If there’s one lesson you learn real quick when you start your first retail or service job, it’s that they’ll turn on you in an instant, and for no reason at all. Real life customer service workers share their stories of the worst customers they ever had to deal with—and they’re absolutely diabolical.
1. Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold
In high school, I worked at a car wash. One day, while I was wiping rail dust off a guy’s rims, he swung his door open, hit me right on the top of the head, and knocked me flat.
Then he started laying into me, calling me stupid and slow because I hadn’t gotten the soap film off his rocker panels—the soap film I couldn’t even see because A) I was on the other side of the door, and B) I was still trying to figure out what planet I was on.
I got up, handed my towels to the floor manager, said, “Call me when you’re done with him,” and walked out the back of the garage.
Fast forward six years. I’m bartending at a local family restaurant. I look up at the door and can’t believe it—the same guy walks in with his wife.
From the moment he sits down, he’s complaining about something. I stay polite, but keep things short. Eventually, they decide they want to eat in the bar and ask for menus. I bring them over, take care of a few other customers, then come back with my pad and pen to take their order.
The guy says, “You’re going to take our order? I thought I’d get one of these hot blonde waitresses.” His wife looked completely embarrassed, so I smiled and said, “Your wife called ahead and asked for a young stud bartender.” After their meal, she slipped me five dollars under her plate while he kept complaining about the food.
About a month later, in the same restaurant, he went off on a waitress for absolutely no reason. I decided it was finally time to put a stop to it. I was bartending, and I told him to leave. He completely lost it, yelling that he’d known the owner his whole life and that my job was finished.
I pulled out the owner’s business card, handed it to him, and said, “Bob gets in at 9:00. That’s his number.”
At 11:00 the next morning, the owner called me and said, “I heard you kicked Tyson out last night.”
I said, “Yes, I did,” and explained what happened.
He was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “You did the right thing. He’s the worst. When you’re on that side of my bar, it’s your bar, and they’re your staff. Keep it up.”
2. The Moment Of Truth
While I was working in the camera department at Best Buy, a Chinese family—a mom, dad, young man, and young woman—came over to look at the point-and-shoot cameras on display.
They had strong Chinese accents, so I figured they might be tourists or maybe new immigrants.
I went through the usual questions to see if I could help, but like a lot of customers, they just said, “We’re just looking.” Then they kept talking among themselves in Cantonese. I’m fully Chinese myself and speak Cantonese pretty well. I’m also a first-generation Canadian, so when I speak English, I barely have an accent.
Here’s basically how the conversation between the young man and young woman went:
Young man: “Hmm, what do you think about this camera?”
Young woman: “I don’t know anything. Why don’t you ask the employee?”
Young man: “That guy? Forget him, he’s probably just going to lie to us.”
Keep in mind, they said this right in front of me. They were standing maybe two feet away, looking at the cameras and clearly referring to me when they said “the employee.” I guess they assumed I couldn’t understand them. I honestly wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Maybe it was because I spoke to them in English without much of an accent, or maybe they thought I was a different kind of Asian. But they kept going.
Young man: “This one looks nice. I wonder how fast it is. Do you know?”
Young woman: “I really don’t know. Just ask the employee.”
Young man: “I already said forget that guy. He’s just going to lie anyway.”
I just stood there, stunned, thinking, “Wow, they have no idea I understand everything they’re saying.”
Their conversation kept repeating the same pattern, and the next part went something like this:
Young man: “How many megapixels does this camera have?”
Young woman: “I really don’t know anything about cameras. Ask the employee.”
At that point, I got over the shock and decided I’d had enough. So I answered, in perfect Cantonese, “That camera has 5 megapixels. It says so right on the card.”
Their faces went completely blank, and the whole family went silent. They must have been really embarrassed, because they thanked me and then quickly walked away.
Rachata Teyparsit, Shutterstock
3. Playing Chicken
My first job was at a Chick-fil-A in a mall food court. Working during the Christmas season was awful, and we dealt with a nonstop stream of some of the most cranky, angry, and unreasonable customers imaginable. But one incident in particular has always stuck with me.
A mother with five completely out-of-control kids came up and placed a huge order. I wish I could remember exactly what she ordered, because it was enormous.
It was insanely busy, with lines of 10 or more people at each of the five registers, all waiting for food, and this mother and her five kids were literally shouting, “Where’s my food?” and “Hellooo?” the entire time they waited. Other customers were staring at them, clearly wondering what was wrong.
Eventually they got their huge order—two very large bags packed with food, which was what had been slowing everything down in the first place—and headed to a table in the food court to eat. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it.
About 10 minutes later, the woman came back with all five kids beside her, waving her receipt and yelling that she hadn’t gotten the food she ordered. We asked what she thought was missing, and she said, “All of it! All you gave me was 3 bags of waffle fries and a package of chicken nuggets that was already chewed!”
Yes, she actually claimed the nuggets were “already chewed.” She slammed a nugget box onto the counter, and inside were clearly chewed-up chicken nuggets that had been put back in the container.
First of all, we obviously had not given her “already chewed” nuggets. The kitchen staff had rushed to finish her giant order, and we had handed her two huge bags filled with everything. But she started causing a massive scene, yelling that we had ripped her off and demanding food we had already given her.
Then she started saying she was going to call the authorities. By this point, there were huge lines of increasingly irritated people waiting behind her, because the place was packed. While she was making threats, a random man walked up and tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention. I’ll never forget what happened next.
She turned around, and he said, “Miss, you left your bag of food under the table when you left,” and handed her a huge bag of food—the exact food she was accusing us of not giving her. At the same moment, one of her kids shouted, “Those chicken nuggets tasted funny, I hate them!” She looked at the child, yelled, “Be quiet,” and moved to hit them.
At that point, with her whole plan falling apart in front of everyone, all of us employees just stood there staring at her, waiting to see what she would do. Her response was to say, “I don’t have to take this,” while grabbing another customer’s drink from the counter and throwing it behind the register.
Then she tried to storm off, with her five kids running all over the place and slowing her down—but that still wasn’t the end. As it turned out, one of the people waiting in line right behind her was a local officer on lunch break with his girlfriend, who worked in social services.
After seeing everything, the officer stepped in and detained the woman, and the social services worker took down her information and told her she would be reporting her for hitting her children and trying to pilfer food.
Krakenimages.com, Shutterstock
4. There’s No Arguing With Stupid
I work in tech support for a cable company. A customer called asking why his TV wasn’t working. It took me a minute, but I realized the issue was that his electricity had been shut off.
He then spent an hour arguing with me, saying that shouldn’t matter because he was paying for the service and we should guarantee it works no matter what, even without power.
He was convinced we were the only company that still required TVs to be plugged into electricity, and he kept insisting it must be because our service isn’t digital like our competitors’.
5. The Tipping Point
I’m an American-born Chinese woman who works at a Chinese restaurant. My bosses, an immigrant couple, speak some English, but not very fluently, and they have a hard time understanding people when they talk too fast. Because of that, I handle most of the customer service.
One day, a woman came in to place an order. While I was taking it, she suddenly asked, “Do you speak English?!” I answered, in clear, unaccented English, that I did. She then complained that she couldn’t understand a word I was saying and demanded to speak to my manager. Trying not to laugh, I went and got my boss and explained what was happening.
He chuckled and went over to help her in his limited English. She quickly became even more frustrated, while I stood nearby, quietly amused. Another customer who had seen the whole thing ended up handing me $5 for staying so calm while dealing with someone that rude.
6. Don’t Bring A Knife To A Gun Fight
Back in the 70s, my dad worked as a bouncer at a college bar in a pretty laid-back college town. He wasn’t especially huge or anything, probably just average-sized, but he was at least in good shape. The bar had a dress code, and T-shirts weren’t allowed.
One night, a guy showed up wearing a T-shirt. My dad explained the dress code and even offered to lend him an extra shirt he had brought along. The guy agreed, put on the shirt, went inside, and at first everything seemed fine.
About 30 minutes later, my dad made a pretty infuriating discovery. He noticed his shirt lying on the dance floor, getting stepped on by everyone. He found the guy, who had changed back into his T-shirt, and basically said, “What’s going on?” The guy gave some excuse. My dad told him he needed to leave, and that’s when everything escalated.
