No one said all jobs had to be fun. Most of us are in it to show up, get our money, and get out. But there’s a huge difference between your run-of-the-mill bad day at work and, well…these stories. Nightmare customers. Horrible bosses. Disgusting tasks. I wouldn’t put up with any of these jobs for any paycheck on earth.
1. Reasonable
I worked at Blockbuster in college for chump change. A bunch of dudes once shoplifted the heck out of us. My coworker and I noticed and confronted them about it, and they ran out the door. When the district manager asked why I didn't put myself between them and the door to protect the merchandise, I told him that for minimum wage, I'm not putting myself in danger to keep a giant corporation from losing some Twizzlers and copies of Friday and Armageddon.
2. Blood-Boiling
I used to run the financials and general management for an entire company at just $14 an hour. One day, I had a meeting with the owner, and I told him that I needed both a raise and to hire an assistant. His reply was nothing short of offensive. He told me I wasn’t “business-minded” and should be a stay at home mom. I quit the next day. Jerk.
3. It Was Wise Not To Engage
I worked at Circuit City when I was 17. While I was on shift, I heard the unmistakable noise of someone opening packaging in the movie section, so I went over to investigate. I then found a guy crouched down, cutting open the DVD boxes and stealing the discs. He looked at me, held his knife out, and said, “Got a problem?” Gulp.
I just replied, “I don’t get paid enough for this,” and backed off. I went to the warehouse area's backroom to call a manager to tell them what happened. I never got a hold of anyone, so I just chilled in the warehouse area for a half-hour to decompress.
4. When The CPU Room Became The ICUP Room
I’m a public librarian. I was helping a woman in the computer room, and I’d turned to tell someone watching an online video that he needed to keep his exclamations down. Just then, the woman I was helping leaped aside because the man I was shushing peed himself. It ran onto the jacket he had tied around his waist, down the chair, and onto the ground.
It turned out he’d snuck a bottle into the library and was now totally blackout. I told him he had to leave. He put the pee-covered jacket on and stumbled out. As I returned to the room with gloves and cleaning supplies, another patron decided that this would be a good time to complain to me about some kids who were making noise.
I took a deep breath and said to myself, “This is a good time for us all to appeal to our higher selves and do our best in the moment. Please just adapt for a minute.” Then I thought about the student loans I took out for my master’s degree as I scrubbed up the urine.
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5. HVAC Havoc
I worked at a heating and air conditioning company. The accountant was training me to do the bookkeeping. The job itself was fine, but the owner would literally scream at me if I made a mistake. One day, I overheard the owner talking to his brother, and his brother told him not to yell at me. The owner’s response was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He justified his ill-treatment of me by retorting, “You have to tear them down to build them up.” Um, what!? I decided I wasn’t going to take another day of his screaming after that.
6. Plummer Bummer
I work as a plumber. One day, the owners of a mobile home called and said they had a stinky yard. I came out to investigate, and sure enough, I could smell it as soon as I pulled up. The mobile home was newly constructed and built only eight months ago. But apparently, while setting it up, someone didn’t tighten the no-hub band for the toilet in the kids' bathroom.
As a result, there was eight months’ worth of flushed sewage all over the ground and under the home, and it had only just started getting noticed outside. I immediately told the homeowner to call the guys that worked on the bathroom to come to fix it. I’m not sure what they were expecting, but I wasn’t crawling under there.
7. Time To Leave, Dude
I realized my job didn’t pay me enough when I went to sleep under my desk at work at 5 AM because I needed to be back at my desk for an 8 AM call. I had promised myself a long time ago that I would never sleep under my desk; I would either go home or just work straight through, but I wouldn't do that. I only lived a 12-minute walk home, but that night I realized that getting those extra 24 minutes of sleep was worth not going home. I was so sad about it.
I am a corporate lawyer, and we had been working literally around the clock for days on a deal that was going sideways. This happened on a Wednesday night to a Thursday morning. Until that point, I had been there until 3 AM on Sunday night, 5 AM on Monday night, and 6 AM on Tuesday night. Despite this, I was still back in the office by 9 AM every day. That's when I knew I needed to quit, but I'm still here a year and change later. Oops.
8. What The Heck!?
On my first day working at the health department, I was left at the reception desk alone while literally everyone else in the office went out to a farewell lunch for the person I was replacing. As I was on a 90-day probation, I wasn’t yet licensed and badged, and my pay was $7.96 an hour. That’s when some redneck came in and dropped a leaking garbage bag on my desk. What I learned next was shocking.
The bag contained a newly severed javelina's head. The javelina had bitten his buddy, and it needed to be tested for rabies ASAP. I had no freaking clue what to do with it. He couldn’t wait for my coworkers to return, so he left a number and split. As it turned out, we don’t do that sort of thing at the health department. The guy refused to come back for the head.
9. Open For Business
I was a manager for a well-known lingerie store located in a failing suburban mall. The store was giant and shaped oddly. There were dressing rooms in hidden corners and a few blind spots. The store was located at the end of the mall next to other stores no one really went to, so there wasn’t much foot traffic. We were also always short-staffed because no one wanted to work over there. All of those factors made us a prime location for thieves and weirdos.
I would have to do laps around the store due to its layout, and I would regularly come across people doing some, shall we say, “raunchy” stuff in this one secluded little dressing room. The dressing room was in a sort of alcove and was the least visible spot in the store, so it was prime real estate for all kinds of shenanigans. The final straw was catching a man at closing time, pleasuring himself into a pile of cotton panties with the dressing room door wide open. I couldn’t take it anymore. I put in my notice the next day.
And what was crazy was that corporate always shrugged or laughed it off when I would call and complain that we needed a security guard. I was 21 at the time, and every woman who worked there was between 19 and 30 years old. It was a safety issue. They’d also blame us for all the merchandise theft, which we could not prevent because there weren’t enough bodies in that gigantic store to stop it.
I was also dating a guy who worked in the same mall, and he told me that they finally closed up that one dressing room not long after I left. He said many folks were angry because apparently, that particular dressing room was a well-known open secret spot for hooking up.
10. Disappear This Miss, Please
I may or may not have carried a heavily intoxicated girlfriend and a large amount of substances out of my boss's house (CEO of a very large company) while she was covered in her own filth so his wife wouldn't catch him as she arrived home from her sister's house a day early. How did this happen, you ask?
My old boss regularly cheated on his wife with any number of women. Well, he calls me one day, because we are friends away from work, and asks me to come to his apartment ASAP. I drive over there, and he's blitzed, and this chick is laying naked in her own filth mumbling about something. He says he has to shower and clean up because his wife is ten minutes away so please "Get that out of here."
I grab the girl and help her to her feet and cover her up with a t-shirt. As I'm walking her out, he yells for me to grab the party bag. The only bag is a Dopp kit. I grab it, jump in my car and drive off. This girl is blasted! She doesn't know where she lives and is sure she's having a heart attack. So, I calm her down somewhat and reach in her purse and find her ID.
Luckily, she has her current address on it, and I take her home. I drive back to my house and pull into the driveway and remember the Dopp kit. I open it up and there's a LOT of illegal substances in there. I got a steak dinner and a few beers later that week from the boss. Needless to say, I no longer work there.
11. Dance Monkey Dance
I've been a pizza delivery driver for several years, and today is the first day I legitimately feel ashamed of doing what I do. This story may not seem to be a huge deal to some people, since it's probably more of me being socially inept when it comes to a big audience and being recorded and not being comfortable with my singing voice. So I may be overreacting, but I can't shake this feeling of humiliation.
Since I was a kid, I've always been pretty shy. Even among close friends I'm somewhat quiet, and I am absolutely terrible at speaking in front of large crowds. I remember in high school having nightmares for weeks about having to do an upcoming presentation, and I would be dreading doing it every day until the day of. Not only that, but I'm a terrible singer, and I know it.
I don't even feel comfortable singing in front of friends and family. Which brings me to the actual story. I had a delivery today with a note written in the “special instructions” section that said, "Sing a Christmas carol for a tip." I didn't really take it all that seriously, and figured they were just joking. And if they weren't, I thought of a corny line to say while driving there to hopefully satisfy them if they were serious.
So I show up and it's some kind of small party going on. There's probably roughly 10-15 teenagers gathered around in the living room and the mom comes to the door and takes the pizzas (there were six larges) as I give her the receipt to sign. She then looks at me with a smile and goes, "So did they tell you?!? Me: "Haha, oh the note? Yeah I saw that, but trust me, you don't want to hear me sing."
Her: "Oh come on, you have to!" She then ushers me inside and closes the door behind me. All of the people there are watching me and already have their phones out recording me. I instantly get uncomfortable and want to leave as quickly as possible. An audience is one thing, but being recorded by multiple people will instantly make me feel anxious. It all went downhill from here.
Her: "Well go on, sing!" Me: "No really, I'm a terrible singer. I'm sure I will ruin your Christmas!" By the way, Christmas is still several weeks away, I have no idea why they wanted a Christmas carol so badly. Her: "OH COME ON. I'll make it worth your while." She said this as she waved a 20 and a 5 in front of me. I continued to insist on being a terrible singer and not being comfortable with it, but she kept pushing.
Eventually I decided to try my corny line and hoped it would satisfy them. So I just said, "Okay, how about, rub-a-dub-dub I brought you some grub!" Which was corny as heck and SO cringey to say and made me feel infinitely more uncomfortable. Obviously, no one laughed, and she went, "No, it has to be a Christmas carol!" I insisted more about not wanting to sing and was starting to get seriously annoyed and uncomfortable that she wasn't taking no for an answer.
She kept waving the money in front of my face to “encourage” me, so finally I just said, "Look, I'm sorry but I'm not going to sing for money." She looked at me incredulously for a second and went "Woooooooooowwwww. It was only for fun you know. Well, you're definitely not getting this then," she said as she pulled the 20 away and only gave me the 5 and the receipt she had signed.
I said thank you and quickly left, while I heard several comments behind me from everyone else like: "Wow, is he serious? What a jerk," "Ugh, gross," "Wow, did he really have to make us feel so bad?" So yeah. It's just being pressured to sing which I guess should just be fun, but I've never felt so used and humiliated while working here.
I legitimately feel ashamed to be working a minimum wage job now, and truly feel like I'm on the lowest rung of the ladder in society. I was just a tool for their entertainment that they thought would jump at the chance to make a fool of myself for an extra 20 bucks. I'm a pizza delivery driver, not a freaking performer or a circus monkey.
12. Power Couple
Bartender here. This girl walks into my bar and I walk over as usual place a napkin in front of her. Then I ask her, “Hey! How are you? What can I get you today?” “Cosmo,” she says. “Alright coming right up—that’s a really cool dress, by the way,” I say. It was like one of those expensive skin-tight Kim Kardashian dresses.
It also had these metal panels going through it that lit up when she moved—I don’t know, it was cool so I just mentioned it. It was a very quick off-the-cuff comment. Not hitting on her or anything. Her response chilled me to the bone. She then gives me this “ew” look and goes, “One. I have a boyfriend. Two. I don’t date gay men. Three, hurry up with my drink before I decide you don’t get to work here.”
I suddenly stop, slightly shocked. A flood of thoughts quickly go through my head. Like was she joking…? Would someone think that was humorous? Nope. Witch was SO serious. My Turn: “In what universe do you think you can walk into a bar—insult the bartender—and actually expect him to make you drinks???? Silence. “Nah witch, you’re dismissed.” But it wasn’t over.
This girl comes back the next day with her boyfriend and she points at me as if saying “that’s him.” He goes, “Yo, I heard you insulted my girl. Do you know what happens when guys talk like that to my girl?” Ugh, here we go with one of those jerk guys who wants to put on a macho performance for his girl. These specimens are the dumbest of the dumb.
I go, “Do you know what actually happened?” He goes, “I don’t care what happened! You disrespected my girl.” At this point, he actually jumped over the bar and I jumped over the bar as well to HIS side. Then this guy jumped BACK over the bar to the guests’ side, at which point one of the bouncers tackled his dumb butt to the ground.
If my girlfriend acted like that to a bartender and they got mad, I’d be like “Yeah—that was a rude thing to say.” God, I hope those two don’t procreate.
13. Fast And Fresh
So, where I work we have the option for people to pre-order food from their phone because I guess that’s the way it is nowadays; everybody wants everything fast. The system is kind of messed up, though, because sometimes they call in for the food and pop in five seconds after as if they ordered from the parking lot. So it obviously won’t be ready yet.
Anyways, this lady did exactly that, but thankfully it was a really small order so I started preparing it immediately. She walked up and I'm guessing it took me about 30 seconds too long, so she starts going "HELLLLLLOOOO!?" like three or four times. I walk over, smile at her, and give her the stuff. She then starts yelling at me as if I'm her child.
She’s yelling something like "THIS ORDER WAS ON-THE-GO WHICH MEANS IT SHOULD BE READY THE MOMENT I GET HERE SO NEXT TIME DO YOUR JOB AND HAVE IT READY." This was out of character for me because I'm the nicest guy if you're nice to me, but I kind of just looked in her direction and tiredly murmured, “Screw off.” She started flipping out and yelling more.
"EXCUSE ME!? EXCUSE ME!? WHAT’S YOUR NAME?" I lied and gave her a fake one. She told me to get a manager. I went and got the manager, and at this point I was enraged. I briefly explained what happened, and when my manager got over there the lady started being rude to her, saying things like, "Oh, he WILL be fired. I can guarantee that."
She called corporate and all the managers and owners got involved. I talked with the owner on the phone, and the owner was only upset that I lied about my name. The owner was saying things like, "In the future, this is how you handle it," so I assume I still have the job. She did mention that she HAS to call the lady back and apologize.
Anyway, if I get fired...my God, was it worth it. Telling this lady to screw off was the most satisfying thing I got to do all year.
14. For Better Or Worse
I am the office manager for a photographer during weddings. I go along with her on wedding days to be an extra set of hands and to help gather everyone for the portraits. The bride and groom were doing a “first look” before the ceremony, which is when the bride comes up behind the groom, taps him on the shoulder, and he turns around to see her in all bridal, smiles and all.
We also get photos of other couples, the wedding party, and families out of the way before the ceremony, so the guests are free to spend the rest of their time enjoying the reception instead of ducking out to take pictures. It's great because they get an up-close picture of the groom’s reaction to seeing his bride, which is harder to get in a church or ceremony. Everyone stands up when they see the bride at that point, and if you miss the shot, there's no recreating that look on his face.
So this couple was doing their first look, and it soon became clear that something was terribly wrong. The groom had been on a party bus with the groomsmen for a few hours while the bride was getting ready in the hotel, so they were all HAMMERED...like they couldn't focus their eyes when I went to grab the groom. I asked him to set down his drink for the pictures and he just rolled his eyes.
She came up behind him, already trying not to cry, then tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around....and instead of looking at her, his eyes immediately looked around for the drink, which he had set on a window sill. I kid you not, he reached around her, grabbed the drink, and took a long gulp while looking at her.
He put the glass down, then burped...in her face. He said, "You look nice" before spinning around and heading back to the bus. I followed after him as the photographer stood there, absolutely stunned. I told him, "Hey Mike, you still have a bunch of portraits to take before we get the guys off the bus..." Just as he turned around to answer me, the bride threw her bouquet and hit him in the chest.
He grabbed it and whipped it into the middle of a very busy street. The bride followed him into the bus screaming, and I followed behind her, but I couldn't get around her without stepping on the dress. At the same time, another sloshed groomsman was coming back on the bus, trying to get around both of us. He bumped me aside and stepped on her dress, ripping part of the train and sending both of us stumbling backward.
He dodged the falling bride, and I kind of caught her butt to keep her mostly upright. I could feel her dress ripping more in my hand as she was trying to right herself. Somehow, it took a worse turn. At that point, all the guys on the bus were completely laughing their butts off. I mean, including the groom.
I had tears in my eyes because I just landed on my tailbone and my palm was scraped from breaking my fall. All I was thinking was, “Don’t touch the dress, don't get blood on her dress, just get her standing up.” The groom told the bus driver through his laughter, "Just go. Just go man, she can meet us at the church." I met eyes with the bus driver and I just kind of shook my head no.
The groom saw me. “Screw her, she's not paying you, I am. Do you want a $100 tip? Drive." The bus driver left. The bride was beside herself at this point. I drove her to the church, and they still got married an hour later, to my surprise. I drank myself silly when I got home that night. I just checked Facebook—they are still married three years later.
15. Waste Woes
I am a plumber. My coworkers and I had to do a tie for a six-inch main waste stack to offset it for a soon-to-be-installed boiler at a hospital. I informed all the hospital staff and then had maintenance shut down the bathrooms from 6 AM to 8 AM for us to do the offsets. Everything was measured, cut, and ready to move into place. Regardless, things went very wrong.
The hospital staff on every floor ignored the signs that the bathrooms were closed, and we got constant flushes of fresh poop and shredded toilet paper. At one point, I was holding the outlet side of a horizontal piece with my hardhat and trying to install the no-hub coupling while poop literally rolled down my back and into my shirt and down my pants. The waste completely soaked my socks.
It only took us a total time of 45 minutes to get it done, but we’d scheduled a two-hour window just in case. The worst part? The staff had another bathroom option down the hall—they just chose not to use it. It was all so inconsiderate. This trade sucks sometimes.
16. Ridiculously Inappropriate
I worked three different jobs when I was 20. I worked as a bank teller from 8 AM to 4 PM, I worked as a closing shift manager at a coffee shop from 5 PM to 10 PM, then as an overnight janitor from 11 PM to 2 AM. This wasn’t my schedule every day, but it was enough that it equated to about 80 hours a week between the three jobs, and yes, as you can imagine, this quickly led to burnout.
So, at my overnight janitor gig, my “boss” walks over and asks me to come to the office for a review. This was weird; all I did was mop floors on a production line that made train air brakes. But whatever. I go into his office, and he closes the door behind me and pulls out a very graphic magazine. He then starts asking me about what he’s looking at, and he put his hand on my shoulder.
Given the situation, I was surprisingly calm; I just said I didn’t like that stuff and went back to work. Then it hit me what happened. I called in sick for the rest of the week and picked up my final paycheck while he wasn’t there. It was a hard enough job without being harassed for $8.50 an hour.
17. Tick Tock
After my boss told me to follow my subordinates—including a pregnant woman—to the bathroom to time their breaks in there, I left my job. Honestly, I made up the numbers 99% of the time because they worked their full hours and could prove it, and their performances were the best in the office because an overbearing dictator wasn't crushing them.
When I objected, the highest manager responded—and what they said was bone-chilling. I was told that I was immature and not a team player and that I had to do exactly everything they told me to do, no questions asked. No exaggeration, those are direct quotes. I made sure my folks were covered, and I handed in my resignation.
After I left, my friends there told me that a bunch of other people walked out too. It was a great place to work for my first two years, but the manager had never held that position before; she was stubborn and hated millennials. So, she went out of her way to be horrible to her own staff. No regrets, yo.
