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This happened at work a while ago (I work at the local petstore)

One of my coworkers passed me a customer phone call that she didn't have time for (she was off). I pick up the phone and ask what I can do. A woman answers, "I found a fish tank in my house. It has some fish in it, and is really dirty, so I took out all but a quarter of the water. What should I do?" "Uh," I reply, "fill it back up?" She pauses, then asks, "how?" "You fill it back up with water..." I said slowly. She asked me what she should do with the fish. "Where are they now?" I ask. "In the tank," she says. "Leave them there, and fill the tank back up." The woman pauses again. "With what?" She asks. "Water... " "From where?" "The tap..." The conversation (if you can call it that) continued for another minute. Then the woman turned me over to her daughter who "knows more about fish" and I got the problem sorted out in thirty seconds.

I understand that the woman was likely a complete novice, but still... I was laughing my arse off by the end of it all...

Sorry, I just had to share...]]

I'm so adjective, I verb nouns!

That's good. Our crickets are in the stockroom and the only interesting place they go is into the restrooms (public restrooms of course)

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hehe... yep that's about it in a fairly big nutshell.

I've found that most people have goldfish in bowls because they got one at the fair and have no clue as to how to take care of it. Then they come looking for a buddy for their goldfish at the pet store and I have to tell them that bowls (or even small tanks like 3 gallons) are not appropriate for goldfish and they shouldn't have them in there in the first place and if they add to the overstocking bad things will happen. I think we should go the way of Britain and prohibit goldfish as fair prizes because they're all pretty well doomed. And they're anit-educational. "Oh, goldfish can live in bowls. I had one for a whole year in one!" (hey, if you keep them in a better situation there's nothing keeping it from living more like 20 years. If you want a fish in a bowl, get a betta. If you want a goldfish get a pond or a really big tank.

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That reminds me of some of the threats and crazy people we get in. For example, this woman who came in with a dead goldfish and a sample of water (so we'd replace her fish - again! - we only do one-time replacement but we're kinda lenient) Her water came out at levels you wouldn't believe. When the ammonia test comes out medium yellow but with floating bits of stuff, we've learned that means "unbelievably off the chart" - not a reading one normally gets at home! And the nitrite was about as purple as purple gets. I didn't even bother to test nitrate on this one. Well, surprise surprise, she had two goldfish in a bowl. We explained the situation to her, and she goes nuts and storms out, yelling that if goldfish can't live in bowls - get this - "you shouldn't sell goldfish!" Not, we shouldn't sell bowls, no no. Rather, "since I'm an idiot, everyone else ought to be deprived of lovely beautiful fish they know how to take care of properly."

Similarly, I looove the people who walk down the goldfish aisle and squeal "OMG, they're sooo ugly!" Thanks guys.
And the people who walk in and, completely in our hearing range, sniff "Ugh, it smells like pets/animals/manure/whatever in here." Actually, guys, it smells like disinfectant - that's just a smell you associate with those things. But gee, thanks for the complement.

And the woman who comes in every few months to replace the JD in her bowl - yes, bowl. Every time we lecture her to death and refuse to give her a guarantee, but she always insists on getting the poor damn fish because "my son likes it!" Argh.

And the people who let their dogs bark bark snarl bark at the small animals and just laugh at them to "oh stop, sweetie, he won't hurt you, they're just little bunnies!" Yeah, lady, little bunnies having absolute heart attacks because your dog is trying to launch himself through the glass and kill them. Har har har.

Oh! And the kids who convince their parents that an iguana is an easy lizard. Invariably the kid knows the eventual size and doesn't care/fails to understand the consequences (little boys of a certain age just need to be left at home, I think - they're of no aid to society and a great drain on its civility). But the spit-take of the parents is always hilarious. The kid's prattling on about how he'll take care of it, and it won't need crickets, just veggies and salad and Reptomin, and I get the mom's eye (much better reaction shot off the mom, invariably):
Me: Okay, so you guys know these lizards hit 6-8 feet and tend to become quite aggressive, right?
Mom, gaping, already pulling soon-to-be-yelled-at son towards door: Ummm ... right. Johnny!

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

Oiy... that's... incredible. That guy must have had serious problems... Lack of understanding how the internet works might be one... and probably some psychological problems too but I'm no expert. Well I might categorize him as a psycho. That's kind of scary. Okay, really scary.

[span class="edited"][Edited by superlion 2004-07-23 01:37][/span]

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i used to work for an ISP here and one night a bad storm went through one of our areas "up north" and the power got knocked out at the server, so 1/4 of the state had no internet for a few hours. anyway, this guy calls up and DEMANDS to be reconnected to the internet. i told him "there is a power outage, i can't do anything until the power comes back". he says "stop sniffing the coke and put my internet back on". then he accuses the whole company of being run by potheads and says he's going to sue us for turning of "his" internet. i finally had to hang up on him for being rude and told the supervisor about it. but the supervisor didn't do anything to the guy until he called in TWO MORE TIMES and finally threatened to shoot one of our reps if they didn't turn the internet back on. *then* they finally closed his account permanently and called the cops on him.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Doedogg... perhaps she wanted something fresh and just wanted a sit down and enjoy it without doing anything to prepare it. It makes sense to me, though I wouldn't want to be allergic/intolerant to all that. Lactose intolerance is bad enough (wishing I could drink some of my brother's chocolate milk without getting nauseous).

