For some big babies, the old saying “You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever” is less like a cautionary tale and more like a mission statement. In fact, it might be a good idea to brace yourself as these Redditors regale us with tales of unbelievably bad behavior—everything from the silent treatment to unhinged outbursts, and all of the finger-pointing, private-pulling, and floor-pounding in between.
1. It’s The Little Things
I had a former boss who did not want to hire a qualified person because of the way she flipped her hair. I can honestly tell you this hair flip was not dramatic. Anyway, on one random day, the same boss decided to flip out and scream at the entire office, and her behavior was appalling. After that, she decided to start literally ignoring me and another coworker.
We had no clue what we did to warrant this as our boss had never told either of us anything negative about our job performance. When she left for the day, she would literally say good night to everyone in their offices while purposely skipping me and the one co-worker. So I did what I felt was best for my own happiness—I quit, and it was amazing. My other iced-out co-worker left, too.
And our revenge was simple. Now, the company is struggling without me because they were already short-staffed and had no clue about how much I did at that place. The one person who I like, who is still there, reaches out to me with questions every now and then, and I help her out because she is unfairly stuck dealing with all the work because the bosses are idiots.
2. Hear Me Out
My elder sister is deaf and I can’t stand it when she would just turn her hearing aids off whenever she was losing an argument. We haven’t spoken in some time, but she was still doing this when she was well into her late 20s.
3. My Virgin Ears!
During high school, I had to take a remedial summer English class because I had failed by five percent. It was no big deal, English in summer school is decently easy and it’s not a slog like normal classes. I had to take public transit to the school, which was about 45 minutes from my home. The bus was on a fairly busy route, but during the summer, there’s always roadwork.
So, I got on the bus and noticed that the driver had a lead foot. Basically, every time she stopped, she felt the need to press the brake—hard. That's when the Karen got triggered. Everyone on the bus was being jerked around. After one hard stop, she stuck her head out of the window and let loose a blue streak at full volume that I could hear from the back of the bus despite all of the construction noise.
4. Well, That Escalated Quickly
This one time, my mom became got furious at my dad because he changed the TV channel without asking her first. I’m not sure how he was even supposed to know, since she was just sitting there reading a book on the couch. She was so upset that she got up, stormed into the hallway, and proceeded to throw her BLT sandwich down the stairs.
5. Stupid Human Trick
This happened when my friend and I were in our 30s. My friend has got a big beak and wanted to impress some people when we were out at the bar. He slowly inserted a quarter into his nose. I wasn’t paying too much attention, because I had seen his trick done before, but I could tell this time was different. I guess he went a little too far.
He was embarrassed by how stuck it was but he was trying not to freak out. We went into a bathroom stall and there I was trying to dig a quarter out of my buddy’s nose with my car keys. You could barely see the coin, it was so far up. It was not my finest moment. To make matters worse, the bouncer came in to kick us out because someone told him we were doing hard substances.
I kind of understand that. I mean, the scene we created was nothing short of suspicious—to anyone using the bathroom, we were two dudes in one stall sounding increasingly paranoid. We fessed up to the bouncer and luckily he scavenged some needle nose pliers that did the trick. My friend ended up professing his gratitude by buying the bouncer a nice, cold beverage at closing time.
6. Very Extreme Couponing
This one time I had a lady come through my register with a coupon on her purchase. When I asked her for the coupon to put in the drawer, she refused. She stated that it was her coupon. I told her I needed it for the drawer. She yelled, “NO! IT’S MINE” just like a toddler would. I told her that she could only use the coupon once because we needed to count it at the end of the night.
She kept telling me no, and then she said, “Maybe I’ll just rip it up instead”. I told her she couldn’t rip it (it was one of those semi-laminated ones). She started to walk away and as I was staring at her confused, she yelled “IT’S MINE” and started to try to bite it in hopes of ripping it. She eventually gave up, put the wet, semi-chewed coupon on my counter, and left.
7. Where Dreams Don’t Come True
I work at a timeshare resort selling theme park tickets. On this occasion, I had a woman in her mid-40s walk up to our desk with her parents to purchase some Disney tickets. After some quick chatter about prices and which Disney park they wanted to go to, they were ready to buy. I swiped the lady’s card and it had declined.
This is common when people travel outside of their state because the banks are protecting the cardholder. When I told her it was declined, she went BALLISTIC. Screamed, “There is LOADS of money on my card”! After I explained the issue to her, she started BAWLING. Then she turned to her mother and said, “Mommy, tell him to give me my tickets” in front of everybody.
8. My Core Competency Is Pouting
At my work, we had a former executive vice president who would give you the silent treatment for a pre-determined amount of time if you said something he didn’t like. The only thing was, we never knew the pre-determined length, or what we might have said to him that would set him off. Thankfully, I wasn’t directly under him.
