Working in customer service is a thankless job, and no one likes when a rude customer walks in the store and makes a scene. But even though we've all experienced an entitled Karen or a monster brat, no one is worse than these customer service jerks. Watch out, these stories of problem customers will make your blood boil.
1. Nothing Gets Between Him and His Calvins
One day, a customer in my store took a dump in one оf my fitting rooms...then wiped hіs butt with a $125 Polo Ralph Lauren shirt. Nothing more needs to be said.
2. The Customer Is Always Right, Especially This Lady
I was out to eat, and this younger lady was acting like a total witch to the staff. Everyone was obviously really embarrassed by her behavior…until this lady came up with the most devastating remark. This middle-aged woman piped up from her table, “Oh honey, you’re not pretty enough to act like that.” I seriously could have burst out into applause.
3. Stone’s Throw Away From Common Sense
I work as a server in a restaurant. We use little wooden trays as check presenters, and since it is an open-air restaurant, we weigh down the receipts with decorative stones. I dropped a check for an older couple, and after a few minutes, I went back to get it. The man said, "You should warn people that those rocks aren't chocolates! I could have broken a tooth!"
4. Have Fun Eating That
When I worked at Sam's Club, during the madness one Saturday morning, we caught a woman stuffing the inside of her pants with frozen lobster tail. She would unpackage them and throw the trash in a stack of tires that were on display.
5. You Probably Know What Evian Is Spelled Backwards
I worked at a private villa in Bali. One guest stood out because she only drank and bathed in Evian. So one day I spent almost an hour filling a large tub from tons of Evian bottles. But that wasn't the worst part. The same young woman complained that the path from her villa gate to her room wasn't well lit. This was probably because she wore sunglasses at night.
6. Nothing Good Starts in a Getaway Car
I work at an auto parts store. This one guy pilfered some $60 headlights and literally sprinted out the door. We went to look outside to try and get his license plate...just in time to see him speed off, hit a curb, and blow out his tire. Called the authorities and the idiot not only got detained, he had to have his car towed.
7. Never Too Late to Learn
A woman in her mid-50s cut in front of me and my two-year-old daughter in line at a restaurant. I was in the middle of getting my daughter a cookie and was in a hurry as I was dealing with a two-year-old. So I snapped at the woman, "How is it that you're 70 years old and you still don't know how a line works?" She was gloriously silent.
8. Lean and Mean
I was out to dinner with my family. We sit down, order our drinks, and so far everything is going nicely. The waitress comes and we order. When it gets to my mom, she orders what she wants, and the waitress responds with, "If you're on a diet, you don't want that." My mom had said nothing whatsoever about being on a diet.
She is slightly overweight, and I mean very slightly. She is self-conscious about it and it's difficult to even get her to come out to eat with us. My mom simply said, "I'm not on a diet" with a cold stare. The waitress turned red in the face and walked off to place our orders. At least she had the decency to be ashamed of herself.
9. Do Not Pass “Go”
When I was working at a bad job in my younger days, a customer was upset that he had to wait in line like everyone else before being able to make his purchase. He actually said, "Do you know who I am? I own hotels!" To which I replied, "Well sir, I'm sorry, but this isn't Monopoly, this is Krispy Kreme." He was not pleased.
10. Expensive Tastes
A woman was unreasonably upset that we stopped carrying a certain type of hummus at our expensive grocery store. Attempting to be helpful, I told her that Target had started carrying the same kind and, while I wished we still carried it for her, perhaps that could be a good replacement. I never expected her ridiculous reaction.
She literally stopped writing her check and looked at me with the most definite What-the-heck-is-wrong-with-you face and said, "What makes you think I would ever buy food from a Target? That is disgusting." I get the feeling she wouldn't even let me bag her groceries if she saw all the Great Value boxes in my cabinet. Sorry to offend you, lady.
11. Pie-Nabbing Contest
One Thanksgiving, my wife was in a Walmart and found the last two pumpkin pies and put them in her cart. A lady approaches and says, "Where did you get those?" My wife says, “Back there, but I think I got the last two.” The lady then proceeds to reach into our cart and remove one of the pies. My wife's hand shoots out to grab the lady’s hand and says, "DON'T!"
The lady says, "But I need a pie for Thanksgiving.” My wife says, "Uh, duh!?!" and then puts on her best “What is wrong with you?” face.
12. Have Your Pancake and Eat It Too
I had a customer demand her meal comped because her pancakes were "too round." Seriously.
13. How the Other Half Gives
I was having a bad day while working at a Subway one night, this kid comes in and orders a foot-long sub. The entire time I'm trying to take his order, he mumbles, sighs, walks away, and keeps saying, "I dunno." Just generally, he's being a huge brat. Then when it comes time to pay, he smiles at me with this annoying little grin and says he doesn't have enough cash on him.
He's close, but off by about 40 cents. So I said, “No problem little buddy, let me just ring that in as a six inch.” He beams triumphantly that his short change plot worked—but he didn’t know what was coming. Before I rang it up, I snatched the sandwich back, split it in two, and handed him half the sub with his change while tossing the other half in the trash. Problem solved.
14. Pulling Your Leg
When I used to work at Disney World, there was this incident with this lady and her turkey leg. One day at 9 AM, a lady came into our Guest Services and demanded a refund on her turkey leg because it tasted weird. When we asked her for the details to process the refund, it turned out that she had bought it 3 days before and was carrying it in her bag ever since.
15. No Vacancy
When I was nine years old, my dad and I were driving around some little town in Europe for an hour or so looking for a place to stay, but we kept getting told that everywhere was full. So we pull into the nth hotel of the evening. As dad and I are walking in, we hear the desk clerk tell another potential guest that they have one room left.
The guy, though, is kind of rude and huffy, and he says snippily, “I’ll have to check with my wife.” Suddenly, my dad yells from across the lobby "I'll take it." Dude gets this shocked look on his face, spins around, and tells the clerk "I'LL take it." Desk clerk to other guy: "I'm sorry, sir but we've just sold out."
16. A Price for Everything
I work at a retail location that does returns strictly only with tags on the clothes. There was one customer who was exceptionally rude to our staff right from the moment she walked in and was browsing. She called both women working dumb idiots, which cheesed me off. I made sure she got what was coming to her.
She came up to the register and told me straight-up she'll probably return all the things she’s buying because she was just trying to impress her friends. So I took all the tags off the clothes when I was bagging everything. I bettered the world that day.
17. Girl Power
My sister and I worked for Circuit City. There was an angry male customer she was dealing with who demanded to speak to the manager. When she went to get the manager, Laurie, the customer rebuffed her, saying a woman couldn’t help him and demanding to speak to yet another manager. So she got her manager Ruthanne.
He was so mad at this point and yelled, “Don’t any men work in this store?” I’m listening to this, so I walk out and say in my most feminine voice possible, “Hello sir, can I help you?” He screamed and left the store.
18. Be Careful What You Wish for
Someone called in during a busy day at work requesting that I fax an invoice. Almost immediately after, they called again and again, about 10 times in 15 minutes, asking why they hadn't received it yet. I faxed them a copy on the hour every hour for the next day or two.
19. Get Mature, Kid
I worked at a Kmart in high school. It was a small store, so I worked everything: electronics, stocking, cashier—you name it, I did it. One day, I asked a woman and her son, who was about 12 or 13, if they needed help finding anything as I was out on the floor. For some reason, the kid immediately calls me out for annoying him. I ignore it and go about my business, but I think he's a little jerk.
Right after that, I get called to checkout. As I'm working there, here comes the pair. The kid has gone all out back in the electronics area, with some EA sports titles and a GTA game. I'm checking them out when the age prompt comes up for the M-rated game. I decide to take a chance and show the jerk a little karma.
I flip the game over and inform the mother that "This game has been rated M for the following reasons" and read the list off the back of the case. There is a long, awkward silence, and then she angrily informs me that the son said it was only a "little violent," and he must have lied to her. Kid wasn't able to get anything that day.
20. How Do You Like Them Cookies
At the end of a long commute home after a hard week, I went to a Millie’s Cookies store just before closing time. As I walked up to the counter, some guy ran from behind me and tried to cut in front of me. The girl working there insisted I was first, thankfully. Outraged and noticing there weren’t many cookies left, I said, "Hi, I'll take absolutely everything you have." Cost me close to $60, but it was so worth it.
