When we hear about a Karen, we all have a specific image that comes to mind. The haircut, the shouting, the astronomical levels of entitlement, and disregard for the feelings of customer service workers. These Redditors bravely tell the stories of the times they came face-to-face with these sorts of people and survived.
1. It’s Only For A Moment
I work for a popular roadside assistance company. I had a guy call in wanting to get roadside assistance for his daughter who was stranded. His daughter was not on his membership and there was no room to add her because he already had his wife added. So I suggested he remove his wife temporarily and add his daughter so she can get roadside assistance.
It would be absolutely no effort to switch them back afterward. Apparently, this was the most outrageous suggestion. His reaction was absolutely absurd—he went and told my supervisor that I was making him choose his daughter over his wife and no father should have to make that kind of decision.
2. I Want To Pay What I Want To Pay
I was working at OfficeMax during the back-to-school season. This woman came up to my register with a few things and I started scanning them in. She noticed that one item rang up less than she was expecting. She then gave me an attitude because we hadn't had a chance to print new shelf tags for that aisle yet. I told her I could wait for her if she wanted to get more.
She declined and continued complaining to me about it, so I decided to get petty. "Well, I can override the price to what the shelf label said". I realize now that I was being a bit of an instigator by saying that. She politely declined that as well, paid with her card, and rushed out the door with her things.
3. Go Right Ahead
We had a lady come into our hardware store and she was basically yelling her order at me. She was also complaining about the prices and threatening to go to another store. We were all internally wishing she would because we knew she was going to be super unpleasant to deal with.
Then, two days later, she rang up our number and said she can get her goods elsewhere. It was basically her way of trying to get a discount from us. My supervisor then dropped the hammer: "No worries, we can cancel your order for you and you’re free to get it there". There was no way this other company would do it cheaper.
4. Where Is The Holiday Spirit?
During the Christmas season, I was working in a Target photo studio. There were customers scheduled every 10 minutes. Every day, we were opening an hour earlier and staying open an hour later. This was the kind of season where you could make $1,000 paychecks working an $8 an hour job. One day, the worst thing happened.
The FedEx truck carrying our delivery of Christmas cards, framed portraits, and photo orders caught on fire. Everything turned up, but it all smelled of smoke. I had to call everyone and tell them that their orders might be late and not ready in time for Christmas. We were giving them some extras for free and expediting reorders as much as we could. Luckily, the expedited orders made it in on time.
They even made it before the original date they were all supposed to be picked up. Most of the customers were pleased — they took their extras and went on their way. But this one guy... He was the absolute worst. He demanded his $300 framed enlargement photo for free. He also wanted the cards for free. He was just livid.
He couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t give him hundreds of dollars of merchandise for free for the inconvenience…that is, the inconvenience of getting all his stuff earlier than expected.
5. That’s Not How That Works
At my first IT job, someone was returning a computer monitor and insisted on speaking with someone from the IT department rather than just leaving it in the cage as they were asked to do. So I came down to talk with them to see what was going on. I was dumbfounded at the situation—she was very adamant that I double-check the monitor to make sure all of her information was off of it.
This lady literally thought all of her icons, files, and folders were saved directly to the monitor itself. She wouldn't leave unless I powered it on to show her. I didn't even bother trying to explain it to her; she seemed extremely rude and it wouldn't have even been worth my time. So I literally plugged it into the wall, didn't connect it to anything, and powered it on".
See, it's completely blank. You’re good to go". She smiled, said thank you, and left.
6. A Dream Of Electric Milk
I worked in an electronics store to put myself through college. I worked in the computer department, but I was sitting at the loss prevention desk up front to cover while the supervisor took a quick lunch break. An old lady came in, asked where the dairy section was, and then demanded that I help her find the milk. I told her, kindly, that we weren't in a grocery store.
She looks confused, then she left. A couple of minutes later, her son walked in, and I knew it was about to go down. He started chewing me out because I wouldn't help her find the milk. When he was done yelling, I slowly waved my arm across the store and asked him which one of the aisles looked like it might have groceries in them. He stared for a good few seconds.
Then he started yelling at me all over again, saying that I was being difficult and that he wanted to see a manager. So I paged the loss prevention supervisor up to the front. The supervisor invited the guy to never come back to the store.
7. Startling Expectations
The store manager was walking by my register as a customer was waiting to check out. My manager said I had to take my break in 15 minutes, to which I said, "Okay". The customer overheard and she gave a totally unexpected response—she complained that it was unprofessional for the manager to speak to me and that I was unprofessional to respond when a customer was approaching the register.
8. An Expert In The Italian Language
I worked at a coffee shop that wasn’t Starbucks, which is an important distinction here. Frappuccino is a trademarked word for Starbucks-blended coffee drinks. When customers would ask for Frappuccinos, we would just put in the order and let them know the name for it at our store so they can recognize it when the barista calls it out.
I once had a woman get so upset that she was screaming, all over the word Frappuccino. Her logic was totally absurd—she claimed it was the traditional Italian word for a blended coffee drink (it’s not) and we obviously thought she was too stupid to tell her otherwise. I tried to calm her down and just say we called them something else but she only got more offensive.