This extremely immature behavior totally explained why my boss was on always on edge. I think after a while, though, it kind of became a joke among his direct staff. They’d all say things like, “Well, I guess I’m the one he doesn’t like this week” and then at least they would be able to get some sort of support and comfort from their peers.
9. How Dare You!
When I was little, my dad got mad at me once for—wait for it—choking at a restaurant. Yes, you read that correctly. According to him, I was “embarrassing him”.
10. Uh, That’s Not How It Works
I worked at Sports Authority during their final bankruptcy clearance sale. They had three weeks left until the doors closed for good, so there were only about four employees left on staff. By this point, I can safely assure you that all of them had completely stopped caring about anything related to the job. That makes sense, right?
Well, on this occasion, a customer pushed her way to the front of the line and said, “I had to wait so long to get help out there that I shouldn’t have to wait in line”. The cashier ignored her and continued to check out a different customer. The impatient lady tossed her items on the counter, but the employee pushed them to the side and started helping the next person in line.
Naturally, the impatient lady completely lost her mind. She went into a total entitled Karen meltdown with ALL the greatest hits. You know the drill: “Can I speak to your manager”? “The customer is always right”, “Call corporate, I’m a busy woman with places to go” and so on. The manager walked over to defuse the situation.
Karen was still screaming and yelling when the guy behind her in line, whom she cut in front of, stepped in to explain that she tried to jump the line and the cashier had just been helping those who had already been waiting. The cashier looked at her manager with an expression that said, “What are you gonna do…fire me?”
The manager looked at the impatient lady and said, “You can either wait in line like everybody else or you can leave”. For a second, Karen looked like she was going to explode, and then she just stormed out. It was amazing to watch retail workers actually say the things you know they’ve always wanted to say to every difficult customer.
11. Mamma’s Boy
I had a coworker throw a tantrum because we were so busy with work that we were going to be late going out to lunch. He actually said, “Now my mom’s going to be mad because this is going to spoil my appetite before dinner”! I feel the need to mention that this guy was 35 years old.
12. How Do You Say “Karen” In French?
I work at a store in Canada in a mostly anglophone province, but because French is also an official language, we show bilingual ads on our store TVs. A middle-aged lady happened to look up when the ad was in French and she started screaming at the teenage cashier (aka me), pointing and saying that this was an insult to her country. And it didn't stop there.
She went on to say that we shouldn’t be supporting immigrants who don’t learn to speak English. She demanded I call a manager so she could complain to him. She then had a massive temper tantrum and told us that she would never come back to our store because of this discrimination.
13. That’s What Friends Are For
My best friend’s dad got into a small argument with my friend about something super insignificant. Because of this, he changed the password to the wifi and blocked the front door with the couch while my friend was at work. My friend climbed in through the window, grabbed his Nintendo Switch, and then drove to my house.
We ended up playing Zelda while listening to music. This wasn’t the first time his dad did this, but this one stood out the most because it was pretty recent. I don’t know why this man tries to treat my friend—a 19-year-old working two jobs—as if he is a 10-year-old.
14. The Voice Of Reason
My mom does stupid spiteful things when she’s mad at me. One time, we had an argument about the fact that she hogs the TV all night, despite being asleep for 50 minutes of every hour that she has her shows on. The argument just kind of petered out and I let her keep her channel on, but then she hissed at me, “YOUR CAT POOPED ON THE FLOOR, GO CLEAN IT UP”! I immediately got heated.
She usually is the one to clean up after the cat, so I never mind or complain about cleaning it up when she asks, but the fact that she didn’t want me to do it until she was mad and could use it as a weapon to try and “punish” me for arguing with her just drives me insane.
15. Whoops!
When I was in college, this obnoxious, arrogant 60-something woman was in my program. She thought she was smarter than everyone even though she was doing pretty poorly in our beginning classes. After our professor handed back our tests so that we could see our scores, this woman practically threw a fit and then ripped the test into tiny pieces.
After her outburst, the professor told her, with a smirk, that we were supposed to hand the tests back so that she could enter them in the grade book.
16. Burning Mad Man
At Burning Man we witnessed this totally unclothed man get mad at some people camping next to him over something or other. His behavior was totally cringe-worthy. He was so upset (and likely high), that he was stomping around and tugging angrily on his privates in the exact same way that I once saw my best friend’s toddler do when he was having a tantrum.
17. Sins Of The Father
My deadbeat former stepdad was always verbally cruel to my mother and me. This one time when I was 12, he and I were having an argument in the car. So I decided to turn off the radio. He freaked out. He started swerving the car, which was my mom’s by the way, and saying that he was going to destroy us all. I said, “Good. At least I won’t have to deal with you anymore”. Since he didn’t get the reaction he wanted, he just started driving normally and gave me the silent treatment for the rest of the drive.
Shutterstock
18. That’s Doctor Karen To You
A few years ago, I remember seeing an old lady at the gas station get visibly upset over the cost of a Coke, which I thought was kind of weird. The guy at the cash was just doing his job and it’s not like the cashier has any control over the price of something. I felt bad for the guy since he was trying to explain it calmly.
