Some people strongly believe that everyone should be forced to work at least a year in the service industry to teach them patience, self-awareness, and how to properly deal with rude customers.
Think of it like an entitlement-diversion program.
Reddit user ilostmygender_ asked:
"What’s the most ridiculous complaint you’ve ever heard in the service industry?"
Because if there is anything that will ensure we have fewer entitled people being ridiculous, it's making sure everyone gets to deal with those types of people face-to-face.
Check out the ridiculousness Reddit has had to put up with.
Deserve To Party
"Every year, couple of weeks before Christmas, my restaurant closes a couple of hours early (7 instead of 10, and it's usually on a Wednesday, so it's not nearly as busy) so all the employees can get together and have a small holiday party."
"We had a sign up on our door two weeks before the party, letting everyone know we were closing early. As this was the year after covid, and we didn't get to have a party the previous year, we were really excited and ready for it."
"At about 8'oclock, a woman comes to the door, sees it's locked, and goes ballistic. She man-handles the door and starts slamming her fist against it. She ignored all my co-workers who were shaking their heads."
"Finally I go over and unlock the door to talk to her. She just starts screaming about how we're not supposed to be closed, etc, etc and I'm just shaking my head pointing at the sign."
"She finishes with 'you people don't even deserve to have a party'. And with that I just smiled and said 'well now we're definitely not helping you, goodnight.' And closed the door."
"2 days later I get a call from the owner of the restaurant, saying she actually filed a real complaint about it. We had a great laugh"
- Hellvillain
Resturant Manager Or Traffic Officer
"I worked with a manager at a fast food place that got a complaint filed against him with corporate. Lady said she was second in line in the drive thru, the car in front of her gets their food, and goes to drive away, but accidentally put his car in reverse. He stops quickly, goes into the correct gear and leaves."
"Lady comes up and complains that the other customer ALMOST hit her car. Then she later complains that the manager was 'very unhelpful.' Still have no idea what either she or corporate expected him to do."
"Then, we had a customer drive his car up over a curb onto the grass, drive for another 6-8 feet, and hit a large rock in the grass, breaking his radiator."
"Dude wasnt under the influence, absolutely no clue how he didnt see a 3 foot tall rock in front of him, or why he was suddenly compelled to do some offroading in a Lincoln Towncar."
"He immediately comes in and starts yelling about how he's gonna sue the company for damages to his car. Despite the fact that he drove straight into it, over a curb, in broad daylight."
"Like, his car went to that rock like a soldier returning from war runs to the arms of his lover. Without missing a beat, my shift lead tells him that corporate will have much better lawyers than he does, and they'll 'counter sue you for damages to our rock'."
- DisabledBiscuit
"damages to our rock lol"
- rdummy_soup
"Your manager should have offered to ALMOST give her some money to compensate for him ALMOST hitting her car."
- magpac
traffic GIFGiphyDidn't Ask The Exact Question
"I was serving a couple their meal. I had stopped by after their first few bites and asked them how they were doing. They said great and I moved on to the next table. At the end of the meal, they asked for the manager and complained about my service, that I didn’t check in. When I told my manager that I had checked in on them, she said they said 'Well, they came and asked how WE were doing, but not how the food was. WE were doing fine, but we didn’t like the food…'."
- Matchmaker4180
"Seems a little petty. To be honest, I've only had waiters ask me some variant of "so how are you enjoying your food? Good?" And then I tell them it's good and they move on to the next table."
"If you don't like the food...you can just tell the waiter. You don't need a prompt."
- geico_fire
Hand-ing Some Drinks
"I was using my hands to hand people their drinks"
"I quit that same day"
- goldenbrushes
"Your bad man. You’re supposed to use your feet like that alien pod racer guy in Star Wars the phantom menace"
- nhbd
"Not even using your mind powers, how lazy smh"
- Yab0iFiddlesticks
"I would get mittens, spill half of every drink, charge full price and then tell any angry manager...I just fulfill customers' wishes...."
"Some people should get LITERALY what they wanted....after a short time, they would be cured of their entitlement...."
- applesandoranges990
Changed The Building Layout
"A woman swore up and down that we had an upstairs (we didn't) and then, after twenty minutes of searching, accused us of hiding it from her."
"A whole second story."
- PickanickBasket
"We actually had a similar moment!"
"Customer paid for their washing machine in the till, and was told to go around the corner (of the wall, still in the same building, pointed with the whole hand) to pickup the machine."
