Working retail is the secret to being angry literally all the time.
Seriously.
Customer service is already difficult, but retail, with its low pay, long hours, and difficult streams of humans you're dealing with on a daily basis is enough to drive even the kindest, most sane human up a wall.
And when you get those people who seem determined to make it harder.....it's anybody's guess what your next reaction will be, including yours.
u/RighteousNeighbor asked:
Here were some of those answers.
This Or That
This wasn't an incident that made me angry, but rather I was going to lose my sh*t in the sense this interaction made me feel like I was losing my mind.
I worked at a weird Starbucks that was drive thru and walk up only, there was no indoor seating. There were signs on either side of the walk up window displaying a menu with a photo of each product that was listed. If I was working at the walk up window I couldn't see the menu, even if I leaned out the window as much as I could.
One day a woman came to the store, asked me a question about parking or something, and then ordered. She pointed at the menu and said "Could I have that one?"
"I'm sorry, which drink are you pointing at?"
She points again, "That one."
"I can't see the menu from here, could you tell me what drink it is?"
"That one."
"I really can't see the menu, can you tell me what it says?"
"That one."
What the heck? Maybe she doesn't speak English. No, she asked me something in perfect English earlier. Maybe she's embarrassed to pronounce the drink name wrong? Maybe she's illiterate?
"What color is it?"
"That one."
"Do you want a hot or cold drink?"
"That one."
"Do you want something with coffee, or maybe something sweet?"
"That one."
"Did you want a frapuccino?"
"That one."
It went on like this for a while until I gave up and just rang her up for a grande iced caramel machiatto. She seemed perfectly happy with it when I handed it to her.
She Hit The Floor, Next Thing You Know, She Got LOW
I worked at a department store. I was in charge of the truck and stocking. Usually this included making the department I worked look good, refolding clothes, straightening stacks, sizing the clothing racks, etc.
I'd just finished the juniors department when I turn around and see so many clothes on the floor. There was a teenager picking up folded shirts to look at them and then she was just throwing them on the ground.
It was a particularly bad day for me as all but two of our truck team had called in. I didn't have time for this at all.
I politely asked her to stop throwing the merchandise on the floor. Its fine if she wanted to just set the stuff back onto the tables, but seriously stop throwing it on the ground.
This turned into her proceeding to throw piles of folded clothes on the ground. Picking up hanging items and just tossing them.
So I asked where her parents were. She refused to answer. So I paged overhead asking for the parent of said teen (I described her clothing and hair) to come to the juniors department, as their daughter had something amazing surprise for them.
It wasn't long before a lady walked over with a smile on her face, and then it just fell into the most pissed off/disappointed/disgusted look. She looked at me, then her daughter. The girl tried to say I was the one that did this and was trying to blame her for being bad at my job. Her mom was having NONE of that.
Mom apologized profusely for her daughter's behavior and asked me to show her how we folded the clothes. I tried to tell her not to worry about it, I just wanted her kid to stop. She insisted, so I showed her the fold we used on shirts and the ones we used on pants.
I started picking things up, and noticed that the mom had gone to work telling her daughter how to fold everything. Eventually she told me I could go do something else, they weren't leaving until her daughter fixed everything.
I had other things to do, but I came back later and they were finishing up. Daughter was in tears, saying she was humiliated and that this wasn't her job. Mom just kind of stood there chuckling and said, "it's your job right now, you make a mess you pick it up. Rules don't stop at our front door, they apply to anywhere you go."
Started off as one of the worst experiences but ended on a high note, for me at least.
Modus Operandi
I worked at Target in the clothing department for about 3 years. One night I was on the closing shift (6pm-11pm). If you work the closing shift, you spend pretty much the entire shift zoning your assigned area. For me, that meant folding clothes for 5 hours. This particular night I was assigned the women's area, which is the largest. Around 8pm a woman, probably in her late 40s, approached me.
She asked if I could help her find maxi skirts. I happily walked her to where they were. She then asks my opinion on which skirts I liked the best. Again, I happily told her. She grabs every single print we offer in the skirt. Then she asks me to come back to the fitting room with her. I obliged.
When we get back to the fitting room she wants me to stand outside the dressing room as she tries the skirts on. She comes out after each one and spends about 5 minutes going back and forth on "does this look good?" "Is it the right size?" "I don't like it." "Actually I do like it."
She asked me to fetch different sizes for different prints. She also has an attitude while she's doing all of this. Telling me that it's my job to help her. This went on until about 9:30. Finally, I think she's done. She now has about 20-25 skirts in her dressing room. She leaves them all sprawled out in the room and proceeds to tell me that she doesn't want any of them. Then she tells me to have a good night and leaves, leaving her mess behind. It took everything in me to smile back and to say have a good night as well.
Also, about 2 years later, my cousin was working at an office and some lady came in there. When my cousin was telling me about the lady and how she was a pain who kept going back and forth on things and was being so rude... We discovered it was the same lady I had helped before. So apparently this is the norm for her.
The End Of My Career
This crazy woman was already a known problem customer in our store. Being one of the managers and a longtime retail veteran, I usually helped her when she came in.
One particular day, she came in wanting to return a clearance item she'd bought 3 MONTHS AGO. I knew she knew our return policy and pointed out the "Final Sale" note on her crumpled receipt. (The day she'd bought the item in question had not been a fun encounter to begin with).
She started screaming that she should be allowed to return it because she has cancer and I have no idea how hard that was. I nursed my grandfather through Stage 4 lung cancer so had some idea but simply gave her calm reassurances. I did stick to the policy though. Side note: she'd been a nightmare long before she became ill and probably should have been banned already for some of her antics.
After more back and forth, she asks that I let her just exchange it. As she's giving me a headache, I agree, inform her that the exchanged item WOULD NOT be able to be returned or exchanged and reminded her of how much credit she had.
She comes back with another item and slams it onto my counter. Lo and behold, there's a dollar and change difference between her original item and the new one. She's furious, shouting that she shouldn't have to pay it and don't I know she's suffering! I firmly insist she coughs up the difference as THAT'S HOW EXCHANGES WORK.
She responded by pulling a fistful of change out of her purse and throwing it at my face. A nickel bounced off of my glasses. I saw red but calmly counted up the change, slid the excess across the counter (which she threw onto the floor) and she stormed out.
There had been a young couple in line behind her who promptly approached the counter and asked if I was okay. The head manager took over the register and sent me to the back to calm down. When I came out, she told me that the crazy woman had caused a ruckus at our sister store a few doors down and was now, finally, banned from both stores.
I quit the store and took a job in an office a few weeks later.
Physics Be Damned
Guy slammed a hot water bottle down on the counter and loudly exclaimed, with wife nodding in agreement behind him, that he'd put cold water in it 3 hours ago and it still wasn't hot.
That's Probably Worse
Idk if this counts as retail, but I was an intern at an aquarium, and while working at the touch-tank, a kid swallowed a handful of sand, I told his mother, and she told me that he was only four. He proceeded to swallow another handful of sand.
When Stubbornness Defies Science
Had a woman come in and request a large drink in a small cup. I asked her to repeat that. She reiterated she wanted a large drink, but in a small cup. I told her that wasn't possible. This went on and on, her yelling that it wasn't that difficult to understand, I'm trying to tell her that they're different volumes. Eventually I filled up a large, got a small cup and dead-eyed her while pouring the large in until it overflowed and went all over the counter.
How Does Capitalism Do This To People?
Former Blockbuster employee here.
There was a woman who not only absolutely refused to pay her late fees (which were legitimate), she became so enraged that she threw her stack of tapes at me, hitting me in the face. She then marched around the store and knocked every cassette, DVD, and coverbox that she could reach off of the shelves (some with her hands, some by swinging her purse), while shouting obscenities.
My manager got on the phone and called the police. When Angry Lady finished trashing the store, she demanded to know which cars out on the parking lot my coworker and I drove. When we refused to say, she spit at us and knocked all of the candy/shelf talkers/etc. off of the counters, and began stomping on them.
I don't know if it was divine intervention, or luck, or what, but as Angry Lady was spitting and stomping on the candy, another woman walked into the store. This woman just happened to be my next-door neighbor...and a police officer.
Officer Neighbor Lady approached Angry Lady and identified herself as a police officer. As she attempted to ask what the problem was, Angry Lady shouted, "WHERE'S YOUR F*****N' BADGE, B***?!", spit at Officer Neighbor Lady, and attempted to flee.
Officer Neighbor Lady grabbed Angry Lady before she could reach the door and a scuffle ensued. In a blink, Officer Neighbor Lady kicked Angry Lady's legs out from under her and she went down like a sack of bricks. I'll never forget the SMACK sound her face made when it hit the concrete floor (satisfying!).
While she held Angry Lady down, Officer Neighbor Lady asked me to go get her purse, out of which she pulled a pair of handcuffs. As the cuffs locked around her wrists, it was then that Angry Lady finally realized what trouble she was in. She began to sob and wail loudly. She promised to make nice, pay her fee, and begged to be let go. Two uniformed officers arrived and hauled Angry Lady away, screaming and crying like a lunatic.
Turned out Angry Lady was actually the mother of a student at my school (I was in high school at the time). He avoided me for the rest of the year (felt terrible for the guy). We found out later that Angry Lady was not under the influence of any alcohol or drugs - she was just a volatile, childish jerk. She was banned from every corporate Blockbuster store.
Oh, and the late fee she owed? $12.
Hot Coffee Drama
When I was a kid, I worked at a fast food restaurant and opened on the weekends. Toward the end of the breakfast rush, some guy comes through with a huge order. We were getting ready for lunch, and didn't have anything he wanted already made, so it took us a few minutes to get it together.
He starts cussing at me that he is late for church, and I need to hurry the hell up. I explain that I will get his food out as soon as the cooks are done, but that's not good enough for him. I finally reached my limit, and told him he should probably leave the house earlier next Sunday.
Dude throws hot coffee on me through the drive-thru window. My manager sees this, and asks me how much their food is. He then pulls that amount out of the register, throws it at the man, and tells him to get the heck out of his drive-thru. The guy threatens to call the cops, and my boss told him they were already on the way and he needed to leave if he didn't want to get arrested for assault.
"Dude..."
"Uhh, why this model of shoes has seams on the right, and that one has on the left?" Dude, are you serious? I sell, not design this stuff!
"The mother bought..."
I've had this one mother of a few teenagers tell me verbatim,
"You know if you slowed down, we wouldn't run into this situation."