Unfortunately, the old lady wasn’t having any of it. I distinctly remember her telling the cashier that her son is a doctor and therefore she has the right to be upset at the cost of her soda. It was definitely a very strange night.
19. Isn’t It Ironic?
When I worked as a bank teller, senior citizens would throw awful temper tantrums whenever I asked to see their IDs. One time, this 80-year-old woman started swearing up a storm and making all of the other customers noticeably uncomfortable. She was saying stuff about how she’s “been banking here for 30 years” and it’s a complete insult that I would have the audacity to ask for her ID”.
She caused such a scene that several customers at the teller line stopped their transactions and left the branch. Why did she come in you ask? Well, first off to withdraw money from her account, and then talk to the manager about how she gave all of her personal information (e.g., name, address, social security number, and the works) to a scammer over the phone.
20. Teach Your Children Well
Once while I was working as a mascot, I saw a grown lady roll down her kid’s window and tell him to “flip off the loser working the streets”. He did what she said and then they both drove off laughing. It really blew my mind. In fact, I’ve been keeping a tally of people who flip me off and about 75% of them are adults over 40 with a ratio of 50/50 male to female.
21. Definitely Not Bussin
I jumped on a Greyhound bus yesterday because it was the cheapest option and I am cheap. A blind man boarded the bus with his guide dog and sat in the front seat so as not to bother anyone else. When the driver saw him, he completely freaked out and refused to leave until the blind man moved, but that just confused him.
After many conversations among the passengers, a law enforcement intervention, and even some taunting from the always classy Greyhound passengers, the driver totally lost it. He swore loudly and told everyone that he runs this town. He then tore around the block but had to re-park because he was too worked up to drive. He then stormed off the bus.
22. Don’t You Have Anything Better To Do?
A few years ago I worked with a miserable old hag who I had to cover for whenever she took time off. One day she came over to my desk to either nag or ask questions that she should have known the answers to, and she suddenly stopped mid-sentence and very defensively snapped, “Why is my name written on your calendar”?
At first, I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, but then I looked at the calendar and realized that I had written down her vacation days to remind myself to plan for the extra work. I explained this and she responded with, “Oh” in a kind of mad-sounding tone, but she never brought it up again so I forgot about it.
Several months later, our boss and I were at the old hag’s desk fixing her computer when I heard our boss say, “What is this”? I immediately froze in fear. I looked up to see that the old hag has been writing on her calendar when every single person in the office was late, sick, on vacation—anything and everything. Keeping attendance was not her job.
I should also mention that people’s absences didn’t affect her job in any way, and it wasn’t any of her business.
When our boss asked her why she had been doing that she said it was because I wrote her name on my calendar. I guess that really bothered her (even though her absence was essentially my responsibility) and this was her way of retaliating.
23. Spite Club
When I was a kid, my friends and I were at the park one time when it started to rain. As we were running back to my dad’s new van, my dad was super concerned that we were going to get it dirty. He and my mom got into an argument as we were all running back. My dad then dove into a giant puddle of mud, jumped into the passenger seat of the van, and began wiping the mud everywhere.
24. Not-So-Happy Holidays
About eight years ago on my birthday (December 23), my mom hardly spoke to me. She answered me in single-word sentences on Christmas Eve and phoned my dad up on Christmas Day to say she didn’t want to see me (they are separated). I was a wreck all through those three days wondering what I had done. When my dad and I went to pick her up from work on the 26th, she was right as rain. That's when things spiraled for the worst.
After 15 minutes of rambling on, she casually mentioned that the reason she completely ignored her already anxiety-ridden 15-year-old daughter at Christmas was that I didn’t get her a Christmas card that said “Mom” on it in big enough letters. She completely ignored the big bag of presents I’d spent a lot of time getting.
25. Doing God’s Work
I was in line at Starbucks and a woman ahead of me ordered an iced venti something or other without whipped cream. The barista gave her the drink with a domed lid for whipped cream and apologized for being out of flat lids. This customer lost her mind. She started screaming about how her drink was going to spill and how she wants a flat lid.
She went on and on: I NEED a flat lid! I can’t believe the customer service! I want a refund! I want a free drink! I want a refund AND a free drink! Give me the manager. This is unacceptable! This is…This is…I was hungover and in such desperate need of coffee that I snapped, “Oh my God, it’s just a lid what is wrong with you? Please shut up”.
She did shut up, but only after calling me rude.
26. Chasing Amy
This happened to me about a year ago. I went to a local tabletop game store, mostly because I had a few friends who went there. In the store, there was this kind of awkward guy, not your standard neckbeard, but was a bit cringy at times. Anyway, after I had gone there a few times, he came up to me after the store closed and asked to speak with me privately.
