I work for a small(ish) telecommunications company in their call centre, and we have a few regulars who call up all the time to report various “issues” that they have.

One of these is a very wealthy, very elderly (but sharp as a tack!), and very cantankerous sort of chap, who we know as soon as we see his phone number come up — and he calls for the strangest reasons.

The most recent interaction I had with this customer:

Me: “Good morning, [Company], [My Name] speaking. How can I help?”

Customer: “Right! I’ve just received a catalogue from [Company] in the post. They’re a UK company; they sell clothes and that sort of thing.”

Me: “Okay…”

Customer: “Well, they have a phone number that one can call and make orders, that sort of thing, right?”

Me: “Yes…”

Customer: “Well, I’ve just called it, and the number is out of service!”

Me: “Oh, dear. That’s not good.”

Customer: “Well? What are you going to do about it, then?”

Me: “I’m very sorry, [Customer], but I’m not able to assist you with that. If the company has printed the number wrong, there’s nothing I can do.”

Customer: “Then what the f*** am I paying you for?”

Me: “Sir, you pay us for your landline and broadband services; we’re not responsible for anything outside of that.”

Customer: “That’s barmy! Absolutely barmy!”

And, as per usual, he slammed the phone down. We have to log every call we get, and we can also view past call records. Most customers have five or six pages; this gentleman has twenty-two.

I work in a business that, alongside other things, has escape rooms. Some are upstairs, and some are downstairs. You sign in at a central counter, and when the staff members are ready to receive the rooms, they either come to collect the group (downstairs) or the group is sent to the secret door (upstairs). Whilst the downstairs door is visible to customers, it has a very clear “NO UNAUTHORISED PEOPLE” sign on it and is otherwise unmarked.

One busy day, a group arrives early for their room. They decide to take part in some of the other activities offered in the main hub of the space — a dip-in, dip-out kinda thing — and I think very little of it. Their time arrives, and I receive a message saying the Games Master is ready. Immediately, there’s a queue at my till, so they get put aside for about ten minutes before I’m able to see the message and try to send them up, as their room is one of the upstairs ones.

I can’t find them.

I message the upstairs staff; they haven’t come to collect them. It’s now fifteen minutes past the time they’re due to go in, and I still can’t locate them. I assume the other escape room staff is here, noticing an open door, and go to double-check that they haven’t sent them up… and I find the group, having sat down and made themselves comfortable in the very much off-limits, very much shut door of the downstairs escape rooms, having a good look at the monitors!

I cannot believe the audacity. And when I ask what they’re doing in there, of course, they knock me back with, “Well, obviously, we’re waiting to begin!” Astounded, I send them upstairs, not quite able to believe that they just… let themselves into a room that was clearly off-limits without a staff member.

Later on, I found out that they’d also shoved some of the games controllers into the cushions on one of the sofas. Of course.

This is a story that has often been told to me by my parents, as I was way too young at the time to remember.

Many years ago, in my single-digit years sometime during the 1990s (i.e. pre-9/11 era), my parents were taking me to a certain magical theme park on the east coast of the US. It was probably even my first trip, so of course, I was excited. With said center of magic being in Florida and us living in New York, this also meant my first plane ride. So, of course, we made our way to the airport, got through everything, got on the plane, and waited for it to take off.

And waited. And waited. And waited, as it was massively delayed for one reason or another. Of course, a plane going to Orlando would be filled with lots of nervous, excitable children, so some of the stewardesses walked around and offered to take the young children up front to take a look at the cockpit.

Of course, when they offered to take me up, my parents allowed the stewardess to take me forward and see all the fancy equipment and pilots and everything at the front. They sat in their seats, surely imagining that I was having a good time… when, suddenly, they felt the plane LURCH forward. It wasn’t taking off — just a sudden lurch out of nowhere.

Shortly after, the stewardess who had taken me up brought me back to my parents, and I got back into my seat. Curious, my mother asked just what had caused that strange lurch in the plane.

Stewardess: “Your son pulled the emergency brake.”

I’m in the kids’ department working out some boys’ freight. I have just finished organizing a new type of shorts and have not yet moved them off of the cart in the middle of the aisle. A customer starts looking at my cart and picking stuff up. I’m already annoyed because I just sorted everything she is touching.

She picks up a pair of the new shorts. These shorts are not located anywhere on the floor yet; they are just on my cart.

Customer: “How much are these?”

No problem; I scan the shorts.

Me: “They’re $19.99.”

Customer: “Thank you.”

She grabs a few pairs and walks away.

Fifteen minutes later, someone calls for a price check in kids’ on the walkie. And you guessed it: it is for none other than the shorts customer.

Employee: “This customer told me she got these shorts off of a table, and the sign on them said they were $12.99.”

Me: “They were literally nowhere on the sales floor; they were on my cart. And I personally told her the price.”

In the end, she did not purchase the shorts!

My African-American coworker is working in the produce section. An older customer — and I mean old, like ninety years or so, but still quite spritely for his age — goes over to him.

Customer: “Boy, where are the rutabagas?”

Coworker: “Please don’t call me ‘boy’, sir. And the rutabagas are at the back, over there.”

Customer: “Those are potatoes, boy! What, they ain’t got no potatoes in Africa? It’s all coconuts over there, ain’t it?”

Thankfully, my manager is nearby and has overheard.

Manager: “Sir, first, the potatoes are next to the root vegetables, so he is correct. Second, if you make one more racist remark, I will ban you from this store.

Customer: “It was a joke! You people are all way too sensitive these days!”

Manager: “Sir, your generation had a collective fit when Rosa Parks sat down on a specific part of a bus. I think we’re doing just fine.”