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People Divulge The Outright Dumbest Thing They've Ever Heard Someone Say

Do you hear you?

People Divulge The Outright Dumbest Thing They've Ever Heard Someone Say
Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

You can't be serious? I have lost track of the amount of times I've said that to someone, and then nobody specific. The things that fall out of people's mouths can be shocking. Certain oratory moments make you regret having ears. Like how do some humans function? I wish more people would acquire restraint before they speak, or become a mute.

Redditor u/VandalM was hoping everyone would share all the things they wish they could un-hear by asking.... What is the outright dumbest thing you have heard someone say?

PUSH....

Season 5 What GIF by FriendsGiphy

"Pregnancy doesn't have to hurt. It's a myth that it does."

Saxsquatch365

Stop the Babies! 

From a pregnant girl in high-school:

"Smoking doesn't affect my baby because it hasn't developed its lungs yet."This was about 17 years ago. For a catholic school in small community we had surprisingly progressive sex education classes that started in fifth grade. Sex-ed was then taught as a part of the more general health classes that started in middle school and continued through to the end of high school.

As that was the case for us, I don't know what the answer is to cure that kind of ignorance.

aardvark1231

many many many kids....

I work in bankruptcy. One day, a new potential client came in. He was in his mid 30s. He was a truck driver, and had been for about 15 years.

During this time, he'd fathered more than 10 children all over the United States, like he was setting up franchises, or something. However, he'd since settled down, gotten married, and he had two kids with his wife.

The only debt he had was unpaid child support, but it was in the amount of over $50K.

There was nothing we could do to help, as child support obligations can not be eliminated in a bankruptcy.

But at one point in the conversation, he actually said to me, "I can't afford all this child support, I've got a wife and kids!"

Yes sir, you do have a wife, and many, many, many kids. That is an accurate statement.

ArmyOfDog

No Crusts

Judge Judy Reaction GIF by Agent M Loves GifsGiphy

When you toast white bread it gets healthier for you because it turns it brown like whole wheat bread.

Edit: same guy told me I should put my TV on a stand and off the floor because the heat from the TV will coagulate around the bottom and around the TV and mess it up. Yes he used coagulate.

sparkylocal3

Look out Below

One guy tried to prove to me that you can jump out of a falling plane when it is low above the ground and survive by doing a somersault.

RSF-guy

Someone once told me that as long as you land on your side you will survive. I think if I'm ever in a situation where I'm falling with no parachute with no chance of being saved, I'll do a somersault and land on my side. I'll let you all know how it goes.

rleash

Language Arts

"You know, if we had lost the Revolutionary War, we'd all be speaking English right now."

MozzellJames

I was once in a lift* in Vegas and the most yokel redneck I have ever seen asked my mate where we were from and then followed.it up with a classic...

"Oh ya'll from England, what language do you speak there?"

I had no follow up

  • You may know this as an 'elevator' but you are wrong. Engels33

Let's Pray

Catholics weren't Christians and didn't celebrate Easter.

Elbatcho

When my very Catholic dad came across anti semitism in a book he was reading to me and my little siblings, he would stop reading, point to our pictures of Mary and Jesus that we had, and remind us that all the first Christians were, in fact, Jewish.

wanttotalktopeople

Tuesday?

friday the 13th 80s GIFGiphy

What day is Friday the 13th? -My 24-year-old brother.

kaczmarek224

How Healthy

My flatmate saw me scraping the burnt bits off my last piece of toast. She gasped with horror and shrieked,

"OMG do you have any idea how carcinogenic that is?!"

I suggested she go finish her breakfast cigarette outside and then we'd have a conversation about carcinogens.

ArtisFarkus

Oh Daenerys

game of thrones deal with it GIFGiphy

Heard someone saying dragons were extinct. lol

immajustgooglethat

Sounds Like....

'Q... for cucumber'

CheeseIsExcellent

W for Why.
A for Are.
E for Eye or Ex.
C for Cue.

UpsetMarsupial

The "Eyes" Have It...

saturday the 14th bats GIFGiphy

Was working retail and tried to make a joke with a customer that I had "eyes like a bat".

He chuckled, I thought all was well until he looked up at me and said, "Bats don't have eyes."

Shook me to my core.

YEEyourlastHAW

When have YOU had to work?

"If someone can't find a job I don't see why they just don't go back to school, get a degree, and apply for better jobs."

Guy was 27, very sheltered from a wealthy family, and had no clue that you need income for the time you're in school.

Kick on top was he thought all colleges everywhere in the U.S (where he lived) were free. He thought they were like public libraries, just walk in, grab books and sign up for whatever classes you want.

03throwaway03

Location. Location. Location. 

My ex-gf once asked why the nazis went through the hassle of the Anschluß, because "Austria is a different country, and how did the Army even get here when they only invaded France later?"

Apparently she mixed up the location of France and Germany her whole life.

We're Austrian. We don't even have a French border.

JuFo2707

Freaky Treat

hocus pocus halloween GIFGiphy

Wouldn't it be funny if Halloween fell on Friday the 13th?

blackmilksociety

Go Away #2....

While sharing random facts to welcome a new coworker. This is a verbatim quote.

Coworker 1: I was born dead.

Coworker 2 (genuinely concerned): OMG! Did you survive?!

collective pause and staring

Coworker 2: ... that was the dumbest thing I've ever said.

KieselguhrKid13

Up in the Sky

From a grown, 30-something year old woman (I was 22 at the time)

That the moon and sun were the same celestial body. Just at night it's not as bright, because it's night time.

She started crying when I simply pointed up at the moon in the daytime sky, then to the sun in a different part of the sky.

I felt bad. I didn't mean to make her cry. But, Damn!

rhymes_with_chicken

"the dark body"

That Earth is hollow and we live inside. Sun and moon are small balls in the middle. Also there is "dark body", that would be the night. Reason why we can't see sun or moon all the time is, because light does to travel in a straight line, but in spiral and at night sun is hiding behind this black body.

MentalMeltdownDaily

Slow the Puff Bruh

Dog Dude GIFGiphy

10 years ago a friend of mine argued there are more babies on Earth than adults. His reasoning being babies are born every day, adults die every day.

SelfDerecatingTumor

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REDDIT

Managers Have Epic Face-Offs With Crazy Customers
Photo by Microsoft 365 on Unsplash

In almost every interaction with a Karen, there will come a point where she (or he) will ask to speak to the manager. They seem to think that if they over others and just act a fool, they can get what they want—but the following managers REFUSED to let these Karens get away with their inconsiderate antics.

I’m Like A Bird

woman in black headphones holding black and silver headphonesPhoto by Charanjeet Dhiman on Unsplash

I was the only person on shift, which made me the de facto manager. Five minutes before closing, a woman came in and she was SO angry that we didn't have any decaf coffee. She demanded to speak to the manager. I told her that was me because I was the only one there, and the coffee pots were cleaned for the night because we were closing up shop.

Her reply stunned me. She screamed at me and told me she was going to "find a real manager and get you fired”. She then threw half a cup of cappuccino machine sludge at me, and she was about to jump the counter. I was holding a hammer under the counter thinking, "Don't do it, don't do it”. I picked up the phone like I was about to call the authorities. She then left and I locked the door.

A few seconds later, she came back AND RAN FACE-FIRST INTO THE GLASS DOOR. LIKE A BIRD. What an idiot.

wrrdgrrl

That’s What They Call Owning

This is the best interaction I ever had. This Karen griped about not wanting to pay the price for the services performed on her computer, which was exactly the price quoted when she dropped it off. She demanded to speak to the service manager. I called him from the back.

The service manager listened to her spiel as to how she should get a lower price for an irrelevant, pea-brained reason. The service manager made eye contact with me over her shoulder; I did not react. He then said no, the price quoted was the price that would be charged.

She said that was unacceptable, and she would be complaining to the owner, who was “a good friend” she claimed. There was obviously something she didn’t know. The service manager observed that he was evidently not that good a friend, since “he” was me, the person she was originally speaking to when she asked for the service manager.

Her face was glorious, and made the whole thing worthwhile!

garycarroll

Cheesed Off

This happened while I was serving at Steak 'n Shake. The customer had a coupon for a burger, fries, and a shake for a certain price. On the coupon, it specifically stated that cheese on the burger was a 39-cent upcharge, although it did have a picture of a burger with cheese on it. I was not prepared for her ridiculous tantrum.

This lady THREW A FIT in the dining room that I was treating her unfairly, it was false advertising, etc. I told her I agreed that it was false advertising with the picture, but the text specifically stated the upcharge, and unfortunately, I couldn't do anything about it. Also, the difference was literally cents.

The lady at the next table overheard everything and got up and put 50 cents on the table to cover it. She then said something to the effect of "I'll pay for your darn cheese if you just shut up”.

This ticked the cheese lady off even more. My manager obviously sensed the issue and came out. Took the cheese up charge of the bill. Like what the heck, Karen?

woahhhmom8

A Slight Overreaction

The staff did not know it at the time, but our ketchup dispenser was empty. A boy, aged 10-ish, was just smashing down on the handle trying to get ketchup, but none was being dispensed. A staff member noticed the kid smashing the ketchup dispenser, so I went out to see what was going on.

"Oh, the ketchup is empty. I'll get a new bag from the kitchen. Give me two minutes and I'll be right back with some new ketchup”. I removed the empty container, took it back to the kitchen, cleaned the dispenser, and placed it in a new bag. When I took it back out to the condiment stand, I was met by a Karen.

K: "WHY DID YOU TAKE THE KETCHUP AWAY FROM MY SON?!

Me: "The ketchup was empty, so I replaced the bag”.

K: "WHY DID YOU TAKE THE KETCHUP AWAY?! GO GET YOUR MANAGER!"

Me: "Uhhh, okay. One minute”.

I walked about two meters, turned around, and introduced myself as the manager.

K: "WHY DID YOU TAKE THE KETCHUP AWAY FROM MY SON?!

Me: "Ma'am, please lower your voice. The ketchup was empty. I explained to your son that I needed to take it back to the kitchen to refill it”.

K: "NO YOU DIDN'T! I WAS STANDING HERE THE WHOLE TIME. YOU TOOK THE KETCHUP AWAY FROM MY SON!"

Me: "Ma'am, please lower your voice. You were not with your son. He was here alone, trying to get ketchup, which was empty”.

K: "DON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO! DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH?!"

Me: "Nope. Ma'am, please get your belongings and leave this establishment”.

K: "I WILL NOT LEAVE THIS ESTABLISHMENT! I AM GOING TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN!"

Other patrons were now visibly upset with what they were witnessing. I was so done at that point, so I called the authorities. The Karen gave a statement while the officers question me. I also gave a statement. I couldn’t believe my ears. Karen told them that I struck her son, pushed him out of the way, and moved the ketchup to an area where her son couldn't get access to the ketchup.

I disputed the claim and offered to provide video evidence (with sound) of what actually happened. They watched the video once, thanked me, and walked out to the eating area.

Officer: "Ma'am, does your son has someone who can look after him?"

K: "HIS FATHER IS AT WORK RIGHT NOW!"

Officer: "Okay. You're being placed under arrest for making threats and a false report”.

Cue more yelling, threats, and tears. In the end, she was charged with making the false report (but not the threats), and received a lifetime ban from not just our restaurant, but the entire mall where our restaurant was located.

I felt bad. Not for the Karen, but for her son. He has to live with that...

Lily_Loud_Cat

Do You Know Who I Am?

I used to work in a call center and I had plenty of Karens who wanted to talk to someone above me because they thought the world existed to cater to them. I always went back into their account to review the notes to see what was done.

9 out of 10 times they were given whatever they wanted even if it wasn't justified. It was so stupid—enabling these people's behavior is what gets them feeling so entitled in the first place. I once told a woman if she didn't pay for her services, after 60 days they'd be interrupted. Her response took me aback.

She responded with: "Excuse me? I'm a valued customer and that is not how I will be treated”. or something to that effect. Absolutely ridiculous.

midnight_rebirth

It’s Never Enough

smiling girl in black and white striped shirtPhoto by Julien L on Unsplash

Oh heck yeah. Buckle up. I worked as a manager at a chain BBQ restaurant which we will call Popular Charlie’s. There was this lady who we called “Nacho Lady”—I’ll get into why. She was that kind of overweight, holistic living, essential oil, serviceman’s wife. The kind of person who talks to her two-year-old daughter like a coherent adult because she’s going to change the world”.

She had all the “Karen” aesthetics to match. We all dreaded her when she came in. We call her Nacho Lady because whenever she comes by, she orders our nachos at our takeout area. No big deal. But she would want everything on the side. Again, no big deal in most situations because I understand that nachos get soggy really easily, especially to-go.

But what some people don’t like or understand is seeing the actual proportions for everything. Two ounces of anything really isn’t that much. That goes for the cheese, chili, beans, nacho sauce, and all the works. Even though it is all proportioned equally, the customer doesn’t like what they see, and that’s when the backlash happens. The Karen moment started happening.

She didn’t like the actual proportions and demanded more, but refused to pay for it. Our takeout specialists were good at standing up for themselves and the rules.

Of course, she didn’t accept it, so she had to speak to a manager. Myself or two others depending on the day. She would also order two kids’ meals, pork sandwiches, and fries. Again, no big deal, but she was very particular about this one as well.

The pork had to be dry (no BBQ sauce) in a separate container. Kids’ buns toasted, which we don’t usually do. The fries had to be dropped off as soon as she walks in the door so they are crispy and fresh for when she takes them all the way home.

Because of her extreme specifications, it got to the point where only a manager was allowed to take her order and only a manager could review the order with her. This was always the most nerve-wracking part because she would sit down at our waiting table in the takeout area, open every single box and inspect everything.

Also, the way she went about was very...Karen. This is when all the issues would happen. The fries were never hot and fresh and crispy enough, and I sent them back to get new ones. There wasn’t enough of portioned pork for the kid’s sandwich, and she demanded more. There was not enough cheese sauce and shredded cheese, and she demanded more. There were not enough tortilla chips, and you know the rest.

The list went on. And to top it all off, she somehow got a hold of a ton of “free kid’s meal” coupons that were blank—meaning no manager signature, dates, or any sort of validation that she got it legitimately. A coupon is…no big deal…but a typical coupon can only be used one at a time with one transaction.

Only, a Karen being a Karen, she demanded we used two out of the giant stack so she gets her kids’ meals for free. This got to the point where things had to be run by the General Manager. Even if it means calling him on his day off. He was a bit of a wimp and always allowed it, but then she started costing us money.

It wasn’t feasible for her to keep coming back and having her as a customer because 9 times out of 10, we would end up having to send stuff back to the kitchen. A lot of waste. My other manager, Billy, was a fierce woman who never let anyone walk over her, she was awesome. She finally stepped up and made a call over the General Manager’s order and 86ed her.

