Everyone knows rude customers are expected in customer service. Whether you're working in retail or restaurants, people can really ruin a worker’s day. But sometimes, there’s one that takes the cake... And throws it at you too.
1. The Wrong Drink?
In high school, I worked at a Dunkin Donuts, and iced coffee was brewed in large five-gallon containers. It’s similar to what they are brewed in now, but they were larger and sans plastic bags.
Anyway, it was busy at both the drive-thru and front counter, and the only other person on my shift with me was a new hire who didn't know anything. A lady was unhappy with her iced coffee that my co-worker made, so I made it for her again. Apparently, it wasn't made right, so she decided to cause chaos.
She threw the full cup on the floor and then walked over to where the counter barrier was, reached over it, pushed a freshly brewed five-gallon container of coffee off the countertop, and then walked out.
2. Fishing For Pills
I worked at a pharmacy during the summer. The pharmacist was one of the nicest people I've ever met. He took pride in his job and made sure patients understood their medications well. In his spare time, he was always reading about new medicine and staying up to date in his career. We had a 30-year-old woman come in and she started to talk to the pharmacist really nicely.
The pharmacist talked to her for about 10 minutes and asked if she had a prescription. Then her real motive showed its ugly face. She said she was in a lot of pain and the doctor wouldn't write a prescription. She wondered if the pharmacist could give her 20 pills of a strong narcotic.
Obviously, he said no he couldn't, but he was nice and gave her suggestions to consider. The woman flips out. Calling him a pill counter who couldn't get a real hard-working job. She continued to rant before he said, "I think you should go". She left and knocked a bunch of items off the shelf.
I felt awful for the pharmacist because I knew how much pride he took in his work. He was still the same friendly person but it's clear that woman's words took a toll on him.
3. Don’t Break The Glass
I was working at one of the busiest bars in a major city in the Midwest, and this jerk can't stop pounding his empty glass on the bar, rolling his eyes, and yelling, "I'M EMPTY OVER HERE". It was 11 on a Saturday night and the bar was packed. There was a literal line around the block.
I told him I would get to him as quickly as I could and not 20 seconds later, I hear him slamming one of my glasses on the bar, AGAIN. I lean over the bar to tell him if he can't stop abusing my glassware, I'm giving him a plastic cup. His reaction shocked me.
This jerk proceeds to hock a loogie in my face. One of my regulars grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed his face into the bar, and a fight breaks out. After all that, at least 20 of my glasses ended up broken!
4. Feeling The Heat
A lady from the real estate agency next door ordered a chicken box, and then proceeded to drive an hour to her next showing. In the middle of summer, where it probably sits right in front of her AC unit in the passenger seat. Surprise, surprise; the food gets cold when left in the cold. Who knew.
Upon the shocking discovery that food doesn't stay warm, she called us to scream at my boss that we tried to serve her undercooked food. Because my boss is a pushover in the summer, he agreed to give her a new free meal when she came back. She came to get her free food—but things did not improve.
One of our chefs came to collect her cold food. While still in front of the window, he opened the box and fished out the uneaten biscuit. He threw the rest away but walked away with the bread. I presume he meant to eat it, but he went about it all wrong.
She started screaming about how we were "recycling" food, that she was good friends with the health inspector, and that she was going to see us in court. The histrionics brought my boss out of his office, and after chewing out the idiot chef, he tried to smooth things over.
I don't remember much, we were super busy, and since he'd taken over the drive-thru, I hopped onto another task. She wouldn't move forward, and the line was piling up. My boss was starting to get annoyed. They had stopped talking to each other. Her hot, fresh meal is up, and he goes to hand deliver it and tells her to get the heck out of the line.
I'm not entirely sure as I was halfway across the store trying to make drinks—but all I remember is a surprised gasp from our food runner. I looked up to see a box of steaming hot chicken come sailing through the window and scatter across the front.
My boss had barely stepped back in time. We could only stare as the crazy lady roared out of the parking lot, and my boss snapped at the first person stupid enough to still be making eye contact to clean it up.
5. I Should Go Elsewhere!
I worked at McD's in high school. It was about 10 minutes before closing, and our drive-thru was packed. At closing, there were usually only two or three people working. So we were on the run. A guy about mid-way in the line gets to the window. I'm a nice person and a human, so I understand waiting sucks.
I apologized to the guy about the line and asked him what I could get him. He wanted something that had a wait. Chicken probably. I very apologetically explained there was a four-minute wait on that and would he like to order something else or pull forward. He just laid into me like I ran over his puppy or something.
He then quips, "I should just go to Burger King!" I said, "I understand your frustration, if you make a left out of here, it's about a mile down the road on the left side. Have a nice night". Then I shut the window on his stupid face. My manager came over, asked what happened, then high-fived me, and the guy peeled out.
It was so validating in the face of his utter rudeness to a 15-year-old girl.
6. Drive-Thru Drama
I had a guy that was a germaphobe and had really bad OCD. He came through before and my coworker didn't want to deal with him. So, I went to the drive-thru window after washing my hands. I cashed out the order that was on screen and he reluctantly handed over his card. I then gave him the coffee that I cashed him out for.
