The Best Customer Service 'Gotchas'
"The pleasure of watching you get served today was all mine, thank you."
Everyone dreams of putting those pesky Kevins and Karens in their place, especially when they decide to wreak havoc on poor customer service employees. These satisfying “gotcha” moments prove that karma really does exist.
1. Just Being Neighborly
One of my favorite stories from my brief time in customer service was when a man who called up the night after a minor hurricane started screaming that his service didn’t work. He said that he had complained multiple times and this was the last straw. Clearly our service sucked, and it was our fault his cable was out. He kept cutting me off and calling me rude names. But I had the perfect response.
Finally, I just interjected: Sir, your cable isn’t out because of an issue with our service, your cable is out because a tree branch fell across the cable line. What’s that? How do I know? Because I saw the branch fall. I’m the one who went out in the rain last night to get the branch out of the street. In fact, I know you know it’s a branch, because I could see you looking out your window at me moving the branch that fell on your property.
Not only that, but when I was done, I went inside and called into work on my day off to arrange a bucket truck to come out and rerun the cable so you could beat the rush of calls that came in all across the island due to the storm. You didn’t even have to call. A truck is already on route. Well, that shut him up.
2.Nickel and Dime-ing
I used to work for a grocery store in high school as a cashier. One busy Saturday, an older lady came through my long line with about $150 worth of groceries. Among her items was a prepackaged piece of meat from our deli department that is normally priced by weight. Her meat did not have a printed sticker on the package and I would’ve needed to find a bag boy or manager to run to the deli to get it priced.
Because we were super busy, I decided to wing it, and set it on my scale. “Looks like it’s almost a pound, so…let’s say…$2.77? Does that sound fair?” I began to ring it as a miscellaneous item. Her answer sent a shiver through my spine. “No it does NOT sound fair!” she yelled in a screeching voice. “You need to get that priced!” Groans from the line began behind her, as I found a bag boy to run to get the price sticker.
A manager came by to see what the commotion was about and the lady explained the situation. I explained why I had made the decision I made. The manager of course stuck up for the lady (which we laughed about later) and she accepted the apology. We then waited for what seemed like an eternity of eye-contact avoidance and thumb twiddling.
The bag boy came back and handed me the pork. I smirked and showed her the price. “$2.78. Huh, I would’ve saved you a penny!” The man behind her chortled. Never saw her again.
3.What a Gas
I was working at a gas station in a very rich part of town. During a nice summer day, a prime example of the douchebag variety of the human species drove his super-expensive Lamborghini in and, in that haughty, I’m-rich-so-you-must-do-what-I-say voice, demanded that it be filled with premium. Which the attendant started to do, only the guy immediately snatched the nozzle from him and screamed that “you’re too stupid to do this on your own”.
We’re in Oregon, by the way, where you can’t pump your own gas because of state fire laws. Well, being that he’s a douchebag and an idiot, gas spills out from the nozzle all over his sparkly douche-mobile. At this point, he truly flips out. He storms into the store, where I’m working as the cashier and de facto manager. He immediately demands to speak to the owner, and that we are going to pay to have his car repainted AND he’s not going to be paying for his gas.
I try my best to calm the situation, but he’s got a good rage going and doesn’t want to be calmed down. While he’s spewing forth, I notice that an officer from the local department is about to come into the store to get snacks or a drink or some such. This gives me a nice idea. “Sir, I’m afraid that the gas is in your tank and you pumped it yourself, so you are going to have to pay”.
Cutscene of an explosion. Douchebag then asks, “So what, exactly, do you think you can do if I just go and get in my car and leave?” Thank you, good Lord, for timing. He says this, at full bellow, right as the officer walks through the door. My response? “Well, personally I can’t do much, but the nice officer standing behind you will probably be able to do something”.
Douchebag turns around to see the officer, with a very predatory smile on his face, nodding vigorously. Yeah, he shut up, paid, and we never saw him again.
4.Mind Your Manners
I used to do cellphone customer service for a call centre in Canada, though it was an American cellphone company. Got a call from a right-angry Texan who had been passed around from agent to agent with no one really listening to him, making him even more angry (and understandably so). So, he gets to me and he’s just a whirlwind of yelling and swearing.
I can barely make out what he’s saying. In my sternest Person-In-Charge voice I say, “Sir, that’s no way to talk to a lady!” Right away he calms down and goes: “Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am”. And we resolved his issue within a couple of minutes. Oh, Texas. I love your old-school gentlemen when they’re not drowned out by your extreme fundamentalists.
5.Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer
I worked at a photo printing lab, and we got people in all the time who claimed we were stupid and had messed up their pictures. One woman had us print 800 vacation pictures. They were bad quality, dark, and out of focus. Basically a nightmare to work with. But that wasn’t all. When she came to pick them up, she insisted that we had ruined them, that they were perfect in her camera, and that she had a very expensive camera and so there was no way the pictures could be dark or out of focus.
We finally gave her her money back, even though we had done nothing wrong and were out a lot of time and paper. She called us 30 minutes later and told us she was at a store across town, and they had reprinted all of her pictures and they were beautiful, in focus, and nice and bright. I had to tell her that the same person who owned our store also owned the store across town, and that not only would it have taken that store several hours to reprint 800 pictures, but their printer was down that day, so they couldn’t have printed anything. She hung up on me.
6.Owning It
I used to work at a restaurant chain that started about 15 or 20 years back and has about 15 stores in total. People all the time would complain and release their vague threat “I know Tommy! (The owner, guy who started the chain) Do I have to call him to get some good service?” It came from so many people, but we had to put up with it because that’s what you do in the restaurant business.
But one time when this happened, Tommy was actually in the restaurant. He would come in once every couple months or so and just act like a regular customer, just to kinda evaluate how things were running from a non-owner perspective (of course everything magically went smoother for him than any other customer, imagine that). Anyway, this lady (that had been a total witch the entire night) starts complaining, talking about how her meal was cold or bad or whatever, even though she had powered through 4/5ths of it.
She wants her money back for this atrocity! And then she drops the bombshell. “I know Tommy! He wouldn’t stand for this!” The only thing was, Tommy was sitting almost directly behind her, and pretty obviously didn’t know her, and she didn’t recognize him. After getting a bit of the old discreet “Go ahead” nod from him, I just said, “Ma’am, Tommy is in the restaurant right now. If you could just point him out I’d be glad to let him know what you think of his restaurants”.
She stammered, gave the, “No he’s not, I would’ve seen him!” until the owner stood up and said hello. He put on the kind of sickly sweet personality, where you’re ever so polite but totally awful at the same time. She shut up and paid pretty quickly after that.
7.Milking It For All It's Worth
I worked at a concession stand for a children’s baseball park. It’s a large park (nine or so fields) and we get lots and lots of customers. Having lots of customers, we have to make things in large quantities and the quality isn’t especially swell. But hey, it’s a concession stand, not a restaurant. Anyhow, it’s about 20 degrees out and people are ordering hot chocolate by about five cups at a time.
Only two of us are working. The process for making hot chocolate is putting an extremely large container of water in our extremely large microwave, and then stirring in an extremely large amount of cocoa powder. It’s nothing fancy, but it tasted pretty good all things considered. Late in the day, I was working the register, and my co-worker is running around making everything.
A lady came up to the side window, screaming at my co-worker about how he’s ruining the hot chocolate. My co-worker can’t hear her, seeing as how she’s yelling through a window. At a guy working around a lot of refrigerator fans, among other things. She finally comes to the front counter and tells me he’s ruining it. “Why” I asked. Her: “He’s going to ruin the milk! He’s going to ruin it in the microwave!”
Me: “There is no…” Her: “HES GOING TO RUIN IT!” Me: “Peter!” Co-Worker: “Yeah?” Me (pretending to get super angry) “DON’T RUIN THAT MILK!” Her: *stares at me* Co-Worker: “What milk?” Me (still yelling): “THE HOT CHOCOLATE MILK!” Co-Worker (comes up to the front looking VERY confused): “There is no milk!” Me (to the lady): “Hmm. I suppose we don’t use any milk”. She left looking very scared to talk to us ever again.
8.This Comes Right From The Top
I used to work in an old family-owned gas station/garage in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Since it was family owned, about 90% of the business came from regulars who had either business accounts or got their families’ cars fixed at the shop (and had for generations on both sides). As such, the random passers-by getting gas on their way to and from cities on either side of the town made up a mostly negligible amount of business.
The gas station side of the business made up maybe 2% of the business, and of that maybe .5% was non-regulars. So my boss couldn’t care less about some of the annoying customers who came in. One day we got a particularly witchy soccer mom. This was during the summer a few years ago, so the gas was very high compared to the rest of the year.
She was convinced that our pumps were purposely calibrated incorrectly so that less gas was pumped. Her proof was that she always got $XX.XX in gas and it always went to XX% full. Well we had just had our equipment recalibrated for the year and knew it was all good. She kept complaining to me about it, and being a high schooler I didn’t care, either.
But I kept up appearances and was polite, kept telling her that we had just had our pumps calibrated. She didn’t care and kept complaining. Eventually she asked for the manager. But I knew something she didn’t. The office was right behind the counter, and my boss was in there listening the whole time. As soon as she asked for him, he simply yelled out “SCREW OFF!” And that was about it.
I just shrugged at her, and she left. My boss was awesome with jerk customers.
9.Stop, Drop and Roll
A customer was lighting up in a supermarket, and a staff member asked them to stop. They refuse to stop. Customer escalates to me, as customer service manager at the time. I grabbed a fire extinguisher (large, CO2), walked up to the customer, and said “If you don’t put that out now, I will be forced to assume you’re on fire and act accordingly”. Customer dropped the smoke, stamped it out with her foot, and left the store.
10. Sticky Fingers
Used to work in a pawnshop. We got lots of jewelry in and a lot of times the person bringing in the jewelry would have no idea that some of their stuff was fake. Nine times out of ten they would get angry and leave their stuff with us to be thrown out. My co-worker accidentally left a really gawdy but fake gold chain out on the desk one day. A customer came in, noticed the chain, and told us that we’d better put it away before someone took it.
I was about to. Then I realized I could have some fun. We ended up leaving the chain on the desk and would casually watch people as they came in to do business. Indeed, we caught a number of people trying to lift the chain. One guy in particular was talking us up and gradually pulling the chain off the counter. When he had successfully pocketed it and left the store, my co-worker and I began to crack up.
Sure enough, about a week later the guy came back in with the chain and tried to sell it to us. When I refused to buy it, he got angry. Then we showed him the security cam footage of him taking it. We weren’t even mad. Someone that dumb deserves to live his life that way until he walks out in front of a bus or into a wood chipper.
11. The Truth Hurts
A customer wanted to return a computer that was about a year old when I worked in retail. I asked him what was wrong. “It just don’t work”. I powered it on, it gets into Windows, connects to the wireless network, goes online. I open Office, everything seems to be working properly. I show it to him, ask him what’s wrong. “It just don’t work”. I asked him what was actually wrong with the machine (let alone why would you return a computer a year later).
“It just don’t work. Are you saying if a car don’t start, it works fine?” At this point I had enough of the guy: “No sir, I’m saying if there was a car and everyone could start it except one person, I wouldn’t blame the car”.
12. You Get What You Pay For
I was eating at a Taco Bell once, and I was waiting to ask for some sauce while another customer was yelling at a kitchen employee. She had pulled apart her burrito and was complaining that there wasn’t enough stuff in it. I shut her up with one sentence. I leaned over and said, “looks like 89 cents worth of food to me!” She stormed out.
13. Lady In Shining Armor
I worked at a Walgreen’s photo lab right after high school, and it was my first job. There was a really nice lady who used to come by every now and then to have her pictures developed, and whenever they came out we would chat about them because I thought they were great. One day while we were talking, another customer arrived. When I asked her how I could help her, she started yelling at me because she didn’t like the way her photos came out.
She threw them on the counter and was really angry with me and wanted to speak to my manager. I called for my manager and she came over and tried to calm the angry lady down. The angry lady started pointing at me and said that I messed up her photos, and blah, blah, blah, threats, better business bureau, yak, yak, yak. I don’t know what to tell her other than I’m sorry and that I didn’t know what was wrong.
