The Absolute Dumbest Things Customers Have Ever Gotten Mad About
Reddit user j-rock292 asked: 'What is the dumbest thing a customer has gotten mad at you about that was not your fault?'
Like many people, I spent my time in retail. Customers were by far the hardest part of the job.
In college, I worked as a "bookseller"—our official title—in a mall for a national chain of bookstores. Without fail, every shift one or more customers would ask for something like "that book, the red one, by the guy."
When we'd ask for more information—like genre or if it was new or where they saw it—they'd just repeat, "red book, guy, you know which one I mean."
We most definitely didn't know which one they meant, but customers thought if we worked in a bookstore we should know every book in print from even the vaguest of descriptions. And they'd get mad when we didn't.
Anyone who has worked with customers has war stories.
Reddit user j-rock292 asked:
"What is the dumbest thing a customer has gotten mad at you about that was not your fault?"
Were they blind?
"They asked me to cut a blind."
"When I asked for the dimension they wanted it cut to, it was larger than the original blind length."
"Said I can't make it longer, only shorter and she lost her sh*t."
~ LatishaASpray
Tag, you're it.
"Back when I worked at Target, some guy came in about 30 minutes before we closed, and wanted to buy a laptop."
"He wanted to run some obscure software on it for his laser ttagarena and got really nettled when I told him I was unfamiliar with the software and so I couldn't give a definitive answer."
"Then he started going on about how much he made in a week compared to my paycheck."
"So I told him something along the lines of, 'Well then buy this laptop and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it won't hurt your wallet'."
"He really didn't like that and after some colorful language, was escorted out of the store."
"In an odd twist of fate a few months later the mother of one of my best friends bought his laser tag arena because he ran it into the ground."
~ gradualpotato
Credit where credit is due.
"Not me but a friend of mine worked customer service for a credit card company."
"She said a young guy called and asked why he couldn't use his card. She told him because he had exceeded his $15K limit."
"Dude was like 'yeah but that was for last month. Don't I get another $15K limit this month?'."
~ _eviehalboro
Can you hear me now?
"Customer got mad at me because I could barely hear her over a bad connection."
"I was on a landline, she was not."
"After disconnecting the call because it was going nowhere, she immediately called back and complained to me about the a**hole she'd just been talking to, saying, 'He said I was bad at making connections. Why the f**k was he talking about my love life?! You are much more helpful, though'."
~ Dapper_Interest_8914
No, I can't help you.
"I wasn't even working at this shop, I was just another customer. I didn't even wear a shirt similar to an employee's."
"A woman comes up to me and says, 'Excuse me, do you work here?' But before I can say no, she asks where something is."
"She sounded polite enough so I responded just as politely, 'Sorry, I don't work here. The people with the blue shirts do'."
"She got slightly upset and said someone else had pointed at me when she asked for a worker."
"I look to my side, and literally less than a couple feet away, there was an actual worker. I told her 'I think they meant that guy right there'."
"She then completely lost her cool, screaming various things at me and calling me all sorts of names."
"The employee tried to intervene but she just kept screaming. She eventually stops with, 'I want to see your manager!'."
I told her to f'k off. The employee laughed and she stomped off, then I just went back to shopping.
"Didn't see her again."
~ FearMeImmortals
Maybe if you hum a few bars?
"I worked at a Music Store in a mall around Christmas."
"A lady came in and wanted to get the album of whatever was playing at the store she was in earlier."
"She got mad when I didn’t know what music they played in other stores."
~ MelScarn
Full service doesn't include time travel.
"In the ‘60s I worked at a gas station that also did repairs."
"A customer drove in with a flat right rear tire and no spare. I pulled out the nail and plugged it."
"She was good to go and left happy."
"She drove in about 2 months later with a flat left front tire."
"I pulled out a screw and plugged it while she screamed that I should have checked it last time she was there."
~ VosTutZich
"She has every right to be mad."
"You’re obviously a terrible tech because you didn’t make a time machine to go into the future and prevent her from getting another flat."
"You must feel terrible that she takes her car somewhere else now."
~ 1questions
The call is coming from inside the house.
"A long time ago I serviced someone's Internet connection at their house."
"When I left, my supervisor called to let me know that I had been accused of theft at this house."
"This crazy lady thought I stole a handset for her landline phone, not even the base with it, just the handset."
"She called later to report she found it in between her couch cushions."
I control the weather, but work here for minimum wage.
"Got yelled at for ruining his family’s vacation at Disney world because the rides shut down due to the storm."
~ conker1264
"The summer right out of high school I worked at an amusement park."
"We had a massive severe thunderstorm ( heavy rain, lots of lightning, 50+mph winds, whole deal) one day, because giant metal structures and lightning dont mix we had to shut down all of our rides."
"Well this dipshit accused ME of starting this storm just to ruin his day."
~ j-rock292
Maybe she didn't want to wash it.
"I was refusing her a refund on a kids' duvet set."
"This woman threatened my colleague, so I (manager) stepped in."
"Protocol states we had to check and repack before giving a refund, so I took it to the stock room only to find that she had folded it back into the packaging, complete with the vomit chunks!"
~ Outrageous_Zombie945
Florida is hot in May
"So, I worked at a chocolate shop in Boston MA."
"Someone called to place an order, for shipment, to Florida."
"I said, 'okay, we do require next day shipping and an ice pack on shipments to Florida, so the chocolates don't melt. The shipping Will be $30 and the ice pack and insulated packaging will be an additional $8'."
"It's my standard spiel."
"The person's like 'the chocolate is only $22. No. I'll pay for the shipping but not the ice pack. It will be fine'."
"'Yadda Yadda warning. Yadda Yadda. When it shows up melted it won't be our fault I'm noting it in the system'."
"So, what phone call does my manager get 2 days later?"
"Oh? Person got melted chocolate? Oh it's our fault is it?"
"But look? There's a note in the system they refused to pay for an icepack."
"WOMP WOMP."
"Did I warn them the chocolate would melt? Yes I did."
"Do they now have nothing for mothers day? No they dooooon't."
"Poor them."
~ biddily
I also sold mattresses and appliances. Maybe because they were a major investment, I had far fewer bad experiences with those customers.
My worst experiences were working a customer service phone line for a Department of Defense agency.
People were almost always angry before they picked up the phone.
Have you had a customer go off on you? Share your experience in the comments.
We've all heard the saying by now that "If the guy has to tell you he's nice, he's probably not very nice at all." Unfortunately, many of us can personally attest to this.
And it's almost shocking how many of those stories are contained in the Reddit community.
Recently, Redditor targetgoldengoose opened a whole can of worms when they asked:
"Has anyone ever given a 'nice guy' a chance after they've thrown a tantrum because you didn't let them treat you like a queen? And if you did, how did it work out?"
Too Much Too Fast
"I met a guy online and he seemed really nice. He was a tad pushy about meeting up but I ignored that little feeling. We met up shortly after for a quick date (I think we got coffee) and chatted. It was instant chemistry, he had 2 sons and I have 2 kids, both open to blended families, goal-oriented, smart, and easy conversation."
"We decided to go out again the next night, really nice date and he was a complete gentleman. He mentioned on the date we'd have to get the kids together to see if they like each other. I laughed it off, like, 'Yeah, maybe down the road, we just met,' and continued the date."
"Two days later, during our texting, I casually mentioned I was going to take my kids on a nature walk and I'd text him when I was back."
"He showed up with his kids. Now, I don't have it in me to be mean to children so I played nice and introduced myself (they were around 5 and 7, and very sweet boys) but inside I was creeped the f**k out."
"After we parted ways, I called him and told him that was not cool AT ALL. Of course, he played the victim and hurt until I said I was uncomfortable with what he did... then it was 'I'm just trying to love you and your kids' and 'how can we be together if they don't meet' and 'you should appreciate a man trying with a woman with 2 kids'... as if he didn't have 2 his d**n self."
"He sent angry messages for about a week, but I never would respond, and he went away."
"To clarify, this all happened in a 2-week span. From start to finish."