18. An Inconvenient Store
I worked at a convenience store. My coworker and I were classmates, and we were 16 or 17 years old at the time. The place got broken into, food and drinks were stolen, and when I came to work, the owner and his daughter were yelling at my coworker. He was angry and wanted us two to be liable for the damages. So he threatened to fire me and my coworker—but when my coworker told him that he'll have to clean up the mess with only his daughter, the owner suddenly mellowed out.
We quit a week later anyway, when we found out that it was the daughter who had let her friends in to steal stuff, and then roughed the place up to make it look like a break in. The place shut down a few years later because of violations.
19. Your Safety Is Our Number Two Priority
I told my supervisors, manager, and safety department about severe issues at work, including broken equipment and more. They didn't do anything. I told the union and they didn't do anything either. I reported the issues for SEVERAL months—nothing. So, I finally said forget it, and reported them to the government. Suddenly, I had my supervisor freak out and ask if I called them.
I told him straight up, "Yes, you're darn right I did." He threatened to fire me. I told him about the whistleblower laws and how that would be the stupidest decision he could ever make. I told him to please do it, as I would love the easy $200k I would easily win from the lawsuit. I haven’t had any issues at work since.
20. Big Pharma
I was promoted to VP of my company. The company was in trouble, and the CEO had asked me to figure out why and fix it. I arranged for a random drug test. All employees, the CEO, me, everyone. All on the same day and everyone went down at the same time. Even said I would ignore weed but anyone with anything stronger would be gone.
We get the results back and I fired everyone who had tested positive for any drug other than weed. The CEO and myself were the only two people left working for the company.
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21. Lady, Get Over Him Already
I used to manage a group home for developmentally disabled adults. I was in charge of hiring the staff that we needed to make the house run properly. I saw a name come across my desk that I had to interview and I instantly looked them up. Turns out, this was a girl that had an obsessive crush on me from years ago and, based on her social media, she still did.
I was in a panic, because she was basically stalking everything I did, and I really couldn't back out because it was five minutes before the interview. She came in, and it was so weird... she acted normal. We interviewed in a professional manner for about 15 minutes, I showed her around, and I thought, "Wow, maybe she has done some maturing and just let it go."
Then we got back to my office. I started a sentence like, "Well, (name), it's been a pleasure having you here and I-......" "Oh, no no no, we aren't done yet. You think you can ignore everything like you don't know what's going on?! I know where you work, now. I know where you live, and I'm going to keep calling." There was more she was saying along the lines of me telling her to kindly leave, but a phone call 9-1-1, as well as a restraining order, kept her away from work and my life.
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22. Bad Vibes
I work at an upscale restaurant. We have two floors, and last night I was serving upstairs. We only have hosts downstairs. When we are on a wait, the hosts will see when there are open tables upstairs, page the guests and send them up. A server then greets them, sees where the host had pre-planned for them in our system, and we seat them.
Now that you know how that works, I’ll also just add in here that I am one of the top servers in my restaurant, consistently selling the most every week, and I’m a trainer. So my managers all love and appreciate me and mostly have my back. Okay, so the Karen family, is paged that their table is ready. They walk upstairs and stand by the host stand while I finish at my table and make my way over to them.
I said, “Hey guys, how’s it going” They just stared at me. Finally, the wife goes, “Do we just seat ourselves?” I, holding a paper cocktail menu and silverware, after walking over to them and feeling like I had made it clear I was about to seat them, said, “Nope that’s my job! You guys can follow me this way.” They follow to the table for six and they all take their seats.
I slide the silverware I was holding down to everyone individually instead of just setting six silverware on the end of the table for them to hand out. I said, “Our menu is all virtual, and there is a link on your table. I’ll be right back!” I come back and ask if they have any questions or if they’d like to get some drinks started. Again, silence.
I just pick someone and say, “Okay, can I grab you something to drink sir?” We don’t have what he asks for, but I suggest something similar and he says okay. The wife asks what we have on tap. I said, “We have a lot, what do you like to drink?” She said “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking YOU.” I say, “Alright, we have 27 kinds on draft plus 19 that are bottles, so if you tell me what you’re usually into, I can guide you through what will work for you.”
She goes “Jesus Christ, I’ll just have a Bud Light since you can’t sell a drink.” I, looking stunned, laugh and say okay. Her husband then turns his attention to me and says, “Are you having a bad night?” To which I say, “No sir, are you?” and he said, “No, we are just trying to have a nice family night and you’re rude. You’ve been rude the whole time and you threw our silverware at us.”
I’m stunned so I just say, “I definitely did not throw it at you guys I was trying to slide it down the table for all of you, sorry if it came off that way. I’m not having a bad night and I haven’t had an attitude.” The wife jumps in and says, “It all started up front when you said, ‘THAT’S MY JOB’ (she changes the entire tone I said this in, of course) and now you’ve just been rude to all of us this whole experience.”
For what it’s worth, we’re like five minutes in from them walking up the stairs at this point. Then she yells, so loudly that all my other co-workers hear, “YOUR AURA IS UGLY AND WE DONT APPRECIATE THAT, JUST SEND US A NEW SERVER.” It took everything I had, like I mean, everything, not to say anything rude back to her.
I just said, “I’m happy to grab you a new server, and I’ll just grab my manager for you too while I’m at it.” My manager goes over, knowing everything from my side already, and they tell him I was rude by seating them and making that comment about how they could not seat themselves, when “there was no host at the stand so we just assumed it was pick your own table.”
They also mention throwing their silverware, and “my attitude and aura are just plain ugly.” My manager stuck up for me and said I’m actually one of their best, but they still insisted on another server. Imagine being one of the three other servers having already heard and seen this go down, and now it’s your table. That server made $3 on $80, by the way.
Screw you guys, my aura is shiny.
23. Beware The Hangry Karen
I worked at a fast food place about 13 years ago. This lady in the drive-thru claimed she was missing a sandwich. Our policy was to ask for the bags back to verify. She had made a decent-sized order of three or four bags worth of food, and I asked for them back to check for the missing item. But instead of handing them over like a civilized human being, she instantly started raging and throwing the food into the window while cussing me out!
Guess what one of the items she threw at me was? Yep, said missing sandwich.
24. Save the Drama for After Hours, Ma’am
I was working late, like 2 AM in the office. My manager said let's go to the convenience store to buy some snacks and smokes. She sits in the back and we drive there. After we get our stuff, she says can we swing by (this street intersection) real quick. When we get to that intersection, I guess she sees a car that belongs to someone she knows, parked in front of her boyfriend’s house.
She starts to wail, cry, and kick around in the backseat. While my bewildered self just holds the steering wheel, with a stupid look on my face. After 20 minutes of that drama, we drive back to the office, I drop her off and I go home.
25. Wax On, Wax Right On Off
When I was 16, I worked as a car detailer, which involved cleaning and waxing cars. My dad owned the business for years, so I grew up doing it and was pretty skilled for my age. My dad eventually sold the company to a family friend, and one of the sale conditions was that I’d keep working there and show the new owner what to do. But the guy was an idiot.
He put me on the hand car wash instead because I was “too young to be waxing expensive cars; customers don't like it.” The actual reason was the hand car wash was the worst part of the job, and he wanted to do the fun part. He then messed up a Jaguar’s paintwork by buffing it WITHOUT A PAD on the buffer, and he just scraped the heck out of it.
I let him blame me because I felt bad that he was the owner, and he made himself look like an idiot. Then I realized the reason for his poor judgment was that he was coming to work high out of his mind every day. I mean, look, I smoke too, no judgment, but I don't do it at work. He started leaving me alone for hours on end while he went to smoke; I would earn all his money and wasn't even getting minimum wage.
Then come one day in the winter, he turned up and opened the garage with a smoke in his mouth. He then immediately left with the garage still open, and he didn’t come back for about six hours. It was freezing; there was ice everywhere, and I was alone, shaking, and trying to wash the cars with water that kept freezing over on the cars’ surface. I was running around like a madman because we were busy, and I was trying to stay warm. Then, somehow, it got worse.
I ended up slipping on some black ice, flipped upside down, and landed hard on my head. I completely blacked out for a minute or so. I woke up to a few customers around me going, “WTF, where’s your boss?” I looked about 12 years old as well, so they were genuinely concerned. At that point, I just got up and left. I left the garage open, leaving everything out there for people to take if they were so inclined.
The owner rang me an hour later, going mental, and I was just like, “Screw you, you left me for seven hours to get high, you can shove the job where the sun don’t shine, you jerk.” It was the first of three times I’ve up and left a job without warning because of bad owners. Remember: if you aren’t making money for yourself, you’re making it for someone else. You should be more important to the employer than they are to you, and that’s how it should feel when you’re working for someone.
26. For Love Nor Money
Greg. Freaking Greg. So I work at Pizza Hut as a delivery driver, and we have this one customer who everyone hates to go to because he always pays in exact change. No tip. Ever. If the driver doesn’t have the change he wants, he will call the store and demand the driver brings him back his 50¢. He has done this multiple times. Let me also mention that Greg is very well off.
He lives in a half-million-dollar house and drives a $50,000 truck. This happened during a blizzard. Of course. And Greg orders a pizza. Nothing special, but his total was $15.11 and I draw the short straw and have to take it to him. There is about three inches or so of snow and it’s still snowing. I get to his house and ring the bell. At this point, I take his pizza out of the insulated bag.
I wanted it to get cold, but everything turned out so much better than I had anticipated. He takes forever to get to the door. When he finally gets there, he hands me $13 in cash and a handful of change. In the process, he drops a dime. I count everything up and I have $15.01. 10¢ short. At first, he asks if I can just cover it for him. I say "No, I am not going to pay 10¢ out of my pocket for your pizza."
If it were any other customer, I probably would have. It's only 10¢. But not for Greg. He starts blaming me for dropping the dime. (He dropped it). Again, I say no and that he will have to find the dime or get another. At this point, the pizza is already getting cold. It was well below freezing out there. He starts kicking around the snow on his porch looking for the dime.
I spotted the dime right away but kept quiet. All the while, he is muttering about how I dropped it and I should pay for it. I'm trying my best to hide my grin. About 3-5 minutes later, I'm starting to get cold and the pizza might as well have just came out of the fridge. I tell him I am timed on these orders (I am) and that he should go inside and get money.
He, of course, claims he has no more money and starts his sob story about him not having money. So I give him back his money and leave. I told him that if he finds his dime to just call the store and we will bring him his pizza. I know he has money, so I just pull around the corner and call the store to tell my manager what happened.
During the call, Greg calls the store saying he has his money. I get back to the house, pull the pizza out again, and go back to his door. He hands me all the money and I make sure to count it, slowly. It's all there. I ask him if he found it in the snow and he said, "No, I just got it from the house." He got cold pizza and I got paid. He hasn't ordered since. Freaking Greg.
27. Mistaken Identity
On my day off, I scheduled a lunch date with a guy from school, but traffic was brutal so he was running late. I was sitting at my table, looking at the menu. Note: It wasn’t the restaurant I work at, it wasn’t the same kind of food as the restaurant I work at, and it is geographically nowhere near the restaurant I work at. A woman came up and took my menu out of my hands.
“Why are you just sitting here? We’ve been waiting for service for 45 minutes.” No, they hadn’t. They came in the same time I did, 10 minutes ago, and they had already gotten drinks. “Ma’am, I don’t work here.” I didn’t recognize her at this point. “Don’t lie to me, you’re a waitress, you served me just last week, don’t you remember?”
I vaguely remember her coming into my restaurant now because she complained her meal wasn’t served with hot sauce then sent it back because it was too spicy. I tell her, “I am a waitress at local Mexican restaurant but I am not a waitress at ‘local burger bar.’” She says, “Same difference. You’re a waitress. Get a pen and paper and take down our orders.”
“I am a waitress, but not here. I’m just trying to enjoy my lunch like you are. I am not employed here in any capacity.” To which she replies, “But you’re a trained waitress and this place is clearly running behind. Don’t you people take an oath or something?” Well, this lady asked for it. I rarely get to stand up to this kind of stupidity in my role as a server, because 99.9% of the time it happens while I’m actually at work.
So I went over to their table with a pen and paper from my backpack. I wrote down all their orders. I said it would be 45 minutes and to just sit tight. I even brought over ketchup they asked for (just grabbed off another table) then.......I left. I texted my date to meet me at a place a few blocks over. The next day, the lady had called my boss at my actual restaurant, as well as totally unleashed on the manager at the restaurant I was dining at.
I felt bad when I realized the tough spot I’d left the people who actually work there in, so I went back the next day to apologize and follow up on the aftermath. Thankfully, they were chill and we had a great laugh over it. They were like, “We were so confused because she described the server with explicit details but no one remotely like that works here so we thought she’d lost her mind.”
My boss knew who I was from her description and told them he takes this very seriously and asked what day this occurred. Then when they told him he said, “You must be mistaken, because that’s that server’s day off, and she wasn’t here.” After some irate yelling and screaming at my very friendly manager about how I still need to “represent the restaurant wherever I go,” she gave up.
Now to just cross my fingers she doesn’t come by my actual restaurant!
28. You Can Eat My Hat
I was working the drive-thru at a kick during the lunch rush. A woman came through with all of her coworker’s orders. She wanted me to take them one at a time. So. Ring up nine separate orders for one car while my line backs up out of the lot. I explained to her numerous times she'd have to come inside or place it as one order and do the math herself when she got back to her work.
She spent five minutes straight calling me things that would make Tarantino blush, then pulled around to the window, and threw trash from her car at me as she left. This wasn't my moment though. The next day I get to work, and the general manager is there. He gives me two options. I ride with him to her work and apologize to her in front of her co-workers, or I am fired.
He didn't ask for my side of the story. It didn't matter my manager told me to not take her order. It didn't matter how abusive she was. She called and I was going to apologize. We get there and the smug look on her face broke something inside me. I flipped her off, tossed my hat at him, told them to kiss my butt, and went home.
Not even two weeks later, the location went franchise and the manager they kept, (the one who told me to refuse the woman), hired me back. Within a few months, I was promoted to a shift supervisor and I was able to send the woman who got me fired a letter of disinvite. To clarify something, I'm getting asked a lot, a letter of disinvite is just a letter explaining to the recipient that they aren't welcome back on the property and if they come back it will be considered trespassing. You're basically exercising your right to refuse service before service is requested.
29. You Don’t Like My Parting Gifts?
I had to tell a customer over the phone that the dry cleaners had to throw out her bed sheets because they were covered in human poop. Not just a little bit of poop, but enough that they had to spend the whole day cleaning and sanitizing everything the sheet had touched, including the machines. I was dreading it and thinking how best to handle it sensitively because she must have been ill and embarrassed.
Wrong. She. Was. Furious! and demanded compensation arguing that they were the expensive, high thread count cotton linen. Do you know what I don’t do on expensive bed sheets lady? Poop on them and then make someone else clean it.
30. Baby On Board
This story sounds like it came out of a movie, but I promise it's 100% true. I'm a delivery driver for a small carryout/delivery place in a suburb of Seattle. Our area is really weird, because although our radius is 5 miles, we have all types of neighborhoods: section 8 housing to multi-million dollar homes, urban to rural, etc. It's a fast-growing area so it's a total mixed bag.
Last summer, I had a delivery to an upper-middle-class area of my town. It was a regular customer, a guy who ordered from us every week while his wife was pregnant with their first kid. Same order every time, two large pizzas. Their house is new and pretty nice, but they live on a hill so the platform outside their front door is a 5-foot drop down onto their front yard, which is also concrete.
I go to deliver their pizza and the wife opens the door with a newborn no older than a week or two sitting on her arm resting against her chest. She's clearly exhausted, and her husband is coming home from work, so he isn't home to help her out. Her hands are full so I offer to set her pizzas down somewhere for her, but she insists that she can take them.
I hand her the food and while she's focused on balancing the boxes on her hand, I witness a horrific sight. I see her baby lean backward and start to fall out of her arm. I reach to catch him and he slips into my breaking pizza bag feet first and lands perfectly inside of it, completely unhurt but crying. She drops the pizza and grabs him out of the bag and we just silently stare at each other for a few moments in shock.
She hands me the money she owes me and says, "Thank you" in a shaky voice and closes the door. I'm not sure if we have delivered there again since that incident, but it shook me pretty bad, to the point where I sat in my car and cried for a minute or two just out of sheer shock and speculation out of what would've happened if I wasn't able to catch him.
Shutterstock
31. A Card-Carrying Fool
I was serving a family. The parents were clearly in their 50s/60s, while their kids were in their mid-20s. When ordering drinks, I carded the kids but not the parents. The mom pipes up with the whole, "Heyyy I don't look that old, why didn't you card meeeeeeeee?????????" I respond with, "Okay, let me see your ID, then." It all went so wrong.
As it turns out, mommy dearest left her wallet at home. I inform her that, unfortunately, once requested, I am legally not allowed to serve her drinks unless she produces a valid ID. Obviously, she’s FURIOUS about this, so I send the manager over to confirm with her that I am not allowed to serve her. It almost goes without saying that I didn't receive a tip, but hopefully, this idiot learned something today.
32. Lunch Bag Lady
My last job was as a school cafeteria lunch lady. The garbagemen only came once a week on Wednesdays to pick up the dumpsters, which held all of the school's trash. The problem was, there were only two dumpsters for the entire school, and the kitchen could fill at least one of them all by itself within a day or two. With the teachers also dumping random stuff in them, plus all of the custodial team’s trash, the dumpsters would be almost overflowing by the third day.
By Monday of the following week—two days before they picked up the dumpsters—we would have to grab the bags where they were tied off at the top and find a way to fling those suckers (which were sometimes very heavy) on top of the overloaded dumpsters. We weren't allowed to leave bags on the ground around the bottom of the dumpsters because the trash guys would just run them over and get garbage everywhere, and then we'd get in trouble.
The bags were also quite possibly the thinnest garbage bags ever made. Half the time, you'd try to hurl a giant garbage bag full of spaghetti and alfredo sauce and god-knows-what up to the top of the dumpster, only for it to break open and shower sauce and old food all over you. I did NOT get paid enough to deal with that.
33. When Summer Camp Got Too In-Tents
I worked for a summer camp one year that was run by a stereotypically hippie-dippie organization. Now, I personally support this organization, but they had some ridiculous ideas about how to discipline children, in that they didn't believe in disciplining them at all. No time outs. No raising your voice. No rewards to be earned or positive reinforcement. No loss of privileges. No warnings. No speaking to the parents about behavioral issues. Nothing.
Now, most of the kids were coming to this camp because their parents didn't have the means to send them to more expensive camps, and quite a lot of them had behavioral issues to begin with, but none of the kids were monsters. In fact, they were all pretty great; they mostly just needed some understanding and some solid boundaries.
Unfortunately, without discipline, there were no boundaries. The kids tended to run amok, and there wasn't a whole lot that we as counselors could do. So, I came up with an idea. I surreptitiously gave some of the more wild kids a few time-outs, and guess what? Their behavior immediately improved, and I never had trouble with them again. In fact, they had a better time at camp because they weren't constantly getting into fights with their friends.
