Regular customers are a dream for a company. It means you don’t have to do outreach to get more business.

Unfortunately some regular customers have a chip on their shoulder.

Check out how this worker handled a big, weird ego.

Customer Lied in order to Demand Earlier Hours

I work in the office of a landscape supply store that sells mulch by the cubic yard.

We sell in bulk and our customers range from large landscaping companies to homeowners looking to do some landscaping on the weekends.

Our hours have always been 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Mondays through Fridays.

It’s business as usual so far.

We add weekend hours during our busy seasons of spring and fall. Our competitors have comparable hours and do not open any earlier than seven.

As spring approaches, business has started to pick up and our customers that are larger landscaping companies have begun to contact me about the upcoming season.

Most of these companies are easy to deal with and have been customers well before I started working here so I’m very familiar with all of them.

I don’t usually have problems with them.

But last week, I received a phone call from one of these landscaping companies.

This company purchases a lot of mulch from us and we do our best to accommodate them. My boss has arranged special pricing for them and he will make sure their somewhat last minute deliveries are on time.

Basically, he works with them extensively already.

So this customer felt pretty special.

The representative calling introduced himself as the foreman of one of the crews that comes in for mulch.

He asked the standard questions about our products, pricing and hours.

That’s when this started:

Important Foreman: “So, you open at seven?”

Me: “Yes. Seven o’clock to four o’clock, Mondays through Fridays.”

Important Foreman: “Well, we start at six.”

Me: “I know you guys like to start early. I apologize that we open later, but we can definitely make sure that you’re loaded first thing when we open or you can send a driver in to pick up the mulch at four o’clock for the next morning.”

Important Foreman: “My crew has to have the mulch no later than 6:30.”

It was clear from his tone that he was looking to argue, so I responded accordingly.

Me: “I can’t guarantee that myself, but I will definitely have my boss get in touch with you.”

Important Foreman: “Yeah, you’re going to want to open at six instead.”

Me: “I will definitely let him know.”

Important Foreman: “Good. Because we start at six and I’m sure you guys can’t afford to lose us as customers. We’re probably your biggest customer, too.”

Then his boldness stops making sense.

I asked for his contact information for my boss, who is also the owner, and we hung up.

When I explained what happened to my boss, he said that he has no idea why this foreman is demanding earlier hours since for the last ten years that he has been doing business with this company, our hours haven’t ever been a problem.

Instead, he called one of the managers of the company that he knows well and was basically told that since this foreman is new, he’s trying to assert dominance over every aspect of his job.

The manager apologized to my boss and said that he would speak to the foreman.

Apparently, the crews actually start at seven.

Here is what people are saying.

Better with honey than vinegar!

This is why you shouldn’t give in.

This would be a very long day!

Haha great response.

I hope this customer stops the nonsense soon.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.