich environment and the doc’s got med school loans to pay. The end was something like “Press 1 to be connected to our sales team for the Scoot-o-matic XL, or stay on the line.” I did not press 1, but the human who picked up the line was also interested in selling me a scooter, and was not taking a polite “no thank you” for an answer. Finally, she got annoyed, and said “If you don’t want a scooter, why did you call?” Wait, what? Oh. Yeah, I transposed the last two digits of that phone number.

        2. Guacamole Bob*

          I worked at a tiny nonprofit and eventually just found the numbers for the large university near us and for the mental health unit of the local hospital so that I could give mistaken callers the correct number rather than argue with them about it (they were both like one digit off). Especially the hospital one – we had more than one confused and worried relative with limited English trying to track someone down so it was nice to be able to say “oh, you want 5700 not 5200”).

        3. Mike S*

          I work for a hospital on the administration side. After a series of voice mails one weekend, my message now says that if you’re calling about patient care, you’ve called the wrong number.

          1. Venus*

            I worked at a place where the last two numbers transposed were for the emergency line at the hospital. It was a business completely unrelated to health so it should have been obvious but stressed people are often distracted so after a few really worried messages were left overnight the owner changed the message to say that the number for the hospital was ….

        4. H3llifIknow*

          Our old landline was one digit off from a local pharmacy. I got at least one call a day from someone asking if their Rx was ready for pick up. And half the time when I’d say you have the wrong number, they’d hang up and clearly hit redial again! I’d get yelled at about not being willing to go check, not doing my job, etc.. I finally just started telling people, “Yep. Come and get it,” and let the Pharmacy deal with the fallout!

      2. Don'tle*

        Oh yes! I used to get so many misdirected calls for a warehouse store’s customer service line (I never did figure out why) that I finally changed my outgoing message to “This is a private home, you have *not* reached Clam’s Club” and people would still leave messages–sometimes angry–about rebates and returns. This came to a head around 2008 and was a big factor in giving up my landline.

        1. BubbleTea*

          My dad regularly gets calls from people trying to reach eBay. We have never figured out why.

        2. noncommittally anonymous*

          Likewise, there was a local event planning company that changed their phone number, but somehow hadn’t changed the number on the sign on their door. I’d get people calling from the parking lot INSISTING that this was the number for such-and-so because they could see the sign on the front door! And where the hell were the tents and chairs for their wedding?!?!

          They must’ve finally changed their sign, because the calls stopped after about a year.

      3. Christmas Carol*

        Reminds me of how a Sears in Colorado sponsored a Call Santa line one Chirstmas in the early 60s. The newspaper mis printed the phone #. The number they printed rang into the Missle Defense Command, but airmen played along. And that’s how NORAD started tracking Santa’s sleigh way back when.

      4. Bunch Harmon*

        Years ago, before Borders went out of business, I had to call customers when special orders came in. We had one regular with a voicemail message that said “This is Bill. I’ve made some changes in my life, and if you’re one of them I’ll call you back.” I always felt weird leaving a message after that!

      6. Turquoisecow*

        My husband has a longstanding hate for (now defunct) Pier One Imports as their number was similar to his home number when he was a kid. When he told them it was a wrong number they would argue with him, so finally he started saying that they did have that item in stock and they were open and whatever else they asked, and then letting them go to the store and find out otherwise. At least then it was a pleasant interaction.

        1. megaboo*

          Our new phone number when I was kid was a former restaurant. The restaurant changed their number, but they weren’t up-to-date in the Yellow Pages (Yes, I’m old). If people were nice, my dad gave the right number. If they were mean, he took their reservations.

          1. small towns*

            Ours was one digit off from the local newspaper.

            Every Sunday morning, multiple times, my mom would answer the phone, listen for a few seconds, and then say, “Funny, we haven’t gotten our paper this morning either. Have you thought about calling them directly?” and then hang up.

            The paper did finally get a new phone number, and my mom was so thrilled that she could finally sleep in on Sundays…

      7. Mad Harry Crewe*

        My neighbor growing up had a number that was one digit off of a local pizza place. They just started taking orders (and then hanging up and doing nothing with them) because people just got mad if you tried to explain that they had called a wrong number.

        1. nnn*

          I feel like someone with fraud skills could leverage that into some kind of credit card scam

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            I’ve definitely taken orders where my thought process included “Thank God I’m not a different kind of person.”

        2. Jay (no, the other one)*

          My home number when I was growing up was one digit off the local fish store. We never had bluefish.

        3. MAC*

          When I still had a landline, it was one digit different than the waste management company. I got SO MANY calls from people asking why their garbage hadn’t been picked up or what the holiday schedule was. What made it weird is my number ended in 0 and WM ended in 1, so it’s not like they were close on the keypad.
          ———-
          I also once got a call in my then-office that was one digit different than a Canadian potato chip company (I was and am in the US.) That made me jealous that my job wasn’t at a potato chip company!

      8. Cathie from Canada*

        Our phone number once was a number away from a contest line at a local radio station. So sometimes when we answered the phone, we would get someone screaming “Clint Eastwood” or some such. Then we would have to tell them they had dialed the wrong number. At least they always hung up fast because they thought they might still have a chance to enter the real contest.

        2. Worldwalker*

          My number in my first apartment was one digit off from a local radio station. That ran midnight pizza contests. In a college town.

          The telco changed it for free after I showed up in their office (this was back in the days of Ma Bell and actual offices) and gave them grief.

      9. In the provinces*

        Back in the day, before cell phones, our home phone number was one digit different from a newly opened, heavily advertised car wash. We got a lot of calls from people, clearly under the influence, at rather odd hours, asking if the car wash was open.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Okay, that’s unexpected to me. Of all the intoxicated shenanigans I’ve heard about, getting a car washed at 3am is not one of them. Maybe going through an automated car wash while high is fun?

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            Or you puked down the side of Dad’s Buick and need to get rid of the evidence…

      10. Not that other person you didn't like*

        When I was a teen, living in a small nowhere town, the local airport shuttle (the only local airport shuttle in the area mind you) had a number one number different than our home number, which made the misprint in the local business directory easy to make. We got so many calls for the shuttle service! Usually, we’d just say “their number is ###” and people were apologetic and nice. But there were a handful of really rude people who wouldn’t listen and were demanding and mean… and when I got one of those I’d just make up random shuttle times or other bogus information for them to enjoy.

        As a side note, 40 years later, the company still exists, is still the only shuttle in the area, and still has a number one number different than my old home number.

      11. Dina*

        My phone number in college (back in the landline days) was the old phone number for the local Boys and Girls Club. The number of times people would leave messages trying to register for basketball when our outgoing message specifically stated it WASN’T the Boys and Girls Club…

      12. saf*

        Years ago, the FTC Fair Credit Reporting Office had a number that if you transposed 2 numbers, became my cell number. The number of folks who listened to my “This is my personal cell phone and NOT the FTC. They can be reached at 202-xxx-xxxx” message and then left me highly personal information, including social security numbers, continues to astound me.

        They changed their number years ago, but every now and then, someone uses an old form with the old number, and the calls start again.

      13. Worldwalker*

        I once got a wrong number for a restaurant that left all the details of the reservations they wanted. Unfortunately, it was on the voicemail my cell phone, which I hadn’t had on me when they called, and since back then I never got inbound calls, I didn’t notice the missed call until after the weekend.

    4. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      The retail store I worked at, inexplicably, also received a daily newspaper, which I enjoyed since I got to do the daily crossword. But it was specially handy on Sundays because it had everyone else’s ad in it. So, I would get these exchanges:

      Customer: I’m looking for this item that was in your ad!
      Me: We don’t carry that.
      Customer: It was in your ad! It was next to this other item!
      Me: Hold here a minute. *goes to the breakroom, grabs all the ads* So, you mean you saw it in Old Time Pottery’s ad?
      Customer: …this isn’t Old Time Pottery?
      Me: Nope.
      Customer: Where is Old Time Pottery?
      Me: I don’t know- I don’t work there.

    5. Anon Today*

      Back when I worked in a call center for a cable services company, I had a older woman call in because her service was out. When I tried to look up her address, it was outside of our service area. She absolutely refused to believe that she had called the wrong company.

      1. Anon too*

        Yeah, that sounds very familiar. When I still worked in a call center we had a bunch of those too. In one case it was down to a weird corporate structure, I usually gave a short explanation, the correct number and everyone moved on happily.
        In one case though I could not get the customer of the phone even after I had explained the mix-up and provided correct information. Turns out that 1. she actually had already called the correct number and was unhappy with their answer 2. after further digging turns out she created the problem she complained about herself by 3. not believing the posted schedule for event worked as posted by event coordinator (they surely would make an exception for her, right?) and was apparently trying to find as many people as possible to complain to so she could get 4. her money back. I somewhat could understand the last point, because tickets weren’t cheap, but you know – maybe believe event coordinator when they say how there start times/days of availability work? And no, she did not get a refund in the end not matter how many further complaints she made.

    6. goddessoftransitory*

      “Gettest thou a cemetery full of savings at Menards!”

      (one internet to those who know where that quote’s from)

    7. Astraea*

      As a pharmacy student, I rotated at CVS. Had a very irate gentleman come in and start swearing at me because I could not find him in the system, despite trying to look up by name, DOB, etc.

      In the middle of his rant, he goes, “This is the worst Walgreens ever!”

      I stopped, pointed up at the giant CVS sign above us, then at the stanchion sign next to us, and said, “Sir, Walgreens is across the street.”

      He looked at the signage, swore one more time, and stormed out.

      The courtesy clerk at the exit thanked him for shopping at CVS.

      For the rest of that rotation, we joked about being the worst Walgreens store in the state.

    9. Who knew.*

      I work in a store that sells scented body care and candles.

      Apparently I, a mere store employee, am personally responsible for discontinuing people’s favorite fragrances/products. Or so I’m told a couple of times a week.

    10. MigraineMonth*

      I don’t understand why people would immediately get angry when told they dialed the wrong number. Do they assume that lazy employees at the company are trying to trick them in the way most likely to get them another call? Do they just fly off the handle at the word “wrong”? Why get pissed at the person most likely to be able to help them figure out what went wrong and advance toward their eventual goal?

    11. Blarg*

      Menards ownership is … wild. The podcast Bad Lawyer Pod just did an episode about them. And … wow.

    12. NotARealManager*

      I ran into more than one of these types of confusion when I was an L.L. Bean cashier and people brought in Land’s End coats to return.

    13. AnnyFlavash*

      in fairness, the “chrome” (-painted plastic) in our mid 2010s-Expedition does blind the driver pretty regularly when the sun hits it wrong. It’s annoying and dangerous.

      After years of trying to figure out a solution, I have just purchased some matte nail polish topcoat that I hope will make it less of a problem. We’ll see how it goes when I apply it this weekend.

    14. Kelsi*

      I used to work at Hancock Fabrics (I think they’re all gone now but they were a big chain once).

      The number of times people would INSIST they were at Joann’s….

      This was also when most retail stores still accepted personal checks, and looking at the “made out to” line was usually a good laugh. Many spellings of Joann, just the word “fabric”, my fav was the lady who asked “should I make it out to John Hancock?” and was not joking.

      Customers are wild.

  18. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    From the railway days – this was a complaint from a customer that I’ll paraphrase.

    ‘I’m going to write to my MP and sue you all. I clearly stated that I required a train free of allergens for me and my child when I brought the tickets and paid the ridiculous amount you charge! So why was there a DOG on the train AND someone eating peanuts?! All your staff did was suggest we move to another carriage but the train was full!’

    Hoo boy..

    2. Jess*

      To be fair, if this is from the UK, it’s not at all unreasonable to expect a curated travel experience at those ticket prices if your frame of reference is the European mainland

      1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

        Funny thing was, when they sent us up to places like Glasgow or Inverness they’d book a flight because it was cheaper than sending us by train.

        While I was working for the railway!

        1. Artemesia*

          privatizing the breaking up the railways in the UK has lead to one of the worst systems every. Who would have guessed?

  19. DifferentAnonForThis*

    Oh man! We got a review saying the only downside to our museum was how liberal it was… except the museum in question had an entire gallery dedicated to hunting/fishing/trapping, because it was pioneer era Florida, and another devoted to industry and industrialization.

    I have some very conservative family members confirmed this feedback was ridiculous.

    1. the Viking Diva*

      Let me guess: you had something about women or African Americans in local history.

      1. Desk Dragon*

        Or had even a passing mention of pollution related to industrialization, or mentioned a population decline in any of the hunted/fished/trapped species…

        1. Rex Libris*

          My guess is this. It’s hard to do a museum in Florida without mentioning the Calusa, the Timucua, the Seminole, or some other native culture, at least in passing.

          1. DifferentAnonForThis*

            Eh, might as well be identifying, this is all public knowledge anyway since its Florida. There’s two whole Calusa galleries because it’s on Marco Island. Oh the horror of a history museum presenting history!

      3. anonphenom*

        I was told it was my fault that their grandsons “didn’t know that men could be scientists”.

        Yup. We have 5 display pictures of male scientists visible from where this complaint was made. The complaint was made TO a male scientist–who was clearly one, because he was wearing a lab coat. But the signs that highlight some underrepresented scientists specifically for an event are supremely damaging. But sure, tell me again how you’re failing to inspire your grandkids.

        Because we, in 4 hours per year, apparently do more to discourage Jimmy from studying science than grandpa can undo in encouraging and engaging with him daily.

    2. DifferentAnonForThis*

      We also got a series of increasingly deranged conservative memes messaged to us over a single Black History Month post…

    3. Not Mindy*

      Here’s a direct quote from a review of the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY. Maybe I’m naive to expect that a science and natural history museum would subscribe to the theories of Darwin!
      “We love natural history and science and enjoy learning about our world. Unfortunately, the displays in this museum in general included too much bias for us to enjoy. Usually we can tune out the references to “millions & billions of years ago” and other “life-from-nonlife” science fiction nonsense and simply enjoy the evidence presented, but we found we couldn’t do so here. So if you don’t ascribe to the Darwinian interpretation presented here, as we don’t, you won’t glean much. Can’t really recommend it in good conscience.”

      1. the Viking Diva*

        Our local natural history museum has a renowned exhibit about evolving life through geologic time. There are special creationist tours that go through the exhibit, carefully re-interpreting it with their own Bible-based explanations. It’s quite a mind-bender to follow a tour group for a bit.

        1. DifferentAnonForThis*

          That would be fascinating! Are those tours associated with the museum at all or are they private groups? I’d love to know how the leadership decided to allow them.

          1. the Viking Diva*

            It’s a public museum, anyone can come. The tours are privately organized. On homeschool tour groups I think they register the group as a school group so the children and adult teachers/helpers get into the museum free, as do all school groups here. For adult tours, people buy their ticket for the creation tour and separate buy a regular museum entry ticket on their own.

            It is probably a bit weird for the museum staff, but I don’t think there is (or could be) any question of “allowing” it as long as the tour is not disruptive to others. It wouldn’t be any different than if a geology club wanted to tour together, or a group of seniors or tourists from overseas. I always hope that a few of those kids are reading the exhibit labels on their own and some science will sneak in!

            1. DifferentAnonForThis*

              In theory, I suppose you couldn’t stop someone who wanted to host tours without asking, but in practice I don’t think it would be unreasonable to request that certain groups not tour your museum due to the optics. It’s really not the same as any other group touring; the tour guide is misrepresenting the museum’s stance on history and this misrepresentation implies that the museum endorses their opinions. In particular, I think there would be a very good argument for not allowing school tours that misrepresent the displayed history.

              (To be clear, I don’t know enough of the particulars to say whether the museum should allow the tours in question, but it is definitely within the power of the museum to refuse if they choose to. Unless by public you mean government operated, in which case a clever enough director could still probably deny the tour if they wanted to.)

              1. KeinName*

                Would you not rather have people in the museum than not have people in the museum?
                They might read the labels on displays, pick up a Broschüre, come back alone, …

                1. DifferentAnonForThis*

                  Yeah, based on below I misunderstood the context. My concern was along the lines of people seeing that the museum was associated with creationist tours and choosing not to go based on the belief that the museum supported that perspective.

                  Again, based on below that’s not at play!

              2. the Viking Diva*

                The museum has substantial public funding, as most museums in the US do (I verified that before I wrote it). It would be quickly embroiled in lawsuits from education and civil liberties groups alike– and the backlash about this would not in fact advance anyone’s opportunity to learn.

                At least in their promo materials, the tours do not misrepresent the museum’s stance at all. They very clearly state that they offer an alternate interpretation that aligns with the literal Biblical account of creation, and that contrasts with popular, secular views.

                People tell other people wrong stuff in a museum all the time. All the museum can do is put out the best available information and (this part is important!) explain how we know what we know.

                1. DifferentAnonForThis*

                  Ah, I think I misunderstood the set up of the tours pretty seriously. I’d still be interested to know how those tours got organized!

            2. MigraineMonth*

              I was visiting younger cousins and helping them with their homework (where to put commas in a sentence), when the 8-year-old kid said, “But that’s not true.”

              I reread the sentence (“Bacteria have existed for at least 3.5 billion years”) and told him I thought it was true.

              Him: “But the Earth is only six thousand years old.”

              Me: *panics*

              Him: “Oh, this was probably meant for kids going to public school, not [his Christian school].”

              Me: So he knows he’s getting taught different facts than everyone else, and just accepts this. That’s… interesting.

              1. supernon*

                I never cease to be disgusted that children are allowed to be intentionally stunted by religious extremists.

              2. JustaTech*

                When I was in high school a friend and I went to the Natural History museum at Harvard (highly recommend). We were having a great time until we got to the fossil section, which included date ranges on the displays.
                Friend “This is wrong, it can’t be from millions of years ago.”
                Me, dreading this entire interaction “Really, why not?”
                Friend “Because it says so in the Bible.”
                Me, desperately wanting this to end “Oh, is there a date in the front? I’ve never checked!” (Forced chipper tone.)
                Extremely long pause from Friend as we keep walking around the exhibit.
                Me “Ooh, look, the glass flowers!”

                She let the whole thing go, I never brought it up again and we’re still friends, but I am very circumspect when I talk about science stuff with her (and I never, ever talk religion).

              3. Jamie Starr*

                But he’s not being taught *different* facts; what he’s being taught isn’t factual.

        2. Anonymous Rex*

          One of my prized possessions is the editor’s copy of a large manuscript called Studies in Flood Geology, written by someone who claims to have an undergraduate degree in geology. I found it in a thrift store, it is absolutely bizarre, and I love it. Came in very handy when creationist groups came into our geological museum to loudly denounce everything.

      2. AngryOctopus*

        I volunteered at the science museum in town for a long time. The weirdest one I got was a woman who came up to me, gazed into my eyes without blinking, and asked “Where is your theology exhibit?”
        Unluckily for her I am Master of the Unblinking Gaze, so I just gazed back and said “We don’t have one” and then kept making eye contact until she left. I think she wanted me to get defensive or something? She was definitely not expecting to get back what she was giving.

        1. anonimuss*

          A mildly related thing that has always tickled me: there is a science podcast in the UK hosted by a physicist and a comedian. Each episode they will have guest scientists in a discipline that fits the theme, along with non-scientist guests – comedians, actors etc – who have an interest in science (Infinite Monkey Cage if you’re interested, it’s incredibly interesting. And the comedian does reign the scientists in when they get too far beyond normal person understanding!).

          One year on their Christmas special they had an extremely eminent American scientist, who is I think an atheist (or strong agnostic), along with guests who included some Christian clergy. When this groups were introduced as ‘in the religious corner, we have…’ the scientist got a bit grumpy and said ‘if I come to your church will I see science corner?’. Unfortunately for him, one of the clergy was the Dean of Westminster Abbey, who invited him to the Abbey to visit Scientist’s Corner, where he could see the graves of Newton, Darwin, Hawking

      3. Ally McBeal*

        I was raised in an area where Biblical Creationism is a very common belief. When I go back to visit, I like to visit the science/natural history museums to see if I can hear anyone complaining about the stated ages of the exhibits. It doesn’t happen often but it definitely does happen.

  20. KareninHR*

    My first job was working at a dry cleaner. One day I had the (mis)fortune of helping out a mystery shopper. In her feedback, she said that I was helpful, but my “enthusiasm seemed forced.” I’m not sure what more could be hoped for from a 16-year-old dry cleaner employee.

    2. Beka Cooper*

      Oooh, my mystery shopping experience when I was about the same age was at a chain pet store. We only carried freshwater fish and supplies. The mystery shopper asked me to show them a product for a saltwater tank, and I said we don’t have that. But apparently, I was supposed to try to suggest some other product instead, even though none of our products would be a substitute. I would have gotten a perfect score if it weren’t for that, and I think my managers still circled and called out the “mistake” on the printout on the bulletin board, encouraging us to do better next time. I’m still annoyed over 20 years later.

      1. Dry Cleaning Enthusiast*

        “Unfortunately we don’t carry saltwater aquarium products here. However, we carry a wide variety of delightful hamsters and hamster accoutrements! May I suggest this amazing hamster ramp? They’re very popular.”

      2. nnn*

        I would love to hear your manager’s explanation of what would constitute an appropriate recommended substitution.

        (Although, having worked in retail myself, I strongly suspect the answer would be “There is no appropriate substitution and also you need to recommend a substitution”)

        1. Abogado Avocado*

          “Regrettably, we don’t carry saltwater products here, but the Trader Joe’s next door has shrimp on sale. Tell them Jane sent you!”

      3. goddessoftransitory*

        It’s ridiculous–the secret shoppers get in trouble if they DON’T mark something down (otherwise the workers getting perfect scores might want raises or other commie nonsense) so they will deliberately conjure a scenario where the target cannot provide what they ask for.

    4. goddessoftransitory*

      If you didn’t perform a spontaneous Buzby Berkley-inspired dance routine about her blazers, you were NOT performing to standards, apparently.

    5. Meg*

      Ohhh, mystery shoppers. My coworker fell down a gravel hill while hiking and had really painful road rash on her arm, so she wore a nice sleeveless blouse the following day because it was too painful to cover with fabric. She ended up getting mystery shopped that day and the feedback said that the person helping her was kind but had “open sores on display.” We teased her about her “festering wound” and “oozing sores” every time customer feedback got brought up for years afterwards.

  21. Gahhh*

    Someone wrote on the online volunteer survey I sent out to all volunteers at a kids’ camp: “I’m kissing you.”

    1. Prudence and Wakeen Snooter Theatre for the Performing Oats*

      Our client was mad that we didn’t use her pet’s full name, especially on forms. Our systems were not designed to accommodate long names- sorry, Emperor Snufflebutt of Los Angeles.

      2. BubbleTea*

        My brother had a hamster who he called Hamster, but I called her Archibald, Third Duke of Windsor. She didn’t answer to either name anyway.

        1. Worldwalker*

          One of my cats is technically Summit Bengals Basil Maculus Felis Superbis. He responds to Mac. Also Squaglet. And sometimes “caaaaaaat!”

          1. The Other Katie*

            According to my then-teenage son, our oldest cat is formally named Sir Sombrero Alois de Constantine Vermillion. Daily name: Max. (Or Bunny, for short.)

  22. Cubicles & Chimeras*

    Weirdest customer complaint I ever received was when I worked at a diner in the middle of nowhere off a highway, so we had a mix of locals and travelers.

    A customer who was clearly passing through on a trip complained that our meatloaf did not taste like his mother’s meatloaf. Cue my unimpressed diner waitress face that he thought he could get his mother’s meatloaf instead of our cook’s mother’s meatloaf.

    2. goddessoftransitory*

      “I’ll bet my fist doesn’t taste like her meatloaf either.”

      Obviously do NOT choose violence, but oh, brother.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          There’s a children’s book I can’t quite remember about a newly wed couple. The husband expresses a wistful desire for seafood chowder like his mother made it.

          So every day that week, the new wife goes to increasing lengths to make the most amazing seafood chowder (milking the cow herself, even going out and catching the fish herself). The husband is always very complimentary of the chowder, but always says it’s “not quite like my mother’s.”

          On the final day, exhausted by her labors, the wife falls asleep and burns the chowder. Frustrated, she decides to serve it to her husband anyway, and he exclaims, “Yes, this is EXACTLY like my mother’s!”

          (At which point the wife dumps the pot of chowder over his head, and they end the book both laughing.)

    4. Jasmine*

      That would be the perfect response!
      “Oh no! Our cook makes HIS Mother’s meatloaf!”

  23. Broken Lawn Chair*

    Customer: You should have more cart corrals toward the far side of your lot.
    Me: Okay, well I’ll be glad to pass that feedback on to–
    Customer: See, I park all the way out there so I get my steps in!

    I so wanted to ask if she had a target number of steps she couldn’t go over, and that’s why she didn’t welcome the extra 100 steps to return her cart to the corral in the middle of the lot, but of course I did not.

    2. Strawberry Snarkcake*

      Meanwhile at my gym people will literally sit in their cars waiting for a “good” spot instead of walking an extra 50 steps. Sometimes people are aggressively baffling.

    4. Knighthope*

      And who cares if it increases the distance and work for the cart return employee!

  24. NW Mossy*

    Years ago, I took a call from someone with a complaint about their retirement plan that I will never forget:

    “I want to stop participating! All I’m doing is saving money! I can do that myself!”

    It’s always made me yearn for a word, probably polysyllabic and Germanic in origin, that means “to both grasp and completely miss the point simultaneously.”

    1. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

      As someone who educates people about a retirement plan, the number of people who think our not-for-profit plan is trying to put one over on them is always amazing.

      Also: Me: (repeatedly): It’s a lifetime pension.
      Them: So how many years do you get it?
      Me: As long as you live.
      Them: What if I live to 100?
      Me: Yep, you still get it.
      Them: That’s impossible. What’s the catch?

      I chalk it up to people in general not getting how traditional pensions work (no, you don’t get a monthly statement or your own account; you get a pension when you retire.)

      1. La Triviata*

        I once dealt with someone who insisted that our payroll system stop taking out money for Social Security and Medicare.

        1. Blarg*

          I had to explain to some colleagues that we couldn’t just delete the required federal boiler plate from our contracts (for work funded by the feds). No, we cannot edit the Certification Regarding Environmental Tobacco Smoke. Sorry…

      2. Unwatered Office Plant*

        To be fair, at least in the US, traditional pensions have largely fallen into the realm of myth and legend.

    3. Self Aware German*

      Don’t have a word, but there’s an entire sub Reddit devoted to this kind of thing: r/selfawarewolves.

  25. Midwest writer*

    I work for a little newspaper company in a very small Midwestern town. The fair and town festival are this month. Someone came in this week and began complaining to our ad salesperson that she almost didn’t want to renew her paper because her family tractors are never in the paper after the festival parade. But if her last name were (another local family name) they would be in the paper. This lady was furious over this slight.
    She still renewed her subscription though.
    And now I, the photographer and writer, have to decide if I put her family in the paper this year. If I can even figure out which tractors are theirs. (There are SO.MANY.TRACTORS)

    1. But maybe not*

      As someone who lives in a tiny Midwestern town (and knows the photographer/writer by name), I wish you the very best in making your decision.

    2. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      That conversation would have ended with me not including any tractors in the paper, but that’s just me.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Yeah, if this was me I would take great pleasure in identifying her tractors and then cropping all of the photos so they were juuuust out of shot. Although that would probably start The Great Midwest Tractor Feud of 2024.

    3. Tris Prior*

      I worked for a small newspaper a million years ago. The complaints I would get because “you put this other church’s event announcement FIRST in the listings! Why wasn’t MY church first?!”

      1. Midwest writer*

        Too many tractors, too spread out, for one photo. Although a drone parade pic would probably be pretty awesome in general.

    5. Penny Hartz*

      Sort of apropos of this–I live in a small Midwestern City that has a St. Patrick’s Day parade. My hubby, a local celebrity/DJ kind of guy and I are the announcers for it. Last year, for some reason, the “Jeep Club of ‘Small Midwestern City in Neighboring State'” decided to participate. Readers, 30 Jeeps came. Some tricked out, some just … Jeeps. Bad enough to watch them moving slowly and lurchingly through a parade route in between scout troops (especially since most of them weren’t throwing out candy), but there’s my poor dude just saying “And we have more Jeeps. Yep, here come some more Jeeps. Hey look, a pink Jeep!” for what felt like days.

      1. Wolf*

        Every local car show, ever. There are always people who come with a current, basic model, standard car. Nothing wrong with those cars, and it’s nice that the owners love them, but they are terribly disappointed when nobody admires their cars in the show lot.

    6. journeyboots*

      You could humour them (also internally making it a bit of a joke for you) and contact them asking to *feature* their tractor this year. Then in future years, feature other tractors or ask people to write in if they want their tractor featured this year.

  26. Legally Brunette*

    “My child won’t be able to keep up with the rest of the family when we ski!”

    I was told this after their preschool-aged child had one afternoon ski lesson, the day after staying up until midnight in the hotel pool, without eating lunch that day. So yes, your exhausted and starving preschooler cannot ski black diamonds with you, but did have fun doing age-appropriate snow sliding after I fed her some snacks…

    1. ferrina*

      Yeah….I have an acquaintance whose family plans ‘family vacations’ purely around the adults, and they are always annoyed when the kids put a damper in their plans by being normal kids.

    2. Anon too*

      Poor kid. I’m glad you stepped in and hope the kid has some reasonable adults around.

  27. NoLongerInSchool*

    When I was a TA in my doctoral program I had to teach Childhood Development. At the end of my first semester I got the normal good and bad feedback, but the one I still remember is “teacher drinks too much water.”

    2. allhailtheboi*

      How could anyone be annoyed by this!? When one of my lecturers drinks his water it’s my chance to desperately try and catch up on my notes.

  28. Nerds!*

    A 1999 Amazon review of The Story About Ping which I frankly considered one of the best geek jokes ever. Finally found it on the blog Coding Horror, if anyone wants to snag a screenshot for their own.

    PING! The magic duck!

    Using deft allegory, the authors have provided an insightful and intuitive explanation of one of Unix’s most venerable networking utilities. Even more stunning is that they were clearly working with a very early beta of the program, as their book first appeared in 1933, years (decades!) before the operating system and network infrastructure were finalized.

    The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed boat). At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River).

    The title character — er, packet, is called Ping. Ping meanders around the river before being received by another host (another boat). He spends a brief time on the other boat, but eventually returns to his original host machine (the wise-eyed boat) somewhat the worse for wear.

    If you need a good, high-level overview of the ping utility, this is the book. I can’t recommend it for most managers, as the technical aspects may be too overwhelming and the basic concepts too daunting.

    As good as it is, The Story About Ping is not without its faults. There is no index, and though the ping(8) man pages cover the command line options well enough, some review of them seems to be in order. Likewise, in a book solely about Ping, I would have expected a more detailed overview of the ICMP packet structure.

    But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens’ Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante’s seminal work on MS Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the Windows API (“Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its depths my sight — Nothing whatever I discerned therein.”), without shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress.

    2. Great Frogs of Literature*

      There is, or was, most of a decade ago, a man who reviewed rubber bands on Amazon. This man is Serious about rubber bands. He buys samples of all available rubber bands, tests their elasticity, their durability, exposes them to adverse conditions, etc. etc.

      My boss discovered this when looking for rubber bands, and found a review titled something like “The second-best rubber bands on Amazon (and the ones you should buy).” What followed was a novel-length rubber band review (okay, perhaps I exaggerate a little, but it was close to two page-fulls, IIRC). That review went into more detail about the rubber bands (and a value comparison to the #1 rubber bands, which were apparently enough more expensive to not be worth the slight increase in quality) than I have EVER, before or since, thought about rubber bands.

      It was a labor of love, the output of someone whose special interest is rubber bands. A thing of beauty. I’m sorry that I do not have the text to share with you, but I don’t work at that job anymore.

        1. Great Frogs of Literature*

          It’s possible it’s still there, but the rubber bands aren’t the top hits anymore — I didn’t see it when I looked.

      2. Anonymous 5*

        This is reminiscent of the reviews for the Hutzler 541 banana slicer (uh, I think it was model 541) on Amazon…

        2. Petey*

          Oh my – the reviews for the Hutzler are a stitch. Here is one (and hopefully its not too long):
          5.0 out of 5 stars In a city of a thousand bananas there is always a story
          Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2013
          Verified Purchase
          It was a night like every other. Too many cigarettes and not enough work. Clients were as rare as hens teeth these days. It seemed word got out that I was getting sloppy. “Mr banana fingers”, they called me behind my back. “He’s losing his touch”, they’ed whisper. But when you’ve sliced as many as i have you’d get soft too. Fat chance I was retiring now. Not with a ’57 convertible half way paid off and a tab at the banana stand on 4th that was well past its shelf life. I was a one punch palooka half way to loserville, smelling like cheap cologne and broken dreams.

          But then she walked in. She was a knock out. the kind of girl that made old men suck in their gut and young men puff out their chest. “We’ll hello there sweetheart, the dentist office is next door”, I said with a smile.
          “I’m not looking for the dentist”, she said. “I’m looking for Johnny Flynn Private Slicer.”
          “Well you came to the right place”, I said, mustering up what I hoped was a look of confidence. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

          The story she told would have turned the most jaded slicer green with banana envy. It was a big job. The biggest. And even though my gut was turning somersaults I knew I couldn’t turn it down. This was the kind of slicing gig that would make a hundred reputations or destroy a thousand more.

          Her father was the head of the Dole banana conglomerate and some Ivy League poindexter came up with the big idea to do the annual customer gala with a casino night theme. But this time they were gunna use banana chips instead of poker chips. These babies had to be stripped, sliced and dried to exact measurements if they were going to be handled by Dole’s biggest clients.
          “I heard you’re the best”, she said.
          “Was the best”, I thought. “Yeah, I’ve still got the chops. Watch this. I grabbed my number 7 knife and threw a banana in the air. I swung at it and missed it entirely. My knife stabbed down through nothin’ but air and dropped out of my hand on the table in front of me. I watched the banana spin slowly as it fell fell fell and slap, like some miracle you read about in those dime store slicer mags, the banana landed on the knife blade and was cut cleanly in two. My jaw dropped open in amazement and my eyes were big as saucers.
          “Impressive”, she said.
          “Impossible”, I thought. “Yep, impressive is my middle name.”, I stammered.
          She tossed her red hair back and said, “You got the job. See you Saturday at eight.”
          “B… Buh… but, we haven’t talked about my fee.
          She laughed and said as she walked to the door, “Whatever your usual fee is, I’ll pay triple.”

          Then she added, “Oh, and if you blow this gig you’ll never work in this town again.”

          And with a slam of the door she was gone. I realized then she hadn’t told me her name. That didn’t matter. Everyone knew who she was. It was splashed across the society pages every week. “Dole diva doles out dollars to the down and despondent” or “Lecherous love lorn Lothario leaves Linda Livingston livid”. L. & L. but friends just called her Elle.

          “You’ll never work in this town again”.

          Those words echoed over and over in my head. As I reached for my hat my hand was shaking. But then, I looked down at the table and saw the miracle banana perfectly sliced…. an accident, or was it? Maybe the big guy up stairs was gunna save my sorry heiner once again. I said a quick thanks to my guardian slicer and headed home. Once I got in bed doubt crashed into my head like a 500 lb gorilla on a sack of Dole’s finest. I wasn’t gunna come out of this. Not ol’ Banana Fingers. I needed help fast and I knew just where to get it. Johnny Flynns mentor in this business was a crusty old slicer named Harvey Muldoon. Long retired he learned the trade over seas cooking banana fritters and stew for the yanks during WWI. If anyone could help me pull this off it was him. I know it was late but I went over and told him everything–about the dame, the gig and the banana trick. He sat their stone faced until I told him about the banana flip, miss and slice. If it wasn’t so late in the evening I would swear he shed a tiny tear. He got up from his chair and stood there. And with a smile he said, “I guess you’re going to be needing this.” He dragged the paint chipped chair over to the corner of the room, got up on it. Reaching up to the ceiling he pushed at a plank which moved out of the way. He reached into the ceiling compartment and pulled out a box wrapped in an old World War I army issue banana sack. Inside was a battered tin box. With a look of immense pride he handed it to me like a father handing someone their new born to hold for the first time. “This saved my life”, he said as he carefully lifted the dented metal lid. Inside was a hand cut form made of velvet and soft cotton and nestled in the middle was a strange looking device. Reverently he took it out and handed it to me. “Be careful now. It’s razor sharp.”
          “What is it” I said.
          It’s the Hutzler 571. It’s what gave me the speed and precision to feed thousands of doughboys a day with mess tins and steaming bowls of banana fritters, pudding and stew.
          I was intrigued but skeptical… until I saw it in action. Shazam! It sliced bananas faster than Ricky Ricardo could smack a conga drum.
          “I will take good care of it”, I said solemnly.
          “You better. It’s yours now.”, he said.
          I was overwhelmed. “I don’t know what to say.”
          “You can start with a simple thank you” he said with a smirk.

          Come Saturday I was all ready. I made a small leather holster for it so that I could pull it out at a moments notice. I practiced my draw in front of the mirror day and night. I can’t say that the event went perfectly. But I got the satisfaction of Elle saying I could slice her bananas any old time of the year.

          I found my confidence that day. Thanks to some divine help and an old man’s secret weapon I made it to the big banana leagues. No more scraping around for the odd job. Now I named my fee and sliced my way across the banana circuit. But still, with my fame and banana jet set status Linda Livingston was still out of my league. Now when I read about her in the society section I save the article and place them in a folder in the large steel safe along with a battered tin box. When I see it I say a quick thanks to her for walking into my life and giving this old flatfoot a chance to start again.

          3. Chick-n-Boots*

            This is……magical. Incredible. OUTSTANDING.

            And this? Sheer poetry: ” Shazam! It sliced bananas faster than Ricky Ricardo could smack a conga drum.”

            5 stars

          4. Humble Schoolmarm*

            Noir reviews were I thing I never knew I needed in my life until this moment (any chance our hero brought his miracle slicer to a popular bar in Casablanca?)

      4. Overthinking it*

        Maybe not an enthusiast (or not an unbiased one) but the owner of the second-best rubber band company. I can imagine someone with great pride in his product – not going to make inferior rubber bands and compete based on price – but with little marketing budget and almost no way to effectively target buyers of rubber bands hitting on this a a single investment most likely to reach his customers. Intriguing!

  29. Here for Now*

    Comment to an auto dealership’s service department —

    If (the employee) is not the owner’s relative, lover, or blackmailer, you should review your hiring practices

  30. Hawthorne*

    This happened to me literally yesterday.

    We (US-based) had a customer in French Canada upset because something was damaged in transit. We agreed to replace it at no cost to them even though we could easily fix the damaged piece. They have been asking us to pay them for lost profits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars because of the delay and we’ve said no every time because that’s not within our contract.

    They then switched to asking about if we were still pursuing with the shipping company for damaging the equipment. We told them we were no longer pursuing this and they were shocked and pushed us to pursue it and ask the company for damages for lost profits (which is insane). We said we were no longer pursuing it and they kept asking and I found myself wondering if they had certain ideas about litigation in the US.

    Then they said out loud that they were shocked we weren’t pursuing this more fervently since Americans always pursue litigation. They said the quiet part out loud. It was WILD.

    1. Not on board*

      To be fair, the culture in French Canada is quite ornery. I say this as a French speaking Canadian.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        “Canadians are all so nice and polite!”

        “I see you’ve never visited Quebec.”

  31. Ghostess*

    Years ago I worked in publishing, and one of our presses had a series of Arabic language books (as in, books that taught you Arabic). I lost count of the amount of times someone would call to complain that their book was printed backwards.

    1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

      Ha, every year at Seder my grandfather would make the same joke about the Passover Hagadah, that he claimed he couldn’t read because it was “backwards” (Hebrew is also read that way). At least he knew it was supposed to be that way, even if he liked a tired old joke.

    2. Zephy*

      Semi-related: I took Spanish in high school, and junior year one of the required texts was a visual dictionary – basically just a picture book with items labeled in the target language. The publisher of this visual dictionary offered it in multiple languages, and at the time the covers were all basically identical except for the name of the target language. The girl who would eventually be our class valedictorian and go on to attend Harvard made it a number of weeks into Spanish 4 before interrupting the teacher to say, of the visual dictionary, “Senora, I can’t read this. … Oh, it’s in Cambodian.”

    3. goddessoftransitory*

      I would bet all producers of English-translated Japanese manga have entire departments devoted to this complaint, as well.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Every one I’ve seen that is printed right-to-left has a cheerful cartoon explaining “YOU NEED TO START THIS BOOK AT THE OTHER END” on its last page.

        1. JustaTech*

          The best is that the e-book versions of the manga do this too, because you also need to swipe the other way (at least in the Kindle versions).

    4. Janne*

      I once sold my Ancient Greek dictionary second-hand (didn’t need it anymore after graduating).

      Someone bought it just before summer break, then immediately returned it and complained that it didn’t teach her basic Greek sentences for her holiday travels.

      I’m sorry but the book even had pictures of an ancient clay tablet on the front!

      Also, I sold it for €50 which is stupidly expensive for a “teach me basic Greek” book.

  32. Anon for this*

    I worked at a parks and rec summer program that had a Dungeons and Dragons-style RPG camp you could register for, ie two dozen mostly pre-teen boys spending a week together developing their characters, making little figurines, and playing out their RPG game. The kids in this camp generally loved it.

    One day we had an angry parent come in who wanted to talk to the manager. She wouldn’t tell us why, but we eventually overhear the manager saying things “The eagle is a very majestic creature!” Turns out that her kid got assigned an eagle-type character in the game and she felt, as a level five dungeon master, that this was unacceptable because this was *not* a good character to get. The manager was not himself a D&D enthusiast so couldn’t really get into the weeds with her on what constitutes a good D&D character, and had to resort to what he knew from eagles in pop culture (“It’s the symbol of the United States!”). I will never forget this woman.

