Job: cashier
Item doesn’t scan
Customer: “That means it’s free, right?”
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Only about 4 weeks in as a cashier and I’ve heard this enough to last me a lifetime.
Whenever you raise a problem with a process or setup the general answer is “It is what it is”. No! Your laziness can jump, you can fix the damn problem you are not going to get away with inaction with a platitude.
Job: Cook
Person: Manager
“No one wants to work anymore”
No one ever wanted to work motherfucker. That’s why we’re fucking paid to be here. If you weren’t paying us we wouldn’t fucking be here. But you pay us the bare fucking minimum and expect us to work like we’re paid immense luxury wages.
Take a sandy brick and insert it as a suppository.
I kinda want to work. (Developer) Or, at least, if I wasn’t working for money, I would be developing stuff in my free time for myself or something.
I’m currently a medical student in my clinical rotations…
Me: “So it looks like we’re due for our (blank) month/year vaccinations. Have those been done already or do we need them today?”
Parent: “Oh, we’re not vaccinating.”
Me: screaming internally
I was going to say the EXACT same thing. People even are refusing the vitamin K shot in their newborns
I’ve heard the neonatologists say that they make the parents repeat back, write down, and sign a consent form that says “I understand that refusing the vitamin K shot significantly increases the chances of bleeding, including brain bleeds that can lead to significant disability or death.”
Not many people seem to want to sign that form for some reason.
All i have is OccupartionalFirstAid Level 1 and it drives me absolutely insane with frustration to think about what things real health professionals worst fears might be.
You must get that a lot in the Midwest.
Especially after Trump’s antivax BS during COVID.
“You didn’t teach us this.”
Job: Supervisor
Customer pays with a $50 or $100 bill and the till requires that I check it
Customer: “It’s good, I just printed it this morning.”
Some days I just had to pretend I didn’t hear them.
Pro tip: if you have a “go to” joke you always say in a given situation, guaranteed the person you’re saying it to has already heard it several times this week. Just don’t.
And before anyone responds with “they’re just trying to improve your day” they’re not. If I don’t find the joke funny they get offended, that means they aren’t doing it for me, they’re doing it to show off how great and funny they are.
Pro tip: don’t tell someone a joke if you’re going to be offended if they don’t laugh.
So glad they don’t have us check the bills where I work, because if they did, I’m sure I’d be hearing this one all the time.
I used to reply to this on occasion, “Oh then I have to confiscate this. Got another one?”
When I used to work in a supermarket, I hated the stupid customers. This is a classic example. One of the soft drink companies fairly regularly gave away 50% free.
Therefore, for the same price, the bottle would be 3 litres in size rather than 2.
The amount of people who didn’t like that.
“Excuse me, where’s the 2 litre bottle?” “Oh, it’s the same price miss, you get an extra litre for free.” “But I don’t want 3 litres, I only want two!” Sigh!
I’m with the customer on this one. Soft drinks only stay good so long so having them in a larger container works against you. Also, having a larger container means needing more space to store it, and it is heavier and more unwieldy to carry. For some that extra litre of cola might be more like a white elephant than a boon.
To be fair, if someone is trying to cut down on how much soda they’re drinking…
…well, in that case, they probably wouldn’t be asking for a two-liter bottle, but…
Yeah, when I hauled my groceries by bicycle, I wouldn’t want the larger sizes… But I also wouldn’t be bitching out the person who isn’t involved in the decision process…
Job: Software Dev
Internal stakeholder or C-Suite: presents nebulous idea for workflow/product/feature with no actual end goal
“We have a CRITICAL need for this product. It will REVOLUTIONIZE everything we do here. The stakes could not be higher. THIS MUST BE COMPLETED ASAP”
My boss: Okay. We will move heaven and Earth to get this done for you.
Me: Works 60 hours a week for two months to ensure the new product is successful
Also me: checking usage statistics six months later…last used by me during go live testing
I hate my life.