Story behind it: The mother bought a whole lot of stuff, including some taquitos and a slushie. One of her kids come in and drop their stuff on the counter so I added them and the mom asks "Did you include this?" in a mean manner. While the kid says I'm paying for myself so I void the things the kid put down with the mom still asking and I go "No" and she tells me that quote.
"On one particular Thursday..."
I work at a Starbucks, and you can imagine all of the customers we get. Especially being the only location in my city with a drive thru. But there was one lady who stood out among everyone.
Every Thursday is happy hour, which is a buy one get one for hand crafted espresso beverages, so lattes, Frappuccinos, anything we have to pour out blood, sweat, and annoyance into.
On one particular Thursday we were extremely busy, and one lady came in and decided to order 8 different frappuccinos. All fairly complex; 4 different types of milk, all with more than one syrup and some unusual "secret menu" item that made the print out sticker about half a foot long.
Anyway, there were only two of us making beverages, I was doing cafe orders and my coworker was making drive thru orders, so I got flooded with frappes.
I had already heard this lady chew out my coworker on the POS for not making half of her order free, so I could tell she was a total Karen. But about 2 drinks in she yells at me asking what's taking so long, why I'm purposely working so slow to ruin her day, etc.
I politely explained to her that we only have one blender at the moment so it takes some time to make the drinks, (our other one had been broken because the motor wasn't working properly). She accused me of being extremely rude to her and asked to speak to my manager, and considering they weren't in at the time I asked one of my supervisors to come out.
This lady exclaimed that I had called her a btch, told her to sit the fck down and wait for her damn drinks, and some other bullshit she made up on the spot.
Right then, I used my right to refuse service to anyone, and dumped her three finished frappuccinos down the sink while looking her dead in the eyes. My supervisor backed me up, saying that if she was going to act this way, she would have to leave.
She walked out so fast, without even getting a refund, and I haven't seen her since.
The highlight of that day was getting a 20 dollar tip from an older gentleman which he had given to me as somewhat of a pat on the back for having to deal with that lady, and everyone in the store politely waited for their drinks and thanked everyone in the store.
"I told him what he needed..."
A customer asked me about our coupon. I told him what he needed to know. He asked again and I told him. This went on for a couple minutes before I called up the assistant manager, knowing if my patience was tried any longer I was gonna go off.
"I was a salesman..."
I was a salesman at cell phone store until two years ago, had a guy come in one night about 30 minutes before the store closed. I was the only one working at the time. He wanted to return a phone he had bought because he couldn't get used to the operating system, it was an iPhone and before that he had only used android. Nothing wrong with that, people have their preferences, I myself prefer android, to each his/her/their own. I check the gentleman's receipt and he is within the return period.
I look through the bag and see that the box the phone came in is still neat and tidy and has the charger, headphones, and warranty papers all where they should be. All seems to he om order. Finally I inspected the phone itself. The front looks okay, just heavily fingerprinted. I take the case off and I turn the phone over to look at the back and this thing is massacred. The back is scratched to hell and back. It looked like someone took a weed whacker to it. The glass lens on the camera was smashed. As I'm staring it open mouthed and wide eyed I glance up at the guy and he is just staring me down and then says, "the refund will go back to my card correct?" I took a second to answer because I couldn't understand the stupidity.
I finally said, "Sir, I can't take this back. Not at all. Our policy states that any return or exchange must be in 'like new' condition in order to be resold, albeit in 'open box' condition and with the extensive damage on the back, I cannot return it."
What ensued next was the most idiotic I ever seen a person act.
He said, "There's nothing wrong it. I don't see anything."
HOW DO YOU NOT SEE ANYTHING WRONG?
I looked at him dumbfounded and said, "The phone is right here between us, we are both looking at the same phone, look at the back plate and the camera."
He said, "It looks fine to me. Please refund my money, I don't want it."
"Well, as I said, I cannot take it back. I will not take it back."
"You have to, your policy says I can return or exchange purchases within 30 days and I'm within the 30 days."
"Yes you are, but the phone us damaged."
"No it isn't, where do you get that from?"
"From the fact that it's scratched and the camera lens is destroyed."
"I want to take to corporate."
" Alright, here is their number," I say as I had him a card with the number for customer service.
As he talked to them I went about the store finishing up my closing duties. He put the phone on speaker so I could hear the entire conversation. They told him the same things I told him and also told him that regardless they had no power to compel me to take a phone back. After a while he hing up on then and then sat at my desk staring me down until I can back over to finish the cash reporting at my register.
He looked at me and then said, "So when will I have my money back?"
"I am not returning that phone. Not a chance. You have been arguing with me for 30 minutes now, it is past 9:00pm, my store is now closed. The manager will be here tomorrow if you'd like to talk with him, but as of tonight I cannot and will not return that phone."
At this point his entire demeanor changed. Before he had just been a moron but had been calm. Now he lowered his head slightly and creased his brown and yelled, you f------ piece of scum. That's what you are. You are scum. Absolute filth. Worthless."
I'm not having this so I simply told him, "Gather your things and get out of my store. I will not be spoken to like that."
"No, I'm not leaving until you take this phone back, refund me, and reactivate my old phone."
"You need to leave. This is not public property. If you don't I am calling the police."
"You won't do it because you are spineless, scum."
So I called the police while staring him in the eye. He because even more furious and pushed my desk, not enough to damage it, just enough to nudge it slightly. At this point I realized that he may have weapon of some kind and me trying to stand my ground and be formidable with him may not be the smartest move, I went to the back of the store which is through a locked door and watched him through the security cameras to make sure he didn't trash the place or steal anything. When the police finally arrived I came out and told them the whole story to one officer while the angry man spoke to a separate officer.
The police finally told him that I was right, he needed to leave. The next day the manager called the guy and told him not to come in because he would not return the phone. I had taken pictures of it to show the manager. The man called relentlessly and tried to enter the store but we barred him from it. We eventually told him that if he kept it up that we would involve the police again and press charges this time. He eventually quit harassing us. The best part is the time in between his purchase and attempted return, remember I mentioned he was within his 3p day return period, he bought it two days before trying to return it.
Two days and he trashed the back. My theory is that he was fully aware of the damage and deliberately came so close to closing time thinking I wouldn't be as diligent because I wanted to leave for the night. As for why he wasn't seeking an exchange I am unsure, maybe he just came to conclusion that he didn't want a high phone bill, I have no idea. But those are my theories at least.
"So I ring her up..."
This happened today, a few hours ago.Not as crazy as the others, but I'm still pissed off.
This lady comes in with a return without a receipt. I ask to see her driver's license so I can scan it. So she opens her wallet and lays it on the counter in front of me and gives me an expectant look. I reach to pull her license out of the pocket (to scan it, like I told her, I thought it was pretty fucking obvious I couldn't do that when it's all covered up and I can't see the barcode on the back) and she pries my fingers off of her wallet and angrily says "Don't touch my wallet!" So I ask her to pull it out so I can scan it.
So I ring her up and give her a gift card with store credit. She gives me an angry look and leaves. Then, not a minute later, comes back to my register and demands to speak to a manager. All I can hear while I'm ringing up the next customer is this evil soccer mom loudly talking sh~t about me and everything I did wrong, then my manager has to break the rules and trade her gift card for cash just to get rid of her. I was trying to start up a conversation with the next customer so I didn't have to hear her being so horrible, but it didn't really work out.
"It's not that extreme..."
It's not that extreme, but I work at a Domino's and I have to listen to people asking me how many slices are in X size pizza. They're all cut the same. They all have 8 slices. Of course they aren't happy with that answer.
"She tried to start in on me..."
I managed a coffee shop in college that also had ice cream on one side. Shakes, sundaes, cones, etc...
Had a new girl working her first shift and this rude chick paused her annoyingly loud cell phone convo to berate this girl because she accidentally started to scoop the wrong ice cream. Honest mistake but this chick starts screaming at this poor girl and calling her all kinds of "idiot, dumb b!tch, etc...". The new girl was shaking and trying to apologize while fighting back tears. I walked over and whispered to her to go hang out in the office and that I'd take over. Then I slammed the door to the ice cream case closed and looked at the chick and told her "Get. The F*CK. Out" as calmly as I could.
She tried to start in on me but I just turned to the rest of the line and said "no one is getting ice cream until she's gone. So figure it out."
The rude chick bounced pretty quickly after that.
"I told the lady..."
Was a dog trainer at a pet store talking to a customer about training for their dog. She had her father with her and says something like 'don't worry I'll take care of it' and proceeded to hit the dog. I about lost my sh!t. I told the lady to never let her dad do that again. She was sad but I don't think it changed anything.
Also had someone bring in a litter of puppies that they were feeding fried chicken to. That was very very sad.
"I answered the customer service phone..."
I answered the customer service phone at a supermarket. A customer told me that our produce scales were wrong, because when he got home he checked the weights of all his fruits and vegetables on his kitchen scales and they were different from how the store weighed them. This was a HUGE and unacceptable act of fraud on the store's part, obviously. He had calculated the weight differences and demanded that I refund the amount he'd been "overcharged". The sum? $0.17c.
"I think I actually..."
I think I actually have one for this.
For some backstory, I work at a small store that has 3 locations, two in the city I live in and one an hour away. At the time this happened, I worked in all three locations throughout the week. This story takes place in the location an hour away, where I only worked on Mondays and Thursdays. The other employee worked the other days at this location, we will call her S. S often brought in her girlfriend to hang out, which was fine and our boss didn't care as long as work got done and customers were helped.
Supposedly S's girlfriend looked like me (I have seen her, the only similarity is that we are both blonde, and not even the same shade of blonde). We also have a no refund or exchange policy, as people are a--holes and have abused it in the past, so before I even started working there my boss decided to do no refunds and no exchanges for any reason. This policy is posted at the cash register, on the wall, on the window next to the door, and on one of the counters (this is a very small store, so frankly the amount of places is excessive). It is also posted at the bottom of all receipts.
Okay, so the story. I'm working one Monday and this old couple come in with one of our store bags, so I already know it's going to be a rough visit. They ask for a refund for an OPEN product. That they ADMIT to using. The product helps with pain relief, but there isn't a set amount for everyone. So some people may need one teaspoon, some people may need a tablespoon, some may need multiple tablespoons. Anyways, of course, I tell them no, because of store policy. At this point, they have already mentioned 3 times that I was "here yesterday when it was sold", to which I repeatedly pointed out that, no, I was in another shop an hour away. After I tell them no, the conversation goes something like this:
Old lady: Well yesterday you said it was guaranteed to work, and it didn't work.