I agreed but remained close to where my friends were so they could see me. He then proceeded to ask me out. I could tell he mustered up the courage for it, but I turned him down by informing him that I’m a lesbian, and saying that I hope he understands. While he seemed a bit defeated, he kind of seemed to nod and then left.
A few weeks went by and everything seemed normal. I started to go to the game store weekly to play with friends and sometimes we would play games with the awkward guy too because he actually seemed like a nice person—he was just a bit quiet. One day I hopped up to go buy something, and as I got up, he jumped up and offered to buy it for me if I agreed to go to dinner with him.
Once again, I declined. He nodded and said, “Well, what about just a hug”? At that point, the guy at the counter, who was also a friend of mine, took me by complete surprise: “Buddy back off. She’s not interested. Leave her alone or we’ll have big issues”. Upon hearing that, he backed off and slinked away looking a little annoyed and saddened by that.
At this point, I’m kind of keeping him at arm’s length in any interaction. While I’m not uncomfortable being there, I made it clear that I don’t want to communicate. However, yet again, weeks after the hugging incident, we were hanging out, and one of the other regulars, who was also a girl, complimented my outfit. It was no big deal.
However, an awkward guy came in who said, “Yeah you’re super hot”. Everyone kind of stopped what they were doing. The clerk who had stopped him before looked at him and said, “Come outside with me, we’re having a talk”.
For the next few minutes, we heard them shouting back and forth. The clerk was telling him that he had been warned.
I heard the awkward guy screaming back about how “it was no different than the other person calling me pretty”. Then the clerk said, “She told you she’s not interested. She’s a lesbian, so she’ll never be interested”. His final words were, “That doesn’t matter if she gave me a chance she’d change, I know it”. After that, we heard the clerk tell him that he was banned from the store.
After some more back and forth, the awkward guy eventually left. We later found out that he tried to flame the store on Facebook and he wrote some terrible reviews, which were quickly dismissed. Finally, after that whole nightmare was over, he apparently tried to get unbanned and even called the owner’s home phone but was rejected and told his ban stayed.
27. Very Cheesed Off
I managed a former teaching colleague who used to cry after all of her performance management and professional development meetings. She would literally leave the school site in tears because I asked her to talk about why her grade average was a C+ when her same class had a B+ the previous semester. She also flipped out when I detected plagiarism in a student assignment and overrode her A grade with a fail.
This behavior continued to escalate until I was no longer able to actually manage her in person. It was so stressful. I stopped meeting with her and when she complained about it to a senior staffer, I started the meetings again. The first one ended in tears and her leaving the school site. She then worked up to having complete breakdowns in class.
I’m talking about abandoning her classes full of students, curling up into the fetal position and screaming, reporting me to the department for harassing her, telling my manager that no one likes her, and the kicker: She took a cheese spreader to the office, accused our deputy of planting it in her locker to threaten her, and lobbed it at our HR lady and a support worker.
Yet, she. Didn’t. Lose. Her. Job. After that debacle, I flat-out refused to work with her in any capacity unless the site organized a restorative. They did not. I left the site that year and indirectly told this woman to go and screw herself (while making direct eye contact with her) in my farewell speech.
She’s a woman in her mid-forties. At the time, I was in my late 20s and I did not consider myself a ball-breaker of a manager. I haven’t worked with her for a good 18 months, but she still won’t let students mention my name in her presence. And this, ladies and gentlemen is my argument for why we shouldn’t arm teachers.
28. A Very Bitter Pill
Today I watched a grown woman ridicule a coworker at our pharmacy for telling her that she could have a seat and we’d call her up to the counter when her prescription was ready. Her treatment of my coworker was deplorable. She mocked my coworker very loudly and then proceeded to tell all of the other customers how slow we are. From start to finish, her prescription took a total of 12 minutes.
Our average time from being handed the prescription, typing it, sending it to the pharmacist to be checked for accuracy, then sending it back to be counted (twice for narcotics), then sending it to the pharmacist to be checked again, and then giving it to the customer is 15 minutes. People are insane. Remember to always be nice to your pharmacy staff.
29. My Hair, My Choice
I cut a woman’s hair into a really hot pixie cut while her boyfriend threw a temper tantrum in the waiting room. He was pouting so hard that he wouldn’t even talk to her after the haircut. It made me want to punch him in the face and then tell her that she could do waaaaay better.
30. Big Baby
I work at an electronics retailer. Right around the time the PlayStation VR came out, it was a hot ticket item—very hard to keep in stock. I was working a shift when a guy called the store to see if we had the PSVR headset in stock. We told him we had one in stock, however, we cannot hold it for him. You can already guess where this is probably going…
He showed up an hour later when I was working in the gaming department. He asked if we had the VR and I told him that, unfortunately, the last one was sold about an hour ago. This guy lost it. He proceeded to scream in my face, “Are you f-ing kidding me”? He then went into a full-blown tantrum—jumping up and down and stomping his feet.
