These Customers Asked The Dumbest Questions Ever
These Redditors who toil in the ol' customer service mines shared their stories of the questions that had them completely perplexed—from garden-variety stupid to straight-up bizarre.
1. Bathroom Rules
I was standing next to a HUGE bathroom sign, restocking silverware as a woman in her mid-30s entered the establishment. Woman: “Sir, where is the bathroom”? Me: “Down that hallway, ma'am”. I pointed to the direction the sign was pointing. Woman: “No, it isn't”. Me: “Err, what”? I was not prepared for what she said next. Woman: “That's a couple's restroom, see? Man AND woman”. Me: Chuckles “Oh, no. That’s a unisex bathroom, you can use it”. Woman: “I'm not a unisexual. I'll just run over to Applebee’s”. She left.
2. An Eye For An Eye
Once, while working at an eye doctor's office, a woman was upset because we were charging her to make new lenses with an updated prescription. She was getting frustrated and asked, "Why do you have to make new lenses?
Can’t you just inject some more medicine in the ones I already got"? It took all I had not to laugh in her face.
3. A Question Of Distance
Years ago, before the Internet was a thing, I worked in a small electronics shop. One day, I got a phone call and it went like this: Him: Yeah, hi. I was just wondering...how far is it to your shop? Me: (Long pause, calculating how galactically stupid this question was, whether I was being pranked, and how a professional business person would handle this). At that moment, I knew exactly what to say.
Me: Oh, it's just a few miles away. Come on down. Him: OK. See you soon. No idea if he ever actually arrived. I got busy and people came and went all day. But it was still the dumbest question I've ever received.
4. It Was A Bad Sign
I was volunteering as a cashier at a used book store for the library. It was not my regular job, but I did it often. In came this older fellow who bought a big stack of books for about 10 bucks.
He was really nice and chatty, though he didn’t seem entirely aware, mentally. It was not a big deal, and I just had to explain sales tax and the book pricing a couple of times before he seemed to get it.
He paid by credit card, and I explained to him how to sign the touchscreen for the payment to go through. Then it got weird. He asked for my name, which no customer had ever really done, but I told him anyway. He then took the iPad and told me he was going to sign my name for the card so “they” would know to send the money to me. Before I could say, “No, wait,” he submitted the signature.
I couldn’t see his receipt, but he kept telling me I was great and to keep the change, so I assumed he was being legit. It was really bizarre and it made me wonder if he had been signing cashier names the entire time he’s had a credit card.
Thank goodness the card companies rarely check those things.