I told her I processed them like I was supposed to and that most of the work was done by the machine, to which she immediately replied “then what good are you?” Suddenly, the nice lady with the cool pictures pipes up in this authoritative tone: “How dare you? How dare you say that to him and accuse him of ruining your pictures? He already said he was sorry. Do you realize that what you said is going to cost him his job? Shame on you”.
The angry lady just got quiet, realized how she was acting, and left. I thanked the nice lady, and it made me tear up a bit afterwards because having someone stand up for you feels good.
14. Get It To Go
My friend was in line at KFC when a woman began rattling off a long order. I’m talking two family buckets of extra crispy, sides of biscuits, bowls of gravy, you name it. At the end of the order the female cashier asks the large woman, “For here or to go?” The woman blows a gasket and screams, “GIRL, I CAN’T EAT THAT MUCH!” To which the cashier replies, without the slightest bit of hesitancy, “GIIIRRRRLLLL, I DON’T KNOW YOUR WORLD”. It was the most boss thing that has ever occurred in a KFC…to my knowledge.
15. Putting Him In His Place
Recently I put a customer in place in Best Buy. I went to do an exchange at Best Buy. Guy walks up behind me, starts complaining about the wait to pick up a .com order, and I tell him to get in the line with the giant hanging “BestBuy.com orders here” sign. He then complains to a manager about how lazy his staff is, and how he has been there for 30 minutes to pick up a Monster Cable…hilarious as that purchase is.
I called him out, and the guy turns red from embarrassment and anger, then storms off. Then I debriefed the manager on how he was there for less than five minutes before being helped and the staff was doing a great job. The manager gave me a $20 Gift Card for calling the guy a douche to his face. I just didn’t want the Customer Service guys to get in any trouble for this guy’s slander.
16. Speaking In Tongues
I worked at a drug store in high school. I had a German couple check out at my register, and they were incredibly rude. They were complaining in German about the customers behind them in line, using vulgar language and whatnot. Apparently, I wasn’t moving fast enough for their liking, and the woman called me a name in German. But she didn’t know one thing.
She was obviously not aware that that was the terribly impractical language that I took in high school. When I finished their order, I stared her in the eye and said thank you in her native tongue, and they both looked shocked and embarrassed. It felt good, man.
17. Do It Yourself
I work at Jimmy John’s. At JJ’s, if you’ve never been, it’s mostly self-service; you get your napkins, and if you need a bag, you get them yourself. Our sandwiches are wrapped in a way that you generally don’t need one, and everything is made “to go”. A lady came in one day and ordered like 4 or 5 sandwiches. As always, I redirect them to the end of the bar to pick up their sandwiches and grab whatever napkins and bags they want.
Now, if someone asks us to bag something FOR them, we will. People generally don’t (unless they’re really old in which case we’ll do it for them regardless) but nobody minds if they do. This lady never asked once for someone to bag her food. She stood at the bar, quiet, bagging all of her sandwiches up and then left. 15 or 20 minutes go by. Then the other shoe drops.
Her husband calls the store and asks to speak to a manager, AKA me. I pick up the phone and the conversation goes like this, mostly verbatim: ME: Hi, how can I help you? GUY: shouting Yeah, since when is it ya’lls policy for people to bag their own food? My wife just came from there and told me she had to bag everything herself! ME: I’m sorry sir, but it’s technically always been our policy. Everything is self-service here at Jimmy John’s. We certainly would have — cuts me off GUY: WELL I’M GOING TO BE SURE TO TELL EVERYONE I KNOW ABOUT THE KIND OF SERVICE YOU GUYS OFFER OVER THERE.
ME: Okay, well, thanks, I guess? I mean, it isn’t any sort of secret. hangs up
18. Up and Down
I stopped to get gas today, and while talking with the cashier I mentioned that she was probably tired of people yelling at her about the price of gas—but that since she is the one standing there she probably gets it a lot. She said that every day someone complains to her, like she can do something about it. A guy then came in and demanded, “Why the heck is gas $3.76 a gallon?’
Without missing a beat, she said, “Because it went down 10 cents this morning”. He just looked at her, paid and left.
19. Playing Games
I worked in electronics at Target. Over at Guest Service one day, I saw a woman with her teenage daughter heatedly speaking to the guy at the counter. After a few moments, he pointed over at me in electronics. The woman’s head whirled round, dragon like, toward me. The rest of her body realigned with her head and she stomped in my direction.
When she reached the counter I pleasantly asked, “How can I help you?” She slammed a receipt and PS3 controller on the counter, “I paid 55 dollars for this and I can only return it for 40!” I asked, “May I see your receipt?” She nodded and I picked it up, “See, 55 dollars!” “Yep, I see that,” I said, “You bought this last week when the store gave away a 15 dollar gift certificate with the controller”.
“So what!” “You would shop at Target again, right?” I asked. “Not if this isn’t resolved!” she spat. Her daughter next to her was embarrassed. “Hypothetically, if there wasn’t an issue, I’m guessing you would and you would use that 15 dollar gift card on your future purchase. If we let you return this controller for 55 dollars then you would have a free 15 dollars. That is why the return price is 15 dollars less…I can do the return for you over here if you don’t want to go back to Guest Service”.
“I didn’t want to return it, I just wanted to know why the return price was so much less,” she said. She picked up her controller and receipt and began to walk off. Her daughter, clearly ashamed of her mother, thanked me and followed her mother out.
20. Citizen's Shaming
My boss once had a customer snag her shirt on the register counter. She went ballistic in ten seconds flat. She began shrieking about us replacing her shirt, that our counters were unsafe, and that she wanted compensation for her shirt. My boss is a very, very calm man. He apologizes, says he’ll have someone from maintenance fix the counter, but the woman isn’t satisfied.
She’s holding up the entire line and refusing to complete her purchase, and the other customers seem pretty annoyed at her. The woman wouldn’t give up, and finally the guy behind her in line has had it. He gets his wallet out, hands her a $20 bill, asks her if this makes her happy, then tells her to please shut up and leave the nice man (my boss) alone.
The woman made some terrible noise, left her items on the counter, and stomped off. The line applauded the man with the $20 (who still had it, the woman didn’t take his money), and my boss gave him a hefty discount.
21.
All Hands On Deck
I used to work at Tesco, in England, as a team leader. Basically doing a manager’s job, on a bit more than checkout operator’s wage. I wonder why I gave that up to become a teacher…oh yeah. Anyway, at Christmastime, for some reason, we were quite busy. We had a good 35 checkouts in the store, and 35 of those 35 checkouts were open.
Yet there were still lines. Ultimately, if thousands of people decide to do their Christmas shopping terribly late, and you have every single till open, what can you do? Anyway, this woman comes over to complain that she had to wait. I explained that the checkouts were all in use, and we could do nothing. She asked why I wasn’t on a checkout.
This was something often asked, with the simple answer being that if I’m the one who has to sort out any problem in case any of the 35 checkouts break, or needs something, or a customer can’t walk the five paces to change their broken packet of biscuits—and I’m on a checkout—nothing would be done. Anyway, this woman demanded that everyone should be on the checkouts.
Which they were. “I want to see the store manager!” she demanded, “You need to have more people working on the checkouts. Where can I see the store manager?” “Well,” I replied, “He’s currently sat on that checkout there, because we are so busy”. She shut up. I really don’t know what she wanted us to do.
22. With All The Toppings
I used to work at an amusement park, and between department transfers, I started in food. My stand made funnel cakes and corndogs. The average wait time on a busy day could be upwards of 30 minutes in the sun, which I’ll admit sucks. It’s not any cooler in the stand standing over a 450 degree fryer. Anyhow…This guy comes up, orders four corndogs.
I ring him up and ask him if he wants any ketchup or mustard brushed on. He declines. I take his money and hand over four corndogs. His little girl bites into one and then tugs on daddy’s arm and says she wants mustard. I politely inform him that since she’s already bitten out of her food, we can’t brush it on; however if he’d head 50 steps to an adjacent building, he could skip the line and just grab some condiment packets.
Apparently this was unacceptable. Up until this point he was just a normal guy. Then suddenly he changed to a monster. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I WORK FOR?! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?” I tell him no. He then half-chuckles to himself and points out his pregnant wife sitting at a nearby table and then begrudges the time he spent in line. I again reassure him they will give him some mustard packets if he walks next door.
He loses it.
“I’M THE GOSH-DARN REGIONAL REP FOR COKE IN THIS AREA, I WILL BUY AND SELL YOUR BUTT, KID”. This self-aggrandizing and demeaning talk towards me lasted a full 60 seconds or so. Then I told him “we only carry Pepsi products”. He was flush with embarrassment and rage, and anyone within earshot is laughing at him. To spite me (really his little girl) he didn’t go get mustard packets. He forever was known as MustardMan.
23. Good Parenting 101
I worked as a lifeguard for my first “real” job. One night, at the indoor water park, a child came up to me. He asked me very quickly where the bathroom was. I pointed him in the right direction and he quickly said, “No I need one closer!” I swore in my head as he pooped himself in front of me, poop running down his leg. I radioed him into first aid and we took him in and paged his parents.
Eventually his dad came in and we chit chatted about his son, no big deal (it happens more often than you think). His dad told us to change and clean him, though, and me and my manager refused. The dad was furious and yelled why not. We replied he’s not our son. That shut him up.
24. A Helping Hand
I used to work at a video store, and after a while I got pretty desensitized to people throwing little hissy fits about late fees. One day a gentleman tried to rent a movie and I had to let him know he had accumulated some late fees on his account. Cue standard rant about having returned them on time, blah blah blah, “…and I’m just going to cut up my membership card when I get home!!”
I reached under the counter and grabbed a pair of scissors, held them out to him and said, “Well, you can do that here if you like”. He gave me a venomous look and left the store in a huff. And it felt so good.
25. I've Got A Package For You
Working at a shipping store, a customer tried to drop off a package to be shipped back to Clearwire (an internet company). He had the box wrapped in shipping paper and twine. Instead of a prepaid shipping label, he had printed out the directions on how to obtain the shipping label. I tried to explain to him that he needed to go back to his email, click on the link, and print the shipping label.
He was adamant that he did everything correctly and kept saying he was going to leave the package there and that it was our problem. My boss, hearing this, comes from the back and explains that if the customer leaves the package, my boss will throw it out the door. The guy turns around, leaves the package, and says again, “Not my problem”. He got exactly what he asked for, and then some.
My boss, true to his word, follows him and throws the package towards the customer. The package bounces a few times on the sidewalk right past the customer and the guy keeps on walking. The package stayed outside for 15 minutes in heavy rain before my boss relents and took the package inside. The package was still under a counter four months later when I left the job.
26. Paying The Price
We had a building where I ran a family sewing factory with a small store attached, which my mom ran. One day a guy comes in to deliver some rolls of fabric and this woman decides to park in the middle of the lot. Not even in a parking spot…she just turned off her car wherever and got out. Then she went shopping elsewhere. The trucker had to leave, so I had the car towed so he could get out and back on the road.
The next day I hear a very loud voice demanding to see a manager. He shoves a ticket in my office manager’s face and says, “You’re paying for this”. I walk in and ask what the problem is (I’m 6’6″). He tries to get all up in my face and asks sarcastically, “Who’s paying this ticket?” I got loud and replied, “You mean where I had to tow a car because they were too cheap to put a quarter in a parking meter on the street and parked in the middle of my lot?”
I was a good 10” bigger than he was…he left. Then I called the authorities and made a complaint against him for threatening behavior to my employees, just in case he tried anything funny.
27. I Know You Are, But What Am I
My roommates and I decided to go grab some subway before we went out one Friday night. One of them is half-Ecuadorian, and the Subway employees were both Hispanic. While I was in the process of ordering my sandwich, the two workers were speaking to each other in Spanish. When it was my friend’s turn, he ordered in Spanish, which I thought was simply a gesture.
I couldn’t figure out why both employees looked like ghosts and stammered their way through the entire ordering process. When I got back in the car, my friend told me the real story. He said that the two workers said, “Look at this pretty boy, pretending to be cultured. What a loser, he doesn’t even know the language”. At which point my friend decided to place his entire order in Spanish, and thank them at the end of the transaction.
28. Checking It Twice
I was working in food service at a cash register. A customer came up and placed an order, I rang it up, and she wasn’t happy with how much it cost. She started whining and being a real witch. My co-worker came up and stood next to me, looked over what I did, and just kind of stood there polishing a counter. She squawked, “Get me your manager!” I say, “Ok sure, but ma’am this is the correct price”.
