Doesn't really count but...
I worked for a distribution company one summer that took orders for a certain overpriced supermarket and heard this little gem:

1st Worker: Have you got any Irish orders?
2nd Worker: You mean blank ones?
Laughter
Pause
1st Worker: (Slightly confused) No, I mean have you got any orders from Ireland?

We had to work in a large fridge too, and we were told we'd be there for 8 hours a night. Some teenage girl twunt came in with a stupid amount of skin showing and shivered all night.

They also told us "Don't try to steal anything. It's not worth it. What are you going to steal? An orange?".
Huh, people who steal something worth less than an hour's work are stupid.
(Orwellian Trash, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 23:49, Reply)

me again, last one I promise....
I'm now working for a major dept. store on Oxford Street (don't wanna say where, it's too sad).

But in our after sales dept. a couple of years ago we had a woman ring up letting hell loose on us down the phone.

"and can you tell me why no one has come to help me?"

"help you with what madam?"

"with my computer that I bought from you yesterday, i've been pressing the Help button for two hours now and no-one has come round to help"

not only this but it transpired that she didn't even have the goddamn thing switched on........

bastards.
(Lemster the sound of one luma clamping, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 23:38, Reply)

The sound of music.....
A few years back I was working for the co-op in a department store when I was approached one day by this old dear. She asked me "where can I buy this music?" and I replied "HMV" thinking she meant the cd I was demo-ing a hi-fi with. "not that one, THIS one" she said pointing at the speakers in the roof.

She only wanted to buy the lift music, which I have to say was probably the worst lift "music" I have ever encountered: Spice Girls played on a odgy synthesiser by a paraplegic monkey anyone?

If that wasn't enough, a few hours later another muppet asked the same thing.......
(Lemster the sound of one luma clamping, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 23:32, Reply)

I liked...
When i worked at HMV, A man once asked me what Steven Seagal DVDs we had. He ended up not only buying every Steven Seagal DVD we had, but also ordered every one we could possibly order! It made me laugh, i spent two hours helping him find them all and order them, i never felt so proud.

Also... Congratulations to every idiot that had the following conversation with me

ME: Hello, can i help you?
Them: Yeah, have you got the new lord of the rings film on DVD?
Me: Sure, we have The Two Towers on DVD, 4 dvd set and 5 dvd set...
Them: No i want the new one.
Me: Uh,, that is the new one?
Them: No, the new one!
Me: *Confused*... uh... The Return of the King?
Them: Yeah that one.
Me: Well it's not actually been released in the cinema yet.
Them: So you haven't got it in yet?
Me: No.
Them: Will you have any in soon?
Me: About six months.

At this point most of the customers accepted this fact, one person actually asked to see the manager about it because they didn't believe me, and one person walked off in a very loud huff complaining about the customer service!! What do they want? I nearly said...

Me:The new one? Yes!! I've got fourty illegal copies shipped in from Hong Kong today! I can sell you a copy but i'd have to give your information to the police if i sold u one.

Idiots. All of them.
(Matt entices small rodents with cheese., Fri 2 Jan 2004, 23:00, Reply)

The wonder of Woolies
I thought I ought to post some memorable events from my stint at Woolworths so here goes.

The first one that comes to mind happened after closing on a Sunday night, the store has 8 doors (or 4 sets of double doors) leading to a car park at the back.

After closing I had to pull the security gates almost closed leaving just enough room for us to get out at the end of the shift, these gates had a bar that folded out and fixed into the ground to let the overly rusted piece of crap grind to a close.

About five minutes after I had done this I was clearing up the various rubbish at the back of the store and putting stock back from where customers had left them to where they picked them up from, when a car came charging round the car park and screeched to a halt outside the gates, a woman bailed out, ran towards the doors without even noticing the gates were nearly closed, tripped over the bar on the floor and made a delightful thud followed by the sound of skin squeaking down the glass of the locked door, then she got up, tried pushing all the doors then tapped on the the door in front of her to shout "are you closed?" to the nearest visible member of staff she could see in the dimly lit store, that being me.

I nearly told her she had to pull the doors but I thought that would be cruel as they didn't have handles because they open both ways.
I had to explain the make up stains to the window cleaner the following morning as well.

