OUTRAGEOUS TALES FROM THE (old) JOB

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Ms Littlefish and I were talking several times, as well as others in a chat group about crazy stories from jobs we work or have worked. Some of them are quite hilarious. Some of them seemed so insane you'd have to BE there to believe it.

  I've got so many stories from my last two jobs it would blow your minds.

But before we start sharing our hilarious stories or tales of "woe", I'd like to set a few ground rules, if you'd be so kind.

 -Stay within the RPG Maker Web Forum Rules (Duh)

 - No using real names.

 - Keep it clean, please.

 - Most importantly, have fun!

(Also this isn't a contest! Everyone's stories are all amazing and epic. < )

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Spoiler

(To mods: I know about the no multiple posts thing, but I thought it might be a good idea for one intro post then an actual story. If that's still wrong, I apologize.)

As many of you might know, I used to work at a theme park (Pretty world-famous) and we'd get about 100 questions at the same time. I worked at a boat ride.

This boat ride was 130 feet tall and went 55 MPH down a 77 degree drop. That's hella steep.

The splash ALONE was almost 50 feet high.

"Do you get wet?"  ... Yes.
"How wet do you get?"  I don't know, pretty soaked I'd say.
"Is it like throwing a bucket of water on me?" Um... sure, I guess?


One woman had curlers in her hair and a shower cap on.  WHAT?

Its protocol that with rides with a floor, shoes are required in case of an emergency. I'd see women wearing $400 shoes before. One woman had designer shoes that cost over a grand! (Protip: When you go to any Theme park or attraction, wear walking shoes! They WILL get wet, greasy and/or stained somehow. Don't ask.)

I've had several people threaten to sue because their little girl cried from the ride, or that they got whiplash on the way down. It's not MY fault you ignored SEVERAL warnings in English AND Spanish! (It's pretty common knowledge to KEEP YOUR HEAD BACK on any thrill ride...)


I've got HUNDREDS more stories for you, those were just highlights. I know severa of you personally, and this will be a very fun read all around.  I also used to work for a flavor manufacturing company. (We made yummy things. Extracts, teas, sugars, etc. More on that later.)


YOUR TURN! Share with me!

 

 

[bgillisp]

I used to work for a land-line phone company in customer service, and one day my neighbor got this call:

"I'm going to Walmart to by a new phone. What will my new phone number be?"

He had to put the guy on hold just so he didn't break up laughing in his face. He told me later he was tempted to reply "It'll be in the box.", but didn't want to get fired in return.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I guess the question is which story do I start with first? 

I think I'll start with a crowd favorite: Strawberry Guy. 

I currently work at a small neighborhood grocery store. Both as a cashier and a produce stocker. The place can only be described as having quirk and charm. 

During this particular story I was stocking produce. I was bunching some fresh broccoli and putting them on the display when I saw a middle aged man glancing at the berries just across my way. He had incredibly tanned skin, knobby knees, and was wearing a white sun hat. All that is irrelevant, but hey. Now, some people will sample a piece or two when selecting grapes or cherries. In all honesty, it does sort of annoy me when the customers find it appropriate to scarf down a third of a pound of fruit before deciding on the item, but it's what happens.

This guy. Strawberries in the United States most often come prepacked in a quart-sized clamshell package. So, it's sealed. But, as I continued staring into the ether while doing this grunt work I heard the unmistakable sound of stiff plastic packaging being rifled with. I looked over and the gentleman was now taking massive bites of ripe strawberries. I mean, gone in one bite, and discarding the leaves into a bin I shuck my corn into. And he's really plowing through this package. And next thing I know, he's done with the whole clamshell.

I instantly tried to justify his actions in my head. Surely he'll take the empty carton to the cashier and pay for it. Nope. He chucked the empty container into my bin. I'm shocked. I'm stunned. But I managed to squeak out, "No, please don't do that!" But this man. He was incredibly alpha. Alpha as ****. He then stared right into my eyes, grabbed a second clamshell of strawberries, and ate them in single gulps; discarding the leaves. And at no point did he say a word, or even laugh at me; no, he just stared at me and continued to eat strawberries. 