Co-worker standing next to me is actually the manager. He looks at the woman and goes, “Yup,” and continues polishing the counter. “Buh… wha… uh… ok fine!” shouts the woman and walks away. The two of us crack up laughing.
29. A Case Of Mistaken Identity
I used to work in the main office for a large chain of furniture stores in the UK. I worked in the evenings, phoning customers to let them know their furniture was in, and arranging a delivery date. One night I phoned and asked for Mr. or Mrs. Jones. The guy on the phone starts ranting to me about people phoning up his elderly parents trying to sell things.
He went on and on and on and wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. I think he may have even used the toilet while he was ranting at me. When he finally wound down, I said, “Are you finished now sir? This is —- Furniture and I’m phoning to arrange a delivery date for your parents’ new three-piece suite”. Yup, that one shut him up completely.
30. The Best Man For The Job
I was working at CompUSA a few years before they closed. A well-to-do looking gentleman and his high school-age son approached the counter and ask to return a 2.5″ hard drive enclosure. I overhear him telling the girl that the enclosure was defective because his drive will not fit in it. She says that sounds unusual because we sell a lot of them and hadn’t seen any returned.
Upon hearing this, he tells her in a very condescending tone that he “is an engineer and his son attends (insert expensive private school) and they could not get it to work so it must be defective”. The customer service girl calls me over since she didn’t really know much about computers and would rather have an “expert” look at it.
When I come over he has the drive enclosure and his hard drive sitting on the counter. I immediately notice that he never removed the OEM bracket from the original drive and that was why it wouldn’t fit. I say, “I think I know what the problem is and just need to grab a screwdriver”. To which he responds, “If neither me or my son can figure it out, I doubt you’ll be able to”.
I proceed to take the bracket off and slide the drive into the enclosure in about 10 seconds all with a grin on my face. He picked it up and hurried out without saying anything or making eye contact.
31. Too Good To Be True
A well-dressed business passenger bought a plane ticket on Continental from Indianapolis to Manchester. There are no direct flights, so he would have to connect in Newark, New Jersey. After arriving, he strolls over to the Manchester gate and sees a small 50 pax regional jet parked outside. He thinks nothing of it and boards the airplane a while later.
After taking his seat, and just prior to the boarding door being closed, the flight attendant makes an announcement: “Welcome aboard flight #### service to Manchester, NEW HAMPSHIRE!” This guy goes completely wild. He starts scrambling to get his things and get off the plane, all the while yelling at the flight attendant, gate agent, pilots, and other passengers.
He was trying to go to Manchester in the UK (airport code of MAN) and he bought a ticket for MHT. The gate agent was getting completely verbally harassed by the guy at the podium as she tried to rebook him to the proper destination. She took it all in stride and was really trying to help the guy even though he was being a complete jerk and going on and on about how it was a mistake in the computer.
And then she saw how much he paid for the ticket. Her exact words were: “You only paid 300 dollars for your ticket and you really thought that was going to get you to England?” He was quiet after that.
32. Ironing Out The Details
I work at Ikea in Customer Service. On a daily basis, we have customers come in with items that have been used, broken, old, without their receipt, some even not Ikea products, and they are DEMANDING a refund. But the couple that really takes the cake tried to return to me a broken and rusty ironing board. It was obviously used and without a receipt I’m limited with my options.
We can only offer store credit if the item can be returned to stock in original packaging. Obviously, it wasn’t. With a receipt you have 90 days to return your item in any condition. After I refused the return, they asked for my manager. My manager offered to look up their receipt, couldn’t find it so we couldn’t take it back. They then asked for her manager.
Every time they got a “no” they asked for the manager above. Eventually it got to our store manager. They quickly found out they’d messed with the wrong guy. This manager is a BOSSS, 6’5″, hulk-like, and Swedish; he started as a cashier and made his way up literally from the bottom to owning the store. He came on down to the belligerent couple who were causing a scene because our customer service was apparently SOOOO poor.
After inspecting the item and removing their iron cover (which none of us did before, the item was that appalling we really didn’t want to touch it) he finds the date stamp. It was from 2002. The couple got real silent because the entire time they said they’ve had it for less than three months. Our store manager said in the calmest voice I have ever heard in my life, “I think it’s about time you leave my store”.
33. Too Big For His Britches
I worked at the local CVS for a summer back in college. I was at the register one night when a lanky teenager came up carrying four different boxes of rubbers. He put them on the counter, produced a receipt, and asked for a refund. I noticed that each of the boxes had been opened. I told him we couldn’t refund the items given that he had opened them.
He looked me straight in the eyes and said seriously that he had tried one from each of the boxes and that none of them fit because they were too big. I didn’t know what to say to that except that we definitely could not give him a refund. Without any embarrassment, he scooped up the boxes and left. They were all “XXL,” “magnum,” and “plus-size” brands.
34. That Took A Turn
I used to be a low level manager in a call centre, it paid the bills…anyway, a customer had called us and been perfectly pleasant, giving us his account details, and business got underway. At the end of the call, he asked for one more thing that we couldn’t have done, and was informed of this. He immediately got extremely aggressive with my member of staff.
At this point her hand shot up in the air (cue me) and she handed over the headset and chair so I could view the details. I was called a bunch of names, and then we got down to the grand finale. The threat. I’m paraphrasing but here’s how it went: Him: “Listen, I can see your company’s address on your website, I’m going to come down there and mess you up”.
Me: “Good, you gave my colleague your name and address details first then, I’ll make sure to hand them over to the authorities somewhere in the few hours it’s going to take you to drive down here. We’ll be waiting”. Dial tone
35. Getting To Know You
My folks used to own a Tastee Freez in South Carolina and I worked in it most summers as a teenager. Since it was a small town, everyone knew each other and most went to the same church. One Sunday night, one of the ladies from church called in at about five minutes after 10:00 and tried to order a 20 piece chicken nugget, and when I informed her that we closed at 10:00 and the grill and fryers were already cleaned and closed for the night, she got irate with me.
She started yelling in my ear about how she knew the owners of the place and she was going to get me fired and did she know who I was talking to. I calmly replied that yes, Mrs. Greene, I knew exactly who I was talking to, since my parents and I lived right across the street from her and she had asked us in church that morning what time we closed for the night.
We were never on speaking terms again.
36. The Honey Trap
I used to work in a Deli restaurant, and this lady comes in and rudely orders her food. I told her that everything should come out all right and that I will double check for her to make sure her order would be correct. She insisted on getting LOTS of honey mustard on her sandwich. I typed in extra honey mustard on the ticket. Sure enough her order comes out and there seemed to be plenty of honey mustard there.
But when I deliver it she yells at me for not having the extra honey mustard I promised her and told me to “get a ton more honey mustard” for her. I go to the back of the store, get an entire new gallon jug of honey mustard, and plop it on her table. Her friends were laughing and she was steaming mad. She complained to the manager, who thought it was hilarious and actually laughed in her face.
37. The Human Touch
I used to work as a croupier at clubs, and during a shift change my colleague accidentally made a wrong payment to a playing customer. Gamblers being what they are, the complaining that ensued was pretty awkward and no matter how much my colleague said he was sorry, the customer kept on wining. Finally, I just had to take over the situation with the perfect reply.
I said: “Sir, people make mistakes, we are not robots. If you want to play with machines, there are slot machines in the other bar”. He shut up and the other players seemed relieved.
38. They Grow Up So Fast
I worked in electronics at Target at the time, although it wasn’t the customer who suddenly shut up, it was me. This was around 2004, when GTA: San Andreas just came out. An older woman walks up to the electronics desk and addresses me. Customer: “I’d like to buy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas”. Me: “Is this a gift for someone?” Customer: “Yes, this is for my 4-year-old grandson”.
Me: “Well, ma’am, just to let you know, this game has been rated ‘M’ for Mature, and has a lot of aggression, profanity, drug use, and other adult content”. Customer: “That’s okay, he’s already been exposed to all that…”
39. Out Of Pocket
I worked at a pharmacy as a technician. This patient brings in a prescription for a very expensive, name brand only drug, but has good insurance. I fill it and the patient causes a scene at the cash register because the copayment is 30 dollars instead of the usual 10 that the patient pays for generic drugs. The patient whines and moans about the “broken healthcare system” and “those insurance companies”.
I inform the patient that, without insurance, the drug would cost her thousands of dollars every year out of pocket. Patient then proceeds to shut up.
40. A Taste Of Their Own Medicine
Once upon a time, I worked at a Kinko’s, which is famous for having irate customers. But we had a secret weapon to deal with jerks. We had a guy on our shift with honest to goodness Tourette’s where he would tic and swear loudly, then continue the conversation. We found that if we told the irate customer that he’d have to “talk to the supervisor,” then send up Mr. Tourette, they’d be shut up by having someone swear in their face.
I think it just shocked them out of their panties-in-a-bunch state. Worked great.
41. Don't Keep Me Hanging
I worked at a hotel front desk in a ski resort in Lake Tahoe. People would call (with disturbing frequency) several MONTHS in advance of their reservation to ask: “Is it going to be SNOWING the day I drive up on April 5th?” The best solution was to say, “Hold on, let me check” and then the staff would take cockfight-style bets on how long the customer would sit on hold before they gave up. Sometimes it would be like 15 minutes.
42. Sticker Shock
I work at CVS. Items are usually marked up higher than places like Target or any supermarket. One customer comes in and buys some useless item. When she sees that it’s $10.99 or something similar, she goes off at me. “YOU CAN’T LIE TO ME ABOUT THAT PRICE. THAT IS $6.99 AT TARGET THERE’S NO WAY YOU CAN TELL ME THAT’S $10.99!” All I could say was, “Well if you really want to pay $6.99 for it, then go to Target”. She got the heck out of there.
43. Crossing A Line
I work at Best Buy in the warehouse, and we cover breaks for the guys working the cameras up front. A co-worker was covering a break when this guy came up to one of the front lane registers. There was a bit of a line and we only had two lanes open. One of the front lane guys is handicapped. It doesn’t affect his job, it just takes him longer to walk around.
The customer finally made his way to the front of the line and paid with a credit card. The front lane rep needed to see the last 4 digits of the credit card and asked to see his card “real quick”. The customer FLIPPED OUT. He said, “Oh NOW you want to do something real quick”. Then he muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear: “I should have known not to get in the short bus line”.
My co-worker who was observing the cameras saw everything and was not very happy. He walked up to the customer, grabbed all his merchandise, and said, “Nope, you’re not buying anything today. You can leave”. Never been so proud of him.
44. Square Peg In A Round Hole
I work at Toys R Us. That should be bad enough. But for a specific story, I worked the back of house. Those are the guys who bring down bicycles, power wheels, and other large items that are purchased from the back of the store up front to the customer. This one time, this man purchased a large power wheel (Barbie Jammin’ Jeep ’08 model I believe).
When I brought it out, I see the customer standing next to his car. A small, two-door Nissan. I immediately inform the man that the box will not fit in his car, and that we can hold it for him if he wished to come back later with a larger vehicle. He said that wouldn’t work; he had to get the jeep now because he’s been searching for weeks for it. I again tell him how the box is larger than his car and it will not fit.
He tells me that’s bull and has me attempt to load the car into the trunk, then the front seat. After 20 failed minutes, I tell the man I can no longer spend time on this. I tell him I can write down his information, put the jeep on hold, and wait for him to return with a different car. He says he’s going to continue to try and put it in his car. I leave him be and resume my work.
About a half hour later, I get a call from the customer service desk that I have to bring a returned jeep back to the storage area.
45. Hitting New Lowes
I used to work at Home Depot over the summer as a cashier. The very best was the woman who came up to my line with a cart that had only a single small box of nails. Odd, I thought, but maybe she just didn’t find what she needed the cart for. So I ring her up and she says, “Well what about the rest of my order? I need 800 lbs of Quickcrete, 50 10′ 2x4s, ten 8′ 4x4s…”
She starts reading off all of the ingredients she needs to make a massive deck, or a dock, or something. She then asks me sweetly if I’ll help her get them while she waits in line, holding up the 10 people behind her while I pull an entire back yard’s worth of lumber and concrete out for her. I told her we couldn’t do that, and gave her the number to call to have her order pulled.