Before I even had time to respond, he surprised us with his next move—ran to the front of the store, and demanded to speak with a manager. If I were to guess his age, I think he might have been around 35 years old. I was completely stunned by how angry and upset he became. His rage reminded me more of how a three-year-old would act if he didn’t get what he wanted.
Freepik, pressahotkey
31. Gotcha!
One of my housemates had gone home to his parent’s house for the weekend, and while he was away we needed to change the wifi password. We were, of course, going to tell him when he got back. The problem was that he got back at 1:00 am on Monday morning and got mad that no one responded to the group chat about why the wifi wasn’t working (because we were all asleep).
In his frustration, he stomped downstairs and unplugged all of the wires from the router. He took them to his room and in the morning when everyone had woken up, he refused to give them back until we fixed his wifi. I told him that we had to change the password and he proceed to hold the wires for ransom.
I was forced to point out to him that he hadn’t actually paid his part of the internet bill that month, so he had no right to deprive the rest of us. I then said that if he didn’t give us back the cables, I’d just go to the store and get some more, which would still leave him without internet. Surprisingly, this plan worked.
32. Panty Raid?
When I was seven, my family went on vacation to southwest Florida with my grandparents. We rented a house with a pool and there was this glass door that led to the pool from the living room. So, if you were sitting on the couch, you could see what was going on by the pool but you couldn’t hear it. At one point, my parents were outside being all lovey-dovey and laughing…
Unfortunately, when my grandma saw them, she was legitimately convinced that they were making fun of her. So, of course, she went outside and pitched the biggest fit of ’06. My parents took me and my brother out to the beach to get away from them and let everyone cool down. When we got back around three hours later, we were shocked.
My grandparents had packed up and headed back to Knoxville—a 10-hour drive that they had made the day before. The childish part was that they had taken all of my five-year-old brother’s underwear with them. They later said it was an accident, but how does someone accidentally walk into a kid’s room, dig through the drawers, and take every pair of his underwear?
33. Sounds Petty
I like to call this “The Great Speaker Saga of 2014”. At the age of 23, I was working in a chemical plant that processed aluminum. It was a loud factory where there were loud pumps and fan belts. My tiny workstation was in front of the only stereo and because of all of the noise, the stereo was hard to hear—even at full blast.
One dude, age 50, was always blasting the rock station which cycled through the same 20 songs, including Nickelback. I worked within arm’s reach of the thing, so I would turn it down because it hurt my ears. He got mad at our manager because I kept doing that, and he even stopped talking to me for a week.
Finally, I decided to move around the corner where I couldn’t hear the radio, so I bought a tiny speaker with an aux cable. He then bought two speakers for his music. My aux cable eventually stopped working, so my little sister let me borrow her Bluetooth speaker for a week. My nemesis retaliated…
He got a bigger Bluetooth, but it wasn’t too loud. I finally got my own Bluetooth, which was loud and filled the space. He then bought computer speakers with a subwoofer. They weren’t very loud. The funny part is that he didn’t drive, so he had to carry these speakers back and forth on the bus every day. I stored mine in my locker because, well, we all had one.
He eventually stopped bringing his speakers in. I guess bigger isn’t always better.
34. We Be Clubbin’
I was golfing at the driving range of a friend’s country club in an area where the average income is mid-six to seven figures—a really nice place. The golfer next to me was a 50-something Italian man who was not having a good time. He was yelling into the phone at his cable guy who would not go into the home unaccompanied and there was no one else there.
This guy kept getting angrier and angrier. The cable guy finally said he was willing to wait for the golfer to come home so he could do the work, but it was company policy to not go into homes without an adult or homeowner there.
This set the golfer off BAD. He started screaming and he even threatened the cable guy.
The golfer used wonderful threats ranging from getting him fired to “I’m Italian, you know what that means, you better do the work, I’m Italian”. When this round of insults and threats didn’t work, he called the cable company. He tried the same threats again. When that didn’t work he threw his cell phone into the parking lot.
That wasn’t it, though, he then started smashing his golf clubs on the concrete and screaming that the cable company made him do this. His friend ended up taking him away before security got there.
35. How Dare You?
I’ve been friends with my buddy J and his current wife C since elementary school. A few years back, just after J and C began seriously dating, they decided to move in together and determined that C would move into J’s place. This meant that C would be breaking the lease on the apartment she was renting with her spoiled, crazy roommate we’ll call Beulah.
I should note that at the time this occurred, we were all in our late 20s. C had given Beulah a heads-up about the move and everyone was well-informed about the timetables. J, C, and I showed up at C’s apartment and started loading up the box truck. Beulah was moping around and pouting. It only got worse when C had some news for Beulah.
C informed Beulah that since the internet and cable were in C’s name, she would be calling the company to cancel it and Beulah would need to set up service in her name. Beulah flipped the crazy switch. I witnessed a fully grown woman fly into a weeping rage. She wailed, shrieked, and begged C not to cancel the service.