My manager walked by. My savior. But this was the day that I learned my manager was even more beta than I am. I worriedly pointed at the scene that was unfolding before me, "He's stealing!" And the manager, ever fearful of even the most necessary confrontation, shrugged at me and tells me, "It's no big deal."

 

[Andar]

OK, here is another old one - really old.


I worked at customer support for a technical computer hotline when computer's weren't as common as they are today (Windows 98 was not yet on the market, most people still worked with Windows 95) - but that company was the first in this country to mass produce and sell them at non-specialist stores.


One co-worker got a call where the customer just purchased a printer to print invitations, greeting cards and so on. And he wanted to know how he could do that.


After a while of trying to figure out the customer's problem, they both agreed that the customer should place the printer somewhere in storage until he could buy a computer...


Or another one:


The company was one of the first to ship a prefabricated image on the hard drive - we were glad they did, because guiding a customer through a manual installation of Win95 (or later Win98) took a lot of time. With the image program, that was really easy and just a few keyboard clicks.


Then there was a call from a customer that had a history of reinstallations due to fiddling around without knowing what to do. But every call was from the wife, not the user himself.


And said call started "You don't have to tell me how to reinstall the computer, I know that already - I just have to be able to tell my husband that I called the service center and they helped me getting his computer operational again"...

 

[Alexander Amnell]

Man I've a ton of these as well; I'll start with the worst of all, during my very brief stint as a zone manager at the neighborhood Walmart. Ok so first off Walmart is a really crappy place to work, mainly because their logistics suck and far to much work hinges on far to few people, but more importantly is the strange phenomenon whereby a persons iq drops a couple dozen points and testosterone just floods their bodies(male or woman) whenever they enter the store. In short, I've dealt with a lot of idiots in those days, but this lady takes the cake.

So I'm on break when I hear someone screaming, I mean really screaming. So I leave the break room and walk to the double doors leading to the photo lab/site to store. I don't go out right away and instead take a couple of minutes to listen to this woman berate and cuss out the poor shy teen working behind the counter. She's just going at her with insult after insult inbetween demands to give her her site to store package. For the sake of 'keeping it clean' I won't even hint at the kind of things she said, so I decide I'll put a stop to it.

I go out, tell her I'm a manager and ask what her problem is. She explains in that I'm-nice-to-you-at-first-so-it-looks-like-your-employees-the-unreasonable-one accent that she's trying to pick up a store order and is being told she can't; reason being that the order was placed by her daughter and she wasn't on the list of people to pick it up. I explain that to her as nicely as I can and soon she starts trying the same stuff with me, which I'm in no mood for after already hearing what she said to the other employee. At the end of my rope I explain one last time that she'll either have to come back with her daughter or have her daughter out her on the pickup list.

That's when she slapped me, started another rant and tried to slap me a second time but I instinctually (or maybe in my own fit of rage) catch her by the wrist before it makes contact. She clearly didn't expect it because she stopped cold, I took the time to tell her to get out of the store and not to come back, that if she didn't comply I wouldn't call security, I'd call the cops and let them sort out who's at fault by watching the video tapes. Then the lady told me...literally the nicest thing I'd heard her say thusfar when referencing a walmart employee.."you're disgusting and the only way you'll ever do anything right is if you go home tonight an kill yourself!" With those parting words she walked off never to be heard from again... A couple days later her daughter cancelled her order via phone and a few weeks after I got called into the store managers office over a huge complaint filled against the store full of lies that made me out to be worse than the lady was in reality. Rather than be suspended while they sorted through everything I went on and quit, something I'd considered doing prior but made up my mind when I realized I never wanted to have to deal with someone like that again.

 

[whitesphere]

I guess the question is which story do I start with first? 

I think I'll start with a crowd favorite: Strawberry Guy. 

I currently work at a small neighborhood grocery store. Both as a cashier and a produce stocker. The place can only be described as having quirk and charm. 

[ brute of a man decides to steal a carton of strawberries ]

I instantly tried to justify his actions in my head. Surely he'll take the empty carton to the cashier and pay for it. Nope. He chucked the empty container into my bin. I'm shocked. I'm stunned. But I managed to squeak out, "No, please don't do that!" But this man. He was incredibly alpha. Alpha as ****. He then stared right into my eyes, grabbed a second clamshell of strawberries, and ate them in single gulps; discarding the leaves. And at no point did he say a word, or even laugh at me; no, he just stared at me and continued to eat strawberries. 

