If you've ever worked customer service than you know the peril of rude customers. We are only human and can only take so much. But every once in a blue moon, something just snaps and we can't help but go off on someone who 100% deserves it. These servers and food workers share the times they went off on a rude customer and got away with it.
An Absolutely Crazy Plan To Get Back At A Customer THAT WORKED
“I think one of my favorite stories is when I worked at this yogurt shop in my late teens to early 20s. I had just become manager of the store and I was just getting used to being in charge.
I open the store one Saturday and as I’m in the back cutting up fruit, I hear someone walk in. Just as I’m taking off my cutting glove, this woman just walks directly behind the counter. Now a little background of this woman, she’s been a long annoyance in the store. She constantly tells me how much she buys fro-yo here and goes on about being an expert. Whatever. I don’t care, Nancy.
Anyway, she walks in like she owned the place and starts telling me that she had been at the counter for over five minutes and that I should’ve been out in front with a friendly greeting and smile. But here’s the baffling part. This lady not only tries bossing me around BUT SHE WALKS BEHIND THE COUNTER AND INTO THE EMPLOYEE BACK ROOM.
I immediately shoo her away and ask her what’s wrong. I was honestly just kind of stunned by how bold this crazy lady was.
She instantly goes on a rant, but I get her to shut up by shoving free samples in her face. Long story short, she buys her yogurt and leaves, but as she walks away, I loudly said ‘Wow, it’s crazy how much customers think they can do and get away with, just because they think I’m serving them.’
I knew she heard me and that was my point. Because quite frankly at this point, I don’t give an eff and it’s the truth.
Thinking I’m an ace manager, I sit on this victory for a couple of days. Until I get an email from HQ, the corporate offices, while on my day off!
In the email, there is a message referencing my comment to that crazy lady, and some other corporate nonsense about how the customer is always right yadda, yadda, yadda. Bottom line, they said I needed to be punished and this weird lady needed a gift card as thanks.
Yeah right. Not on my watch.
My owner called me, upset, and I told him I’d immediately get to the bottom of this…
So I did. I thought for a while, and then EUREKA. I had an idea.
No one at the corporate office even knew who I was, or what I sounded like. So I made a crazy decision, I called the person who was handling the situation at corporate and I legit pretended to be someone else.
And not just anybody else. I pretended to be the MOTHER of the crazy lady that had come in earlier. I came up with this story about how my ‘daughter’ had this horrible illness that made her erratic and how she refused to take her meds and was prone to random outbursts.
‘Bingo,’ I thought. This was going to work.
I called up the customer service lady and told her my ‘crazy daughter story.’ I explained that my ‘daughter’ has this grift where she calls in fake complaints to scam free gift cards from various food/retail stores. Sounds absolutely nuts, right?
Well, by the grace of some higher power, the company rep on the other line ACTUALLY BELIEVED ME. I told the lady at the corporate office that I was so sorry about my daughter. Then I ask if she could get BLACKLISTED from all stores because I, as her mother, was getting sick of dealing with the drama.
The customer service lady not only thanked me for being so kind but said she would still send a $5 gift card to ‘my daughter’ so that way ‘my daughter’ didn’t think anything different and assumed she was rewarded for her complaint.
My jaw dropped over the phone. This was just too good! I couldn’t believe my luck. I felt like I was getting away with the crime of the century.
The customer service lady told me she was so sorry and not to worry about all of this. She lastly hoped that ‘my daughter’ would get some help and once again thanked me.
I got off the phone and was completely surprised, dumbfounded even. I couldn’t believe it. Within the next hour, the store gets an email with a full description of the conversion between ‘Mother’ & customer service representative, stating about the ‘daughter’, her scam, and how she was now blacklisted from complaining about the store.
My owner called me and told me about the great news, I just listened and was completely shocked by what had happened. But extremely happy that I didn’t get caught or fired since I desperately needed the job. And that’s how I didn’t get caught for going off on a customer!”
Crusty Old Customers Get Crusty Old Biscuits.