Me: Well, yesterday I was in other city at another shop, but we cannot guarantee results for anyone, we can just tell you what works best for most of our customers.
OL: Well he tried it and it didn't work. So you owe us our money back. That's what guarantee means.
M: As I previously said, due to store policy we cannot do refunds or exchanges. How much did he take of it?
OL: Two teaspoons.
M: Well, some people need more than others. We have some customers that take one teaspoon and it works fine, and others who take a couple tablespoons before it works. Everyone is dif-
OL: He tried multiple times. He took one teaspoon and waited 10 minutes and then took another and STILL NOTHING. I told you yesterday that if it didn't work I would be back in here today returning it and you said it was guaranteed to work. You knew I would be back if it didn't work.
M: Once again, I was nowhere near this shop yesterday. The only people who would have been here is S and her girlfriend, and I've heard several times that I look similar to her girlfriend. I don't see it, but since quite a few people do, I'll assume she was here yesterday. I was at our other location in other city, which is over an hour away. That's where I work every Sunday, like every Monday I work here. I do apologize if S told you you could have a refund, as she should never have said that and should not have guaranteed it's success, that isn't what we are supposed to say or do and I apologize on behalf of her. I'll be letting my boss know so he can speak to her about it. However, we do not issue refunds, and I cannot budge on that. (At this point she had tried to cut me off several times but I would slightly raise my voice and then go back to talking at a normal level.)
OL: Well you should really tell people there are no refunds.
(I pulled her receipt off the counter from where she put it and showed her the bottom, where it says no refunds)
M: It says it here at the bottom of the receipt, and there is a sign on the door, on the register, and on the wall. I do apologize if S did not verbally tell you there were no refunds, but that is policy.
OL: Well can't you call your boss?
M: I can, and I will if you would like, however he is going to say the same thing I did.
(I proceed to call my boss, who did indeed say the same thing I did. Only he basically told me I should know better than to call him about it, because I know the policy. The only reason he does this is that USUALLY it calms the customers down when they realize I'm getting in "trouble" for having him explain what I already did. I never actually get in trouble for it. The old lady also mentioned how I was the one who said it was guaranteed the day before, to which my boss responded "She was at other location in other city so there is no way that's true".)
They ended up spending another $100 on something else that they normally buy, vowing to never return again, to which I literally said "Okay." About a month after that S got fired for doing things like that, buying things from the store then selling them to people (we got a damn good discount, so she would buy something for like $8, then sell it to a customer in store for the store price of $22, getting cash for it. Which is basically stealing that money from the store.), constantly lying about me and saying I didn't do things I should have, or that I did do something I shouldn't (the bosses knew me well at that point, so they shut her down), and my personal favorite: harassing a regular customer, who then spotted my car one day and realized it was me working, and proceeded to tell me what had been going on. Safe to say, I was not sad to see S go, or the customer.
"I'm late to this..."
I'm late to this, but I used to manage a pop-up Halloween store in the city. For reasons far out of my control, and because of the nature of the temporary pop-up store, we had a step to come up into our store, so we were not ADA/wheelchair accessible.
One evening, a lady comes on a motorized wheelchair, and then gets upset that she can't come in. She wants to speak to me, the manager, to air her complaints. She was 100% in the right, and very reasonable.
All of a sudden this other able-bodied guy comes walking by and sees the problem. He starts yelling at me that I am treating this lady with a disability very wrong. He is just yelling and complaining and acting as this able-bodied hero for this woman.
There was nothing I could do at the moment, it was 9 PM, and I couldn't just start pouring concrete down to make a ramp into the store. This guy was having none of it. I was mostly upset that he was being belligerent for no reason, when I was having a perfectly fine discussion with the person who was in the wheelchair. I feel like sometimes people just want to start making a scene so they can be the hero.
Eventually, the guy walks away, and I continue on with the customer in a wheelchair who was very, very sweet. I saw her on a bus a few weeks later and we had a discussion like we were old friends.
Don't be the bigger guy in unneeded situations.
"They of course come back..."
Worked at a stand alone computer store in Baton Rouge about 20 years ago. I built custom computers. A man and his two young sons come in. None of them have sleeves on. And they all smell as though they have never even heard of deodorant or showers. Nice people, but you don't want to stand too close, because the smell is overwhelming. Literally. People are coming from the backrooms to see what in the world is going on. Owner is worried about a gas leak.
Anyway, they buy a desktop computer, and they ask how to set it up. I walk them through the whole process, and they're nodding all along. In the back of my mind I strongly suspect that they're not getting it, and that they'll only return later on, but in the moment I don't care. I just want to get through the pain as fast as possible to get some fresh air, and maybe someone else will help them when they come back...
Of course they return. And I could smell them before I saw them. Said the computer didn't work. I asked them to walk through the process that they went through setting it up. Blank look on their faces. So I ask what happens when they push the power button. Blank stares. Ah... So I show them the power button, and say that you need to push that to turn it on. (I AM NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP). Thankfully they leave after that, thinking that is that and I won't have to see them again. HA!
They of course come back a third time. Smell and all. This time they say that they did push the button, but nothing happened. I was surprised, because everything worked fine at the store. So I troubleshooting the problem, I asked if the green led on the power supply in the back of the case came on when they plugged the unit into the outlet at home. There was a pause for about 10 seconds before the man said "I didn't know we needed to plug it in. You never told us that!" He was mad, and I was glad that he was, because I got to turn it over to the owner (who ultimately accepted the return, which is probably the only time he did that, as these are custom computers). I suspect that this family didn't even have electricity...
"I was completely disgusted..."
I have sooo many stories but this one stands out cause it still pisses me off. A few years ago I worked for a cell phone store and one day this old guy comes in with his very nearly toothless friend. They needs a new phone but he doesn't pass the credit check, so he calls his wife to ask if she'll add him to her plan, to which she says yes.
I grab the phone he wants and begin the process of adding it to the plan and setting everything up. The WHOLE time, He is making googly eyes at me and flirting heavily while a friend is just sitting there giggling like Beavis. I'm remaining professional and ignoring the flirting, which consisted of compliments to my appearance, calling his wife an old ball & chain, asking me out to dinner, and telling me to make sure I put MY number in his new phone. Bear in mind this guy was at least twice my age and I was in my mid-30s at the time. To top it all off, he didn't even have enough money to pay so he calls his wife again and has her pay over the phone with her credit card.
I was completely disgusted, especially since I had just spoken to his very sweet wife and she clearly loved this creep and took care of him. I desperately wanted to kick him in his old balls but I just gave him b!tchface and clipped answers to everything he said and finished up as fast as I could. Thankfully we had people waiting to be helped, so I was able to shoo them out and move on but man, I was SO tempted to call his wife back and tell her exactly what kind of piece of shit she was married to. I wish I had.
Sometimes, the strangest things happen when we're not paying attention. Thankfully, we have security cameras to catch us up on what we miss out on. From awkward situations at work to creepy occurrences taking place right outside one's front door, these unreal moments captured by security cameras will make you want to install a CCTV system of your own.
1. Staring Contest
A neighbor was walking by, which he does every day, and he realized that cameras were being installed at my place. The next day, on his walk by, he did the most peculiar thing—he stood still and just looked at the camera. I could understand him looking for a few seconds to see how they were wired, what brand they were, and what they might be able to see, etc...
But he just stood there, looking at a single camera for about 14 minutes.
2. A Case Of The Ex
My ex-wife snuck up to my front door and peeked through the window...at 10 pm one night. But what made it extra creepy was that it happened right after the divorce was final. I had already established in my mind that I was no longer going to have anything to do with her, so it startled me to see her. Probably a full four minutes' worth of footage was captured.
She was definitely up to no good, so I ordered three more cameras from Amazon that night.
3. Step Into My Office
white and black corded devicePhoto by Oxa Roxa on UnsplashAt work, the IT guy reviews our restaurant security videos. One day, he called me and told me to open his email with my office door closed. The first part of the video showed the restaurant manager opening up the restaurant after hours (at around 1 am) to let a woman in. Fine, nothing wrong with that. But the next clip made my jaw drop.
They were totally going at it in the manager's office while drinking straight out the bottles from the cabinet. Then, they started arguing and the manager dragged the woman down the stairs, throwing her out of the restaurant. The manager was obviously fired. The woman later claimed the manager had taken advantage of her.
IT turned over unredacted and unedited to the authorities and I don't recall if the charges against the manager were upheld.
4. Guilt Trip
I work surveillance at a casino. Several years ago, when tokens were still used in the casinos, we received a call for a possible token theft. While one of my coworkers was reviewing the coverage we had, we overheard a radio call for a guest outside the exit. I pulled up the coverage to watch the EMTs perform CPR on him and I noticed a spilled bucket of tokens around him. It was not unusual for a guest to take tokens home and bring them back another day.
Well, my coworker completed the review for the theft and said, "Okay, we're looking for a black male wearing a red shirt and black pants." That’s when I put it all together.I took the camera I was using, put it on his monitor, and said, "You mean this guy?" It was the same person. Further review showed that he took the tokens and immediately walked to the exit.
When he was about 20 feet from the exit, one of our security officers exited right behind him, simply to walk outside. He had NO CLUE the man in front of him had just stolen over $100 in tokens. Our only assumption then was that the man thought the officer was coming toward him and had a heart attack.
5. She's Into Self-Serve
A bartender was accused of getting tipsy on the job. I happened to walk into the office while a manager was watching the security footage. You could see the bartender do several shots with customers and by herself. A regular customer was watching her nervously, trying to tell her to stop. Her response was appalling—she just twirled her hair around in the most disrespectful way, then sat at the guy's table where she snuggled against him and kissed him on the neck.
He was not her boyfriend, by the way. Later on, she disappeared outside for like 10 minutes. Oddly enough, she was actually the bar manager and she did make a lot of money. She got fired.
6. Historic Haunts
round wooden cafeteria tables and chairs inside roomPhoto by Nikola Jovanovic on UnsplashI worked in one of the oldest buildings in my college town. It was once a Wild West saloon where two people were documented to have lost their lives in a shootout when the state was still a territory. In the 20s, it served as someone’s house, where the youngest daughter was documented to have died there in childhood. When I got hired on, even the owners talked about it being haunted.