My manager walked by. My savior. But this was the day that I learned my manager was even more beta than I am. I worriedly pointed at the scene that was unfolding before me, "He's stealing!" And the manager, ever fearful of even the most necessary confrontation, shrugged at me and tells me, "It's no big deal."

When I read people being such royal jerks like that, I think they would like a nice big gulp of this:

http://www.masterofmalt.com/vodka/the-hot-enough-vodka-co/250000-scovilles-naga-chilli-vodka/

Basically: vodka with EXTREMELY hot chilis mixed in...so much so they have a disclaimer.

Picture the bully drinking some to impress someone else ("Yeah, I can drink anything!"), then his face turning beet red for a half-hour or so...

 

[EternalShadow]

Eh, I've not had any bad customers, but I've had a bad manager, I suppose.

The job started off as being pretty good, but quickly dissolved into disarray as the manager didn't assign tasks to people properly, and spent a lot of time doing irrelevant things. He also tried to assign the marketing to his co-manager, which didn't work out so well as that co-manager was often busy with other things. I tried expanding his marketing beyond what he was doing alone (just Facebook) but he pretty much dismissed my efforts or never took on board any suggestions, so I ended up doing a lot of work that didn't get used in the end. And so, the irrelevant work continued.

I think it was just a bit of a waste of time... I quit in the end as we weren't getting anywhere, and he kept asking me to do unpaid overtime, didn't pay properly, etc

 

[mlogan]

Okay, this story just highly amuses me. I used to work at a coffee shop making drinks and stuff. One day a group of young teen girls comes in and they are all ordering their different frappuchino type drinks and iced coffee. Finally the last of the bunch steps up, looking uncertain. She says she doesn't really like coffee and then asks (because remember her friends all ordered iced versions of coffee) - "Do you have anything like iced hot chocolate?"

It took me a moment to process before I responded with "You mean chocolate milk?"

She turned it down - I guess it wasn't "cool" enough to be seen hanging with your friends drinking chocolate milk.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

^next time I go to books a million I'm going to their weird little coffee bar and ordering an iced hot chocolate; it sounds perfect for the non-coffee drinker like me. (Seriously though, people that order coffee are often times completely out of it. At another job I once had at Hardee's at 4 a.m I had this one lady come by and ask for an "unleaded coffee", had to keep the speaker off until she just drove around because I couldn't stop myself from laughing... Some people shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car in the mornings without caffeine.)

^^^who would invent such a thing? When you have to warn people that buying your product is a really stupid idea that's probably about the point free enterprise goes just a tad to far. I do support the Idea of alpha a-holes being forced to chug it though.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

I have several more stories from when I worked at the shady flavor manufacturing place run by menopausal women. For the longest time I was the ONLY MALE EMPLOYEE. D: Some of them looked at me like I was a piece of manmeat or something.... (Yuck!)

Anyway, I was at the phones and I got some crazy things.

A woman called, FRANTICALLY searching for ORGANIC, GLUTEN-FREE sea salt.  Considering nothing we dealt with had gluten.... we had to laugh. we made flavorings and dealt with spices... besides, I doubt NATURAL sea salt (Sal do Mar, I believe) will have gluten in it

Another woman called, asking us if our natural sea salts had any SODIUM in them. I had to put her on hold I laughed so hard. I told her no, that ll our sea salts had sodium in them, to which he became irate and hung up.  Yeeeah, natural salt has sodium in it!

Another woman called, FURIOUS. She exclaimed that the rose oil she tasted taste like poison.  LIKE POISON!  I was like "Oh, you've tasted poison before?!?"

I had several amazing coworkers, too.  There was one woman who was always sick. ALWAYS. She never took care of her body. She'd bring in entire chocolate loaf cakes and eat the whole thing in a day. Hey, your body your choice, but that's still pretty grody. She was a production staff so she was in charge of making extracts. She screwed around and ignored properly calculated formulas. She was also in charge of making dry stuff. If she was off, she'd shrug her shoulders and keep going. Protocols clearly indicate to STOP if you make a mistake, then to notify supervision. She never did.

