1. Unhappy Meal
I worked at McDonalds in 1997 and we had Beanie Babies as happy meal toys at one point. It was insane.
They literally had to buy a security cage to keep the toys locked down in the back. They were delivered with a security escort. People were ordering "100 happy meals with no food" because we couldn't sell the toys by themselves.
One day I heard a commotion up front and found my high school counselor reaching across the counter grabbing one of the owners by the shirt because we were out of the pink flamingo. I'll never forget the look in her eyes.
She had to be dragged out. It's scary how easy it can be to work people up into a frenzy.
fernyer
2. Not The Cable
I worked at Radioshack for 6 months while in college. We pretty much had at least one terrible experience per shift.
The one that stands out the most was a guy who wanted us to honor the warranty on his iPhone cable. The thing was a mutilated mess. It had clearly stopped working and he had tried to fix it himself by cutting the cable apart and attempting to solder two wires together.
We calmly explained that we couldn’t process a claim for an item that was willfully destroyed, and he started screaming in our faces about how “Radioshack is a scam!” and “I’m going to sue all of you!” He absolutely lost his mind.
Then he tries to WHIP my coworker (a 5 ft tall non-threatening woman) with the cable! She managed to turn her head and catch the wire with her hand before it caught her in the face. Myself and another employee chased him out of the store and called the police but nothing came of it.
Radioshack shoppers were the worst.
DarekLowbrow
3. Mission Failed Successfully
I worked at a ski resort when I was younger, fitting boots and sizing skis, etc, at a ski rental shop. My first year I worked at basically the Walmart of rentals, the cheapest option and the biggest store.
So the week of Christmas, there are lines out the door every single day. I remember seeing my two week paycheck after the two weeks around Xmas and I worked 119 hours. It was absolute insanity.
For another reference, the closest town had a permanent residency of less than 10k people, but during Christmas it jumped up to 70k people trying to enjoy their vacation in the same spot.
So one of these days it’s business as usual, a quarter mile line out the door, non stop craziness. I’m at the bench closest to the door, helping a lady when this kid walks up to my bench. I asked if I could help him and he said he had reserved rentals online and he wanted to pick them up.
I said this is our store name, if that’s where you reserved you’ll need to get in the back of the line and we’ll help you as soon as we can. This 13 year old kid said “this is freaking bullcrap” in front of the customer I was helping. I told him that quite literally every piece of equipment in our store was reserved, every single person in front of you has a reservation as well and we have to help everyone.
He started insulting me personally, saying I was a stupid witch and that he was going to report us to anyone he could because we weren’t letting him skip hundreds of people doing the exact same thing he was doing.
I think what ticked him off more is that I’m 6’3” and big. He was maybe 5’ something and 120 lbs. so when he called me a stupid witch, I literally laughed in his face. I was at no point threatened by this child, and at first it was funny. The First Lady left, I’m ignore-laughing at this kid and asking the next person to come up and he started yelling cuss words at me because I’m not helping him.
Up until this point, my manager had been a complete jerk and I was not a fan of him. But he’d had enough of the Christmas rush as well and it was a perfect person to let off some steam on.
I went and got my manager and told him this kid was personally attacking me and yelling cuss words in front of customers, so he walks up to the kid and says “I’m sorry for the confusion, what’s your name so I can take a look at your reservation?” And the kid lights up thinking he finally beat the system and he got in front of everyone by throwing a hissy fit.
I was curious to know where this was going.
My manager goes and finds his reservation (it’s digital but I’m pretty sure he printed it off for the added dramatic effect), comes back and says “ I found it.” He proceeds to rip it in half in front of his face, “don’t ever treat someone that’s trying to help you like that, you are never allowed in our store again, and with every other store in town also being completely 100% booked on equipment, good luck skiing this week.”
I still didn’t like the guy, but I respected him one point more for the rest of the season for standing up for me.
GingerWon
4. Entitled Witch
This tale takes place roughly 22 years ago at a community college bookstore.
As with any college bookstore, the start of the semesters were incredibly busy. In order to help ease the insanity in our small store, we set up a table outside the front door for doing returns. And that's where I was stationed for the day.
People got in line. They got to me. I processed the paperwork for their return and sent them inside for the cashiers. This is an important point. I had no cash, no ability to process cards. Just me, a table, a stack of paper, and some pens. That's it.
Well, a middle aged lady gets to me. She is obviously not lacking in funds. Her son has dropped all his classes and she is returning his books. Ok. Cool. I do all the paperwork, hand her back the document and direct her inside.
And she goes ballistic that she has to wait in line again. I mean starting nuclear wars ballistic.
The customers in line behind her actually went to my manager to file formal statements about her behavior. Not mine. Hers. Because they knew...
I take a break and shake it off. Everyone has bad days. And I know that I have the customers' statements to back me up. A few days pass and the manager gets a call.
It's the president of the college. With a complaint. The woman called the president of the college to complain about me. So my manager and I head off to a meeting with the president and the woman. We walked calmly and politely.
The woman tells her tirade, still screaming and cursing. My manager pulls out the statements and without a word, hands them to the president. The president calmly read them.
I don't remember exactly what he said, but I do remember watching the woman turn more and more red. I do remember the word "entitled" used a whole lot. And I do remember him saying "Don't waste my time ever again." before he showed her the door.
Fiber_fan
5. It’s Me Again
I worked at a pawn shop for a couple years. We had a customer pawn a chainsaw which turned up stolen and was confiscated by police which caused the store to lose money and police to be aware that he is a known thief.
He came back something close to three months later to pawn something else. I didn't recognize him right away.
