Bank Customer
This is not a funny story........

My girlfriend works in a bank dealing with customers. I had a call one day at work from her family telling me her mother had died. We were expecting the call, but it was still upsetting.

I had to go to the bank to give her the news.

When I arrived she was dealing with a customer and I managed to sneak past her to the back of the bank as I knew as soon as she saw me she would know why I was there.

I found one of her managers and told her why I was there. The manager went to get my girlfriend who immediatley realised what was going on. Floods of tears from her and her manager. A colleague stepped in to deal with the customer so my girlfriend could grab her bag and we could go.

I found out later that the customer was angry that she had been left in the hands of someone else. It was explained that my girlfriends mother had just died which is why she had to dash off. The customer replied that she should have been served first before the news was broken to my girlfriend and that she was going to make a formal complaint against my girlfriend.

If I had know how insensitive this woman had been at the time I would have decked her on the way out of the branch!

The good news is that when she made the complaint the branch manager had her account closed!
(Pork2311, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 13:05, 6 replies)

Smells like piss woman
When I have a need for money I can stick it out at crap jobs longer than most. I started with 12 others at Morrisons, and lasted 6 months longer than any of my fellow graduates of the 'how to use a mop' instructional video.

It was during this time on the arse end of the checkouts I became acquainted with one of the regulars, known only to the staff as 'smells like piss woman'. Most Elderly people like to get their shopping done during the week, or early in the morning. You know because its quiet. Not SLPW, she loved to come on a Saturday afternoon when it was heaving. One can only assume this was because of a grudge against society and Morrisons in particular. Thongs of shoppers in a packed supermarket would part in her malodorous wake in a manner akin to the red sea parting for Moses.

One particularly hot day she decided that my till would be the best place to go. presumably as the air conditioner above it was broken. There was easily 20 people queuing up with full trolleys, waiting as much as 20 mins to get their hands on BOGOFF pies. I looked up and suddenly this queue of 20 had been reduced to 3, and people were hurrying to join even busier checkouts.

Then the smell hit my nose like a sack of ordure soaked bricks. The air was textured all of a sudden, and in her full stinky glory SLPW was waiting to be served. The first customer didn't even bother to pack his bags he just slung all the stuff back in the trolley and ran to the car park. The woman behind him had turned pale, and was chocking back vomit as she handed over her credit card. SLPW only had a handbasket but tit seemed like an eternity to serve her.

She trundled off to the cafe, leaving me gasping for air. Then an apologetic supervisor loomed over me. "I'm sorry about that willenium, we call her SLPW and shes here every week. Look I'm sorry about this but im going to need you to clean your till.

Apparently she smelled so bad that it was store policy to clean the checkout she had used. I closed my till and spent 5 mins scrubbing it with bleach before anyone would even come near it again. The people who had left my line and were still queuing in nearby tills stared at the whole process with the only sympathy I ever received from customers in that store.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:55, 5 replies)

I created the customer from hell (sort of)
10 years ago I had a stopgap job at my local airport working behind the bar. After a few weeks the head manager realised that I could add up, string a sentence together and more importantly wasn’t stealing from the till so they put me in charge of the thieving retards that worked there.

Now the thing you have to understand is that when a job starts at 4am and pays £4.74 per hour with no overtime rate you don’t exactly attract the cream of the available workforce, and one morning I was introduced to a new member of the bar staff who I had the pleasure of showing the ropes. He was 18, scruffy and to be blunt, thick as a donkeys cock.

I showed him how to pour a pint and how to use the till. I also explained that every other customer will complain that the prices are extortionate and that they will explain that the same drink is half the price at their local pub, at which point you should put on your most charming smile and say “Ah, but you cant catch a plane from your local”. If you said it right you would get a laugh every time and turn a grumpy complaining customer into a happy holidaymaker who might even give you a tip for cheering him up.

So the shutters go up and we start serving the first customers of the day. A large tough looking man with his extended family approached the bar and made his order. The new lad took the order with no problems and stated the total cost; at which the customer looked aghast and complained that it was twice what it would cost him down his local. The new lad looked at me and I nodded, he turned to the customer and said “Ah yes…but...um…why don’t you FUCK OFF DOWN YOUR LOCAL THEN”. There was a split second of silence during which my draw dropped through the floor and then the customer exploded into apoplectic rage, his wife joined in and their terrified kids hid under a table and started crying. Security ran in and had to restrain the man from climbing over the bar and tearing me apart to get at the new lad who was cowering in the back room. Luckily this was before 9/11 so nobody got shot or held for 28 days without charge.

