The one thing that I absolutely detest and have zero tolerance for, is when let's say a family of mainland Chinese folks walk into a store, the parents who speak no English at all, send their son/daughter who speaks PERFECT English, like born and raised in Canada/US English, to ask me in English if I speak Mandarin.

Customer:
(without even saying hello or excuse me) Do you speak Chinese?

Me:
I don't speak any Chinese language, but since you speak English is there anything I can help you with in English?

Customer:
(acts deaf and completely ignores my question) My parents need someone to speak Mandarin to them. Do you speak Mandarin?

Me:
No, I do not, but I asked you if there is anything I can help you with in English? Like are you trying to buy a phone or are you trying to get something repaired?

Customer:
(once again completely ignores my question) Is there anyone in the store who speaks Mandarin right now?

Me:
I will check for you, hold on.

Customer:
(without even giving me 3 seconds to check if any other of my Mandarin-speaking colleagues can assist) *points to my Korean colleague standing beside me* Does he speak Mandarin?

Me:
No, he does not, he is Korean.

Customer:
So...does he speak Mandarin?"

Me:
No, Koreans do not speak Mandarin, they speak Korean...

Customer:
Okay *leaves the store*

:fuuuuu::fulloffuck::fulloffuck::fulloffuck:
:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

Like how about you don't act like the entitled little fucking prick of a spoiled kid you are and help translate for your parents you cunt.

I would consider that a win:fullofwin::ilied:

...they left the store. What else could you possibly want? What...to take twice as long talking to these people?

This is key.

I used to work somewhere where speaking other languages was frowned upon.. If you be a dick to me, and try to make me break the rules, go eff yourself. If you're polite and nice, I'll do my best.

Was asking for key fob prices at the store in Parker place for my dad.

then a mainlander kid just comes in waving his mercedes keys around, and just yells to the guy who was serving me. didn't even give a single shit that there was someone there before him. was just standing there for a good 5 minutes while rich boy was getting his issues fixed :rukidding:

Proves money can't buy class.

Back in my days working in a large electronics retailer, we would have Brazilian international students come in... Some of them were insanely entitled. Like, I'd get attitude from certain people, especially when they were trying to return damaged laptops...

Had a chick say she'd call her daddy who was a senator (or our equivalent to an MP, can't remember) and he'd make me take back her laptop with a broken screen.

:lol

She then proceeds to berate me in Portuguese, how I was just a shitty retail employee, how'd she make sure I'd get fired, etc. Eventually she threatens to call the embassy (!), because somehow I'm disrespecting her (!). I politely tell her to go ahead, and name-dropped the ambassador (my mom worked at the embassy at the time, we'd go to his house from time to time, pretty cool dude), telling her I'd call him and give him a heads-up of the situation.

She told me to fuck off, picked up her laptop and left. She never called the ambassador. I never figured out who was her father (and if he was indeed important, or if she was just bluffing).

I've got a ton of stories from my time there.

Same thing happened to me, I worked the Future Shop in downtown for a christmas and some chick tried so hard to haggle to price on an ipod nano and she said some pretty crazy shit.

sometimes i find the sales guys just lazy and pain in the ass

i remember this 50 something yr lady thats speaks Cantonese goes up to the chinese sale clerk asking for help & she was being polite too saying "hello can u help me, i cant really read english, thank you" (in Cantonese)

then i over heard his coworker say "this is canada learn some English, its the official language u old lady"

seriously shes like 50 almost 60, i dont really think she can learn a new language

at this point i wanted to look for something, so i went up to that sales guy & ask "hi chinese", dude rolls his eyes saying "no"

so then i went "parlez-vous francais?" & he said no, so i was like "man learn some french, its an official language bro" in english

i think this was at future shop way back when it 1st opened

I work at a very busy pharmacy as a tech so I have about a million stories of weird/disgusting/enraging encounters with patients.

I have had to explain in Mandarin how to use a fleet enema (I learned that I am not as mature as I think I am as I burst into giggles for a good 5 minutes after).

I got hit on by some old dude filling his cialis prescription.

Had a guy ask me if I speak Polish. I am definitely Asian. He was dead serious.

On saturday, I had an old lady try to convince me she needs her RX done in 10 minutes because it's an antibiotic and she will die without it. It wasn't an antibiotic. It was her for her cholesterol, and it was too early to refill anyway.

I had a patient have a massive breakdown because his doctor didn't fax us back to refill his prescription (which means we can't do shit cuz no refills remaining on file). This guy refused to budge from the counter and threw a bag of trail mix at another patient and had to be escorted out.