But, I guess the higher-ups found out about it somehow and sat me down to talk about how “You just need to talk to them and find out why they are behaving badly and make them understand the correct way to behave.” I already knew why they were misbehaving; they were kids away from their parents in a place with no rules and no discipline, and they were testing us to see what they could get away with here.
In the end, I basically ignored the higher-ups. I wasn't getting paid enough to deal with kids all day without having any way of keeping a bit of control. Regardless, the few problem-kids had already had their time outs and, as I said, they were fine once they knew where the line was. Besides, I wasn't at all worried about my job; my bosses didn't believe in disciplinary action.
34. It’s The Most Magical Place On Earth…Most Of The Time
I was working for $10 an hour at an attraction at Disney World. There’s one position called “Merge,” where your job is to stop the standby line and send through the FastPass line. FastPass is normally based on reservation, but if another ride breaks down in the park, they’ll give out FastPasses that can be used pretty much anywhere.
One day almost every ride in the park broke except for ours, which meant EVERYONE was suddenly entering our FastPass line. For roughly an hour, I sent 150–200 people through FastPass for every 10 I sent through standby, and I didn’t even come close to clearing the line. As a result, the standby line people screamed at me, started chants, took pictures of me and my nametag, and were generally awful.
My favorite protester was this one guy who repeatedly screamed, “I KNOW THIS ISN’T YOUR FAULT MAN, BUT THIS IS BS,” in front of his six kids. I just calmly stood there and kept saying to everyone, “Sorry folks, but I really don’t have any control over this.” I got off easy, though. I know people that have been pushed, punched, and spit on, amongst other things.
A bunch of my friends ended up breaking down crying while they were working Merge. If you go to Disney, do your research on how to avoid lines, and remember that the cast members are people too.
35. The Tale Of The Retail Fecal Trail
While working at a large chain store in retail, I came across a spot of poop in the toy aisle. “Oh, look!” I say. “A mess for me to clean!” “And what’s that over yonder?” I wondered. “Another one not far away!” I discovered. It was a nice little trail of brown nuggets, too, leading me on the worst scavenger hunt ever, all the way across the store to the bathrooms. So, what do I find waiting for me inside? The mothership ordure, sitting proudly in a small heap on the floor in the corner—and it was merely a few feet away from an actual, factual, functioning toilet.
It turned out that a kid was in the toy aisle with their parent and couldn’t hold it in any longer, so they made a mad dash to the bathroom. But the kid didn’t quite make it. My supervisor literally said they felt bad for me, and I didn’t get paid enough by corporate. Raise? No. $5 gift card? Yeah.
36. Service With A Sob
I was working in a call center for an ISP when an irate customer called. This guy tore a poor young girl to shreds on her second day of work, and she wound up escalating the call to me before running off to the bathroom to cry. So, I started working through the caller's problem when he incidentally asked, “So did that girl jump out the window? Haha.” I replied, “No, she actually ran into the bathroom to cry.” Silence. “Oh...oh. I feel terrible.” The rest of the call was very awkward.
Pexels
37. Big Babies
I worked at a large hotel chain as a setup person. Once, we had a group of people book the entire seventh floor for their weekend-long event. Eventually, we came to find out that these guests had a penchant for dressing up as “babies” and roleplaying as kids. As if that wasn’t weird enough, this little fixation apparently also included peeing and defecating on themselves.
We were not allowed to clean the rooms while the guests were still occupying them, but you can imagine the stains and the odor that was left on the carpet once they’d all checked out. It was so bad that a professional cleaning company had to come in to decontaminate and clean all of the rooms on that floor.
I couldn’t believe a group of adults did this; it was disgusting, and the fact that there were so many of them surprised me. I definitely thought getting paid minimum wage wasn’t enough to deal with that mess in any way. Now, those guys are forever known as “the diaper people” to me.
38. Nightmare Fuel
I have a mildly irrational fear of spiders. I was asked to help clean out an old storage building. It was covered in dust and had a ton of these giant, black spiders. It was a big enough space that I felt fine…that is, I felt fine until my supervisor handed me a leaf blower and asked me to go through a back hallway with it.
I opened the door to the hallway, and it was cramped—just tall enough to be a little over my height and just wide enough for me to walk through it. It was also pitch black until I held up my phone flashlight. What I saw next was horrifying. The hallway was a large mess of tangled webs filled to the absolute brim with thousands of giant black spiders.
I straight up refused to walk down that thing, especially with a leaf blower. Like, no thanks, I don’t want to create a spider tornado. My supervisor was irritated that I refused to do this, but I would rather be fired than walk through the arachnid nightmare-hallway for 10 dollars an hour.
Unsplash
39. Course Correction
I've been in the industry pretty close to 10 years between restaurants, bars, coffee shops and back again. I've worked front and back of the house and felt pretty confident that I had seen it all and that nothing would truly shock me. That was until tonight. I work as a server in a local family restaurant. It's a chain that is well known and we are in the parking lot of the largest shopping center for a two-hour drive in any direction.
So as you can imagine, our business can be heavily affected by the mall sales, etc. Tonight is a Tuesday evening. No weekly food specials so usually Monday-Wednesday are pretty slow compared to the rest of the week. Tonight was not. We got slammed. All the servers had their own section plus were rotating a closed section that became overflow.
They sat a table for me in the overflow section. I already had six other tables and got a solid triple seat to go with it. In other words, it took some time to get to the overflow table. I went over after probably close to 10 minutes later. At this point, I'll note that anyone who has chosen to sit in the overflow section knows that the service in that area will be slower and they've chosen to sit there instead of waiting for a table in general dining.
So I go over with my best “I’m sorry” face and genuinely apologize to this table for keeping them waiting. I gestured to the restaurant and let them know it wasn't a typical Tuesday night. This lady, with her two just shy of teenage boys beside her, laid into me. She yelled about how bad the service was and how it was unacceptable and that I should be fired.
She said if she wanted to be treated so poorly, she would have gone to the restaurant up the street to be forgotten about. Now I apologize many times, grab their drink and food orders at the same time, and let them know that I would plug in the food then bring the drinks over to cut down on their wait time. I walk over to the computer and a co-worker silently asks me if I was okay.
She heard this woman yelling at me from two sections away. That’s an easy 40 feet away. I wasn't in the best state, but the night was busy and my armor was up. I knew I was doing my best and that's what mattered. Food in, drinks poured, and I gird myself to go over to the table again. As I'm setting the drinks down, the lady said the absolute LAST thing I thought she would say.
"I think I might have come off as a bit of a witch before. It's been a long day, I'm tired and I'm hungry and I took it out on you for no reason. You're obviously busy and doing all you can and I'm very sorry." To which I responded, "We're good. I get pretty hangry sometimes too." They waited, they ate, they were polite, she tipped mediocre and we all went about our lives.
I've had people yell at me, throw things, sometimes just be general jerks and I've even had people apologize on their behalf, but I've never had someone apologize about their own behavior.
40. Phoning It In
This just happened today. I got a delivery to a home for the elderly, so the address should have the physical address as well as a room number. The receipt said to “CALL WHEN ARRIVED,” which isn’t very unusual in and of itself. The order was a medium hand-tossed cheese, which is super basic, but again, not weird in and of itself.
I figured that they wanted me to call because it was past the time that the house would’ve been unlocked, and maybe they would meet me at the door. I thought this was confirmed when there was no specific room number on it. My manager texted me when I was on the way to the address that the person called again and asked to call when I arrived.
Again, I figured that I would call, we’d meet at the door, and I’d be on my way, easy. I get to the address and dial the number on the receipt. A man with a stern voice answered, speaking in a demanding tone. He said, “Listen to me. You will knock on [insert name on the receipt] door, and give them the pizza.” I told him that without the room number, I wouldn’t know where to go.
He once again repeated the phrase. He told me that he ordered it for her, and she would pay in cash (it was a cash order). I started to get red flags. This was getting sketchy. I still tried justifying it to myself, thinking that maybe it was her grandson ordering for her, as it was an old lady who maybe didn’t know how to order. It got weirder when he wanted me to keep him on the phone, but I did.
I knocked, and someone was close by, so they let me in. I asked what room so and so was in, and they told me. I went there and knocked. An older lady answered the door, looking confused. The first thing that she said was, “I didn’t order pizza.” I began to realize what was happening. He asked me to hand her my phone, so I just put it on speaker.
He started with, “I’ve been looking for you [first name, last name]. Why have you been ignoring me babe.” She was confused and started asking who this was. He told her that she knew. She once again confirmed that she had no idea who he was. He demanded that she give him her cell phone number. I shook my head no, and she said, “Why would I give you my number, when I don’t even know who this is?”
He then sneered, “I am coming for you baby. I will find you.” I hung up the phone. The number was likely blocked, as he called on private when he called our store. He then proceeded to call me five times (all with “Private Caller” as the ID) with me ignoring every single one. I finally answered and told him that if he called this number again, I would be calling the authorities.
That was the last time he called. When we were off the phone, I told the woman to contact a loved one, as well as the authorities. I told her I could blacklist her address, as she never orders from our pizza place. This is the second time a stalker scenario has happened with me driving. Yikes.
41. College Dropout
I worked for a small college. The president's secretary thought that most things were above her paygrade. At one of the busiest times of the year for my office, she decided I should put in 80+ hours to clean her computer data and get something she needed done. After getting it finished, she then decided that she wanted the whole thing changed. It was at that moment that I broke down.
I went to the doctor in the midst of a full-blown panic attack and was given a note for two weeks off work, which meant that my coworkers either had to use what I already did or they could redo it all again themselves. I came back to work and resigned.
42. Sometimes It’s Best to Keep Your Mouth Shut
Company consisted of something like 1,200 employees at the time, and rented out a big conference center for a Christmas party. At the opening of the party, the CFO was giving opening remarks, and asked—expecting cheers—if everyone liked their Christmas bonuses. He got booed. See, of that 1,200 people, a bit over a thousand were in customer service.
No one in customer service got bonuses, only people in the "corporate" departments got bonuses. And our awesome CFO decided to rub everyone's noses in it, because clearly the Chief Financial Officer of a company would have no idea that 80%+ of his company didn't get bonuses. At the same party, the CEO made an announcement that the company would be closed on Friday (Christmas that year was on a Thursday), and everyone got a day off.
Now, he had literally just finished making a speech about how everyone was important, and everyone was part of the company, no matter the department. He had shoveled crap hard, trying to make CS happier. The next day, we all got a memo that Customer Service still had to work on that Friday. We apparently didn't count as "everyone" and the CEO just hadn't realized that the announcement wouldn't apply to anyone. January saw a 60% attrition rate.
NguonSongMoi
43. Time For A Coffee Break
I had a tough time finding my first job out of university. My friend ended up getting me a gig with a promo company to help me pay my bills. The job sounded simple enough; I was to hand out coffee samples for a specific brand while being stationed at various grocery stores across the state. Later in the job description, I learned that I would also have to bring the sampling booth with me.
I thought it would just be a small, plastic cart, but nope: it was a huge full-on wooden coffee service station. Not to mention that I also had to bring in the coffee machine, sugar, milk, water, and even a garbage can. The first time I did it, I struggled to put it all into a shopping cart and only barely succeeded by using two. The next few times weren’t all that much easier, but I did get better at doing it. That is, until my final day.
I think it was the sixth, or maybe seventh time. It had already been a horrible day; customers had hated the coffee, the store manager had been rude and unaccommodating, and my back was starting to hurt real bad. One guy even hated the coffee so much that he poured the cup into my garbage can, waterfall-style, before flicking the empty cup towards me. It crushed me badly, but I needed the money, so I forged ahead and finished the day off.
After I’d finished, I loaded up my grocery carts again and pushed out of the sliding doors to find complete darkness and pouring rain. It had also been a busy day at this particular store, so I’d parked my car on the other side of the parking lot. I was angry, but I just said to myself, “Screw it, let’s get this done,” and I started pushing. Sadly, the horrible day wasn’t over yet.
Three-quarters of the way to my car, the front wheel of one of the carts gave out. I lost my balance, and my supplies came flying out: coffee machine, sugar packets, and all. It was almost comical. I knelt in the downpour, picking up my stuff, only to find the coffee pot heavily cracked. That was enough to push me over the edge.
I crumpled into a heap on the ground and quietly cried. When I had finally regained my composure, I grabbed the rest of the supplies and haphazardly threw them into my car. Drenched and sitting in the driver’s seat, I called my manager and told her I quit and that she could pick up the supplies whenever—that job 100% did not pay enough for all that trouble.
44. Too Fast, Too Furious
It was a super busy Saturday last night the pizza place where I work but we were holding our own. A delivery comes up, so I run it out. I get to the woman's house about 25 minutes after she ordered and she is UPSET! She says she was quoted 45 minutes for delivery, and I tell her that's the window. She's all mad at me because now I've ruined her evening because she planned for 45 minutes…?
She goes on and on. I'm standing in the rain and snow while she's complaining. I tell her to call the store and tell the general manager. The last words out of her mouth were: "I'm not about to tip when you can't control your service" and she slams the door in my face. Thanks you old hag, next time I'll forget to close the bag flap so you can have cold early pizza.
45. Wait And See
So last night was probably the busiest night we’ve had for the last week. I’m a waitress at an upscale steakhouse restaurant. The hostesses up front put us at an hour-long wait for walk-ins because of so many booked reservations, which is the usual protocol from the general manager. Well, this particular couple had me FUMING beyond belief.
The front lobby is packed with guests waiting for a table while reservations are seated as soon as possible. The hostesses have a system on an iPad to let all the managers know which guest is seated where, how long they’ve stayed, etc. I’m bussing a table at my section when I overhear one of the hostesses try to speak to a pair of people at my section a booth over.
This couple walked into the restaurant, saw the number of people waiting for a table, and decided to seat themselves with NO reservation. They also sat at a dirty table, and here I’m thinking, “Are these people for real?” This is what I got between the hostess and the older man sitting down with his wife: “Excuse me, sir? You didn’t come up to the host stand in order for us to find out what reservation you had?”
“We don’t have reservations. Someone needs to clean this up.” Here, he points to the messy table. “I’m sorry sir, but if you don’t have a reservation the wait is going to be an hour long. Someone has already requested this booth by the fireplace and they need to be seated.” “We don’t care about reservations. We’re hungry and we’re going to eat. Get someone to clean our table! I’m not asking a third time!”
After that failure, the hostess looked at me, and she was pretty shaken up. She had never dealt with any guests THAT rude and upfront before, so it was understandable. With my Latina blood boiling, I went over to the jerks and gave them a piece of my mind. “This is my section, and after hearing that conversation, you both have no right to be served. There’s a family waiting for this table, and I’m going to ask you to leave. Unless you want me to get a manager to escort you out.”
The couple squawked at me, demanding I get them drinks, while I went straight to my manager, who saw what had already happened with the hostess. They were escorted out and were told they weren’t welcome back. Ever. This is the type of stuff I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. If you have to wait an hour-long for a table like everyone else, then you do it. If not, go to another restaurant.
46. Putting Her In Her Place
I waited tables during college, and this is one of the best memories I have of my manager handling a rude guest. One of my tables was a gay couple at a booth. They were holding hands across the table basically the whole time they were at the restaurant. At one point, a lady with two small children flags me down from across the dining room.
Her table wasn’t in my section so I assumed she just wanted me to go find her server. I go over and ask her what I can do for her, and she says, “What the HECK is wrong with you? How can you possibly allow THEM in here? I’ve been coming here for 20 years and I’m appalled that they’d let a couple of those types eat here. Do me a favor and move those queers to a different table so my kids don’t have to see that sort of disgusting behavior.”
Literally, all they were doing was holding hands. Get over yourself lady. I wanted to tell her off for being such an intolerant witch, but instead just said, “One moment ma’am and I’ll get a manager for you.” I went and told my manager what was going on and he promptly went over to her table and told her that if she had an issue with other guests minding their own business and eating their food, then maybe she’d be better off not eating out at all.
She grabbed her kids and left without ordering. I always had a ton of respect for him for not putting up with horrible people’s issues.
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47. Ding Dong, The Witch Is Gone
I am no longer a server, but I was one all through college. I worked at a franchise of a chain of 24-hour restaurants that is notorious for cheap breakfasts and bad service. A big yellow sign with red letters. I took great pride in my job and how I treated my customers. In all honesty, if I could find a server job that offered good insurance and steady tips, I would consider going back to it.
I really, truly loved waiting tables and making people's lives a little more pleasant, at least while they were in my section. It sounds cheesy, but it's true. I had several “regulars” that always sat in my section, but there were other servers who had their regulars as well. One of them was a really pleasant, jovial man...and his horrible, nasty wife.
She was the kind of woman who got off on being a witch and making other people's lives miserable. One particular day, I had to cover some tables in a different server's section because a server called in sick. I was warned about this couple when they came in, but had never waited on them before, so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.
I was told that she had a habit of complaining endlessly about everything, demanding to speak to the manager every time they came in, and berating the servers and cooks at every turn. The husband (who often came in by himself) was the opposite—friendly, good-natured, well-liked. As soon as they were seated, before I could even get their drink orders, the husband got up from the booth and walked outside for a few minutes, leaving me alone with the wife.
I put on my best smiley, cheerful face and greeted her. She refused to make eye contact with me and instead scowled and snarled, "You would think that, as much money as we spend here, you people would know what we like to drink! Why do we have to keep going through this? I want ICED TEA, NO LEMON!!" She didn't tell me what the husband wanted, and I didn't ask.
I was just so taken aback by the anger straight out of the gate that I just turned on my heels and walked away. I poured her an iced tea—NO LEMON!!—and brought it back to her. Before I could even set it down, she snapped, "I already know what I want to eat, and we're in a HURRY." (Bear in mind that the husband is still outside).
I took her order, still trying to be pleasant, and before I could walk away, she snarled, "and the last time you people brought the food out, it was COLD!! I do NOT want cold food! And I want EXTRA CHEESE on my scrambled eggs!! and SALSA!!" Her voice seemed to drip with more and more anger with every word she spat out.
As I was ringing up the order, I thought of a thousand things I wanted to do, then I hit upon an idea. Instead of getting back at her, I was going to not only go out of my way to make her meal as perfect and delicious as possible, but I was going to embarrass her as well. I made sure everything was perfect...piping hot, lots and lots of cheese on the eggs, fresh salsa warmed up to room temperature.
By the time the meal was ready, the husband had returned to the table and was happily chatting with one of the servers. I mustered up my best scared/sad face as I brought out the food to her. As I sat it down, I started to tear up, just a little, and expressed in gushing, flowery terms how sorry I was for how badly she was treated the last time she was here, and how hard I worked to make sure the food was absolutely 100% according to her specifications.
I said that I felt SO BAD for how she was treated that I was going to pay for her meal out of my tips and how I hoped that she would be willing to accept my apology on behalf of the whole restaurant for her miserable experience. I really laid it on as thickly and sweetly as I could. Her husband, who was happy and smiling and cheerful just seconds ago, stared her down with a sick, horrid look.