When that moment came, we all huddled in the office and watched the security cameras as Billy ripped her a new one. That was an unforgettable day. I left and got out of the restaurant industry and management because of how horrible that field can be, but I do love that I have a “Karen” story from it.

bob-le-tree

A Bunch Of Suck Ups

I work at a vacuum repair shop. People don’t pay attention to their vacuum cleaners as much as you'd think. I can't tell you how many times someone comes to pick up their vacuum and says "Oh this one isn't mine" or "Mine didn’t have scratches down the side".

I'd always reply: "I can tell you it is, and it came in with all those scratches on the side". After the first two times it happened to me, we started taking pictures of the unit with serial numbers and customer information. We’d send them home with the serial number and require them to bring it back for pick up. We thought that would fix everything—but we were wrong.

Despite the evidence, I've had a lady close to tears because we didn’t have her vacuum. Even with the pictures, we had of it at drop off, her information, and the matching serial numbers, she wasn’t buying it. Sure, it's a big conspiracy and we just love taking in vacuums and switching all the information around because it's fun. People need to pay more attention.

myacheivement

Having Her Cake And Eating It Too

I used to work part-time at a bakery inside a grocery store. I dealt with my fair share of Karens during this time. Just to paint this picture of how it would work, we had a binder with laminated copies of about 100 different designs the decorators did regularly.

A customer would look through the book, pick a design they wanted, and fill me in on the details of when they wanted it, what size, what flavor, if any color changes were necessary, etc. Our decorators would come in at 7 AM and stay for however long it took to complete their orders.

So usually, they were gone by early- to mid-afternoon. The bakery closed along with the store at 9 PM. One day, maybe around 8:15 or 8:20 pm, a woman comes in and says she needs a cake. I figure she's referring to the cakes sitting in our cooler, which we keep at the ready in case anybody just wants something quick and simple.

So I motion to the cooler and ask her if she sees anything she likes. Then it starts—every retail worker's nightmare. Apparently, I'm a brilliant comedian because she starts laughing, and goes, "No, sweetie, I need a wedding cake”. Alright, no big deal. I grab an order form and take down her information, and then ask what day she needs it.

"Tonight”.

Mind you, the store was closing in ~40 minutes, so even if I could decorate a cake, I wouldn't be able to help her. I tell her that there are no decorators present at the moment, but I could make sure it was ready for her first thing the next morning. She's clearly upset by this but says that'd be fine.

I continue taking her order and ask her what size she'd like. Our bakery was not an upscale joint, and our prices reflect that; just about everything comes in frozen. Our cakes come in a variety of predetermined sizes.

She pulls out her phone and thrusts it in my face, saying "Whatever that is”. When I saw the screen, I nearly burst out laughing. On the screen is a very beautiful cake. Smooth white frosting, 7-8 tiers, decorations made in fondant, and blown sugar.

Before I even continue taking the order and dash her hopes when she sees the finished product, I tell her that that just wouldn't be possible. I didn't mean to offend our decorators, but I told her the truth; most of them were exceptionally gifted home bakers who didn't have formal training in terms of a culinary program or decorating school.

I then politely refer her to a more upscale bakery that I knew of that was more equipped to help her than we were. Then the dreaded six words came. "Can I speak to your manager?" At this point in time, I had been working at that bakery for a little over a year, so I was capable enough to close the department on my own.

As such, I was the only one there. I told her this but offered to leave a note with the customer's name and number so my manager could call her tomorrow. "Fine then. Let me talk to a store manager”. There were anywhere between 1-3 store managers who oversaw the entire grocery store and all its departments on staff a night.

So I go to our phone and page a store manager over to the bakery department. The whole time we're waiting, she's staring daggers into me. A manager I was fairly friendly with came to the counter in a few minutes and asked what the problem was.

I briefed her before she went to talk to the customer. The second we get over there, the customer starts spewing lies about me, saying I was rude and refusing to help her. I tried to defend myself, but the manager just told me to keep doing my closing work out back.

10 minutes later she comes back, shaking her head and rubbing her temples. "That witch was crazy”. The customer service industry is a blast.

bakedpotatowcheezpls

Thirsting For A Fight

I work as a server part-time. About a month ago, I had a table consisting of a mother, a father, and their son who was around 10. They seemed like a normal family at first—but the whole experience turned sour very quickly.

After I put their order in and got them drinks, I had to visit my three other tables that were sat a couple of minutes before. I took about five minutes, introducing myself to a party of 10 and getting their orders. Then I walked over to “Karen” from the first family because she was waving at me.

She told me that they needed more water. The cup was still half full, but I told her I would bring it as soon as I could. I then went to my other two tables and got their orders...And that's when it happened. All of a sudden, I heard the Karen screaming at a boy who worked in carryout. I went over and see what was wrong. She was upset because I didn’t get her the water immediately and she then started screaming at me. I ran back and got her a whole pitcher of water because she was clearly thirsty.

She proceeded to scream at me because I didn’t get her a son a refill of Sprite even though they didn’t ask (and his cup was 3/4 of the way full). I apologized and went to get the Sprite while alerting my manager of the issue.

While I was getting another Sprite, her husband got up and started cursing in my manager’s face, about three inches from her. Here's the worst part—they didn’t stop yelling and complaining, so my other manager gave them their meal for free and a gift card.

Mind you, this was all over WATER. It took about three minutes after I told them I’d get them water for them to start going insane. I ended up apologizing to my other tables for the disturbance, but they were very understanding and apologized on behalf of the psychotic family.

I couldn’t help but wonder what happens to their son when he doesn’t do exactly what they want.

mvdsoj

Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

I worked at an outdoor gear place for a while. One incident comes to mind though, which involves an ex-Marine who worked at our store fixing bikes. He had to run to the back to grab a part, and as he was going back to the bike shop on the other side of the store, a customer who was already being pretty loud and aggressive with everyone decided to grab my co-worker by the arm very aggressively and try to spin him around to face him. It worked out horribly for him.

His Marine training kicked in, and the next thing I know the angry customer man is laying in the remains of a display about eight feet away. Of course, he jumps up screaming and yelling that he's going sue us and get my co-worker fired, etc.

The manager comes out, hears the story, looks at the security footage, and tells the customer he is never allowed to grab employees like that. He said that he's welcome to call the authorities if he would like because she's willing to press charges against him for assault, and he was banned from our store.

No one at the store was upset about losing that customer. He was kind of notorious for being a jerk and constantly trying to game our return policy.

Zoomwafflez

Cold Cash

woman prayingPhoto by Ben White on Unsplash

I’m not a manager, just a guy who doesn’t put up with stuff. When I was working at the movie theater, I had a woman come in wanting like four movie tickets, which was like $26 or something at the time, and she dumped out a bag of change that wasn’t rolled up or pre-counted.

I asked her if it was counted and she said no. I told her I’m not counting it and that she can step to the side and count it out herself. She threw a fit, saying I had to do it for her. I told her I don’t. That goes back and forth for a minute until she gives out her famous line: “I wanna speak to the manager”.

I just said “no”. She kept demanding and I kept saying no. My manager finally came out because she could hear the woman screaming. She asked what happened and the woman said that I was the rudest employee ever. My manager looked at me and just said, “We are not obligated to count out that large an amount of loose change”.

After she left, the woman kept yelling and I finally told her to go or I’ll gladly call the authorities. I wasn’t actually going to, but it usually scares people straight. She scoffed at me and told me I needed to bag up her money for her. I just told her to have a nice day.

TrystenConn

A Magical Appearance

Hoo boy. This brings me back. So, when I was a younger man, I was an assistant manager at Blockbuster Video. For you young'uns out there, before Netflix you would have to go to this place called a video rental store and actually pay money to rent a movie. Once upon a time, they even came on these boxy things called VHS tapes.

So, one day I was working an evening shift, and the phone rang. This woman I'll call Karen was on the other end. She said she got a call earlier in the day about some videos being overdue. She was absolutely livid. I brought up her account on our computer and sure enough, three movies were still out and were due back a week before.

She went ballistic; absolutely screeching at me over the phone that her daughter rented those movies for a sleepover and had returned them. I checked the return bin, but nothing. I even walked out to the floor and check the copies on the shelf to see if maybe it was them. No dice.

Finally, she just screamed at me, accusing me of trying to rip her off. She said she was going to tell her husband, who was an attorney, and he'd sue us all out of existence. I went about the rest of my shift—but I had no idea what was coming. Lo and behold, about an hour later this woman came marching in.

She came right up to the counter and slammed a stack of three VHS tapes on the counter before us, yelling some profanity at the poor clerk. I had witnessed this from the other end when I was checking in returned movies. I looked at the stack of movies and sure enough, they were the ones her daughter had rented and "returned”. But it wasn’t over.

The next day I was also working there and this man in a suit came in. Real friendly guy who asked to speak to management. I walked over to chat with him, and he told me that he was the lawyer. He wanted to apologize for his wife's behavior. I kid you not, he actually said, "We're trying to get her under control. The doctor just prescribed her Xanax”.

Permalink

It’s Never Enough

I was eating at a cheap, greasy-spoon kind of diner that has been around since the '50s. All the meat is frozen, and pretty much nothing but the coffee and eggs are made fresh. You know what you're getting when you come to this place.

A couple comes in with their two young boys, about six or seven. The mom makes a minor scene about not wanting a booth, but a table. There is an entire wall of booths and multiple tables, but she specifically wants the one in the middle of the room that needs to be bussed since the people that were using it JUST left.

She makes a scene about having to wait for the one busboy handling the entire section to take care of it, even when the manager went and got him to take care of it immediately. At this point, I'm not paying too much attention, but they're sitting literally right next to us.

They order appetizers, steak, shakes for the kids, etc. Their waitress is handling several other tables at the same time—like a third of the floor—and serves some coffee and sliced pie to an elderly couple that came in after the family. Big mistake. Karen throws an absolute hissy fit because "WE WERE HERE FIRST, HOW COME THEY'RE GETTING THEIR ORDERS FIRST?!?!"

The manager comes back out and explains in the most placid tones possible that multiple fried goods and a steak take time to cook, but hot coffee is available all day, and sliced pie is on a display up front so there's no prep time. Karen calms down, but still fumes.

She doesn't allow the boys to get their food (they had a buffet option) until she and the dad's food comes to the table. Once the adult food arrives, Karen just starts tucking in; both boys are just tall enough to see over the edge of the buffet, but not nearly enough to reach tongs or reasonably serve themselves.

A waitress from another section sees them struggling and comes over to help, asking what they want on their plates. Another huge mistake. Karen FLIES to her feet and makes a BIG scene, this time about "How dare you tell my kids what they can and cannot eat! Who do you think you are handling their food?!"

Cue the manager coming out again. The waitress is an older woman, we're talking white hair, and is nearly in tears thinking that she has done something terrible. The manager asks her to go chill in the back a bit while she smooths things over with Karen. Karen now demands balloons (they had them as a special birthday thing) for the kids.

They get balloons, and Karen calms down. The husband and kids are pretty quiet throughout this. The kids seem visibly embarrassed, and the husband is acting like this is pretty normal. The husband's steak comes out last. He's unenthusiastic about it, and Karen calls for the manager A FOURTH TIME to chew her out over the steak being overdone, dry, etc.

They send it back and demand another. Then a third. Let me reiterate; this is a place you go for like, greasy burgers and fries, fish and chips. Steak is on the menu, but realistic expectations and reason mean you're not expecting high quality. You're getting what you pay for.

The manager just kept calm and kept apologizing for their “sub-optimal experience”, but beyond filling minor low-cost demands (for example, the balloons) didn't offer up much. When Karen basically shouted that they would never be coming back, the manager was just like “Sorry to hear that, have a nice night”. An absolute pro.

Legionofdorks

Onto Bigger, Better Things

I was a manager at Little Caesar's about 15 years ago. I'd typically work three or four closing shifts a week, and then one opening shift. Back then, they ran the $5 pizza thing, but it was typically only on Wednesdays.

Throughout the week, they usually ran "2 pizzas for X dollars" specials. This happened on one of those nights. A male Karen placed an order via phone, and then came to pick it up. I believe he ordered something like a "two pizza" deal, but then wanted bread and sauce when he got there.

Well…he didn't have enough money for the bread and sauce. He only brought enough for the pizza. I told him that I'm sorry and that there was nothing I could do. He looked at me and said angrily, "My kids want that bread”. I repeated to him that there wasn't really much I could do.

I couldn't give away food without it being paid for, as I would get in trouble. Keep in mind, he was there while there were several other customers in the store. Had he been alone, I might have just handed it over. His reaction was otherworldly—He threw an absolute fit, called me several names, and then told me "This isn't over!" and then he left with the pizzas that he paid for.

I found out the next day that he talked to the store manager, and he obviously fabricated quite a bit of the story. The manager then called me at home and screamed me out over the phone. Apparently, I belittled the guy for being “too poor” to afford bread for his kids and I embarrassed him in front of other customers.

In reality, I apologized probably three or four times, and just told him that I would be in trouble if I just start giving stuff away. That was far from all. She decided to write me up for a lack of customer service skills and ended up comping the guy an order of up to $40 to be used whenever he wanted.

He came in the very next day when both the store manager and I were working. I was nothing but pleasant to him even then, and I even apologized if there was a misunderstanding. He still acted like a jerk while I was taking his order. He threw in a few "the customer is always right" mentions and "the younger generation doesn't know how to treat customers”.

Whatever, I'm glad the store manager was there that day—because I had a plan. I made his pizzas very well, then I tossed them, put them onto the oven conveyor, making a slight mess, and then told the store manager that I refuse to work there anymore, especially not for a "has-been who treats her employees like garbage”.

I walked out and told the guy to enjoy his pizza. I worked there for two years. I had a 9-5 manufacturing job a few days later at a small family-owned company right near home. I had no clue that some companies actually treated their employees like human beings until I worked there.

RowBoatCop36

Nothing Comes For Free

I'm not in retail anymore, but I was managing a popular mid-range handbag store. Think "typical Karen bag", about $200-400. Anyway, most customers were fantastic. This one woman, however, was this Shrek-looking large redheaded lady who stomped in and demanded that we repair her 20-year-old bag for FREE.

If we couldn't do that, she demanded that we exchange this old ratty, smelly 20-year-old bag for a brand new one for her. Recently policy changes resulted in new prices for this service, but free repairs had about a one-year warranty on a new bag...not a 20-year-old one. I told her as such.

I was pretty young to have had the role I did, so she, dissatisfied with my answer, asked to speak to a manager. I told her I was the manager and she began turning as red as her hair. She screamed and yelled about how she'll call corporate and never shop here again!