"Customer came back 10 minutes later fuming that they couldn't find the second floor to pick up said washing machine."
"Entire building is on ground level. Opening from the tills to the room where they were supposed to pick up the product is as big as the broadside of an elephant. But it's our fault and we scammed him off his money because we didn't want to give him that washing machine."
- Brevlada-00
Severely Allergic
"Someone came back with a breakfast sandwich I made for them saying they wanted to get whoever made it fired because it has bacon instead of sausage."
"They said they're severely allergic to bacon and would end up in the hospital and that the person who made it (me) shouldn't work here if they can't read screens (for what the order says). A trainee was on speaker and punched in a BELT (which is made with bacon) instead of the sausage version which admittedly isn't an easy thing to punch in for a new person on our POS system. So I read the screen correctly."
"HOW can someone be severely allergic to bacon and not sausage which is the same animal and everything ?!? We also use the same tongs for bacon and sausage too, there is definitely tons of cross contamination between them anyways"
"My manager spoke to me privately about it and I said I was prepared for her to fake fire me to humor him lol"
- koopkop
"Reminds me when I worked in a Chinese place and people would be deathly allergic to MSG. When I explained it came in the fried rice we'd make in advance they'd reply 'oh a little won't hurt'."
- Matookie
Season 8 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphyThe People Want Adult Films
"I worked at Blockbuster and some guy got angry at me because we 'no longer' carried adult films. I explained that we had never carried porn but he said 'You have Red Shoes Diaries!' - which isn't porn."
"Then he threw the Rugrats movie on the counter and opened his wallet to get his membership card. After he paid, he shook the Rugrats movie at me and said 'People want PORN! Goddamn you.'"
- BarracudaImpossible4
"I worked at a Blockbuster and we had an older guy throw a tantrum because I wouldn't let him in the 'backroom' to look at the 'adult films' which we 100% didn't have. The manager ended up finding out he was confusing us with Family Video."
- Albino_Wendigo
Stephen Colbert Blockbuster GIF by The Late Show With Stephen ColbertGiphyCold Cuts Too Cold
"I worked at Arbys as a teen. At the time we had a new angus cold cut sandwich. This woman came in and ordered it. It was like a $12 meal."
"Gave her her drink cup, a min later she comes back and throws the cup at me because we didnt have any drinks she liked. We had like 10 different sodas, coffee, iced tea, lemonade, water, fruit punch, etc. Not sure what exactly she wanted."
"Anyways, I give her her sandwich and fries, she takes them to the table, takes one bite, comes back and slams the tray on the counter complaining that the sandwich was cold. I informed her that its supposed to be made that way. "Where? Where does it say that its a cold sandwich?" I pointed to the menu and said "in the name. COLD CUT sandwich""
"I ask her if she wants me to heat up her sandwich for her. No she doesnt. Does she want me to make her another one that is hot? No. Does she want something else to eat? Nope. Does she wanted a refund then? No! She just walks out! She spent $12 to take 1 bite of a sandwich and didnt even take the refund."
- stitchmidda2
"Sounds like she got buyer’s remorse and expressed it in the most childish way possible. Many such cases"
- akaTim
No Plastic, No Logic
"I worked at a Target at a town in CA that independently enacted a plastic bag ban a year or so before it was a statewide thing, so I got the joy of explaining that new rule to everyone. No plastic bags, paper bags are 10 cents, you can bring your own reusables or buy them for a buck."
"I could sometimes turn the mood by suggesting that they save the dime and carry out their stuff in whatever laundry hamper/bucket/storage tub they also happened to be buying."
"So a lady comes through and buys a cat litter box and a bunch of grocery items, gets in a snit about the bag thing, and when I point to the litter box (basically just a plastic bin) and say she can just take her stuff out in that, she gives me the most DISGUSTED look and declares 'I will NOT put my FOOD in a LITTERBOX'."
"Then she stomped off carrying a wobbly loose pile of groceries in one arm and the box that has never yet seen a cat dangling in her other hand. Good luck in life, girl"
- WankSpanksoff
"Oh god I worked at Macy's in Seattle for two holidays in a row, and Seattle had the plastic bag ban before the rest of the state, so I completely understand what you went through with people just being b**ch about the bag tax. Ours was 5 cents, though. And it has already been a thing for a while before my first season working there, and obviously by the second season working there... I excused the few customers who weren't from the state - in a few cases, they weren't even from the country - from being stupid, but SHEESH."
