Poll of the Day > Those of you who have a job, what are your customer horror stories?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I once had a drunk come in and trash a Walmart.
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I work in health care so my customers are a little different.

I have been stabbed because I threw away a box of tissues that had vomit in it that a woman wanted to keep. "Some were still good!"

Almost had my nose broken by one guy who loved to spit in your face. We (me and another staff) had to walk with him because he'd have times where he was unsafe/unstable walking. So we're walking and he just lets it fly in my face and laughs as usual. As I'm wiping my face off, he winds up and hauls off with a wicked elbow too. *bonus points- he'd throw shit at you and piss on walls*

Had someone jump on my back and try to choke me as I was bent down, trying to tie my shoes because "president obama was going to come through their tv and try to have sex with them"

I got plenty.

Not all jobs have costumers but when I worked at bojangles i think the thing that irked me thr most was when i emptied the trash in thr dining room as I was coming back to out the trash can back this bitch saw me standing there with thr trash can in my hand and still proceeded to dump the trash in the hole. Then her bf wanted to get all pissy when i face palmed and muttered something under my breath. Started threatning me with violence.
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Working in the jail I had people use literal shit as a weapon, fight me, etc. As a behavioral therapist it's oddly similar but I'm a smaller package

I was employed in fast food and a guy was threatening me because my manager told me in no uncertain terms I was NOT to remove the trays from their table and they were to put them on the top of the trash can (less than a foot away from their booth, like right behind one of the guys) like everyone else.

I'm scrawny so I'm not 100% sure she wasn't worried about me getting snatched tbh. They were acting pretty questionable regardless.

Manager had me go to the back, yelling at the guys. Then had to call the cops because them hanging around after threatening me and then all of us.

I had to ride a bike iirc (or walk but pretty sure I had a bike) home. Couldn't get a ride. YEAHH

So in Software Engineering, customers are...weird. It is not like retail where literally any person off the street is a potential customer, the people we deal with are usually payed way more then us, way more educated then us, and as a result think they can do our jobs a lot better then us.

My first job out of college I never had to deal with customers, they were usually dealing with people several levels higher then me and I was only at the job for 2 years so I never got trusted enough where they would have me interact with the customer.

My second job (and the one I worked at for almost 12 years) our customers where law firms, usually the partners since they were the ones who bought our products. It was pretty rare that we would talk to them directly (although I was involved in a couple of conference calls with them), usually we interacted with them through sales people. Most of them had law degrees (but usually weren't practicing lawyers or be part of the bar in their jurisdiction), which meant they thought they could just know how complicated it would be to implement new features. What they didn't know was how complex the system was, or how much time and effort it would be to implement their wishes. It was even more frustrating considering I worked in the Machine Learning part of the system, so every little change they wanted for one thing could have a ripple effect on literally every single thing we processed. Trying to explain that to them usually took several meetings and hundreds of man hours to prepare for those meetings, only to have the work scrapped when their next big idea came about.

In my current job, my manager(s) are usually the ones who deal with the customers who "pay the bills", however since I am a contractor pretty much everyone except the 6 people on my team are my customers (and even person #6 could be considered a "customer"). That said, I actually don't have any real complaints about them other then the fact I feel they are under-utilizing me. Although I also understand that part of that is they have a lot of work "in the future", it just isn't ready for me to work on.
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ive had customers die, ive had my hands inside my customers bedsores, I have to wipe my customers asses, investigate their peens, put catheters in, ect.
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Had a dude on bath salts try to stab me in the leg with a steak knife.

Bulbasaur posted...

ive had customers die, ive had my hands inside my customers bedsores, I have to wipe my customers asses, investigate their peens, put catheters in, ect.

Dying isn't so bad when you get them first thing. It's like they're sleeping and won't wake up. Not as easy to get them prepped for the funeral home when they're 6'5, 300, and like a boulder from the air conditioner blasting for hours in their room.

Getting Stage IV bed sores and edema all over your hands is pretty nasty.

CTLM posted...

Bulbasaur posted...

ive had customers die, ive had my hands inside my customers bedsores, I have to wipe my customers asses, investigate their peens, put catheters in, ect.

Dying isn't so bad when you get them first thing. It's like they're sleeping and won't wake up. Not as easy to get them prepped for the funeral home when they're 6'5, 300, and like a boulder from the air conditioner blasting for hours in their room.

Getting Stage IV bed sores and edema all over your hands is pretty nasty.

i don't deal with them if i find them dead. luckily ive only ever discovered one who died once.

when it happens though, i need to call a funeral home do they can come retrieve the body, the main office to inform them, then next of kin if any. usually the main actual hospice nurse, too, if the office didn't do it themselves

and bed sores are whatever at this point. i don't even smell them anymore, and getting my hands in there to clean and manage them is eh.
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I work at a tier 2 telecom, so most of our customers are other telecoms that sell to local exchange carriers or smaller telecoms. You would think you wouldnt have dumb customers, as our point of contact are network engineers and the such. Every so often we get some people that should be working at a McDonald's or something.