I didn’t even correct her about the rest. She continued to flip out and literally called our corporate customer service line in front of us, holding up the rest of the line, just to have them tell her the same thing. She then started screeching to demand to talk to the president of our company and started knocking stuff off our countertop.
That’s when we called security to lead her out of our store.
9. Pushing The Limit
I have a small retail business with my mom that's strictly brick and mortar. Normally, our return policy is within 21 days for store credit. During the holidays, we extend it so that anything purchased between Black Friday and December 24th can be returned up until the end of January. A few years ago, this guy came in around the end of April trying to return Christmas gifts.
But I was in for quite a surprise—He brought the clothes in on DRY CLEANING HANGERS. When I told him I wouldn't take it back, even for store credit, he blew up on me and cussed me out in front of other customers in the store. He then proceeded to leave a 1-star review and bash the store saying how he's never been treated like that before. What was he even trying to accomplish?
10. At Least They Tried
I once had a customer come in with a garden table. It had bent legs and a big hole in the top that looked like someone got tipsy and jumped on it, destroying it. Coincidentally, he looked really, really off—it was as if he was tipsy at that very moment and he stank of drink. The store I work in has a 30-day return policy on anything that isn't electrical.
However, this table was brought in five months after the date on the receipt. We also never sold that table in our store and the other stores took it off sale years prior. The table he brought it in was not the one on the receipt. I denied the return and he demanded I ask my supervisor. I called my supervisor to the private line and he said he'd come out immediately.
He came out and ignored me when I tried asking him to take a look at the table, so I called the private line again and the store manager picked up. I explained the situation and her response shook me to my core—she just snapped, saying that I know how to do returns and to just do it. She essentially told me to quit complaining and then she hung up. I took the return, as I was told.
When I arrived at my next shift, the supervisor pulled me into the office demanding to know the situation with the store manager sitting in the background. I explained everything that happened and the store manager kept interrupting me with excuses. After all that, she still tried to shift the blame onto me. We both stopped talking to each other at work after that.
11. The Magic Blueberry
I work at a bakery and we sell pigs in a blanket for breakfast. A few years ago, one of the varieties we had was a spicy blueberry sausage. One day, some lady got one (knowing it was a blueberry sausage link), bit into it, and noticed some dark-looking things inside (surprise, it was a blueberry).
For whatever reason, she thought that a flake of black gunk from inside our oven somehow managed to get inside the sausage link, even though the link was rolled in a croissant. Her next move got me heated—she called the health department on us and tried to get $50 of free food. My boss asked her what she ordered, and he brought out a link of the sausage to show her.
She immediately shut up and left the store. Unfortunately, we stopped selling that flavor to avoid further issues in the future, which is sad because they were pretty good.
12. You Have No Power Here
I used to work at a small print shop. One Saturday afternoon, a customer came up to me saying they were having trouble with the laminator. I walked over to guide him on the correct process and when I looked at his materials, my jaw dropped. This guy just had pages upon pages of adult images sitting on the counter. As politely as I could, I informed him that unfortunately, his material could not be printed as per company policy.
I told him he would have to remove it from the store. I pointed to kits that he could purchase to laminate his stuff at home, but that just set him off...big time. He started yelling at me, saying how "this is a free country" and that he's a paying customer so he could do whatever he wanted. Unfortunately for him, I was the only person on staff and the manager who gave us the freedom to deny service wherever we saw fit.
I just unplugged the whole machine, telling him "it's a free country" and that he could either leave now with his things or when the authorities arrived. The dude was gone before I got back from putting the laminator away.
13. Always Use Protection
I owned a computer business for a few years. The one that always got me was this one chick who brought in her computer slammed with spyware and other issues. It was so bad it wouldn’t boot up. I got it all fixed up and she picked it up. She brought it back the very next day with the same problem. I asked her what sites she visited since she picked it up.
Her response gave me shivers and not the good kind. "Oh, my boyfriend and I are on adult websites all the time". I told her I would go ahead and clean it again for free, but if she visited those sites again, I couldn’t do it the next time without charging her. She picked it up the same day, then came back the next like clockwork. I asked her if she had gone back to the same websites and she replied in the affirmative.
I could not make her understand why this kept happening, so I just asked her to go somewhere else.
14. Not An Information Desk
I work at a vet’s office part-time and during every shift, someone calls in asking about some random medication or for the contact information of another vet clinic when we are insanely busy (we see roughly 40 to 50 pets a day, for reference). Sometimes, they even demand that I look up phone numbers and pricing for other clinics. People act like smartphones and the internet aren’t at their disposal.
The best example of this was when this one lady called because she found a wild rabbit. She wanted us to give it an exam, but I explained to her that she should put the rabbit back outside as it could have a number of diseases. Generally, it’s not safe to keep a wild animal in the house. I also informed her that we didn’t treat any animals other than cats and dogs. Her next move hit a nerve with me.
She basically demanded that I look up a vet's office that did take wild animals. So I told her, "Ma’am, we are very busy and you aren’t a client. I will not do research for you. Have a great day". She then left us a one-star Yelp review and tried to write a complaint to the Better Business Bureau.
15. Don’t Mess With Small Towns
I was at a little hole-in-the-wall, family-owned, drive-in fast food place. The location is known locally by everyone in the small town, and this particular small town had a reputation for being comprised of a lot of rough and tough farmers, hunters, welders, and even smiths and miners. No joke. They did a lot of hard artisan work here.