    1. Megan*

      I’m laughing out loud reading this. I can just imagine the hilarity of this playing out. Now I’m curious to hear from D&D enthusiasts if the eagle is actually a crappy character to get assigned in that game. lol

    3. VivaVaruna*

      As a D&D nerd, she was talking completely out of her rear end because
      A) Dungeon Masters don’t have levels, *characters* do.

      and

      B) Aarakocra (the most common “bird people” in the game) are considered to be horribly overpowered due to their ability to fly. Many DMs will just straight up disallow them from their games.

      My guess is that the kid didn’t want to be an eagle person, complained to his mom about it, and since no one was familiar enough with the actual core of the game her bluff worked.

      1. Galadriel's Garden*

        All I can think of is, “This story would really be better with Jarnathan…”

        (D&D: Honor Amongst Thieves reference, for the uninitiated)

      2. ferrina*

        Yeah, this whole complaint is baffling.

        But the camp sounds AMAZING. I would have loved to do this camp as a kid! Heck, I would do this camp as an adult!

      3. MigraineMonth*

        Weird that the players would get assigned to play a specific species; usually getting to create your own character and selecting their characteristics is a large part of the fun.

  33. Wakeen, Get Off the Toilet.*

    I work at a restaurant. A customer complained a few weeks ago because when she left nobody told her “goodbye”. We were incredibly short-staffed and in the middle of a $900 hour.

    The owners and upper management still thought it was horrific that this customer had such an AWFUL experience when walking out the door so she got a free entree and the entire staff (including all the employees who were off that day) got coachings about the necessities of making sure EVERY customer receives a warm farewell, and it was something we got coached on every day for a full week.

    The 6 – 5 star reviews we got that same day were completely dismissed as worthless because this woman gave us only 4 stars and was offended nobody told her goodbye. This is a casual Chinese restaurant similar to Panda Express.

    And no, she wasn’t anyone important, management and the owners just treat ANY less than 5 star reviews or minor complaints as a REALLY. BIG. DEAL. This just happens to be the stupidest one I’ve seen since I’ve been there.

    1. Megan*

      The fact that this was a fast casual restaurant similar to Panda Express makes her complaint so much more stupid…like since when do employees all say goodbye to everyone leaving a fast casual order at the counter type restaurant? lol

      1. Wakeen, Get Off the Toilet.*

        We are supposed to greet every single person who walks in, even if they are on their phone or we are in the middle of taking someone else’s order. We’re also supposed to follow an extensive script that is exhausting and that many customers find irritating. We also have to push surveys to every customer, and tell every customer goodbye. It’s impossible to do it all in the middle of a rush, we are constantly irritating people, and a lot of customers walk away in the middle of us talking. But the company hires mystery shoppers to come in randomly several times a week and the mystery shoppers all have a checklist of the script word for word and dock us points if we don’t hit every single talking part. It’s exhausting.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          The reason the scripts are so elaborate is so you cannot possibly get everything in. If you don’t get docked you might wonder why, if your mystery shopper scores are so good, you aren’t getting a raise.

        2. MigraineMonth*

          What would happen if one of those irritated customers left a review that the person assisting them kept stopping to say “hello” and “goodbye” to other people, that there was an annoyingly long script, and that they hated being asked to fill out surveys?

          Nevermind, management would probably just add an additional paragraph to the script explaining the reason for the script.

        3. AmuseBouchee*

          You should find a new job if the owners are so out of touch that they let paying customers walk out and cater solely to online reviews. You will never win there.

          1. Kara*

            Welcome to retail! You’d have to do some fairly intensive screening to weed out the places that do stuff like this.

    2. goddessoftransitory*

      This is why, among so many other reasons, I DESPISE online reviews. I just automatically think “that person’s full of shit” when I read negative ones even if they’re making a good point because they’re lost among lunatic elk bellowings and bot spam.

  34. Anon4This*

    I work in a theatre. A couple of great comments over the years:

    -We were doing a show called “Miss You Like Hell” and we sent an eblast with that in the header. Someone mistakenly thought we were telling them we “missed them like hell” and took offense to our vulgarity with this response: “When you say a bad word I take offense to it… You could say “we miss you a great deal” OR “A great deal is waiting for you because you have missed you”.

    -We did Beauty and the Beast and someone asked why we added in the song “Gaston”. They were insistent that we made the choice to put that song in (and I guess that we wrote it ourselves???) and could not be convinced otherwise.

    -We also did the Carole King musical and someone asked why we didn’t include James Taylor as a character (again, we did not write the show…)

    -We did Lend Me a Tenor (a show in which a man has sex with a woman while pretending to be someone else) and the complaint we got from folks was that the cursing (limited to “Christ” and “Damn) was too much for them

    1. MsM*

      Reminds me of the time my husband’s high school did “Kiss Me Kate,” and someone complained about the line in “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” that goes “kick ’em right in the Coriolanus.”

      1. Shandra*

        On a side note, a local high school did the school edition of Les Miserables.

        Part of the song “Drink to Me” goes,”Here’s to witty girls who went to our beds.” I had the distinct impression that the student who got that line, was trying not to sing it with too much feeling. :-)

    3. fhqwhgads*

      “Miss You Like Hell” had plenty of things worth complaining about. The title was not one of them.

    4. Mysty*

      My senior year of high school, we did Damn Yankees (a play about an older guy who makes a deal with the devil to become younger so he can play in the Washington Senators and beat the Yankees). The local elementary school always comes over to watch the dress rehearsal for free, and apparently when the secretary was announcing it, she stumbled a bit over the title.

  35. persimmon*

    I used to work in a mall and our feedback surveys would come back with complaints about other stores aaaalllllllllllll the time. Personal favorite was when someone gave us one star with “Victoria’s Secret didn’t have my bra size” Like okay? How is that our fault?

    1. persimmon*

      NO WAIT my actual favorite was when someone mentioned Dick’s (sporting goods store) but the software censored it so it looked like they were cursing at us. I think it was something like “Couldn’t find the counter at *****”

      3. MigraineMonth*

        I think my favorite example of inappropriate censorship is still the blog filter that would replace slang words for genitalia with the scientific terms (so “penis” instead of “dick” or “cock”).

        It made one woman’s post about her apartment’s cockroach infestation a lot more interesting.

        1. JustaTech*

          How about the filter on the chat software that censored the word “bone” at a scientific conference about either orthopedics or paleontology? (This was early COVID, mid 2020.)

        2. N C Kiddle*

          I am a Scunthorpe United supporter. Our message board had some kind of override to allow us to use our club name, but only if it was written as a single word. Links to the official club website routinely got mangled. Also the message boards for other clubs couldn’t talk about their games against us.

  36. Serious Silly Putty*

    Not a true complaint but actually a sweet thank you letter:

    “Thank you for the space mission one thing is I wish the seats shook but it was still fun.”

    Kid, we have been wanting butt shakers for our space ship for years. You’re not alone.

  37. HappyMarketer*

    Back in the day I was a waitress. We had a cheap steak and chips on the menu for £5 – it wasn’t amazing but really good for the price. The customer asked for it well done so it was even more uninspiring than normal. When I served it up she turned round and said ‘that doesn’t look like a steak it looks like a piece of meat’. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her what she thought steak was so I just took it back to the kitchen to a very baffled chef…

  38. Medium Sized Manager*

    Years of working in restaurants have prepared me for this moment! Some of my favorites:

    – The carnitas fries came with pork, not chicken, even though it “always comes with chicken.”
    – The margarita came with tequila and she didn’t realize she was supposed to ask for a virgin one if she didn’t want alcohol (she was in her 40s-50s so I didn’t card).
    – The sirloin didn’t look like the picture of the ribeye.
    – The jalapeno burger was spicy.

    1. Desk Dragon*

      That last one might explain why I once ordered a jalapeño burger (literally called that on the menu) at a restaurant and then had to ask them to actually bring me the jalapeños that were supposed to be on it.

      1. Medium Sized Manager*

        I had so many sent back that I started asking people if they knew the jalapeno burger was spicy, which brought on a different set of looks. I get it to a degree because it was REALLY spicy but also??

        1. Desk Dragon*

          I wouldn’t have minded if they’d asked something like that—I know how people can be! But if I order something spicy I expect it to set my hair on fire, and receiving a burger where the spiciest ingredient was a “chipotle aioli” that might possibly have been in the same room as a pepper was disappointing; the fact that the server seemed shocked I actually wanted the jalapeños was also annoying.

        2. ferrina*

          I’ve gotten that question many times at various restaurants (I love spicy food). I always feel so bad for the waitstaff, because I know that they only ask because someone didn’t read the menu then complained.

        3. zinzarin*

          I once ate a restaurant that had a version of a Nashville Hot Chicken sandwich made with a habanero sauce to provide the heat. The menu did state quite clearly that it was very hot, and that you could not send it back.

          I read that warning with a lifetime of corporate-speak and legalese in mind, and figured it was probably as hot as most places, which means not hot at all because everyone is timid and nobody would really make it that spicy.

          Reader, it was that spicy. I ate a total of three bites of that sandwich the entire time we were there, open-mouth breathing and nibbling fries in between to let the heat settle down. I absolutely did not even attempt to send it back; I had been warned. Touché, Three Floyds. Touché.

          1. Bryce*

            My family used to eat at a place in Santa Fe with a sign “our hot chile is HOT. you are welcome to ask for a sample first. We promise our mild is also delicious.”

          2. Medium Sized Manager*

            One of my favorite memories of being in Nashville was being served a hot sauce with a lid on it – you had to open it yourself so you couldn’t claim it was an accident. They also will not toss the chicken in that sauce because too many people sent it back.

            I have a great video of my husband saying it wasn’t that bad and then nearly choking 20 seconds later.

    2. Alf*

      My favourite genre of this is customers who feign an “allergy” to make sure they get things just the way they like it –
      “I’m allergic to oil (yes, all oil!) so please prepare my *quesadilla* without any oil”
      “I’m allergic to eggs unless they’re boiled for over 10 minutes.”
      Or my all-time favourite:
      “I’m allergic to salt, can I get my homefries without any salt?”
      Ma’am, salt is an inorganic material!

      1. Medium Sized Manager*

        Especially because the people with real allergies are very understanding! I had a customer with a gluten allergy order something that normally comes with onion strings, so I obviously put in that modification. Some well-meaning person saw that my dish didn’t have onion strings on it and put it on after they had been waiting 20 minutes. When I told her why her dish would be a few extra minutes after everybody else’s, she was SO grateful that I didn’t just take it off and serve it anyway.

        1. Alf*

          Yeah as a cook I was always very happy to accommodate allergy requests when possible*, but it was just transparently obvious when people were lying about an allergy to try to ensure I paid attention to their special request.

          *One story I just remembered – I was working at a Canadian breakfast chain called Cora’s, which is famous for their elaborate displays of fruit. Pretty much everything you order comes with a large side of fruit. A family came in once and said they were all deathly allergic to kiwis, and could we serve them? We would have had to deep clean every surface and serving utensil and knife in the kitchen – we told them they were better off going literally anywhere else – but they insisted they would be fine and ordered anyway. I can’t remember if the manager made them sign a waiver or something.

        2. zinzarin*

          My sister has dairy and egg allergies, and it’s like pulling teeth to get her to actually say that to the server when ordering food. She tries so hard to be gentle and polite with her messaging that she’s like the bad managers here; too soft, and the message isn’t clear. Every time we dine together, I stop the server before they leave the table to clarify that what my sister just said meant that she has an allergy and those ingredients can’t be in her food.

          1. JustaTech*

            My husband can be like that with his (relatively new) shellfish allergy. I guess because he hasn’t been prescribed an epipen he doesn’t think it’s a big deal?

            But it’s such an easy one to avoid, so I always make a point of telling the waiter, who is usually quite grateful to know.

          2. NotBatman*

            MOOD. It might just be my training as a white American woman, but I hate having to tell servers about my allergies. I always feel like a whiny high-maintenance loser. And then every so often I’ll fail to mention it and accidentally poison myself, and remember all over again why I really do have to mention it every time.

      2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        Incidentally, while salt in small amounts is necessary for human survival (meaning this is only slightly more plausible than claiming to be allergic to calcium), it’s perfectly possible to be allergic to inorganic materials – I’m allergic to nickel. This obviously isn’t an issue for food, but is for skin contact (I need to make sure the rivets and buttons on my jeans don’t directly touch my skin for long periods of time.).

      3. Galadriel's Garden*

        Mannnn I hate that one of my allergies sounds like absolute BS, but is very, unfortunately real: raw onions. Specifically raw ones – not cooked ones. Thoroughly cooked ones don’t trigger a reaction as whatever protein triggers the allergy are evidently cooked out, but raw ones are very not fine. It sounds ridiculous. It *feels* ridiculous. I just avoid ordering anything with raw onions in it as they’re usually pretty obvious, or ask for no onions, rather than mention anything to a server and sound like an ass.

        Corn, on the other hand……….that’s the tricky one.

        1. Desk Dragon*

          That type of allergy isn’t even that uncommon! I have two (unrelated) friends who are allergic to raw tomatoes, but fully cooked isn’t an issue. I get that it probably seems “off” to servers when someone sends back a burger because it’s clearly had a tomato added and then removed, and then the person puts on ketchup on the replacement, but I learned in middle school science class that cooking/heat creates chemical changes in food.

          1. Worldwalker*

            Exactly.

            Take pineapple: fresh pineapple will keep Jell-O from gelling, but canned (and hence cooked) won’t. There’s an enzyme in fresh pineapple that is broken down by heat.

            Or my aversion to fresh peaches. I just really dislike them. But cooked peaches? Everything from peach cobbler to peach ice cream? Yummmm!

            It’s not at all uncommon for a cooked food to be edible when the raw form isn’t, because the allergen is a protein broken down by cooking.

        2. Jay (no, the other one)*

          My husband has a milk protein allergy. He can eat butter because it’s almost pure fat, and no other dairy. There’s no risk of anaphylaxis so cross-contamination isn’t an issue. Trying to explain this to servers is challenging, as you can imagine. Plus lots of people think mayonnaise is dairy, so that gets confusing. And then there was the young man who replied “well, we only have one gluten-free option on the menu.” So hubs didn’t trust anything and ended up with a piece of steak and salad with oil and vinegar, no cheese.

          1. Meow*

            Yes, my husband has a milk protein allergy as well, and was thrilled to discover he could eat most coleslaws (they are made with mayo, not milk!) although he always asks to make sure since once in a while some place will put milk in theirs. Half the time they’ll come back with “but mayo is dairy”. It is not. But it’s made with eggs! Eggs are not dairy. Which is a brain fart a lot of people have, but just… think for a second.

            Our kid’s favorite restaurant published an interactive allergy menu recently, where you could put in your allergies and it would show you what you could eat there. My husband tried it and, confusingly, it excluded french fries. I’m guessing it was either for cross contamination (probably fried in the same oil as mozzarella sticks) or because you can get a side of ranch with them that has dairy, but either way, made the menu useless.

            And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy when people take his allergy seriously, as opposed to the countless number of times we’ve gotten a hamburger half covered in cheese they clearly tried to scrape off. But when we have to argue like that about it, it feels more like the staff is treating us like we’re lying about the allergy than it does that they’re trying to make sure the food is safe.

        3. WantonSeedStitch*

          One of my best friends is allergic to raw onions: he eats them, they come right back up. But yeah, cooked onions are fine. I also know someone who’s allergic to corn. It’s really challenging for her, as it’s hidden in SO many things.

        4. MigraineMonth*

          That doesn’t seem odd to me at all. I have a friend who’s allergic to raw apples.

          I also have a friend who’s allergic to corn, including corn syrup, and it is ridiculously hard to find any packaged food (or drinks) she can eat.

        5. Kelsi*

          That isn’t that odd. My brother is allergic to fresh fruit (and avocado and a few other things) but he doesn’t have a reaction to cooked fruit in like, pies and stuff.

      4. Pescadero*

        Salt is an inorganic material… that can cause allergic reactions.

        Julia Matthias et al. ,Sodium chloride is an ionic checkpoint for human TH2 cells and shapes the atopic skin microenvironment.Sci. Transl. Med.11,eaau0683(2019).DOI:10.

      5. Admin of Sys.*

        Weirdly, the egg one is legit. There’s an allergy to the egg proteins that goes away if they’re sufficiently cooked – it denatures the protein they react to.

      6. Worldwalker*

        You can be allergic to inorganic materials. Carbon is not a necessary component of an allergen. Note jewelry (particularly earrings) advertised as hypoallergenic.

    3. goddessoftransitory*

      Oh man, the whole “my five chile-rated taco was TOO SPICY” routine. I cannot fathom how many people have ordered jalapenos from me over the years and then complained that their pizza was too hot.

    4. Pescadero*

      “The jalapeno burger was spicy.”

      I can kind of get that one.

      There is lots and lots of Jalapeno flavored foods available nowadays. Almost none of them are actually spicy. They just contain Jalapeno flavor.

      The modern norm seems to be for “jalapeno” flavored things to mostly NOT be actually spicy.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        I cook a dish that contains a jalapeño (yes, I have a very low spice tolerance), and whether the dish is spicy actually varies quite a bit each time I make it. It seems like individual jalapeños may or may not be spicy, which means that whether a dish is too spicy depends on the recipe, the chef, the ingredients and the customer.

        That’s a lot of variables for something that might make one basically unable to eat one’s meal!

        1. Worldwalker*

          There is at least one variety of low-powered jalapeños, and they grow nicely in containers if needed. They’re delicious. Look for “Tam” seeds or plants.

      2. Medium Sized Manager*

        Yeah, this one had fried jalepenos, fresh jalepenos, and then jalepenos in the aoili so it was actually a doozy. I have wimpy taste buds, so I never tried it, but I also wouldn’t order one in the first place.

    5. Kay*

      I ordered a squash steak and had the server say to me “just so you know, that isn’t a steak, it isn’t meat”. We had a good laugh and lamented the state of the world where he had to say that.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        As someone who doesn’t eat red meat, I have to be careful when ordering mushroom burgers. Sometimes they’re the top of a portabella mushroom served on a bun, sometimes it’s a beef burger topped with mushrooms.

  39. mari-an the librarian*

    Public library in a “historic” US building. We’ve preserved the architecture as much as we can while adapting the layout of the interior for modern library use – more social hangout spaces, a reading room with armchairs, etc. Concerted, deliberate effort to make the building welcoming and accessible.

    Cue a gentleman informing us that our chairs are “too comfortable”. Apparently people aren’t supposed to be able to relax when in the presence of Collected Knowledge. It’s disrespectful.

    1. Sharpie*

      I now have to scrape my eyebrows off the ceiling. The whole.point of a library and books is to be comfortable. The best thing ever is a deep comfy armchair, a wood fire, a cat, all the books you could dream of and more, a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate, and the rain beating against the windows..

      This is what the cool kids these days call ‘dark academia’, which I am reliably informed is ‘an aesthetic’.

      1. Worldwalker*

        It is. I had no idea that what I’ve loved all my life was now a named style until recently. It’s handy in a way, since it makes it easier to search for things that I like.

    2. ferrina*

      Interesting. I enjoy the comfort of Collected Knowledge- it’s usually Collected Ignorance that makes me uncomfortable and tense

  40. ella.s*

    I worked for a beauty brand and had a customer mail us a letter with an eyeliner taped TO the paper, with a note written in serial-killer style handwriting (in the eyeliner!) with an arrow to the taped-on eyeliner that read “this is the worst product I’ve ever used”.

    2. JustaTech*

      Hilariously I recently was recommended (and purchased) an eyeliner because a lot of people had complained that it wasn’t really waterproof.

      I asked the sales person at Sephora for not-waterproof eyeliner and he said “uh, we don’t really sell that, but you know, a lot of people have complained that this one over here isn’t really waterproof, do you want to try that?”
      “Sold!”
      (It is not waterproof, and comes off very nicely at the end of the day.)

  41. NotRealAnonForThis*

    How about “not strangest” but definitely most freaking maddening?

    Long ago (in RetailWorld as a teenager) I received complaints for the following things, which the store GM was irate at the world over because why were older men behaving so crappily to his teenaged store associates? Comparing notes, each of us teenaged girls had 2-3 complaints in this general line per YEAR lodged in writing in the main office. Please read on and feel the warmth of the flames on the sides of all of our faces….

    1. Refused to return customer’s shoes, referring customer back to the Shoe Department of the store because they handled all returns. Shoes were a completely separate department, and as they worked on commission, they handled all returns. In addition – they were very clearly another store’s house brand not ours, old and worn (meaning not that they’d been on feet, but that they’d been obviously used for a significant amount of time), and security had walked him out TWICE that day in his attempts to get money for the shoes.

    2. I had “the audacity to be on the sales floor while in a family way yet not wearing a wedding band”. My friends, I was in high school, wearing a babydoll style dress (hi, 1990s), and was 100% NOT expecting a child nor was I married. I further suspect that this complaint was lodged by the gross older man who leered at me and wondered “who the lucky father is?”. Yeah, security also escorted this one out.

    3. No, I will NOT try on lingerie for you, I don’t care if your (fill in the blank wife/girlfriend/daughter(!)) is the same size and you don’t know what size that is. And spoiler fellow readers, it was never my teenaged classmates or cohort who did this type of thing – it was grown men who were at least my Dad’s age, if not my Grandpa’s. There was a reason why the security office was NEXT to this section of the “Women’s Dept”.

    And RetailWorld was FAR less problematic than stints in food service or bartending, probably because both our department manager and the store GM were incredible people and would definitely not the be the ones written about on this site.

    1. Warrior Princess Xena*

      I’m sad that this can be said but kudos to your Gm for not being a creep!

      1. NotRealAnonForThis*

        He truly was a gem and I’m really thankful I had him (and my area manager) as bosses early on in life!

      1. NotRealAnonForThis*

        I found it really kind of sad and scary, as a teenager, that part of the reason that the main security office was where it was, was because of the lingerie section and the problems with customers encountered by staff there.

        It was also in line of sight of “fine jewelry” right at the mall entrance and the auto department (which had separate doors as well as work-bay doors). Everyone who didn’t work there figured it was in with electronics and appliances, but those departments didn’t have product regularly walk out the door.

  42. Ms. Chanandeler Bong*

    I work in public relations – one night I was on a local news broadcast as a spokesperson, talking about some initiative (now long-forgotten). But I will never forget the two unsettling, yet very different reactions I received in the days that followed.

    The first was a direct message – sent through Facebook – from a stranger, commenting that my smile was very symmetrical and inquiring if I might want to have dinner with him. And the other was a four page (front and back!), handwritten letter that arrived to my office, asking if I had found the Lord, telling me the story of their family’s salvation, inviting me to visit the website of a very popular televangelist and concluding with their favourite psalms.

    I mentally declined both invitations.

    1. MsM*

      “Your smile is very symmetrical” is “it puts the lotion on its skin” levels of creepy.

      1. Potatohead*

        “Your face is real symmetrical
        And your nostrils are so nice
        I wish that I was cross-eyed, girl
        So I could see you twice”
        -Wanna B Ur Lvr, Weird Al Yankovic

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        It’s “your hair is so braidable” from the guy sitting behind you on the bus levels of creepy.

  43. Proxy Solicitor*

    I work in investor relations as a proxy solicitor. We were handling calls related to a contested shareholder meeting for a client, where a group had nominated some opposing candidates for the company’s board of directors, so shareholders were getting two different sets of proxy materials, some from each side. I had a shareholder call in and complain that the proxy materials included a quote from “a dead person.” The shareholder thought it was really tacky to “quote dead people” and wanted that feedback known to us. As if this wasn’t odd enough feedback to begin with, the quote she referenced was a quote by Bill Gates…who is NOT dead, and in fact, was recently all over the news in an interview around the time I got this call. Then to add a third layer of absurdity to this complaint, it turned out the quote in question wasn’t even in the proxy material sent out by the company, which was the side our firm was retained to represent…I found the quote in the opposing side’s proxy materials! Her complaint wasn’t even directed to the correct party responsible for quoting Bill Gates. lol

    1. MigraineMonth*

      I’ve heard it’s tacky to speak ill of the dead, not to repeat what they said. There’s probably a famous quote about that, but probably by someone who is no longer living.

      1. Worldwalker*

        That one’s just bizarre.

        So no Shakespeare quotes, then? Abraham Lincoln is as forbidden as Julius Caesar? And Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, and the entire Bible, are off limits? The mind boggles.

        1. Sharpie*

          I guess, depending on your faith, the red-letter bits of the Bible might be acceptable, being the words of Jesus, who Christians believe is not-dead.

  44. Jackalope*

    I was working at a zoo and aquarium, and happened to be in the aquarium when this happened. A visitor came up to me, standing right next to one of those huge tanks full of several kinds of fish (including some small sharks), sea anemones, urchins, etc. and asked where the animals were and why he couldn’t find any animals. I tend to get annoyed at the idea that animal=mammal, so I pointed out that there was a huge tank of animals right behind me, but he said, “No, I want to see ANIMALS.” I finally directed him to some of our charismatic mega-fauna (tigers and elephants, I think) and he left. But seriously, the aquarium is literally the only part of the zoo where you won’t find mammals; all he had to do was head anywhere else besides the aquarium, which one might reasonably infer would mostly house sea animals.

    1. Abogado Avocado*

      I would have been tempted to point him in the direction of the bathroom, where he could see an animal in the mirror.

  45. CTT*

    It’s minor, but shoutout to the client who was mad that I, a lawyer licensed in Tennessee, could not prepare real estate documents for her purchase of land outside of Mexico City.

    1. Paint N Drip*

      I’ve worked in the world of licensed professionals and it’s wild how many people will be genuinely upset that our office is not willing to get licensed just everywhere. Don’t you want someone who actually knows the local laws/regulations??

    2. used to be a tester*

      I still sometimes think of the poor lawyer in Ontario (Canada) who had to repeatedly explain to my MIL that he was not licensed to handle real estate law in Florida.

      MIL kept wording the request in slightly different ways, hoping maybe this time the answer would be different.

    3. Deborah*

      I’m an OB-GYN and you wouldn’t believe how many people want me to look in their ears.

      3. JanetM*

        A joke for your amusement.

        An OB-GYN got tired of paying the malpractice premiums and decided to go into another line of work. He decided on auto repair, and signed up at the local community college.

        At the end of the course, he called his instructor and said, “I’m confused. You graded my final exam at 200%.”

        The instructor said, “Yes, you earned 50% for correctly troubleshooting and disassembling the engine and 50% for correctly repairing the problem and reassembling it.”

        The man asked, “Okay, but what about the extra 100%?”

        “Well,” the instructor replied slowly, “it was the first time I’d ever seen anyone do all that through the tailpipe.”

        1. Chuffing along like Mr. Pancks*

          I don’t know if you keep a daily tally of the people you make snort with laughter, but please take a +1 if so!

    4. Sister George Michael*

      OMG my neighbor who was BAFFLED that I, an American immigration attorney, couldn’t explain to him how getting US citizenship would affect his ability to collect a German pension.

  46. ragazza*

    At my first job at a university press, I fielded a call from someone who wanted to know how to go about submitting a manuscript for book publication. I explained our process in deciding whether projects were a fit for us, including sending out manuscripts to independent academic reviewers. “And then what happens?” she asked. Well, we say yes or no. Her shocked response: “But isn’t that censorship?”

    1. Rex Libris*

      Public librarian here… We get that a lot too, especially from self published “authors” in our case. No, not adding the 80 page channeled autobiography of John Lennon that you published through CreateSpace isn’t censorship.

      The “censorship” vs. “selection” struggle is real. :-)

    2. ragazza*

      I was just remembering a lot of other incidents from that job (I had to answer the main phone line so there were a lot of them). One person was trying to figure out why they weren’t receiving a university publication anymore but she couldn’t remember the name of it. So some one at the university was forwarding her call around to every department that published things. I tried to explain to explain we published books, not publications, and then she got mad I didn’t know the publication she was talking about and hung up on me. Reader, this was a major university with two campuses, undergraduate and graduate schools, and presumably dozens if not hundreds of different publications.

      It also had a directional name so it was frequently confused with another university with a similar directional name. The managing editor of the press once had to deal with a attendee at a conference who insisted we published a book that we definitely did not. After about 10 minutes of this person getting progressively angrier, they finally looked at the sign at the booth: “Oh! This is Southwest State University, not Southeast State University!” and walked off without another word.

  47. Pop-up book from hell*

    A middle aged, middle class, white woman, said she felt discriminated against by me because I told her that the area she was sitting in was reserved for teens. I didn’t even actually make her move when she got stubborn – just waited for a group of teens to come in and game and show her why the area was reserved.

  48. AnonymousToday*

    My manager has printed out a survey response and pinned it up in his cubicle: “training was almost too adequate.”

  49. Apples and Oranges*

    Not my place of business, but my husband left this Yelp review at our neighborhood grocery store and it cracks me up every time I read it:

    “ I don’t know if there is a national competition for slowest cashiers in America, but if so I would like to personally sponsor a team from this store because it is the closest thing to a guaranteed win I could ever bet on. In fact, they could rival the Yankees for greatest dynasty in sports if slow bagging ever becomes a sport.

    Shopping (getting everything in your cart you want to buy) at this store is pretty quick and easy, and their selection is pretty good. But then you start waiting in line to check out, and your entire life changes. You start wondering what day it is. Didn’t I shave today?? Why do a have a full Ted Kazinsky beard now? Did that conveyor belt just move backwards? Is that cashier taking things out of bags or putting them in? I can’t tell! Have I had a birthday since I’ve been in here? One birthday or two?? When did I last see my wife and kid? Am I still even married? I hope she remarried someone who treats her well. Do I still have a job? Surely my PTO ran out and I’ve been fired by now, right? What life even exists for me now outside those sliding doors?!?

    Sarcasm aside, I honestly 100% have never seen a store with cashiers this slow, and it’s ALL OF THEM. Every time I shop here I go to a line with a cashier I’ve never had and I think, “Surely they can’t be slower than the last one.” But EVERY SINGLE TIME they are. This last paragraph is 100% true and I am in complete awe of this reality. Shop here if you want good selection, but only if you have no plans for the rest of your day…or week…or life.”

    4. len*

      Oof, clearly in the minority here but imo several public paragraphs of petty but vehement complaints about low-wage workers is pretty unpleasant to read.

  50. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

    That paper product review is poetic. None of my customer complaints have every been so well thought out.

    I spoke to a repeat customer on the phone…she was going to fax over an order form that had the payment information (this was…ahem…a long time ago). I waited maybe 2 hours and no fax — not from her anyway, there were other faxes, so the machine was working. I called her back and got the machine, so I left a message that I was following up on our phone conversation about her order, I hadn’t received her fax, and confirmed the fax number and then I went to lunch. When I returned she had called back and spoke to my supervisor. I was “laughing at her and throwing away her faxes”. My supervisor of course didn’t believe that but it became an office joke for a time. I must be going around just laughing and throwing away faxes. That was the whole story… never received her fax.

    1. But maybe not*

      Stories like this make you wonder what happened to that lady in her life that her brain told her “yes, the only option is that they are LAUGHING AT ME and throwing away the faxes.”

      1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

        Right? It started off as such a mundane call to me — IME fax machines were pretty notoriously buggy — so I was just letting her know it hadn’t come through and could she please resend, especially because her order form would have had credit card information on it and I wanted to confirm I received it and processed her order. Her reaction was completely out of left field.

    2. Great Frogs of Literature*

      Maybe this is a generational thing, but honestly I never really believe that a fax has been properly received unless the person on the other end confirms it. (You’re just… sending it out into the ether and hoping it’ll print out of a machine on the other end! You don’t even have an email receipt to look at and see that it went! Are you sure you didn’t put it in upside down and send a blank fax? Or mistype the number? Or they gave you the wrong number? Weirdly, I don’t feel the same way about letters, but in fairness, I have much more experience with sending and receiving letters, and a very small percentage of those did not arrive, unlike faxes.)

      1. ferrina*

        This. I was always paranoid when I had to send a fax- I had no faith in the process. No idea why- it always worked for me.

      2. Hiphopanonymous*

        I used to have to send faxes for my job. In the fax, I had to dial 9 to get an outside line, then 1 for long distance. And I sent a lot of faxes to area code 919. So I had to dial 91919 and then the rest of the number… at least twice I apparently accidentally called 911. In the weird, electronically distorted voice that came through the fax machine’s speaker, you could hear “9-1-1 what is your emergency” followed immediately by that fax machine screech *eeeeeEEEEEEEAAAAAAAALESFKJASLKFJASLKFDJSALFKJSDF*.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Ugh, why did they used to make you dial “9” for an outside line then “1” for long distance? I cannot be the only person who dialed “9” then “1” then “1-800” only to find myself speaking with emergency services. No emergency, just can’t figure out how to use this damn prepaid-call card! So embarrassing.

          Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve thought about call cards.

          1. RAC*

            Previous employer’s old Rolm PBX was that way. “9” for an outside line. “9-1” for a long distance (or toll free) call. Emergency services was “9911” from a work phone.

  51. Combinatorialist*

    When I was a TA in graduate school, I got a review from a student (I don’t really think they are “customers” but close enough for this) that I was “a good teacher but too friendly”. I’m still puzzled at exactly what the complaint is.

    1. Jam on Toast*

      I was once told I smiled too much and I didn’t smile enough when I was teaching…on the same course survey.

  52. Broken Lawn Chair*

    We had a customer angry because the ATM in our store was broken. Let’s leave aside the issue that it belonged to the bank and we had no control over it or information about it. He thought someone should have called him to let him know it was broken.

  53. the Viking Diva*

    from a student:
    “I’ve noticed that Dr. Diva wants us to think in this class.”

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      This reminds me of when I was off work to have my thyroid removed and when I returned, one of my students greeted me with, “thank goodness you’re back. The sub teacher was making us write essays and stuff.” You’d think she was subjecting them to child labour, the way he said it.

    3. Collette*

      I remember a professor of mine once saying, university undergraduates are the only people anywhere in America who want less for their money.

      1. JustaTech*

        I don’t remember if we did evaluations in undergrad, but for one class my eval would absolutely have been “I think that Professor should be harder on us, ecology is too easy and we got to see the sun.”
        (My undergrad was *super* intense and while I’m sure Ecology wasn’t easy by most people’s standards, it didn’t have us up until 3am doing homework, so we were all worried it was “too easy”. Also the professor was a really chill guy.)

    5. Knighthope*

      From a grad student who either is a teacher or is studying to be one:
      “Ms. Knighthope WILL take off points for late work!” Yup, it’s in the syllabus, and I am modeling “Make your expectations clear.” and “Follow up with the consequences you have explained.”

  54. Irish Teacher.*

    Admittedly, this was from a 13 year old student, but my first year teaching, I had student fill in an evaluation about what they liked and disliked about our class over the year. One student wrote in “having *least popular teacher in the school* for *subject that teacher taught*” as what they liked least.

    This was in response to “what did you like least about history class this year?” and think they responded with “having *least popular teacher* for science.”

    I guess a positive is they didn’t criticise anything about my class, but…

  55. shrinking violet*

    Back in the Olden Days, when I worked retail, I was thoroughly chewed out by a customer for asking for an ID for her check. “Your store in (nearby smaller town) never asks for ID for checks!”

    Friends, we did not have a store in (nearby smaller town).

  56. Copyeditrix*

    When I was a copyeditor, I got a long rant from someone whose work I edited, in which he called me “the language police” and “a grammar Nazi.” I was so glad it was on email, because I couldn’t stop laughing.

    2. Editrix*

      Hey, fellow editor!

      I’ve found that, in general, it’s the weaker writers who complain most about being edited. I once edited a feature for a no-nonsense trade magazine in which a writer referred to water — just regular water, from the tap — as “that which was once a cloud.” He complained to high heaven that I cut his “imagery.”

      1. ferrina*

        Not an editor by profession but have editing as part of my role, and YES!

        I’ve found that strong writers are happy to adapt their writing and have a second set of eyes, whereas weak writers are invariably the ones that “don’t need someone to look it over” and I “don’t understand what they are trying to do” (yeah, that’s the problem- no one understands it).

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          It’s like the old New Yorker cartoon Anne Lamott quoted in her writing guide: a guy’s at a party talking to someone and saying “We’re still pretty far apart–I’m asking for a six figure advance and they’re refusing to read the manuscript.”

        2. anon tech writer*

          Former editor here, and oh Lord yes.

          And you start in good faith trying to explain things like company style and consistent voice, and they act like you’re trying to steal their toys.

          (And no, I am not at all sorry that I “killed” your “hilarious” headline which was a. not funny, and b. fatphobic.)

    3. MigraineMonth*

      That sounds like the kind of praise that should be incorporated into future cover letters.

  57. Dried Up Green Beans*

    Comment section of a conference evaluation:

    For the LOVE OF GOD – GO BACK TO LASAGNA and MIIXED SALAD for lunch. Kale, dried up green beans, plain pasta – completely disgusting, I was sooooooo disappointed with this pathetic lunch I may not ever come back to the conference. Who are these sick people who chose this for a meal that the attendees would enjoy??
    ———–
    (for the record, there were multiple types of sauce available for the pasta)

  58. DramaQ*

    Customer “What is the difference between garlic bread and garlic cheese bread?”

    Me “One has cheese on it.”

    She demanded to speak to my manger for making her feel stupid. I was deliberately being a smart a** and not taking her question seriously.

    2. Anonymous cat*

      These questions are hard to answer with just the right tone!

      Someone came up to me, thrust a bunch of envelopes at me, and said, Are these empty???

      I blinked and said, If there’s nothing in them…. And she stomped off.

      I wasn’t trying to be a smartass. I was just so surprised by the question.

  59. Trudy*

    I used to rent out some spare rooms in my house on Airbnb. I got some ridiculous reviews in my time.

    1. In a room advertised as having a bunk bed, with prominent pictures of the bunk bed in the listing: “I don’t like bunk beds.”
    2. Someone complained that the sheets and towels were blue.
    3. Airbnb requires people booking listings where the host has pets to click a pop up box acknowledging that there are pets on the property. Additionally, I mentioned in three separate places on the listing that I have cats, and my cat photobombed one of the pictures,and I decided to leave the picture up as truth in advertising. So many people left reviews complaining that I had cats.

    1. goddessoftransitory*

      I wish I could stay with you: we have to move into an Air BnB for a week and a half due to apartment renovations, and finding a place that would take our indoor, 17 year old “rub my belly” sweetheart of a cat was insane. You’d think I was trying to move in a pair of Bengal tigers.

      1. Pamela S*

        I booked into a b and b in Rome solely because the listing stated that guests must like cats – they had 6.

      2. Worldwalker*

        I’ve read about a B&B that has multiple very friendly cats. You can reserve your favorite cat, and at bedtime, the staff delivers (or calls?) the correct cats to the corresponding rooms.

        I’ve stayed at a B&B with two magnificent Maine Coons, but they only held court in the living room, they didn’t work as bedcats.

  60. Penny*

    Worked at a now defunct dollar store. Customer came to me irate that nothing was price marked.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Same, I laughed so hard at this person’s complaint. It’s constructive criticism! These are real issues! :D

    2. 1LFTW*

      Same!

      Even newsprint works with any dry media and tolerates some amount of erasing (for non-artists: newsprint is cheap, non-archival paper that’s used for warm-up drawings). Paper that falls apart when you used compressed charcoal? That’s incredibly shitty paper, and I’d definitely want to know about that before I spent money on it.

  62. Beth*

    I work in financial services, and most of our clients really are lovely people. With a few rare exceptions.

    We had contacted one client about the possibility of making a change to her sccount registration that would be to her advantage. Did she want this? If so, let us know, and we’d send her the form so she could authorize the change. No response until . . .

    A month letter, she called and tried to rip me a new orifice because the change had not been made. Um, ma’am, it can only be made with your authorization. If you want the change made, we’ll send you the form right away for your signature. (Suppressing the urge to say “Sorry, our customer service psychic was out this month and we didn’t know you wanted us to proceed until you told us.”)

    1. Anon too*

      “Unfortunately I left my crystal ball at home today…” was common shorthand among agents for certain customer complaints we got at the call center

  63. LadyByTheLake*

    I answer customer complaints for banks, so I’ve seen some doozies. We received this one fifteen years ago and I’ve kept it framed on my wall. I am not being coy and hiding the bank’s name — the complaint came absolutely as written below, no changes:

    For I the claimant state that all banks universally agree that the one who funded the loan shall be repaid their money. Again [Financial Institution(s)] et al, never made known this real and important fact, but rather used larceny by trickery, deceit, witchcraft, non-disclosure and material concealment to defraud claimant. These dirty, filthy deeds and tactics are total “jackassory” in nature.

    1. NameRequired*

      You know those banks and their witchcraft, always out to get customers by uuhhhh not telling them that when you take out a loan you need to repay it

      1. Another Kristin*

        I am pretty sure that when I first got a mortgage, this was explicitly said to me several times. Probably because of people like this guy who thinks banks hand out money for their health!

    2. Clorinda*

      I am so confused right now. Does it mean that the bank used witchcraft in the process of demanding payments on a loan? And this is dirty filthy larceny?

    3. Paint N Drip*

      AMAZING
      the combination of obvious form letter and specifically personal accusations, wonderful

      1. Chuffing along like Mr. Pancks*

        And bank magic must be very dark and very powerful, seeing as money is the root of all evil, and all.

    5. Kay*

      I’m always so curious as to what must have happened to cause (insert painfully obvious form here), thank you for providing this lovely bit of insight.

  64. Baristanonymous*

    I worked as a barista at a big green chain that has very standardized procedures, including that drip coffee be filled up to 1/4″ below the cup rim, unless the customer asks for room. A customer came back from her table once yelling at me that I had filled her cup too full (possible from a corporate perspective, but not a common complaint for $$$ coffee). She continued that her coffee had spilled all over the table when she took the lid off, which is dangerous because it is *very* hot. I frantically asked her if she had been burned. She had not, but she went on for another full minute about how dangerous that was; I should never do it again; and make sure that all my “friends back there” also know not to fill the cup to the top with hot coffee.
    My “friends” and I made a *lot* of money in tips from the rest of the very backed-up line of customers who witnessed her tirade.