“I was working at Denny’s at the time, and I had just walked in (still carrying my purse; not even wearing an apron) when my manager started telling me to get to my section because I had a customer—he was just coming back from seating her. I was ten minutes early, but whatever. I went and clocked in, tossed my bag in a cabinet, and was on my way to her table, still tying my apron, less than a minute later.
I started to greet her, but she interrupted to complain that she’d been sitting there for 10 minutes already and is this how we treat customers now? Since I knew for a fact she hadn’t been there more than 2, I knew this was going to be a really fun guest. Nevertheless, I apologized (because arguing with these people gets you nowhere), and started to take her order. As I was walking away, she actually shouted at me, “And don’t forget my free biscuits!”
I’m sure you can guess what I found when I went into the kitchen and checked the biscuit warmer. Lots and lots of nothing, except for one stale old biscuit that had been in there long enough to get crunchy. Clearly not edible.
I asked the cook how long until more (45 minutes) and made sure to go back to her immediately to let her know that the biscuits had just run out and it would be quite a while before there were more. She called me a liar and demanded her biscuits. I sighed and went to help someone else.
A few minutes later I brought her her salad. Another demand for biscuits. Then I brought her food. She practically screamed at me this time as I explained, yet again, that it would be another 25 minutes at least before the biscuits were cooked.
She pointed to another table. ‘They have biscuits!’ she exclaimed.
‘No, they don’t,’ I replied, ‘Because there are no biscuits. No one has biscuits.’
‘They do! I can see them! And you’re just a filthy, lazy liar!’
I’m pretty sure she said some other nastiness at my back as I walked away, but I was truly too ticked off to listen. I went to the warmer, grabbed the ancient biscuit (no, no one at Denny’s ever cleans up anything, sorry) and put it on a plate. Then I went to her table and slammed it down on the table beside her drink.
‘Here is your biscuit. It is literally the only biscuit in the freaking store because we are out of biscuits and no amount of yelling will make the oven work faster. Please enjoy.’
The biscuit clanged on the table like a rock.
I dropped her check at the same time and walked away, refusing to make eye contact with her for the rest of her meal as I went on serving my other customers.
After she left, my manager called me over.
‘That lady was shouting but I couldn’t understand her. What happened?’ she asked.
I just shrugged and told him that she was angry there were no biscuits. Since I was their best server at the time, he just shrugged and told me to go back to work. When I went to clear her table I found the crusty old biscuit right in the center of the table, and on top of the biscuit was one single penny. I guess she was sending a message, but for some reason, it cracked me up. I still laugh when I think back to Biscuit Woman and her Penny of Rage.”
This Guy Consulted His Potato Expert
“I was briefly a manager at Wendy’s and absolutely hated it.
So this guy orders a potato. It was Sunday and it seemed like customers were grouchy most often after church. So he orders a potato. The crew member puts the big potato in its Styrofoam dish and blossoms it to make it all pretty and fluffy. He squirts some margarine on it, shakes some chives on top, and puts it on the tray with two sour cream portions.
The guy was all grumpy about practically every step. ‘What are you putting on my potato?’ ‘I need extra butter,’ ‘What are those green things? Parsley?’
All requests were filled and with nothing left to complain about he sat down and dug in.
I was out in the dining room making sure everything was right when he approached me carrying his potato.
‘Excuse me. Can you tell me why there is a rock in my potato?’ he asked.
I was nothing if not accommodating towards customers. They pay for something and they deserve quality but because the stock would come in sometimes not so good condition there were times I and practically every manager was faced with a problem like a bug in the lettuce. Or produce coming in would be more than just dirty often times caked in dirt. We washed things as needed but occasionally the odd caterpillar would slip past an employee.
When that happened I would be all ‘Oh my god I’m so sorry here let me get your money back.’ This would oftentimes be followed by a refund and their order redone or given a replacement. I mean that stuff is totally gross. I was really sorry when something gross happened.