His face turned bright red. She was MORTIFIED, her face turning equally red…she hung her head and said, "Ummm…okay…". I asked her if everything was to her satisfaction this time, and if it wasn't, I would rectify it immediately. She stared at her plate, pushed it around a bit, and said, "Ummmm…yeah…". The husband is staring her down now, clenching his jaw.
He politely ordered his meal and as I was walking away, I heard him hiss at her, "What did you say to her? What did you DO??" She was silent and sulking for the rest of the meal, and he was polite but not overly chatty. When they were finished, she stormed out before he even left the table, head hung. He apologized profusely to me for how she had acted and left a generous tip on top of paying the tab.
To the best of my recollection, she never acted like a witch to any of us ever again.
48. This One Takes The Cake
I work at a bakery, and part of my job is to help pair couples with the correct designer for their cake. One bride wanted a cake large enough to feed 500 people. This multi-tiered cake was going to be filled with fresh berries and custard, covered with buttercream and fondant, and decorated with edible flowers and more fresh fruit.
She also wanted us to somehow defy the laws of physics and make it float. Apparently, she had seen a floating cake in an anime show—an animated cake—and decided nothing else was acceptable. When I told her we can't make floating cakes, she reacted in the worst possible way—she threw her coffee on the floor and cried, saying that we were ruining her wedding. Her fiancé ushered her out of the building and I never saw either of them again.
49. The Marriage Contract
I was the wedding salesperson at a hotel that was going through a rough patch, so I really didn't have much of a choice when it came to clients. There was one bride in particular that drove me crazy. She had been a problem for a few months before I was hired, and I remember the Director of Sales told me that I was inheriting a handful.
I figured that no one could be THAT bad and laughed it off. Oh, I wish I’d listened. In our first meeting, she presented me with a detailed list of why my venue was a piece of garbage. Her fiancé spent the whole time looking defeated. In our second meeting, she brought the absolute worst reviews on Trip Advisor (printed off) of our hotel from as far back as 2003 and used these as a bargaining tool.
She hadn't signed the contract yet, so I was very ready to walk away from this at that point, but my bosses insisted we needed the revenue. After this, I started playing hardball and told her that another couple was interested in their date and that if she didn't sign within two days, I'd be selling it to them. This was a load of bull, mind you.
I hoped she would go away at this point, but she instead asked for the contract immediately. I, being forced to oblige, sent it but with extra clauses. First, she would pay the menu price for any food or beverage ordered. Second, we were allowed to terminate the contract for any reason with no penalty. She signed and obviously didn't read it.
During the tasting, she started coming down on me pretty hard because she didn't feel that the drinks were worth $6 a glass. I offered her Franzia as an alternative for $5.50 a glass but reminded her that I wouldn't negotiate menu prices, as per the contract. She finally went back and read the thing and asked me about the other additions.
I informed her that it was to protect me against "bridezillas." After that, she was far more agreeable.
50. Maybe She Had A Nude Disorder
I’m a female, and I was 19 years old when I worked in a psychiatric hospital. One of the patients—an extremely psychotic young woman pregnant with twins—would only talk to me, known to her as the “girl in the cactus scrub top.” Naive me wanted to help this woman. She said that she would only cooperate if we were behind closed doors, which would obviously NOT happen, but we did our best to make her comfortable within protocols. The woman was also naked.
Anyway, with security at the door and two staff members standing outside, I was alone in the room trying to console this psychotic woman who LOVED my cactus scrub top. The woman finally decided she wanted to get dressed, but with my shirt. So, she pushed me up against the wall and tried to take it off me. Security jumped on her quickly, and I escaped out the door.
It was a $15 an hour entry-level job, and I was pretty much fresh out of high school. This experience was just one of my many stories.
51. Unnecessarily Nasty
One time, I was working in a grocery store. As I was checking people out, this lady came up to me, and what she said was so disturbing, it’s unforgettable. The very first thing out of her mouth was: “You're a failure and an embarrassment to humanity. If you were my kid, I'd beat your behind right here, right now." I had literally done nothing but asked her how she was. Like, what?! Then her card was declined.
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52. A Big Ask
This happened a couple of weeks ago at the very busy restaurant I work at. A woman came in saying she had some people from a jujitsu club wanting to come in for dinner and drinks, and do we take reservations. My manager asked for how many—and she said about 75, but maybe up to 100. My manager started laughing, but was soon stricken by horror.
She realized the woman was serious. We have a large restaurant, but a very small kitchen, and have a strict table of 20 cut off. When told about this, the woman still insisted that they were already here and pretty much refused no for an answer. We ended up allowing them to come in as it was around 8 pm and things were slowing down.
They sat outside in our big patio area, and we had two servers split the group. People were ordering at different times and many were just drinking, so the kitchen managed to do okay. The worst part was that about 30 of the people never went to their designated area, and instead crowded the bar and stood there. Us servers use this area to walk through and obviously get our drinks.
After several attempts at pushing our way through the crowd, we eventually gave up and accepted it as our reality. To get our bar drinks, we would go around to the bar side, every. darn. time. We have a long bar and only entry on each side, so this is hugely out of our way. This group stayed almost all night. The people were nice, but darn, how clueless are you!!!
I wasn’t the one serving them, I was just another server trying to keep the rest of the place under control. I heard MOST of them tipped, although they did all pay separately and we ran out of check presenters, obviously. Also, a few of them walked out on their tabs. Not on purpose, I’m sure they probably just wandered to meet their friends at the bar and forgot to close out.
I find this very rude no matter who it is. If you aren’t sure how to pay, ask the server or let them know you are leaving, moving, etc. Most of all, treat everyone with compassion! Server, customer, whatever. Treat cranky old people like they are your parents, because one day, they could be. Remember rude customers are JERKS, but also probably have a worse life than you do.
Know that some people don’t understand “restaurant etiquette” as we do, and if they did, maybe they would act differently. Remember your server is just a human being, not a servant, and being nice goes a long way.
53. Doesn’t Come Cheap
About a year ago, I get a 30-piece order for the local college basketball team. They always order each player some individual item, so it isn't easy. They always want each of the players’ and coaches’ names written on the box. I took an order to them a couple weeks before that was around $300 and they stiffed me, so I wasn't too keen to take it again.
Unfortunately, this order is too large for anyone else to take. I have a larger vehicle, so it would only take one trip. I bring them their $470 order to the arena where an aide or assistant coach tells me to bring them down three flights of stairs. I'm at the end of my shift, and it takes me four trips to get everything down there. They then ask me to help display it out and tell them whose is what, even though it has their names written on it.
I. AM. DONE. WITH. THIS. SHIFT. I’m polite and courteous because I believe in good customer service, and I don't look at the tip line until I get back to my vehicle. Written out is $0.00. I've spent the last hour doing nothing but making, boxing, and delivering their order. I told my manager I would never take a delivery to them again, and they could come pick it up if they don't want to tip for a big and highly personalized order like that.
54. Tie One On
I was hired to assist with makeup at a wedding. I was eight months pregnant and had to tie the mother’s sari. While I was tying it, the mother told me I was doing it wrong and wanted me to do it her way. I told her that she wouldn't be able to walk if I tied it the way she was requesting. She started to get frustrated, so I just gave in.
For what it’s worth, this woman didn't know how to tie a sari, since she apparently doesn't wear them. Minutes later, she came out and started screaming at the wedding planner, complaining that I didn't know how to tie a sari. She was in tears! The planner took her away, calmed her down, and tied her sari the way I did in the first place. But it wasn’t over.
I was left in the room with the bridesmaids and the bride. The bride turned to me and starts screaming, "You ruined my wedding day! How dare you make my mother cry. You are a horrible person and are ruining the most important day of my life." I couldn't help it…I started laughing and I couldn’t stop. It was so dramatic for no reason.
Nothing was ruined. It took 10 minutes to fix. Just as the wedding planner walked in, the bride started really tripping out and screaming at me, "Get out! Get out! I don't want to see your face, you ruined everything." Then she started to cry. Honestly, I shouldn’t have done it but I laughed even harder and said, "You are in for a surprise if you think a poorly tied sari is the worst thing in the world.”
I then turned to the planner and told her to pay me so I could go home and put my feet up. The wedding planner called me the next week to help with another wedding...I said no.
55. The Early Bird Special
I work at a two-star family hotel. In the winter, we close only for Christmas, which is when we get our three-week paid leave. During the colder months, there are times when there are local events, and since the surrounding islands have no good infrastructure, many guests book at city center hotels like ours.
It was almost November when this happened—we had no rooms available on one particular night, but a guest came in. For the sake of the post, let's call him Greg. A thin, tall, businessman type of guy with a mafia mustache and glasses. He looked to be in his mid-50s with grey hair. From the way he spoke, I could tell he was very educated. He walked in just half an hour before my shift ended.
Greg: "Good evening, I have a room booked for me and I know I'm early but I can wait." Me: "Not at all, the check-in desk is 24/7." Greg: "Magnificent, I can check in now then?" Me: "Of course, your name please?" Greg: "Greg McGregor." Me: "Hmmm, I can't seem to find your name..." Greg: "Oh, it's there for sure, I booked just an hour ago while I was waiting at the bus terminal at the airport."
At that point, I vaguely remembered the fax that was sent in. Me: "Oh of course, but your reservation is for... tomorrow?" Greg: "That's correct, that's why I asked if I could check in now." Me: "I'm afraid you cannot check-in now, as the reservation is for tomorrow, and I don't have any rooms for tonight to extend your reservation." Greg: "It doesn't matter, I can wait a few hours until it's ready then! Can you point me to an outlet so I can plug in my laptop while I wait?"
Me: "Sir... the check-in time is after 2 o’clock of the day you have reserved. Not midnight the day before." Greg: "I respectfully disagree. I am taking the room at 1:01 am just like you promised me." At the time, I did not fathom what he was trying to say. I have had guests that believed they were entitled to the room at midnight…but why 1:01 am?
After much thought, I decided to check his reservation form directly. The request was auto-approved as we have configured auto-approvals for non-chargeable check-in or check-out times, but they are strictly for checking-in after midnight of the next day, not the previous.
Me: "This is an auto-approval message. It clearly states here and here that it's for the next day, not the previous." Greg: "No problem, I can check in at 2:01 am then." Me: "I'm not sure you understand what I mean." This is when he started getting spicy. Greg: "You think that you're the manager here?" Me: "Actually, I am." Greg: "I will post a negative review then for not keeping your word."
Me: "Please exit the hotel now or I will call the authorities." Greg: "Well, okay...I'm afraid you lost ONE MORE GUEST NOW. You may cancel my reservation for tomorrow." He left as if he thought that all was well. Well, needless to say, he is not getting a refund. Don’t tick off the front desk, people.
56. The Job Ended On A Bad Note
I once worked at an architect's office for two months, and it was a miserable experience. I got laid off in October following 9/11; I also had a kid on the way, and my partner and I had just bought a house. I was desperate for a job. So, I took the first one available, and I didn’t think to question why there was an opening at this office when no one else was hiring. I got the job, and it turned out that it would be just my boss and me alone in the office.
The first day, he began playing “New York City Boys” by the Pet Shop Boys. Okay, cool. Then he repeated it several times. I mentioned it to my boss, and he said it was fine. The next day it was the same thing, and he still didn’t want to change it. So I brought headphones in, only to be told that headphones were not allowed.
For two straight months, I heard that dang song every day, all freakin’ day. I quit because my boss would play this song on repeat, and he wouldn’t allow any changes or let me listen to my own music. I told him this when I gave him my two weeks. He just said “Okay” with no reaction. I bolted as soon as someone else would hire me. I think it was some kind of evil experiment.
57. Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer
As a wedding photographer, I've seen my fair share of crazies over the years. The worst situation I ever had was with a couple who started arguing right after the vows. Typically, you shoot the bridal parties in the morning, and if you're lucky enough, the men will get dressed on time and let you take a few snaps of them while they're all suited and booted.
On this particular day, the men were already hitting the sauce pretty hard and what happened next was truly triggering—they ended up at the church stinking of booze. I could tell the bride was angry as I was shooting the ceremony—she wouldn't look at her husband-to-be throughout the entire service. The groom, in all fairness, kept himself pretty well composed but was still stinking.
The poor guy was nervous. After the ceremony, before the bridal party gathered at the prearranged shooting location, the bride and groom had about 30 minutes of alone time in the limo to conduct a full-blown argument. When they pulled up to the location, I got them to roll the window down for a champagne toast through the window shot, and all I was getting were smiles through gritted teeth.
It was awful. I tried my best to ease the mood, but this bride was in no mood for any wisecracks or enjoyment. The moral of the story is, don't argue on your wedding day or you'll end up looking back at angry photos.
58. Battery Not Included
I used to work at a gadget shop. It had loads of random items, such as silly squeaky things, things that flew about, novelty gadgets, etc. You get the picture. My coworkers and I always had to wear something from the novelty clothing range. I’m a female, and one day I wore an apron that depicted a buff guy, while my male coworker wore the female version.
The customers severely tormented me that day. It got so bad that I asked my manager if I could change into something else, but she said no because she considered my outfit a talking point. I had people call me all sorts of vitriolic things, ranging from calling me fat and an idiot to questioning my true gender. Some teenage boys even pushed me into some shelves and then made me fall into one of the central box tub things that held lucky dip products. Still, my manager wouldn't let me change. So I got my revenge.
I quit on the spot. If she had said that I could change after the first few incidents, I would have been okay. But after seeing that the cruelty was reducing me to tears and still deciding not to do anything about it? It wasn't worth the paycheque.
59. It’s On Me
On my very first shift as a bartender, a beautiful woman in her mid-20s came into the bar. It was a regular Saturday night, so the place was crowded, but not packed. She had five female friends with her, but she was clearly the self-proclaimed ringleader. At one point, they come up to me at the bar counter and she makes a big show about how she's going to buy them all mojitos.
These drinks run at about $13 apiece. I tell her it will take me a few minutes to get the six drinks ready and she's fine with that. After a couple of minutes, she gets up to go to the restroom, I assume. I get the drinks ready and start wondering what the heck is taking her so long. I have a fellow bartender check up on her in the restroom, as I figure she's either throwing up or getting it on there. Well, I wasn't completely wrong in either of those assumptions.
The other bartender came back and says that she WAS throwing up, but then found some dude in there who was chatting her up. The other bartender informed her that she was needed back at the bar. A few minutes go by, and she and Mr. Knight in Shining Armor grab two seats at the bar. I walk up to them and the dude tries to order a drink for himself and water for her.
I inquire about where she wants the six mojitos placed and this is how it plays out: Stupid girl: "Those aren't for me. I'm too gone to have more drinks" Me: "But you ordered them. And here they are.” Stupid girl: "But I don't want them." Me: "That not really the issue. I made them, so now you've gotta pay for them." Stupid girl: "But I've been in the restroom the whole time, so I couldn't have ordered them."
Me: "Actually, you ordered them with me at the bar 15 minutes ago, before you stepped into the restroom." Knight in Shining Armor: "I was with her the whole time and SHE DID NOT ORDER THOSE DRINKS." Stupid girl looks infatuated with Knight in Shining Armor. It’s clear that they've just met and this dude is thinking that she'll be an easy score if he just huffs and puffs a bit for her, putting me in my place.
Me: "Well, you've only just met her in the restroom JUST NOW, and she ordered those drinks BEFORE she went in there." As a side note, some of her girlfriends, who had been hanging around the sides of the bar area waiting for the drinks, suddenly disappeared into the adjoining rooms. They clearly didn't want to be a part of the mess.
Stupid girl: "But none of my friends are here to drink them." Me: "It doesn't matter. You ordered them, I made them, and now they need to be paid for." Knight in Shining Armor: "She clearly doesn't need more drinks, and this is your fault for serving them to her in the first place!" He's getting angry. Me: "She was fine when she ordered them."
Knight in Shining Armor: "But she shouldn't have to pay for them." Me: (having had enough) "Fine, then you can pay for them. That'll be 78 dollars." Dude was actually taking out his wallet until he heard the amount. Then he promptly looked at her, clearly assessing whether she was worth it. He decides no, not happening.
He puts his wallet back in his back pocket, and now it’s really awkward. She's looking down at her glass of water, he's looking for a way out of this situation, and I'm just standing there staring daggers at the both of them. Me: (directed at stupid girl) "If you don't pay, we’re going to have trouble.” The stupid girl is now looking around for someone to save her.
Everybody's looking away, including Knight in Shining Armor. Me: "So what’s it gonna be?" The stupid girl reluctantly and very slowly takes her credit card out and pays, all the while looking around for pity or someone to step in and pay. I hand her the drinks and tell her very firmly: "DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN." We're a small bar in a local town, you can be darn sure we gave her stern looks and asked for humiliating confirmation every time she visited after that.
60. Overplayed
I worked for a decade at a very popular chain that sells bath and body products. We would always decorate the store according to our seasonally released product's theme and then play a new soundtrack to accompany that theme. One year for spring, we did a tropical theme. So, the soundtrack they gave us was summer-and-surf-themed music; there were only about ten songs on it, and altogether, they were approximately 30 minutes long.
I had just gotten promoted to management and was working longer shifts. I heard “Wipe Out” twice an hour. Every hour. For eight hours a day, five days a week. The kicker? The theme sold really well with the customers, and as a result, it got extended. So, instead of enduring this musical persecution for about three weeks, it turned into two and a half months. To this day, I still hate that dang song.
61. Dishing It Out
Boy oh boy, some people. This happened yesterday. I'll keep this short and not bore anyone with unnecessary back-story about the type of restaurant I work in, or anything about the set up. All you need to know is that: First, it's fairly small, so I work alone with one chef; second, it's family-friendly; and finally, we have a wide menu, with options ranging from $7.00 dishes to our most expensive $17.50 dish.
Not very pricy at all. One day, I received a phone call asking specifically about our $17.50 dish—our seafood paella. It's made fresh to order, and takes about 15-20 minutes to make. Not to mention that seafood is expensive. So, the price is justified. The person I was speaking to asked if we were a buffet. We are not. I told them we are table service, and can do the paella any time.
I asked if they wanted to make a reservation because of the time it takes to prepare the paella. They said no, and hung up. So I went about my day. A few hours later, a family of four comes in. They sit down, glance at the menus, and then wave me over with a snap of the father's fingers (gotta love that). The dad then says, “Show me the paella.”
I direct him to the back of the menu, where it's listed very clearly and shows the ingredients and the price. Him: “I want that.” I write it down. The mother then says she wants a paella, followed by the two kids saying the same. So I confirm. Me: "So that's four paellas? You don't want to share?" Dad: "No. We'll all have paella."
So I put the order in after reminding him it'll take about 15 minutes. I offered them drinks, but they just wanted water. I started getting the cheap vibe, but they ordered FOUR paellas, so how cheap could they be? Food comes out. They love it. Dad asks if he could get one to go. I put the order in so it would be ready when they finish.
We're at five paellas now, and almost $90, before tax. I let the chef/owner know my concerns that the family may object to this price despite having made it clear to them. He gave me the okay to give them a 10% discount right off the bat. He's a good guy. The time comes to bring the bill, and the man's eyes go super wide.