Well, that sounds like a real loss, losing a customer who is too cheap to repair a 20-year-old bag and hasn't bought new from us in just as long. I give her my best customer service grin and say, "I’m so sorry, that’s just the policy”. She demanded the company’s number.

I gave her the customer service line that you can find on Google, unbeknownst to her. She huffed away, forgetting her keys on the counter. She's halfway out and she remembered, turned around, red as a beet. She huffed in my smiling face and snatched the keys off the counter.

It was hilarious. She came back months later, worked with a different person on the team, and didn't even look my way.

Permalink

Agree To Disagree

a person is using a pos machine in a storePhoto by Simon Kadula on Unsplash

This Karen was trying to return a board game that was open and obviously played without a receipt. I offered store credit, but she wouldn’t take it and asked for my manager. He came up to the counter and discussed the situation with her.

It devolved into the old argument: “Well, in my day the customer was always right”. My manager then cocked his head slightly before shutting her down: “Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii’ve never really subscribed to that theory”. Store credit was given.

Sephus

Faking It

I’m a former fast food worker reporting about a male Karen. He came through the drive-thru and handed me what I knew to be a fake $100 bill. I knew it was fake, but the process was to make sure the deposit box bill feeder didn't accept it. Well of course it didn't, because it was super fake. Naturally, the male Karen did NOT like what I was insinuating.

So he pulls around and comes inside, yelling and calling me names because I wouldn't take his fake 100. He called for the manager and I bailed to the back because I wanted to leave the twilight zone.

TheMortarGuy

Talking The Talk

Here’s a twist: I had an actual Karen as a manager. She was two-faced, played favorites, and had this annoying nervous laugh she would use at the end of everything she said. As if to punctuate the idiocy of her statement. I think, ha-ha, that we should try it this way, ha-ha. Because it, ha-ha, might, ha-ha, work better. YES!!! She talked just like that.

OhioTARDIS

Aw, Muffin

I love letting Karens scream themselves hoarse for a few minutes, then asked with a completely straight face: "Do you want a cookie?" Then right before their heads exploded, I'd point to the bakery case and say: "It's free! You can have a free cookie while we try to work this out for you”.

Most were too stunned by the switcheroo and ashamed of their overreaction to stay mad even if they declined. For those who accepted, it's even harder to stay mad while munching on a free cookie. Nine times out of 10, I could quickly resolve whatever issue they had by offering a minimal consolation like a gift card or a coupon.

Permalink

It’s Never Enough

I think the one standout I remember was a few years ago when my company, which was a cell phone provider, gave everyone unlimited data for like three months for no charge. It was essentially a stress test on our network, but everyone was getting free data so it wasn’t like anyone could complain. Or so I thought.

I talked to one lady who had demanded a manager because unlimited phone data wasn’t enough, they wanted unlimited data on their hotspot as well. She then threatened to "get us all fired" because we wouldn’t give her unlimited data through her hotspot, which was actually a feature we didn’t even offer paying customers at the time.

She ranted and raved for a while, and we ended up passing her between like five levels of supervisors before she gave up.

SayNoToStim

Would You Like Fries With That?

French friesPhoto by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

I used to work as a manager at a sandwich shop. Our policy for any pickup orders was to not cook their fries until the customer came in so that they have fresh fries. This is always told to the customer on the phone. I had this one witch call in her order and ask me if I could cook the fries immediately so that she didn’t have to wait for them.

I told her I couldn’t do that because if she doesn’t come in to pick her order up within about five minutes, those fries will be soggy and cold. She seemed to understand this. Well, guess what happened? She ends up showing up about 45 minutes after she placed the order and proceeded to yell at me because her fries weren’t ready.

I explained to her that if I had cooked her fries when she placed the order, they would be very cold and soggy because she took 45 minutes to pick her order up. She didn’t care. She continued to yell at me about how she was a nurse and has no time to wait for the fries.

I told her oh well, you either need to wait for them to cook (which takes literally two minutes to cook) or leave. She waited. What a witch.

Permalink

Something’s Fishy

I worked at a grocery store in high school, and last summer I came back for it as my summer job. We did this ten-for-$10 deal where we'd have a bunch of stuff sale for a buck a piece, and then the 11th was free.

We were open 24 hours, but all of our sales kicked in at 6 am, and we weren't allowed to change it early in the register, as it's clearly stated on the first page of the flier and in the app—this is important. I'd sometimes work the third shift if they needed someone to fill in.

So we had this woman come in with literally a cart full of tuna at 4 am. There were easily 300-400 of them, as she had just taken the stand-up display boxes off the shelf. Of course, none of them ring up as on sale, and she starts screaming at the girl in front. The girl is explaining that this is how our policy works, and she's yelling about false advertising and how she deserves the price change.

I go up and tried to placate her, and she starts fuming all over again. I zoom in on the bit where it says are prices are only good at 6 am—and she goes PURPLE. “ARE YOU REALLY ARGUING WITH A CUSTOMER RIGHT NOW?!” I tell her I'm not, just pointing out what the ad says and she insists on seeing the manager.

He tells her the same thing the two of us already had, and she screamed about not knowing “Why she even bothered to shop here”. I didn't go back to that job this summer.

145679RK1

What A Dough Head

I’m a kitchen chef in a pizzeria. We occasionally get this lady who orders a pizza and then tries to complain about it in order to get it for free. We always deny her and she always threatens to give us a bad review on Yelp or complains to whoever is unfortunate enough to be on the phone with her.

I can still remember my worst moment dealing with her. One time, she ordered a pizza with gluten-free crust and complained that the crust was “too doughy”, so she demanded it be given to her for free. Gluten-free crusts are as crispy as a cracker when they come out of the oven and are almost the same while we make them.

Even if someone didn’t bake it in the oven beforehand for whatever reason, it’s virtually impossible for it to be doughy. For about a week, all of us would tell each other, “Make sure that it isn’t too doughy” as a joke when we had to make gluten-free pizzas.

MetaGigaZ

Meet Dave

What’s the male version of a Karen? Would it be Dave? I'm going with Dave. So I'm opening a call center offshore, and this customer Dave refuses to speak to anybody who isn't American. I'm American but was working at that site during that project phase, so when the call escalates to me his first question was “Are you in the US”? At that time that was a no—an unacceptable answer for Dave, which flew him into a rage.

He hung up. He spent three hours calling and hanging up. He'd ask to speak to an American, they'd transfer to me, then he'd ask me if I was in the US. Three hours of the same process.

tdasnowman

Off The Deep End

One time a Karen tried to return an expensive handbag that had obviously been used. She said I was calling her a liar and her anger escalated as she paced back and forth at the till point. It escalated so quickly.

Karen then proceeded to tell me that she was going to call in some guys to “come after me” after I finish work. Throughout this, I am politely repeating my request that Karen leaves, but in hindsight, I think this must have been rather annoying…as Karen proceeded to grab the bag and launch herself over the till at me in an attempt to hit me with it.

At this point in time, a colleague who was yet to start their shift (and therefore appeared as a customer) was on the shop floor and witnessed it all. They tackled Karen into the wall, knocking down glass shelves that had been displaying around 30 bags. Karen is now a crumpled mess on the floor. Appearing shocked, she stumbles upright and runs away.

Permalink

Doing What’s Right

selective focus photography of Closed signagePhoto by Evan Wise on Unsplash

Work at a Barnes and Noble cafe. About an hour before closing, a Karen comes in and I proceed to take her order. Karen wasn’t a regular, yet she was getting snooty just because I asked her what she'd like and if she wanted it hot or cold.

She tells me in the most condescending way she wants an iced mocha. I go to make the drink. I hand it to her, tell her to have a nice night, and turn around to talk to the two other people at the counter. As we're talking, she shouts at us that it's wrong, and demands we make another drink.

Her complaint was that it was cold and she wanted it warm. Whatever, I apologized and made another one even though the first time I asked her, I held up the clear cup and wrote everything in front of her to verify it was right. Anyway, I grabbed the paper cup and started to make another one.

All the while, she was talking about how young people don't respect anyone, and she kept berating us for talking while working, making fun of personal stuff like the movie we were discussing, how we were dressed, our accents (this is in Alabama and she's obviously not Southern).

After about two minutes of this, I was fed up, so I finished the drink and went to hand it to her. But as she was taking it, she uttered the most triggering words: "I bet you stupid disrespectful kids don’t even know how to spell mocha, especially him”. She then pointed at the one Black barista. I’d had enough. I yanked the drink back out of her hand and threw it in the garbage can like it was a baseball.

I then ripped my apron off, came out from behind the counter, got right in her face, and I really laid it into her. I inform her that her behavior wasn’t something we tolerate, tell her there was a camera above us with sound recording everything, tell her that because she bought a five-dollar drink doesn't give her the right to talk to anyone let alone us that way and ask her who in the heck she thinks she is. But I’m not done yet.

I get even closer and tell her that the store might want her business, but I sure as heck don’t, and she can take her refund and get out. I don't even go to the register, I take five dollars out of my own wallet, some odd cents out of my pocket, back up, and throw it at her feet. I point at the door and tell her to get the heck out of my cafe.

I'm not even a manager but it felt right at the time. The whole time, Karen's eyes are as wide as dinner plates in shock. She sheepishly picks the money off the floor, every cent, gains her voice, and starts screaming at the top of her lungs that we're not getting away with this, she's gonna call corporate and get our useless butts fired, and then she'd find out where we lived, burn our houses down, and hurt every last one of our pets and family members.

And that's not all—once she made it to the doorway, she throws her shoes at us, hitting a display stand of chips.

She leaves and peels out, nearly hitting two people in the parking lot. I pick up the shoes, throw them in the nearest trash can, pick up the chips, calmly put my apron back on, go back behind the counter, and finish what I was saying about the movie.

The other two baristas didn't know what to say and kept warning me about how I'm going to get fired. Nothing ever came of it, no real manager ever talked to me about it, and I never heard from her again. I felt bad about it, as I'd never been that angry and have never gotten that angry since.

It wasn't even what she said to me that set me off, but how she talked to the two that did literally nothing wrong. I realize now I'm not sorry for it and she really deserved to be thrown out of the store. Most of the time it's not worth it to react that way, but man sometimes you just have to stand up to Karens.

beerbrewer1995

In The Privacy Of Your Own Truck

A truly awesome supervisor had my back when I was threatened on the job. I was a pretty meek young lady at the time of this story, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't still, but I've grown a bit. The management at this establishment was pretty awesome in general, honestly.

So I was working a truck stop swing shift. It was a hot summer afternoon, and I was on the side dealing with large semi-truck pumps. Note that I actually like this side better since other than the occasional jerk, the truckers are normally more polite than your average general customer, believe it or not.

So one of my co-workers is doing perimeter garbage pickup and comes to the desk to tell me someone is on one of the truck pumps peeing in a bottle. Not in his cab, oh no. This guy is going in full view of RVs with families in them. He is on one of the closer pumps, so it's maybe two minutes at a crawl to get to the bathrooms inside the store.

If he'd been in his truck, who cares, it's not the most disgusting thing someone's done in a truck, trust me. But no, out where God and everyone can see him. As is the procedure when someone is doing something frowned upon at a pump, I get on the PA system for a GENERAL UNTARGETED announcement.

I do not say pump numbers. I do not give descriptions. "I would like to remind all customers there are restrooms inside the store for your convenience, and that you are on camera on the pumps”. Just that. No identifying information. Could have been anybody. Little did I know I just put myself in the line of fire.

Sure enough, about 60 seconds after this, a big guy comes strolling in, belly hanging out of the bottom of his barely fitting tank top, and is SCREAMING at the top of his lungs at me behind the desk: "HOW DARE YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT!? YOU EMBARRASSED ME! I HAVE A BLADDER PROBLEM! YOU MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT LIKE THAT AGAIN AND I’LL MESS YOU UP!"

My supervisor is standing right there. Note that he is about a foot shorter than this trucker and sure as heck, he looks right up at him and says clear as day, "No, you're going to remove yourself from the store immediately”.

The blubbering for a solid 10 seconds was priceless before the guy started flipping us off and yelling that he'd never come back as he left. I never said anything, though I dearly wanted to say that nobody embarrassed him but himself, since nobody would have known who I was talking about if he hadn't screamed it for the whole world.

Oh well. AJ, you're awesome, hope you're doing well. And PSA: Don’t pee in a bottle where everyone can see you, please. I would like to make it clear I understand bladder issues are a thing, and sometimes emergencies are NOW not two minutes from now, but he had a perfectly good truck cab right there with a sleeper unit for all the privacy in the world.

Koranami13

Record Scratch

I was a loss prevention manager at a retail store. Part of my job was to be the “no” guy. If there was a customer we were not able to help and they started becoming hostile, I was the one who went to defuse the situation. That’s because if it escalated, I was the only one certified to touch a customer if it came down to safety and security issues.

At this particular time, a Karen was at guest services with her small child in a shopping cart. Karen was super frustrated with my employee, who was trying to tell her that she could not return the DVD she had purchased for multiple reasons. She didn’t have a receipt, for one. She could have used an ID to return it, however, the DVD was also opened and had a scratch on it as well.

I can already hear her screaming as I approach, so I had an idea of what was going on already. She immediately begins yelling at me about how my employee doesn’t know the store policy and that she just wants to return the DVD. I explained to her that it was not only store policy, but also a copyright law involved since it was an unwrapped, open, and apparently used DVD. Despite all that, she still wouldn't let go.

She said, “Ok well I got home, opened it, and there was a scratch on it, so now what?” I told her in that case within our policy and the law I can of course exchange that for the same item, however, I would have to open it before she leaves so that no laws are broken and she doesn’t try to return it elsewhere.

After more screaming and cursing in front of her child, she finally says, “Fine I don’t want to return it anymore you can just have it!” Then she winds up and frisbees the DVD past my head. Here’s the best part. She leaves kicking and screaming, and about 30 minutes later I get a call from guest services, and it’s the same lady.

This time she says she talked to her husband and there was a misunderstanding, and she would like her DVD back. I “sadly” had to tell her, “I’m sorry ma’am we have already added that to the trash compactor”. If I really wanted to, I could have done something to help her for only $10, but with the way she was acting, there was no way I was doing anything to encourage that behavior.

MrCrispy38

Driving Me Up The Wall

I was the general manager of a company renting moving trucks. At the time, the equipment we rented consisted of F-150 pickups, E-250 cargo vans, and box trucks from ranging 10 to 26 feet.

The company owns all the box trucks, but the vans and pickups were part of a weird lease deal.

Because of this and the fact that they were more likely to be stolen, we had different rules for those vehicles. A Karen came into my store and requested to rent one of the cargo vans.

"No problem. I need to see your driver's license and a credit card”.

"Oh, no. I just want to pay the $100”.