    1. Jay (no, the other one)*

      I once tipped a server 100% of the check because I listened to a woman absolutely berate her because she couldn’t change the terms of the day’s special. The customer went on for what felt like a very long time and absolutely insisted that yes she could have the chicken sandwich special made up completely differently and still get the discount. It was truly awful and the poor server tried so hard to be conciliatory. I wanted to dump a pot of coffee on the woman’s head and managed to restrain myself.

      The kicker? It was at Friendly’s.

    2. MigraineMonth*

      I once left a tip on another server’s table after one of her customers decided to complain about a burger for 15 minutes straight *during the dinner rush*. Then escalated to her manager and wasted even more time.

      Even if the burger was made of live rats, you don’t need 15 minutes to say that.

  65. Anna Badger*

    My personal oddest feedback was when I had a message into the support inbox about an article on our site featuring a visibly disabled academic, complaining that the picture was not of that academic.

    By chance I had recently spent a week with that academic on a hobby-based thing – nothing to do with either of our day jobs, but we’d talked extensively about the collaboration between our organisations, so I definitely had the right person. It was absolutely a photo of them.

    The complainer did not reply to my message saying that this was definitely the right person. The only thing I can think is that they assumed someone with visible disabilities couldn’t be an academic, because otherwise I have zero idea what was going on there.

    1. LabManagerPerson*

      I am all but 100% confident that it’s just what you said at the end. My spouse is an early-middle-aged person who walks with a crutch but has no other outward sign of disability. At a Very (Self-) Important Research University where they used to work, they were openly stared at when they walked through the halls. People frequently address all questions to me if we are together and use a condescending tone with her, as if speaking to a small child. This all makes perfect sense, of course, since the ability to walk unsupported and the ability to think at a high level are clearly just two ways of describing the same thing, right?

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Wow, all that over a crutch? I keep thinking we’ve improved more as a society than we actually have. *sigh*

    2. Sharpie*

      even if ‘they assumed someone with visible disabilities couldn’t be an academic’…

      Two words: Stephen Hawking.

  66. I Miss Books, but Not Retail*

    I used to work in a chain bookstore and every morning we would put out rolling displays of the bestselling paperbacks at the front of the store. One day, a passing security guard made me move it back inside, because ‘someone could walk around the corner of the store front and run into the display.”

    The corner of the store front was glass. You could clearly see the display through it no matter were you stood.

    So I moved the display inside, waited for the guard to walk away, then moved it back into it’s usual place. Never heard another word about it.

  67. Emmie*

    I started a new job in college that required in person customer service to ongoing customers. I was replacing a beloved person who left to pursue her master’s degree. A few customers told me “it doesn’t matter what you do, we’ll never like you as much as [person]” or “you’ll never be as good as [person]”. Readers . . . they were sad when I resigned many years later. I became a beloved person.

  68. Government drone*

    Woman called and went on a long rant about how we don’t fund schools and parks enough (nothing to with my department).

    “Okay ma’am, would you like me to transfer you to the Parks department to talk about funding for the City parks?”

    “You just don’t want to help me because you’re a giant fascist. You’re all fascists.” *hangs up*

    1. I'm great at doing stuff*

      That is like an Onion article with the headline “Someone Should Do Something About All The Problems”

    2. LabManagerPerson*

      My ex-spouse worked as an urban planner for a city of ~20k people that was a suburb of a much larger one. At an event where they were staffing a table for public comments, a woman sat down and said, “Well, my first suggestion is that you fix that horrible situation in the Middle East!” She clearly had a very high opinion of the power and reach of suburban planning departments!

  69. Knitting Cat Lady*

    American colleague had to do stuff for a swiss customer. He’s a permanent resident of Germany. He is fluent in German. He was well qualified to write the report in German.

    Customer feedback: Did you do this with Google translate?!

    And one of my reports: How many data points are in this graph.

    The most WTF: Why didn’t you explain XYZ in paragraph 3.5.4? Dear reader, I did.

  70. Blakely*

    I worked at an ice cream store in late high school/early college. On my second or third shift, a customer ordered a scoop of ice cream, went outside (into the summer) and returned 30 minutes later complaining that her ice cream was “too melty.” I probably looked completely stunned and just found the first more-seasoned person I could find to “help.”

  71. Librarian Llama*

    We had an elderly patron who was notorious among the staff for being extremely difficult and hard to please. One day she Googled herself, found an inaccuracy with the results, and was became upset none of the library staff could change it for her.

    Also had a complaint that a clock was ticking too loudly (valid complaint, I understand it can really bother some people but just not the complaint I was expecting).

    Not a complaint but a question: “Where is the Available Soon section?”

    1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

      As someone who has dozens of “notify me” tags on Libby, I’d love to be able to go somewhere and read the library’s planned purchase list, TBH.

  72. Shandra*

    This was in the 1980’s, when I was a summer employee at our local Recreation and Parks Department.

    Someone had addressed a letter to “Anne Gables.” She wrote back that she’d kept her own name “Anne Green” after marriage. She’d registered her children for a program with the proper forms, and had no idea where we got her husband’s name from. An organization that worked with families and children should be aware of changing times, and not all women take their husbands’ names.

    The salutation of her letter was “Dear Sir.”

  73. Lab Boss*

    I was once reported to my management for “Doing an Impression of a Nazi, goose-stepping and putting up the Nazi salute.”

    Friends, I was walking off five-foot paces to estimate distance, and then gave a passing summer camper an “up high” high five.

    3. MigraineMonth*

      Oh, that reminds me of the time my college house was reported to campus security by a new mother who lived next door. She was upset about the party we were throwing after 10pm, particularly the loud techno music, flashing lights and people milling around outside.

      The security blotter, published in that week’s college paper, concludes drily: “Campus security arrived and turned off the fire alarm.”

  74. Anonymous for this*

    I worked at a contemporary arts organization and every year on the day where our country celebrates our nation’s birthday, so to speak, this guy would would complain to customer service that we weren’t doing “traditional” activities like battle re-enactments from centuries-old wars. There was a military museum within fifteen minutes who absolutely did do the kind of thing he was looking for, but we suspected he was unsuccessfully trying to make A Point about modern approaches to understanding nation building and related celebratory practices.

  75. Lorna*

    I used to work in Sales for a pretty well known IT company. Sold a substantial amount of equipment to a customer. Made sure it had all the bells, whistles and appropriate discounts applied and really thought I’d done a decent job.
    2 days later my Manager received an Email from said customer and here’s what he wrote:

    “Lorna’s Irish accent and lilt made it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. I believe she bewitched me into buying more stuff than was needed and I strongly suggest having a word with her about work ethics and such.”

    My Manager (also Irish) was howling with laughter.

    1. NameRequired*

      “Lorna, I need to talk to you about your work ethic. Please stop having an Irish accent.”

    2. EmF*

      I’m going to Ireland in the near future. I will have to be careful – bewitchment from all sides!

      Maybe I should bring earplugs?

    3. Banana Pyjamas*

      I met a girl at a speech competition who had to quit performing Irish pieces because her accent was “not believable”. She was an Irish immigrant, she just had a nearly imperceptible lilt rather than the stereotypical brogue Americans think of.

    4. Anonymous cat*

      He objected to a salesperson selling products? To a customer? In a store??

      Dude, I don’t think you understand how commerce works!

      On a more realistic note, I suspect he was having buyer’s remorse and wanted someone to blame.

  76. WellRed*

    People were always so surprised that we wouldn’t accept Barnes & Noble gift cards. Because we were Borders.

    1. Jasmi*

      LOL. A former housemate of mine took an appliance back to the retailer for a refund only to be told ‘That says Comet. We’re Currys’

    2. Medium Sized Manager*

      I used to work at two restaurants at the same time, and I once had a person complain that Restaurant A got rid of their favorite appetizer. When I told them we never had that appetizer, they described it and angrily told me it was a staple.

      It was a staple appetizer at Restaurant B. Telling her that I also work at Restaurant B did not dissuade her.

    3. dulcinea47*

      I used to work customer service for the Disney catalog back before pre-internet days. You haven’t lived until someone is crying b/c we don’t carry Warner Bros characters and can’t send a tweety bird sweatshirt.

      1. Shandra*

        Brings back the time I visited the Marvel STATION exhibit at Treasure Island in Las Vegas. For crowd flow control, they took visitors through in small groups each with a costumed guide.

        My group’s guide just looked at a youngster who was wearing a Batman t-shirt. We all had a good laugh, then the parents said that coming there had been a last-minute decision.

    5. Bunch Harmon*

      Or, when the irate customer insists you’re holding a book for them and that they are positive they called and spoke to you personally, you call the Barnes and Noble down the street to confirm the customer is in the wrong store. And you do this multiple times a week.

    6. YouwantmetodoWHAT?! *

      MONTHS after our Borders shut down for good, a new & used bookstore opened in that location. I got a job there and I can not tell you how MANY people tried to pay with Borders gift cards.
      “We are not Borders, we are Crown Books”, repeat ad nauseam.
      (Not the Crown Books that you’re thinking up – owner bought the rights to the name when CB went out of business)

  77. Bumblebee*

    In the late 1990s I worked at a month-long summer program for smart kids. We did a variety of evening events, sometimes fun, sometimes educational. One of these was a large game designed to simulate world issues, in which some kids were assigned to big countries vs. small, poor vs. rich, etc, and then they played out various issues on a giant map in a large multipurpose room. It was incredibly boring, honestly.

    At the end of the event we passed out the vendor’s evaluation, and the final question was “Who else do you think might be interested in booking this event?” – at the time, a fairly standard business/referral -seeking question that I saw on lots of evals. We collected them back and of course read them before we gave them back to the event’s emcee and found the following legendary response:

    One kid wrote, “I think that Satan would like it for hell.”

    4. 1LFTW*

      Oh gods, middle-school me and my obnoxious friends would totally have written an evaluation like that.

  78. Jasmi*

    Someone I once knew took a call from a customer at their customer services job for a bank. The customer had purchased a bed and it was too high for her to get into. Rather than take this up with the company (or perhaps she did but didn’t get anywhere) she called the bank and complained that they should have checked she was happy with the purchase before they let the payment go through. In a separate issue, another customer was unhappy that they couldn’t get money (as in actual banknotes) to be dispensed from their computer given that they had an online savings account. Another customer called the bank asking why his energy bill was so high and when it was suggested he contact the power supplier, he said he wanted the bank to do this.

  79. Middle Aged Lady*

    Almost every library has a few ‘characters’ who frequent the building and make unusual requests. One such person came in frequently to complain about many things: the clocks didn’t all have the same time down to the second, we used cleaning products she didn’t like, once she ‘smelled burnt toast’ and insisted we were using a toaster in our back office. On this particular day, she told me there was too much noise in the computer lab (a collaborative workspace that was a quiet reading room many, many moons ago. She missed the old days, I guess?) when I told her that wasn’t going to change, she complained to my boss that I was ‘impenetrable.’ Boss told me to take it as a compliment.

    1. Harriet Vane*

      Impenetrability, though I’ve never heard it described that way before, is a major asset in any public-facing role!

  80. Lady_Brombette*

    I used to work as a Customer Support agent. At the end of every chat, a request for feedback was sent to the customer.
    One of the craziest ones I received was “The agent chatting with me was friendly, polite, and helpful. However, I wouldn’t say I liked her accent. She sounded like a foreigner.”
    My accent. In a chat. Where writing only was involved.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      I would be so tempted to write in a French accent after that.

      “And ze mouse? What happens when you move ze mouse?”

  81. Anon to hide my usual user name*

    I work in social services with kids, and sometimes have had to pass clients to new programs or staff. My best two farewell compliments/ insults from parents at our last meetings after years of successfully working together were “You’re really great. I mean, compared to some of the ones we’ve had the bar is really low, so I don’t mean this as an insult, but you’re really great,” and, “Well, you didn’t suck.”

  82. Shrimp Emplaced*

    Not a verbal complaint, but one time, a man at my poker table got so frustrated with the dealer, he took out his hearing aids and threw them at him.

  83. Betty Spaghetti*

    The newly installed playground equipment was an “inappropriate” color for children.

    I remain baffled to this day.

      1. Sharkie*

        yes I am dying to know. Please tell me it was a normal color and a sad beige mom complained.

        1. Betty Spaghetti*

          If I remember correctly, it was mostly beiges and dark greens. Maybe a little maroon in there for an accent color.

  84. Sally*

    During covid, my son was looking for a new cookie recipe to try and found one he liked, but when he read the reviews, one jumped out: these cookies were so bad, it made me want to cry! We got a good laugh out of that one. P.S. He made the cookies and we didn’t cry.

  85. Sharkie*

    “Sharkie is too happy and chipper all the time, and her nose ring is unprofessional. She also tells me no too much when I request things. All of my requests should be fulfilled. “. Thing is I pierced my nose before I got that job, and had been working with that client for years at that point. They just realized I got it lol.

    1. bug eyed*

      I used to work as a case manager for older adults. And I used to have my eyebrow pierced. One day, one of my clients turned to me and said “do you have a bug on your eye?” it was hilarious. I’d also been working with that client for 6 or 7 months, so either she just noticed it, or thought I had a bug on my eye for 6 months.

    2. H.Regalis*

      It could be! I had my nose pierced and my boss didn’t notice for about three years. We staffed the same desk so he was standing about five feet away from me for several hours a week.

  86. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

    I used to work in customer service in a big box store that’s now out of business. I got a phone call one day from a woman who asked me to go find a specific model of calculator and hold it for her at the front, and she was on her way to buy it in the next hour. I said no problem, and to ask for me at the front when she got to the store.

    I went to the calculators section and discovered that we were out of stock on that particular model, but I pulled a couple of comparable ones. True to her word, she got to the store about 40 minutes later and walked up to me at the front counter. I apologized and explained that we were out of stock on her model, but did have these 2, if she wanted to take a look and see if one of them would work for her needs.

    Her jaw dropped and she exclaimed “This is NOT!! Good customer SERVICE!!”

    Me: …

    Her: …

    Me: ….

    Her: “WELL?”

    Me: “Excuse me, ma’am. I’ll be right back.” And I went to the break room, grabbed my stuff, and went and clocked out because it was the end of my shift.

    I fully expected to be written up when I arrived for my next shift, since I had given her my name. But I guess she either forgot it or decided it wasn’t worth finding someone else to complain to.

  87. Literate Fox*

    I work in a college library and we asked students to write little notes about what they love about the library. One student wrote “the warm bathroom on the first floor”. I get it! That’s the best bathroom in the library.

  88. Salty*

    I used to work in the produce department of a grocery store.

    One day I received a call (forwarded from customer service) regarding celery that the caller had purchased complaining that it was “too salty”. He was angry because he thought we were selling an unhealthy, salty, product to the public.

    I have no idea what he expected me to do about it. Stop salting it? I really don’t know. (to be clear, grocery stores do not add salt to celery! I swear.)

    1. I'm great at doing stuff*

      I am a massive fan of Good Omens and heard about that! Ah, the amazing world we live in.

  90. Loss Preventer*

    Used to work loss prevention for a big department store. Caught a gal stealing a whole mess of clothes including a bra that she had put on under her clothing. When questioned by the police, she denied stealing anything.

    “Officer, the tag is still on the bra she’s wearing.”
    “I wasn’t stealing it, I was testing it out.”
    “You walked out of the store with it on.”
    “Well it’s not comfy, the underwire is poking my side, so I don’t even want it. I want a refund.”
    “You didn’t pay for it, you can’t have a refund.”
    “I mean it shouldn’t be added to my charges cause it sucks and I don’t want it.”

  91. Kit Kendrick*

    We had a customer cancel to move to a cheaper competitor. I made sure to give them all of their data to take with them and even gave some help understanding how to import our data format into the competitor’s interface. The customer continued to call us for issues that were more and more tenuously connected to the data we had provided and more to do with how to recreate the services we had provided with their new company. After two months I finally gently pointed out that they were no longer our customer and they should really be speaking to their new provider about their issues. They replied, “When I call you, someone always answers. They never pick up!” I bit my tongue on pointing out that perhaps that was how the competitor was able to charge less.

    1. Possum's mom*

      Former retail assistant manager here. At a meeting with police and a shoplifter who was being detained at a neighboring store, who had in her stash of plunder several hundred dollars worth of my store’s craft supplies, when informed by my store manager that she was no longer “welcome” in our craft store screamed ” but it’s my favorite store to shop…where will I get my supplies? What will I do now!?”. His droll reply? “You could try PAYING for the stuff you STEAL”. The cops were amused.

  92. Liz the Snackbrarian*

    I worked as a seasonal interpretation ranger in a large national park. A woman came up to the information desk absolutely irate over some directions to a trail she had been given earlier and demanded to know who had helped her. She was not happy when I gave her two names, because I didn’t know exactly who it was, and was just comparing her story with the desk schedule. During this entire interaction she had one of those little produce bags from the grocery store, complete with some celery, nestled right in her cleavage. It served as my mental cue to take what she said with several grains of salt.

  93. inksmith*

    In response to a survey question “On which digital and social media channels would you like to hear about new training products?” we got “Screw digital. Talk to people. Idiots.”

    I mean, we have 2,000 people on our mailing list, we’re probably not going to call you all every time we launch a new training. Also: rude.

    Though better than the response to an internal survey that said we need to stop hiring “left-wing, liberal, woke, cancel-culture snowflakes” – I memorialised that one in a clay tile at my pottery class and keep it on my desk at home.

  94. Alex*

    I worked at a retail establishment that was located within a larger “strip mall” type of building. I received a call from a (potential) customer complaining that she couldn’t patronize our establishment because she didn’t like driving over the speed bumps in the parking lot (that we didn’t own or manage), and could we do anything about that?

    I told her I’d get my chisel out right away…

  95. A Simple Narwhal*

    I was working on a project for an internal client and they wanted something built on our website that would cause certain layout changes I knew they would not like. I warned them of the issue and proposed different options, but they absolutely would not hear it, they wanted it the way they wanted it. Ok, it’s your project, you get final say.

    Later they came back, absolutely furious about the ensuing layout, demanding to know why I didn’t tell them about it before the changes were made. When they were reminded that I had told them, repeatedly, they angrily said “well why didn’t you make me listen to you???”.

    Sometimes I think I live in a Dilbert cartoon.

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      I’m pretty sure I live in a Dilbert cartoon, except it’s my boss who says all this dumba— stuff

    2. ferrina*

      I’ve had this conversation with a client before. In my case, I was a consultant advising them on client behavior, and they refused to listen. Never mind that they were all in development and never actually interacted with the end-users of their product and I had years of experience with their target audience (experience that was part of why they hired my company), they wanted to do it their way.

      So after all my warnings, we did it their way, and we got the exact results that I predicted. To their credit, they took it with proper chagrin and knew they were lucky that I was willing to redo the work properly for no extra charge (my boss was convinced they would want a refund).

  96. the Viking Diva*

    Customer question to my family member who buys produce for an organic grocery store in Virginia, USA: “Are the bananas local?”

  97. H.Regalis*

    I worked in the administrative office for the fire department, so, not dispatch, not 911, not anything like that. We provided support for the fire inspectors, elevator inspectors, fire chiefs, and took care of all the administrative tasks needed to keep the department and the fire stations up and running (ordering uniforms, tools, fuel, doing their accounting, running payroll, making training binders for new recruits, answering basic municipal code questions, take complaint calls, etc.).

    Some of my most memorable feedback calls:

    -Landlord who was angry because the firefighters damaged a window screen rescuing her tenant who had had a heart attack. The guy managed to call 911 before he went unconscious, and the firefighters cut through the window screen to get into his apartment and save him.

    -Homeowner who lived across the street from a hospital’s ER. For the record, the hospital had been in that location for over a century. The guy was angry because the fire engines and ambulances run their sirens late at night when they bring patients to the ER. He wanted them to turn off their sirens because they woke him up.

  98. SMH*

    I used to work processing returns for a big box store. A few of my favorites:

    – On a riding lawn mower: “Will not mow grass over 2 feet tall.”
    – On a generator: “Explodes when starting up.” (generator looked totally fine)
    – Lawn mower battery: “Leaking acid” (this was obviously a used battery and they just brought it back and said it was the new one)
    -Many, many plants: “Died”
    – One of those plastic sheds: “Could not withstand hurricane”

    1. Anon for this*

      At my garden club’s plant sale a woman came up to me to complain about the hanging basket she bought last year and she wanted her money back. She said it died almost right away. I asked if she watered it every day? No. Did she fertilize it once per week? No. Did she do anything at all with it? No.
      I then asked if she realized it was alive. She stormed off and I have no regrets.

      1. Anon too*

        Oof, good for you.
        I may have thought a time or two about asking a few customers similarly pointed questions.

    2. Knighthope*

      Worked in Accounting for a major US retailer in the 70s. Someone at a store authorized a 25 cent credit – “Dead fish allowance.”

  99. Gus T.T. Showbiz*

    When I worked at a library a woman came up to me angrily demanding we move the Left Behind DVDs from Fiction. I asked her what section she would like them moved to and she said “Christian!” I replied that I was sorry but we did not have a Christian DVD section and was there another place she could suggest? She once again just exclaimed “Christian!” I think I muttered something about looking into that and skedaddled.

    1. Sharpie*

      Hasn’t she ever heard of Christian fiction? (Some is decidedly more questionable than others in that genre.) And yes, the Left Behind series is absolutely fiction.

  100. Constant Lurker*

    A few summers ago I worked for a resort when were having a really bad heat wave and this one woman LOST her mind that the outdoor pool was too cold. It was 101 outside, the pool was 98. She was also upset that her ice in her drink was melting too fast, the air conditioning blew too loudly, and that her used cabana towels were wet. Because she made them wet. Then she complained that the sauna and the hot tub were closed during a 101 degree heat wave with wetbulb temps up to 109. She complained indoor pool area was too “hot and muggy.” It’s an indoor heated pool, lady. Her husband just redirected her every time she complained and tipped anybody who had to deal with her.

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Sounds like you should have just relabeled the indoor pool area as “sauna”! You want hot and muggy, we got it.

    2. NotARealManager*

      I worked in pools a long time and “we hate it because they keep it so hot and humid inside” has been a complaint of every pool I’ve ever worked at. Yeah, it’s an indoor pool. They’re like that. And if you were to get in the water you would understand immediately why patrons prefer the ambient heat and humidity.

      (Caveat: I have raced at pools that had relatively comfortable deck temperatures for spectators and freezing for aquatic athletes. But they were always in enormous buildings, engineered out the wazoo to achieve that effect, and consequently far more expensive than most pools could afford. Certainly not your average high school, sports club, or hotel).

  101. OTBC*

    Years ago when I worked in restaurants, a regular once complained about a server coworker of mine. Said the server was “too nice, always smiling” and then followed it up with “Send us OTBC every time we come in, we won’t have that problem with them”. To this day I still internally chuckle when I remember my manager’s face telling me why they were now solely my customers.

  102. Jane*

    I worked at a gym. A woman stopped by the desk to request that we change the brand of toilet paper we stock in the bathrooms because it hurt her butt.

  103. spuffyduds*

    The library I worked at had a sort of “seating pit” in the kids’ section, made up of wedge-shaped foam cushions with backs, that velcroed into a circle. Each wedge was a different bright color. I had taken it apart and dragged the pieces into another room for storytime, then brought it back to its usual spot and reassembled it.

    A famously odd patron came up and told me I’d put it back together “wrong.” I pleasantly asked what was wrong about it, genuinely thinking I had some large Velcro tags sticking up that might feel scratchy or something. And he said, “It’s not in rainbow order.”

    Y’all, I *laughed* because I thought he was joking. He was not joking.

    1. KaciHall*

      my autistic kiddo probably wouldn’t have said anything, but he’d be trying to fix it.

      rainbow order is VERY SERIOUS (he’s 8.)

      1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

        I am in my 40s and not autistic and it would have bothered me too! Between a background in astronomy and being gay, it just looks weird if the colors aren’t “properly” ordered. I wouldn’t have complained about it but I’d definitely notice.

    2. Worldwalker*

      I’d want it back in spectral order myself.

      It’s a weird mental tic, I suppose, but having the orange one were the blue one belongs or something would drive me nuts. There are ways things Should Be (for instance, Venetian blinds should have the convex side of the slats facing inward) and that’s one of them.

      I know it’s weird, possibly to a neurodivergent extent. But knowing that doesn’t make it not feel totally wrong.

  104. Pangolin*

    I used to do training on things like stress management aimed at staff in a particularly embattled part of the charity sector. These training sessions were free and voluntary – people signed up as individuals having read the course description. One person, who had moved into the field post-retirement, had absolutely no patience with the session and wrote in the evaluation form:

    “I’ve negotiated hostage situations; I don’t need this pablum”

    Given that hostage situations are not typical of the workplaces I dealt with, I don’t think he was my target audience, actually, and I’m not sure why he signed up.

  105. Sharpie*

    I used to work for a certain British supermarket whose predominant colours are green. There was a story floating around of the complaint sent to Customer Service:

    “Worst pizza ever, no toppings, not even tomato paste, never mind cheese and pepperoni. Absolutely disgraceful.”

    It was followed up shortly afterwards with a much more subdued “…I opened it upside down.”

  106. JA*

    Working at a public park that contains a petanque court, I received an email urging us to change it to a bocce court as “many of our Italian-American visitors would prefer that.” Sure man, I’ll get right on that

  107. MerelyMe*

    A relative of mine worked for a company that made software that was shipped to customers on a dongle. One person called her because he couldn’t get the computer to recognize the peripheral device. His exact words were “My DONGLE is MALFUNCTIONING!” which, she said, sounded like an anatomical complaint given the way he said it.

  108. Ashley*

    I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard things along the line of “the training was too long, it could have been much shorter” followed by asking a pile of basic questions about things we spent 15 min discussing in the training. (Think training on Gmail, only to later ask what email is and how do you reply to one). Other folks would say the training was great and full of useful info, but there was commonly at least one person with the above behavior.

    People love to complain about kids not paying attention in school but in my experience, nothing beats adults who think they have better things to do than learn software their boss wants them to know.

    1. New Jack Karyn*

      Oh, man. I’m a teacher, and our collective behavior in meetings and trainings is the worst. I always say, “We are worse than the kids.” And then I do the same things.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        I still utterly love the lecturer during our teacher training degree who responded to some completely childish behaviour by some of the class with “well, it’s nice to see some of you are on the same level as your students.” (I think they were mocking the nose of somebody in a video we were shown.)

        2. New Jack Karyn*

          Oof. I meant zoning out, side chats, checking my phone. Not insulting others’ appearance.

    2. ferrina*

      Fact.

      I have taught every age, from infants all the way to adults. Adults in mandatory trainings are the worst. Invariably there are complaints that you didn’t cover Thing That You Said 15 Times

  109. Library IT*

    If you consider undergrad students “customers” I have a great story.
    I was a librarian teaching one-shot sessions for freshman writing. At the end of the class we had a survey about the technology we were using – if it was helpful, etc. One student’s feedback was “you would be taken more seriously and people would pay attention more if you dressed more professionally aka no sparkly shoes”.
    For the record, I was in a dress with a blazer with sparkly Converse shoes. Apparently the shoes were so distracting that they had no feedback about the technology.
    All of the other librarians and I laughed about it for years. And I continued to wear my sparkly tennis shoes.

    1. H.Regalis*

      I worked in libraries for a long time. Once I gave a presentation once about citation management software to pretty small group: A few incoming grad students and an old professor who was eccentric even by academia standards. I was explaining why using citation management software was a good idea and that the benefits of one particular software included that you could store your data on multiple devices so if your computer broke or got stolen, you wouldn’t lose your work.

      Apparently I put the fear of god into the old professor when I mentioned the possibility of losing all your work if you don’t keep backup copies, because his eyes got really big and he started paying extremely close attention to the presentation.

      1. Madame Desmortes*

        I’m betting you did campus IT a massive, massive favor just then. Not that they’ll ever know.

  110. So Nerd*

    Not a complaint, and not a “proper” job, but in college, I worked in a tutoring center, and we had feedback forms that asked how we could improve the service. Almost no one ever bothered with them, but someone did fill one out that said simply, “mojito Mondays.”

    2. Janne*

      Our university library also had feedback forms about its service, and most of the time no one would fill them out, except at some point in winter they got LOTS of forms asking for blankets. And they delivered! They got a huge load of fleece blankets in the university’s color and now, 5+ years later, they still get loaned out a lot in winter (and sometimes in summer when the airconditioning works too well).

  111. foofoo*

    I was 18 and working at a pizza shop. It was just me and another teenager when an irate woman came in to order a pizza. Apparently the last one she had gotten from us didn’t have enough hot peppers and it was *OUR FAULT* that it didn’t and this one BETTER HAVE ENOUGH HOT PEPPERS OR ELSE. She literally was yelling at us about not enough hot peppers on the last order, which likely had nothing to do with the two of us that were currently working or anything.

    For anyone that hasn’t worked in food service, there’s pretty standard measurements for anything when you make it. While there’s always a chance someone’s just eyeballing it, you do it enough times and get pretty good at estimating, because it’s just faster than doing actual proper measurements. Plus it’s a mid-tier pizza delivery spot, you’re not getting a 5* meal out of it.

    As a result of her yelling at us, we tripled the hot peppers on her pizza, but also, in our immature teenage ways, dumped half the pepper juice from the jar into the pizza. It came out of the oven soggy and soaked, but we boxed it up and sent it on the way. When she complained *again* that the pizza was soggy, we just told her that was what happens when you put too many hot peppers on it.

  112. The Wizard Rincewind*

    I work in publicity and part of my job is to request excerpts from recently published books and publish them in my org’s newsletter. The newsletter goes out to subscribers but is also archived on our website.

    My supervisor was contacted by an author who was FURIOUS that we published an excerpt of her book and that it was available on our website. She was afraid people would pirate it. It was a violation of her rights. I, personally, should be fired.

    What makes this bonkers is that a) I’ve never once communicated with this author; I only communicated with her publisher, who gave us permission to use it; b) the excerpt wasn’t even a full chapter; c) sorry about the free publicity? and d) all she had to do was contact us and ask us to remove it from our website, which we’re happy to do without someone coming in guns a-blazin’.

    My supervisor shared this email with me, we both kinda ???? at it for a second, and then he responded with some sort of vague apology that implied that I had been thoroughly chastened for this unconscionable crime and I removed the excerpt from our website.

  113. Dawn*

    Oh lord, I have so many I don’t even know where to start.

    But here’s one:

    CUSTOMER: (to a major national retailer) “You will soon be out of business cause of your draconian laws. How many stores do you have like 5? Eat a d*** and chock (sic) on my language ya soft brained r****** policy enforcer”

    2. Dawn*

      CUSTOMER: “IF THIS IMPORT PHONE IS $30 WHY DO I NEED TO FINANCE?????”

      AGENT: “Hello Mike, this is a phone case.”

    3. Dawn*

      “I will never go to that store again! I went into that store with good intentions to buy and they were very unprofessional and rude! It was a nightmare!”

      “I’m sorry to hear that; could you expand on how our associates were rude please?”

      “Just the way they are around customers, not smiley not approachable
      I felt the bad vibes”

        1. Dawn*

          Yes, that one in particular killed us all.

          He went on and I eventually said to him – and this is true, I have the screenshots – “I don’t believe that Consumer Protection addresses complaints of ‘bad vibes’ but I will pass your feedback on.”

          1. Possum's mom*

            Another retail memory. About once a month a woman came into my store and never purchased anything, just circled the sales floor then left, often quietly mumbling to herself. We wondered if she was unwell, or because of the store location, an addict (we were near a big city rehab facility). As the months went on, her behavior become stranger and louder until one day we called the police when she was screaming at customers in the parking lot to not go ” in there”, because THE DEVIL WAS IN THERE AND YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO BE SAVED FROM HER.
            I was the only “her” in there at the time.

    4. Dawn*

      (paraphrased) “How dare you make an ad showing people sitting closer to the TV? We always used to say, DON’T SIT TOO CLOSE TO THE TV!!! But apparently society forgot.”

      OTHER CUSTOMER: “There is no evidence that sitting close to the TV is bad for your eyes.”

      FIRST CUSTOMER: “Who said anything about eyes? I’m talking about the dangerous radiation.”

  114. DameB*

    I work in travel and we’ve had people demand refund for bad weather, among other things. My favorite though was a rambling multi-page email complaining about how the people in Australia were too woke for this Texas traveler. He thought they were all rugged individualists and that he had been entirely mislead about the entirely continent and it wasn’t the fault of the company exactly, the whole world is going to hell, but someone should warn Americans to know they aren’t all Crocodile Dundee. For example, his wife wasn’t allowed to go diving just because she had a heart condition!

    1. Dina*

      As an American living in Australia, this is my favourite comment in this thread. Simply amazing, no notes.

  115. Joienby*

    I am part of the team that reviews survey comments, so I’ve seen some doozies. The normal xyz-phobic and -ist comments can get pretty wild, but my absolute FAVORITE feedback we ever got was to the question “Is there anything you’d like to tell us about your relationship with [firm]?” The client responded, “Despite rumors to the contrary, we’re just friends.” I strongly advocated sending them free merch but was overruled by the killjoys in management.

  116. NurseThis*

    Not profession related but side gig….I used to do bespoke lace knitting for customers by appointment. They’d pick out the yarn color, I’d knit it up, paid, done. Mostly I did it because nursing was so stressful that knitting was restful.

    I made this shawl for a customer for an event a year out. She picked the lace pattern and the specific yarn. When I was done she refused to pay for it since she didn’t like the color. The color she chose.

    I ended up selling it so no loss but I stopped doing custom work. Now I knit for myself and mine.

    1. DrunkSquirrel*

      I crochet lifelike miniature animals, who are often holding a beer. Hey, we all gotta have our thing, right? And yeah, I took commissions for about 6 months when I started selling my work, but that was enough. Now I refuse. I don’t care if you have the most reasonable request ever, I do NOT make custom work for people. I make what I want, when I want, and sell it when I feel like. Taking the orders just took all the fun out of it, and I got Soooo many annoying complaints about the process.

    2. WantonSeedStitch*

      As a fellow lace shawl knitter, I think that was the best move. Knitting is fun, but it’s a lot of work and takes a lot of time. I only make stuff for myself or people I’m happy to GIVE it to as a gift.

    3. Dawn*

      Had she actually seen the colour in person before you were finished?

      Obviously it was ridiculous of her not to pay you for custom work, because come ON, but sometimes there’s such a difference in devices, screens, lighting, whatever, that colours look completely different from what they look in person; been there, done that.

  117. the one who got away*

    I’m a fundraiser. We frequently ghostwrite our direct mail pieces under the signature of someone affiliated with the organization who has an interesting or inspiring story to tell.

    Someone mailed a letter back to us once. They had cut off the header (the part with the address/salutation block on it) and written on the bottom: “No one gives a s**t about your life or accomplishments, Jane. Try again.”

    They felt strongly enough about this to waste their own stamp on it! I laughed forever, never said a word to Jane, and saved that letter in my “perspective” file. It was like 20 years ago and I still have it.

    1. the one who got away*

      Ooh, I have another one! We sent out a survey to our entire database. Someone wrote in every single free text field “this is the first time anyone from this school has contacted me since I graduated.”

      The surveys were emailed. I looked in our mailing system to see that this person had (repeatedly) clicked on all the emails we’d sent him for years.

      1. Zephy*

        Ah yes, Schrodinger’s student, whomst has never once been contacted by anybody, except for the 350 emails, phone calls, and text messages they have ignored until they can’t access their course or get into their room or buy food. They also all seem shocked, *shocked!*, that college costs money and you have to pay for it.

        1. Dawn*

          In their defense…. in any reasonably-run society, that would be genuinely shocking.

          But here we are.

      2. Elsewise*

        Did you get the “I’m never donating to this school again after XYZ scandal!!!” from people who have never donated before in their lives? Those were my favorite because my boss would sometimes let me reply and ask if there was another name they may have donated under, just to get our records correct.

      3. Pyjamas*

        I’ve been told I clicked on two emails I didn’t even read. They were automated reminders for hair appointments during the pandemic. My brain was fuzzy and the scheduling app unexpectedly changed from texts to emails so I wasn’t looking for them. First I knew of it was a notice that the third apt had been cancelled. When I reached out to the stylist, she told me I’d confirmed the apts by clicking on these mystery emails I couldn’t find in my inbox.( If they’d gone to spam, they’d been automatically deleted after ~30 days.) I don’t know if my stylist was misinformed or my email was funky.

        FWIW. I’d been going to this stylist every 6-8 weeks for over 5 years. She had my cellphone and never texted me to see what was going on. I apologised profusely, paid for the two missed appointments, and found a new stylist.

        Never figured out why an unread email confirmed an appointment.

    2. Grandma to three cats*

      I had a similar one! They carefully cut off the header, wrote some harsh words about the organization, and demanded we never contact them again. Happy to oblige … if we knew who you were!

  118. hi there*

    Well, I work in a human services field. We were thrilled to receive a grant that could help make payments for clients in need, but of course as a government grant it has a pretty tight scope of use. One client’s full debt could not be covered by our grant, but a portion of it was. We tried calling her before making the payment to discuss this issue, but her phone was out of service. We paid what we could. She was livid. All I remember from the phone call was that she kept trying to argue that we never called her… at her *new* number that we didn’t have… which was only in service for two days. We’d made the payment a week ago.

  119. BedAndBreakfast*

    After talking over a hospitality business we heard the following comments:

    —Great, now I have to train someone else how I like my breakfast cooked. (Better than the guests who actually tried to shove me out of the kitchen to make their own breakfast.)

    —How come no one keeps this business more than a couple of years? (It didn’t take more than the first summer to know why, but we stayed for twenty years.)

    —Can George come back to make breakfast tomorrow? I don’t like what you made. (George was actually the chef at a local restaurant at that point, so I sent that guest there for dinner. They were quite happy.)

    After renovations:

    George is not going to like what you’ve done to his (!) property. (George loved it.)

  120. Sue*

    This complaint was legitimate, but I love the story!
    I used to have connections at a paper mill where they manufactured a well known brand of toilet paper. A customer called in to complain that there were grease spots on a roll. They had her send in the roll in question, and analyzed the grease (to see what equipment might need repair). They were surprised to find that it was an animal grease, which shouldn’t be part of the manufacturing process. Further investigation revealed… there was a room in the mill that was consistently steamy and very hot, and workers had a tradition of bringing in their Thanksgiving turkeys to cook in this magnificent environment over the course of their shift. This was shut down, as you might imagine, but I love the ingenuity.

    1. Chris too*

      My husband works in a paper mill and is delighted to hear this story. I will have to watch carefully to make sure he doesn’t abscond with our next turkey.

  121. Shel CRNA*

    I volunteered at the Welcome Desk at a large church. So. Many. Complaints. My favorite was the family that got angry the balcony was closed in summer when regular attendance was down, which also meant fewer volunteer ushers were available. This family was regularly late and liked to slip in the back of the balcony. They were furious they had to sit on the main floor of the sanctuary because “ they always ended up next to other parishioners who were gassy, which ruined church for them”.

    1. AnneCordelia*

      Nonsense. They were mad because if you’re on the main floor, it’s obvious when you’re late, and you look bad.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      “Blessed are the gasmakers, for they shall clear the nonbelievers out of the balcony.”

    3. Daria grace*

      I also volunteer on a church welcome desk for a church that is currently renting space in a very large commercial complex that contains a very wide assortment of businesses and organisations. We get a bit of people asking about other things in the complex or people insisting that surely this is where art exhibition (that’s actually in another building entirely) is

  122. Rage Against the Pusheen*

    A million years ago, when I was a teenager, I worked summers at a large zoo: admissions, parking lot, stroller rental, that sort of thing. One time, we had a visitor complain that and her family has been witness to a pair of camels that were…ahem…humping. Basically, animals being animals. At a zoo. It was, she informed my manager, upsetting for her to have to explain to her children what was going on. She got a full refund.

    People are the wildest animals at the zoo.

    1. AnneCordelia*

      True story, a teacher friend of mine was at the zoo with a class of kindergarteners when a gorilla was giving another gorilla a blow job. I think she would have preferred the humping camels.

      1. New Jack Karyn*

        Kindergartners, you can just say the gorillas are being silly, or try to distract the kids, or something.

        Middle or high schoolers? You’ve lost them. And this field trip will go down in HISTORY.

    2. Lady_Lessa*

      This was at the Wild Animal Park in San Diego, and on the tram ride. The driver/guide mentioned that a pair of wild goats were being frisky. I liked that because it gave the parents the leeway to explain etc.

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      One of my mostly-useless superpowers is that as soon as I walk into a zoo or park with animals, some random pair of animals somewhere in the park will start getting their romance on while on display. (Except the one time at Sea World where we learned that walruses enjoy self-fellatio.)

      When I was at the Dublin zoo many years ago, I was standing in front of the lion exhibit when the lions decided they fancied an afternoon shag. I turned to walk away and up walks a pair of nuns in full kit, escorting a mob of small children, one of whom of course shouted “Sister, what are the lions doing?” and one of the nuns, without batting an eyelash or pausing a moment, replied “Playing leapfrog.”

      The dark side here is that on one trip to my local zoo in Indiana, the male lion was feeling frisky and the female lion was not having his nonsense. A few months later, the local newspaper had a headline about the female lion killing the male lion during the night.

      1. Polyhymnia O’Keefe*

        I appreciate that your superpower is only mostly useless. Inquiring minds want to know — when has it been useful?

        1. BubbleTea*

          I can imagine it would be highly useful if trying to ensure the survival of pandas as a species!

        2. Lexi Vipond*

          Maybe Red Reader has several superpowers, most of which are completely useless and a small number useful?

          But yes, Edinburgh Zoo’s pandas could have done with that one!