I had a rich mainlander c-lai freak out at me because pharmacare isn't covering her meds. She insists on having the brand name because she thinks generics don't work, and believes that because she's low income, she should have everything covered. She hadn't reached her deductible so nothing would be covered anyway, but nope she kept coming back to shout at me in Mandarin about how she's low income. I finally lost it and snapped back "sell that chanel bag and maybe you can afford it."

Had a guy come in, go straight up to the counter and bypassing all the people lining up to drop off their prescriptions and tell me that he has a letter from the old manager stating that when he comes in, he gets to have his meds done before everybody elses. I've never seen my manager laugh so hard before. He couldn't understand why his request was so ridiculous.

I had a patient who refused counselling for her new medication which is her right, but she came back 2 days later saying the meds taste odd. Her doctor prescribed rectal suppositories. Do people not read their prescription labels?

rude customers getting their comeuppance by employees/managers/owners etc. makes my heart all warm and fuzzy inside

One of my jobs during the summer back in the day as a student was working part time as a teller at bank. This was the TD Canada Trust on Kingsway in Vancouver.

It was a really busy day at the branch. There were at least six customers lining up in front of my service line. The mainlander customer, an elderly man, asked for a refund in "service charge" on his bank draft because he thought that his chequing account package would give him free bank drafts, with no service charge.

I explained to the customer, with the help of my customer service manager who spoke fluent mandarin, that no service charge refund would be deposited into his account because all customers pay the bank draft charge. The elderly man became really upset and started yelling in Mandarin to my customer service manager. I don't speak any Mandarin so I did not understand what he was saying. This was a ten minute conversation.

Finally, one of the customers in the line up in front my area, a Philipino guy, became very upset and impatient with the mainlander.

He yelled at the mainlander "Hurry up Fob! You are wasting my time!" "You think that just because you drive a Mercedes, Beemer, that you can take up everyone else's time??" "Heck, we like to drive Ford and GM here!!"


The mainlander customer ignored the customer who yelled at him. Finally, the customer service manager took the mainlander to a side counter in order to assist them. The branch manager intervened in the situation. The mainlander received his bank draft service charge as a refund.

When the mainlander was walking out of the branch, the customers in my line up were cheering "yeahhh!". They clapped their hands because the mainlander left the branch.

When it was time for me to serve the Flip customer, I wanted to give him a big hug for his act of bravery. :lawl:

Actually, that sounds sort of racist on the part of the Filipino guy. My dad has a senior "over 60" account at TD and it's service charge free. I'm not sure if there's still a charge on bank drafts but almost everything else is free so it's a rather reasonable mistake by the elderly mainlander guy if he thought bank drafts should be free. Maybe he was being a dick? But from your story it sounds like he was just taking a long time.

And it's an old man that doesn't speak English. What'd you expect? If you want quick, use the ATM. I haven't spoken to a bank teller in years. If you have to line up because you want to talk to an inefficient human, that's your own fault.

If someone said that to my dad (who speaks English...but still), I would've decked him.

i blame the language things on canadian business (ie. banks etc) that go out of the way to cater to Chinese /Punjabi customers.. fuck u. for having bank machines / tellers speak all languages in the world.

if u can't assimilate , whatever it may be. burka /language.. go back to ur country.

lol my MIL is one of those...came to Canada in the early 80's as a 20 something year old

to this day still can't speak or understand English for shit. Raised four fucking kids that speak perfect English and was pretty much a stay at home mom, hell, even her husband can speak and understand pretty well. I could literally be insulting the shit out of her in her face and she'll just smile and nod.

always amazed me how she never even picked up a shred of English in her 30+ years in Canada

:fulloffuck:

but at least i can pretty much insult her openly :troll:

Just remembered a story from nearly 15 years ago.

I used to work for a fabric accessories distribution company (yes, such a thing exists :lol). My primary job was to receive shipments and put freight away, though since the warehouse had a drop-in area where customers could come in and pick up their orders, I would often help out there. We had an interesting customer base, considering our location (Commercial and Venables). There were people who would drop in to pick up a spool of thread to finish some home crafted dress, while one of the biggest clients we were working on was Lululemon (keep in mind this was about a year and a half after they opened up shop in Vancouver), who would order a shit ton of stuff every week or so. There were the customers who would only speak Mandarin, which thankfully one of my co-workers spoke; others would speak only Hindi, which my other co-worker happened to know. All in all, it was an interesting place to work at, especially when I sat at my desk and listened in to the different conversations in other languages. I managed to pick up quite a few phrases and words in both languages that still help me to this day.