21. Here She Comes
When I was working in retail, my coworkers and I suddenly heard a loud "boom," but we didn't think anything of it. Five minutes later, an older lady who’s in the store almost every day, maybe in her 50s-60s, came up to me and said, “I just drove into your building.” I looked at her, and right before I began to laugh out loud, I realized she actually did.
22. Gobble Gobble
Having owned a grocery store for many years I've had some great and some really insane customers. The one that sticks out the most was a lady around Christmas time. She bought a frozen turkey from me and left happy as could be! A few days later she comes storming back into my store, she proceeded to throw this bag of turkey at me and starts tearing me apart for the subpar turkey.
"This turkey was so terrible I couldn't cut it, and when I did it tasted awful," this went on for a while, "I had my whole family there for dinner and this turkey ruined the entire meal" blah blah blah. When I realized the problem, I almost burst out laughing. As I took the turkey out, I noticed that she had managed to cook the thing in the plastic wrap that all frozen turkeys come in.
Even after pointing this out to her, I was still the bad guy. I couldn't win.
23. Flawless Logic
When I was a server, I once had someone come in, order a meal, not eat it, then want it for free, "because I'm not hungry."
24. It’s Not-a Me, Mario
I was standing at the counter of the pizza place I work at. This lady storms in and slams a pizza down on the counter. "This isn't the freaking pizza I ordered, what the heck are you going to do about it?" She asked. I look at the pizza, then over at my buddy Nick, who’s grinning at this point, and turn back to her and say, "Nothing."
She then goes on a long rant, saying how we are going to be fired, how stupid and incompetent we were. She actually told me I must be developmentally delayed, then asked why the heck we weren't going to do anything? I said, "Because that pizza came from the pizza shop across the street." I think she actually managed to shrink in size and slink out.
25. Pedal to the Metal
Back in my poor college days when I worked at Walmart, we had a fight break out over a bike between these two guys. Fists were thrown and there was some blood. Eventually, the bigger guy got ahold of it and managed to get away from the crowd. He then proceeded to ride the bike out of the store to flee his pursuers, without paying. He's now kind of a legend here.
26. Not Worth the Denim
I worked in the clothes department at Walmart. For like 2 straight hours before a sale began, people hovered over the pallets. The alarm went off and the swarm just went insane. There were two women in particular on opposite sides, tossing clothes back and forth to each other. When this little teenager intercepted a pair of jeans being tossed, the women went freaking INSANE.
Like, they went ape and one elbowed the girl in the face. Instant blood, and the little girl was so shocked she just stood there shaking and crying. The woman who did it acted like that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Oh, but it gets so much better. When I pulled the girl out of the crowd, a sheriff suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Guess what? The poor teenager was was his kid, and he detained the woman on the spot. HA! She had to post bail AND pay full price for her ugly Levis.
27. Untimely Pest
I was five minutes early to service a home for pests, and the woman yelled at me for 2 minutes about how inconsiderate I was and then told me to wait in my truck. Her husband then pulled up, and asked what I was doing, and invited me in. She then continued to yell at me about how I shouldn't have come in because she said to wait until the appointed time.
Her husband apologized, and told me to just leave, and gave me 20$ cash. I called my boss and explained the whole situation, and we blocked all her account information.
28. Have a Nice Trip
This kid was running around a restaurant at high speed, making a loop. Around and around he went, yelling and knocking items off of people's tables. He zipped by my table one too many times…and I tripped him. He did a long sliding face-plant. Jumped back up and started crying and yelling at me. His parents grabbed him and hauled him out of there without a word.
29. In the Dog House
Warehouse worker here. Customers have to show a card to shop, and even though we're not technically a grocery store, we don't allow pets. One dude tried to power walk past the employee at the entrance door holding a big pit bull puppy on a leash. We stopped him and told him he couldn’t bring his dog inside...and he LOST IT.
He said he's our best customer and he's here five times a week and he owns stock, all that. He demanded to know why we don't allow dogs. We explained how it's a food safety issue, especially with an untrained puppy. At this point, our manager came over and just waved him through because he has no backbone and “the customer’s always right.”
Well, not even 5 minutes later, this dog squats in the middle of the main aisle and pees, followed by a poop. The man turned so red and dragged the dog towards the exit, abandoning his groceries. We stopped him and asked him nicely to please clean up after his pup. "That's the reason we don't allow them, sir."
30. Not the Doctor’s Orders
I worked at Walmart for four years. One day, a woman hit another woman in the chest with those toddler car boxes you drive in. Except the woman who got hit was a few weeks post-op from open heart surgery. Lots of blood. Right In front of me. No idea what happened to the woman who hit her. I do think she got the toy car, purchased it, and left.
31. Fluent in Smack Talk
I used to work for a major bank and while doing my stint there, I came across a ton of jerks. One time, I was taking a deposit for a lady and her daughter and I heard them speaking a Middle Eastern language. When I realized they were speaking Farsi, I was all ears—see, I speak Farsi. What I heard made my blood run cold.
They were talking about how much of a loser I was, how this job as a teller was the only thing I had in my life, that I probably didn't have a girlfriend and didn't attend school. Throughout this conversation, I spoke only English to her, and every time she responded to my requests she would smile and then say something nasty about me in Farsi.
At the end of the conversation, I switched up to their language and said, "Just because I work at a bank doesn't give you the right to say things about me behind my back. I'm in grad school to become a psychotherapist and this job is for spending money. You should be ashamed. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Her daughter left the building immediately and her mother was beet red, embarrassed, apologized profusely, and left. I never saw either of them again.
32. If the Shoe Fits...
I'm a cake decorator. We recently had a customer pick up her cake which had a printed picture of a high heel shoe that she sent us, on top. She goes "what the %&^* is this" and starts flipping out. Banging on tables, screaming at the top of her lungs in front of other customers, trying to fight the owner, threatening to come back with a gun. We had to call the authorities.
Turns out, she had wanted a life-like edible version of the shoe, not a printed picture. So all this, because when she ordered the cake she did not know the difference between 2D and 3D.
33. Too Rich to Read
I work at a grocery store deli, and some customer once asked my coworker what the sale items were. The coworker mentioned that all yellow signs are specials, and she pointed to the signs we have. The customer point-blank told the coworker that she has no time to look at signs, and she needed the coworker to tell her all the sales. Mmkay, lady.
34. You're Fired
I was 19 shopping with a friend. She was (still is) a smaller person than myself. She was trying on a shirt and needed a size up so i took it back out to find a bigger size. I couldn't locate it so I ask a sales girl if she could help me find a bigger size. She takes the shirt in a gruff way. I ignore it. She comes back with a hat and hands it to me. I say, "Um what's this?"
She said, "This is the only thing in this store that will fit you", contempt dripping from her lips. I'm like, oh I see. I go to the dressing room, tell my friend we need to leave now. She gets dressed. Tries to clean her mess I tell her leave it. We walk out, I go to the register with the hat, it's busy. My friend asks what's up with the hat. I say loudly, "
According to that girl this is the only thing in the store that fits me." My friend, shocked, lost her mind. Because her parents owned the store. That's how I got a girl fired because I was feeling petty. Saw that girl later that week where I worked. I smiled and showed her what customer service should be.
35. A Retail Emergency
We had a lady call the authorities on our store just because we sold out of a TV. I really wish I was lying...they came, too.
36. Latte Explosion
I once had a customer try to throw their coffee at me. I had accidentally made a woman a latte with regular milk rather than soy. It was my fault and I apologized profusely. I told her I would make her another drink. This wasn't good enough for the woman. Like a crazed banshee, she shrieked, "I need soy!" and threw the latte at me. The lid stayed on and totally missed me.
Instead exploded on impact and got all over the counters, cabinets, and floor. The bright side is that the owner was in attendance. He made quick work of throwing that banshee out, despite protests that she didn't get her coffee.
37. Don’t Tick Me off
I work for parking services at a decent-sized university. I don't write tickets, I just man the front desk, answer questions, and enter permits and changes into our database. We get yelled at a lot, but one woman made all the other rude customers look like saints. This witch comes in raising Cain over some tickets she rightfully got.