So the guy has a rock in his potato. Admittedly this was a new problem for me in my then 10 years working at Wendy’s but it’s a potato. It grew in the ground. There are rocks in the ground. Maybe, and this was just my theory but maybe the potato grew around the rock? Possibly the rock found its way inside the potato.
Sounded good to me so I said ‘Oh my god I’m so sorry. Let me get your money back. Do you want a new potato too? On the house?’ he said ‘No. No. I want an explanation for why in the heck there is a rock in my potato.’
So I presented my theory and he said ‘I don’t think that’s even possible. Potatoes don’t grow around rocks. Rocks don’t just get inside potatoes,’ and he could have been right I suppose since I am not an expert on potatoes. Or rocks. But I had enough of this guy’s lousy attitude so I told him ‘Okay. If you must know I hired a guy and pay him $6 an hour to put rocks in potatoes in hopes someone will make my job suck worse than it already does.’
He left. I never heard anything about it if he complained or not. That is the rudest I ever got with a customer.”
“I Hope Your Easter Sucks Butts!”
“Yes, I gave a certain customer a piece of my mind once. It was a slow time of the day and there was a couple at my register who had never been there before. I was answering their questions and explaining about the menu as a regular customer came up behind them.
He was annoyed at having to wait, looking at his watch and huffing ‘Jesus freaking christ’ under his breath while I was tending to my current customers. Then he started mouthing off to them.
‘How long does it take to order a lousy hamburger?!’
They looked uncomfortable and I looked apologetic. I was embarrassed at first for everyone involved. Then, I started getting ticked off. With every rude thing that came out of this guy’s mouth my anger rose. I took my time with the new customers and did my best to make them as comfortable as I possibly could while the rude moron behind them berated them.
They paid and went to find a table while I… well, I just walked off!
I left the rude guy at the register to wait. I could see his family already sitting at a table looking very uncomfortable and felt horrible for them having to deal with this man. He was never nice but I had never seen him this angry and rude before.
My walking off ticked him off even worse than what he already was. I looked at him and told him that there was absolutely no need to be such a prick to my other customers. I also told him he could take his rude butt somewhere else because there was no way I was going to take his order.
My manager didn’t say a word. This guy started yelling at me. Actually screaming for me to take his order. I looked at my manager and he was trying not to smirk. This guy was so comically angry it was funny. I let him scream for a minute or so and then asked him if he was finished. He kept going so I let him scream. At one point I asked him if MHMR (Mental Health Mental Retardation) knew he was missing yet. His family looked like they wanted to just crawl into a corner and disappear. I asked him if he was ready to calm down now and he did a bit. He was running out of steam.
He calmed a little but still wanted me to take his order. I told him to leave and to please not consider coming back. He finally turned and screamed at his own family to get the heck out of this lousy restaurant.
Then… I don’t know why I said it, it wasn’t needed or even particularly adult of me but it sends my manager into a burst of laughter when I did it. ‘I hope your Easter sucks butts!’ It was Easter that day by the way”
“Whoops! Clumsy Me!”
“I work in management at a convenience store, and I deal politely with all manner of rude customers. That being said, I’ll never forget this one.
It’s a weekend and we have a sale running on milkshakes, any size for $1.99. Ten milkshakes plus other food items pop up. My employee begins making them and slams her hand in the very heavy ice drawer. I send the other manager and her to the back to deal with her injury and am running the busy kitchen by myself, and people have to wait longer for their orders. Most customers are extremely pleasant and understanding, but I see a couple getting agitated and they come over and ask when their milkshakes will be done. I respond that I am doing things in order, and I will be starting their drinks in a few minutes.
When I finally start their milkshakes, they come over to yell at me again. ‘I mean what’s going on? Are you making the gosh dang ice cream from scratch back there?’
‘Again, I’m very sorry, I have an employee who may have just broken her hand and the other manager is dealing with that situation.’
‘Are you trying to say that THAT more important than paying customers?!?!?’
I had just finished making their two milkshakes.
‘Yes, I am.’
Customer: ‘Girl don’t you mouth off to me!’
At this point, I was beyond angry. I pick up their milkshakes, show them they are finished, and drop them in the nearest trash can.
