We tend to think of “good” customer service as polite waiters, happy cashiers, and helpful attendants. But what happens when customers need to be taught a lesson? Here is some of the best customer karma these Redditors have ever witnessed.
1. Told Ya So
I’m a former cell phone industry worker. We HAVE to pitch insurance and a case every time you get a new phone. We have to. You can actually be fired from some carriers for refusing to partake in making these suggestions. During a normal new-line set-up, this insanely rude woman is hostile about every part of the exchange.
Her credit is absolute garbage, so she has to pay a gnarly deposit and more of the phone up front, and that's somehow my fault. As I’m finalizing everything before she’s completely rung up, I casually offer the same thing I do to literally everyone getting a new phone: Which insurance plan were you interested in, and what kinds of cases have you looked at?
Apparently, that was the most offensive thing she'd ever heard in her life. She immediately raises her voice and makes it really uncomfortable for me because apparently I'm accusing her of being clumsy. I kept my composure and tried calmly explaining everything.
I even try to let her know that I HAVE to offer that to everyone, and I couldn’t get anything across. Eventually my co-worker lets me know he's got this. We swap places and finish each other's sales. As she steps out of the store looking down at the Galaxy Note 3 she had just spent a total of 500 something dollars to get, she trips and smashes the screen. She comes back in asking for help after raising heck.
2. A Road To Nowhere
I was working drive-thru at a Tim Hortons and some jerk in a massive black truck parked too far away from the window and expected me to lean super far out to give him his change. He was real impatient and just really rude. I just shook my head and so he gets all angry and finally gets out of the truck…and the door shut behind him.
It was locked and he sat there for like 15 minutes and we had to call a tow truck. Sure, it ticked off everyone behind him, but at least they were mad at him and not us! He acted like it was the biggest embarrassment of his life. Maybe it was. It was pretty embarrassing.
3. When You’re Here, You’re Family
I was a server during college at an upper scale restaurant. I rarely had problems with customers and am overall genuinely friendly. I had a table for 4 with only 3 patrons there, an older couple with their adult daughter. I served them beverages and was told we were to wait for patron number four, the son.
About 40 minutes and two refills go by. I say, "I bet you guys are starving by now, would you like me to bring you our lettuce wraps? They are small enough to not ruin your appetite. Or are we still waiting for my buddy?”
Well, they didn’t like that. The father said "We are going to wait, and he isn't your buddy. Frankly, you don’t know him, he’s a hardworking man and will be respected".
"You're right sir, forgive me”.
"He actually has a real job”.
"I understand sir, it won’t happen again”.
When I come back for refill number three, the son was arriving. But now I knew something they all didn’t. The son happened to be an old high school friend, and before taking a seat he gave me a hug right in front of his dad. I looked at the father and said, "Small world huh? I can't believe you’re his family. I’m surprised we've never met before with him and I spending so much time together in high school”. It's too bad our restaurant didn't serve crow.
4. Squeaky Clean Revenge
I work at the hotel's front desk. One day we had an Armenian guest who was claiming his room was not up to his standards. He decided to make a big deal about it the next morning. He was so rude to the point of almost making a co-worker cry out of desperation because she refused to compensate the night as his arguments seemed really fake and invalid.
Once he saw he was not going to get anything back, he threw his receipt on the floor and powered walked his way out…right into a very clean glass door that was recently cleaned. His sunglasses broke, causing him to get a small cut on the upper part of his nose. My co-worker and I couldn't stop laughing the second he walked out, even more mad.
5. Bad Timing
I was a cashier at a grocery store. This guy with a full cart whined and bullied employees until he was allowed to use my express checkout because he didn't want to wait in the regular lines, and my line only had two people in it. As soon as my floor manager allowed him and he had his cart unloaded, a tiny old lady with a walker who could barely stand got in line behind him.
Everyone gave him dirty looks. He realized he messed up and tried to make a joke about it. Complete silence. I hope his saved time was worth being a total jerk.
6. Be Careful What You Wish For
This lady at a client company laid into me for the amount of the bill we sent her. She called me every bad word in the English language. Says we overbilled her, and she requested I go through her order. Here’s where it got so good. We come to find out that we underbilled her by $1000 dollars due to a misplaced zero. The silence on the other line was so beautiful.
7. Do You Prefer Fashion Victim Or Ensembly Challenged?
I worked in this fancy clothing store in this posh town at the seaside. It was a busy Saturday when suddenly a very pretentious girl walked in with her boyfriend. She ignored us as we greeted her and even gave my colleague a demeaning look. She went on to browse around in the store and eventually took some clothes with her in the changing booth.
After a while, I notice a heated conversation arising from the booth between her and her boyfriend. I see the boyfriend running back and forth between the booth and some clothing racks. Meanwhile, me and my colleague were being chased away by her constantly. She refused any help and didn't leave the booth.
So me and my colleague continue working and helping other costumers. I was working the register when suddenly the girl turns up next to me, completely teed off, and she starts ranting about "How our store really should work on the fitting of our clothes” and how we were complete screw-ups.
I was completely caught off guard, but I soon figured out what was wrong. Right when I wanted to ask her what the exact problem was, I see my colleague looking at the girl while bursting out this horribly loud laugh, tears and all. What had happened was that the girl had taken a piece of clothing that she thought was a strapless dress. Well, it wasn't a dress. It was a skirt.