She was being so rude about the whole situation, but I politely looked up her account to see if I can find any errors or anything that might help her. She’s yelling at me the entire time I’m trying to look it up. So when I see that for some reason the tickets she got aren’t even linked to her account…I decide to do the opposite of helping her.
I ask to see her last ticket “so I can check if everything is right.” Little does she know, with the information I got from the ticket, I transferred all of those tickets she got onto her account. If she would have been nice about the whole thing, she would have probably gotten away without ever having to pay those, but now she has a few hundred bucks worth of tickets.
38. Do You Know Who I Am?
Worked at Best Buy 10 or so years ago, and this happened on Black Friday. Most of the customers were in bad moods since they'd been waiting hours to come in and stand in more lines. But this one lady was a raging witch. After yelling at everyone in my department about how she NEEDED the laptop that was on sale despite it being sold out, she took it up a notch.
She proceeds to tell us she'll have the store closed down because she "Works with the city and knows the fire marshal and we have too many people in the store." So she calls him, we tell her to leave, and nothing happens to the store. However, we called them as well to report what she'd said, and she got fired from her job for mistreatment of power.
39. Justice Served
I was a dishwasher at a local, family-owned restaurant throughout high school. Part of my job was to occasionally go out to our patio area and take in the bus bucket of dishes that was out there. One night, as I was getting the bucket, I saw a lady eating a salad. She was almost done, and I was about to leave...until I witnessed a horrifying sight.
I saw her look around, reach to the ground, pick up a live bug, and place it in her salad. At this point, I stop what I'm doing and watch her call over a waitress, point to the bug, and demand her meal for free. I promptly went inside and informed my manager, who was about to comp her the meal. The manager then goes outside, tells the lady that an employee saw what she did.
The woman firmly denied it, but was blushing and stammering the entire time. She ended up not getting her meal comped and even left a huge tip.
40. No Vacancy
When I was nine years old, my dad and I were driving around some little town in Europe for an hour or so looking for a place to stay, but we kept getting told that everywhere was full. So we pull into the nth hotel of the evening. As dad and I are walking in, we hear the desk clerk tell another potential guest that they have one room left.
The guy, though, is kind of rude and huffy, and he says snippily, “I’ll have to check with my wife.” Suddenly, my dad yells from across the lobby "I'll take it." Dude gets this shocked look on his face, spins around, and tells the clerk "I'LL take it." Desk clerk to other guy: "I'm sorry, sir but we've just sold out."
41. The Customer Is Always Wrong
I was at Carrabba's with my family and another family came and sat down at table near us. They were the stereotypical rich, white, snobby, nose-in-the-air family. They were so rude to the waiter. The waiter, meanwhile, got everything they asked for in a good amount of time and was really nice to them even though he didn't have to be.
All the while, they were talking behind his back to other waiters about him and flagged the manager down twice to complain. The second time the manager came, I spoke over the people and told him that the waiter did nothing wrong and they were being jerks and needed to leave. It was so funny—it went eerily silent and his wife said, "I never" and they got up and left.
42. Shoe-in
I worked at the shoe store Fayva, and we took back everything, no matter what. A stupid policy, but then again, Fayva isn't in business anymore. One day, a woman walks in during Communion season, returning a pair of boys’ dress shoes she bought three days earlier. The kid must have played football in them after the ceremony—they were covered in mud, grease, and scuffmarks.
This was the ONE person I refused to refund my entire time there. She went crazy on me. Yelling, screaming, demanding a manager. So, my manager comes up behind me, and I just know he's going to give this woman her money, and I know she's going to smirk at me as she exits the store. I actually braced for it. Something even better happened.
Instead, my manager Mike walks up, takes one look at the shoes, and tells the woman “Nope.” She goes bananas on him now, telling him, "My son wore these shoes ONCE, to his communion, and they fell apart like this?" To which Mike calmly says: "Ma'am, it looks like your son wore these shoes to the Norman invasion."
43. Where’s the Dorm Maid?
I was a College RA for three years, and we had a student and his mom aggressively call the dorm’s front office because: “It’s been two weeks, and nobody’s come to clean our room yet.”
44. Wild Child
When I worked at Walt Disney World in the early 1990s, my roommate worked at the Contemporary. They had a family request a specific room layout, and the only one left was on the concierge floor, normally reserved for business guests and off-limits to kids. Concierge has a special lounge area with couches and chairs.
The dad was sitting in the lounge reading a paper, and his daughter was jumping around the room, couch to chair to couch. The girl at the concierge desk went over and asked him to please ask his daughter not to jump on the furniture, because she might fall and get hurt. His response made me want to go over and punch him.
He flips out on her, yelling, "Who do you think you are, telling me how to raise my kid!" As he's screaming at the concierge, the little girl misses a couch, falls, and lands on the $18,000 cut-glass The Little Mermaid coffee table, breaking it. The guy grabs the crying child by the arm, says, "I TOLD you not to jump around like that!" and walks away.
45. Be Careful What You Whine for
One day at my call center, this lady lays into me for the amount of her bill, calling me every bad word in the English language. She claims we over-billed her by about $20, and she is demanding that I go through her home entertainment system order point by point. Come to find out we under-billed her by a $1,000 dollars due to a misplaced zero. The silence on the other end of the line was so beautiful.
46. Movie Magic
I was sitting in a movie theater and people asked me to save two seats in the middle of my row. The people asking were elderly and needed to go to the bathroom. The whole row was filled up too, so I figured it'd be easy to save. I sat there for a while when a busty lady made her way up the row and stopped right next to me, at which point she looks at me and says "Can you move."
I smile with all the awkward tension and said, "Sorry, those are being saved." Then the lady does something unbelievable. She sort of tries to jam her way past my legs in a mad attempt to get to the seat. Her boyfriend was just standing there. I look at her, flabbergasted, and simply say again "Those seats are saved."
And then I kid you not, she snapped her fingers in my face and said "WATCH ME.” At that point, everyone in the theater was watching, and I was having none of this. I could tell she was getting ready for another attempt, so I slumped down in my chair and put my hands towards the seat in front of me to block her, and she was forced to sort of run into my legs a few times.
I looked at her boyfriend. He rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, let's go." Best part was, after the whole episode was over and the elderly couple had returned, the people behind me asked me to save their seats, because they thought "If anyone could handle it, it would be me." I felt like the hero of the movie theater that fateful day.
47. Shop Till You Drop
While I was out shopping with a friend, there was this little brat running around in the store. His mom was nowhere to be found, and he was just running wild and knocking over stacks of shirts, screaming at the top of his lungs, just acting like a complete and total brat. This went on for at least 5 excruciating minutes, all during the time we're in the line to pay for our items.
Then, we see him running full speed towards us. My friend has had it with this little jerk, so she came up with the best revenge. The moment he hit us, she turns around with her newly purchased items and whacks the bag straight into him. The kid immediately starts screaming and crying. We hightailed it out of there, but I have no remorse whatsoever. Honestly, it felt great.
48. Can’t Write This Injury off
A couple years ago when a sale started at Walmart, there was a surge of people. One lady got knocked down and her pen went straight into her neck. The messed up part is no one tried to help, they just walked over her to get their crummy deal items. An associate who saw it happen had to stand over top of her to protect her from getting trampled.
49. The Wrong Impression
I was working as a shift leader in a Dunkin' Donuts and dealt with my fair share of rude jerks. On one particularly memorable day, a group of ladies came in during our busiest hour, just past noon. The line was almost out the door and we were short-staffed, so it was pretty hectic. While they were ordering, one of them asked for a job application and started filling it out on the counter.
She handed it back before they were done ordering and I stashed it on a shelf under the register and started making their food. They had a huge order and we did our best to get it out quickly, but it was obvious from the looks on their faces that we just weren't quick enough for their liking. They sat down to eat their food, and the girl who just turned in her application got back in line.
I spotted her right away; she was standing with a glaring face, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, trying her best to look obviously angry. So I motioned for her to come up to the counter, since I knew she had a complaint and I wanted to get it fixed right away. I assumed that in the shuffle we had messed up her sandwich or something like that. I soon found out the ridiculous truth.