More to come soon, I haven't started on the work experience kids and new recruits yet
(Former Woolies worker (pity me), Fri 2 Jan 2004, 22:53, Reply)

me again
I've remembered more, but I'll be a bit shorter this time...

There's a huge (6x9ft) sign hanging a few feet above the till saying "please pay here". The amount of times old people say "can i pay here?" when you're standing at the parts/audio/bikes desk.

There seem to be a lot of Halfordians on this board, bet they all get to work in the fancy new ones. Did anyone actually manage to get a fiver in that staff thing?
(SpookTheHamster, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 22:49, Reply)

I think i have the winner
I work in games shop(will NOT give them free advertsising)...We allways laugh about this one, it does cheer us up on a dark day...here goes

I on the shop floor, replacing items that have been sold. We are a bit quite for a christmas, so things are chugging along nicely.

A twonk comes into the store, looks about and storms up to the counter. He then demands to my college manning the till, in a loud voice so I can hear..
wait for it
"Where are your changing rooms?"
The expression on our faces was one of "HUH?"
He then repeats "where the bloody hells are your changing rooms?"
me(in my head) Over there sir, next to the TARTAN PAINT AND GLASS NAILS...

Twating arse
(Phil Febuggure, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 22:39, Reply)

Barman with American guests
Working late night behind the bar of a swanky London hotel, two American women wandered in after the theatre.

In the most ingratiating Texan drawl you've ever heard one of them asked. 'Do you sell Kahlua?'

'What the hell is Kahlua?' her freind asked.

'It's a coffee liqueur.'

'Okay,' the freind said, 'I'll have a decaf Kahlua.'
(McGeorge, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 22:17, Reply)

retail response
i was working in a record store:
customer: do you have any german music?
me:did you check the world music section?
customer: yeah, it has greece, but i wanted german
me: was there any artist in particular?
customer: yeah, rammstein.
me (checking database): well, there's one listed, but we don't have it at the moment.
customer: no, i have that one, do you have any others?
me: umm.... no... that's the only one listed.
customer: so, does that mean i have to buy the Lost Highway soundtrack?
me: only if you want to.
(mocha louder, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 21:52, Reply)

A long time ago
I worked in a computer shop, that about 5 years before that had been a newsagents.

One day, a bloke comes in, walks up the shop, looking at computers, phones, photocopiers and the like - yup. You guessed it :

"Twenty B&H and a box of matches please."
( bowdie, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 21:49, Reply)

Used to work in indie computer shop...
Sorry if any of you live in melton mowbray (really, I am..) - I'm sure you were an exception.. but by God that town's full of idiots!

Random favourites....

customer: (OUTRAGED) This isn't a butcher's!

or

customer: can i have the rugby ball in the window please?

me: nope. there isn't one. sorry.

customer: yes there is!

me: i'm sure there isn't. would you like to show me. if it's there i'll sell you it.

(exit stage right...)

me and customer stood outside shop. customer points proudly at rugby ball in the window

customer: (SMUGLY)There!

me: ah... i see. That'll be the rugby ball in the sports shop next door, then.

or

Mad old woman: I'm looking for the new daniel o'donnell tape.

me: Aren't we all, love?
(fozziebear, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 20:50, Reply)

I got a call
from a customer asking me where his phone was.
Confused I said "your phone?"
"My mobile," he continued, "I'm on your network and I have lost my phone, now where is it?"
I attempted to explain that I had no idea where his phone was but he interjected "well you know where it is to send my bloody phone calls to it!"
What can you say to that?!
(Monskervator the Monsk, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 20:46, Reply)

I don't really have 'clients' coz i write music
but someone did ask me, about 3 days ago, how much my free brass quintet score sample cost. I took advantage, and charged £25.
(Qaramarak, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 20:36, Reply)

About half an hour ago
I spoke to a woman who wanted to know when windows95 came out.
(vickersdontwannaworklates, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 19:57, Reply)

I was working
in a hotel in Bath over the summer. I was a tad bored, and two Yanks came in and said to me
"do you wait for food?"
I smiled, said yes.
They left after about 45 minutes.
Strictly speaking this isn't them being stupid. I just felt like being an arsehole. The funny thing was that they were the only ones in there.
The food was shite there anyway. I did them a favour.
(Obi Wan Jonobi, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 19:50, Reply)

stupid clients
I don't know about all you smug bastards who work in computers and expect normal people to understand your terminology, but when I worked for Halfords we once had a woman come in and ask for the cheese counter.
(squonk, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 19:10, Reply)