"Also to be honest when it got busy I'd just give people bags for free. Not worth explaining the whole thing and people going "Well that's OUTRAGEOUS" to me like I have any control over bag-related mandates."
"It was especially stupid when people would be OUTRAGED over the bag thing when they had already come from another store in the mall. Like, okay, even if they didn't charge you for the bag THERE the fact is that you have a bag with you right now from that store that you can just put your purchase in."
- OneGoodRib
Should Smile more
"I was a server at a local Italian/pizza place. I was a waitress and this was a busy Saturday. One table (that seemingly had no issues) asked to talk to my manager. I ask if anything was wrong, they say no, they just want to talk to him. After they leave, i ask what was going on with them. He said they complained that I wasnt friendly enough/smiled enough."
"He asked if the service was poor. No, they said I was very attentive and always had full drinks and everything they needed."
"Was their order messed up? Nope. Food was amazing!"
"What was wrong? She didnt seem happy/friendly/didnt smile"
"Manager tells them that my dad had just died a week ago. Guests suggest that maybe I should take time off of work if I cant smile for customers."
"What. The. F*ck!? Cause like, server dont get paid time off, i HAD to work or I would have lost my apartment etc"
- yosarianmarx
Sarcastic Yeah Right GIF by BounceGiphyWe're betting pretty much every one of those people is, at the very least, a polite dining guest and solid tipper when they're at restaurants, not going to tell people they don't deserve celebrations, and doesn't tell servers they shouldn't be allowed to work if they can't smile and be chipper right after their dad died.
Reddit user New-Low5765 asked:
"People who work in the airline industry, what are some of the craziest things you have seen?"
Don't Drink And Tow Aircraft
"Worked as ground crew. 2nd day on the job we were issued a notice to gather."
"So when you check in every morning you’re supposed to always take a breathalyzer test to prove you can like you know, ride around the tarmack, use pushbacks on planes, etc..."
"For whatever reason this dude hadn’t taken it/got past without taking it."
"He was not sober."
"He was tasked with pulling a 370 [aircraft] into a hangar."
"He eyeballed it for whatever reason."
"So here we are watching a video of this absolute loon break the whole wing off while damaging the hangar in the process."
"Because he was drunk, insurance doesn’t kick in."
"We were promptly told that Christmas bonuses might be a bit smaller."
~ ProbablyChe
Occupational Hazard
"Someone had the tip of their finger cut off when closing the door to the plane and didn't say anything until the flight landed at the arrival gate and when the door was opened the chunk of finger fell out."
"The staff then said, 'Oh yeah, that's my finger. you can throw it away'."
"I guess he just bandaged and wrapped his own hand."
"It was about 1/4 of his finger including the nail that was cut off. The cutoff portion wasn't particularly bloody and it was really pale."
~ If_I_remember
"A plane I got on once almost left without half of its aircrew on it."
~ BeerisAwesome01
"'Let’s just go, they can meet us there'."
~ InformativePenguin
"Plot twist. That included the pilots."
~ Windyandbreezy
Excess Baggage
"Coffin with dead body inside being left off the flight due to overload without notice either to us or the family and the family realising it by seeing it while the plane was leaving and screaming to us."
~ elenivog
employee of the month ups GIFGiphyNoped Out
"Saw the pilot walk into the passenger area and say 'I'm not flying this piece of sh*t' and get off the plane."
"All the passengers followed him."
~ Jaded-Session8422
"Hell yeah, I'm following the pilot off the plane if something like this happens!"
~ lukaron
Giphy"I had something similar happen, but never got on the plane."
"It was sitting there seemingly ready but they never started boarding."
"Eventually the pilots walk off the plane and a few of us heard them say ‘This junk isn’t going anywhere’."
"Flight ended up getting cancelled a short time later."
~ potatocross
"I was threatened with [pilots walking out] multiple times a week as an aircraft dispatcher."
"Auxiliary power units (APUs) run the air conditioning (AC) in the aircraft and they were always broken down and not fixed quickly, so when the pilots show up it is hot as hell inside and there's no ground crew to connect the external AC."
"So I would get a call from the Captain telling me he is not going to fly this piece of shit because it is too hot."
"Then they'd go on a tirade about how bad the company sucks because they don't do maintenance."
"I would agree with them completely."
Giphy"Then by the end of the call they'd say they will take it but the company sucks and needs to fix the APU."