I wrote out the bill so that every paella has $17.50 next to it. I watch as realization hits. He opens his mouth to object, and I immediately say, "The owner said to give you a discount because you ordered five of our most expensive dish and he wanted to thank you. He was happy to hear that you enjoyed it enough to order another to take home." That shut him up. I then watch as he scans every last line of the bill and then settles on the tax, which was nearly $11.
Him: "You added a tip for yourself?" He was angry. Me: "No sir." Him: "What's this then?!" Me: "...The tax." Honestly, I wasn't expecting a tip at that point, but he did leave me 10%. So basically the discount we had given him. They said the food was excellent, but I highly doubt they'll be back. For some reason, they thought ordering the same dish would equal just the price of one dish.
62. Toe-tally Gross
I worked as a lifeguard when I was in high school. One day, I witnessed an incident that still haunts me to this day. A little girl got her toe stuck in the crevice of our water slide, and it basically ripped off from the knuckle down. I got the task of climbing into the slide to find the dang toe so we could send it to the hospital. That was definitely not in the job description.
63. Pie In The Sky
First, let me explain a few things here. This is not my story as such, but I got to witness it firsthand. A good friend of mine is from a family that owns three very successful Italian restaurants, with a pizza oven that uses actual wood, so really top of the line. So he learned the business basically from the day he could walk.
When he was 25, he had a good business idea: A place in the middle of the city that sells mostly slices out of a window, but also whole pizza, pasta dishes, and salad, and does delivery. Plus a few small tables inside if someone wants to eat here. He created a solid business plan, and had his eyes on a prime location. It is 50 meters away from the biggest parking area in the city.
There are 400 parking spots there, where several times a year we have big city fairs, and anybody who wants to go in the park strolls right by it. So his dad said he would finance him, but as a credit to be paid back in a timely manner. They agreed on everything, and a year later he opened up. The story takes place about two years after they have opened and the place is HOT.
He already repaid almost 75% of the credit in a mere two years. Usually, there is a line for the slices, which are from a huge family-size pizza. One day, we are sitting at a table playing chess, while his guys run the shop; he had already worked a full 11 hours that day. In comes a baby boomer couple, and it was clear as day that the lady with the you-know-which haircut rules this relationship with an iron fist.
They sat down at the table next to us, and after not even a minute she rudely asked us why she has no menu yet, and to get off our lazy butts. I already wanted to tell her I do not work here, but my friend winked at me and walked over to their table, giving them our menus. The lady says to him, “It’s about time you get off your lazy butt.” By the way, she has now waited a minute. “You can't play chess when you have people waiting. What kind of service is this?”
So my friend took their drink orders and walked behind the bar to make their drinks right away. They had to wait maybe three minutes for their drinks. When he comes back, she says, “About time, did you have to brew it first, or what is taking so long?” At this point, my friend’s patience is starting to wear thin, but he still stays friendly.
Friend: “You saw me walk to the bar and make your drinks right away, then return right away. Those drinks take a bit to pour correctly. I am sorry, but there is no way I could have brought those to you any faster.” Her: “We are customers and this is how you talk to us? Ever heard of the customer is always right? How can you be so rude to paying customers?” Now my friend really had enough.
Friend: “I was very respectful toward you, while you were very rude from the moment you came in here—“ The moment he said that, she got this weird grin on her face, and you could tell this was EXACTLY what she wanted. Her: “SHUT UP ! How dare you!!! I will have you know that me and the owner are old friends. I will have your job over this, now get me your manager.”
This is where it got so good. He decides to mess with her. Friend: “PLEASE, I need this job.” Her: “TOO LATE, you should have thought about this before you treated guests this rudely. NOW. GET. ME .THE . MANAGER.” Friend: “Right away miss.” He then went behind the bar and had a short talk with one of the older guys working there.
They then both return to the table. Server: “What seems to be the problem?” Well, this woman changed so fast. Suddenly she played the sweet old lady. “When we came in here, your server sat there with someone and played chess. We waited and waited, and finally asked nicely if we could have a menu. He rolled his eyes at us and gave us the menu from his table.”
She tells the rest of her “story” in her sweet voice, then says, “Since I know the owner, and we eat here all the time, usually, the service is excellent. I demand you fire him and comp our meals.” The new server turns to my friend and asks, “Is that really what happened?” Friend: “Of course not, she came—” Then the lady’s mask drops again.
She starts screeching, “What are you asking him for? I just told you what happened. Are you calling me a liar? Wait until the owner hears of this.” At this point, my friend and the server could no longer hold it back and they started laughing. Her: “YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY, NEVER EVER HAVE I BEEN SO INSULTED.” Well, enough was enough.
Friend: “Yeah I know, wait until the owner hears of this. Oh wait, the owner already did hear of this. I AM THE OWNER, and I have never seen you in my life, nor have you ever eaten here. You two are just trying to scam a free meal out of me, by being impossibly difficult until the server finally snaps or does something wrong.”
Wow, I had no idea people could get that red in the face. She put 10 dollars on the table immediately. Friend: “Now GET OUT.” And they shuffled out, never to return. BOY that was the most entertaining attempt to scam him I have ever witnessed.
64. Musical Chairs
I was setting up for a wedding of 200 guests. It was my job to put white chair covers on all the chairs and tie pink sashes around each one. A tedious and lengthy process. I was just about finished when my boss came in with the bride to check out the room. The bride took one look at the set-up and said, "What? I asked for black chair covers!"
I looked at her like, are you freaking kidding me? But my boss was all, "Oh I am so, so sorry, that is our mistake—we will get that fixed for you right away, don't you worry!” And guess who then has to untie every perfectly tied bow, take off every perfectly aligned chair cover, and replace them with black ones? Me.
I managed to just finish in time for the wedding to start. I then went back to my office and check the paperwork for her wedding. We had these breakdown sheets that basically list what is required for each wedding, and these went back and forth between the bride and the planner many times before everything was settled and agreed upon.
I looked through every single draft of this witch’s paperwork and NOT ONCE were black chair covers mentioned. Only white, in every draft. I checked my emails too to see if she had mentioned it there, nope. Nowhere in any of our records had she asked for black chair covers...yet she still complained to my boss that our screw-up with the chair covers had caused her so much stress she could barely enjoy the day.
65. He Wood Love To Assist You, But He’s No Longer On Board
I used to work at a home improvement store, but I was only there for three days. They stuck me at the contractor’s counter by myself with zero training. I couldn’t even log into the computer, and I didn’t have a radio to call for help. Every single time a customer approached me, I would have to wander around and beg someone to help me.
On day three, an elderly man came to the counter to order some lumber. I told him I would have to go find someone else, and he started screaming and berating me. That was it. I leaned over the counter, put my finger in his face, and told him to eff straight off. I threw my apron at someone in customer service, walked out, and never came back.
66. Like A Dog With A Bone
I’ve worked in a hotel for over a decade. The other night, I had a guest come down to the lobby and listen to music on her phone. She didn't have headphones and the music was very loud with explicit lyrics, but it was a fairly slow night and I didn't want to give her trouble, so I let it go on for about 10 minutes.
Eventually, the lounge closed and three stragglers came walking through the lobby back to their rooms. A few glanced between me and her with a strange look. I just raised my eyebrows to them in acknowledgment, but at this point, it still didn't seem like a huge problem and it wasn't bothering me. Minutes later, one of my last arrivals came in.
It was an older lady with the air of someone who would definitely leave a review with nothing but complaints. Right off the bat, the music from the phone got ridiculously explicit. I started hurrying to check this woman in as fast as possible while she was evil-eyeing the lady on the couch and shaking her head in disappointment at me.
I finally got her checked in and she left for her room, but at this point, I realized I had to do something. I politely addressed the lady on the couch. "Ma'am, I'm sorry but the sound on the phone will have to be off while you're in the lobby." She shrugged, got up, and walked to her room. That actually went well, right? Cut to the next night.
I ran to the kitchen for about five minutes to help the restaurant staff close a few things down for the night, and as I was walking back to the desk, I noticed the same girl sitting on the couch with a guy about her age on the couch next to her. They both appeared to be in their mid-20s—way too old for childish behavior—but I immediately knew that's what I was about to get.
As I said hi to them, I noticed the girl look at the guy and nod. He nodded in return. It was obviously an attempt at clandestinely saying, "Yep, that's the guy." Oh good, what's this gonna be? I got behind the desk and braced for what these two were about to do. The guy asked the girl something along the lines of, "Hey, have you heard of such and such song?"
He was saying it loud enough for me to hear, in a tone that was so obviously planned and staged. He then told her he'd play it for her, and immediately started blasting some weird song from a genre of music I can only describe as circus-themed EDM. I was not going to let this get to the point it did the night before, so I immediately told the guy the sound had to be turned off.
He replied, "I'm not going to turn it off, but I'll turn it down some." After some back and forth, he obliged to fully turn it off, then began having a conversation with the girl that was, again, aimed at me. They were basically throwing backhanded insults my way just loud enough for me to hear.
At one point, the girl actually called her mom on her cell phone and began talking about badly the hotel was mistreating her. Whatever, I was not easily offended and I'd seen my fair share of jerks. Eventually, someone coming from the lounge passed through the lobby while talking to someone on his cell phone. The girl yells at him and told him he was being too loud on his phone and was going to get kicked out.
That was enough for me...at that point, she was messing with business, so she had to go. I told them both that they were going to need to go to their rooms for the night, but they ignored me and acted like they didn't hear. So I picked up the phone and pretended to dial security. Security doesn't actually have a phone, but I was hoping the bluff alone would work.
It did, and they both got up quickly and scurried off to their room. But that wasn’t the end of the story. I got a call from my manager the next day asking me what had happened with these guests. He said that the girl's mom drove to the hotel, demanded to see a manager, and screamed for 15 minutes about how rude I had been.
I told my manager what had happened and we shared a laugh. He told me if that if I had any more issues, I can go straight to the authorities and have them escorted off the property. Then came night three. The girl came back down to the lobby holding hands with another girl. They both made sure to hold their hands up so that I could see it and shoot me a passive-aggressive grin. I currently live up north, but I'm from the South and have a thick accent that most people immediately pick up on. I honestly believed that they were trying to bait me into saying or doing something homophobic, assuming that I must be a stereotypical southern Christian gay-hatin' person or something.
They stood at our local brochure cabinet and "browsed" while talking under their breath. Not loud enough for me to hear, but I'm sure it was aimed at me. A few minutes later, the guy joined them and the conversation became loud enough for me to hear. It was definitely more insults thrown my way. At that point, I decided it was enough.
I told them they were going to need to return to their rooms or I would have security escort them off the premises. They demanded to know why, and I told them the truth as best as I could put it. "Because none of you have emotionally matured past middle school and I won't sit here and be disrespected for a second night because you fail to understand why we can't have curse words blaring in a place of business."
The girl said something along the lines of, "Did you not learn your lesson yesterday? I guess I'll have to call my mom again." I told her to go ahead, her mom could be escorted off the property as well, and they stormed off to their room. I got a call from my manager the next day saying the mom came back for another go. He had promptly ended their reservation a day early. I love my manager.
67. Cruel To Be Not-So Kind
I’ve been a server at various points throughout my life since I was 16, and I am 29 now. Usually, I would serve or hostess as a part-time job, but currently, my only job is being a server. Recently, I had three guys come in who looked about my age. When they sat down, I greeted them and then asked them how many shots they were going to be buying tonight.
They were fairly loud and seemed in a good mood, and I said this mostly to be funny. The first couple of guys told me they didn’t want shots, but they would be ordering pints. Then the last guy told me he would need a few shots if I was going to be his server. I chuckled, since I thought we were joking, and went and got their drinks.
They ordered their food, a few more drinks, there weren’t any major issues, and they said it would all be one check tonight. I went to pick up their credit card receipt, and there was 0.00 in the tip line. Ok, maybe they’ll leave cash—no big deal. But as I am thanking them for coming in, one of the guys interrupts me. His words shook me to my core.
He tells me that I probably noticed he didn’t tip me. I am honestly kind of embarrassed to be having this conversation, and I was flustered, so I just replied with something like “Oh, that’s okay, have a nice night.” He then proceeded to tell me; “I didn’t really feel like shelling out an extra 20 bucks for you, because no offense, but you could step it up a bit. All the other waitresses in here are very cute and earn their tips, try putting on more makeup, or going to a gym. I am just being honest with you. If a guy wanted to screw you, he’d tip you better.”
I was so mortified I didn’t even say anything. I could feel my face turning red, while every guy at that table stared at me. Nobody said anything. I work very hard, and I take so much pride in my work. I try to look nice and put together every night, because it can speak to how much pride you do take in your job. I am friendly and outgoing, because I love working with people and I love my job.
I wish I would’ve had something to say back to him, but I just walked away instead. I’ve worked double shifts all week and closed each night. I’ve been stiffed a couple of times almost every day this week, but I don’t take it personally and I try to still always hold my head up. Even so, that really hurt. For what it’s worth, though, I don’t think what he said holds any true merit.
I love and accept myself wholeheartedly. It was more so the fact he said it at all, his entitlement, and to be reduced to whether or not he wants to sleep with me to determine my worth. This happened at the tail end of my night. I was the only server on the floor, and the only other female on staff with me tonight was the bartender, who I’ve never really confided in and or gotten along very well with.
We’re just co-workers, that’s it. I also didn’t tell my manager, because my manager is a guy. He is mostly friendly, but honestly, my manager is creepy too. Lots of unwanted hugs and shoulder touching. Comments and questions asking me if “I have a man, or if I’d ever be willing to be a stepmom”—he has four kids with his ex-wife.
Like I said, it’s been a long week. I worked doubles every day, and closed every night. Two of those nights I was the only server on for hours because so many other servers called out. I know I am better than he is, and that I am doing just fine, it’s just exhausting existing as a woman sometimes, and there’s not enough places you get to “just be.”
68. Some Like It Hot
I had this client book me two weeks before the actual wedding. I regret taking it to this day. She had no transportation to take her home at the end of the night. I asked her repeatedly what her plan was, and she told me she would just refrain from drinking and drive herself to her honeymoon spot. She never told me where that was, even though I kept asking.
Fast forward two weeks. A massive tornado just went through the area the day before her wedding, so there were power lines and trees blocking every entrance to the highway in the boonies of Maryland. I got up early to deal with the issues at the venue—there was no electricity on a 100-degree day, so that was a huge problem. I got a call from her around 6 am saying she realized she now needed transportation.
Fine, I decided I'd find it for her. "One last question, where is this mystery honeymoon spot?" I asked her. Turned out, it was hours away in West Virginia. I called every Maryland-based limo company and begged them to find someone to drive into the Maryland countryside at 11 pm and then take them to West Virginia. Finally, someone relented and I called the bride to tell her the price. Complete. Meltdown.
"Well guess what, you requested that at the last minute, so you're going to pay whatever they want to charge you," I told her. The wedding itself was a complete circus. The bride hated her hair and makeup and made it very well known to me, even though she had personally booked the stylist. As it was 100 degrees out, the original unshaded area was going to be terrible for the ceremony.
I suggested we moved it somewhere cooler for her comfort, like underneath this beautiful centuries-old tree. She refused, but as guests arrived, they did nothing but complain. I decided to say screw it and moved the ceremony to make everyone happy. It was a one-hour traditional Jewish ceremony and no way was I going to let people suffer in the sun.
After the ceremony, I had to wait outside the bridal suite while the couple had a wedding ceremony...which is something I never want to witness again. That ceremony went way over schedule, thus extending cocktail hour and shortening the reception. The bride freaked out that she lost out on dancing time and blamed it on me.
At the end of the night during clean-up, the mother of the bride started throwing decor in her car rather than let my team do the load out. As soon as she left, I noticed my emergency kit was nowhere to be found. I called her and she claimed she never saw it, even though it was next to the decor we had started to pile up.
The next week, I got a call from the venue saying they saw a car throw a bag out of their window onto the steps of the venue before speeding away. Alas, it was my bag and I had to drive for over 90 minutes to go fetch it, even though the mother and bride lived super close to me and had my address. To top it all off, I got a heat stroke and my poor assistant had to drive us home at midnight.
69. No Show, All Idiot
I work at a big name hotel in a beach town. In the summer, our rates skyrocket to almost $300 a night and we are usually sold out. Someone booked two rooms for a long weekend and decided not to show up. Our no-show policy is pretty standard—a night’s cost for each room booked. So this gentleman was charged over $500 total for his two no-show rooms.
It sucks, and it’s a lot of money, but it’s 100% his fault. The gentleman called me a couple of weeks later when he got his credit card bill. I explained to him our policy and that he wouldn’t be getting a refund. He went off. “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” he told me. “I’m not paying you, idiot.” Eventually, he told me he was just going to dispute it with his credit card company.
This is basically what I said to him: “If you want to dispute the charge with your bank, you have every right to do that. I would not personally recommend it though. If this was a case of a stolen credit card, I would agree with you, but we have documentation showing you were informed of the no-show policy. However, if you wish to pass this issue along to the bank, I will gladly deal with them.”
When you dispute a charge, the bank will front you the money while they investigate. When he got money from the bank right after he filed a dispute, he called me to GLOAT. He told me how stupid I was, etc. What I don’t think he understood is that the money is pretty much a loan, under the assumption that his charges really were genuine...which they weren’t.
I easily won the dispute, proving that he wilfully did purchase these rooms and that he was informed of the no-show policy. Then the bank billed him back for the money they fronted him. He called me again. Lucky me. He told me that the bank was billing him and that I had to pay it. He claimed that because it all started with my hotel, it was our responsibility to pay his bank bill.
At this point, I didn’t even know what more to say. I just said, “No, have a good day” and hung up. Later on, he called AGAIN, saying that his credit card company was threatening to turn over the bill to collections if he didn’t pay. Now he wanted us to pay $800 because of the interest. I told him that his personal finances were his own business and to stop calling. I tried to warn him in the beginning.
70. He Who Smelt It, Shouldn’t Be Dealt It
I was working retail right after high school. Minimum wage job ($5.15/hour) as a stockman for a retail company. When I took the job, I thought “stockman” was only dealing with the merchandise from the truck to the floor. Turns out, it was a code word for "Everything the managers, cashiers and people on the floor don't do", including janitorial work.
It was one Saturday, we were busy, and someone trashed the men's room. Clogged the toilet, then pooped in it again, and flushed it in the only stall we had. The walls, they had to have taken an ink pen, broke the ballpoint off and let it ooze out all over the walls. It was disgusting. I was the only stockman on duty because the store cut everyone's hours.
So, my manager told me that I had to clean that restroom up real fast and get back into the stockroom and do the rest of my other duties that day. I took a survey of that destroyed restroom and told the manager (he was a jerk anyway), "No. I don't think we have the tools to fix that toilet and I'm not doing that with my hands and if you tell me to do so I will quit."
He fired me for refusing to clean it up. The next day his boss, the store's actual manager (the one who fired me was just a co-manager) told me that such cleanups aren't store staff but should have been a call to a plumber and that the guy who fired me didn't actually have the authority to fire me. Then he asked me to come back to work because I was the only stockman scheduled for the weekend and no one else was either answering the phone or wanting to come into work. I didn't go back.