They were also very sarcastic people by nature. Friendly at first. but touch the wrong buttons and you will be in a world of hurt. Nothing phases these people. Well, they get a lot of travelers heading to resorts some miles off. I frequent the family business regularly and they locally source all the produce for their food, so it's incredibly good.
That also means their prices are a bit higher. One day, a lady made a huge mistake. She was freaking out that her food had come to the whopping price of 10 dollars and 65 cents. She hadn't even paid yet, of course. Lyra, the employee who had the misfortune of dealing with this nonsense, was staring this woman down".
The prices..". she said (and I swear I could hear her jaw cracking from how gritted her teeth were), "...are the prices. Now pay up or I'm eating your food for my lunch". The woman was affronted by this and shouted back, "I demand to see the manager"! Lyra raised her voice, responding: "This isn't a charity service. It's a restaurant".
She continued, "Now pay up or drive 150 miles back to the city and go to the soup kitchen in the city if you're so desperate for a hand-out".
16. Blanket Boycott
A lady ordered a sandwich and then canceled her order because she thought it took too long. Someone else from the party she was having called and made an order. We made it and delivered it without issue. The same lady called back and she was absolutely APPALLED—she said it was audacious that we would allow one of her guests to order from us after she made it very clear that she wanted to cancel her own order.
It's not my business if other people at her party want to order food and I had no idea it was her party anyway. I told her it was very common for multiple deliveries to go to the same house party, so why wouldn't we make them sandwiches? She then told me I would obviously never amount to anything in life and that she was going to make a formal complaint against me.
It was such a weird complaint. This was probably 10 years ago, but it still bugs me sometimes.
17. The Erratic Schedule
This person worked for a company that travels around the country to trade conventions to sell their products. They had sent their products and displays to our local convention center but didn't make sure the label was correctly placed on the box and it fell off. I ended up getting a call about it and happened to find it in our warehouse.
I went out of my way to try and fix it because I know how time-sensitive and urgent these things are. The lady was frantic but didn't want to talk over the phone because she was too busy. She wanted me to e-mail her instead. She also informed me she was leaving our city and landing in another one the following day.
Then she told me to have her stuff forwarded there. I did this, but she chewed me out in the email because she was just temporarily staying there. Now, she wanted all her stuff sent to her next location. So I had to contact the station and have them fix the situation. When her stuff finally got to the new location, guess what—she'd moved on to another city on the other coast. Her next emails were blood boiling.
She proceeded to email me five times that night. She then complained that I was ignoring her. I was very clear in what I was doing the whole time, yet she threw me under the bus in the email chain and included everyone in her company, trying to get me in trouble. However, in these emails, it was obvious I was asking questions and trying to help.
I finally got her stuff fixed again and it ended up getting delivered. Still, she tried to get me in trouble with my higher-ups and wanted my manager to follow up because I was so unprofessional. The best part was it ended with a Senior Executive responding, basically giving me praise for trying to help her.
18. Queen Of Stubbornness
Since the pandemic, I have been assigned to a position where I count people in the store. As I was counting people in, I noticed at the front entrance that there was this one woman sitting on the chair with her mask fully down. Keep in mind this is right in the walkway where she is essentially breathing on everyone who's leaving the store.
I had very politely asked her to lift her mask up, as it was completely below her chin and not covering anything at all. She refused to do so, and I once again informed her of the dangers, reminding her that we were still in a pandemic. She took issue with that even though we were about a year into the mandates at this point.
I asked her again to either fix her mask or leave the entryway. She did NOT like hearing that—Apparently, this was the rudest thing anyone had ever said to her in the history of human existence. She started screaming at me, the other customers, and even God himself. Eventually, security came over and told her she would be banned from the store if she didn’t leave immediately.
That kind of helped. The woman left the store but then stood in front of it to continue her rant.
19. Personal Issues
I was running a register at the grocery store when this couple got in my line. I could tell they were together because of the way they were interacting with each other. However, they had two different baskets and left a small gap between their respective items without placing them down the divide, so I wasn’t sure if they were paying for everything all together or separately.
I politely asked them, "Together or separate"? The lady gave me a mean glare. She said, "Why on Earth does it matter"? I gave her a blank stare and slowly said, "So that I know whether to keep ringing you up or cash out the order before starting the next one". They must have been having some relationship problems because she jumped right to that.
20. Who Has Time For That?
When I was working in car sales, I had to deal with stupid people on a very regular basis. The worst of them was this very well-off middle-aged man who was known in the area because he owned several fast-food restaurants. He came in twice a week for over a year to complain that we were lying about the prices we had advertised.
He was convinced that we were terrible people who were ripping people off on their new cars. On the 13th month of the same behavior, he came in saying he could get a new 2017 Corolla for less than our 2018 Civic Touring. I mean, yes, he probably could—it was an older car and the one he was looking at was a base model rather than ours which had a few features installed. But that argument aside, I was just fed up with it at that point.
So I decided to put an end to it. I walked into my manager's office, closed the door, and asked if I could have the use of my one immediate customer veto for the quarter. He looked at me and said that it was my call. I walked out and told the guy that he could either buy a car from me today or he was invited to leave immediately and not come back.