    4. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      When I was young, I was at the zoo when we heard repeated Grunt-Thud, Grunt-Thud, Grunt-Thud. Turned the corner to see a pair of Galapagos tortoises (well, hard to say getting frisky at their methodical pace) but getting it on. I was old enough to know what was happening, but several parents steered their younger kids away.

      1. Glad I'm Not in the Rat Race Anymore*

        The male tortoise at the St. Louis Zoo always roars loudly while doing his thing, which he does year-round, doesn’t seem to care about “mating season.” And their enclosure is the first one you encounter coming in the south entrance (the one by the mail parking lot.) So. Many. children have been introduced to the concept of tortoise reproduction there.

        Best parental remark I’ve heard about zoo friskiness: In the puffin exhibit, a pair were at it high up the rock wall. An adult announced, “Whoops, we’ve got some nature happening up in the corner,” after which every parent in the room immediately started directing the attention of the below-5-ft crowd to all the birds swimming, well away from said nature.

  123. Museum feedback*

    Two from when I worked at a contemporary art museum:

    1. The building facade had many floor to ceiling windows. The museum would hire window washers to clean the windows. Someone called the museum to ask whether it was performance are or whether they were really cleaning the windows.

    2. There was an exhibition that, in the title indicated the art was all from a specific continent. The continent was not North America where the museum was located. A visitor complained that the exhibition didn’t have any American art and that it only had art from [continent in exhibition title].

  124. CS*

    Worked at a pizza restaurant 20 years ago. Customer ordered a “meat lovers” (sausage, bacon, ham, pepperoni, hamburger) pizza. Receives pizza and complains that there’s pork on it and he can’t eat it. I would have made a beef-only pizza had he said no pork! It’s not a beef lovers, it’s a MEAT lovers.

    1. Librarian of Things*

      Was it the sausage, bacon, ham, or pepperoni that clued him in? Which of these things did he think were not pork?

      1. DramaQ*

        Oooh I had the opposite end of the spectrum. Someone ordered a vegetarian pizza then came back to yell at us because it had cheese on it. “I expected this to be vegan! My vegan friend can’t eat this!”

        Pizza automatically comes with cheese! You have to tell us you don’t want cheese!

        Maybe you should have asked your friend to clarify for you before you ordered or used that thing in your pocket that has access to all the world’s information at your finger tips?

        I mean I understand most people don’t know the difference but don’t scream at us because you embarrassed yourself in front of your vegan friend.

        1. Anon too*

          Sigh, oh food service. Had someone complain because I didn’t know to adjust his order in *specific way* the second time he came in (about 3-4 weeks later). First of all, we print all our orders, whether online or in-person to pass on to the line cook. You don’t include your special request while ordering? We are gonna assume you want to eat it according to the menu. We also have about 300 orders per evening alone. I do remember the odd regular, that is, if they order once or twice per week.
          However despite appareances we do not wait like NPCs in the background to only memorize your one special order. Especially if you completely refuse to tip and seek to jump the line on top of that.

  125. The Wizard Rincewind*

    A second tale: I once communicated with someone in the UK (I live in the US) entirely by post to let them know that we could not accept the unsolicited, handwritten book review they had sent. This went back and forth for several rounds (SO MUCH POSTAGE) and culminated in them scolding me for our unrealistic expectations for not wanting to type up and publish their review of a book that was several years old at that point.

    All of this was in a handwritten letter. Despite my responses being typed with my email clearly written in my signature, they persisted.

    The year? 2017.

  126. James*

    A man who asked to be put through to me to give feedback after one of my staff helped him with a problem. He was fine with them, but ranted and swore up a storm about the “rude and obnoxious” person who put him through to them. He wanted them fired immediately here and now on the spot or he’d take his business elsewhere.

    The thing is, he came in on a direct line. Nobody put him through. After 10+ minutes I finally discovered that he’d rung a directory enquiries service for the number of our office and they offered a facility of ringing the number for you.

    He wanted me to fire someone he didn’t know the name of at an unrelated business that he couldn’t remember which it was?

    Cool. I agreed to do so.

  127. Dragon_Dreamer*

    This one is from my phone tech support days.

    One day, a man with a thick Southern drawl called in. (Yes, this is important. Just imagine his side in that voice.) Of note, I sound very female. Also, we had to try to help the customer a few times before transferring them if they requested it, unless it was something like a language barrier.

    Me: [Gives opening spiel, asking for customer number, etc.]

    Him: “Yeah, I’m looking for your technical department.”

    Me: “You’re at the right place, if you can just give me your customer ID, I can help you.”

    Him: “No, no, little lady, I said I want a tech.”

    Me: “Yep, I’m a first level tech at (company). How can I help you today?”

    Him: “You don’t understand, I don’t want a *secretary*, I. Want. A. Tech.”

    Me: “I promise you, sir, I *AM* a technical support employee. How. Can. I. Help. You?”

    Him: “Young lady, *I* WANT A *MAN!*”

    Me: “So do I, sir.”

    Turns out, I was being QA’d that day. Full points for professionalism, minus the blind transfer. 4 of 5. The agent was laughing as he told me, “just please don’t do that again.”

  128. CTA*

    I work at a museum. During the pandemic lockdown, someone emailed us and wrote that something was incorrect on our website. The sender also added, “You [to no one specific, just the museum in general] should have had time to have noticed this and fixed this because the museum is closed [because of the lockdown].

    It was truly out of touch with reality. There were employees who were working from alongside their children who were doing remote learning. There were also employees that were furloughed. And even if a pandemic wasn’t happening at the time, mistakes happen and we can’t catch everything. I have no idea what was up with that email sender.

  129. Guide*

    A tour company I used to work for received this complaint “ I made a poor choice. Haystack Rock looks just like the photo.”. Not sure what she thought it would look like. Photos typically represent what you will see in real life.

  130. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

    I saw this on a google review of a supermarket I went to while overseas. It said this was the worst supermarket they’d ever been to, and to especially avoid the aisle with Katherine in it, because she was rude and mean. Rated one star.

  131. WeirdChemist*

    I used to volunteer for an organization that was staffed by STEM grad students and did science presentations/demos to local kids at the library. After a presentation one day, we had a middle schooler come up to the presenter and snidely inform him that “The reason things fall down is because of gravity. It’s called physics, maybe you’ve heard of it???”

    Yeah kid, I think a bunch of STEM PhDs have in fact heard of physics. Also gravity had absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the presentation?

  132. Quartermaster*

    I used to run summer camps for young children that involved farm animals. One day when we were feeding the sheep, a very young camper reallllllllyyyyy wanted the sheep to eat the tiny piece of grass that he had, and basically forced his hand into the sheep’s mouth, who, naturally, bit him. Not hard, didn’t break skin, but definitely nipped him. We let the parent know when they picked him up, all good.
    The next day, when we tried to ask the mom to drop her kids off on time, she got very offended, and also let us know that “she took (kid) to see the doctor, and the doctor said he might have RABIES from the sheep, so there!”
    Rabies is 100% fatal without treatment, and can only be diagnosed in an animal by killing the animal and dissecting their brain. We had to quarantine our sheep for 2 weeks to ‘observe them for symptoms’ just in case based off of her fake accusation. Thankfully, we were able to get permission to just quarantine them instead of killing them.

  133. ArtsNerd*

    I was part of the opening crew of the first luxury cinema in our area, offering assigned seating. People loved us; people loathed us.

    The assigned seating part was particularly contentious. I had one customer card that I kept a photo of: “Assigned seats are just for sports. Having assigned seating at a movie theater is idiotic. p.s. screw you”

    Another customer asked us at least a dozen times to provide real butter for our popcorn. We already did. We ended up buying a fancy sign that said “real butter” on our butter dispenser, which got him to stop.

    I had several tense conversations where people asked me exactly how they were supposed to afford $14 movie tickets, two $6 dollar beers and $6 gourmet-seasoned popcorns was too expensive for them to afford every week. It took every ounce of my self restraint to point out that no one was asking them to come every week, or buy the most expensive concessions we offered, or that we had an official company policy of looking the other way when people brought in their own snacks (just like my momma taught me how to do.) There were plenty of multiplexes around if they wanted to pay standard prices.

    And I’d like to extend a long-belated thank you to the customer who skillfully sketched a full scene on the comment card, including the dialogue “You make sport of my life?!” “For the cause of SCIENCE!” (which I later learned is from a stage adaptation of Frankenstein.) It delighted me to no end at a really stressful time.

    1. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

      I laughed at your last paragraph, and I really hope the comment card artist is an AAM reader and comes across your comment today.

  134. InquisitiveEchidna*

    Spoken directly to me and my manager after I got them at this member’s request.

    “I have been banking here for 13 years, and InquisitiveEchidna is the worst person I have EVER interacted with. She is the worst person in the WORLD.”

    Reader, she had been banking with us for less than 1 year, and this was after I did not wish her a “Happy 4th of July!” on July 5th. Not wishing her this made me the *worst* person in the entire world.

    We have been quoting her constantly since then.

    1. AnneCordelia*

      All I can say is, I want to go to a bank where my teller is an echidna. Tell me where you work, and I’ll go there even if you’re rude to me.

  135. Arcade Kitten 3000*

    Worked for a credit union call center and the day after a Federal holiday I answered the first call of the day: Customer: “Are you open?” Me: “Yes we have regular hours all day.” Customer “Good! Get your asses to work!”

    Sometimes I wonder if she just called random banks all day telling them to get to work.

  136. kjolis*

    When I used to teach ENG 101, I received this review on Rate My Professors:

    “You will have to read articles for her class. Expect to read articles every night. English is not my favorite subject and i did not enjoyed her class.”

  137. Pandas*

    I was a cashier at one of my university’s dining halls. They started an initiative where one dining hall each week would be meatless, always on a Monday so it was Meatless Mondays. People completely lost it. When they first started it was advertised everywhere with loads of signs, so I didn’t bother to tell people before swiping them in. People came back to the desk absolutely appalled I didn’t warn them, so I started saying “Hey, just so you know it’s Meatless Monday”. People looked at me like I told them their dog had died. Then they started having a student volunteer who supported Meatless Mondays man a table with flyers and charts to explain the initiative to other students. This was good (for me) because most of the students who wanted to yell about Meatless Monday started going to her instead. Anyway, my favorite was a guy who came in, saw all the Meatless Monday posters, the table, heard my warning and proceeded anyway. Only to come running back out to me and the volunteer super upset. “There is NO MEAT in the SALAD BAR.” …
    “Excuse me?” “THERE IS NO MEAT IN THE SALAD BAR”. I’m not sure why he thought the salad bar would be the only exception.

  138. Be kind*

    That I should be much nicer to customers who show up after close and order off menu items.

    Or the lady who told me my sister, who worked right before me, didn’t smile enough at her child.

  140. RussianInTexas*

    One of my local customers, a restaurant supplies distributor, is very bread about paying their invoices on time. By now nice of their orders get fulfilled unless their account is in good standing, and we only accept wire transfers from them, no checks.
    The owner of the company called the owner of the company I work for and complained about the procedure. His rationale was “it makes you look like your business is in trouble if you need our payments this much”.

  141. Anon for this*

    Going anon because this might be identifiable:

    I worked on an app for a major public transport agency. We had a feedback button. The idea was that our users would use it to give us feedback on the app – could you find your routes, how did the address search work, do you want more payment methods, etc. etc. etc.

    This was not what we got.

    What we got instead was the full concentrated fury of everyone who was having problems with public transport. Why is this train late all the time! You made me miss my connection and arrive late at my job! Why are there construction works! WHY are the trains ALWAYS LATE you are all totally incompetent and should quit your jobs and never work in PT again. Also facilities complaints: The AC on the light rail is broken and we’re all dying here! The heating on this wagon in this line is broken! Somebody threw up in this wagon, can you please send someone to clean it.

    We were software developers. We had no way of making the trains run on time, or fixing the heating, or cleaning up the vomit in the $Line. We didn’t even have a contact we could forward any of this stuff to.

    Some coworkers decided to set some of the more, uh, dramatic complaints to music. I myself proposed that we add a mindfulness/meditation section to our app because some of these people CLEARLY needed to destress, but alas, product didn’t go for it.

    1. Unkempt Flatware*

      I work in public transit administration and complains are wild. My favorite one, one that prompted me to pull the video of the incident, was when a woman who was a serial-complainer wrote in. Normally her complains were ridiculous. She was too cold, too hot, the driving made her head bobble up and down and now she’s injured, someone was talking on speaker phone, etc. But this one was different.

      She was doing her normal kvetching at the driver (who she insisted on sitting directly behind every day) and a man getting on the bus hit her in the face with a burrito. I had to know the details of this event. Did the person throw it at her? Did he shove it in her face? Did he hold on to it while he slapped her with it, like a fish? The video indicated that he did a combo of two of those. He sort of slapped her with it and rubbed the contents into her face. It was…..amazing. He also took it back with him and I couldn’t tell if he ate it or night.

        1. Great Frogs of Literature*

          (In fairness, I have sometimes been in establishments where I, too, might have wanted to slap a fellow passenger/customer with a burrito.)

      2. Myrin*

        I spent the last hour or so reading through this whole comment section and while I chuckled at several of them, I simply HAD to reply to you because for some reason, “hit her in the face with a burrito” has had a chokehold on me for the last three minutes. I can’t stop laughing.

        1. Unkempt Flatware*

          It’s one of the single greatest moments of my professional career. Hearing the complaint and also getting to see it play out? Priceless.

      3. The Prettiest Curse*

        Be nice to your bus driver, lest the Burrito of Justice be visited upon you.

    2. Raida*

      To be fair… It’s a public transport app.
      It *should* have a method of providing public transport feedback.
      This just tells me the app was either not making it obvious and easy to provide pt feedback, or didn’t have it, or didn’t adequately redirect users to the correct URL outside of the app when they wanted to leave pt feedback.

      sorry mate.

      I say this as a public servant, currently running patronage analytics on journey origin/destinations on public transport in Aus. And who provided Customer Feedback reporting monthly for 18 months.

  142. AnneCordelia*

    I was 22 and working a summer job at a copy shop. A woman came in to have her resume printed on fancy paper (this was the early 1990’s). She did not like the way I did it, not because it was blurred or smeary or anything, but because she wanted the watermark on the paper to be right side up. So I’m frantically trying to figure out how to load the paper the correct way to make this happen, she’s holding the finished product up to the light and yelling at me that she’s going to call my manager, and I’m practically in tears. Good times.

  143. Former Retail Lifer*

    I once had someone tell me over the phone that I was SO MUCH MORE HELPFUL than the person they spoke to yesterday.

    They spoke to me yesterday. I am literally the only person that worked in that office.

    1. Owlbuddy*

      Aaaahh something similar happened to one of my barista coworkers, who received a call from a customer she’d had earlier that day, complaining about “that b*tch” who had served him. So: her. Also, it was Thanksgiving Day. >:(

      1. blonde bean*

        Why is there nobody angrier than a coffee shop customer on Thanksgiving? (Or Christmas Eve, when a man asked me if I actually knew how to make coffee and if so, why wasn’t his ready yet?

    2. Dr Jeckyll & Mr Hyde*

      I had this happen to me, also. I worked in a bike shop for a while, and one day a lady came in looking for a bike for her child (new college student) to ride to class. I proposed several options, but none were to her liking.

      The next day she came in again, and we went through the same rigamarole. Except this time she liked one of the options (the same exact options), and decided to purchase it. While checking out she told me “You were SO MUCH more helpful than the employee I had yesterday. You must know him – he looked a bit like you, but had a nasty attitude and sneered at me and made snide comments. You really should let him go.”

      My manager was there both days, overheard everything, and couldn’t stop laughing.

    3. Percy Weasley*

      I worked for a company that changed it’s name. Same people, products, services, etc. Only change was name. For months after we got comments about how much better or worse things were since the new company took over.

  144. Nat20*

    Hotel front desk of a large national brand. An older couple had unknowingly booked a reservation through a shady-ish fourth-party website – the kind that will book a room for you through a third party like Expedia. They thought it was the brand’s direct reservation page though, since it was the first result when they Googled “[hotel brand] in [city]”. (I got to teach them how to spot ads on Google that day too.)

    Anyway, day of their check-in, they called the number from their confirmation email to ask for directions to the hotel, and naturally got the runaround by some crappy call center. Thinking it was us, they were PISSED when they finally walked in the door.

    The man marches up to the front desk, sticks a finger in my face and yells, “What kind of rinky-dink operation are you running here?!?”

    Something about a very angry man coming up with the word “rinky-dink” in his fury and shouting it in all seriousness was just hilarious. I kept myself from laughing, got their story, and explained how they’d been Had by this exploitative (and unaffiliated) business. And for once in a customer service job, the customer listened, changed his tune, and even apologized!

    1. goddessoftransitory*

      Oh, ads!

      I once spent twenty five minutes on the phone with a very nice older customer, trying to explain to her that when she put our company name into Google, she couldn’t just click the first thing that appeared on her screen because it was actually an ad that took her to another pizza place. It took a while for her to get that yes, companies pay for their ads to do this and there was nothing I could tell Google to get them to stop.

  145. Reed Weird (they/them)*

    Oh my god, these are my favorite. We got this response on our NPS survey, they had given us a 9 because: “I don’t any high than 9 because know one is perfect”. Typed exactly like that.

  146. Shellfish Constable*

    I worked for (too) many years at a Large Chain Bookstore in a very upscale Southern California town. I hadn’t worked there long when a customer came to the cash/wrap (IYKYK), slammed down a huge book, and DEMANDED that I go retrieve from the storeroom a different copy of this very expensive art book because the one she found on the shelf was “open,” i.e., was no longer wrapped in plastic. Note: the book was not damaged in any way, had never been plastic wrapped, and she was very likely the first person to ever open it. I put the book’s ISBN in our computer to check our inventory just to confirm that we did not have multiple copies of a $100+ hardcover book about a niche artist’s works. But as I started to tell her, “I’m sorry ma’am, this appears to be our only copy in stock” the assistant manager swooped in, apologized for the oversight, and asked her to wait just one moment while he retrieved the other copy from the back.

    I stood there awkwardly and confused while she continued to berate me, but fortunately the assistant manager returned a few minutes later with a copy of the book ensconced in plastic. He apologized again and curtly told me to ring her up. But just as I was about to scan the book to make the sale, he reached across me, grabbed my keyboard, and without ever making eye contact with me typed into the inventory check search bar “SHRINK WRAP MACHINE.”

    I freaking loved that guy.

  147. Emily P*

    On a student evaluation of my calculus class: “The teacher makes us work too hard. Too much homework.” I wish *all* my teaching evals said that!

  148. E*

    Many years ago I worked in a department store. A very drunk lady was upset that we wouldn’t return her 3 year old broken TV. Since it was under warranty we offered to send it out for repair and eventually she agreed. But she would not let the warehouse guys help her unload the TV and insisted she could move the 100+ lb 1990s tv herself. Well she dropped it. Now it’s no longer under warranty and not eligible for repair. She threw such a fuss that we had to call the police. They escorted her away and seeing how drunk she was offered to call her a cab to get home. She refused, got in her car, drove about 10 feet (in front of the cops!) and was immediately arrested for DUI. She later called our store manager and corporate complaining that it was the store’s fault she was arrested and lost her license.

  149. Unkempt Flatware*

    I was scoffed/tsk’d at by a client of the large famous gym I worked the front desk for. They asked me what was being built across the street. I said I didn’t know. He was angry at me for it and showed it clearly in his expressions and audible sighs.

    1. Anon too*

      Wonderful, at least two of those. I’ve had a similar issue with a tourist and added it further down. I’m sorry you had to deal with this nonsense as well.

  150. Fran-kly Leibowitz*

    I work at a photography studio for tourists. Women, often of a certain age, complain all the time that the lighting or outfit I chose makes their arms, stomach, or entire body look fat. Or the angle I used “made them” have double chins. Believe me, I select the most flattering outfits I can and use props and angles to hide what I can. I can’t say “this is just your body, I can’t make you not look 300 lbs”. It’s so refreshing when I get folks in who just own it and have fun in the body they are in.

    1. L*

      Sign on the photo machine in a long-ago Naples, Florida Driver License Bureau:

      “If you want a better picture, bring a better face”

    2. Picture Perfect*

      Had my family photographer (who I adore) take extended family photos last week. My SIL, who has a 1 and 3 year old, complained that we didn’t get a picture of her kids smiling and looking at the camera at once. I told her “you have a 3 year old and a 1 year old. This is your life now.”

      1. Picture Perfect*

        ETA: we had plenty of pictures of them looking at the camera with a pleasant look on their face, just not wide grins.

  151. Nerds!*

    My personal favourite from lo! these many years gone:
    I had just started my first day as a cashier. A customer came to the counter and demanded I do [thing] for him.
    Me: I’m sorry but we do not do [thing] here, you will need to speak with [someone else in the building] for [thing].
    Him: Oh nonsense you did [thing] for me just last month!
    My trainer: Uh, sir, she literally just started at this newspaper about an hour ago.
    Him: ….
    Him: Well, maybe it’s because she looks like one of the other cashiers.
    My trainer: No, she looks nothing like them, as they are all male.

    Quite liked that trainer.

  152. Librarian of Things*

    Had a patron back into the metal bollard that protects the book drop from cars. They hit it so hard that the bollard bent. “You need to reduce my fines to pay for the damage to my car.”

    I said we could talk about it, but first I’d need to get a quote for repairing my bollard. They paid their fines.

  153. The OG Server*

    When I worked at Olive Garden I had someone complain because I refused to remove all the tomatoes from their minestrone before serving it. Also, not me, but another server had someone screaming at her because we took her favorite thing off the menu. I was there but was sure I had misheard the customer, because she was screaming about guacamole. I mean, I know Olive Garden isn’t the most traditional Italian out there, but they have never served guac.

  154. Lady_Lessa*

    I worked tech service for a company that made high temperature adhesives. Designed to be almost indestructible in use. Many times, customers would call and after using the glue would ask “How do I remove it from my part?”

  155. Vique*

    I work in the hospitality industry right next to the seaside – the amount of guests who want us to do something about seagulls is astonishing.

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      To be fair! A seagull once stole my mother’s pizza slice right off her plate at the San Francisco Zoo. They are absolutely shameless.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        They’re downright thugs. I once went to a restaurant that was near water and commented on all the seagulls hanging outside (we were indoors.) The waiter said, “watch this,” and disappeared. He went outside with some bread and we were treated to a MOB of seagulls absolutely mugging this guy–they did everything but turn him upside down and shake him to get his lunch money.

        1. London Calling*

          And they’re big so and so’s as well. The size of a small dog, some of them. And noisy.

    2. BubbleTea*

      There’s a fabulous photo that goes round the Internet of a sign outside a fish and chips shop saying something along the lines of “once you’ve bought your food, it’s your responsibility. We don’t give refunds if the seagulls steal it, they don’t work for us.”

    3. AmuseBouchee*

      In Ocean City, NJ they have crews of trained raptor handlers with birds of prey to scare away the seagulls. I have been there before the BOP and after and seen them in action- it’s quite the draw when they are fed by their handler or catch something.

  156. Raine*

    Back when I worked in a grocery store: it was the middle of summer, and I was getting ready to leave for vacation. It was 8pm and I had finished closing up, got my fresh pizza for dinner, clocked out, checked out, and had just walked away from the register when a customer stopped me. She went on to complain *vehemently* about how the store was kept entirely too cold, and that the AC was overbearing, and we simply *HAD* to turn it down. Now, I’m holding a pizza, with a bag in hand, clearly not on duty, but she wouldn’t let me walk away until I promised to do turn the AC down. So I promised. And then walked out the door and went on my 10-day vacation, because I did *not* get paid enough to deal with that.

  157. MPerera*

    I read an Amazon review of a Terry Goodkind book some time ago and have never forgotten it :

    “This is literally the worst book, and Goodkind is literally the worst man.

    I hope seals eat him.”

      1. MPerera*

        That’s why I remember the review. It made me imagine a crowd of those adorable white baby seals nibbling at a hapless writer’s corpse.

  158. Irish Teacher.*

    This didn’t actually happen at work, but I’m going to include it because the complaining customer thought they were talking to somebody at work.

    Back in the days when landlines were the norm, our phone had a number just one digit off that of the local Tesco. Think our phone number was 123456 and their’s was 123455, so naturally, we got a lot of wrong numbers intended for them. People usually figured out their mistake pretty quickly as companies usually have a pretty set answer, like “Hello. Tesco customer service. Mary speaking. How can I help you?” so people would often phone and say something like “oh, I might have the wrong number. Is this Tesco?”

    But anyway, this one time, a guy rang up, clearly irate, and without checking he had the correct number, launched into a complaint about “your chickens.” When he finally paused for breath, I quickly put in, “I’m sorry. This isn’t Tesco,” whereupon he replied, “are you sure?”

    1. Elle Woods*

      I can relate. When my father started his company in the early 80s, his phone number was similar to the local phone number for placing a JCPenney catalog order. His number ended in say 6874 and the catalog order number was 9874. It was all about the time answering machines were becoming widespread. It was mind-boggling the number of people who would call, not pay attention to the outgoing message, and leave their order info–including credit card number–on his answering machine.

    2. London Calling*

      I have a number that is one digit off the local timber yard. I have also been asked if I’m sure I’m not the timber yard and got so fed up that I told one caller that I live in a one bedroom flat, so yup, pretty sure.

      One customer kept leaving messages on my answering machine about his undelivered skirting boards. He rang me one day when I was home and ranted on about these skirting boards and how no-one ever calls him back and the AWFUL customer service…took a great deal of pleasure in telling him that he had the wrong number.

    3. Noquestionsplease*

      When I was living in my first apartment, my phone number was one-off from a local pizza place. My neighborhood was 99% college students, who loved to drunkenly order pizza close to midnight. After several months of these calls, I’d just start yelling Number 26! Twenty minutes! and hang up.

    4. Possum's mom*

      Our phone number was one digit off from 3 local businesses. If the phone rang before 7 am or after 11 pm,waking up my dad , he would cheerfully offer(1) free cab rides home from the taxi service,(2) zero interest loans from the mortgage company or (3) a year’s supply of free pool chemicals. After changing our phone number because Dad was sick of the wrong numbers at all hours, the new one was one digit off from the local car dealership’s service department….cue the “come right in, we’ll do it now for free ” appointments. Fun times, Dad.

    5. EvilQueenRegina*

      I grew up with a number very similar to a dental surgery – say mine was 867-5309, and they were 867-5390. People were always disputing that they had the wrong number.

      Since my family was actually registered with the surgery in question, that rather ruled out booking fake appointments for the repeat offenders, 6am callers and rude people.

  159. Fluffy Initiative*

    I used to work for a company that performed document shredding for our customers. We’d drop off giant locked totes with a slot on top where customers would drop in their to-be-shredded files, and we’d pick them up on a schedule and securely dispose of the contents.

    I got a phone call from an irritated-sounding woman demanding that we come to her medical office and unlock the “storage tote” so she could get some records out of it. She got progressively more annoyed when I was confused what she was talking about, and said some insulting things to me when I asked her to describe this “storage tote” to me. (We did sell storage boxes, too, but the same type of cardboard box you’d get at an office supply store.)

    I finally asked “Do you mean the *shredding* tote?” There were a few seconds of silence, the line disconnected, and about five minutes later someone else from the same office called back to arrange for a driver to bring a key to the site so they could sort through all the files that this person had “stored” in the shredding tote.

    2. Once too Often*

      Oh, you’ll like this one:
      Truck goes past with this emblazoned along it:
      Confidata: we destroy your business!

  160. Owlbuddy*

    I work mainly in video production. We shot multiple videos for a company, with two actors against a green-screen, wearing T-shirts with some letters on them to signify different employee benefit packages or something (the purpose of the video was to explain these benefits.) They were custom-colored rush-ordered T-shirts. But the company HAD to have them. Oh, and it was also right at the beginning of the pandemic, which just added another layer of stress.

    After we shot for two days and did all the editing & SFX work, some of the company higher-ups who hadn’t been involved until then saw the footage for the first time and went: “Hmm… we don’t know if we want letters on the shirts. Can you just remove them?”

    This would have involved HOURS of painstaking rotoscoping and would have likely looked terrible. It would have been cheaper to just reshoot. Luckily they came to their senses and kept the videos the way they were, but… ugh.

    1. Hermione Danger*

      Have worked for YEARS in an industry where we encourage the Subject Matter Experts we work with to run the initial storyboards by someone in upper management so that we don’t have to redo the actual production work when the People in Charge–who didn’t even know the project existed before this–have Opinions about wording or visuals. Often they don’t anyway and are then SHOCKED by the size of the change orders when said PiC wants the background to be blue or for us to make “one little change” that cascades throughout the product.

  161. Burner handle*

    I was working in a small-ish museum in a major city. Got a call from an irate woman who lived across the street from a major museum in said city. Apparently a large coach bus had dropped a group at Major Museum and was idling/running the engine while waiting for them, and she demanded I tell them to stop. Had she contacted the museum *where the bus was parked*? Or perhaps the bus company? Of course not. The bus had a paper sign in the window with the name of small-ish museum, so this was all somehow my fault. I assured her I’d take care of it right away (to get her to leave me alone) and went back to my regularly scheduled day.

  162. Plausibly Deniable*

    I teach training classes, usually for college or graduate age students. We have a feedback survey at the end of every course. Some of my personal favorite comments:
    “The instructor spent too much time answering other students’ questions.”
    “Four hours is too long for a class, it should be shorter.” (The class was three hours.)
    “The class was too fast” and “the class was too slow” on surveys for the same class.
    “I couldn’t see the board.” (This one was high school students, but. On the LAST DAY OF A 4-DAY COURSE.)
    High schoolers also invariably answer “What was your favorite part of the course?” with “the breaks” and “What would make the course better?” with “more breaks.”
    And the star of the show: I (female) co-taught an online course with two other instructors, both male. One comment referred to both male instructors by name, and called me “the assistant.” (It wasn’t like they might not have known my name, all my chat comments had my name on them.)

  163. Our Business Is Rejoicing*

    Background: I live in Canada (and have for many years), in an area of the country known for its diverse population (and resulting common panorama of accents) but was born in the US Midwest.

    Written feedback to a webinar I conducted: After listing out all the things the person didn’t like about the webinar (including “there was too much detail” AND and “you need to explain the math better”), the final remark is that I and my colleague “sounded American.”

  164. Buni*

    Someone once complained to my manager that “Every time I asked her a question she just had to have the answer!”.

    I…genuinely don’t know what else I was supposed to do…?

  165. AVP*

    A favorite one was a series of complaints I got on behalf of a client. I was running their media program so people would send in things that they thought the comms team “should be aware of.”

    This client was a worldwide, famous pageant brand. Well, in the year of our lord 2024, some of the pageant participants (especially the less famous/successful ones) are also instagram models, influencers, that type of thing. Which…of course, that’s the literal job. But the audience and fans didn’t like it, so whenever any of the mid-level participants anywhere in the world would post something that they deemed too racy, they would screengrab it and email it to me. Like it was my job to then go email the 10th runner up to Miss China International and tell her to take down the post because it was off-brand.

    I deleted so, so, so many underwear pics off my corporate email account!

  166. Elle Woods*

    I was helping a client analyze customer feedback about an initiative they had launched. There were some random things like not liking the colors they used or the date the initiative was announced, etc.

    My favorite one though was this: I had low expectations for this launch. You didn’t disappoint. Congrats.

  167. Debby*

    This is one where I couldn’t believe the service rep said what she did! It was back in the day when you could make a long distance phone call and charge it to your home phone (I know this really dates me)! I had had my phone number changed because I was getting weird calls. Two months later I received a bill for a long distance call-and hadn’t had that number for those two months. When I called the phone company to explain that it hadn’t been my number for two months, and that I had not made the call-she said to me “Well, you must have given out your phone number to people!”
    It took me several seconds to collect myself, and then I replied “that’s usually what people do when they get a phone line”. I was not charged for that call.

  168. Insert Clever Name Here*

    I worked as a barista during college for a non-Starbucks chain. Two people came in together, the first ordered a latte and the second asked me what the difference between a cappuccino and a latte was — “a cappuccino is equal parts espresso, steamed milk, and foam. A latte is one part espresso, two parts steamed milk, and a dollop of foam.” He ultimately decided on a single cappuccino (our sizes were based on the number of shots of espresso). So I made both drinks and took them to their table. A few minutes later the cappuccino guy stormed up to the counter and started yelling at me about how I had ripped him off because his cup wasn’t even full of coffee.

    His cup wasn’t full of coffee because our smallest cup size was 12 oz — a single shot of espresso is about 1 oz, so a properly made cappuccino is about 1 oz espresso, about 1 oz of steamed milk, and about 1 oz of foam.

    I said I was very sorry about the misunderstanding and could fix his drink, would he like it to taste stronger of coffee or stronger of milk? ” I don’t CARE, just MAKE IT FULL and STOP RIPPING PEOPLE OFF.” So I filled up his cup with leftover steamed milk from two other drinks that had been made in the meantime, walked it back to his table, apologized again, and went into the back room to cackle about how ridiculous he was.

    When he and his friend (who had paid!) left, his friend walked up to the tip jar and put a $5 bill in. The next day, the owner told me he was promoting me to shift manager because of how I handled the situation :D

    1. Fluffy Initiative*

      Oh gosh, this reminds me of my barista days.

      We had a regular customer who would order a cappuccino every day. Easy, right? Well except what she wanted was a Latte. Several people tried explaining to her that if she just ordered the latte, she’d get what she wanted, but nope, she HAD to order the cappuccino. We’d try to give a heads up to whoever was behind the bar, but invariably at least once a week she’d complain that there was “too much foam” in her drink.

      Then don’t order the drink that’s one-third foam! We even had a diagram of the drinks!!!

  169. Bergamot_Bap*

    When I worked on a phone queue, I once got a 5/5 survey with the comment: “Bergamot_Bap was very helpful and should receive Taco Bell coupons.”

    I love it. It’s the only one that has stuck with me years later. Why Taco Bell? Why coupons, and not a gift certificate?

  170. Anon for specific details*

    *Cracks knuckles* This is my day job.

    I work for a pharmaceutical company. We have an ethical and legal obligation to investigate any and all complaints about the product. In my manufacturing area, we make a liquid product so I don’t usually see the complaints for other types of products.

    For a special project I was looking at historical data across all products. I saw multiple complaints for “too much cotton” in bottles of tablets/capsules. I thought this was the silliest thing, that multiple people were bothered enough by this to call in and complain to the company.

    Well, a few weeks later I got a bottle of tablets (from a different company). It was a small bottle packed with cotton. It was so much cotton that I couldn’t get it out. Every time I got a grip on the cotton, it just pulled off a small tuft while leaving my pills inaccessible. Eventually I tore off enough little tufts and got some tweezers and was finally able to get the cotton out. But I understood! I had to eat my (internal, mental) words! I sure learned my lesson. No matter how silly a complaint seems, it isn’t silly to the person reporting it. (FWIW, I didn’t bother to complain to the company about it.)

    1. Mid*

      When I worked in a pharmacy, we had someone calling who was *irate* that we “over tightened” her medication and she couldn’t get the cap off. Us lowly techs were laughing, thinking she was just being ridiculous, as we had some very dramatic customers (one who called every day for A MONTH to complain that they didn’t like the color of their medication and we needed to change it back to the old color (which was impossible because 1. We dispense, we don’t manufacture and 2. They changed dose of their med which is why it was a new color) and was insulted that we offended their eyes with this ugly colored pill, for example.)

      Well, this woman came in at our behest, and we were prepared to quickly pop open the bottle and send her off with a different, easy open cap. And we could. Not. Get. The. Lid. Off. First tech tried, and failed. Second tech tried and failed. It was a shift change so we had the first pharmacist try, and fail, and then the second one, who also failed. I have notoriously strong grip strength, and a love of challenges, and I tried and tried and tried and failed, even after using a screwdriver to try and pry the lid and rubber bands to increase grip.

      I can’t remember if the final solution was to either give her an entirely new bottle and say the old prescription was damaged so she wouldn’t be charged for it, or if we smashed the bottle open with a hammer, but we did eventually get her her meds in a bottle she could open. I also don’t think we ever figured out WHY that bottle was so stuck. And, it taught us to not laugh at people’s silly complaints, lest us be collectively and publicly humbled.

  171. Lisa Simpson*

    When I worked at a pool, I had a swimmer who would regularly complain, as he got in the water, “Awww the water in the showers is warmer than this!”

    The water in the showers was 120. For reference, the maximum temperature for a hot tub is 104, and the max we were allowed to keep the therapeutic/recreational pool was 90. Of COURSE it’s cooler than the showers.

  172. Feen*

    25+ years ago, I worked for a tour operator based here in the US. We specialized in tours of Europe and Middle Eastern countries. Travelers filled out feedback forms after their trips. I still remember one that said “The waiter at dinner didn’t smile at us!”

  173. Rolling My Eyes*

    I work for a company who does auto glass replacement. We replaced the windshield on her car, and she came to pick it up. She pays, goes outside, then comes storming back in and demands to speak to the manager.
    Customer: You put my steering wheel back on upside down!
    Manager: Ma’am, we don’t take your steering wheel off when we replace the windshield.
    Customer: I know you did, because it’s upside down!
    Manager: Let me take a look.
    They go outside, Manager gets in the car and turns the steering wheel right side up. Customer got in her car and left without another word.

  174. SnookidyBOO*

    Oh man, you want weird and wacky feedback look no further than eBay. I’ve been selling for almost a decade and I keep a list of insane feedback/responses I get. A couple off the top of my head

    – the guy who bought a Star Wars graphic sweatshirt and left a feedback stating that I had somehow used my masterful Photoshop skills to hide the fact that one of the letters of ‘Wars’ was off by 3/4 of an inch and demanded that everyone take caution when buying from ‘an obviously devious seller’

    – the lady who bought a high end purse that I had discounted because it had a couple of splatters of food stain on the bottom, which happened to be bright red. She demanded that I refund all her money because she ‘could not in good conscious purchase a purse that was covered in blood’. NOTHING I said to her could sway her that it was NOT blood (which would have been a dark brown) but a food stain. (I mean, I even mentioned it in the listing and had a close up photo of the splatter before she purchased it?!?)

    Retail is a wild ride

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I’m a hiker and backpacker and one of the gear items I was thinking about purchasing says right on it “Does NOT fit with Acme Brand gear.” I read some of the reviews of the item and a whole bunch of them said, “I bought this to go with my Acme Brand gear item and it doesn’t fit, what a piece of junk!” Now, to be fair, it’s possible that line didn’t get added to the description until after these reviews but some of the reviews are very recent and I definitely saw the “Does NOT fit” in the product description when I first read it a few months ago.

  175. AmberFox*

    I once had a client complain to his client relationship manager that I was, and I quote, “a nuisance.”

    Why was I a nuisance? Well… he ghosted me on the case we were working on together. Per our procedures at the time, I couldn’t close the case… but I still had to follow up with him. So once a week, I put a note in the case asking for an update on where we were on the case. He didn’t respond to any of these. After three months of this, apparently he got tired of me not psychically knowing he was too busy to talk to me and sent a page-long complaint directly to his CRM to tell her I was a nuisance, how dare I not know he was busy with other projects, and that I needed to stop contacting him until he wasn’t busy anymore.

    1. My Brain is Exploding*

      While visiting my husband’s home town, we decided to try a new pizza place. But first, we read the reviews. There were several complaining that the pizzas (deep dish) had way too much cheese (and that the cheese pooled all over). We tried it. There was a lot of cheese. It was delicious. I wrote a review that said, basically, if you don’t like a lot of cheese, then order 1/2 cheese. Also let it sit a few minutes before cutting into it (very difficult to do because it was huge and smelled fantastic).

    2. N C Kiddle*

      I briefly had a job calling businesses to do consumer services. One number I called kept putting me off, “I’m too busy today, try tomorrow.” After approximately a week of this, they finally yelled at me, “Why do you keep calling? I told you I don’t want to talk to you!” No, you didn’t say that, and sadly I am not psychic.

  176. Zipperhead*

    I work at a very small weekly newspaper in a remote rural area. High school graduation is a big to-do around here, and the paper that comes out prior to graduation typically has an article about all the specifics of the graduation ceremony — when it starts, when grads need to be there, where to park, where folks in wheelchairs can sit, where the medical tent is located, what happens if it rains before or during the ceremony — along with a full extra section with photos of all the graduates.

    This year we got a letter of complaint that the graduation article had all this useless stuff about weather and wheelchairs and parking, and nothing about what he really wanted — the names of all 250 graduates (which, again, were listed in the special section), and an explanation for why they hold the ceremony in the football stadium and not in the theater auditorium.

  177. LiftingWeightsIsHard*

    My husband coaches weightlifting (the sport) and strength training for teenage athletes. On more than one occasion parents have called with the complaint: “My child is sore!”

  178. Tiny Clay Insects*

    I’m a professor. I once had a student evaluation that said “Drinks too much tea.”

  180. an infinite number of monkeys*

    Someone who used to work for Waco Mammoth National Monument (which I highly recommend, by the way, if you get a chance to go) told me they had a visitor very angry that she had driven all the way to Waco with her kids only to discover they didn’t even have any live mammoths there. Not even any decent photographs. She was PISSED.

    1. Sabina*

      I can relate. I worked in a small history museum and got a complaint that we didn’t have any Bigfoot artifacts, like bones or fossils…from Bigfoot.

      1. Please remove your monkeys from my circus*

        I work in a Holocaust museum. We periodically get complaints that we don’t have a gas chamber.

  181. Butterfly Counter*

    My grandmother, who loved being the center of attention, was at an Amy’s Ice Cream in Austin, TX. This is similar to Cold Stone Creamery where you order an ice cream and they mix in the extras on a super-cooled slab. Once she got it, she made a big stink about how her ice cream was too cold! (I wanted the earth to swallow me whole as she complained.)