71. Put a Lock on It (Your Mouth)
I worked at a gym and was given a task to cut the locks off of unpaid lockers. I didn't finish before people started coming in and a woman came into the locker room right when I was cutting her lock. She started screaming at me, then emailed the VP of the gym about the HORRIBLE thing I did to her. After this happened the GM called me into his office and said he was going to put me on a week's paid leave.
I said fine, but I'm never cutting locks again and I refuse to interact with that member ever again. Thankfully they recognized she was nuts, so they agreed.
72. Total Meltdown
I saw a public freak out recently that reminded me of something that happened when I was a hostess in my early 20s at a steak house. A family of four came in, and when I sat them, the mom (I'll call her Karen) wanted to move to an area where all the tables were full. I told her she could wait back up front and we'd seat her when one of the tables opened.
She insisted on standing right by the bus station so she had a view of the people sitting in her desired area. The four of them were in the way of guests and servers but Karen did not notice, she was too busy staring daggers at people eating. I went to the manager, who tried to move her to no avail. Finally, we just let them stay because we noticed a couple in a booth packaging up their food.
I checked in a few minutes later to see if that table had left yet and was dismayed to see they had ordered dessert and coffee. Karen was still standing there, watching them. The kids were bored and running up and down the wheelchair ramp. I asked Karen again to move back down to the waiting area as she was blocking servers and her kids were an accident waiting to happen.
She loudly asked when her table would be ready and pointed right at the couple sipping their coffee. Knowing we were talking about them, the couple looked at us and smiled. A disturbing realization dawned on me. It hit me then that they were not leaving on purpose. Oh dear God. Karen realized it as well, because she got very angry.
She yelled that they were keeping her booth from her and we should kick them out. I told her we would not ask anyone to leave until they were ready. Then I watched in horror as the woman approached the couple. Karen: “You're done here, this is my table now. Pay the bill and go.” Couple (Smiling sweetly): “We just got our coffee and dessert.”
Karen: “THEN TAKE IT TO GO!! WE ARE HUNGRY AND YOU'RE IN OUR BOOTH.” Couple: “This is our booth. It's not yours until we leave.” Karen raged insults at them until the manager came rushing up to help. He tried to intervene but could not be heard over her screaming about her starving children. The couple kept their cool the whole time, nibbling their dessert and stirring their coffee at a sloth’s speed.
Finally, the manager had enough and told the woman to go. She was utterly FLOORED that we were asking her to go and not the couple. Then she escalated it. She picked up an empty dessert plate from their table and chucked it across the room, where it hit a wall and smashed into pieces. The manager screamed for someone to 9-1-1, since this was before everyone had cell phones.
I remember trying to hide my smile from the people around me. What adult acts like this? This woman was in her 40s! There were a ton of open booths too, just not in that area. Then Karen's husband appeared, grabbed her by the sleeve, and started pulling. She let him lead her toward the front door as she continued to yell insults at us.
She called the manager a loser and mocked his career choice. She told me I was "a plain nothing going nowhere" and “worthless," and when they'd gone, I went into the back for a while to hide. I needed to get away from people. When I returned, the server of the couple ran up to me. He said, “That couple left but they wanted to talk to you.”
Apparently, they felt so bad about how that woman acted. They saw her watching them and she was being so rude, so they decided to take their time to mess with her. They didn't think she'd do that! They waited a few minutes to talk, but they thought I went home and asked the server to give me something as an apology.
The server then handed me a $100 bill. It was a bad night but it kind of made me feel better. It's not every day a customer acknowledges when they've made your life miserable. If the couple had just left, none of that would have happened. Nothing they did hurt me, of course, but the insults from Karen sure did. Thankfully, Karen was never seen again.
It's not easy to be a young kid making $5 an hour and being berated by people who think they're better than you.
73. Taking You All Down With Me
Big box retail: Customer wants to return something we don't even carry. In fastball fashion, she launches the product directly towards my head. I duck and it shatters against the wall behind me. Customer continues her tantrum by clearing everything off the counter and knocking over a catalog rack. This is just one of the hundreds of events like this while I was there. Please respect all retail workers. Their day is probably going much worse than yours.
74. Anything Can Happen
I’d been having a really busy night, non-stop back and forth, without any time to even pause and go to the bathroom. I’d been so busy that I wasn’t even thinking about bathroom breaks. But we were also going through a bit of a heatwave in our area, so I’d been drinking copious amounts of water. All of a sudden as I was driving to this particular delivery, the urge to go hit me.
Like, things went from 0 to 60 in an instant. Thankfully I was close to the customer so could get this one over with quickly. Or so I thought. I pulled up to the house, and it was an area I’d delivered in before, so I could immediately see that something wasn’t right. All the lights were off in the house, not even the glow of a television or anything.
It was extra apparent because the streetlight closest to the door happened to be out of order. And on top of it all, the block was super quiet. This is a big university area, and obviously there aren’t many student renters in July, but there had to be at least one person, because someone ordered this pizza. Maybe they just liked sitting in the dark or they were out back in the yard, whatever.
I just didn’t want to get out of my car and knock on a quiet house in the middle of the night (around 9:30pm) without first checking that I had the correct address and the customer was inside. It was scorching that night, even after sundown. My car’s A/C is a joke, and the piping hot pizzas don’t help things much, so I have to try and open the car door as infrequently as possible to keep any cool air in.
I called the number the customer provided and the voice on the other end said, kind of brusquely and out of breath, “Yah?” I just tried to keep it clear and concise, “Hey, it’s your pizza out front but there doesn’t appear to be anybody home?” And the customer replied, still gasping for air, “Yah, I’m not home." I had to pee so badly by that point that I was much less patient than I’d otherwise be with a customer right out of the gate.
“Well, then we’re going to have to terminate the order, because I’ve arrived in the stated delivery window and you were supposed to pay in cash, so, I don’t know what to tell you. Plan ahead next time.” I instantly regretted letting my bladder do the talking for me as the voice on the other end came through more clearly as a young, bubbly, and very distraught girl who couldn’t have been older than 20 or 25.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry I was running down the street so I could barely hear you!” She cried, “I just switched you out of my Air Pods. Is that better? Sorry, I completely lost track of time at work, but I knew you were coming, that’s why I’m literally running home right now. Please don’t leave, I’m starving and I don’t have a car. Seriously, please don’t leave. Five minutes tops, ok?”
I know what it’s like to be hungry, and running late, and have no car but not live near any restaurants. Plus when I heard her voice I began to remember more specifically having delivered to this place a couple times before, and she’d always been perfectly nice. Now I felt bad for snapping at her. I tried to walk it back, while simultaneously looking out my window for potential spots to pee.
“No, no, my bad, I’m letting the heat get to me and it’s not your fault. No need to rush. See you when you get here.” I hung up and, while watching the street, was starting to think I was really out of luck. All the other houses had people in them, and were close together, so there were no clumps of trees or out of the way patches of land or anything.
Of course, I had just tossed my empty water bottle at the last delivery, because I’m an idiot. I had to resort to drastic measures. Finally, I decided it was escalating to the point of an emergency, and the safest bet was to use a bush in front of the woman’s house. She wasn’t home, after all. The streetlight was out so no one would see me.
The people who were home were inside. My car was parked across the street and we’re a small shop who don’t wear uniforms, so if someone did spot me, they’d have no way to connect me to my employer. Animals pee outside all the time, humans are animals...this is fine. I scurried over to the tallest bush in her front yard. She didn’t really have much of a yard, more just a walkway lined with bushes and flowers that ran adjacent to her front door.
The biggest cluster of bushes, the only one where I could be sure there would be no visible splatter on the side of the house, was about four feet from her door. I looked both ways, unzipped, and let fly. After the initial millisecond of relief, I noticed the sound was way off, more like pissing on something solid than something leafy. I started panicking. I was thinking I’d aimed wrong. But once I start, I can’t stop mid-stream, so I kept squinting into the darkness to see if maybe I was hitting a key rock or something and could just move a few inches over. Instead, all of a sudden, I heard a way more concerning noise. A deep voice exclaiming, “What the heck?” And before I could turn around, assuming I’d been caught by a neighbor, a man came leaping out of the bushes.
He blew by me, brushing my golden shower off him as did. He spit pretty emphatically on the ground, so I think I might’ve beaned him right in the face. I didn’t see where he went after a few paces but, though this next part is kind of a blur, I do think I remember hearing a car screech out from a bit further away after a minute.
I’d gotten some night vision by that point so I was able to make out his height, build, and outfit, but only the most general details of each. I was in such shock that I didn’t even pull my pants up. I just stood there trying to figure out what had happened. The reality was so terrifying that my mind refused to accept it. Instead, I impulsively searched for a reasonable explanation that could make everything okay.
I thought, “Could these bushes lead to some backyard area and just looked like they were against the house? Could they have been obscuring an open window?” My inner voice was desperately screaming, “Bruh that man was wearing a hoodie in 90-degree weather. That was a bad man. You’re in a bad situation.” But the very idea that I was within inches of a guy who would be hiding in bushes at all, let alone in front of a young woman’s house at night, just wasn’t something I was ready to grapple with yet.
I was coping by not coping. My fight or flight response totally failed me at that point, because my dumb brain did the absolute last thing I should have done, and I approached the bushes to try and validate this “There must have been a good reason for a man in a hoodie to be behind these bushes in the middle of the night” theory. So I walked over to the side, turned on my phone flashlight, and tried to peer around the line of shrubbery.
Pro tip: As scary as things may look in the dark, seeing them with a single beam of your flashlight can sometimes make it even worse. That’s when I saw the bag. There was a tattered drawstring bag sitting behind the bushes, slightly splashed with pee. But I was in such a moronic daze from shock that I groped around for it thinking, “See? This is it, this will explain why he was back here.” Oh, it explained it.
Once I maneuvered it over and pulled it open, I saw a sharp knife, a roll of duct tape, and a bottle of pills. The delusions officially broke at that point and all the adrenaline, endorphins, and self-preservation instincts that had been suppressed kicked in ten times over. I became whatever the opposite of dazed is. More laser-focused than I have ever been in my life, with one singular goal: “Get back to my car.”
I dropped the bag, booked it across the street, got in my car, and slammed the pedal to the floor before the door was even all the way closed. I went as far as I could as fast as I could until I hit a red signal, then I pulled off to the side and realized I shouldn’t be driving anymore than necessary in the condition I was in. I pulled into the parking lot of a 24-hour drug store and took a breath.
I was finally calm and coherent enough to zip up. Then I formulated a plan of action. My first lucid thought was, “Who do I call first, the authorities or the girl whose house that was?” I thought about it for what couldn’t have really been more than 10 seconds, but felt like an hour, and decided “Ok. I am in my locked car with the engine running. If trouble starts, I can drive away. I know something’s up, she might not, and she needs to know not to keep walking in that direction.”
But as I was dialing her number, a more disturbing thought occurred to me. “What if there was no girl?” I thought I remembered delivering to that house before, but what if I was wrong? What if the girl on the phone was just a decoy to get me there to rob me, or worse? Every pizza guy on the planet has seen the Evil Genius documentary by now, so I thought, “She called me all out of breath. She wasn’t home. The whole thing was off, can’t risk it, I’ll start with the authorities.
I called 9-1-1. The operator was very helpful in keeping me calm, because I was a complete wreck by this point. He kept assuring me that someone would be there soon. I kept telling them they had to get there before the girl did, but I was trying to express three thoughts at once, and really damaging my own credibility by the end of it.
It came out more as: “You’ve got to save this girl because he wasn’t after me I was just delivering a pizza. Unless they were after me, in which case there might not be a girl, but I talked to one on the phone, so then you should find that girl because they used her to lure me there. But if she’s real she doesn’t know about the guy, who was also real, and there could be more guys if there’s actually a girl, and you know what? Even if there isn’t a girl there might actually be more guys. I only checked one part of the bushes so I don’t actually know. But we’ll know which guy is the one I saw because I peed all over him, you know. I didn’t mean to, this was back when I thought the girl was real but not home, but she might be real so you really need to find her if she is because the guy was real—”
Finally they basically just asked me to stop talking and stay on the line. But that was when I saw an incoming call from the customer. I couldn’t answer it without disrupting my 9-1-1, so I just ignored it. My problems just got worse. Then she sent me this text like, “Hey I’m here, don’t see you?” I told 9-1-1 she was there and they said officers were only minutes away.
But who knows how long that meant? Especially after I’d given such a scattered account of the events in my panic. I just felt overwhelmed with guilt. Because my rational mind said the odds of her being a decoy girl for some large scam targeting pizza guys were low and the odds of her being the intended victim of a predator were high.
So I put my 9-1-1 call on mute (where I can hear them but they can’t hear me) and turned back, heart absolutely pounding out of my chest. Then I took 9-1-1 off mute and told them I had returned to look for the girl. They weren’t happy about that, but I saw her meandering past the parked cars in the street looking to see if one was mine, and I waved her down, flashing my brights.
She bounced on over to the window of my car, happy-go-lucky. I figured that was a good sign that she wasn’t in on whatever this was. But I was just so scared to be back in the general area and to not know what had just happened or what was going to happen. I kept whispering “Get in. Get in!” And she was like, “Get it? Huh? Oh! You want me to get the pizza from the back?”
I didn’t want to make the same mistake with her that I had made with 9-1-1, so instead of trying to tell the whole story, I stuck to the bare basic facts. “There was a man in your bushes. I’m on the phone with the authorities. I don’t know where he is right now. Please get in the car so we can lock the doors.” I was barely able to get even those sentences out, and I was shaking like I’d had 10 cups of black coffee.
I held up my phone with 9-1-1 on the call screen to verify it for her. I thought that was why she got in the car with no further explanation, but it turns out that wasn’t entirely it. “You still there? Is she with you? Are you safe? Is anyone else there?” 9-1-1 kept checking in, not knowing who the third party I was talking to was. I reassured them, and we drove, more cautiously this time, to a location 9-1-1 instructed us to wait at to speak with officers after they cleared the area.
I didn’t actually have to do much after that. The officers came pretty soon after, a car met us, I gave a statement telling them everything I observed, and she went to go speak to more officers in more detail than they needed me for. It turns out the reason she got right into a strange pizza guy’s car without probing any deeper into my story is because she knew who the man was right away from my description.
She had an ex-boyfriend who was apparently psychotic enough that he immediately came to mind from hearing “There’s a guy in your bushes.” She later called us to thank me and insist on leaving a huge tip. I wasn’t there when the call came in so the kid who answered didn’t know to refuse the money. But the manager already promised the next time we see her we can load her up with enough “one free pie” cards to last a lifetime.
Easily the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, on the job or off. I don’t get the chance to tell the story much, because I try to avoid sharing it with anyone who could possibly know the girl or know of the event. But I’m still not the same since. Even though I know he didn’t even have anything to do with me directly, this truly shook me to my core. Be safe out there guys. Anything can happen.
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75. Order Up
I bartend, and was working a day shift. We aren’t a restaurant known for takeout, but we allow it and are set up through the various service apps. We had an UberEATs order in the middle of lunch hour, and eventually had a driver brusquely walk in and act a little aggressive when announcing himself. I had the order ready, so I asked him to verify what he was picking up.
He raised his voice, “It’s for [name], what’s the name say?” We don’t get a name. I told him that I didn’t have one, so I just needed him to tell me what was on the order. I’ve seen them check this dozens of times. It’s usually not inconvenient. Again, louder. “What’s the name say!? Are those the wings!?” It was three items together. None were wings.
I repeated that I didn’t have a name and told him that we didn’t have an order for wings. He got angry. “Are those the wings!?” I explained again that they weren’t wings, showed him that I had three items together, and asked him to clarify what order he was looking for. At this point, he snapped, and started screaming at the top of his lungs.
“CAN I GET ANY SERVICE!?” The bar fell silent. I put the food down and told him to leave. He continued shouting. “FINE, I’LL LEAVE THEN!” He continued causing a scene as he made for the door. I told him he needed to get out immediately or I’d call the authorities. Then he spit on the floor, slammed the door open, and stormed off.
The bar stayed silent for a few more seconds before people returned to their meals. Not two minutes later, another driver showed up, verified the order, and left without issue in under a minute.
76. Egg on Your Face
Was working the registers at a grocery store. About an hour before closing, a customer comes to my lane with two 48-ct egg cartons. Stumbles a bit putting them onto the belt, and before I can react the entire thing was on the ground. Best part? Apparently, the janitor had left already, so I got to spend the next hour cleaning up 96 broken eggs with nothing but paper towels.
77. Watch Out from Below!
I am a caregiver for the elderly. Now cleaning up poo and pee is part of my job, I do it every day, but last week was a whole new level. I woke a lady up to give her personal care (shower and whatnot). She goes to the bathroom and sits on the toilet first. Stands up and wipes and then instead of putting the tissue in the toilet and flushing, she puts it in the sink.
Okay. No big deal, I'll put it in the toilet for her. Then she takes her clothes off and sits in the shower. I start washing her. I ask her to stand so I can do her bum and back of her legs. She stands and I kneel down to do what I need to do, as I'm cleaning her bum, she decides it's a great time to take a dump. All over my arm and the floor.
I then have to clean all this up, all the while she's moaning at me, “What's taking so long, I'm cold.”
78. Party Of Eight
Oh man...this group. I have never turned to a manager before and said, “I’m done, I’m not going back over there.” But I did last night. Yesterday was a particularly slow Monday. I didn’t have any tables until 5:30. This table of two sat in my section and wanted happy hour, which is for high-tops only of course, so I moved them to the right section.
The hostesses were able to get me a new table immediately, and it was a group of eight people. Six women, I’m putting money on past sorority sisters, and two boys around eight years old. I should have just taken the two happy hour people and taken the wrath from management, honestly. The table of eight is immediately obnoxiously loud, and it’s pretty much just seat #3 causing it.
While the other women were just raising their voices, #3 was actually yelling as if she had earplugs in. They also have a birthday at the table, “Oh my gaaaawd, girls!! Let’s sing!! Every time someone mentions the birthday we HAVE to sing!: And they did. They sung/screamed happy birthday no less than five times, one for every round of drinks.
By the time the appetizers came out, my manager had already walked up to them about a noise complaint from a table across the restaurant. Seat #3, a grown adult, goes to the bathroom, but stops halfway and asks me, “Wait, do I need a mask??” “Yes, ma’am, you do when you’re traveling around the restaurant.” “Are you sure??” “...Yes, ma’am.” “Like, really sure??”
This conversation happened multiple times with seat #3 and our other staff members. She would stop a staff member every time she ran to her car, went to the bathroom, checked out the restaurant, ran after a kid, and ask, “Are you sure I gotta wear a mask?” And of course, then never wear it. My work doesn’t allow staff to enforce the mask policy, so I can’t do anything but answer her questions and maintain a biiiiig distance.
Anyway, the first round of drinks comes out. Seat #2 keeps drinking Seat #1’s cocktail, even though she has her own margarita to work on. Gets a good bit of the way through her friend’s drink, turns to her with a sour face, and goes, “You like that?” Seat #1 says, “I don’t know...” and she finally gets to try her half-gone drink.