She freaked out. Spent about 20 minutes screaming at me, even after I called the head cashier and had him handle her. See, she would run over to my lane while I was with other customers to tell me how “unprofessional” I was being, and that this is why everyone goes to Lowe’s nowadays, because there they care about the customer.
46. Just A Wee Bit Dedicated
I was working in an indie model/wargame/TCG shop. A group of kids around 13 years old turn up after school to play Yu-Gi-Oh inside. As their game drags on, one kid asks us where the toilets are. We direct him to the bus station, but he complains about the 30-second walk. He remains playing. Suddenly, we hear laughter from this kid and a pool of moisture forming down his trouser leg and onto our carpet.
My boss and I stare in utter disbelief as this kid shakes his leg, and remains playing his card game. Boss goes crazy and forces the kid to clean the carpet before banning him for a week. Kid returns next week to the nickname Wazzers.
47. Something Smells Like An Onion
During high school, I worked at a Burger King. There was this one woman who would always come into drive thru during the afternoon and ask for a Whopper Jr with extra onions. And I mean, a LOT of extra onions. And no matter how many we put in, she always came into the store and complained that there weren’t enough. Still, this was in the middle of the afternoon, so we didn’t care.
However, one day, we had four buses full of US Army enlistees at the store at the same time. Convoys of chartered buses would go by periodically, and they usually stopped at our store because the bus drivers knew my boss. Now, these people were always the nicest, most respectful people you can possibly imagine, which was a welcome change after dealing with jerks the whole day.
They also always ordered a ton of food—all king-size, tons of double and triple whoppers, the whole nine yards. My boss would always have me give them the “senior discount” (15% off), and they enjoyed that immensely, because it said that they were getting a senior discount on their receipts. Anyways, nice as they were, they strained our store to the limit because they ordered so much food.
So we were almost literally going hammer and tongs to keep up, and then the worst happens. Onion woman comes into drive thru. My boss told me to just grab two handfuls of onions and put them on the sandwich, because she didn’t need a scene when we were as far behind as we were. I could barely close the burger because of the onions, but I managed it and we gave it to her.
Now remember, the store is completely full of US Army enlistees. They probably have not had fast food for weeks (I think they were going from boot camp to get their first assignments). And the line was out the door. So onion woman pushes her way past all of these people, rudely shoving them out of her way, and comes up to the counter screaming that she didn’t have enough onions.
My boss is angry, so she takes the sandwich, hands it to me, and tells me to do whatever I want with it. I knew just what to do. I dumped the ENTIRE TUB of onions on this (probably about 1.5 LITERS of onions), and wrapped it up really, REALLY tight, and taped it shut (Note that the wrappers were somewhat elastic…). My boss hands it to the woman, and she opens it right on the counter to “make sure we have enough” even though it’s like six times bigger than normal.
The thing EXPLODED ALL OVER. SO freaking awesome. All the guys trying not to laugh. One of their officers (a quite young 1st Lt.) was waiting by the counter for his food, and finally he just gave up and started laughing his butt off. The men took this as a cue, and she had about 250 men dying laughing at her.
One of the best days of my high school life. She didn’t come back for a month, and she never, EVER complained about not having enough onions.
48. Wet And Wild
I used to work in Best Buy services. It was sort of like Geek Squad before Geek Squad and it dealt with everything like TVs and VCRs and junk. One day we had a guy come in and complain about his little video camera not working. I agree to take a look at it even though there’s not much I can do but send it back to the manufacturer for him.
It will take some time, but that was 90% of the problem people had with services. Naturally, this guy wants a new one on the spot and he starts getting REALLY loud about it. So I call the manager. While I’m waiting for them to come up, I’m still tinkering with the camera in the back. I get some tools out and, hey, look I got the thing open for the guy. When I saw what was on it, I knew we had him.
A minute or so later I come back out when the manager gets there. The manager is talking to the guy as I move a computer up to the counter. I jump in and say, “Hey, I don’t think we should give this guy a new unit”. The guy gives me dagger eyes and the manager is like, “Oh? why’s that?” Then I play the footage of what is unmistakably someone running around a pool, dropping the camera, which tumbles into the pool.
He had taken out the tape but it was recorded to the memory stick. Guy takes his camera and quietly leaves the store.
49. If The Shoe Doesn't Fit
I work in a shoe shop. One of the services we supply is to check how well school shoes fit on our younger customers. Once a staff member has signed to say they are a good fit, the customer is able to bring them back if there are any problems. This one time, a mother came back in with her son a week after being fitted with a pair, loudly mouthing off that the shoes were too tight and causing blisters.
Even though she was being a psycho about it, we offered to get her a new pair. Once back in the kids department, she spotted the girl who fitted the original shoes and went crazy at her, demanding that the girl should be there while a better pair was fitted so she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. Despite the mom saying some pretty degrading stuff about her, the girl agreed to sit in on the re-fit in an attempt to help out.
She remembered the customer, even to the point of remembering the child’s name, and was visibly upset about doing a bad job. Returning to the till, the fitter offered to put the exchange through as a final gesture of goodwill. She then froze, realization dawning on her. “These aren’t your sons shoes” she said to the customer. They have a name tag inside saying Tommy, and your son’s name is Billy.
Turns out the kid had swapped his shoes with another boy in his class. Laughed that witch out of the shop.
50. The Old Switcharoo
When I was a server, I was that server that everyone claims they would always be if they did one day become a server in a restaurant. I filled up glasses when they needed to be refilled without asking, I brought out a bowl of lemons if you asked for lemons; if you wanted extra ice, you got a whole extra glass full of ice. Heck, I was even careful enough to write down every order even though I could easily memorize it and get it right.
One particularly busy night, I’m working a party of about 20 people. It’s a Friday night and the kitchen is slammed. Everything was going smooth, I thought—until I bring out the drinks and salads. There is one idiot that starts off saying I didn’t bring her anything right (wrong dressing, drink had a lemon, too much ice, etc.). I play the gracious and apologetic server correcting the issue despite knowing she is wrong.
The meal comes out. It goes from bad to worse. She explodes about how I can’t seem to do anything right and what a screw up I am. I proceed to congratulate her on the fine example she is setting for the kids at the table on how to treat another human being, and what classy language she was using. I then proceeded to show her where I wrote down everything she asked for.
The type of salad, the dressing she wanted, how she wanted it on the side, pulled the straw I gave her from under her bread plate and told her that I did give her one. I also talked about how I heard when her sister had ordered another dish, that she told her sister that she wanted that dish instead, and advised that she maybe should have simply asked for me to change the order instead of trying to play it off as if I was truly a “screw up” as she claimed.
I said maybe next time she would do a better job of making sure the server was not in earshot when she says something like that. I then told her that I would go and have the kitchen fix the meal she really wanted, instead of the one she ordered, and that it would take about 10 minutes before it was ready. Needless to say, the whole table was quiet. Then came the most glorious moment.
Her father piped up and simply said, “Honey, It’s about time someone called you out on your antics”. The old man gave me a $100.00 tip when he paid for the meal, strong handshake, and a thanks.
51. On The Edge
When I was a kid, my family owned several pizza places. I didn’t hang around them much because I was fairly young, but my older sisters worked at the big one waitressing and cashiering.
She told me that one night, the well-dressed father of a large family that had ordered several large pizzas tried to get out of paying for them because the pizza didn’t have sauce/cheese/ingredients all the way to the “edge”.
The family had eaten the entire pies except for the crusts. My sister refused to refund his money, he threw a huge fit and reduced my sister to tears. He kept yelling and demanded to see the owner—my dad. Dad came out, saw my sister sobbing, and got the story from one of the cooks. He didn’t say a word.
He just slammed the guy’s head through the wall and well into the store next door. The guy had to be taken away on a stretcher. The staff and a couple of customers told the authorities that the customer had tried to hit my sister so my dad wouldn’t get taken into custody. Dad didn’t get physical often, but when he did, he played for keeps.
Today's average consumer has plenty of options when it comes to patronizing a company for the services or merchandise they offer.
But there are also reasons why a discerning patron refuses to give their money to specific companies, regardless of whether or not they desire the product.
Curious to explore this notion, Redditor Snoo_72206 asked:
"What’s a company you refuse to support and why?"
Insurance companies failed to deliver assurance to these Redditors.
Ghosted
"Progressive. A few years back, an idiot crashed into my parked car with a lawnmower while I was at work."
"The owner of the lawnmowing company decided to play games and not pay for the damage."
"My Progressive agent ghosted me and his supervisor never returned my calls."
"I eventually got the money but Progressive didn't do a damn thing."
– The_Height_of_Folly
Unlike A Good Neighbor
"State Farm. Before we met, my wife was in a car accident that permanently damaged her neck, forcing her to drop out of college and abandon her dream to play violin professionally, and requiring her to get an injection in her neck twice a year for the rest of her life."
"She's been in a 4-year legal battle with State Farm as shes entitled over $100k since she was no way at fault for it."
"But they will not budge and keep demanding ridiculous things from her. Next month she's actually scheduled to fly back to the state where the accident happened so she can undergo a 10-hour psychological analysis (when she asked her attorney why they're asking for that, she pretty much said 'because they can')."
"State Farm also recently requested she shoot a video of her attempting to play the violin and then talking to me about how it make her feel that she can't play it painlessly anymore. In a recent deposition, they actually asked her if she had intentions to get medical treatment were they to award her with the money back when it happened."
"They've become such a pain but we've made the decision to fight it out as long as we can, because giving up is what they want us to do, and we want to prove to insurance companies that they can't screw over their clients like this."
"So yeah. Screw State Farm (and honestly most insurance companies)."
– Ben-Stanley
A Major Trauma
"Dude. State Farm is the worst. My sister was in an accident when she was 16 that left her with permanent brain damage, dashing her chances of the future career she dreamed of."
"It was a 10 year battle on settlement. The hoops they made us jump through… the disgusting tactics they used. They hired people to stalk me and my other siblings and report on our behaviour to build a profile on how much she was likely to succeed had the accident not happened to bring down the settlement."
"They belittled and publicly humiliated a 16 year old girl who was in a traumatic accident where her friends were killed."
"As a pre teen seeing all this, it actually completely changed me and opened my eyes to how evil people can be. Insurance companies are disgusting."
– MalBredy
Unreasonable Payout
"I know three people with State Farm homeowners insurance who tried to make claims and got laughably microscopic payouts."
"And then they keep their policies! What the fuck are you paying them serious adult premiums for, when they see the damage to your home and reimburse you with five bucks and a gumball?"
– driffson
A major social media platform and a popular ticketing service got the stank eye.
The Parent Organization
"Meta. What if I don't want to share my private info with you?"
– skycatminepokie
Chaotic Life
"my job required me to be on social media every single day, constantly be interacting with clients posts, constantly be creating content with the intent of trying to gt clients to share the content."
"i really do believe social media is a cancer on society."
"I know that reddit is also social media, but the anonymity makes it much less toxic and consuming for me."
– garlicdjango
Unhealthy Addiction
"I was addicted to Facebook for the longest time and it wasn't until I finally deleted it (not suspended, full deletion) that I realized what a profound effect it was having on my mental health. I'm not even exaggerating. I am so much happier without it."
"The friends I talked to all the time still talk to me through other mediums, and the ones that don't, just don't. And that's fine. I'm not even judging them for it. I'm in a much better place."
– starchystar
No More Live Events
"Ticketmaster - too many fees. Just don't go to live concerts anymore."
– username987654321a
"Ticketmaster:"
"Ticket price: $40"
"Service fee: $20"
"Paperless fee: $5"
"Fee fee: $3.15"
"Because we can fee: $2.00"
"You wanna go fee: $12.00"
"Print-from-home fee: $6.50"
"No physical copy fee: $16"
"No refund policy agreement fee: $8.00"
"Total: $112.65 F'k you very much."
"Sucker."
– Soulphite
Redditors thought these companies left a bad taste.
America's Favorite Food & Beverage Company?
"Nestle, is there anything ethical about them?"
– Aggressive-Ice-1009
The Partnership
"FYI Starbucks and Nestle are best buds now and have signed a multi multi million dollar partnership."
– poopybuttfacehead
Corporate Evil
"Nestlé. They are the very model of corporate evil. Raiding water tables in drought stricken areas, using child slavery to get their chocolate, and much more!! 🤡"
– Thintieguy
Local Business Killer
"Starbucks. It’s just too easy to support a local coffee shop if I’m in a situation where I can’t make my own coffee at home."