The girl had tried on all sizes in this “dress” and got completely fed up, and now she was yelling at us and her boyfriend because the FREAKIN DRESS WON'T FIT. Yep, she walked out in a crowded store, making a scene, with a skirt pulled up to her chest. I have to admit, after she left I laughed until I cried.
8. Not A Clean Getaway
I was working at a restaurant, and there was this family who were extremely trashy. Honestly, they didn’t look like they had a lot of money, despite ordering a bunch of expensive steaks and drinking a bunch of drinks. They were rude the whole time, treating me like I was their butler.
They then asked for a manager and said that their steaks tasted “rotten” (after they finished) and their drinks didn’t taste like they had any hard stuff in them (again, they finished them).
In short, they were obviously just trying to get free food. My manager noticed the way they were treating me and knew they were full of it and refused to comp their meal like they were demanding. They began yelling and cussing and ended up trying to leave without paying. But it wasn’t over.
When they got to the parking lot, their car wouldn’t start. My manager called the authorities, and one of them got detained for disorderly conduct. The rest ended up walking after having their car towed.
9. An Extra Large Mistake
I used to be a nighttime manager at a pizza place downtown. We were literally around the corner from a direct competitor. They had a carry-out window and offered that service all night. We did not and closed our doors at 10:00. We only offered delivery service after that. It's worth mentioning that we were quite friendly with the local authorities and officers frequently sat in our parking lot at night to catch up on paperwork, etc.
One night at about 11:30, I had a woman and a man start banging on our door. I politely (but loudly) told them through the door we close carry-out at 10. The woman goes ballistic. She starts screaming and hitting the door, while the man just stands there watching and trying to look hard.
I ask another employee to keep an eye on me in case the situation escalates. I then step out another side door in order to be able to actually converse with them. This woman is absolutely nuclear at this point, screaming and cussing. I let her finish and I inform her that if she called and ordered, it was probably our friendly neighbors with the carry-out window.
I get accused of calling her stupid. I ask her to check her phone and tell me which number she called. She says, "I don't have to, I know I call y'all and YOU took my order!" At this point, I informed her that there is absolutely no way I took a carry-out order after we closed carry-out. It got worse. Now the man joins in and starts taking a very aggressive posture and tone with me. He informs me I "better let them in and get their food". I flat out said no. The man then shoves me and I stumble back about three feet. He goes to swing at me, misses, and I kindly repay the favor and connect, knocking him on the ground.
At about the same time, the woman attempts to rush me. The next part happened fast: There is a sound of "WOOOP WOOOP!" and flashing blue lights behind them. This doesn't stop them from continuing to try to assault me, however, the two uniformed officers that happened to have just pulled in take care of that very quickly.
Another squad car shows up. The two are cuffed and placed in the cars, the officers have been given a copy of the security footage, and I ask the officer I'm talking to if, for the sake of curiosity, he could possibly try to convince her to tell him the phone number she called. He walks me back out to the car she's in and somehow convinces her to do this.
She recites the number while glaring at me, with so much vitriol and hatred in her voice. "XXX-XXX-7272 you stupid jerk”. I smile at her and inform her, "Our number is XXX-XXX-3030. We are Domino's. That's the number for Papa John's. That's why 7272 spells out Papa".
10. Going Out Hot
I worked at a gas station some odd years ago. The week before this story takes place, it had been snowing a lot, so the gas tankers got delayed for safety reasons. A customer came in a pretty new Mercedes-Benz, something like SLS 400 or something, and wanted the premium gas.
I explained to him that the takers are delayed and we currently don't have any premium gasoline. I said that he could try the next station down the block. He started swearing at me on quite a personal level, like I had control over the gas delivery. He sped off, tires screeching, only to have his rear tire hit the curb. His rim got messed up really bad and he couldn't drive it. I laughed at him.
11. A Surprise Ending
I was waiting at a hotel reception while a young staff member checked me in. A really obnoxious woman flounced over, interrupted what the girl was doing, and proceeded to whine about the standard of the kettle in her room. She ranted on and on about only having a "normal kettle" until I told her to wise up and get in bloody line behind me.
She shouted that she had been traveling all day and that the room was not a suitable standard. There was just one thing. I pointed out this was a freaking airport hotel, so we'd all been traveling all day and that she should just get lost. By now the girl at the desk was blood-red and tearful.
The woman banged her fist on the desk, demanded to see a manager, and then had a fit of coughing. I still can’t believe what happened next. She promptly pooped herself all through her beige trousers. She didn't hang around after that.
12. God Has A Plan, And It’s To Embarrass You
I worked at a Pier 1 Imports as a teenager, outside Birmingham, Alabama. This was about 20 years ago, and transgender folks weren't on my radar at all. Anyway, it's near Christmas, and I'm at the register with a line of customers waiting. There's a woman huffing about something near the end of the line.
By the time she gets up to pay, she's being very loud about the customer behind her. "It's a man! It's a pervert in a dress!" The person behind her was very obviously assigned a different gender at birth, but was in fact wearing a dress. It didn't really phase me as much as this woman who was doing her best to shame this person, who looked very hurt and embarrassed.
And this lady was doing it while buying Christmas decorations, no less. Anyway, she's trying to convince me how wrong and gross it is, how this person shouldn't be in the store, etc. As she's ranting, I run her credit card. Declined. I try again. Declined.