I’ve never truly “seen” a ghost or had an encounter, but something about the building, particularly the office to the back and definitely the dirt basement, did not feel right to me at all. Not malevolent, but always “off.” During my first closing shift after I get promoted to the keyholder, I was helping a new girl who had really taken the whole ghost spiel she got a few days prior to heart.
This particular store ranged from small little treasures that were almost too easy not to shoplift to a few items that cost five times the going rate for tuition at the local college. Naturally, the owners had 15 cameras installed that played on a live feed in the office and in the storefront. I was counting the drawer while she was anxiously watching the security camera, just waiting to see something crazy.
All of a sudden, she let out a bloodcurdling SCREAM. She called me over to the camera feed, and there it was—right on the top of the feed, there was what looked like a figure in a white, boxy nightgown-type dress. We were both terrified, but we couldn’t leave as there was still a bunch of stuff to get done. So we just watched it, stunned as it appeared to sway.
Then, a huge spider obscured the view of the figure...Yup, we were scared to tears by a freaking spider web that the AC blew into view of the camera.
7. Fly On The Wall
I remember closing the store one night. I was alone, which was against policy. I had sent my colleague home so she could catch the train (a customer had taken ages to leave). There were two monitors in the office: one with the security feed and another one that I was closing the last programs on. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed some movement on one of the cameras pointed at the entrance of the store.
I looked, but there was nothing there. I was super creeped out at that point. It didn't take much to put me on edge since I was alone, and it didn't help that we'd all been joking that the store is haunted. I dismissed the thought when I didn't see anything and continued what I was doing. After finishing, I looked one last time at the security feed and I just about jumped. There was a massive black shadow filling the whole screen!
It turned out to be a stupid fly. It was fine.
8. The Chicken Lady
My stepdad woke up one morning and found a bucket of fried chicken in our driveway. For some reason, he didn’t think it was odd at all. I checked our camera recordings and it ended up being this lady who walked up to my car at like 3 am with a bucket. She was obviously unwell and probably on something. When the camera light turned on, she yelled, "I brought you some chicken and left the bucket on the ground!"
To this day, I wonder what was up with the chicken lady.
9. A Ben And Jerry's Adventure
ben and jerrys chocolate fudge brownie ice creamPhoto by Hybrid Storytellers on UnsplashI went with some friends to a club in a big shopping center. The club was part of the center, but the door to it was outside and you couldn't access the rest of the mall at all during the night. Well, after some table dancing, one of my mates was desperately looking for the toilet. He went through a door. Then another door. Then another one. And somehow, he ended up inside the mall.
Unsure of what to do, he walked around and found an unlocked door which he pushed through. He then found a freezer. Just when he was about to take the leak inside, he opened it and...JACKPOT. Dozens and dozens and dozens of Ben and Jerrys. He immediately attacked the chunky monkeys, brownies, and phish foods, gorging himself until he realized that he was still locked out.
Picking up a stock of ice cream, he kicked a door open and found a girl that worked at the club. Covered in ice cream after eating it all with his hands, he asks her to let him back into the nightclub. She obliged and ice creams were had by all. The whole place was covered in security cameras, and we always wondered what his little Ben and Jerry's adventure must have looked like to anyone who happened to stumble over the tape.
10. Villain Origin Story
This happened about three years ago. I was living on this pretty short street, about 25 houses I’d say. We had recently set up cameras because we were having some really bad issues with this one neighbor. Most people on the street knew each other—we’d all barbecue and party together—and we all collectively hated this family. Their son, whose name I will keep secret, was one nasty guy.
One time, he pulled a knife out and pointed it at me from 20 feet away or so. He's also tried to get his dogs (two big pit bulls) to attack me, and we're pretty sure he was the one who took our quad. He was becoming a serious problem, so we set up the cameras solely because of him. So one night, he snuck out of his house and came over to ours. We had no clue why he was coming to our house, but whatever.
He got about halfway up our lawn, then stopped, noticed the cameras, and did some weird, creepy smile thing where he tilted his head a bit. He ended up leaving and we decided not to do anything because we were moving very shortly anyway. Supposedly, he has also moved, but out of state. I hope to never see that delinquent again.
11. Canine Cunning
One time, my roommates set up a webcam in the living room which was motion activated because we had four dogs in the house. Three of the dogs were pretty average in intelligence, but one of them was too smart for her own good. Upon returning to the apartment that day, we checked the carpet and there was what appeared to be a little chocolate smudge on the carpet. Of course, we checked the video, and the culprit ended up being the smart dog.
She did her business, and right as she was about to walk away, she stopped, turned her head to look directly at the camera, and after a moment of realization, she gobbled up the evidence.
12. Act Of Kindness
cabin in forestPhoto by Daniel Tuttle on UnsplashI caught something on video that ended up being surprisingly heartwarming. I have a brick house and the mailbox is bolted to it. Somehow, one side managed to come loose, so it had been dangling for a couple of weeks. I just didn't have a chance to get to the hardware store. I got home from work one day and it was bolted back properly. I checked to see if there was a note or anything, but nope.
On one hand, I was really grateful; but on the other, I was kind of spooked, wondering if I was totally losing it and if it maybe had never come loose at all. At the time, I did think my house was haunted, so that definitely added to that feeling. A couple of days later, I remembered I have cameras around the perimeter, so I checked them to see if they caught anything.
Turns out, an older guy with a tool belt just casually walked up, fixed my mailbox, and left. He wasn't there for more than three or four minutes. Eventually, I was able to piece together that one of my neighbors was having some roofing work done and this was one of the workers. I guess he had just seen my mailbox dangling for a few days and decided since I wasn't making any moves to fix it, he would.
I hadn't been living there for that long, and it really warmed my heart to know someone would go out of their way to perform a simple good deed for a stranger.
13. From The Top
Bit of backstory—I rent the upper floor of my best friend's house so we see each other quite often. I also use the kitchen and washer and stuff like that. One day, while we were in class, someone broke into the place. Nothing was stolen, but the house was a disaster. So I checked the footage of the camera we had out front...and what I saw chilled me to the bone.
We could see the guy go in, but we didn't see him come out. We called 9-1-1 and the officers checked the entire house. He was nowhere to be found. To add to the strangeness of the situation, we didn't have neighbors, so there was no one we could ask who may have seen what that guy was up to. But eventually, we discovered the dark truth.
Well, it turned out that the guy was hiding...ON THE FREAKING ROOF. He was up there a good week before we realized anything. He is now facing trial.
14. Those Teenagers
It started out being slightly creepy, but it ended up being really funny. I have external cameras with night vision all around my house. My family and I were on vacation several time zones west of our house. One night, right before I was about to go to bed, I got an alert and logged in to see what was going on. I saw a car pull into my driveway and four people get out, acting all sneaky and stealthy.
It was well past midnight at my house, and it didn't look good. I called my wife and kids in to watch it. I was preparing to call the authorities in my hometown. We saw them all sneak away and teepee another neighbor's house with toilet paper. They then ran back to their car in my driveway and sped off. My family and I laughed so hard. It was a highlight of that vacation.
15. Digging For Gold
woman with red lipstick and red lipstickPhoto by engin akyurt on UnsplashThere were many security cameras at my former workplaces, and turns out, a lot of them were actually recording! One night, things were really slow, and after a while, you get numb and forget about all those cameras hanging from the ceiling...So this girl who worked there was walking towards the bathroom, and she stopped in the entryway just past the security gates.
She proceeded to pick a big, long, gooey booger out of her nose and slurp it up. The manager was reviewing the tapes, and instead of chuckling and keeping it to himself, he showed the store manager and whoever else was in the building at the time. So now, who knows how many people have seen her embarrassing moment...
A few days later, there was a bag of candy to share, and the manager commented to the store manager, "She doesn't seem like the kind of girl to eat sweets," all while the girl was standing right there! Sometimes you just zone out, you know? By the way, that girl was me.
16. Nomadland
There was a guy living inside of one of the broken-down cars out by the barn at my parents' house during the winter. We lived about 10 miles out from the closest town, so he was likely a drifter or homeless. We honestly didn’t do anything about it. We just kept in mind that he was there during the nights in case something shady ever went down. I think he really just needed somewhere to sleep that wasn’t outside.
He left and never returned after winter passed. When it had been a few weeks since we saw him on the cameras at night, we went and looked inside of the car—so many empty cans of Beanie Weenies...I hope he managed to find his way onto another area that didn’t turn him away or was able to get himself into a job and a real home.
It was definitely really jarring the first time we came across him. We did some investigating after our dogs went wild in that area a few nights in a row. We thought it was some kind of animal at first, but it ended up being him. We watched for a few nights to make sure he wasn’t trying to come into the house, but he literally would just get in the car, stay through the night, and leave early in the morning.
It became pretty obvious what was happening and we just took the chance that he wasn’t some awful person; simply because he was looking for some means of shelter. Once winter was on its way out, we would play some footage of the night before and that morning, before the sun came up, we didn’t see him. In fact, he didn't end up on the footage for a good few weeks after sporadic checks.
We didn’t want to make him feel bad by looking into the car in case he was anywhere nearby during daylight hours, so we just waited until it was nearly confirmed he had moved on. I think about him a lot, actually—I wish we could have talked with him and listened to some stories he may have had or maybe find out what put him in the position he was in. Maybe get him some warm food in his stomach too.
17. Come And Go
Well, today I caught two random adult men in my backyard measuring the fence or something while I was home alone. As a girl, you could imagine all the scary scenarios that were going through my head. Luckily, they left right when I saw them on the security cameras (I guess they were done measuring the fence) and I told my dad. Turns out, it was just the neighborhood gardeners and they called my dad to let him know they were there.
But no one thought to let me know...Way to give me a heart attack. Then, a few days later, another incident—I caught some random woman also in my backyard, but this time, a creep was trying to look into the windows. I felt like my soul left my body when I saw her. She looked mad and she wasn’t alone. Some guy was waiting in a pick-up truck for her. She left and I never saw her again.
18. Cat Called
selective focus photo of adult big cat familyPhoto by Leah Huyghe on UnsplashMy parents live just outside a town of about 400 people. One morning, they woke up and saw an alert from their motion-activated camera that covers the area outside their bedroom. I should mention that their bedroom has a sliding glass door with a screen that they sometimes leave open on hot nights. When they replayed the camera footage, their jaws dropped.
A cougar walked up and stopped about 10 feet from the sliding glass door. And the worst part is the footage cuts off before the cougar leaves...