‘I’m so sorry, I can so be clumsy sometimes.’
I run over to the register and grab a $5 bill.
‘I apologize about the circumstances, but I JUST ran out of all the ingredients to make any more milkshakes! Here’s your money back plus a little extra, please take it and NEVER come back to this store.’
With much cursing and name-calling and threats to call my corporate office, the storm out of the store. I offer all the other customers in the store a coupon for everything they have seen/dealt with/patiently waited through.
I wait for the phone call from corporate for my write up, but it never comes…guess they realized they had no legs to stand on.
I have so many stories, but this one sticks out like a sore thumb.”
Now That’s A Good Manager!
“OK so here’s a story from my time as a McDonald’s employee.
It was during the week around 8 pm, and the restaurant was quieter than usual, so a few people had been sent home early, and others given extra breaks.
I was on the front counter by myself, when in walked this group of guys all around their mid- 20’s, and I could straight away tell that they were going to be a test on my patience. Instead of talking to each other, they seemed to prefer to half-shout, with the odd swear word thrown in for good measure. One of the guys leaned halfway across the counter to read my name badge, and then kept unnecessarily saying my name throughout his order.
‘Hello Bridie, can I have a Big Mac meal, Bridie? But with no pickles Bridie? With a Coke please, Bridie?’ etc.
His friends all seemed to find this hilarious. Furthermore, nearly all the items they ordered were customized somehow. (Seriously, all McDonald’s workers hate this.)
When I asked them to find a table and sit down as their order would take a while, they started kicking up a fuss. I explained that whilst the restaurant was quiet, the drive-thru was still fairly busy, and custom orders had to be cooked from scratch which can take a fair few minutes.
One of the guys leered at me, commenting that they would all go and sit down if I would ‘suck them off.’
I snapped and loudly informed them that they had no right to speak to me that way. Who do they think they are?
I was fuming, and what made it worse is that they all laughed, commenting:
‘Oooh! No need to get your panties in a twist.’
Meanwhile, having heard my raised voice, the store manager came out of his office. He walked up to me, and put his hand on my shoulder, leading me away from the counter asking if I was OK.
‘No, I’m not serving them!” I replied ‘They can’t speak to me like that. They’ve been morons this whole time, and one of them asked me to suck them all off! They—’
‘YOU F**KING WHAT!?!?!’
The next thing I knew, my 40-something-year-old manager had jumped over the counter and started chasing these guys out of the restaurant and down the street. All the while shouting that they couldn’t ‘speak to [his] staff that way!’ and that he was going to ‘f**king kill them!’
He returned five minutes later, rang the police, gave them a description of the guys, and got them banned from the premises.
He then offered me some free food and told me to take the rest of the evening off.”
“Why Go Out To Eat If You’re Going To Leave A Huge Mess And No Tip?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say snapped necessarily, but I definitely said something that you just don’t say to customers.
I had just started working as a server at a Logan’s Roadhouse restaurant. A group of about four or five grown women came in with a total of about four or five kids. They were sat in my section because nobody else wanted to take them. When I inquired as to why, the servers proceeded to tell me that these women come in often with their children, order food, and then complain that it’s too cold so that they can get their food discounted and then they don’t ever tip. One of the managers chimed in, confirming this common situation.
I kind of hoped that maybe if I gave them good service it would be different. They had me running around and would ask me for something every time I went back to the table instead of just asking me for several things at once, so I was really running around all over the place. When their food came out they complained and asked to speak to my manager. The manager then told me that he was going to give them a discount and I couldn’t believe it! I was really mad and I had been serving for years so I kind of was tired of that kind of work and so I sort of said something that could have got me fired…
As they got up from the table, I began clearing their plates. They left a huge, nasty mess, mostly because of the kids. Before they completely walked out of my line of sight, I said to them, ‘Why do you even go out to eat if you know you’re going to leave a huge mess and be cheap and not tip?’