I have rarely in my life experienced the satisfaction as I did at that moment, looking up at her, smiling, and saying that her card had been declined. Her face got red and she really just went off. "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! TRY IT AGAIN! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!" At this point, she has the whole store looking at her. I try again, and very loudly say it is, in fact, declined.
She stormed out of there, knocking over a poor Santa statue by the door. I shared a smug grin with the customer behind her.
13. A Dangerous Occupation
Back when I worked at a Blockbuster, we'd occasionally deal with thieves. The standard was just to let them go, so as not to endanger employees or customers. One time this guy grabs some stuff and bolts. My manager runs after him and points him out to two officers who had parked in our parking lot.
They give chase. This guy dodges and weaves through people and traffic. He successfully crosses the street with the officer on foot. Desperate to lose them, he jumps down some stairs to gain a lead—but breaks both legs.
14. Watching, Waiting
This didn't happen with a rude customer, but with a rude co-worker. I work in a store with 10 different check-out lines, but only one of them has all the tobacco products in lockable glass cases behind it. So if you want to buy that stuff, you either go through that line or, if you go through another line, you have to ask the cashier to go get your products. At which point, they have to go to that specific line and ask the cashier working there to get them.
I have more than a few co-workers who smoke and they have to buy their cigs the same way as customers do. Employees are not allowed to get out their own products and check them out themselves. They have to have another cashier ring them up for them.
So one day, early morning, I'm working the check-out with the cigs behind it and I notice this woman who works as a janitor hovering around behind me. I know she isn't supposed to be near there so I ask her, "Can I help you with something?" She tells me that she just wants to get some smokes. I'm like okay, no, if you want them, have to get in line and buy some that way like everyone does.
She gets angry and asks me why I won't just let her get her own. I tell her again that I can sell her whatever she wants if she'll just get in line and pay for them. She huffs, rolls her eyes at me, and storms off. I had no idea what I’d set off.
For the rest of the day, she totally has it out for me. Throughout the day, I have other cashiers telling me that she's talking trash about me in the break room left and right. My manager comes up to me and says that the woman made a complaint that I refused to sell stuff to her because of prejudice. I explain what actually happened and go on with my job.
Then at one point, there's a big lull in business and I take a quick break, putting on my “away” light at the register and making sure to lock up the cases when I go, as is policy. I then go toward the bathroom. This woman comes out of nowhere and blocks the door, refuses to let me in, shoves the handle end of her mop into my chest, and tells me I'm not allowed to use the bathroom.
She’s saying stuff about how I think I'm "so much better than her" because I'm a cashier and she's a janitor. I'm like, "You realize there are security cameras right in this hallway, right?" and she jumps and takes off again and I got to the bathroom. And this stuff just carries on ALL DAY. She gives me these nasty looks every time she comes by.
But the day ends and I give my register to someone else and go home. It wasn’t the end of it though. The next day, first thing in the morning, as soon as I get into work another cashier informs me that the woman was fired late last night because apparently, she'd been caught on camera stealing a few packs of smokes out of the case when the cashier who relieved me at the register eventually took a break herself but didn't lock the cases up.
The cashier who didn't lock up got a warning but didn't lose her job.
15. Karma Comes Back Around
When I was a cashier at Borders, I had this one customer who had either put something on reserve or had it special ordered. I remember them getting really rude because I couldn't find it and I asked them multiple times what name it was under. It eventually turned out that it was placed under her husband's name, so it wasn't my fault I couldn't find it at all.
She didn't apologize or anything, so it felt really nice when I swiped her card and it was declined. She felt so embarrassed and just stormed off.
16. Taking A Stand
Used to work at Target. We were always told if a parent has their kid standing in the cart, we should ask the parent to have their kid sit down. Most of the time, the parents are fine with it. This one lady was not having it. She was outside and had just put her kid in the cart. At the entrance, the ground had shifted a bit and there was a small lip to get into the store.
Of course, the kid is standing at the very front of the cart. I politely warned the customer of the lip and told her the kid should sit down because there's a very high chance he'll fall out. Her reply made my jaw drop. She tells me “Go screw yourself. You can give me advice about my kid when you become a parent yourself," all while pointing her finger at me.
Well, okay then. So she walks towards the door, kid still standing, and hits the lip. The kid flips out of the cart and bashes his face on the floor. If anyone knows about the “carpeting” in the entrance vestibules, it's basically like having a piece of paper draped over a slab of concrete. There's no padding whatsoever.
The kid had GIANT lump on his forehead and must have hit his nose too, since he was bleeding everywhere. I told my managers, and the lady got the help she needed for her kid, but she was still being extremely rude the entire time. Told you so, witch.
17. You Get What You Pay For
I used to work at a bank branch. A client was being very disrespectful to a female staff member. You can’t make up the plot twist that came next. Literally two minutes later, our bank was robbed—at the teller he was using. His $5K was taken right off the counter before it could be negotiated. Eventually it was covered by the bank, but at the time I can imagine him being worried.
18. Seeing Double
I’m in Hawaii one day at the resort bar. This kid comes in one day. He looks about 18 and orders a drink. The barman asks for ID and when he hands it over, the tender says, “Sorry, this is expired”. The kid loses his mind, insults the bartender, threatens his livelihood, all that jazz. Fast forward two days, I’m sat in the bar at the airport. The same jerk comes in and orders a drink.