Anyway, this one day I was sitting at my desk, finalizing a customer's order on my computer, when this couple walks down the stairs to the order desk. They give me a print out of a bunch of different items they wanted to order. I knew for a fact that we didn't carry the majority of the stuff and couldn't even special order it in, because that stuff is plainly not made. I told them as such and brought out a few alternatives that they could look at and possibly use instead. They were asking for things like non-standard length of spools, a "special" type of machine oil, scissors that I'm pretty sure have never existed since fire was first discovered, and all types of random stuff. After about an hour of going back and forth with them, they finally decide on a few items and I go back to my desk to create their PO and ring the order into the system. As I walk away from the counter, I accidentally let slip a phrase of German that translated into "One minute." I had recently come back from a month long trip in Europe and both French and German were fresh in my mind and I had found myself saying a few words here and there before I could catch myself.

I guess this must have set the girl off because she started talking to her partner in French about how terrible at my job I am, how I'm incompetent because the stuff they carry isn't sold at this place, that she's glad Germany lost the war (really? that's still being said?), etc., etc. Basically she was just trashing me and my heritage (yes, I'm German) in another language, presumably because she doesn't think I understand French.

I finish ringing through the order on the computer, box up their crap and take their money. As soon I give them their change back, I speak to them in impeccable French:

"Here's your change. By the way, it's not my fault you're trying to order stuff that doesn't exist. I don't see how that makes me terrible at my job; you're the one making up stuff. By the way, take your order and don't come back. We don't tolerate idiots here."

The guy had remained silent since the two of them had entered, but he then suddenly burst out laughing and started walking up the stairs to the exit. The girl, on the other hand, turned the deepest shade of red I've seen (short of a sunburn) and her eyes completely bulged out. She quickly walked up the stairs, presumably to leave.

An hour or so later, my manager walks down and asks to talk to me. He mentioned that some girl had come up to the offices upstairs and complained about me, so what happened? I truthfully told him the whole story and he just laughed. "Fucking Frenchies. They're worse than the Mainlanders and Indians trying to haggle the shit out of our prices. Don't worry, you're not in trouble."

Wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Fight racism with racism, I guess?

Thankfully I quit a few weeks later.

I think some of it might be an unwillingness to learn, while another part is probably the inability to. I have relatives all over Europe who had tried to learn another language after they moved to a different country, only to end up completely frustrated six months later when they can't recall more than a couple basic phrases. After that point, they just sort of shut down and can't be bothered to learn anymore.

My Oma and Opa moved to Canada from Germany after WW2. They didn't speak a lick of English. But they persevered and by the time they both passed away, you would have thought they were native English speakers from birth... apart from the obvious German accents, of course :lol

Haha yah sure tough guy, you'd risk an assault charge and civil suit because someone mouthed your dad off :fullofwin:

Account notes can be interesting.

Prepaid cell phone user: "Can you help me? Can you add a couple dollars to my account to make phone calls, my Grandma died."

Me: "I'm so sorry to hear that." (Skimming account notes) "It must be rough losing all of your grandmas."

Scammer: "Huh what? My other grandma didn't die."

Me: "Really? Because you called us each of the previous two months, and told us you needed credits then, claiming Grandma passed away."

Scammer: FUCK YOU!!!!!! <Click>

Pretty sure HSBC would love to take those chinese customers off their hands if they don't want to play ball. :rolleyes:

Yeah because every expatriate in foreign countries learn the language. :ahwow:

seriously bro its not a language problem, its ppl skills & manners period

that mainlander could have not yelled & then requested to talk to the mandarin guy on the side counters so they dont hold the line

i know hongers, twangers & mainlanders that dont speak english, but are very nice & mannered ppl

A Filipino calling a mainlander a Fob? :lawl:

that would be the polite thing to do...

but the squeaky wheel gets the grease...would he have gotten a refund when policy is not to without bitching and complaining? highly doubtful.

our society at times caters to people that bitch, complain and make a scene.

that being said there's times where security would just come and escort someone out. example is best buy landsdowne where some dude got mugged by security and thrown out on his ass...can't remember the reason for it. i think it was trying to get a refund some game system he broke.

Solution:


Do you even lawyer, bro?

good thing he didn't say chinamen :fullofwin:

This is story which is not related to "bad" or "strange" customers but to a former co-worker who was "bad" and downright stupid.

The dude was an assistant manager at a bank. He worked in the same head office as me. One day I see him pack all his personal belongings and leave the office while his face is beet red in colour. Why?

I found out from other co-workers who were gossiping about this fool.

This former assistant manager was using his own desk phone to make long distance calls to Hong Kong using the company's phone line. He was making these calls for over one month in order to talk to his parents and sibilings. :lawl:

Keep in mind that he was making these long distance phone calls before Skype or Facetime were available. :troll:

The dumbass got fired right away after his manager found out that he racked
up hundreds of dollars in long distance phone charges. :lawl: