Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I work in boarding/grooming, and it's amazing the billion different ways people will say/spell shih tzu. My favorite ever was when a lady wrote "shiitake shoo" on the dog's grooming card. You know, without the mushroom filter.

My high school boyfriend's little brother was in a super shitty band named shiitake Zoo.

So far no crazy customers today, which is just as well, because I'm cranky!

We have a volunteer who couldn't spell shih tzu. He calls several other shelters every week to get a listing of what they have. That way, if someone comes in looking for a kitten or certain type of dog, and we don't have any, we can check the list and see if any of the other shelters have one. But every time a shelter had a shih tzu mix, the volunteer would abbreviate it "SHIT MIX". He also abbreviated pomeranian as "PARM", so we would joke about other shelters having parmesan cheese.

We had a really great anonymous client a few days ago. I was in the shelter, cleaning, and I had the door locked because I was alone. All of a sudden, someone starts pounding on the door like they're really angry. Usually if someone knocks, I will answer and inform them that we don't open until one, but sometimes I don't feel comfortable opening the door to strangers when I'm alone, and this person sounded scary. The whole door was shaking from the way they were pounding on it. We have our hours clearly posted, as well as a sign on the door saying that if you have an emergency or have found a stray animal when we are closed, you should call the police. It has the police phone# right there. So I just ignored the pounding and went about my cleaning. Later, when I went outside, I found a cat in a have-a-heart trap, sitting on our walkway. It was 100 degrees out that day, and the person had just left the cat outside, in the sunlight, with no water or anything. No note, no calls to the police. Jackass.

Earlier this spring, I found a plastic tub some crasshole left with a mom and six kittens by cars in the parking lot during a busy Saturday. At least this person was thoughtful enough to give them some air holes. I'm grateful that people bring the animals to a place where they have a good chance of being found as opposed to dumping them on the road, but it still makes me really mad.

I take mortgage loan applications over the phone and sometimes we get the biggest crassholes calling. It's always the people who have super expensive houses in the bay area who think they are really special and act like I'm wasting their time. You called me, remember?! I'm fortunate in that my company as a no-dickwad policy and will not deal with especially rude clients. There have been times when my boss has forced his clients to call me and apologize after being rude on the phone. That's fun.

I opened up the office at 8:30 this morning. There was a voicemail from someone needing urgent help who didn't leave her name. Then when I got my email up and running there were four, count 'em, FOUR emails in a row, sent in quick succession around 9pm last night, from the same woman.

She is very afraid she may be facing charges because "a bicycle rider hit my car" and now she is being accused of a hit and run. Which is just preposterous! I mean, she didn't call the police, and she didn't offer the bicyclist any help or a ride to the hospital, but come on!

Anyway, it's not yet noon and she's already called the office twice. I said "just so you know, we're only open from 8:30 to 5:30, which is why no one responded to your call and emailSSSS until now." And she said "oh yeah, I figured." And yet she still saw fit to send four emails in a row...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pyjRj3UMRM&feature=plcp

Hopefully this hasn't already been posted, but for folks in tech support, it is full of LOLs.

This was a funny exchange between a patient and myself on my second day back from maternity leave (fyi all my patients have special health care needs, the context matters here)

Pt: you gained a lot of weight
Me: that's what happens when you have a baby
Pt: do you know how to cook tortillas?
Me: no, but I know how to buy tortillas
Pt: tortillas will make you fat
Me: that's okay

He seemed satisfied with that answer.

I have answered that question so many times it not even funny.

Mat.

Awesome, I think the homeless lady who comes up to use our bathroom is back on the intravenous drugs! I just love banning people from the bathroom, it's my favorite part of the job.

My coworker did that but she came into my office and said "umm...excel is making little people where the numbers should be?"

Please, note she is in fact younger than me, and I could still possibly be considered a whippersnapper. She has no excuse.

I do merch for bands on a regular basis. When there's only a few particular sizes left, I always indicate this the shirt itself.

Customer: "I see that there's the brown shirt in S and XL. Could I have one in M ?"

Me (internally screaming: "WHAT PART OF 'THIS SHIRT IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE SIZES S AND XL' DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? DO YOU THINK THAT I HIDE AN EXTRA STACK OF SIZE M SHIRTS UNDER MY DESK WHICH I WILL ONLY SELL TO PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR THOSE SPECIFICALLY?"): "I'm sorry, the only sizes for the brown one are S and XL."

Customer: "Are you sure?"

Me: [...] ("Let me check. Maybe the sizes S and XL have procreated.")

Also, I have noticed: people react very badly if you say these things aloud.

I work box office at a comedy theater and when the show is sold out, everyone wants to know their chances of getting in from the standby line. Of course, I have no idea because it depends on how many ticket holders show up, how big the line is, etc. But still, always, people will ask "OK, but will I get in? Is it worth waiting in the line?"

One of my co-box-office-ers had a brilliant response for awhile: when people asked this over the phone she would say "I don't know, let me ask the standby machine" and then hold up the phone to a YouTube video of a spaceship taking off or a time machine beeping or something sci-fi sounding and then say "the machine says a 75.8% chance." It's the best.