– PaticusGnome
Some retail companies were admonished by the following Redditors.
Bad Fashion
"Jaded London, ASOS, Primark, PrettyLittleThing & any other fast fashion brands that I can’t remember off the top of my head."
– brownguyinthecorner
The Reason
"It does go further than that for me, but my opinion does stem from their exploitation of child labour."
– brownguyinthecorner
Not Target
"Walmart"
"I used to work there and refuse to go there ever again. I put in my two weeks July 2020 and I haven’t gone there since. I refuse to step foot in any Walmart ever."
– funeralxfog95
Employee Confession
"Former Walmart employee here too that refuses to shop there. Union busting, encouraging people to work off the clock, threatening you if you get caught up doing work and accrue OT, humiliating public team cheers, inadequate training for dangerous equipment, constant busy work, terrible pay and benefits... not to mention that the only reason I ended up working there is they destroyed their local competitors in the town... f'k Walmart."
– BobGenghisKahn
Discomforting Atmosphere
"I started off hating Walmart as a kid because of the fluorescent lighting and overall depressed feeling that would overcome me anytime I would step foot inside one, and my hate has only grown stronger over the years."
– ChillNyeTheStonerGuy
They say America runs on Dunkin'.
That slogan alone made me give it a hard pass. The audacity. Everyone knows Starbucks is supreme.
I know, I know, the mega java chain is on every street corner in all major metropolitan cities and many customers may think they're overrated.
But say what you will. Their quality cup of joe is so much better than the mud Dunkin' Donuts passes off as coffee.
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Restaurant Employees Share The Worst Thing They've Ever Seen Someone Do To A Customer's Order
For anybody who's worked at least a few months in the food service industry, that adage that "the customer is always right" can be a total tease.
Yes, good customer service is important. We want people to enjoy their meal, tip well, and come back to pay more money in the future.
But sometimes a customer's entitled attitude can ruffle a waiter's feathers enough for them to take some *subtle* action.
Or, in many cases, a waiter may simply be careless enough to do something profoundly awful to a meal, whether there was some customer transgression or not.
Either way, it's best to have your head on a swivel and be as polite as possible whenever you find yourself giving your order to a hard-working server.
RegulatoryCapturedMe asked, "Restaurant workers of Reddit, what is the worst thing you have seen done to a customer's order?"
Some people chose to talk not about vindictive behavior, but mindless habits. These stories outlined all the gross things that happen behind the scenes because a cook just couldn't be bothered to keep things sanitary.
Floor + Griddle
"I worked at a popular fast food chain in my younger years, it was my first time with closing shift and we were all doing our part to clean and prep the store."
"I see this lady with a mop and bucket come out of the back, slop it on to the griddle and START MOPPING IT. I was appalled. I went and told the manager and she tells me well that's the quickest way to clean it then scolded me for worrying about things that didn't concern me."
"I quit that job next day and then called the district office and told them what happened. That location closed down not long after. But the franchise still exists."
5 Second Rule (x 50 = 250 Second Rule)
"Worked at a 50's style diner."
"Was prepping the chicken breasts for our burgers and dropped a tray of 50 and they slid right under the grill, easily the dirtiest place in the whole restaurant."
"My boss saw and had me pick them all up rinse them with water and re-season then and stick them back in the fridge..."
-- d0rf47
"No One Will Notice"
"I saw a waiter pour an orange juice, take a big swig with his lips on the rim, top it up then take it to the table." -- RegulatoryCapturedMe
"In college, I worked for a well known pizza place. One of our wait staff came to collect a pepperoni pizza, and nabbed a piece of pepperoni off the top before taking it out."
"He gets to the table, and everyone is staring at him in stunned silence. There's a very fine string of cheese going from the pizza to his mouth." -- DeeTee79
One, Two Punch
"Pour the whole tray of drinks over a guest - twice. International trade fair with students as waiters. First time was an accident, second time she was so nervous she was practically shaking and spilled the drinks again on the same guy."
-- skaffen37
People Share The 'Dirty Secrets' That Their Bosses Don't Want Customers To Know
There's a lot businesses hope their customers believe, and there are many business practices you wouldn't dare believe. These are some of the secrets Reddit ...Others chose to highlight the times a co-worker was, indeed, straight up vindictive. These small acts of revenge were blatant, shameless, and often very gross.
A Symbolic Attack
"Worked in restaurants for over 10 years. It's pretty rare that you see people mess with someone's food but it does happen occasionally."
"The most memorable was once when a customer made a waitress cry complaining about their food and sent it back. The chef farted on the remake. It got a lot of laughs."
"More common is if a customer is an ahole, when they order dessert, you find the smallest slice of cheesecake you can."
The Brine Does Look Like Urine
"I know a guy that pissed in a bucket of pickles. He would have never been caught if he didn't talk about it." -- filthysquatch
"Welp. That's a felony." -- saltnskittles
"number 14 mcdonalds pi** pickles" -- LetsGeauxSaints
Some Burger With Your Pickles
"I had a buddy at mcdonalds, a real chaotic type, who every once and a while would say 'oh hey, guess what time it is... PICKLE SURPRISE!' and put a whole handful of pickles on a random cheeseburger." -- mattmoney31716
"Dude... I got like 9 fu**ing pickles on my regular tiny hamburger the other day.. I think he might still work there." -- vl8669
A Clear Policy
"At my last restaurant job, my coworker would make very ugly sundaes for customers who were rude."
"For particularly nice customers, she would painstakingly recreate the sundaes in the menu pictures and give them extra cream and sprinkles."
Feels Good to be Bad
"The worst thing i did was to this one guy that I already didn't like and he was being kind of an a**hole, I overcooked his eggs." -- LoneRhino1019
"You are the devil" -- taladrow
"Note to self: to get my eggs the way I want them, be a huge a**hole to this guy." -- Warhawk137
All About Perception
"This isn't really bad, but a lot of the times when people send food back and there's clearly nothing wrong with it, the chefs will just rearrange the food on the plate, wait a minute or two and then send it out to the table."
"The funniest part is when the customer says that it's better."
-- Sophie-xoxo
"I haven't worked in a restaurant in over 15 years. I never messed with anyone's food because that is assault. What I used to do to snotty Karen types is give them a senior discount and announce to the table when I dropped the check that I remembered to add the senior discount."
Legal, But a Rough Sammy Nonetheless
"Worked in a deli for a few years, I never tampered with anyone's food but if you were a d!ck I guaranteed your bread was over toasted, the lettuce on your sandwich was wilted, the tomato was the butt end with the hole from us removing the core, your onions were little pieces, the meat was the smallest of the portions, and on and on."
"I wouldn't tamper with someone's food but I damn well wasn't making them a good sandwich. And all of that goes the exact opposite way with the customers I liked, always gave them the best product to the point they would wait for me to help them."
Finally, others were just as revengeful, but they took out their rage in a more subtle way.
Rather than ruin a meal completely in a brash, obvious way, these cooks and waiters simply listened to customers' order and gave them exactly what they asked for.
These stories remind that we should be careful what we wish for, especially if we've upset the waiter.
A Crowded Pie
"I gave them what they ordered. We were a pizza/Italian/bar restaurant. Our menu was ludicrously large and essentially anything that was on the menu that could go on a pizza was listed as a topping, probably 40 to 50 topping choices.
"I would get asked pretty often for 'a pizza with everything on it!' I had a usual joke or two to find out what they really wanted. Typically a deluxe but then they'd want no black olives or whatever. No big deal."
"Until the a**hole came in that that ordered 'everything' and then proceeded to ask if I was ret##### when I questioned him. My sister has disabilities so I didn't appreciate his tact... told my boss about it and he smiled and said get him a pizza with everything."
"Brought it out and gave it to him. He flipped out and demanded the manager of course. My manager had my back and gave the guy his bill which at $2 a topping was well over a $100 pizza. Guy refused to pay, cops got called, Yada Yada Yada. I hope he enjoyed his pizza with clams, pineapple, Buffalo chicken, broccoli, anchovies, green olives, cream cheese, cauliflower, jalapeños, shrimp..."
-- anix421
Flying Too Close to the Sun
"Some Indian guys came in one time and asked for us to make their food as spicy as possible. I told them that's going to be extremely spicy and wanted to make sure they knew what they were asking for."
"They went on a long rant about how Indian restaurants are the only places that actual know what spicy is and anything we bring out isn't going to be close to how spicy they like their food."
"So I had the owner come over to tell them that we'll try our best but there won't be any refund on this food if it's too spicy. So we made them chicken fried rice with Trinidad scorpion peppers. After 2 bites and about 10 glasses of soy milk later, they ordered something else."
-- MrCanno
Extra Extra Extra
"Wanted extra mayo so I maliciously complied by drenching it. Lady thought I would forget her fake $10 prayer tip the last time she was there." -- Dumfk
"Just keep one on hand for when you see those people again, give it back as their change, or if you care about/need your job, dont listen to me about anything." -- harpo555
It's a list that might leave you feeling rather paranoid about going to fast food or sit down restaurants in the future. But at least one preventative maneuver emerged as a common theme: be polite.
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If there ever was a year where retail therapy came in handy, 2020 would be it.
With most civilians quarantining or in isolation through most of the year that was, online shopping surely must have skyrocketed.
Although my life situation did not require a wardrobe update, that did not stop me from looking online and mayyybe buying a new pair of jeans and/or a dress shirt. Maybe.
But I have to say, the best purchase I made this year was my KitchenAid stand-mixer. Because you know, baking turned out to be a huge deal for eating my feelings.
Which leads us Redditor professordull123, who asked strangers on the internet:
"What was your best purchase this year?"
The Item From Ikea
"I impulse bought a massive cutting block from Ikea that lives on our counter for 14 dollars. We love it, even if Ikea performed some sort of jedi mind trick to get us to buy it (we came in for a desk)."
Purchase Of Convenience
"A good backpack."
"I didn't think it'd be so handy, but I use it every day, and it's knowing that I can just grab it and go instead of worrying about getting stuff gathered up, or realizing I left something home that I needed."
Expanding The Wardrobe
"Bought some pants a week or two ago, I've had only two pair for quite a while and it will feel nice to have some more."
For Viewing
"A telescope."
"It's so incredible to see Jupiter moons and Saturn. And see that there is much more in the sky than meets the eye."
"For those who intend to purchase a telescope, I really recommend to spend some time doing research. There are different kinds of telescopes and their use depend on the purpose you have. A good telescope for viewing planets may not be the best for observing deep sky objects. A telescope may be great to use at home, but might be too big to travel with. Another might be easy to set up but not the best for astrophotography. It's really important to do some research to find out which kind better suits you."
Free Sips
"I bought a $2 travel mug that gets me free coffee from a gas station on every Tuesday. I can't wait for my 200th 'free coffee' because after that I'll have essentially paid less than 1 penny for each refill. This is the goal in life."
Beautiful Vision
"Lasik. Seriously I have not had a second where I have regretted it. It truly is life changing. People who just see naturally you have no idea how good you have it."
"A new bed. I sleep so much better now."
For A Clean Bottom
"Technically not this year, but in December 2019 without knowing what was around the corner, I bought a bidet. Little did I know what a great purchase it would actually turn out to be."
"Even without the pandemic it's probably the best purchase I've ever made."
For The Budding Mechanic
"I bought a running 84' Camaro for the sake of learning how to work on cars and having a project vehicle. I've been wanting to do this since I was a kid."
"So far I've rebuilt drum brakes, changed u joints, changed all wheel bearings/seals, bought a new carburetors, upgraded to an electric radiator fan, restored all the gauges back to factory original, and a bunch of other stuff. I will say I've learned a substantial amount so far!"
"When I get some money saved up, I'm gonna tear into the engine and rebuild it."
Unsatisfied female customers who are entitled and raise a fuss inside stores have become known as a "Karen" in common parlance.
But regardless of gender, you know the type.
I encountered many of these annoying customers who never take "no" for an answer when I used to work in retail.
A flustered woman asked me to find the right size slacks from the back of the store after I had already told her we were sold out.
But she insisted I still go and check, even though I knew we were out of her size. When I told her I couldn't help her, she told me I was "a waste of space" and then asked to speak to my manager.
