How much craziness do YOU deal with ?

[chainedbarista]

yes, but they're mainly the homeless; we had the one who chose to wear a crash helmet, run out into traffic and dance to his heart's content. he also, a few days later, decided to try and choke out our am.

we had another who'd scream random obscenities to anyone, everyone and no one; her piece de resistance was to drop her pants and pee on the front door during the breakfast rush, which i'm glad i missed.

we have one who carries a rather large knife and told our manager that he would 'offer our store 'protection' if we would give him pastries in exchange.

there was a younger guy who decided to 'please himself' in front of the store during dinner rush...another one i'm glad i missed.

we did have a guy who'd pretend he was deaf and slip us threatening notes if we didn't give him free coffee.

another would come in and ask for 'just a taste' of coffee; we put a stop to this since it became an everyday occurrence.

we had one panhandler who'd ask for money, people would buy him food, then he'd complain there wasn't enough mayo on it.

these days, we used to have one who sits in the corner and has conversations with himself, but he attempted to steal cds, so he's banned.

[AirHostess]

As cabin crew: not many crazies really, the real crazies can't get a passport or make it past security.

[Jester]

I work in a downtown bar dealing with drunk and stupid tourists in Key Weird Key West, Florida, "where the weird go pro."

I deal with a completely different level of crazy almost every day, so much so that seeing a drag queen with a Dr. Seuss hat and leather bustier during lunchtime on a weekday wouldn't even turn my head anymore. (That would just be considered normal Key West craziness, after all.)

[Kara]

I'm a Corrections Officer at a Maximum Custody state prison. I see crazy, and I mean truly, medically, textbook crazy, all the time.

When I was a Customer Service peon, I only thought the people I dealt with were nuts. Well, some of them were (like the guy who thought one of our towers "zapped" not only his Credit Card info, but also the cash out of his wallet), but now I have documentation from medical professionals to prove it.

[Sheldonrs]

I posted about this guy a while ago but the one crazy that really sticks in my mind is from when I worked for a software company that made software for screenwriter;s etc.
Long story short, he wanted me to help him find a lawyer to sue the production company and movie studio responsible for for the movie "Devil's Advocate" because he said it was a true story about his life. That means he is a lawyer who is the son of satan. Not really a far stretch.

[smileyeagle1021]

Call Center:
On the free Bible line the LDS church sponsored
.

i'm sure you got quite a few crazies on that line...

knowing how many anti mormon rants I've heard (ok, so very few, but very few even know they are speaking to someone in salt lake, so there is a decent amount of the people who realize their talking to someone in utah) i'm sure you must have heard a butt load on a line that is actually run by the LDS church.

[HawaiianShirts]

Pizza Delivery:
There was only one crazy at that job. All the drivers were taught how to deal with him as part of their training. When he ordered pizza, we'd knock on his front door and wait for him to slip the money through the mail slot. Then we'd go around to the side of the house where we would hand the order to him through the basement window, one item at a time. He never spoke to the drivers in person, but he was rather friendly over the phone and always tipped.

Call Center:
On the free Bible line the LDS church sponsored, I got one woman who kept referring to me as "my child" and "blessing" me. She wasn't LDS; she just wanted the free Bible, but first she had to ask if it was the King James Version. It was. That was good. Out of either morbid curiosity or plain stupidity, I asked her why she specifically had to have a King James Version. She said, "Because the Devil came into my house last week, stole my King James, and threw it in the river. I've tried all my other Bibles, but God only speaks through the King James. That's why the Devil stole it. He doesn't like God speaking to me." She then went on to explain that Moses appeared to her years ago, ordained her a prophetess, taught her how to speak to God through the Bible and to angels through other religious texts, and told her that she would have some important part to play in the end of the world and resurrections and stuff like that.

Computer Sales:
Few real crazies come there. I get my fair share of people who are paranoid that wireless networks are bad because anyone with a computer can supposedly hack their network to visually spy on them in their homes. The one guy who really is crazy is, after three years, no longer interesting to me. He comes in once or twice a month and tells us that he is starting his own trucking company (he works for one in town, loading and unloading stuff), that his secretary is waiting in his car (he walks and rides the bus to get anywhere), and that he needs to buy computers for his business (throughout any conversation we might have with him, the number of computers frequently changes to any amount between 2 and 6). Any new employee fool enough to talk to him will wind up with cartloads of computers and equipment, then get up to the registers only to have the guy say he needs to get his checkbook from his car and disappear for a week or so.

[Victoria J]

I wanted to ask how many of you spend time dealing with the mad.

My job sort of involves this, and I got training in dealing with people etc. I was hugely surprised though to talk to a pest control worker and find out how much time they spend dealing with the mad.

Apparently a significant number of their calls are really just people who are seeing things. Some, like the call requesting someone to come out and kill the little green aliens in the skirting boards, can be weeded out by the people on the phones. Others sound perfectly reasonable but when they get out there the insects crawling on everything/everyone are only in the person's mind.

What sort of regular craziness do you have to deal with ?

(My personal favourite was someone who wanted to know what he could do about a neighbour using voodoo to make him faint... I also once advised someone who thought they were being followed everywhere by staff from DIY store B+Q...)

Victoria J