A Pain In The Glass

Uncle Bubba needed a pane of glass to replace a broken window in his old camper. Being unfamiliar with how the window was assembled, he carefully removed the plastic trim from the aluminum frame and took the measurements of the glass area. Then he was off to the local hardware store to get the glass cut to size. One of the oldtimers that work there asked what he needed.
"A piece of glass for a camping trailer window" he replied.
"Do you know the size?"
"Yessir, 18 inches by 10 inches." But he was thinking, "Do you think I would come here and not know the size?" And in the immortal words of comedian Bill Engvall, "Here's your sign." Uncle Bubba let the thought pass as it does no good to harbinger a foul thought.

The oldtimer scribbled down the dimensions on a small white scrap of paper and turned to the supply of glass and consulted a chart on the wall. He pulled a pane from a stack and placed it against a large vertical cutting table against the wall. He used a tape measure and adjusted the glass and then slid a long aluminum arm down across the glass and snapped off a piece. He tossed the smaller piece into a scrap bin on the floor with a crash. Then rotated the glass on the table and repeated the procedure. Crash! The leftover hit the bin. He wrapped the finished piece a heavy paper wrapper, wrote out a ticket and handed them both to Uncle Bubba. Bubbie thanked him and walked to the front counter to pay.

Back home he had to pry the old, broken glass from the frame before scraping a gummy gasket strip off of the aluminum. He reapplied a new, very sticky black gasket to the frame and then laid the glass into place... oh no, it didn't fit! It was a little out of square for sure and cut slightly bigger than the specs that Uncle Bubba had supplied. So, reluctantly, he drove back to the hardware with the piece of glass to rectify the situation. He walked back to the glass cutting area and the oldtimer was standing there.
Uncle Bubba piped up, "Sir, this glass that y'all cut fer me doesn't fit, it's too big."
"Well I cut it to the dimensions that you gave me," came the oldtimers reply. (And once again, "Here's your sign.")
"Sir, it's not cut to the size that I gave y'all or it would have fit. It don't fit. Therefore, it was not cut to the size I gave you." Bubbie retorted.
The oldtimer pulled out a tape measure and stretched it across the glass. "It reads 18 inches by 10 inches." he mused.
"No, it reads 18 1/8 inches by 10 1/16 inches."
The oldtimer slid the tape over the glass once again. "Well, on this end it's even a little bigger. Were they tight measurements that you gave me?" asked the oldtimer, "Because glass should be cut an 1/8 inch less so that it fits."
"They weren't real tight measurements, and if you'd have asked me that before you cut it I would have told you so. Sir, y'all are the glass cutter, not me. If I had cut it, I'd have given it a little room to play. And the fact that it's out of square means that your cutting table needs to be adjusted."
"Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it," said the oldtimer, "I can't trim this to fit."
Uncle Bubba said, "Look, I got the window out in my camper so I need a piece of glass cut to the right size so that I can get the window put back in. I reckon that you should cut me a new piece of glass."
"OK, but I'll have to charge you fer it." said the oldtimer.
"Oh no you won't." said Bubbie, "I'm not paying for your mistake. Y'all gave me a piece of glass that didn't fit."
"I cut it to the dimensions that you gave me." the oldtimer said. (Here's your sign again!)
"Look here, I'm not going to keep arguing this with you. If your policy is that the customer is wrong and y'all don't make mistakes, then cut the glass an 1/8 inch smaller per side and I'll take it up with the store manager."

I'll spare y'all the details of the rest of the story, like the next piece didn't fit either because it was still out of square; it's too painful to rehash. What a pain in the glass! In Bubbie's view, these things happen way too often in life. The good old days of courtesy are gone like rotary telephones. He wasted 2 hours of his time in two trips. He didn't need an argument and to pay for someone else's mistakes, he just needed a simple piece of glass. My question is, what do we do when this happens to us?

Edit: The next day, Uncle Bubba decided to go to a local glass shop to get his piece of glass. He waited at the counter as the employee assisted a gentleman with his window order, then it was his turn. He ordered an 1/8 inch thick pane of glass, 17 3/4" X 9 3/4" and told the nice lady that he had already taken into account the adjustment by reducing the dimension by an 1/8 inch per side. While ordering he even showed the lady the dimensions he had written down to reinforce her writing down the correct measurements. To his astonished disappointment, she then informed him that they could not currently cut the piece because "the boys" were unloading a truck.
"It could take hours or even tomorrow but I'll call you when it's done."
Uncle Bubba turned from the counter, dazed, and walked out to his truck, and drove away with an irked laughter and shaking his head.

The day passed without a phone call but they did finally call the next afternoon so Uncle Bubba went to pick up his glass. He could not make up what happened next; the lady handed him a pane of glass. See for yourself:

Near tears, Uncle Bubba explained that the measurement was wrong, it was supposed to be 9 3/4", not 9 3/8". Then she told him that the feller that cuts the glass just left for the day so he couldn't recut the glass until tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Finally, though it took two trips back to pick up the last piece of glass, it wasn't cut yet when he stopped in the morning because "We are fixing our cutting table"; Uncle Bubba was able to install it and put the entire ordeal to rest. It was an expensive fix costing more time than money, and all because of ineptitude, to be polite. Still, what would you do if it were you?