I was done dealing with constant complaints and having my time taken up when I could be dealing with real qualified customers whose purchases would earn me a commission. Surprisingly, he bought a car from me that afternoon.
21. The Price Is Sanity
A woman came up to my register and asked for the price of a protein bar. Every item in the store had a physical price tag because we didn't have scanners at the register. I took it from her, flipped it over, and let her know it was $2.49 before tax. She asked me how much the case would be. Normally we did discounts for cases, but they had to be ordered ahead of time.
I started explaining we couldn't do a discount unless she had ordered it. She cut me off aggressively and hissed, "I didn't ask for a discount". So I typed in $2.49 x 12, added tax, and told her the final price. She stared me down for a few minutes before asking me to get my manager. Once my manager arrived, she became fully unhinged. She spent literally 10 minutes tearing into me.
She described me as the least helpful person ever and started talking about my bad attitude, complaining about how awful and rude I was. I was working nearly full time commuting to a school over an hour away four days a week. I was stressed and tired and this lady took the time out of her day to break me down. All I could do was cry.
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22. Wait Your Turn
When I was 18, I was working at a gas station. It was a busy day—I was the only one there and I had a huge line. A woman came in, skipped the line, threw $20 at me, and said, "$5 on pump 2". Since she acted like that, I chose to make her wait to have money put on the pump. When it would have been her turn in line, I put the $20 onto the pump.
About five minutes later, she came back in complaining that the entire $20 was pumped. I told her straight up that it was not my responsibility to keep track of her money, and I placed $20 on the pump for a record of the funds. If she hadn't walked away from the pump or had waited in line, she could have completed her transaction like everyone else. Her next move was so uncalled for.
She tried calling the authorities because I refused to give her a refund. When the cop got there and heard the story, he told her to grow up and be responsible for herself.
23. Creating Problems From Nothing
When I worked in a second-hand charity shop in the UK, there was this old Russian couple who used to come in about once a week, just before closing and waste everyone's time browsing and grumbling about prices. The worst part is that they rarely ever bought anything. One evening, the old woman actually did buy something, but she had a massive rant about it. Her statements made me roll my eyes, HARD.
She claimed that it was blatant profiteering for our company, a reputable charity, to ask for money for a plastic bag (as per the law, intended to discourage people from using them for environmental reasons). The kicker: she was buying a small handbag. You don't even need a carrier bag for it, it's got handles.
24. Overconfidence
The mother of a girl I went to school with came into the shop where I work at 5:58 pm. We closed at 6 pm. The lights were half off, the front door was closed, and the roller door was half down, but this lady just walked in cheerfully and said, "Hi! I'm just running in to grab a few things"! Before I could tell her not to, she'd already gone into the aisles.
My manager came over and said, "What are you doing? We have to be done by six"! He went to find her, and she'd already got a basket full of things. My manager is literally the nicest guy ever and agreed to ring up her items as long as she paid with a card, as the cash was all packed into the safe. Her response was chilling: "No that's ridiculous, I only have cash".
She then turned to me and said, "Honey, can you tell him I only have cash"? So I told her the exact same thing...that we literally couldn't access the cash once the safe was closed for the day. She replied, "Oh. Well, can you just pay for it on your card and I'll get my daughter to pay you back"? I told her I couldn't do that either. That's when she started shouting.
She went on about how unprofessional we were, saying that the shop was awful because half the items are gone (WE WERE CLOSED) and that she was "never coming back". I honestly feel sorry for her daughter.
25. Leave Us All Alone
A few years ago, I was the cashier at a retail store. A pregnant woman came up to me and said that she was trying to leave but couldn't get into her car because a truck was parked very close to her. I paged the driver of the truck up to the cash desk. The truck driver, a middle-aged woman, came up, and she and the pregnant woman got into an argument.
The truck lady didn't want to leave her shopping to go move her truck. I didn't get involved and continued to cash out customers, but eventually, the truck lady moved her car so the pregnant lady could go home. Later, as I was cashing out the truck lady, I was blindsided by her next move—she asked to speak to my manager. Afterward, my manager told me that she was complaining about me.
At some point, she said it looked like I nodded, which must have meant I was clearly siding with the pregnant lady. My manager said, "I told her I'd talk to you about it, so here I am talking to you about it", and just left it at that.
26. It Doesn’t Matter Whose Fault It Is
I work for a relatively small floral company in a rather wealthy area of Illinois. We have a regular customer who has us pick up her orchids and rearrange them to look better. We do this every two weeks without error or complaint. Well, she called us, so I assumed she wanted us to pick up her plants. But her reaction completely threw me off—she started giving us heck fos moving her massive cement decoration in her front yard.
I double-checked with dispatch, and the driver we sent over there to deliver her orchids is 83 years old, therefore absolutely incapable of moving a 300-pound cement cherub. One long-winded conversation later, we sent four drivers to move this thing the way she wanted it, which turned out to be no more than a foot from where it was.
A week later, she called again, this time saying it was her lawn service that moved the decoration and not us. Yeah, I knew that. She didn’t call to say sorry though. She called to tell us that we need to be extra careful not to move her lawn ornaments.