We both ended up in the airport general managers office with members of the security staff giving their account of what happened. The new lad was crying like a baby with tears & snot running down his face, when asked why he had insulted the customer he pointed at me and sobbed “He told me to say it”. Unfortunately I wasn’t fired as it was only 6am and I had another 7 hours before the next shift arrived. The new lad went home.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:50, 8 replies)

Mr Bin
used to work at the technical faults centre for a cable tv company.

As you can imagine this was a veritable banquet of dumb fuckery.

My favourite one though goes like this:
Customer had phoned complaining that they had no picture on their TV.

Mr Bin: "Are there any lights on the cable box?"
Dumb Fuck: "No, nothing"
MB: "And the box is plugged in and switched on?"
BF: "Yes"
MB: "Ok I'm going to need you to look behind the box to check that all the cables are plugged in"
BF: "Well that's going to be a bit of a problem, we've got a power cut you see."



Makes you wonder that he can breath in and out.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:45, 3 replies)

More DSS spaktardery
I was working on reception at the time. Most of the time it was fine; a bit weird when old mates from school would come in, but generally OK.

One day a woman plonked herself down in the seat in front of me.

"Hello, what can I do for you"?

She then burst into a long tirade about how she was a landlord of a property which she had been renting out to someone but they'd done a bunk without telling her and owed them 3 months rent and she had no idea where they had gone and could I help please.

"I don't think I can", I replied.

"Why not"?

"We're not allowed to give people's details out without their permisson", explained I.

"That's ridiculous".

"No, it isn't, it's actually against the law".

"That may be the case, but it's still ridiculous".

God, make it stop.

"I've got his name and date of birth, you could do a quick trace of his National Insurance number and no one would ever know".

"No, I couldn't".

"Why not"?

"Because it's against the law; and if I got caught I could be prosecuted and lose my job".

"Please"?

"No".

"I don't see why you can't. He owes me three month's rent".

"Yes, you said, but I still can't do it. I'm sorry. Knowing my luck if I did help you, the computer would throw up a random check and I'd be out on my ear".

"Can you get me someone who can, then"?

"No".

"Why not"?

"Because it's... oh, alright I'll go and get someone else".

And so I trotted off to a colleague, explained the situation, who decided to have a bit of fun.

*Go back to start*

We eventually managed to convince the poor woman that we actually could not genuinely help her. She looked crestfallen, the poor cow.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:43, Reply)

Another thing that annoys me about pub customers...
When the pub is busy and you're waiting to be served, DO NOT wave money at me.

I AM NOT A FUCKING STRIPPER

I know who is next in line, all you're doing by trying to jump the queue is getting yourself put at the very end of it
(SarcasticBarSteward wants to be good at Photoshop when he grows up, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:40, 16 replies)

More dumb cunts
As I mentioned before I used to work in a store In Guildford.
(it was the one nextdoor to the maternity wear shop I mentioned before. www.b3ta.com/questions/customersfromhell/post235945 )

As I also mentioned Guildford full of dumb fucking women with a lot of money.

One thing we sold was little ceramic shapes to stick onto bathroom tiles.
We did two different makes, one which had little sticky pads on the back and ones which didn't. Next to the ones without the sticky pads was a notice explaining that these needed to be stuck on with tile adhesive.

One day some stuck up bint comes in with some of these tiles.
"I want to bring these back, they're faulty"
I open the package and inspect the tiles. Nothing wrong with them.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Well they don't stick to my tiles."
"Well what were you using to stick them to the tiles?"

Turned out the daft tart had been licking them and trying to stick them to the tiles like some gigantic ceramic stamp.

"Well how should I stick them to the tiles?"
"Use tile adhesive"
"What it tile adhesive?"
"It's adhesive for tiles."
"Where can I buy that?"
"The tile shop two doors down."

I tell you we thing the chavs are dumb but these daft whores had probably had a private education.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:38, 1 reply)

Retail and Therapy
Ah the joys of working in retail. Combining the skills of psychiatric analysis, confidence trickery and kick-boxing to ensure maximum turnover and minimum physical abuse.

I worked in a cool independent record shop in the olden days when there were record shops. They've all been replaced now by a combination of itunes and drop-in centres for lonely disfunctional single men.

A few of our choice punters...

The man who had bought a Bob Dylan record 8 years previously and wanted his money back "Because he had gone deaf"


The charming punter who tried to push me out of the way of the record racks while I was trying to stop an epileptic swallowing his own tongue.

"Mr Licky-Licky" A freak who would lick the covers of CDs he liked.

The Jazz Cunt. The name says it all.
(Pickettywitchfinder General, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:26, 6 replies)

I used to work in an army barracks restaurant as a waiter
Our customers were knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing squaddies and their blotchy-legged slapper wives/girlfriends who thought going to our restaurant was the height of class as we served After Eight mints*.

One Christmas we had a special menu that included asparagus.

A couple ordered the menu and I brought the food to the table, including a platter of asparagus.