I asked her what was wrong, and she pointed to her BOTTLED Mountain Dew and barked "THIS IS FLAT!" It was a bit accusing, as though it were my fault that the bottle of soda she just opened was flat. So I took it and told her to get another one out of the cooler, then check it to make sure it was good. After all that, she asked for a refund.
I said, as politely as I could, "Ma'am, I replaced your soda, sorry if there was an inconvenience but I don't think a refund should be necessary." So she stormed back to her table, obviously just fuming from this totally normal exchange, and started complaining loudly to her group about not getting a refund for the “flat” soda.
So, since I was having an awful day anyway and really could not see a witch like this ever working for us, I grabbed her application from the register, walked it over to the lobby trashcan nearest to her table, crumpled it up, and threw it away as she watched. The look on her face was priceless, and I didn’t regret it for a second.
50. Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way out
Several years ago, a man came into my restaurant and ordered a particular brand of Scotch. The waitress told him that she wasn't sure if we had it but she would check. She also asked him if there was anything else he'd like if we didn't stock it. His reply? He'd "like her to go find the nearest rafter and hang herself" if we didn't have it. This couple left the restaurant a few minutes later because they thought we were being rude.
51. Badwill
I worked for Goodwill quite a few years back as a supervisor because my mother and I had really fond memories of treasure hunting there and I wanted to try and build up some management experience with a reputable company. I thought it would be my dream gig for a while even though I knew it would be hard work. Except it was a total nightmare.
The manager was an all-right lady, but her assistant manager was a tyrant. Every day, she would threaten to fire the employees if they didn't do their work right. I took offense to this because as a supervisor, I wanted my team to be in good spirits and wanted them to love coming in to work and doing good things for the mission.
Yet because every single day they were being told they could be fired, morale was rock bottom. People were afraid for their jobs every day. It got so bad, I had a meeting with the manager and I said, "I don't want to step on any toes, but I would appreciate it if you could ask the assistant manager to tone down the firing threats."
She said she understood and I felt good about the conversation. The next day, she called me into her office where her and the assistant manager were both waiting for me. They asked me to lock the door. As soon as I did, I got the most hate-filled verbal lashing of my entire life. I truly wasn't prepared for what they said.
“You think you can turn us against each other? You are worthless. You just do your freaking job and don't tell us how to do ours. Who do you think you are??” This went on for about 20 minutes. I'm a grown man and I nearly started bawling right then and there. Finally, I told them to take this terrible job and shove it. Well, they got their comeuppance.
I was the only supervisor they had on a team that required at least two. The manager and assistant manager were already working 60-hour weeks to make things work on a skeleton crew, and when I quit they were going to be working 80 hours each with no weekends until they had at least a month to find someone else. I wasn't really concerned about it at that point.
52. Veggie Tales
I work in a garden store. A few weeks ago, a guy comes in and asks for cucumbers. I lead him to the vegetable section and pull out a tray of English cukes. Well, this must have been some grade-A idiot, because this genius yells at me, "Those aren't cucumbers! Those are pickles!" then flips the tray up in my face and storms out.
53. A Little Humble Pie
Back when I was a waitress, I worked at this BBQ joint that had really narrow, awkwardly arranged tables so I always had to lean a bit over to serve the food. Anyhow, there was this table with a really obnoxious 4-year-old who kept grabbing at everything: My hands, my clothes, the tray I was serving from. He even untied my apron and my pens and cash flew everywhere. This went all through the whole meal.
Meanwhile, the parents didn't do a thing about it. In fact, the dad said it served me right for taking a job in food service. Total jerks, all of them, and I knew I wasn't getting a decent tip. So towards the end of their meal, they order dessert—peanut butter silk pie, which is ooey-gooey sticky pie heaven. I knew just what to do.
I make sure to cover it in an extra mound of whipped cream and balance it precariously on the side of my tray, counter-balanced with a couple of soda refills for the parents. Sure enough, when I got to the table, the little jerk made a grab for the tray and everything conveniently capsized all over him and his parents.
They were covered in diet coke, whipped cream, and the stickiest peanut putter pie you can imagine. I looked appropriately shocked and then said "I am SO sorry. Guess that's what happens when you have kids." Even managed to make it back to the kitchen before I cracked up, along with most of our staff. Serves them right.
54. I’m Gonna Hurl
I once had a family come in while a child who couldn't eat solid food. They brought a blender with them. They ordered him a chicken basket with fries. They put it in the blender and made a shake. I started to gag—I have a very easy gag reflex. The called my manager over for making fun of them. I wasn't making fun, I was just grossed out by the chicken fry shake and had to throw up.
55. Welcome to the Thunderdome
This old lady wanted a cancer pink-ribbon fabric, and this other sweet customer had called ahead and ordered a bulk amount of it, because she works for a cancer organization and makes blankets for cancer patients. The sweet woman was wheeling a cart in the store with several large bolts of the fabric in it, and this jerk lady just couldn't handle that.
Old lady sees that this woman has "ALL the bolts" and it isn't right that she's hogging the entire stock of that particular print. The woman explains the situation and that she in fact special ordered these, and that the reason she was coming in to purchase them is that they were on major promotion at 60% off. The old lady continues to yell at the poor woman.
The woman very calmly keeps trying to reassure her that she is not taking any of the store stock, and that she makes blankets for dying women with breast cancer. Old lady doesn't give a darn. She whips out mace and tackles the woman. I couldn't believe my eyes, and the old lady obviously got kicked out of the store after that.
56. A Hairy Situation
One time a girl who had black hair with pink tips found a hair in her food. None of our servers, or kitchen staff, had black hair with pink tips. The hair that she found, however, was black with a pink tip. Needless to say, she did not get a discount.
57. Self-Delusion Is out of Fashion
My store was running a promotion where you buy one novelty t-shirt and get another half off. Novelty meaning characters, phrases, things of that sort. NOT t-shirts with band names. A woman comes up to me asking me to help her pick an even number of band tees for the sale. I kindly told her it was novelty tees only and explained what that meant.
She insisted I was wrong, and I told her she could check at the register if she didn't believe me. Instead, the woman gathers a bunch of band tees and tells my manager at the register I told her it was rock tees, not novelty, despite the signs all over the store saying novelty. She wanted the sale honored because the "idiot new employee messed up."
My manager knew I didn't say that and refused. The woman threw all of her stuff around, screamed, and stormed out. Whatever. Screw her, right? But the story doesn't end there. When I took my lunch break, she hunted me down in the food court, threatening to punch me in the face for telling my manager I wasn't responsible for the mix-up, "ruining her sale."
She chased me all the way back to my store screaming with her fists up. I hid in the back for the rest of my shift. I never even got to eat lunch.
58. Does Not Compute
Working at a sit-down chain Mexican restaurant, I had a customer present me with a Taco Bell coupon expecting my manager to honor it. I politely told the customer that Taco Bell was not even 2 minutes down the road and that we were in no way affiliated. Apparently, that response provoked this guy’s brain to fold in on itself and in a fit of rage he screamed for a manager and yelled that “This is America!”
59. Playing Sick for the Savings
My first day working for Best Buy was on Black Friday. I was controlling part of the line since I had zero training to do anything else. I had a lady saying she was going to faint. She kept saying, "Please just let me pay so I can get to a doctor." I knew she was lying and called my manager over so he could talk to her. He said, "Ma'am, they told me you were in need of medical assistance, I've got an ambulance on the way."
She freaked out, yelling at my manager about the line being too long and how it was his fault she was feeling sick. She looked at me and said, "This is all your fault you little witch, if you would have just let me cut the line, we'd be out of this mess.” I couldn't help but smile. My manager told her to leave, and said if she didn’t, he would call the authorities.
She tried to stay, until a random officer came in to check out the crowd. She left so quick. He never called for an ambulance in the first place. If we really needed one, there were a few EMTs waiting for a call in their truck outside the store.
60. All Choked up
I worked at Old Navy in college. We would usually have several items on one table, but only one would be on sale. It was clear though, it would be like t-shirts, skirts, and sweaters and the sign would say "T-shirts $5." One guy got super mad that everything on the table wasn't on sale and started flipping out about false advertising. Then he took it to the next level.