He started yelling at me saying that it was wrong. Apparently, the person that took the order forgot to type something in. It’s unfortunate but it happens. He started yelling at the coworker that didn't want to take his order at the window.
So instead of just saying that it was the wrong order, getting refunded, and being on his way, he stayed in the driveway for 20 minutes telling my coworker that she was stupid and unprofessional and was unfit to be a supervisor.
He kept demanding that we get the phone number of our franchise owner, but apparently, the number was wrong and he kept yelling at us. When we came back to the window after 20 minutes of this, he left. My supervisor went into the back to cry. I felt so bad for her, she's the sweetest person.
Fast forward to less than a month later, he called the store to apologize and the manager made sure that my coworker never dealt with him again. He told the manager that his therapist told him he should apologize.
He spent a combined total of three hours on the phone with the manager, where he apologized and also blamed us for making him late to his appointment that day. But that's not the best part...At the end of the phone call, he asked if we were hiring.
7. Making Recommendations
I'll never understand why people make their dislike for a restaurant's food into a bizarre personal grudge against the server. I worked at a place that had good food except for this one dish: steak frites. It was a small hanger steak, cut into strips, served with fries. That's it.
The steak was always tough, under-seasoned, and wasn't a lot of food for the money. One day a guy asked me for some recommendations, so I made a couple. He apparently wasn't impressed by my suggestions, so he asked about the steak frites and said, explicitly, that I wouldn't recommend it. So that's what he ordered.
After taking a couple of bites, he pushed the plate away then asked me to call over the manager. He then complained to the manager. But I couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. He whined, not directly about the food, but about me for giving him an awful recommendation.
8. Coupon Conundrums
I used to work at Kohl's department store. The bane of my existence was Kohl's Cash. For those of you unfamiliar, some weeks Kohl's will give $10 Kohl's Cash to customers for every $50 they spend. Unfortunately, some months, KC would overlap, meaning a customer could use their KC, have $10 taken off their totals, and if the total was still more than $50, they would receive another $10 to be used at another date.
However, KC is still considered a coupon, not a form of payment. So, hypothetically, if a customer were to use their KC and the total dropped below $50, they wouldn't receive more. I would get screamed at for these five to seven times weekly.
On one occasion, a woman began to call me "incompetent" and every other name in the book, because the KC took her total down to $42 and another KC didn't print for her. She then proceeded to take her change, just the coins, and hurl them at my face. And, I mean, she really whipped them hard. At this point, I began to cry because coins hurt, and my manager got involved. In the end, my manager printed her $10 Kohls Cash.
9. Over A Dollar
One of my delivery drivers took a run to this women's house. She was supposed to get like $17.61 in change. She wanted to tip $1.61, but since my driver had taken an order previously, he didn't have $16, he had $15. Needless to say, she was furious. He got back to the store and asks, "Has that lady from 'address' called yet?"
She apparently screamed at him for five minutes about how it was outrageous he didn't have that other dollar, and how terrible he was for trying to take money from her. Even after he told her, "I have no intention of taking your money from you, I just need to go get change, and I will be right back with your dollar".
So, five minutes later, she calls the store, "I NEED TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!" Well... here we go again. She yells about how “YOUR DRIVER DIDN'T HAVE THE CHANGE FOR THIS ORDER (blah blah blah)” for a good five minutes. I listened patiently, apologizing and trying to calm the situation down.
However, when she said, "Your driver can go around not having the right amount of change so he forces customers to tip more," I almost lost it. I said "Maam, I'm sorry he didn't have the change for you, but he wasn't trying to take from you or rip you off, he just nee-" And she interrupts with: “I NEVER SAID HE WAS RIPPING ME OFF!!!!”
Yes, you did... You literally just said it. At this point, it was a lost cause. I said, “Well, I'm sorry everything was so terrible for you. He's bringing your dollar to you, please don't ever order from us again”. I made a note in the computer under her address and phone number to that effect.
I will do whatever I can to make an order right or keep the customer happy, but sometimes people just can't be reasoned with. Cut your losses and move on at that point.
10. Get Me Out Of Here
I used to work at a Level 1 support center for a major healthcare company. Basically, we would help anyone who needed assistance logging in or registering on the website, but would often get many calls from people who dialed the wrong number and had questions about their plan. I had one woman call in and demand information on her ex-husband's prescriptions.
I tried to tell her that she had the wrong support center and offered to transfer her, but she SCREAMED, "Don't waste your time, they won't give me the information because of HIPAA laws. If you don't give me the information, I will personally drive down there and get you fired".
This was an empty threat of course, but she would've been doing me a favor. That job sucked.
11. All On My Own
I worked at a bakery for two years, and I had to deal with honestly the most heinous and rude customers ever. I've worked in the food service industry my whole life and lived in Toronto up until three years ago, but I have never dealt with such entitlement.
One day, one of our staff members quit by text message five minutes before her shift, and 30 minutes before we were set to open at 8 am on a Saturday. We were hard-pressed finding someone to cover, so I was alone until a front-of-house person was able to come in, about an hour later.