“We’re in code freeze, so no more changes are to be committed until release! Also, the management needs this change to be fast-tracked to be included with the release, so let’s make it happen, people!”
I’m in testing and almost ever fucking week I’m trying to QA a release cycle while they’re pushing three last minute features and fucking with the backend, meaning all the frontend stuff I’ve already tested needs done again.
Yep.
I just read your comment to my husband and he said, “Every fucking month! Oh my fucking god.” (He’s a DBA.)
I do tech support on the phone.
When I can’t take remote control, the person on the other side is not following instructions, and they just keep repeating “no, not working!” while trying multiple things one after another, that I can’t see.
Like, I can understand not being good with technology, I’ll be patient. But if I tell them to try loading the site in a private/incognito window and they’re telling me “but I tried in Firefox and it’s not working”, it’s not what I’m asking them to do. And if they’re like “wait, I’ll try again in Chrome” then repeat “nope, not working!”, it’s still not what I’m asking them to try!
I always wanted to ask someone in tech support: is there a useful shorthand to indicate “I have a decent understanding of how to operate my computer, and I’m calling you because I don’t have the security clearance to fix this myself”?
I have no problem following the specific instructions I’m being given, but we could speed this along if you know you can just tell me to “open command prompt” instead of explaining the steps of how to do so.It’s been over 20 years since I did phones, but I don’t imagine it has changed that much. The “techie” callers fall into two categories: Those who actually know what they’re doing and those who think they know what they’re doing. The latter group are the worst of all callers. I’d rather be on the phone to an 80-year-old who has trouble finding the start menu than with a caller who thinks they know more than they actually do.
If you honestly do know what you are talking about, the way to get this to tech support is to tell them what prompted you to call. An actual competent caller will open the call with something like:
“Hi, this is Cile. I’m calling from ______. My UserID/AccountNo etc is _______. I’m having a problem with ___________. The error message is [EXACT MESSAGE]. I have done a, b, c, but that resolved it.”
For your example where it’s an access matter, adapt the above accordingly. Something like “I need to do ________, but I lack the access to [steps you would take if you did have access]”.
Finally:
Unless you are experiencing something super weird, the tech support people have probably seen this problem before and know how to solve it. Follow their instructions even if it’s something you wouldn’t have done. Even if their way seems less efficient. There will be a reason why they’re doing it that way, and it won’t always be apparent to you.
If they waste my time ignoring my instructions, I return the favour with a lengthy response on every infraction with “the need to follow a structured troubleshooting methodology in order to be able to resolve the root cause at hand, including strict adherence to each individual step in the provided action plan, such that we can progress toward blah blah blah…”
After a few tries they usually get the message that it’ll be faster to just follow the instructions 😄
When I used to do phone support I stopped telling them the entire picture and started saying things like look in the left hand side of your screen what do you see there…they say blah blah blah and I go click on blah blah blah then I move on to the next step what do you see on your screen now. Seemed to get me to my goal quicker then OK I’ll have you open a chrome window and do xyz because they won’t do that.
On a related note, error messages. When I ask you what it says, tell me what it says, not what you think it means. If it meant what you thought it meant, you wouldn’t be asking me for help.
I got a ticket for a remote site that said “there’s an error message and the computer doesn’t start” . there was no clarification what the error message actually said.
I spent about 20 minutes driving out there, turn the computer on:
“System battery voltage low. Press F2 to continue”
I did not have a battery with me. If they just said what the error was, I would have brought a battery with me. Now they have to wait for another tech to be scheduled to drive out to this location which could be a week later.
“That’s literally the first sentence in my email”
Me: Linux Sysadmin
Co-workers: 2 Linux sysadmins with 15+ years of experience.
They pronounce URL as Earl.
My husband (a 55yo DBA) does that. 😬 He also says nu-cu-lar and en-tree. I’ve brought it to his attention but he’s just so used to it and after 23 years together it’s a battle I’ve opted out of. As long as he knows how he sounds to people like me, it’s on him.