Sometimes the customer is not always right, but they must never know they are wrong. Sigh.
Redditor mrquin89 asked others to share their experiences in retail by asking:
"Retail workers of reddit,what was your favorite 'let me speak to your manager' moment?"
The Best Retail Manager Ever
season 6 no GIF by PortlandiaGiphy"I worked at the big box store with the yellow tag. I had been there for 18 months as a cashier. We recently got a new Ops manager who came from computer sales and didn't really know the registers that well. This happened during his first week as manager".
"Me: ok sir, that will be $ amount."
"Customer: Fine, here"
"tosses card onto the counter"
"card declined"
"Me: sorry sir, your card declined. I can run it again or we can try another card if you'd like?"
"Customer: Run it again, I know there's over $1000 on that card and it should work."
"Declined again"
"Me: Sorry sir, it has declined again."
"Customer: It must work, is there anything else you can do to approve the sale?"
"Me: I can try to run it manually, but that will only help if your magnet strip is damaged"
"Customer: Try that then"
"Declined again"
"Customer: There must be some way to force or bypass that, I know there is money on the card."
"Me: I'm sorry sir. If it's declined by the card company, there is nothing I can do."
"Customer: THIS IS BULLSH*T, I KNOW THERE IS MONEY ON THAT CARD. GET YOUR MANAGER NOW!"
"Me: Ok sir, just a moment"
"Manager Approaches and stands behind the counter next to me"
"Manager: Hello sir, how can I help you?"
"Customer: YOUR EMPLOYEE KEEPS DECLINING MY CARD AND I KNOW THERE IS PLENTY OF MONEY ON THE CARD. YOU NEED TO OVERRIDE IT."
"Manager attempts to run the card Declined again"
"Manager: Sorry sir, it was declined."
"Customer: I KNOW THAT, YOU NEED TO OVERRIDE IT SO I CAN TAKE MY STUFF AND GO HOME"
"Manager turns 90 degrees to face me"
"Manager: It declined, is there anything we can do to override it?"
"Me: No sir, that decline is from the card company. There is nothing else we can do."
"Manager turns 90 degrees back to angry customer"
"Manager: I'm sorry sir, I spoken with one of our experts and he informs me there is nothing else we can do with this card. Would you like to sign up for our card and save 10% on your purchase today?"
"Customer angrily stomps out of the store"
More Declined Cards
"Oh, this happens so much... I work in a hotel and people's CC's decline a lot for fraud protection (because your CC that hasn't been 40 miles from home in a year is now ringing up charges for products and services you never use it for, farther and farther from your address). 'I know there is money on it!' Yeah, but your CC company wants to cover your/their a**. Call them. 'It just worked at the gas station!' Yes, you buy gas twice a week, and they're not gonna sweat a $40.00 charge. But I'm asking them to cover something like 20 times that amount for something you don't ever do. Call them. Repeat. Repeat. They finally call. 'Uh, they said it should be OK now.' Yep, it is."
Scene At The DQ
"I worked at a Dairy Queen in high school. One night before we were about to close, some lady came up to the outside seating area and tried to order through the screened off windows that we had there. I told her that she would have to walk around to the drive through window (because the inside of the building was closed for the night already) she started screaming about how she could get killed by a car and stuff like that. I told her that it was well lit and no cars have come through for like an hour. I also told her that I could just walk the food out to her, but she refused that for some reason and asked for my manager. The manager came over and after listening to her scream for a couple minutes just simply said 'get the f'k out of here and stop yelling at my employees"
Not In The Store System
"Back when Lowe's used to have dedicated in-store installation sales teams, I worked as a contract coordinator."
"This lady called us b*tching about her carpet coming apart only a week or so after it was installed."
"She was rightfully upset, and I wanted to fix her problem for her. But I couldn't find any record of her in our system. Her address wasn't in any of our records. Her name wasn't in any of our installations over the past few years."
"I tried everything I could think of to find out more about her install. I called our flooring specialist. I called our independent contractors. Still, nothing."
"She got pissed. Like, livid. She thought I was trying to shirk responsibility so she asked to talk to a manager."
"I felt defeated, but in this case I felt her request for escalation was justified. I transferred her to the acting store manager and he came back to our office to help me research."
"He asked her to look for her installation folder at her house and she went digging for it and found it."
"Finally! We could get her some help."
"I could hear her on the handset my manager was using."
"Oh. Wait a minute. This is a Home Depot folder. I think I f'ked up and called you by mistake. Bye."
Stolen Goods
"I don't know about 'favorite' but it did make me SMH."
"I worked in a department store with three floors and I worked nights. Most department managers worked days, so at night, there was usually one manager on duty for each floor. I was working one night, around Christmastime, so the store was busy. A woman came up to my register in tears and said she had purchased about $200 in wedding gifts (this was in the late 80's so it was a good amount of money), but had left the bag in the fitting room and it was gone by the time she realized she'd left it behind. She first wondered if anyone had turned it in (ha ha, no, but a reasonable question) and the decided that the store should be on the hook for replacing the items. She literally wanted me to gather the items for her, check them out and charge her $0 for them because, in her words, they were 'stolen inside the store.' She was really, really insistent despite me telling her I could absolutely not do that for her. I told her that I was sorry her items were stolen, but her only recourse was to file a police report. At that point she gave the famed response, 'I want to speak to your manager!'"
"I had no idea who was on that night, but I hoped it wasn't any of the managers that took crap from customers. I paged for a manager and I was thrilled to see 'Heidi' come and answer my call. Heidi was one of our night managers. She was German, about 6' tall and probably 180# - she was an imposing presence for sure and she did NOT take crap from customers."
"So, this lady explains the situation to Heidi, and Heidi looks her dead in the eye and says complete with German accent and no expression on her face, 'Well, we can't just give you product for free. You left the product in the fitting room and it was stolen. It has nothing to do with us. I cannot help you' and just walked away before the customer could even respond. It was great."
"The woman just looked kind of dumbfounded and muttered 'I'm coming back tomorrow to speak to the general manager. I can't believe this. What am I going to do...' as she walked off. I don't know if she ever did come back, but I'm sure 'Jane,' the store manager, would have told her exactly the same thing, but probably in a more gentle way."
"All these years later, I just remember how insistent this woman was and how she honestly thought we'd just give her free product off our shelves because her stuff was stolen due to her own carelessness."
"Middle-aged male (this is important as I worked at a predominately male field in both associates and customer base, sexism was hot and heavy here from the customers and I am a small, youngish female) customer was complaining about something to me as I was kindly explaining x process or y reason for something that wasn't really that much of an issue. He asked to see the manager."
"It was my moment. The moment I'd been waiting for my whole managerial career. Muscles tense, eyes flashing, I said: 'I am the manager.'"
"The guys face was priceless. Instant regret and instantly backed off. He even mouthed an 'oops.'"
"It's also funny that he didn't even realize I was the manager because I had my nametag on which clearly said Manager on it."
For Kicks....
Happy Hour Dog GIFGiphyI was a bartender for a family owned Irish pub and usually worked the double on Saturdays. The serving staff wouldn't come in until 4 and the manager would usually do office work leaving me to deal with any lunch crowd. Also the owner of the place had a rule that the TVs needed to be on news or sports, nothing else.
Guy and girlfriend come in and sit at the bar and order drinks, then guy asks me if I can change the channel to TBS. It's summer, so I figure there must be a baseball game on but I flip the channel and it's just some movie. I tell him I have to change it back to news, that's the rule. Guy doesn't say anything, but looks unhappy.
I make a round to see if my tables are ok, go back to the bar and girlfriend orders for her and guy. I put in the meals, get them another drink make the rounds of my tables, bring them their meals. Another round through the tables and I come back to check on them.
"How is everything?"
"I will kick your a**, man."
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"I swear to god I will come over this counter and f**k you up."
I'm dumbfounded. I am not a small man and had served as a bouncer on event nights I wasn't bartending. Still though, I try to calm things down. I apologize for not being able to change the channel and start to say it's the owner's policy when he cuts me off.
"Know what, get your f**king manager."
I head to the office and explain to my manager and she comes out to talk to the guy.
"Is there a problem?"
"Yeah, your idiot bartender thinks he can make me watch CNN while I'm trying to eat."
"Oh, well unfortunately the owner of the rest-"
"And I'm not paying for any of this crap either."
There it is. We've seen this before. Someone comes in, looks for something to complain about and tries to bully their way to a free lunch.
Manager tells them that not only will they pay for their food, but they're going to pay for it right now, and then she's going to call the police and report him threatening me, so they have from between now and when the cops get here to finish their food or pack it up and get out.
Guy tried to argue some more but girlfriend handed over a debit card and paid. I didn't get a tip but my manager and I had a good laugh.
Whose on Duty
Restaurants/bars are borderline retail but it's important, as a manager, that your staff knows there is a line that can be crossed - where the customer is not always right. It's been satisfying to see managers inform the patron that they're in the wrong & convey that the establishment is willing to take the loss of your check, in order for you to leave - as they will not put up with that behavior. Once, a patron was very insulting to a waitress (lunch, no drinking involved; just a mean/angry diner). The manager-on-duty actually told the patron he should apologize to the waitress - the patron did apologize.
"Reduced"
I work in a major supermarket chain in the UK. Once I had a customer who couldn't speak any English and I couldn't speak their language either so she got out her phone and proceeded to make me talk into it so it could get translated into her language and vice versa. I didn't really mind this if it was only to located a product or select something etc but she was claiming the food she bought the other day was out of date. Turns out she actually bought it in the "reduced" section where we put the food thats going out of date on that day for a discounted price and tried to return it the next day for full price.
It got to the point where she demanded I got a manager simply because I refused to return this item as her receipt clearly stated it was a "reduced" food product and with the date on the bottom of the receipt I knew she was trying to scam us. This managed is an older woman in her 60s, doesn't know anything about technology but she had to try and do this Google translate into this woman's phone.
After around 5 mins of going back and forth my manager just threw her hands up and said forget this, I don't know what's even going on, I'm not entertaining this and barred the customer there and then. That was the day she became my favorite manager, lol.
Go Away
A customer told one of our bartenders that she looked like a "tramp." My colleague comes into the back with tears in her eyes.
Our manager saw this, heard what had happened, marched up to the table and essentially told the customer she was a terrible person and was not welcome in the restaurant now or ever again.
It's so hard as a young woman in a bar because your tips are directly tied to how you handle this stuff. A manager that has your back is invaluable.
Not in my House
Not strictly retail but a casino. A member of the dealing staff had a minor medical issue as I was passing her table. I jumped in to take over the table while she nipped to the bathroom. A couple of minutes later a chap came over to the table and wanted to play but I refused to let him sit down as he was far too drunk. He went mental, demanding to speak to the manager, talking about how he was going to have me fired. I told him OK and to wait right there. I called over a different staff member, had them take over the table and stepped away, picked up my jacket, walked over to the drunk chap and said "Hi, I'm the manager, let me show you the door."
Freshest Cuts
walt disney flowers GIFGiphyHad a customer do a similar thing at the florist I worked at when I was a teenager. We'd put open flowers outside for ridiculously cheap and the disclaimer that they're open and not gonna last more than a day or two.
Lady came in on Sunday, pissed that the flowers she bought on Friday were looking bedraggled. The thing was, I was outside watering plants when this happened, the owner was inside and she got the screaming.
I went inside to do whatever and I watched this lady berating my boss and I dunno what came over me but I very sternly, without raising my voice, told this lady that this is no way to talk to a person and she absolutely will not be treating my boss like this.
My boss was a little shocked (so was I) but I've never seen a person deflate so fast. Something about being told off by a 16 year old must have done something. She apologized profusely, spent a good hour in the store having a conversation with my boss and bought a load of fresh flowers. She became a regular and a big spender.
- fibirb
Stomper
When working as a cocktail waitress I was kind of shrugging off a guy who stiffed me, but one of my bartenders asked me "that guy right there?" And I watched her stomp right up to him and ask what was wrong with his service. Were his drinks not right? Was I rude to him? So why did he think it was okay to leave without tipping a young girl making less than $3/hr to give him great service?
He pitched a fit and was still super rude but he was told in no uncertain terms that he wasn't welcome back. She was my freaking hero that night.
Sinister Light
The customer didn't ask for the manager, but it's a good story nonetheless.
I sold a woman a flashlight.