I had one of the kitchen staff helping me, and all they could do was grab things and bag them as they weren't trained on cash or coffee. So here I am running around trying to help customers, make coffees, ring people through, and am clearly stressed.
This awful man was clearly annoyed that he had to wait, huffing and puffing, and eventually loudly exclaimed, "I'm not waiting for this," and proceeded to throw his bagged muffin at my head and storm out. I legit almost chased him down, I was livid.
12. Waiting For The Doc
I'm a receptionist. A patient shows up without an appointment and throws a fit. I tell her, "Wait until the doctor finishes with the patient he's seeing right now, and I'll ask him if he can see you today". There’s a rule in the office: I can't add anyone to the schedule once the day's full, without the explicit approval of the doctor.
She then calls her daughter, who calls the office to chew me out, calls me inconsiderate, says I'm toying with her mother's health, etc. I tell her the same thing: You gotta wait for the doctor's approval, because I'm not allowed to add her mother to today's list. Meanwhile, she throws another fit on the phone.
Doc finally exits his office and I ask him; he agrees to see the patient. I put her at the end of the list, but she and her daughter via phone complain about making her wait. My boss just goes along with them and she gets to cut in front of the patients who already had appointments.
After that, she was all sweetness, calling me dear and sweetie, etc. I just gave her the coldest shoulder I could, while still being civil. It made me so mad. And I can't stand the fact that my boss states, "the patient's always right," because they are NOT! Half of them are horribly rude, and his attitude is just fomenting that.
13. Cilantro Complaints
I worked at a Vietnamese restaurant back in high school and I had a Viet family come in to eat. They gave me snobby vibes the entire time especially after I told them I couldn’t speak Vietnamese. They ordered regular pho but asked for no cilantro, so I rang the order in with “no cilantro”.
It came out with cilantro in it and I told the kitchen what the family asked. The kitchen told me they couldn’t do anything about it, so I told my manager and they told me to ask the family if they still wanted it. The family said yes, so I brought it out and they took out the cilantro and ate the entire thing.
At the end of the meal, they spoke to the owner and complained how I got their order completely wrong, got the food for free, and got their bill taken out of my pay. The owner told me I should’ve removed the cilantro myself.
14. The Handsy Manager
I used to work at HomeGoods where I set up furniture and rugs. I was a portly young lad, and I liked the lifting aspect of the job. I had one bizarre manager though. She was older and wore real fur coats with ridiculous eye makeup and lipstick that always smeared off the pink of her lips...like a plump and messy Cruella De Ville.
She creeped everyone out with the way she carried herself. She greeted people with a very slow and deliberate, "Oh. Hello". This was always followed by a lipstick-stained tooth smile. So one day I'm hanging a fairly heavy rug, one of the biggest ones we have.
I have to climb these mobile stairs roughly 20 feet to get this bulky beast onto the hanging rack. I'm kind of struggling with the awkwardness of the rug, but I'll get there eventually if I take my time. The oddball comes by and asks, "Do you need any help?" I'm thinking, 'Yeah if John or Billy were here, that'd be awesome'.
So I say, "Yeah, could you-" And before I could finish my sentence she goes, "Yes, let me spot you". And now both of her hands are firmly planted on my behind. It was everything in this world that makes you shake your head vehemently sounding out "BBBLLLUUUUHHHHHH!!!!"
I threw the rug off the side of the stairs with some new-found adrenaline. The tapestry landed with a bang. Every customer turned their heads in our direction. Fight or flight had surfaced in my being. My wide, confused eyes were fixated on this woman while my hands clenched to white.
Silence permeated the air. I stared her down for a moment that felt like a lifetime. To break this silence, she had the audacity to smile and say, "Keep up the good work". And with that, she left for her office. A co-worker of mine came up and comforted me with a bro hug. I think I'll always be slightly tormented by that memory.
15. All You Can Eat
I worked at a local chicken joint. Guy was trying to start up his wing restaurant. To help drum up business he made an “all you can eat” deal. The only stipulation was you couldn’t order one all-you-can-eat for multiple people. Seemed reasonable enough, I thought, and often it wasn’t an issue.
One evening as we were near closing, a couple of guys wandered in and one of them ordered this all-you-can-eat deal. He started sharing it with his friend and we told him that he couldn’t do that.
Since we were getting ready to close anyway my manager told him that we wouldn’t cook anymore for him because of it, but rather than throw out what we had already cooked he could just have that. This guy threw a tantrum after we turned our backs.
He threw the food across the entirety of the restaurant. French fries and ketchup everywhere. He kept the chicken though. My friend opened the next morning to find that they had vandalized the windows of the restaurant. Nothing serious, it was just giant toilet paper wads and stuff like that, but my friend said it was a huge pain to clean off.
16. Watching Their Backs
I was the night manager of a grocery for years. Over the years, I worked with many teenage girls who were checkers. Creepy guys were always coming in and lingering around their check stands when it was slow but they always seemed to scurry away when I walked up. I never had to even tell them to leave or act tough.
