As it turns out, it was something utterly ridiculous. So ridiculous, in fact, that people couldn’t help but share their experiences with coworkers and customers online. Redditor u/InfiniteCalendar1 asked people about the strangest reasons someone had a complaint filed against them, and wow, did they deliver! Scroll down to read their full stories.
Bored Panda got in touch with the author of the thread, redditor u/InfiniteCalendar1, and they opened up about the real reason why they asked the question online. As it turns out, the inspiration was an awful interaction with a mean customer. Read on for our interview with the OP.
#1
I’m a firefighter an have had the following citizen complaints:
1. Kicked down a door to help an elderly woman who was on the floor. Her son wanted us to wait until he arrived with a key. He was 5 hours away.
2. I wouldn’t let a guy store his motorcycle in our station for winter.
3. I wouldn’t repair her stove.
4. We took too long to respond to replace a guys battery in his detector that had been beeping. We were performing CPR at the time.
5. I wouldn’t take my boots off while entering a lady’s house. It is against our protocol to take off any of our safety gear. Her house was actively on fire when she made the request.
Bored Panda wanted to know what had inspired the redditor to create the thread on r/AskReddit in the first place. “I posted it as I was thinking about how I had a complaint filed against me during my first week of one of my jobs,” u/InfiniteCalendar1 told us.
“A lady made up a false story that I berated her for wearing a Confederate flag shirt. This 100% didn’t happen so I assume the customer made it up for validation. I found the situation ridiculous mainly because it’s weird someone went out of their way to try to get me in trouble over something that didn’t happen.”
Meanwhile, they shared what they did next. They started off by explaining their side of the situation to the boss. Specifically that what the customer had said happened never actually happened.
#2
I have one. Looking back, it was very silly but boy did this p**s me off. Here goes: My coworker asked me if I could cover her shift on sunday (I always only worked on saturday, since I was very busy with university. The place where I worked knew this and happily agreed with it, too.). I said that I could do that, but only if she would take my shift on saturday since otherwise, I would not have time to study. She agreed, only to tell me a day later that she wouldn’t be able to cover my shift on saturday. I promptly told her that if that were the case, she would have to find someone else to cover her shift. She told me I was being childish and told management that I was being rude. Management told me to work both shifts and being a 17 year old, I agreed since I needed the job to cover some expenses. I came to work on the saturday shift and the manager tried to tell me off. I told the manager what really happened, but he still sided with my coworker. I promptly told the manager that I had been very clear in my communication to my coworker and that she was in the wrong. The manager said that “I should be more flexible in helping others out”. I then told him I wished him luck on working my shift that weekend and walked out without saying another word. The look on his face was awesome. I found a new job as a tutor the next week, at which I was much happier.
#3
“Although, apparently, the person who filed the complaint sounded very believable based on the emotions she had. Luckily, the situation was dropped though. In my case, the complaint was defamatory so my first instinct was to defend myself, especially since I was worried about a violation of privacy as the customer claimed to track down my Instagram,” they opened up to Bored Panda.
“I just expressed that the situation made me uncomfortable given it was false, especially considering someone claimed to track down my social media. With complaints over small stuff, they’re usually addressed then swept under the rug.”
We also wanted to get the thread author’s opinion on why some people file complaints for such weird or even made-up reasons. “In my situation, the woman wanted validation as she knows many people today view the Confederate flag as a racist symbol given the history, so she made up a false situation to try to ruin someone else’s day and probably threaten their source of income,” they said.
#4
She didn’t want to go to the competitors. So I offered to show her a similar brand; though I did advise her to get the food her dog was used to so she could avoid making her dog sick at its stomach. After arguing with me about “how you should make this right!” I just told her I couldn’t help her. She screamed I was rude and unhelpful, then stormed out of the store.
Her reason for calling a complaint to corporate? I wouldn’t go to the competitors store (which was about four blocks away from my store) to get the bag of dog food for her since she had already stopped at our store.
Yeah. Her whole “you should make it right” argument was that I should leave my store, use my money to go buy her dog food, then apologize for wasting her time.
My manager pulled me into the office my next shift to tell me the lady had called corporate and why. We both had a huge laugh (apparently the corporate office also found the situation hilarious and told her to get stuffed) and he bought me lunch for not losing my cool on the entitled lady.