For context, this guy was apparently around 5'6" and very skinny. Out of nowhere, he pulled out a blade and started yelling at my dad, calling him names. My dad stayed calm and said something like, “Whoa, take it easy. No one needs to get hurt.”
There was another bouncer working that night too. He was on the Clemson football team, a very tall, broad guy my dad said could be pretty intimidating. While my dad was trying to calm things down, the guy had no idea what was coming next.
All of a sudden, the other bouncer stepped in and moved my dad aside. He was easily a foot taller than the skinny guy, and his legs were about as big as the guy’s torso. He looked at him and said, “Boy, if you don’t get out of here right now, I’m going to take that and put it somewhere you won’t like.”
The guy muttered something under his breath and left right away.
7. This Is My Last Resort
I used to have a job doing on-site computer repair for homes and businesses. Nothing too complicated; most of the time I’d just replace a part, make sure everything worked, log the visit on my Blackberry, and head out. So one day I got a call and drove over. The building wasn’t in great shape, but it didn’t seem especially alarming.
I got buzzed up to the customer’s unit and met him at the door. He was on crutches, had some of the worst teeth I’d ever seen, and generally looked pretty rough. Funny enough, he was actually very polite, but—and this is where things took a turn—he invited me into what was probably the most awful living situation I’ve ever seen.
His girlfriend was just sitting there among tall piles of newspapers, staring at me with her mouth open. Garbage bags full of who-knows-what were scattered all over. And everywhere, everywhere, there were roaches. They were crawling up the walls, across the sink, on the chair, even between the keys on the keyboard. It was unbelievable.
Still, I had a job to do, so I got to work, making small talk and trying not to focus on how disgusting everything around me was. The guy told me about his life—he’d been hit by a car, among other things, which explained the crutches—and he was pleasant enough. “Can I get you something to drink?” “Oh, no, that’s okay.”
Meanwhile, I could see ripples in the cats’ water bowl from roaches swimming around in it. It looked like their own little vacation spot. To make matters worse, the hard drive I was there to install hadn’t been properly set up at the depot, so I had to stay while Windows reloaded.
I actually felt bad for the guy when he told me I was the nicest person he’d dealt with and that most people usually ran away instead of helping him. I finished the job, entered the completion notes on my Blackberry, and got the heck out of there. At my next stop, a roach fell out of my pocket. Wonderful.
A few weeks later, my Blackberry went off. I looked at the address and immediately got that same uneasy feeling, so I called dispatch to ask if I’d been there before. The dispatcher paused for a moment, then started laughing. I asked why, and he said, “It’s your completion notes. They say: ‘OH GOD ROACHES EVERYWHERE.’”
I had to argue with my boss to avoid being sent back there again—even roaches in my clothes apparently weren’t enough of a reason. What a treat.
8. No One Outpizzas The Hut
I once had a customer at Pizza Hut come in furious about a problem with the pizzas that had been delivered. He was yelling at my cashier, and she came to get me because she was scared. I was the only manager on duty at the time, so I had to step in and try to calm him down.
He demanded that I give him the merchant copy of the credit card receipt because, as he put it, “I don’t want you having anything with my signature on it!” I explained to him three times that we were not legally allowed to give it back. I even picked up the cash register monitor and showed him that, in the system, his transaction had been canceled.
Still, he kept insisting that I hand it over. That was the point where I’d had enough. I finally told him, “Look, I’m not giving it to you no matter how much you keep yelling. You can leave now, or I’ll call the authorities. And keep in mind, I have your name, phone number, address, and security video of you yelling at me and my cashier.”
At that point, he lunged at me and grabbed for the receipt. He ripped off the top half and stormed out of the store. All he managed to take was the part showing his order, while the signature and tip line were left behind. And the whole scene happened because he wanted to make sure the driver didn’t get the $3 tip he had signed for.
9. Dinner And A Show
The worst customer I ever dealt with was when I was a graduate student. Life as a doctoral student can be really tough, especially since I was paying for everything myself. Because of that, I worked as a tutor and part-time lecturer, and I also picked up shifts at KFC.
There was one customer in particular who was always a problem. He would come through the drive-thru and ask really inappropriate questions to any women working there. It was unsettling. Our manager never did anything about it, because this customer always ordered a big bucket of chicken.
One day, “Romeo” came inside and got in my line at the front counter. He was wearing some kind of muumuu-style outfit and giving me this intensely creepy grin. The line was moving pretty slowly, and he started shouting about how he was the chosen one and how I was standing in the way of his mission—apparently to eat fried chicken.
Oddly enough, this worked in his favor, because about half the customers left the store. Honestly, I wanted to leave too, but I was too stunned by the bizarre scene in front of me. He finally got to the counter and said, “Ugh, give me twenty pieces of chicken, four coleslaws... and, uh, anything else you want to show me?” Then he winked.
I stared at him like he was the lowest form of humanity and entered his order. He just stood there grinning while I rang it up. When I gave him the total, he looked at me and said, “I wanted something more than that.”
So I looked at him and, as politely as I could, said, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s nothing more I can give you at this KFC. Please leave the store before I call the authorities.” What happened next still seems unbelievable. His face turned purple—not just a little red, but a deep, furious purple.
Then, after what felt like forever, he opened his mouth and let out this enormous howl. I stepped back from the counter, and “Romeo” tore the muumuu off his body. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and it was something I truly never wanted to see.
He lunged at the counter and tried to grab me, but missed by at least a meter. He screamed, “I’ll make you sorry!” Then, completely out of nowhere, he made this strange choking sound, collapsed away from the counter, and started crying. At that point, I decided I was done and got out of there.
An hour or two later, I texted my manager and told him I quit. They gave me four weeks of severance for everything that happened.
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10. The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease
I work at a quick-lube shop in town, and one time a regular couple came in just wanting the grease fittings on their car serviced. I told them we could handle it and let the guy working underneath know what they needed. A couple of minutes later, he told me the car didn’t actually have any fittings to grease.
I went down to confirm he was right, then told the customers they didn’t need to worry about greasing anything because the parts were sealed. The customer’s reaction was way out of proportion. He started saying I was trying to take advantage of him because he was disabled—the customer was blind, and his wife was the one driving the car.
I told him there was no reason for me to lie about it. I wasn’t even going to charge him for the service, and even if I had, he wouldn’t have been paying for something we didn’t do. He replied that all young people today care about is “money and illicity substances,” then threatened to have his brother-in-law come by and “have a talk with me.”
I told him to send him over, and I’d tell him the exact same thing, because I honestly didn’t understand what the issue was. After another 10 minutes or so of arguing, they finally left unhappy. Then, a couple of hours later, this big guy walks in and says his brother-in-law called because I was supposedly trying to take advantage of him.
I explained the whole story, and he told me his brother-in-law had already gone to another shop, where they told him the same thing—that there was nothing to grease. What he said next caught me off guard. I asked why he had come in, and he said he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t taking advantage of a disabled person.
I asked how he thought I was taking advantage of anyone, and he just told me not to do it, then walked out. The worst part is that this couple still comes in all the time, and neither of them has ever given me credit for clearly staying away from “money and illicit substances.”
11. Escape Plan
Many years ago, I used to pick up TVs from customers’ homes for repair. One day, I arrived at a house where an elderly woman answered the door and invited me in. She switched on her very old TV to show me the problem. It was clear to me that the tube had blown and that fixing it would probably cost more than the set was worth, so I told her that.
She immediately said, “No! You fix it now!” I explained that I couldn’t repair it on the spot and that her best option would be to replace it, either with a new TV or a used one. While I was trying to explain this, someone appeared in the doorway behind her, groaning softly and shuffling into the room.
It was an elderly man in loose, open pajamas, with a long strand of saliva hanging from his lower lip. The woman said, “Ignore him, my husband has Alzheimer’s. Fix the TV!”
I started explaining again that I couldn’t do that, but she began shouting over and over, “Fix it!” Meanwhile, her husband kept slowly moving toward me, moaning louder and sounding more upset, while the strand of saliva swayed lower and lower beneath his chin as he came closer.
I said, “I’m sorry, but I need to go back to the shop now.” At that, the woman screamed “NO!”, ran to the door leading to the hallway, slammed it shut, and stood in front of it with her arms stretched out to block me from leaving.