Just another adult male presence would keep the creepy stuff away. So, I would always have a code word for my checkers. If they called the office or got my attention as I walked by, they just had to say "platypus" and no questions asked I would casually slide in and start talking to the checker and have her go do something or just start chit chatting with the creepy guy until they left.
There’d be no big scene, I would just make it seem like I was doing some good customer service. The weird part is, most creepy guys would catch on and just get that sort of "you win this round" smile. My checkers really liked it because the thought of calling a manager and making a big scene can make anyone nervous, especially a 16-year-old girl.
17. The Messy Mattress
I work in customer service in a furniture store. This lady calls in and wonders what we're going to do as we sent out our tech to inspect her mattress because she said it was sagging and she hasn't heard anything in a while. Anyways, I look at her account and all this happened almost six years ago.
When I read the comments, the awful truth became clear. They said, "Customer is too big to get off of the bed and cannot predict her time of the month, also stained with other bodily fluids, called the customer and advised that we cannot return".
Well, I tell her that any stains void the warranty, and then she yells, “They're all liars, I didn't even have a phone then! It's your fault it's stained! I'm going to sue you!" And then she hung up on me. I was literally sitting there in shock thinking to myself "...The heck just happened?" She's now a legend in the customer service department here.
18. Buckets Of Toppings
I worked at a pizza, ice cream, and sandwich shop in a small rural town. I was on delivery. We had this guy who ordered maybe once a week or so. This customer lived a solid half an hour outside town. None of us knew why the owner ever agreed to deliver to this guy in the first place, being that far out, but we used to wonder if the owner was being threatened into doing it.
The level of trouble the customer would raise if you didn't bring him cheese and peppers for his pizza was absolute madness. There was an incident where a delivery driver found the customer waiting on his porch, and the first thing the customer did was loosely point menacingly toward the driver and say, "Did you bring my cheese and peppers?"
We fully believe the customer would have hurt our driver if the answer had been no. As it was, the driver didn't have as much cheese and peppers as the customer would have liked. The customer called the restaurant and threw a fit. From then on, when we delivered to this customer—because the owner didn't cut him off —we were told to take a bucket of cheese and peppers with us.
I'm talking like one of those bulk ice cream buckets you buy at the supermarket. We all kept on in our trucks. But we had to start taking an extra just for this one customer. I wonder if the guy was even in it for the pizza.
19. Different Kinds Of Glasses
Used to be a bartender at this hybrid restaurant, bar, and movie theater. On big movie releases, the bar would get absolutely slammed and on this particular night, we had run out of glassware completely. The only glassware I had at the time were regular pint glasses that you would normally serve water in. It was a recipe for disaster.
This guy and his wife got lucky and caught a seat at the bar and he ordered a Jack Daniels. Having no other glassware, I put it in a pint glass and explained that we were running low on rocks glasses, assuming he would understand since it was absolute chaos everywhere you looked.
He took it and said “I’m not very happy” in a smarmy way and gave this annoying little grin. I apologized again and said, “Unfortunately we’re not making any more glasses back here,” and him and his wife acted like I reached across the bar and slapped him.
I just got my manager and told him to deal with them. He told them the same thing I had told them regarding the lack of glassware and gave them a free drink which they seemed happy with. I would’ve felt bad if there was something else, I could have done for them, but there wasn’t.
20. Café Customers
Oh, where to start. I worked in a cafe for a few years and while there were some bad one-offs, the WORST people were difficult regulars. There was one who would order the most popular thing on the menu but with a list of modifications a mile long, right down to what fruit to include with the side of fruit and how many inches tall to pile the turkey on the sandwich.
She would always get it to go and then would about 50% of the time, call the restaurant from home saying that the order wasn't correct and that she wanted a refund. However, my least favorite was this woman who would come in about an hour before closing and then stay until past closing—bugging you for little things piecemeal all the while.
I get that at sit-down restaurants, customers can generally come in whenever they want as long as the doors aren't locked yet, and then stay as long as they want. However, we were a small cafe, and I would kick everyone out when I locked the doors. She just wouldn't leave.
Once she was on the phone when it was time for her to leave. I ended up just shouting at her, loud enough for whoever was on the other line to hear, "IT IS TIME TO LEAVE THE CAFE NOW". People not wanting to leave was relatively common, although most people would leave right away when you asked.
Once a woman just wanted to "finish up one more thing" on her computer. One more thing turned into one more thing, which turned into one more thing. She was sitting by the open window, and there was no air conditioning in the cafe. So, finally, I just went and closed the window.
She gave me the dirtiest look, but she got out. The first customer I described was my coworker's worst nightmare and he always made me deal with her since, while she was super annoying, I didn't mind as much. The people who wouldn't leave at the end of the day made me so mad though.
21. I Need My Appointment Now!
I worked at a doctor's office, and this horrid woman came over an hour late for her appointment. She got told she had to reschedule, she threw a fit at the receptionist, and the nurse came out and told her she still had to reschedule. I couldn't believe what she did next.
She then stood at the door and tried to "buy" other patients' appointments from them as they walked in the door. Entitled much?
