It seems like more and more customers are short-tempered. Anything that doesn’t go their way can cause an argument and a scene. These employees share their top customer freakouts. Content has been edited for clarity.
“Do You Know Who I Am?!”
“I was working as a box office manager at a film festival. I had flown out across the country to participate in it. I got to meet and work with some very cool people and I was in a beautiful spot. The only thing that would ultimately crush my perception of things were the rude, entitled people who lived in the area and thought they owned everyone because they had money.
My day started off great! The staff was super chill and we all worked in a small office. I got a delicious lunch in the nearby square, came back, and sat down ready to continue my amazing day.
Apparently, a small line started to form outside for the next showing but it consisted of no more than three people. I opened my register and called for the next customer.
The next customer produced a loud audible sigh, rolled her eyes, and groaned, ‘Finally!’
She couldn’t have been waiting more than five minutes.
I said with a smile, ‘How can I help you?’
She handed me her ID and said, ‘I need my tickets.’
I looked up her order only to discover she had print-at-home tickets. I kindly met her gaze before saying, ‘I’m sorry but you have print-at-home tickets. You’ll need to go home or find a computer to print them out.’
She started screaming at me, calling me names, and throwing a tantrum like a two-year-old with a vast and vulgar vocabulary.
I then told the irate woman, ‘I’m sorry but you can’t use that language in here. Please stop yelling. There is nothing I can do for you. You chose print-at-home and I can’t print them out here. I’m sorry.’
To be honest, this was sort of untrue; I did have the capability of overriding the system but was told to only do so for VIPs or staff and I certainly wasn’t going to reward her bad behavior by giving in.
She started clinching and talking through her teeth with her eyes bulging out of her head. ‘Do you know who I am?! I’m David Rittenberg’s cousin!’ This made me just grin ear to ear. I looked her dead in the eye and said sheepishly, ‘Do you mean David Rivkin? I would think if he was your cousin, you would know his name.’
She knew she was caught in a lie but she just dug her heels in and started yelling at me again. I crossed my arms, still smiling, and let her finish. When she was done I asked, ‘Are you done? I can’t print your tickets and you need to leave. I won’t have you using that language around all these people. Please get out of my office!’
She just humphed and said, ‘I’m calling your manager,’ as she left.
I yelled back, ‘Call David Rittenberg!’
Everyone in line started applauding! Everyone to witness the event told me what a great job I had done for staying calm and how I handled her. I let my bosses know of the incident and she did end up calling in. They told her that I was following protocol and I did nothing wrong. I loved the backup from them!
This was not my only incident where someone pulled the, ‘Do you know who I am?’ bit but she was definitely the most memorable!”
It Was Car Keys, It’s Not That Serious
“I managed a key shop for years that sat outside a large shopping mall. I was not a trained locksmith. I just made keys, by hand, not by using one of those automatic machines they use now.
One day a customer brought me his double-sided car key and requested that I make a copy. It was worn down, and from the condition of the key I wasn’t able to copy it correctly. There was an excellent locksmith down the road and I suggested he gave them a visit instead.
The guy pouted and whined then he had me try over and over. Failure after failure was costing me a small sum in key blanks. He wanted a fancy style that was hard to order. I could see my efforts obviously going by the wayside. His copy was so worn that my clamps had a difficult time even holding his original copy in place.
Finally, I told him that I was finished trying. By then, he was furious. At the time, I didn’t understand his frustration. His original key had the ‘cut code’ on it, so a locksmith would be able to recreate a brand-new key without even needing to put his worn key in a key cutter. I did not have that capability. He left after calling me a few choice words.
Two hours later I had ten people lined up for keys in my shop. I was in the zone, cutting, ringing up transactions, and working the line. Suddenly, I heard someone shout, ‘You lazy woman! I went to another key shop, and they made my key!’
When I looked up, I realized it was the same guy from before. Only this time, he was holding a shotgun.
‘Good for you!’ I shouted bravely. ‘How many times did they have to try?’
I don’t remember what he said, but I know they tried more than once. They weren’t a key shop he explained further, but a car dealership. Why he thought I would have had more luck making his key than the dealership that sold his car I don’t know. He was a loon with serious anger management issues.
Then he threatened to light the place up if I didn’t try to make a new key for him.
That’s when an unlikely hero walked in.
A woman wearing a dress of lavender flowers, orthopedic shoes, and a lacy white sweater, with hair was that soft gray like smoke all under a fine hair net looked around then at the man. She was an elderly woman with a pocketbook that might have weighed sixty pounds. That’s how the crazy man acted when she started beating him with it. She continued to beat him with it right out the door. She lifted her bag and whacked that man about the head and shoulders, telling him how we should treat each other with dignity and respect. She told him that folks needed to take turns and wait in line.
