He was creepin’ on other customers. When he was asked to tone it down, especially when it came to talking to minors, he got mad and started yelling and shoving chairs.
One of my previous customers was a mentally ill and delusional elderly lady. She called me about a non-existent plumbing problem in her house, supposedly caused by her neighbor, who she claimed breaks in and messes with her stuff. According to her, everything wrong inside or outside her house was because of her neighbor’s sabotage. She even mentioned plans to kill him. Not exactly the kind of person you want to turn your back on, but also someone who would have been extremely easy to take advantage of. I basically talked her out of redoing the entire plumbing in her bathroom, and we finally settled on me re-aligning her kitchen cabinet doors that - yes, you guessed it - her neighbor had ‘messed with.’
It was quite sad, really. She asked me twice whether I thought her stories sounded crazy, so she was clearly somewhat aware of her condition. I just didn’t know how to deal with someone like that. I refuse to lie, but I also don’t want to tell her she’s losing it. I don’t mind senile people, but I didn’t feel safe around her.
She asked me twice whether I thought her stories sounded crazy, so she was clearly somewhat aware of her condition.
Not necessarily.
It’s very likely everyone in her life were telling her it’s all in her head, she gets mad and says she’s not crazy…
Then calls random repair people, tells them the story. And asks “am I crazy” because most businesses would never say that to a client. She was looking for validation, the same way people go fishing for compliments saying stuff like “I’m so bad at my job, I don’t know how you all put up with me”. Even if it’s true and they’re dead weight, most people will be polite and reassure them.
I just didn’t know how to deal with someone like that
Tell them that they should relay their concerns to a medical professional if they’re concerned.
If they’re seriously doubting their delusions, they’ll go get help and thank you for the advice.
More likely they’ll realize you’re not giving them what they want, get mad, and often blame you for being involved in the conspiracy.
But there’s a chance they actually get help.
Any kind of acceptance of their beliefs, no matter how tentative, reinforces it and drives them further into the delusion. Depending on how involved her family is, she might have called them immediately, and after cussing them out said even the plumber agrees she’s not crazy.
My brother in law is like that. He’s been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and his drivers license has been suspended after an unrelated episode 10 years ago. He’s harmless, and perfectly capable of getting it unsuspended if he puts in some effort, but he can’t because:
- His doctor is out to sabotage his life
- Someone is tapping into his phone
- This lady on the other side of town is stealing his mail
- His PC had been bugged
…allegedly.
He sometimes takes his meds, but it’s rare. Those are the days when he’s out and about and reasonably normal.
how old is he? it tends to get better the older the person gets. (quick edit as I just realized what people will think. it will not go away. I mean get better in that they tend to get better about taking medication and are less likely to go off and do the really nutty stuff)
I just didn’t know how to deal with someone like that.
You tell them the truth. That means if you think their stories sound crazy you say “I think your stories sound crazy”.
I know that steps outside of the typical path of politeness, but telling the truth is the only way to help someone in that state.
She wasn’t asking because she didn’t know. She was asking because she knew they sounded crazy, and she wanted to give you an opening to discuss that.
Trust me. When a person is having paranoid delusions only the truth can help them. Saying “No that doesn’t sound crazy to me”, if it does, only makes it worse. That’s because people can detect when others are lying to them. If that person is so far out there that everyone puts on a mask around them, it will reinforce the idea that people are shifty assholes. If nobody ever tells them the truth then they can’t calibrate their sense of what’s real and what’s not.
It may seem rude, but if you truly want to help them, you need to be truthful with them. That includes saying things that might not be polite, such as “I think that sounds crazy”. They will not interpret that as rude. They will interpret that as honest, and it will be an enormous relief to them to have found an honest person.
I know I’m replying late but did you ever contact your countries adult protective services and make them aware to get her the help she needed because them stating they want to kill someone is worrying
Last place I worked at that actually banned customers was at a pizza place in a college town that did a lot of late night deliveries back when restaurants delivered their own food.
Bounced checks, being rude to employees, not being there when the delivery driver arrived were the biggest ones. After hitting a critical mass on fraternities we started banning the whole fraternity if we ran into issues and they sorted that out fast by getting their members to behave better and other people would volunteer to buy the pizza if the person fell asleep or couldn’t be found. Pretty much everyone who screwed up was given another chance by paying off their balance and the bounced check fee or apologizing to staff.
There was also one guy who never tipped and kept calling and saying is pizza was wrong so the owner made his pizza one night and delivered it himself, then banned the guy when he called and lied about the delivery. He was banned for life along with the people who were racist/sexist. The owner was a jerk when it came to his ridiculous capitalist expectations, but he did defend his employees from external assholes.
The owner was a jerk when it came to his ridiculous capitalist expectations, but he did defend his employees from external assholes.
The number of bosses I’ve had that were massive assholes, but had the mentality of “only I get to abuse these employees” is amusingly high.
I think some of them just lack people skills. I had this one manager that nobody liked and was rather prickly, but she very quickly kicked out an asshole customer and then immediately checked to make sure I was okay after. She cared, and actually did more for us than most of the rest of management, but her people skills were terrible.
Legit props to them, but my unpopular opinion: these people shouldn’t be bosses. Like, at all. At my job, myself and my coworkers do all the work compared to my direct supervisors. When my previous boss got sick for an extended time, the work still got done. When they retired, and a search process was in progress to find a replacement, the work was still done. All of it.
Management is about dealing with people and unexpected situations. If you can’t do that, why the fuck are you paid more than the people that put in the time and are literally solving the problems all day, every day!?
Freelance welding on my days off. A customer wanted to hire me to make a fence gate, but he didn’t have solid blueprints. He had a crude sketch drawn on a scrap of paper, but no specific measurements. I offered to come by and take measurements, but he didn’t even have a fence base to take measurements off of.
Essentially, he wanted me to construct a property fence gate of unspecified size and install it to a nonexistent perimeter fence. I told him these issues, but he didn’t care. He wanted me to build this fence gate, but he didn’t know what size, what materials, and where to install it.
I fired him. A welder’s reputation means everything. I’m not about to make a thing for a customer who doesn’t actually know what he wants. I did him a favor by walking away and not taking his money.
The spite sounds fun, but giving the customer what they ask for when they want a shit job is still going to reflect badly on you. A lot of the time, potentially problematic customers should just be directed elsewhere to make their data someone else’s problem.
Whether or not you gave them exactly what they asked for, if they don’t have a realistic vision/hardware/site you’re setting them up for a bad time, and they’ll bitch about you because you couldn’t translate the ephemeral concept of an idea that never left their skull into something that looked good or they wanted, and they’ll be sure to tell everyone who made the mess they’re unhappy with.
To me that sounds suspicious like keeping kids in the basement suspicious
I don’t know why but it just does probably because gates could also be used to keep people in
I know it’s probably not this but the thought of that popped up in my head
He touched a waitress in a way she didn’t want to be touched.
