This post is about outrageous things that people say and do. It has nothing to do with real fire.

Not about this.

Any time you work in customer service, you get to meet some pretty interesting people. Some are good people, happy people, people who are a pleasure to meet and deal with. Others… less so. And others still are interesting in their own special way.

Now keep in mind, I work at a campground. It’s a nice campground, and our rates are very reasonable, especially when you consider our location and facilities. But we’re still a campground, not a five-star hotel.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of complaints we get about nature, including, but not limited to: bugs (ants, wasps, spiders, mosquitoes) weather (wind, rain, etc), geese (and the poop they leave behind), poison ivy, and swimmer’s itch. Does one not go camping to experience nature? Sorry, those things come as a package deal with the good things, and you probably won’t see a unicorn, either.

You should do something about all the bugs outside.

Then, of course, are the complaints about other people. My boyfriend, for one, doesn’t understand why people go to campgrounds at all, given how many people get squished into such areas. But there are good things, as long as you’re willing to live with a few of the bad…

We don’t have hook-ups at our campground, but we do have generator hours, which of course generates complaints from both sides: those who don’t want to listen to other people’s noisy generators EVER, and those who want to run their generators ALL THE TIME. Can we win? (The answer is no. ;) )

Then, of course, there’s the other kinds of noise, especially the nocturnal ones: people talking, playing to music, and/or partying. Now, we do understand these complaints. We have a lot of seniors and families at our parks, and our rules prohibit noise after 10pm. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to approach rulebreakers…

The other morning we had an irate gentleman come up and tell us that someone had been “partying” and “playing loud music” somewhere “over there” *insert general waving hand gesture* until as late as 11:30!

He then proceeded to tell us that he was going to go over there with his bear mace to have a word with them… but his wife didn’t want him to, so he didn’t do anything.

My co-worker Jerry (not his real name) proceeded to discourage him from that line of thinking, suggesting it would have been dangerous for him to do that.

The irate gentleman promptly informed Jerry that he “worked in corrections, in a prison.”
So he KNEW what a bad idea that was!

Anyways, Jerry managed to talk him down and after some investigation, we discovered that a party boat had been out on the water the night before, blasting their music more than loud enough to sound like it was right in the park with us. Not much we can do about that.

We’ve got a new expression at our campground for special customers (compliments of my co-worker):

They’re checked in, but nobody’s camping.

So do you, dear readers, have any good stories? Especially ones about things people say that leave you wondering if they can hear what they themselves are saying?