One of the women started arguing with me and I walked away from her, figuring I was about to be fired. But I was so frustrated. It felt almost degrading to have to clean up this mess without having made any kind of tip. I was also mad at the manager for knowing that they do this often but he didn’t tell them that they can’t come back.
And well, he didn’t have to tell them not to come back this time because they yelled and said that they weren’t ever coming back! As for my manager, he simply told me that I can’t talk to customers that way, but I was not reprimanded in any way otherwise. I know that that’s not how you talk to customers and have worked in customer service since I was old enough to work at the age of 16. I love people and I’ve never had many issues. Even with rude customers, I would usually just ignore their rudeness. But someone had to stand up to this group of women.
I think my manager knew that I did him a favor and that no other server would have to suffer through that humiliation, especially knowing what they would be getting themselves into from serving that group of women.
I ended up working at that restaurant for about 4 months and then leaving because I had some other endeavors that I wanted to focus on. But I did enjoy my time there and got along with the managers as well.”
McDrama At McDonalds
“About a year ago I was working at Mcdonald’s on a particularly busy day. In our restaurant whoever is at the first window where you pay also has to take orders on the outside drive-thru lane. Usually, it’s easy to multitask and take the order for a customer at the speaker while talking to another customer at the payment window, but this day I was taking an order for this one woman and it seemed she had completed her order because she hadn’t said anything in well over 10 seconds so the conversation went as follows:
Me: ‘Will this complete your order?’
Customer: no response
Me: waits several more seconds ‘Will this be all?’
Customer: still no response
Me: ‘Your total will be $xx.xx at the first window.’
Customer: ‘I WASN’T DONE IF YOU HAD BEEN PAYING ANY ATTENTION AT ALL YOU WOULD KNOW I WASN’T DONE! HOW HARD IS YOUR JOB, HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO MESS UP AN ORDER?!’
Me: ‘You don’t have to be so rude I didn’t hear you say anything so I assumed you were done…’
Customer: ‘Well maybe if you knew how to do your job I wouldn’t have to yell!’
Me: ‘Ok what else can I get for you?’
At this point, she started ordering the rest of her order and drove around. I was already getting yelled at by the manager upfront for taking so long to complete an order and was blamed for making the line move slow and then add this on top of it. I felt a knot in my stomach and felt so worthless because customers literally treat us like trash sometimes because they know we won’t say anything back in fear of losing our jobs.
I asked over the headset for a manager to come back and take her payment for me but nobody answered me, I yelled up to the front of the store that I needed somebody to take this lady’s money because I knew if I did I would say something I’d regret. But nobody came and the lady reached my window to pay. I told her the total and she acted as if she wasn’t just screaming at me 60 seconds earlier. Once her card was accepted I printed her receipt and handed it to her and said ‘for future reference how about you don’t talk to me like that. It’s incredibly disrespectful to me.’
At which point the lady lost her mind and said ‘WHO DO YOU THINK YOU’RE TALKING TO?!’
To which I replied, ‘There is no reason to come here and talk to me like that I won’t deal with it.’
Then she asked for my name and I told her my first and last name and she drove to the next window in an even worse mood. As soon as she left I broke down in tears (but at least she didn’t see me cry right lol) my manager came back asking me what happened and I told them with tears streaming down my face and all the managers on duty stood up for me I was so happy.
They said I was not going to be in trouble and that I shouldn’t have to deal with that. I am one of the best workers I never get complaints and I am good at what I do so I was so anxious that I was going to be fired by the owner but a week later the same lady came through the drive-thru again and APOLOGIZED for screaming at me. She said she didn’t know what was going through her head and she was sorry for treating me like that. I accepted her apology and we never spoke of it again.
There was even more drama with this involving her daughter finding me on Facebook and harassing me endlessly about how stupid I am until I blocked her, but that’s a different story.”
“Don’t Ever Do That Again!”
“In the late 80s, I was a waitress in a restaurant attached to a mall. Two women who worked in the mall came in for lunch and said they only had thirty minutes and to please hurry and bring them two orders of lasagna. Lasagna was the one thing on the menu that took the longest to make because it needed at least 15 minutes in the oven. I ran into the kitchen and told the cook to make it quick and I had their food out to them in about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, I gave them good attentive service and made sure they were able to get back to work in the mall on time.