27. Get Dressed, Then Make The Call
I started in a new company, got trained, then manned the phones, no big deal. It was my job to field customer complaints, which were reasonable for the most part. The first call of the day came from a man who purchased an industrial heater from us. He spent about $60 on it. It was the type of heater you would put in your garage to take the chill out of the air.
He called to complain because he was using it in his bathroom after his shower. His vision was that this heater would wind dry his body dry after the shower; kind of like those fancy heat bulbs at a hotel. Well, I tried to explain to him that was not the intended use of the heater...but he was not having any of it.
He literally put the phone up to the heater so I could hear the lack of forced air that was coming out of the heater. I ended up refunding his money, but I still laugh to this day thinking about this undressed 70-year-old man's first-world problem.
28. Beyond Used
I was working retail one afternoon and this middle-aged woman came in with a return. At first glance, it was no big deal; she said she was just coming in to return a shirt. She walked up to the register, handed me the receipt to start processing it, and we exchanged a pleasant greeting. I took the shirt out of the bag to examine it and it was beyond disgusting.
There were brown sweat stains all over it, from the pits to the stomach to the shoulder. It looked like whoever wore it rolled in mud or some nonsense. I proceeded to tell the woman that I could return the product because it had clearly been used and only unused or resalable items could be returned for any sort of refund.
Well, the customer threw a fit. She started screaming at me and accusing me of calling her a liar and whatnot. I held up the shirt and pointed to the brown pit stains, saying, "Can’t you see this stain". Man, did that make it worse...She continued making a huge scene and demanded to see the manager. News flash, I was the manager and I did not plan on budging.
After 20 or so minutes of complaining, she finally left the store, saying she’d be complaining to corporate. Fast forward a few days—another guy walked into the store, looked for the first store associate he could find, and immediately asked for me by name. Uh-oh, here we go again. Anyway, my associate brought the guy over to where I was standing.
I politely greeted him. The guy spent the next 10 minutes apologizing for his wife verbally accosting me a few days prior. Apparently, the guy went to the beach and did some type of CrossFit training class IN THE SAND. His wife knows all of this; she was at the class with him! The guy ended up not liking the shirt for some reason and his wife thought she could pull a fast one on us by making a scene.
29. Operating On A Whole Other Frequency
I worked at Best Buy customer service for two years in a college town. There were generally technologically smart kids, but the surrounding area was full of country bumpkins. One customer came in to return two HDMI cables, both male to male ends. One package was for a 3-foot cable, the other package was a 6-foot cable. When he started explaining his situation, all I could do was shake my head.
The gentleman was upset that he had purchased these cables, and he wanted a refund so he could switch them out. The cables weren't working and he said that it must be because the frequencies are different. According to the packaging, the 3-foot cable operated on a 1M frequency, and the 6-foot cable operated on a 2M frequency.
According to the customer, it was because they just weren’t talking to each other. I said nothing, apologized for the issue, processed his return, and told him they might be able to help him back in the home theater section. In retrospect, I could have quietly taught him what a meter is, or that you can’t daisy-chain male-male plugs, but he was so sure of his own explanation he made my brain turn off.
30. It Kind Of Does
I was a pump attendant at a gas station in high school, and let me just say—if some of these people can’t handle getting gas, I can’t even imagine what they are like when given an actual task. We had to put pylons at one of the pumps to block it off when the fuel truck came to deliver fuel because cars were still passing through, hindering the fuel truck guy.
Once, I had a lady come up to me and ask why it was blocked off, so I told her. What she did next made my blood boil—she got out of her car, went over to the fuel truck guy, and started yelling at him, saying things like "The world doesn’t revolve around you". Little did she know, it kind of did because nobody was going to get gas if he couldn’t make his delivery.
31. The Unwilling Accomplice
My dad is an actual nightmare when it comes to complaining for stupid reasons, usually in restaurants. The other day, he sent me this message about how he had to go talk to IKEA customer service and he needed a ride to the store. He was complaining about how there were too many digits in his customer loyalty number and that it was hard for him to remember.
For whatever reason, he seemed so proud of himself for standing up for his rights or something, but all I can think about is how it was a waste of everyone's time and such a stupid thing to get worked up about. When we arrived at the customer service desk, my dad started up his nonsense. After seeing his behavior, I immediately regretted going with him.
He said, "Hello, I recently purchased a lot of kitchen stuff and decided it would be a good idea to join IKEA Family beforehand. The membership number issued is 19 numbers long. I would like to point out that the estimated world population is around 7.8 billion people. Written in longhand, 7.8 billion is 10 numbers in length".
He continued, "So my question is, why do you need to create a membership number which has approximately eight hundred and two million, five hundred and seventy-six thousand, five hundred and seventy-six more variations than would be necessary for the whole world population"? The service representative just stared wide-eyed.
She then slowly explained that she, a minimum-wage worker who was hired four months ago, has absolutely no say in any aspect of the customer loyalty program. I could see my dad was going to ramp up into a long speech so I just had to walk away.
32. It’s A Basic Concept
I’ve worked at a few call centers, and at one of them, I could see the customer reviews. I was already on the phone with this lady for a long time—she was having trouble using a coupon. It was downright baffling. She had to have a minimum of $20 in her cart to use it, but she wanted to use it without buying $20 worth of stuff first.