We wore lanyards, and he grabbed my manager's lanyard and started choking her. We were all ready to call the authorities, but she was a pretty tough older woman and got him to stop...and made him feel like a major loser.
61. Driving Miss Crazy
I volunteer at my university, safe walks and all that jazz. We are required to report suspicious activity. I once witnessed a woman driving a Mercedes-Benz across a lawn to bypass the parking gate, tearing up this gorgeous lawn. I was not amused, so we reported it to the parking authority. They couldn’t have come at a better time.
They show up while the woman is still getting stuff out of her trunk, box her in, and start writing a ticket. She ended up driving away over a curb and peeling her entire bumper off in the process. Made me happy inside.
62. Customer Experience Survey
I used to work at the register of my college campus store. For the most part, people came in to buy an energy drink, gum, or other small things like that, but we also carried other items like sweaters and even computers. People usually only bought an item or two, so there weren’t any shopping carts or baskets for customers.
One day, a woman, probably a student’s mom, came in and asked me for help reaching a sweater on the top shelf. After I grabbed it for her, I went to hand it over, but she motioned at me to hold on for it. For the next ten minutes, she walked around the store grabbing several items and then giving them to me to hold. She used me as her personal shopping cart. Luckily, I had a co-worker in the store on the same shift, so he was able to handle the register.
I was at the end of my rope—but this isn't even the worst part. At the end of this whole ridiculous ordeal, she got a message on her phone. She read it and said, "Oh, you know what? I actually have to go meet my son. I'll come back later to get the things I need." And then she left. Leaving me standing there with an armful of random stuff that I then needed to go put back one by one.
63. Water Volume
I had a customer say that I had placed her water glass too loudly on her table. The worst part? She was vocal enough about it that she actually ended up getting free food.
YouTube
64. Customer Appreciation Day
I went to go get my exhaust fixed after I ran into a pothole and damaged it. When I went to go pick up the car a couple of hours later, I was treated to a woman SCREAMING at the guy behind the counter. She's positively foaming because she has been waiting nearly 30 minutes for her car to be fixed. She even goes so far as to call the guy an "INSIGNIFICANT LAZY IMMIGRANT."
The guy looks at her, then looks at me. He throws me my keys and says, "Here you go, your Magnum's ready—no charge." He then looks her directly in the eyes. "Looks like it's going to be more expensive than we originally thought. Would you like us to call you a cab?" I returned shortly afterward with pizza for the shop.
65. Would’ve Been Loaf to Deny Her
I worked at a very expensive and exclusive country club, the type you'd see the Bluths at. One of the members drove her golf cart over from her house. She said the help had forgotten to buy a loaf of bread, and she wanted to buy one from our kitchen. I told her that we couldn't sell her a loaf of bread, so she asked how many sandwiches a loaf of bread can make. I ended up selling her 10 sandwiches with nothing on them at $7/piece.
66. Face Control
I was working as a manager in a big nightclub about a year ago. I don’t wear a uniform, but I have a radio and run the security team. The venue has a great smoking section that looks out onto the street. One night it was packed, so I did my usual roam to make sure that there were no problems. Since the section was too busy to walk through, I walked down the street instead to check on it.
One guy stares me down, then calls me over and starts swearing at me for no reason. He’s telling me that "losers like you could never even get into a venue like this." He obviously had no idea I was the manager. The guy kept telling me he would punch me out, and was clearly trying to look macho to impress someone. So I showed him who was boss in the best way.
I agreed and told him to come and meet me outside and he could even have a free swing. He puts his drink down, takes off his jacket, and storms outside. Once he walked outside, I walked back inside and told security not to let him back in. The look on his face when he realized I ran the place was priceless, and then the realization that he couldn’t get back into the club was amazing. It was the easiest and most fun removal I have ever done.
67. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Some jerk in a Humvee decided to park in a handicap spot at a Kroger. I was young at the time and out riding with my dad, who was a repo man…driving his repo truck. My dad towed the Humvee to a parking spot on the opposite side of the parking lot. We then waited until the owner came out and looked around in disbelief.
She thought someone took her car. My dad drove right up to her, rolled down the window, and said, "Are you ok, miss?" The woman said, all concerned, "My car was taken by someone.” My dad replied very coolly to her, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have parked it in a handicap spot," gave her a smile and drove off.
68. Wait Your Turn
I was in a massive line at a store. I'm next in line, but the person in front of me has a bunch of stuff. A helpful clerk sees the mess and opens another aisle, saying, "I can help the next customer." Well, that's me. However, as I’m stepping over to her counter, this jerk from the very end of my line is sprinting to her counter, pushing people, with his partner in tow.
He arrives right before me. They have a mountain of items in their cart, which he starts throwing on the checkout counter immediately. I’m standing there on the other side with my one item, burning with rage. But the checkout girl got him good. She waits until he stacks all of his stuff on the counter, looks at me, looks at him, and says to him, "I'm sorry sir, you'll have to go to the end of the line."
This line is now massive. I put on my biggest grin, made eye contact with him as long as possible, and loudly told the clerk how awesome she was.
69. I Vote No
Just the other day, I was at a Chinese buffet and the three people in the booth next to me were questioning the waitress about voting. She had trouble understanding them and communicating that she could not vote. They then immediately began taunting. After the waitress walked off, one of the girls at the table looked up and asked me where I worked, because I looked familiar.
When I replied that I worked at the local university in the social work department, she commented that she had recently been in my office to apply to our program. So I replied, “Yes, I remember you and I'm also on the admissions committee.” The color drained from her face, and she knew she was screwed. Karma's a witch.
70. Cashing in
Years ago I was in a grocery store express checkout line, and the line was long. The guy behind me starts huffing and puffing about people using their credit cards. "Doesn't anyone use cash anymore?" "They should have a cash-only line." As more people use their cards, he gets louder and louder about his dumb complaint.
I was buying a $1.25 pack of gum and had $2 cash in my hand. It was too easy. As I rang up my gum, I put the $2 back in my wallet and pulled out my credit card. The look on his face? PRICELESS!! Even the cashier had to chuckle as she handed me the receipt and the guy swore as I signed it and handed it back. Made my day!
71. Hotel Havoc
I used to work as a front desk agent at a boutique hotel. A guy who was obviously very full of himself came in with an online reservation that he had booked at a shockingly cheap nightly rate. He proceeded to give me a hard time about EVERYTHING, from telling me he shouldn't have to give me his credit card info since he had prepaid his reservation, to telling me "Um yeah, I'm pretty sure I can find the elevators, I'm not stupid."
He was just being an all-around jerk. About 10 minutes after checking him in, he came down and demanded that we give him a bigger room with a king bed and a view, even though he had booked a standard queen bed online. I complied, as we had extra king beds available. 10 minutes later, he came down again to complain about the size of the room.
He told me, "I'm only going to give you one more chance to make me happy," and asked for the general manager. After much arguing between him and my manager, we ended up giving him our nicest suite AND free parking since we had "Given him trouble." He got all this for a way cheaper rate, like $40 per night! Oh, but he outdid himself.
Get this: He informed us shortly after the ordeal, while on his way out to dinner, that he was not even going to be in the room for the majority of his stay, as he was visiting friends and would be staying at their home. What the heck! So I made it my personal mission to make his life a living nightmare from that point on.
I reset his room keys every time I saw him leave the hotel—which was quite frequently, 3-4 times a day. It was particularly funny when he came back tired from a night out and had to come all the way down to the front desk to get his keys fixed. Needless to say, he was very frustrated by the end of his stay. I doubt he'll be staying with us again.
72. Nothing's Free
This crazy spoiled rich girl came into my Starbucks. The cashier told her the total and she said, "Wait, I don't get it for free?" , she thought apparently people gave her parents free drinks and such for her all these years. like, She never realized her parents swiping their cards all those years was them paying for her things, I guess.
73. Everybody’s Got a Story
Once I went to a place known for it's Cuban sandwiches with my family. We were all really excited, because we like food in my family. So we get our drinks and everything seems fine. We were seated immediately and everyone was really nice. Our waitress brings us our drinks and says she'll be back in a bit to take our food orders.