"Occasionally the captain would refuse it, but then the ground crew would hook up the AC and they would always get back inside and fly it."
"For sure there were issues that popped up where the AC had an unsolvable issue and it would result in a cancelled flight."
~ Winchery
"I’m Dallas-Fort Worth based. No APU/AC in November? Meh, whatever."
"No APU/AC in August in Texas?"
"I’m not going on that airplane. Ground just can’t keep up."
~ poser765
☣️ Bio-Hazard ☣️
"Flight diverted to my airport because a girl in hotpants got uncontrollable diarrhea from the laxatives she took before the flight to help get over her weekend binge in Vegas."
"She sh*t in her seat and down the aisle and all over the bathroom."
"Five other passengers had uncontrollable vomiting because of this and the panic on the plane from the crew and rest of passengers caused the plane to make an emergency landing."
"They ended up having to cancel the remaining leg of the flight to decontaminate the plane."
"Police were sent and interviewed her and her friends and no charges were filed. I don't know if the airline put her on any kind of no-fly list or tried to have her pay for damages."
~ If_I_remember
GiphyHighly Unsuccessful
"There were two suitcases checked in that were full of nothing but weed."
"The police arrested him in the gating area & confiscated the bags."
~ Traditional_Pair4840
"Something similar happened when I was a ramp rat back in the 1960s."
"Law enforcement was going to do the arrest at his destination."
"The weed disappeared before they got there."
~ endadaroad
Stealthiest Catch
"As a baggage handler I once had a shipment of live Alaskan crabs escape their container on the ramp."
"Flights were delayed."
"Turns out those guys scatter when they panic and try to hide under anything and everything."
~ Gregwaaah
"My significant other worked doing maintenance checks on commercial planes."
"This explains why they once found a bunch of dead crabs under the floorboards in the cargo bay. It was a mysterious mystery."
~ Highly_Referential
Avoiding A Strip Search?
"A fully naked woman just walked through the terminal and tried to walk through security like she wasn’t fully naked."
~ Commercial-Chance561
"She was just very considerately trying to make it easier for TSA."
~ TrooperJohn
"They make you take off your shoes but they don't say that's all you can take off."
~ smartguy05
Language Barrier
"I witnessed this in the security screening of a large American airport."
"And to be fair, there was a language barrier as the passenger in question seemed to be speaking mainly French, and struggling to understand the TSA agent's instructions in English."
"Female passenger (tall, attractive, and sophisticated-looking) was wearing a business suit with a pencil skirt and matching jacket, which was buttoned closed, going through security."
"The TSA agent told her she had to remove the jacket. She ignored and tried to go through anyway."
"He stopped her and told her again more loudly (that's when everyone started noticing)."
"She said no. He insisted. She refused again, and tried to walk through."
Giphy"He got angry."
"She tried to explain something but it was unclear because her English was poor."
"It went back and forth."
"They both started getting angry and frustrated. It started holding up the line and other passengers were getting agitated."
"A few people tried to intervene and explain more calmly that she needed to put her jacket through the x-ray machine."
"Finally, near tears, she blurted out 'fine' and removed her jacket, revealing that she was wearing nothing at all underneath, and walked through the screening machine topless."
~ SigmaSeal66
I'm a nervous flyer so it's not something I do often, but I still feel a little cheated that nothing this bizarre has happened while I was traveling.
Has something ever happened during your travels?
Share it in the comments.
A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.
The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.
Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:
"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"
These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.
Recurring Favor
"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."
– Queasy-Location-9303
"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."
– StiffAssedBrit
The Errand Girl
"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."
"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."
"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"
"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."
"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."
"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."
– ChamomileBrownies
Testing The Friendship
"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."
– plzdontgetmad
"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."
"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."
– NoMrBond3
People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.
The Chaperon
"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."
"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."
"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."
"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."
"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."
– Duffarum
Unwilling Companion
"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."
"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"
"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."
– Auldale
There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.
I Can Do It Better
"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."
– Complex-Half8338
"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"
– Hot-Coffee-8465
Never Steal The Spotlight
"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."
– Jasssin23
"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."
– thefifthtrilogy
All About Me
"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."
– PokemomOnTheGo
People can just be so rude.
"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."
– Tofflus1
"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."
– CatGoNoTail
Not Missing High School
"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."
"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."
"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."
– Symnestra
These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.
Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.
We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.
Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.