I asked him if he had pawned anything before and he said yes, so I asked his last name and entered it into our computer system which promptly said STOLEN.
First I thought, "Really? You came back here?"
I gave my boss (it's literally a two person store) our not very frequently used signal to discreetly call the police. Meanwhile, I started acting like I was working on his loan and stalled a bit. Just a couple minutes later, a couple police cars pulled up and officers quietly walked in and he immediately gave up.
I didn't really have to say anything to him. The handcuffs spoke for themselves.
notsurethepoint
6. Staring Contest
When the old guy I was serving kept looking at my chest and making creepy facial expressions, I asked him if he wanted a drink or he was just going to keep staring.
He excitedly put his hands out and went 'oh, I can do more than stare!' and tried to walk behind the bar to grab my chest.
I told him to get the fudge out, to which he seemed very shocked and outraged so I just started to loudly shout back to him 'sir, please do not try to grope my chest.
I kept yelling, “you need to leave” over and over until the rest of the bar was staring and he was panickedly whispering for me to please be quiet. So the wife I didn't know he came with wouldn't hear him. Can only imagine the argument that unfolded while she was dragging him out.
orangelego
7. Fruit Basket
I was 18 and worked at a local grocery store in the produce department. Beyond regular duties, we made fruit trays on weekends — nothing fancy, just a variety of cut up fruit in large red bowls.
Dude comes in after 10:00pm (we close at 11) and asks for a tray with specific fruits. I tell him we unfortunately don't make custom trays. The 16 year old dude who is also on shift with me overhears and tells him it's slower tonight so he can do it for him.
He says "Ok good", no gratitude displayed at all. This co-worker of mine is legit always extra kind to customers, it's legitimately admirable.
20 minutes later my coworker comes out of the back room and presents it to this customer. He immediately starts screaming at him about how bad it looks.
He yells things like "That looks like an absolute mess! Are you an idiot!?" I ran over to see what the problem was.
The fruit tray looks absolutely standard but this guy isn't having it. He smashes it on the ground and keeps screaming about how we are "retarded" and how we have wasted his time. I snap. I tell him to "Get out".
He postures up (keep in mind this guy is like in his 40s, ready to fight some teenagers over a fruit tray). Numerous other employees run over and yell for him to get out. He says "I'll be back for all of you retards" and runs toward and out the sliding doors.
All this on camera luckily so management calls the cops regarding his actions and that last threat. They ended up arresting him later on because apparently he also had some warrants. Hope the fruit was worth it, jerk.
bloodyboppa
8. Queen of Soup
I was working as an assistant General Manager at a fast casual restaurant and some 40 something woman started going off on my cashier.
I round the corner from the desk to see her dump soup all over our front end cooler, and knock a bunch of stuff on the ground. I tell my cook to call 911, say there is a woman causing a disturbance and breaking stuff, the address is next to the phone.
I walk up and stand behind the counter and put on my happiest manager face, so overly happy that it drove the woman even more into a fit.
So raging cyclone mad Karen starts knocking off the counter, throws two IBC root beers on the ground and starts yelling at another guest who tried to come over and defuse the situation.
I hold out for another few minutes before 2 cops run in. She has been screaming for a refund for 10 minutes at this point and breaking stuff. Cops walk in, I point at her and say "Get her the heck out of my restaurant." She was arrested. Apparently her soup was too hot.
Thanks for the freaking headache Karen. I comped 7 meals of other guests, had to work a double because my cashier was in a state and had to deal with the cops. So glad I'm out.
FrostyPhotographer
9. The Magician
It couldn’t have been more obvious that a guy was trying to return stolen merchandise. He “lost” the receipt, didn’t know when it was purchased, paid with cash so we couldn’t just easily look up the transaction on a credit card.
He said he would call his friend to ask if they knew when it was purchased, and then he took out his iPhone and without pressing a button started to talk on it.
I was like...I can clearly see the home screen with no call happening.
When he “got off the phone” I got a little bold and in my best retail manager voice said something to the effect of, “oh that’s cool! Is that a new update where you can talk to someone without actually calling them?”
He left after that.
gsg4n1
10. No Bad Jokes Here
I'd recently had a very bad experience in my first paid job, and I quit, because I felt so insecure about my appearance and ability in a typical work environment (I have achondroplastic dwarfism, making me 4ft tall and disproportionate).
So instead I was volunteering in a small town charity shop, to gain some confidence again. My manager knew all about this.
I was in the back room when this guy came in and rang the bell. I walk in, and he just stares at me, laughs and says "Is this Santa's Workshop??" I just stand there, and my manager, who is at the till, says coldly "Excuse me?" and the guy looks taken aback.
"Sorry, I did not expect to see someone like that here!"
They both looked at me and I just awkwardly said something like "Well...I am" and shrugged. And it would have been fine, until he then said "So, do you make the toys?"
My manager walked out from behind the counter, pointed to the door, and said flatly "Do not disrespect my staff. Get out." He started apologizing. "out!"
He still seemed to find the whole situation hilarious and left. Man, I miss that manager. She was the best. Thank you Bianca.
Usidore_
11. Tattooed on my Mind
I used to work the reception desk at a tattoo shop. I had many GTFO moments with customers, but the one that stands out was a dude coming in with his girlfriend to get his name tattooed on her.
She looked terrified, wouldn’t make eye contact with me, didn’t talk directly to me, and barely spoke. The whole conversation was the dude giving me her license and saying “she wants my name tattooed on to her.”
I took way more info from both of them than I needed and tried to get the woman to come back alone so I could talk to her, but the boyfriend wouldn’t have it.
I eventually went back and got the shop manager (big dude) and told him what was up.
