The Crazy Customer Thread!

[Alexandra]

It has been a good 10 years since I worked at any customer-service job.

Now I'll start off with my crazy customer story. This is about a woman I'll call P.

P would come in, order a cup of coffee, and sit there and talk to her hand. Apparently her hand really ticked her off on a few occasions and she'd get into a shouting match with it. The upshot is, she wound up being banned from where I worked.

My husband knew who I was talking about, because about 10 years prior to that, he'd worked in a place next door and they had the same issues with her!

Now how weird is that...husband and wife encounter the same nutjob, in places next door to each other, 10 years apart?

[Nyx]

Weeeeeird... a friend of mine saw a lady shouting at a pad of paper once like it was a tape recorder. She'd shout things like "Memo to self!" or "Remember to...". I may have intervened to tell her that pens help too. And once when I was young I saw a man outside an Arby's yelling at his cigarette, as he was smoking it.

[blas]

Amongst the many freaks that frequented the gas station, there was a guy who would talk to himself, like DipShit style. I at first thought he had a Bluetooth, but no...this guy was having an argument with himself. He'd walk in and talk to himself from the beginning until the end, flaring his arms the whole time.

Weirdo.

[VenomX]

See I would have no problem askign them if they are ok.

[RetailWorkhorse]

I do that. Talk to myself or my merchandise. I got into a massive argument with the batteries yesterday.

Haven't had anyone ask me if I was on crack yet.

[Evil Queen]

I talk to character icons in games on the computer screen -- my most recent endevour was yelling at "JoJoshi" from Heros 2 because he wasn't the character I thought he was.

[Xieg]

Talk to myself/objects/nothing quite a bit myself. Complete with arm motions sometimes. Usually its just me pondering. Although earlier today I was arguing with a particularily annoying hold message with some customer.

[blas]

See, when my Gazelle was at my parents' house and no one else was home, to pass the time, I'd either watch tv or rant out loud. Especially about work. So I'd get a good work out and let it all out at once.

Now the Gazelle is here. Our walls are really thin, so I stop myself from yelling, but I'm amazed at how fast I can burn 100 calories when I just go on a venting spree.

I openly admit to talking to myself in the car at night on the way to work, ranting....and talking to myself ranting on the Gazelle. But I won't do it in public.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I do that. Talk to myself or my merchandise. I got into a massive argument with the batteries yesterday.

Did you win?

[AnaKhouri]

We used to have an odd customer, he is difficult to describe...an elderly professor who came in with long lists of obscure books he wanted. He had a strange manner of speaking and would sometimes do goofy things like stick Christmas present bows on his forehead (he was always dressed in a suit...). Many of my co-workers disliked him, but I always found him amusing so I never minded helping him. He once spent twenty minutes shouting a story at me across the Help Desk about how a hospital had amputated the wrong leg off his ex-wife and killed her.

I learned recently he has Alzheimer's, poor man.

But the real point...when we were in college my husband worked in the university library, interlibrary loan department. Shortly after I first encountered Dr. E, I mentioned this odd old professor to him...and my husband said, "Dr.E! He always ordered obscure books from other libraries..." and proceeded to do a spot-on imitation of Dr. E's manner of speech.

So it has happened before that spouses run across the same crazy people!

[RetailWorkhorse]

Did you win?

Alas, no. We came to an impasse and so we're not speaking to each other at the moment. I'll probably have to have the gummy worms act as a mediator.

[aurelemsrealm]

LOL!!!! I've never been caught talking to myself, but sometimes I feel like it's the only intelligent conversation I get at work.

When I got stuck working graveyard shift one night, I had a customer walk in to witness me laughing hysterically about something I'd seen on TV before work while scrubbing the toilet in the men's room. Yeah, you'd never expect to see someone laughing so hysterically while trying to scrub a nasty toilet. I just blamed it on a lack of sleep, boredom with another fun night of work, and a slight buzz from the fumes of the toilet cleaner.

[SuperB]

You can always tell when my mother-in-law is having a conversation in her head. Her hand starts getting into it.

About 10 years ago I had a guy so nuts that he caused me to close the store at 5:30 one night. He comes in and reaches across the counter for the cordless phone that I had sitting there. I have no idea who he called but he proceeded to talk to them about conspiracy theories and getting a baby to Washington. My daughter was a baby at the time and there behind the counter with me in her swing. While he was raving on the phone I pushed a chair in front of her and used the other phone line to call 911 and attempt to discreetly tell them I had a 5150 in the store. She stayed on the phone with me, mostly trying to figure out what was going on since I was afraid to be too loud about what I was doing. I had no idea if he was going to try to come behind the counter for my daughter in his bizarre state. As he started to leave he turned back towards me, lifted his arms to the sky and said, "Can't you see all the birds are dying?"
And then he left.

Another guy came in a few years ago wanting to look at the phone book and while looking up the number of a business 12 miles up the road he started talking about making threats to the Safeway in the next town. He got the number and then started talking nonsense. I was not wanting to get into any conversation with him hoping he'd leave when he literally squared off with me and asked if I wanted to start some shit with him. At that point I started to walk around him (and a shelf not wanting to walk by him) to the back of the store where I had two distributors there taking an order. When he saw them he put his hands up and backed off saying, "it's ok". He stood at the door talking nonsense for a minute or so before leaving and my distributor suggesting we lock the door.

There's more but those are the two most interesting.

[Imprl59]

Sometimes when Hoke takes me down to the Piggely Wiggely to get the Dutch Cleanser and silver polish my can goods will get in to a fight in the cart. It's horribly embarassing trying to get my shopping done when the corn is fighting with the peas. 'Course people tend to leave me alone when I shop and it is quite fun to see how fast you can clear out an aisle.

Steve B.

[NightWatch]

yeah... I walked into the breakroom with my leftovers from taco bell, and as i was getting ready to stick the food in the microwave i started singing to my food... doing a little dance... in my defense i'd been up since 5 and was overly-caffienated.

this is when it occurs to me that i never did look around to see if i was alone. and i was not, one of my coworkers was sitting there staring at me over the top of her book. i said to her "we shall never speak of this!" she agreed and went back to ignoring me.