22. What Do You Mean?
Years ago, I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch. So many parents came in there and complained. The music is too loud, it smells in here, the prices are way too high. Everyone complained. I get it! It sucks in here and you’re angry your kids want this.
One day we had an extra obnoxious woman come in and start complaining to the point where we needed our manager. At the end of the ordeal, as she walked away, he said to her, "See you next Tuesday". She WIGGED. She turned around and demanded the number of the regional manager.
She kept saying I know what that means!! I think the manager ended up giving her a fake number and nothing ever came of it.
23. The Line Cutter
One dude would come into the cafe with his dogs that would hop on everything and bark at people. Even if there was a line, he’d just raise his hand and yell “coffee!” and just walk past the line and wait for his coffee, where he’d pay cash at the pick-up area.
One day, after he skipped a particularly long line, I refused to make his coffee. He started shouting at me and saying he’d get me fired, but eventually, he went to the end of the line and he had to order his coffee from me. Nobody clapped, but I felt like the people in line were clapping in their hearts.
24. The Wrong Number
Back in college, I was working my first job as a front-of-house staff for an on-campus locally owned burger place. My main job was to call the order numbers out to customers and pass their food off. Easy enough. Well one night, we get absolutely slammed with to-go orders at closing.
I’m the only person out at the front and there were two cooks behind me working on the food. A man ordered two burgers. Cool! Well, we’re so busy I’m obviously not aware of what number goes with what customer off the top of my head, and I call out a number. A customer takes it and heads out.
Turns out the wrong customer grabbed that man’s order. Chaos ensued. He proceeded to yell profanities at me, calling me an idiot, demanding his food be free and that he gets free fries. This was all in front of other customers. I started crying. It held up everyone else’s food in the process. The manager had to remake his food.
25. Dropping Off The Kids
I was standing behind the register looking up a price for a customer when a young boy said to me, "Sir, my brother needs you". I politely asked him what he needed. He then tells me with the most serious look in his eyes, "I pooped". Confused, I asked him to repeat what he said.
He then says to me, "I pooped, it just came out". I look down to see that he had indeed pooped. It was a runny one too and it was all over my floor and everything. We then asked him where his parents were and I find out that he was dropped off by his mother. When we tried calling her, she wouldn't answer.
For two hours, this kid was in my store with poop all down his legs. Did I mention that he was wearing shorts? Because he was totally wearing shorts. I eventually asked him and everyone else in the store to leave so we could clean it up and get rid of the smell. To top it off, the kid was around 13 years old too.
26. Those Dang Kids
I worked as a server in a 24-hour diner in a small Massachusetts city. There's a prestigious school, Williston Northampton School, around the corner. Wealthy kids, but almost all of them were awful. The school does this thing called "button bucks," it's a pre-paid card, and many of the businesses in town accept them, including the diner.
Those kids treated us like we were subhuman. Snapping fingers, interrupting me while I was taking another customer's order, making a giant mess, cracking jokes about us—all sorts of awful things. THEN THEY DON'T TIP!
I had one group of boys order about 70 dollars worth of food, paid with a $100 dollar bill, and I brought them their change. As they walked out the door, they made a point to tell me, "Your tip is on the table". I could tell by the way he said it that there was something going on.
They put the 13 cents in a cup full of water, napkins, ketchup, half chewed fries, just a nasty cup they made just to be mean. The 13 cents on the bottom of the glass were my "tip". That's the only time I threw a glass in the trash because I refused to degrade myself further by picking through it.
It's been years and even now I feel rage just thinking about those Williston kids.
27. Toeing The Line
I served an old ex-military man around 80. He constantly tells me how pretty I am, not in the sweet grandpa way, but in a really slimy predatory way. He thinks he's got a right to pull this stuff because he's four times my age. Right before quarantine hit, he had the audacity to straight up put his hand in my face while I was minding my business clearing a table.
I know how ridiculous it must sound. but being a waitress for a couple of years, I can deal with stupid pick-up lines or some jerk reaching for my butt. With those people, you can either shut them down really quick verbally or kick them out. However, you can't just kick someone out for something as innocent as this guy does.
He knows that well and is always riiiight on that line where he could still defend his actions as innocent.
28. Tipping Troubles
There was a group of little old ladies that would come in every Sunday after church. All four would get the same thing. Every week. Iced tea and a half-grilled Asian salad with a senior discount, $4 and 19 cents. Every time they paid with four dollar bills and two dimes. The tip? Four cents.
While this sucked enough on its own, the fact that they were always super sweet to everyone made it burn even more. But on top of all that, on Sunday morning/afternoon, a really busy shift, they would sit there for several hours. So, on a busy day when you only had three or four tables, having one of those tables taken for hours with a guaranteed four-cent tip really sucked for your income for the day.
29. Is This A Joke?
Once I had a family of four come in. I work at a sushi restaurant, so of course, there's the open sushi set. And logically each person gets charged for it. The dad started joking around, trying so hard to make me charge him with two sets instead of four. I apologized and said that I can't do anything about it.
He got mad, and said bitterly, "Some respectful staff this company has. I want to speak to the manager". I told him there is no manager at this branch. So, he laughed like he didn't believe me then he said, "Gonna ruin your life for this".
