When you work in retail, it seems that annoying customers seem to pop up most when you are already stressed out or busy from other work.

That is what happened to the record store worker in this story after he worked a long and busy weekend due to the biggest sale of the year.

A customer had come in during that sale, but he couldn’t get the record that he wanted because it wasn’t available. The next day, however, he got an email saying that it was now available for online order if he still wanted it.

For some reason, this upset the customer, who was complaining that his trip to the store was a waste of time. Fortunately, the employee found a way to explain what happened, leaving the customer happy and the employee only slightly annoyed.

Read on to get the full details of this funny story.

Customer was correctly told an item wasn’t in stock, later receives an offer to order it, and so would like to complain.

I’ve been working in retail for over a decade now, and recently had one of my all-time strangest interactions with a customer.

I’m sure all record collectors come out for this sale.

I work in a record store, and we’ve just had Record Store Day (if you’re not familiar, it’s a day where labels put out many special releases in limited numbers) on Saturday.

Incredibly, incredibly busy, borderline unmanageably so, but it makes the company a ton of money, so I guess we’ll be doing it forever. The tales I have of how grown adults behave towards staff on this day could be its own thread, but my tale is from a few days later.

Why would he be upset about this?

The phone rings, and it sounds like an older (though not elderly) gentleman.

He says “I visited your store on Saturday afternoon [an inauspicious start] and picked up a few Record Store Day titles. When I got to the counter, I asked about another title but the girl told me that none of your stores ever had it [not unusual; some titles are not released for every territory but can potentially be imported later]. Later, when I got home, I received a text from your shop [he means an email from the website] telling me that I could order it. Now, that’s not very good, is it?”.

Is this really worth calling and complaining about?

It had been a long few days, and I could sense that he was attempting to make a complaint about something that had happened but I wasn’t sure what, exactly.

I asked him if he could tell me again what his issue was. He recounts the same story, adding that he’s not happy he made a wasted journey to our store.

The record was never in the store, so what is there to complain about?

Now, I know the textbook customer service thing is to give a professional, insincere little apology but I was just too perplexed. I repeated his story as I understood it, back to him.

I’m thinking he’s perhaps confused about the email notification – maybe he thinks it means that the other item was in stock, after all. I check the system during his soliloquy and confirm that no store ever received the release he wants.

This was definitely not a wasted journey.

I reiterate this to him, as gently as I can, and suggest that if the email he received is inviting him to order the desired release, he should do that.

His response is, “but what are you going to do about my wasted journey?”. Again, feeling like I’m in some sort of hostage negotiation, I very gently remind him that he did, in fact, buy 3 other things he seemingly wanted.

Honestly, this is excellent customer service. He just doesn’t understand it.

And that this other release was never here, but he’s welcome to order it on the website if the email he’s received invites him to.

He says “well, I don’t think it’s very good service”.

Oh, so he just wanted to vent to someone?

I know I’m getting myself into dangerous territory as I respond “I think maybe it’s about a difference in temperament, because if I was a customer somewhere and I wanted something, but was told it wasn’t in stock, and then received an email saying I could order it, I’d be quite happy”.

Miraculously, I think I just about get through to him somewhat. He starts saying things like “I’m not trying to have a go, I love your store and just wanted to vent my frustration”.

At least he ends the call happy.

The phone call eventually ends after 20 minutes (he speaks very slowly), and I seem to have left him happy.

Now, I know he doesn’t know how insanely busy it’s been, how grown men have screamed in the faces of young women wearing lanyards because we sold out of a limited live Pink Floyd album, how the shop looks like a grenade exploded over the Pop section, how there’s discarded drink and food wrappers in record racks.

Sometimes listening to people vent is the task of a retail worker, I guess.

And I know that, to an extent, it’s my job to listen to venting customers. But it really did sap all my energy and patience and, I daresay, compassion for my fellow man.

Just for the rest of that day, I’m back now. Still not sure I understood his grievance, though. I may never know, and I’m okay with that.

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It sounds like the guy is a good customer overall, even if he doesn’t understand exactly how the store works. Hopefully he won’t call just to vent again anytime soon.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a hardware store employee who lost his cool with customers wandering around after closing time.

Take a look at what the people in the comments have to say about this story below.

Yeah, he definitely wanted to complain.

Some customers just aren’t rational.

This is a great strategy.

It was easy to tell that this was an older customer.

This person got yelled at because new inventory came into the store.

He called in to complain that the system worked and allowed him to get the record he wanted. Kind of a weird thing to be unhappy about, but ok.

It seems that he really just didn’t understand how the inventory system worked. And sometimes, people just want to vent and be heard. It is good that by the end of the call, he was happy with the record store once again.