She says yeah, she likes it. #2 goes, “Are you sure??” Seat #1 says... “I don’t know...” So, now seat #2 sends back a drink that’s not even hers, and has me get seat #1 a new drink. That new drink never got touched. I think she actually really liked the first one, but gave into some bizarre peer pressure. Thankfully, this was the only issue I ever had with seats #1 and #2. Otherwise, they were great. But I wasn’t out of the woods.
Appetizers get dropped. Kids’ food gets dropped. I’m standing there taking the ladies’ orders, and I’m watching the boys who are to my left and in front of me. One of the boys is enjoying his first ever Shirley Temple. I was so happy to give it to him, y’all. I shoved so many cherries in that kid’s cup. He’s sitting there chugging his daily requirement of sugar, when he sort of sits up while still drinking, and turns towards me.
He pulls the straw from the cup with liquid still in the straw, and his mouth was so full his cheeks were bulging. He turned towards me, and SPIT his drink through the straw down my legs. I have never...EVER...been spit on. What the actual?! I let out a bewildered, “Excuse me?!” as my legs are dripping Shirley Temple and 8-year-old saliva.
The mom? LAUGHS. And then it got worse. She even praises him! “Good one, Dom!!” I walk away now. Thankfully I had everyone’s orders when it happened. I clean up and come back out, head to a different table, and now seat #3 is rushing me from across the restaurant, absolutely hauling her butt, without a mask on of course.
She catches up to me, grabs my arm, and turns me around. Proceeds to get in my face, to the point where our breasts are physically touching, and goes, “We have a birthday at the table...do you guys do anything for that?? Like sing maybe? Ooh! Or cake! Bring out a cake! Do you have a chocolate one and candles?!” The entire time she’s going on about this request, I’m backing up slowly.
She’s following me step for step. I have backed up so far that I have now backed up into another table that actually has people eating at it, and she is still breast-to-breast with me going on about cake and singing. I can smell the drinks on her breath. Finally, I get her happy with a slice of Baked Alaska for the table for free, and she finally screws off.
The table I backed into wouldn’t let me apologize for being on top of them practically, and it actually turned out to be the table that complained about the noise in the beginning! They were 100% on my side after getting the full experience just now with guest #3, and would continue to be on my side and explain to the managers what was going on.
I hate that this one table ruined their meal, since they were really such nice ladies whose experience was ruined by this terrible group. So, I bring out dessert. Baked Alaska, set it on fire, ooh ahh. That dessert didn’t stand a chance, it was gone. I go back over to make sure no one wants anything else, and seat #3 goes, “Why did the hostess yell at us earlier?”
Me: “Oh...Well, that was the manager. She was informing you that you have a noise complaint against your party.” 3: “Who complained? Tell me who complained, I’ll take care of it.” Me: “Yeah... I can’t release that information.” 3: “You can’t? Uh okay. Well, can you tell the woman who came over here to screw off?” Me: ...“Yeah, that’s my manager, I can’t do that either.” Her response made my face go red.
Lady #3: “Okay, well you can just screw off then.” Me: “Okay!!” I walked right up to my manager and asked her to cash them out and handle whatever they had left, since I was done. We had four different managers in the building that day, and all four had been watching the table since the noise complaint before appetizers, so she didn’t ask any questions from me and just printed the check for them and walked over.
She said, “Hey everyone. Here’s your check, it’s time for you to head on out of here.” Seat #2, who is actually a really nice lady and doesn’t deserve to be roped in with her awful friends but you should choose your friends better, starts apologizing for everyone’s behavior. Manager just says, “It’s time to go.” She just keeps repeating it until #2 paid for the entire check ($304 after discounts) and they left. Oh, but the disturbing climax is around the corner.
I go with my bussers and start bussing this absolutely wrecked table. One of the bussers reaches under the table and grabs this aqua blue pile of fabric. He’s turning it this way and that, trying to figure out how you’d wear that sort of face mask, when he spots the skid marks...yes. My table left their used panties under my table. And guess who’s seat they were by? Lucky #3!
What the actual heck, y’all. I just can’t believe that actually happened last night.
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79. Furious Felon
I used to be a counselor at a clinic. I had a client who was going to prison for getting rid of his ex-wife's beloved rottweilers because “I couldn’t kill her, and it was the best way to hurt her.” The day he was supposed to go to prison, he showed up at the clinic, after dosing hours, demanding his dose. He was no longer a patient at the clinic, so legally, there was no way to do this.
I stood behind the counter and tried to explain the situation to him. He grew more and more irate and then called his lawyer and put me on the phone with him. I wish he hadn’t. His lawyer explained that this dude didn’t show up for prison, was now a fugitive, and had pulled a knife on his own sister in her car just outside my clinic. So, the guy had a knife. The lawyer warned me not to anger him. He was violent, and I should call for help.
By this point, every other therapist and office worker had already gotten out of Dodge. So, I told the lawyer thanks, hung up the phone, moseyed the heck out of the front office, and called for law enforcement from the break room. The dude hopped over the counter and trashed the clinic, and left. The bosses asked why I didn’t stay and make sure he didn’t trash the place.
I explained they paid me $10.50 an hour and refused my raise. I was the only man in the building and was left alone with a violent armed felon. Screw that.
80. Down In The Dumps
I worked at a grocery store in my teens, and it wasn’t a great experience. My old manager refused to pay the waste management bill for several months. By the time they finally came and emptied the dumpster, there were still mounds of trash lying around the area. So, guess what my manager’s solution was? He had me go out and clean all of it up alone.
I didn’t have any protective gear or supplies whatsoever, and I was out in 100+ degree weather. I only had a bunch of trash bags to put it all into, and when I went in to ask for help, he just gave me a shovel. After that, I worked one more day, where I was given more work to do without so much as a “good job” or “thanks.” I never went back.
81. No, I’m Closed for Business
When I worked at McDonald's, I found out we didn't get paid for closing. We got paid until the store closed, so if it took us an extra hour or two to close, that was unpaid. I wish I knew what I know now, because that is an open and shut case, but at the time, I was young and dumb. My first paycheck, I noticed I had a ton of missing hours.
So, when I asked my boss about it, she told me we only get paid until the store closed. So that night, I walked out when the store closed. They tried to guilt me into staying, because "the other team members need me.” Screw that. I don't work for free, sorry. Especially when I'm already making minimum wage.
82. No Pride in Wasting Room Service
Worked at a hotel. We were hosting some junior high baseball traveling team. I was in the back, folding towels, and saw something weird on the security cameras. Three boys were carrying a roll of towels and looking shifty. They shoved the towels in the trash and then took off down the hall. I went up to the trashcan to investigate, unrolled the towels, and found an ice bucket from one of the rooms.
It smelled. I knew what I smelled like. But I had to know. So, I lifted the lid and sure enough...HUGE PILE OF POOP in an ice bucket in the trash right next to the elevator. I called the coach, who was out eating lunch and had left the kids unattended (great idea!) and he lost his mind and hung up on me. Soon, all the coaches are running through the lobby, apologizing and saying that they'll be right back down with the ENTIRE team.
Sure enough, within five minutes a very scared looking group of 13-year-old boys is in my lobby. The head coach proceeds to scream at them for 15 minutes about how in his 40+ years of coaching he's never had "a crime so heinous" committed under his watch. At this point, I'm actually starting to feel bad for the kids, most of whom are crying.
He then made the kid responsible for the poop filled bucket call his parents (on speaker phone so that I could hear it) and explain to them, in detail, what they'd done. Poor boy's dad hung up on him too! Then called him back and yelled at him even more. Kid then had to apologize to me (written and verbal) all while bawling his poor eyes out.
I got him a box of tissues and forgave him. He came down to my desk three more times that night to keep apologizing. Writing up that incident report for my boss was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever done, and my boss had to review the tapes because he could not believe this was real. The kids had been pulling pranks on each other all season, and apparently leaving a poop filled bucket in the other kid's room was the finale.
While it was absolutely disgusting, it was also super hilarious looking back on it now. Also, mad respect to the coach and parents for taking responsibility for their kid's actions. There were plenty of other groups that would have just told me to clean it up and denied the whole thing.
83. Bad Aim Hurts Everybody
Used to work as a dental nurse. The first patient of the day, the bloke said he felt sick after having a local anesthetic. He looked it. I grabbed the bin and told him if he needed to vomit, take the bin. He held it in his lap and turned, vomiting down the side of the chair and all over my pants and shoes. Of course, I had to clean it up, and of course, they wouldn't let me go home to change.
84. The Red Does Not Mix Well With the Brown
When I walked into the room of a confused patient on blood thinners who had ripped out his IV and catheter and had poop and blood on every surface of his room. It looked like a murder had been committed. I've been through a lot as a nurse, but that was like going into a war zone.
85. Nope Nope Nope
Back when I did plumbing, I went out to a job that required me to duck into the crawl space of a roughly 200-year-old mill house. I opened up the crawl space and shined my light to look inside, only to see my worst nightmare come to life. All of the rafters and pipes were draped in snakeskins, and I saw live snakes slithering away into the darkness. I noped right out of that one. I’d rather crawl through excrement than snakes.
Who loves bridezilla stories? Because boy, do I have one! Buckle up: it involves shoplifting, the end of at least two relationships, a very long visit from your friendly neighborhood officers, a few evictions, and a ton of overtime for my employees. It was like we were hosting a live version of the Jerry Springer show or something.
Needless to say, there's going to be an employee appreciation party very soon since none of them walked out on me when all the crazy stuff happened. The hotel I work at has 132 rooms and the wedding party that stayed with us last night had rented out 70 of them. But that's not all! We also had not one, but two school sports teams in-house that were renting a combined total of 30 rooms.
Our hotel was very much bursting at the seams. Since each group wanted to be as far away from the other as possible, we had to pack regular travelers between them all. Party hardy am I right? Hindsight is 20/20, and we should have realized we were in for a storm two days ago. The bridezilla, her groom King Kong, and the wedding party of monsters all checked in then.
The men asked for one of our largest suites for a bachelor party while the women checked into another for their bachelorette party. We fully expected the men to cause a riot because they were hauling in drinks literally by the keg. We were so, so wrong. In reality, the bridezilla and her bridesmaid minions were the ones that went on a rampage.
Not only did they tally up a total of three noise complaints (the fourth one gets you evicted) and over $100 worth of pantry charges, but they actually paid a group of kids $20 each to run up and down the hallways. I can only suspect it was because they meant to use the kids as a distraction from their own roughhousing.
The employee on duty that night said a guest came down to report that they thought the room was being used to film a Girls Gone Wild video. But the sun eventually set, and I came into work for my morning shift the next day. Stupidly, I didn't see all the red flags sailing right in front of my face. Less than 15 minutes into my shift, the bridezilla's maid of honor came down.
She saw me standing behind the desk and wearing a nametag, so naturally, she treated me like I wasn't a human being. After all, people who work in customer service are just robots in cheap flesh-suits, beep-boop...Anyway, she chewed me out a little bit for my employee’s "despicable behavior" last night towards herself and her friends.
I ran through my programming and said, "We're sorry if you felt disrespected and insulted," but I also informed her that her room had multiple noise complaints against it. "We're very strict on our noise policy ma'am," I told her. "You aren't the only guests in the hotel and if you cannot be courteous to our other guests, we will kindly ask that you seek other accommodations."
The bridezilla's maid of honor didn't like when I said that. She responded, "Well, it's just my opinion, but as someone who's a part of a wedding that brought your hotel more than 60 rooms worth of business, I think you guys should be a little more lenient with the rules for us." Unfortunately, my sass module was not installed at the time due to a lack of sleep.
So instead of going "Minnesota nice" on her, I told her, "We're trying to provide a consistent experience to all guests. I know you guys are throwing a party and it's a happy time for many of you, but we cannot bend on our noise policy." After that exchange, she handed me a list of more people who were arriving and she wanted me to assign them to specific rooms. She told me I had to make sure certain people aren't rooming too close together. Then we got into the dirt.
Some of the incoming guests were previously linked to the existing guests, so there was drama there...but they promised to behave themselves if they didn't have to look at each other. Now, I may just be a simple robot that cannot consume liquid beverages, but in my opinion, I don't believe exes and drinks mix well. The maid of honor also asked for housekeeping to come up ASAP to clean their trashed room, because they were going to use it as a prep room for the wedding.
The housekeeping executive didn't show up for another hour, and I refused to leave the desk to spend time cleaning their room. I told her she'd have to wait a bit until someone came in, to which she responded, "I really think a hotel this big should have someone always on duty for stuff like this."
By that point, it was 9 am; basically the dawn of the second day. And would you believe it, people for the wedding were already showing up to check-in! It was just wonderful that all these people were so punctual that they came an entire six hours early, just so they wouldn't be late! Graciously, we were not full the previous night, so I allowed them all to check into rooms as they showed up.
But do you want to know what I honestly thought? They all looked like clones of that woman from the "That's my OPINION" gif, and I did not want to test how well my eardrums could stand up to a whole choir of sirens. The small highlight to the busy morning is that there was a professional who came in to do hair and makeup for all the kids involved in the wedding party.
She did up flowers in all the girls’ hair and they all looked freaking adorable running through the breakfast area. They were so excited to show off their new dresses to anyone who walked past them. I hoped the bridezilla wouldn't influence those kids’ behavior too much. The rest of the morning passed by in a flash, and I'd checked in at least 40 of the 75 arrivals we had for the day.
The worker taking over the evening shift arrived and I caught her up to speed on the state of things. I even offered to stay late and help her, as I expected it to get even crazier once the wedding started. She declined and said she'd be fine. She would come to regret it—big time. At 5 o'clock, she had a line of people out the door, all of them a part of the wedding group, screaming at her because they were late for the wedding.
More than five women were demanding that she give them keys so they could change in the rooms without having to bother with trivial things like payment or signatures. She was a trooper and stood her ground, asking all of them to wait their turn to check-in. My houseman on duty even offered to help her if she signed into the second computer for him, but that small ray of hope was quickly squashed.
A mother on the third floor came down to inform us that her son had swallowed a large quantity of pool water. The pool water upset his stomach and he ended up vomiting all over the elevator and third floor. That was the very same floor that the wedding party was assigned to, so he had to go deal with that. Once that rush was over, all was quiet for a few, peaceful hours.
Then, it was time for the shuttle to pick them up. Weddings usually all follow the same pattern: they ask for shuttle service from 8 pm until 1 am and are happy to pay our outlandish fee for the private use of the shuttle. Then, no one bothers to use it until 11 pm; at which point the drinks make them view the shuttle as a clown car and they all believe they've joined the circus.
Tonight followed that same pattern with only one exception. At 8:30, the driver had a single woman ride it back to the hotel, sobbing her eyes out. She told him that she saw her fiancé making out with her cousin behind the reception hall and she couldn't believe it. He tried to offer her comforting words on the way back, but I was told it was an all-around awkward 15-minute ride.
When she got back to the hotel, she demanded the front desk employee take her car off the file and make her ex-fiancé pay. We didn't do what she asked because we needed him to come down himself and slide his card. The chances of that happening were slim to none. As my shuttle driver was busy acting as the Ronald McDonald clown bus, stuffing close to triple the proper capacity into it (since not a single one of them bothered listening to him), a whole other nightmare was happening in the hotel.
Remember those sports teams that I mentioned earlier? One of the two teams had rented out a conference room to have a pizza party in. They were informed several times that they only had the room from 5 pm until 9 pm, so after the children stuffed themselves full of pizza, they ran off to use the swimming pool.
As I'm sure you're all aware, global law states that if you're at a hotel for your kids’ sporting event, you are allowed to get completely wasted. And I mean absolutely gone. At that point, the hotel staff is supposed to babysit your gremlins so you can party like you're 21 again. Isn't that swell? Our houseman was trying to get the kids to behave themselves and stay quiet in the pool, while the front desk was threatening to evict the parents.
It was 10:30 pm at that point and "Party in The USA" by Miley Cyrus was being blasted from the conference room, so we had to kick them out. Meanwhile, the one, singular mother who was actually being responsible stopped by the desk with about 20 bottles of Diet Coke and her son. Apparently, our vending machine had broken on the second floor.
She said that her son put in the money, and then proceeded to press the button a hundred times while waiting for his soda. He must have had the strategy guide for that vending machine downloaded to his phone because he knew just the right amount of times to push the buttons so that the machine would continue spitting out pops.
The son did it about two more times before the mother realized he shouldn't have been able to buy 20 pops with only $5. She forced him to bring them all down to the desk and apologize for taking them. In the meanwhile, the other parents back in the conference room had been waving off the front desk's threats until we finally get a lucky break. The night audit came in a half-hour early because the weather was bad and she didn't want to be late.
My night auditor has plenty of years under her belt and has seen far worse. She called the authorities within seconds of walking in and informed the sports parents that she was doing so. When officers arrived, the parents had all belligerently returned to their rooms, and the evening shift was able to go home after that stressful day of work. But that's when the real fun started!
The officers got called away only a few minutes after arriving, but we knew exactly where they went after that. They actually got called to the reception hall where the wedding was being held! Apparently, they needed to shut down the bar because the parents were buying drinks for the kids who were underage. Plus, one of the kids who was drinking became heavily intoxicated, took the keys to his mother’s car from her purse, and crashed it into another car in the parking lot.
The kid was fine but he probably suffered a wicked hangover this morning. The reception hall had called the officers to kick them all out, and that's when they became our problem again. See, the driver, who should have still had pick-ups at 12, 12:30, and 1, now had to pick them all up at 12. There were at least 35 people cramming into the bus.
Each of them was holding a glass with at least half a pint of liquid in it. That's when the driver put his foot down. He turned off the shuttle and told them they weren't allowed to have open beverages while in the vehicle and that he would not drive them back until they all disposed of them. Needless to say, that didn't go over well. None of them listened to him and just berated him to bring them back because it was cold.
One of the officers on site came over and told the driver that they'd be willing to escort him back and would overlook the many passengers and their drinks, just so they could get the people inside. When the shuttle and the entourage showed up at the hotel a half-hour later, it was like unleashing Pandora's Box upon the building.
Four officers even stayed around to help the night audit deal with all of the disorderly people because there were a lot of complaints. The first complaint came from someone on the first floor—apparently, someone was attempting to do an amateur remake of 50 Shades of Grey and was not being subtle about it.
Then there was the screaming, yelling, and breaking of lamps. Remember that cousin who broke up someone’s relationship earlier? Well, she apparently had a fiancé of her own. And while she was doing the nasty with that other man, her fiancé walked in on them. It didn't end well, and we had to evict all three of them. Keep reading…
Meanwhile on the third floor, Girls Gone Wild had resumed in full force. The night audit went up with one of the officers to tell the group that they were receiving their final warning before their eviction. While she was doing so, a man in the room across the hall opened his door to yell at the night audit.
His exact words were: "Why are you dragging me out of bed? Do something about this noise!" Before the officer could say anything, the night audit spun on him and said, "You got out of the bed of your own volition, sir! We're dealing with the situation." It was all the same song and dance for the next few hours.