There was a reason the spice blends she made always tasted... off. She made maple sugar. One batch smelled like FEET! What the hell did she do?! She one time poured a half gallon of apple flavoring into the btach of apple flavoring she was making. In the end, the bottle wasn't apple flavoring. They were BASE CHEMICALS that made UP apple flavoring. So, in five seconds she ruined about $500 in materials. There came a time when I stopped cleaning up after everybody. Literally. I used to be the cleaning guy. SHE CRIED AND WAILED WHEN SHE FOUND OUT SHE'D HAVE TO CLEAN UP AFTER HERSELF. POLICE CAME. They thought we were beating her.

I will SO not miss that place. More stories to come.

 

[Scinaya]

O_O Sometimes people just can be unbelievably weird.

My first job was in a small shop, which sold almost anything from occasional make up products to carpets and wellies... The shop was tiny, we had to manage alone whole day two shops separated by about 100 meters of street and even though the place tried to be a cheap find-anything-you-need boutique, the prices were high and the owner didn't do too well, since the shop kept getting calls from court to pay up debts. The owner was a special one. He did not use soap and was afraid potatoes are poisonous - for just few examples of his strangeness. One day I was alone there with my employer sorting out some clothes that had just shipped in. There was piles of old ladies underwear and it inspired the man go through a long monologue about different shapes of panties... As if it was not uncomfortable enough, he next decided to ask my opinion. 'What shape do you wear? The usual or Brazilian one?' O_O I don't even know what I answered, but I wanted to just scoot away.

Later same summer about fourty-something man came in looking for shoes. I tried to politely ask, if he needed some help. He looked me up and down and answered: 'Oh, I do not think girl of your age can yet help me!' Combined with his gaze, it seriously did not seem like he meant shoes. -.-

A third occasion happened in another shop another year. I was as cashier and a customer came in a bit drunk asking for nicotine chewing gum. We didn't have any at the moment, so I told him the shelf he had checked was the only one. He didn't believe and wanted me to get some from the storage... I ran to ask, if there was any, while the queue got longer. Nope, none. The customer wouldn't take any of it and started asking angrily where he'd get any then. I thought that I was being helpful, when suggested to go to pharmacy... Poor man thought I tried to make fun of him and shouted at me long while... >.>

 

[captainproton]

Let's see...

At my first job, I worked in an entertainment superstore sorta like barnes & noble, but more stuff like cd's and games. We also sold adult mags and dvd's. One guy brought up one such dvd--i remember it being pirate-themed--and he asked me if it was a good one.

There was the time I sold some adult magazines to a guy I later realized used to be a deacon at our church.

There was the time I had to clean up the men's room after it was used by what must've been an acrobat with diarrhea.

And that was all topped off by the used contraceptive we found on the floor by the t-shirt rack.

Currently, I work in a department store. Last month (month before, maybe) someone took a pile of clothes into the fitting room and peed all over it. This was discovered when one of our newer employees saw the pile of clothes and went to pick them up.

This happened again about three weeks ago.

That same week--which was already tense due to a lot of employee drama--I heard a guy yelling and swearing for someone to help him. I was at the camera counter, and he was about eight yards away, in the computer accessory aisle. I was about to go over there, when the guy actually *kicked* open the door to the stockroom, demanding service. The guys in the back room were stunned. I was in no mood for this after the week i'd had, and this guy had cashed in his "get out of a**whuppin' free" card. So, i was ready. But, I approached him very calmly and said, "is there something with which you need help?" (Note the proper grammar). It turns out the guy needed a ninja turtles lunch box.

I had no idea those warranted such strong emotional responses.

I took him to the back-to-school section, where the lunchboxes lived (I know, right? Why wouldn't they be by the printers and blank dvd's? That's crazy.) All the while, this greasy, potbellied browntooth was chuckling on his phone--which never left his ear--about gettinng someone to help. I left him and just waited for the first sign of anymore trouble. It didn't happen, and in retrospect, that's a good thing. No matter the reason, management does not look kindly upon bouncing someone's head off the wall.

oh--and one of my coworkers believes he's a ninja. For reals. (Chris Farley was more believable as a ninja, if that gives you any clues about this guy.)