The lady behind the bar asks for ID, and he hands over the ID. She looks at it and goes to hand it back, which is when I pipe up: “Check the expiration date”. Jerk move, I know but Karma, is, as they say, a witch.
19. This Comes Right From The Top
I worked for a sushi bar for a few years. They do a half-price sushi hour most weekdays for dine-in customers. It's a good deal, especially for how high quality the food is. It was an especially busy day. People waiting, etc. This woman and her daughter come in and stress that they are in a hurry—"My daughter has cheerleading”—but want the half-price deal.
Uh, good luck? Full house...but whatever. So, the lady gets angry when her food takes longer than 15 minutes. She asks if she can get her food to go, and I then explained that the food would then be full priced. We get into an “argument” in the sense that she's getting angry and beginning to yell at me in front of her embarrassed daughter while I'm meekly standing there, unsure of what to do.
“WELL I ORDERED DINE-IN”....you are asking for it to go, IT DOESNT MATTER IF YOU WERE SITTING AT A TABLE WHILE ASKING. She's getting louder and more annoying and I'm starting to panic as my anxiety was really bad at the time. Then the situation flipped completely around. Suddenly, my boss chimes in. And by chimes in, I mean she started ripping this woman a new one.
You see, my old boss just happened to be working behind the sushi bar that summer. She told the woman to stop yelling at me and that if she wanted her darn half-price sushi, she would have to sit and wait like everyone else. My boss apologized to the other customers and made sure I was okay.
The lady was shocked and now super embarrassed, since the entire restaurant was now judging her. She quietly sat and waited for her sushi. The daughter apologized to me and that table ended up leaving a good tip. My old boss is the nicest woman in the world. She still gives me free food whenever I go up for some sushi.
She also has a bunch of regulars who she always makes time for. But don't make her angry, because she will become a scary, scary person in mere seconds.
20. Just Smashing, Darling
I worked at a liquor store. A customer came in, already in his cups. He couldn't really speak and was stumbling everywhere. We refused to sell to him, and he flipped out. We ended up booting him out with the threat of calling the authorities. He went down the street to another store, and as he walked back past our store, he yelled some very mean things at us—and immediately tripped, shattering the bottle he bought on the sidewalk. It was a glorious sight.
21. Not So Fast
In the auto repair business, we have to deal with a lot of passive-aggressiveness from people displeased with having to shell out money for their cars. Once, a couple arrived to pick up a car that was parked in the first spot nearest the street. The husband was great and had approved the needed repairs in stride; the wife was a raging witch debating every line item of the estimate, asking pointless questions, demanding a cheaper price, threatening to take the car elsewhere or "just get a NEW one!"
Anyway, the man made his way toward the office, but the woman made a beeline for the car, found the keys stashed inside, threw the plastic seat cover to the wind, then started it up and drove off before the bill had been paid. The karma was instant. She ended up cutting the turn too sharp and scraping the ENTIRE passenger side of the car badly on the low concrete planter. I saw this happen; the husband didn't. I never saw them again.
22. Forgetting Something?
I used to return customer credit cards by setting them on the Square podium our restaurant used to swipe them. That way, they ended up right by them when I swung the screen around from them to sign and such. One lunch rush (we were a take-out restaurant) one lady decided this was an offense of the highest order and yelled at me for not placing it directly in her hand.
I stupidly engaged her and tried to explain that I did that for everybody. This got me a continued lecture about how she is the customer and good service is doing what she wants and so on. There were about of dozen people eating at our tables and five people in the line behind her, so she was straight hamming it up, making sure everyone saw her putting me in my place.
Unfortunately for her, the dramatic performance proved to be a bit too distracting and she stormed out without her infant. This was of course noticed by pretty much everyone in the building since she had just made herself the center of attention. One of the customers even had to run after her and stop her from driving away. For the record, there is no real subtle or dignified way to pick up a full-size child carrier.
23. Too Hot To Handle
I work in food service. At a college football game, my co-worker was chewed out by an alumnus because the hot chocolate wasn't "chocolaty" enough. All she and I could really do was sit there and apologize. There was nothing we could really do, until the bartender chimed in. This bartender is a former high school teacher and currently a substitute schoolteacher for all grades K-12.
The look she shot this man could have immediately shut up the snottiest of teenagers. Anyway, she put on her scolding face, and warned him, "If you continue yelling at these girls over something they can't control, I'm going to have to ask you and all your friends to leave. I will not tolerate anyone mistreating my co-workers".
The guy immediately clammed up and hurriedly walked away with his tail tucked between his legs.
24. Want To Revise Your Story?
I’m a bank worker. I had a customer throwing a fit once. He said he sees a charge for $50 on his account and blames us for not keeping his account secure. He throws a fit that rages on for a half hour. Turns out, he forgot he used $50 for a cam service. This was discovered when my customer service rep looked at his account and googled who the charge was from.
25. His Luck Ran Out
I used to work at a check cashing/credit card cash withdrawal booth at a Native casino. One guy was really in his cups and, being a real jerk about how long it took me to get his cash, told me I needed to “hurry it up” or he would make sure I lost my job. I did hurry, and I hurried through the balance on five credit cards as he kept coming back because he was getting his butt handed to him at the tables.
I guess at some point during the night, Visa realized this person had blown through about 10k at a casino in a matter of hours, so they put holds on every one of his cards. This meant one thing only: The merchant must take the card from the customer. I ran and kept every single last card he had on him. He was not happy at all.