Two days later, HR calls me and tells me that a man came in and said that I yelled at him, and that I was very disrespectful towards him and his family. They said I wasn't helpful or welcoming and I refused to be nice to him. I stood up for myself and told him what really happened.
HR proceeded to say, "I really don't know who I should believe," and hung up. Two days later, I'm fired.
30. Serving The Chef
My worst customer was the assistant chef, who after closing the kitchen bought a bunch of drinks and tried to pick a fight with me. He actually took a swing at me. I brought him in the next day and we had a long chat about his conduct. I let him keep his job provided he gave up drinking when on the premises.
A couple of weeks later, I showed up unexpectedly and he was at the bar drinking. The other cooks, knowing he should not be there, saw me coming through the parking lot, shuffled him off, and hid him in the kitchen before I could find him at the bar. I did find him, however.
He was passed out, standing up, in the kitchen, leaning against the prep table. His pants were around his ankles and he had messed up the kitchen. I fired him instantly and as punishment, the other cooks had to stay through the night to disassemble, deep clean, and disinfect the kitchen.
31. Caught Red-Handed
I work the customer service desk in a grocery store. Our policy says that we can return items without a receipt for store credit. I had this one cracked-out woman come to the counter to return about five recipe books without a receipt. The only issue was there were ripped out pages in all of the books. People do this all the time with stolen items.
I was unsure what to do so I called the manager. The manager politely refused the refund, which would have been about $100. The woman started screaming and called us all kinds of foul names. My manager asked her to leave or law enforcement will be called. With much hesitation, she finally left.
A few hours later I get a call from our store in another part of town asking if someone tried the same return. I said there was. Now, she is not allowed in any of our stores and we have security camera pictures of her all over the breakroom so we know not to let her in.
32. Please Eat OUR Food
We have a strict "no outside food or drink" policy in the cafe where I work. This woman bought a coffee and then proceeded to set up a meal with food from three other restaurants in the area. I kindly asked her to either put the food away or leave, which is our policy.
Her response was to scream at me for 10 minutes about how unfair it was, and that we don't live in Beverly Hills, causing other patrons to leave and me to almost break down and cry.
33. Betting On Bags
I currently work in retail and it is an absolute pain. During the Christmas 2012 rush, I had a customer buying two notebooks and two lightbulbs. I asked her if she needed a bag. She replied with, "Well what do you think?" I said, "I don't know ma'am. Some people want bags and some people don't".
She went on for a minute about how I was being "ridiculous" and finally just told me to throw it in a bag. I mean, I've seen people want a bag for less or not want a bag for more. I always ask if it seems like something that is in the gray area for needing or wanting a bag.
I never thought in my life that I would get yelled at for asking a customer if they wanted a bag or not.
34. The Bathroom Mess
I had a customer who would come in right after we opened and he'd order his coffee and then go to the restroom. This was the problem. Although he was friendly with us, he would leave a large puddle in front of the toilet.
Even though I knew it was him doing it because the restroom is cleaned and mopped at closing time, I wasn't comfortable with having this conversation with him. I had the idea of going in there myself when he came in and staying in there until he left. This worked a few times but he started to wait until I was done.
Finally, one day when he went in there, I quickly grabbed the mop and waited, in front of the restroom door, so he could see what I was doing. He still comes in, but he hasn't made a mess on the floor since.
35. Driving All The Way ‘Thru’
I work at a coffee shop that has a drive-thru on the south side of the building. In the middle of work one day, this woman who comes through at least twice a day and makes the same order decided to get her usual. However, when she reached the drive-thru window she handed me her money, and before I could give her back her change or any of the food she had ordered, she began to drive off.
Not wanting her to leave without all of her things, I put my head out the window and began shouting for her to come back, so she throws her car in reverse and almost backs into the guy behind her. She then begins screaming in the drive-thru window about how I tried to take her money and how if I am not fired, she is going to call head office and try and get our store shut down.
She refused to leave the drive-thru until we called the authorities and they escorted her off of our property, charging her with being a public disturbance.
36. Unlimited Samples
I work at Costco and there is an old Armenian woman who would come by daily to gorge herself on free food samples. Now, as the person giving the free samples, I don't really care how many you take to be honest, just don't clear my entire tray more than once.
This lady would come and grab every piece of food she could reach on my table, sometimes up to two to four times a day. She would do this to EVERY SINGLE DEMO, which could be up to 40 samples! It drove us nuts, she wouldn't talk to you much but if she did, it would be to complain or to ask for more.
37. Quick, Boy!
I was at the till serving a huge amount of people and rule one of customer service is that you take your time with them and make them feel like they're special. I got to this customer, a gentleman of 50 give or take a few years. I greeted him and asked if I could get him anything, and he replied with, "How about you just get me a coffee and make it quick boy".
I've been working in this place since I was 15 and got pretty tired of these people over the years. I replied with, "I'm afraid that due to the number of people, you'll be waiting for 10 minutes for your drink and also, I'm 18 so I'd appreciate you not calling me boy". I knew it was going to ignite him.