I came back to the counter and lied saying we didn’t have walk-ins that day and dude got mad. I started yelling, and the shop manager came out and physically removed them from the shop. I called the cops and provided all the info I had.
Was basically told they couldn’t do anything unless it was self-reported. I still think about the woman all the time.
killersim
12. Over The Edge
The one that jumps out to me was when a customer was trying to return a wall mount that was six months out of policy. He was being snide and verbally abusive to the customer service rep, saying things like “I know you can do this, I return crap out of policy all the time.”
Or “well, if you weren’t so stupid this would be done by now.”
He ended up making her start to cry when he said “Jesus Christ, are you retarded??” Well, she worked with special needs kids as a volunteer and this pushed her over the edge.
I walked over to him and told her to go into the back and asked him why he thinks it’s okay to talk like that. I’m guessing since I’m a male and a manager he decided to be respectful.
I was annoyed beyond belief at how he’d made her cry though so I cut off his explanations and told him to get out. He said “now hold on, let’s all calm down-“ and I grabbed my radio piece and told my security to go ahead and get the police on the way down there for someone trespassing.
He left so fast at that comment that he forgot his wall mount
limpdickskit
13. Raining Potatoes
I worked at a BBQ restaurant for my first job. We had a take out area where the customer can watch you cut the meat and pack the side dishes. The girl at the register rang up a quart of potato salad when the customer asked for pasta salad, so I packed potato salad.
When the customer received his order he looked through it and flipped crap when he saw potato salad and started screaming at me to go figure.
Unbeknownst to all of us the owner of the store heard the commotion and was on the other side of the swing door behind me which had a small window.
The angry customer decided to throw a quart of potato salad at me which I ducked to avoid.
It splattered against the window on the swing door as the owner was looking out of it. He burst through the door (he is 6 '4 and very built), grabbed this scrawny dude by his shirt collar and he had straight fear in his eyes. My boss literally threw him out the door.
He went back to the register to ask the girl what his total was, grabbed the cash, and tossed it out the door at the angry customer as he was collecting himself off the ground. It was an awesome scene.
thisisinput
14. Swimming Phone
I was a supervisor in a store where people could trade in goods for other second hand stuff. One guy stands out and I had a lot of imbeciles I dealt with over my seven years there.
This guy had previously bought a phone from us and came back demanding we give him his money back or a new phone as the one we sold him had a crack. As it's secondhand we may have missed the hairline crack during our testing, no biggie, so we swapped it. I thought that was the end.
About a month later he's the first customer of the day, and he is cursing us out because his phone isn't working. He has a warranty so we take the phone, open up the casing, and see what we see. The phone is water damaged.
100% not how we would have sold it since that is the first thing checked during a test. We tell him his warranty is void.
He and his wife freak out and start shouting, saying they'll stay there all day and tell others to not shop with us.
I'm like you're wasting your time, at least I'm paid to be here. Obviously doesn't like that but he also slips up by saying:
"If I had known it was water damaged don't you think I would have pulled the sticker off so you guys wouldn't notice."
Guy straight up confirms he's a fraud. Keeps demanding his money back. At this point I call center security, tell them what's up. They come in and say he has to leave. He's like this is a public place. I decide to chime in and state this is private property, he's banned, and he can GTFO.
Guy won't leave when security demands it so they get on the radio to the cops as the guy is now technically trespassing. His dumb harpy of a wife screeches at him, and they both hightail it out. All before I'd had my morning tea.
[deleted]
15. Too Disrespectful
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 muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear "I should have known not to get in the retard's line."
My co-worker 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.
WolfpackVolunteer
"If I had known it was water damaged don't you think I would have pulled the sticker off so you guys wouldn't notice."
Guy straight up confirms he's a fraud. Keeps demanding his money back. At this point I call center security, tell them what's up. They come in and say he has to leave. He's like this is a public place. I decide to chime in and state this is private property, he's banned, and he can GTFO.
Guy won't leave when security demands it so they get on the radio to the cops as the guy is now technically trespassing. His dumb harpy of a wife screeches at him, and they both hightail it out. All before I'd had my morning tea.
[deleted]
16. Dug up Their Grave
Once upon a time I worked "loss prevention" (glorified security) at Best Buy. Although I have many stories about shoplifting/weird/drunk/crazy customers (and employees for that matter... some good scams were run), this one particular incident comes to mind.
One day, a woman and her husband come in and buy a refrigerator. They buy it with a credit card. They arrange delivery. They go home.
The next day (well before the refrigerator has been delivered), the wife returns. She declares they no longer want the refrigerator, so she wants to "return" it (basically cancel delivery and get her money back).
No big problem there.
Now here's where things start to turn sour. My memory is a little hazy at this point, but for some reason, she is given the option of putting the money back on her credit card, or taking store credit in the form of a gift card.
I think she forgot the credit card at home and we couldn't do it without the physical card there or something so she would have to go get it... Not sure.
Anyway, she chooses the gift card. The customer service person makes it perfectly clear that if she chooses the gift card, and doesn't change her mind before the end of the day, it will be impossible to get it back onto her credit card.
The system simply won't allow it once the transaction has been processed after closing. She accepts this. There is a video of her saying she understands this and that it's okay.
Fast forward two days. The woman comes back, informs us she no longer wants the gift card, and wants to put the money back on her credit card. The customer service representative tells her that we can't do that.
Woman gets irate, starts screaming, and demands to see a manager. The manager tells her the same thing.
Woman is screaming her head off (because, you know, screaming loud enough will eventually get you your way), claiming that we stole her money, that we are thieves, that she's going to call the police, etc.
