“She came back OVER A YEAR later and asked where her bed was - said she had not come back that afternoon because she had ‘gone to prison’ like it was normal. WTF happened?”
“Worked in a pet store,” another worker began.
“Woman buys Possum Medallions, Chicken Medallions, green tripe etc for her dog (frozen ‘patties’).. she was a regular, was a wonderful person to have a quick yarn with, and one day she mentions how annoying they are, and I agree it must be a bit annoying waiting on em to thaw out and she seemed a bit dumbfounded.. turns out she was cooking them, inside her house, stinking it up. Can’t imagine the stench of cooking tripe in her home, sheesh.”
“She had a beautiful doodle,” they added wistfully.
Another recalled the bizarre exchange they had with a woman confused by some Manchester mathematics.
“I used to work at Farmers and I had a lady demand I refunded her towels and hand towels she bought the week prior because ‘last week they were 50% off but this week they are buy 1 get 1 free’. When I told her that’s the same thing she accused me of lying. So I redid the transaction and put it through again and it cost more as she bought 5 towels from memory. She was so confused it was insane.”
“Worked in the Big Fresh produce department as a teen,” one former retail worker recalled.
“One day I’m refilling the tomatoes and a lady comes up next to me with a bag. I notice she’s struggling to fill it and I see she has an amputation mid-way down her forearm. I’m battling with the moral dilemma of trying to figure if I should offer to help or if that could be seen as patronising, she didn’t seem particularly happy or friendly, then she looks me dead in the eyes and asks in a very surly tone: ‘Could you give me a hand?’.
“Holy s***. My poker face would have been up there with the best of them. She obviously hadn’t chosen her words particularly well and no way was I going to risk getting reported for cracking an inappropriate joke because it was pretty clear she wasn’t the joking type. Once she’d filled the bag as I held it I abandoned my half-unloaded trolley and went out back and lost my s*** in private.
And one from the ‘Where are they now’ file:
“Worked at a pharmacy for a while, had a girl probably in her late teens come in and tell 15-year-old me that she needed a refund on her pregnancy test because it was positive which meant it had to be faulty. Hope she’s doing well...”
Another shared the singular experience of having a friendly greeting brutally rebuffed.
“I said ‘Hi how are you’. Customer said ‘don’t speak’.”
NB - The Herald has chosen not to republish tales from inside Civic Video’s adult section.
Hospitality
One former barista shared a story about a customer that left them cold.
“I used to be a barista. Had a lady come in, order a cappuccino, bring it back 40 minutes later because it was cold. I told her of course it was cold, it had been sitting for 40 minutes.
“She said she needed to wait for it to be less milky, and when I asked what she meant she said she didn’t like the foam on top so she always waited for it to dissolve before drinking it. I pointed out that the whole point of a cappuccino is that it’s very frothy, and suggested she order a latte with cinnamon on the top or at least ask for it to be extra hot if she wanted to wait 40 min to drink it. She complained to my boss, left a nasty Google review, and I got told off in front of a bunch of regulars. F*** hospo.”
Another former worker shared a tale of some unlucky tourists and a seagull that hit the jackpot.
“While I was working in hotels in Wellington decades ago. . .Some random country bumpkins had saved up all of their smaller notes and change that they were going to use for touristy things. Probably about $1000 in total in $5s and $10s etc. They went out for the afternoon, and instead of using the room safe, or the safety deposit box at Reception, decided to hide their ‘loot’ in their room.
“Where did they hide it? In the rubbish bin UNDER the bin liner. It’ll be safe there right? We get a panicked call to say they’ve been robbed. All the usual questions are asked. What was taken? how much? Where was it? What time etc? The answers slowly come through with a bit of prying and they were a bit sheepish about providing them.
“Fortunately the hotel had a door access system, so we were able to trace the only time the room was entered back to a card belonging to one of our housekeeping staff. She was on her evening ‘turn down’ duties. This involved going into each room and closing the curtains, turning down the bed (bedspread off, chocolate on each pillow), replace used towels etc. Seeing the bin has been used and looked full, she simply up-ended it into the black rubbish sack on her cart and put a new liner in.
“What happened to the money? We suspect it went into a large compactor at the end of her shift along with hundreds of other black rubbish sacks from the conference we were hosting that evening. We did have a half-hearted look for it, but TBH, none of the staff were particularly interested in tearing open rubbish bags of stinking food waste and god knows what else. The guests just paid the ‘Stupid Tax’ for that one. Somewhere at the Happy Valley dump, a seagull would have hit the jackpot.”
“Working at a Burger King, last year a woman bought a shake and then complained that she couldn’t suck it up through the straw so she asked for a refund,” a former burger slinger shared.
“The manager denied her a refund and told her she could just take the lid off and drink it that way. She started screaming at him and then called 111 and tried to tell them he was stealing from her, no police came out and she eventually left without her refund.”
Sucks for her.
Tales of white fragility also emerged.
“I was a receptionist in a hotel at Mt Cook a few years back, there was a white lady came to check in. She was quite disappointed because me and a porter at front desk are both Asian. After noticing my Caucasian duty manager, she said to her ‘New Zealand really changed right? Staff here were all Kiwis 20 years ago’, then she noticed the France flag badge on my Duty Manager’s shirt. She burst into tears and had a mental breakdown.”
In happier news, one former steakhouse worker shared their experience meeting legendary Kiwi musician Dalvanius Prime.
“Dalvanius Prime once came into a steakhouse I worked at and ordered 3 of our 1kg rump steak meals - and ate all three.
“Including the chips, but not the coleslaw. One plate at a time... the man could put it away”.
But for sheer absurdity, it was hard to beat this fast-food fail:
“When I worked at Carl’s Jnr I had a woman come up to the counter and complain that her burger was upside down. I was so confused I had no idea what she meant by that?
“She was pointing at her burger and then the picture of the burger on our menu and saying how her one was upside down. She picked it up to bring it closer to me and she’s gesturing and stuff and asking for a new one.
“I say ‘What if you just’ and gesture for her to ROTATE HER WRIST! She rotates her wrist and PRESTO! her burger is now the right way up. She looks at her hand in shock and awe then turns to me with a big smile on her face and goes ‘Oh Thanks’ then heads back to her seat.”