- lasha890
The Beginning and End of Tinder
"It was my first (and last) tinder date."
"I went to the guy's house and figured it would be safe since he had 2 roommates."
"He'd lived with these roommates for 6 months and when I asked him their names, he couldn't tell me! First red flag."
"I was like Uhm... how? Any sane person would make some attempt to learn their roommates' names. It's not like he was in a basement suite. He shared many common areas with them."
"When I got there, his house was barely furnished. There was a large tv in the living room and no seating whatsoever. He quickly scrambled upstairs to get two child-sized egg chairs and planted them in front of the TV."
"The TV was playing a movie that was mostly porn and super inappropriate for a first date. I figured he was trying to get me horny? It just made me uncomfortable. As did the egg chair I didn't fit in."
"He promptly signaled for me to come to sit on his lap, I figured it might be more comfortable than the chair I was in."
"At one point, he went in for a kiss and I thought what the heck, might as well try to enjoy myself. It was AWFUL. All I could feel were his teeth and his lizard tongue punching my uvula. I actually had to hold back gags."
"After that, I waited about 15 minutes before signaling that I was going to leave, mostly to preserve his feelings."
"So after the date, I messaged him, saying I couldn't see a second date happening. I was as nice as humanly possible."
"He LOST it: 'You're just a w**re!' and 'Didn't want you anyways!' and 'Now you are showing your TRUE colors!'"
"But then he switched to: 'I love you, though!' and 'I was going to bring you to Greece!'"
"He flip-flopped between those two states and called me (no answer) every 3 minutes until I blocked him on everything."
"Then I deleted Tinder."
- kellogg888
Lucky to Have Him
"Oooh, finally my time to... shine? I guess? In high school, I briefly dated a 'nice guy' (complete with an actual fedora in 2000 before they were really a thing; thanks, art school!)."
"I had been in a really horrible, abusive relationship with a guy in his 20s just before, and in fairness, my 'nice guy' then-friend had been instrumental in helping me to realize how f**ked up our vibe was and helping me to leave an objectively horrible situation."
"He then promptly swooped in and started pushing for romantic intimacy between us. He never actually declared feelings (he was never that straightforward about his own thoughts and desires) but just talked about the way I deserved to be treated (like a queen, obvs) and made it clear he felt he was the only one who would give me that."
"Many of my friends were pushing for it, as well. He was nice, after all, and my previous boyfriends had been so objectively awful."
"I felt a lot of obligation and kind of went along on autopilot. There was a lot of negotiation around anything sexual, like, 'I treat you so well, don't you want to?' from him and 'I know you want to treat me like a lady so you'll be okay to take it slow,' from me."
"One of the hardest parts was that he clearly wasn't out to hurt me or to f**k me. The sexual acts between us (we never slept together, but did other things that seemed like a huge deal to teenage me) were only a demonstration, proof that I loved him and that was what he wanted."
"But I didn't, and I really thought that meant there was something wrong with me."
"In the end, I only lasted about a month. He decorated my locker, brought flowers, and left notes for me taped to my desk in each of my classes to 'celebrate' our f**king one-month anniversary. I was mortified."
"My math teacher caught a good look at my face (before I managed to plaster a smile back on) as I opened the note he had left in her class. She asked me to stay back after for what turned out to be one of the most important talks in my life (Mrs. Brown, just the best)."
"I felt panicked, telling her over and over how happy and lucky I was. She kept asking questions until I burst into tears, and it all just came out. I don't really remember what all she said, but I remember her saying, 'It's okay to be alone.' She said it over and over, like Robin Williams going, 'It's not your fault' in 'Good Will Hunting.'"
"And soon enough, I was. I broke up with him, kindly but firmly, and about five different times before he accepted it."
"He cried. He got angry. Absurdly, insanely, his mom called my mom, who dropped the hammer on her in a way I haven't seen before or since."
"I took a ton of s**t at school for 'breaking his heart' and 'ruining his life,' but I felt so free that I didn't really mind. I dated around but didn't have a 'boyfriend' again until I was 21. It was, truly, okay (and important, and necessary) to be alone."
- KiKiCanuck
"I didn't, but my friend did."
"See, This Guy and I had a Mutual Friend. This Guy saw himself as a white knight and would use that term to describe himself. He had a code of honor, and he was always somebody who'd walk the girl home, lend out his jacket, that sort of thing."
"Well, Mutual Friend was asked out by This Guy, and he threw a fit when she turned him down. So, she gave him a chance. At first, she was happy. He pulled out chairs, lent her his jacket, brought her gifts, that kind of thing. But... it became apparent that he was incredibly possessive and things were always on his terms. So, they broke up."
"About six months after This Guy was dumped, he decided he liked me. Telling him I wasn't interested didn't work the first or second time, so the third time I decided to just come out and tell him I was asexual."
"I hadn't done so before because I wasn't sure how he'd take it. He decided that I was lucky he was such a nice guy, because if he wasn't then he'd have taken that as a challenge."
"I haven't hung out with This Guy since then. Just, no."
- Akagigan
"I dated a guy in high school. The relationship was okay, but it was long distance, so we amicably ended it. He was the one that brought it up and I agreed."
"Fast forward 6 months and he randomly messages me. Everything is friendly until I mention that I have a new boyfriend. The conversation did a quick 180 from 'Hi, how are you' to 'You'll never find someone like me' and how could I start dating again so soon."
"I blocked his a** real fast. And he was right, I never did find another guy like him, because I married the new boyfriend and we're still together 18 years later."
- jadeursa
"I've had this situation too. I dated a guy for a few months. From the beginning though, he was just embarrassing."
"We had mutual friends, and he would spend full outings, parties, and weekend trips voicing his disbelief that I would date him. Telling people how lucky he was in a self-deprecating way that was gross, that he has 'won the lotto' and I was 'out of his league,' no matter how many times I asked him to quit it as he did it every single time we were in public."
"It got so bad that his best friend actually snapped and told him in the middle of a self-deprecating rant how embarrassing it was and to look at how uncomfortable he was making me. That started a huge argument about 'but she's a queen, I'm just treating her like one!' When I had the audacity to agree with his best friend, it became a full cry meltdown. In front of everyone. To the point where people left a paid weekend trip early because he made everyone so f**king uncomfortable."
"I broke up with him that weekend, the break up lasted for hours with me begging him to get the f**k out of my house while he cried and cried and cried about how he treats me so well, how could I do this to him. Then it turned to rage."
"I had to block him on everything when I started dating someone months later, a lot of friends blocked him as well when they found out he was stalking me (parking outside my home for hours, etc)."
"I was naive. And dumb. Looking back, I wish I had been aware enough to recognize emotional manipulation. If you're dating someone and they act like you're doing them a favor, don't date that person."
- BrownSugarBear
Gave A Nice Guy A Shot
"A girlfriend told me that when she was still new to dating, she gave a nice guy a shot. They were in different states and after weeks of 'owing him' a sexy picture or video, she agreed to FaceTime him with a wink-wink agreement that things might get steamy."
"The day comes, and this 300-pound, unwashed dude called her (190 pounds, 5'6) 'nice, but bigger than he liked' and suggested she start working out."
"He then pushed for an in-person visit near him so that he could show her the wonders of carnal things."
"She ghosted him shortly after that."
- milkeymikey
Approval Seeker
"He stopped any form of compliments or encouragement and I found myself desperately trying to seek his approval (my own issues, definitely, can't blame him for having them)."
"But he seemed to take pleasure in withholding affection from me and using insults, put-downs, and backhanded compliments to keep me in a cycle of walking on eggshells."
- GilbertTheCrunch
Anything But Nice
"I had a guy who would constantly ask me out or make really awkward advances for like a year-plus."
"I finally hit a pretty low point after coming out of a relationship and agreed to go out on a date. He seemed actually kind of nice and we ended up dating and lived together for a bit."