I already know this is going to suck. If you want to pay cash for a box truck rental, you pay a $100 deposit unless your pre-rental estimate is more. We did once accept cash deposits on the vans, but it was $1,000. This didn't last long. A few months after this story, no cash deposits were accepted for the vans or pickups.

"I'm sorry mam, the vans, and pickups have different rules. I can take a cash deposit but it would be $1,000. Or—" I explained.

"$1,000!!!!! Do I look like I have $1,000 cash on me!?!??" Karen interrupted.

"Or," I continued, "we can authorize a credit card for the estimated rental total”.

"I only have $100 cash,” yelled Karen.

"I understand. I'm sorry, but my system will not let me do that. I can do the 14' box truck with the $100 deposit. It has the same daily rate and is only $0.10 per mile more”. I say this as I gesture toward the box truck outside the window.

"That's too big. We are just moving a couch a few houses away. Just give me the van” Karen says as she slides what, at a glance, does not appear to be $100 worth of small bills across the counter.

I push the cash back to her and again explain that the rental requirements for the vans and pickups differ from the rest of our motorized fleet. This time I print out and highlight the pertinent sections of the differing policies. I emphasize that releasing a vehicle to her without following the policy would result in my immediate termination.

If there haven't been enough flags this far into a conversation, this is my go-to shibboleth to distinguish the desperate from the despicable. Essentially, if I tell you doing a thing will cost me my job and you still insist on it, you are a piece of garbage. Upon failure, I know immediately what to do. I tend to immediately change tact with these people.

No smiles, no friendly service. You get cold, curt responses and if you insist again, I might boot you from my store.

Karen immediately failed. "I don't care about all this. I only want the van. Just take the cash”.

"No”. In my head, I said the word in a way that didn't convey a negative response so much as it implied that I wished Karen found herself underneath a moving bus.

Karen scooped her cash and license from the counter and waddled toward the door in a determined fashion. She threw the door open, stepped one foot out, turned, and yelled, "I'm going to talk to my boyfriend”. She attempted to slam the door but was foiled by the hydraulic damper.

Because she had parked in front of the door instead of a parking spot, I could see her as she approached the open passenger window of the small green sedan she had arrived in. Karen began to yell and gesticulate, arms waving in wild abandon, at the occupant in the passenger seat.

I watched as a new customer crossed the lot, turning his head to avoid eye contact as he passed her on his approach to the door. Once safely inside and the door closed behind him, he stopped, shook his head, and approached the counter.

"Hey man, I just need some propane,” the new customer said. He turned and nodded toward the door. "She's having a day, huh?"

"The fun never stops,” I replied as I reached under the counter for our mobile credit card device. I mentally braced myself for re-entry into Karen's audible radius. Mercifully, I was spared. Her prescribed boyfriend had exited the vehicle and the pair were making their way across the lot near the cargo van.

Seizing the opportunity, I led my new customer out the door and toward our propane dispenser. This consisted of a small area surrounded by yellow-painted steel bollards, a steel pump cabinet, and a vertical 3000-gallon tank extending some 20 feet in the air. The new customer and I stood wordlessly, occasionally casting glances in Karen's direction.

The pump is very loud and generally drowns out conversation anyway. With the new customer's tank filled, I shut down the pump. As he loaded it in his truck, I entered the sale on the handheld device. In the background, Karen is following her boyfriend to look at the 14' box truck I suggested.

The handheld device decided to refuse the sale. Restarting the device took about five minutes so I advised the customer that we should just run it inside. This turned out to be a horrible idea. A commotion from Karen's direction drew our attention as we crossed the lot.

The boyfriend was walking toward the car. Karen was waddling toward the door. A new customer and I made it inside with just enough of a gap to justify not holding the door open. As we reached our respective positions at the counter, Karen erupted through the door. I knew it was about to get crazy.

"I WAS HERE FIRST” she bellowed.

The new customer threw up his hands and backed away from the counter. Karen maneuvered into the space, flashing what could charitably be described as a smile at the other customer and then to me.

"I want to rent the van”. She stated with a tone of forced civility, depositing the cash onto the counter. Ah, the witness gambit. She may be a Karen, but I had already served more than a decade of my sentence in customer service. The assumption that I would suddenly bend to her will now that she had an audience was an amateur move.

Many try it, often raising their voice to attract as much attention as possible. I smile through her and adopt the tone a bank teller would use to inform someone that their account is overdrawn...by several thousand dollars.

"I'm so sorry mam”. I dart my eyes to the new customer and back to ensure he can hear me, "As I explained before, the cargo van requires a $1,000 cash deposit or a valid credit card authorization for the estimated rental amount. The policy is firm and any attempt on my part to circumvent it would result in my termination”.

The new customer raised an eyebrow and I continued, "I am happy and willing to rent the 14' box truck on a $100 deposit. The move you described before should be well within that amount and the remainder would be refunded during the return”.

What ensued was a scene that was painful to endure. Karen, sensing the round was lost, changed strategies for the counter-attack. She began to cry.

"But...but that other truck is too big. I'm scared. Please give me the van” she blubbered through crocodile tears. My riposte was ready immediately. "For the third time, ma’am, I cannot do that. I would lose my job. The box truck is based on the same vehicle chassis and is just as easy to drive. If your boyfriend has a valid license and would be comfortable with it, I can add him as a driver”.

Karen's expression flattened, abandoning the fake crying faster than she had started it.

"Fine”. She grumbled through her teeth.

"Excellent, may I see your driver's license please?"

Karen rummaged through her worn purse, produced the card, held it up for about three-quarters of a second, and thrust it back into the depths from which it came. She smiled like a child in a game of keep away. The new customer rolled his eyes but said nothing.

"I'm sorry, I misspoke. I need to hold the license during the contract process. May I have the card please?"

Determined to achieve new heights of unpleasantness, Karen crossed her arms and barked "WHAT FOR?"

Equally committed to maintaining a contrasting demeanor, I replied, "I need different information at different points in the contract process. I need to hold it for reference. We also inspect the license itself to make sure it’s not fake”. I added that last line with a faint, suggestive, smirk and extended an open hand above the counter.

Karen, looking as if she might try to bite it, instead made a point of slamming her license down on the counter near my hand. She then pulled the card back toward herself before releasing it. I leaned forward and retrieved it.

The rest of the transaction took the form of precisely worded questions, curt responses, and clarifying questions where required. Nearing the end, I gestured to a small display on the credit card machine that was now featuring the breakdown of her rental estimate.

"This is showing the estimated rental charges based on the mileage you told me. The $100 deposit is due at this time”.

Wordlessly, Karen pushed her cash to the center of the counter. I picked it up and sorted it by denomination. My suspicion from before was confirmed. She was short. This was perfect. I counted each and every note with a running total.

"I'm sorry mam, I counted short of $100. Do you have the difference?"

"That's all I have. It's more than the estimate. Just finish this so I can go”.

"Oh, I'm sorry mam. Policy requires the full $100 deposit”. I said this with a smile.

Mount St Karen erupted. She clawed at the now neat stack of cash and pulled it away and screamed.

"I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!" She yelled.

I tugged at my name tag and pointed it at her.

"I am the general manager of this location”.

"GET ME YOUR SUPERVISOR!" The tears were coming back.

"My direct supervisor is not available at this location. His office is 40 miles away. I'm happy to try to resolve any issues, or you may call our corporate number. An operator will take any relevant notes, open a case, and forward it to me for resolution”.

I usually didn't mention that complaints made to corporate about me ultimately get forwarded back to me to resolve. Sure, sometimes someone else might look at it but as far as the company was concerned, problems at my store were my problems. In this case, I found satisfaction in clarifying the situation.

Karen turned to the door and waddled as fast as her legs were able. I let her reach the door before completing my revenge. "Ma’am, your license?" This was a petty move, I admit.

Karen paused before turning and scrambling back toward the counter. I set the card gently in the center and steered my eyes back to the screen. By the time she was on the other side of the door, I was nearly finished filling out the form that black-listed her name and license from our company.

The new customer approached the counter, wide-eyed at the interaction he had the misfortune to witness.

Dropping back into my normal speaking voice, I nodded to him and said, "Sorry, I just need a few seconds to finish this form”.

He returned the nod and leaned against the counter—but we had relaxed too soon. Karen now threw the front door open and screamed.

"YOU WON'T RENT TO ME BECAUSE I'M WHITE AND I'M A WOMAN!"

Forgetting her earlier struggle with the door damper, she repeated her attempt to slam the door and nearly fell. The new customer was unable to suppress a burst of laughter and covered his mouth. Karen steadied herself and waddled to car.

A moment later, we heard the characteristic noise of a starter motor grinding against an already-running engine. This time, I cracked a laugh as well.

Karen's little sedan set off with a pained chirp from one of her tires.

"Oh my God,” exclaimed the new customer, "that lady has problems”.

"Dunno, man. Sorry about the wait”. I replied.

"Do people act like that a lot?" Clearly, this new customer never did time in customer service.

"The fun never stops…”

Not that it matters, but I'm also white. My job had nothing to do with age, race, orientation, or whatever. My job was to take your money. I rented to nearly everyone from everywhere in that job. As long as your poops were in a group, you got what you wanted.

Lckmn

One For The Money

This is one of the best things I've ever seen. So, I worked for a mostly virtual bank. We didn't have branches, but we had what were effectively kiosks at grocery stores, which is where I worked on my own. No doors, and no cash service (you had to go to the ATM just outside the kiosk), but I could help with other things.

A 40-ish-year-old woman came in because her husband had passed a few days earlier and she needed to sort out his accounts. As was not uncommon, she was crying a bunch through the entire process…and I hate the fact that I can't offer her better privacy. I'm right in the main entryway, and everyone walking by can see her.

Anyway, a customer I’ll call Mr. Dimwit goes to my ABM and I guess it took his debit card. He can 100% see that I'm with someone, and 100% see that she's crying. Meanwhile, I'm on the phone talking to one of the departments we need. Nonetheless, he decides to interrupt (by shouting from where he is) and tell me the machine took his card.

This can happen for a few reasons: He could have timed out the transaction, he could have had suspicious activity on his card, or the ABM could be malfunctioning. But, by far, the most common thing is that the guy tried to put a damaged card into the machine—something we had a bunch of signs saying not to do.

I let him know that I can see what happened and get him a new card, but it'd be 30-40 minutes. Then I go back to help the widow. But it wasn’t over. Another customer, Mr. Karen, then goes to the ABM and it takes his card too. He's clearly frustrated, but looks like he's about to leave when Mr. Dimwit walks over to him and says, "Yeah, it did the same me, and he (pointing to me) won't do anything about it".

Again, ABMs take cards all the time. The fact that it took one from someone else doesn't mean I know it needs to be placed as “out of order”, and I'm a bit busy trying to sensitively help a woman whose husband just passed. Mr. Karen doesn't know this, but he can see I'm with someone who's in tears.

But he doesn't care, so he starts yelling and swearing at me. The widow looks awful, and I feel awful for her. So I basically just apologize to the guy, say I'll put a sign saying the machine is out of order, and that I'll be happy to help him when I'm done. He goes off to buy his groceries, and I put a sign-up, apologize to the widow and go back to help her.

A little bit later, Mr. Karen has bought his groceries and is leaving, but decides to stop and yell at me some more. He tells me that I've ruined his day, and then mentions the widow I'm sitting with and says I must be a "totally incompetent idiot” to have upset her that much. Oh boy, this set off a chain reaction. The widow lets out an absolutely primal scream like I've never heard before, gets up, and goes and pushes the guy in the chest.

Not going to lie, what happened next is one of the best things I've ever seen happen. He falls back into his cart and hits the back of his head on the cart. Some of the store employees, including the store manager, come over to help the guy. He tells them "the witch” in my office went crazy and pushed him. And here’s where it peaks.

I cut in with "Dude, you slipped. I know you're embarrassed, but she was sitting in my office the whole time". Mr. Karen just looks at me, then her, and leaves.

The widow asks me if I'll get in trouble for lying to "my manager", and I say I don't really care. I’m a banker at a grocery store, it's not my dream job and I don't work for the store anyway. But when we were done, she went up front and told the manager the truth.

I wasn't there when it happened, but I was told that Mr. Karen came back to complain the next day. One final victory. The manager said he'd reviewed the tapes, which showed he slipped. The guy got angry, the manager told him he'd call the authorities and charge him with trespassing, and he left again.

I was told that by other employees, though; I never heard another word about it from the manager.

Permalink

Bird Brain

white and red labeled pack on white shelfPhoto by Franki Chamaki on Unsplash

Years ago, I was managing a store in a local pet store chain. I was young and often dismissed as a manager. One night a woman walks up to me holding a normal parakeet cage, about $30 and asks me if she buys the cage can we "throw in" extra perches, food, and other accessories?

I politely tell her I can't do that but I can get her a discount if she's buying all those items. She instantly flips her lid and starts reading me the riot act...telling me she works retail and knows I am supposed to do whatever makes the customer happy.

This goes on for a short while, with her never giving me a chance to get a word in. She then sets the cage down and storms out of the store. We all sort of laughed it off, even a few customers who saw it go down were saying things like "I don't know how you deal with people like that”.

About half an hour later, my cashier tells me there is an angry woman on the phone, obviously the same woman, wanting to speak to the manager. I pick up the phone and introduce myself. She immediately starts telling me about her awful experience with the "rude kid" I have working for me.

She rehashes the entire situation with all sorts of embellishments mixed in. I was absolutely shocked—she said that when she approached the "rude kid" he was throwing ferrets into the ferret pen from 10 feet away. She was saying I was playing "ferret basketball". Obviously, this never happened.

She told me that she simply asked if there was a discount for large purchases because she was buying an "expensive parrot cage" and all the necessary supplies for her "expensive parrot" and would be spending well over $500. Again, literally, not a single part of that was true.

But the "rude kid" told her that cheap people don't get discounts and if she can afford a $500 cage and a $2k parrot she can pay full price. The entire time I just let her rant on, trying not to laugh. So I finally tell her I can give her corporate's number. She says no, she just wants me to know what type of people I have working for me and how I (he) should be fired.

I asked who it was and started describing myself. She confirms and I said, "Well ma'am, you might want to take the number for corporate and tell them anyway, because I am the “rude kid” you talked to, none of what you just told me actually happened, and we have 24-hour surveillance cameras in the store. I can pull up the entire ordeal in case my own manager would like to see what really happened”.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Screw you punk!" and slammed down the phone. We didn't actually have cameras, but I knew the bluff was enough. It was quite a satisfying moment. I had many "You are speaking to him" moments in my old career, but that was the best because she was so crazy.

sebrebc

Do Not Touch

I saw an account terminated and their address PERMANENTLY banned from service by a senior Vice President. The lady called in to try to restart her service, then proceeded to complain and ask for management when she was told she couldn't.