We tell her there's literally nothing we can do in the store, and suggest that she call the corporate office. Nope. Woman continues screaming.
Eventually she is asked to step aside so other customers can be helped.
She begins screaming at the customers, telling them not to do business with us, etc. Manager asks her to leave.
She refuses. I (definitely not a big dude at the time) go over, and inform her that she is officially trespassing, and that my associate is on the phone with the police. She continues screaming, but starts heading for the door.
The last thing she says as she exits is "Wait until my husband hears about this!"
Fast forward one hour. I look out into the parking lot and see a man completely red-faced just storming into the store. It's obviously this lady's husband. He marches up to me, gets about an inch from my face, and starts screaming, "Tell me where the customer service is! Now!"
I point him in the direction of customer service. As he's storming over there, I make two phone calls: 1) My manager 2) The biggest dudes in the warehouse.
The dude storms to the front of the customer service line. Without a word he aggressively throws the gift card in the face of one of the customer service representatives (who was helping someone else at the time), and starts screaming his head off.
My manager arrives a few seconds later, and tries to calm him down. No such luck. Manager rings my phone and says, "Call the cops." I do.
I then went over to the customer service area with the big dudes (one about 6'4" 300 lbs, the other about 6'2" 250 lbs.) from the warehouse behind me. I try to get the angry man's attention (just by talking to him... didn't touch him at all).
He turns around, takes one look at me, and reels back to throw a punch. I dodge it, and give him a half-tackle against the counter. The warehouse dudes then wrestle him to the ground and actually sit on him (luckily for me... this guy probably would have destroyed me if it were one-on-one).
This obviously does not please the dude, but there isn't a lot he can do about it. After a few minutes of being sat on, he calms down and says he'll leave peacefully before the cops get there.
He is informed that, nope, he was trespassing, had attacked multiple employees, is being restrained for the safety of the customers and employees, and would be heading to jail once the police arrived.
Cops show up and that's what happened.
Good times at Best Buy.
thekrone
17. Unfit Puzzle
I work at the back of the house for Toys R Us. That should be bad enough. 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 saw the customer standing next to his car. A small, 2 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 wishes 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.
kmart890
18. Zombies Are Coming
In my youth I was the manager of the Electronics department at the local Wal-Mart. After all these years I can still remember the terrible stampeding sound right after the doors opened.
I've seen fist-fights over DVD players, people taking items right out of other people's hands, and a multitude of other terrible acts of human indecency. However, the last year I was manager was clearly the worst.
There was some silly camcorder on sale, and it was stocked in the photo lab. People would keep running over and demand one of those silly camcorders, and I would inform them that they were being sold in the photo lab, and not the electronics department.
I have never been cussed at more in my life.
The same day I was standing in the middle of the department, attempting to help as many people as possible, when customers actually physically started to grab me and attempt to pull me to get my attention.
There were at least 4 different people pulling at my shirt, and I lost it. I yelled out something like "Don't freaking touch me!", and pushed my way out of the department. After calming myself down I returned to the department.
I switched places with one of the cashiers and sent him out into the wolves.
Surprisingly, after that incident I decided to get my life on track and I got a job with some actual growth potential. No more customer service for me! It took many many years for me to even begin to like Christmas again, and last year I could finally listen to Christmas music without feeling dirty.
I often think the reason zombie movies are so big has been the rise of consumer culture and the sheer number of people forced to work retail. Zombie survival horror is eerily similar to retail life, except that the main characters get to use weapons to defend themselves, while the only thing a retail worker can do is grin and bear it.
JayDurst
19. Ungrateful In-law
This was late 2008, and my store was going through renovations so we could have a bigger clothing section. Because of this, we were cutting down on our general merchandise section.
Nearly everything was crazy on sale (and a lot of it not on file, so we made up prices like $1.94, knowing that we would never carry it again and no one would care). Anyway, all this stuff that was on sale was final sale, because of the fact that we would never carry it again.
This was stated on the receipt and in our return policy. And signs. All over the place.
A few weeks after we finally finished clearing all this crap out, a woman comes to the CS desk. She wants to return these plates that her son and daughter-in-law got because she doesn't like them. Okay, fine.
But they're from the huge-ass sale. We were practically giving them away at the point that her son bought them — each plate was between 24 and 64 cents. My coworker tells her that she's sorry but we cannot return these plates, they were final sale and we don't carry them any more.
The lady flips out. She's screaming, she's yelling, she doesn't want the plates and we should take them back. She didn't even pay for them! We call a manager. He tells her the same thing, he's sorry, but we can't help her. He gets a call from someone and excuses himself to answer.
The lady gathers up the plates like she's going to leave. Instead, she starts smashing them over the garbage can next to the desk. Porcelain is flying everywhere.
The store literally stopped moving. People just stared. We all backed away from this lady, smashing plates and screaming about how horrible we all are. My coworker, the closest person to this lady, is practically climbing over the back portion of the desk to get away.
The manager called the police, but she was long gone by the time they got there.
We haven't seen her since, but my coworker still refuses to work at the desk any more because of this insane witch. And any time someone comes back with plates, every person who was there when it happened cringes.
swimmingmonkey
20. Very Good at Being Bad
I used to work at Toys R Us. Preface to this story: I am 6' 6", and 270 lbs. After Christmas, my job was to direct folks out after they did a return at one of the first four regular registers.
We get this large Jewish dude coming to return a few DVDs that were open. Policy is, we don't refund opened media (games, DVDs, etc.), but offer store credit.