Just after they left, I walked up to the table and saw that they had paid their entire check of around $15 with loose change. Not the end of the world since, being a waitress and all, I often paid for things with loose change. However, when I counted it out they had only left one nickel as a tip. I was immediately piping mad, so I ran out into the mall where I could see them a couple of hundred feet away and I yelled at them to “keep the change”, threw the nickel in their direction, and walked back into the restaurant.
The two of them, who were in such a hurry, found time to come back to the restaurant and report me to the manager. He called me to the front of the restaurant where the two women were waiting.
Manager: ‘Did you throw money at these ladies just now?’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Manager: ‘Why would you do something like that?’
Me: ‘Because I provided good service and gave them everything they asked for – they had no complaints; and they insulted me by making me count out their loose change only to find out they left me a nickel, which is worse than nothing. I would have rather they left me nothing.’
The manager looks at the ladies and asked if that was true. ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s true – this waitress is rude and you need to fire her!”’one of them said. He looked at them and calmly stated that the next time they need quick service and don’t have enough money to leave a tip they should go to the food court. Their mouths just dropped (so did mine) and they turned and left with their noses in the air.
I smiled at my manager and said ‘Thank you for sticking up for me!’ to which he replied, ‘Don’t ever do that again.'”
Letting A Coffee Snob Have It
“I have blown up on customers before. A while ago during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I worked at a Peet’s coffee and tea. Some of the people that went through that place were unbelievable. They would whine, they would complain, they would make our lives a living nightmare.
Here’s a short example: People come into the store, see that there is at least one person waiting in line, and get on their phones. They don’t look up, but the line keeps moving. Eventually, they would reach the front of the line, but remain 10 feet away from the registers due to their distraction. We would have to walk out from behind the counter, and sometimes even physically tap the customer to get them to wake up and FLIPPING ORDER ALREADY. Of course, then they looked at the menu, and then they spent 45 freaking seconds deciding what they wanted.
This whole process happens over and over again. During the morning rush, the line would probably have anywhere from two to five people who would do this in it at any given time. It drove all of us nuts.
Anyway, some of the customers really wanted us to think they cared about the coffee.
They would come in, and ask the most outrageous questions, like ‘What’s the humidity like where these beans are grown?’, ‘Are they hand-picked?’ or ‘What’s the PH of the soil?’
I kid you not, I have legitimately gotten all of these questions. Anyway, some lady came in and asked me something absurd about a very basic coffee and I had to look it up in a little book. She audibly scoffed at me and rolled her eyes toward the person waiting next to her.
I told her I didn’t know what the answer was to her question but phrased it as a complete sentence, so ‘I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t tell you if this coffee blend is fertilized with unicorn feces or not’ or something. The thing was, that I pronounced this whacky coffee blend wrong. But this lady actually corrected me. Can you believe that? She went on a whole tirade about improper training, lack of skill, and laziness, and ‘intellectual inferiority.’
Now, I’m not a lazy person, and at age 18 have done a lot of things most people will never do (including building an exo-suit. Need proof? Here I am in a Business Insider article!
I work my butt off in school and make a daily journal of the thoughts that go through my head. So, when this entitled old lady had the nerve to call me lazy, I lost it.
Would I call it a clap back? I’m not sure. What happened next is kind of blurry to me because I was so angry. I just let this lady have it. My mind left my body there for a second as I let my vengeance take hold. I would probably best describe the altercation as ‘aggressively bestowing manners upon her.’
Now after all the dust had settled and the spirit of revenge had left my body, I just remember everybody clapping. My manager walked out of the office clapping, the rest of the line clapped, my coworkers clapped. It was like I had made the game-winning touchdown at the Super Bowl. Whatever I had said had made little old Karen shut up, because she politely apologized and walked out of the store without even ordering.
Overall a 10/10 shift.”