We do that, too, because it’s funny.
It’s been Earl since at least 1997 when Sun introduced their mascot for Java: The Duke of URL
The probably started using it ironically and it fell into habbit.
There was a proto-meme back in the day along the lines of “URL? Who’s Earl?”
Holy shit. That’s horrific and would drive me to quit.
At my last job as a project manager, I had a director that I worked with that I absolutely despised. On a regular basis we would have this (abridged) interaction:
Director: I don’t understand what this report is trying to say. Take out abc and include xyz. Me: Ok. includes changes in meeting notes next meeting Director: What is this? Why does the report look like this? I don’t even understand why you would make it look like this. Change xyz and include abc. Me: But… Director: No buts, this is my team’s project. Me: …Ok. includes changes in meeting notes next meeting Director: What is going on with this? I don’t understand what’s going on. Why does this report change every time I see it? Me: … Bruh.
This happened so many times that eventually I had to start including my manager in meetings with him, because this dude was insufferable and did not want to accept it when his ideas and changes were shit. He’d always deny he requested changes (even though I documented them in the meeting notes), and everything was everyone’s fault except his. Luckily another director that I got along with really well requested me to work on their projects and I got transferred.
That’s actually wild lmao, the only thing I had similar was when a director requested a change and was confused why something changed until I reminded him that he requested me to change it and then he said something along the lines of “oh, alright then, no problem”.
I wonder if it’s like, some of these directors are just older than dinosaurs, and even when they ask for change they are incapable of handling said change, or they are just forgetting that they requested said change? I’m not sure…
I kinda think this particular guy would get flustered and extremely frustrated whenever something would go wrong or there was a tight deadline, so he would take it out on everyone around him (dude would regularly threaten to have people fired for small mistakes that could easily be fixed). And since we were in an IT department with aging equipment/tech, there was always something broken or an effort to upgrade going on. It also didn’t help that he thought and firmly believed that he knew better than everyone else. After I got transferred, my manager had to take over his team because the rest of the PMs were either full up on bandwidth or just straight up didn’t want to work with the guy.
I get this with a young (30’s) CEO at a small business. Dude has literally zero follow through, he will ask for things, you will do them, he will forget he asked for them, and then complain you didn’t do an entirely unrelated thing that he never asked for. I am genuinely astounded at how he makes it to the office the few days he’s actually here.
Remember that Black Mirror episode where they would record everything with their eye implants and play something back as needed?
100% this guy would have turned it around to make an issue about me recorded his meetings lol
Sounds suspiciously like a director way out of their depth and has little or no idea wha they’re doing.
In order to feel like orlook like they’re adding value to the business they request changes they’re incapable of understanding themselves. Then get even more confused when things “magically” change: because to them it’s voodoo/magic.
OP, I’ll have you know that I pull that joke every single time it happens. And I make sure to throw out a great, heartfelt laugh and slap my knee just to make sure you get the joke.
It’s great.
I was once cleaning outside and had a customer tell me “You missed a spot!” He then proceeded to laugh his ass off the entire time he was walking away from like it was the funniest joke he ever heard.
I wasn’t even mad. If it brings you that much joy you do you man.
What’s sad is that I may have said the same before I started cashiering. I don’t remember, but it sounds like something I might say. 😬
From many years ago, in a previous career.
Job: IT
Issue: hardware of some kind is broken
Customer, incredulous: “…but it wasn’t broken yesterday!”
Yeah, no shit. That’s how things break. They’re fine, then become broken. Why is this even being discussed?
Job: IT Support
New Outlook exists
Customer: “I hate change, can’t you just put it back to how it was”
No, I can’t. You can use Classic Outlook, but that won’t have the features you want, and it’s going out the door so you have to change. No, I can’t program the Ribbon to look like it used to, that’s just what Billy Microsoft decided.
Fuck users!
Firm agree
“Why do we even pay you?”