2 hrs later I get called to customer service because there is a hysterical woman trying to return a flashlight.
I go to see what's up, and she is on the verge of tears because the flashlight wont turn on.
I opened up the battery compartment and flipped the batteries around for her, and lo and behold, it works!
I go to pack it back up for her, and now instead of sadness there is anger, and she no longer wants the flashlight because she "doesn't trust it."
When at Home Depot
I work at Home Depot, I had someone a few months ago want to rent a truck.
Me: Ok, I need to see your drivers license and proof of insurance.
Customer: I don't have a drivers license.
Me: Unfortunately sir we can't rent a truck to you if you don't have a drivers license.
Cust: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY I SPEND HERE EVERY YEAR?
Me: Sir, you spending millions of dollars here doesn't automatically give you a license to operate a motor vehicle in the state of Oregon.
Cust: I don't spend millions of dollars here every year.
Me: So you get my point even more so then.
Cust: THIS IS BULL, I WANT TO TALK TO THE F**KING MANAGER.
I laugh and call the manager in our store and ask him to come up because I got a good one for him. Manager comes up, listens to the guy whine.
Manager: Looks at me and says "Your f**king with me right? This is some kind of joke?"
Me: Nope :)
Manager looks at customer and says, "we won't rent you a truck with out a drivers license, its illegal ."
Customer: I'LL JUST GO TO THE LOWES DOWN THE STREET, I KNOW THEY'LL BE HAPPY TO HAVE MY MONEY!
Manager: Good luck with that.
Manager looks at me and smiles, the Lowes down the street from us doesn't do any rentals.
Snake Eyes
I had a very difficult customer at my table, known for being incredibly verbally abusive. I was sent there to deal with him because of this and the manager told me me to take the gloves off basically. So I pulled an attitude with him, much to the delight of everyone else within earshot. I did not swear at him at this point but definitely was a surly git. He, on the other hand called me a c**t several times amongst other things but didn't get the reaction he was looking for. He did not like this and called over the manager. He told the manager that I had a shitty attitude and that she should deal with it. She turned to me and said :
"Have you had an attitude?"
"YES"
"Why is that?"
"Because he's a c**t"
"Oh, I see." she turns back to the customer "Maybe you should try to not be a c**t"
Mic drop, she walks off, my favorite manager for life.
I miss the casino business sometimes, especially small provincial casinos, it was like the land that Public Correctness forgot. They would rarely bar people who were just verbal but the staff could give it back when it mattered.
The Old Codger
old man smile GIF by F*CK, THAT'S DELICIOUSGiphyMy managers are pretty weak and usually do whatever the customer wants to keep them happy, but one time this old codger was really giving me a hard time because I wouldn't refund his singlet. Store policy is that we don't refund undergarments, and this particular singlet was part of our undergarment line and was covered by that policy. He was trying to argue that it wasn't a pair of boxers or a bra so I was wrong about the policy and he demanded to speak to someone who knew what they were talking about.
I dreaded calling up my manager because I knew there was a 90% chance he would just refund it anyway and make me look like a loser, but he really surprised me that day, came the the checkout from the back and told that old fart right to his face that everything I was saying was according to store policy and he wouldn't be getting a refund. Felt good.
Buh Bye Now
As a manager I had a guy once scream at one of my crew members and I was coming back onto the floor, I stood next to him (waiting for him to see there's a manager to scream at instead of the poor 16 year old that's just clocked in) when he did, oh I can't tell you how much he spoke down/belittled me! Anyways, when I tried to rectify the issue he told me not to interrupt so I didn't! I went and grabbed his receipt with a refund, and said 'have a nice day!' 😘
You Do It!
I was working as a cashier. Late night at Walmart, they close customer service, and cashiers are expected to take returns. I also had managers that folded under any pressure. When it was something that I knew was against policy, I absolutely refused to be the cashier handling it. I MADE the manager in charge log into the machine and handle those themselves.
Expired Whopper
Was in a Burger King ordering my meal when an odd, disheveled looking man came in carrying a bag. He was attempting to get a refund on a half-eaten Whopper that he had purchased THE DAY BEFORE! The manager stared at him and the whopper for what seemed like forever just contemplating the situation. I can only imagine the thought going through her head. She refused the refund, but gave him a new sandwich.
Here ya go?
Tea Smh GIF by moodmanGiphyI was working at Walmart as a cashier a little over a decade ago the day before Thanksgiving. This guy comes through my lane with a flatbed the staff had gotten for him and it's absolutely loaded with frozen turkeys.
I ring him through, give him his total, he hands me a check that was printed from his business and I note that the check is post dated. "I'm sorry sir, the check is dated for tomorrow. I can't accept it."
After going back and forth about how "it'll all balance out tomorrow" and me still refusing to accept it he demands a manager. The manager, of course, folds and says we'll take it. So I suspended the order, logged out of my register, stepped aside, and said "Ok <manager>, here ya go!" and motioned for him to take over the lane.
You could see the immediate panic in his eyes when he realized I was right, he was wrong, and he started imagining all the sh!t he'd have to deal with from the finance department when a post-dated check came through under his name.
- Daerys82
Teamster Time
I was working several years ago during a Teamsters strike. Because we were also union, we supported the Teamsters and our deliveries suffered as a result. We were having a hard time keeping things on the shelves.
We had notices up informing our customers and apologizing for the inconvenience. But one day, an elderly woman came up to me at the front of the store, absolutely livid.
Customer: You don't have anything that I need in stock!
Me: I'm so sorry, ma'am. You see, there is a Teamsters strike currently...
Customer: I know about the strike! But I'm the customer and you (firm poke of her finger in my chest) need to do something about it!
Me: (patting woman condescendingly on the shoulder) Well, I'm sure if you'd like a job driving truck, our delivery team would be happy to hire you.
Customer: (utterly flabbergasted expression as jaw drops)
Me: My manager's name is [Manager's Name]. She's just over there (points). My name is madcats323. Have a lovely day.
(my manager was awesome and totally had my back. still one of my favorite retail moments)
Rage Guy
This happened many years ago when I worked at a Walmart while in college. I was working at the customer service desk and a customer came in to return a bike that was clearly very used and broken. He went on a rant about what a piece of crap it was, wanting to return it, etc. Store policy was that we couldn't accept the return, which I told him. He became enraged and threw the bike at me over the customer service desk.
I don't know how I dodged it, but I did and then stood there for a moment in shock. The manager had already been called and when he showed up, I explained the situation, along with my coworker and customers in line who witnessed it. The manager almost caved and gave him a refund, until I suggested a police report. In the end, rage guy stormed out, but I never forgot how that manager almost let him get away with that. I left not too long after that. lol
- MazyHazy
But the Ad Says
Karen GIF by moodmanGiphyNot even one specific moment but I worked at Walmart for a little over 2 years and maybe half that time I was the manager. At a certain point at night I'd only have one cashier so I'd have them start cleaning up doing bathrooms, getting carts etc. while I rang everyone else up until they came back. Well, once Walmart started doing the "we'll match your price, bring in the ad" thing people jumped on it. Every night, at least one person,
Customer: "this as says it's 4 for $10"
Me: "that's next weeks ad."
Customer: "no it's not. I just got it in the mail."
Me: "it says the date on the bottom. It has to be this weeks ad."
Customer: "but it's the price in the ad. You have to honor it! Let me speak to your manager!"
Me: "I am the manager."
Now this is where it can go 3 ways. 1st way Customer: "ok fine then I don't want them!"
2nd way Customer: "then who is above you!? Who is your boss!?"
Me: gets either assistant manager or support manager. "Ya she's right. This isn't the current ad."
Customer: either buys them or doesn't.
3rd way Customer: "THIS IS F***ING RIDICULOUS!!! I WANT YOUR BOSS AND THE NUMBER TO CORPORATE!!!! YOU GUYS AREN'T FOLLOWING YOUR OWN ADVERTISING!!!"
my boss: "sir/ma'am, we can't help you. Please leave the store. Here's our phone number. You can talk to (store managers name) tomorrow when they're here."
Tomorrow Store manager: "hey Christy, don't worry about that customer. They're not welcome back in the store. Let me know if you have any more problems with them."
Me: Thanks!!!
Very much considering never going back to retail. Some people can be real jerks.
The Sub
I worked in phone tech support for several years, as part of a pretty small, tight team. The "manager" was in a different part of the building and wouldn't take phone calls ever, so we would trade off being managers for each other.
I think I was probably the best manager on our team. One time a lady sent me a box of chocolates.
- cramduck
Courtney the Fraud
A guy was arguing with me over the phone about a Uber delivery, after many minutes of explaining that Uber is an external company and we have no control over what has happened (after offering everything I physically could) he proceeded to shout, call me a liar and names down the phone, he went on and then said I want to speak to you manager what's your name, so I told him my name and told him to give a second, put the phone down for a second and answered with 'Courtney speaking, I'm a manager how can I help?'
The Entitled
"I deserve a discount for waiting so long!" (Doesn't realize there was a sale anyway) "Well, let me just see what I can do?" (Walk away for a second and come back) "Normally I wouldn't but today I'll give you that discount." (I smile as if the world is in total peace and she becomes totally declawed) "Oh...I...um..." "Have a GREAT DAY! Be sure to ask for me the next time you come in. Byeeeeee"
She came in after that and was docile as hell.
- fourtaco
Ok girl. Let's do this.
My favorite customer experience I've ever had:
Her: So what can't this security camera do?
Me: sorry, what can't it do? What do you mean?
Her: you heard me what can't this thing do!?
Me: well the list of things it can't do is far greater than the things it can do
Her: well if the list is so long then tell me a few!
Me: *thinking to myself "ok witch you're asking for it"
Welllllll it's not gonna make your bed. It's not gonna toast your bread. It's not gonna scratch your head and it's definitely not gonna sharpen your pencil lead.
Her: ok smart a**, I wanna speak to your manager.
I miss Mr. Creed
Customer threatened to kill me because I could not order replacement feet for his HP Laptop.
He flat out said "I am going to kill you." I said "Let me check with my manager"
My manager obviously called the cops, but I really appreciate that he always had my back. It was my first job out of high school, and the manager who hired me straight up bailed off the freaking job.
My Second Boss ruined all further bosses for me in future. I was allowed to say no. I was allowed to tell customers to leave. I was allowed to exercise common sense.
About the only customer service bull he required me to adhere to was pretending that I gave a shit what the customer wanted.
God Speed Tom, you were willing to call the cops on those crazy a**holes.
Another fun one, was a dude who would buy laptops the way most people buy USB sticks.
He loved XP. He was willing to pay any amount. He stored his documents in the recycle bin, no man is without sin!
Still got in trouble. He wanted to drink at the service counter. It was super illegal.
He was still a fantastic customer. Mostly new laptop setups and data transfers. He was always SUPER HAPPY to upgrade, and his enthusiasm was contagious.
We sold him all manner of expensive laptops, and he did not give a flying f**k. As long as it was expensive.
Dude lived in a garage. He'd burned his mansion down. He rode the bus in, I can't imagine why.
That man is my favorite customer ever. You could just flat out pitch sh!t to him, and he would say "Hell yeah I want that."
I miss Mr. Creed.
LIAR!
frustrated jim carrey GIFGiphyI worked at an electronic store in customer service. Guy came in trying to return a motherboard that he said was defective. I opened the box to 1. Make sure it was there and 2. Make sure the serial numbers matched Upon pulling it out, noticed it was covered in dust. I asked how long he had it and he said a few days and handed me the receipt.
Hmm ok. Checked the serial number on the box and on the board - of course they didn't match. He put the old board in the new box. I told him he must have mistaken put the old board in so I can't complete the return. He claims I'm wrong and dumb because I'm a girl who doesn't know anything about how computers work. Ok sure, I'll bring a tech over to explain it slower. They do. He starts flipping out asking for a manager, saying I'm calling him a liar. I was actually just implying he was dumb. So manager comes out, repeats what I said. Guy jumps across the counter and tries to assault us. The security guard caught him and held him until police came.
I Value You
My favorite boss was a gorgeous, very tall black woman who took no sh!t from anyone. I LOVED telling her there was a "valued customer" up front who would like to talk to her. Made me wish I had popcorn when she would come up front. Damn, I miss her. I'm determined to work with her again in the future.
SURE....