Today I had an "I love this place" day at work (for a change in the thread)... Having to some degree gotten used to my coworkers and their antics, I was walking over to put some stuff on the shelves on one aisle and in the next aisle, Mike (the fish guy) and Ben were talking about how hard a worker one of our managers was (he was probably nearby). This is about how it went:

Mike: and you know who else is a hard worker? Rebecca (my name)

Me: you're just saying that because I'm standing right here.

Ben (stage whisper): She's hot too. She said she would go out with me tonight.

Me: WHAT??? (because I hadn't and it actually had never come up in any way...)

Ben: Nevermind.

And then we all laughed. It seemed pretty funny at the time... though it might be one of those "you had to be there to get it" things. It was also some strange boost to my self-esteem which I don't get anywhere near at home when my parents are always asking if I know how to wash my face and telling me I ought to lose weight. I know I'm pretty healthy at the moment and lifting those 40-pound dog food bags has gotten to be easy as falling off a log.

It was a continual sort of inside joke all day. Of course everyone knew it wasn't true except "Goldfish Queen" who is gullible enough to believe that would ever happen (in addition to lack of fish sense she also seems to have a lack of street sense as evidenced by the reactions to the story (I didn't catch the story) about something that happened to her recently... instead of the sympathy she seemed to want, they had to inform her that she did something stupid.)

But yes. There are some things that just make you want to pull your hair out (assuming you have some) and there are other things that just make you laugh all day long.

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Sunflwrgrl, the oil drain is in the bottom of the engine right around the blade. Takes a 3/8" drive socket wrench to loosen it. Aren't you in Kansas?

I work as a waitress nights and I had a lady come in one evening and tell me as she looked at the menu that she was allergic to grains, lactose intolerant and a vegetarian, what could we fix for her? I said a house salad and a bowl of vegetables. Why even bother eating out???

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I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.
~ Mae West

Here's one that's not a 'stupid' customer, just unbelieveably rude!

A couple weeks ago a woman and a female friend of hers or two came in. She asked me if we had any big bags of rawhides. I showed her the rawhide section and she asked for a specific kind (described retriever rolls to me) and we have bags with three in them. She looked at the price:

"Oh! That's like $2 more than it costs at Costco right across the street for a huge bag! They've got like five times as many in their bag and it costs less."

"Well, right now if you get the bulk ones you can buy two and get one completely free. It might be cheaper than..."

"Just between you and me, you could just go right over across the street and get a few bags and sell them for less and maybe make a few dollars."

Aiyah... Being a large corporation, we get shipments from the corporate sources and we can't just go and buy something else across the street. If someone from corporate came in and saw it in our store they'd kill us...

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To be fair, sometimes customers get the bad end of the stick ... two examples (and yes, my summer job's at a petstore, so I have the other kind of stories as well):
I'm looking for escargot shells. Under the Food: Gourmet heading in the yellow pages is a local candy shop. I thought, well, they're listed under gourmet, I've never been, maybe it's not just candy. Might as well call and ask, right?
Me: Hi, do you sell escargot shells?
Clerk: What?
Me: Um, the shells of the edible snail?
Clerk: (extremely nasty tone) This is a candy shop.
Well, excuse me!

Similarly, I was looking for some plant or other and calling pet stores. One of them, listed under Retail Pet Stores and advertising tanks, fish, and plants ...
Me: Hi, do you have (whatever plant)?
Clerk: No! We only do aquarium maintenance, duh!

I don't think I deserved either - sometimes it's the employees that need a little attitude adjustment, rather than idiotic customers. Or, hey - they should check the wording and placement of their yellow pages ads!

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

I work at Costco, and there is a huge sign that says "RESTROOMS" ... I mean HUGE ... and the favorite question - 'where are the bathrooms?' ... I point and they say, oh has that sign always been there? Uh - duh

[begin rant]

There are so many others - but I think harassment is topping the list currently. I and two other girls are doing carts (ie pushing, moving etc) and there is only one guy out there with us, we help load stuff into cars/trucks. (Such as washers, dryers, mattresses, etc) And customers are always saying 'where are the guys, you can't lift this, I want the guys to lift it' and this goes on and on ... and on... mind you, us girls are about as strong if not stronger than the guys ... it's really pathetic!!

[/end rant]

lol

I've got horror stories too... but nowhere near as bad

I work at a camera store (shall remain nameless - but some of you know where).

#1

Standing in front of our camera display :

"do you sell cameras?"