  182. Jane Bingley*

    I worked for an international development organization that used a sponsorship model, where donors got regular updates about a specific child. At least a couple of times a year a donor would call and ask to adopt their sponsored child. Our standard explanation – “no, this child has parents who love them” – was somehow rarely helpful.

  183. not a tea snob, I guess*

    I used to work at a cafe/bakery that leaned a little fancy for the area, and was always surprised how much customers wanted to insert their own opinions into how it should be run (this wasn’t the first customer-service position I had at a small local business!).

    One regular had an issue with the tea being served that she insisted I just HAD to share with the owner. The main focus was on coffee, but we did offer a few different types of tea. Nothing super fancy, just like your typical earl gray, English breakfast, chamomile etc lineup. This regular thought that was just too complicated, and told me that I HAD to tell the owner to throw it all out and serve plain Lipton black tea instead!

    And I mean…I DID tell him, as in “Can you believe what this customer told me today??”

  184. Tempest*

    I work for a place that ships out most of their products, no walk ins. Our customers are usually very highly educated, think PhD, due to the nature of the products. Many years ago, I received a VERY angry phone call from a man who had ordered products from us. You see, we had charged his credit card that day, but he didn’t have the products in his hand. I explained that the products had been shipped, and provided the tracking number. He yelled at me up and down that we were a shady business, and it was not acceptable that his card had been charged before he received the products. I guess he thought we should track every package, and wait to charge when it was delivered? I ended up having to hang up on him when he started using foul language.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      In my experience and others I know working in tech support or call centers. The more educated someone is the less common sense (and decency) they have. I’ve had people who were engineers not be able to walk through a simple learning system platform, even when giving step by step detailed directions.

    2. Madame Desmortes*

      I apologize on behalf of my father, who might well have been this customer.

  185. dot*

    A bit of a tangent, but this is a review that an employee at my workplace left at a local chain restaurant. Someone found it and it made the rounds here for about a week.

    “I’m only awarding a 1 star as there’s no option for 0 here. I’ve now been to this establishment three times and have yet to even be able to order food. I was sked to leave on a “family / friends” night when the Grand Opening banner is flying with a packed crowd ( evidently I had the wrong currency for capitalism ). Decided I would try again today on the way to work and wouldn’t you know it.. they don’t allow in-person ordering evidently.
    On the bright side… The [nearby city location of the same restaurant] is more than willing to actually serve food to paying patrons, and the options for good mexican food in the surrounding cities/towns is REALLY good.
    To sum this up.. should you desire to eat at [this restaurant] you’re better to take your chances w/ [state] lottery ticket, or wait in the parking lot for the Jersey Mike’s that is next door and still under construction.
    On another good note… once this spectacularly fails.. I can’t wait to see what eatery takes its place!”

  186. hhh*

    I was one of 4-5 high school interns at a small town library. We worked behind the magazine counter. The idea was that people would bring us a list of magazine articles they wanted from the dot matrix printer and we would go to the stacks and get them.

    Around the spring of 1993 we started getting a lot of requests for the May 1966 issue of National Geographic, and a lot of disgruntled female customers complaining that the article they needed was not in there. Eventually someone discovered that this was the issue in which fictional character Robert Kincaid’s fictional photo essay on the covered bridges of Iowa is said to appear, in the novel The Bridges of Madison County.

    People were not happy to hear that The Bridges of Madison County is a made up work of fiction, and neither Robert Kincaid nor the article on covered bridges ever existed. They would argue with us at length, because what would we know, being high school interns and all, and then they would be sad to find that we were right.

    It got so bad that we suggested posting a sign, but the adult staff felt that would be rude.

  188. Response Junkie*

    Not a complaint, but a comment/question. I used to work at an outdoor goods retailer (think camping and biking and the like). Winter was always tough for those of us who worked in clothing because we could never keep kids snow gear (esp. gloves and hats) in stock.

    Had a customer come in looking for kids gloves and just staring dejectedly at the empty pegs. They were leaving the next morning for a ski trip, as it turns out. I offered to call around to see if other stores had any and after checking the two nearest stores in our chain I called another company that had a store near by. They had gloves in the right size so I asked them to put them on hold for this customer.

    When I told him that I had found some at such-and-such store he looks at me in utter confusion and just goes “Why? They’re your competitor?!”

    1. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

      My dad has a really hard time understanding that when you work at a gigantic box store, you have neither the power to randomly discount items nor the loyalty to care about competitors.
      He’s convinced that a girl at Best Buy gave him a discount “because she knows I’m a good customer.” She could not possibly care less.

    3. 1LFTW*

      That’s better than the customer who demanded to know where our girls’ ski jackets were. I began to direct her to the kids’ ski clothing, and she interrupted me, saying “I already looked at those. You only have boys’ colors, like red and blue. I’m looking for girls’ ski jackets. Like pink and purple.”

      I explained that we didn’t categorize kids’ outerwear by gender – it was all just kids’ outerwear. She was outraged, and went on a long tirade that ended with “I just can’t believe you don’t have ski jackets in girl’scolors. I’ll just have to go to [Competitor’s Name]” before flouncing out the door.

      Don’t threaten me with a good time, lady!

  189. Accidental Itenerate Teacher*

    I used to work at a living history museum and we once had a visitor complain that their tour guide answered another visitors question about ghosts and they didn’t like it.
    Which would have just been a funny story if my manager didn’t then declare no one was allowed to mention ghosts on tour ever again even if directly asked.

    We also had a ridiculously high number of complaints about the weather- specifically the heat.
    We were an outdoor venue in Houston. Why are you visiting us in July if heat is an issue for you?

  190. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    Oh I have all sorts from my past experiences working at a grocery store, and working in a call center.
    Some of my favorites
    Working in the deli at my hometown grocery store this lady refused to take the sliced roast beef that I had JUST sliced and packaged just a few moments before. THe slicers were just cleaned and if you’ve ever had those giant roast beefs you would know there is a lot of liquid and it makes a huge mess. She had a hissy fit and demanded that I slice new for her. She also was crazy about the thinness of her ham. It was either too thick or too thin. She was a nightmare.

    Moved for college and worked at a diffrent grocery store, but only did cashier. There was a well known man from the small town who was well off. Like he owned 1/3 of the properties. In small towns you just know who has money. This guy came in like every day for 2 weeks complaining about paying for tax. In Minnesota there is tax on candy, surgary drinks like soda, and hot premade items from the deli. This guy came to every single cashier and would throw a fit over 3 cent tax on …. marshmallows. because according to him it was a food in the bakery isle so therefore not taxable as candy. The store manager had to put up a sign with info from the state showing the tax law and that marshemellows were considered a candy.

    I’ve had people complain that my voice was too high pitched and I needed to fix it. That they were “sick of these call center companies hiring children (I was 28). Also been accused of not being in the US because I have an accent. I’m from Minnesota. Got yelled at because I called someone by their first name (which was a requirment for the job as it was more personable). It was “doctor so and so” and how dare I be so familiar with her!”

    But my absolute favorite customer complaint of all time was so bannana’s that there was a brief rock, paper, scissors match between managers to see who was going to take the call. It was around 2015 or 2016 and i worked as a call rep for cell phone carrier. This guy just starts screaming at me to fix his phone now. The problem? Android had updated the emoji keyboard to include representations of same sex people and they were holding hands and kissing. When I told him that this was not us, it was the phone manufacture and there was nothing I could do he demanded to speak to a supervisor. All supervisors on duty that night were either gay themselves or their kid was. Unfortunately the customer hung up before the supervisor was able to come on the line. I SOOO wanted to know what my supervisor was going to say. Knowing him he would have put on the stereotypical “gay man” voice.

    1. Not Mindy*

      A coworker once told me that the divide for taxable vs. non-taxable food items was marshmallows. Regular marshmallows were taxable as candy. Mini marshmallows were non-taxable as bakery.

      1. londonedit*

        Here in the UK there was a famous case in the early 90s about whether Jaffa Cakes (a classic British treat with a thin cakey layer topped with a circle of orange jelly and covered in chocolate) are cakes or biscuits. Because chocolate-covered cakes don’t attract VAT (value added tax), but chocolate-covered biscuits do (I guess because covering biscuits in chocolate is adding value to a basic item). The manufacturers of Jaffa Cakes argued that Jaffa Cakes, as the name suggests, are cakes. HMRC were arguing that Jaffa Cakes, which to be fair are usually grouped with the biscuits in the supermarket, are biscuits and therefore should be subject to VAT. In the end, one of the considerations of the ruling came down to the fact that a biscuit goes soft as it goes stale, whereas a cake goes hard as it goes stale. Jaffa cakes go hard as they go stale, so they’re cakes, and therefore not subject to VAT.

        1. Aussie AAM Fan*

          There was a similar situation in Australia when our GST (goods and services tax) was brought in involving challah, the Jewish plaited bread served for shabbat dinner. The Tax Office were treating it as cake (attracts GST) as it contains egg and is sweetened (like brioche), but a kosher bakery successfully argued it should be treated as bread (GST free) because that’s the way people use it.

          Thr marshmallow story reminds me of Americans visiting Australia who went to the supermarket to buy marshmallows and thought Australians don’t have marshmallows because they couldn’t find them in the bakery section. I had to explain that they’re sold in the confectionery section here.

        2. Sharpie*

          I knew of the ‘are Jaffa Cakes cakes or biscuits ‘ debate. I didn’t realise it had actually been so official that there was a legal ruling on it!!

  191. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

    I posted this one, and it turned out lots of people agreed with me so some changes were made!

    “The bread here is good, but I wish I didn’t have to listen to a monologue about how Nobody Wants to Work Anymore just to buy it. The line gets so long during the monologue that I’ve seen people just leave without buying.”

  192. Former Themed Employee*

    I worked at a theme park. One of the rides in this park was a water ride. One day, a guest came to Guest Relations and complained that they “didn’t get wet enough” on said water ride. At the time they went to Guest Relations, the current weather was a torrential downpour, and had been for at least the past hour.

    I was working at the park entrance, so I heard this from a friend that was in Guest Relations. I have no idea how they managed to not just advise the guest to step outside if they weren’t feeling wet enough.

    I’ve also heard the other side of the story, where guests complained that they got wet on the water ride.

  193. Reebeekah*

    My two favorites are from the same job in college, working the ticket desk at an art museum that was hosting a very popular Monet exhibit.

    The first was a visitor who left a lament that they were not allowed to touch the paintings and “run their hands” over all the various textures. To their credit if I remember correctly they did leave near the end of their comment a note that an “example” painting to touch would be OK rather than the “real thing.”

    The second was the same special exhibit, which was held in a string of several small galleries, and we had more than one person complain that we allowed wheelchairs and other mobility aids into the exhibit area, but not standard strollers.

    1. illuminate*

      Honestly, I would love if museums provided sensory examples of similar paintings to the ones on display. The textures of ridges and dips in thick paint look like they would be so nice to touch!

  194. Slow Gin Lizz*

    I was a long-term substitute music teacher, filling in for a woman who was on maternity leave. I shadowed her for two school days before her leave started and met some of her students but since she had different students every day of the week, I only met the students she’d had on those days. On my second day flying solo, the head of the music department got a call from a mom complaining that her daughter was upset after her class the previous day (my *first* day on the job and the first time I’d met that kid and that class) because I hadn’t asked her kid to play the song she’d been assigned as homework the previous week. Friends, I didn’t know anything about any song she’d been assigned (the teacher had only given a general overview, not specifics to each student), nor did I know that it was common for the teacher to ask students to play individually.

    Fortunately the head of the department had my back. She knew I didn’t know any of that stuff, she knew that I was overwhelmed with what was my first full-time teaching position and especially coming in as a sub, and I think she knew this parent was a squeaky wheel parent – it seems obvious to me now, because what other kind of parent would call to complain about a new teacher about such a tiny oversight on her first day on the job? Dept head said she felt she had to tell me because it was her duty to do so but that I didn’t need to worry about any of it. I really liked her a lot.

  195. WorkerJawn*

    One time I was working the opening shift at a clothing retail job. I showed up 30 minutes before the store opened to my boss looking exasperated and a woman who could only be described as “furiously googling.” When my boss went to let me in, the woman also started towards the door, my boss said we still weren’t open. The woman said she was “adding that to her complaint.”

    Once I was in the store, boss explained the woman was trying to call corporate to complain that she wouldn’t be let into the store an hour before opening.

  196. Ms. Honey*

    Years ago, I worked at a law practice where I did a lot of the intake interviews with prospective clients. One person whose case we decided not to take on was beside-herself furious with me for being “too nice” during the interview process, because it “got her hopes up” and it was then “shocking” and “jarring” that I could “turn around” and “be so matter-of-fact” about “crushing” her. She called me crying for four days in a row to try to impress upon me how “hurtful” I was. I finally transferred her to my supervising attorney, who gravely told her she was going to add her complaint to “the circular file.” She thanked my attorney for taking her complaint seriously and didn’t call back again.

  197. phira*

    I used to work at a local chain gift shop (think Hallmark Store type place). Almost all of us were young women in our late teens or early twenties, and while we were expected to dress professionally, there were a lot of times when we were stocking or organizing where we had to bend down. This was the mid-2000s, so even if we were dressed appropriately, often shirts would ride up a little in the back when we did a lot of bending. Nothing inappropriate (no underwear was ever showing), but I know some of my coworkers had lower back tattoos because of how common this was.

    Anyway, one day I was working in my department, unpacking and shelving books, and a very elegantly dressed elderly woman approached me. She explained to me that her son was a very successful doctor. I had no idea what she was getting at, but I’m good at customer service, so I nodded along as she further explained that, because of her son, she knew a lot of things about medicine and disease prevention. Okay, sure …

    And then she said, “And that’s how I know that showing that much skin is how you get a disease,” and then she walked out of the store.

    I was wearing black slacks, closed toed shoes, a not-low-cut V-neck short-sleeved shirt, and a store apron. She had been referring to the strip of skin on my back that had been revealed while I was on my knees stocking shelves. Amazing. I don’t even know if she bought anything.

  198. ICP*

    I used to deliver mail, and our supervisors would make us aware of all comments/complaints made about us, just so we knew that someone on our route was difficult/unhappy. One of my coworkers told me that an old lady on his route (whom he’d never spoken to) actually took the time to call in and complain because “he looked too happy while working.”

  199. hodie-hi*

    Here is the most legendary customer complaint from a software startup I worked at about 30 years ago. If any former colleagues read askamanager, they will recognize this.
    The customer accused us of “sending code that jams the printer”.

  200. nora*

    I used to do casework for disabled individuals. One of my clients had a trust fund that paid for their housing. Their grandchild got ahold of the account information and tried to drain the fund to buy a convertible. I stopped the whole thing from happening to, y’know, keep a roof over the client’s head. Grandchild’s response: “God’s gonna strike you down for that!”

    1. Irish Teacher.*

      God’s gonna strike you down for…not letting your client get scammed? But He’s totally OK with the grandchild scamming their presumably elderly, disabled grandparent? That’s an…interesting interpretation of…well, any religion.

  201. kiwiii*

    Part of the job of the team that I’m on is responding to Support Mailbox tickets for the various versions of the application we run. Each team member has a couple versions they’re an expert in, and while we can and do cover for each other when it is necessary, constant monitoring of the mailbox is not done and would be less effective than our current approach.

    It’s a small portion of the job we do — 10% or less of each week, unless something has gone wrong recently — and as such we have it on the ticket submission form that a typical response time is by the end of the following day, though we typically get back to the initial question much more quickly.

    Additionally, about half of what we do is redirecting folks to other mailboxes, as we mostly maintain the content in the application rather than the user accounts, and we cannot assist in troubleshooting login issues most of the time.

    I’ve found that many people struggle with reading comprehension while upset, as people asking for help often are, that said, my favorite bit of feedback that we’ve gotten was on a ticket my supervisor resolved: “Adding a sentence or two about how to do the fix the issue would have been better than just telling me to reach out to another department after 4 hours of waiting for a response.”

    Our most senior coworker had my favorite response to it, by far, “Not even close to a record, but we can try for one next time!”

  202. Unamerican Comie veteran.*

    The crazoest complaints were when I was an Uber driver. I got a 1 star rating because I wouldn’t speed on the freeway. And another passenger call me an unamerican commie because I didn’t watch American Sniper. I was in the military reserve at the time and previously deployed to Afghanistan…

  203. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    When I was working as a grocery cashier, I asked a customer if she wanted her bacon and her frozen shrimp bagged together or separately, because people have different preferences and I do not give a hang. She got absolutely incensed that I would even consider bagging them together because, and I quote…

    “That would not be appropriate under kosher rules.”

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I was like “Gosh, nope, you’re right, my mistake,” put them in separate bags and have been telling the story for twelve years now.

    3. Zephy*

      Right, exactly, that’s why you asked. Did she have some kind of big flashing KOSHER sign hanging around her neck? Or were you supposed to assume, seeing as she was buying bacon and all?

      1. Zephy*

        And shrimp, I guess, for that matter. Jews have a shellfish thing too, right? Or am I thinking of something else?

        2. Ali + Nino*

          We do indeed “have a shellfish thing too”! XD This is equal parts hilarious and sad.

  204. Name Anxiety*

    I worked in a grocery store with my mom. She worked in customer service where people made returns, and we were required to just take all returns and refund the money even if the items were clearly not purchased at the store. We were a locally owned store so this was particularly obvious when someone “returned”something that was, for example, Target branded. One day a woman came in to return a block of vegan cheese (no judgement, the flavor back then and now leaves something to be desired), however the block was 75% gone. My mom asked why she was returning it and the customer said it had “gone bad” when she got it, then changed her mind and said they just didn’t like the flavor. When my mom asked why it was almost all gone if they didn’t like it the customer responded that her toddler grandson loved it so they fed most of it to him. My mom refunded the $7.00 for a block of vegan cheese that had nothing wrong with it.

    I worked primarily in espresso and we had a lot of tourists in the summer that were used to large coffee chains with mermaid logos where you order your coffee and by the time you get to the end of the counter, it’s been made by one of the many baristas. I worked by myself and often had a long line, but I was pretty fast. Regulars would often order and then do their quick shopping and run back to grab their drink from the end of the bar before going to the checkout so you really had to look for your name or order on the cup to be sure your weren’t grabbing someone’s decaf latte instead of your mocha. One day in the summer I had a strawberry smoothie with whip (16oz clear cold cup with dome lid) sitting on the counter for a regular who ran to get lunch from the deli and a guy walks up, orders an americano (8oz paper cup), pays, walks to the end of the counter, picks up the smoothie, takes a drink and very loudly exclaims that I have completely messed up his drink order. I just stared at him since I am still holding the cup I wrote on to take his order and hadn’t moved. I asked him if he remembered what he ordered and if what was in his hand looked like his order. Hearing a no, this did not look like an americano, I asked him why he took a drink anyway, and he just said he thought his would have been done by now. I believe I held my hands out to the sides and did a slow spin to illustrate that I was the only person there. He gave the smoothie back and then loudly complained that I wasted it when I threw it in the sink.

    1. Anon too*

      Not that surprised after having worked in food service, but really, what did he think you’d do with it? Drink it yourself or still offer it to the original customer?

  205. In The Rough*

    I used to work at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. For anyone who isn’t familiar, it’s one of the few publicly accessible diamond mines. It’s the crater of an old volcano where the diamond-bearing matrix has eroded away, leaving loose diamonds in the soil. Some really big diamonds were found here in the early days but have dwindled in overall size over the past century and a half. For $15, you can dig all day to your heart’s content. People find diamonds daily, usually in 7pts to quarter carat range (100 points in a carat). But there’s thousands of visitors every day and the park is open 7 days a week, year round. And despite our informational displays, most don’t really know what they’re looking for so there’s a lot being overlooked. So there are many, many unhappy people who are mad they didn’t find anything.

    Those are usually the ones complaining it’s all a scam. Another common belief is that we seed the field because people think there’s no diamonds in North America (there’s also commercial mines in Colorado, Wyoming, and Canada).

    One day, after we’d identified a diamond found by another guest, a man marched up to my station. He slammed his hands down on the table and smirkingly said:

    “I know what you’re doing! You keep a crates of factory-second diamonds in the so-called geologist’s office. At night when no one is watching, you scatter them all over the park so the suckers will think they’ve found the jackpot. You’ve managed to fool these rubes but I know the truth! Let’s make a deal, you can slip a diamond in my bucket here, and I’ll pretend for the camera to keep your little secret. If not, I’ll tell everyone here what’s REALLY going on!”

    I declined his offer and after futilely trying to argue with me, he left disappointed.

    But wait, the story doesn’t end there! He left his bucket of gravel behind and after a couple days, my boss told me to go ahead and take it home. I sorted through it and found a 17pt diamond.

  206. Peanut Hamper*

    I used to work in a deli that sold “broasted” chicken (i.e., fried chicken cooked in a pressure deep fryer). A lady came in, picked up an eight-piece bucket (two of each piece), and then called back later to complain that half of them were undercooked.

    I asked her how she could tell, since we were pretty careful to temp our chicken and would continue to cook it if we thought there was a risk it wasn’t cooked properly.

    She said that half the pieces were darker than the others. I asked her if they were the legs and thighs.

    She had no idea that chicken came in both white meat and dark meat.

    1. SawbonzMD*

      Slightly off topic but I’ve never heard of broasted chicken but the thought of it is intriguing!

    2. sagewhiz*

      In Michigan? “Broasted” chicken was the*rage* in the K’zoo area in the ‘60s

  207. Watry*

    Not terrifically weird but I had a customer at the thrift store who was absolutely furious that we had wrapped into bundles small groups of some Nat Geo magazines. When I explained that I had been told to do this but I was happy to get a manager for him, he refused. Apparently he was a NatGeo collector and didn’t want to pay the entire dollar for a bundle when he only wanted one issue–but also refused to answer when I asked if there were any specific issues he wanted and I’d see what we could do. Guy just wanted to complain, I guess.

  208. SawbonzMD*

    I actually got a talking to from my Residency Coordinator because I encourage my patients to call me “Susie” instead of “Dr. Sawbonz”. They told me it undermines my authority and the other doctors I work with supposedly say that it makes them “look bad”.

    Whatever, it’s not a hill to die on for me. I have one more year of residency to get through but once I’m attending, I’ll go back to encouraging my patients to call me by my first name.

  209. Yes, we have no bananapants*

    Patrons are allowed to bring snacks or simple foods to serve when they book one of our library’s meeting rooms. One patron did not bring any cups, plates, or utensils and DEMANDED the library provide her with them. She was ready to march back into the staff break room and take those items for her group to use. I put my foot down and told her no, she can go to the store less than 5 minutes up the street.

    Another patron’s change got stuck in the tampon dispenser, which was empty. She couldn’t understand why staff wouldn’t drop everything, open the dispenser, and get the change out for her. Gave her change from my own pocket so she’d give it a rest.

    1. PB Bunny Watson*

      LOL
      When I was working in Reference a million years ago, I helped a patron with some issue or another. She came back the next week convinced that I had stolen her library card (which she had never handed to me or even had out) in order to steal her identity.
      And people wonder why I refuse to require an ID to get on the computer… no, thank you. The less we have to interact with someone’s PII, the better.

  210. Higher ed drama*

    I work in graduate-level higher ed designing faculty-led experiential learning courses that take place in various international cities, so my “customers” are both the faculty I am supporting in designing these courses, and the students who take them.

    My most ridiculous feedback from a faculty member was that I was “the most unprofessional person he ever worked with” for telling him he needed a syllabus for the class. His plan was 100% to make it up as it went along. He was ultimately removed from the course by leadership (after complaining about me to my boss and my boss’s boss) and another faculty member (who did create a syllabus, WHICH IS STANDARD) taught the course.

    My most ridiculous complaint from a student was that there were “too many seagulls” along the Han River in Seoul. Apparently this was something I was supposed to fix?

  211. Purple Cat*

    Looking at reviews of Colorado River trips in AZ a customer said something like:
    Disappointed in the guide commentary and the lack of creationism viewpoint. God didn’t take millions of years to perfect his handiwork.

    1. Unkempt Flatware*

      In the gift shop at the Grand Canyon, in the science section, there was a book about how the Grand Canyon was created so that Noah could navigate the arc through the new world.

      1. Artemesia*

        At the cliff dwellings in the southwest, we had a kid about 10 explain that the guide was wrong about how there were fossils found in the cliffs after the uplifting of the ancient seas — it was the flood.

  212. CherryBlossom*

    I worked in luxury retail for YEARS before I got an office job. Luxury retail is it’s own brand of bananapants, but this one story still tickles me:

    The clothing store I worked in was doing a collab collection with a sports organization (think NFL or MLB) We weren’t briefed on the organization at all, just on the collection itself. Our clientele weren’t sports fans to begin with, so it wasn’t really an issue. This one middled-aged lady comes in and Oh Golly! This is how the conversation went:

    Her: I love this collection! I’m so glad [Sports Org] is branching out like this. Tell me dear, what’s your team?
    Me: Oh, I don’t follow this sport very closely, but I like this collection because-
    Her: So you don’t watch [Sport]? At all?
    Me: I watch some of the major games, but I can’t say I know much about it.
    Her: You’re a fake fan.
    Me: Well, I wouldn’t call myself a fan, exactly-
    Her: FAKE FAN! GET ME YOUR MANAGER NOW!

    Yes, she was indeed furious that I, a clothing store employee, didn’t watch a sport just because our brand happened to do a collab with them. Thankfully my manager was cool about the whole thing, but it was silly.

  213. RoDan*

    Worked in internet tech support managing a team, and my Sr. Tech was an extremely knowledgeable guy who was very calm cool and collected with the customers. Generally unflappable.

    One day I was taking a walk around the call floor and I saw this tech, on a call, looking like he’d seen a ghost. Went back to my desk, looked up the stats and saw he’d been on his current call for over 2 hours! As a manager I had the ability to listen in on any call on the floor, so I listened into this one …

    And heard a guy SCREAMING at the tech. And he wasn’t screaming like he was angry. He was screaming like he was having a full blown psychiatric break down. I got as far as “You don’t know what going above and beyond means until you’ve had your buddy’s guts sprayed all over your uniform and you’re trying to put them back inside him …” before I cut my connection and went back to the tech.

    The tech muted the call so the customer could not hear us (we could definitely still hear the guy even through the headphones) and the tech explained the guy called in because his internet was out and he needed it back up because he had a signed contract he needed to email to Stephen King, so we had to get on it because Stephen King was waiting! The tech tried everything he could think of, and after 2 hours of work, believe me when I say there was nothing left to try! so the tech was trying to schedule a service call which they guy wasn’t having because, of course, Stephen King was waiting.

    In a moment of frustration, the tech had pointed out he’d been at it for 2 hours, there was nothing left to be done on the phone, and he felt he’d really gone “above and beyond” for the customer, which is what had prompted the tirade about guts sprayed on uniforms.

    Had the tech transfer the call to me, and I told him we were done doing tech support with him that night, and if he wanted to schedule a service call I would help him, otherwise this talk was over. He was still screaming at me about Stephen King when I hung up. He called a few more times that night, but we’d sent word out to the floor that the only conversation to be had was about scheduling a service call.

    Weird thing was, after that night, the guy never called us again. I checked for about a week to see if he ever got that service call and he never called to schedule it. When we all got laid off about 2 years later, I check on that guy again on my final night. His account was still active, but he never called again for any reason.

    1. Happy Camper*

      Oh… this one actually makes me sad. It’s sounds like it was a Veteran having a mental health breakdown. My pessimistic side can’t help but think he never called again because he died or something worse happened with his mental health.

  214. Sabina*

    I worked as a executive assistant to the head of a law enforcement agency and got all the complaint calls. I got a million stories, but here are two of my favorites.
    A woman complained about us arresting her son for standing outside of her house and shooting a gun INTO HER HOUSE. We were just picking on him.
    Two young guys tried to run rapids on a local river using basically a pool float and were –surprise–injured. Their boss called to complain that we hadn’t “fixed the river” to make it less dangerous.

  215. OneBean TwoBean*

    I worked at a little candy store during high school.

    Customer: I need a refund for this! *holds up half-eaten muffin*
    Me: Oh, is there something wrong with it?
    Customer: No, it’s just too big. My daughter can’t finish it!
    Me: So the muffin is fine, you just want a refund because your daughter can’t eat it all?
    Customer: Yes!
    Me: Um, no?

    1. Long Time Lurker*

      My sister worked in an ice cream store in high school and has similar stories!

  216. Tris Prior*

    I work in publishing. My best examples of customer complaints written on page proofs: toss up between “What is this crap?” and “This needs to look better.” No further direction in either case.

  217. urguncle*

    My college library had some first editions of a religious text and some other important manuscripts that people from out of town would come specifically to view. I heard one person arguing with the archivist about how they had expected to be able to check one of these very old and valuable items out of the library, at least for the day!

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      I checked out a eighty year old book from my college library and kept it all year – no shenanigans, it was on the shelves just like anything else. Oriental Costumes, by Max Tilke – copies on ebay and amazon were going for several hundred dollars.

      For some reason, after it came in through the returns slot, they moved it to special collections and it can’t be checked out anymore, only viewed in the library. Would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that discovery/conversation. It’s the right call for the safety of the book, but I will always fondly remember just having it in my room to flip through.

  218. fka Get Me Out of Here*

    My very first job was at a Quiznos and a Karen (before that was the common term) complained about the toastiness of the subs. (She thought it was burned – it wasn’t, just well-toasted per Quiznos guidelines – and complained that it was carcinogenic.) I was 17 and gave exactly zero fks about any of it.

  219. Unkempt Flatware*

    Oh! My favorite was when I was working front desk at a large bank. I was working at my computer and the bankers were having a sort of huddle at the front desk which was large. I’m minding my business and was not part of the huddle. An elderly couple was leaving the bank and were walking past my desk and I said, “have a great day!” The lady turned on her heels and powered over to me and said, “I wish I had a job where I could lean all day!”. She was quite upset about something. I said, “Lean??” And she pointed over to one of the bankers in the huddle who was leaning against the desk while he listened to the boss and said, “yeah! Lean” and she mocked him leaning on the desk. I was so confused that I just looked at her in total bewilderment. I still have no idea what her problem was. All I could think to say was, “sorry, we’re not hiring”.

  220. Artemesia*

    Don’t know if it fits category, but I once read a review of a hotel in Europe where the person gave it one star and complained that they arrived late and ‘of course the kids needed to run off some steam after being in the car’ and the manager reprimanded them for making noise and bothering other guests. Then one of the kids knocked over a lamp which they reported and were stunned that the manager made them pay for it because ‘it was just normal wear and tear.’

    I booked that hotel immediately.

  221. Not on board*

    Worked at a waterpark for 3 summers – complaints about the weather were common. There were problematic regulars like speedo man and leather lady. But this one takes the cake:
    Woman was upset that her sons belongings were stolen after he left his bag wide open and unattended on the turf. Why weren’t our lifeguards watching out for people’s belongings being stolen? She demanded some sort of compensation. My boss explained that we have lockers and recommended her son use them, and that the lifeguards are busy guarding lives and don’t know which belongings belong to whom, and then gave her 2 free day passes (an approximately $25 value at the time) just to make her go away.

    1. Long Time Lurker*

      We went to a water park last weekend to escape the heat I was astonished by how rude people were to the staff, and the lifeguards and ride attendants. Yeah, it sucks to wait in line to get on the water slide when its 95 degrees out, but no, they can’t just “speed it up”!

  222. BigBird*

    I used to be the volunteer newsletter editor for our local public middle school in the early stages of the Internet when we as parents were more technologically capable than the school system itself. We sent out a weekly newsletter and occasional stand-alone emails about upcoming school-related events, one of which was football tryouts. We received a response from a father (using his real name) saying–without the asterisks– “I don’t care about f*****g football.”

    Of course I sent him an email immediately discussing how seriously we take our mission to keep local families informed but that we completely understand the burden of receiving too many emails and were devastated by our failure to satisfy his needs. We were very happy to relieve him of this unbearable burden by removing him from our email list. This kept him from receiving any school notices for the remainder of his childrens’ middle school careers, including things relating to graduation tickets. the annual overnight field trips, monthly dances, etc. Not only that, but my co-editor and I went on to edit the high school newsletter, from which we also omitted him. I don’t know if he ever noticed, but it gave me great pleasure.

  223. Rory Gilmore*

    I worked at Dairy Queen when I was in high school. I was working with a younger teenager than me (I was probably 18 to her 15) and we made a Blizzard for a costumer and she took it to a table to eat it. She came back to the counter as she was leaving with an empty cup, and said, “just to let you know, you made me the wrong flavour. I wanted cherry chocolate and this was strawberry.” She went on, “no need to make me a new one, I ate it, just wanted you to know.” I apologized for the error and she went on her way. Before she was out the door though, my coworker said (very loudly) “well, that was pointless”.

    She was right, but we had a chat about professionalism in front of costumers.

  224. Hotdog not dog*

    I have two, both involving the same financial services firm:
    1. I had originally been hired as temp to perm. On the evaluation sheet sent to the temp agency, they said, “Hotdog is professional, intelligent, and a pleasure to work with, but while she is attractive, she is not blonde.” (I am still not blonde; 30 years later I have embraced the gray.)
    2. It is my nature to be calm, even when I am surrounded by chaos. (this is probably why I’m still in financial services 30 years later.) As a result, colleagues would frequently transfer their difficult clients to me. One of these clients was well known for her extreme negativity and would send complaints to the manager almost weekly. Inevitably, she submitted a complaint against me. “Hotdog is too polite. It’s not normal, people should be miserable at work!”
    Spoiler alert: Sometimes I WAS miserable at work, but I enjoyed irritating her with my weaponized professionalism!

  225. Anonphenom*

    anon moment…

    children’s museum, negative reviews:
    1- 1 star review complaining that that we aren’t a restaurant (we aren’t, but we’ll happily poiny people toward the family friendly one 2 doors down!

    2- a negative review because the stairway had a really interesting display that kept the kid’s attention to long- and the adults didn’t think the stairwell should be that interesting

  226. DrSalty*

    A client on using their template for Word/Powerpoint deliverables: “I can’t even LOOK at something if it’s not in Calibri.”

    1. AnonyNow*

      Just to note – I think Calibri is a sans serif font, which I understand can make things far more accessible for people with dyslexia. Obviously there are other sans serif fonts (I don’t know whether specific fonts are more readable for specific individuals), but just noting there might be a legitimate reason behind this.

  227. fine-tipped pen aficionado*

    Ea-Nasir is a classic but my other favorite review of all time is a Yelp review (I do not know what restaurant they were reviewing) that read: “I got stabbed here. The food was fresh and drinks were tasty but I got stabbed here. Would consider going back”

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      I laughed far more than it is appropriate to laugh at the idea of somebody getting stabbed, but honestly, this really needs more detail.”

    3. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

      At a local restaurant, an elderly gentleman was shot while in his booth, waiting to have his order taken. He was grazed by a bullet (I believe on his ear) and, while the paramedics were looking him over, he asked if he could order dinner. He ended up with a meal and apparently being very satisfied. Wonders never cease.

  228. Megan*

    I work in a public library, recently I had a male patron complain that there were too many female authors on the shelf and asked why we don’t purchase male books anymore. I told him simply that we don’t use the gender of the author to determin what we purchase. He pushed a little wanting to know why suddenly there were a lot more female authors and I just repiled with, well they do make up half the population so?

    He argued with me a bit more about it but since there was zero answer to his question he walked away unhappy. The joys of working with the public!

  229. Partially Sighted Totally Awesome*

    I was working on the checkout in a supermarket and I can’t remember what I did (or didn’t do?) but someone complained to my supervisor.

    First I knew about it was my supervisor asking to borrow my white cane for a few minutes. I was confused, but I agreed: I was sitting down anyway. I thought maybe she was trying to reach something on a high shelf.

    She came back later, grinning, and explained that a customer had been complaining and came out with that old chestnut: “Is she BLIND or something?”

    Supervisor was positively delighted to take over my white cane and say “Does THIS answer your question?”

    Customer turned bright red with embarrassment and backtracked the entire complaint.

    Supervisor: “You should have seen it!”

    Me: “Well, I wouldn’t, would I?”

  230. BermyBeepBeep*

    Beware NSFW, but hilarious…

    Working at a Copy Shop That Shall Remain Nameless: A very nice young lady with a conservative corporate day job came in to print materials related to her dream side job… a shop selling adult clothes, toys and other paraphernalia. Business cards, flyers, mailers, posters, you name it, we printed it.

    She came back in to get everything reprinted because…

    She put the wrong phone number on EVERYTHING (she proofed, she approved.)

    She called the incorrect number to apologize, got a (understandably) upset older gentleman who told her, “Do you know, someone called me to ask if I would sell them a glass butt plug?????”

    1. BermyBeepBeep*

      Also at the Copy Shop That Shall Remain Nameless: Little old lady using a self-service copy machine, IRATE because she was copying a map of the world, and (you know how each country is shaded different color) China is supposed to be red! RED! Why won’t this copy machine make China DEEP CRIMSON COMMUNIST RED!!!!

      1. 1LFTW*

        I had a teacher that made us color in a map of the world according to degrees of communism. China and the USSR (yes, I am old) were to be deep, dark, crimson, communist red. Other countries shaded through dark pink, light pink, and finally, white.

        The only truly non-communist, “white”countries? The United States, and South Africa. I wish I was making that up.

        1. Knighthope*

          In the 60s, an issue of the school publication, “Weekly Reader,” had a map where all the Communist countries were colored red (issues were black & white, with 1 color). My grandparents lived in Florida, about 90 miles from bright red Cuba, which scared me.

  231. Blue Skies*

    I am a teacher therefore I suppose my students and their parents are my “customers.”

    Over the years I’ve received some very interesting feedback. These are a couple of my favorites:

    It was the Friday before Spring Break and a sophomore student of mine was standing at my classroom window looking longingly at the parking lot as the majority of the student body left early to go to the beach. Being the evil, mean, nasty teacher that I am, I insisted that he sit down and take the Friday quiz (which is given- you guessed it- each and every Friday no matter what). The student was very put out that I should even suggest such a thing on “the day before Spring Break” and “the day when so many people were absent.” I told him to sit down and take his quiz anyway. Then he told me, and I’ll never forget because I laughed so hard that I could barely stop laughing, “Ms. Blue Skies, I wish that I was sick so that I could vomit all over you from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, then maybe you and this stupid school would let me out early for Spring Break! Is that what it takes around here??!!”

    I just stood there laughing and pointing at his desk.

    There is another incident that I recall vividly. There was another student who was also a sophomore. This young man was struggling in my class. After talking to the student and his parents, I had agreed to tutor the student for an additional forty-five minutes after school three times per week. I agreed to do this free of charge, FYI. We did the tutoring for approximately six weeks and I was so very pleased and proud that his grade and understanding of the material was improving. He took his final exam and passed. His overall grade in the class was C+. He came by after school to check on his grade and his status. And I was so excited to tell him the results after all of his (and my) hard work and effort. I never will forget what he said, “You know, Ms. Blue Skies, none of this matters at all. XYZ subject does not matter and it never has and never will. When I am your age, Ms. Blue Skies, I will be so much richer than you can even imagine. That’s what really matters and you are a sucker and a looser.” Then he walked out of the room.

    Student number one became a high school math teacher.

    Student number 2 is indeed from an incredibly wealthy family. Monetarily he has more than I can ever dream of. I doubt he remembers ever saying what he did to me. I interact with him and his extended family frequently all these decades later and have never mentioned what he told me that day. About ten years ago he was diagnosed with a chronic debilitating disease.

  232. Harrowhark*

    Do internal customers count?

    I had to request screenshots of a report that I didn’t have the authority to run, and the pics the manager uploaded into my document storage system got corrupted somehow in the upload process. Meaning: I couldn’t open them no matter what software I used.

    I wrote back to the manager and asked if he could email the screenshots to me because the upload to the doc storage system didn’t work and I couldn’t open the pics.

    He wrote back and said something along the lines of, “Are you telling me that I have to stop all of my work to put screenshots into a PDF or a Word doc because you don’t know how to open JPEGs??? THIS IS LUDACRIS!”

    I was soooo proud of myself for not responding, “How did you hack into [manager’s] email, Ludacris?”

    1. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain*

      “put screenshots into a PDF or a Word doc” this makes me weep because of the sheer number of people who don’t know that they can email the original image file (JPG, PNG, TIF, EPS…) without adding it to a Word or PowerPoint document…

      also, I love your dad joke. “Hi Ludacris, I am Dad.”

  233. Throwaway Account*

    I used to work in the public library, we got a lot of chatty older men. I think they pictured us like the kindly barkeep in an old-timey movie who wipes the bar down while listening genially to customers.

    We got a new guy, probably 75+, who stopped at the desk to tell me all about this calculus 4 book he read. He had so many things to say about it; it was so complicated, it had new stuff, he studied it carefully, on and on. I’m trying to find his point and figure out if there was a question in the story when he concluded with: and the book made him feel all confused, just like the shirt I was wearing. He gave me a grin like he had just said the funniest thing ever, and toddled off.

    I was wearing a basic shell top with a floral pattern.

    He continued to stop to chat with me but every time I was the one who was confused and it start to show on my face. The final time I saw him he interrupted my conversation with another patron. We had the COVID plexiglass up at the time which meant I not could hear anything he said and was startled by the interruption. I looked over at him in time to see him walk away, turn abruptly and walk back and shout, if you don’t think I’m funny, just tell me to go to hell!!

  234. Rachel*

    This is outing myself as occasionally ridiculous but here goes… in my defense I was 6 months pregnant at the time.

    Staying at a chain hotel (Think Marriott/Hilton/Hyatt, so I had some expectations of reasonable comfort) near LAX on a 12-hour stopover, we’re exhausted but everything seems fine… until the room starts literally shaking because music is blasting at us from overhead.

    I call down to complain and the beleaguered night manager says… yes, he knows, no, the hotel is full and can’t move us, the hotel event staff rented out the top event floor for some company’s party until 2 am (!) and he has no control as the event staff operate separately from the hospitality staff, so he will try to get them to turn the music down but he can’t force them, and yes, our entire floor (second from top) is calling and complaining.