I can't even imagine the amount of complaining she had to have done to get to the senior VP level, since even major escalations only get to a level that's like three levels below that. I read the notes, looked at the account,and my eyes widened—she had 6+ service calls every month for 3+ years.

This lady apparently called in almost every day to complain and ask for credits due to her service not working. The address was blocked, and the notes basically said, "This address will never get service again. If this lady somehow gets service from this company again, everybody involved will be fired".

Meta2048

More Than She Bargained For

I was the assistant manager at a large women's clothing store, and we had a woman come in with some items and a gift receipt. Store policy is that item returns with a gift receipt are not given back in cash, they are given in gift cards. Madness ensues.

Karen gets so upset that she is forced to leave, and on her way out, she pulled the ultimate Karen move—she slams the glass door and it shatters. Since we had her information because she left her receipt, she was sent a bill for the door.

availablepoet

Do You Know Who I Am?

Try dealing with Karen when you’re an officer. “Do you know who my husband is?” “You better not touch me. My husband is so and so” Yea ok, well tell me who your husband is on your way to the clinker, lady. Or Karen a military officer’s wife: “My husband is a captain. Where’s my salute?”

Permalink

Some People

The worst incident happened at a cafe I used to work at. We had a woman with Down Syndrome who worked three days a week. She is very sweet and helpful and one of our family friends. The town I worked in has a huge influx of tourists in the summer, so I'm used to all kinds of people.

A man and his wife came in and ordered a smoothie and an iced americano. Because I was trained as a barista, I'm aware of the difference between an americano and coffee but usually, I use the term "coffee" because I found that a lot of customers didn't know the difference or really care as long as they got their caffeine.

So when I read back the order I said coffee instead of americano. He clarified that it was an Americano and not a brewed coffee. I told him that we only had an espresso machine so it would definitely be an Americano. I made his wife's smoothie and handed it to the woman with Down Syndrome and told her which woman to give it to.

A minute or so later she came back with the smoothie. I asked her what was wrong with it because the woman didn't take it. She said she didn't know, but the woman refused to take it. I took it out to her and asked what was wrong with it. I’m still disgusted at her response. She said straight up that she didn't feel comfortable with my co-worker taking it out, implying her discomfort was because she had special needs.

I firmly told her that she was an employee there and was very competent. I then went to make her husband's drink. I made the iced americano and called his name and said "iced coffee" out of habit. He sat and looked at me, so I said "sir, your drink is ready", already irritated by his wife. He came up and said to me "I ordered an iced americano, not an iced coffee”.

Kind of exhausted by the two, I told him that it was indeed an iced americano. He proceeded to explain to me, the trained barista, the difference between a brewed coffee and an espresso drink...after I had already clarified previously that we only had an espresso. I looked him in the eyes and said firmly "there are two shots of espresso, water, and ice in this cup”.

He then replied with "uh huh" and then had the nerve to ask me if my co-worker with special needs had made it. So I told him (not so nicely) that he could take the drink or not and he could also leave my place of work if he would not treat people with respect. My manager only reprimanded me for swearing during this exchange.

thecoloroftheskies

I’m The Only One Who Matters

red and gold theater seatsPhoto by Giusi Borrasi on Unsplash

I was a House Manager at a big performing arts venue, and I encountered my worst Karen at a Saturday night showing of The Book of Mormon. I still feel rage when I think about it. Karen’s problem? Just a young man seated in front of her in his standard-size wheelchair (a veteran no less, as I later discovered) and his older parents, who were seated next to him in banquet-style seats.

A bit of background: The banquet seats are what we used when we had mobility requests. We would remove a small, strategically located section of seats to make an empty place for the mobility device, then place the banquet seats for the other ticketed spots.
The venue used those specific seats precisely because they were the exact same height as the theatre seats. Karen didn’t care though! Those people were ruining her view and they needed to go. And no, she wouldn’t move to a no-show seat! Didn’t I know how much money she spent on these tickets??

But when I said I wouldn’t other patrons, who had also bought the expensive tickets, well then how dare I bring up money!! That’s hardly the point!

And on, AND ON she ranted—gesturing wildly, with her designer purse and gold-ringed fingers.

She ranted through the entire 18-minute intermission while I tried to quietly shut her up somehow. It was excruciating. I even had security on standby.

The shrill voice that emanated from her white, toothy maw was a weapon in its own right—enough to make a whistle jealous. The worst part, however, is she was so extremely rude that the family of the man with the wheelchair decided to leave anyway.

I tried SO hard to make other arrangements for them, for free—tickets on another day, or to another show, or even just a refund for that night. They were very kind to me but just wanted to go home. Meanwhile, Karen got to go back in and watch the rest of the show.

Man, screw that entitled witch Karen. I hope she has to leave halfway through every show she ever goes to for the rest of her miserable, unsatisfied life.

WateryArt_ndSword

Being Extra

The most obnoxious part for me was how tirelessly argumentative Karens are, but yet always about stuff where they're either totally wrong or it just plain does not matter.

"X is supposed to come with strawberries!" X doesn't; Z does though. I can make you Z instead, or add strawberries to X for $8. "No, X is supposed to come with them already”. (Shows them a menu to verify) "I don't know why that says that because X is supposed to come with strawberries”. So do you want me to make X with strawberries then? "X already is supposed to come with strawberries!"

Like lady, I don't know what else to say. You aren't gonna argue your way into being correct. Your options are to say "add strawberries to X" or "make me Z" just pick one, I do not care, and please move to the side while you ponder your options.

Much_Difference

A Slice Of Life

I used to work at a cafe/bakery and was there when our manager ripped a Karen a new one. One of my co-workers was about 18 and had a really awful home life. So this lady (about 50) comes in and orders alongside someone who I presume was her friend. My co-worker takes the orders to them.

Overall she was being snippy and demanding with him, but the worst part comes when she picks up her pizza and rips it apart. She then says to him, "This isn't even sliced all the way through, you'd think you'd be able to figure that out by now”. I swear my manager almost came unglued.

I've never seen veins bulge so far out of someone's head before or since. You could tell he was summoning every ounce of his strength not to chew her out right in the middle of the bakery. He immediately kicked both women out and told them they weren't welcome back.

They asked for the owner when he informed them he was the manager, but when the owner finally arrived he concluded that the women were barred as well. They threatened to call the authorities but didn't since we gave them their money back.

I still can't fathom how anyone could be so insensitive.

PaperPonies

Nowhere To Go But Down

I’m the head of a complaints department for an international chain, and Karens are basically my bread and butter.

To speak to me, they have to have escalated their concerns through agents, supervisors, and managers, all of whom are empowered to resolve complaints.

Many a time the conversation has gone:

“Unfortunately Karen, we’re not able to meet your expectations. I do hope you find your next visit to be more to your liking”.

“That’s ridiculous, I only want a holiday to the moon and the keys to Atlantis! I want to speak to your manager”.

“I’m the highest level of escalation Karen, that’s our final answer”.

“You’re not the owner of the company, I want to speak to them”.

“No Karen, I’m the highest point of escalation”.

Karen then hangs up and emails the CEO about me and my terrible attitude. The CEO forwards the email to me.

“Hi, Karen,

As per my previous email…”

Wrathful_Man

Pie in The Sky Idea

I am new to retail at Target and got the job because I ran out of cares to give. One day, a lady came into the store and went to the Pizza Hut express. They were out of pan pizzas and closing within a minute of her arrival.

She wasn't convinced and came up to me at self-checkout and asked for a manager. I just shouted "manager" without stopping what I was doing and someone came. She explained that she wasn't convinced that Pizza Hut was out of pan pizzas.

The manager explained that they were. That's when she turned the reddest shade of red and said she didn't believe her. I casually mention that they're closed now anyway, so it doesn't matter. She expresses how much she craves a pan pizza, so a co-worker and I explain that there are at least three pizza places nearby, one of which was a full Pizza Hut, that was still open and served pan pizzas.

She REALLY wanted a Target Pizza Hut Express Pan Pizza, though. But she stormed off, saying she needed to pick up a prescription. None of us had the heart to tell her that the pharmacy closed two hours ago.

The_Rhine

I’d Do Anything For Cheese

assorted drinks on white commercial refrigeratorPhoto by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

My worst Karen was a middle-aged woman who I caught trying to switch price labels around on some blocks of cheese. She found a $5 label for a multipack of chicken (it says chicken on the label) and tried to pull the plastic strip off the shelf to put the new label in place.

When I caught her and asked if she needed any help (pro tip, never outright ask a Karen what they’re doing) she pointed at the blocks of cheese which were $6, and said, “these were $5 the other week”. I politely explained that they were not, it was a different brand of cheese.

She said, “Well why are they in the sale bin then?” They were not.

I again explained that the cheese was not $5 and she walked away muttering to herself. I thought that was that and carried on with my tasks. I was very wrong. I soon heard shouting coming from the till and my staff member rang the management bell.

I headed over, knowing it was her. It was. She was facing him and yelling that “the manager said I could have them for $5!” He was trying to explain that he needed manager authorization for that, so I approached and asked what the problem was. She immediately said, “you’re not the manager!”

I said I was and I had said no such thing about letting her have the cheese for $5. She then said “Listen! I’m a close personal friend of the managers and I…” and I immediately cut in with, “Yeah I’m going to stop you right there. Again, I’m the manager and I’ve never seen you before in my life”. She left the store screeching that she was going to head office about my “incompetence” followed by our security guard.

The next morning there was a round-robin email from other branches in the area about a middle-aged woman trying to sneak a discount on blocks of cheese. She’d gone to every store in the area just to try to get $1 off some cheese!

Permalink

The Cat Who Ate The Cream

I was working at McDonald's. This old lady would come every day and ask for a small coffee with ten creamers on the side. Ten. Then she would come back after a few minutes and complain that the coffee was cold and demand another one. With 10 more creamers.

We would oblige because she was a regular customer and looked lonely. One day, she came back three times complaining about her coffee. I told her to maybe not put 10 creamers in it if she liked it hot. She started screaming at me and insulting me, saying I was a stupid brat, that I can't make a coffee, that I was rude, the whole shebang.

She then asked for the manager. I don't really know what he told her but from that moment on she was very nice and polite and would only ask for five creamers. Crazy lady.

Nulaya

Look Who It Is

When I managed a movie theater, we had a couple who always came in, I’ll call them Karen and Boss. Boss was called that because he would always say “How you doing today, boss?” and things like that. It got to the point where we would see them purchase their tickets at the box office and we would begin to get their concession order ready right then and there.

They would walk to us and their food items would be ready just the way they liked them. I’d say that’s good service for a regular customer. But even so, Karen always found a reason to complain. Her methods were truly bizarre. Instead of coming to talk to a manager, she would email corporate.

We’d get the forwarded complaint and always have to give them free tickets and concession items. Now, we had another regular customer named Bob. Bob would cook for us, and I mean cook. He’d make full-course, fresh Italian meals. We all loved Bob and he was great to us.

He actually became a really good friend to the general manager and would have him over to his home for dinner too. One day, Karen and Boss walk in and Bob was standing with the general manager talking. The General Manager rolled his eyes and Bob asked him what happened.

The General Manager told him he’s just tired of Karen complaining all the time when we provide them with great customer service. Bob looks to see who it is and tells us it’s his freaking cousin. The General Manager printed the latest email from her to show Bob and Bob ran over and asked her: “What the heck is this?”

Karen never complained to corporate again.

GentleSea

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Storytime! Years and years ago when I was a poor college kid, I worked at a call center. We worked for an insurance company that had royally screwed up thousands of people's insurance, but our job was to take inbound calls for people and basically say that we apologize for the inconvenience but said the company was working to fix the issue, and then do whatever we could for them.

As you might guess, it was not a fun job, especially since the majority of customers were senior citizens calling in because they were having issues getting medication due to the insurance screw-up. Okay, so now onto Mr. Karen.

Mr. Karen calls, automatically screaming about how his medication hasn't been approved and that he cannot afford the cost out of pocket. At first, I don't feel right about thinking about him as Mr. Karen because he had a right to be mad.

But anyhow, I go through my lines of apologizing and trying to rectify the situation for him. None of my offers appeal to him. He was IRATE. After about 15 minutes of back and forth with him, he demands my name and ID number. He is going to have me fired.

I have personally ruined his life, etc. I give him my name. He demands to know my last name as well. I give him my last name, which happens to be a very unique last name. This is where it all changes. He stops. Silence. This old man then stutters, "Are you any relation to *insert very old, famous, yet overshadowed* baseball player? I tell him that yes, I am, he was my great, great, great uncle.

He played in the '20s. This grouchy old man suddenly becomes the sweetest man in the world; completely awestruck to be talking to me. Apparently, he had seen him play when he was a kid (the man was in the late '80s, early '90s in age) and somehow talking to me, a very late relative, put him over the moon.

He went from raging Karen to kid in a candy store in two seconds flat, asking me everything I knew about my great uncle (who, sadly, passed 10 years before I was born). It totally made his day, and mine too.

Of course, after that, he was no longer Mr. Karen, but I thought it would be a nice little story to tell within all the raging lunatic Karen stories...so, there you go...have a nice day.

squirrelnextdoor

We Don’t Do That Here, Lady

One of my managers had to explain to a Karen, during a lunch rush, why she couldn't take the onion out of the French onion soup.

Chozlit

The Best Offense Is A Good Defense

person holding black smartphone in carPhoto by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

I had a raging Karen in the first lane of the drive-thru yelling at me. I just listened and listened, and when she was done I let her sit there a second. Then I said, “Ma'am, you can choke.” Not expecting that answer, she just drove off in shock. It could have gone totally different, but I'm glad it didn't.

veknilero

Boxing Clever

I work as a mover. One time, we were doing a huge move. As in, two full 26' box trucks of stuff, which was mostly all artwork. I grabbed a painting and the guy says, “Oh that's one of the cheap ones”. Well, the price tag on the back said $50,000. The move was from a huge mansion to an apartment in the city that spanned the whole floor of a building; the elevator opened right to the place.

We get to the unload and it's already dark out. It was a real struggle to pack this stuff. It was all heavy and expensive and the customers were hovering. They tried to get us to not take lunch because they were antsy and wanted to buy us pizza. No way, we needed food and we needed to be away from these people.

So first the woman—a total Karen—says the floor just got redone and we can't put any cardboard boxes on it because the fibers will get stuck in the wood. Then, as we bring in furniture, she is like a little this way, a little more, ok now back. As a mover, we don't normally place the furniture exactly. One guy almost quit during this process—but I had a plan. I said stay on the truck, I'm going to break this lady. First, I piled the cardboard boxes on the window sills. We blocked every single window in the place to the ceiling with boxes.