Dude's not having any of it, and goes from zero to rage in 2.5 seconds. Screams at the cashier for a manager. Manager comes, uses all exceptions possible. Guy then demands to speak with the District Manager, who tells the guy to sod off. He hangs up the phone.
Guy screams at the manager some more, and I can see the spit fly in this poor woman's face.
He then punches her in the face. I get to step between them, tell the man he has 15 seconds to leave or I am calling the police and tell them I was witness to an attack.
He then sucker punches in my back when I turn around to see if my manager is okay.
I then tell the guy, who can't be more than 5' 9", in front of his already scared kids, he's got 30 seconds to leave the store before I beat him up. Realizing he's going to be made to look like a jerk even more, he bolts.
We got the guy's car info and he was arrested. I didn't press charges.
The happy ending is my manager was okay, and when I got my next paycheck, it was taped to a DS, which had just come out.
bresslol
21. Ice Cream I Scream
During the summer between my second and third years of uni, I worked at an ice cream place. This woman came in and had a look on her face that told me she thought she was better than me. She was with her granddaughter.
They approach the freezer and she barks at me, "My granddaughter wants a large of that one in the corner." and nods her head to the second freezer. Now, bear with me here, because a freezer is rectangular and has four corners.
The names of the ice cream are clearly indicated, and usually if people can't see those, they'll identify what they want with the color and a more precise location.
I wager my best guess and point at one corner and ask, "This one?"
She becomes angrier. "No. I said the one in the corner."
Okay, then, one down, three to go.
I point to the opposite corner. "This one?"
She becomes irate. "No! Are you an idiot?”
I look at her and take a deep breath. I point to another corner.
"Finally. I don't know why they hire such idiots."
I scoop it up, walk over to the cash and give her her total. She throws a pocket of change on the counter and leaves. She was short.
TimbitsAreDelicious
22. Give Me My Order
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..." and 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 ten 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 twenty minutes screaming at me, even after I called the head cashier and had him handle her, 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.
ANewMachine615
23. Serial Offender
Someone peed in the fitting room closest to the FR attendant's desk. We figure some kid had an accident, the parent either didn't realize or was too embarrassed and just left. We shut off the fitting room, febreezed the crap out of it, and had the carpet professionally cleaned the next morning. This was a Monday.
The next Monday, a different FR attendant was working the evening shift. The FR attendant gave a couple of people the number tags and let them back into the fitting rooms.
The attendant then goes off to do her other task, taking fitting room clothing back to the women's section. About 20 minutes later, all of the women have vacated the stalls, and there is a stench of pee... coming from the exact same stall. Someone peed in the exact same stall.
The next Monday, I was working at the FR. We were on edge in softlines, in case the serial offender came back. I let three women have tags and one of them belonged to the first stall.
I snuck to the other side of the department and radioed management. My HR manager and the loss protection manager came over and waited for the woman to come out of the stall.
The HR manager and I distracted her for a second while the LP manager darted into the stall. Turns out, she peed on all of the clothing she took into the stall as well as in the stall.
She then began shouting about how Target was an immoral company and hated 'her people' and they deserved to go under and had crazy conspiracies about how Target was run by the Freemasons and were trying to take over the world.
[deleted]
She then asks me sweetly if I'll help her get them while she waits in line, holding up the ten 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 twenty minutes screaming at me, even after I called the head cashier and had him handle her, 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.
ANewMachine615
24. Black Friday Hell
I saw hell on my first Black Friday, back in 2002, working at Guitar Center. Nothing horrific for the first half of the day, just really busy. As I'm walking back behind the counter from lunch, I hear raised voices (which, if you've ever been in a GC and heard the loud overhead music and constant shredding from deaf ex-rockers, would understand how loud these voices were).
I turn around about 3 seconds before a fist fight breaks out. Now, these aren't your regular customer combatants. It's not a pair of drunk frat-bros with too much testosterone, or a pair of stressed out soccer moms.
It's a pair of gray-haired old ladies, each pushing well past 70, and they are fighting over....a guitar stand. The $14.99 ones that we have all over the place.
Everything in the store stops, except the overhead music. Which gave it a very odd effect, like it was a soundtrack to the fight, yet I can't think of a movie or TV show that features Senior Boxing Championships set to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.
Every customer and employee was staring in shock and probably amusement. Finally, one of the managers intervened, and kicked them both out. ‘Twas a strange day at work, that one.
Osiris32
25. Chewed Up The Store
Many years ago, I worked at Best Buy as part of Geek Squad when they first went national. One of the few days that I happened to actually be in the store, I had a customer come up to me with a cell phone and an extended warranty, and asked to have the phone replaced.
I look at the phone, and it's a Flip Phone, with some damage on it. I can already see before he hands me the phone. After I take hold of the phone, I notice I can see through the phone.
The entire phone is covered in teeth marks, including a hole all the way through the inside and outside LCD Screens. Apparently his dog chewed the heck out of it.
I already know the answer is "No", but look at the receipt and he had bought it less than a week ago. I grab a pen, and circle one of the first bullet points on the warranty that says something along the lines of, "This plan does not cover accidental or intentional physical damage or abuse."
At this point, the guy flips his stuff.
Before I can lean back, away from him, he reaches across the counter, and grabs me by my tie. He pulls it off as I jump back, and I retort, "That's why it's a clip-on."
He then takes his phone and while spinning around, throws it down the aisle of the store, hitting an employee, about 30 feet away.
The employee is quite surprised at this and luckily he was shocked, because he is a Minor League Baseball Pitcher.
While maintaining my distance I instructed the customer that he had just attacked two separate employees, and that the other employee was a professional pitcher for a baseball team, and that he had been recorded by multiple cameras and angles.