    Hours go by and nothing changes. After the event ends at 2, we hear the sounds of furniture moving for another HOUR and I am seeing red. I call again, complaining (I think justly) about this terrible experience, and then finish it off with “Not only THAT, but it’s Daylight Savings this weekend so we lost an hour of sleep ANYWAY! What are you going to do about THAT?!?!”

    There was a long pause and the front desk manager just said “…. I’m really sorry, ma’am”. My husband turned to me and said “Did you just ask them to fix daylight savings time?” Yeah, I did.

    In the end, although they were not able to turn back the clock for me, they did comp our room for the night (and everyone else’s from what I could tell at check out), so better than nothing. I wonder if the event fee made up for all those comped rooms.

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      Waiting to see if the manager posts about a hotel guest asking him to fix daylight savings time!

  235. Bertha Rochester likes fire*

    My favorite one-star review of our company, direct from Google:
    “You drive too slow, speed up thanks in advance.”
    (Written by someone who, I’m sure, was following our employee in one of our 16-foot box trucks as he was limping it along to the mechanic, on a back road, with hazards flashing because a part had come loose and he couldn’t drive any faster)

  236. Meep*

    This was my grocery store days in one of the most affluential cities in Arizona (if you know, you might be able to guess its nickname).

    I once had a lady get mad at me because celery at Store B was 1 cent cheaper than Store A (where I worked). Came in at 6:30 AM for just celery. She threw down the celery and stormed out. The funny thing is, I knew this lady and she lived closer to the Store B than the Store A and this was back when gas was $5+/gal. Wasted more time and money just to scream at a 16-year-old over a penny.

    Another one was when organic strawberries were on sale for $1.99 and regular were $0.99. My first day there, got called stupid (i.e. “You’re st*pid!”) because of this. I couldn’t care less since I had zero investment in this place, but I will forever remember this lady buying the regular strawberries and swapping them with the organic on her way out the door, because of our “st*pid” prices that a Day-One cashier was apparently in charge of controlling!

    The wealthy are such scrooges in the strangest ways possible, I swear.

  237. hypoglycemic rage*

    I used to work in adult/reference services at a public library. the most interesting call was someone who wanted to talk to trump at the white house.

    she wanted his direct line.

    if I had that, I wouldn’t be working at a small public library in the midwest….

    1. MsM*

      I used to work for an organization who got a (very small) gift from a big-name celebrity’s foundation. Once a month or so, we’d get an inquiry from someone wanting to know if we could put them in contact with Celebrity. An annoyingly high percentage of them were not satisfied by the explanation that our only communications were with Celebrity’s financial advisor, and no, we were not going to share that information, either.

    2. Former Aid Worker*

      As someone who has worked in disaster relief for US events (hurricanes, wildfires, etc) this question was surprisingly common. To the point that I know the number for the White House ( 202-456-1111) and I would give it out and suggest they press 0 to get an operator and then ask for the president.
      I bet the White House staff hates this but it’s easier than explaining in the middle of a disaster zone that I’m not keeping you from calling the President, they just don’t usually answer the phone.

      1. Mad Harry Crewe*

        I’m confident the White House staff are used to this and have a pat answer ready to go.

  238. Tilly Don't Care*

    Currently working at a chain kitchen store after getting laid off. A lady was irate because I couldn’t tell her how much overhang a specific tablecloth would have on her dining room table without knowing the dimensions of her table. I tried to have her tell me which brand, did she have a pic of it or how many people it sat etc. The eye rolls that followed and telling me that it’s my job to just know these things etc. She stomped out of the store telling the customers coming in that we are not trained well enough.

    Lady, $16/hour is not enough for me to have telepathic knowledge of your furniture dimensions.

  239. Meep*

    This was my grocery store days in one of the most affluential cities in Arizona (if you know, you might be able to guess its nickname).

    I once had a lady get mad at me because celery at Store B was 1 cent cheaper than Store A (where I worked). Came in at 6:30 AM for just celery. She threw down the celery and stormed out. The funny thing is, I knew this lady and she lived closer to the Store B than the Store A and this was back when gas was $5+/gal. Wasted more time and money just to scream at a 16-year-old over a penny.

    Another one was when organic strawberries were on sale for $1.99 and regular were $0.99. My first day there, got called st*pid (i.e. “You’re st*pid!”) because of this. I couldn’t care less since I had zero investment in this place, but I will forever remember this lady buying the regular strawberries and “stealthily” swapping them with the organic on her way out the door, because of our “st*pid” prices that a Day-One cashier was apparently in charge of controlling!

    The wealthy are such scrooges in the strangest ways possible, I swear.

  240. Rice, Rice, Baby*

    I worked in food service so I have MANY but I think my personal favourite was the woman who got absolutely outraged that the menu did not state, explicitly, that the risotto had rice in it. ‘How are people supposed to know?’

  241. Not The Earliest Bird*

    I worked at a convenience store in the 90’s. The local newspaper did not put out a Sunday edition, only a weekend edition that came out on Saturday. Every week, the same woman would come in on Sunday and complain that we had already run out of the Sunday edition of that newspaper so she was stuck buying a national paper, not the local.

  242. Quoth the Raven*

    We recently had a customer upset because her invoice came out to 41 cents less than what we had quoted. You read that right. 41 cents less. We triple checked and she was adamant that we match the quote, so the invoice was rebilled to add 41 cents.

  243. Kevin Sours*

    I we include bug reports as customer feedback: “The living do not visit the forums”

    (Pretty sure that was a google translate fail, not idea what it means)

    1. Cat*

      Clearly (/s) they were referencing thread necromancy, i.e. the act of posting in a thread where the last post was month’s or years ago.

  244. Resume please*

    I worked at an ice-cream shop as a teenager. One time, a guy came up to the window, said he only had $1 on him, waved it at me, and asked if he could get “$1s worth of ice-cream.” I think a small scoop was $3-$4. I said no, we only provide what’s on the menu, then he launched into a rant of “You can’t just give me $1 worth of ice-cream?! Why not? You’re a stickler for the rules!” And then kept going until another customer appeared behind him. Anyway, I still think about that. I would never even dream of going into a Starbucks or a restaurant and ask for a portion at my own fixed price

  245. MI Dawn*

    WAYYYY back in the dark ages, I worked at a fast food place whose initials are TB. The funniest complaint we had was that we were selling Mexican food! Uhhhh…yeah?

  246. Tio*

    Back in my logistics days, a customer who was trying to get a bond (insurance for an import, basically) and because they already had an outstanding one open was required to fill out a letter of guarantee (by the surety, not us, sureties are 3rd parties.)

    His reaction to this was:
    “Now the surprise of the day again besides a useless delay in the action plan with another time, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing!!

    I do not, repeat, do not work like a 14yr old boy scout driving an 18wheeler across the desert for its first time. ”

    I don’t know where he came up with that comparison, but it immediately turned him from an angry customer into an absolute laughingstock. We passed that email around the office and all determined what age we were and what vehicle we were driving through the desert. When I left that company, I forwarded the email to my personal email so I can pull it out and laugh at it again.

  247. AgnomeN*

    I work in a college library, and my unit works closely with professors to get materials for their classes. One professor in particular was infamous for not following our updated workflow for requesting materials, and cold-calling anyone she could reach at the library to complain about the workflow. As an unlucky recipient of several of her phone calls, there are a lot of memorable lines I could cite, but my favorite comes from when she called my grandboss, hung up after one ring (and before he could pick up the phone — his office door was open, so I could hear/see all of this), then called my boss (who had also just witnessed this). When my boss picked up the phone, the professor “greeted” her by complaining about how she tried to call [Grandboss] first but he didn’t answer, and then declared:

    “Men are incapable of answering the phone. If Jesus Christ Himself had a phone, he wouldn’t answer it, either.”

  248. What’s In a Name*

    I wasn’t the recipient in this case, just a casual observer, but it’s been over a decade and I still remember this. Woman in front of me in line at a coffee shop ordered an iced mocha coffee, and then complained that it had both chocolate and coffee in it. She kept insisting to the poor guy making it that she wanted an iced mocha coffee, but without chocolate or coffee. So I guess she wanted… iced milk? Poor guy spent over 20 minutes trying to make her something to her satisfaction, even calling over a manager to help decipher what to put in the drink. Needless to say, when it was my turn, I worked in as many “please and thank you”s as one can reasonably do when ordering a plain coffee, and left a tip way more than the cost of my drink.

  249. Lynx*

    I will never forget the 15(!)-minute long call I had because I told someone that our new client special, as printed on the coupon he had, could not be used to purchase gift cards. The complaint? “But I want to use it on a gift CERTIFICATE.” And he doubled down on why those two were different because one was “a piece of paper that said I paid this amount for this service.”

  250. Anonymous Tech Writer*

    In a company full of re-branding, Marketing proposed a generic product to be used by all brands. Hurrah, less re-work.

    First markup from Marketing,
    circling the logo location: “Why is this blank?”

  251. Ann O'Nemity*

    In the late 90s/ early 2000s I once worked in a telemarketing center. Among many other things we handled the inbound orders for the Ron Popeil Rotisserie Oven. We received so many calls from irate customers complaining about paint bubbling on the top and sides of the oven while it was in use. In some cases, they complained the molten hot paint destroyed counters and flooring. I was asked on at least one occasion if it was still safe to eat the chicken.

    The weird and difficult part was that we were just a third party company contracted to take incoming orders. We had no way to address customer issues, issue refunds, or handle property damage claims. Customers who couldn’t contact the company directly just kept calling the number advertised on the infomercials.

  252. Lou's Girl*

    Banking in the US- customer complained because I wouldn’t let him deposit his Canadian money without calculating the exchange rate first. He kept saying ‘but it’s Canada…’ Yes, and a lovely country it is, they still use different currency at a different exchange rate. ‘But it’s Canada…’

    Homeowners Association-
    1) ‘please stop my neighbor from bending over in her garden. I’m offended looking at her behind.’ Then stop looking.
    2) my neighbor is doing construction on their house and the dirt is getting in my pool. Duly noted sir. Nothing I can do about it, but duly noted.
    3) ‘my neighbor painted his house a hideous shade of yellow, you need to tell him to change it.’ ‘Sir, that color is on the approved list of colors.’ ‘Well, I don’t like it and I shouldn’t have to look at it every day, have him change it immediately.’ Nope.

  253. Bunch Harmon*

    About 15 years ago, I had a customer call me a creep because I wouldn’t let her use a coupon on an already heavily discounted item. It was against policy, but also it was a 5% coupon on a $3 item. Not sure that a personal insult was necessary over 15¢.

  254. Long Time Lurker*

    When I was in college I worked a a hotel restaurant near our school that had a very famous high-end brunch. Champagne, fancy entrees, a whole line of desserts, etc. But it was a semi-buffet style, which meant that for some items (shrimp cocktail, the aforementioned champagne, the fancy dessert table) it was served by a server or a server in a chef hat standing at the table, other items were help yourself, including fruit salad, yogurt, muffins, scrambled eggs, that sort of thing.

    I hated this shift because even though as a server you had to provide coffee, juice, champagne, clear plates, deal with complaints, etc. we rarely got tipped at brunch. I had a couple who called me over and they were concerned about the amount of waste. “People take whole plates and they don’t eat them!” I explained that we do try to encourage people to just take what they will eat but yes, sometimes people do take more than they can enjoy at the time, and since it was a buffet, we didn’t offer to go boxes.

    The woman was quite upset about that, and said that it was immoral to waste food. “I think they should give the leftovers to the staff or something.” I said, yes, actually the leftovers (on the trays) are eaten by staff, or reused for the restaurant at lunch. “I mean the leftovers on the plates.” I had to explain to her that health regulations would not allow staff members to eat the leftovers on the plates. She scowled at me and said that was a waste of food. They left no tip.

  255. KKE*

    Working as a retail manager during the holidays and the line was 3 deep at the cash register. Woman comes up to me and throws the clothes she was going to buy into my arms and loudly exclaims that she feels like she is living in **Soviet Russia** because of our ridiculous lines. She then stormed out while telling us she wouldn’t be back.

    1. Knot Another Darn Rewrite*

      I had something like that too! The store I worked in was in the Large Minnesotan Mall on the ground floor. It was back to school season and we had a line likely 30 deep, with a poorly planned (see: rounded) cashwrap and five cashiers. I was the cashier at the register pointed towards the entrance, and instead of going to the line, a customer came directly to me because she “only had one item” but I wouldn’t let her line jump. She threw the shirt down in anger (fortunately, not on the ground), probably said something about never shopping at that store again ((oh nooo)) and stormed out.

      So many stories about that store…..

    2. Long Time Lurker*

      Was this my mother? Because that was her go-to phrase when she felt a line was too long!

  256. Glad I'm Not in the Rat Race Anymore*

    When I worked at the now-defunct Frock Stockade (subst. name) my assistant manager got a phone call on one of my days off complaining about me, that I must be dirty lesbian trying to pick her up because I kept flashing my breasts at her! Asst. Mgr. immediately wrote her off as a crank, but told both me and, when she came in, my Store Lead about it in case there was a written follow-up.

    Asst. Mgr said she knew I was one of the most conservative dressers among the employees, and also that I always wore store merchandise and we didn’t sell anything inappropriate, or even easy-access. Everyone I’d worked with on the day in question and I struggled with trying to remember what I’d worn that day. None of us could, but everyone agreed I never came into the store inappropriately dressed, and in the 5+ years I’d worked there never made a pass at anyone in the store, employee or customer. All I can figure is that I’d bent over a couple of times to pick up something off a changing room floor or from a lower display rack in front of this woman ,and she’d seen down my neckline because my top fell slightly away from my body.

    All the management staff agreed that if a written complaint came in it would be explained to corporate as someone looking for something to be offended about. Everyone else pretty much forgot about it, but it still bothers me over 10 years later.

      1. Glad I'm Not in the Rat Race Anymore*

        There were less than 10 employees total working at that location, and only two in the store at any given time except the really high-traffic ones (which was not fun…) She phoned the morning immediately after my evening shift and described me, and none of us could be described in remotely the same manner. She meant me. All I can guess is that I am… disproportionately endowed for my stature and she disliked it?

  257. Pipe Organ Guy*

    On Palm Sunday last year, the congregation was gathered outdoors, as is the custom in my parish. As is also the custom, I was inside the church, playing the festive prelude for the occasion. It was picked up by the church sound system and piped to speakers outdoors. As I was playing, I saw out of the corner of my eye a woman coming up the aisle. I realized with horror that she was headed up to the organ console.

    Indeed, that was where she was headed. She helpfully informed me that I was playing TOO LOUD. I had to stop playing so that I could deal with her, because she wasn’t going away, and she kept hammering away that I was TOO LOUD. Finally she did go away, and I started the piece over from the beginning, without changing any stops and therefore at the same volume. (For what it’s worth, it was a piece completely appropriate to the day and the occasion.) Afterwards, the music director wondered if I could have handled it differently. I asked her, “What would you have done?”; she had no answer.

    I’m retired now, and at home I get to play as quietly or as loudly as I want; the neighbors can’t hear, my husband likes it, and the cat seems to like it, too.

  258. Too Sharp*

    I work at a distribution center. We received a complaint from a customer who ordered an extremely expensive, very high-end knife set. They insisted on returning the set because the knives are “beyond sharp and actually dangerous”. It still comes up in conversation around the office regularly.

  259. Casual Observer*

    While in university, I worked part-time at a local cafe. One morning, I was on the espresso bar making drinks. Each chit had a person’s name written on top with their drink order written below. When I was finished making a drink, I would place it on the counter and call out the drink with the name of the person who ordered it.

    This morning was particularly busy, so I had a long line of drinks waiting to be made. After finishing one of the drinks I called out, “small mocha for Jane”. A young woman walked up to the counter, took the drink and took a big sip. Just as quick as she took the sip, she spat it right back out again, all over the counter. She then glared at me and shouted, “What the hell is this? This isn’t what I ordered! Can’t you guys ever get anything right? Idiots!” I calmly asked her for her name and what she had ordered, she replied, “My name’s Sarah. I ordered a small cappuccino. It shouldn’t be that hard to make properly!” I then explained that I had a small cappuccino for Sarah in the queue, but that the drink she spat out was a small mocha for Jane, therefore not her drink. Instead of apologizing for her mistake or anything, she just rolled her eyes and told me to hurry up and make hers. I told her that she would get her drink in the order it was received. I then called Jane over and apologized to her, explaining the mix-up and that I would have to remake her drink. Jane just smiled at me and said loud enough for Sarah to hear, “No problem, I can wait. It’s not your fault some people don’t even know their own names.”

    I definitely don’t miss working in customer service.

  260. Jay (no, the other one)*

    I belong to a community choir. We welcome singers of all experience levels, and not all of our singers can read music. We have rehearsal tracks for each voice part. They’re on our website and you can stream them or download them. We can also supply CDs if that’s how you roll. The artistic director and membership chair announce them at the beginning of the year and the AD mentions them at nearly every rehearsal. There are slides projected with announcements at each rehearsal and they always say “rehearsal tracks available at our website! Let us know if you need technical assistance or want a CD.”

    So of course we had a response to our year-end survey that said “You should tell people about the rehearsal tracks.”

  261. Sharvey*

    You Can’t Drive to the App Store:

    Not a customer but an employee complaining that we did not provide adequate instructions to locate the app store: A few facts:
    – I worked in the IT dept, and she needed to download a new app to her device.
    – She was a director in an adjacent IT dept.
    – She assumed the app store was a local place vs software on her phone.
    – She kept trying to find the app store address on Apple maps.
    – I promise I explained to her that it was not a physical place and how to access it.

  262. Tinkerbell*

    My ~7yo daughter was doing a project on Harriet Tubman and her school library didn’t have much, so I ordered two or three books off Amazon for her to use and then donate to the library after. One had a one-star review that said “I bought this because I thought it was a poster but it’s too small!”

  263. Prudence and Wakeen Snooter Theatre for the Performing Oats*

    Our client was mad that we didn’t use her pet’s full name, especially on forms. Our systems were not designed to accommodate long names- sorry, Emperor Snufflebutt of Los Angeles.

    2. Lady_Lessa*

      Grin about pet names. This gets a grin at the vet’s. Teresa Tiramisu . (and when she is particularly challenging her extra names include Caticus Maximus Braticus. )

      1. Pipe Organ Guy*

        We had a cat (alas, no longer with us in this world) named Merry. My informal name for her, though, was Tortitudinously Talkative Tuxedo Tortie with a Telltale Tail. She came to us named Princess, and we renamed her to Merry after a long-ago cat a long-departed friend had named Merrydock Brandywine. That cat was a talkative, friendly tortie.

  264. The Prettiest Curse*

    Along with everyone else who plans big events, every year I will get a few emails after registration for our conference closes from people who thought that they registered, but didn’t. This is especially tricky if the event is sold out and it’s last-minute. Usually, I can shoehorn them in, but sometimes I’ve had to explain that no, you can’t register using the power of thought alone.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      Writing this made me remember that I once had someone email complaining that all her friends had received their pre-event emails and she hadn’t and this meant the conference was terrible and badly organised etc., etc, etc. The petty side of me took great pleasure in replying and pointing out that the reason she hadn’t received her pre-event email was that she wasn’t actually registered. I don’t remember if I managed to fit her in, but let’s just say that I didn’t pull out all the stops to make it happen.

  265. ferrina*

    I sent out a marketing email to the members of my organization for one of our events. The email was from a general email address (think: events@llamagroomers. org), but I’m the one that runs the inbox and it’s a small enough organization that I can respond to inquiries personally.
    A member replies to the email, partly complaining, partly questioning why we changed some element of the event. I craft a polite reply, responding to his concerns and thanking him for thoroughness(it was a really nice email).

    He responds: “How did you get my email address?! I sent an anonymous email! No one is supposed to respond to this inbox!”

    That’s…..not how email works.

  266. RavCS*

    Years ago when I was teaching high school. I’m taking attendance, looking from my list to the class: “I see Andrea. I see Polly. I see Michael.” Pause. “I feel like Miss Nancy on Romper Room.” A student looks at me and says, “RavCS, we don’t get your cultural references.”
    I loved it!

    1. Sister George Michael*

      I sat very still every day, smiling, and Miss Nancy never saw me. I waited to hear either my name or my nickname (so I had 2 chances! ). I was always SO disappointed.

  267. spiffi*

    Not a work thing – but when my mom was in palliative care, we kept her at home, and were trying to come up with something she was interested in eating. She expressed an interest in a melted cheese sandwich – melt butter in a pan, add cheese directly to pan, melt, and then lay a piece of bread on top of the cheese, warm through and then flip onto a plate – open face melty cheese sandwich.
    I made it, and presented it to her, and we all waited with bated breath to see if she would eat it – having had *no* appetite for days. My brother was standing with a clipboard and a piece of paper where we were supposed to be tracking everything/anything she ate, and what time it was, as well as when we gave her medication.
    After eating a few bites, she looked over at him and said “you can write down ‘mediocre cheese sandwich'”
    And he looked at me, and smirked, and all three of us, mom included, just started *howling* with laughter. Like, tears rolling down our faces, cannot stop to breathe, laughter.
    It was a *wonderful* moment in a terrible time – and I *still* smile when I think about it.

    1. JoAnne*

      Your mom had a most fabulous sense of humour! Thank you for this heartwarming chuckle

  268. Evelyn Karnate*

    My mom taught community college for many years, including one night class every semester. Knowing that many of her night class students were coming straight from work and didn’t have time to eat — and that nobody can hone their critical thinking skills on an empty stomach — she would bring food. Homemade muffins. Fresh homemade bread. Fresh fruit. Tea.

    As you can imagine, she got a number of appreciative comments over the years. But in one set of student evaluations, a student wrote “The food was nice. But all she ever brought was sweets.” She stopped worrying about critical evals after that.

  269. Cromulent*

    I work for an opera company and after a performance of Carmen, we received a voicemail from a patron BAWLING her eyes out to the point that she was hyperventilating. Through her abundant tears we gathered she was extremely upset because Carmen had held a yellow flower, instead of red and how dare we?! She was so upset she had to leave the performance and drive to the emergency room. A few days later we received an invoice from the patron, demanding we pay for her medical bills. All this over the color of a flower. Wild.

      1. London Calling*

        Talking about amazing amount of overreaction – there’s a programme on UK TV called Border Control about customs and immigration in New Zealand, and it is WILD. I know that it’s heavily edited, but you have to wonder how some people function…like the couple who got off a plane and didn’t declare an apple (NZ and Australia are very strict on what comes into their country. Declare it, you’re fine. Don’t…it’s expensive). Anyway, male half trotted out the old excuse of ‘we forgot.’ Immigration officer pointed out that there’s a film on the plane about this, there are X number of amnesty bins with BIG signs between the plane and immigration in which to dump food, and that’s $ 400 please for undeclared items.

        Male half duly blows gasket over it’s 6am, they’ve just got off a plane, they can’t be expected to read signs, he’ll see them in court…they finally take themselves off…to pick up their hire car. HOW the immigration person didn’t tell them to look out when they’re driving for the signs they apparently have difficulty seeing at that time in the morning I’ll never know.

  270. goddessoftransitory*

    It took some Google -fu, but I found one of the greatest stories of all time from the old Jezebel website’s substack, Behind Closed Ovens. It’s actually the opposite of a complaint in the end, but what it took to get there! It’s long but so, so worth it.

    Behold: Hot Food For Mother.

    Lou Bergen:

    I was working in an upscale restaurant that specialized in fresh seafood. Check averages pushed $200 for two, so the tips were good. Now, I get that some people can’t eat seafood; either they’re allergic or they just hate it. Which is cool, but why the fuck would you come to a seafood house, then?
    One night, I have one of these tables. They first bitch about all the fish. I’m crying inside but don’t say anything as I point out sub-10 dollar items on the back of the menu that are not fish or fish-like. Took them 20 minutes to decide on some horrific cheese-covered thing that was apparently French or something. Whatever. Within 20 seconds, their order was being assembled.
    Every 20 seconds, the man stretches his neck and starts looking for his waiter (which is me). Before he can turn the other direction…I’m there. “Mother likes her food very hot,” he says. He’s already told me 4 times, so the 5th should really make me remember.
    “Yes sir. Absolutely,” I say or, something equally as ass-kissingly sweet. “Right out the saute pan,” (lol, it was all pre-made and largely microwaved).
    It was served in a special dish that sat inside a broiler so the food would be extra hot. The cook tops the French Gloop with a fistful of cheese and I watch it melt. I grab the dish with tongs and chuck it on the tray. Ten seconds later, it’s in front of mother.
    “Oh no…this simply is not hot enough,” says Pa.
    I make some remark about re-doubling my efficiency. I then serve it three more times with the same result . “Oh…mother likes her food hot. Mother likes hot food. Food….hot food…mother must have it,” I had to endure every permutation.
    The cook (who is also my stoner buddy) is at this point genuinely confused. “Dude…that shit will not get any hotter unless we flambee the fucker and you serve it on fire. Lucifer doesn’t eat food that hot.”
    At this point, I come up with a plan: we’ll heat the serving dish until it’s on the verge of melting (or fracture). The radiant heat alone would cook a steak to well-done in under a minute. We leave this dish under the broiler until it glows dull red. Half of the gloop burns away instantly so we add another bag. The cheese is the temp of lava and literally boiling. We add another fistful just in case. My fear is that when I place this in front of mother, the tablecloth will burst into flames. She’s got a can’s worth of hairspray on her blue-haired head, so she’ll likely blow up as well. This would cost me money. (Editor’s Note: Oh my God that sentence is every server I’ve ever known in a nutshell.)
    Finally, I place the dish in front of her like it’s radioactive. Fuck, it probably is. And for the 4th time, I mention that the outer dish is very hot…do not touch the very hot outer dish.
    Of course, she grabs the dish with both hands. I can hear the skin sizzling. She can’t pick it up though. Know why? BECAUSE SHE BURNED THE SKIN FROM HER FINGERS AND THUMBS! She’s essentially pan-seared her hands and fingerprints with it. I’m waiting for her to start screaming, or maybe pass out into a bubbling cheese magma in front of her.
    She sweetly tells me it’s “perfect” and dishes out half to Pa (yes, they split the entree). They seemed to enjoy the whatever-it-was, and each other’s company. And neither seemed to mind the odor of human flesh that perfumed my station. I did manage to up-sell them dessert, which brought the check total to $30.00.
    They left a pair of 20 dollar bills and told the manager I was a very nice young man.

  271. HortonheardaWHAT*

    I work for an aquarium. one guest left a low star review ” just a bunch of tanks of fish.”

    Sir, do you know where you are? What was he expecting?

  272. Professional_Lurker*

    Worked at my university’s bookstore in grad school. We also sold spirit gear and, because University has a large nursing school, scrubs with our logo on them. During Freshmen Orientation had a parent *very* upset with me that I couldn’t reserve a set of scrubs for his daughter who was entering as a biology major “and is going to be a doctor some day.”

    Note I said reserve. He didn’t want to buy them now — he wanted us to hold on to them until she graduated med school.

  273. Can I call you an Uber?*

    I’m a former labor and delivery nurse and I worked triage a lot, mostly assessing to see if people were in labor or not. One night, a woman came in and was VERY upset to be told that she was not in labor and had no medical indications to be induced (she was 36 weeks at that point, so still a little ways to go). I get it, she’s tired, she’s big, she feels done with being pregnant. When I tried to give her discharge instructions, she became verbally abusive and threatened the doctor and me. Security came to escort her out of the hospital, but before she left, she came to the nurses’ station where we had pamphlets and business cards of various OB and pediatrician offices. She yelled, “Can you at least give me information for doctors that DON’T deliver here because I am NEVER coming back.” Ma’am, I don’t have info for doctors that I don’t work with but I am not sad to know that you’d like to deliver someplace else.

  274. Ann O'Nemity*

    A classic is the Amazon reviews for sugar-free Haribo Gummi Bears. Just do an internet search and you’ll find them. Here are a few choice comments:

    “It starts with a murmur, a slow soft rumbling in your stomach. It grows into a growl, like a small dog protecting her young. Then the thunder starts, echoing through your innards like the drums of Mordor.”

    “What came out of me felt like someone tried to funnel Niagara Falls through a coffee straw. I swear my sphincters were screaming. It felt like my delicate starfish was a gaping maw projectile vomiting a torrential flood of toxic waste. 100% liquid. Flammable liquid. NAPALM.”

    “After three hours of a pelvis-shaking Gummy Bear assault, I was spongy and weak, surprised that I had any bones left.”

    And the most concise and terrifying was the simple two word review: “Help me.”

  275. Redundance Dept of Redundancy*

    A looong time ago when I was in high school, I worked in the Records Dept of a police department. This was before electronic records, so if you wanted a report, you had to stop by the police station and come to our little window, pay $5 for the paper copy, and be on your way. I was in charge of the window one day, and some middle-age dude, who already had his panties in a twist about something, needed his kid’s accident report. For me to look it up, I needed first and last name of the person who had the accident:

    Me: First name?
    Him: Robin.

    Me: What’s his last name?

    Him: [VERY nasty] Robin is a girl’s name! Have you ever heard of a man with the name Robin?!

    Me, a 17-year-old with attitude: Robin Williams is a man.

    Him: Whatever, she’s a girl.

    Then he proceeded to give me the last name, which was the same name as a girl who was in most of my classes and who was an idiot. I wonder where she got it from.

    1. BubbleTea*

      Robin is a male name. Robyn is a female name. At least, that’s been the case every time I’ve known anyone of that name!

      1. Zephy*

        My MIL is a female Robin with an I. I think it’s more popular as a girl’s name in the US.

  276. Lucy P*

    A potential client sent a scathing email because we had not published a press release about a joint venture they proposed.

    We had one phone call and one meeting, nothing more. No proposals were given, no agreements were signed, no money changed hands.

    At the end of the email, they requested that we donate money to their cause. Yes, it was part of the body of the email and not in their signature.

  278. YesImTheAskewPolice*

    if you count students as customers, there’s an ongoing joke about throwing playstations at others on the google reviews of a (upper secondary) school in my area. It started with q complaint about having one thrown at, with others claiming that the yearly, or that it’s the best class to enroll in, or that tmthis tradition was strange at first but the daily turned out to be beneficial for their health, and so

    1. YesImTheAskewPolice*

      Ouch, multitasking fail, that was sent too early :D

      So: If you count students as customers, there’s an ongoing joke about throwing playstations at others on google reviews of a (upper secondary) school in my area. It started with a complaint about having one thrown at them, with other reviewers claiming that it’s an annual and cherished tradition, or that throwing playstations is the best class to enroll in, or that this tradition was strange at first but the daily dodging turned out to be beneficial for their health, and so on.

  279. Paralegal Part Deux*

    I subbed for two librarians who were going to a retirement party because I’d worked there in the past. This last comes in and goes off on a rant about how the other two librarians let her check stuff out despite having a hold on her account from past due fines (they specifically said to not do this when they were leaving) and how much of a drain my salary was on the system. Finally, she ended the rant with “and just how long have you been working here?!”

    I waited a second and said, “Fifteen minutes.” and walked off.

  280. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

    – Customer was unhappy that we didn’t call him when his business’s order was ready. He did not place the order. One of his employees did and gave us her phone number when asked who to call when it was ready. “Well, I don’t know how this happened,” Customer huffed. “You should have written MY number down.” sir we are not mind readers. someone orders a thing. we ask for contact info so we can call when it’s ready. we write down whatever contact info the person placing the order gives us. that is how this happened, my dude.

    – Customer took great offense to the name we put on a display plaque. I’m not sure what her exact beef with John Doe’s Cajun cousin Jon Deaux was, but apparently this fictitious placeholder-name person had at some point done her wrong.

    – Customer took great offense when we explained that we could not do the thing she needed done, that the thing required thousands of dollars worth of equipment and consumables and training (and the physical space for that equipment which we straight up DID NOT HAVE) and that we did not have enough demand for the thing to justify that. The kicker: a place half a block away DID do the thing but she wouldn’t go there.

  281. Swiss Army Them*

    When I was waitressing, we got a customer review where the guy admitted to rating us four stars, because “the food was excellent, but [my name] was too enthusiastic when she was explaining the specials”

    1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

      I don’t understand why it would be a negative to be enthusiastic to do your job.
      As part of my role in Software Quality, I was witnessing a systems test being run for the nth time on the new hardware. I pointed out a typo that we had not noticed on the previous times running the test using the same 2000-page test procedure. I was accused of being too enthusiastic. It’s part of my job to review and documents for content and typos. Finding this typo was the highpoint of my day, maybe my week! Why wouldn’t I be excited? The test conductor didn’t speak to me for days! And my manager verbally reprimanded me for being too enthusiastic.

  282. Anon for a Day*

    Anonymous for this one because this industry is small and I tell this story all the time.

    I work with a few convents of nuns. One group of Sisters uses an online payment processor to accept donations, payments for facility rentals, etc. The processor’s website updated their loading screen, so it had a little spinning wheel and the message “Fetching transactions.”

    I received a FOUR MINUTE LONG voicemail from a sister, explaining to me that the word “fetching” was VERY unprofessional and asking that I contact this multi-billion dollar, international payment processor and instruct them change it to something more appropriate immediately. I’ve never heard anyone sound so disapproving in my life.

    I ended up having to respond via email because even hours later I couldn’t talk about it without cracking up.

  283. oona*

    In my previous job a disgruntled customer emailed us to complain about our product and their complaint was “it creates a rage.” No one on my team knew what to do with that feedback so we forwarded it on to management. I’m not sure whatever happened there but now whenever I’m mad at an object I think to myself “it creates a rage.”

  284. Harper*

    Once had a lady come in infuriated that there were children. In the library. In the children’s section of the library. Playing with toys. Sometimes children scream in libraries and we all hate it and eventually ask them to leave. But these were very polite children, just playing.

  285. JTP*

    In college, I worked in the Copy Center of an office supply store — we had full-service black-and-white printer/copiers, full service color printer/copiers, self-service printer/copiers, lamination service, binding service, faxing service, we would take orders for business cards, custom calendars (this was all the days before Shutterfly), etc.

    One day, our full-service black-and-white printer/copier (the most frequently-requested service at the Copy Center) went down and we had to call out for service. But, in case someone needed one of the other services, I had to stay.

    A well-known local psychic came in and wanted a black-and-white flyer copied onto colored paper that he picked up from another section of the store. I told him our full service black and white copier was down, but I could show him how to load the paper into the self-service copier. He threw the package of paper on the counter and started to walk away. Then came back and said, “Is it really broken, or do you just not feel like working today?”

    I wanted to say, “You’re the psychic, you tell me.” But I know I would’ve been fired for it.

  286. Anonymouse*

    I’ve worked in museum programming for going on 15 years, and I’ve heard many different things from my “customers.” Some of my favorites:
    “All the other girls are wearing pretty dresses, where’s your pretty dress?” – working at a living history site where my coworkers got gowns, and I got…no gown (and I was wearing my best costume).
    “Are you a wench?” – same living history site that was not a ren faire.
    “We have a saying for people like you in my country (they were Irish) – Patience of a saint. If it were me, those children would have been thrown through a window.” – after a tour with a group of kids with permissive/uncaring parents.

    Some of my not so favorites (on evaluations after group tours):
    “Don’t call students ‘guys,’ or ‘everyone.’ Call them students. Anything else infantilizes them, and they don’t like it.” – teacher on my tour with middle schoolers who literally told me “that was more fun than I thought it would be” after the tour.

    “They’re great, but they shut their eyes too much when they’re talking. My students were disturbed.” – I’m sorry I blink too much?

  287. Ostrich Herder*

    If you love a good over-the-top review, take a peek at the Three Wolf Moon shirt’s Amazon reviews. They’re always a good laugh!

  288. Sarah Gwen*

    I had one outraged customer come back to complain to my manager that I hadn’t “honored a discount.” Key facts:
    -The item in question was a fairly sizable rug.
    -It was near, but not in, the “half-price” section—the source of confusion.
    -I was not empowered to bargain with people as this was a charity thrift shop where all proceeds went directly to domestic violence survivors.
    -The original price? 6 dollars.

  289. Jane*

    While working as a barista at the height of pumpkin-spice season, I had a customer who just…did not grasp the concept of pumpkin spice, no matter how much I tried to explain to her that no, it wasn’t a “spicy” drink, it was warm/sweet like the kind of spices added to pumpkin pie (cinnamon/nutmeg/etc).

    “But is it spicy?? I don’t want anything spicy, and it has ‘spice’ in the name!”

    So finally she decides to just go ahead and try a pumpkin-spice latte, and wouldn’t you know it, she takes one sip, makes a face, and demands that we remake the drink “because it’s too spicy!”

  290. Sam Cook*

    I used to work as a sales assistant at my local daily newspaper. I sat next to the general phone where we would receive customer calls. One Monday morning, I was listening to a voicemail where a customer called in to let us know about a typo in one of the news articles that referenced an event – I can’t remember what it was. (This particular couple would call in all the time to tell us about mistakes, typos etc.) On this particular day, the women (in her proper British accent) called to tell us that we printed 1066 instead of 1966, and that particular event couldn’t have possible happened in 1066 because that was when the Battle of Hastings happened. You could hear her husband in the background prompting her, they were both laughing at our typo, because, silly us, that was when the Battle of Haaaaaastings (yes, Hastings was drawn out) occurred. I can still hear her voice, 25 years later.

  291. History Lover*

    I worked at a historic site that millions of people would visit each year. One woman had a few questions for me beyond the regular tour which I answered. Before she left she told me “wow, you’re a real historian! You’re just like Newt Gingrich!” And, in general, historians may not be the most famous people in the world but I certainly wasn’t expecting her to pull that name.

  292. AXG*

    We used to have to do essentially credit references for our potential customers. I called a reference who could not understand me on the phone – presumably a bad connection because both of us were native English speakers with no discernible accents. Per my coworkers, I was speaking extremely loudly and clearly so that the entire office could hear me say “DO YOU KNOW [CUSTOMER].”

    At the end of this very frustrating call, the reference told me that I needed to get a better job because I clearly wasn’t very good at this one! Thankfully, my boss disagreed.

  293. NotARealManager*

    I was teaching a baby swim class and a mom and her baby showed up about 15 minutes late (into the 30 minute class) in the middle of me giving directions to the rest of the class. Once I’d gotten the other students going, I went over to them and said “Hi, welcome! What’s your baby’s name?”

    The mom glared at me, pulled her baby close to her chest and walked away to play with some toys in the shallow end of the pool. I checked in on her later since I had other students to assist and she seemed offended by my presence, but she still didn’t really interact much with me beyond glaring and eventually confirming the baby’s name.

    She went on Yelp later that day to complain that no one helped her and we (instructors and front office team) were totally unfriendly. I’ve always been mystified by what she was expecting and how being greeted by both the office staff and the lead instructor, despite showing up very late and refusing to talk to me, was unhelpful and unfriendly.

  294. mreasy*

    I used to work at the biggest toystore in a city known at the time for being off-beat. We were the type of place who had lots of wood and imagination toys, and no Barbies. Like any retail employee, I witnessed the depths of human depravity on the daily, but this story is special because it’s from the holidays.

    The season leading up to Christmas was of course pure insanity at a toystore, and we had all sorts of extra staff working additional shifts and holiday season rules to keep things from spinning wildly out of control (it still always did). One of those rules was that we could only hold products for 24 hours during the holiday season, which we’d explain over the phone anytime someone called to have us put something on hold. A woman called to ask to hold a specific (plain, wooden) dollhouse for her, seeming extremely relieved that we had it in stock. My coworker picked it up off the floor and put it on the hold shelf in the back with the time & date, per usual.

    She didn’t return the next day to pick up her dollhouse. Once the hold had expired, someone who was tasked with restocking expired holds put it back on the shelf along with other products whose holds had expired. Again, per usual. Someone came in and bought the dollhouse. Recall that it had been the only one in stock.

    Dollhouse Customer #1 came in the following day to make her purchase, and it is hard to describe the rage that she unleashed on the colleague unlucky enough to have to tell her it was restocked. She got my coworker who had originally put it on hold, who explained the situation. D.C.#1 started yelling at this coworker, notably called her a b*tch multiple times, and, to put it mildly, caused QUITE a scene. She demanded a manager, who came out to the floor and told D.C. #1 that she could not speak to the store’s employees that way and that she was going to have to leave if she continued her behavior.

    She continued her behavior. So, the manager escorted her from the store, cursing all the while.

    This is comical in retrospect but at the time it felt like we were witnessing someone have a mental break. It was scary.

    Now this happened in a pre-Yelp era. But don’t worry, D.C.#1 wouldn’t let that stop her from expressing herself. She stood outside the front door of the store for several hours (maybe 4? it was a lot) with a sign she made that said “[Store Name] RUINED CHRISTMAS.” Every once in awhile a customer would come in and say “hey, do you know about the person with the sign out there” and we’d just nod sadly and shrug our shoulders.

    I do hope she got to relax after the holiday had ended!

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      That customer sounds like a total nightmare, but you have to admire the level of extreme pettiness involved in standing outside a shop with a sign. (As opposed to just looking for a dollhouse elsewhere!)

  295. Oh THAT Public*

    While working in the call center for a public library in one of the more affluent areas of the county, I answered a call from a woman who took great pains to explain that while SHE was not in the building her husband was, she was just wait outside in the car. But she seas very distressed by what she saw outside the library. There was a man who to her appeared not to be a patron and his behavior was just shocking, we had to do something. He was standing on the sidewalk…playing air guitar.
    I told her I’d let the appropriate people know, hung up, and passed it along to my supervisor whose response was “Should I go play air drums?”

  296. NotJane*

    When I was a freshman in college I worked weekends at the front desk of a YMCA. One day a an irate older gentleman walks up to the desk and yells at me that the sauna isn’t working. Since it’s a Sunday we don’t have any maintenance staff onsite, but I tell him that I’ll put in a service request. He insists that that is UNACCEPTABLE and I, personally, must fix it RIGHT NOW. It took all of my willpower to not respond “Oh, let me just grab my wrench and take care of it!”