#2

Helping a customer between printing films - so there is a printer and processor behind me, with negatives hanging -

"do you process film here"


uhh... no?

We have a tank with a huge arowana in it right next to the cricket container, so when I'm getting them for customers, any of them that get on me I pop into the fish tank. It's really cool, because once the arowana sees me going to get the crickets, he'll go and wait right under the place where I put them in.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

And then at the store the crickets are so gross. I like grasshoppers (used to have some as pets) but crickets gross me out. And if you're getting some for a customer they jump on you... ick! I guess I'm not the most grossed out by them but you'd think they could show you the consideration of not jumping up your arms and making you smell like cricket and feel like you've got crickets on you for hours afterward...

The frozen mice aren't that great either, but at least they don't move...

I would tell another story but I gotta go to bed. Good night!

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Yeah customers can be dumb, but it's really sad when one of your ASSISTANT MANAGERS is an idiot.

Bob is an assistant manager at Gabriel Brothers. The store just opened, and I helped open the store and still work there. Bob's in charge of the scheduling and paperwork. A couple days before grand opening, Lisa (my department head) and I were trying to get the children's department in order. We were waiting for a fax of the planogram from the store in Zanesville. Every 20 mins or so I'd go back and check to see if the fax had come. One time, he was sitting in the office and this is what happened:

ME: "Bob, have any faxes come in yet?"

BOB: "Uh, no. All the ones we've gotten I've put in the department boxes."

So did any faxes come or not?

Another Bob story:

Grand opening week he had to redo the schedule 6 times. On the availability sheet I said I couldn't work Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays because I have another job. He scheduled me Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. So I went to him and He said "Oh, I just hadn't gotten that far with availability (meaning alphabetically he hadn't gotten to my last name). WELL THEN WHY DID WE EVEN BOTHER WITH AN AVAILABILITY SHEET?! No one could work the times they were scheduled, so he got all huffy about having to redo it... 6 times!!! WHAT AN IDIOT!!!

Hahahaha...

This story involves me and the asistant manager ("Randy", and it happened yesterday. Since our store is usually well stocked with fish, we have to keep the rainbow daces (native to US) with some tropicals. We also had a tank that had channel cats with fancy goldfish, and the cats were always biting the goldfishes' fins. We were discussing what to do with the channel cats, and this is where the story begins.

Me: "How about if we keep the channel cats in the tank their in now, but move the goldfish in with the other fancy goldfish (a 50 gallon with only like 5 small fish). Then we can move the rainbow daces in with the channel cats, because they are active enough not to be nipped by them."
"Randy": (walks over to another tank, with me following) "Why don't you put the channel cats in here?"
"Ummm... That tank already seems pretty well stocked." (20 gallon with like 7 large rainbowfish on the top row) "I really think we should just leave the cats where they are and move the goldfish."
(We walk back over to the goldfish tanks)
"...We don't want to overstock this tank" (pointing to 50 gallon tank mentioned above)
"But the rainbowfish tank is more heavily stocked than this one."
(We walk back over to the rainbowfish tank)
"Catfish don't count in the stocking of a tank, because it's all about swimming space"
(I look shocked and confused at this point)
"You want me to put all six of the channel cats in this tank? Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Do want me to divide them up between two tanks?"
"No, they should all go in the same tank"
(I get the channel cats and move them into the rainbow tank; rainbow fish harrass the cats)

The next day...

"Frank", cleaning the tanks, sees where the channel cats are.
"Ahhhhh! Why are the channel cats up here?"
"'Randy' made me put them up there."
"What?"
(I explain the whole situation to him, he chuckles)
"...'Randy' doesn't know **** about fish."

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

billy boy that one was great.

I think my favorite story about someone getting a stupid customer actually involves a computer company's customer service rep. My dad later had to work with this rep's boss, so he got the story straight from the guy that listened to the tape of it. This happened approximately 7 years ago...

A woman called customer service and reported that her computer would not turn on. The rep began going through the steps of making sure she had turned it on, had everything connected, blah, blah, blah. Nothing seemed to be helping, and then an idea dawned on the rep.

"Ma'am, can you check behind the computer one more time?"
"Sure, what am I looking for?"
"Are any of the cords plugged into the outlet in your wall?"
"No, why?"
"Ohhhhhhh, okay, ma'am, I figured out what your problem is. I want you to pack up all the pieces back into the boxes they came from and send them back to us."
"Oh really? Is it that serious?"
"Yes ma'am, it is."
"What is it? Is it something wrong with the pieces?"
"No ma'am, you're just too stupid to use a computer."

That rep was later fired, but the story lives on...

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

Hmmm...Tooter fish is a good friend to have (hehe - I've got a riding mower, and a push mower that decides it doesn't want to work usually at least three times a season). I usually bring the push mower to the shop for oil changes, etc. but I'm thinking I'll do it myself this time (I do the riding mower). Where is the oil plug/drain? (It didn't come with a manual -- it was a 'factory refurbished, buy as is). It's a Briggs and Stratton engine.