19. Office Game
A colleague of mine was just telling me about his previous workplaces when this tale came up. Anyway, their office had a covered walkway running all the way around the floor, so on a quiet shift, they decided to have an office chair rally. The four of them scooted off on their office chairs as fast as they could, down one side of the walkway, around the corner at top speed, then all the way back.
As they headed back, they found a security guard at their desk, arms folded, looking quite grumpy. He started to apologize to the security guard for being silly, and the guard replied: "No worries, I had a fiver on the fat guy."
20. Ambien Daze
One night, at about 3 am, the dogs went crazy. I checked the cameras and there was this guy just sitting on a windowsill beside the front door. He wasn't threatening or trying to break in; he was just sitting and looking around. I called the non-emergency line. They came and determined he was a neighbor. He thought our house was his job site and he was just waiting for the plumbers to finish.
I am not sure if it was a weird Ambien sleepwalk or one of the odd stories about UTIs or CO causing delusions. He got taken for medical evaluation and it appears got the treatment he needed. He ended up moving out a few months later after being in and out of the hospital.
21. Joker Imitation
gray car parked on parking lotPhoto by Bence on UnsplashMy friend saw his brother's ex-best friend set his 30,000-Euro Peugeot classic on fire because his brother took the friend's girl...The creepy thing was that the dude had makeup like the Joker, and he looked directly into the camera before lighting the fire. He was caught the same night and was put behind bars.
22. Creepy Co-Worker
I installed a Ring camera and lock on my gate as couriers and postmen kept leaving it open and my dogs would run down the street. Nothing too out of the ordinary for the first year. I just bought a solar panel for it as I always would forget to charge it, installed it, and let the solar panel charge up the camera from flat to see how much charge it would give the camera.
It worked like a charm and in low amounts of sunlight during the winter mornings, it was more than enough to keep the camera going nonstop. Literally, two days later, I got home from work and my camera was missing. It was ripped off the post and the solar panel was destroyed. I checked the footage and someone had come up and ripped it from the post to put it in their pocket before walking off with it.
However, here's the odd part. The person who took it was an ex-work colleague who looked directly into the camera. Previous footage showed his car driving past the house and parking down the road. I hadn't worked with the guy for over two years and I never told him where I lived. Anyway, now that guy has acharge against him and I've got cameras and floodlights absolutely everywhere around my house.
23. The Glimmer
Our outdoor kitty had cancer and we didn’t have the money to get her help. She wasn’t in pain; just quickly deteriorating. We made up a bed for her outside, gave her food and water, played with her favorite toys, and said our goodbyes. We went off to bed and hoped she would go peacefully. The next morning, we woke up and got her out of bed.
Frantically, we looked for her, until we found her curled up underneath a shelf, cozy and tucked away; but she had passed. My dad had a security camera in the garage, so he looked at her last few moments of living. She got up from her bed, walked around, sat at the door, and mewed for a bit (that part tore me up), then slowly slinked under the shelf. But that’s not the most surprising part.
About two minutes later, we saw a brief glimmer, and what looked like a sheer silk window curtain flowing in front of the camera. Now, I know that it wasn’t an actual spirit or ghost, and it was just vapor and dust, but the fact that I had never seen that before, and how it was timed to coincide with her passing...
24. Peeping Tom
person watching through holePhoto by Dmitry Ratushny on UnsplashBack when we didn't have gates on the driveways, I set up a game camera. I have a whole file called "Weirdos In My Yard." It's mostly random people who look lost. One guy drove into my side yard, sat there in his car for 20 minutes, backed out of the yard, waited, then drove back in...before eventually leaving. That was pretty tame, until the next time when I caught the same guy peeping through the windows.
We decided to upgrade after that. The massive gates across all of our driveways stopped the weirdo creepers, but our new camera system now tells me when anyone so much as slows down on the road by my house.
25. Invasion Of Privacy
In my town, there was a fairly popular restaurant that everyone went to all the time. Everyone loved the place. The owner was this short, adorable, loveable guy that everyone liked. A few years ago, someone noticed something off in the bathroom. Upon investigation, they made a disturbing discovery. They found a camera set up in there.
Apparently, the owner had been videoing people doing their business for years and was even found to be a part of a child trafficking ring on the deep web. Needless to say, our small town was shocked. Everyone used that bathroom at one point or another.
26. Dance When No One's Looking
When we first installed a video security camera, I knew my husband was anxiously awaiting for the motion sensor to trip and start recording, which would then send him an instant notification on his phone. He went out for a drink, so I quickly put together an outrageous costume with a crazy headdress and did an eclectic dance past the camera, complete with a kazoo marching band song.
If only I’d had a camera to view him at the bar as he spewed his drink with laughter!
27. Party For Two
white ceramic sink with faucetPhoto by Buchen WANG on UnsplashI came into the retail store one morning to open it and the lights were already on, along with the radio and the TV. There were empty cans in the bathroom trash and put-out smokes on the floor. I went back to watch the security tapes and I couldn't believe my eyes—the manager had brought a woman in at midnight and they had a party for two in the bathroom.
When they came back out, they had fewer clothes on. Needless to say, the manager didn't have a job by noon that day.
28. Shady Operation
I live alone and I have had some truly weird stuff happen. At my last place, which was a townhouse, I had security cameras set up in my backyard after I noticed the screen pulled off my back window. I also put a padlock on the gate (which I usually didn't do so the landscapers could come in and mow.) One night, I got a notification that there was a motion in the backyard.
I looked at the camera and didn't see anything. Then, I noticed the gate was shaking. I saw a hat appear over the top of the gate and some guy peeking over it. As luck would strangely have it, my boyfriend at the time was on the SWAT team in my city and he had just gotten to my place to spend the night after a SWAT hit. He ran in the back, half-dressed in all his gear, tackled the guy and I called the authorities.
It was my neighbor's boyfriend, who also had a pistol on him. He was high as a kite. They ended up arresting my neighbor, as well as a bunch of people in the house because apparently, the pistol he had was stolen. There were a ton of other stolen dangerous goods and illicit substances in the house.
29. Running Scared
At around 2 am, a woman ran across our front yard and into the little cove that is our porch. She ran right next to the house, past our front window, past the door, and then hugged the wall before running past our garage. It was like she was sticking as close to the building as possible. She looked possibly scared in the video—hard to tell, but her mouth was open a bit.
This was very abnormal since the front door is about 40 to 50 feet away from a sidewalk or road. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to be that close. The only thing we could think of was that a vehicle was following her and she cut across our yard and into the porch area to try and keep out of view. Perhaps she kept on running because our motion-detecting lights had lit up and she didn't want to be seen.
30. Fatal Crossing
two bullet surveillance cameras attached on wallPhoto by Scott Webb on UnsplashWe have cameras installed inside our business because we've had problems with people coming in and stealing. Most of the cameras are only filming inside, but because we have pretty big windows, you can sometimes get a glimpse of the outside. We're located on a pretty busy downtown street in a large city. One day, I finally got to work after painstakingly circling around in my car because many roads surrounding our business were cordoned off by the authorities.
From inside my business, I saw clothes just scattered all over the street, but didn't think much of it. The next day, officers came in and asked if we had cameras that overlooked the streets. Apparently, there had been a very bad accident involving a pedestrian and a car in the early hours the night prior, and there were no witnesses.
The driver of the car was hospitalized due to shock, and the pedestrian had died on the way to the hospital. Our cameras have limited storage space and will overwrite themselves, so we hurriedly removed the cards and started going through them one by one to see if the accident might have been caught on tape. We didn't expect to find anything as the accident happened a bit further down the street.
Plus, it happened at like 3 am while it was still pretty dark out, so we didn't have a very lit-up view of the street. Wrong. We saw, in HD video, a skinny older man get hit right in front of our business and dragged several meters down the street. Prior to the discovery of the footage, many people believed that the driver of the vehicle was probably speeding as is usually the case down this street.
But the pedestrian had actually crossed the street on a red light with his back turned to traffic and he was struck like a brick. Probably the most horrifying thing I ever saw. Apparently, the man was a newcomer that had just gotten a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant and was returning home after his shift.
31. See But Don't Speak
I’m an I.T. Director at a private school. This was so gruesome, I’ll never forget it. Many years ago, there was an issue where someone late at night was going into the computer lab at the school and looking at sensitive videos on a specific computer. We assumed it was a maintenance worker, so they asked me to place a hidden camera to see who it was. I placed the camera and about a week later, the culprit did it again.
Unfortunately, I had to watch the guy do his business. Let me tell you, as a network guy, this is actually the lesser of what I have had to deal with before. I have witnessed worse things like spouses cheating, bosses doing the deed in the office with co-workers, underaged kids with adults, and the list goes on. I feel like a soldier when they are sent overseas. They see crazy things but don’t talk about them.
32. The Godfather Squirrel
One year, we grew giant sunflowers in our backyard. I opened the front door one morning to find a decapitated sunflower head missing its seeds on our front step. The security footage showed a squirrel hopping across our driveway carrying the sunflower head, dragging it up 10 stairs, and then eating every last sunflower seed while sitting in front of our main door. He left it there like some squirrel Godfather parody.
33. Wasting Water
person holding black dslr cameraPhoto by Steve DiMatteo on UnsplashThere is a mentally ill homeless woman living around my neighborhood and she frequently goes into people's yards if their gates are unlocked. She often turns on their outside hoses and leaves them spewing water all over the yard. My family heard about this through a neighborhood website, so we hid our hose in our backyard as a precaution since we had no lock on our gate.
We got up one morning and the back patio and garden were pretty much flooded. We were obviously confused and annoyed, so we checked our security camera footage—we saw that around 2:30 am, the woman had come into our backyard, looking for our hose. She couldn't find it at first, so she started looking under chairs and peering into our windows, getting more intense in her search with each minute that she didn't find it.
It was just strange to see this grown woman so intent and feverish on finding our garden hose in the middle of the night. As a side note, none of us have reported her for fear of her being taken in for trespassing or taken to a hospital, but we do sometimes leave food outside for her, which is rarely eaten.
34. The Beige Tahoe
I had security cameras installed a few years ago after someone attempted to break in through my back door. The door itself is steel, and the doorknob is one of those that has a keypad with an actual keyhole above it in case the keypad quits working. The installers messed up the keyhole and even pulled out the pins, but the door somehow stayed locked.