  297. Ipsissima*

    I used to work at a candy store. One customer gave us a one-star review because there were children in the store. Not employees’ children; they were customers/customers’ children. The store was open to the public. The kids weren’t being disruptive (although they were excited, because they were literally kids in a candy store). She was just outraged that we would allow children to be in a candy store!

  298. Peaches*

    A friend worked as an ombudsman for a daily newspaper in a Southern State, where I also worked as a reporter. She would regularly get calls from readers who said they were very religious and then demanded that the paper cancel the Broom Hilda comic strip because it glorified witchcraft. Which kind of told you they’d never read the comic, which featured a 1500-year-old, beer-drinking witch who supposedly was Attila the Hun’s ex-wife.

    I suspect these were the same people who would call every October and demand that the newspaper not publicize “that pagan holiday” also known as Halloween.

    1. Future*

      Someone tell these people that Halloween is a Christian holiday. It’s in the name, FFS!

      (Yes it’s based on a pagan holiday and is practiced with elements of that, but so are Easter and Christmas…)

  299. Knot Another Darn Rewrite*

    In my mid-20s, I worked at the Largest Mall in Minnesota on the ground floor as a cashier + fitting room, then cashier trainer + shoe specialist + window specialist + fitting room.

    The number of times I had to tell someone:

    – They couldn’t take costumes or underwear in the fitting room to try on
    – Please get your children out of the store window
    – Please don’t try to take clothing off of the mannequins
    – Please don’t sit or let your children play on the mannequin stands
    – The circular clothing racks are not for hide and seek
    – Please don’t try on the earrings or mix and match the sets
    – We don’t have a bathroom for customers
    – You can’t jump in line, no, not even if you are buying only one item/you spend a lot
    – Yes, I need to see your ID if your card isn’t signed/says see ID (subheader – please don’t sign your card in front of me/use a different card as proof of ID)
    – It isn’t you, I need to check all large bills
    – Please don’t pace in and out of the store
    – What we have is on the floor (for sales items)

    And the horror stories of what we found left in the fitting rooms….. only the store manager or district manager were paid enough to deal with that

  300. Chocolate Advisor*

    I worked at a popular European chocolate brand’s store in a mall on the US/Canadian border. They’re known for their many flavors of truffles, and a lot of customers would come in asking for them by the color of the wrapper rather than flavor. The most popular were the milk chocolate, which came in a red wrapper.

    A Canadian tourist came in asking for the red truffles, and when I led her over to the milk chocolate truffles, she said, “No, the RED. The RED truffles. These aren’t RED.” We had a huge “truffle wall” arranged like a rainbow, so I tried offering her the orange and the pink (milk chocolate orange and dark chocolate raspberry, respectively) just in case, but she insisted on the red. No luck trying to ask if she was specifically looking for milk chocolate because she said, “I don’t know what the actual flavor is. I just know they’re RED.” I told her that the milk chocolate truffles in the red wrappers that we were standing in front of were, in fact, the only red truffles we had and that they were the most popular type. I gave her one to try. She said, “Oh yeah, these are the ones I’m looking for. But this wrapper isn’t right. I guess the red is just redder in Canada.” My coworkers and I joked about the “redder red” in Canada after that!

  301. LMS admin*

    When I worked in a grocery store about ten years ago, we had an older couple send a very upset letter. They felt like they were singled out when they received our senior discount (only valid on Tuesdays). They would like to be able to opt out. If only there was a simple solution like shopping another weekday…

  302. Miette*

    My favorite of all time is this review of a 36-pack of Kleenex facial tissue on the Amazon website. Its title is “A Mother’s Struggle,” and I love it so:

    I want to start this off by thanking Kleenex for selling these in 36-packs. I’ve put it on subscription, and if they want to start selling a 72-pack, sign me up. I have three reasons for needing this much Kleenex, and their names are Liam, Samuel and Hank.

    This is how it goes in this house. First the Kleenex disappears. Then the toilet paper. Then they go for fabrics. And you don’t want it to get there, unless you’re ready to invest in a five gallon drum of Febreeze.

    This used to be a good Christian home. But it’s not about moral judgment anymore. I’m way beyond that. I’m in survival mode. If I don’t supply absorbent paper products, I’m going to find my dish towels hidden in the basement, stiff as aluminum. The other day, I almost cut my hand on a sock. I am sorry to speak so frankly, but with three teenage boys, a woman has got to be practical.

    The funny part is, they think they’re being sneaky, with their 45 minute showers and sudden need for “privacy”, as if I’m going to walk in on them journaling. They slink around the house like unfixed cats, while I try to announce my location at all times. No one needs to ask me to knock anymore. I knock on the walls. I practically wear a cow bell. I’m not looking to catch anyone by surprise, believe me. I’m just trying to get through this.

    The other day my husband was watching me unload the groceries, and he asks me, all sweetness and light, “Honey, what’re you doing with all that Kleenex?”

    I about knocked him off his chair.

    2. Knot Another Darn Rewrite*

      This goes in the Review Hall of Fame, along with the Zero Sugar Gummy Bears review page.

  303. No really!*

    I had a client complain to my boss that she hadn’t seen me walking my dog around the park lately!

  304. Usoki*

    I was helping a customer with a home insurance quote, so the system was asking for a lot of details and information.

    One odd thing the system did was ask the user to select the nearest city from a fixed list (which was outdated) even though the city and zip code were obtained at the beginning. The choice never impacted cost– it was leftover programming of an old feature that hadn’t been fully removed for whatever reason.

    The customer asked me about the purpose of that field. I truthfully responded that I did not know, but I had been told it was a relic of old programming, and since it won’t affect cost the true answer isn’t worth pursuing.

    He, with a completely calm and pleasant voice, told me I would have made a great soldier in Hitler’s Army. And then he proceeded to continue with his quote like this was a perfectly acceptable thing to say.

    1. MsM*

      Oh, that reminds me of the caller who was absolutely convinced Taiwan wasn’t a selectable option on our menu because the PRC had gotten to us. I don’t know why our database didn’t have it as a default option, but I had the problem fixed well before they’d finished complaining.

  305. Spiders Everywhere*

    One time when I was working on an online video game in early development my job involved going through player feedback, most of which was not actually particularly helpful. One person went on an extended rant about how all they wanted to do in the game was make things out of cloth and how personally offended they were that they might be expected to go on adventures or fight monsters instead. It included the phrase “FLAX IS MY LIFE!” We did not take the monsters out of the game for them but the comment did got printed out and put on the wall.

    1. MsM*

      I assure you I didn’t make the complaint, but Weaving Simulator is 100% my kind of game. Maybe there’s an untapped market.

    2. MBK*

      If you haven’t watched the TV show “Mythic Quest,” you should give it a look. Sue, the community manager for the video game at the center of the show, is so remarkably chipper but also irretrievably damaged by having to deal with raw gamer feedback and complaints all day every day.

  306. alle*

    Not my own story,but years ago I read a book about tales from the tourism industry. One story was about a lady who went to Mauritius and afterwards filed a complaint that her holiday was completely ruined….because the days were too short.

  307. Can I Ax You A Question*

    In nonprofits, there’s a joke that the board will always come up with the most outlandish solutions to problems: “The gala tickets aren’t selling well? Can we get Usher to perform so people get excited about it?”

    I work for an orchestra. We had a high profile piano soloist cancel ten days out from their concert due to illness and were very lucky to be able to find a another musician to sub in on such short notice. But horror of horrors, she was not a pianist! An irate patron called to ask me why in the world we couldn’t get a similar caliber pianist at the last minute to play this notoriously difficult piece. “You could have asked Emanuel Ax!” Certainly sir, let me call him, tell him to stop his own international touring schedule, and fly here just for you.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      PSA for orchestra patrons, the reason your orchestra announces its season line-up a year in advance is that the soloists are booked 2 years in advance!

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      (Also, your post gave me the awesome mental image of Emanuel Ax abandoning the piano mid-concert at the New York Philharmonic and announcing “I must go! There has been a cancellation in Seattle!” before rushing off like his life depends on it.)

  308. Prudence Snooter*

    My sister once collaborated with two women from another org on a presentation. My sister worked for the Federal government at the time and has a doctorate in her field. I’m assuming the other women were equally accomplished.

    Prior to presentation day, the other women stressed to her, “Do NOT wear a skirt suit. We make sure to only wear pant suits for presentations now.” They told her how, after one presentation to a group of men, they asked if anyone had any questions. There was silence for a bit until one man raised his hand and said in a put-out tone, “So, what’s with the long skirts? Why do they have to be SO LONG?”

    Their skirts, for the record, were the standard length for skirt suits – about to the knees. This story is from the early 2000s at the latest, possibly 90s, so I’d like to think this might not happen nowadays.

  309. LucilleBluth*

    I used to serve people frozen yogurt while working at fast-casual restaurant. Two flavors, one size cup, one spoon. Easy.

    One day, a customer I had just given frozen yogurt to came up to me in a huff. “What is going on with the spoons!” she wanted to know. I was too confused to reply quickly and she continued, getting angrier: “These spoons, how is anyone supposed to eat with them.”

    I looked at the plastic spoon she was waving around. It was a standard, white plastic spoon of the same type that we had been giving to people all summer without incident. Still, I went to see if there were different spoons in the back. I returned with another and told her that we seemed to only have one type, but maybe she wanted to try a fresh one. She took one bite with it – a spoon with all the same flaws – and then put it in my face with her melting frozen yogurt cup and said “you try it! It’s horrible.” So I did, and it was fine. I tried to let her down gently, but she stormed out of the restaurant.

  310. Owl-eyed*

    My very first job was working at a concession stand at an outdoor sportsmens expo. There were booths of makers of outdoor and hunting gear for just about anything you could imagine, competitions for dogs (retrieving, dock jumping, etc.) and most importantly, a shooting range where you could bring your own gun. I got put on the cash register, which had the drinks cooler next to it filled with soda, water and near beer. In addition to fielding complaints about the prices (that were clearly listed on the board when they ordered) I had two gentlemen in camo, with gun cases slung across their back, complain that there wasn’t REAL beer and why didn’t we have it? My family hunts and I’m quite comfortable with guns, but my 16-yr old self didn’t know how to explain that alcohol and firearms, despite the ATF existing, wasn’t a good combination.

  311. Goldenrod*

    The funniest customer complaint I’ve ever heard happened to my friend Jesus. For those who don’t know, this is a common name in Mexico, where his parents were from.

    We worked at a hospital and he was stationed at the front Information Desk where, unfortunately, he and his co-workers endured a lot of gratuitous abuse from the general public. They had to wear nametags.

    Some woman got mad at him about something (I can’t remember what) and, reading his nametag, angrily told him, “Your name is Jesus – but you don’t ACT like Jesus!” He was laughing when he told the story, and it makes me crack up whenever I remember it. Good times!

  312. VideoKilledTheRadioStar*

    As a translator, there have been a few stunningly puzzling instances in my career when I have been berated for providing an ‘incorrect’ translation. When I point out that my version matches the meaning of the original text, the response is inevitably “Well but I wanted the original text to say Entirely Different Thing. That’s nice, but I’m not a mind reader! I can only translate the text you actually put in the document, not the one you wanted to write but didn’t!

  313. Euphony*

    Several years ago a colleague complained to my manager that I hadn’t kept him up to date on a project. Apparently I should have known that he only ever reads emails that are addressed to him personally. Any emails where he is cc’d get deleted as clearly they weren’t important enough to address directly to him.

  314. Dittany*

    When I worked retail, a customer told me that I should be saying “Have a nice life” rather than “Have a nice day”

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      That’s so much worse, though? “Have a nice life” means “I hope I never see you again”

  315. Paul S.*

    I owned a game store for about a decade. It was a lovely and profitable game store. One evening we got a one-star Google Maps review: “It’s okay if you like games I guess.”

    I’m not sure what this person wanted us to do. Maybe shrivel up and die?

    It’s now an inside joke with my wife and friends. Post a lovely photo of your beach vacation? “One star. It’s okay if you like warm, clean sand and perfect surfing conditions. I guess.”

    1. TheBunny*

      In a similar vein, and great for a laugh, I suggest you look up 1 star reviews of National Parks. The same people who wrote your review write these.

  316. Flying Fish*

    I had a patient threaten to report me to the state medical board for refusing to prescribe a very controlled substance that was not appropriate for their condition. I explained why that drug was a) not going to help their problem and b) that it required special licensing that I did not have because it is not used to treat conditions in my specialty.

    At their request I provided my practice managers name and the board of medicine’s phone number. They tried to complain to my practice manager, who as a non-clinical person still recognized the absurdity and wasn’t concerned. If they ever complained to the board of medicine, I didn’t hear about it.

  317. Medico*

    While I was teaching first aid I got this gem. ‘The tutor isn’t open to other ideas’ – the student advocated (not suggested, advocated) electrocuting the patient to cure anaphylaxis. I swear my brain shorted out and I had to stop and think of a response that wasn’t ‘You’re an idiot’. I settled on ‘I cannot recommend that as a treatment’ to which he snidely replied ‘Of course you can’t’.

    1. 1LFTW*

      It’s been decades since I certified in first aid, but back when aI had to certify regularly, I don’t remember anyone actually flunking out. I hope that guy is the exception.

      1. Medico*

        Sadly he passed. Believe me, if I could have flunked people for things like that, I would have.

  318. Turtle*

    My job intersects with lots of organizations in the community. My dad also LOVES to stir up people on the internet. Sadly, it’s somewhat of a hobby for him. The other day I was meeting virtually with a local nonprofit that helps people register to vote and was scrolling through their Facebook page only to realize that my dad has been posting cranky and borderline rude (but not awful) comments on several of their posts. Along the lines of, “You shouldn’t be a nonprofit, you’re clearly working for the liberals.”

    I told him, “If you want me to keep my job and credibility in the community, you need to stop.” Also, I’ve never been so glad that I changed my last name when I got married. I’ve now deleted my social media which helps me remain oblivious to his antics.

  319. Mandy*

    In my early twenties I worked in a large chain bagels-and-sandwiches type of fast food place. We had low-calorie “thin” bagels that were much cheaper than the other bagels (presumably because they used like, a third of the dough). Once a customer came in with a day-old bag of a dozen thin bagels and told me that he wanted to exchange them for a new bag of a dozen full-size bagels. I said that we could not do that and he said, with some umbrage, that he should have been informed of that when he bought the thin bagels in the first place!

  320. Thiscreaturehasanexoskeleton*

    Worked as a line cook at a very busy seasonal restaurant on Lake Champlain that had a lot of business from people that docked their boat in the marina right out front. At the time, we hand-breaded all our fried seafood – clams, oysters, fish, and squid. Tasted and looked fantastic, but kind of a pain to do on a busy line.
    One complaint I remember 30 years later was when a customer wanted us to comp an order of calamari because “It looked too real”. She didn’t like the tentacles in the basket. Usually the managers were pretty lenient and we could have given her just the rings, but she’d made such a scene he refused.

  321. Old Hampshire New Hampshire*

    Many years ago, I worked at a supermarket when I was 18 before I went to university (UK). This was in the days when there was no Sunday opening. I was working one Monday on the cheese counter when a customer brought back some cheese her husband had bought on the Saturday. She complained it was mouldy. I unwrapped it and it was indeed mouldy…because it was Stilton blue cheese. I tried to explain to the customer that it was supposed to look like that, but she wasn’t having any of it. She insisted she should have her money back because the cheese was mouldy. We went round and round and I eventually gave up. That sort of decision was way above my paygrade so I asked the section manager to speak to her. He didn’t have any luck either. Eventually, he just gave her a refund. We thought she didn’t like Stilton, her husband had bought himself some, she’d found it and decided to take it back. Retail, eh!

  322. Mad Harry Crewe*

    Tech support for a B2B SaaS product. We were dealing with an ongoing bug (that took Engineering *way* too long to prioritize and fix) and customers were understandably frustrated. Some of them were emailing daily to see if there were updates.

    My colleague was slow to respond to one of these requests, and got a follow-on nastygram an hour or so later demanding a response and concluding with: SILENCE IS NOT AN OPTION.

    I wrote that up on our whiteboard in fancy lettering and we quoted it back and forth for months.

  323. All het up about it*

    Sooo this is a sort of feedback occurrence, but it’s literally one of if not THE weirdest customer interactions I ever had.

    I used to work at a health resource library attached to a non-profit focused on supporting patients with a specific disease. It also served as the reception/welcome area for patients/clients. While we of course had some clients with very serious diagnoses, the mission was one of hope and support. We even ran camps and programs for sick children and my library was not a research level library, supporting research scientists or students, instead providing personalized, but basic level information on the disease. My volunteers and I were to be friendly, welcoming etc. and we had private offices and spaces where we could take people if they were upset and needed a quite place to calm down. All of this to paint the picture that this was not some dusty tomb of a library with scholars trying to concentrate or a somber wing of a hospital with dying patients in every room.

    So imagine my surprise when a person walks in and when I ask if I can help them they shake their head and walk away to look at materials on the wall. Odd, but maybe they are waiting for someone and don’t want to talk, so I went back to my work on the computer and let them wander. They walk around picking up some pamphlets and things. Then they ask me a question, but their voice was so quiet it was hard to hear them. I asked if they were here to register? Head shake. To meet with an intake rep? Head shake. Did they need to pick up supplies? Head shake? Were they meeting someone? Everything I offered was met with a head shake, and odd hand gestures. I thought maybe they didn’t understand me, perhaps English wasn’t their first language. I asked if they wanted to write it down. No. I offered to go get someone else and actually turned to do so and then…. they SHUSHED me and told me to be quiet. And lest you think they just wanted me to stop talking, because I had shot these offers at them rapid fire, let me assure you that was not the case. I had given them time to absorb the question/offer and respond each time and sometimes even more time to wander and was just getting NOTHING back. And when they shushed me they made it clear that they just wanted me to talk quieter, that I was too loud and disturbing patients.

    My mouth was agape. I was doing my job exactly as written and was speaking in a completely normal tone of voice and was being told that I was disturbing non-existent patients. (We had no other clients in the building at the time.)

    I turned to go get someone else to help them because hey, still my job, but they again shook their head, waved one of the pamphlets and whispered they’d just call.

    Within the hour my volunteer manager came down all excited because someone had called and wanted to volunteer and they sounded like a perfect front desk/library volunteer. It was the shusher!! That was a big ol Nope and the story became well known in the office as the time the librarian was shushed in her own library and a running joke that I was “too loud.”

  324. A news editor*

    I’m a journalist, so I get…a lot.

    A few years back I wrote about a couple mourning the loss of their teenage son who died of an opioid overdose. His parents were a married couple, two women, and I named and spoke to them both, but obviously the focus was on their son and their efforts to get him help, not the relationship.

    The complaint, delivered via email from a reader: “This article very poorly alludes to the possible fact that his parents are two lesbians.”

    I had my friend embroider it on a needlepoint and it now sits at my desk.

  325. Anon for this*

    Anonymous because I send people to this site all the time and this story ABSOLUTELY identifies me.

    When the spouse and I first moved in together in 1999, the landline number we were issued was the old customer service line for the local newspaper. We would get calls EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY MORNING starting at 6:30 AM from all over town: “I didn’t get my paper.” “I live at this address and didn’t get my paper.” “Where is my paper?” “My lazy delivery kid didn’t deliver my paper.” & etc. The first couple times we made the mistake of picking up, and the second someone started about the paper, I would kindly tell them they had the wrong number. In every case, this unleashed a torrent of abuse which included shouting and grousing about the inconvenience and how ignorant we were about their problems. Not a single one was kind/polite and all seemed suspicious that I was secretly just some lazy employee who wanted to *pretend* I wasn’t the newspaper.

    – “Why did you change the number?”
    – “FINE. Give me your new number.”
    – “If you can’t deliver my Sunday paper on time, then cancel my subscription.”
    – “If you won’t help me, let me speak to your manager.”

    I called the nice newspaper people who told me the number had been changed over a decade ago when *a new local telephone exchange was added for our town due to growth*. The correct number was in the phone book, printed in every issue, and on every subscription notice/bill. But no, dozens of long-term subscribers heads asploded at the idea that this number may have changed when half the numbers in town changed at the same time.

    The phone company charged enough to change your number back then (you literally had to stop and restart service) that it wasn’t feasible for two young kids starting out to suck it up and pay for that. Instead, we just let them all go to the machine. The machine clearly was just two people with names. This did not deter Sunday morning callers. They still left messages. They were all always rude messages. Lots of shouting, lots of cursing.

    We resorted to *changing the outbound answering machine message* to say that this was NOT the number for the newspaper. We gave the newspaper’s number in it. We told people that messages left for the newspaper would do them no good and would not be returned. We still got anywhere from 5 to 20 messages nearly every Sunday morning until we moved away 2 years later. People would yell and curse at our answering machine about what a crappy newspaper we were that their delivery kid could not get them their Sunday paper. People would threaten us that they would cancel their subscriptions to our imaginary newspaper. There were people who would leave messages and then call BACK to yell more.

    I did once pick up while someone was loudly cussing at the machine because I was just so fed up. All I wanted to do was eat pancakes in my kitchen and this jerk is screaming and cussing at whoever he thought was the newspaper. I taught that gentleman some new swear words and then I told him in which bodily orifice he should look for his newspaper.

    2. EvilQueenRegina*

      My grandparents had something very similar when the phone numbers changed in their town and they ended up with a number that was quite close to some adaptations company. I think that only stopped when the company moved.

  326. DramaQ*

    Oooh I remember another one.
    Customer: “I heard “insert business owner’s name:: here has a twin brother and he died. He’s selling the business because of that, I would be interested in buying it”
    Me “Sir the owner has no twin brother. That is his sister over there, that is his BIL over there but he doesn’t have a brother”
    Customer “He does too have a brother and he died! I heard all about it”. Now go get him so I can talk to him about buying the business from him”
    Me “Look dude unless someone is keeping a big secret from me I know owner doesn’t have a twin because he’s my uncle!”

    Dead silence. It was glorious.

    It became a running joke about doing 23&Me sometime and SURPRISE we’d find out he actually had a secret twin like in the soap operas.

  327. radish*

    Lady and her partner walk into the store I was an assistant manager at. I greet them just as they walked in, but stayed at the computer/register. My employee soon walks over to them to help. They check out, but she leaves her phone. She calls back, confirms it’s there, and comes back to get it at a time that we were super busy. I had almost no interaction with her. She calls back on her just-retrieved phone specifically to tell me that she thought I had an awful attitude because I didn’t greet them when they walked in. I say something to the effect of, “Actually, I did greet you, but I guess you didn’t hear me.” She cuts me off to tell me “I’m an attorney so don’t lie to me.” Then hangs up.

  328. SeekYou*

    A customer once complained that our website was trash because he kept getting blocked from accessing the site. Turns out he was using his secure government-issued computer to access a non-government website, which he shouldn’t have been doing anyway, and their security protocols were firewalling him. When I pointed this out to him, he demanded that I, a help desk employee from the blocked website, should help him figure out how to get around it! When I refused, he said I was rude and left a bad review. Our taxpayer dollars at work!

  329. Wendy Darling*

    All time winner for incoherence when I used to audit customer service chatbot logs:

    “used cost 1 acorn. now 2 acorn cant afford”

    I can only assume this was written by a squirrel, but I’m not sure how it accessed the chatbot.

  330. lolcustomerservice*

    One customer comment that my coworkers and I still laugh about to this day stands out. One of my colleagues was chatting with a customer on our live chat feature, and gave him an answer that he didn’t like. He gave the chat a bad rating and simply commented “trash.”

  331. BedAndBreakfast*

    Busy Valentine’s Day weekend at the B&B. Couple who are staying with a gift certificate his mother bought for him come down to eat breakfast. We have 5 tables in the dining room, 2 are empty. Couple stands looking and I tell them they can sit at either of those tables.

    Male guest says, ‘we come here all the time (I’ve never seen him before), and we’ve never had to share the dining room before.’ Not share a table, lots of people don’t like that. No, they’d never had to share the entire dining room! Sorry we’re so much busier than the last owners. The guests went back to their room and we didn’t see them again until they checked out the following day.

    And when she called to buy the gift certificate, his mother told me her last grandchild was conceived at the inn and she’s hoping for more! TMI

    1. MigraineMonth*

      How dare other couples be there on *Valentine’s day weekend*. Don’t they know he reserved that as his special day?

  332. Rachel*

    An all-time favorite Yelp review, of the fancy downtown Los Angeles restaurant Bottega Louie, posted back in 2012: “We were sat right next to the window…I love chipotle and our window gave us a view of it so i was happy..but my bf could see a lot of pedestrians walking by including homeless people which does take away from the magic of the place…”

  333. Anon for this*

    I used to work at box store and held various positions. I eventually got put in the jewelry and makeup section as a reliable backup to the day-shift worker. Now this is not high quality jewelry, this is a big run down box store in the rural South.

    Our section was right by the front door for reference and we had a massive theft issue. I had a woman come in one day I was working day shift and ask to see some jewelry. I told her sure and went behind the counter to pull out the jewelry trays.

    She wants to try it on. That’s fine. Then she tells me “I am going to take it outside to see how it looks in the natural light. These fluorescent lights don’t show you how it will really look.” I immediately start sounding mental klaxons and put the ring back in the tray, then back in the locked case. She proceeded to have me call the loss prevention manager because she knows him and he knows she’d never steal something.

    I thought sure, I’d rather have a manager handle this anyway. Turns out she was right and I saw my loss prevention manager take her outside with the ring. Then she brings it back in and tells me “she doesn’t like it and why don’t I have any better pieces like the store used to have.” All the while I’m staring at them like they have 3 heads because what world am I living in right now.

  334. RussianInTexas*

    Another favorite: City X Public Schools district decided to terminate the contract with us because the product (we sell plasticware like sporks, forks, spoons, etc) was defective, and the students were cutting their mouth on our sporks. They shipped back the received cases and all.
    For a few weeks people around my office were walking around trying to cut their mouths on the product, unsuccessfully.
    Shocking to no one, the contract was re-awarded to the old vendor, who had the contract for years before we accidentally won it.

  335. bookwisp*

    I have lots of fun stories from working food service for ten years. The two that stick out to me are:

    When I worked in fast food, I had someone return their burger because the pickles were touching on it. They wanted them spaced evenly apart.

    The person that told me a made their PBJ wrong because the peanut butter should be on top instead of the bottom and aske me to remake it. They got very mad when I just flipped their sandwich over.

  336. NYWeasel*

    I was working at a liquor store, and a woman came in asking for a “sweet wine”. I started with fruity whites, moved on to ports and dessert wines and then sangrias, but she kept rejecting everything saying it was “too dry”. Finally we landed at concord grape wine, which I hadn’t personally tried (wasn’t even drinking age yet) but had been described to me as the sweetest wine we sold. “Oh no, that isn’t sweet enough! I have to add packets of sugar to it to be able to drink it!”

    To this day, I don’t know what she wanted, but I’m 100% certain it wasn’t wine.

  337. raaaleigh*

    When I worked as a barista in the south (at a very popular chain), this interaction happened more than once, especially in the drive thru:

    Me *customer service voice*: “Good morning, welcome to [coffee shop]! What can I get started for you?”
    Customer: “Well I’M JUST FINE THANKS, HOW ARE YOU! Where are your manners, aren’t you going to ask me how I’m doing today??”

    (Worth noting that at least when I worked there, we didn’t have any kind of script, just the direction to be polite and friendly!)

  338. Librarian the Ninth*

    All libraries have at least one of “those guys”. Here’s what some of mine have complained about to the boss about staff doing:

    A staff member suggested that leaving a laptop open and playing audio on the front porch while the patron drove away to get coffee from a shop across town was a bad idea. It’s insulting to the good people of our neighborhood to suggest that they’re all thieves, and no, the forecasted and threatening rainclouds were not pertinent to the conversation.

    After the patron completed a community puzzle we had out for everyone to help with, they took one of the circulating puzzles off the shelf and opened it ON TOP OF the finished puzzle. When the next day, the circulating puzzle had been cleared away and replaced with a “we did it!” sign for the old puzzle and a new one on theme with our summer events, the patron complained that staff were trying to “steal joy” from them.

    The library did not have the book the patron had self published through Amazon Kindle on our shelves.

    Staff removed their poster from the bulletin board after the event had passed, rather than saving it and returning it the next time the patron came in.

    A staff member asked the patron to take their phone call in a private room rather on the main library floor, but failed to reprimand a crying baby for being loud as well.

    The artwork on display was bad. It was an exhibit by the local middle school.

    A staff member of the neighboring daycare asked the patron not to drive up an alleyway while the school buses were unloading kids (all 5 and under.)

    A staff member asked the patron to keep their shoes on while inside the library. Since it’s healthy to be barefoot and connected to the earth, the patron insisted the staff member was trying to harm them and was dangerous. This occurred on the third floor.

    Staff told the patron they were not allowed to store a gallon of milk in the fridge in the staff kitchen. “You’re a public library so the whole building is public property and I’m the public so really that’s my fridge, not yours.”

    1. MigraineMonth*

      “Failed to reprimand a crying baby for being loud” is one to treasure. How dare a grown adult be held to stricter standards of behavior than a literal baby!

  339. Phoebe QQ*

    Not long after I started working at a home insurance company, I noticed a person (not a customer) had written in saying that we had mistakenly posted her personal phone number as a customer service line for our company and could we please remove it immediately because she was tired of our customers calling her. The tone was exasperated and frustrated, and she mentioned that this was not the first time she had contacted us about this.

    When I asked my boss about it, he told me that her number is not posted anywhere. What actually happened was that the company had several customer service numbers, and they were all very similar. Imagine a phone number like 123-456-789x where x is a wild card. For all digits BUT ONE those numbers went to our customer service department. But if you used the one remaining digit, you got this lady’s phone number.

    My boss said they had explained to her many times that they are not posting her phone number anywhere, and when our customers call her it’s because they misdialed and happened on her phone number by chance. I can’t imagine it was that many people, but it was obviously enough for the woman to notice a pattern. I don’t think she ever understood what was actually happening. I feel bad for her because it sounds genuinely aggravating and she probably has no choices but to put up with it or get a new number, which is a hassle. But… am I terrible for thinking it’s a little bit hilarious too?

    1. Mad Harry Crewe*

      Ooo, don’t bet on it being not very many people. I can also guarantee you some of those people were not very nice when she corrected them. There’s a comment upthread about this kind of issue, with quite a few similar stories.

    2. EvilQueenRegina*

      My employer has two patters of numbers: an internal 4 digit extension starting with 0 or 1 would be 26XXXX to external callers, while an extension starting 3 would be 38XXXX. Let’s say my number in my former role would have been 383000, and someone at some point, possibly more than one someone (I was given one name of someone who had done it, but doubt she was the only one), had been giving it out to people as 263000 (really, that wasn’t supposed to be the number given out to the public – there was a shared hunt group which was the correct number to give out, which had been a whole separate issue). 26300o belonged to a man who ended up making a formal complaint about the calls he was getting.

  340. Meg*

    I worked at a chain jewelry store that was big on customer feedback surveys. When they sent us the feedback for our store monthly/quarterly, the program that compiled it automatically censored any profanity or slurs (e.g. the young man who responded that our associate was friendly, helpful, and had big b**bs.).

    My boss’s last name was Dykes so on every glowing bit of feedback about what a kind and helpful salesperson she was, her last name was censored.

    (My trick for getting good feedback? Our receipts had a link to the feedback survey with a coupon for $100 off a $300 purchase if you took it and wrote down a unique code. Any time someone was looking for a good deal on something where $100 would make a difference, I suggested they spend $5 to purchase a container of jewelry cleaner, because the receipt would give them that coupon. People give great feedback when you are getting them $100 off.)

    1. Librarian the Ninth*

      Oh, the automated profanity censors!

      I had a recurring issue with a manager who assigned me that task of submitting upcoming events at the library to the digital event calendars for all local newspapers. She was very strict on including thanks to all organizations that funded our events… including a memorial fund for someone with the last name Van Dyke.

      Every single time they supported an event, the manager and I did the same dance: I told her I would have to edit the description since the automated profanity filters would not allow it. She would insist I try anyways. The submission would be rejected. She would get very distressed but eventually allow me to leave off the “This event is made possible by” section of the description. Then we’d move on to the edits I was allowed to make for the outlets that had strict character limits for submissions.

  341. Knighthope*

    Angry parent of a high schooler: Okay, I’m going to call Kurt Schmoke!!!! [At the time he was Mayor of Baltimore CITY – the school is in Baltimore COUNTY – 2 completely separate governments]
    Observers, including me: [Thinking – Go ahead – he won’t care. And not only that, is your child even a legal resident of Baltimore County??? Maybe we should instigate a residency check!]

  342. Orchida*

    I work at a large college. Like many US colleges, the campus is a mix of older buildings and newer, more modern buildings. A person complained that the college’s construction projects were ruining the historic nature of the town. She said this while gesturing to the oldest buildings on campus, more than 200 years old. She claimed that we built them recently and “made them look old” in order to fool people.

  343. It was Me*

    This is one that I am embarrassed to say I did myself. One year a local car dealership put little American flags on all the front lawns, with an attached advertisement, around the Fourth of July. I was incensed by the litter and waste but mostly by the outrageousness (in my mind) of using Our Flag to sell cars. I called the dealership to complain but I got a little carried away leaving a voicemail. “People have died for that flag” and “disrespectful” and “how dare you” may have come out of my mouth. Accusations of unpatriotic rampant capitalism. I think I might have actually cried at the end.
    In my defense, I think I was grieving at the time. I immediately wanted to figure out a way to delete the voicemail. I suspect it was saved and played for entertainment in their office later.
    If any of you have heard the “don’t use the Flag to sell cars” rant on an old voicemail, I confess.

  344. Future*

    I work in adult education. One of the craziest student complaints about a colleague was that he leaned against the desk sometimes when teaching the class.

  345. HBJ*

    The weird thing was the feedback was good!

    I was working in a front desk-type position when Jane came in and wanted to use a thing of Mary’s. Jane knew Mary’s name, and what the thing was but had not been given access. We went round and round that I could not let Jane use it. I tried to call Mary. Jane tried to call Mary. I spent like half an hour or more with Jane trying to get ahold of Mary, asking other associates if Mary had ever even causally said Jane could use it, going back into historical transactions to see if Jane had ever been authorized, Jane showing me texts on her phone from Mary to indicate she did know her, stuff like that, back and forth. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think Jane either loitered until Mary arrived or left and later came back with Mary. Anyway, Jane was not verbally abusive or anything but was clearly extremely upset and frustrated and annoyed that we wouldn’t give her what she wanted. At some point, she asked another associate (not me) for one of our feedback forms, filled it out and put it in the box. I was just following policy, but I knew it would be ripping me a new one.

    Imagine my surprise when a few days later, I receive a copy of the feedback form plus a piece of flare the company gave out after X amount of good feedback. The form said something along the lines of, “HBJ provided great service. She was very conscientious and helpful.”

    If it was supposed to be sarcasm, it was so veiled as to be completely obscure to management (they weren’t there for the interaction)!

    1. 1LFTW*

      I got surprise feedback like that once or twice, back in my customer service days. My read is that Jane was frustrated and annoyed at the policy, not with you personally, and genuinely appreciated the time you put in trying to help her when you could have just said “sorry, nothing I can do, buh-bye”.

  346. Not That Kind of Lawyer*

    I am an African American (creole) woman. I guess, for some residing north of Atlanta, my natural hair is … different. It is coily curly rather than afro curly. I worked in a summer camp up north for two summers and I was the only AA staff member who did not have a fro or a relaxer. So many people – co-workers, campers, parents – wanted to touch my hair. One parent was so upset that I would not let her daughter touch my hair that she wrote the camp complaining I was “depriving [daughter] of a valuable cultural learning opportunity” by not allowing her to feel and style my hair to her heart’s content.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      Uuuuuuuuugh. I can think of quite a few valuable cultural learning opportunities that child (and her mother) actually need!

  347. Sparrow*

    In my very early 20s, I had a minimum wage job at a local location for a national bookstore chain. This particular location is near a military base, so many of our customers were either active duty military members or veterans. Customers asked if we had a military discount pretty regularly, and when I told them we didn’t and explained it was because of a corporate policy I couldn’t override, 99.9% of people were fine with that.

    Except for this one man.

    It was a weekend in November, AKA the most hellish time to work retail. Christmas music had been blaring in my ears for the past six hours. As I was standing at my register, staring in dread at a check-out line that stretched far into the shelves despite the fact that all five registers were manned, an older man came to check out at my register. Without even taking the time to greet me or pretend to be interested in how I was doing, he curtly informed me was that he was a veteran and would be using our military discount. I apologized and explained that we didn’t offer one. He argued with me that I should give him one anyway, and I told him that I couldn’t because of corporate policy. I then jumped into our check-out script, which involved many different questions (“did you find everything you were looking for?”, “do you have a membership?”, etc). I am not joking or exaggerating when I say that this man found a way to bring up our lack of military discount in response to every. single. question.

    But the response that sticks out to me the most was when I asked him, “Would you like to donate to our holiday book drive? For $3, you can purchase a children’s book that we’ll add to our donation box, and [National Nonprofit] will distribute them to children whose families can’t afford to buy them books this holiday season.” This man looked me in the eyes and said:

    “Why should I donate to impoverished children when you won’t give me a discount?”

    I ended up leaving that job soon after for unrelated reasons (including a horribly unethical store manager), but I still think about this guy every time I see any kind of holiday charity drive.

  348. I hated working retail*

    This occured when I worked at a UPS Store.

    A customer came in wanting to ship her stock certificates for some reason. UPS can insure them for 3% of the value – basically the replacement cost. To know the final cost to ship a package, I need to know the amount the customer wants to insure it for. The first $100 of insurance is free and at the time every $100 of insurance added $1 to the shipping cost. The maximum insurance value is $50,000.

    I explained the above information, and asked the woman how much she wanted to insure the package for. She wouldn’t tell me. I asked her how much the stock was valued at. She wouldn’t tell me. I reiterated that I wouldn’t be able to give her a final price if she wouldn’t tell me how much insurance she wanted. Still nothing.

    An unhelpful complaint follows: she doesn’t want to be in the store and she’s not feeling well.

    Since there’s nothing I can do about either of those issues, I decide to tell her the shipping costs for three scenarios: the free $100 of insurance, $25,000 of insurance, and $50,000 of insurance.

    Then what I considered to be an unreasonable complaint followed: I am not being helpful.

    I don’t know why she felt I wasn’t being helpful when I was doing everything I could reasonably do for her. At that point I just got my manager and had him deal with her.

  349. bookbug71*

    We had something at the library I worked at. When looking through old customer suggestions (actually written on paper) we found one demanding we buy more Betamax tapes of the movies we carried.

  350. FuzzFrogs*

    Some highlights from my time in public libraries:

    –A child wasn’t made to feel special enough by the storytime librarian. This complaint was mailed to us in the form of a picture book, written and illustrated by the child’s grandmother.
    –Some of the library material “doesn’t have redeeming cultural value.”
    –Having displays about Banned Books Week in the children’s area “makes parents have to explain things to their children.”
    –The complaint about our English-language tutoring program: “It’s like a third world country in here!”
    –About other people using the computers: “If I wanted to listen to gossip and babies crying, I’d be on the city bus!”
    –When I told a lone adult that they couldn’t use the children’s computers: “The blue-haired girl implied I was a child molester!” (My hair was pink.)

    And there’s always the patron who snapped the Nazi salute and said “Heil Hitler!” because I asked him to turn down the volume on his iPad. The rest of his “feedback” was a bit nonsensical, but he made it clear that COVID restrictions and his personal dislike of teenagers in the library were not only my fault, but, yes, made me comparable to Hitler. That was the one that made me cry :(

    1. lolcustomerservice*

      I know you probably can’t share the grandma’s picture book, but I’d pay actual human money to see it.

  351. MigraineMonth*

    I used to work at an incredibly disorganized toy store that had been a woman’s hobby business until she lost all interest in it. At some point she had accepted money from a elderly woman to special-order a particular doll and then just… not done so.

    Once a week, the woman would call the store and ask for an update on the special order. Every week I would apologize and say that the owner hadn’t given me any updates or answered any of my voice messages and I didn’t think the doll had been ordered. Would she like me to refund her money?

    No, she wanted the doll. Did I understand that she was calling long distance, which was quite expensive, to find out about the doll? She wanted to get her special order. I explained that I didn’t have any of the details or the authority to order anything, but I could refund her money. No, she didn’t want the money, she’d been waiting months and months and she wanted the doll. She explained at length that she wanted the doll while I said, “I’m so sorry”, “Yes”, “Mhmm” and “I wish I could help.”

    Things went on like this for months. The owner continued to not answer any of my voice messages, including one I left reminding her that the next day (Saturday) was Street Fest, and she might need to hire extra staff and consider having a sale. The owner put everything on sale but not bring in any extra staff, so when I poked my head in the next day I found my coworker there alone, a line of 8 customers needing to purchase and get their purchases gift wrapped, the scanner broken and the credit-card swipe machine needing manual number entry. Also, she was on the phone.

    When I offered to help, she said, “Oh thank god” and *handed me the phone*. No “I’m going to pass you to my colleague” or “Please hold”, just handed it to me and went to wrap some gifts. I immediately recognized that the caller was the woman with the special order for the doll and automatically said, “Yes” and “I’m sorry” and “I wish I could help” as I went to scan the next woman’s purchases. Except the scanner was broken. Apparently the next customer had been waiting for quite a while because while I was manually typing the barcodes she sighed, reached across and *grabbed the phone*.

    She noticed me staring and made a “go on” gesture at her items and told the woman on the phone “Mmhmm” and “Yes” and “So sorry” while I finished checking her out. I handed the customer her items, she handed me the phone, and that was when the woman with the special order wound down and said she’d call back next week. Never realizing she’d been speaking to three different people, one of whom was not actually a store employee.