She was being a huge problem already, but I was keeping my cool until I misheard what she said. "Sorry, could you repeat that"? I asked her. She then started railing against me for not speaking English (I was born and raised in central Florida and English is my native tongue). At that point, I sort of half-jokingly offered to switch to Spanish if she’d be more comfortable with that.
It ended up with my supervisor being the one to calm her down and hang up, and her review said, "Representatives don’t speak English! Disgusting!!!!!". The worst part is it still counted against me even though it was a flagrantly nonsense review. The lady still ended up getting her way in the end, just for being unnecessarily mean.
33. A Little Common Sense Goes A Long Way
I used to drive a taxi and I knew the city like the back of my hand. In my line of work, more trips equal more money, but every dummy thinks we rip them off with purposely longer trips. The stupidest thing people would tell me to do is take the freeway instead of the direct route because they didn't want to get ripped off.
The freeway takes just as long because it's 3 am, not rush hour, so the direct route means clear streets and easy lights. And sure, you can drive faster on the freeway; but that means the trips now cover 120% of the distance and it will cost more. But hey, the customer is always right...
34. That’s Not How Any Of This Works
I worked for a wireless ISP, meaning point-to-point wireless with a big antenna on your roof pointed to our tower. A lady called in and complained that her PC could not get online. After talking to her, we realized that she had no router and no WiFi adapter. But she figured that since it was 'wireless', it should work.
The next day, she had her daughter call in to say they bought the 'WiFi' device and installed it on the PC, but the internet still wasn’t working. I asked some troubleshooting questions and it turned out they bought a PCI Wireless card (something you put into older computers so that they can hook up to the WiFi). But that's not even the craziest part—they screwed it into the case without mounting it on the PCI slot at all, and again, they assumed it should work because it was "wireless".
35. He Made His Bed
I work for a company that sells Powertrain products. A guy from AutoZone called in looking for the estimated delivery of a unit he ordered. It got delayed in transit but it was going to be delivered the next day, which was still faster than the original estimate we gave them. Now, remember this guy works for an auto parts store, so he himself is in customer service.
The dude told me that was unacceptable, which blew me away because again, it was being delivered the next day and was ahead of schedule. I asked if he was joking. He proceeded to yell at me. Finally, I asked him if he wanted me to call his customer, something I had offered to do before but was rarely taken up on. I ended up calling the customer. That's when I discovered something fishy.
He told me the AutoZone employee told him he was going to see it a week ago. So I was honest and said, "Oh, no idea why he lied to you that was never the case". Usually, I would let the customer be mad at us instead of the place where they buy their parts from, but since the AZ employee yelled at me and never said he was in a jam because he gave bad information, I refused to be helpful.
36. We All Need To Follow The Rules
I used to work in a public night shift service, which was kind of like an emergency room but for non-emergencies, to keep the hospitals clear of white codes (so anything from a fever to a sore throat, to prescriptions for urgent treatments). This lady walked in at 3 m. asking for a prescription for hypertension meds, which wasn’t unusual.
The law states that our service can only write prescriptions for potentially life-threatening conditions and for a maximum of 72 hours of coverage (so if you take one pill a day, I can only prescribe you a single blister). While I was writing the prescription, the woman casually made a disturbing remark that made me stop immediately.
While cleaning the medicine cabinet, she realized she was down to her last full blister. My pen stopped and I ask her to repeat what she just said. "Full blister"? She confirmed. So I took the prescription, tore it in half, then threw it in the bin, explaining the law to her. She got mad, started yelling, and then naturally threatened to call the authorities.
I told her to go ahead and she did. When they arrived, she triumphantly announced that I was refusing to treat her. I explained the situation, and they asked her if it was true that she still had a full blister, and she, of course (being a narcissist who is always right no matter what) confirmed it. The officers looked at her with disappointed expressions.
They then asked her politely to leave, as I was in the right. She was livid. The day after, my boss called me and cracked up because apparently, the same lady went there during the day to talk to "the manager", and she (my boss) told her the exact same thing. I never saw her again in there, weirdly enough.
37. They Weren’t Cold When She Got Them
I had one lady complain that her pancakes were cold. Granted, that is a valid excuse for a complaint, however, she ate them last and when she asked about them, she gave the waitress a bad attitude about it. She then demanded to talk to a manager. Sadly for her, her waitress was the person in charge that night. She was NOT having that.
Now, we remake pancakes all the time and we're more than willing to redo them, but she needed to make a scene. She took her pancakes up to the host stand, waved it at everyone, and said, "THIS IS COLD"! She then threw the pancake, causing a pancake explosion all over her and her party of five, and she walked out without paying. People never cease to amaze me.
38. Respectfully Disagree
I work for a company that sells mobile accessories like portable power banks and wireless earbuds. We had a customer complaining that her earbuds were faulty because she can hear her own chewing. Another one came in with a power bank that he claimed did not recharge to 100%, so I told him I needed to test it and that I would change it for him if I found it faulty.
I managed to recharge it fully, explained the possibilities that caused the issue to the customer, and told him that if he wants me to, I could retain it to test for a few days. But I stressed that I would not replace it for him if it was not found faulty. The guy got mad, cursed at me, and claimed we promised to exchange a new one for him when he came. He then called the authorities. That's when things got interesting.