Wife looks at this silver platter in disgust and exclaims loudly, "Fuckinell, those are fuckin' soggy chips"

*So classy was this place that I would regularly receive blowjobs in the tablecloth storeroom and wipe my cock on the freshly-laundered napkins
( Dixipoos Bye Bye Blackbird, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:05, 3 replies)

The only time I've ever told a customer what I was thinking... or, The Day I Told a Punter to Fuck Off.
I posted the edited version of this on ‘off topic’ a short while back; here’s the extended special edition version.

Some background: as many people now know, and are no doubt sick of hearing about, I worked for the DSS (or Benefits Agency as it was then, or Department for Work and Pensions as it is now) for pretty much all of the nineties. For the most part it was a shitty job, but compensated by working with some good people. However, one stint I had to do was working in a satellite office attached to a Jobcentre, on my own. This ‘caller office’, as it was known, had limited facilities and was essentially a waiting room on one side, and my space on the other, with a private interview room. The staff side of the office was an inverted L shape, and I had a work desk tucked away around the corner, out of sight of the information desk. With the only telephone on it – there wasn’t one on the information desk at all.

The office was basically somewhere that scrounging mongers benefit recipients could come in and have queries answered, pick up forms, or just piss on the seats, and it was my job to help them, point them in the right direction, or put ‘please do not use this seat as it is covered in piss’ signs up in the waiting area. Most of the time it was a lonely job; I think the most human traffic I had in one day was 15 people. Usually it averaged about 10. The days were often long…

Anyway, the situation of having the only telephone situated away from the information desk meant that on the occasions when I had to go back to the main office for further advice, it often entailed a very difficult three way conversation. Not ideal when you’ve got Mr or Mrs Fuckwit in the waiting room wondering why their giro hasn’t turned up, and Mr or Mrs Couldn’t Really Give a Toss back in the office half heartedly punching a few numbers into their computer and trying to cover up the fact that the giro hadn’t been sent because they forgot to press a button when inputting a change in details.

And so it went, until a change in job mean that I would thankfully no longer be manning the caller office. Woo and Yay!

On my last day, which was unusually quiet, I was looking forward to closing the doors at 3 and buggering off. At 2:40 I heard the door, went to the helpdesk and was confronted by a woman.

“Can I help you”? I asked her.

She said nothing, but thrust a letter under the counter. I looked at it. It was from the Contributions Agency and seemed to be some indecipherable nonsense about her pension forecast. Not my bag, really, in fact, absolutely nothing to do with the Benefits Agency at all.

I looked at her again and asked her, perfectly politely “And how can I help you with this”?

“I want you to ring them for me”, came the snotty reply. I sighed. It was bad enough holding three way conversations about stuff I was familiar with; this was way over my head and would be a nightmare. OK, tactics – try and find out some additional information first, like has she spoken to them herself at all?

“Have you tried speaking to them yourself”?

“What”?

I repeated my question.

“No, I want you to do it for me”.

Christ. “Is there any reason why you can’t talk to them yourself”? I began, “it’s just that…”

“Oh, I can see you just don’t want to help”, she snapped, snatching the letter from the gap under the screen.

“No, it’s not that, I’m just trying to find out some more information, and the phone is round the corner which makes having…” She stormed out. …”a conversation a bit difficult…” I trailed off.

Five minutes later a man burst in. “You’ve upset my wife”! he roared at me. “You refused to help her”.

Sigh. “Sir, no I didn’t. I was trying to find out some more information, and merely asked she had already rang the Contributions Agency herself before coming in here. It’s not really my area of knowledge, see, and the phone is round the corner making a conversation a bit difficult; she would probably be better off speaking to them herself was all I was suggesting”, I explained, confident that he would see the rationale to this logic and go outside and slap his wife for being so dim.

Except, what happened was he went off on a rant. “I know all about your sort”, he yelled.

“Excuse me? What do you mean by ‘my sort”?

“Your sort! You don’t give a toss about other people”.

“I can assure you that I do”, said I. “As I was saying, I was merely trying to…”

“You see? You refused to help my wife, and you’re refusing to help me now”.

“No, I’m not”

“I’m going to report you for this”.

“Sir, you can do what you want; I don’t really care”.

“Oh, so you’re admitting it now then”?

“No, I mean that I don’t really care as today is my last day so it doesn’t matter if you report me or not”.

“Ah, now I see. I bet you’ve been like this all day have you? Think you can get away with it”?

Dear God. “No, if you would listen to what I’m trying to say to you instead of ranting at me…” but it was no good, he wasn’t listening by this stage. Somewhat dramatically, I swung my right index finger towards the door and yelled at him, “GET OUT”!

“WHAT”?