He quickly left the store, loudly swearing and threatening people, and took the time to scatter any paper and to knock over one or two displays on his way out of the store.
We got his license plate number, and he was eventually served with a restraining order.
PhydeauxFido
26. Furious Old Guy
I worked at Sears in the Home Electronics section. A guy who was in his 60s (I was 17) returned a paper shredder 10 months after he purchased it.
A stamp on his receipt said that anything returned after 60 days was charged a 20% restocking fee. He said he refused to pay because it wasn't open. After trying to be polite for 30 seconds, he started yelling at me loud enough for a manager from a different area to come over.
It ended with the customer asking what time I got off, because he would be waiting for me so we could "finish our discussion."
I thought it was strange because I didn't raise my voice or do anything insulting or threatening at this point.
Being a cocky teenager I said, "I get off at 4pm and I exit the loading dock doors, just outside these doors and down the hill. See you then grandpa".
Good thing the manager was between us because he tried attacking me, but was held back by the manager who lifted weights 5 days a week. When the manager said the word police, the guy grabbed his paper shredder and stormed out.
The best part...the restocking fee would have been about $4.
Djcack
Every customer and employee was staring in shock and probably amusement. Finally, one of the managers intervened, and kicked them both out. ‘Twas a strange day at work, that one.
Osiris32
27. Painting an Incomplete Picture
My most recent retail job ended a few months back, and granted me my worst customer story ever.
I worked in a home decorating store, something like Pier 1, for those of you familiar with that place. One afternoon after I had been working there for about 6 months, a very large African-American woman came in with a brood of several small children trailing behind her.
She was holding a picture frame when she walked in, so I assumed she wanted to do a return. My manager was on break, so I was the only person available to do returns.
I greeted her and asked her if she wanted to return. She obviously said yes, and handed me the picture frame. It wasn't one I had ever seen before, and I had been there about 6 months at the time.
I asked for a receipt. She didn't have one. I asked if she had the tag from the frame, and she rather angrily replied that she didn't have one. Unfortunately, those are the only ways to identify an item to put it back in the system, so I said to her, "Ma'am, we have to be able to identify the item before inventory will accept this."
She didn't even bridge the gap between frustrated customers and rage. She just went straight to rage.
"How could you not give me a return?! You aren’t standing by your merchandise!”(and so on and so forth)
So of course I reply calmly, "Ma'am, I'm sure there's some way we can fix this. Let me go check in the back and see if I can find another product that looks like this, because I don't recognize it."
I come back and she's telling anyone who will listen that I am completely incompetent. So I approach her and say, "Miss, I'm sorry, but there is no record of this product ever being in our store. Also, this frame is broken. Unfortunately I can't let you return this item."
This really set her off: "Is this because I’m black? I have little kids with me, what kind of world is this where people get treated differently because of the color of their skin.” and this went on for quite a few minutes, despite my best (usually effective) methods at calming people down.
She eventually chucked the frame at me and ran out of the store. She also later called corporate on me and my manager had to defend me against an "investigation" into why this customer was so angry. The customer was asked never to return to our stores.
I think the worst part for me was knowing that she was setting an example for those kids. I feel so bad for those kids.
Spontaneosaur
28. Two at a Time
I worked in a gas station and we also sold 'stuff'. Ranging from USB drives to cheap travel books. Now during thanksgiving weekend the USB drives went on sale from 20 bucks to 15.
And once people found out about this, they went insane over these little 8 gig USB drives.
So all weekend I was selling these just about every transaction, now I know a guy who'd been in there the past two days buying them two at a time, I don't know why he thought there was a limit but whatever.
Sunday rolls around and we're out of USB drives, the man like clockwork comes in and goes to pick up two. Comes back and asks where the USB drives are and why we move them.
I explain that we ran out about 2 hour earlier and that we didn't have any more in the back (which is a frequent argument when we're out of food or any of the random items we sell), he demands that I go to the store that's 5 miles down the road and go get him two.
I explain nicely that I cannot leave my stuff like that and that I also do not have a car or a license. At this point the dude starts screaming at me for being a useless girl and how I shouldn't be allowed near computers or anything other than a kitchen stove and how women were ruined by technology.
My manager at this point is standing by me waiting for him to get done screaming, she tells him he needs to leave before she calls the cops. He refuses calling her a dumb witch.
At this point she pats me on the shoulder and tells me to use the technology in an obi wan like voice, which I assumed was 'push the little button that gets the cops here'.
Couple minutes later as he is standing there screaming at us and trying to explain why we're ruining his weekend, the cops grab him and escort him out.
And in the end all employees that were near the front got free meals and the cops got free coffee as well as doughnuts.
Azuris
29. Wrong Number
Back when Lowe’s used to have dedicated in-store installation sales teams, I worked as a contract coordinator. This lady called us complaining 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 installation.
I called our flooring specialist. I called our independent contractors. Still, nothing.
She got angry. 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 messed up and called you by mistake. Bye.”
Bolivar-shagnasty
30. Broken Bike
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, the raging 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
31. Trying Hard
I 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, I 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 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. He put the old board in the new box. I told him he must have mistakenly put the old board in so I can't complete the return.
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 the 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.
DoodlesAndWords
32. The Tablespoon
Once, when I was working at this insanely popular breakfast joint, my first table of the morning was a seemingly adorable old couple. After going through our specials, at their request, she ordered the duck hash special, and he ordered 2 boring poached eggs on toast.
All good. I bring them their food and the guy starts freaking out. You see, I didn't bring him a tablespoon for his eggs. Granted, he didn't ask for one, but according to him, everyone knows that poached eggs are supposed to be served with a tablespoon.