The officers arrived, listened to his complaint and our explanation, and gave him a good telling off. We still retained the power bank for testing just to be sure. Nothing wrong was found with the power bank, and I enjoyed informing him of that. We sent the item back to him and washed our hands clean of that entire situation.
39. Just Trying To Be Difficult
I worked at a General Motors dealer in the early 2000s. We had this guy ("Sweater Guy" was his nickname as he always wore them, regardless of season) come in occasionally. He would never want to give us his VIN# out of fear that we’d obtain his identity via his car. Yes, you read that correctly. Now, his final trip to our shop was an absolute doozy.
As usual, he wouldn’t give us information on his vehicle but he expected us to get the right parts for it the first time, despite knowing there were variations of his model (Pontiac Bonneville). Providing us with the information would help us get him exactly what he wanted. So we finally got him to cooperate after 10 minutes of back and forth, and then we handed him his parts. He just stood there, staring at us.
The parts manager asked, "Is something, wrong sir"? Sweater Guy then said, "I want the freshest parts on the shelf. These are dusty and have obviously been here forever". Flabbergasted, the parts manager responded, "Well, there’s no expiration date on these, as they don’t expire. It’s just kind of dusty back here, which is why there’s dust on the boxes".
This explanation caused him to turn a deep red. "I don’t care, I want a fresh product or I’m going to the business manager". The parts manager offered to call him up himself and then does so. The general manager comes in, already aware of this guy, and tried to rationalize with him. Unluckily for him, he got the exact same horrible treatment from Sweater Guy.
He left for a couple of minutes, then came back with a piece of paper in his hand. He said to Sweater Guy, "Please read and sign this. It states that you are no longer allowed on the premises seeing as you continue to harass my employees each visit. If you return, we will call the authorities and have you escorted off the property. Understood"?
40. Well, That Backfired
I once lived on a cruise ship working as an indentured waiter. We did five-month contracts where you worked every day for 5 months with no day off. There were 1,000 employees who lived on the ship in tiny metal cabins deep in the bowels of the ship. We usually worked 70 to 80 hours a week. The guests often asked us ridiculous questions.
It was fun to kind of misinform them. One time, a lady asked me where the employees lived while we were out at sea. I told her an outrageous lie just to mess with her—that helicopters fly in every day and ferry all the employees to the nearest island. When she checked out, she asked for a discount because she said she couldn't sleep because of all the helicopter noise.
41. Insta Embarrassment
At the end of Black Friday, someone came up to the service desk with an Instant Pot (which is a brand of pressure cooker) from the shelf and asked if we had any "Insta Pots" left instead. I told him the brand he was looking for was the one he was holding, but he was adamant that his friend told him he should get an "Insta Pot," not an "Instant Pot".
I looked up what he said on the store app, and Instant Pot was the only thing that showed up, so I showed it to him. I could see the anger building up in his face. He got all huffy and said, "Well I know what I'm talking about, so if you don't have what I'm looking for, I'll just go elsewhere". Good luck with that, buddy.
42. Would Love To, But Can’t
I worked for a website-based company that sold things. Our competitor had some features on the website that we didn’t. A customer called me asking where that feature was. I told him we didn’t have that feature on our website. He got mad and said that we should. I agreed with him and said I could pass along the suggestion so that maybe they’d add that feature in the future. I thought that was the end of it, but I was wrong.
He asked, "Well when will it be ready"? He was expecting an answer between "right this minute" and "8 pm tonight". When I told him it didn’t quite work that way, he screamed at me, a call center employee, to change the website. His specific instructions were "just code up some HTML and put it there". Then he hung up.
43. Keeping Up Appearances
I have dealt with some fairly entitled people as a claims adjuster. I once had the misfortune of taking some high-end insured's claim. When our richer insureds hit someone or get hit, they typically get a personal adjuster who does everything. However, they sent it off to me this time, and it was something about vacations.
In any case, the best part about these claims is how easy they are. You basically say yes as long as it is not completely bonkers, then write checks later. So our insured hit this lady's Ferrari. The claimant, Mrs. Ferrari Lady, wanted to take it to the Ferrari dealership. I said fine. She demanded a rental. I told her that was not a problem.
I told her to take the Ferrari over there and we'd get her another Ferrari. I called the dealership and explained to them how to proceed: "Make sure to get her into a rental, make it nice and easy, send me the bill, and we'll get it handled". At that point, I was basically telling the dealership to proceed as they saw fit; to shoot first and ask questions later.
The last thing I wanted is problems with one of these claims. Our insureds paid a lot for the extra service, even for their claimants. The guy on the phone told me he'd make sure everything was good. I just gave this guy a golden ticket. He can hand her a 250-dollar-a-day car rental, and we'd be writing the check, no questions asked.
I get a call two hours later. The woman was mad. Maybe she got a dumb tech who didn't hear the news. Nope. Even I couldn't get that lucky. She was out of her mind, so I talked to a rep that was capable of conversing without screaming like a banshee at everything. He explained that she had refused to take the rental. I asked why. Apparently, she wanted the same year, color, and model.
He told me he just spent thirty minutes calling every dealer in the city, knowing full well I would pay the markup for having the dealership rent a car from a competitor. There were no rental Ferraris in the area that match that request, and none in the nearest three cities either, apparently. I asked our manager, and my manager refused to ship in another Ferrari.