An ex-lurker writes
One of my colleagues was complaining she couldn't get her monitor to switch on & could I have a look at it. Ask the usual questions - is the computer turned on? etc. - but she insisted every thing is fine, was very adamant about it in fact. So I go over & look under her desk to check everything’s plugged in correctly. Guess what? There's no PC there. Support had taken it away for a rebuild. She was suitably embarrassed.
(garybaldy, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 19:05, Reply)

Never mess with people's money. Unless it's funny
I used to work for American Express (I don't care who knows) and once I had a bloke wait on the phone for 15 minutes to get through (there had been a massive billing problem due to September 11th as a result of no air cargo coming in as the bills were all printed in the US for some reason). When he got through, aside from speaking very broken English in an indeterminate accent, I managed to decipher what the bloody hell he was banging on about...

He wanted to "Speek manayer" which I correctly assumed was "manager". However, due to the fact it was a Saturday and managers have some sort of allergy to working the weekend, there were no managers available. As I'd been there for a while, I had a sound knowledge of the ins and outs of the system at Amex. I put him on hold saying I was going to get a manager, then came back on the phone saying I was the manager. For anyone who wishes to know, this was ENCOURAGED by my manager, who didn't actually do very much apart from take the credit when I did good. Anyway, I digress.

This guy then spoke to me very calmly and said he's been having problems using his card (still finding it hard to understand the guy, but I thought I'd give it a go) so I ask for his card number to check to see what the problem is. He gives me the first four numbers of the card, which from memory I ascertained was a Visa card of some description. As the phonelines were going batshit, I stopped him to say "You've rang the wrong number, you want to call the customer service number printed on the reverse of your card", but actually got as far as saying "You've" before he went right off on one again. So I offered to transfer him to Visa so they could help. However, I thought it would be fun to transfer him to the first number that popped in to my head, the local radio station. Apparently he went live and was very rude to the DJ.

cranberry.
( vulga is a foul mouthed cunt, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 18:12, Reply)

Retail is the playground for idiots
I used to work in a large hi-tech music shop (you know, selling keyboards, mixers and samplers etc). The average person who got to grade 1 or two in the bagpipes always believed they were some sort of accomplished musician and were better than anyone who would actually work in a place like I did.

Anyway, small rant about the majority of customers over. One guy had spent at least two hours with me whilst I talked him how to use his Alesis QS6 keyboard (for geek factor, it's got a bloody good sound to it). I talked him through the menu settings, how to wire it in to his "studio" at home and everything in between. As soon as I got rid of the raging spastic, and of course, fleecing him for over £400, I receive a phone call, asking for me by name. Yes, it's the same complete cock-end that I've spent most of my afternoon and lunch break talking to.

He's plugged it in at home, seemingly ok, I went through the connections with him and he actually surprised me by having it all connected ok. So why is this bloke a complete tit, I hear you cry...

He was pressing keys on the keyboard and I could hear this over the phone, I asked him to turn it up a bit so I could hear it properly. He asked if it was normal for it to make a sound like a piano when you pressed the keys. He was concerned as it sounded "better than the one he tried in the shop" and thought I'd sold him the wrong keyboard.

It was only when I reminded him that he insisted the very keyboard he was to buy was the only one he wanted to look at, so even though he watched me unbox and set up all this kit for him to bugger about on, then watched me put it back in it's box, then take his cash, write out a receipt and give him the shop's number in case of problems, he was still insistent that at some point I had "switched" his brand new keyboard for another one. What a complete arse.

He called up every day for about a month, as he was obviously incapable of reading the instruction manual. Possibly due to being a dribbling spastic.
( vulga is a foul mouthed cunt, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 18:02, Reply)

well im only 14
so i dont really have a clue about this. but my dad was doing teacher training and had to tell some silly arse how to draw the classroom curtains. no word of a lie! there really are some dumb cranberry ot there...
(massive pelican: jumps for money, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 18:00, Reply)

Many years ago, in the long summer between school and uni,
I worked for a well known car magazine called AUTO TRADER. Some of the car dealers, who btw earned fortunes would fax in their adverts for the copy deadline on a monday night. As the 'Advertising Executives' that we were, our job was to try and decipher what these fucking morons were trying to say.