Her husband kept coming closer, the drool hanging longer and his moaning rising into a kind of wail, while I backed up until I was trapped between the two of them. The whole time, I kept saying to the woman, “I have to leave,” and she kept screaming, “No! Fix it!”
Her husband was only a couple of inches away, and the swinging strand of saliva was almost touching my arm. I was pressed against the woman, and finally I turned, gently moved her aside as carefully as I could, pulled the door open, and ran out of the room, out the front door, and back to my van.
As I started the engine and drove away, the woman was standing in the doorway shouting terrible things at me, while her husband wandered unsteadily around the front yard. It’s a sight I’ve never forgotten.
Nancy Beijersbergen, Shutterstock
12. Cookie Monster
I worked at a discount brokerage in the late 1990s as a tech, and one day the receptionist called me up to the front desk. When I got there, I found an older couple, and the woman was loudly scolding the receptionist. I asked what the problem was, and the stiff, older woman immediately turned her frustration on me—and the reason was pretty funny.
She said our website was “tracking her finances” because of cookies, using the phrase, “How dare you track my finances,” and insisted she wanted to pull every penny out of our firm and move it to our main competitor. She also claimed that a representative from the competitor had assured them several times that they didn’t do any such thing.
As it happened, my wife worked for that competitor, and I had an account there too. So, right there at the front desk computer—with the couple able to watch the screen—I opened the browser settings and changed the cookie option to ask permission before accepting one. Then I logged in to the competitor’s site, and sure enough, up popped a cookie request.
The woman had been incredibly rude to the receptionist, so I looked at her and said, “They use cookies too. Looks like he wasn’t honest with you. Do you still want us to transfer everything?” Then I handed them the transfer forms. The husband rolled his eyes at his wife. Without saying a word, but clearly furious, she grabbed the forms and stormed out.
13. First Day, First Scammers
It was my first day working at a buffet—not some bargain-place buffet either—and these were my very first customers. They were a group of elderly people. First, they asked if they could just “look at” what food was out. I said that was fine, and that I’d be there to seat them if they decided they wanted to eat. I was the hostess.
But instead of coming back, they just started loading up plates with food and then sat themselves down. I was supposed to seat guests in certain sections, so they completely threw off the seating plan. Then they called me over, and one older man said, “I’m dying soon, so I want half off.” I had absolutely no idea how to respond to that, so I told him I’d go ask the manager.
The manager came out and told them that normally we don’t do that, but this time they’d make an exception and only charge him for a child’s plate. Then the other elderly people started complaining, saying they were also dying in the next couple of years and that it wasn’t fair, so they wanted a discount too.
Since they were being so difficult—and had already started eating—the manager gave in. They were loud, messy, and of course didn’t leave a tip. But honestly, when I’m that old, I’ll probably be a little odd too, I guess.
14. Prevention Is The Best Cure
I was working at a general store in high school, and we had a pretty solid hardware section that sold inexpensive tools. One evening, right before closing, a guy came in with a few friends. They immediately seemed like trouble, so I was on guard. Since we were about to close, the supervisor was nearby, and she did that subtle “follow them around the store without making it obvious” move while I stayed at the counter.
Eventually, they came up to pay, and one of them set down a few cheap box cutters and nothing else while the others lingered by the door. My supervisor was standing behind them, and something about the situation felt off. So I asked for ID. I’m not really sure why I thought that would stop them.
The guy was in his mid-20s, and I was probably about 18. “I’m probably older than you,” he said. I wasn’t actually checking his age—I was just trying to slow things down for some reason. I think I figured that if they meant to use the blades for something dangerous, they probably wouldn’t want to identify themselves. Maybe I was right, because he refused.
We went back and forth for a while, and he got more and more irritated, until finally he slammed a piece of paper down on the counter and said that was his ID. When I looked at it, I was stunned. It was a court summons for assault.
Things could have gone much worse, but after I asked them to leave, they actually did, so there’s no dramatic ending where I somehow came out on top.
15. Stop Pulling My Leg
I work at a major theme park in Orlando, so I have hundreds of funny stories. But my worst guest experience was one of the very few that wasn’t funny at all.
I work at a high-speed inverted roller coaster, the kind where your feet hang down. Since there’s no floor on the ride, guests with a prosthetic leg are required to remove it before riding. If they can’t remove it, we unfortunately have to ask them not to ride for their safety and the safety of everyone in the park.
I was the lead that day, which meant I was in charge of the attraction. If there were any issues or guest complaints, it was my job to handle them. My control booth called and asked me to come to the loading station to speak with a guest about a loose article issue.
I deal with situations like that all the time, so I didn’t think much of it. Or so I thought. When I got there, my team members pointed me toward a guest sitting in the front row. She looked like she was in her early 40s, fit, blonde, and very angry. She didn’t seem to have a bag or any loose item with her.
That’s when one of my team members told me she had a prosthetic leg. She was wearing long jeans, so it wasn’t obvious at first, but once they mentioned it, I could tell. I walked over and quietly explained our policy about prosthetic limbs. I was trying to be as discreet as possible.
She responded very loudly and defensively, saying the leg was screwed in place, couldn’t be removed, and that she was absolutely going to ride. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable in my life. I had to explain again that it was about safety, and unless she could remove the prosthetic limb, she wouldn’t be able to ride the coaster safely.
I also told her that this was one of our safety rules, and there couldn’t be exceptions. By that point, she was extremely angry and shouting every argument she could think of. What made it so hard for me was that, for once, I had a guest who was upset for a reason that felt completely understandable.
It’s easy to laugh off a parent yelling because you made their child take melting ice cream sandwiches out of their shoe, which made them no longer meet the height requirement. But this was a guest with a serious disability who had come in not even thinking she might be treated differently. She just wanted to ride a coaster and couldn’t because she showed up with a titanium leg. Honestly, I felt about two feet tall.
Meanwhile, she was still yelling, and by then we hadn’t sent a train out in about five minutes, which is a huge delay in the theme park world. Since she was arguing so loudly, the guests waiting in line could clearly tell why things had stopped.
Then they started heckling her and shouting for her to get off already. Of course she looked at me like it was my fault everyone now knew she had a prosthetic leg. Eventually she got off the train, and people actually started cheering, which was awful.
She was so furious and, I’m guessing, humiliated that she turned her anger toward me. She started shouting about how awful and overweight I was, and how at least she could fit on some rides. I’m a big girl, though not nearly as big as she made me sound. But I’ve always been very self-conscious about it.
So she hit me right where it hurt, in front of all my employees, which was terrible. But the worst part was that I still felt bad for her, and I even understood that she was trying to humiliate me because she felt humiliated herself. So I just stood there and took it. It was awful. I’ve never had another guest interaction leave such a bad feeling behind. It was horrible.
16. The Customer Isn’t Always Right
I worked at Kohl’s right after high school, mostly in customer service handling returns and things like that. Kohl’s policy—or at least how it was enforced at my store—was basically to take back almost anything a customer wanted to return… anything.
There were even times when we were told to accept returns from competing department stores if a customer made enough of a scene. So by the time this woman came in, I had pretty much stopped trying to deny returns and just let management sort it out afterward.
She was in her mid-20s and had a very entitled attitude. She dropped the bag on the counter with the item she wanted to return, not even taking it out like most people would, and handed me the receipt.
I pulled the item out and saw it was a black teddy, like women’s lingerie, and started checking it to see whether it still had the original tags or had been washed. That’s when I noticed something awful. Since it was black fabric, the long white crusty stain stood out immediately. There was no real question what it was, and her expression confirmed it.
All I said was, “Really? Really…” and gave her a disapproving look. Then I grabbed two plastic hangers and used them like tongs to pick up the teddy, carried it over to the trash, and very dramatically dropped it in while still looking at her. After that, without saying anything else, I processed the return and gave her money back.
I like to think the embarrassment of that moment made her think twice before trying something like that again. Working retail seriously damaged my faith in people.
17. Karmic Victory
I was the sales manager in a business-to-business operation. We made components that other manufacturers used in their products. Most of my customers were great, and even though I left that company eight years ago, some of them are still good friends.