Miracle of miracles, security was waiting for him, and once he was away from the crowd. They swiftly plucked his weapon from him. I don’t remember what happened to him. He wasn’t the only crazy customer I had in my time at the key shop, but he was the only one that brought a sidearm to a key fight.”
Drama Over A $6 Pizza?!
“I was a shift supervisor at Pizza Hut when you could dine in and they had a birthday room. Remember those days?
It was a Friday night. We had two cooks, two servers, and myself working. It was rush hour and we were super busy. Since I had a full staff, I would bounce between positions because I was a manager and could keep up and make things run smoothly. So, I was in the back getting toppings out of the walk-in. As I was filling up everything, I noticed one of the cooks had walked a pizza out. I guess both servers were that busy, but then he came back and had a receipt with a personal pan on it.
I asked him what that was because they had a long list on the screen of orders, and we didn’t use receipts to make orders.
He said, ‘This girl has been waiting for an hour to order a pizza so I told her I would take care of it.’
He had run up the order and cashed it out, not putting any money into the order.
I was mad because I’m the manager, not him. He cannot just place an order and cash it out without informing me.
So I said, ‘I’ll take care of it, and don’t ever do that again.’
I went up front and saw the girl just standing there. She was actually a young lady. I had a feeling my cook was flirting with her because he flirted with every girl including me until my boyfriend set him straight. Also, there was no way she had waited an hour for her food because I was upfront cashing other customers out. Not once did I see her.
I double-checked what my cook exactly said to her and he never promised to give her a free pizza, only that he would make the pizza.
So once her pizza was done, I went to the cash register, and said, ‘I’m sorry for the wait. We made your pizza fresh and it’s ready. It’ll be $5.’
She gave me the most disgusted look and said, ‘Your cook said I could just have it since I’ve been waiting over an hour to place my order.’
I said, ‘He said he would take care of it which means that he would go ahead and skip all the other orders and make yours. And you had to have been sitting down because I was up here, rolling silverware. I could have helped you.’
After she paid for the food, she said, ‘You know what, screw it. I don’t want it. Give me my money back.’
As I was in the process of giving her money back, she started cussing me out. Everyone in Pizza Hut looked over.
She kept calling me a ‘stupid b***,’ and trying to fight me.
Then she started talking badly about my servers. One of the servers was pregnant, busting her ass, and trying to keep up. She was 7 months then so her belly was showing big time and she was sweating. I knew her feet hurt and her back but she continued to work like everything was OK. Then she heard this girl call her a ‘stupid pregnant b**’ because apparently ‘she walked around helping everyone but her.’
So the pregnant girl came over and said, ‘Excuse me? I asked you if you had been helped and you just looked at me. No reply.’
She continued to yell until finally, I told her to leave before I call 911. She grabbed the pizza and left.
I was actually in tears because that was the first time that a customer was rude to me. I went to the back and I cried.
After ten minutes I went up front because a customer wanted to talk to me. I thought, ‘Great.’
It was actually an older couple, maybe in their 40’s. The husband said, ‘Look, you are going to run into a lot of people like this. This is just one. She just wanted a free pizza and she got it. You did nothing wrong. She waited maybe 5 mins.’
Then his wife said, ‘Sweetheart, you don’t need to cry. She had no right to say that or act that way.’
And she gave me a hug and I cried more but I smiled because I never want anyone to think I’m a bad employee.
I never did see her again. All the customers that night had said they were sorry I had to deal with that and left good tips for my servers and me.”
What’s The Brand Name?
“I worked in the produce department at Publix. One time, a lady came up to me, searching for some nuts.
Lady: ‘I’m looking for some nuts.’
Me: ‘Ok, they’ll be on aisle 13. I can bring you over there if you’d like.’
She gave me this death glare.
Lady: ‘I didn’t even finish telling you what I want. How do you know what aisle it’s on?’
I wanted to say, ‘Because nuts are on aisle 13,’ instead I said, ‘I apologize, ma’am. What exactly are you looking for?’
Lady: ‘I’m looking for some nuts. They’re in a plastic container.’
Me: ‘OK, those are going to be on aisle 13. I can bring you over there if you like.’
We walked over to the nut aisle, and she did not see what she wanted.
Me: ‘Well we have some other nuts over in the produce department, but they’re all Publix brand.’
We then walked over to the produce department, and again she did not see what she was looking for.
Lady: ‘This is so frustrating. How do you not have them? This is a very popular brand. I see them every single time I am out shopping.’