I was helping a patron at the circulation desk when she suddenly collapsed and had a full-blown seizure. Patrons were practically walking over her trying to get their stuff checked out. Couldn't they just wait? Later when the paramedics arrived, there were a bunch of them and they were trying to help her, but that's hard when patrons are in the way. UGH. Really now?

One of my biggest fears has always been having to witness someone having a seizure. I guess it had to happen at some point. Terrifying. I have no idea how I was able to immediately call 911.

Yesterday at work, I received a call from a mother saying that her daughter is in the library and that there has been a family emergency, so I need to tell her to come home immediately. I paged the daughter and when she came to the desk, I told her that she needs to go home right now. She gave me a strange look, so I handed her the phone, because I didn't want to worry her by saying there was an emergency. I figured it would be better for her to find out what it was first. Anyway, her mom didn't bank on that, and it turned out that nothing was wrong. She just wanted her daughter to come home. So her daughter stayed at the library for a couple more hours. That woman had some nerve.

Also, when parents call about their "children" being in the library and needing to talk to them, or wanting me to tell them if their kids are in the library, or wanting me to deliver a message, 95% of the time, the "children" are adults.

Ugh, my current Very Special Client, whose story is way to long and involved to go into, just more or less called me a bisque. Or at least that's how I'm translating "boy, you sure don't have a warm and fuzzy personality, do you?"

She actually stopped doing this but she started up again a couple days ago. What she said broke my heart.
"My mommy is the only person who is nice to me."
"This mean neighbor lady purposely ran over my dog with her car and killed it. She did it because she hates dogs and she really hates me. She knew it was my dog and she did it on purpose."

I have a theory about that last one. I really do think that she's in a good environment now, but I know that not too long ago, she did live with her father. I think the bad crepe is from when she lived with him. I wouldn't be surprised if he lied to her and said that the woman purposely ran over her dog. I think I'm going to ask her if it was her father who said that. Then I'll do my best to convince her that he was lying. I can really relate to this kid, because she was me at that age. Horrible lies from the father and all.

I feel sad for this kid. I hope that she's ok and in a good home environment. I can empathize with some of her statements.

I think this is one of my most favorite interactions with a "customer". This takes place because i love rocking my little boy scouts shirt as a cardigan.
Me: "Hello, welcome to 'blahblahblah'"
Old Guy: "So you're a boy scout are you?"
Me: (nervous laugh) "What can i help you with today, anything impaticular you're looking for?"
Old Guy: "I really wish they'd let little things like you in boy scouts when i was scout, camping would have been much more fun."
Me: (More Nervous Laughing): " Did you need a price quote or anything or want to see anything in the display cases?"
Old Guy: "I'm looking at what i want to see. Haha, who am i joking the only thing i could ride fast anymore is my Harley"
Me: ".....I need to go clean something....."

P.s I've worked in a tattoo shops since i was 19 so i have had many special "customers"

I work in the box office of a performance venue. When customers pick up their tickets, they sometimes bring a copy of their email confirmation--we always ask if they want it for their records, or if they'd like us to shred it for them. So last night, this woman and her boyfriend come to pick up their tickets:

CSR: Here you go. Would you like your confirmation back, or would you like me to shred it for you?
Customer: Oh, go ahead and shred it.
(Pause.)
Customer: Wait... a MECHANICAL shredder?
CSR: Yes, that's right.
Customer: Oh, no... no, no, no.

And she grabbed the paper away and hurried off.

yesterday a customer looking to try kombucha for the first time said 'Chombukie' like 15 times. I even made sure i enunciated very clearly the correct pronunciation (without actually saying 'hey stop saying it like that, you dip').

One of the grocery guys came up to me last night and said he'd overheard an interaction in produce. Apparently a customer picked up a potato and asked the produce team member, 'Are these potatoes seedless?'

For the rest of the night, I walked around shaking my head, muttering 'Are these potatoes seedless?' under my breath.

You hear a lot of crazy shiitake working in a grocery store, but that's it. I give up. I have no faith left in humanity. We're going to devolve back to apes in about 10 years time.

I once had to explain to a cashier that beets are plants that grow from the ground, and do not originate in cans.

When I worked at the corner store pizza/sub place back in high school, I had a customer ask me what sort of plants pickles come from - trees or bushes? I just stared at her for a really long time.

I used to work retail, and I've had some real winners. Don't get me wrong, I loved some of my regular nice customers, including one who knew I was vegan, and had some raw dinner somewhere, and brought me in leftovers, but some people have bring crazy to a whole new level.

I've had a lot of people with problems with their debit or credit cards, and treat me like it's my fault they weren't working, or try to pay me with a check, and refuse to give me their phone number or show ID. Or they would argue with me about sale prices or store policy, and when I can show them right where it says that's our policy, they would tell me it's never said that before, even if it had been there forever. Or they would turn it into a personal thing. I've been called racist among other things, though the racist thing always struck a nerve.