One time, the president of one of our mid-sized customers called me, very upset because the parts he needed that day were not in stock and it would take about two weeks to make them. I told him that if he stopped speaking to me that way, I might be able to help him, but if he kept it up, I was going to hang up.
He kept going, so I hung up. My boss fully backed me, even though we never got another order from that company. Another time, I was out on a sales call with a customer over an issue I no longer remember, but I knew I was right and he was mistaken.
When I tried to explain what had actually happened and why, he told me, “If you’re calling me a liar, you can leave.” So I stood up and left without saying another word. I didn’t need to. We never got another order from him either.
Both of those customer companies went out of business while I grew my side of the business from $6 million to nearly $15 million a year in sales.
18. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
A few weeks ago, one of my fellow techs recovered a customer’s entire drive, even though it had been formatted several times. He also reinstalled Windows on the laptop, and when that was done, he placed all the recovered data into a folder and added a shortcut to the desktop.
He didn’t even charge the customer the full amount for all that work, because the guy had a story about losing family photos and the tech felt bad for him. He was a young guy, probably in his early 20s. We were closing the store today when he came in. I still can’t believe how rude he was.
Customer: You told me you were going to fix my computer, but now there are all these files and things in this folder. You said it would be like new.
Tech: I reinstalled your operating system and then put everything I was able to recover into that folder for you. It is a fresh install.
Customer: Well, I want my pictures back.
Tech: They’re in that folder, along with everything else we were able to save.
Customer: Yeah, but there’s all this other stuff in there too. I only wanted my pictures.
Tech: Okay, you can just delete anything you don’t want to keep.
Customer: That’s not what I asked for. I’m never coming back here again!
At that point, I stepped in to make sure I was really hearing this correctly. “Sir, we saved all your information, and we want to make sure you’re satisfied. What seems to be the issue?”
Customer: I want my pictures back.
Me: Sir, your pictures are right there. We save everything we can in case you later remember other important documents or files you need.
Customer: But I don’t want any of that other stuff. I just want my pictures.
Me: That’s completely fine, sir. Just delete anything you don’t want to keep.
Customer: You guys ripped me off!
Then he stormed out.
19. Give Me Some Credit
This happened about a year and a half ago. I was working the night shift as a shift manager at McDonald’s. I usually came in around 8 p.m. and left at 6 in the morning. When I got to work that night, I found out the credit machine connected to the front register was broken, so we couldn’t take credit or debit cards in the lobby.
About an hour later, a couple and their son came in, ready to order. I let them know we weren’t able to accept credit or debit. The father looked pretty upset and said that was all he had. I had always been taught to help customers however I could.
So I came up with a solution. I had one of the employees write down their order on paper, then ring it up through the drive-through and use that card machine to process the payment. Everything worked out, and they got their food and sat down to eat. That’s when things took a turn. About 10 minutes later, the father came up to me and asked to speak with me privately.
The first thing he said was that I “was a real piece of work.” I was stunned. I had gone out of my way to make sure he could still get his food. Then he started accusing me of lying, saying the front machine couldn’t really be broken if the one in the back was working.
He even said I had made him look foolish in front of his family and made him seem poor. He kept going on, and I couldn’t really respond. I needed that job. All I could do was apologize for the inconvenience. After they left, everyone working kept asking me what had happened. Honestly, I told them I had no idea.
At that point, I thought it was over and I could just get back to work. But no. About 10 minutes later, we got a phone call. It was the same guy, calling to yell at me all over again. Once again, all I could do was apologize. To this day, I still have no idea what made him so angry that he felt the need to go off on me twice.
20. The Call Is Coming From Inside The House
In the IT team where I work, all of our customers are internal company staff. That doesn’t stop some of them from being difficult customers. On one occasion, we were asked to upload a new template. It should have been simple. The template owner normally makes all the updates, sends it to IT, we check that it works with the macros, and then we upload it.
This time, though, the template owner had been asked by the marketing department to make changes because marketing had ordered new paper and the template needed to be adjusted to fit it. That kicked off a huge argument between the two departments, mainly because neither side was really listening to the other.
We eventually learned that the template owner had told marketing to take over ownership because they had basically said, “we give up,” so the request to IT ended up coming from marketing instead. Since our templates are delivered through Word, we were pretty surprised when the file we received was in PDF format. That led to a second argument.
We explained that it wasn’t possible to deliver the template through Word as a PDF, and that if they really wanted it in PDF format, it would make more sense to provide it through the intranet. But no—they wanted it to open in Word while somehow still being a PDF, so the text couldn’t be edited. At that point, I started to understand exactly what the original template owner had meant.
Fast forward three months and, after upper management from three departments got involved, the new template was finally delivered in Word format and uploaded. Two weeks later, a Helpdesk ticket came in, and the reason was completely unexpected. Apparently, if you print multiple copies at once on the new paper, the paper catches fire.
We were then urgently asked to roll back to the old version.
21. Lost & Found
I work at the front desk of a hotel, so I have plenty of stories. But my absolute favorite has to be about a couple who, like a lot of difficult guests, had absolutely no patience. They seemed to think checking in was as simple as “Here’s your key,” when the whole process usually takes about five minutes.
They were both incredibly rude to everyone at the desk, and the other guests waiting to check in kept giving them the classic “what is going on?” look. Well, a few hours after they checked out that Sunday, housekeeping called down and asked for a manager to come upstairs.
Turns out, they had left behind a huge “toy” in the room. The best part? They actually called back for it. She would only refer to it as “an item.” It was pretty entertaining talking with her on the phone: “I’m so sorry, could you maybe tell me what the item is or describe it for me?”
22. What’s The Beef?
I used to work at a butcher shop, and one day a man came in asking for a very specific amount of beef mince—I think it was 6 and 1/8 kg. He insisted that I split it into three separate bags, all with different weights, because he was having friends over and wanted each person to pay for exactly the amount of beef they ate.
I was new at the time and still getting used to the old, complicated till, so the whole thing was really stressful and took a long time. After I finally sorted out the bags, he said it was wrong and demanded that I do it all over again. By then, the other customers were getting annoyed, and I was starting to feel really overwhelmed.
I politely suggested giving him one bag and letting him and his friends divide the cost evenly afterward, but he reacted very badly to that idea and told me to harm myself. Then he threw the bags on the floor, spilling meat everywhere, and stormed out swearing. Some of the other customers were upset by the scene and left as well. My manager saw the entire thing.
After that, I wasn’t paid for my shift that day, and I was moved back to cleaning duties.
ShotPrime Studio, Shutterstock
23. Make Like A Banana And Split
My worst customer was actually someone my co-worker was helping. I used to work at Cold Stone Creamery, and this happened on a really busy night. The store was small, the line was long and stretched out the door, so a lot of people were already getting frustrated.
The woman my friend was helping seemed annoyed before she even ordered. She complained about the prices—which the 17-year-olds working there obviously had no control over—and was being really difficult. Eventually, she ordered a sundae for herself and her daughter, which, ironically, were pretty expensive.
To make a sundae, we cut a banana in half, put both pieces in the bottom of the cup, and then add everything else on top. Customers often assume there’s no banana because they can’t see it, and this woman was no exception. My co-worker handed her the cups, and the woman immediately said, “Excuse me, you forgot the banana!”
My friend explained that the banana was at the bottom, and the woman just huffed. Her daughter told her to calm down, but she brushed her off. My co-worker came over to me and said, “I hate when people can’t see the banana.” The woman must have overheard her, because she suddenly exploded.
She started yelling about how we didn’t respect customers and demanded to see the manager, who wasn’t there. She called my co-worker a selfish brat. Meanwhile, her daughter was slowly backing out of the store. People in line were telling the woman to calm down, but she just shouted back, “I deserve RESPECT!”
One of the guys who had worked there for about four years made sure she still paid for the sundaes. She stormed out, then came back in to grab napkins from the broken dispenser, which basically fell apart when she yanked them out.
My friend started crying while ringing up another customer, so I took her to the back and finished the order myself. A lot of the people who saw what happened left generous tips and didn’t even ask us to sing, which was honestly the best part.
24. Notary Public Scene
I was working as a cashier at Barnes and Noble when a customer came in insisting that I notarize some documents for him. Since cashiers aren’t public notaries, there really wasn’t anything I could do except calmly explain that A: I wasn’t qualified to do that, and B: Barnes and Noble has never offered notarizing services.