Then Beulah began to insist that C was obligated to not only keep the service on but also to keep paying for it despite the fact that she wouldn’t be living there. Beulah claimed that her life was falling apart and she’d never be able to find work or support herself without the internet and cable. All I can say is that it was hilariously awkward.
36. Off The Hook
I was working in a call center that used a worse-than-average voice-guided system that our customers had to navigate before they could talk to a person. One customer in particular found it so unacceptable that he yelled at me for a good minute before we got to the purpose of his call. This was not too uncommon, most people got over it pretty quickly and I didn’t fault them for it.
However, this guy was so invested in his rage that whenever I asked for an account number or details regarding the transaction he would purposely rattle off the numbers extremely fast, trying to be hard to understand. I can only assume that if I asked him to repeat himself it would further validate his fury at our company’s ineptitude. But here's what was frustrating.
He spoke perfect English, he wasn’t driving through a tunnel while his phone’s GPS was giving directions, and his kids weren’t screaming in the background, all of which meant it wasn’t hard to understand him in the least. I handled the call as routinely as any other and asked what else I could do for him.
37. Cheers, Mate!
I work in a casual dining restaurant. Space is a bit tight there, so the majority of our drinks are stored in a spot tucked to the side of the register, which happens to be next to one of the dining tables. Now, I live in Australia. So booze laws can be a bit tight. For example, at my place, we can only serve booze with a meal order.
Anyway, this small group came in. They were all in their 40s and a little bit boozed up, but nothing majorly concerning. They sat next to the drink storage and when one of the fellas tried to order a drink on its own, I explained to him that we can only serve with food. He got grumpy and declined to order anything at all.
About five mins later, I noticed that he had two brews on his table. None of us served him any, so we realized that he very audaciously nicked himself a couple. One of my coworkers went over to the table with the payment machine and got him to pay, which he did begrudgingly. We were fair to him in the sense that didn’t just grab the authorities that regularly patrol the area.
Anyway, after that group left, we noticed that this guy had swiped two more bottles that we missed because he hid them under the table. One of them had fallen over too, which made the cleanup extra fun. So, basically, a grown man didn’t want to order some chips with his drink so he decided to pinch four room-temp drinks.
38. Days Of Whine And Cat Pee
My roommate had to clean cat pee out of her carpet, so I bought her a cleaner to do it with. She sprayed it on the carpet, said she was done, and went to have a nap. I mentioned that I didn’t hear her run the vacuum. She got confused so I showed her the directions on the bottle of the cleaner, stating that you must vacuum the spot.
She literally whined, “But I haaaate vacuuming! I’ll do it after my nap”. That's when I had enough. I told her to stop it. If the cleaner was left in the carpet too long, it would bleach it. She then stomped her feet around and whined at a high pitch about how much she did not want to vacuum and how she wouldn’t have cleaned the cat pee if she knew she had to vacuum.
She is 26.
39. Nasty Is As Nasty Does
I knew someone who was super nice in the weeks before we moved in together with six other people for two months as part of an internship abroad. As soon as we arrived at the apartment, however, she instantly demanded to handle the finances after weeks of bragging about how she never has to take care of her money because of her parents.
We, of course, denied her request, which triggered her first pout attack and slowed down our first day a LOT. Also, she not only chose her room first but she even tried to force us to take the rooms SHE had assigned to us in the first minute of seeing the apartment. She said things like, “X and Y fit together way better than X and Z. I KNOW these things”.
She flat-out REFUSED to do any housework whatsoever. Dishes? Screw that. Clean our SHARED room? Hah. Oh, surely you won’t mind me putting my three tons of powdery makeup and utensils on your bed every day—all while constantly Facetiming with her idiot boyfriend (that guy was a whole new level of dumb). She said she liked that about him because it made him easier to control.
She also demanded that after the internship, if there was any money left in our cash stash, it should go to her because, in the first week, she put out pizza money for everyone who had no cash that night, even though it had been paid back in full the next morning. When we did not agree, she took the coffee machine we all bought together for maybe 10 bucks. Nobody gave a hoot.
40. That’s Grandma Narcissist To You
One Thanksgiving when I was about four years old, my older brother, cousins, and I decided that we would put on a talent show for the adults. Our audience consisted of my parents, my cousins’ parents, and my paternal grandparents. Well, the kids were performing and the parents and grandpa were eating it up, but Grandma just sat there with arms folded and a sour look on her face.
Out of the blue, she suddenly doubled over and started wailing about how she “didn’t feel good”. Grandpa, uncle, and aunt stopped everything to tend to her. Dad also reluctantly went over to check on her, but my mom just sat there staring at her like, “Really? You’re doing this NOW”? Apparently feigning sickness was her go-to every time she felt she wasn’t getting enough attention.
She pulled this type of stunt on a fairly regular basis. Examples: Family outing you don’t care for? Cry about not feeling well and guilt them into canceling. One of your adult children has good news? Cry about not feeling well to ruin the other person’s moment. Someone suggests that your remark was rude and uncalled for? Cry about not feeling well to regain everyone’s sympathy.