Queue a whole bunch of insults, classics such as "I'll have your job" and "I earn more than your family does in a week". I was so disgusted that these people exist that I put down my tag and just walked away
38. The Traffic Jam
I worked at the front desk at a country club. We had a roundabout in front with two little roads branching off. It looked like an uppercase L with a loop where the lines meet. Anyway, the night was almost over and the valets had brought up the last two cars and left the keys with me.
This old member drives up behind the parked cars and lays on his horn over and over again, shouting, demanding we move the cars. All that spoiled jerk had to do was back up 10 feet and he could get around the other way. Instead, he honks, shouts, curses, and of course we oblige him, scrambling to move the cars. I hated working there.
39. Two For One
I have a few stories but this lady at the cafe was the only one that actually made me cry from being so angry. At the cafe I worked at I was making the drinks one day and a coworker was at the register. We were very busy so she missed writing down the specific instructions for one of the orders.
All I knew was that the customer wanted a small black tea. So, I make it and call it out. The lady tells me she wants it in two cups very rudely, so I split it up and put it on the counter. She then says she asked for extra hot water in both cups and tells me I’m terrible at listening to directions.
I realize she is basically asking for two teas for the price of one, but I don’t have time to argue so I just do it and put it back on the counter. She then spills it on her hand while picking it up from the counter and yells “Ow!! Why did you do that?!” As if I handed it to her myself and intentionally poured it on her.
She then proceeded to go on a tirade about how she would sue and I’d lose my job. I was so mad that I started crying and I guess that made her feel kind of bad or something because she came back after she finished her tea to tell me her hand was okay so there was no need for recourse. As if that was supposed to make me feel better?
40. The Older Problems
I worked in a restaurant that was in a 55+ community while I was in high school. During our busiest night of the week, Thursday night Karaoke, I was bussing tables to get empty glasses that the bar desperately needed. When I grabbed a clearly empty glass from in front of a woman, I felt a sudden rush of pain.
She'd stabbed my hand with a fork to the point of drawing a fairly significant amount of blood, screeching "I'm not done with that!" Mind you, the only thing left in this glass was a droplet at the bottom that had dried up 30 minutes ago.
41. Are You Sure You’re Clean?
I used to work at Nordstrom. For those of you who don't know, Nordstrom is known for their amazing customer service most of the time. So, the whole "the customer is always right thing" can sometimes get taken to the complete and most disrespectful level. I worked in the Ebar, which is like their version of a coffee cafe.
I had years of experience as a barista and have seen my fair share of rudeness. One night, I had a woman order a regular cup of coffee. I grabbed the cup and went to pour it and she interrupted me and asked me to wash my hands. Of course, I couldn't say no. I was completely caught off guard and confused as to why she would be led to believe that my hands were dirty.
For those of you who don't know, people in food service wash their hands almost every 15 minutes at least. It was so embarrassing and felt really degrading. Now, I don't know if she was a germaphobe or what, but it made me so angry!
42. Changing The Channel
We had a regular at our restaurant named Larry who would come in every night, watch baseball, drink makers, and just be an all-around great guy. I later had another gentleman that came in and sat down at my bar and asked me to change the channel on the TV from the Nationals game to Fox News.
When I refused, he became very irate with me and I simply responded with "Larry is watching the game so I can't change it," which Larry quickly followed me up with, "Yeah I'm watching something worth it!" Needless to say, Larry got a free Makers Mark and I didn't get a tip; but it was worth it.
43. The Food Fight
I worked in a Japanese restaurant and it was a small restaurant, so I was usually working as a cashier, waiter, bus boy, and delivery driver. Basically, it was me handling everything and the owner would come out from the back and take over if there was a delivery. Anyway, one day we had a family come in.
Mom and dad got sushi rolls for themselves and then got chicken hibachis for the kids. The hibachi came with a side of rice and I watched as these kids started throwing rice at each other. Mom and dad did absolutely nothing to stop them, not even a "Cut that out".
When they left, the place all around their table was an absolute mess, and to make things worse the floor was carpeted. Cleaning rice out of it was a huge pain normally, but this was on a whole different level. We didn't even get a "Sorry about the mess" from them.
44. Again And Again
I work in a fish and chip shop, there’s a regular who comes in every Thursday or Friday. One time he came, I accidentally charged him for slightly more than he bought. I eventually noticed, fixed it, and life went on.
Now, every time he comes in, whenever I ask him for payment, he makes a point of counting how much his order comes up to, and how much change I gave him really loudly under his breath. And he doesn’t stop after one count. He just counts it over and over again while I’m trying to wrap up his chips, all the way up until he leaves.
He doesn’t do this when he gets served by my coworker. I hate that guy.
45. Buy It Yourself!
We ran out of romaine lettuce during lunch on our busiest day. First of all, literally nobody ever asks for romaine lettuce over our normal house salad anyway but this one guy was so upset when I had to tell him we were out. He kept asking me to drive to the grocery store half a block away and pick up more lettuce.
