Difficult Customers
.
Difficult Customers
Since my teenage years I have had quite a few part time jobs. 90% of the customers in every one of these jobs were lovely, friendly, decent people. However, as I said in my bad teachers article, those are no fun to talk about. Besides, having to deal with an awkward customer is a stressful experience which can leave you feeling enraged, upset, and drained, so writing about them afterwards not only helps me deal with these emotions, but also allows me to see how humorously unreasonable these people are, and use the experience as a form of entertainment for others. Silver lining hey? So without further ado, here are some of my absolute worst customer experiences:
1) The Woman who Wanted Ice in the Middle.
This woman asked for a wine and soda with ice. A simple request. I put the wine in, then went to add the soda, and she started screaming. "No you put the ice in before the soda don't you know that? The ice ALWAYS goes in the middle!! Now the bottom of the drink won't be cold!" I couldn't believe what she was saying but proceeded to pour her another drink, no sooner had I picked up a wine glass than she said "No forget it you don't know what you're doing! I'll have a lemonade, forget it!"
2) The Lady who Wanted Pink gloves not Yellow
When I worked in a department store, a customer approached me asking if we had any Pink kitchen gloves. She explained in great detail that her kitchen was organised and she could not have yellow gloves, because she used them for cleaning and pink ones for cutting meat - fair enough. I walked with her to where the gloves were, and the packets of Pink gloves were hung up next to the Yellow gloves, but as there were few left they did not stand out as much, so it was easy to understand why she hadn't seen them. I reached out for them, and she suddenly yelled "No I said PINK! Are you colour blind? Those are yellow!" I paused for a second, took out the pack of pink gloves I was reaching for and gave them to her, to which she replied, "Well they shouldn't be by the yellow ones, that's cross-contamination!" ....What?
3) The Creepy Driving Instructor
This one is a bit insane. We had this guy come into our restaurant regularly who was about 60 years old, I was 18. He was quite a big guy and would come in alone and be very smiley and friendly. Being a female, I was used to jokey, flirty customers, however he would take it a little too far. He would stand at the bar staring at me none stop with a giant smile on his face. He would make comments "It's a nice day so I was imagining you in a bikini." And "I bet you have all sorts of fun with boys at university don't you ;)" I could deal with that. However, it was when he tried to pressure me into ditching my regular driving instructor for him, that things started getting weird. He offered me discounts, gave me his card three times, even offered to take me for meals or to the theater after our 'lessons'. Things got super bad when he asked who my driving instructor was, and then one day I caught him FOLLOWING us in his own instructor car, smiling at me the whole way. We ditched him, but there was nothing anybody could do as there was no evidence he was actively stalking me, but everyone at my old job is wary of him now.
4) The H2O guy
Now, I really liked this customer. He was a local, and he was sweet, but man was he a nightmare to serve. Especially when it was busy. He would only drink J2O's, but would call them H20's, which is fine. However, when he came to the bar if you said, "J2O? or even "H2O?" He would say, "no." and stand looking at all the different drinks on offer for about five minutes. Eventually he would say "H2O" and get his drink and sit down. Not so bad, but he would also repeatedly ask for the TV to be turned over (which is a job and a half when you're rammed at a busy bar: you have to get the remote, get out, push through the crowds to get to the TV in the lounge, and use the dodgy remote to change the channel, leaving the bar unattended.) The other issue with this however, is that after all this effort, you would reach the TV and find that it would already be on the channel that he wanted. There would be a huge BBC logo in the corner, and he would be asking for it to be turned to BBC. He would not understand that the TV was already on the channel. He would also buy a different packet of crisps each day, eat a couple, and ask for a refund, and order taxi's then get us to call and cancel or postpone them constantly... argh!
5) The Crying Lady.
Not so long ago, a 30-ish year old lady started coming into our ale bar, ordering a glass of wine, being super-insanely friendly, then bawling her eyes out and asking the bar staff for "cuddles." My manager is far better than the one at my other bar job, so he witnessed this behavior once and she wasn't to be served any more, which was fine by me. However it didn't stop her crying or demanding physical contact. She also never got any of our names right, and would be really overly friendly. She kept calling me "Her Little Kyla." Which is not my name. The final straw was when she weed all over the floor, had to be kicked out, then tried to come straight back in a few hours later. When she was refused entry, she walked up and down outside the pub for the rest of the night.
6) The Match Maker.
This 50ish year old local kept trying to set me up with every single one of my co-workers or any young male locals. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I was 24 at the time, and the lads he was setting me up with were around 18 years old (one was also gay) It was extremely awkward, he would see me talking to Matt (fellow bar server) and make comments, "You've got feelings for him, I can tell." Another time I would be serving a drink to one of the young locals and he would loudly say "Ohhh I see, so you only have eyes for him do you ;)" Yeah... awkward.
7) Straw Woman
We ran out of straws at a busy function, but luckily I wasn't the only one working it that time. A lady came to the bar demanding a straw for her drink. When I apologised and told her we had ran out, instead of getting angry, she repeatedly asked for a straw in a more and more threatening tone. "I can't drink out of a glass I would like a straw, please." I assumed she misheard and said "Sorry we've ran out of straws tonight."again, to which she would reply. "Well this is a bar. You serve drinks. Straws are for drinking drinks, therefore I WOULD LIKE A STRAW PLEASE." Eventually the other bar staff ran to get a pack of straws from a shop, leaving me to run the bar. We didn't have a very good authority figure running that place, so we had to do what we could to keep everyone happy.
Those are some of the worst customer experiences I have ever had to deal with. There are many more, but these are the ones that really stand out to me at the minute. What do you think? Do you have any awkward customer stories to share?