Then, we filled up the kitchen countertops and piled them to the ceiling also so she would have to undo it all to put the kitchen stuff away. Then, we covered the kitchen floor, then all the bathrooms. Anywhere without wood floors. All the while, every single thing I brought in, where do you want this? Here or here? Little over? Or here? All my crew had already taken breaks, but I kept going and going and going.

Finally, after like 14 hours of this job, I walk in with a dresser and say, where do you want this and she looks around...the place is full, there's stuff everywhere. She stutters for a second and says…screw it, just put it anywhere, I don't care anymore. And that's when I took my break.

DrJawn

Pool Party

I was working at a public pool in my town, and the rules are that you can't bring outside food or drinks into the pool. This rule didn't please Karen, who was very eager to let me know that she had just spent 12 DOLLARS on this coffee from STARBUCKS.

She argues with me by saying that the public pool in the next town over allows it. I keep saying the same rehearsed response, that it’s our policy that outside food and drinks can't come in the pool. I still can’t believe what she did. She dumped the coffee onto our computer, so I called the authorities. They arrested her, and the town prosecuted her to the full extent of the law.

PMMeFendom

Being Extra

I love the Karens who seem to think extra food is free. You’re not going to go anywhere and get extra meat or queso guacamole for free. I had a couple come in and they got a salad. They asked for extra meat, then queso, then even more queso.

I told them they would be charged for each scoop. She flipped out. She started cussing at me about how it’s wrong and she shouldn’t have to pay for more than one, why must we be so expensive because the other location does not do this? But I had the perfect reply.

I gave her a big smile and let her know I am the general manager of that store, so I knew she did not get that treatment there. Sorry, extra food is not free. She then started screaming for a corporate number and the store owner.

I told her I couldn’t give out people’s private numbers and told her to leave. She is now banned from both stores. She did put in a complaint…but guess who sees them and makes return calls? Me. She hung up on me when I called.

AnxiousMom4

Going In Circles

I was talking to a customer over the phone. After going back and forth on an issue we couldn't help with, the customer said something to the effect of, "Well that's not good enough”. Being fed up at this point, I simply said, "Well, you not liking the answer doesn't mean the answer changes”.

She snapped, "That's really unprofessional”, And I said, "You thinking it's unprofessional also doesn't change the answer”. And then she said, "Let me talk with your manager”. That's when I executed my mic drop.

To which I got to say, "I am the manager, we're going in circles. If you'd like you can email me you can, in which case I'll review your complaint to determine if it needs to be escalated”. She was not happy when she hung up.

TacoMagic

View of eye chart through a pair of spectacles
David Travis/Unsplash

One of life's many challenges to being successful and happy is to work hard and stay focused on our respective goals.

There are many obstacles that can discourage us, but persistence and a drive to overcome can be rewarding.

Unfortunately, there are some things that are simply beyond our control, and it has nothing to do with fate.

It's the qualities we're either born with or without that can impede us or prevent us from ever achieving what can only be seen as a pipe dream.

Curious to hear examples of one of life's cruelties, Redditor G00dR1ddance asked:

"How did your genetics f'k you over?"

These Redditors were unhappy with appearances.

Uncooperative Vision

"Lazy eye, and a total lack of depth perception."

– Crow_of_Judgem3nt

"Same. Do you struggle with driving? I just moved to a big city and I can’t drive here bc navigating all the traffic is too hard with no depth perception. It’s so scary!"

– Subnautica24

The Worst Parts

"Moms Family: Perfect teeth, male baldness. Dad's family: Terrible teeth, perfect hairline."

"Me: Sh**ty teeth, bald before 25. My 2 brothers: Perfect Teeth, Perfect Hairline."

"Feels FN bad."

– Yogannath

"They should all chip in for a trip for you to Turkey for a cheap hair transplant and dental work."

– turboprop123

Made For Farming

"All 4 grandparents were farmers. I look like I was bred to farm and f**k to make more little farm workers. Broad shoulders, big boobs, no waist, no @ss worth mentioning, and thick legs. I just look like I was bred to work forever until I die. 120 years ago."

– bwvdub

Stop With The Flattery

"I too am sturdily built. I am not tall but I am muscular and broad with the big boobs and the broad hips and sturdy legs. I could carry very heavy sacks of feed from when I was very small. My family nickname was 'the forklift truck', so that's.. nice."

– LibraryOfFoxes

Room For More

"My mother’s OB said she had a pelvis ‘you could drive a bus through’. I was a natural breach birth and share those genetics. You could host the last supper on my a** and have room for plus ones."

– Elephant_axis

These Redditors are living on borrowed time.

Cardiovascular Health

"Bad heart. I'm the first male in at least 4 generations to make it to 40. And that's only because I was finally properly diagnosed and treated. I wouldn't have made it to 35 if I didn't find the right cardiologist."

– socteachpugdad

"Bum ticker - dad’s aorta exploded when I was 11 and my brother died from the second heart at 41. Just hoping to see my 60s."

– poontong

Being Kept At Bay

"I have a blood condition where I retain iron. It's slowly killing me. Destroyed my liver, pancreas, and led to a massive heart attack."

​"Fortunately, I live in the 21st century where modern medicine can keep me going with...bleeding."​

– Objective_Stick8335

"Sad Aspect" Of A Family

"Huntington's disease"

– alc1864

"My oldest uncle married a woman who had Huntington's, but they were very young and she wasn't symptomatic yet. In the 70s so no genetic testing or much public awareness. They had 5 daughters. My aunt and their eldest have long since passed away, and the remaining 4 are in various stages of the disease. It's always been a sad aspect of our family. A truly cruel disease."

– Wasyloosker12

BRCA Genes

"I’m BRCA2 positive, giving me roughly 74% chances of developing an incurable genetic breast cancer in my life. It also gives me about 22% of having an ovarian cancer."

"On the other side, double mastectomy lowers my chances to about 3%, but it should ideally be done before I reach 30. I will also need a hysterectomy in my 40s."

"I had 50/50 chance of getting the BRCA2 gene mutation so well, genetics did f'k me over!"

– PoutineMaker

Redditors share more of their crosses to bear in life after being blessed with these traits.

"I'm more attractive to mosquitoes than most people. If I'm out when mosquitoes are around, I end up covered in bites (which I'm also allergic to, so I end up with quarter sized welts that itch for daaaays after the fact)."

– p1013

It's sobering to realize the ailments your parents struggled with are starting to become our own to bear. ​

High blood pressure, arthritis, and predisposition to atherosclerosis are some of the undesirable parts of my family's genetic makeup that I never really thought about until I noticed how fatigued and in pain I've become with age.

Although I have so much gratitude for surviving every year I get to celebrate my birthday, getting old still sucks.

Silhouette of man leaving an office carrying a briefcase
Photo by Roth Melinda on Unsplash

Being let go from your job is never a pleasant experience.

Particularly if it comes out of nowhere, without any possible warning that this was a possibility.

Even if it isn't any more pleasant, generally speaking, most people have at least an inkling of why they were let go.

Budgetary reasons, dissolved departments, being told you weren't meeting company standards, or bad blood with the boss.

As well as some less common, highly unusual reasons which at least might make a good story down the line.

Redditor Sweetlo123 was curious to hear from people who were let go from their jobs, and why they were met with this fate, leaving them to ask:

"What did you get fired for?"

For Standing Up For What's Right.

"We were told we get OT for night work."

"The new 'company manager' let it slip that we don't actually get OT for night work, so when I was scheduled for five nights in a row working on a transmission line cell site I mentioned that I expect everyone working from our company on site get OT."

"Once it was said that we won't get OT and that it wasn't an actual policy (was written in employee handbook), I forwarded the email chain to the entire company and leadership at Verizon."

"I was canned, but now everyone gets OT for night work."

"My life is better now anyway and got my people what the deserve."- drklunk

This Was Never Going To End Well...

"Aggressively squeezing breakfast muffins lol."

"I was a few days into working at Mcds and someone complained I gave them a muffin that was too hard-they bake them at like 3 am and sit in a warmer all day."

"This was before they had the full bakery menu, I think muffins was the only thing baked and maybe cookies."

"So my manager told me to squeeze them before I hand them out."

"Me being a dumb teenager squeezed the s*it out of these muffins and got another complaint."

"They stopped scheduling me, haha."- eatmyknuts

You Have To Do The Work To Get Paid...

"I just stopped working and began only attending meetings."

"Lasted almost 9 months that way before they let me go."- frantictossing

martin freeman sleeping GIFGiphy

Wrong Time, Wrong Place

"I was fired after a month into my first job at a local pizza joint when I was 16."

"They called me during the Super Bowl and said I had to come in."

"I told them I was out of state without a car so no way I could make it."

"They said I should’ve known this was one of the busiest days of the year and I should’ve stayed in the area."

"I came in to work my next shift and they just gave me my paycheck and said they had to let me go for not being a team player."

"10 years later I was fired from a job in tech because I refused to move out of state."

"This one hurt a lot more."- seventyfive1989

Hard Not To Say They Had It Coming...

"The company's timeclock software ran off of the computers time, so when I was late I would just close the software, change the time back to before shift start and then clock in and change it back."

"The supervisor who showed me the trick fired me."

"A day or two later he saw me pulling in late, and when he went over the time info that day, it showed me clocked in on time."

"He knew why."- Grief-Inc

Nepotism Always Screws Someone Over...

"Worked at a gas station and was a sucker for the free soda."

"I would drink a few 24 oz glasses of Dr. Pepper (don’t judge) per shift and had to piss relatively frequently."

"I usually worked with the same lady every shift and every shift my drawer came up short even like $10-20 bucks."

"One day my usual co-worker was off and I worked with another lady who warned me to watch my drawer around the other and hers had been short when she was around."

"That got me to thinking."

"The next shift with the usual lady I stuck some receipt paper into the lip of the bottom of my drawer and hit the bead."

"When I came back the paper was on the floor."

"My drawer was short $20 at shift change and my boss fired me."

"I told her of my findings and asked her to review the security tape."

"She told me to f*ck right off the other lady had been there years."

"I left heart broken and rented some VHS tapes to indulge in and recover."

"One of the movies was Casino and man is that a good movie."

"Come to find out the usual lady was the boss lady’s cousin and they f*ckin told people I knew I got fired for stealing money."

"I though about calling a lawyer but also, I was in high school and was delusional I suppose."

"I got out of that town after high school and rarely return, especially considering all my family moved off."- woohhaa

Snl Smiling GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy

The Age Old Story Of Men In Power

"Caught the boss stealing."

"So he fired me."

"His word vs. mine and it didn't go my way."- freezingprocess

People Tend To Get What They Deserve

"Embezzled almost $500,000 from the doctor's office I worked at."

"Oh no, wait."

"That was my former supervisor who did that...26 years after she fired me for taking home a left over slice of pizza after a drug rep hosted a pizza party for the office staff."

"Karma can take a long time, but it always comes through."- YourFront

Late To The Game...

"Being the last hired when they instituted layoffs."- BubbhaJebus

Some Plans Can't Be Cancelled

"1970s YES 'Close to the Edge' tour."

"I had my tickets and had the request approved for time off, they changed their mind at the last minute and would not let me off."

"Pfft."

"Left anyways and was genuinely surprised when I got back on Monday and they informed me that I was fired."-AmandaBRecondwith

Treat Others Like You Want To Be Treated

"My boss was talking sh*t about me to employees, and I confronted her with 'how would you expect the people below me to respect me when you show them that you don’t?'"

"She didn’t like it and literally went crying to the owners, who then fired me for 'causing problems'.”- Successful-Snow-562

For Literally Doing What They Were Supposed To

"I got fired for slacking off and underperforming at work by taking my legally required lunch."- 10leej

Hungry Lets Eat GIF by TRTGiphy

They Couldn't Have Waited One Day?

"Worked as a QA tester for an online game company."

"Found bug while on my personal account at home."

"Came in the next day and reported the bug."

"I was VERY clear I found the bug while playing at home on my personal account."

"It was a nasty bug that let you duplicate very expensive items."

"A few weeks later someone in customer service was checking the logs for people exploiting the bug."

"They found mine and the company decided to fire me on my birthday."

"That was around 15 years ago but it still upsets me every year, on my birthday."- PedanticCyborg

While most believe "ignorance is bliss", anyone handed a pink slip deserves to know why.

Even if sometimes the reason gives no closure whatsoever, and instead only results in even more questions.

These Clueless Family Members Were 'Just Trying To Help'
Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

Having the support of family is a dream; they're always there when you need them, willing to lend a helping hand. However, sometimes family members are completely clueless, and their assistance has adverse effects. Here Redditors tell of what went down when their family thought they were helping when in reality, their good intentions were horribly misplaced.

My Sister Did Quite The Job On Me

My Sister Did Quite The Job On Me

One day, my little sister asked for my CV so she could base her own on it. A few days later, I got an email from Google Dublin telling me that my job application had been rejected. A conversation with my very embarrassed sister revealed that my mother had put her up to it. They sat down together and filled out the job application. When I saw what they wrote, I wanted to scream.

They included gems such as, “Q: Why do you want to work for Google? A: Because I LOVE technology'”. I imagine whoever viewed my application thought it quite ballsy for a music and Chinese language graduate to apply for the post of “Senior Technical Programmer”.

EliotKami

Grandma Doesn’t Let Up

Grandma Doesn’t Let Up

My girlfriend and I both have great full-time jobs starting in our careers. My family lives about 60 miles away in my hometown. My grandmother sends us clippings from the newspaper of random job postings in hopes I will move back home. They are all completely unconnected to our jobs. Every month when we visit, she also insists that we should set up an apartment in her basement and live there instead of having to pay rent somewhere. I love her dearly, but that would be just a little too weird.

MrFish38

My Mom Hit A Sour Note

My Mom Hit A Sour Note

My mother is a professional musician and had no greater desire than for me to be the same. Immediately after entering college, I completely minimized my time in music as much as possible to maintain my scholarship and put all my energy into medical biology. I was doing two doctorates in the medical sciences, so it is not like I slacked off.

Almost a year after I did this, my mother somehow found out. She then called the school, and multiple people in the music department, demanding that they require me to spend more time with music and get me back to “acceptable” levels of performance.

jomyke

A Publix Humiliation

My grandfather insisted I call some random teacher he met at the grocery store to "set up an internship" for my last semester of college when I would have to student teach. No amount of explaining could convince him that that was not how it was done. I would have to apply through my university and my county, and they would assign me a classroom and a teacher. It started to get painful.

He would call once a week and say I was ungrateful for not taking him up on his help when he had worked so hard, and why couldn't I just make one small effort to help my future and secure a classroom? I felt awkward because it's pretty weird to call up someone your grandfather met at Publix and explain that you don't need their help.

Eventually, I started feeling guilty and called this woman up. When she picked up, I said, "Hello, my grandfather gave me your number because he thinks that—" and she responded with, "Don't worry, sweetie. He pretty much old man guilted me to give him my number. I know you can't control where you're placed in your internship. Bye". It was really awkward.

