Imagine working at a store, and a customer comes in asking a lot of questions. If you told the customer you weren’t an expert in the subject, would you offer them advice anyway, to the best of your knowledge, or would you refuse to offer advice?

In this story, one man was in this situation. He works at a koi shop, and a customer who was installing a koi pond asked him for advice. He’s not an expert, and he told the customer that.

Now, the customer is blaming him for a huge mistake during installation, and he’s wondering if it really is his fault.

Let’s read all about it.

AITA for costing this man $2000 in construction

Context: I (20 M) work at a koi shop relatively new and I’m pretty good with most things and have background in aquariums but not pond so I’m still learning that end.

I’m also very high functioning autistic so I tend to over explain and don’t always notice things, and am super uncomfortable with touching.

This story involves a customer who needed advice on his koi pond.

About two weeks ago I had a new customer come in (clearly had money and just wanted to spend it) and said he was building a pond and asked for liner tips.

I was talking and the conversation moved to filtration and I showed him the options and gave him the pros and cons.

He at one point asked me where a skimmer should be so I tried explaining it but he kept getting confused by my explaining so I took out a notepad and just drew a small diagram for him.

He also buys a bunch of stuff the next day and as a courtesy I help deliver to his house.

The customer really thought of OP as an expert.

This whole time he is calling me an expert at koi and making me really uncomfortable with how touchey he is.

I help him unpack things and then he asks me to take a look at his pond.

I’m uncomfortable so I tell him I’m not experienced in that.

And he says to stop being so humble.

He found the situation really stressful.

He pushes me out the door and I’m getting a panic attack.

There he has three guys who don’t speak English there putting in the skimmer box and and I’m just staying there monitoring as them just giving them basic tips like make sure to keep the skimmer in the pond liner and simple things like that.

I have him remove a double waterfall and just do one which he ended up putting next to the skimmer which basically ends up making it inefficient.

I’m trying to keep my composure and just leave so I didn’t notice.

The customer is asking for much more help than OP is experienced or authorized to provide.

When I finally leave he again asked if it looked good and I said idk this stuff well enough to say yes and he then tried to get me to come daily to visit him at first as a construction manager.

Then when I said my job doesn’t allow that (don’t know if it does might be wrong just needed an excuse) he tried to get me to come over as a “friend”.

I eventually leave and text my boss everything.

Now, the customer is really upset.

Well 2 weeks later he comes in again and ticked off at me that I got the skimmer in the wrong place and explains how he spent 2000 fixing that mistake.

I apologize at the time but when he left I was asking my boss does he seriously blame me.

And my boss says that I did tell him the skimmer was in the right spot.

I told my boss that I said I wasn’t an expert and he kinda shrugged it off.

Then, he remembered something.

It was an hour later I realized I had drawn that diagram and showed my boss that I knew the basics.

He seemed to be more on my side at that point but still seemed bothered.

So multiple questions

1. Despite me telling him I’m not an expert is that enough for me to be blamed

2. Should I try to explain more to my boss or should I just leave it where it is with all the evidence clear on my side.

He is not an expert. He told the customer he is not an expert. The fact that the customer chose not to believe him isn’t his fault. It’s doesn’t sound like his boss blames him, so I wouldn’t worry about it.

Let’s see what Reddit suggests.

Does anyone else work there who is more knowledgeable?

Another person agrees that the customer sounds creepy.

The customer should’ve hired an expert to do the installation.

The customer really did push too hard.

The customer wasted money by trying to save money.

If you don’t hire an expert, you might waste a lot of time and money.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.