We're conversing and such, so we don't notice immediately how long it’s taking for our waitress to come back. We wait another 20 minutes just in case. The place is pretty empty, so eventually we ask another server if they know what happened to our server. He says he'll go check, but that he'll take our food orders if we're ready to speed up the process.
About 45 minutes later, my dad is about to explode. It doesn't take that long to make four sandwiches. He's about to go complain when, as if on cue, our waitress comes running and screaming out of the kitchen and goes right on out the front door. Everyone goes completely silent and just watches the door for a couple seconds. Then we found out the dark truth.
It turns out she had a nervous breakdown right about when we ordered our food. She had been just pacing around in the kitchen, slowly becoming unhinged. The manager apologized and we got free sandwiches. The moral of the story, though, is that you never know what is going on with your server. Maybe they're doing a bad job, but they might be on the edge of snapping entirely.
74. Courtesy Call
I’m a temp worker, and often, part of my job is manning the phones and preventing time-wasting calls from getting through to my boss. These calls can be from agencies trying to place staff or people trying to sell services we don't want. They try pretty hard to get through, and I often hear “Hey it's Mark—can I just have a quick word with Tony? He's expecting my call.”
You know, something like that. Funnily, most people call the boss Anthony, and he's very specific about not being bothered in meetings. This or some other telltale thing shows that the caller is lying. Not only do they not care about disturbing my very busy manager, they're trying to pull a fast one on me. So I get them every time. I tend to say “Are you happy to hold?' then check back five minutes later with “I'm sorry, Tony is still all tied up. Are you happy to continue to hold?' My record is half an hour.
75. Seizing the Wrong Moment
I used to work in a record store, and during one of our busy moments of the day, a co-worker started to have a seizure by the cash registers. I immediately stop ringing up a customer to go help my co-worker and try to figure out what to do. About 2 minutes into me helping my co-worker, who everyone could see was needing help, a customer asks if we could hurry up and check them out.
I remarked that I'm sorry that I was busy helping someone that was having a seizure and they'd have to wait a couple minutes. Of course, the customer gives me an angry, frustrated look and starts back talking. After taking care of the situation, I go to check the customer out, and all they were trying to buy was a CD for 25 cents. Upon the customer leaving they remarked that they would never come back because of the slow service.
76. Put a Fork in It
I was in Wal-Mart with my girlfriend a few months ago, and we were looking at silverware in the kitchen section. We parked our cart in one of the larger aisles since no one was around. We're both in our early 20s. As we looked through the various utensils, a tall skinny blonde man who looked about 40 came and stood near our cart.
I glance over at him for a split second, and he seems to be looking at the items on the shelf next to the cart. When I looked back to my girlfriend, the man yelled at us, "Did you seriously just LOOK at me and NOT UNDERSTAND WHY I WAS STANDING HERE?" We both looked up, and the man was glaring at us angrily. Neither of us know what he was talking about and kind of just stare back dumbstruck. He yelled at us again, "MOVE YOUR CART."
My girlfriend grabbed the cart and stammered a quick, "Oh, okay, sorry." The guy glared at us and waltzed around the corner—but he wasn't finished yet. Before he’s out of earshot, my girlfriend said, "Geez, sorry," rather quietly in my direction. The man whirled around and snapped, "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME, FILTHY MOUTH?!"
She responds, "...um...geez, sorry?" The angry man left in a huff, and my girlfriend was reduced to tears. Before anyone questions my manliness for not ripping his arms off, I am a rather small female, and I was shocked into silence by the crazy dude. I still feel bad for not grabbing one of the nearby forks and forcefully placing it into his brain.
77. Slither Me Biters!
I work at a pet store. This lady came in with her son who couldn't have been older than 5 or so. She asked if I could help them with a ball python. When I took it out, she was really excited to hold it and immediately kept telling her son how they were going to convince his dad to let them get it. Her son was CLEARLY afraid of the snake, and she kept trying to get him to hold it.
He kept telling her he was afraid that it will bite him. She tried to tell him that "snakes don't bite" and turned to me wanting me to tell him the same thing. I told the boy, "While snakes can bite, ours are quite friendly and won't want to bite you if you hold them gently." His mom was FURIOUS that I wouldn't tell this kid that snakes can't bite.
I tried to tell her why I can't lie, but she said it was unacceptable and now I have scared her son for life. I suggested he hold a bearded dragon, and he loved it. I think he left happier than she did.
78. Swiper, No Swiping
While working the front desk of a hotel one day, a woman handed me her debit card for payment. With our software, we insert the card, and it takes a minute to process in the reader and load the number properly into the software. As I waited for the reader finish, I started to make her classic magnetic strip style key cards for her room.
Our key maker was an old machine that made plenty of loud beeps as you programmed the keys. And given its age, most times I would have to try 3 or more times to get a key to program correctly. I handed her card back along with two key cards, and she just screeches, "WHAT DID YOU JUST DO!!???"
Baffled and confused, I just responded by saying, “Uh…pardon me?" To which this lady just repeatedly yelled, "WHAT DID YOU JUST DO!!!??" Still very much confused, I explained, "Uh…I'm just giving you the keys to your room, Ma'am. All I need is a signature, and you're all good to go." Instead, she called 9-1-1.
I still had no idea what was going on. I tried to ask her what she was doing, and she just said, "I'm not saying another word to you until the authorities get here!! I KNOW MY RIGHTS!" I just sat there and said, “Okay…?” She then went outside the lobby and waited for officers to arrive. Some minutes later, she came back with one.
Then she pointed to me and yelled, "THAT'S HER! SHE'S THE ONE!" I was the only person working. Apparently, she thought I swiped her debit card more than once to charge her “thousands of dollars” when I was actually making her key cards. So, the officer came behind the desk and asked me to repeat the process.
When I repeated the same process that I did with the key card reader, the officer asked her if that was the noise she heard. She yelled, "YES!! YOU SEE!" He then informed her that that was the sound of the key card maker and not me swiping her debit card. She just stood there staring for a second before getting red in the face
She grabbed her belongings, left the keys and unsigned folio for the room with me, and stormed out while yelling, "I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS TREATMENT!!" She then called a few hours later about the single approval hold for the room that was put on her card and accused me of trying to "steal from her again."
79. Not That Kind of Dough
One day when I was at work at my bakery, someone came to me and asked if I could break a one-hundred-dollar bill for her in pennies. I just looked at her for a second and then looked around me to make sure I was definitely not currently working in a bank. I was indeed still in the bakery where I worked and told her sorry.
80. Leap of Faith
We don't get too many kids in my coffee shop, but when we do, 90% of the time they are little monsters whose parents let them run wild. I work at a busy store, so we have rope line dividers snaking through the front of the store. A girl who was maybe six or seven decided it would be a good idea to start vaulting over the dividers.
That in itself wouldn't bother me too much, but she kept this up for nearly an hour, getting in the way of paying customers the whole time. I was running the shift, so I nicely asked her if she wouldn't mind knocking it off, as she could get hurt. In the snottiest way imaginable, she said, "You're not the boss of me!" and kept right on jumping.
One of my employees suggested I go talk to the parents. I had an even better idea. "Just wait, and watch," I told her. I noticed that with each jump, she was clearing the rope by fewer and fewer inches, and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. Sure enough, five minutes later, the little darling made her last jump, got her foot tangled in the rope, and landed smack down on the tiles, face first.
It was one of the most satisfying sounds I'd ever heard. She wasn't seriously injured or anything, but boy did she start wailing. Her absentee parents ran over and started yelling at me as if it was my fault, at which point I told them my job was to make coffee, not raise their children for them. They stormed out, with their bratty blubbering offspring in tow.
81. I Own the Biggest Jet; Huge
Limo driver here. One of my clients was mad about the absolute stupidest thing one day. I guess when he landed at an airport one time and someone had a bigger jet than him. He obviously upgraded since that "incident" because when I picked him up last time, he came in on a massive jet that could have been a commercial plane. I wish I had his problems.
82. Free Return and Exchanges
I worked at a guest service desk at a big chain store. A couple of years ago, around Christmas time, a woman came to the desk and complained about a string of lights not working properly. I told her that I could return it or exchange it for. She says she’ll grab a different one, then comes back and tells me there were only two left and the packaging wasn't perfect.