He kept yelling at me, and then at a manager, for about 15 minutes before the manager finally said security would be called if he didn’t leave.
25. My Evil Twin
I was living in a pretty upscale part of the Bay Area, and I had transferred from my original Starbucks to one in town. At the time, I was still wearing a big mohawk that I styled up with glue, hairspray, and all that.
There was an older woman who came in every morning around 5:30 and gave me a hard time about how I looked, even suggesting homeless shelters where I could go shower. When I politely told her that I had a home and showered every day, she would tell me to go hurt myself and then storm out.
One morning she came in, saw me, glared at me, and left in a huff. Later, during the morning rush, an officer came in and bought a coffee. A few minutes after that, he approached me and said he hadn’t really come for the coffee and needed to speak with me outside.
Once we were outside, he told me someone had reported me to the authorities, and the story they gave was seriously messed up. They claimed I was an escaped convict from up north and wanted me detained.
He took down my information, but said that based on my reaction, he didn’t think I was actually an escaped convict. He came back later and said he needed to talk to me again. He confirmed I wasn’t the escaped convict, but there was now a different issue.
Apparently, there was an arrest warrant out for me in the next county over, and he told me I was lucky—because if I had been just across the street on the other side of the county line, I could have been detained.
I had no idea what the charges were supposed to be, so I called that county’s superior court. When I said I didn’t know I was being charged with anything, they told me I would have to “turn myself in and face the consequences for my actions,” and spend the weekend behind bars before getting the chance to appear in court on Monday and prove I was innocent.
I said no thanks to that and went to the superior court myself to get a copy of the warrant. When the clerk brought it out, I looked it over and said, “This isn’t me.” The name on the warrant included my name, but it also had extra names attached. That’s when I realized something absurd.
It turned out this guy, who had a similar name to mine, also shared my birthday, was the same height and weight, and even had the same hair and eye color. He had apparently smashed up his ex-girlfriend’s car with a golf club and then failed to show up in court, which led to the warrant.
The problem was something about the way the name was entered on the warrant, which meant that any officer in the county could have detained me. So I went to the town where the warrant had been issued and managed to speak with a detective so I wouldn’t get detained by mistake.
All because of one bitter old customer.
26. A Blowout For A Blowout Sale
A few years ago, I was working at a Borders that was shutting down. A lot of our clearance items were marked way down, but most of the rest of the store wasn’t discounted because we were planning to box it up and send it to another location.
Most of our regular customers were understanding and sad that the store was closing, and they were concerned about all of us losing our jobs. Then there were people who didn’t seem to care much either way, and then there was one woman who was clearly not handling things well.
She first bought several items from the clearance section, then came back a few hours later and tried to return them for full price. We explained that without a receipt, we could only refund the lowest price the items had sold for in the last six months.
She started raising her voice at the cashier helping her, saying she had “paid $20 for each of these books” and accusing us of trying to cheat her, even though the stickers on the books clearly showed the actual prices, which were more like $8 or $9 each at most. We pointed that out to her.
Then she started yelling that we were pilfering from her. By that point, the store manager had come up to the front and was trying to calm her down, saying something like, “Ma’am, if you could please calm down, we can work out a solution to this.”
The woman looked at her and screamed so loudly that everyone in the store could tell this was far beyond a typical upset customer; something clearly seemed wrong.
She shouted something like, “I’m Jewish, how dare you say ‘final solution’ to me? I’m calling the authorities and reporting this as a hate offense!” Then, in the middle of her outburst, she threw herself on the floor in a tantrum before finally storming out of the store.
Krakenimages.com, Shutterstock
27. Tattoo You
I work at a shoe store with several locations in the area. Today, we got a call from someone who sounded pleasant and completely normal, asking for our corporate phone number. She said she wanted to file a complaint because she felt she had been discriminated against at one of our nearby stores.
I didn’t have the number right in front of me, so while I looked it up, she started explaining what she wanted to report. According to her, when she first arrived at the store, the employee helping her was very friendly and polite.
Then, in her own words, “The girl working there eventually noticed the Confederate flag tattoos on my arms. After that, she turned cold and stopped being friendly to me. I felt discriminated against.” I was honestly stunned. I asked whether the employee had said anything to her directly or refused to help her.
She said, “No, but after she saw my tattoos, she stopped acting friendly toward me. That’s discrimination, and it’s very unprofessional.” I really didn’t know what to say. I could understand calling it unprofessional if the employee had refused service or made a comment to her face.
But as far as I’m concerned, no one is required to be warm and cheerful toward someone who chooses to display hate symbols repeatedly on their arms. And the part that really got me was hearing her say, “I felt discriminated against for expressing who I am, and that’s just wrong.”
It was easily one of the most baffling and frustrating phone calls I’ve ever had at this job.
28. Wild Card
When I was a head cashier at a hardware store, a man and his wife came through my checkout, and I was called over to help with a problem. We had recently started requiring ID for our rebate system, and the person using the rebate had to be present. They had two rebate checks, but the wife apparently didn’t have any ID with her.
Because of the new policy, my manager told me over the radio that they wouldn’t be able to use it. The whole situation was making the man more and more upset. It also seemed like he wouldn’t let his wife answer for herself.
When I asked her one more time if she had anything at all with her, like an insurance card or anything else with her name on it, he snapped, “Are you deaf? She doesn’t have anything.” Then he lunged forward and yanked my earpiece out. It terrified me, especially since I’m only 5'2".
I think I had to take a break and cry in the cash office for a minute. In the end, he left without buying anything.
29. Repeat Offender
There’s one guy who gives me a hard time every time he comes into the store.
The first time I remember was last winter, when one of the local newspapers had a coupon for $4 off a razor, which made it free. I was walking down the aisle putting something back when he asked where the coupon was because he couldn’t find it in the sales ad. I pointed to the sign, which said the coupon was in one of the newspapers.
He started waving the ad at me and shoved it toward me, telling me to find it. I told him again that he had to buy a newspaper. He asked if I was serious, and I said yes. At that point, I was done arguing, so I walked away.
Then sometime this fall, I was working the first express register, which is cash only. He put his stuff down and asked if he could pay with a credit card. I told him no, that this register was cash only, and at the time the register behind me didn’t have any customers.
He got red in the face and said it was stupid that I had a credit card machine and wouldn’t let him use it. I muttered, “Forget it,” and told him I’d let it go this time, but not to come through that register again with a credit card. Then last week, I was working the self-checkouts and saw him walk over to the display of NFL Snuggies.
He called me over, and I was already dreading having to deal with him. He asked where the Steelers Snuggies were, and I told him that whatever we had was already out. I started to walk away because I had a couple of customers at self-checkout waiting for help. Then he told me to open some unopened boxes that had more Snuggies in them.
I looked more closely at the sign hanging on the display, and it said you could choose from Snuggies for about five other teams. The Steelers weren’t one of them. I showed him that and told him I needed to go help the other customers. Apparently he didn’t like that, because he stood there insisting that we had to have some Steelers Snuggies somewhere.
At that point, I was finished with the conversation, so I walked away, but he kept going: “What do you mean you don’t have any for the Steelers?” I told him that it meant we didn’t sell Steelers Snuggies, and that I had nothing to do with what the store carried. Then I ignored him while he kept digging through the display.
Like I said, I’ve definitely had customers yell at me and treat me worse than this guy. But he still stands out as one of my worst customers, because it feels like every single time he comes into the store, he causes some kind of problem.
30. The Unhappiest Place On Earth
A while back, I worked at Walt Disney World Resort in the FastPass department at Epcot. FastPass was basically a free ride reservation system for all guests. You’d put your park ticket into a machine at the attraction you wanted to ride, and it would print out a ticket with a return time stamped on it.
When you came back at your assigned time, we’d send you through a separate line, and you’d usually get on the ride in less than five minutes. The FastPass department also handled accommodations for guests with disabilities, since we were the ones managing the shorter lines.
One day, I was working the FastPass entrance to Test Track, the busiest attraction at Epcot, on a fairly busy day. The standby wait for guests without a FastPass was 45 minutes.