The cameras were put up for a couple of years. Nothing of interest aside from a fat opossum who liked to hang out by the carport. Then, at about 3 in the morning one night, the camera captured me outside. I was doing my usual nightly things (I'm a total night-owl and will go outside periodically throughout the night to walk around the property).
I headed inside and not even 10 minutes afterward, a beige Tahoe towing an empty trailer showed up. It approached not from the road, but from a field behind the property. The Tahoe stopped right at the back door and two men came out. The driver hid out of sight from the camera. But that’s not the scariest part. The passenger was wielding a big hunting knife, hiding it behind his back, and he knocked at the door.
To make matters worse, they were hiding in the field behind the house. They had to have seen me. They were also probably hiding with their lights and engine off for quite some time as I was outside for almost a full hour. I would've easily noticed the lights or the sounds of a car engine. There was no telling exactly how close they were to me in that field because, at the time, there were no lights near the area.
I also did hear the knocking. No one else in the house did as I was the only one awake at the time. The knocking was quite loud, frantic-sounding, and lasted for at least a couple of minutes. I didn't answer it as I just never answer the door after dark unless I am specifically expecting somebody.. To watch the exact situation unfold on the security cameras the next day was honestly scary, and it really put into perspective exactly how close I was to losing my life.
35. Paranormal Activity
During the first six months of a newly-constructed building, the cameras caught a couple of different things. On one occasion, we'd heard a huge crash; like a bowl of bolts falling. Sometimes, we'd find them sitting thread sides up. The printer tray would also be left open. When we checked the cameras, we didn't find anything suspicious. We were convinced the building was built on some sort of sacred ground or something—there were definitely some paranormal forces at work that were causing those things to happen.
36. Donut Danger
doughnut with toppingsPhoto by Kobby Mendez on UnsplashBack when I managed a donut shop, I saw a guy staring at me and another young girl. He was dressed in dark clothes and a dark hat. When he realized we could see him, he ran off. I locked all the doors and the drive-thru window. Thankfully, it was closing time anyway. My co-worker called her best friend, who was a very large young man on the wrestling team, and he walked us to our cars.
The spot he was standing in was a point of poor visibility from the inside after the sun went down. Our store had a deep porch, and along the window that he was staring through, there was a wall-mounted bar counter. At night, we turned the stools over and put them on the bar, so the chairs were blocking the view of the window. If he hadn't moved suddenly, I might never have noticed him.
Before we left, I decided to review the cameras to see if I could catch him getting into a car. I went back to the moment I noticed him and kept rewinding. That's when I realized a startling truth—he'd been staring at us from the dark of night for three hours.
37. A Street Situation
a car that is sitting in the grassPhoto by Tobias Tullius on UnsplashIt wasn’t MY camera, but my friend's. The camera feed was recording at maybe 2 am. It was dark, but it was a night vision feed or something, so we could clearly see what was happening. Also, my buddy lived on a hill that was right next to a very busy road connecting two different towns. That day, while his family was asleep, a car was speeding down that road really fast.
I, who lived three blocks away, was awake, so I could hear the screeching. I decided to ignore it considering it wasn’t my problem. Then, the next day, there was a giant hole in his fence and the place looked really messed up from what I saw. I visited my friend and he was very shaken up about the incident. He proceeded to show me the weirdest and most insane feed I ever saw...
The cropped clip showed a small backyard and it was facing the once normal fence. Soon, out of NOWHERE, there was the sound of loud screeching of tires, and seconds later, a car came bouncing in as the bus does in The Magic School Bus. It was so weird and frightening because out of nowhere...BOOM. There’s a car in your backyard.
38. Night Intruders
When I was 16, my family's house phone rang at 3 am. I'm a night owl, so I was the only one up and I answered. A lady rang from a security firm saying that the alarm in our business was going off and that the authorities were notified. I went out of the house to look around the corner so I could see up the street. I didn't get too close; maybe a hundred and fifty yards. I thought of getting closer, but I thought it wasn't worth it.
A day or two later, I saw the CCTV footage and I almost choked.There were four absolutely gigantic dudes with a few crowbars. I'm glad I didn't go up because they would have beat me into next week. And that was a long while ago. That's a lot of beating. On the bright side, I got a hundred euros for my heroics...
39. Standing Up To Evil
brown wooden book shelves in libraryPhoto by Shunya Koide on UnsplashI used to work in a public building that included a library. It was in the middle of the city center next to the railway and bus station. One time, there was some boy, maybe around 15 years old, acting strangely in the library for several weeks. The people working there didn't know what was going on with him, but he seemed afraid and unsure of what to do. Then, one day, he mustered up the courage to talk to one of the librarians.
He told him a shocking secret—there was an older guy harassing him in the men's room of the library in one of the toilet cabins. The older dude was also blackmailing him, putting pressure on him not to say anything. Needless to say, the authorities got involved and they happened to catch that guy who was still in another section of the three-story library.
They ended up arresting him, and we went to check the bathroom afterward. It was a grisly scene that I wish I could remove from my mind. The next day, I was sitting in my office and I got a call from my boss. The authorities wanted to have the recordings of the camera that is sitting on a pole outside of the building, filming the front side and entrances.
Apparently, the dude claimed that none of what the boy said was true. So, I checked the footage, and lo and behold—there was the guy entering the library together with the boy. Well, I saved it, put it on a USB stick, and handed it to the officers who later arrived and also watched the footage. I have no idea what happened after, but there was enough evidence.
It's terrifying that stuff like that happens. I applaud that boy for speaking up and ending his nightmare. Not the best days at work, let me tell you.
40. In Plain Sight
While working in a hotel on a popular nightlife street, I saw plenty of weird shenanigans. One night, I went home at around 11 pm, walking alone as usual. I woke up the next day to reports of murder on the same street I was walking home on. It's a few hundred meters long, so it was unclear how close the incident happened to my work, but it was concerning nonetheless. Well, as I got to work, that's when I realized just how close it was.
The authorities were right outside, stretching 10 meters on either side. The hotel bar windows look out directly onto the street below, so that's where the investigators were doing their sweeps. I heard through the grapevine that the night porter heard a commotion and went down to see what was going on. That's when he heard the lads dying screams.
I knew we were going to be getting a visit from some officers, so I thought I'd get details of the time to be able to pass that information on. Lo and behold, the officers turned up looking for CCTV, and I was the only person who actually knew how to work it. So me and two detectives went through the CCTV feed of the areas of importance running on a large screen, and there it was.
Two lads were having a back and forth, and one of them beat the other on the main street, just when people were heading home from bars. The guy who lost the fight was just left on the floor, bleeding out. He was eventually found by other drinkers who had just headed home from a night out. It's horrifying how it just happened in plain sight.
41. Warehouse Wraith
I worked security at a warehouse and installed a small camera near an item that was being stolen regularly. Rather than watch days of video of people working, I would jump 5 to 10 minutes at a time to see if there was a change in that area, or jump an hour at a time to when no one was working, just to cover my bases. If someone bumped into the boxes, even the slight change in position of the box or items would be noticeable.
Now, these boxes were on angled roller racks, so once the front was empty and removed, the one behind would slide down into place. I was skipping along and saw the motion of a different item on the top shelf during a time when no one was working in that area. There was one thing left in the box; I don't remember what it was but think something about the size of a Rubik's cube.
It slid sideways, from one side of the box to the other. To this day, I can't explain how that was possible, because gravity was pulling it down and forward into the front edge of the box, and it was too heavy to be simply blown around. I showed it to my boss and my coworkers—we never came up with a good answer for how it moved.
42. Haunting On The 4th
time lapse photography of sparkler and U.S.A flag letPhoto by Stephanie McCabe on UnsplashThis was so creepy, I still can’t explain it. It happened when I was seven years old. It was the 4th of July and we had fireworks and stuff. When it got late, my aunt said she was staying over. A little side note: my dad had a “bad” problem checking the security cameras in the morning and I was overly fascinated with the paranormal. When I walked into the living room, my dad was already checking the security cameras.
He wanted me to look at the footage as well and when I did, there was this sound of a kid screaming—not like he was about to be killed, but more like a playful scream. It sounded a lot like my little cousin, who we'll call Luke for privacy purposes. We did have a lot of family members over, so we thought that he just snuck off with some of the other kids and was playing.
We didn't think much of it until my aunt was leaving and said she was going without Luke. We asked her, "Where's Luke?" She looked confused and said, " Luke wasn't feeling well, so I left him at home with his dad." Our faces went pale. We showed her the video and she was shocked as well.
When I got older, I did some research on the house and it turns out that a woman had drowned her kid, a four-year-old boy, in the bath on the 4th of July after finding out her husband had passed.
43. Spiritual Stalker
I used to work in a fairly upscale resort and the whole place was covered with CCTV, so in the security control room, you had a pretty good overview of everything. We had guards assigned to patrol the hotel at all times of the night. One guy did his rounds by the pool while the supervisor was watching on the screens. He saw that there was a lady following him, so he radioed the guard and asked who was behind him. The guard’s response was so chilling, it’s unforgettable.
He turned around and on the screen, he appeared to be looking directly at her, but he called back saying, "What lady? It's just me here." The supervisor thought he was just joking around and said, "OK, sure man." About an hour later, the guard reported to the control room and the supervisor asked him again who that lady was.
It soon became obvious that he really had no idea who he was talking about, so they pulled up the footage. It was undeniable that he would have seen the woman. After their radio exchange, he kept walking and the woman followed him. Then, she went a separate way, but she still never showed up on another screen.
I was the front office manager at the time and was asked to investigate which hotel guest that was; however, we couldn't find anyone matching the lady in the video. She just walked into the frame at the pool and walked out of the frame again, seemingly out of thin air and never saw her again. The security guard put in a transfer request the next day.
44. Putting On A Show
One time, I woke up at 3 am to the closing of car doors next to my house. I keep my cameras going on my PC screen, and when I glanced up, I saw someone run past my front camera. I pulled my pants on quickly and heard a slight tap tap tap at my door. I looked at the camera and there was a guy darting out of my camera view again. This happened twice and I was terrified.
I kept thinking I was hearing rustling around my house as well, but am partially deaf, so I wasn't sure. I decided I was going to arm myself and see what was going on. This thing just kept darting past my cameras. I turned to grab my weapon and I heard the tap tap tap again. I opened the front door and stepped out to someone at the corner of my garage. I yelled something along the lines of, "What the heck is your problem?"