“You heard me. I’ve been trying to be helpful to you and your wife, and explain a few things to you but neither of you have had the politeness to actually listen to what I’ve been trying to say. If you can’t be bothered to be courteous to me, I’m not going to be courteous back. You’ve been rude to me, insulted me and threatened to report me, so I don’t want you in this office any more. Go on, get out. Fuck. Off. Please”. And put my head down to count how many A6 forms were left in case I had to order some more.

Stunned silence. I looked up again, aware of a presence. “You still here, then”?

He left. Quietly.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 5 Sep 2008, 12:01, 11 replies)

The Drunk
He isn't necessarily the worst customer, the pub drunk.

Indeed, so drunk is he that he's practically harmless; sat atop his perch, coins piled before him and the same pint glass to last throughout the afternoon and into the evening.

You know what his drink is; it's the same one each day; the strongest lager on tap, which will be constantly quaffed from arrival till exit.

"Put one in for yourself" he'd manage after you pour his first. The last intelligible thing to come from his mouth until the next day.

"Aarrghrafable, plashticised knob flem" would be the next 'words' you'd hear from his face.

"Yes you drunk old fucker" you'd politely reply, before scooping up another pile of coins and depositing a fresh pint into his glass.

But he's worse than all the other punters, in so many ways:

- They're far less likely to need carrying to the taxi you call for them each evening.

- They aren't so inclined to leave a puddle of piss at the foot of their bar stool.

- They won't collapse face-wise onto the bar, smashing their pint glass and leaving you yet another mess to mop up.

- And unlike the other piss heads, your boss won't agree with you when you refuse to serve him: "He's harmless" the boss would exclaim. "He's killing himself" you argue. "Just fucking serve him or leave" would come the ultimatum. "Fine you clean up the piss today then" you mutter, knowing precisely who the task will fall to, again.

I doubt you're still alive, and I can't remember your name, but then I never understood it either: "Daaaabbisissccid" really isn't a name I've come across before or since, you stupid old drunk bastard.
( Moey, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:56, 3 replies)

pearost about my dad
my dad is your typical bluff self-made yorkshireman. he has been the customer from hell on many occasions for unsuspecting people, but two stick out in my mind.

the first one was from a cold calling monkey, trying to flog him a better deal on his mortgage.

"but i don't have a mortgage," my father said heavily. much page flipping of the script ensued, before the poor monkey blithered,

"well aren't you lucky?" wrong thing to say.

"lucky?" LUCKY?" my dad replied. "i worked my arse off for 40 years to pay the whole thing off and you call that lucky?" [insert rant here]

********************************************

then, a few weeks after my mother died, i received a phone call from bupa wanting to speak to her. instead of saying what i felt like, which was 'she's just died horribly unexpectedly so thank you for jamming that fact home and making me say it out loud which i still can't bring myself to do', i took the view it wasn't the salesgirl's fault, so just asked them to call back in a few months time.

which is why my father subsequently got a telephone call from a terribly posh middle-aged sounding lady from bupa. she told him he had agreed to help with the survey some months ago. naturally he denied it. she replied:

"now come on mr swipe, you said you'd help. are you currently suffering from any aches and pains?"

"only those caused by this conversation," grunted my dad, and hung up on her.

two minutes later, the phone rang again. he answered it.

"mr swipe," intoned the very posh voice. "were you born with your head up your arse or did it get that way in later life?"

hahaha, first time he's been speechless in about 60 years!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:55, Reply)

Can anyone spot the idiot here?
Working in IT support is magic sometimes.

A particularly thick client sent my team an email this morning to describe a problem. It contained a screenshot, which sometimes helps us to fix the problem.

Frankly, it would have been much quicker for him to type the server name instead --it's only eleven characters long-- but he surpassed that forgivable slip with a much better waste of time.

Click to see the big version:



I chuckled...
( chart cat has an itch, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:53, 4 replies)

A friend of mine
Used to work in a sporting good shop. A guy in his early 20's comes in, buys a fairly decent pair of trainers, hands over the cash, and walks out. So far, so good.

10 minutes later, he's back. "Can I have another pair of trainers the same please?" he says. Fair enough, my friend goes and gets another pair and starts ringing them up on the till.

"No, these are free" says young customer. "Someone stole my last pair." Expressing disbelief, my friend explains that, no, they are not free, and the customer starts to get abusive.

"You give me my ****ing trainers." No, these are not your trainers, ****ing or not. These are the shop's trainers. Your trainers are in the hands of some 15-year-old scallywag who relieved you of them. They are your trainers because you paid for them, and at that point, they become your responsibility.

Escalation ensued to the point that the police were called to (a) remove him from the shop and (b) explain basic monetary economic theory, preferably through the medium of a swift falling-down-the-stairs if you know what I mean.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:52, Reply)

Not so much customers but clients
I work for a media agency so our clients are all marketing bods. Most of them are lovely but you do get a few spacktards who can't even use the basic functions of excel.