At first, he implied he was joking albeit very frustrated, but then he was full-on like, "No really I could drive to the grocery store and be back in five minutes". I think I was 19 and rebellious and all the managers loved me anyway, so I was just like, "Alright dude, you totally can and I'll even hold the table for you, but I'm not doing that. I've got other tables so either order something else or go then," and then he got really mad.
46. Do You Know Who I Am?!
Years ago, I sold computers at my college's student bookstore. A very well-known law professor with political aspirations came in to buy a new computer. I spent at least an hour with him going over the various models we had to offer and the benefits of all of them as well as their components. He decides on a very expensive Dell.
I know, I know, but this was a while ago and Dell was a totally different company. Anyway, it's a special order and takes a few weeks to arrive. It finally does and he comes and picks it up. I load it onto a dolly and even walk it over to his office with him. About an hour or so later, he calls up and unloads on me.
Every curse word in the book. He's angry because the computer won't turn on. Then he wants a manager so I get one. It becomes a series of don't you know who I am, etc, until finally, he says he's coming down to the bookstore.
He comes in so red in the face you would have thought he was on fire and unloads some more and demands that we go to his office and pack up the computer and give him a refund. The computer manager says it’s no problem and heads over there with the dolly to get the thing. I am spared this embarrassment.
About 10 minutes later the manager shows back up with the dolly but without the computer and monitor. I look at him and he smiles and says, "He forgot to plug it in". In the professor's defense, He called and apologized profusely about everything, but I had already gone home.
47. Rushing Dinner
I worked in a popular restaurant for a while. We usually have quite long 30-40 minute waits during dinner service and people are told by the hosts about this. But there was this lady that got fed up with the wait after only 10 minutes.
She stormed into the restaurant, stood next to a table of four people and literally asked them, "Are you guys done? We've been waiting for a long time now and would like to have the table if you guys are just chatting..." I was completely mind-blown about how people are able to not care and pull something like this in public.
48. A Mess In The Aisle
I was working at Circuit City as a computer tech. The mother of this child let the demon run rampant in the store. No control over it. She had it dressed in only a diaper and some ratty shirt covering. After browsing the iPod section, seeing as she had properly cared for her child and deserved a reward, I see her grab the kid and hurry off to the restroom.
I walked over to where she was to make sure she didn't take anything, and there was her child's gift to me: a runny pile of poop. All over. No one wanted to volunteer to clean it, so we gathered some cleaning spray, and had a quick round of rock, paper, scissors, where it was decided that I should clean it up.
Midway through the cleanup, Mother of the Year comes walking out. I was thinking that she would apologize, offer to clean it up, etc. Oh no. She was carrying the child, scolding them about "what it had done," pointed to me, and told the kid off on how this "poor man has to clean up after you".
She then bails out the front door never to be seen again. A girl goes to the back to inspect the bathroom, where the baby changing station is also covered in poop. I got out of cleaning that one at least.
49. They’re MY Wings
I worked at a grocery store that had hot food to go and pre-prepped meals. I worked in that department for four years and had a lot of messed up customers. We used to joke that even the craziest have to grocery shop. We had a glass-covered counter with heat pads and lights to hold the food.
The counter allowed two people to be served at once which was handy in a rush, but could cause some issues. On this night, I started serving a lady who ordered something and the rest of the chicken wings. My coworker started serving the second customer in line who had heard the first order.
She wanted chicken wings as well, so my coworker told her she would have to wait about 5-10 minutes for the next batch to come out. She immediately flipped out saying that she ordered them first when she hadn’t and that her kids were hungry at home. She insisted that the other lady wait instead.
I finished packing my customers' wings and began handing them to her. The rude lady was saying something like, "Wow you couldn't leave ANY for me!?" But then she became even more deranged. She proceeds to shove the first lady into the counter in an attempt to reach for the wings.
She pushed her so hard that the glass case rattled and the baby the first lady had in a carriage began to cry. The second lady kind of snapped out of it and went to pay and leave. The lady I was serving was so stunned she didn't know what to do. We told her to call for help because she seemed to be in shock.
She agreed and went outside to see if she could get the other woman's license plate. Apparently, in the parking lot the lady who'd stormed out almost hit her as she was leaving. Authorities arrived and took everyone's statements. Afterward, I saw both ladies and after asking them, the lady who was shoved dropped the charges. What a crazy day though!
50. Well, Nobody Came
I used to manage a restaurant and hated those couple of times in five years of my working there when some entitled customers left without paying because "the waitresses didn't come to pick up my money". That's an awful move and a poor excuse when all you need is to grab a waitress's attention by simply talking!
Once it was a family of four who left the restaurant during a busy evening and we realized that the bill wasn't paid after some 10 minutes had passed. I checked the cameras and saw the father taking the bill, putting the money in, sitting there for just three to four minutes, looking around and taking the money back, and leaving with the whole family!
Luckily, our owner was a great guy and told me to simply ban the guy and his family. And to my surprise, that man came back with friends on a busy evening in a couple of months! I was very excited watching his face be embarrassed in front of his friends and customers sitting outside when I told him that he is banned.
When his wife started to get upset, I told them I remembered them and told them the whole story with me checking the cameras and seeing him taking the money back and all!
Sources: Reddit,