A favourite from one chap was:

For sale: RENO 19
( cupboardy, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 17:50, Reply)

Website whizzy-ness
I built a website a few years back for a local pub chain. It got the usual feature-creep from a nice simple site to one that they insisted on having lots of complicated roll-overs and stuff in Javascript. I explained if I did what they wanted it would only work in Internet Explorer on PCs, because they weren't paying enough to code it for everything. They insisted that was fine, because that was what most people wanted. Just before launch they buy an iMac and start moaning that the page doesn't work properly.

Now when someone insists on that, I just won't work for them any more. It's just not worth the hassle.
(singleantler, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 17:33, Reply)

I work in a call centre
for a well known British gas company. Some of the munters that we get ringing up beggar belief.

Like the man that thought that his bill was over a hundred pound more than it should be and claimed that he had had a gas leak. Now let me explain, roughly 12p of gas is a hundred cubic feet. I'll say that again for impact, a HUNDRED cubic feet. In the end I had to explain to him that 12p's worth could destroy his house, a hundred pounds worth would have taken everything south of the Humber offthe face of the map.

Another favourite was a lady who rang up to tell me that her gas was being stolen by the people in the flat upstairs. We have to take these reports very seriously as stealing gas is a very dangerous business. When I asked her how she knew, she told me that her ceiling had told her in the night. Strange thing was, when the engineer got there, the people from the upstairs flat had been stealing her gas.

Sorry about the length of this, I have many, many more.
( trev Is not interested in your fripperies, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 17:23, Reply)

So, DIY...
working in a shop tha rhymes with F**K US, We had a lovely lady buy a standard size can of red paint for 15 or so quid. She then returned the following day with the can of paint and a receipt sayign she wanted her money back. No problem we thought till she graciously pointed out that she only needed half do do a smaller room in her house.
'You've used it then?'
'Yes I have, thats not a problem is it?'
'Yes it is, if you have used it then we cant take it back.'
Queue lots of complaining and ranting.

Also, over the bliseringly hot summer of 2003, we ran out of fans and placed a big sign outside saying, WE HAVE NO FANS IN STOCK. How many people missed the sign??? All bar one or two it seemed.
(Jambon, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 17:11, Reply)

"enterprise" storage support at a major PC company...
... means that we don't meet total monkeys. No, we get the people who know sufficient facts about their gear to be dangerous, but who operate in a cargo cult fashion.
By that I mean they latch on to "whatever worked before", with no reference to the underlying logic behind it. As you can imagine, this makes it rather difficult to get answers to questions like "what did you do this time", or "what happened?" They are fond of telling us what did not happen - e.g. "it didn't work" - when a better answer might be "the following error message did appear". I won't go into the techy details...
( bnt what, me worry?, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 17:10, Reply)

I work in a shop
buying/selling electrical stuff (yeah I know - sounds dodgy, and who am I to argue?)

Anyway, as you can guess, these kind of places don't tend to draw out the intellectual elite. The other week a lady asked me if we sell telepathic mobile phones.


I'm hoping she meant polyphonic...
( JKF You ain't seen me, roit?, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 16:54, Reply)

this has happened within the last 5 minutes
one of our clients has been ranting and raving about how his computer isnt working properly

we've just opened up the case, and the fuckwit has totalled the backup battery holder. it looks like its been attacked with a hammer/chisel combination.

the silly cunnt...
( lo, the Greebo Warrior - Est. 2002, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 16:54, Reply)

Couldn't happen to a nicer fella......
Before going to uni I spent the summer working in a semi-popular restaraunt chain (not beef-eater, the other one) behind the bar.

One night a bloke comes in, obviously on a date and in a snooty voice asks for the wine list. At the time wine was not my thing, but I, like many bar staff, had memorised certain key terms from the wine list in order to scrape by.