26. Checking Out
I sold computers and such for Circuit City back in the day. I was fairly new and the only one on shift at the time as someone called in sick. This is around the time the iPod nano came out, so everyone wanted to see them. I had been working with a group of people selling to each of them for over an hour. Then some guy comes up to me and asks why I have been ignoring his wife.
Apparently, these two had gone into the back corner of the store and stood there, not talking to anyone. They now wanted a high-end laptop but didn’t want me to get the commission because I “ignored” them. We didn’t make commission at the time, so I didn’t care in the slightest. I got the laptop out for a manager to ring up…and their check got declined. I did a happy dance.
27. He Made His Bed
I used to sell mattresses, which no one really wants to buy. No one’s jacked about buying them; they do it because they have to. I get it. Everyone that works there gets it. One Saturday, this cranky old dude comes in, and before anyone can greet him, he's complaining about literally everything.
We're trying to help him, but he shoos anyone who approaches him away. Of course, then he turns around to complain about no one helping him. Dude is old, like I said, and he can't get around well. We recommend he not lay down on an all-foam mattress if he won't let anyone help him up.
He says something rude and blows us off. He hobbles over to a foam mattress, one that is right next to a wall. This wall also has a TV display sticking about 8 inches out from the wall, and it constantly plays ads. The old man lays down on the bed and immediately hates it. He sits up, and he realizes it will be difficult for a man in his condition to get off the bed, but he won't ask for help.
Dude launches himself off the mattress and straight into the TV display. My manager loses it. The guy tries to bark at us, but everyone else is too busy trying not to laugh, so he gives up and cranky-walks out of the store.
28. Pitching A Fit
I used to work at a RadioShack in my area during college. It was never really busy on Sundays, so I was generally the only worker there. On this particular Sunday morning, I was incredibly tired from the night before, so I was kind of annoyed about having to come in on a day when no one was going to show up.
I got even more annoyed when I pulled into the parking lot and was instantly greeted by a man who proceeded to start yelling at me. I put on my sales associate smile and kindly asked what the problem was. "I've been waiting here for 30 minutes and you are late!" I wasn't late, I was actually 15 minutes early.
He then followed closely behind me to the door and was screaming at me the whole way. "I'm never coming back to this store" and stuff like that. When I finally got the door open, I let him know that I had to turn the alarm off and count the register before I could help him. This also made him angry...but at this point I didn't care.
I was nice enough to try and help him 15 minutes before we opened...least he could do was not be a jerk. Anyway, I finally get to help the guy out and he wants to know about batteries. Cool, easy. I proceed to show him our batteries and their prices. He goes off. He starts screaming and yelling about how everything was outrageous and the prices were terrible and apparently I had treated him like trash.
He started to pound his fist on the counter and started yelling again about how we didn't have any name-brand batteries (we did) and how RadioShack was communist by trying to push their batteries on their customers. I calmly told him that there was nothing I could do and asked if I could help him with anything else.
He stormed off, punched a battery display, and then came the karma. He proceeded to slam face-first into our door. Turns out that since he was yelling and screaming at me while I was unlocking the doors, I forgot to unlock the other one. He quickly looked around to see if I had seen him. I just waved and told him to have a great day. He spun out of the parking lot and I never saw him again.
29. Drive On By
I work at Starbucks. One day as I was working the drive-thru, we were having longer than normal wait times as we were short-staffed. This one guy gets up to the window in a huff and starts yelling at me and complaining about his wait. I apologize and tell him his total.
He literally throws his credit card at me, and it bounces off the bottom of the window directly underneath his truck. We look at each other for a second, and then he sends his daughter out of his truck to look for it. I inform them it's right under their truck, so he moves his truck up a bit, gets out, picks it up, and hands it to me softly without making eye contact as he is squeezing himself between the tail end of his truck and the wall of the building.
He's pretty embarrassed as everyone behind him is watching. It was pretty satisfying.
30. Read The Room
I was in line in the hardware store and the lady serving had a sign on the till that said that she was deaf. The beefcake behind me in the queue is trying to get the cashier’s attention, huffing and puffing and talking trash at her for being slow. The person she was serving had a cart full of items, by the way.
All of a sudden, he really loses his temper and screams at the cashier. His words sealed his fate. “What the heck’s wrong with you? Are you deaf?” I have never, ever seen so many people turn round in unison and give one person the stank eye. My mother, who I was with at the time, pipes up, pointing to the sign on the till.
She says: “What the heck’s wrong with you, can you not read?” The guy goes redder than I have ever seen anyone go and skulks out, avoiding eye contact with everyone. After that, he received a generous round of applause from everyone at the tills, including the other cashiers.
31. You Won’t Get Away With This
Way back when I used to be in retail, I worked at an electronics retailer. We had some guys going around trying to lift DVDs. They were cutting the barcodes off to remove the sensors so they wouldn't go off on their way out. My manager notices and starts sending over floor reps to see how they are doing, if they need help, etc.
Finally, my manager goes over and just hands them a basket because they had nothing in their hands, so it was showing them we knew. Now they start wandering around, ditching the DVDs as they go. As soon as they drop one, an employee comes up and grabs it. Now they start freaking out. They dump the rest and just book it towards the door at full speed.