There was the guy who emailed me saying he couldn't read the numbers of the spreadsheet I'd just sent him. On investigation it turned out he didn't know that when the cells aren't wide enough you get '###' rather than the number.

However what really pissed me off was the girl who I'd have the same conversation with every week. Every week I had to send her very long results spreadsheets and without fail she would always then call me and complain that she couldn't see all the information on the screen at once.

I would then take her through hiding columns so it would all fit and she wouldn't have to scroll along. However she'd then complain that she'd now hidden columns she needed to see.

This happened every week for about 4 months.

I finally suggested that she ask her IT dept for a wider monitor.
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:48, 1 reply)

Good evening, how are you?
"I'd like a tomato juice and tonic please."

Me - "A tomato juice and a tonic water? Certainly."

"No no no. Tomato and tonic together."

Me - "Mixed together? I must say I've never heard of that, are you sure?"

"Yes please."

Watches me pour the two into a long glass and give it a mix...

"What the fuck have you made there? I wanted a tomato juice AND a tonic, not mixed together! Are you stupid?"

Me - "That's what you asked for!"

Gives me a look of death like I was worse than a bad ant.
(Waspard has your wank bank account details, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:40, 3 replies)

A Pint of Sick, Please!
A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a University in the rolling countryside of West Yorkshire. While I was there, I had the pleasure of living in the UKs smallest city – Wakefield.

The three years of University had come and gone, and the newly lettered DiT had an option. Move back to London, or stay up here for a little while longer to be with the woman who (at the time, anyway) I loved.

As with many things, Love won the day. I rented a house, and got myself a job in one of Wakefield’s premier drinking establishments. It was on the bullring, and its name was ‘Juice’. And God, I hated it there. Such a meat market you never did see. A small building crammed between a sports shop and a bank, part of the Westgate run, and on a Friday night you could barely move for Neanderthal idiots sinking pint after pint of Wifebeater and girls advertising their sexual availability by wearing the smallest clothes imaginable, bearing acres of pink, blotchy flesh and drinking blue WKD like it was going out of fashion.

In short, it was horror. The owners decided that it would be a good idea to spread the carnage over two floors, and opened a nightclub in the basement. I never worked down there, even though it came under my area of responsibility, after I threw a guy out for taking coke off the bar. The owner told me that he was a ‘good customer’ who ‘kept people happy’, and I was forced to apologise.

A week later, then, and it was the Friday night late show. I had closed up the normal bar, and sat having a couple of quiet beers. All of a sudden, in a flash of hotpants and bikini top, one of the Tequila girls (I did mention this was a classy joint, didn’t I?) came in to the bar.

“Quick, DiT!” she cried “Someone’s been ill!”

Shit. Happy Friday, mate. I walked downstairs, to find a very sheepish guy sat in the corner. In front of him sat a pint glass that was full to the brim with vomit. In that moment, I was gruesomely impressed – he had not got any sick on himself, the table, or the surrounding furniture.

“What’s happened here?” I said.

“I’ve been sick,” spake he “and that lot won’t clear it up.” He waved a hand at the several barmaids who worked in the club.

And suddenly, I remembered who I was talking to – it was the cokehead who I’d thrown out a week before.

“Well, it’s not their job, is it? Why don’t you pick up that glass and get rid of it?”

He eyeballed me, and picked up the glass. In that moment, all of his defiance was gone, and he turned green again as he crossed to the sink behind the bar, dumping his vomit in to it. He tried to rinse it away, but the chunks of his sick blocked the plug hole.

I was beginning to enjoy this.

“You’re going to have to unblock that.”

“What? No way! That’s fuckin’ ridiculous.”

“Listen. You were sick. You threw it in the sink, which is now blocked. You clean it.”
Dejectedly, he gingerly poked a couple of chunks around in the slop that now filled the sink. “Can’t do it.” He muttered “It’s gross.”

I handed him two bin bags. “Here,” I said “put these on and get stuck in.”

He was nearly crying as he gloved up with the bags, pressing his hands in to the cold, sicky mess he’d created, pulling out the lumps and transferring them to a bucket. He cast me looks that begged for me to just throw him out, but he was, to coin a phrase, shit out of luck.

A few minutes later, he was finished. I grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt, marched him up the stairs, and dropped him on the pavement.

“And don’t,” I said “come back.”



EPILOGUE: The next day, I resigned my position, and went to work the bar at a lovely restaurant called ‘The Three Acres’ in Shelley. If you ever find yourself up that way, have a go. It’ll be a treat.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:23, 8 replies)

Xmas cheer
Shameless re-post thanks to Wanderlust's post below:

Maybe I’ve always been a grumpy old man, maybe life has forced me into this role.