Me: ‘Ok ma’am. If you tell me what brand, I can check with our grocery manager and see if we maybe have it on an end cap or something.’
Lady: ‘It’s a Great Value brand.’
I took a pause, before asking, Do you shop at Walmart a lot? Like, particularly whenever you see this brand?’
Her: ‘Yeah.’
Me: ‘Well, unfortunately, we don’t carry Great Value brand.’
Lady: ‘Well why not!’
Me: ‘Because that’s Walmart’s brand… and this is Publix.’
There was a long pause before she asked, ‘Well, can you special order them?’
I love customers.”
Call Gone Wrong
“While working at Comcast, I was in the middle of a review with one of my supervisors when a call came in from another associate that there was an upset customer on the line who needed to have his call escalated. Since this was a review session, my supervisor asked me to take the call and see if I could calm the person down while he reviewed the call notes from the previous reps.
I took the call and started trying to find out what the problem was. The customer started explaining how his service had been off and on for the last month and how pissed off he was and wanted someone out there now to fix his problem. Now mind you, while he was ‘saying’ all this, he was cursing the whole way through.
The unofficial, but written, policy was that a customer was only allowed to curse three times before you were supposed to cut them off and ask them to call back once they had calmed down. My supervisor was listening to this while reviewing the previous notes, and he started telling me I needed to warn the customer. I was really cool about it, but I told my supervisor that I was cool with cursing and could handle it.
I thought, ‘Let me get the caller calmed down and maybe we can fix his problem.’
So my supervisor continued reading the previous notes when he got a call from a floor supervisor and left for a minute.
So I was trying to reason with the customer about when we could actually get a tech out to fix his problem when he completely flipped his lid and started trying to go in on me. It was at this exact moment that my supervisor came back and cut into the call. I had never seen him this pissed off at anyone or anything before. He informed the customer that he was just informed by others that he had been calling the call center and verbally abusing other representatives to the point where two of them were in tears. He informed the customer that at this moment he had better calm himself down and accept the help I was trying to offer him, without another curse, or there would be adverse consequences.
The guy tried to curse my supervisor out, at which point my supervisor informed him, ‘Sir, you will not have to worry about your Comcast service not working ever again. I have just made arrangements with the vice president in charge of technicians in your area to have your service cut off. A technician will be there within the hour to disconnect your line and pick up your equipment. If you are not available to have your equipment picked up, you can drop it off at a service center at your convenience. If the equipment is not returned or is damaged in any way, you will be charged the full $600 for each piece. Furthermore, your account will be locked, and your address will be banned from ever having Comcast service installed again. Do you understand what I am saying to you? Good. Goodbye.’
The call ended.
I just looked at my supervisor, completely shocked. I was just like, ‘You can really do all that?’
‘Yup. I will not have someone abusing my employees like that.’
From then on I called him Superman.”
Drunk Customer
“I spent 22+ years as an auto mechanic, 18 of those years in GM dealerships. On this particular day, I walked into the service department foyer where the advisors looked over the customer’s cars and wrote down details such as mileage, and external damage (as protection against claims on us). It also gave the customer the opportunity to make requests, ask questions, and so on.
I was standing beside the desk of our oldest service advisor as he was explaining why it was taking a little longer than expected to find the cause of his driver’s side headlamp out. Normally it’s a case of replacing the bulb and away you go, but in this case, the bulb’s filament was intact, and the pigtail connector was good, dry, and making good contact with the bulb. I remember groaning a bit as it became obvious that he was becoming frustrated even though he had only been waiting for fifteen minutes or so. As in most technical tasks, you address the most obvious causes first, then if the cause is still not found, you take it further.
The booze that was leeching out of this guy’s pores made it clear that he would not be in a reasonable frame of mind for long. I got a little closer to the advisor’s side as if to give him some sense of support, he was no dummy. As a veteran, he had seen many drunks lose their fecal matter over the years and could see the stains on the wall, but as a professional, he had to maintain a calm demeanor and sense of pride.
As the advisor attempted to explain how we approach the diagnosis of a failed or inoperative bulb, the drunk went from, ‘Hello, how are you?’ to ‘WHY CAN’T YOU FIX MY FREAKING CAR?’
He leaned over, grabbed the waist-high desk in both hands, lifted it clear of the floor, and then slammed it down with a huge boom.
He wanted to simply walk into the shop, get in his car, and drive off. Regardless of the fact that he already owed for some additions that he threw on to the work order (oil change, etc.), our concern was the fact that this booze-hound would have crashed before he got to the next block, we wound up calling the cops and he was taken away to sleep it off. His car was towed so we never got to see him again, thankfully.”