I remember this type of thing happening a few times during my early childhood yet grandpa and uncle catered to her every whim. My dad went along with it out of obligation, but Mom always knew that the whole thing was BS. Of all the times Grandma did this, though, Mom always told me that she found the talent show incident to be the most heinous.
Because, although mom could understand her mother-in-law trying to manipulate and one-up other adults, the idea that an elderly woman couldn’t stand to share the spotlight with a group of children performing their hearts out, including me, who was just a toddler at the time, was completely insane.
41. Shuttle Diplomacy
I work at the front desk of a hotel by a busy airport. Naturally, we offer a complimentary shuttle service to and from the airport to entice people to stay with us. One dude was checking out on Christmas Eve and needed the shuttle to the airport. Earlier that morning, I had already explained to him that the shuttles were in demand and might a bit longer to arrive.
So, I explained to him once again that it might take up to 15 minutes for the shuttle to get here. The dude goes to stand outside and wait. Not even a full five minutes later, he came back in and asked where the shuttle was and if I could call it again. I tried to reiterate that it takes up to 15 minutes, but he cut me off.
“Would you just call? You would want me to do the same if you were in my shoes”, he said. “Just call, please”. So I called and sure enough, the shuttle driver said it will take 10 minutes and to tell the guest this. I did and he walked back outside. THEN he started pacing. Going from the outside and then back in through the lobby—back and forth.
He was livid! I could literally see the steam coming off him. He yelled at me to call AGAIN! And then he went outside. I tried to plead with the shuttle people, “Hey, this guy is absolutely bonkers mad. If you could please, please, please get a shuttle here as soon as possible”. He was now SCREAMING about how unacceptable it was to make him wait so long.
Eventually, it got to the point where I told him to get an Uber and we would reimburse him. He screamed, “HOW ARE YOU GONNA REIMBURSE ME”? The Uber couldn’t have been more than $10, but I handed him $20. He was sitting on his phone, scheduling the Uber when THE SHUTTLE PULLED UP. At the 15-minute mark, of course. The guy ran out—without giving back the $20, of course.
42. Food Fight
When I worked for Papa John’s, there was this guy who ordered delivery to a factory. When I put in his credit card info, it was declined. I told him this and he started screaming, “THERE IS NO F-ING WAY IT GOT DECLINED I WAS IN THE MARINES AND I MAKE MORE MONEY THAN SOME LOSER AT A PIZZA PLACE. RUN IT AGAIN”! Instead of doing that, I just hung up.
He immediately called back and said, “DON’T YOU EVER F-ING HANG UP ON ME AGAIN OR YOU WILL REGRET IT”. So. I did the only thing anyone would do in that situation and hung up on him again. He called back, so I went to my manager and told him that this dude was nuts and I wasn’t going to take his order so someone else needed to do it.
43. Come Hungry, Leave Angry
I married my wife when she was 36 weeks pregnant. We took her parents out to dinner so that we could talk about our future together. Her 35-year-old sister called her and demanded to know why she wasn’t invited to the dinner and how dare we not invite her. My wife explained that we wanted to have a private discussion with her parents about our marriage.
I mean, it was at iHOP for God’s sake. My new sister-in-law yelled so hard at her that my stressed-out wife became ill, and we spent the rest of our wedding night in the emergency room. Despite the shotgun wedding, we have been married for 10 years. During these 10 years, my sister-in-law has been unemployed by choice and gained 36 kilograms (80 pounds).
44. His Friends Call Him “Arnie”
This happened at the college library with my girlfriend at the time. She said, “I’m thirsty. Can you go to the gas station and get me an Arnie Palmer tea”? I told her I would except I have to go to work. She said, “C’mon you should be able to get me an Arnie Palmer and get back here and leave in time”. I told her, “Nope, I can’t. I have to leave right now to get there in time”.
She wouldn’t let it go. “Just get me a tea and rush back quickly”. I pleaded with her saying that I really need to go to work now. She pouted and said, “I want an Arnie Palmer”! I took a deep breath and said, “Julie, you’re being a brat. You can get your own Arnie Palmer”. Her eyes went wide. She screamed, “YOU’RE THE ONE BEING A BRAT”!
I guess I should have been careful with the word, “brat”. I don’t regret it, though. It was too accurate a description for that moment and it was very important for her to know the truth about how she was behaving. At the time I thought, if she rolls back her brattiness by at least 1% because of this, it would all be worth it.
45. Give An Inch…
This happened when I was a waiter at a Vietnamese restaurant. Closing time was 9:00 pm but a car pulled into the parking lot at 8:58. The guys sat in their car for a couple of minutes and then came in at 9:01. It had been a long day because I was the only waiter who worked there, so I had to work doubles, seven days a week.