I've been a waitress for nearly a decade, and I've served a lot of poached eggs, and I've never heard this rule.
Nonetheless, I apologize profusely and tell him I'll go grab him a spoon. "No!" he yells. "My breakfast is ruined now!" and then, this grown adult throws his plate of food at me and storms out.
His wife gives me a sympathetic smile as she slinks out behind him, and I work the next 8 hours with egg yolk stains all over me.
[deleted]
33. Price Swap
I 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 pulled out a wad of $100 bills and started 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 to a "high paying customer."
I can't express how satisfying it was to watch this guy get dragged out of the store by security.
OrdinaryOrder8
34. Got Pranked
I worked in a "healthy" QSR, and although this was not the most horrible experience, it was certainly the most memorable.
There was some sort of convention near my store location. I live in Ottawa, a short hop, skip and a jump from Quebec. The city is pretty bilingual, but not everyone is. Like me.
Anyway, this woman is trying to order, but is speaking French. I can get the gist of things if I hear certain words, but she was speaking rather fast. After a couple minutes of back and forth, trying to answer her questions, I turned to a coworker who is bilingual and asked him to help, as she and I seemed to have a language barrier.
As I finish my request to said co worker, she says in totally perfect English with probably as much disdain as she could muster....and I quote:
"This is Canada. We speak French and English"
My mouth dropped. Not only because of the comment, but because she understood me the whole time and didn’t try to help.
I couldn't wrap my mind around why someone would do that. Come on. Not everyone is taught French in school. I grew up in the west coast/prairies where French is not a mandatory subject.
All I could do was stare at her for a few seconds and walk away.
CharmainKB
35. White Wine
A lady and her husband came in and before sitting down told us that she was deathly allergic to white wine saying, verbatim, "If you feed me white wine I will die." So I run around double and triple checking recipes and ingredients and making sure the kitchen is ready so when she orders I know her food will be safe.
Her husband orders the special and I make sure to tell her not to eat any of his meal as it is dressed with a beurre blanc made with white wine and I'd like her to survive her dining experience.
Well I bring out their food and the first thing she does is scoop a big ol' forkful of hubby's special. I cry out in dismay as she shoves it in her dumb mouth and says while chewing, "oh, one bite won't hurt."
She also singlehandedly weeded every server on the floor by forcing them into inane, inappropriate conversations while they were trying to take care of their busy sections, and cornered another guest in the tiny corridor leading to the bathrooms to tell him, aggressively, he was being too loud.
swift_bass
36. Same Thing Again
I wait tables in a country club. A couple came in once and as they were sitting down, before I had even introduced myself the woman was already complaining, since they had to wait 5 minutes while we reset "their table".
She started off by telling me every time she gets the filet mignon it's awful, and cooked wrong. I suggested she tried something else. Nope. Go for the same thing again. I gave the kitchen heads up and made sure it was perfect and saved us all a headache.
Steak comes up, seems fine. I drop her plate in front of her and I can already see that bullcrap smirk people get when they aren't amused.
She grabs her butter knife and legit slaps the top of the steak with the flat of it 3 times and goes "this is disgusting".
She hasn't even cut into it or tasted it. Sha had me take it back and bring her a new one.
So of course we do it... She gets her new one. Eats half of it and takes the rest home, and wants to talk to a manager. Stirs up a storm, gets her whole meal free and desert. Leave me a garbage tip even if you don't include the free steak and desert.
Even left me a comment card, just saying "Steak Sucked" and 1 star for service.
Mizerak
37. Huge Mockery
I did a stint at Starbucks. They put in to the Target I was working at, had just graduated from my degree program and they offered to let me manage it. It was good money. Of special note, the just graduated bit. Graduated, from college. As had the person I was working with.
We made this woman's iced tea wrong. I don't remember why, it was stupid mistake, but it happened. It would have taken all of thirty seconds to remake it.
She threw it back across the counter, literally threw it, turned to her daughter and said in the most preppy, witchy, never worked a day in her life soccer mom "trophy" wife voice, "See, this is why we finished high school."
Being the manager, I refused her any further service. She thought she had short hair when she went to get the Target store manager. But when a ton of other customers backed up my story, she was removed from Target.
KhaosElement
38. Fresh Honey Boo Boo Style
Served at Olive Garden for two years. Typical busy night in one of those never-ending pasta bowl times of year.. yay. It was one of my first tables of the evening.
Family of five — mom, dad, two sons, and a little girl(probably 2 or 3) — were all exceedingly overweight, and the daughter had on a dirty shirt and no pants, just a diaper. Well on a check back I noticed an overwhelming scent of poop lingering around the table.
I don't judge, I have no idea what's going on in their life. I just tell myself someone probably farted & I just walked up at the exact wrong moment.
Well I return with some refills (the poop smell is still just as intense as before) and on my way around the table to pass out beverages I pass the high chair I notice the little girl has her hand in her diaper.
Wtf. I then proceed to watch her pull out a turd & throw it on the floor to join an even larger turd that was already there slightly covered by a napkin.
I could not hide the disgust on my face.
I don't remember exactly the words I used but I turned to the parents & said "umm your daughter has a situation going on over here" the mother replies "uh yea I know I threw that napkin over it" then continues to devour her third refill on never-ending pasta. I was in disbelief.
Not only are there two pieces of fresh honey boo boo style poop on the floor, but the girl's hands are obviously covered in poop & not one family member seems to care in the slightest!!!!!
One of the brothers even asked me for another Dr Pepper, while I was standing there still in shock. so I immediately told the manager on duty & she didn't believe me. I said "I kid you not Amanda. Go see for yourself."