In 1991 I was bar supervisor (wow) at a Toby Grill in Yorkshireland. It was a stop-gap job until something better came along; we’d only moved up north recently and we needed the cash. After four months, the pressure was beginning to tell, I had a wife and a 4-year old daughter and worked most evenings and every weekend. The busiest times were bank holidays and fireworks night. The regulars were all wankers in the way that only regular drinkers at a Toby Grill in Yorkshire can be.

Christmas was coming and the punters were getting pissed. We had muzak on a looped tape that was playing the usual Xmas fare: fucking Slade etc. I’d been on since 11am with a couple of hours break in the afternoon and it was now quarter past 11 and I wanted the punters to go home, when the all-too-familiar strains of ‘Mull of frigging Kintyre’ came on for the fifth time that session. Now, some of you might not know the song (you lucky, lucky bastards), some of you may fondly remember it as part of the backdrop of your youthful Xmases, as for me, I was a punk in 1977, and hearing that bagpipe-a-sing-a-long-shite virtually non-stop over Christmas/New Year 1977/78 was HELL for me and all my friends. It is my single most hated song in the world. Ever.

So I ran to the tape machine and hit the stop button. Silence for maybe a second, then chief regular’s dolled-up pissed-up wife at the bar shouts “Oi, what happened to the music, I was enjoying that.”

“Well,” I said, remaining very calm, “it’s well after 11 and I’m afraid to say that I can’t take this music any more tonight, so it’s staying off.” As I said, calm – don’t forget, I was sober as I had to drive home after work and I was tired, having been working and on my feet for most of the past 12 hours. They were all very pissed and ‘jolly’. The punters started shouting at me to put the fucking music back on, I politely declined whilst busily shoving dirty glasses through the machine and scrubbing out ashtrays. Then, the manageress came out of her office.

“Oi, Pat, Che’s turned the music off and won’t put it back on!” shrieked the woman. Pat glared at me and immediately went and put the music back on. I walked around the bar, grabbed a pool cue from the rack, came back around behind the bar and beat the tape machine to scrap and kicking the bits the entire length of the bar.







…well, no, I didn’t. I stormed out the back and smoked two fags. Came back in when the music had stopped.


I was still working there the following year at Bonfire Night.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:22, 6 replies)

Rodney King's Mate.
I was working in the USA as a manager for a mens clothing shop in what was described by the company as an 'urban trouble store'. Why they put me, a lanky, young, white guy with an English accent there was beyond me but oddly enough I seemed to build a decent rapport and had something of a celebrity status with many of the locals, many of whom were gang members.

The client base was mostly black and hispanic teenagers from lower income families and I really grew to like it there, but unfortunately there were a load of crack-heads who used to regularly shop lift. Usually very badly.

One such crack-head was Leon. I had interviewed him for a postion a few months previously (when his addiction was not apparent) and had offered him a stock position which he failed to show up for. Since then his decline was bad, weight loss, incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together but most obvious were the sunken bloodshot eyes. He would regularly come in to the store and blatently try to steal jeans/shirts anything that was not nailed down - in fact it was a bit of a running joke; he would grab something I would have been watching and standing by the door, he would drop it, we would laugh and I would tell him to 'fuck off' and he would say 'OK see you tomorrow'.

Now as Leon's situation deteriorated he started to become more threatening to some of the girls that worked there, and it eventually got to the stage where he was so strung out he hit one of my workers, tried to grab a whole rounder of t-shirts and run off down the mall with it. I chased him down (not difficult as he could barely push it) grabbed it back off him and tried to calm him down as he was screamimg blue murder. So much so, the police came and he was arrested and charged with theft and assault. Plus he was given a court order never to come to the mall again.

Weeks go by, no sign of Leon.

Then I get a call from the Corporate Office. I was being suspended with pay for a undetermined length of time whilst being investigated of a charge of racism. Leon had apparently accused me of not giving him a job, assault and verbal abuse due to him being black plus a wrongful accusations of theft.

This being the good old US of A they take it seriously and a court date is set for a few months later. (Incidentally, it was summer and the World Cup was on in the USA so I had a great time apart from the occasional worry that he would somehow win the case.) My company took statements from all my employees, my background was checked and all was fine.

So, the court date rolls around. The case is presented by his attorney - some smarmy bastard who specialised in discrimination cases and eventually Leon is asked to speak.

He rises, nearly falls over and his first words are...

"That white, motherfucking, Crocodile Dundee, faggot is a motherfucking racist you know what I'm saying? Shit. Fucking limey cracker bitch!'

At that moment, the case was dismissed.
(Tugnut I got them all..., Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:13, 2 replies)

Mr. Grunter
Let me tell you about this one customer that I had to deal with when I worked as a till sloth in a Coop.