She went bonkers and nothing was accomplished. I couldn't even get a word in. They took the phone conversation into the dealership service manager's office. He asked her why she would not take the rental. After all, this should be easy. Her next words made my jaw drop: "I need the exact make and model of car. I am going to the country club this Saturday and cannot let everybody know I was in an accident".
I was in such a state of shock I said nothing. The level of entitlement was so great I could not even process it.
44. Proof Of Idiocy
I worked at a large pet supply store. A customer had brought in fish equipment with no receipt; I'm talking everything you need for fish. I think the tank was about 50 gallons. There was a lot of theft in this store, specifically in the fish department, so I couldn't take the return. We couldn't find his transaction on the computers either, so it was very obviously stolen. When we confronted the customer, he totally lost it.
He threw a fit and yelled at me. My manager was at the register right across from me, but the man would not talk to him. He continued to yell at me, then pretended to slip and fall so he could threaten to sue me if I didn't give him money. I pointed out the cameras and then he left a short while after. I don't understand people.
45. Signs, Signs, Everywhere There Are Signs
I used to run recovery tests for companies and they would send their workforce to our facility for a day or so for work. We had signs clearly posted that it was a secure facility and they should wait for accompaniment. The entrance of the building had a sign to wait there, and just around the wall was a long hallway leading to a locked elevator.
A group of people entered the front of the building, ignored the sign, and walked down the hallway. Once they realized the elevator was locked, they could have gone back to the front to wait, but they literally went back and forth through the hallway until I came down. When the elevator doors opened, I was so confused. But that was the least of my problems.
They complained that the building was way too confusing and that we should have more signage. They seriously got lost in a hallway and complained. It was a hallway. You just either turn around or walk backward from where you entered. I never understood.
46. It’s A Store, Not A Library
The one that stands out most in my mind is the guy who complained that we weren't stocking a particular book anymore. For context, it was a $90 art book; we had never sold any copies of it, so we had returned our one copy to the publisher to avoid eating the loss. I explained this to the gentleman and offered to order a copy for him if he wanted.
He explained that he didn't want to buy it, he just liked coming in to look at it sometimes. I did my best to explain that we were a retail establishment and couldn't afford to keep expensive books on our shelves if no one was buying them. Unpleased with that, he took his frustration to the next level—he wrote a letter to the owners complaining about me.
47. A Lot Of Effort For A Small Reward
In Ireland, there's a 22-cent government tax on plastic bags. It wasn't shop-specific, it's a nationwide surcharge (at least in the republic, not sure about the north) Anyway, there was a group of about seven of us, all in college and working in the shop, and we were all from the town that the shop was in so we had our own rules.
We'd only charge this 22-cent bag tax on annoying customers or people who had been rude before. This particular customer kicked up a fuss that he had to pay 22 cents for a bag after he spent his whole visit being condescending to the staff. Anyway, he paid for his stuff (bag included) and left. We thought that was it...until 30 minutes later, when he stormed back in, huffing and puffing. He had the empty bag in his hand.
He was looking for a refund on it. He had gone home, put his shopping away, and then he had traveled back to the shop to try and get his measly 22 cents back. Needless to say, he was laughed out the door.
48. Why Not Order Two?
My friend and I once went to a chain restaurant in my area. It wasn't the location that we normally went to, but we were familiar with the menu. We each ordered a piece of lasagna, and when my friend got the slice, she immediately started complaining to the waitress that the slice was "too small", especially compared to mine. When I looked over at her plate, I raised my eyebrows. To me, they looked identical.
My friend said that when she went to our other location, she could easily get three meals out of the slice, and with this one, she could BARELY get one and a half meals. When she was told this is a standard slice of lasagna, she was OUTRAGED, and told everyone in earshot that she will NEVER go back to this location. And I will never go to any restaurant with her again.
49. A Startling Lack Of Human Emotion
Our parent company said that a portion of every purchase goes towards the So The World May Hear Foundation which helps poor kids get hearing aids. This one customer had an outrageous request—he wanted that portion of his purchase refunded to him. I told him that the parent company had every right to do what they wanted with the profits they made from every purchase.
I told him some more information about the charity and I said that most people were happy that instead of making 100% profit, the company made a donation. He didn't care. He was mad that his money was helping kids that he didn’t know.
50. There Is No Such Person
I was a supervisor at Cost Plus World Market. One day, a customer came in pushing a cart full of obviously used throw pillows and she asked to return them. Of course, she had no receipt, and instead, she wanted us to just look her up in the system. The only problem was she refused to provide any of her personal information for us to try to look her up.
She then started yelling at my cashier and that's when I knew I had to shut her down. I stepped in to tell her very politely that she either needed a receipt or she would have to provide us with her name and phone number. She then started screeching and screaming about how we were terrible to her and that she'd get us fired one way or another.
She asked to speak to the president, and I'm certain she meant the president of World Market, but in her bleached hair fury she said, "The president of the world". I barely held it together as I calmly offered her the corporate feedback number. She wouldn't take it and instead walked out of the store still throwing a fit.
She returned about 20 minutes later, quietly apologized, and took her pillows with her, and we never heard from her again.
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