There was me, your friendly Epcot Cast Member, plus a woman in a wheelchair, her husband, and their two kids. The woman rolled up to the FastPass entrance in a park-rented wheelchair with her family behind her and handed me her Guest Assistance Pass, a card from Guest Relations explaining what kind of special assistance she needed.
The card said: “Please allow this guest and his or her party to use the FastPass entrance for your attraction.” I checked it and saw it was expired. She immediately said, “It’s not expired!”
I replied, “Actually, it says right here that this card expired... two and a half months ago. In fact, it’s so far expired that I’m not even supposed to return it to you.”
She complained, “But that’s the day they gave it to me.”
I said, “No, ma’am, the date it was issued is stamped right here”—I pointed to it—“and it expires two weeks later. Guest Relations only issues these cards for two weeks at a time.”
I thought that would settle it, but it turned out to be just the beginning.
She sighed to her husband and said, “Well, give him the other one then.”
At that point, I was completely confused.
He handed me another card and said, “Here you go, how about this?”
This one said: “Please allow this guest and his or her party to use the wheelchair accessible entrance for your attraction.”
I smiled and said, “All right, this one looks valid. It’s current, not expired, and it’s filled out correctly. It says I should let you use the wheelchair accessible entrance for this attraction. But we recently remodeled, and now all of our entrances are wheelchair accessible, so unless you have a FastPass, the standby entrance is right over there. The wait is about 45 minutes.”
She said, “But I can’t wait that long! I’m in a wheelchair!”
I replied, “Well, ma’am, you’ll be seated the whole time.”
She stared at me and said, “This is unacceptable! I want to see a manager!”
I said, “My manager isn’t available right now, but I’d be happy to call a coordinator”—I reached for my radio—“who can come explain the same thing.”
She snapped, “No, you’re right, I’m just going to report you to Guest Relations!” Then she headed off in completely the wrong direction.
I called after her, “Ma’am, you’re going the wrong way! Tell you what—I’m headed to the Tipboard in the middle of the park anyway. Why don’t I walk you to Guest Relations, and then you won’t have to wait in line there?”
She looked confused, but agreed. So I walked them toward Guest Relations and signaled to a co-worker to cover for me. Along the way, I made small talk with her kids.
She said, “Hey, you all stop talking to the mean man.”
Eventually, we got to Guest Relations. I spotted a friend of mine who also lived in my apartment building. I said, “Hi, Alison. Could you help these guests for me, please? They seem to have misplaced their Guest Assistance Pass and would like to complain about me.”
Then I left them there and headed to the Tipboard, which was in plain view of the Guest Relations entrance and between them and the attraction. When I brought them over, I already knew they’d probably give her exactly what she wanted, because they weren’t going to ask detailed personal questions about her disability, if any.
About 30 minutes later, they came out of Guest Relations smiling. I waved and, trying to be a good sport, motioned for them to come talk to me.
I asked, “Hello, did everything work out all right?”
The woman said, “It sure did. That lady in the vest really straightened things out. She gave me a card that says I can ride anything I want without waiting. So we’re going to ride Test Track right now without standing in line, right kids?”
The kids shouted, “Yeah!”
That’s when I let karma take over.
I leaned down and said, “Well, I’m afraid, ma’am, by my watch, you’ve already been waiting about 40 minutes to ride this attraction, just like everyone else.”
She looked completely embarrassed. Her husband burst out laughing. He laughed so hard that I probably avoided getting in trouble just because he found it hilarious. As she headed toward the attraction, I called after her:
“Have a Disney day!”
31. Sink Or Swim
I used to work as a lifeguard at a small, semi-private pool for residents of the nearby townhouses, though they were allowed to bring guests. If someone came in and we didn’t recognize them, we’d ask for proof of address to make sure they actually lived in the condos.
One day, an older man showed up with his two granddaughters, and I hadn’t seen any of them before. I went over and asked if he was a resident. He said no, but explained that his son, who did live there, would be arriving soon. I said okay and let it go.
A few minutes later, the man jumped into the pool and sat on the lane rope while calling for his granddaughters to come swim too. I asked him not to sit on the rope because it could stretch it out, and besides, the rule was clearly posted on the board.
It was a small pool, and business was slow that day, so for the next few minutes there wasn’t much else going on. Then one of the regulars told me the older man was having a puff in the eating area, which was also against the rules and clearly posted. So I went over and asked him to take it outside the fence, and that’s when he completely lost his temper.
He started yelling at me right in front of his granddaughters, accusing me of having some kind of grudge against him. I told him I wasn’t singling him out; no one else was doing anything that needed my attention. He demanded to speak to the manager. I told him he already was. He stormed out of the pool area, then came back a few minutes later and demanded my resignation. I told him to leave.
32. First Impression, Worst Impression
I worked at Best Buy during the summer of 2008 in the Home Theater department, and it was actually my very first day there. I didn’t even have a real uniform yet, just a name tag. This irritated-looking guy came over and asked if I knew where the RCA couplers were. I looked around for a minute because I had no idea what an RCA coupler even was.
I was just about to get my manager when he spotted what he needed himself. And what did he do? He shouted, “What the heck?! What kind of training did they give you?” So I went and got my manager, and then the guy started yelling at him about what a terrible employee I was. “Train them in back before you put them on the floor.” Then he stormed off.
Apparently, he was a Best Buy manager from Oregon.
33. Wined & Declined
I work as a bagger at a grocery store. One day, a wealthy mom came up to the register with four bottles of red and set them down. She placed every bottle upright on the moving conveyor belt. As most people would expect, once the belt starts moving, a bottle is probably going to tip over.
This woman, being as careless as she was, put one right near the edge and, sure enough, it fell off the belt—pretty much exploding, with red liquid splashing everywhere. Long story short, after we cleaned it up from under the register and the candy shelf, she noticed one tiny spot on her $250 Ugg boot.
She went straight to customer service and demanded that the store pay for her boots. My manager basically gave her a polite “no,” and that was the end of it. Sure enough, I saw her later in the parking lot getting into her huge Hummer H2 with 22-inch rims. People these days...
34. No Takebacks
A woman once threw a teaspoon at me because she wanted me to refill her iced tea. What she didn’t realize was that I had already topped off her glass when I passed by the table. She must have been too busy digging into a veal parmesan the size of a hubcap sitting in front of her.
When I walked over and asked why she thought it was okay to throw a hard metal object at me just to get my attention, she said, “I need you to refill my...” (looks down) “...oh. You must have— ... huh... never mind.” As I walked away, I heard her mutter to her husband, “No, I’m not going to apologize to a waiter!”
35. Not All Heroes Wear Capes
I worked at a vitamin store, and one day a woman came rushing in and marched straight to the counter. She cut in front of the whole line just to make a return. It was like she didn’t even notice the other customers waiting. She was upset because one of our sales associates had sold her a product, and later she saw on Dr. Oz that it supposedly didn’t do much.
I told her, politely, to please wait in line and that we’d help her get it sorted out. But she kept insisting that she needed help right away. She said her doctor told her it wouldn’t help, so I asked if her doctor was Dr. Oz. That made her even more upset, and she started acting pretty immature—but I didn’t have to say anything else, because someone else stepped in.
The man standing behind her was my hero that day. He calmly said, “Please calm down and wait your turn.” It’s customers like that who make my day as a retail employee.
36. Patience Is A Virtue
I was helping an elderly woman when she suddenly fainted and hit her head on the counter as she fell. Everyone rushed over to help her, spoke to her as she came to, held a paper towel to her bleeding head, and tried to keep her calm while we waited for the ambulance.
Then another woman stepped right over her lying body, came up to the counter, and insisted on being checked out because she was in a hurry.
37. Timing Is Everything
My first job was at a locally owned video store, about 10 years ago, back before Netflix had really taken over. It could get incredibly busy.
One day, the line stretched all the way to the door. A customer came up to the counter and said the DVDs he had bought wouldn’t play, and he wanted to return them for a refund. I apologized, said no problem, and asked to take a look—already knowing we never sold DVDs covered in scratches. But I was not prepared for what I saw.
The discs were completely ruined, like someone had come at them with a box cutter and then let a few cats bat them around for fun. I told him I was sorry, but we couldn’t resell them in that condition. That’s when he completely lost his temper.