No one chased them because they ditched all the merchandise. As they exit, one of the dudes turns around and starts flipping everyone off. As he's doing this, he steps off the curb into the front driveway in the parking lot and promptly gets hit by a car. It was in the lot so it was only hard enough to knock him over, but he had to scramble to his feet and keep running.
32. The Time Is Right
I was selling a woman a Nintendo 3DS for her son. I had given the son the box while I was ringing everything up because he was so happy to get his new toy. When it came time to talk about the accidental damage protection plan, she gave me an unreasonably hard time, making it sound like I accused her child of not being able to take care of his toys. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
The second she said that, the kid threw the box across the store into some shelves and knocked down a bunch of games. She bought the four-year plan.
33. Sad Violin Sound
I was working at a music store. We do a lot of business in high-end band instruments (tubas, clarinets, etc). We only put them on sale for a couple weeks every year, and we're nearing the end of the sale when this story takes place. An older guy comes in to look at trumpets, and he's ogling the most expensive one we had on display, really standing there for a good few minutes.
My co-worker asks him if he wants any help, or if he's interested in trying it out, and the customer just starts talking trash about the expensive trumpet. "It's nice, but I'm really not that impressed. $3400? That's too much for that thing, yeah right”.
Right at that moment, we get a phone call asking us for that same model trumpet, and the customer is willing to pay for it in full over the phone to reserve it. Normally we would have three or four of these horns around but the sale was good and the very last one was getting trash-talked by this old guy.
So my other co-worker just strolls up behind the dude and plucks it off the wall. The old dude just goes ballistic, yelling, calling us all incompetent, etc. Turns out he really wanted it, but was pretending not to in order to try to get us to lower the price. There was nothing we could do for him, as the sale was only on stuff we had in stock. He eventually ordered one, costing him an extra few hundred bucks. We laughed about that one for a long time.
34. Boy’s Night Out
A group of guys came into my restaurant. They were "celebrating" this rather rotund man's divorce. Needless to say, any pretty server in the building was about to have an uncomfortable visit. I kept an eye on their table, but I can't stand a stare too long before it becomes obvious I'm supervising them and not my staff.
I ran to the kitchen to check up on the cooks. I was gone maybe 15 seconds when a server comes to get me to cut the recent divorcé off because he just grabbed one of the girl's butts. Not cool, dude. I go out to the table to take them their checks and ask them to leave. I tell the table I had a complaint from one of the staff and said there would be no more drinks served to them, and that they needed to pay their tabs and leave.
Now, I'm not a small guy, but the six of them could easily cause more than a ruckus. Once their glazed eyes realize what's happening, the divorcé shouts, "Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do if we don't?" I couldn’t have planned the next moment better. He starts to stand up, but is a bit too husky for his gut to clear the lip of the table, and he spills two full pitchers and six almost empty glasses all over himself and his friends, as he then slips back into his chair with a thud.
I didn't have to say another word. His one friend threw down $100, apologized, and dragged his sticky, wet friend shamefully out the side door.
35. From Sob Story To Most Wanted
I work in a cell phone/computer repair retail chain. We had this lady come in the other day, we'll call her Wanda. Now, we do buy phones and other small electronics, but ONLY if we're going to be able to sell them. We aren't going to buy your old iPhone 4, and we sure as heck aren’t giving you 600 bucks no matter how new your device is.
Wanda calls first, asking for quotes on three phones and a laptop. Two of the phones are older and kind of bad, after a quick Google. The laptop is an old Compaq, which should tell you why I refused it. Wanda came into the store an hour later. Apparently, our other location in the next town had quoted her 50 bucks for all three phones and 150 for the laptop. I knew this was a lie because the managers in that store are competent.
I tell her I can give her 30 for the nicest phone (her personal phone, which will become relevant soon), I can't take the two other ones, and I absolutely will not be taking the old Compaq that runs slow with a chunk broken out of the side. She starts whining about how I quoted her X amount of money and how she can't believe we can't give her more and we HAVE to take these items and blah blah blah.
Guys, it was 80 degrees in that store. Our AC had broken and we were hot, sweaty, and annoyed. And Wanda just would not shut up. I ended up giving her 50 for the darn phone, just to end the conversation. Seemingly satisfied, she left, saying she'd be going to the other store to sell her other two phones and the laptop.
About 30 minutes later, she was back AGAIN, this time hocking a sob story to my co-worker. He dealt with her the second time because I was close to screaming at her. She’s talking about needing money for her sick daughter. She whined at him too, until he finally bought the laptop for 10 bucks. Then, FINALLY, she was gone…but the story doesn’t end there.
Long story short, we checked the phone and laptop for resale quality. We find a text on the phone that said, "Give me back my laptop and all the things you took from me, or the authorities will be called”. We also looked up her name and found that she'd been wanted for theft back in 2010 in our district.
Officers were called, owner was called, and the laptop was given safely back to the original owner. Now this woman has a warrant out once more—all thanks to two grouchy, hot twenty-somethings who paid her $60 to get the heck out and never come back.
36. No Backup Plan
After purchasing a phone from me and being extremely rude and awful the whole time, this customer walked out of my store and instantly dropped their phone. It shattered and they were devastated. They then had the nerve to ask me to do them a favor and add the warranty they earlier said no to because it was a "waste of money". I had the pleasure of telling them it wasn't possible.
I got yelled and screamed at, they threw their phone at me, and security was called. Never saw them again after that, thank God.