We all called him Mr. Grunter. We don’t know what his real name was. We called him Mr. Grunter because every so often, without any sort of apparent exertion on his part, he would softly grunt for about 5 seconds or so, wheezing out noxious fumes.

He was morbidly obese. He wore the same clothes every day. Brown. He wore sandals so that you could see the weeping sores on his partially bandaged feet. He stank. Oh god he stank! It was rotten sweat. It was unspeakable congealed crusty juices. It was a meaty aroma. Pungent. You could have hacked at the tang with a machete. It was like a physical barrier. He walked around with a smell circle around him. People who were weak of stomach who went into the circle were violently sick. They actually chundered.

He used to take about an hour and a half to walk around the reasonably small store. He only bought the rotting reduced food which he placed into a basket. We till nerds would get a visual update on his progress every time he heaved around the aisles by the checkouts. The supervisor would get inundated with lunch requests by till staff at 10am in the morning from all the people who wanted to avoid him.

On my last day (I didn’t know it was my last day though) I drew the short straw. He hoved in view in the queue to my till. Customers in front of him comically gagged and looked around when the circle enveloped him. They all decided that they suddenly needed to be somewhere else.

He grunted up to the conveyor belt to place his out of date buffet bars and quiche. I was now in the circle and was forced to hyperventilate through my ears. I started to scan the out of date stickers, fully aware that his slug-like gummy fingers had already handled the goods. I was also aware of his gimlet-eyed scrutiny, staring at me over his pallid damp cheeks, with his burst facial pustules dribbling ripely down his face like tears.

“That’s £4.54 please sir”

He didn’t speak.

He reached into his damp pocket and took out 5 dripping wet oily pound coins. He gave them to me one at a time but with the last one, he licked it with a grey tongue. I immediately refused to accept this and he grinned a rictus grin.

I put through the transaction with a pound missing and took the 46p loss on my till.

He took an age to pack his items and stared at me all the while with his vulpine smile.

Then he waddled off victoriously.

I immediately went to get changed and I have never scrubbed so hard.

Then I quit.

Then I was sick on the way home.

Then I had a McDonalds.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:12, 8 replies)

shop assistant from hell
Dangerous Disco Trev reminds me of Comet and Currys shop assistant. Whom, when you ask for help - follow you over to the product you need help on. And proceed to read out the product description on the price sleave.

What is the point of them even being employed? I can read, probably better than them.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:11, Reply)

Not exactly on topic

But whenever I'm wandering around Tesco and the tannoy announces "Would Mr Perkins go to the back door please", I always get a mental picture of someone going to the back door...and letting the cat in.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:03, 6 replies)

Customers are often wrong.
I have worked at PC World, Wickes, Small Shops, Car Dealerships, Pubs, Clubs, my own market stall, my own shop, my own web business and now i'm a Director of a marketing company.

I could repeat many stories on here but I just want to thow my hat in the ring.

Customers are the witless cunts who pay my mortgage, they pay for my car, my clothes and my childrens clothes, they've paid for my TV my computer and my lovely sofa.

Thanks... but you are all cunts, if it wasn't for my insatiable greed I would try and do a job where I didn't have to interface with the general public. But whilst you still insist on living in a society built on commerce I will do my best to rape your income from under your nose and spend it myself as a cunty customer with someone else.

Cheers all.
(Doogie Talons, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:03, 1 reply)

"Oi! MaryAnn"
He shouted at me across the bar.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. "My name's not MaryAnn." I reminded him for the umpteenth time that afternoon.
"Sorry babe." He slurred. "Do me a favour and come over here." I shuddered as he grabbed my hand and looked me in the eye. His squished, pug like face was glistening with sweat, his drunk, beady eyes crossed slightly as he licked guinness from his greying mustache.
"You, MaryAnn, have a fucking cracking arse!" I pulled my hand back and started to walk away.
"Oi! MaryAnn!" He shouted again. "Do me a favour and sit on my face!"

That was it, I'd had enough! All day this vile, lecherous excuse for a man had been pestering me, asking me if I had any Irish in me and if not, did I want some? Telling me he wouldn't kick me out of bed for farting and generally being drunk and unpleasant.

"You Sir!" I yelled, "Are a fucking pervert! I would rather slit open my own eyeballs and feast on the goo within than go anywhere near your face or any other part of you! Now do me a favour and fuck off before I rip open your chest and piss on your lungs!"