He started yelling about how I wouldn’t know anything, since I wasn’t the person who sold them to him—even though I was, and he just didn’t remember. He pointed his finger right in my face. Keep in mind, I was a small 15-year-old girl, and he was a man in his 50s. I just kept stammering out apologies for five minutes until he finally left.
Then the next customer walked up, after watching the whole thing, and casually asked, “Miss, could you tell me where I might find the movie The Jerk?” Maybe it was a coincidence, but either way, bless that kind customer. For a brief moment, he restored my faith in people.
38. I Screamed, She Screamed, We All Screamed For Ice Cream
I worked in a store that sold ice cream. One day, a woman came up to me and asked for a family-sized tub. It cost about $5 and came with 9 scoops of ice cream. She paid, and I went over to the counter. She spent a while looking over the selection of around nine flavours.
Then she said, “I don’t really like any of these. Do you have anything fruity?” I told her I wasn’t sure, but I’d check the freezer in the back to see if there was anything that hadn’t been put out yet. So I headed off, leaving my coworker to keep helping customers. It wasn’t very busy, so he was fine on his own.
I came back with two flavours: Strawberry and Raspberry Ruffle. I showed them to her, and she said she’d like a little of both, if that was possible. I said of course, but gave her a quick warning. Since they had just come out of the freezer, they were rock hard and would be really difficult to scoop, so it might take a little while.
She said that was fine, and then my right arm got the workout of its life. Before long, a line started to form, and my coworker asked me for some help. I excused myself and told the woman there was a queue, and that the ice cream would have a chance to soften while I helped the other customers. She said that was okay, so off I went.
After about five minutes of serving people, the woman suddenly stormed over, her face bright red. “I HAVE BEEN WAITING 20 MINUTES FOR MY ICE CREAM! WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO WAIT SO LONG?!”
Both I and the customer I was serving were completely caught off guard.
I said, “I’m sorry, but as I mentioned before, I had just taken the ice cream out of the freezer, and it was rock solid, and—” But she cut me off. Then she said something that nearly made me lose all composure.
She asked, “WELL WHY IS IT IN THE FREEZER, THEN?!”
I looked at her. Then I looked at the customer I was serving, who was a regular and knew me well. She was trying very hard not to laugh. I couldn’t manage it. I started laughing, and once I started, I couldn’t stop.
The woman stormed out, and I never saw her again. I still laugh when I think about it.
39. When Duty Calls…
I used to work as a slot attendant at a casino. My job mainly involved paying out jackpots to slot players, doing minor maintenance on the machines, and refilling the coins when a machine ran out.
One time, I was helping a customer with a coin jam when an older man started yelling at me, “Hey! Hey! Sir, get over here! Get over here now!”
I apologized to the customer I was assisting and went over. The man shouted, “Watch my machine!” Then he ran toward the bathroom clutching himself—apparently he was about to have an accident.
40. Cracking Up
I worked at a Wendy’s in high school, and we saw plenty of unusual customers, but this guy really stood out. There was one man who came through the drive-thru almost every day, sometimes more than once. He drove an old Cutlass with faded paint and rusty rims.
He was a big guy, probably in his 30s, but the most memorable thing about him was his hair. It looked like a mix between a bowl cut and dreadlocks, except it seemed that way mostly because it clearly hadn’t been washed in a very long time.
Anyway, he would come through the drive-thru and order the same thing every time: a triple cheeseburger with extra pickle and a large chili, NO CRACKERS—he always made sure to stress that part. If you know Wendy’s chili, the crackers don’t come in it. They’re in separate packets, and you add them yourself if you want.
One day, one of the teenagers working there decided to pull a prank. He thought it would be funny to stuff a bunch of cracker packets into the guy’s bag. The man pulled up in his Cutlass, took the bag, and started to drive away. A few seconds later, we heard tires screech in the parking lot, and it was him.
He must have spotted the crackers in the bag, and he was furious. He came storming into the restaurant and actually tried to go straight behind the counter. Seriously, he headed right for the door and tried to force his way into the back.
Luckily, one of the cashiers was a pretty large guy and stopped him from getting any farther. That’s when things got even stranger. He went into the dining room, yelling incoherently—he never even brought up the crackers during any of it, which I always thought was strange—and then started flipping over chairs and sweeping things off the tables.
Then he grabbed a salt shaker and poured the entire thing into his mouth. After that, he started shouting and whipping his head around, spraying salty spittle everywhere. At some point, he had also taken his shirt off.
After about five minutes of chaos, the authorities finally arrived, and he was tased and carried out. They towed his Cutlass away, and we never saw him again. That guy was completely unhinged.
41. They’re Going On The Naughty List
Years ago, I was a manager at Toys R Us. I was probably around 25. It was Christmas Eve, so we were closing at 6 p.m. or so, after working 100-hour weeks nonstop since Halloween.
At about 5:30 p.m., I got called to the customer service desk at the front of the store. There, I was “greeted” by three adults who had clearly been drinking and who, between them, looked like they shared about eight or nine teeth.
Grandma launched into an explanation, with lots of sputtering and spitting, about how upset they were that the season’s three hottest toys were sold out, and she wanted me to somehow find them for her: “And we’re not leaving until you do!”
Twenty minutes later, after raised voices, assorted threats, and several displays knocked over, with merchandise broken as the three of them tried to make their point, the officer on duty asked if I wanted to press charges and have them detained. He was very ready to do it.
Instead, I decided to give them my own version of a Christmas gift. I told them, “You have two options: one, you leave the store right now, and yes, that means explaining to the kids why waiting until the last minute doesn’t guarantee the hottest toys. Or two, you can spend the night behind bars and explain that to the kids.”
After a few seconds of blissful silence and stunned realization, the three decided to leave on their own, though of course they cursed at me all the way out of the store.
42. Black Coffee For A Black Cloud
A woman came in, and we could all tell right away she was in a bad mood. She parked carelessly, slammed the doors on her way in, and didn’t crack a smile. She ordered a large hot black coffee. Simple enough, so I made it, handed it to her, and after one sip she asked if I had put cream and sugar in it. I said no, because I thought she had asked for it black.
She explained that she did say black, but meant a dark roast coffee with cream and sugar added. I calmly told her that there had been a misunderstanding, but she got very upset and started insulting me. She said I needed better training before working a shift, and that the owner should be embarrassed for letting me work there.
I am the owner.
43. All For Nothing
I hadn’t been at that job very long, and after we closed, a family was still shopping. I let them know we were closed, and the older woman got really upset. The whole time I was ringing them up, she kept yelling at me, saying, “We were coming to the register! You’re being rude and ignorant!”
It was a dollar store, so we counted everything by hand instead of scanning it. I had to count more than 100 items while she was yelling at me. And to make it even worse, their card wouldn’t go through, so we had to put everything back.
44. More Than Meets The Eye
I work in a grocery store bakery as a cake decorator, and people can get really intense about their cakes. I took an order from a woman who wanted a Transformers cake for her son’s birthday, but she didn’t like the two options we had. She could either get a cake decorated with a toy on top or a cake with an edible Transformers image.
She kept showing me pictures of other cakes on her phone, and I had to keep telling her no because we have to follow strict copyright rules and can only decorate designs we’re allowed to use. Eventually, she ordered the kit—or at least that’s what I thought. Her husband picked up the cake, said it looked fine, and took it home.
Later, she called the store saying she had wanted the image version, that the cake was ugly, and that her 6-year-old son was crying. Then she ended the whole thing by saying, “I just want to come in there and smash the cake in that girl’s face!”
In 10 years of retail, I had never been threatened before. Because of that comment, she didn’t get any refund at all, and she was also firmly called out for making threats.
45. Steaming Mad
I’m in college, and I used to wait tables part-time before it all became too much for me. One time, I had a customer who seemed really nice at first. She came in alone and knew exactly what she wanted right away. But apparently her food was too hot, and she became unbelievably angry when I apologized and explained that everything is served fresh from the oven or grill. Her reaction was awful.
She grabbed my hand, pushed it toward her very hot food, and yelled, “DON’T YOU THINK IT’S TOO HOT, DEAR?” in the harshest, most condescending voice. To be fair, it was really hot, but I had literally just brought it to her. I was completely stunned and could only stammer out an apology. My co-worker saw what happened and immediately told her to leave.