"It all turned sour though, when he realized that all his 'cute punk girl' bulls**t he had projected on to me wasn't who I am and I wasn't changing to what he wanted me to be, and then all of a sudden he was out with friends constantly and coming home drunk."
"The morning he came home, around 6 AM, telling me he kissed another woman, finally woke me up and I left him."
"He would still send me messages for months after we broke up, not acknowledging my replies saying I have a boyfriend and it's inappropriate to say these things, etc."
"Even now if I unblock him from social media, I'll get a message within a few days saying things like: 'Hey, still beautiful, I see,' or 'Hey cutie/sweetie,' etc., and he gets blocked again, ugh."
- ArcaneTrickstr
"My sister did... She is a hairstylist and one of her clients was very aggressive about asking her out. He repeatedly bought flowers, concert tickets, and other gifts which he brought to her at work, and she said no each time because he seemed a little off."
"He got in a car accident and was really badly injured, and she felt sorry for him, so she went out with him finally. They dated a few months before breaking up, I don't know the exact reason why. But after that, he started stalking her."
"It's been over five years since then and he is still keeping tabs on her. She's reported him to the police multiple times, has a restraining order, and has blocked him on FB/everywhere else, but every few months he finds a way to contact her."
"So if you get weird vibes from someone, don't give them a chance, or you might end up with a lifelong stalker like my sister."
- Isaac_The_Khajiit
"I had a guy message me on Facebook. We went to high school together but I don't recall ever speaking to him."
"Off the bat, he was weird, saying how much he enjoyed talking to me (3 convos in and I was pretty short with him), he was happy he found me, etc."
"I was short but cordial with him. One night I said I was going to clean the kitchen and head to bed. He said if he saw me on, he'd say hi."
"That bugged me. I told him messenger wasn't always accurate on whether you are on or not. He acted like he didn't know what I meant."
"I woke up the next morning to a work FB message (I manage the page). I opened it to respond and he literally immediately messaged me."
"I don't care what people say about ghosting, I ghosted him, no regrets. I have not blocked or unfriended him completely but he can't see my new posts or see when I'm online anymore."
- Crosswired2
Once Was Enough
"Yes, I did once, and I wish I didn't. He wasn't a nice guy after all. He treated me like I was the ugly one, I never felt more s**tty in my whole life than when I was with him. I should have known."
- ynextdoorneighbor
"The tantrums continued throughout the relationship. He was very controlling. If I was out with friends, he would be upset that I was having fun without him."
"He ended up cheating on me and dumping me only to beg me back. He semi-stalked me for a couple of years. He also had an online blog about what I did each day and tried to befriend my exes."
- Lrad5007
But Maybe There's Still Hope
"I was the ‘nice guy’ who got turned down for a second date. I said the same bulls**t that any ‘nice guy’ says when that happens, like all women are the same, say they want nice guys, only date a**holes, etc."
"She said ‘Well, fine, let’s have that second date but doesn’t it make you feel weird to have to convince someone to date you? Don’t you want someone who wants to be with you?’"
"Me: ..."
"Her comment changed absolutely everything about dating for me."
"I took about two years from dating to start working on myself after that. I started doing things that I enjoyed and took up a few hobbies. I cultivated friendships with women not as a sneaky way to try to date them but as real, meaningful relationships."
"Shortly after that, I met my future wife. We’ve been married for 17 years and have a 12-year-old daughter."
- WackyNephews
It's unsettling how many women have found themselves in situations that are rooted in entitlement.
Hopefully more "nice guys" will learn from the last Redditor and look for a relationship founded in genuine feelings instead of desperation.
It's a global pandemic and entitled adults are still running rampant.
In fact, oftentimes their public tantrums are even worse than children's'—which is embarrassing. But that's unfortunately a sign of our times.
Even worse, usually these people don't even have a good reason to freak out.
Like, is this REALLY the hill you want to die on?
A Redditor asked:
"What is the absolute dumbest reason you've seen someone who isn't a child freak out?"
Here's a list of the worst public meltdowns that full-grown adults have had, courtesy of Reddit.
The worst offenders manage to embarrass their own families.
"Worked for a cellular company and a woman was in with her parents and they were making her get off their plan. She was non-stop complaining how unfair it was. Parents were matter of factly being like this is happening. Tried to tell them she'd just pay for her portion, parents calmly replied she'd said that before and hadn't. Complained that they could afford it. Parents calmly ignored her. Whined about how much more it cost for her to have her own plan than stay on theirs."
"While she's over loudly whining to her father across the store I start talking to the mom. She tells me it's not that they can't afford it or anything like that but that they are retired and on an okay but fixed income. The daughter was earning six figures at her job according to mom. She was also 30."
Ogier_79
"My mom threw a burger back into the drive-thru window at McDonald's because it had pickles on it. She told them no pickles. She was screaming at them and they threatened to call the cops. I sank so low in my seat."
Horselovermidwest
Giphy"Senior year in high school, was playing soccer, and the goalkeeper on the other team was being looked at by a few Pac-12 schools. When our team scored a goal in overtime to win it, the girl's mother (I assume) ran onto the field to console her daughter, then looked over at us celebrating and began calling us all sorts of names I won't type here. She even accused us of intentionally scoring just to make her daughter look bad, not to win or anything like that, we just wanted to make her look bad in front of the scouts."
EvaOfDestruction
Technology seems to be the biggest catalyst for grown-up temper tantrums.
"Worked at Gamestop, guy came in complaining his PS3 didn't work and he wanted a new one covered by the warranty Gamestop provided. Well the warranty he bought was in 2009 when it came out, and being 2017 we couldn't cover it, he threw a massive fit and left the store, came back 3 hours later with the PS3 just decimated, screaming "look what you did, I shot this with my gun because of you" threw the console across the store and left. I think he used a shotgun cause there wasn't much left to it, like it was shredded."
SubsforLunch
"This girl wanted to get her own cellphone plan. She needed proof of residency to do so. She came in with a bill in her name, unfortunately, she didn't come with it address to her. We needed the actual mailing address on the bill, not just her name."
"Cue her screaming, crying, calling me a cnt, btch, and doing everything but throwing herself on the floor. She stayed in the store for 5 hours, calling customer service 6-7 times while with us, and just refusing to accept that we needed it addressed to her."
"Multiple times she would start crying again on the phone with customer service and go "and then there's this b*tch here in the store and she's just insert tantrum groan."
Callmedelete
Sad Baby GIFGiphy"I used to be a teller in college. Before chips in cards, we could swipe your card for you and you would enter your pin. After the chip, they took away our ability to swipe. So naturally, we would have the customer insert their card. At this time, they also added rims to the numbers to avoid people looking at your pin. One guy complained to management about this and screamed in the lobby that it is unjust to have him insert his card."
"Another guy told me that banks clearly don't want to service "normal" sized people because he couldn't see the number when he typed. I said, "that's ridiculous. We don't want people stealing your pin. Fraud is expensive and hard on everyone." He just replies with 'riiiiigghhht.' You cracked the code, clearly bank managers want to lose money by excluding a large majority of the population."
ColombianOreo524
The poor retail employees put up with so much.
"Once had a thirty year old woman throw a screaming tantrum with tears and threaten to sue my company because we had been out of FarmVille gift cards for weeks and her crops or animals would die or something."
Chalupachamp
"A grown woman berate an innocent Walgreens employee because they were out of Hilshire Farms baskets and she NEEDED them. The holidays are not fun for retail workers."
CatPawSoup
Temper Tantrum GIF by memecandyGiphy"Worked at a common American food chain fresh out of high school and had a grown man scream vibrations through my molecular structure about there being a 25 minute wait on baked potatoes, which I had absolutely no control over as a cashier."
"After he finished his tantrum he left, then came back ~30 minutes later to order his meal without a baked potato. Had he been a reasonable human being, I would've told him we now had them available, but he was a d*ck, so I did the bare minimum. I hand him his food, give him a lil nod, and off he goes...but on the way back to his table he spots another guest enjoying, of course, a baked potato."