When Hurricane Sandy went up the east coast. It flooded a few data centers and exchange hubs. We had a customer call or email us EVERY HOUR ON THE HOUR asking for ETR.. we would tell them the same thing.... the area is under water... and they would call back in an hour
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When I worked for Sears I had a customer literally bellow for me from across an entire department. The most galling was that it wasn't done in a polite manner. It was 'hey, hey you, hey'. Then when that didn't work they whistled at me.

I ignored them the whole time and let the one long time employee deal with them.
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Do patients at a psychiatric facility qualify as "customers"?


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I don't usually interact with customers, but the worst times have been when the cashiers or customer service people take my presence as an excuse to abandon their post, right as a pissed off customer shows up. I don't have any skill at all at dealing with situations like that.
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"Madam, did you fast for 12 hours?"

"Sure did!"

*Puts her coffee down after taking a gulp*
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I once worked for a microfilming business, and our main client was the local hospital - we converted their medical records to digital format for them. So once every couple of days we'd drive out to the hospital to retrieve boxes of medical records for processing.

One day, a box of medical records was left behind, right there on the sidewalk. Thankfully it was quickly discovered by a hospital employee, but we very nearly lost their business.
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Bugmeat posted...

Do patients at a psychiatric facility qualify as "customers"?

They sure do. They're not going anywhere anytime soon but they count

Bugmeat posted...

Do patients at a psychiatric facility qualify as "customers"?

not sure about there, but in home healthcare, we, the PAs, have to refer to our people as "customers".

wait we're not personal assistants anymore, we're "individual providers"
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They told us to call them clients. I thought that was silly so I called them patients anyway.

There was one regular who would eat his shit. Like all the time. So often that he reeked of shit. It came out of his pores. He refused to wear underwear under his gown so sometimes he'd just shit while he was walking. Or he'd shit in the bed and roll around in it, mashing it all over. One time the lead staff decided he was going to force underwear on this guy. I tried to tell him this was stupid and a waste of time because even if we got it on him he would just take them off when we walked away. As security I was required to help hold this guy so he wouldn't hit this dipshit while he tried to put underwear on him. Just holding his arms down allowed enough of his torso to touch my shirt that I stunk of shit. Immediately got on the phone and told the supervisor I was going home unless they brought me a fresh shirt immediately.

There was a 3xl in the breakroom hanging up from one of the guards who always leaves his shirt. I pit that on for the 45 minutes it took them to show up with a clean shirt.


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I guess a woman that was speaking to an imaginary friend. She was definitely unstable so she was the only customer I was legitimately afraid of.

All other rude ones were just annoying.

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CTLM posted...

I work in health care so my customers are a little different.

I have been stabbed because I threw away a box of tissues that had vomit in it that a woman wanted to keep. "Some were still good!"

Almost had my nose broken by one guy who loved to spit in your face. We (me and another staff) had to walk with him because he'd have times where he was unsafe/unstable walking. So we're walking and he just lets it fly in my face and laughs as usual. As I'm wiping my face off, he winds up and hauls off with a wicked elbow too. *bonus points- he'd throw shit at you and piss on walls*

Had someone jump on my back and try to choke me as I was bent down, trying to tie my shoes because "president obama was going to come through their tv and try to have sex with them"

I got plenty.

Being in a fraternity is called working in healthcare now?

dedbus posted...

CTLM posted...

I work in health care so my customers are a little different.

I have been stabbed because I threw away a box of tissues that had vomit in it that a woman wanted to keep. "Some were still good!"

Almost had my nose broken by one guy who loved to spit in your face. We (me and another staff) had to walk with him because he'd have times where he was unsafe/unstable walking. So we're walking and he just lets it fly in my face and laughs as usual. As I'm wiping my face off, he winds up and hauls off with a wicked elbow too. *bonus points- he'd throw shit at you and piss on walls*

Had someone jump on my back and try to choke me as I was bent down, trying to tie my shoes because "president obama was going to come through their tv and try to have sex with them"

I got plenty.

Being in a fraternity is called working in healthcare now?

Never been in a fraternity. Guess I'm missing the joke/sarcasm?

Me neither but it sounds wild.

Bulbasaur posted...

Bugmeat posted...

Do patients at a psychiatric facility qualify as "customers"?

not sure about there, but in home healthcare, we, the PAs, have to refer to our people as "customers".

wait we're not personal assistants anymore, we're "individual providers"

I work home sessions and we call them clients. Granted I work as a therapist.

Not a horror story, but I used to have to deal with someone over the phone who would sigh long and hard like Napoleon Dynamite whenever I told him we couldn't fix his shit.

Heh... funny when I look back on it.
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