I used to work in a small shop, 3 bays, the owner and myself were the only mechanics. He was a pretty good guy to work for, and a decent mechanic, but not always really good with people and had a short fuse.
One day we had done brakes and some front end work on a car that belonged to a real pain in the ***. He was one of those who would only come in when something was in dire need of repair, regular maintenance was a foreign concept to him. This one morning he had brought his car in, complaining that the brakes were making "funny noise". When we got the car on the hoist and pulled the front wheels, the rotor faces were completely ground off, only the vent structure remained, calipers were leaking, flex hoses were cracked, etc. His tie rods were ready to fall off, ball joints almost as bad, and leaking shock absorbers.
We put together a quote, and he gave the ok to do all the work. After 1/2 a day spent fixing his car, and at least a dozen phone calls from him asking if it's ready yet, we finally have it outside, alignment done, brakes relined and bled, good to go. He shows up, and starts demanding to see his old parts, no problem, we always kept everything until after the customer's picked up their vehicles, so we show him. Now he says he doesn't believe these are his old parts, they could be from any car, blah blah blah. Boss explains to him that we keep the parts from each vehicle until the owner picks it up, then we dispose of them, etc. Nope Mr. PITA keeps at it, bitching about the bill, even though it is what he agreed to before we started working on his car.
After a good 8 to 10 minutes of the guy beaking off, my boss finally says to him "the keys are in your car, get in it and **** OFF!!! You don't owe me anything, just don't EVER ******* COME BACK!"
Now Mr. PITA is apologizing, offering to pay cash, didn't mean to be offensive, etc. Boss looks him in the eye and tells him again to **** off and never come back. Dumbass finally gets the hint and leaves.