"This man RAGED back to our counter, hurled his burger at me, and had to be escorted out of the building via police intervention after several minutes of uncomfortable confrontation with our entire staff. I consider myself rather empathetic, but I will never understand that man's rage. F**K YOUR BAKED POTATO, CHRISTOPHER!"
Meek-sleep-machine
"This middle-aged woman wanted to buy a TV from the store I used to work at. For some reason, there was an extremely cheap price tag on the box. I don't remember the exact price but it was less than $20, while the TV actually cost a couple hundred. She insisted the price tag had always been there and therefore we had to sell it to her for that amount (even though all the other tvs of that type had the correct price on them.)"
"When the employee said no, she demanded to see the manager. When the manager said no, she threw a tantrum, screaming all her way to the exit while threatening to call the police because we wouldn't sell her this brand new large flat screen tv for like fifteen dollars."
86sleepypenguins
“you suck a**”
"A lady came to eat at a diner I worked at, and had an absolute melt down because her toast was overdone. We gave her new toast minutes after she complained the first time, and she spent the rest of her time there throwing a full tantrum over it. Instead of signing her check she wrote 'you suck a**' in big letters on the bottom. I always say, someday I hope I have so few problems that I can spend a full hour and a half raging over toast."
thestiine
He had no children in his car...
"Our city does a free lunch program during the summer. They'll give a school style lunch to any kid under the age of 18 if you go to the designated location. During COVID they converted the program to be grab-n-go. Technically you were only supposed to get one meal per kid in the car but usually they were pretty lax about it."
"I happened to pull up just after a man asked for 20 lunches. He had no children in his car. The woman who was handing out the lunches told him that she could only hand out 1 meal per child and he had none. He then proceeded to berate her and threatened to shoot her, which in my city is very plausible."
BeeEyeAm
The VP
"My friend's boss, a VP, freaked out over the colors on the slides for his presentation. Now you have to know, he picked the colors and the graphics department told him the combo wasn't a good choice but he insisted so they made them up his way. Then when he saw them projected (this was in the olden days when presentation were projected onto screens) he freaked out."
"I know all about this since I had a front row seat to the festivities because he called my friend while we were out to dinner. My friend then had to interrupt our evening to get a rush order of different colored slides made up THAT night and flown out to his boss."
"Also, another good friend was head of the graphics dept. so I got to hear what the VP said to them, both when he originally ordered the slides and when he got them. 'You people are ARTISTS, you should have known better than this!" God, what an a**hole."
feliciates
Overbaked
"I when I worked at a grocery store bakery, I had a women have a mental break when I told her I couldn’t bake a used condom into a cake for her."
ShepherdDesign
Nbc Idk GIF by Good GirlsGiphyI scream... you scream...
"I worked in retail for a while, so this was a common occurrence. The best example was one day a man came into our store (a popular eyeglass store) and I helped him try on some glasses, walked him through lens types. Seemed perfectly nice. Then we get to the paying portion and he demanded I give him a discount."
"Everything in the store had a fixed price point and it was very corporate and we couldn’t give discounts. Not me, not the managers, no one. Dude then threw what I can only describe as a tantrum in the store. He was screaming at me so much that everyone in the store stopped what they were doing and watched."
"It was exactly like telling a child that they can’t have an ice cream or something. The kicker was he didn’t even have a reason why he thought he should get a discount, like a senior discount or student discount or something (we didn’t have any discounts anyway). He just demanded that he get one."
Neat_Consequence8289
The Law
"Wife had a client whose mom came to every family court hearing. At one hearing opposing counsel hooted, hollered, and waived his hands a lot for about ten minutes. My wife stood up, quoted the relevant statute and sat down. The judge ruled in her favor. Client's mom goes off because the other guy was the better attorney according to her. After my wife won the hearing by following the law. Mom isn't allowed to set foot in my wife's firm for that stupidity. If you want to hate humanity be a lawyer."
Monkey-Tamer
Every Woman
"My friend's mother has problems with every woman he has ever brought home. His current girlfriend is an absolute delight, especially considering his ex. But she finds reasons to be upset with her. The stupidest thing she has been upset with was because his girlfriend moved a towel apparently."
bpanio
Monopoly Blues
"When my wife and I were still dating we had a roommate who freaked out over basically everything. She started crying over a game of Monopoly, started crying over a game of Pandemic, yelled at me because I asked if she used my vegetable broth, and smashed a ceramic bowl across my face because I asked her to keep her cat in her room for a little bit (like my wife and I were doing with our cat) after our cats got in a fight."
tim_to_tourach
The Break Up
"In high school, my younger sisters knew someone who became so distraught when Justin Timberlake broke up with Britney Spears that she had to stay home from school."
fumor
britney spears television GIF by RealityTVGIFsGiphy“it’ll peck your eyes out"
"I was doing a volunteer outreach to help unemployed men find jobs, we set up a temp office in a poor area, matched job orders with skills. Most of these guys were pretty tough looking characters. About a dozen guys were in the waiting area and a hummingbird flew in a window, pandemonium ensued, one guy was screaming “it’ll peck your eyes out" within a few seconds the place was empty, until I escorted the hummingbird out with a cap."
Disposable70
Moral of the story?
Essential workers need to be paid more to deal with these peoples' BS.
We should learn something from them though.
It costs literally nothing to be a good person and treat other people like human beings.
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People Share The Worst Adult Tantrum They've Ever Witnessed
Temper tantrums are something we expect from toddlers; they don't always have the language skills to express what they need, and they don't have as much experience being told "No". Most adults, though, should have plenty of skill in both areas.
However, we've all seen that one person who was being a jerk to a cashier or server who had to tell them no, usually for something outside of their control. Sometimes it gets more extreme, and they seem to lose all sense of human decency. They usually manage to make complete fools of themselves while they're at it, which is some small compensation to those who have to deal with their abuse.
Redditor AriaStars asked the question:
"What's the worst adult tantrum you've ever witnessed?"
User responses did not disappoint. Whether because of an overinflated sense of entitlement, or simple lack of emotional regulation, these truly epic temper tantrums show that not every adult has their act together.
Some responses have been edited for content/clarity.
Actions Have Consequences
GiphyI saw my 21 year old cousin toss his monitor out a second story window because of a video game, then proceed to cry about tossing a $300 screen out a window. Was pretty amusing.
We Know How You Are, That's Why You're Fired
Guy at work got fired for being an a--hole after he was told 3 times to stop being one. He lost it when he was informed he was being let go. That they "knew who he was and how he was" and that he wasn't being an a--hole and that everyone was an a--hole to him. Then he started crying about how he was going to die because he wouldn't be able to feed his family to finally as he walked past my desk went into a tirade about how it was my fault he was getting fired (I never once complained about him) we worked well together, or so I thought, come to find out later he was threatened by me and had been underhandedly talking sh!t about me. I was oblivious about it since most people didn't let me know and had gone to HR on my behalf.
On his way out he started throwing items off of people's desks yelling and crying and finally kicked the glass door shattering the glass.
Last I heard he was still unemployed, as our field is a pretty small world.
Not So Shady Cakes
GiphyI worked in a cupcake shop for a year and people get way angrier about these stupid tiny cakes than you'd believe. My favorite story is about a woman who came in to pick up an order that she placed for blue gender reveal cupcakes.
On her order sheet, it said blue frosting, but didn't specify a shade, so we chose a light blue since it was for a baby shower. When she came to pick it up she was furious that it was "aqua" and not "baby blue".
The manager offered to make her new cupcakes with lighter frosting for free. The process of mixing frosting doesn't involve touching or coming close to it, so he wasn't wearing gloves. As he was stirring the dye into the frosting, she said she didn't want it anymore since he was making it with his "filthy disgusting hands".
She proceeded to throw the box with the initial order at the counter, and seeing that it didn't do much, she picked up the individual cupcakes and threw them at the ground and toward the register.
When we tried to give her a refund we asked for the last four digits of her card number to confirm it. She refused, saying she wasn't going to share that personal information in front of "all these people"... two high school cashiers and one manager.