Since my teenage years I have had quite a few part time jobs. 90% of the customers in every one of these jobs were lovely, friendly, decent people. However, as I said in my bad teachers article, those are no fun to talk about. Besides, having to deal with an awkward customer is a stressful experience which can leave you feeling enraged, upset, and drained, so writing about them afterwards not only helps me deal with these emotions, but also allows me to see how humorously unreasonable these people are, and use the experience as a form of entertainment for others. Silver lining hey? So without further ado, here are some of my absolute worst customer experiences:
1) The Woman who Wanted Ice in the Middle.
This woman asked for a wine and soda with ice. A simple request. I put the wine in, then went to add the soda, and she started screaming. "No you put the ice in before the soda don't you know that? The ice ALWAYS goes in the middle!! Now the bottom of the drink won't be cold!" I couldn't believe what she was saying but proceeded to pour her another drink, no sooner had I picked up a wine glass than she said "No forget it you don't know what you're doing! I'll have a lemonade, forget it!"
2) The Lady who Wanted Pink gloves not Yellow
When I worked in a department store, a customer approached me asking if we had any Pink kitchen gloves. She explained in great detail that her kitchen was organised and she could not have yellow gloves, because she used them for cleaning and pink ones for cutting meat - fair enough. I walked with her to where the gloves were, and the packets of Pink gloves were hung up next to the Yellow gloves, but as there were few left they did not stand out as much, so it was easy to understand why she hadn't seen them. I reached out for them, and she suddenly yelled "No I said PINK! Are you colour blind? Those are yellow!" I paused for a second, took out the pack of pink gloves I was reaching for and gave them to her, to which she replied, "Well they shouldn't be by the yellow ones, that's cross-contamination!" ....What?
3) The Creepy Driving Instructor
This one is a bit insane. We had this guy come into our restaurant regularly who was about 60 years old, I was 18. He was quite a big guy and would come in alone and be very smiley and friendly. Being a female, I was used to jokey, flirty customers, however he would take it a little too far. He would stand at the bar staring at me none stop with a giant smile on his face. He would make comments "It's a nice day so I was imagining you in a bikini." And "I bet you have all sorts of fun with boys at university don't you ;)" I could deal with that. However, it was when he tried to pressure me into ditching my regular driving instructor for him, that things started getting weird. He offered me discounts, gave me his card three times, even offered to take me for meals or to the theater after our 'lessons'. Things got super bad when he asked who my driving instructor was, and then one day I caught him FOLLOWING us in his own instructor car, smiling at me the whole way. We ditched him, but there was nothing anybody could do as there was no evidence he was actively stalking me, but everyone at my old job is wary of him now.
4) The H2O guy
Now, I really liked this customer. He was a local, and he was sweet, but man was he a nightmare to serve. Especially when it was busy. He would only drink J2O's, but would call them H20's, which is fine. However, when he came to the bar if you said, "J2O? or even "H2O?" He would say, "no." and stand looking at all the different drinks on offer for about five minutes. Eventually he would say "H2O" and get his drink and sit down. Not so bad, but he would also repeatedly ask for the TV to be turned over (which is a job and a half when you're rammed at a busy bar: you have to get the remote, get out, push through the crowds to get to the TV in the lounge, and use the dodgy remote to change the channel, leaving the bar unattended.) The other issue with this however, is that after all this effort, you would reach the TV and find that it would already be on the channel that he wanted. There would be a huge BBC logo in the corner, and he would be asking for it to be turned to BBC. He would not understand that the TV was already on the channel. He would also buy a different packet of crisps each day, eat a couple, and ask for a refund, and order taxi's then get us to call and cancel or postpone them constantly... argh!
5) The Crying Lady.
Not so long ago, a 30-ish year old lady started coming into our ale bar, ordering a glass of wine, being super-insanely friendly, then bawling her eyes out and asking the bar staff for "cuddles." My manager is far better than the one at my other bar job, so he witnessed this behavior once and she wasn't to be served any more, which was fine by me. However it didn't stop her crying or demanding physical contact. She also never got any of our names right, and would be really overly friendly. She kept calling me "Her Little Kyla." Which is not my name. The final straw was when she weed all over the floor, had to be kicked out, then tried to come straight back in a few hours later. When she was refused entry, she walked up and down outside the pub for the rest of the night.
6) The Match Maker.
This 50ish year old local kept trying to set me up with every single one of my co-workers or any young male locals. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I was 24 at the time, and the lads he was setting me up with were around 18 years old (one was also gay) It was extremely awkward, he would see me talking to Matt (fellow bar server) and make comments, "You've got feelings for him, I can tell." Another time I would be serving a drink to one of the young locals and he would loudly say "Ohhh I see, so you only have eyes for him do you ;)" Yeah... awkward.
7) Straw Woman
We ran out of straws at a busy function, but luckily I wasn't the only one working it that time. A lady came to the bar demanding a straw for her drink. When I apologised and told her we had ran out, instead of getting angry, she repeatedly asked for a straw in a more and more threatening tone. "I can't drink out of a glass I would like a straw, please." I assumed she misheard and said "Sorry we've ran out of straws tonight."again, to which she would reply. "Well this is a bar. You serve drinks. Straws are for drinking drinks, therefore I WOULD LIKE A STRAW PLEASE." Eventually the other bar staff ran to get a pack of straws from a shop, leaving me to run the bar. We didn't have a very good authority figure running that place, so we had to do what we could to keep everyone happy.
Those are some of the worst customer experiences I have ever had to deal with. There are many more, but these are the ones that really stand out to me at the minute. What do you think? Do you have any awkward customer stories to share?
