Some people just don’t know how to follow directions, huh?

You can say that again!

And if you work in a customer service position, you know how true and painful it can be…

Check out what this gas station worker had to say in a story from Reddit’s “Tales From Retail” page.

When they can’t follow clear instructions, I lose my grip on sanity.

“It’s graveyard shift at this humble gas station, food mart and as per usual, I’ve locked the main door and am doing business through the night teller window.

It’s not a complicated device: a drawer slides out to the customer to accept money or credit cards, then I pull it in; put what they want into the tray with their change and slide it back out to them.

Ta Da!

Well, it SHOULD be easy…

Quick and easy, right? …but nooooo, some people can’t grasp that simple concept.

What really boggles my mind is: in this area, we get customers who are highly paid technical engineers for billion dollar corporations; and they’re dumbfounded by a simple, moving drawer that can only do one thing – go in and out.

It’s been a mechanical principle for thousands of years; they should know this.

Just now, I had explain what to do, to one of those aforementioned engineers who wanted to buy some smokes.

Pretty commonly, the public wants to use their phone app to pay for stuff, which means that they have to put their phone in the tray so I can tap the reader by the register.

No, we’re not going to put an expensive reader on a wire, that you know, some intoxicated clown will yank out… but I digress…

This was going to be complicated…

His confusion started as soon as I slid the drawer out to him. Instead of setting it inside, he held up his phone like I was going to scan the app with lasers from my eyes.

Making my first instruction, ‘Put it in the drawer.’ and added a helpful visual aid of pointing at the drawer poking out at him.

Studying the mechanics of the thing intently, he proceeded to put his whole arm up to the elbow into the slot, without releasing the phone.

This got us nowhere, because with his arm jammed in there I couldn’t move anything. Which lead to my second instruction, “Let it go!”

Somehow, this was still beyond his comprehension, but at least he took his arm out.

As this guy who makes more money than me in a week, than I can make in a whole year; stood hopelessly defeated by a coasting tray, I outlined the procedure clearly for him again.

“Put it in the drawer AND let it go!”

Still disbelieving that this mechanical magic could be physically possible; he set the phone on the tray, and slowly started pushing it towards the back of the drawer, in the manner that got his arm stuck in there the first time. “Let it go!”

This was pretty ridiculous!

How could he not get this!? Don’t they have keyboard trays at their desks that work like this???

“Let it GO!”

“Let it GO!!!”

He finally stepped back in horror that I was about to start singing that stupid song and give him an ear worm.

So, I took advantage of his fear of show tunes, and slipped the drawer and his phone into my cashier clutches.

He was amazed!

You’d think he’d witnessed a modern miracle, and getting his phone back and a pack of smokes, through the tray, reverse Uno style, just blew his ever-loving, engineering mind.”

And here’s what Reddit users had to say.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another reader chimed in.

This individual spoke up.

Another Reddit user has been there.

And this reader didn’t hold back.

As the saying goes, common sense ain’t that common!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.