When more people called in to complain, the audit and officers dealt with it. Apparently, the officers were having a slow night and two of them stayed until the night audit was done since she didn't feel safe on her own. My houseman stayed until 3 am to clean the hallways because they were trashed with a capital 'T.'
We don't know what 310 was doing in their room at 4 in the morning, but 210 swore all the way to Sunday that they were practicing an Irish gig. But the crazy thing is that when the audit got up to the room, the entire floor was silent. Towards the end of the evening, a man came down to our pantry, took an arm full of random items, and started walking away.
The officers watched him bewilderingly and the night audit called out, asking the man if he would like to charge his items to his room. The man must have actually been three deer in a trench coat because he sprinted off the second she asked. An officer caught him, but he was so out of it that our night audit took pity and said that we wouldn't press charges. She asked the officer to just escort him back to his room.
Today, I came in at 7 am and was brought the speed. I gotta say, seeing an officer standing around at the front desk did not do my heart any good. The morning was quiet...too quiet. And then, I heard it—the heavy stomps down the staircase; the screaming agony of a stomach demanding food; the bridezilla descending into the lobby with a hunger.
A hunger that could only be satiated by screaming at me. So I just took it, listening to her scream and demand that everyone in her party be refunded. All 70 rooms. She couldn't believe that we had the audacity to call the authorities on her friends and family. "It's a wedding!" She shouted over and over. "We're supposed to have fun, not be treated like a bunch of dogs!"
I really didn't want to deal with her, so I told her: "Ma'am, you must keep it down, or else I will have to call the officers back. Our employees were verbally threatened by some of your guests last night and did not feel safe." I wanted to say that if they didn't want to be treated like dogs, they shouldn't act like dogs, but I felt that may be a little too unprofessional.
Finally, the wedding party began to check out...but not before they trashed breakfast. There was food dropped, coffee spilled, and my two breakfast attendants swear it was done on purpose. When they were cleaning up some spilled coffee, a bridesmaid knocked over another cup of coffee, and they all snickered at them. What is this, Mean Girls 2?
And that is my tale of the bridezilla. I've already gotten two emails from our guest relations department saying that there have been complaints opened up against us, but they're both from members of the wedding party, so all I have to do is submit a copy of the offical report and I think we'll be good.
I pray that all of you will never have to deal with bridezillas of your own. And if you do, Godspeed and good luck.
This happened yesterday. I’m a bellman for a tourist hotel that has had a mask policy, but with the updated mandate, we now also have a health questionnaire that must be filled out upon check-in. A group of three had checked in and were wandering around the lobby, one with his nose out, one holding a mask against her face, and one without one at all.
Me: "Hey, folks, if we could wear those properly it would be very appreciated." Karen: "But I’m staying in this hotel." Me: "It’s a state mandate, I’m sorry." Karen: "Well, the mandate says if you have a medical condition, you don’t have to wear one." Me: "So you’re stating you have medical issues?" Karen: "Yes, they give me headaches, so I won’t be wearing one."
Me: "I’m sorry for that inconvenience." At this point, she got a huge, smug smile that let me know she thought she had won. Me: "You’re staying here? Did you check in yourself or did someone else check you in?" Karen: "I checked myself in, I’m not a child!" Me: "Well, then you remember signing the health questionnaire when you checked in? The one that asked if you had medical issues preventing mask-wearing and if you planned on wearing a mask?"
Karen: "I didn’t sign anything like that" Me: "What room are you in?" Karen: "I don’t have to tell you that, you’ll stalk me!" Me: "No, I just want it so I can find your questionnaire. If you’ll come to the front desk, please." My supervisor now came to my side. Supervisor: "I have it here, I remember them checking in."
"He slid it under the sneeze guard and I grabbed it." Me: "Your name is Karen McDoobie? Is this your signature?" Karen: "I didn’t know that’s what that was! You expect me to read every little thing you idiots hand me?" Me: "Just the five-foot sign about masks and the check-in paperwork, which states that you have no medical issues and that you agree to our mask policy."
Karen: "What can you do about it? Are you the manager?" Me: "No, I’m the bellman. But I have a duty to our guests and staff." Karen: "I’m a guest, you idiot, I just told you that!" Me: "If you break hotel policy, that can change. So which is it? Are you a policy-abiding guest or do you have medical issues that will prevent your stay with us tonight?"
Karen: "Ridiculous! I would never have come if I’d known I’d be harassed like this. My town doesn’t have any mask policy and everyone is fine!" Me: So you’ll wear the mask? Karen: "I made these reservations last week! Everywhere else will be full!" Me: So you’re okay wearing the mask inside the hotel?" At that point, I was the one with a smug smile under my mask.
She grabbed the mask that was hanging on her wrist and held it on her face. Heading for the elevator, I could hear her mumble under her breath. As the doors closed, I saw her pull the mask away and wave it at me. At least she didn’t come out of her room all night, thank God!
86. It Was A Dark And Stormy Night
One night I have a delivery to a pretty rural area. A lot of my deliveries are to rural areas, so no big deal. But tonight it's drizzling and especially dark, so I'm having trouble finding the address of the house I'm looking for. So I roll down the passenger window and use my (really bright) flashlight, pointing it at mailboxes/trees/posts/anything that somebody might have their address on at the end of their driveway.
So I'm driving along at like five miles an hour, pointing my flashlight, when the beam catches a guy wearing a black hoodie at the end of an obviously long gravel road. He’s staring directly at me. More of a glare at me, really. But whatever, he could just be on the phone or something. Then it gets weirder. I finally find the address I'm looking for, pull into the drive, and hop out of the car.
That's when I get the sinking feeling. No cars, no house light, boarded-up windows. If you've ever been a delivery person, you know that this is the time to get out of there because you're about to get robbed. Right as I'm about to jump in, throw the car into reverse, and nope the heck out of there, I see a man walking across the empty field adjacent to the property towards me.
Dear God. Now, I'm a pretty burly, bearded dude, so I don't worry a whole lot on deliveries, but this scared the heck out of me. When he gets closer, I see him very obviously tucking something into his waistband. He then says in a thick, menacing southern accent, "I thought you was the law," I guess because of how I was scanning the addresses.
I meekly point to my car topper and the pizza in my hand, and he says in the nicest voice you've ever heard, "Oh, great! Thank you so much! Have a great night!" He pays me, and proceeds to walk back through the open field, in the direction of no buildings, in the rain, with his pizza. For the rest of my shift I couldn't stop whispering "What. The. Heck.” Strangest thing that's ever happened to me.
87. Thanks For Playing
Last week, it was a glorious night. A party of six comes in…headed by a Karen. This Karen wants two four-seater high-tops pushed together. Our host says she can’t do it because the restaurant was too busy. Karen looks her up and down and says, “Let me speak to the manager.” She’s calm, just insistent, and it’s obvious she’s played this card before.
So I roll up. “How can I help?” “Can we push those two tables together?” Nope, I say. “You can have that table that’s for six in the corner, you can have that booth for six after we clean it, or you can have that table for six outside after they get up—in about 10 minutes.” All the while, I’m pointing to each table like I’m showing them emergency exits on an airplane.
“You can’t push those tables togeth—” “No, we will not be moving the tables. You can have......” and I point out the tables again. “You know what I think? begins turning to her friend You know what I think?” both of them together “We go somewhere else?” But I had the absolutely perfect response to this. At this point, I clap my hands together.
Then I say, “Thank you and have a great night,” and immediately turn around and walk away. The best part? The Karen stares at the back of my head for a solid two seconds before she shuffled out. I didn’t realize this until I watched the video of the exchange.
88. Big Job, Big Attitude
I worked at Wal-Mart as a "stockman" for about a year. After the summer season was over, a supervisor asked me to move the 80-100+ lb. planks that went around bags of soil from the lawn and garden area in the parking lot back to their storage sheds which were probably a good 500 yards away. She told me to do this all myself and to have it done in an hour.
I went to the planks, and couldn't even pick one up by myself because of how long they were—I'm 6'2" tall and 230 lbs. I got on the walkie talkie and told her that I couldn't lift one by myself and would need help. She basically told me I was just whining and complaining. Anyway, eventually she sent help and after she sent another guy to help me, we were an hour deep in moving these things and only about 1/3 the way done with the job.
The supervisor herself and one more person decided to help us at that point. Anyway, it took six people two hours to move what she originally had told me to do within an hour by myself. At lunchtime when it was time to clock out, she decided to wait for me by the time clock so she could discuss my attitude. I told her there was nothing to discuss and said "Six people, two hours. Screw you, I quit!" and clocked out and left.
A couple of days later they called me to fill out some quittin' papers and for my reason for leaving I wrote "managerial incompetence and poor worker morale." About a month later I ran into a different supervisor who said the supervisor who did this got demoted because of it. Different supervisor begged me to come back but I found a better job working at a grocery store where no one was like the slave drivers at Wal-Mart after that.
89. Low Ink Levels
My boss didn't do payroll before leaving on a business trip and left it to the poor office manager to tell people they weren't going to get paid on time. I walked out of the staff meeting saying I'd be back when paychecks arrived. By the time I got home, I was mad enough to call my ops manager back and quit. Why didn't the boss do payroll? The stated answer was printer toner cartridge at home was empty. Guess he'd never heard of writing checks with a pen.
90. See You, Motel 8-er
At my first job out of college, I was informed that it might involve some "light travel," which was fine. However, about two weeks into working there, this turned out to mean they wanted me to spend 6+ months in a cheap motel room with my slob of a boss in Arkansas. Now, I'm a young guy and can handle most types, but I think it's incredibly unprofessional to have to see your boss in nothing but his tighty-whities as he brings back trashy chicks from the latest dive bar and makes you leave the hotel while he screws them.
I'd have complained but the guy above the two of us was his longtime friend and fraternity brother—I wasn't winning any arguments. I spent three months there before they brought us back to the main office for a one-week stretch and I decided that this just wasn't for me and I couldn't go back. I walked into the main office and just told them it wasn't for me and gave my two weeks. I handled it professionally.
It was them who decided the next day to bring me into the conference room where about 20 co-workers were sitting only to have the boss make me stand while he called me a quitter and let them know that "This is what someone who isn't committed to their job" looks like. The next day I came in and my stuff was in a box and I was told that my two weeks' notice was not needed and they didn't want me to return.
Two weeks later I had an interview for a better paying job which I've been in for four years and haven't looked back.
91. On the Dot
I was working at a call center. My shift started at 10. I badged into the building at about 9:55 and logged on, but the decrepit PC I was using took so long to boot up that when I finally logged in, I was 15 seconds late. I told my supervisor and he said there's nothing he can do and since I was late, I was put on probation and wouldn't be eligible for a raise for another month. He then said that I should arrive 15 minutes early so that situation won't happen again. I handed him my headset, walked out, and have never worked in a call center since.
92. Selective Memory
My manager claimed to have called me to change my schedule, but my phone didn't show any missed calls from his number so he was lying. Then the same day, he scheduled me to work a shift that afternoon without confirming that I was free or willing to pick up the extra shift. When I came into my next shift, he asked why I didn't come in for my scheduled shifts showing me my work schedule that he'd printed out.
I told him I hadn't been scheduled for that shift, showed him the screenshot of my original posted schedule from two days after it had been officially posted that showed I hadn't been scheduled for that day. He said it was fine, smiled and nodded, and sent me back to my shift. Next week's schedule comes out, I have no shifts. I ask what's up, and he says that since I missed a shift and didn't call in to say I'd be missing, I had to lose two weeks of hours. I again asked why that would be happening if I had come in for my scheduled hours, reminding him we had talked about it, he had said it was fine.
He pretended that he didn't remember that conversation. He was absolutely shocked when I quit before the two weeks were over. I got a voice mail three days later asking why I didn't show up to my scheduled shifts that week, and when I called him back asking what about "I got a new job and will not be back" was unclear, he claimed that he had never called me or left a voicemail and I must have just been confused!
Yeah, sure, some guy with your voice took your phone, called my number, claimed to be you, and used my name in the voicemail, mentioning my new job and confusion over my new schedule, to benefit who? To accomplish what? That manager got let go a few weeks later. Found out he had been pulling the same thing with other employees. They erased his name from the front of the building and everything.
93. 4’O Clock Shadow
I worked as a stock boy in the back of Hollister. I never really had any interaction with customers but was still forced to buy their clothes to wear to work. They had all these rules about hairstyles, fingernails, and facial hair. One night I came in to start a shift at 2:30 am to do a floor change, which meant the shift would end around the time the store opened up. I had the slightest bit of stubble on my face, like a day and a half's worth of stubble.
My manager, at 4 am, told me she had a problem with my facial hair and that when the mall opened up, I better go buy a razor and shave before anyone saw me like that, or she would have to send me home for the night. I basically said, "Well lucky for me, I was planning on quitting anyway, good luck with the floor change," and walked out. I left, got a biscuit breakfast, went home, and got in bed.
94. Thank You, Next
I work in a rich, very conservative part of town, so sometimes we get super conservative people in. I generally ignore the political attire that you see a few times a week, because as long as they respect me, I don’t care. By the way, I also have buzzed hair, so I'm used to comments about being feminine with short hair (usually positive), and I think this is why one customer started this conversation with me today:
Customer: Are you a homosexual? Me: Excuse me? C: I asked if you were a homosexual. M: Why do you ask? C: I don't want to be served by a lesbian. M: (after a stunned silence to make sure I just heard what I just heard) Well, then I guess you can go ahead and leave because no one here wants to serve you. And I immediately walked away to get the manager, who proceeded to ask them to leave because, well, you know.
I went outside for a few minutes to calm down, because I've never had this type of hatred spewed directly to me, face-to-face like this before.
95. Fatal Nepotism
My aunt got me a job as a tech in a chemical plant. As I was young and stupid, I told the guy who was supposed to train me that I got the job through my aunt. He decided to "haze me." After the first shift I already almost decked him as he would handily forget to tell me things and would berate and belittle me all the time. The second shift it continued and while I was working on a pipe, he didn't close it as he was supposed to do.
If I hadn't been aware of the rumbling and rolled away, I would have been blasted by a jet of boiling steam. I went to the team leader, he said I was overreacting but he proposed to move me to another shift. I quit. My aunt was pretty upset with me until she heard, through the rumor mill, that the guy indeed had done what I said he did.
96. Mourning Event Staff
A friend of mine died by suicide nearly a decade ago. When I requested the day off for his funeral, my request was denied. I had to go to work after going to the funeral of my 21-year-old friend. I was an event captain, so I had to be the face of the staff for the contact of the event, I tried my hardest to put on a happy face, but I failed. My mood was terrible and the event contact complained to my boss after the event.
The next week I was scheduled as an event server for my whole schedule with less hourly pay, less tip percentage. When I asked my boss, I was told that I had been demoted because of the complaint from the prior event. I quit on the spot, I should not have been forced to work that day, and I should not have been demoted for being in a bad mood after burying one of my closest friends. Screw that place.
97. Bait and Switch
I used to be a hostess in a pizzeria chain. I'll never forget this family of eight who gave me—THE HOSTESS—a $25 tip on a $50 bill, all because they hated their waitress and I was the one who kept refilling their drinks. The waitress was beyond peeved, but my manager said to her: "Should have been paying more attention…the tip is hers." Best day ever.
98. My Way Or The Highway
I’m not a wedding planner, but I was going to be at a wedding as a bridesmaid. The bride-to-be took us—the maid of honor, another bridesmaid, and myself—out to pick out dresses. The bride's mother and the groom's mother also came at her insistence. We arrived at the dress shop only to find that the bride, her mom, and the groom's mom had already picked out the dress she wanted us to wear for the wedding.
Okay, that was fine in theory, but we had been under the impression that we'd get to pick our own dresses. Whatever, it was her wedding. When we tried the dresses on, however, we realized something disturbing—they didn't really look good on the two of us because we both had different frames and sizes. We came out, showing the bride and two moms, and the moms were in agreement that the dress they picked really didn't work. The bride’s response, on the other hand, was jaw-dropping.
The bride was very upset that we didn't magically look great in the same dress. She then started making snide, subtle comments about our appearances, implying that we'd need to lose weight to look good in them, and telling one of the other girls how she'd need a push-up bra to look "normal." The moms ignored the bride's attitude and flagged down an employee to help us find some alternatives.
We live in a small city, so the selection they had wasn't the best, but the employee found at least half a dozen other dresses that come in the color the bride wanted. We tried them all on, but because we vary so much in body type, most of them didn't look good on both of us. For example, the strapless ones looked bad on the busty girls, while the long dresses didn't fit right on the short ones, etc.
The bride continued to make comments about our bodies. Finally, the last dress we tried on was generic enough that it looked fine on all of us...except the bride didn't like it because it didn't make us look "sexy" enough. To make matters worse, the dress had pockets. She absolutely did not want her bridesmaids to have pockets.
At this point, every single one of us was happy with this choice except for her. She reluctantly agreed to let us pick that dress but she was very clearly not happy. So then we picked out shoes. The bride told us we will be wearing the same shoes as her but in a different color. Weird, but again, we didn't argue with her.
When we tried them on, though, there was a snag in her plans. I have very small feet (technically a 3 in kids, though some size 5 shoes will fit). The heels she wanted were sky high and strapless. When I put them on and tried to walk, my feet kept slipping out. They were also open-toed, so I couldn't really stuff the front as I'd done in the past.
To top it off, just standing in them to try them on, the front was absolutely ruining my feet. I told her this, and she watched me try to walk in them only to have them flop off. Her mom asked me if they came in a smaller size, but they were fancy shoes, so no, they obviously didn't make them for kids. The bride's solution?
"Once you start to wear them, your feet will swell and they'll fit then." She then walked off. The bride's mom assured me that we'd "figure something out" and bought all of our outfits as her condolences. I never got to know how that would have worked out, though, because the bride and groom simultaneously cheated on each other, and they called off the wedding.
The bride didn't even have the nerve to tell me herself; I had to hear it from the maid of honor. We are no longer friends, and it's sad to me that this wasn't even the reason why. I can't believe I let someone treat me, and other people she called friends, like that.
99. Following Up
My insufferable manager followed me after work to my second job because she didn't believe I had one and was just using it as an excuse to get out early. My manager at my second job said, "There's some crazy lady banging on the doors yelling your name." So, I grabbed my uniform from my bag, opened the door, threw it in her face, and told her to shove off.
100. Projecting Gossip
I worked at a restaurant and the hostess was convinced I was sleeping with the owner. I was not. She was convinced the money I was using to take a vacation must have come from him and that I was hooking up with him behind his family’s back. She made things really weird and horrible for a couple of days. She told the new hires I was saying nasty things about them and made up really bad rumors about me.
I walked out of a shift after she confronted me in the storage room demanding I admit I was banging this guy. This guy who I never interacted with outside of the occasional table transfer or inventory update was bald, fat, and married, and had hardly said more than a hundred words to me beyond work instructions. After I left, I found out the dark truth. It turned out they were sleeping together and she was crazy. I'm so glad I quit.