@Alexander--just so you know, "unleaded" coffee means decaf.

 

[Scinaya]

There was the time I had to clean up the men's room after it was used by what must've been an acrobat with diarrhea.

I feel for you! XD When I was cleaning up markets after retail jobs, I once cleaned after special someone, who had done their deed in the sink of handicapped toilet. Still puzzles me!

 

[nio kasgami]

not sure of what speak but why not!

I was worker on a restaurant..i had to do a long travel for go to this work...but one night it was snowy ...and 

SUDDENTLY!

we took a plaque of ice and the car lost control and we percute the off road and we do two barrels

after  to be finally out of the hospital the tomorow I can't have the force to go to the job to much hurt... so my friend tell it to the boss we had a accident so I take break day

but I learned after the next day..my boss was fired me! just because I don't present myself!

 

[Alexander Amnell]

@nio: that sucks, is Quebec a Canadian version of an "at will state" where you can be fired for literally anything at all?

@captainproton: if there exists slang tha likens a beverage one drinks to gasoline required for vehicles to operate than I feel my point still stands. If you are that dependent on coffee you shouldn't be driving to get it, you should have made it at home before you left.

 

[Alexander Amnell]

@nio: that sucks, is Quebec a Canadian version of an "at will state" where you can be fired for literally anything at all?

@captainproton: if there exists slang that likens a beverage one drinks to gasoline required for vehicles to operate than I feel my point still stands. If you are that dependent on coffee you shouldn't be driving to get it, you should have made it at home before you left.

People amaze me with how they interact with others working in service industries. It may not be an actual modern salve class though there are clearly people who have never worked such a job that believe it is just that. The people who just start screaming for help at the top I their lungs always bothered me a lot as well, then there's the people that like to be all "I pay your salary so you should be grateful for the opportunity to be *****ed at by me!" As if they were a private benefactor to your finances rather than a single irate customer among 1000s. Maybe if everyone worked service in their youth there wouldn't be so many of these stories, my kid are all going to work service for six months when they turn 16 just to experience the stupidity involved.

Edit for mods: accidentally quoted myself instead of editing above post. I'm on my cell and didn't notice until I submitted it, sorry about that.

 

[sai]

So there was a point in time where I worked at this really shady motel as a receptionist. I was usually up at late hours of the night, checking people in or out. There's this one lady who walks into the lobby, I asked if she needed anything. She looks at me, then looks away, continuing to pace around. Then she just starts SCREAMING and running around, and I was just frozen in my chair when she ran up to the window, banging on it and yelling 'HELP ME!'. She runs off, and some angry guy comes down, asking if I've seen this screaming lady. I told him I didn't, and I was threatened by him in very colorful words. Cops were called, both were dragged out of the motel. But what really made me quit the place was getting A TON of bedbug bites while staying there, alongside a bunch of disgusting things.

Another time, I worked at a Target cafe, and we usually set personal pizzas out on display in a chute. I was minding my business cleaning the hot dog roller, and I turn my head to the displays. This incredibly obese child is just going ham on the pizzas I had out, and I smack his hand off, saying that he can't have it unless it's bought. Kid runs over to dad crying about the mean lady at the cafe, and dad comes over all apologetic while babying his kid. Then we got into an argument about paying for the damn pizzas his kid just wolfed down, but I let a supervisor settle that one. Damn brats.

On a lighter note, having worked as a barista is great. "Does vanilla come in the vanilla latte?" is one of my favorites from customers.

 

[nio kasgami]

@nio: that sucks, is Quebec a Canadian version of an "at will state" where you can be fired for literally anything at all?

@captainproton: if there exists slang tha likens a beverage one drinks to gasoline required for vehicles to operate than I feel my point still stands. If you are that dependent on coffee you shouldn't be driving to get it, you should have made it at home before you left.

yeah....people can also be a***hole in my country

 

[Archeia]

Urr, commissions wise, when I was still starting, I used to work for someone who literally made me repeat all my drawings because they don't have the exact pixel distance based on the reference material. For the distance between the girl's bangs. Needless to say, I quit after a while. Since redrawing a specific part just because it's not the exact same measurements of the source material is not worth it. -_-; And it's technically...just...fanart....(I got paid though)