I ended up crying in the back for a while afterward. I definitely don’t miss that job. I’m probably too shy and introverted to stand up for myself in moments like that. Seriously, just treat employees like human beings, people.
Nicholas Felix/peopleimages.com, Adobe Stock
46.The Lunatics Are Running The Asylum
A few years ago, I worked at Old Navy. It was a pretty typical retail job, and overall things were going well. One day, I was assigned to the fitting room area when a guy came in to try on some pants or something. After he finished, he stepped out and started doing that usual pat-down people do to make sure they have all their stuff. Then he suddenly froze.
He spun around, looked right at me, and said, “YOU TOOK MY KEYS!” The whole time, I had never touched his pants or any of his belongings at all. So I calmly told him I didn’t have his keys and that they were probably still in the fitting room.
He went back to check, couldn’t find them, and came back out even more upset, yelling at me to give his keys back. Eventually, he asked to speak to the manager. So my manager came over and tried to figure out what was going on. She calmly told him that she doubted I had taken anything and tried to ease the situation.
At that point, the guy started shouting at her too and called the authorities. I was completely stunned. The officers arrived about 5 to 10 minutes later, took everyone’s information, and my manager told me to head to the back room and take a break while they sorted everything out.
From the back, I could still hear the guy panicking, saying the keys belonged to a mental institution and that I might “try to sneak the patients out.” After another five minutes, my manager came back and told me he had never checked his back pocket, and that was where the keys had been the whole time.
She made him apologize to me and then told him to leave. I was really confused in the moment, but looking back now, it’s actually pretty funny.
47. A Bald-Faced Lie
When I worked at Tim Hortons, a woman came in asking for a refund for a coffee she had bought. She said she’d found a hair in it, but she couldn’t actually show it to us. “Obviously I don’t still have it, but it was definitely the same color as the girl who poured it!”
I assumed she meant it matched the employee’s hair color. Unfortunately for everyone, the girl who had been pouring coffee for the past two and a half hours was near the end of an intense round of chemotherapy and hadn’t had any hair at all for more than a month.
Once we pointed that out, the customer looked completely embarrassed and left without saying another word.
48. Where’s The Mute Button
I used to work at an audio store, and customers would often bring in their own CDs to test different speakers and equipment. That was totally normal. We actually encouraged people to come back with their own music if they wanted.
One day, an older, heavyset man came slowly into the store with a cane and a handful of CDs. The moment I walked over to help him, I had to focus hard on not reacting to his very strong body odor.
Since retail means dealing with all kinds of people, this unfortunately wasn’t completely unusual, and I managed to stay professional. He handed me his CDs to play, and I flipped through them quickly to see if I recognized anything. I didn’t.
I put in the first disc, and he asked me to start with a specific track. It was a pleasant bluegrass tune, which isn’t usually my thing, but that wasn’t unusual either. While the intro was playing, I glanced at the back cover and noticed the song titles. I was completely caught off guard.
Some of the tracks were called “The White Revolution” and “America: Take It Back”—and those were the mildest ones. At that point, I rushed over to the listening room door and shut it right as the lyrics started.
I can’t remember the exact words, but they were some of the most hateful and offensive lyrics I’ve ever heard. All I wanted was to get the man out of the store without making a scene, but he kept asking to hear just one more song.
I ended up playing six or seven tracks for him before he finally decided he didn’t like how any of the speakers sounded. He gathered his CDs and left. Relieved, I went back to the stack of amplifiers to reset everything for the next demo, and then I looked at the chair he had been sitting in.
The fabric was dark and damp, and I didn’t need to get any closer to realize he had had an accident all over our nice chair. I hurried out of the room, snapped bristles off one of the brooms in the back, and my coworkers and I drew straws to decide who would have to clean it up.
I had plenty of difficult customers over the years, but this man was easily the worst.
49. Breaking The Bank
I worked as a teller at a bank in San Francisco for several years. One day, about fifteen minutes before closing, I noticed a nervous, sweaty-looking man walk into the bank. He stood out right away because he had a large duffel bag with him, and he was holding and dragging it very carefully.
As I watched him get closer and closer to the teller line, my heart started racing. He looked more nervous by the second too. He kept letting other customers go ahead of him, which only made things feel stranger. I remember thinking, “Something about this feels wrong. We’re about to get robbed, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
By the time he reached the end of the line, most of the employees had noticed him. We had officially closed the bank, and one of the tellers was at the door helping customers leave and making sure no one else came in.
I remember thinking, “Oh no, there’s something in that bag,” as he awkwardly walked up to my window. Then he said, “I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t bring this home.” He lifted the duffel bag onto the counter and opened it. I could not believe what I was seeing. Sitting inside was nearly half a million dollars in brewski-soaked cash.
It happened to be Bay to Breakers weekend—a huge race that brings an even bigger party crowd—and this man owned a local bar. His safe was completely full, and he was too afraid to take the money home because he had been burglarized before. It was Friday, and we would not reopen until Monday.
The reason I’m sharing this story is not just because of the customer, but because of everything that happened next. The problem was that all the money had come from his bar’s street cart, which he had set up for the runners, so the bills were soaked with spilled drinks.
Usually, banks have those handy machines that count cash for you, but it turns out they do not work well with wet bills. None of the money could go through the machines, so we had to count every bill by hand. We closed up and sent everyone home except me and two managers.
We stayed late counting money for nearly four hours—sticky, sour-smelling, half-fermented cash. Then, once we were finally sure the count was right, we realized we did not even have enough room in our vault to store it all. A huge portion of it was in one-dollar bills, so we had to call another branch manager late at night and ask him to open his bank, which had one of those massive walk-in vaults.
That, in turn, meant he had to go through all kinds of steps just to get permission to do it. Luckily, once my drawer was balanced, I got to go home. The managers were still dealing with the whole situation well past midnight.
50. Splish Splash
I worked at a local pizza restaurant for two years, so I had my share of difficult customers. The worst one I ever dealt with came in the week before I left for school, while I was training my replacement.
This guy walked up to the front counter and ordered a large pizza. I told him it would take 20 to 25 minutes, since that was our standard wait time. He paid and sat down to wait. But about five minutes later, he came back up, grumbling and asking how much longer it was going to take because it felt like he had been waiting forever.
I checked his order and told him it had only been five minutes and asked him to have a seat again. Then, about two minutes later, he came back and asked why it was taking so long. I explained that it had not been very long and that this was the normal amount of time it took to make a pizza. He started yelling at me, but eventually sat back down.
A man then came in to pick up a pizza he had ordered earlier by phone, and I handed it to him as he paid. That made the waiting customer furious. He came back to the counter again, now about ten minutes after placing his order, and started shouting at me.
He demanded to know how that customer got his pizza before him and insisted that any orders placed after his should be behind his in line. He kept saying I had arranged it so his pizza would be last. I told him the other customer had called in his order before he arrived, and I even explained that if he was in a hurry next time, he could do the same.
I tried to tell him there was no strange pizza-line plot against him, but that a large pizza usually takes 25 minutes to make. He finally sat down again, this time in the seats right next to the counter. I went to the back and told my manager the man was acting strangely, so he came back to the counter with me.
Then another customer came in to pick up a phone order that had also been placed before this man’s order, and paid for his pizza. The man in the chair started “whispering” to that customer, but since he was sitting right next to us, we could hear everything. He pointed at me and told the customer that I was rude and stupid and still had not given him his pizza.
By this point, it had been around 15 minutes, but we asked the kitchen to move his pizza into the oven first so we could just get him out of the store. The customer in line looked confused, and my manager finally stepped in. He calmly told the man that his pizza would be ready very soon.
The man stood up and started yelling at me again, calling me rude and saying a lot of other nasty things. This was all happening inside a family restaurant. Right then, his pizza came up. I took it from the back and handed it to my manager, who shoved it into the man’s chest and told him to leave the restaurant immediately or he would call the authorities.
He walked out, but of course that was not the end of it. I was shaken, and my manager told me to take a short break outside. I went into the back alley where our delivery drivers were supposed to park.
I was talking to a few drivers about how unbelievable this guy had been when he suddenly showed up in his car in the alley. There was a huge puddle back there filled with filthy water. He drove back and forth through it, splashing all of us with the water, and then sped off, still yelling at me.