37. Holding All The Strings
I work as a service advisor for a major car company. I had an extremely rude customer on the phone who needed her car in for service. I told her the only available appointment was a Monday morning at 7:30 am for a job I knew would only take 10 minutes. Justice served.
38. A Helping Hand
We weren't allowed to follow thieves once they were out of the store. So one day, the hot barista from the Starbucks next door was in chatting with me when I watched some jerk grab a coat off a rack. I motioned for her to follow me and we went to stand at the exit. The jerk catches on and high-tails it to the other exit.
I say to the barista, “Darn, we're not allowed to chase anyone outside the store”. She had the perfect response. Her eyes light up and she says, “But I can!" She proceeds to run down and tackle the guy. Oh, but there’s more. When he fell, his fingers twisted in the hanger and between that and the fall from being tackled, somehow four fingers on that hand got broken.
Only the middle finger was fine. So his sticky fingers got his hand messed up. Glorious.
39. No Such Thing As A Free Drink
This customer was demanding his birthday drink. It wasn’t something we normally did, especially not to jerks. So I told him we couldn’t do that unfortunately in the nicest way possible. His girlfriend understood and offered to pay. This guy pushes his girlfriend and says no, I’m gonna get my free drink.
Me being me, I said nope, we can’t do that. He then storms out while calling his girlfriend stupid. He pushed her a bit while walking out the door. Only, it had just finished raining, and after he pushed her, the momentum made him slip and fall. Karma. I then gave her a free drink while her boyfriend stalked off.
40. Moving On Up
I was in line behind a “Karen”. The cashier was ringing up her stuff and then Karen was like “No, that’s not right. That’s wrong. That isn’t X, it’s Y”. So the cashier corrects it…and it ended up costing more than was originally rung up. “Oh, I should’ve kept my mouth shut, huh?” Best instant karma I’ve seen in real-time.
41. Getting Sassed Back
I work near Baltimore, and I manage a plus-size women’s clothing store. We actually get a surprising amount of “non-traditional” customers. Guys who need a dress for a charity show, cross-dressers, genderfluid people, transgender women, and drag queens aren't unheard of. So a drag queen comes into the store to pick up some shoes they ordered online.
They must have been either coming from or going to a show because they were still in full makeup. I get their name, and during our conversation another customer walks in. I call out a greeting and say something like, "I'll be right with you”. I go to the back room, and it takes a minute to go through all the web orders.
I find the one I need and am on my way back to the counter when the new customer throws her arm out to stop me from passing. She then says, "I am a new customer and I've been here for 20 minutes and no one has spoken to me”. First of all, I greeted her when she came in, and second, she had only been in the store for five minutes at that point.
I resigned myself to groveling, but before I could say anything the drag queen stomps over, glares at the customer, and says, “Honey, she said hello to you". Complete with sassy finger snaps. The Queen then made a big show of thanking me for getting her package and gave me a big sparkly kiss on the cheek before she left. The other customer sheepishly paid for her Spanx and didn't make eye contact when I told her to have a good day.
42. Double Whammy
A guy comes into our store and is being a complete jerk. He’s not wanting to show ID to buy drinks even though he looked 20 at the oldest, and is constantly yelling and swearing. He also had parked in the handicap spot despite not having handicap tags or plates on his car. But he got what was coming to him.
One of my regular customers, who is a sheriff's deputy, was also in the store. He saw how the guy was acting. He saw where he was parked. He went out, got his ticket book, and wrote the guy a ticket. The guy realized he wasn't getting his drinks and went outside...to find he was getting ticketed. I could not stop laughing.
43. Playing The Short Game
I'm not sure if being a public defender counts as a retail or service worker, but considering that I provide defense to indigent clients facing deprivation of their rights and freedom, I'll consider it service nonetheless. I was representing a client who was a massive addict and had done some pretty bad things to her daughter.
She was charged with child endangerment and possession, and was facing three years behind bars—and that was on a plea deal. My client wasn’t happy with this deal and started freaking out at me when I told her that's the best offer I was going to get from the DA, and it was either accept that offer or go to trial.
I further pointed out the mountain of evidence against her, primarily the fact that her daughter was going to testify against her at trial. After she was done cursing me out, calling me a "public pretender" and every other derogatory name she could think of, she fired me and somehow managed to hire a private attorney for the low price of $8,000.
I still don't know how she managed to come up with that, but I have plenty of reliable guesses. The private attorney "guaranteed" her that he could win her case at trial, and that's exactly what she chose to do. Long story short, the private attorney clearly never even read this woman's file before trial. The trial lasted roughly three hours, the jury was literally out for only five minutes, and the judge sentenced her to 10 years. It was a good day.
44. Doggone It
Warehouse worker here. Customers have to show a card to shop, and even though we're not technically a grocery store, we don't allow pets. One dude tried to power walk past the employee at the entrance door holding a big pit bull puppy on a leash. We stopped him and told him he couldn’t bring his dog inside and he LOST IT.
He's saying how he’s our best customer and he's here five times a week and he owns stock. Whatever. He demanded to know why we don't allow dogs. We explained how it's a food safety issue, especially with an untrained puppy. At this point, our manager came over and just waved him through because he has no backbone. The results were hilarious. Not even five minutes later, this dog squats in the middle of the main aisle and pees, followed by a poop.
The man turned so red and dragged the dog towards the exit, abandoning his groceries. We stopped him and asked him nicely to please clean up after his pup. “That's the reason we don't allow them, sir."