Well, not really. What I actually did was go upstairs to the staff toilets of the pub and have a little cry. I may have sicked up a bit as well.
( wanderlust, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:03, 4 replies)

I was an dumb customer
Went shopping at Lakeside after my birthday a few years ago, after asking for clothes vouchers instead of presents

So I cruised around Ciro Citterio and picked up a couple of nice tops and presented my vouchers

"we can't accept these im afraid sir"

"Why not?" (I said a bit snottily)

"These are for Bluewater, your are in Lakeside sir, there are big signs everywhere that say Lakeside sir" he said just about not laughing in my face.

"What a dumb fucking cunt I am!" I exclaimed with added extra slap to forehead, making most of the shop either laugh or look at me not proper innit.

sloped off after paying by credit card, back in my car, up a junction or two and arrived at the right place 25 mins later.

I have never been to Lakeside again (not really a bad thing!)
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 11:00, Reply)

This ones still ongoing....
I work in IT, the sales side of things to be specific and have done for around 10 years I did have a few months working for a pissy accounts firm but that's another story). In this time I have picked up a reasonable bit of knowledge and will do the odd bit of work for mates and family members.

Recently my sister in law has started seeing a bloke that's a wannabe tekky with no idea on how to repair things. I have had to store a CD backup of most of my in laws PC systems at my home after I returned from a week away at the lake district to find he'd tried to cover for me while I was away and totally fucked up two of their system completely.

Anyway last weekend I was at a party for my mother in law when he calls me to one side to show me his new gadget, a Nokia N8100 (For the non gadget fans its a portable internet tablet). He was having problems with the tablet and asked me to help him sort out what I could on the settings and also install MSN messenger onto the system. A good hour later and I had configured the thing to his liking (or so I thought).

A short time later he returned and was ranting about how his messenger looked different and wasn't working properly. I pointed out to him that the phone didn't have the same messenger as his PC due to the fact that the O/S on the Nokia was a non windows platform (this actually took longer to explain than it did to install the bloody program in the first place). He wasn't too chuffed with this but (at the request of his other half) left me alone for the rest of the night.

Last night he rang me around 11 for some help on the thing. Turns out that he decided to delete the messenger application I had put on and find another one himself. While doing this he has also fucked up a few settings on the thing at the same time (God knows how he does this) and also forgot his Windows Live password details. I was in no mood to piss about with it over the telephone and told him that I would sort it later, so I will now have the pleasure of pissing around with this for a good couple of hours on Sunday.

I am also in the dark over why he has bought the sodding thing, as he doesn't work in an environment that needs such a device; he's a groundskeeper for a local golf course.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 10:57, 2 replies)

Country 'Gastro' Pubs
The summer before I started uni I worked in this country pub just outside the village where I lived.

The main problem with the job was not the staff but the clientele. It was set up as a gastro pub so I was effectively a waiter rather than barstaff, and was paid accordingly (but without tips - cos it was a pub).

During the week it was usually fine but on Friday nights and the weekend the world and its sister would descend, with everyone wanting food. As it was set up as a pub you ordered food at the bar. Therefore if a mistake was made in the order it wouldn't be discovered until I brought the food to the table, and occasionally get me an undeserved bollocking.

(I did get many deserved bollockings such as the time I accidentally set fire to the curtains while sword fighting with the long, lit, candles)

The main barman was a Mackem. Nice bloke but thick as the proverbial. Mistakes of this nature were common particulary in busy periods. Most customers were pretty understanding but there was always the odd wanker/chav (we are talking Kent here) who'd cause a fuss and try and get something free out of you for the most innocent mistake.

That summer was the hottest one on record (2002). One day it was so bad that we had to close up as two of the chefs fainted. Patience was gradually wearing thin.

Things came to a head about 3 weeks before i was due to finish. It was Saturday night and a party of 8 came in, bit drunk, estate agent types with their partners. One bloke obviously trying to show off in front of his mates and gf was deliberately finding fault with everything, trying to get free drinks, free starters the whole shebang. It was boiling, I was stressed, sweating like a paedo in a primary school, and when hurrying to bring the mains I tripped on the step and accidentally flung his carbonara all over his lap.



Putting it mildly he was a bit narked off.


I was apologising like crazy. My bar manager came over and tried to calm him down. He was threatening to sue me, the landlord, the chain. Even the people he was with were starting to look embarrassed.

Finally he paused for breath, looked me in the eye and said "You're a disgrace to your fahking profession".

To which I replied "Well you're a disgrace to your fucking species!" There was a stunned pause... "And your hair's shit too!" (I was on a roll).

I turned on my heel and stormed off. I then sat out back having a smoke and waited to see what would happen. Eventually the landlord and bar manager came out. I apologised and while they weren't angry they suggested it might be an idea if I didn't come in to work any more.

They then paid me for the next two weeks as in fairness I'd worked my arse off for them over the last few months.

Edit: forgot to say pearoast from the 'I Quit' QOTW
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 5 Sep 2008, 10:54, 3 replies)