After a look, he orders a medium red, I do the business cork wise and off he totters to find a quiet spot with his lady friend. Minutes later he comes back up complaining about the wine, I was worried it'd be a technical query and I'd be out of my depth, instead the conversation went thus:

HE: I want to complain about this wine.
ME: What seems to be the trouble?
HE: It's not cold enough, it's bl**dy room temperature!
ME: Er, red wine is not served chilled.
HE: What!?
ME: Well, white wine is chilled but red wine isn't.
HE: This is ridiculous, I demand a chilled bottle!
ME: (sigh) OK, the only problem is we don't keep any bottles of red in the fridge, if you'd like to come back in an hour or two I'll have one then.
HE: Are you taking the p**s!?
ME: (yes) no sir.

Off he went, not sure whether to explain this to his date for fear she too would laugh at him! T W U N T

Apologies for the mo-hassive post.
(Hip By Association, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 16:38, Reply)

pub managers.....
I used to work for a nationwide pub chain, in the callcentre that provided support for (almost) everything - pcs, EPoS systems, blocked toilets broken windows etc etc.

One manager wondered why she couldn't work her new pc. We found out she was pressing the mouse up against the screen. Upside down. She also wondered why she'd had to have a new (and such a large) coaster to put her brew on.


A regular converstion went like this:
Me: can you reboot the computer for me?
Manager: I can't. It's frozen.
Me: Turn the power off, count to ten and turn it back on. (yes i did say count to ten).
Manager: it's coming back on now.
Me: Good, what does it say?
Manager: Exactly the same as it did before....

Oh good you can turn the monitor off and on then. Usually, I could go on to talk them in the direction of the power switch except for the time that went;
Me: can you see your floppy disk drive? (they were all the same model)
Manager: Umm....Yeessss..
Me: See the button to the left of it?
Manager: Yyyyesssss...
Me: the far left, about an inch from the edge?
Manager: ah yes, I know the one you mean.
Me: OK. Press it. Tell me what happens.
Manager: OK............My disk has come out.

Another popular one.
Manager:I've got a power cut.
Me (experienced): What about your neighbours, do they have power or is it just you?
Manager: I don't know.. can you not just send somebody to look at it, I've got a bar full.
Me: I can if it's just your supply but if the street's out then you need to speak to whoever bills you.
Manager: This is stupid, it was a lot better when we could phone out engineers ourselves, mutter mutter.....
Right, it's the street, everything else is out as well.
Me: There you go then, ring your electric supplier to see when it'll be back on.
Manager: and what exactly am I supposed to do now? Can you just get it sorted for me? I've got a bar full here.. etc..etc. I'm not supposed to trade if I can't provide basic facilities...

The biscuit came with the call..
Manager: I've got a fire in the kitchen!!
Me: (no rush). OK, is it sorted out? What do you need me to do so that you can trade?
Manager: The kitchen's on fire!!!!
Me: still?
Manager: Yes!!
Me: have you rung the fire brigade?
Manager: Am I suppposed to? I thought you had to do it.
Me: Oh yes of course, then would you like to email your arse over to me then I can wipe it for you?

Sorry for it being so long I had to get that off my chest
(boukha, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 15:58, Reply)

Erm, no!
I do visuals at event - u know when you see crazy shit on big screens. Here's a short selection of the best client / punter quotes:

X: Can I check my email
Me: No, im doing video at the moment
X: Can I use the computer to check me emails tho?
Me: No, im performing....
X: Oh, go on, i've got some good pictures
Me: No, firstly im performing, secondly that's not a computer, it's a DVD player.
X: Oh, can I check my email then?

X: Can you play that footage from Ben Hur with the chariots
Me: Im afraid i don't have that, and i tend not to sample
X: I've got I at home, on DVD
Me: That's nice but I havent and Im in the middle of the set
X: Shall I go and get it?
Me: If you wan't but i won't play it, it wont fit in with this stuff
X: Ok, i'll bring it down for you to use tomoro

This was at a large ONE day event!

X: Can you change the music please
Me: I do the video, go speak to the guy with the records
X: Oh, the DJ
Me: Yep, that's the one
X: Can you play ATB
Me: Im not doing the music!
X: Sorry, I can't hear you, can you turn the music down a bit!

Hmm, bit worring really, cos two of the quotes are from the people who paid me to be there!
(reasonablyfamous, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 15:55, Reply)