Then she looked me right in the eyes and says, “What I’d really like you to do is give me this one for free.” I chuckled and said, “We’re not in the business of giving items away for free. The most I can do is 10% off for an imperfect package.” Needless to say, she returned both items.
83. Declining Behavior
My roommate and I were running errands at Target. Oftentimes people will stand outside the entrance asking for donations and such, and one girl was there that day for an organization. As we were about to go in, this mother and her son walk out, and the girl politely asks if they have any spare change—little did she realize, she'd made a horrible mistake.
All of the sudden, they both EXPLODE on this poor girl, yelling at her to stop trying to sell them things, calling her all kinds of bad names, telling her to go back home, etc. It was so strange to see. Of course, she wasn't going to take any of that, so she calmly but firmly responded saying she wasn't trying to sell them anything and not to call her names.
The son kept calling her a bad name, so she finally said, "I can't believe you kiss your mother with that mouth." The way he rushed at her, I swear I thought he was going to attack her, but he just got super close to her face and yelled, "YOU’RE UGLY," and knocked her papers and her entire clipboard out of her hand.
Finally, security came out, and they ran for it with the girl calling after them, "I think I'm actually very pretty, thank you very much!" While we helped her pick up her things, I still couldn't fathom that two people would randomly do that. Man.
84. One for the Books
When I was working at a public library, we had a few local celebrities come in from time to time. Most of them were nice, but one had a real stick up his butt. He would complain about having to stand in line, about late fees, and about everything else. We would just say "Sorry, those are the rules" or "Thank you for being patient" even though he wasn't.
One day, he and I were apparently both having a bad day, and when I told him there was a limit on how many DVDs or video games he could check out at a time, he slammed his hands on the desk and raged, "Do you know who I am?!" This is a grown man, mind, and I was a little college student who barely looked old enough to drive.
I was sick of him, though, so I just looked at him and said, "Yes, I do, Mr. X, and the rules still apply to you. Which of these would you like me to put back?" He was stunned. I don't think anyone had ever actually told him that the rules for everyone else did in fact apply to him as well. He was a little nicer after that. Not a lot nicer, but still.
85. The Main Attraction
In a popular mall, a grown woman rolled on the ground kicking and screaming when the grown man she was with refused to buy her jewelry. She slammed her hand on the glass counter, then it turned into a shouting match. Then the guy started telling her off about how she needs to be a "traditional woman” or something.
He then proceeded to (childishly) mock her about how childish she was behaving. Like full-on making fake crying sounds. She cried. Then stopped. Like cold, hard stop on the crying. This was the glorious moment when she jumped onto the ground and rolled around kicking and screaming. I loved to see it.
86. Patience Is a Virtue
I was next in a pretty long line at the grocery store. This woman behind me was making a huge fuss about them needing to open more registers, and she was swearing and muttering under her breath. When a second clerk appeared at the next kiosk to open another register, he looks at me and says, "I can help the next person in line, sir."
The mumbling witch behind me saw the clerk coming and had backed her cart up and was rushing for the register before he even spoke. I saw the woman barreling toward the open register, and swiftly pushed a cart over to block her path. Her face got so red, it looked like she was going to explode as she nearly collided with the cart.
I just looked at her and said in the most innocent voice I have "Oops, he did call for next in line, though."
87. Café Society Girl
There was only one coffee shop on my campus, which operated out of the library building. It was always crowded. You pretty quickly learned that if you wanted coffee before class, you got there 20 minutes early, grabbed a newspaper, and took your time. It was always funny watching incoming freshmen crowd the line five minutes before their 8 am class and slowly filter out in despair.
Cue this little freshman girl walking up, assessing the line stretching out the door, and boldly deciding to just sorta...skip it. Now, the baristas were usually pretty cool with people skipping for simple things: Dropping a buck for a cookie, anything that didn't require interaction. Not this girl. She caught the barista's attention, while the previous customer was still paying, and went:"Hi, yea, can I get a latte please, like really quickly?"
"Umm, the line starts back there," replied the now slightly confused girl behind the counter. "But I have claaaaass" whined the freshman. There was an awkward pause. Then the barista responded with a brutal retort. "You are on a college. campus. Are you freaking serious?! Why do you think all these people are here?! Back of the line!"
"Oh" was the only thing the freshman girl thought to say. As she turned to look at a line full of people staring daggers back at her, she looked not upset or embarrassed, but sort of enraptured by this newfound understanding she's just been imparted. It's like for first time in her entire life, she realized that other people were in her way for reasons.
It was actually kind of beautiful to watch, like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time. Better late than never.
88. Don’t Meet Your Heroes
I worked at a Toys R Us twice doing seasonal work around the big holidays, like Christmas and such. Anyway, you have to find ways to amuse yourself and keep from going totally insane with all the bratty kids and exasperated parents. So I did one pretty awful thing that I nonetheless have absolutely no remorse for.
I was scheduled to work the first shift on Black Friday, and they made me wear the Geoffrey the Giraffe costume. First rule is, don't talk. Dance, pose for photos, and keep your mouth shut. Basically, don't ruin it for the kids. But this particularly bratty kid kept punching me “down there” while I was posing with him for the photo. I was in the suit, but it still hurt. Wouldn't cut it out, so after the photo was taken, I got my revenge.
I knelt down, got my giraffe head at his eye level, and whispered, "Your parents told me not to say anything, but you were adopted." That little punk started wailing so loud, crying his eyes out. Best part was, the parents complained, but since I was in costume and they had just hired a bunch of new people, they had no idea who had done it.
89. All Was Not Smell
My boyfriend used to work front desk at a hotel, and he said a couple who stayed there for a few days had been complaining since their first night about a really gross smell that they described as "similar to dog poop" coming from the bed. Housekeeping went in as soon as they complained and changed all the sheets. They said the sheets looked perfectly clean.
They complained the next morning saying the smell was still there and were offered a new room. When housekeeping went back in, they were asked to move everything around to see find the source of the smell. Apparently, whoever stayed there before either had an accident or used a sheet to wipe themselves because they found a bed sheet behind the bed covered in poop.
90. The Butler Did It
I work at a high-end buffet in Vegas. You get sat, are told to wait, I come up and greet you, explain our offerings, go over the drink menu, take a drink order, and then inform you to help yourself while I get the drinks. As I step away one time, I hear a kid about eight or so say, "So I have to get my own food?" Mom said yes.
Kid said, "I told you we should have brought Michael with us." I didn't understand who Michael was at first. When I realized the truth, I almost burst out laughing. Mom said, "NO, I told you before, we're not bringing our butler on vacation." I was five feet away and this was clear as day. I was stunned—that kid was 100% not joking one bit.
He really wanted his family butler to be on vacation so he wouldn't have to walk to a buffet and get his own food. I'm not insulting the little dude for having one baller lifestyle, but holy balls that was an insane conversation to hear.
91. Eat Your Words
A while ago I decided to treat myself to some Burger King. I was having a bad day and had a headache coming on. So I was waiting in line at the BK, when suddenly this woman comes in with a monster of a child. He was out of control, screaming, punching his mother, throwing things around. The mother didn't pay any attention to him and he continued yelling, "I want a PIE."
My headache turned into a full-blown migraine. I calmly turned and asked if she could please calm her child down. Immediately she got up in my face, telling me to mind my own business. I nodded and turned around, when the child cried out again how he wants a pie. I then decided to ruin their day in the most devious way I could think of.
When I got to the front of the line I asked the person at the register how many apple pies they have left. They told me and I bought all of them. I ate one and made sure the kid saw me throw the rest in the trash.
92. The Pepsi Challenge
I went out to dinner a few months back with some friends at a pretty typical chain restaurant. Me: "I'll have a diet coke please." Waitress: "Oh, we only have Pepsi, is that ok?" Me: "Sure. A diet Pepsi would be fine." I have my soda and a few refills over the course of dinner and then start feeling really, really bad.
Right about here is where I should mention that I'm a type 1 diabetic and, since I always just drink diet coke, don't know the difference in taste between diet and regular pepsi. I checked my blood sugar, which had been perfectly on target before the meal, and my meter just read HIGH, meaning that the value was so high that the meter actually couldn't process it.