HarryFPotter

The Taste Of Embarrassment

Former Quiznos Subs Sign Downtown Miami | Completely empty i… | Flickrwww.flickr.com

When I was 18, my friend who was a cook offered me a delivery job at Quiznos; I told my mom that I was thinking about it. She got mad, emailed Quiznos corporate office, and said how it was irresponsible to offer me a job and that the manager was terrible. But that wasn't the end of the embarrassment. The message went to the manager, who went to my friend, who read it—embarrassingly—in a car full of my friends.

GoP-Demon

Mom, The Pickup Artist

I'm 26 years old, and every time I'm out with my mom, she tries her hardest to pick up girls for me, no matter the place. She's left my number for cute waitresses, girls that helped me into fitting rooms, bartenders, etc. It's never subtle, either. It’s always, "My son is single, you know? And very handsome and has a job and car".

Retawtrams

Stop The Music!

My dad forced me to stop taking guitar lessons because "It is affecting your grades". I maintained a 4.0 in high school, did all of my homework, and would then proceed to play guitar for about eight hours a day. He actually threatened to burn my $800 Schecter. I have no idea why he thought it was ruining my life; I had a job, studied, and just loved music.

KungFuJimmy

The Grass Isn’t Always Greener

My mom once mowed the lawn while I was out to "help me get my chores done”. It was a disaster. She put the blade on as low as it went and it absolutely scalped the lawn. She had shorn it all the way down to bare dirt. There was even dirt blowing all over the yard, but she said she "didn't notice". It took months for the grass to grow back.

skitch885

What Once Was Too Much Is No More

My mother did a thousand things that drove me insane. She would write my name on my underwear, on every book I owned, and engrave it onto things that wouldn't keep ink. She'd do the laundry, but seemingly had no idea how to do laundry. My entire life she had to straighten things up, which consisted of taking everything in the room and putting it in one pile—papers, cell phones, empty coke cans, you name it.

This even occurred when I was 40 years old and in my own house with a wife and kids. She'd constantly tell me and my wife that we needed more furniture, more things on the walls, more knick-knacks, basically to clutter our house up like she had done to hers. She was a pretty annoying person for the most part, but she did cool stuff too, like give me money like take my wife shopping or babysit our kids.

She volunteered to babysit our kids on her 43rd anniversary despite having a stomach ache. The next day she went to the doctor where she found out she had cancer. The day after that she had an emergency operation which determined it was inoperable. She never left the hospital and passed two weeks later. Now, suddenly all that stuff that drove me insane doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.

coochiesmoocher

Meddlesome Mom Messed With My Mail

pile of printing papersPhoto by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

My mom opens all my letters, especially my bank statements. She once came across an invoice for an adult subscription. You think that's embarrassing? It gets soooo much worse. She instantly assumed someone had gained access to my account. So, she decided to phone the bank and tell them that fraudulent activity was taking place, and had my account frozen. Not only that, but because I am self-employed, she thought she would ring HM&Revenue, and tell them about it.

As a result, I ended up getting investigated to make sure all of my accounts and business purchases were legit. Her response was, “I know my precious baby would not be buying [racy videos]”. I'm 21 years old!

Permalink

Trying To Put The Hit On Me

My mom insisted I needed a boyfriend since the age of 12 or I was a lesbian. Typical ways for Mexicans to meet other fornicating Mexicans were at weddings and Quinceneras. I've always been a book nerd/tomboy and my mom kept insisting I had to wear fewer clothes and would force short skirts and dresses on me. I hated getting hit on because all the guys that would had already slept with at least three of my cousins.

Thankfully, I was one of the few in my family who ended up not pregnant by the age of 15. I didn't have my first boyfriend until I was 21—most of my cousins were married by then—and got married at the age of 24, and was able to prove once and for all that I liked men.

yessykeena

Duo Lingo Disaster

My wife's grandmother is Russian and wanted me to learn the language. So Babushka bought a huge carton of cassette tapes and handed them to me. When I saw what they said, it was so hard not to laugh. They were tapes...for Russians who wanted to learn English. She figured that I could listen to the Russian prompts, then hear the English parts, and reverse engineer the Russian language. Nyet. That's not how it works.

bimtott

Hidden Figures

My mom is very religious and I'm not, so she hides religious icons all over my house. I'll find a crystal statue of the Virgin Mary in my toilet tank, little pictures of Jesus on my storage shelves in the basement, etc. It's always a little amusing when I find some random saint's picture stuffed into a book on my shelf. I probably have dozens of these things lying around that I haven't found yet.

Permalink

Priorities, People!

My family is in the class under middle class. Through middle school and high school, going to the doctor was too expensive and our bills weren't ever paid on time. We had the financial credit of a squirrel. But my parents made it so much worse. It makes me sound shallow to say this to most people, but I was given well-intentioned, expensive, material things.

Clothes, cars, jewelry, technology—everything beyond our means—was bought for me and it was forced into my hands. Despite their best attempts, I remained frugal and money conscious. I have handed back 300-dollar watches and said, “Please just pay the bills”, only to be threatened to have them thrown away. Then, there were expensive clothes and shoes that were out of style.

Most of the clothes I liked were thrift store-bought or on sale, but I have 200-dollar coats hanging untouched in my closet. I can't be thankful for being handed essentially junk when there isn't enough food in the fridge or the lights go out.

Permalink

Meddling Middle School Misfortune

boy leaning on brown wooden railingsPhoto by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash

When I was finishing primary school, our school gave us the choice of two middle schools to move to. One was really nice and in a decent area; the other was a little run down, and in a bad area, but was slightly nearer to where I lived. Naturally, even before seeing each school, the choice for me was an easy one. I would rather go to a nice school and suffer an extra 20 minutes of travel than the alternative.

This choice appeared to be shared with nearly everybody else as well and, as a result, we were told that not everybody would get their first choice. They would determine who would get into which school based on several factors. I figured I would be almost guaranteed a spot in the nice school since I was doing well academically.

I was in advanced classes for math and English. I was shocked to later find out that I had been sent to the bad school. This was exacerbated by the fact that nearly all my friends were being sent to the good school. What followed was the worst four years of my life, and some issues that I have no doubt screwed me up as a person, even now. When I found out WHY it had happened, I almost started to cry.

I told my parents I had been assigned to the bad school, and my dad said he was relieved. The thing was, he thought that I would not be able to get to school on time if I went to the nicer school, due to the extra distance, and the travel costs would be higher since I would need to take an extra bus. So, he wrote a letter to the school board.

He mentioned that while I preferred the nicer school, he thought the bad school was more convenient. I love my parents, so I have never told him this, but to this day I have never forgiven him for doing this.

ShinkiroDarkilus

God Mom, Lay Off!

My mom would force me to go to church on Sundays, weekly church youth group, church summer camp, and daily morning scripture study classes before school while I was growing up. Despite all that, she seems to think that I didn't get the memo about the whole God thing. So, she still gives me the conversion pitch every time I see her. I am 36 years old. Thanks, mom, but no means no.

Permalink

An Invitation For Disaster

My mother-in-law tried to take over my wedding guest list because she “knew exactly who we needed to invite”. We ended up with all of her relatives and very few of my friends or family. She also wanted to invite all of her co-workers, all of her friends, and their children. I finally put my foot down and told her that I had limited room, a limited budget, and it was my wedding. Luckily, my husband agreed with me. All her relatives got mad as well because I refused to have anyone below the age of 13 there.

ageeksgirl08

Dragged On My Dad’s Dates

My dad dragged me around everywhere he went when I was a child. He would take me on his dates too. Although it sounds cute and funny, all he would do was make fun of me and tell them how I spend all my time on computers. I hated every second of it. He did this for a bit until he clued in that women don't like when you trash talk your son or ask him questions like, "Why don't you draw anymore"?

I would reply, "You threw out my artwork in my room, so I gave up". They also don’t like when I just couldn’t take the awkwardness of being an 11-year-old forced to accompany two mid-40-year-olds “trying” to date. I would get up and go to the bathroom or walk around, only to be tripped by my dad, for which he would turn back and laugh. He thought he was teaching me a lesson by taking me because I spent all my time on the computer.

-NTnix-

Garage Sale Granny

My grandparents are garage sale junkies. This really helped me out when I was just getting started on my own, as they had so much unused furniture just lying around in the garage. However, it just kept coming. I would get phone calls from home saying, "Oh Hunny, we picked you up a new microwave! It was only $5"! I've been given three different microwaves over the last three years.

They also buy socks for my baby daughter all the time—like every time I come to visit. My daughter hates socks, and she rarely wears them. There are SOCKS EVERYWHERE. I have two giant shopping bags full of unused baby socks in the closet, and I can't donate them because, apparently some places—in my area at least—don't accept socks unless they are in their original packaging.

WorkingMama

It Didn’t Make Any Cents

silver and gold round coinsPhoto by Art Rachen on Unsplash

I was going to a coin show with my co-worker and his stepfather. They came by and picked me up, and we went to the show. After they dropped me off, the stepfather was stopped and questioned by the authorities near my house. It turned out my dad had called the authorities thinking that the stepfather was a predator, and I didn't know any better.

But here's the messed up part: I was 21 at the time. It was very embarrassing when I heard what happened the next day.

EagleThirdEye

A Numbers Game

Before my wife and I ever met, her mother would often give her phone number to "nice Jewish boys" that she thought would be good dating material. It was weird but not bad or unusual. Except that, for a period of nearly a year after my wife and I had started dating, her mother was still doing this. There were times when we'd go back to her apartment after seeing a movie or something, and there would be a message on her answering machine.

It would be from a guy that she had never met, who got her phone number from her mother. This was happening MONTHS after we were involved with one another, even after I went to her mother's house and had dinner with her.

bubonis

Single Straight Female

Years ago, my sister jokingly insinuated I was a lesbian. My parents gave me the whole "love you whatever you are" spiel later. I didn't tell them right away that I wasn’t because it made my conservative parents vote “No” on Prop 8, etc. I also didn't think it mattered, and I didn't want them to expect any grandkids. Later, I told my mom I was straight because the whole scenario got a bit aggravating. It only got more excruciating.

Despite telling her this, she kept insinuating certain things like the best places in China (I’m Asian) to find a wife, etc. I have absolutely no interest in having kids EVER, which I made abundantly clear. My mom, therefore, thinks I am a hermaphrodite or a female-to-male trans person. She's even asked me if I have a male organ or if I wanted to change my general doctor to a male one so I can talk about my "man problems". I'm a straight girl, so all of this was quite perplexing.

oscarwildecat

No Bed Of Roses

I had just moved back in with my mom after having some financial difficulties. I was 28 at the time and broke, sleeping on a twin bed. I was lamenting about how difficult that might make bringing ladies home. Her response was horrifying: "You can use my bed. Just call me first". Suffice it to say, during the two years I was back home with her, there were no romantic times back at my place.

rdt156

Filling My Fridge For Nothing

Every time my grandparents visit my town, they stock my empty pantry with lots of canned goods and my empty freezer full of frozen entrees. I tell them that I appreciate their generosity, but that it is really unnecessary. They reply by saying they don't ever want to risk me going hungry because I am too proud to ask for food.

The reason my cabinets are consistently bare is that after they leave, I always make a point of donating what they've bought me to a local food bank. I own three restaurants, so there is no reason I would ever cook at home. In a bad year, I have an annual net income of around $2,000,000. They're stocking a $10,000 freezer.

lrarkie

Proper Phone Etiquette

brown rotary dial telephone in gray painted roomPhoto by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

My mom used to make me make phone calls under the guise of “teaching me how to talk on the phone”. But she was having me call adults as a young teen about business stuff like for example, the electric company. She would not give me the information I would need to complete the task, like the account number or whatever, so I’m absolutely sure I was just annoying people who were trying to do their jobs and my phone anxiety as an adult is almost crippling.

Chapstickie

No Thanks For The “Expert” Advice

My mother-in-law sent me a text message with advice for editing the language on my personal portfolio website. She told me to change all of the pronouns I use when referring to myself to "my company name". When I told her most illustrators I know don't do this, she simply responded that she was an "expert editor". I am not being ungrateful; she is constantly doing this. Providing "expert advice" to people whose jobs she knows nothing about. When I told her what I did for a living, she responded with, "Well, gee, I could do that".

Permalink

Coast To Coast Annoyance

My aunt constantly tries to introduce me to women who live 3,000 miles away from me. I have explained many times that I live on the East Coast, so her attempts to find me a girlfriend on the West Coast are not going to help. Not only that, but my girlfriend doesn't appreciate the efforts either. The funniest part is that she isn't even old or senile. She's just a bit nuts.

Stabeezy

Grammy Was Out Of Step

When I was really young, my Midwestern, Protestant, fundie grandparents believed that black or gray clothing was exclusively worn by bad people, and they refused to see it on their grandson. They took particular issue with black shoes. As a six-year-old, I was given the chance to pick my own shoes out at the local Sports Authority.

I spent the whole day evaluating my options and settled on a gorgeous pair of black New Balance with orange mesh and white logos. Understandably, I couldn't wait to show them off to Grammy when I went to visit for the summer. I carefully explained the features of the shoes, and how they made me run faster, jump higher, and look older.

When she saw them, she said, "Oh my goodness! Those might be the coolest shoes I've ever seen"! Then, when I woke up the next morning, they had been thrown out and replaced by a pair of entirely white Nike sneakers with no explanation.

KaneOnThemHos

Father-Son Sacrifices

I grew up with a dad who had been a high school and college sports legend. I hated sports. I was overweight and liked D&D and drawing. My dad was friends with the high school football coach, so I felt like I had to try out for the team. I hated every second of it. I hated the training and I was terrible. My teammates knew I wasn't into it and wanted me out.

One day, I jumped off the bleachers and tried to land on my leg to break it. I sprained my ankle badly and missed our first scrimmage. Finally, I had to confess to my dad that I hated it and wanted off the team. I was so scared because I thought he'd be so disappointed. However, he told me, "Son, you're you and I'm me. Just because I played football doesn't mean you have to. I want you to do what makes you happy".

So, my dad watched football alone, while I drew and read and later skateboarded. Over the years, we found a lot of common ground, such as music, and cooking together. I lost him almost five years ago, and strangely, now I'm a huge football fan. I sit and watch football alone and I can imagine him with me. I appreciate it now and I understand what it meant to my dad.

TheDaliTrauma

Drowning In Questions

man doing swimmingPhoto by Richard R. Schünemann on Unsplash

I used to swim a lot in college, which was many years ago. I got tired of getting in the water, so now I mostly do weights and machines at the gym, like the rowing machine and the elliptical. But every time my mother sees me, she asks, “So, have you been swimming”? We have had MANY conversations about how I don't like swimming anymore and I have no desire to swim, yet I still exercise. But EVERY time I see her, it’s, "Have you been swimming? How's your swimming”?