So I told the guys, “Sorry, we’re closed” and they huffed and puffed at me from the parking lot as I finished cleaning everything up. While I was washing dishes, another car pulled into the parking lot and one of the owners let the people in and sat them at a table, so then the first group of guys came back in and gave me a look like “What the heck”?
I obliged and sat them down and got them some drinks. One of them wanted an “egg roll vermicelli bowl”, which was not on the menu. I told him that we don’t serve that and he whined in a really really high-pitched voice, “But I get that ALL THE TIIIIIIME”! I took his order, dropped it in the kitchen, and told the owners I was leaving and that I wasn’t putting up with this clown.
46. Well Done With A Side Of Rage
During college, I worked at a hotel that was beside a steakhouse. The parking lot was technically separated, but just by a curb but the steakhouse and hotel patrons pretty much parked in whichever spot was most convenient. Well, one day a larger woman who had been staying at our hotel came up to me and DEMANDED that I make the steakhouse patrons move their vehicles.
She was upset because she had to walk an extra 600 m (200 feet). I told her that I wasn’t going to go over to the steakhouse and tell everyone to move their cars because it just wasn’t practical. She didn't like that answer one bit. She then yelled, “WELL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY BALLS, I’LL DO IT MYSELF” and stormed off (but didn’t go over to the steakhouse).
Now keep in mind that this was an extended-stay hotel, so she was staying with us for a couple more months. Whenever I saw her, she tried acting like nothing had happened but she never apologized. Imagine acting like a child over such a small issue.
47. Game Over
At a Boxing Day family gathering, several couples were playing Monopoly in pairs. My cousin and her husband were super competitive about it but the rest of us were pretty tipsy and not taking it very seriously. We were having a blast until the unexpected happened—her husband saw me slip my brother some money from the bank on the low-low…
He FREAKED. He flipped the board upside down, screamed, knocked over a drink, and stormed out. Me and my brother laughed our heads off.
48. Pobody’s Nerfect
I learned from my grandfather that immediately admitting fault when you have done something wrong, especially in a professional setting, and promising it won’t happen again, earns you more respect than refusing to own up and blaming someone else. He said it shows good character, and people will respect your honesty, and you by extension. But this left me utterly confused...
I’ve never understood why people dig in their heels when proven wrong or challenged in any way. Is their pride that fragile? I guess they don’t realize that such immature behavior says so much more about how terrible they are than a fake veneer of perfection ever would.
49. Ouch!
When my 27-year-old now-ex-roommate was caught in a lie, he dramatically toppled over, face first, onto the floor and pounded his fists and forehead repeatedly into the ground while also kicking his legs. He then looked up at me with pure hatred and started shrieking like a banshee and scratching his face with his fingernails slowly and with enough pressure to make himself bleed.
The claw marks remained visible on his face for weeks, and he ended up quitting his job. It was absurd and scary to see an adult, dressed in formal business attire, flail about uncontrollably. It was a temper tantrum like no other. I haven’t even seen a child behave that way. I hope he’s getting proper psychiatric help now…wherever he is.
50. Clean Like A Mother
When I did an internship, I was placed in intern housing where we had monthly apartment inspections to make sure everything was clean. I had roommates and we were able to split up our chores with no problem. At least until it came to this one roommate who flat-out refused to do anything. All we were asking her to do was vacuum—and she had a full-blown meltdown.
She started screaming, stomping her feet, and throwing stuff. She said that she doesn’t “do” cleaning and when she was living at home she would pay her mom to clean her room for her. She ended up just storming out of the apartment. When she returned, she said, “I hope you guys are happy with what you have forced me to do”.
We didn’t know what she even meant by that. It turns out that she actually called her mom and somehow convinced her to fly in from out of state to come take care of her chores for her.
51. Face It, You’re Rude
A friend of mine is a face painter for children’s events and festivals. She is only paid for the set amount of time that she’s booked for, which makes sense. However, the outrage from parents whose kids wait until the last minute to stand in line is amazing. These parents literally just want her to stay and paint for free.
She’s come up with an attempt to curtail this behavior by getting her boyfriend to stand at the end of the line with a balloon that says “Closed: Line Stops Here”. It wasn’t perfect though…many of these desperate and rude parents would just cut the line with their kids. Finally, the organizers had to start handing out tickets to mark the end of the line.
52. Don’t Make A Sink
An office I used to work in invoked a “scent-free” policy that was primarily targeted at a select few women who would regularly douse themselves in intense amounts of perfume. Walking by their cubicles was like a full-blown attack on your sense of smell. One of them was so upset by the new policy that she retaliated with a stinky plan of action…
She had the gall to bring her perfume collection to work and would walk around and sneakily spray perfume into empty offices and cubicles when she thought no one was watching. Around the lunchroom, some of us started referring to this person as the Chanel Bandit. She denied it, of course. I guess she had forgotten about all of the security cameras that were installed after we had a break-in.
Sources: Reddit,
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