Edit: I wasn't the one who gave her the refund and if it was up to me I wouldn't have. The store manager gave her a refund because he wanted to avoid her making an even bigger scene.
Road Rage
I got on a bus at 5pm, the whole bus was filled with people trying to go home from work. As the bus pulled out, the woman in a car behind us must have felt she had been cut off. So she pulled up beside the bus and started yelling at the bus driver through the window. Then pulled her car in front of the bus and got out to yell some more. The bus driver couldn't drive away and suddenly the police showed up. We all had to get off the bus and wait for another bus or find another way home. I decided to walk down to the ferry so I had to walk past the woman that caused this and I stared at her trying to understand how she could justify screwing up the commute of so many people.
Crocodile Tears
I had a roommate in college who spent money lavishly and liked to buy clothes, wear them once or twice with the tags on, then return them. One time we were at Target doing some grocery shopping and she tried to return a few dresses she had worn. One had a large stain on it and she didn't have the receipt or tags for the others. The cashier said he couldn't take them because they had clearly been damaged. She spent the next 30 minutes crying HYSTERICALLY while he tried to ignore her and check out other people. She sat on the bench outside of the Starbucks (that was inside the store), facing the cashier, and just stared at him while crying. It was so embarrassing and I begged her to stop and just leave with me.
Eventually I said I would go sit in the car, and she grabbed me and said "it's not real, I'm not really that upset. I know how to cry on cue." That really freaked me out, how she stopped so suddenly to tell me that, then started up wailing again. I apologized to the security guard who said he couldn't put hands on her to remove her but had to insist she leave. She kept trying to get other customers to look at her and "see what they're doing to me?" She sat outside the store for another 10 or so minutes doing this. It was ridiculous. I couldn't apologize enough to everyone there, but I sure tried. Thankfully we only had 2 months left of living together, but I'm pretty sure that was a usual thing for her to do. Haven't spoken to her since I moved out.
EDIT: On the way back to our dorms, she did say she would return again another week to try with another cashier, and she did. She got the return. I wonder if she did the same thing again and they just gave in. I refused to go with her anywhere after that, but I'm sure she still does that to get what she wants
No Chicken Bacon Ranch For You
GiphyDon't know about "worst," but I went to a Subway in a gas station (I was hungry, and, never again). The women behind the counter were definitely not happy to be there, and one of them was just absolutely raging to anyone that would listen about how her boyfriend had done f**ked up, and she was going to go home and stab him as soon as she saw him, and that she had been in jail before, and she was fine with going back again.
All of this, she's just alternately yelling this stuff and screaming, all while people are trying to place their orders. So, it was basically like:
"Hi, I'd like to order a chicken --"
YEAH I DON'T CARE WHAT HE SAYS I'M GONNA CUT HIM THE F**K UP
"--bacon ranch, on--"
I DONE BEEN TO JAIL ONCE I'M OK WITH GOING BACK
"--wheat, please, toasted, and --"
HE will AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Your Pizza Doesn't Need Its Own Seat
I was on the bus once and a guy was sitting in the front at the handicap seats, with a pizza in the seat next to him. The bus wasn't crowded when he got on, so whatever, but it quickly filled up and he did not move his pizza nor himself.
Eventually the bus is packed and someone finally asks, "hey, can you move that pizza so I can sit down?"
He doesn't even look up, just says "F**K YOU. No."
So they ask again, and being close to the front the driver says, "you need to move to allow them a seat. That is handicap seating"
"F**k you, too"
Bus is pulled over, and the driver opens the doors. She asks him to move again, he says no again. Doors stay open, she's fussing with the buttons on top and asking for police.
He makes a stink and tells her to move along. She's got her hands folded neatly on the wheel just staring at the road, "not until the police take you off my bus".
He tantrums for a few, but finally does a "f**k this shit" and storms off. As soon as he's off the last step, doors close and bus is back on its way.
I always admired how she just waited. She knew she didn't need to put up with his garbage, and I'm glad I got to see her wait him out.
Have A Nice Day
I worked at an optical store. A man came in with 10 year old nasty glasses (green nose pads that probably weren't changed in the decade he had them). He throws them on the table as the arm came off and demanded we replace them. I told him they weren't under warranty and we don't carry those glasses (not sure if he even bought them from us). Best I can do is solder them for him to get him by but he won't be able to close them and they will be discolored since I was heating them up. Well after a full on tantrum he says fine.
When he comes back to pick them up my coworker dealt with him because she saw how pissed I was. She gives him the glasses and he is pissed they aren't closing and are discoloured (both of which he was told about). He ends up finally leaving and as he is walking out my coworker says "have a nice day". His response was to throw one of our chairs across the room...
We are in Canada. If he needed glasses and couldn't afford them there are government programs in place to get new ones...not sure that was his case but just saying there was no reason to get so upset about old glasses.
Edit: The coverage varies by provinces for low income earners. Some provinces do not cover it.
Computer Says No
GiphyI was at DFW a few years back to fly home. I went to the self service kiosks to print a boarding pass. As I'm waiting to use one, I notice this woman nearly screaming at several employees who were trying to calm her down. She kept saying her flight was about to board and they were going to make her miss it and she wasn't going to do that so they better figure things out. I mean she was pissed.
The employees kept trying to help her but she insisted on typing everything in herself and it kept being unable to pull up her reservation and she wouldn't show the employees her confirmation email because she kept telling them it was their "stupid f**king machine" and they needed to fix it.
Finally an employee talks her into showing him the email. He looks at it as she is still yelling that her flight is boarding in ten minutes and he says, "Ma'am you're supposed to be flying out of Love Field, not this airport."
At this point I'm finished with what I'm doing but I did hear the woman start crying and the first words out of her mouth were, "Well what are you going to do about it?"
Because I'm sure in her mind it was their fault she can't read what airport she belongs at. I have luckily not witnessed too many people treat employees horribly at places, but this one was fantastic because the woman being so horrible had completely screwed up everything all by herself.
There's A Proper Shape?
I watched a grown woman b!tch at a teenager in a Sheetz because her chicken tenders weren't the right shape. She stomped her feet and angrily walked out, trying to slam a door that was on a closer. Then when it wouldn't slam, she opened it and shoved it real hard to try to get it to slam, but the closer prevented it.
So for like 15-20 seconds she was basically in a fight with a door. Like her body was flailing about and her hair was whipping around as she was trying to get this door to slam.
Eventually she gave up and left. The teenager and I just kind of stared at each other in disbelief. She didn't ask for her money back, or another order, she just stomped out, chicken tenderless.
The chicken tender box was opened and left on the counter, while I am no chicken tender-from a gas station connoisseur, they pretty much looked like a standard shaped chicken tender.
Wow...just wow.
My 24 year old sister couldn't find her hairbrush so she completely thrashed the house, accused everyone of stealing her hair brush, said she couldn't use anyone else's because she has lice which no one knew she hadlice, almost broke my Grandmas antique piano, broke glass on the floor, called my dad inappropriate slurs, called my mom a c**t even though she wasn't home or had anything to do with it, and then found her brush in the corner of her room and laughed over how extreme she acted while everyone else was still getting over just witnessing a 24 year old grown adult destroy the house and scream slurs at the top of her lungs.
No Cheese For You
GiphyI used to work at a fast food pizza place, and one of our regulars threw a 15 minute long piss fit because he couldn't get extra cheese for free. He left, only to come back 5 minutes later and screamed demanding a refund for the pizza he ALREADY ATE because of it. Meanwhile I'm just in the back making dough like :I and my manager is threatening to call the cops if he doesn't leave. Never wanted to work that shift again knowing he went there regularly. smh
It's The Electric Kind
Worked for an electrical supply store for years. We mainly serve professionals, but open to anyone, cause money is money amirite? We were open m-f, but open Saturday mornings till 2, because residential stuff. We had a 100k sq ft warehouse. I had probably 10k different SKUs for different light bulbs. The most terrifying request I could get was "I need a light bulb". This weekend in question I was acting manager. Lady gets huffy cause line is long (we took orders and picked em, so it can take a minute). Anyway she steps up, and says the magic words, "I need a light bulb". In order to answer, I need wattage voltage etc. When I ask what kind, I'm told quite loudly "I don't know, its the electric kind you idiot".