She ended up politely asking the mother to clean it up immediately. She even gave her disinfectant wipes. The mom became irate and claimed it's not her job, blah blah blah she feels discriminated against that we would ask her to do such a thing, and she demanded everything be paid for... she ended up picking up the poop.
She picked it up but she didn't wash her hands, didn't clean up her daughter, and continued to finish her meal. I thought it was over & they'd pay & get the heck out to never return. But no, as I'm dropping the check mom says, "uh it's my sons birthday don't y'all sing and give us dessert?"
Werqingurl
39. Ignorant Mother
When I was working at Rita's (a water ice stand) I had a lady come to the window with her two children. First off, she had on booty shorts with her cheeks hanging out and a corset type top that was 10 sizes too small. It just barely covered her nipples.
And did I mention she had her two young children with her? Well anyways, it's busy and the line is long and she comes up.
I take the order for her daughter and then her son says he has to pee. She then takes her son to the side of our building (we have windows on the side so we get a full view of the front) and has him pee there when there is a huge tree about a few feet away and we have a bathroom that we allow kids to use.
Well, anyway, she's taking long and with the line wrapping around the building, I take the next customer while she lets her son pee up our building.
She then comes back, and steps in front of the lady and says she's ready.
I asked her to give me a minute since I was almost finished with the customer that she just stepped in front of.
She then goes on to yell really loud how unprofessional I was and how I had terrible customer service.
I then explained to her that while she had her son pee on the side of the building I decided to try and get the next person out of the way. She then goes to deny her son peeing on the side of the building and says she would like to speak to my manager.
My manager doesn't believe in the customer is always right, crap and hates people like this
So I gave her his number and wrote down my name for her to tell him, which ticked her off even more. She did wait to get her stuff though, screaming the whole time I'm making it, then huffing off.
The people behind her each apologized for the way she acted and all told me I was doing a great job and gave me tips.
[deleted]
40. Spilled Water
I accidentally spilled a small glass of water on a lady who was dining alone. The place was packed and a customer had banged in to me making this happen. I apologized profusely but she was absolutely vile.
She was shouting at me so that the whole restaurant could hear. When she'd finished I walked out into the kitchen and explained what I'd done to the manager and my co worker.
They started laughing and I started crying and told them how vile she'd been and that I'd usually laugh too but couldn't this time.
I told my manager how vile she'd been and with each word I could see him getting angrier and angrier until he said, 'where is she?'
We left the kitchen and I pointed her out. He marched over to her, I don't know what he said but it involved escorting her out whilst the customers who'd overheard her applauded.
To my old manager Matt, you were a legend of a boss. To the lady, that's why you dine alone. You are a horrible person.
[deleted]
41. All for a Glass of Wine
I work at a winery where we get the occasional limo full of drunk people (we do not allow them in, because we are not a bar and do not serve drunk people). Occasionally the manager (that's me!) is away from the door, and that's when they will attempt to sneak in.
I had to approach one of them and tell them politely that their party had too much to drink and had to leave, and she said "I'm not going anywhere"
I assured her that my staff would not serve her so it was pointless to insist on staying. I said if she didn't leave within 5 minutes she would be escorted by a police officer and she said "Bull. You're not gonna do anything" So I called the local cop we have on-call right in front of her and said,
"He is on his way. I suggest you leave if you want to save yourself the embarrassment."
She proceeded to follow me into the back office (I was going out the side door to get the limo’s plates) and she pushed me into a filing cabinet and said, "We aren’t leaving, witch.” Then her group came back, grabbed her, and they sped off in their limo.
The cop arrived a minute later and I gave him the plate number to go give them a little scare. All this... for a glass of wine. Happens at least 3-5 times/year.
86eggplant
42. Could Have Done Better
This abusive dude was out on a date with his meek lady. I brought them their food, drinks, no worries, but there was an obvious hostile vibe going on in between him and her.
Halfway through the meal I come back and ask if everything is going ok and she looks like she is about to burst into tears, but the dude was radiating a very strong “no, everything is great, very rudely and kind GTFOH” vibe.
I come back at the end of the meal to ask about drinks/dessert, and he is red faced, annoyed that I had the nerve to come up to the table again. He says, “bring me the check now and if you disturb us any more I'm gonna use this knife on you.”
He holds up his steak knife with his right hand and points it at me.
I remember looking at her kind of half-laughing going like, 'is this guy freaking serious?', but her head was sunken down, and she would not meet my eyes.
I brought them their check and they left without incident.
That was many years ago and I am still upset when I think about that night. I didn't do anything to confront him, which I thought would only have made things worse for her.
In my mind I like to replay things with alternate action hero endings, like I introduce his face to his plate and the cops come and arrest him and she's saved and everything ends up happy, but I think now in hindsight that there's probably a lot of hostility and conflict between couples that never sees the light of day.
I just happened to have a front row seat that night to watch one of the biggest pieces of crap eat a meal with his companion. It still makes me sad and angry.
myothercarisamtb
43. Knew It from the Start
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 locate 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 that's 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 get 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 manager 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, “screw 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.
MathsOnShrooms
44. Literally Karen
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 the cash price for a medication I generated. It was an extremely good price, as we are a privately-owned pharmacy and don’t price gorge our cash customers like chain pharmacies do.
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 of 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 peeing herself to the point that she literally had to pull out her inhaler.
Psychfuture101
45. Noise Makers
I worked in a restaurant and we had a private dining area booked and the party there was super loud. We let it slide for a while but it was obviously putting off 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 confrontational 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 'fudge off, the only person who talks to my staff like that is me, get your stuff and leave!'
kij101