Then, I hit the ground. There was lots of screaming, and the marshals came running out from behind every bush, tree, corner of my house. They had a federal warrant to serve on a prior tenant. Everything ended up being fine and they eventually left. My attorney said they were setting up to kick my door, and that no-knock warrants had been getting cases thrown out so they put on a show of knocking for the cameras before they made entry.
Between waking up at 3 am to someone methodically running around my house attempting to avoid cameras, to watching the replay of me stepping out of my door and two marshals launching themselves from behind an overgrown bush onto my back, it was all pretty creepy. I got extremely lucky in many ways that night, but I am really glad I woke up.
I'm not sure what would have happened to my dogs if they had kicked that door. Also, I'm glad I put my weapon in my waistband...Had I yelled at that officer thinking he was a would-be intruder with a weapon in my hand, it wouldn't have ended well for me.
45. Cheaters Never Prosper
topless man standing near windowPhoto by Marcos Paulo Prado on UnsplashMy sister's boyfriend installed a camera in her apartment bedroom because he suspected she was cheating on him. Turns out, she really was and he saw it on his phone at work. His reaction was incredibly disturbing. He busted out, got his pistol, and went charging through town to her place. She fled with Boy #2 and hid in a parking lot nearby. Her boyfriend entered her apartment, turned on the oven burners, and waited with his pistol.
Her sister called the officers, who later arrived and escorted the guy out. SOMEHOW, they don't book him (he was a security guard still in uniform, so maybe they had a "bro" moment). It's my theory that he was probably going to push her face into the stove before blowing the place up. The officers did make him give them her key. It's literally the third time she's cheated on someone.
46. Mischief Managed
My old apartment had incredibly unprofessional repair staff. I'd call them because my AC would be out, and they'd come over while I was at work, rather than at the agreed-upon time while I was home. They'd use my bathroom, poke around through my stuff, type on my keyboard, mess around with my pets, etc. Needless to say, I was pretty livid, so I made it my mission to serve them some sweet justice.
I set up a camera and caught them, then took the footage to the front office. I got a personal call from the owner of the apartment complex to apologize, and almost the entire repair staff got fired.
47. The Lady IS The Tramp
I have cameras in my house for my dogs. They're miniature robots that alert me when they bark and I can send them treats remotely, so they basically function as a security camera. Anyway, we went on a vacation one time and I warned our dog sitter in advance that we have cameras in common areas of the first floor of our home.
One day, during my trip (at 3 am) I reviewed the camera recordings because I got an alert on my phone that my dogs were barking like crazy. I normally wouldn’t creep, but I was concerned that maybe there was a fire, or break-in, or the woman fell, etc. The footage shook me to my core. The dog sitter (a 70-year-old lady) was running around the house, terrorizing my dogs, in underwear only.
I turned the video off right away because I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but I got on a flight the next day and went home. I never asked her to dog sit again.
48. What Did He Say?
white and black dome security cameraPhoto by Bernard Hermant on UnsplashI've got cameras downstairs that cover my living room, kitchen, and front door, as well as one in my second closet where I have two large pistol safes. Maintenance came in to clean and test the smoke detectors. One of them opened the closet and started poking around at the keyboards on my safes. He gave the other guy a startling promise: "I'm gonna figure out this code one day."
The other guy was by my nightstand commenting on the intimate goods I had in my drawer. I simply called the authorities and met them there. The guy by my nightstand was wearing one of my watches. They both went to prison.
49. Just His Luck
During my senior year of high school, one of my friends saw a freshman struggling to get something out of the vending machine. Being the heroic senior that he was, he walked up, pulled the vending machine back a bit, and let it fall back. The entire front glass front shattered at this point. He reached in, picked up the bag of chips, and handed it to the freshman with an absolute poker face.
He knew there was a security camera on the vending machine, so he went straight to the Dean of Students' office and they ended up watching the video. The Dean was usually kind of a jerk, but he wasn't even mad. He just laughed out loud and said, "Haha! You actually gave him what he paid for!"
50. Plot Twist
I installed some security cameras at my place after my neighbor told me they thought they heard someone walking around my yard at night. I scanned through the footage the very next morning and saw a guy come into frame wearing only boxers and laced-up combat boots. He stood by my bedroom window, stared in for about 45 minutes, then walked back out of frame.
I was able to get a pretty good look at his face, and that's when I realized a bone-chilling truth. It was me. I'd been freaking sleepwalking. I have no idea how long it had been going on or where else I'd been that night, and that freaking terrified me. I honestly think I might've preferred seeing an actual intruder.
The basics of human behavior have changed so much over time.
The change feels especially rampant over the last decade.
Somethings that were considered "normal" or "just everyday behavior" have been researched, studied, and cast aside.
A lot of these changes are for the better.
Once you do a deep dive into a few "traditions," you stop and ask yourself...
"Who the H*LL thought this was ever a good idea?!"
But once you learn more, than you do better.
Redditor irish-springs wanted to hear about which norms in life feel very outdated, so they asked:
"What are some social norms that are pretty f**king weird if you think about it?"
I'm used to odd behaviors.
So I doubt I'll be shocked by this list... well, maybe.
Sorry Bob...
Roses Funeral GIF by Un si grand soleilGiphy"Spending so much for a funeral. Uncle Bob is dead, a $1200 coffin or a $100 coffin is the same for him."
8champi8
"Funerals are just weddings with really muted colors and a few extra sad people."
Oseirus
"Paying tens of thousands of dollars to bury corpses in the f**kin' ground."
ieatsthap***y
"It's even worse: we are not burying in the ground. That would be better. We are paying to embalm corpses so they are preserved for a long time, in wooden/metal boxes, using valuable space."
"Modern embalming techniques can preserve a corpse for a long time. If we were simply burying them in the ground and letting them decompose, it would be way, way better."
IWishIHavent
We Hear You!
"I feel like too many people talk on speakerphone. Do you remember when conversations were private?"
kellykellyculver
"I live in a cul de sac and a neighbor has their phone hooked up to the car Bluetooth. I can hear the phone ringing while calling someone and I can hear the entire conversation from my garage with 2 houses in between us. It's fascinating and I don't think they have any idea how loud it is."
ember3pines
"If someone is having a conversation on speakerphone in my presence, I am now part of the call and will insert myself into it as much as possible."
twilightchickens
No Frills
"The expectation to have a huge wedding."
asj0107
"The expectation to have a wedding at all. They’re overrated IMO."
hiremeplz2017
"My fiancé and I are having a registrar's office wedding, just us, two witnesses, the registrar, and the paperwork. His sister complained we weren't having a proper one and that solidified my position to do it this way. No frills, no drama. We can't decide if we want a reception of any kind."
ElliotFrickinReed
A Creepy Custom
wedding fail GIFGiphy"Garter toss is f**king weird."
coronakiddos
"Yeah, we did not do this at my wedding. Really creepy custom. I don’t need to see my coworkers and my husband’s friends clamoring for something that’s just been around my thigh. And I wanted to keep my bouquet, so I tossed the maid of honor’s bouquet instead."
ZoraksGirlfriend
That garter idea always seemed off to me.
Danger Attire
Black And White Vintage GIF by FilmStruckGiphy"I can’t think of a single reason for ties being the standard for business attire other than it’s a reminder to everyone in the room that you could be easily strangled at any time."
Taxitaxitaxi33
Small Talk
"Asking people how they're doing as a matter of courtesy when you truly don't care and are hoping they just say 'good hbu' in response."
TheMaskedSandwich
"You know, you walk out the door. You see someone that you know, and they ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it because they would never understand."
shall_always_be_so
"It’s even perfectly acceptable to respond with, 'Hi, how are you?' And have neither person ever actually answer with how they’re doing."
OfficialLindsayLohan
Traditions
"Blowing out candles on a birthday cake."
Lallner
"It never occurred to me to look up the origin until now..."
"For the Ancient Greeks, putting candles on a cake was a special way to pay tribute to the Greek moon goddess, Artemis. They baked round cakes to symbolize the moon. Candles were added to represent the reflected moonlight. Candles on cakes became a popular tradition long ago in Germany, too. For religious reasons, Germans would place a large candle in the center of a cake to symbolize 'the light of life.'"
"Some scholars believe that other meanings have also been attached to the use of candles on cakes. People may have believed that the smoke from the candles carried their wishes and prayers to gods who lived in the skies. Others probably believed the smoke helped to ward off evil spirits. Today, we still put birthday candles on cakes. Many people still hold superstitious beliefs about them, too."
powderp
Wasted Paper
"Cards. I'm just giving Hallmark money in exchange for a piece of paper that someone's going to look at for about 10 seconds and then completely forget about."
TheTurtleOfWar
"Lately I've been making my own handmade cards and they get a lot more love than your average store-bought ones, and I see the ones I make always end up out on my friend's dressers for display over anyone else's."
hellboyyy25
"Hallmark cards are an all-too-common phenomenon of capitalism replacing a genuinely heartfelt gesture with a store-bought, mass-produced one… and in so doing, removing the meaning from it altogether."
bearded_dragon_34
Hard Labor
Working Out Of Office GIF by This GIF Is HauntedGiphy"Working your butt off for 65 years to then live for 10 years."
maybetoomuchrum
There are so many things on this list I never thought about.
We really need some life updates.
I like the idea of working less, for sure. (Or at least not to death!)
People Break Down The Most Embarrassing Phase They Ever Went Through
Growing up was full of learning opportunities and expressing ourselves, but some of those phases were more successful than others.
Some of them were so embarrassing or cringey, it's almost impressive.
Redditor SurfinRay12 asked:
"What's an embarrassing phase you went through?"
The Favorite Accessory Phase
"In high school, I would regularly wear a top hat to school because I thought it made me look cool and edgy."
- SadCicada
The Choosing a Style Phase
"I used to wear an old, thrifted black trench coat and fake Birkenstocks to school in the 90s with a knitted beret."
"I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be goth or grunge. But I was mostly supporting myself and definitely didn’t have the money to buy more than a few pieces of clothing a year anyway."
- TheLakeWitch
The Enlightened Phase
"I went through the edgy intellectual phase as a teenager because I read one book on philosophy and was therefore an enlightened genius."
- MagnificentExample
"I bet it was Nietzsche, lol (laughing out loud)."
- ShiroKuroKage
"It was. I felt like I had gained access to secret elder lore that no 15-year-old should possess."
"Thankfully I kept most of my thoughts to myself, and that there was an even more insufferable guy in my year because otherwise I would have been one of the cringiest people in the school."