Yes ma'am. Go grab a 1000w metal halide [think parking lot light] and bring it back. Say that will be 200 bucks. Started screaming about how its not what she needed. Admittedly my reply of "its the electric kind you idiot" was not the smartest, but I couldn't help myself. Monday was interesting in the boss's office.
Can't Really Blame Him
Worked at taco bell when I was younger, middle aged mom came in and threw a fit, called the cashier a brainless idiot who will never succeed in life and demanded a refund.
All because he gave her the wrong change amount back. He was new and just a kid, working his first job. He didn't come back the next day.
Self Awareness Comes Eventually
GiphyWorked at Papa Murphy's in high school. A guy came in one evening and ordered a pizza. He asked how long it would take and my supervisor told him it shouldn't take more than five minutes. The guy looked a little surprised but said he would be back in a little bit because he had something to pick up next door. A while later he returns to pick the pizza up and upon seeing that the pizza wasn't baked he flips out and demands a refund. He even yelled out "Who the hell doesn't bake their pizzas?" Immediately after he looks up to see the sign, "Handmade. Home baked" to which he then retorted, "Well, I guess I'M the a-hole".
Beagle Is Disappointed By Your Lack Of Planning
Pet store not too long ago. It's an unusually long line for a weekday, and there's only one person checking people out. There was a lady in front of me who was buying some things for dogs - treats, toys, etc.
She asked the cashier if they had any Royal Canin food for Beagles in the back because there weren't any on the shelves. Side note: I have 2 dogs - I buy them "good food" (not the cheapest and worst), but I really don't see how breed-specific food is necessary. But hey, to each his (her) own.
The cashier radios to another employee asking them to check stock. A few seconds later, the employee answers and says they don't at the moment, but there should be some coming on the next truck, which was the next day. This lady was SO not okay with that.
She replies to the cashier in a pretty nasty tone and says things like "I thought this was a pet supply store" and "WHAT IS MY DOG SUPPOSED TO EAT TONIGHT?!" She asked the cashier the latter question multiple times and y'all, bless the cashier's soul. This woman deserved an award for keeping it together while this lady tore into her about them not having breed-specific Royal Canin food.
Meanwhile, I was definitely not helping because I was laughing from how ridiculous it all was. "WHAT IS MY DOG SUPPOSED TO EAT TONIGHT?!" I wanted to say, "I don't know, maybe a filet mignon?"
The lady checking out had brought a "regular" bag of food up there, and the cashier had already scanned it. Once she threw her tantrum, she told the cashier that she decided to not get the "regular" food because "she didn't want to risk it". (??)
Some people have no poise.
Also, forgive my ignorance if there really is some solid logic to breed-specific food. I've just never been in a scenario where I've needed to know about it, if there even is one.
It's All Your Fault
Back when I worked for a bank, we had a customer who would come in every day to buy fifty dollars' worth of dimes. Dimes minted before 1964 are 90% silver, so his thing was combing through dimes looking for silver ones that he could sell. Supposedly, he made decent money doing this.
At one point, he'd had a streak of failures, and had been getting more and more frustrated with us on a daily basis. Surely we were giving him new dimes on purpose, and saving the old ones for ourselves! Fifty dollars worth of dimes and not a single one minted before the 90s! This all came to a head one day when I gave him his tray of dimes as usual, and he insisted on ripping open a roll right in front of me. Not a single silver dime to be found, so he screamed "YOU'RE F**KING HOLDING OUT ON ME!" and threw the rest of the tray at my head. He didn't hit me, but the remaining rolls of dimes hit the wall behind me hard enough that most of them popped open. I would've been hurt pretty badly had I been hit.
He was banned from the bank.
I Forbid You To Save Me Money
GiphyWork in pharmacy. So every day I see adult tantrums. But one stands out more than the others.
Lady comes in every 45 days or so to pick up her Norco, and based on the directions we have to bill for a 25 day supply to the insurance. Well her insurance says they will only cover it if she makes it last 30. So I call the doc to get the ok to say "must last 30 days" on the bottle. The approve, I bill through insurance, and save her about $130.
She gets to the register, and as I'm patting myself on the back for doing a good thing, I walk over and tell her the good news, that it's now a 30 day supply, and since it's through insurance it's $0 copay instead of ~$130. I explain that since she's been picking up every 45 days or so, she won't even notice the difference.
Lo and behold, I have saved the devil herself reincarnated $130, and proceed to have her scream at me for 5 minutes about how she only wants me to fill what the doctor says (despite me getting the doctors approval). She mentions how she always has problems with us (but still comes back) and was screaming so loud at me that all the managers in the store could hear her, even on the opposite side of the building.
Proceeded to change it back to the original 25 day supply, charged her $130, and then spent the rest of my day wondering what it must be like to have the disposable income to just drop $130 unnecessarily.
Nobody Does
Grown woman (between 50-60) gets on the train and proceeds to start hysterically crying. Screaming at the top of her lungs that she did not want to go to work. Her shrieks were so loud they penetrated through my noise cancelling headphones. Mind you this was at 6:45 in the morning. This continued until 8 stops later (the stop before I got off) she wiped her face and got off the train as if it never happened. The entire train car as well as myself looked at each other completely bewildered. I'd like to say only in New York but in this crazy world we live in I would not be surprised if this was a common occurrence in other places.
That woman just vocalized what everyone commuting to work that morning was thinking.
It Was What She Deserved, But Probably Not What She Wanted
GiphyWoman I work with was absolutely awful at her job. She was bad with people, bad with the paperwork. Just overall a really sh!tty person. So she was fired. The day of, she stormed in on each persons individual shifts and screamed at them. Then no one heard from her again until it was time for her to collect her final paycheck.
Now when she was fired, she had the option of working out the rest of the week - that way we didn't have to pay severance. She chose not to come in. So her paycheck was significantly lower than she thought. She freaked out. Dropped to the floor and started crying.
Said that because she didn't show up for her last 3 days it means she quit, not that she was fired, therefore we owe her more money. She only left when I threatened to call the cops.
My manager was on maternity leave but still came in from time to time do payroll and stuff, so the woman who was fired decided to go and break into my managers house and try to kidnap her newborn baby until my manager made sure that crazy lady gets the money "she deserves".
She was arrested. Haven't seen her since.
"I've experienced two."
I've experienced two.
A customer called my bank and asked me to look up his account.. except he didn't have his account nor debit card number. He wanted to use his SSN. Since I work at a branch and not the call center, this was a huge privacy violation and generally a huge no-no (our lines are not recorded so we cannot use an SSN to look up an account over the phone). I tell him this and he tells me that he's blind, what is he to do?
I tell him to call the customer service line instead, since they can look up his account number, and as an alternative, I offer to walk him through finding his account # in the app, which does have accessibility settings that would make it possible for him to retrieve it. IMMEDIATELY this troglodyte starts yelling at me that I'm "discriminating against him because he's blind!" And that I "hate the disabled!!" And I "HAVE" to accept his social. I don't budge, because he's a rude idiot and he threatens to sue and is angry that he "is still talking to me" when he asked for a manager. Now, my manager was busy, but I would have loved to transfer the call over to him because he would have ripped this jerk a new assh***.
He was yelling so loudly you could hear his banshee shrieks a foot and a half away from the receiver. I put him on hold until he hung up. My manager was busy. He didn't call back. I'm afraid there was no justice in the end. Since I never got his social nor account number and he had a common name, I couldn't pull up his profile and submit a request to our regional manager to have his accounts shut down. He got away with it.
The 2nd one was today.