45. An Act Of God Indeed
This wasn't the customer, it was the manager. She was AWFUL. She was rude, intentionally picked out favorites and gave them presents in front of everyone (even when they didn't like her and tried to avoid it), messed up schedules on purpose for people she didn't like, the list goes on. She was the worst manager ever.
So there was a huge storm coming in, and people were really worried about it. Like the news telling people to stay home, other businesses closing, etc. It was up to her to either keep our store open or close it. Of course, she kept it open. Because schools closed, only half our scheduled employees showed up, and the rest called in—oh, plus she called her favorites and told them they didn't have to come in. But she got taught a cruel lesson that day.
As the five of us who showed up were standing there, watching out the front windows (there were ZERO customers) she starts yelling at us, threatening to write us all up. We are like, no one is here, all the work is done, we are watching the wind BEND TREES OVER and worried about if we are safe and will be able to get home.
Right about this time, we hear a SUPER LOUD crashing noise. CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - WHAM! As the industrial air conditioner on top of the building got BLOWN OFF. Like it rolled along the roof, then went flying into the parking lot…Right onto her car. It was so perfect it was surreal.
Right in the center, it smashed her car flat. If she had been in it, she would have been a goner. It also only happened because she parked right up by the building, where we had SPECIFICALLY been told not to park. All our cars were out in the farthest corner of the lot. We later found out her car wasn't paid off, it was some stupidly expensive BMW or something, and her insurance didn't cover the damage because it was an "act of god".
46. You Got Told
I worked at a restaurant that was very popular for brunch, and Mother's Day was probably our busiest day of the year. I had a customer call the evening before and ask for a table for six. He was incredibly rude when I informed him that this would simply be impossible. He kept getting more and more worked up, asking to speak to my manager.
At first, I didn't want to pass the phone over. My manager, Mac, wasn't the nicest guy and we were in the middle of a busy dinner shift. But Mac came up behind me and demanded to know why I had been on the phone for so long. I was like “Screw it, this customer isn't going to listen to me anyways" and gave the phone to Mac.
Mac asked how he could help, and listened for about 15 seconds before telling this dude something like, "So you're tying up my hostess in the middle of dinner even though she's already told you nicely that we can't fit you and your goddarn family in the night before our busiest day of the year? Screw you buddy!" And he hung up the phone.
47. Babies Know Best
I currently work at a consignment shop. We have two stories of furniture, and it's only things people bring in for us to sell for some of the profit. A lady came in with her young son and looked around. We had two barstools and she came up to the desk and said, "I'd like to order two more of these bar stools".
I smiled and said, "We can't do that, those belong to someone and that's all they had to consign with us". She looks back and says "Well why the heck can't you order ones like this?! I'm sure you can find them online!” I clench my teeth and smile again, saying, "Ma'am we really can't do that. If you'd like to go online you are more than welcome to look for yourself, but I can't help you and I'm sorry”.
She huffed and started walking to the door, talking about getting me fired, making a horrible review of this place, everything in the book. I still laugh when I think of what happened next. She then got a nice big faceful of door. It's a push door and it was locked. She looks at me and screams "WHY IS THIS LOCKED?!" I have no idea. Then her son looks at her and says, "Mommy you were mean to that lady and I don't wanna go till you say sorry". Best kid ever.
48. What He Does In The Shadows
I worked for an online banking help desk and this 18-year-old boy phoned up, saying he had seen a transaction for $7 to “allpay” and because he didn't recognize it, he decided the bank was robbing him of $7 and that I was in on it and I was a "thieving little jerk”. Then he gets his dad on the phone who stuck up for his idiot of a son, saying I was a pathetic idiot stealing off an 18-year-old boy, even though it was a debit card transaction and I simply worked in the department that helped people use online banking.
But anyway, I phoned our debit card services to see if they could give any more information, and boy could they. I then had the pleasure of relaying back to this little brat’s equally bratty father the following.
"Hi sir, thanks for holding. I've checked with our debit card services team and I now understand why your son would not have recognized the payee “allpay”. That's a deliberately vague term used for discretion when the customer has subscribed to online adult images. That's what it was for. Your son has been paying for online videos of that nature. Would you like to pop him back on the phone so I can tell him it's a payment for this, or will you pass on the information?"
The father just muttered that the issue did not require any further investigation, thanked me for looking into it, and hung up.
49. Feeling Blue
Some blue-haired lady came up to complain about a dessert she ordered at our restaurant, saying that there was a hair in it. She shows me, and what do you know, the hair was blue. I said, “Ma’am, no one who works here has blue hair”.
50. Have A Care
I worked at a telecom in Canada. This lady comes in with a broken iPhone, demanding to get a new one for free. She went to incredible lengths to get her way. She called up our loyalty team in store and spent the next two hours screaming at them. Finally, they agree to a deal, and she is getting it for zero. She looks at me and goes, “I do not want a case, and AppleCare is a scam”.
Now, we work on commission, so this essentially meant I was getting nothing and ruining my numbers. She then keeps telling me to hurry up through the setup, since I was trying to get her out of the store with everything transferred over and set up. She grabs the phone and starts marching off, saying I was a terrible employee.
She gets three steps out of the store and drops the phone. Shattered screen, phone can’t even turn on now. She ran back in asking what I can do. I shrugged and went, “Sorry, but AppleCare sure would have helped, eh?”
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