    The toy store went shortly after (I never did get my last W2), and I suspect the persistent special-order customer never got that doll she wanted. I wonder if, in retrospect, she figured out that the refund would have been the best deal.

  352. Library Lady*

    This was an experience that taught me I need to keep my expectations very low and assume nothing. When I was a young library worker, a patron called and asked if we had a notary on staff. I told her we did, and she should make sure she brought a photo ID with her. When she arrived, I called the notary out to the desk. He asked the patron for the document. She looked at him completely confused and asked what he meant. He said “The document that needs to be notarized…” She got mad and said “The woman on the phone didn’t tell me I needed to bring that!” and left.

    1. Dawn*

      Oh lord, I have so many of these……

      Like genuinely how were you expecting this to work, ma’am?

    2. Uh Ohhh*

      I work in Community Services and on the odd occasion will assist at Reception if no one is at the desk.
      You would not believe the number of clients who will come in to request a service but not bring any Identification, or get huffy cause they left it in their car.

    3. MJ*

      I once taught an evening class in web design, and on the very first evening someone complained afterwards that they didn’t know they’d need to know how to use a computer.

  353. Daria grace*

    I had a job that involved sending a lot of mail so we had a letter folding and enveloping machine. For letters with non standard size attachments (cheques ect) for some reason the staple had to be placed somewhere other than the usual top left corner for it to not jam the machine. Someone sent us enraged hate mail insisting that her letter being stapled at the bottom was proof the company hated her

  354. AG*

    When I worked at a community center, someone left a one-star review online because “It was far from my house!”

    1. 1LFTW*

      Obviously, it’s your personal responsibility to Baba Jaga that community center over to her neighborhood.

  355. Cakergrl*

    I did the desserts for a wedding held at an outdoor venue, in summer. I delivered and set up at the time the event coordinator wanted me to. The complaint from the mother or the bride? There were too many flies. As if I had control over the flies at your OUTDOOR, summer wedding.

  356. JustaTech*

    My first job was at a chocolate shop that specialized in chocolate dipped fruit inside an absurdly fancy/expensive/hoity-toity mall outside Boston.
    While most of our customers were perfectly fine, there were some who were amazingly entitled and difficult.
    The middle-aged man who licked the window while I was dipping fruit was gross at the time and is significantly more horrifying now.
    But the complaint that took the cake was a customer who came in and asked for “fat free chocolate”.
    “I’m sorry, we have sugar free chocolates but we don’t have any fat free chocolate.”
    “Absurd! How can you not have fat free chocolate?”
    Now, the customer had no way of knowing this, but I am a nerd, and I know more than the average person about the production of chocolate. And I knew for sure that to be called chocolate in the US, it must have at least some cocoa butter. (And if you take all the cocoa butter out you just get cocoa powder.)
    So, being a naïve 15 year old, I tried to explain this.
    It went … poorly.

    So I called out my manager and he sent me to “do inventory” ie, hide in the bathroom.
    Apparently he was also unsuccessful in explaining that we did not carry fat free chocolate, and that as a diabetic he understood the challenges of having to work with medical restrictions on your diet, and that our failure to carry this product was not a personal affront.
    (A quick search shows that fat free bar chocolate is still not a thing.)

  357. Your nearest exit may be behind you*

    in my barista days I once had a man return a coffee and ask me to make another because the first one was too hot. he confirmed that it wasn’t burnt in any way, just too hot. i left his coffee sitting on the counter where he’d returned it, served a few more customers, and then called him back to collect his “new” coffee. He told me the new one was perfect.

  358. Anon for this*

    Going anon for this one since I’ve shared it with several coworkers. (Alison, don’t share this one in a post.)

    I was working in the insurance field, let’s say homeowner’s insurance, and got a phone call from a client who had submitted a claim. Let’s say my name is Melissa Kimball, and I always introduce myself as Melissa, but sometimes my colleagues refer to me as Ms. Kimball with the clients.

    So I get this phone call from the client, who wants to check on the status of her claim. I introduce myself as Melissa, and she insists that she wants to talk to Ms. Kimball instead. I try to explain that that’s also me, but she is having none of it! This can’t possibly be the case! She wants to speak to Ms. Kimball. Ms. Kimball or bust, none of this silly Melissa person.

    I try to give her the good news; her claim was just approved. We’ve just sent her the payment for her claim, and she should have it within a week. To no avail. She is certain I am lying, and keeps telling me, “MS. KIMBALL would tell me the TRUTH. I want to talk to MS. KIMBALL.” Multiple times she asks questions about when we will make a decision, what her next steps are when she’s denied, etc. And she wants Ms. Kimball to call her back so she can talk to the right person, who will tell her the TRUTH.

    Ironically, I had never talked to her before, under the name of Melissa OR Ms. Kimball. But I still get grief sometimes from the people around me who want to talk to Ms. Kimball, because she tells the TRUTH.

  359. TheBunny*

    Back when The Discovery Channel had stores, I worked in one as a manager. Tells you how long this has been one of my very favorite “huh?” anecdotes.

    We had a copy of Walking with Dinosaurs returned because…wait for it…it was a documentary and not filmed using real dinosaurs.

    I was the one who helped this person. I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask. I went with “ok” because I didn’t (and still don’t) think I could have gotten through even one without making it clear I had questions about this customer’s intelligence.

  360. Jess*

    The paper example is particularly funny to me because this week my team (at a large publisher) got an extremely polite email about a book we published. It’s a romance book with a rather…salacious…reputation, but this customer only wanted to know what kind of paper we used, because they LOVED the paper. Mostly people email us asking for free books so this question was very unexpected and extremely charming! We were all delighted.

  361. Dawn*

    So here’s the actual strangest one we ever had:

    Back when it first released, we had a customer order a PS5. So far, so good, ordinary transaction, happened every day.

    The next day – less than 24 hours later, to be clear – he called back demanding to know where his PS5 was. And became increasingly livid as the CSR he spoke with desperately tried to explain that we do not possess teleportation technology (nor were we Amazon, who possess approximately a trillion dollars more than our business did, and the logistics network to match it.)

    Customer continued to call back – if he couldn’t have it immediately, he wanted to cancel the order – but of course it’s already on a truck, it’s just not there yet.

    Customer assumes we mean “on a truck, in the shipping yard,” and demands to know precisely which truck it’s on so he can personally drive to our warehouse (rather a distance from where he currently is) and personally remove his PS5.

    I won’t go through the blow-by-blow beyond that, but suffice to say we ultimately flagged that customer as “never allow orders through again”.

    1. Dawn*

      Another one around that same time, a customer had placed an order – and this was holiday season 2020, right? Our shipping was badly backed up. BADLY backed up. There simply were not enough trucks on the road to handle the sudden massive increase in online shopping volume due to the lockdowns.

      And of course we fielded a million calls about this, but one lady in particular stuck out – I went through the usual “I’m sorry, everything is running behind, everyone is running behind, there just is not enough transport to handle what is happening this year because pandemic,” and she said to me, “But this is for my daughter’s birthday! What am I supposed to tell her?” and I’d had it and I said, “Well, I suppose you’re both going to learn an important lesson about patience, then.”

        1. Dawn*

          Just not a very customer-service-minded one, haha.

          But… it was the holiday season 2020 and we were all at the end of our ropes.

        2. Dawn*

          I had another similar one and I said, “You and everyone else.” She was really not impressed.

  362. Jo*

    My agency hosted a professional development class on an area of emerging technology. One of our managers “Kim” gave a perfunctory welcome: “Thanks for joining us…today’s presenter is…..(bio).”

    One of the attendees (i.e., customers) wrote on the feedback form: “XYZ org doesn’t need a cheerleader. Get rid of Kim”.

    It was just bizarre. Attendees were IT staff – fairly high up. Most (all?) knew each other. Kim was one of their IT peers and well-liked. The class was organized as a favor because multiple sister organizations needed help. Except for that one weird comment, everyone was grateful.

    1. Dawn*

      It’s also like….. suuuuuuuuuper normal for someone to introduce a speaker. To the point that it’s bizarre if they aren’t introduced.

      Of course, another thing which is frequently odd is IT staff.

  363. ProductManagerReplacedByAI*

    Working at an enterprise software company, we once had a customer call us out on Twitter for moving the Help button in our web app from one side of the screen to the other.

  364. Dawn*

    One more, why not? I was literally in charge of feedback for a major corporation so I have so, so many of these…

    A lady reached out to us – after hours, on a Friday – livid because her refund had never shown up. Absolutely beside herself. Several hundred dollars, which she needed to purchase, well, a gift for her kid, I guess this is a theme with my customers. Six weeks after the transaction, I might add.

    But here’s the thing: we had already issued that refund. Quite a while ago! And here I am, the manager in charge of calling her back and explaining as delicately as I can that it’s after hours on a Friday, we’ll look into it from our end but she really needs to talk to her bank, but that we’re just not going to have a solution for her before the weekend is over, because banking.

    It was a long, tough conversation. But after quite a while of it (and a lot of back and forth to the tune of, “We issued the refund,” “No you didn’t,”) she admitted that she’d purchased the product through a third-party site – think along the lines of using Greater Good or DonorBox to donate to charity every time you shop online. Meaning that the payment was ultimately provided through them and not directly with her card – and so the refund went back to them and she needed to take it up with them, not us.

    We were at least half an hour into that conversation before she said, “I bought that through X so it would send a donation to my kid’s school, I wonder if that has anything to do with it?” I was on overtime at that point and I wanted to put my head through the nearest wall.

  365. Alexandra*

    My partner used to work in warehousing for a company that delivered (only delivered, not manufactured) various pantry staples to supermarkets. Their warehouse received multiple voicemails at 1am one night about a brand of tomato paste tubs they delivered from a very elderly lady. They all were some variant of “You advertise your lids as easy-open. They are NOT, in fact, easy-open. You have DENIED me my nightly tomato paste snack. I will SUE YOU for FALSE ADVERTISING because you have RUINED my NIGHT.” No one knows how she got the internal warehouse number.

    1. Ali + Nino*

      Nightly tomato paste snack?! Is it just part of larger whole or is that it, just…tomato paste?

      1. 1LFTW*

        I’m imagining this person consuming it like the nutritional goo that’s used by endurance athletes during a race.

  366. Rears and Vices*

    The customer support team at my last job sent out a monthly internal letter with funniest customer feedback of the month. It always made my day.

    At my current org, we get some oddly specific ones. One was something like “Whoever wrote this document must not have any pride in their work. They probably wrote this while crying into their beer all alone.”

    1. Rears and Vices*

      I almost forgot! Just this week, we got, “This document is actually useful, for once.”
      It was from a repeat grumpy customer, so we were proud of that one.

  367. Dawn*

    “Well I know that you’re lying to me because it doesn’t take that long to drive here. But that’s fine. You’re probably not allowed to tell me the truth.”

    Gentle reader, as I broke down for her, it did, in fact, take that long to drive there.

  368. I have my moments where I wish I was Jared, 19*

    I worked at the only imax theater in my state during the theater run of Oppenheimer. I had a guest come to me and complain that the movie was too loud. I let them know that they could ask the concessions stand for a set of earplugs but they insisted that the only workable solution was to turn down the volume in the entire theater because the scene with the atomic bomb was too loud. I gave up trying to reason with the guest and told them I’d speak to the projectionist about it

  369. Parakeet*

    Part of my job involves doing trainings for my field in an increasingly important area that most people in my field not only know almost nothing about, but are intimidated by. One time I ran a training and someone left a comment on the eval complaining that the training was too basic, and why didn’t I cover [very advanced topic]. To make an analogy, it’s as if I was teaching people elementary school geometry like how to find the area of a circle or the hypotenuse of a triangle, and someone was critical that I didn’t include college-upperclassman-level algebraic geometry. I remember thinking “If you know enough about this topic to have written this sentence, why did you even attend this training?”

    We also run a conference every year and there’s always a few complaints along the lines of “the water provided by the hotel to drink in the breakout rooms had too much/not enough ice.”

    This one isn’t exactly feedback, but it’s related – I’m pretty sure that anyone who has ever worked a sexual or domestic violence hotline for a significant length of time has dealt with the sexual harasser callers. People who call claiming to be survivors and make up a detailed story in order to get off on having an innocent hotline operator listening to it. People who call and pretend that they thought they were calling a phone sex line or otherwise sexually proposition the hotline operators. I’ve worked or volunteered with a number of hotlines and every one of them had some of this, and I’ve heard the same from others who have worked at totally different hotlines. If it’s an LGBTQ+ serving hotline, you also get the homophobic prank callers.

    1. Roy G. Biv*

      re: your last paragraph. Just when you think you know how much people suck, there is new depth to which humanity can sink. Sigh.

  370. Lady Knittington*

    I used to work in hospital complaints; so many stick in my mind (any names will be fake):

    “Our Billy’s a good lad because he supports Leeds, not Man United like some of those .

    “You said that I brought my husband bread and butter pudding. I brought in bread pudding which is COMPLETELY different”

    A complaint about bed pans not being fit for purpose.
    “I nearly filled it, and I’m only a small person. Just think what a big person would do”

    And my favourite, Two sides of handwritten letter with the words TO TOP PERSON RESPONSIBLE in upper case letters (I think in red ink) at the very top.

    “I’ve just heard on the radio about people not attending their hospital appointments. You should remind them beforehand because they might be old OR EVEN DEAD. I’m so angry about this, I might go to the press. (Y’know, the same press that she heard it from).

    We wrote a very bland response: “thank you for your comments. We’ve passed them on to our outpatients manager who read them with interest”.

    A few days letter we had an answerphone message: “Thank you for your letter; I don’t remember writing to you. Did I fill in one of your comment cards?”

  371. Andi*

    I work for a consulting company that sometimes works with utilities, but we do not provide electricity / gas. That doesn’t stop people who are trying to talk to their utility from getting lost in the phone tree and ending up at my desk sometimes.

    A few years ago a young man called, obviously in the wrong place, and told me a story about the dream he had in his heart (his words) to build a solar-powered pig farm. He exclaimed, “I just want to have hogs powered by sunlight, and I have a few questions.”

    It took everything in me not to respond, “Buddy, so do I.”

    1. But maybe not*

      I work in research at a land grant university in a public facing role and I cannot tell you the number of quirky business pitches tangentially related to our field of study that I have heard. (I usually find a way to pass them off to my least favorite faculty members.)

  372. Just Another Cog*

    Kind of a complaint, I guess. Years ago, I worked at a bank in new accounts. An older woman and her elderly mother sat at my desk and asked to open a new account. We chit-chatted while I was preparing the paperwork, then as the ladies got up to leave, the older one leaned over and said “Whoever ironed your blouse this morning did a piss-poor job”.

  373. Ell*

    Way back when I was working my first job (retail), I was approached by a customer who had a question, who then shouted at me not to walk away from him. Reader… he was walking past me. I was standing still. I didn’t even have time to process his question before he was several feet past me.

    Sorry, sir. I’ll try to stand still faster next time.

  374. Aepyornis*

    I once made a typo in a bilingual newsletter I had to send quickly. The second language of it is my third language and I normally write it without mistakes but in this instance, I was not able to get it proof-read on very short notice. It was a programme update for a cultural venue, nothing political or from the government or anything official or life-altering for anyone. One of our subscribers became completely enraged. He interpreted the misspelled plural of the word “members” as some sort of radical woke and feminist propaganda and did not only write me a remarkably patronising email explaining how that typo was an example of everything wrong with the world (but especially with me), he also wrote a full blog article about it and managed to get it published in a local news blog. Never have my words yielded so much power ever since.

  375. Aepyornis*

    Not exclusively a customer review, but a recurring story that I love. My father, retired after 40 years (to the day) working in a psychiatric hospital, receives at home every year in December a letter from God (aka a former patient grateful for the good care, now living in a nursing home). He gets a general update on the world (from God’s perspective) and on the patient’s life in hospice, and the last page, which is photocopied and the same every year, contains a warm thank you for the good care at the psychiatric hospital all these years, and a modest and polite request for money. My father always sends wishes for the new year and some bills, and I pitch in too.
    We grew up in a very catholic rural area (in Europe), so this is quite in line with our experience with the local church anyway. We’ll miss him when he passes.

  376. Snow Angels in the Zen Garden*

    I formerly worked in the call center of an investment company. A customer called us on Good Friday to complain that the NYSE wasn’t open.

    Not a customer, but the director at my academic library job: that I didn’t read People magazine.

  377. Wolf*

    So many reviews that complain that a cheap item does not have the same function as the mo complex, expensive one. And it was clearly written in the description.

    Basically “I bought this Mini car because the pickup truck was too expensive, and now I’m mad I cannot transport half a ton of timber”.

  378. the sun is a deadly laser*

    I work at a restaurant as a food runner, and today, at sunset, I had a customer who was part of a table of 10 ask if we could move all the tables because the sun was in her eyes. This was in our downstairs grill, and her table consisted of four small tables pushed together along a booth. I stared for a moment before going “I….don’t think we can do that?”. (It wouldn’t have fixed the problem either- the wall where the sun sets is completely covered in windows. Nowhere was safe.) I offered to move her, but she refused.

    She could’ve just switched seats with someone who was facing away from the sun….

    More egregious is this second incident. My restaurant serves steaks on the stone, where we bring you a board with an 855f volcanic rock to cook your steak on. We sear the steak on both sides just to give it some color before it comes out, but it is pretty much entirely raw when it arrives at the table.

    The other day, after bringing out a stone, the customer stopped me and pointed at the raw steak, aghast, and asked “What is THIS?”

    I paused, smiled, and said “It’s raw, ma’am, you cook it yourself.”

    And she just instantly went “oh” in a very quiet voice.

    I know the servers tend to be really clear when explaining the stones so I have no idea what happened here, but it was my favorite interaction that day.

  379. Rhi*

    Other excellent ancient complaints
    “I am not getting water for my sesame field. The sesame will die. Don’t tell me later, ‘You did not write to me.’ The sesame is visibly dying. Ibbi-Ilabrat saw it. That sesame will die, and I have warned you.”
    https://thewhippet.org/the-whippet-129-lethal-allele/#from-a-letter-of-complaint-to-ancient-babylonian-administrators

    Why will you not send us your price list?
    https://bsky.app/profile/jessnevins.bsky.social/post/3kpfgl3lokm2s

  380. Anon too*

    Not technically customer feedback, but I’ll include it here for, well, the story explains it best, I think:
    I live in a city that is a famous tourist destination. Having grown up here I do know at least a little bit about most of the landmarks and old buildings tourists like to visit and don’t mind offering up some of that if stopped by someone. Usually they either look for a specific place or need some help with our public transport.
    Got stopped one day on a walk by a middle-aged woman. I gave a little information about the building she was interested in and was ready to end the conversation. She however wanted to know very specific historical details now and after I floundered and excused myself to continue my walk, she uttered with a sneer something like “Well, what are you good for then?”. I unfortunately only thought later to answer that she only got what she paid for. In the moment I was too suprised to her swing to outright hostility. I can only assume by the apologetic face her younger relative made that that was completely normal for her…
    Sorry Ma’am, not a tour guide, and if I were, I’d consider issuing a refund and still walk away.

  381. Long-time reader, first-time commenter*

    I wish I could find this now, but it was years ago. John Lewis is a UK department store. Someone had left a long, increasingly angry complaint on their customer feedback page about a wicker laundry hamper that “smelt terrible and made our clothes smell terrible.” They were incensed that John Lewis would not take it back because the hamper itself was not damaged. They were threatening legal action because John Lewis also was refusing to compensate the customer for the money spent on new wardrobes for him, his wife, and their baby after all their other clothes had to be “burned” — it was the only way to get rid of the disgusting smell they’d been contaminated with after being in the hamper! — and the inferno in the backyard had left his fence with smoke damage. I still remember the response from some poor customer service agent, though alas at this distance of time I must paraphrase: “Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry you did not accept our offer to exchange your hamper for a more fragant one, and surprised by your decision to put every item of clothing your family owns into it. That must have taken you some time, as the hamper is not very large. We note that during your initial complaint, made over the phone, we did tell you not to burn all your clothes. We are not liable for the results of your decision to set fire to them anyway.”

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      John Lewis customer service must have really gone downhill if they’re now advising people to set their clothes on fire!

      Also on the topic of reviews of John Lewis laundry items – the somewhat cranky review of this laundry basket dated 30th October, 2020 is a particular favourite of mine:
      https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-anyday-recycled-plastic-rectangular-laundry-basket-grey/p4357057?s_share=jlappdroid

      And one of the other reviews (of the 128 for this product) complains that this (recycled) plastic washing basket, which the reviewer purchased, is made out of plastic. Classic.

  382. MJ*

    I run in-person training events for professional adults; I had an ongoing issue with some people showing up much too early, coming into the room, and sitting there staring at me and the speaker while we prepared for the event. Which was off-putting and annoying, and meant we couldn’t talk openly.

    After this happened a few times, I started specifying ‘doors at 9:15, event starts at 9:30’ on the event booking details, and putting a sign on the door with the same info. Sign also noted that there was both a waiting area and a café on site where they could sit if they were early.

    First event where I did this worked like a dream, no-one barged in early. The feedback forms afterwards were nearly all very positive, except for one anonymous complaint that still annoys me to this day: ‘the room should have been ready at 8.45.’

    WHY? Why?! Why the flip should the room be open half an hour before the advertised start time? It’s not like they had to stand outside in the cold, there were plenty of comfortable places to sit. The was years ago but I still sometimes think of this example of ‘the world should revolve around my particular oddness’ complainer brain and laugh to myself.

  383. Lab Boss*

    Now all I can think of is a fire alarm that makes the lights blink and plays the “The System Is Down” song from that Homestar Runner cartoon about raves. (also, if I had a nickel for every Homestar Runner reference in this comment section I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice).

    1. Lucien Nova*

      Actually slightly relevant story, related to that song!

      Back in ’06 I was attending my first big anime convention – I’d been to my hometown one a couple years before but this was the first Really Large One, and in fact it moved out of that hotel the next year as it’d outgrown the hotel. Anyway, you get some very interesting characters on the elevators late at night – I was riding back up to my floor with four people: a guy and his girlfriend, a single girl with headphones in, and a very cranky lad who must have thought this was his own personal express elevator, all of them various flavours of drunk (which surely contributed.) The guy with the girlfriend was the most cheerful of them and was quietly going “oontz oontz oontz” under his breath – you know the techno-style beat? Well, cranky lad was not having this; he stepped squarely in front of coupled lad, looked him in the eye and loudly complained “You’re not allowed to be a geek when you have such a hot girl with you!”

      I stare at cranky lad. Both halves of the couple stare at cranky lad. He sounds, and looks, very serious.

      (Headphones girl is paying not a whit of attention to the situation, which honestly, fair. There were a few later elevator rides that weekend where I wished I’d had headphones for the Field of Ignoring +5 they provide.)

      Cranky lad, not getting the reaction he wants, which is apparently a scraping and bowing apology and an outpouring of utmost thankfulness for the compliment he bestowed upon the girlfriend, repeats himself, louder and angrier.

      Now, it is almost midnight. Everyone in this elevator except for myself is drunk and that’s only because I was underage at the time. We still have like five floors to go and I don’t want a brawl to break out because I am not even five feet tall and weigh next to nothing; I will be pulverised via collateral damage.

      So I, in my infinite wisdom, go “That’s okay, I’ll do it instead!”

      And I start oontzing.

      At which point coupled lad bursts out with The System Is Down with me providing the backing beat.

      Luckily, this ended very well! Cranky lad could not hold onto his cranky attitude at that, burst out laughing so hard he had to sit down, and joined in once he could get up again.

      I think the people waiting to board when we did get to the correct floor thought we were clinically insane, though. :)

  384. Hydrangea MacDuff*

    I work in a public agency that serves families. We had advertised a public event, and one of our frequent commenters called; generally, this individual would call with his feedback about small spelling errors (sometimes “errors”) or what he perceived as wasteful use of resources,
    It was my turn to take his call, and as it was transferred to me my mind jumped to all the potential complaints he might have. Was it the event itself? The date or time? The color flyer or mailing costs?
    “I notice the flyer says ‘free food trucks,’” he began.
    Ok, I thought, he thinks it’s expensive and wasteful. I started to explain how the meals are grant funded, etc., and that we have greater participation if food is provided so are able to help more people, etc etc.
    This was not his concern, however; his concern was grammatical.
    “No, the flyer says FREE FOOD TRUCKS. It should say ‘free food from a truck’.”
    I was silent for a few beats. All my colleagues were eavesdropping.
    I cautiously responded: “Just to make sure I understand, your concern is that people will think they will receive a free food truck, like an actual entire truck, if they come to this event?”
    Yes, that was his concern.
    It was both ridiculous and a relief.
    “Thank you for your feedback!” I said, and hung up.
    To my knowledge, zero of the thousands of attendees to the event complained about not receiving a free food truck.

  385. Doont-da-doont*

    I have two from my days in Retail:

    While working as a pharmacy technician, I had a patient caller insist that I was going to be the direct cause of their death and that they were going to “indict (me) with a grand jury” because I would not refill their prescription. Of course I couldn’t refill the prescription without the patient’s name or any other identifiable information, which the patient refused to provide. Apparently, I should know their voice. We live in a town of about 40 thousand people – but OK. After getting yelled at for about 5 minutes, I had to let them know I was going to hang up unless they could give me any relevant information. They didn’t and I never heard from them again.

    I also sold digital cameras and taught photography during the early days of the film to digital conversion. A customer came in and bought a full, fairly high end, SLR set up. As per my usual, I walked him through all of the settings, care instructions, and basic photography throughout his purchase while also trying to align his needs with the right equipment. I also offered a free 2 hour basic photography workshop that I facilitated and provided information about a free photography club that I ran monthly. The purchase took nearly 2 hours due to all of his questions (and 3 smoke breaks that he needed). One week later, he wanted to return everything and told my manager it was because I didn’t spend any time with him. I will not detail how bad the equipment was that he was trying to return. My manager was definitely on my side and not just because we had footage proving how much time he spent at my counter when he purchased the equipment in the first place.

  386. CatRancher*

    My daughter was cooking at a fancy senior residential facility (apartments and independent living, but there was a cafeteria w the three standards, a Sunday brunch, happy hours, etc.) She made a cheesy spinach artichoke soup. Think spinach artichoke dip, but…..soup. One of the comment cards stated “The soup was unrealistic.” I actually made some artwork based off that soup that hung in the kitchen of that facility and then its sister facility in another city until she left the state a couple years later.

  387. Sharp-dressed Boston Terrier*

    Putting this one in before the comments are closed:

    Client sent back a marked-up translation, criticizing my work. Their improvements were sub-par, to put it generously. Upon being informed that they had significantly impaired the quality of the text:

    “Well, the person who made the changes knows English – they lived in New York for four years!”

    (And if you think you’ve seen this on another site somewhere… you have. I put it there as well.)

  388. SeaBreeze*

    Back when I was waitressing, I had a customer tell me on their way out that I was lucky they didn’t “tell my manager”. I ran over to their table, grabbed the check, and found a note on their check telling me my service was fine, but I would have gotten a bigger tip if I hadn’t picked my nose immediately before delivering their food (??!?). Even back then I had no idea what they were talking about, I have a feeling I scratched or rubbed my nose absentmindedly and from their angle it looked like I was digging for gold.

    At least they gave me a tip, I guess?

  389. Mel*

    I received feedback once that we should provide free baseball tickets. I work in a hospital. Like I guess this person thought because they were disabled (not because of the hospital) that we should just give him baseball tickets?

  390. FuglyPants*

    Back in my retail days, I had a gentleman come in who was quite frustrated at my lack of knowledge on our products. It didn’t help that when he greeted me with “Your hats don’t float!” I was confused/assumed he was joking, and laughed. He proceeded to ask me about each different hat design and whether it would float or not. I recommended adding a fishing bobber to the top, but this was, you can imagine, woefully insufficient for his needs.

    I would have understood if I was working in an outdoor shop at the time, but this was the retail shop of a theme restaurant … Sir, the Soft Smock Cafe did not provide detailed training re: hat buoyancy.

  391. CJ Cregg*

    Once during my years in broadcast news, we had a tornado warning (for those in non-tornado states, a warning means a tornado is imminent, so you better go to your basement now). We immediately put the weather team on air (as required by the FCC). This was not an optional thing we could decide to do. If we didn’t go on air during the warning to inform the public, we’d be fined. When we went to air, that also meant we were cutting into the reruns of All in the Family that ran on our off-air cable channel. The next day, our news director received an absolutely scathing email from a woman eviscerating us for for cutting into All in the Family. This woman was furious because the tornado warning didn’t cover her area and she wasn’t affected by it (our station covered 17 counties, so wound viewing area was quite large). This viewer sent us 3 full paragraphs full of swear words for daring to cut into a rerun of a 40-year old sitcom because we dared to inform the public of a dangerous weather emergency.

    1. CJ Cregg*

      That email was immediately forwarded to the entire newsroom of cranky news people and printed and hung on our bulletin board. It’s still there years later.

  392. DVM*

    I was working in a restaurant, and had delivered a pretty standard Caesar salad order (lettuce tossed in dressing, large crumble-yourself seasoned crouton, shredded Parmesan cheese with a side plate of fresh bread and butter. At my first-bite check in, the salad orderer said, “This Caesar salad tastes like fish. And this bread,” picks up the crouton and taps it on the plate like ~dink dink~ “is rock hard.”

  393. I Super Believe In You, Tad Cooper*

    I used to be a fundraising copywriter at a foundation. I was by no means high-ranking or recognizable, but about half of the fundraising emails still went out under my name.

    During one of our biggest fundraising campaigns of the year where we were sending 2-3 emails a week for 2 weeks, one of our prospects sent an email to the customer service inbox demanding that someone tell the foundation’s president that I was a scourge on the foundation’s donors. He didn’t believe for one moment that a single human being could send so many emails—therefore, he declared, I was most likely a robot.

    He then launched into several paragraphs describing how this robot version of me went about its rustbucket kind of day, spamming thousands of emails and scrounging for oil cans, with dreams of taking over the world (because what else do robots do, I guess).

    He signed off “Yours, In Deliverance, From [my name] The Probable Robot.”

    It took all of my self control not to reply back to him in binary.

  394. Addicted to Sims*

    Back in the mid-90s the Document Delivery service I worked for accepted orders by fax, among other things, and quite a lot of clients used that method. We tried to get orders out within one business day, but given our high volume we couldn’t guarantee it unless you wanted to add Rush service so we would prioritize your order. One day a client called wanting to know why they hadn’t gotten their order yet, because they needed it asap. I asked if they had requested Rush service because I didn’t see it on the form. She replied that we should have known it was a Rush because she sent it by fax and she only uses the fax for rushes!

  395. A large cage of birds*

    I was asked if we had WiFi. I said no. And the guy walked by a few minutes later and said “You should really get WiFi.”

    Reader, we were a nonprofit animal shelter. There is absolutely no reason that a potential adopter would have needed WiFi in our facility.

  396. A large cage of birds*

    Not a customer, but an internal client. I managed internal funding opportunities at a university. The deadlines used to be on Fridays, which didn’t make any sense to me because I wasn’t going to do anything with them over the weekend, so I made all of my deadlines on Thursdays so I could be there at work at submission time and then start working with the applications first thing Friday morning.

    I had a guy absolutely lose his shit with me saying that we shouldn’t have any weekday deadlines “because [he] had meetings to attend during the week.”

    He also complained about a specific deadline because it coincided with something else he had going on that I couldn’t have known about, and why didn’t I make our deadline a week earlier. I asked him why he didn’t submit his application a week earlier and he said “You just don’t understand.”

  397. I am the fruitcake*

    I worked at a magazine publisher and we did a round of holiday ads promoting magazine subscriptions as the perfect gift. The tag line was something like “give them something they actually want” and each ad had the tag line along with commonly hated-on gifts—goofy ties, bad sweaters, etc. One featured a fruitcake.

    I got a letter from a reader who was furious that we had maligned the “noble fruitcake” in this way. He apparently lived in some kind of fruitcake company town—he explained the fruitcake company there supported the entire community and both the company and its products were universally adored by all who encountered them. It was shameful of us to strike such a low blow at a beloved American institution. It was a cheap shot and he would not only NOT be buying any gift subscriptions, he would also be canceling his own. I’m paraphrasing. It was a full hand-written page of admonishments.

    He also included one of the famed fruitcakes produced in his hometown. It was exactly the dense, sticky ring you imagine. It weighed about 10 pounds. I kept it in my office as a trophy for the rest of my time there and it looked exactly the same when I finally left as it did the day it arrived, validating all my anti-fruitcake bias.

    2. Sharpie*

      Was this… Was this the fruitcake that ended up being the office white elephant gift that was eventually mistakenly eaten (and then replaced) by an intern?

      I can’t remember the title of the letter, but it was in a roundup of the worst office white elephant/Secret Santas that Alison has published over the years.

  398. A large cage of birds*

    Oh! I think I may have shared this here before, but I worked for an animal shelter and unfortunately animals get adopted and returned all the time. There was this one pudgy smallish puppy that was just the cutest thing. He was adopted and returned less than 24 hours later. Why? “He’s too short.”

    In case you’re wondering: no, the dog did not shrink overnight.

  399. Rainbow Carebear*

    Many years ago, I used to work at a (now defunct) bookstore chain that also sold a lot of gifty and home decor items. During the winter holiday season, we had small tabletop Christmas trees in all kinds of colors. Pink, yellow (why?!), orange, white, and…. black. I personally thought the black tree was kind of cool but one day while I was the shift supervisor, a customer came over with a complaint about our “Satanic” Christmas trees. She wanted me to call corporate right away and let them know we were inviting people to bring Satan into their homes by promoting black trees. But she really liked the pink trees we had!

    I of course responded with “ohh” and “hmmm” and “I’ll be sure to let our managers know” – the types of customer service responses you develop, but it just struck me as pretty funny that the black tree was evil while the Pepto pink one was cute. I really wanted to tell her we sold some lovely pentagram and goat’s head ornaments to really show Satan your holiday spirit, but I needed my paycheck even more.

  401. skeptic53*

    Before computers the medical clinic where I worked ran on a 10-minute schedule and used paper charts. One day the 10:30 and 10:40 patients arrived at the same time. The 10:40 patient was turning blue and so short of breath he couldn’t talk. Staff hustled him into an exam room, I told one assistant to get the crash cart and another to stay with him in case he needed CPR. I went to the phone to call 911, when I picked up the phone the receptionist was already on the line. She said the 10:30 patient was upset and wanted to know when she would be seen. I said “we’re in the middle of a code blue” and hung up, and went back to my patient. Once the paramedics arrived, they wheeled him out on a gurney and the assistants were busy putting the equipment away. I went out and got the 10:30 patient. In the exam room, she started bitching up a storm about how the 10:40 patient was seen before her. It was now 10:40. I pointed out she had waited all of 10 minutes, the doctor had personally brought her back, and she was seen out of order because the patient after her WAS DYING AND NEEDED HIS LIFE SAVED. I said I wanted to know what clinic she was used to going to that provided faster care than that, because I wanted to go there myself. The kicker: She had had a bad headache, 4 months prior. It lasted a day and she felt fine now. But a friend had told her it might be brain cancer and she wanted an MRI.

  402. Tilly Dunnage*

    Here’s where we find out if my longtime employees read AAM.
    In an alterations shop, a woman asks for the elastic in her pants to be replaced. The current elastic is stretched out way beyond its lifespan. We measure the waistline of the woman and replace the elastic in the pants with an arbitrary, but reasonable, length of elastic for the waistline and pants involved.
    The following week the woman comes to retrieve her newly-elastic-ed pants. My assistant invites her to step into the fitting room and try on the pants. She just about SCREAMS,”but I’d have to take my SHOOOOOES off!”. Yes, true enough, you would. My befuddled assistant then hands over the pants and the woman storms out. 45 minutes later she calls, absolutely unhinged, that the elastic is too tight, but only after she has written a Screed on Next Door about how we purposely made her pants unwearable and didn’t give back the extra elastic she provided (I always provide the elastic, and PS, that powdery bundle of 1967 elastic you attempted to foist onto me is still untouched in the pocket of the pants). She then refused to “come all the way back down there” even though her Next Door address reveals that she lives 3/4 of a mile away.

  403. DawnShadow*

    Two items come to mind.

    When I was a grocery store cashier, a woman told me she wanted a refund for her yogurt she bought here a while back. I asked if she had the container, she said no. I asked when she bought it, she couldn’t remember. I asked what brand it was. She at least looked sheepish: “I don’t know.” She was kind enough not to argue when I said I couldn’t help her.

    About ten or fifteen years ago I found out that each Friday night when we were waiting for a table at restaurant with another couple who had kids the same age as ours, our kids would ask to borrow our phones and instead of playing the games on it, they were rating/commenting on various places, both local and far away, on Google Maps. Ratings were a fairly new feature back then. I remember particularly upon finding out what they were doing, that my son’s comment on the Pacific Ocean was “Too wet. I was salty about it” and it was the only comment anyone had made! I always wondered how many people saw that and what they thought of it.

  404. Harriet Vane*

    I have a few:
    * My very first “real” summer job was between eighth grade and freshman year. This college-age-but-still-super-decent-to-awkward-14-year-old-me guy and I ran a tree nursery owned by a local dentist, who never came onsite because, y’know, he was working as a dentist. We had the place to ourselves and just had to water the trees and help the customers (commercial landscapers) pick up their orders. We mostly sat in this little hut that served as the office, played cards, and drank a lot of Dr. Pepper. As summer jobs go, it was pretty great, except for this one guy who kept promising his customers PALM TREES and then being mad at us that we wouldn’t stock any, because this was in Wyoming.

    * Between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I worked at Sizzler, as the “salad bar girl” running a buffet with salad, soup, and a taco bar. I was also in charge of doing bathroom checks and cleaning. We used to get hordes of senior citizen tour buses stopping in to decimate the buffet, make a huge mess, and leave no tips for anyone (our servers made under $2 an hour and still had to get drinks and replacement plates and etc. for all these dozens of people filling the restaurant). As with pretty much all buffets, we had a rule that you couldn’t take home any buffet food; it was all you can eat while you’re there. I caught multiple women from the senior tours sneaking into the bathrooms with full plates of food; they had rigged up their purses (sometimes with multiple Ziplock bags, sometimes with a cunning foil lining) so they could dump food in there and have some leftovers later. You gotta respect the initiative, but it WAS against our clearly posted rules. Most of them were pretty nice about being caught, but a few flounced out and complained to my manager—not about the rule itself, but that I was “rude” in enforcing it.

    * When I worked at Walmart a few summers later, this one woman was the terror of us cashiers because she would get in line with her 10-20 items, have us start ringing her up, realize she forgot a thing, and then expect us to send another cashier into the vastness of the store to get it while she waited there in our line (part of our evaluations as cashiers was how fast we got people through our lines). Sometimes she would send the worker back out more than once if what the person got was the wrong brand or size or whatever. And she would yell and scream at us and escalate to the front-end manager if we suggested she a) get the thing herself or b) step aside and let us get more customers through while one of us got her thing. We had SO MANY customers who behaved badly in that store, but that woman had Special Status.

    * Many years after THAT, I adjunct-taught a senior-level feature-writing class to journalism/communications majors. This particular university required students to evaluate professors towards the end of the semester, so almost all of my students evaluated me. The vast majority were very positive, but there were a few complaints I thought were really funny: 1) A student felt the class had too much talking (it was discussion-based, so guilty as charged, I guess). 2) A student thought we did too much writing (it was a class teaching … writing). 3) A student had no idea that, when I said each project had a hard deadline with no late work accepted, I meant it (I wrote this clearly and in detail, including explaining why, on the syllabus and also made them sign a document about that specific aspect of the course during class). 4) A student had wanted to write hard news stories and thought it wasn’t fair to force him to write in-depth features (reminder: it was a feature-writing class). 5) A student thought that, since it was a feature-writing class, I should gather all the information they needed to write a story so they could just concentrate on the writing (I remain baffled about how this person reached their senior year in a journalism major if this is what they really expected).

  405. Kat*

    “Used cartridge in Mosa 0.5L canister for whip cream, which is labelled as compatible. Negatively altered the flavour! Whip cream was unpleasantly tangy with a strong tingling sensation on the tongue!! Dumped out the canister of cream. Questioned if the cream had expired, but checked the remainder in the carton, proceeded to hand whip, and it was great. Would NOT recommend this product, even though it’s labelled food safe. As the cartridges are not returnable, they’ll be disposed of. Very disappointing. Stick to name brand products.”

    Ladies and gentlemen, this woman was trying to make whipped cream with carbon dioxide cartridges.

  406. Amphigorey*

    I own a specialty bra fitting boutique. Most of our clients are absolutely lovely, but it’s retail and we get the occasional hairball customer.

    The funniest yelp review I ever got was from someone who was DEEPLY UPSET that I was conducting bra fittings “while wearing a corset and a push-up bra.” SO mad! One star!

    I was wearing neither. I was in jeans and a sweater. She was just mad that I existed, I guess.

  407. Books&Bakes*

    This happened in 2018, at a bookstore chain where I worked. There was a magazine rack was right in front of the customer service help desk that I was assigned to. A “regular” came in and complained that the magazine they wanted to flip through had “clearly” been handled by other customers. They wanted to know what staff would be doing in the future to ensure that “others” wouldn’t be allowed to touch/read the magazine in the future so that it was in a “new” condition when they came in to look at it. I told them that we really couldn’t control what other customers handled, but tried to offer other solutions, such as they could order a subscription of the magazine to their house directly. Turns out that was the wrong thing to say – they didn’t want to actually buy the magazine. They just liked looking at it in the store, but wanted it to be in pristine condition when they did. Anyway they demanded they speak to a manager, and started asking why someone couldn’t just monitor the magazines since it was right in front of the service desk anyway.

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