A customer came in looking to get temporary checks, which are free checks on which we print the customer's checking account number. We don't typically give these out unless customers have placed recent check orders and this slimeball never had. But the reason I didn't give him checks was that both of his accounts were overdrawn by at least $200 and he had THREE more accounts that were charged off and in collections. He wanted these checks to commit fraud. I told him I would give him the checks if his accounts were in good standing and they weren't; I didn't even mention the chargeoffs. Cue the yelling Shouting at the top of his lungs that he's been a customer for years and how dare I!!! And "this has never been a problem before!!!!"
I asked him "you've done this before?"
I AM A CUSTOMERRRRR!!!!!!!! I am going to call COR-PO-RATE and telling them about YOU!
"Ok sir. Do you need the number?" (refusing this POS the opportunity to defraud the bank would have earned me brownie points with upper management)
Incoherent screams as he storms out the door.
This one does have a happy ending. I reopened his profile, left a note on his account, reported him to fraud for check kiting, and had his accounts frozen by the fraud department.
"I had two coworkers..."
I had two coworkers argue about setting up a virtual machine as both started working on it and were kicking each other out of it by accident. Finally, 'Tom' walked over to 'Jerry's' cube.
T: I think we're both working on the same server. Do you mind if I finish it.
J: Well I have the ticket, I should finish it.
T: It's really no problem, I see you don't even have the checklist up and I already do. I can finish it.
J: I have the checklist and I have the ticket. I'm going to finish it.
T: I'm pretty sure I took that ticket. Would you pull up the ticket manager and check?
J: No. I'll finish the ticket.
At this point Jerry accidentally clicks on the ticket manager and it shows Tom has the ticket. Tom points this out. That's when Jerry screams 'NO' and grabs the monitor and pulls it down to the desk. He then covers the monitor with his body. The both look over at me since I've been there the longest and start arguing who should take the ticket. All the while Jerry keeps batting Tom's hands away from the monitor. These were both men in their 40s.
"I tell her it's a safety precaution..."
I worked at a kind of prestigious summer camp where high schoolers would stay for a couple of weeks, take college courses, and then leave. Part of our check-out procedure required that the adult checking out a student needed to have photo ID. Standard safety procedure. This woman comes in and one of our staff members reminds her that she'll need an ID to check out her kid. Immediately she has a bad attitude and says "Well My ID is in the car and I'm not getting it. " and then goes upstairs to get her kid. My boss warns me to make sure she shows an ID and When she gets to the check-out table I politely ask for it (even though I know she doesn't have it). This woman flips her lid, in front of her 2 children and starts screaming about how she's not going to get and ID and how she can leave with her kid. I tell her it's a safety precaution and we can't allow her son to leave without verifying her identity.
Then she starts pushing her son towards the door telling him to go to the car and drags her little daughter along and the kids are obviously terrified. My boss has to block the door as this woman is screaming about how nobody told her she needed an ID (she received an email a week prior and a reminder at the door) and how the parking lot was too far (it wasn't) and basically the entire lobby is staring at her. My boss tells her he will walk to the car with her son to get her ID. So that happens, she sits across from me all huffy and glaring and when my boss gives her her ID she throws it on the table in front of me and then snatches it out of my hand.
She made a 5 minute check out procedure last half an hour because she didn't want to make the 2 minute trip to her car....
"Once, while upset..."
My mother throws regular tantrums. Once, while upset, she full-on regressed and started screaming (in public), "I want my daddy!" again and again. My grandfather had died some five years before.
Very weird.
"After decades..."
The worst was an older woman in church who made a big scene because she walked in and found a family sitting in "her" pew.
After decades of sitting in that very pew, she threatened to leave the church and never come back if those people didn't get up and relinquish what she believed to be rightfully hers.
"We had an elderly customer..."
We had an elderly customer at a Starbucks I worked at that had laid claim to a table. And would constantly ask the baristas to ask people to move if they were sitting at "his table". We were all explicitly told by the manager to under NO circumstances ask people to move for him. He would then stand by the bar staring at both the baristas and the people at the table until they left. Even if the table next to his table was available he would refuse to sit. Weird old people claiming public property as their own.
"When I worked in an ice cream shop..."
When I worked in an ice cream shop, we had one day a year with free ice cream. Free scoop day (now you know which shop I ran.) Free cone day is messy and we have volunteer scoopers, as such we had a concern about cross contamination from ice creams that had common allergens such as peanuts. So to solve the issue, we took anything with peanuts off the menu for the day. Pretty simple, we still had twelve flavors including gluten free, dairy free and even soy free for people to choose from.
So one year, this grown-@ss woman comes through the line and orders an ice cream that has peanut butter brickle in it. Well 1) no peanut ice creams on free cone day and 2) that particular flavor hadn't even been made in years. I have no idea why she thought she would find it with us.
When we told her we didn't have it, she started berating us about not having her favorite flavor. Then when we didn't magically produce it (because we couldn't) she started screaming. Then crying. She started ranting to the entire store that this was the worst day of her life and everything always went wrong for her.
Now it should be noted that we accept donations on free cone day, all of which goes to a charity of our choice. Our shop used the donations to pay for the medical care of a girl who was very sick (CF). This little girl, who at the time was about eight or nine, was there with us, watching this go down.
So this woman was screaming and crying about how awful her life was because she didn't get the flavor she wanted on a day when we gave away free ice cream out of the goodness of our hearts while a little girl with CF was listening to the tirade.
I wasn't manager there yet, which is probably a good thing because I would have given her no mercy. As it was, the current manager politely but firmly told her to leave. The woman left, still screaming and crying about not getting a single free scoop of her favorite no longer existing flavor of ice cream.
It was absurd, but we honestly thought that maybe she had something wrong with her. You know, like maybe she wasn't quite emotionally stable. So we brushed it off.
A week later we get a phone call from corporate. The read us an email where this same woman called corporate and told a tale about how we had made fun of her weight and basically said "We have no free ice cream for you, fatso." We told corporate what really happened and the rep said "Yeah, we know you guys, you're not evil or nuts and you would never do this. We already told her to pound sand and to never go into one of our shops again."
"My dad's wife..."
My dad's wife cried, screamed, and threw plates around the house because my dad took me out for lunch after school and didn't drive 25 miles home to pick her up first so he could take her too.
"He would rant and rave..."
My father is competitive, an alcoholic, and a bit of a narcissist. We were trying to have a nice family session of Cards Against Humanity and he just couldn't accept it when his cards weren't chosen.
He would rant and rave every time his card wasn't selected which climaxed when my mom picked a card other than his. He screamed and argued why his card was clearly the superior one and berated the card my mother chose.
It was sad and the last time we attempted any kind of family game with that man-child.
"I wish I had my phone charged."
In Asia, in a popular mall, a grown woman rolled on the ground kicking and screaming when the grown man she was with refused to buy her regional jewelry.
She slammed her hand on the glass counter, then it turned into a shouting match. Then the guy started telling her off about how she needs to be a "traditional Chinese woman." Then proceeded to (childlishly) tease her about how childish she's behaving. Like full on making fake crying sounds.
She cried. Then stopped. Like cold hard stop on the crying. This was the glorious moment when she jumped onto the ground and rolled around kicking and screaming.
I wish I had my phone charged. It was glorious. But I was traveling all day and wanted to see the building's observation deck.
"Then he started screaming at me..."
When I worked at a hotel, I met possibly the most irritable man on the planet. He came to the front desk to check in and when I asked for his name, he said "I'm a regular here." And I said okay, I still don't know your name, he said "I stay here all the time, I'm a VIP. Didn't they tell you I was coming?"
This hotel was a Best Western. If any of you readers are unaware of this particular chain, no Very Important Person has stayed at any Best Western location, ever.
I said, "Thank you for your business, I have only worked here a few months and I apologize if I've checked you in before and didn't recognize you, but I really do need your name to find your reservation." Finally after a little more back and forth verbal abuse, he spits out his last name and I search for it in this system: nothing. I try a few different spellings: nothing. I ask him to spell it.
"Are you kidding me? First you interrogate me, now you're saying I don't have a reservation?"