I'm a pharmacy manager. One night, I was covering for my technician when a lady named Karen (I kid you not) started giving my cashier trouble about a cash price for a medication I generated. It was an extremely good price, as we are a privately-owned pharmacy and don't price guage our cash customers like chain pharmacies do. (If you're a cash patient, do yourself a favor and find yourself a mom and pop pharmacy. Your wallet will thank you.)
I decided to intervene, being the one who generated the price, and calmly explained to her that while this was a generic drug, it recently went generic and the price was still high due to a lack of competition for the manufacturers. I even offered to call her doctor to see if they would change the prescription to a similar combination steroid and antibiotic eye drop, but she insisted that this is the only thing that would work for her. Then she muttered something about "stupid hourly workers" and asked to speak to my manager.
I smiled and said "sure", and I spun around on the spot, then said, "Hi Karen, I heard you wanted to speak to the manager. How can I help you?"
I'm still not sure what was better, her smug WASP face going completely slack, or my new pharmacist nearly sh!tting herself to the point that she literally had to pull out her inhaler.
When in Public
This obese woman who was always an issue was demanding I "get it from the back." After explaining, slowly, that the item most Def was not back there she gave me the request.
The owner was a personal friend who actually asked me to work there. No nonsense kinda guy. He came out and he's like "you're not even supposed to be here. You write us bad checks and you're not allowed in this store anymore."
Got to be part of the escort team walking her out.
Nothing like a little public humiliation to take the edge off.
Ok Dude
Man came in to return old shoes that were falling apart, claimed they were only months old and wanted a brand new pair.
No receipt, paid cash, blah blah. I decided I didn't want to fight with him and approved the exchange.
Guy was mad and wanted to speak to my store manager because even though I did the exchange "[I] wasn't happy about it!"
Second job, Friday night, worked a 16 hour day, did him a freaking favor, and he wants to get me in trouble because I wasn't happy enough to get scammed by him.
Forget that dude.
- NellieX
Not Black
I was the manager in this case but I still want to share the story.
I worked for a video game retailer for the better part of a decade in a store in a very racially diverse area. I was in the back grabbing accessories to restock and the one of my associates, a young black guy, was up front. I hear the door chime and check the camera to make sure he doesn't need any help. It's a white guy and his kid. I go back to restocking. A few moments later my associate knocks on the door. He is clearly holding in massive rage.
"The customer would like to speak to someone who is not black."
"Did he say 'not black?'"
"You know what he said."
I went out to the front and greeted the man and his son. I asked the kid to go pick out a toy from the front that he could keep on us, (stock that we were asked to throw out we would give away or donate, sue me). I look to the father and say, "I'm sorry for the wait, sir. I understand you had an issue. I'd be happy to assist." He says, "Yeah, you can help me. I just don't talk to ni**ers." After I made sure his kid was still out of earshot I said in a low voice:
"I understand. Do me a favor and get the heck out of here and don't ever come back in here."
"You can't talk to me like that. I want to speak to the manager."
"Sir, I am the manager. Have a good day," I said with the biggest smile on my face.
He never came back and I had a very relieved employee.
BB & B
Been a customer service manager for about 7 years now. When I worked at Bed Bath & Beyond I was also the regional customer service manager. So people would ask for a manager, I'd tell them I was. They would ask for a regional manager and I'd give them my phone number. Typically they'd call later on. No one ever called right in front of me like I hoped.
Make it Rain
Make It Rain Reaction GIFGiphyI worked at a clothing store for a few years. Fairly often, people would carefully swap the tags between an expensive item and a cheap one, then try to buy the expensive item at the cheap price. This was a known issue we were told to look out for, and we would need to check the sewn-in tag on the item for its correct SKU to get the correct price. One day, a customer came up to my register with a swapped-tag item. I immediately recognized it and politely informed the customer that someone must have swapped the tags, and that I would have to use the SKU on the inner tag, then apologized for the confusion.
Customer immediately started screaming at me and said I was calling him a liar and a thief. Demanded to talk to my manager. So I called the manager over and the manager agreed with me. Customer lost it and started threatening both of us, so my manager called security. When they showed up and asked the man to leave, he legit pulls out a wad of $100 bills and starts throwing them at us, screaming about how he has so much money and doesn't need to steal and that we were stupid and lost our store a "high paying customer." I can't express how satisfying it was to watch this guy get dragged out of the store by security.
Pooped
Idk man I work at a smoke shop I could write a freakin' book. Probably gonna go with the lady that wanted discounts then laid on the ground and had ghost sex with herself then took a crap on the doorstep. She still had boom boom in her butt when she pulled her pants up and that's the real kicker to me. Had to watch my manager sweep a turd lol. Alternatively, there was a man who did air karate and tried to pay with rocks. It was a three day ordeal, and we later found out he beat his elderly mother. The look on my managers face when he whipped out a suitcase full of rocks was freakin' hilarious.
For the Packers
I was dealing with a typical Karen. She was raising hell over some dumb stuff, she asked for my manager. My boss stuck up for me and said, "this is packersfan, he wasn't on the schedule today but came in when I asked. He came in to help me out, not to be a target of abuse from you. Please leave."
Longest 30 Minutes
make it rain dvds GIF by Polyvinyl RecordsGiphyWhen these people came into a store I worked at, and wanted to return an already opened DVD. This may sound old but it's fairly recent, it was just an old store in my area that worked at that went out of business.
So these people came in, and I was told if the DVD was already opened, they couldn't return it, so they asked for a manager, and kept crying that it was her daughters birthday, and it unfair, and they gave me attitude, and started yelling after awhile. So my manager came over, because they wouldn't leave me alone for like 30 minutes, and took them away from the help desk I was working at. These people continued screaming and yelling and making a scene because we wouldn't fall for their scam, This went on for like another 30 minutes, until they finally left.
I'm Wounded
This lady did not ask for a manager, but worth sharing.
My wife worked at a hardware store in college. An old lady came in one day and needed help finding hydrochloric acid. My wife doesn't think anything about it and brings her to where they had some, but was curious and asked why she needed it. The old lady said: "I have a cut on my hand and my doctor said I needed to get some to clean it." The lady confused the acid with hydrogen peroxide. My wife tried to talk the lady out of buying it and the lady got snippy and said: "I'm buying it so when I call my doctor and find out I'm right I don't need to come back to this store."
Deboned back
chicken eat GIF by DLGNCEGiphyNot me but happened to a family member. A woman came into the supermarket to return her rotisserie chicken. Just bones. She said it wasn't "good" and demanded a refund. No one would give it to her but in the end the manager handled it because the "customer is always right". She ended up getting her money back.
- valsuran
When in H & M
When I worked at H&M a guy came up to the register with a bank t-shirt. He told me he wanted to put "#MeToo, and she liked it!" on it. I refused to check him out. He told me wanted to speak to the manager. My manager (a woman) came to the register and told him to GTFO.
- theooo12
Bottoms Up!
Not my story, but my fellow manager from that night:
We are running a 2/6$ special that suggests adding a drink on the bottom of the ad. However, in the fine print, it explicitly says the price of the drink is not included in the special. Some older guy came up one night saying he didn't get fries or whatever he was supposed to get. The manager looked at his order and said he didn't have any on the ticket. He insisted he was supposed to have them, or a drink or whatever because he ordered the special, which she then specifically told him, only includes sandwiches.
I'd wandered off after that to go double check some paperwork, which is why I missed him coming back up to complain again. She even pointed out and read the fine text to him that the drink wasn't included. He huffed and said he was never coming back so she was just like, "Well ok then. Have a good day!"
Trouble Face
The day I had to serve a customer who had the "I'm trouble" face. He was old, was wearing sunglasses and was intimidating. I sucked it up and was as nice, friendly and helpful as I always was to my customers.
He made me call my manager (who wasn't busy, fortunately) just to tell him I had given him probably the best service he had received in a long time, that I was a very good employee, and to treat me right because that's what makes people come back to places. It made my day and probably my whole week
Not really exciting, but it was probably the nicest thing a customer said to me while I was working there, as I was starting to feel that my service wasn't that good. Still smile about that.
Supplying Support
I provide a support therapy in a hospital. I got a referral for an elderly lady who was transitioning to hospice care at home and leaving that same day. I'm confused as we generally sign off when a patient transitions to comfort care and I call the MD immediately. MD is also confused, but says the family was requesting to talk to me, I re-confirm plan for hospice and go see the family within 30 min. Pt is not appropriate for my service, but I answer all questions, provide advice and help family focus on comfort of patient as she is only expected to live a few days. I'm completely professional, family thanked me for my time, I offered reassurance. A week later a family member who lived out of state (was NOT there) and is in the same profession as me finds my bosses name and calls to complain about me. Boss and MD tell her politely and professionally to f**k off.
Just NO.
I had a woman request a manager because she didn't like the answer my employee gave. I walked out and gave the same answer. She asked to speak to my manager and I said no. I am the manager and we'll solve this together or she can leave. She was pretty shocked! They said no?!?! They can do that?! Yes we can.
I Demand
I worked in a restaurant and we had a private dining area booked and the party there were being super loud, we let it slide for a while but it was obviously putting of potential customers who would come up to the front desk then leave when they could hear the PDR. I went through and gestured for them to keep it down a bit (didn't get crazy with them) one of the party came up and started berating me saying that as they were spending a lot (not really a lot) of money they could act how they wanted.
I shrugged and got the deputy manager who politely listened as they said I was rude and unprofessional to which she replied that she had seen and heard everything and disagreed. The party then demanded to see the GM (who was in a meeting with the area manager and both had observed everything) The GM came over, the party repeated their accusations and were politely told to basically 'f*ck off, the only person who talks to my staff like that is me, get your stuff and leave!'
- kij101
You Yolk
When I was a server, I had a lady request a whole hard boiled egg. Not a strange request, until she said that she didn't want the yolk.
I tried to explain that that wasn't possible. I could bring her the whole egg and she could remove the yolk herself or the kitchen could cut the egg in half and remove the yolk for her, but it was physically impossible to bring her a whole yolk less hard boiled egg. She started screaming about how stupid I was and no wonder I didn't amount to anything other than a waitress. I repeated her options to her again when she finally said the magic words, "Go get your manager." My pleasure, lady.
The general manager and kitchen manager both ended up talking her, explaining the same thing I did. She yelled at them too, questioning why everyone in our restaurant was so stupid and couldn't follow basic requests. They ended up bringing her a whole egg (with the yolk) and one cut in half with the yolk removed. This woman sulked her whole meal.
I feel awful for the people she was dining with (though I don't know why they didn't speak up and tell her she was ridiculous) and more than 10 years later, I still wonder what kind of eggs she was eating that didn't have yolks.
- somerrae
Mrs. Hitler
I managed a Borders bookstore for some years and, although most of our customers were great, we had the odd one that stood out.
One man gave a staff member plenty of crap because the book he'd ordered hadn't come in. There was no trace of the order number in our system. In the middle of his rant, I asked to look at the receipt... which came from the Waterstone's down the street. We all waved goodbye.
I also loved kicking out racists. There was one lady who asked for the manager and complained that 'there were too many (insert religion here) people in the store'. Apparently she'd been a regular for a while and everyone called her Mrs Hitler. Banned her butt and got security to escort her out.
I also had to babysit shoplifters until the police turned up. They had often tried to steal DVDs or blurays, so if they were relatively chill I'd sit and watch a movie with them while we waited. Better than an awkward silence.
Heart to Heart Karen
I had what looked to be a Karen come up to me and complain that no one was helping her and so she wants to complain to the manager. I told her the manager isn't coming till later so she asked for a corporate number to call. Before I gave it to her I told her to tell me exactly why she was so angry. She starts going on about how no one helped her in the change room and she was waiting too long etc. eventually leading to her personal issues.
I was listening for 10 minutes and just nodding and telling her "yeah I totally get that" and being supportive. Eventually she was satisfied with the ranting and told me that she knows it's not my fault and how she's sorry she was hostile. She left happy without taking the corporate number.
Sometimes we just gotta have a heart-to-heart with Karen.
there is hope....
Excited Pizza GIFGiphyI work in technical support and at the end of a call my customer said I need to talk to your manager. Crap, what did I do wrong? She was talking to my manager a really long time as well.
My manager popped out of the office and said "Hey great job, she wouldn't shut up about how helpful you were."
- zerbey