Inflaton

Cool It!

Years ago, my wife and I went on vacation for two weeks, and we had her parents watch our house and cat for us. Never again. We left the house at a comfortable temperature as it was the middle of summer in Atlanta, and we didn't want our cat to bake. We also wanted the house to be comfortable for them and my brother for the couple of days he stayed.

When we returned, the house was about 90 degrees on the inside, and our cat was chilling in our basement—somewhere she never went—where the temp was a good ten degrees cooler. They also decided to wipe down our kitchen counters, even though the kitchen was 100% clean. They are marble and she used a cleaner on them that left these little spots all over them that never came off.

My brother came over for a couple of days and said that he actually turned the A/C back on and noticed that when he came back a couple of days later, it was back off again. So he turned it on again and when we returned, it was off again. Our cat was not amused and decided that she would hang out in the basement for weeks at a time, and we rarely saw her.

Our power bill was enormous that next month and the constant heating and cooling of the house caused the wallpaper in two of our bathrooms to peel. When we asked them about it, they explained, "We were just trying to save you guys some money on your power bill. You know you shouldn't keep your house so cool all the time! And we wiped the dust off your counters too with the cleaner you had”, which was hardwood floor cleaner as it turned out.

MonkeyManJohannon

Critical Clotheshorse

She took all of my pants and cut them into shorts and gave them to my brother because they were "too small for me" when, in reality, they fit perfectly. After she realized that what she did might have irked me a bit, she came back with a few pairs of light blue wrangler jeans that were a 40" waist because they would "fit me better". I wore a 36, so needless to say, they didn't.

She also told my little brother, who was chubby and pretty self-conscious, that he had a gut and that he needed to swim with a shirt on. I wouldn't be critical if she were old enough not to know better regarding what she says, but she just turned 65.

CCooper97

Dressed To Impress

My mother was in love with the idea that I would go to work in an office with a suit and a tie. She had some ideal image from television that this was a great lifestyle. Meanwhile, we came from a farm, and I was an artist. For a year or so after finishing a degree, I worked in tech support and this required a dress code. My mother got me so many collared shirts and ties, it was crazy. I've worked mostly in offices since but rarely need a tie. I know she's always been disappointed.

DarrenEdwards

Temptation Almost Took Over

When I was in my 20s and a dateless wonder, my stepmother tried to talk me into marrying an attractive young woman who was a friend of the family, and was in the US on a green card. It would be for citizenship, but my stepmother also said that whatever other “private arrangements” we worked out were up to us. I was tempted for about five minutes, but then my father caught wind of my stepmom's scheme and put a stop to it.

Permalink

Harrowing Hook Up

Giant Dipper queue entrance | Santa Cruz Boardwalk @ Santa C… | Flickrwww.flickr.com

One day, I was at the wonderful Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with my family. My dad had been drinking and suddenly asked me, "Why don't you have a girlfriend"? I was around 11 or 12 years old at the time. I told him I just never found one, and that's when he decided to become Cupid. He called over this group of overweight, goth chicks to "hook his son up".

Naturally, I was embarrassed beyond belief. I walked away to go find my mom, who was furious with my dad’s conduct. She even went so far as to ask, "Why did you choose some goth chicks"? His response was terrible and inappropriate. To this day I have never forgotten that.

lennonlives

Upstairs, Downstairs

When I was 11 or so, I was riding my bicycle home from school and the wind started blowing like crazy, hard enough that I had to push my bike the last couple of blocks home. The tornado sirens went off while I was half a block away. I ran straight to the back door that led to the basement, went downstairs, and over to the “safe” corner my parents taught me about.

I sat and worried about the house collapsing on me. Then, the phone started ringing upstairs. I ignored it for as long as I could, probably around two minutes. I finally ran upstairs and answered the phone. It was my mom, and all she said was, "Get your butt downstairs"!

eggrock

Bound And Gagged

My mom and sister came to visit me for a few days the weekend after I moved into a new apartment by myself. I had to work on the first day they were there and gave them suggestions on a whole bunch of fun activities they could do while I was gone. I asked them to please not unpack any of my stuff so that I would know where I had placed everything.

Obviously, there were also things my mom didn’t need to see. I arrived home after work and everything was unpacked. Then, my mom handed me one bag which she had not emptied. The content had bed straps, and she asked me if I had wanted her to set those up too. It was mortifying.

barfield

College Control Freak

My mom took over my entire college experience. She became really controlling about my course schedule and degree options. Somehow, it got worse the older I got. She would contact my academic counselor and bug him about why I couldn’t get into ENGL 3044 or why HIST 4513 didn’t give me the same general ed credit as ENGL 4513 for the multi-disciplinary degree that she pushed on me.

I wanted to major in sociology, but Mom thought that was stupid and it was a hippy-liberal communist degree. It made me hate college, and avoid any professors she had contacted. She would also get really mad if I changed my university password to try and lock her out. Basically, she threatened not to pay for my college if she couldn't control me and she threatened to cancel my car insurance too. All because she was afraid I would leave for greener pastures.

divisibleby5

Drop The Dating Advice

My brother, my sister, my sister-in-law, and every aunt and uncle whom I've seen in the past four years all take the opportunity to give me dating advice, ask me about what kind of girls I like, ask me to pick the most attractive girl in the restaurant/building, etc. One of my uncles, in particular, was telling me in none-too-uncertain terms to just find girls to bed, not for relationships.

His reasoning was that, obviously, no 23-year-old guy wants to have a girlfriend metaphorically tying him down, holding him back from things, etc. Of course, every college dude just wants to just go sleep around indiscriminately. This was a dinner conversation with my parents at the table. I wanted to crawl into a hole. Every time it happens, I'm tempted to tell them that I'm gay—which I'm not—so they'll get off my back. But then I know they'll just do the same for dudes.

Seepferdchen

Something Was Fishy With My Juice

brown and yellow medication tabletsPhoto by Leohoho on Unsplash

I'm a vegetarian and have been for seven years. One summer, my mom was going through a phase of making me these orange juices every day; they were nice. I always thought to myself that the oranges must be coming from a different place this year because they were so sweet. One day, I was scrambling through the fridge and found this jar that looked like some weird medicine.

I opened that baby up and took a whiff. It smelled like oranges—sweet, sweet oranges. When I read the label of the “medicine”, that's when I realized that my mom was spiking my drinks with fish oil. A “vegetarian” who eats fish is called a “vegequarian pescatarian”, not a vegetarian like I was. Needless to say, I was mad and didn't talk to her for a week.

JustAnotherSimian

Mama Yenta

My mother tries to set me up with Jewish men. Our family is Jewish, and I have told them explicitly, many times, that I don't want to marry anyone overtly religious and that I find most Jewish men not to be my type, to put it lightly. So lately, my mother has been trying to hook me up with cute girls. She believes that since I'm a 26-year-old pretty, single girl, I MUST be gay to not be married with kids.

joliedame

The Devil’s Devices

My grandmother throws out appliances that have the number 666 in the serial number or barcode. She thinks these appliances will eventually turn on us because they’re the devil's appliances. This includes a brand new lawnmower she received as a gift from her children. Of course, she didn't give the lawnmower to anyone because she didn’t want to be responsible for the impending doom the appliance would bring; she just threw it out. She's done this at our house before as well. She's a nut, but I love her!

grummlinds

My Family Was Full Of Gay Abandon

When my mother and father found out I was gay, my mother said it would be best for me to come out to everyone who lived with us. At the time, it was my sister, brother, grandmother, and great-aunt. She said if I didn’t do it, she would do it for me because it would help me have a better relationship with all of them. When I went to talk to my grandmother, she had just had some really intense surgery and she was on some serious pain meds.

So, I sat her down and told her I was gay and she just went on this half-hour rant about how she knew a teacher that was a queer when she was in high school. It turned out she then emailed several relatives about my coming out. An aunt of mine then sent me a letter saying that she wished the best for me and told me that I could "still live my life as a gypsy", I just needed to be careful because "AIDS is really dangerous" and that I shouldn’t sleep with anyone until I was married.

JacketOS

Time To Cut The Cord

My parents can't accept that I am a married adult and don't need them to do everything for me. They did all they could to make me as dependent as possible, and they don't understand that not needing them to do things doesn’t mean I don't love them. For example, I am pregnant and at high risk. My mother calls all the time wanting to take me to my appointments.

I get that she is nervous, but this little girl is very healthy, and I don't want her there. She doesn't help, she only makes me nervous. My husband wants to go with me, after all, it's our baby, and she doesn't get it. She called my last daughter "her" baby, and she is starting again. It infuriates me beyond belief. My parents also hate that I live about two hours away in a different state.

They want us to visit every weekend and get mad that we only visit every few months. I talk to my mom every day, mind you, yet sometimes she calls me several times a day and doesn't get that I have things to do. She also constantly says she and my dad are moving to Las Vegas and she thinks it would be great if we moved there too.

She has all these people call my husband about jobs that are not anything he would be interested in. Plus, my parents don't have any good business contacts. My mom has not had a real job in fifteen years and my father has been looking for a better job for years. They are not even in the same field as my husband. Even if the job sounded perfect, we would never trust it.

We don't want to be associated with anyone they do business with. My parents have some serious separation issues.

Viperbunny

Two Sides Of A Shield

a person holding a babyPhoto by Polina Kuzovkova on Unsplash

I had cancer twice before I was five years old and so my parents really shielded my life. If I was invited to a kid’s birthday party, my mom would be there too. I wasn’t allowed to play outside until late, and even when I was older, there was no going to nightclubs. I had to be in by 10 PM and had to argue my way to let my boyfriend (now husband) stay the night.

As a result, I'm terrible at socializing, struggle to make my own decisions since someone was always there with an answer for me, and don’t know anything about running a house as it was all done for me and not by choice. When I moved in with my boyfriend, they were all, “Do you not like us anymore? What have we done to deserve this?”

My guy had to show me everything from using the washing machine and paying bills, to cooking. Everything I know is because of him! They continued to message, email, and phone several times a day until I asked for space and to be allowed to live my life. We have a better relationship now, and I have my own little girl, so I do understand to some extent.

However, I know I'd want her to be supported and loved but allowed to scrape her knees and be included in everything. My job as a parent is to make her feel confident about herself and teach her everything I know to help her become a well-rounded and independent individual.

rosettafaery

The Only Bad Influence Was Her

My mom tried to protect me from my dad. My dad was a lazy guy when they were together in Vietnam. Even when they had my sister and me, my dad didn't do much for us. My mom had to take care of him and us, so we moved to the US without him. This is when my sister and I were pretty young. He missed us and he would write to us, but for 12 years I never saw his letters.

Then, through the magic of technology, we got into contact again. My mom warned me about him because she thought that he would have a bad influence on me. My dad and I exchanged emails and I told my mom about it. Then, she finally confessed the dark truth. She had kept all of his letters away from us so that we wouldn't think of him and just forget about him.

When I read the letters that he sent us, they were filled with nothing but loving and encouraging words like, "I know I'm not there for you two, but you both are in my hearts". There were no bad words or any negative influences in any of his letters. Then, my mom demanded that I let her read my emails. My email exchanges with my dad were us talking about my life and what I was doing in school.

She thought that he was going to be a bad influence on me by making me quit school and move back to Vietnam. He was doing none of that. He encouraged me to stay in school and told me that I should be grateful for living in America. Then, one time, I left my email open to go and do a quick errand. My mom went into my email, sent my dad a letter pretending to be me, and cursed him out.

I found out about it and asked her why. She said she was trying to protect me. This all happened when I was 21. My grandmother also told my mom to not let my sister and I talk to my dad because she, too, thought that he would have a bad influence on us.

Permalink

The Cost Of High Tuition

My mom is paying off her student debt 20 years later from a college she didn't even graduate from. She's convinced that if I go to an in-state college, I will save money and never have to do what she was doing. Then, I moved to NYC last year, and now I'm getting in-state tuition at one of the cheapest state school systems in the US.

Even so, my mother keeps suggesting and is trying to guilt-trip me to go to private colleges back home, a couple of which are religious, and most of them don't offer what I need, while at the same time costing four times as much a year compared to where I'm at now. She also went as far as to tell my siblings that I didn't love them and that's why I was moving so far away, in a "one final effort" to try and keep me in the state. That really, really sucked.

Permalink

Living The High Life

My grandmother was a nasty blue-blood rich woman until she blew all her millions on furniture and stupid material possessions with no resale value. Yet, she still acts like she is rich and demands the country-club lifestyle she is accustomed to from my mom and aunt. She really is insufferable. She has set me up with rich potential husbands, one of whom was a third cousin.

She set up an appointment with the Dean of my school to discuss my merits; she lives nearly four hours away from me. She invited me out to dinner for my 21st birthday at a $90-steak-type place so that she could "culture me" and introduce me to her friends. She then told me to pay for her. The total bill was $459 and I was in college. This list goes on forever and every time, she does things so that she can "help me get ahead in life", but it’s really just for herself.

Permalink

Out Of Service

This happened to me right before I graduated from high school. The men on my mom’s side of the family were all associated with some form of service like the Navy, Army, etc. My aunt decided that, since I had no job or any college courses, she would go ahead and forge my application to the Marine Corps and the Navy.

I got a call two weeks after my birthday saying to come in for an evaluation test. She went to all my uncles and told them how excited I was to serve, and how I couldn't wait to "be a part of something bigger than me". When I found out, I lost it. I called her and explained to her how that was totally not cool and how much respect I had towards people who serve, but that it wasn't my calling.

I told her that I was very disappointed that she faked an application just because she thought I'd have a better life! I cut all ties with her and had to explain to my uncles how this was all her idea, and to my surprise, two of them were going along with her. So I moved up North to get away from pretty much all my family.

DuckieMcWaste_lrg

TMI!

woman in black long sleeve shirt covering her facePhoto by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

My parents were way too open about the birds and the bees. Sex positivity should make you feel comfortable and safe; it shouldn't make you uncomfortable or be pushed on you when you aren't ready. I got a comprehensive talk when I was seven. My mom gave me an entire book and told me to tell her if I "had any questions", all because I asked what a word meant.

My mom asked me if I wanted any toys and gave my sister her USED ones. It was definitely unsanitary. My mom also smacked my booty a lot and told me I had a good body. It took a few years of asking her to stop in order for her actually to stop. She would interrupt my sister's dates when she was 14–16 years old to ask her if she needed protection.

That just made my sister feel pressured to use them, even if the date wasn't going in that direction. My dad was just plain gross about the subject too, but he never had talks exactly in the same detailed and crass way my mom did with me.

imalreadybrian