"No, sir, I'm just having trouble finding it. If you'd please just spell your name for me--"
Then he started screaming at me about how ridiculous this was, how he would never come back, how he was going to sue the hotel, etc. He stormed out and I heard his car peel out of the parking lot. Later on I did find his reservation -- his name had a very odd spelling that I hadn't guessed earlier -- and when I told the manager the story, she said "Well, yeah, that sounds like him." Apparently he was just that irritable all the time. (And I checked his room history, his last visit was three months before I started working there, did he think we kept portraits of all the guests and memorized them?)
I saw many, many adult tantrums at the hotel. We were the first hotel driving into town off a long stretch of highway so many of them I chalked up to people who were tired and cranky from the road. But lots of people just wanted to throw a tantrum to get a better rate on the room, and of course the people who just like to abuse service workers.
"I don't miss that job."
I worked at an airport bookstore. My county had just created a ten cent charge for bags, and explaining this to non-locals (everyone, basically) was hit and miss. Some took it as nothing, others lost their mind.
This lady lost her mind. Blond, mid 30s, midwest from the twang. She bought a pack of gum or something small and I asked her if she wanted a bag. She said no. I gave her her change and she just glared at me and asked me where her plastic bag was. I said we don't carry plastic, we have paper and it'll be ten cents. She is yelling about why and how and this is stupid and I'm stupid and I don't know how to do my job, the works. My shift is ending and my boss is behind me a coworker coming to take my reg and the three of us watch this lady go beet red in the face over ten cents. She eventually takes her gum or whatever and stomped out of the store towards the gates.
I don't miss that job.
So for starters I work at a Subway at a popular amusement park. Said park usually closes at 10 pm and thus all the restaurants and attractions inside close as well. Unfortunately on this particular day we were so swamped that we ended up being open up until 10:30. So it's 10:30 and we are serving our last guests of the day, a middle aged woman with 5 young children, and then a man and older women behind them.
So at this point in time we are 30 minutes past close we and thus have started to run out of items, and it being a REALLY busy day don't have much in the way of prep in the back for the next day. So we make this woman and her 5 kids their sandwiches and get to the very end where we add condiments. ML requests that we put mayonnaise on each sandwich but unfortunately we're out. So I tell her this and at first she is a completely reasonable human being and we offer her light mayonnaise instead which she accepts. So we put light mayonnaise on each sandwich when lo! and behold one of her demon spawn of a child starts screaming.
Apparently the child is so distraught at having light mayonnaise instead of regular that ML demands we scrape off all the mayo off of each sandwich. So we do. She then decides this isn't good enough and demands we throw all 6 sandwiches away and remake her new ones. I'm pretty damn ticked at this point, and so as we go about making them a second time we proceed to run out of even more ingredients. Though when I inform her that we are out of, for example, banana peppers because she wasted the last of it she surprisingly took it well and moved on.
So here we are at the condiments again and she does her famous line, "Now, put mayonnaise on all of them." because for some reason between the time it took to remake her sandwiches she forgot that we are LITERALLY OUT OF MAYONNAISE IN THE ENTIRE FRICKEN STAND. So I tell her again, we are out, to which she proceeds to scream and cuss me out for an impressive amount of time.
So I decide to go in the back to 'look for more again' and to get away from her screaming with another supervisor. We sit back there, staring at each other in disbelief until one of us decides, f*ck it, we take a spare light mayonnaise bottle from the fridge, take off the cap that's labeled "Light Mayo" and replace it with a regular Mayo label. (Now I would usually never give someone some food item they didn't ask for such as coke instead of diet because I don't know their dietary needs but f*** this lady I wanted to go home.)
Triumphantly we bring the 'completely regular mayonnaise' up front and make up some lie about how it fell behind another bottle. She rewards us by screaming some more about how we lied to her all that time about not having any before etc etc etc. we finish her transaction and send her happy ass and her demon brigade on their way.
Humorously the man and older woman behind her happened to be her husband and mother (or mil) who apologized to us profusely and were all around very kind people.
"Apparently this error..."
My boss when I worked at KFC was an angry and immature man. During my first week, he threw chicken at me because I put it in the bucket in the "wrong order." Nobody explained to me that grilled chicken must go in the bucket first so it doesn't drip juices on the friend chicken, making it soggy. Apparently this error warranted the chucking of chicken at a new employee.
It seems that just about anything can set someone off these day. Beware.
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Jealous Boyfriend Sours GF's Experience At Comic Con, And She Seeks Advice
Having a romantic relationship with someone who has a very different style of communication can be a challenge. Making it work requires effort and compromise, it requires fearlessly facing your own feelings and insecurities - ok most relationships require that, but you get the point. It's not easy. But what do you do when those different communication styles start to eat away at something you used to love doing together?
One heartbroken Reddit user is asking that question now. Every couple has their "thing" and hers with her partner used to be comic conventions. The two would spend days immersed in comics and fantasy together, making friends, talking about the stories they loved and generally bonding. Her more outgoing personality meant that she made friends faster and was more immediately personable with celebrities and creatives that they meet. It took him a little longer to warm up, but in the end they both made great connections.
As time passed, her outgoing personality has become a point of contention. Her boyfriend has gotten jealous of her ability to quickly connect and has kind of started to hold it against her. He's begun accusing her of ruining his encounters, so she's stopped talking during them. He's told her that creatives are only nice to her because they must be attracted to her. He's told her that his multiple awkward silences were her fault. Overall, it seems like he's turned a thing they loved into a sort of competition and reason to feel bad for himself. Here's her initial post:
My partner and I have been together four years, and we're really into comic book conventions.
In the last couple years, we've particularly gone out of our way to meet a lot of creators and voice actors we like, and have prints and stuff signed. It's been a lot of fun!
Or, I guess it was for a little bit.
Lately I've noticed a pattern where the moment we walk away, he gets mopey about feeling like the moment was wasted for some reason or another. He puts too much stock into having such an immediate rapport with a cool stranger, and then feels bad when it isn't some magical experience. There are celebrities he can't stand now because he felt like they weren't immediately warm and friendly. To make matters worse, he gets too shy and nervous to really say much, so he's always kicking himself later.
I, on the other hand, don't put too stock in all this. I try to assume the best of people and not define them by the two minutes I interacted with them - honestly, when you're talking to people non-stop I'm sure it all blurs together, so I take everything with a grain of salt. I just try not to take it too seriously. I'm decent at small talk and don't have any problems interacting with people I don't know, so I keep it light and breezy.
There were a couple points where later, my boyfriend said that it felt like I'd dominated the conversation and wasn't letting him say anything. I felt really bad, so I made a point to scale back, especially if this was a person he was more invested in than I was.
I feel like people treat us like we're a unit, and not like it reflects badly on him if I break the ice first, but I didn't want to stress him out when this is something that already makes him flustered.
So, now there's just more awkward silences, and it feels like if I say anything at all, he acts like it was a disaster.
Lately he's been saying everyone just likes me better, or it's all just because I'm a girl. It's starting to really hurt my feelings. I keep saying I really think he should just get in line for this stuff alone from now on, since he keeps feeling bad and then making me feel bad. He acts like I'm overreacting, and that this is a fun thing we like to do together.
It's not anymore.
I think I'd be fine just doing other stuff at cons, but I also kind of want to actually address this. I feel like if it was the reverse, and he had like, a funny moment with a famous person or whatever, I'd just be happy for him. He's never happy for me about things like that, he just treats me like competition and gets way too wrapped up in the whole thing. I feel like his negative reaction to me is just an extension of how nervous he gets, but I really don't like that if I have a decent moment with a creator I enjoy, it's instantly ruined by my boyfriend either turning this into self-pity or acting like they must have been attracted to me (ew?).
Is there anyone else who gets like this, and knows what needs to happen for him to chill the hell out?
She turned to Reddit for help - and Reddit had no problem stepping in with suggestions. They're not always kind, but they're certainly honest and most are pretty insightful! Here are some of the responses that stuck out to us; edited for language or clarity when needed.
H/T: Reddit