What I had eaten for dinner couldn't possibly have put me there, so we flagged down the waitress and I asked, "This isn't diet Pepsi, is it?" Her reply made my face turn white. She responded by telling me that it wasn't, that the diet Pepsi fountain was out of syrup and she didn't think I'd mind, and besides, I'm plenty skinny and don't need to drink the diet stuff.
I started cursing, pulled out my insulin syringes to dose for the 4 full sugar sodas that I drank, and told her exactly what I was doing. I then told the manager what had happened, and that I wasn't planning on paying for the meal but would instead put the money toward the ER bill that I was about to incur. Even as I’m saying it, I know things are getting worse.
Went to the hospital, where the lab determined that my blood sugar was still in the 700s even after I dosed, and I ended up staying overnight because my glucose level stubbornly refused to come back into range.
93. Category Is: Entitled Karen
So, I manage a plus size women’s clothing store. We actually get a surprising amount of non-traditional customers. Guys who need a dress for a charity show, cross dressers, gender-fluid people, transgender women, and drag queens aren't unheard of. So, a drag queen comes into the store to pick up some shoes they ordered online.
They must have been either coming from or going to a show because they were still in full makeup. I get their name, and during our conversation another customer walks in. I call out a greeting and say something like, "I'll be right with you." I go to the back room, and it takes a minute to go through all the web orders.
I find the one I need and am on my way back to the counter when the new customer throws her arm out to stop me from passing. She then says, "I am a new customer and I've been here for 20 minutes and no one has spoken to me.” First, I greeted her when she came in, and second, she had only been in the store for 5 minutes at that point.
I resigned myself to groveling, but before I could say anything, the drag queen stomps over, glares at the customer, and says, "Honey, she said hello to you." Complete with sassy finger snaps. The Queen then made a big show of thanking me for getting her package, and gave me a big sparkly kiss on the cheek before she left.
The other customer sheepishly paid for her Spanx and didn't make eye contact when I told her to have a good day.
94. Just the Ticket
This guy comes into our store and is being a complete jerk. Not wanting to show ID to buy tall cans even though he looked 20 at the oldest, constantly yelling and swearing. He also had parked in the handicap spot despite not having handicap tags or plates on his car. One of my regular customers, who is a sheriff's deputy, was also in the store.
He saw how the guy was acting. Saw where he was parked. Went out, got his ticket book, and wrote the guy a ticket. Guy realized he wasn't getting his cans, went outside...to find he was getting ticketed. I could not stop laughing.
95. Plot Twister
It wasn't the customer, it was the manager. She was AWFUL. She was rude, intentionally picked out favorites and gave them presents in front of everyone, messed up schedules on purpose for people she didn't like, etc. Worst manager ever. So one day there was a huge storm coming in, and people were really worried about it.
Like, the news was telling people to stay home, other businesses were closing, all that. So it was up to her to either keep our store open or close it. Of course, she kept it open. Because schools closed, only half our scheduled employees showed up, the rest called in—and she called her favorites and told them they didn't have to come in.
Well, as the like 5 of us who showed up were standing there, watching out the front windows, she starts yelling at us, threatening to write us all up, and we are like—no one is here, all the work is done, we are watching the wind BEND TREES OVER and worried about if we are safe or will even be able to get home.
Right about this time, we hear a SUPER LOUD crashing noise. CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - WHAM! As the industrial air conditioner on top of the building got BLOWN OFF. Like it rolled along the roof, then went flying into the parking lot....Right onto her car. It was so perfect it was surreal.
Right in the center, smashed her car flat. Like if she had been in it, she would have been a goner. And it only happened because she parked right up by the building, where we had SPECIFICALLY been told not to park for the storm. All our cars were out in the farthest corner of the lot. We later found out her insurance didn't cover the damage because it was an "act of god."
96. It Takes All Kinds
As a teenager, I was working part-time at a convenience store. I was being trained by the late night cashier when this dude comes in and grabs a bunch of cans of vegetables and such, and comes to the counter and stacks the cans in a very specific way. It was like a weird kind of pyramid on the counter. I wondered about it, but didn’t say anything.
As the experienced cashier (my trainer) takes each can off the pyramid and rings it up, she reaches the end of the stack…and we realize that the weirdo has his junk out and has it laying on the counter behind the cans. Without saying a word, the trainer grabs one of the big heavy metal cans of beans and slams it down as hard as she can on the guy's junk.
He screamed an incredible scream of searing pain, grabbed it, and ran out of the store. Her to me: (calmly) "You get all kinds on the late shift."
97. Deal or No Deal
My friend is pushing his cart of groceries out of the store and over to his car when a woman pulls into the handicapped spot in front of the store. No placard, no handicapped plates. She jumps out of the car without so much as a limp and heads into the store. He gives her some stink-eye about taking up a handicapped spot and she snarls, "Deal with it" as she sashays into the store.
The guy is now fuming. He sees a couple of officers who were leaning against their cars talking. They hadn't seen it. So he goes over and tells them the story. They smile and say they'll handle it. He puts his groceries in his car, and as he's pushing his cart back to the store to put it in the rack, he sees a beautiful sight. The officers have blocked the lady's car with theirs.
The lady comes out of the store with her purchase, sees the officers, and goes white as a sheet. He walks over to her and says, "I dealt with it."
98. Blonde Boomerang
I worked for a big chain grocery store as bagger and cart wrangler. There was this one overweight blond woman who would come in all time and cause chaos to no end. One example of her ridiculous and unnecessary nonsense included buying a 15-pound turkey and complaining that it tasted bad and wanting to return it.
She presented a platter with an empty carcass except for one piece of meat on one bone. Another time, she bought a $37 plant, did not water it, showed up a year and a half later with the plant dead as a doornail, and demanded a refund. Then she bought a grill, used 10 gallons of gasoline as fuel, caused an understandable fire/explosion, came back with receipt and charred grill, and demanded a refund. I could go on.
This would be a weekly, if not bi-weekly, happening. It got to the point where many cashiers would see her enter the store, turn off their light, and leave. Now, when I say she made a fuss, I'm not talking about your normal "I want to speak to your manager" type deal. Oh no, she went beyond that and went even further.
She would rant and rave, throw herself on the floor, roll around, throw things, call the authorities, which I witnessed and kept count at 87 times, and pull out her cell phone filming herself being "victimized" to report us to the media. She was eventually banned from the store after years of this. I heard stories that she began terrorizing our neighbor branch 7 blocks down the road.
99. Smile! You’re on Camera
Many many many years ago I worked at a retailer in the UK. A grimy looking family came in and started acting shifty, having over exaggerated discussions on washing machines, asking ridiculous questions about our returns policy. They bought a reasonably expensive Hotpoint washing machine from us, and wanted to take it with them that day, which we were happy to do.
They paid cash. They took their washing machine, loaded it into the back of their van, and we watched them drive over to the McDonald's on the other side of the trading park. About an hour later they drove back and said that we'd sold them the wrong machine. They'd gotten it home, unwrapped it, and it was the wrong machine.
We told them to bring it on in and we'd sort it out. They went out to their van and brought in a CLEARLY DIFFERENT, DIRTY, OBVIOUSLY SECOND-HAND WASHING MACHINE. Oh, and they didn't want an exchange. Just a refund. With every alarm bell ringing, my boss and I had a quick scan through the security cameras.
Sure enough, they had driven to McDonald's, and come straight back. Whilst I was "running the refund through," my boss called the authorities, who turned up, had a little look in the back of their van where, unsurprisingly, there was a brand new Hotpoint washer, still in its wrap. They were carted off by the authorities. Didn't get charged, unfortunately, but it was a definite get out moment.
If they'd only been more patient and less greedy and gone home for a few hours first, they probably would've gotten away with it, knowing how much my boss would adhere to the “customer is always right” principle.
100. Having Your Chocolate and Eating It Too
I worked at an independent chocolate shop that sold various flavors of truffles, brownies, and drinks. We also had non-dairy options, vegan options, and nut free options available. A woman demanded to speak to the manager because we did not have a “dairy free, nut free, sugar-free, vegan” option. Luckily, the owner literally just laughed and said, “We do have one, it's called water.” I have never seen such entitled rage in my life!