- MagnificentExample
The Nihilism Phase
"Reading Kurt Vonnegut in high school started that phase for me. That idea that everything is bulls**t along with my parents going through a nasty divorce really turned me off to basically everything."
"I didn't take the SAT, didn't go to college. Never wanted to work in an office. Now that I'm 31, it's definitely changed and I would love an office job, but I still think everything is bulls**t."
- paperpens
The Fake Accent Phase
"I spoke in a fake British accent for a whole month at school."
- buckyhermit
"In middle school, I brought a dry-erase board to school and communicated by writing on it instead of talking for literally no reason at all."
- Zekumi
The Poser Phase
"My ninth and tenth-grade years."
"Black leather motorcycle jacket heavily customized with spikes, leopard print fabric, band patches, and stripes made with white-out. Black jeans sewn tight with more band patches. Black band shirts with sleeves and collar ripped off. 14-inch Doc Martens boots. Studded, bondage, and/or bullet belts placed loosely around the waist."
"And I'm deaf and almost never attended a concert. What a f**king poser."
- schwarzes__loch
The Unique Typing Phase
"I ussseedddd to typeee like thisss."
- scarr3d_angel
"Lol (laughing out loud) I Used To Type Like This !"
- h*eforspaghettios
"I Know Someone Who Uses To Type Like This Too And I Started Doing It Back To Her And Found It Can Become Strangely Addictive Lol."
- anderoogig
"I Used To Talk Like This Too But It Just Looks Like I'm Writing A Book Title."
- imnotnocturnal
"i u s e d t o t h i n k t y p i n g l i k e t h i s w a s c o o l"
- pxstel_flower
The Name-Changing Phase
"That time at 16 when I wanted to change my name to Shampajne."
- PrimCrow
"What a Tragedeigh."
- Brodojour
The Celebrity Connection Phase
"During an 'introductions game' on the first day of second grade (six or seven years old), I told the entire class that Amanda Bynes was my step-sister."
"I then kept up the charade for the school year. One kid even asked for an autograph and I gave him a piece of notebook paper with her name written down in my baby cursive handwriting."
- sleepyselenophile
"I once told a girl in my class that Melissa Joan Hart was my stepsister, and the girl gave me a letter to give to Melissa that said how much she loved her and her show. That's crazy how similar our stories are."
- LepreConArtist
The Emotion-free Phase
"'Emotions are weak and useless. I have no emotions, I'm a logical robot.'"
"Sad girl. Very sad. Emotional unavailability is nothing to be proud of. I'm happy I grew past it."
- Wafael
"Oh my god, I went through that phase, too. I actually recently found my Fictionpress account from 2005, where I described myself as a 'prototypical human' who was 'missing the emotions of sadness and love.' Not really something to brag about, is it?"
- ostentia
The Oh So Classy Phase
"In junior high, I went to Chess King and bought a black nylon button-down shirt with a red Japanese sun cheaply printed on the back and red Japanese characters down the front. It had a big floppy collar and glossy black buttons."
"I wore that s**t to school with the top three buttons unbuttoned. A 13-year-old kid in a rural New England town in 1986 wearing a cheap, shiny disco shirt that's at least eight years out of fashion tucked into his Tuffskin jeans without a belt. Pure class at recess."
- hiro111
The Country Pride Phase
"After I graduated from boot camp in the Navy and finished A-School in Florida, I went home on leave and wore my dress blues to IHOP when I went to dinner with my family."
"This was back when the Military was glamorized, so I considered it celebrity status. I was young and it was the pinnacle of achievement for me and wanted to show it off. And I figured I had the right to because I earned it."
"Now, I cringe every time I think back to when I did that."
- LaughableEgo740
The Tough Breakups Phase
"Crying over dudes who treated me like garbage. Embarrassing."
- Proper-Bid-9732
The Book Series Phase
"I read 'Warrior Cats' religiously in sixth grade, hissed at people when I was mad, and insisted on going by 'Scourge.'"
- Noimnotareddituser
"Dude, I f**king LOVED that series in middle school! I never did anything like that but godd**n did that series have me hooked! Ironically though... I'm a dog person, and allergic to cats."
- Xavak_Stormbringer
The Random Words Phase
"I have a thing where I pick up words and just use them a lot for no good reason and I can't help it. Ever. It happens pretty automatically."
"The worst one I had was Ahoy. Said Ahoy instead of hi and a lot of other things I wish to forget."
"Currently, it's Goofy, which arguably is a lot better than saying Ahoy to everything."
- Possessed_potato
A lot of these were really cringey, mostly because we could see ourselves doing some of the same things when we were younger.
At least we can say that we grew past these things, and now we can look back and laugh.
When we were kids, we could not wait to grow up. We had big dreams about what we were going to do and who we were going to be, and we could not wait to get started.
But there were some things we were expecting that were totally off the mark, too.
Redditor Caseated_Omentum asked:
"What's the biggest misconception you had about adulthood?"
Staying Up Late
"I thought that I could stay up as late as I wanted. I envisioned myself adventuring all over town until the wee hours, meeting interesting people and experiencing life."
"Turns out 'as late as I wanted' is about 8:00 PM after a quiet night in with my girlfriend and a cup of tea."
- Calm-Ad6493
Going By Too Fast
"Time. It turns out adulthood is stuck on fast forward."
- VegetableTears
"Boy! Is this ever true! A week used to crawl by and now you blink your eyes and it's, 'Is it (choose a day) again already?'"
"Summers were almost never ending and now they are over in a blink of the eye!"
- miffsc
Lots of Guesswork Included
"I always thought that adults knew what they were doing."
- sorengray
"We're all winging it. Most of us are competent at certain s**t and can function day to day. I've been in my field for nearly five years now and work with people in my field that have been in it for nearly forty years. I'm not bad at what I do and they're great at it."
"We still end up scratching our heads, wondering what the h**l we should do next on a project, because that s**t's just weird."
- thewaterglizzy
Forever High School
"I thought graduating high school meant I'd be out of high school. It turns out that all of life is high school. I'm still dealing with the exact same problems except even fewer people care."
- Individual_Speech_10
"That was the biggest disappointment of my life. As a kid growing up, I absolutely hated most other kids for all the bulls**t mind games, bullying, playing favorites, etc. I couldn't wait to be an adult where that all stopped, life was fair, and bad people were brought to justice."
"Holy f**k was I ever wrong. As you said, adults are just kids in grown-up bodies as nothing else has changed."
- ZiggerTheNaut
Full-Circle Moment
"I was always a little salty that my dad was kind of a goofball. He'd play pranks and s**t and you couldn't confide anything seriously in him like you had a crush on a girl or something, because he'd make fun of you."
"I wanted a dad like in the movies where they put you up on their lap and say, 'Now listen here sport...+ and go into some kind of sage-like monologue on how to handle life's problems."
"Then I got to be an adult and I'm EXACTLY like my dad. And so is every other adult male I know."
- SweetCosmicPope
So Much Free Time!
"You could do anything you wanted, whenever you wanted."
"I never have the time between working full time and being exhausted the rest of the time, lol (laughing out loud)."
- ravynmaxx
Owning a Home
"Homeownership apparently, lol (laughing out loud)."
- Gentleman_T-Bone
"I came here to say this! Embarrassing, I even thought I'd have like a beach house as well. I was so dumb."
- PumpkinPieIsGreat
"Growing up, I was told I may inherit my parent's house one day. I was grateful but wasn't that excited because it was a small house on a small property and I always wanted a nice piece of land."
"Now home prices in that area are creeping into the high six-figure range and I'd be over the moon to have it."
- slinkocat
Hard Work Means Success
"If you work hard and give everything you got, then you’ll succeed and get what you worked so hard for."
- Useful_Dane_319
"As someone who works in finance, the most valuable lesson I've learned is that money doesn't come from hard work, it comes from the presence of existing money."
"Wall Street bros who make seven figures don't work any harder than your average teacher or public servant busting their butt making 50 thousand a year at best."
- AdmiralPlant
A Living Wage
"I thought that most jobs actually paid a living wage. When I was a pre-teen, I thought that all you had to do was show up to basically any job clean, polite (and don't be a total id**t obviously, but you don't have to be Einstein either), and work 40 hours a week, and you would have everything you need."
- True-Sound-9240
Easier After Graduation
"I was under the false impression that having a job would be less stressful than going through school."
- Friendly_Neighbor12
"Well, it depends. Until I was 14, I used to go to school from 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM with an hour to get lunch. When I got home, I still had to do homework or study for tests. Now I work the same amount of hours but when I finish working, I'm free to do whatever I want. So I would say at least in my case that school was way more stressful."
- CollapseIntoNow
Happily Ever After
"I thought you'd always have a relationship and money and you lived happily ever after."
- llcucf80
Chronic Illness
"I thought that your body would remain healthy. I got chronically sick in my late 20s (27+). I'm 33 now, and I hate it. Docs still don’t know what’s up. SMH (Shaking my head)."
- xAdrtxx
Natural Obstacles
"I believed quicksand would be a real concern."
- Euclid_Interloper
"I thought being on fire would be a more common occurrence, what with how often we were taught about stop, drop, and roll."
- anonymousbach
Professionally Independent
"I used to think adults had autonomy in their jobs. Like, as a professional who went to college, your expertise and knowledge would be sought after and people would treat you with respect. But no, we're just capitalist pawns."
- Majestic_Heart_9271
Actually Much Better Than Expected
"That it would be zero fun and all bills."
"This is way better and more carefree than childhood! No one controls me and I don’t have to babysit anyone if I don’t want to! No one yells at me and I can 'talk back' if I want to!"
"I can just… be. I don’t have to beg and plead to leave the house and see friends."
- Dom-Franson
"I think this ALL the time. I'll be having the time of my life just... I don't know, WEARING SHORTS IN PUBLIC, or HANGING OUT WITH SOMEONE THAT ISN'T A FAMILY MEMBER, or something absolutely crazy like that, at almost 30 years old, and think, 'Wait, why were all the adults in my life when I was little telling me adulthood would suck so much because I would have to figure everything out for myself?'"
"That's the part I love the most about adulthood. No controlling, narcissistic, emotionally abusive a**holes around to dictate my every move and tell me I'm a worthless female. H**l, I don't even have to speak to them as an adult!"
- thatonespicegirl
For most, adulthood fell far short of what their childhood dreams called for.
But a few loved the independence that came with adulthood after having traumatic childhoods.
This is one of those concepts that is all about perspective, and all we can really do is try to make the best of it.