Walking On Eggshells
“We had a customer years ago come in because they wanted to return a carton of eggs. He said the eggs he got out of our fridge were expired and had a month old carton to show it. His receipt for eggs was from a week when we had eggs on sale.
At the time, I had three cases of eggs in my cooler and I would have to restock them 4-6 times a day. I easily went through six dozen cartons of eggs a night. There’s no way, on that week, that he bought expired eggs. There was simply too much turnover for them to have sat that long, especially not for a month.
Beyond that, our corporate policy was not to accept returns on refrigerated items or any incomplete products. Our manager wouldn’t give the guy the refund on the 99 cent thing of eggs, per company policy.
The customer threw a huge fit and it escalated to our district office, where our district manager called the guy to our store and personally gave him a $200 gift card, walked around and talked with the guy, and shopped with him. Then when the guy said he was interested in getting a shingles shot, he made our pharmacy comp him the approximately $270 vaccine on our store’s dime.
This jerk who tried to scam us out of 99 cents got almost $500 worth of crap from us because corporate didn’t have the freaking spine to back up one of our managers who was only following policy.”
The Ridiculous Reason One Customer Called The Police
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“When I was in high school, I worked at a local fast food place. As a cashier, it was pretty common for people to momentarily forget their wallet, phone, or keys at the front after ordering their food. If I noticed something was left behind, I would place it under my cash drawer and wait for the owner to come looking after they ate.
One day, a very grumpy middle-aged man came in. He ordered, I served him and he sat down to eat. After eating, he came up to me and asked if I happened to see any keys. I said that I hadn’t, but I was able to help him look and ask around if any coworkers found anything. After 10 minutes of looking, we couldn’t find them anywhere.
At this point, the place got busy and I had to keep working and helping new customers. It turned out he didn’t believe me and thought I stole the keys to his ancient, beat up Lincoln. He ended up CALLING THE POLICE ON ME, saying that I’m a rotten, little liar who stole his keys and refused to fess up. Meanwhile, I was like 17 and probably the most trustworthy out of all the shady people who did work there. My bosses were on my side and didn’t believe him for a second. When the police came they looked over the tapes and didn’t find anything that would possibly incriminate me.
But that wasn’t enough. The man still thought I took them. The police finally asked him if he may have thrown them away in the garbage. I will never forget the look on his face when he dug through the trash and found his keys at the very bottom. He didn’t even apologize to me,. The police just rolled their eyes and kicked him out.”
For Teachers, The Parents Are Much Worse Than The Students
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“As a high school teacher, you see quite a lot of adult temper tantrums…so much to the point, you wonder how common sense and basic knowhow can completely skip over a person.
I’m not talking about the faculty or administration, I’m talking about the parents. HO-LY-CRAP.
Look, I can deal with a bad kid because that bad kid probably doesn’t know any better. But a bad parent? All I learned is have your documentation and a portfolio ready at all times.
By far, the worst adult tantrum I’ve seen involved a terrible parent who believed her daughter could do zero wrong. It was already bad enough that I’d considered quitting teaching during my first year (happened two years ago).
This parent apparently stirred a lot of bad blood with almost all of the Freshman teachers the year before I had her daughter as a student (I was teaching Sophomores at that time). It was bad enough that even the grade-level principal dreaded dealing with the mom. She had even angered the grade-level counselor to the point that the counselor needed to have an audio record of all phone conversations to protect her job from a possible lawsuit.
So, you can imagine my dread when I had her child that year.
Don’t get me wrong, I had zero problems with the kid. She was very bright (tested as Gifted and Talented). And when she took her medications (she had severe bipolar disorder), she was an active participant in class. Sure, she had a tendency to blurt out inappropriate stuff and believed that every smart-aleck remark she made was comedy gold (it was actually pretty cringey because she would look around for a reaction). But that was most likely due to undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome (note that I said ‘most likely’ because it will explain a lot of the tantrum later). All things considered, she was still a great kid even when her mom wasn’t.
Anyway, the child wasn’t doing so well with her grades in my class. Many times, I took into account that she had some developmental differences and some obvious home issues (she would often come to school wearing the same clothes as the day before). I would even go out of my way to take her assignments a week past the due date. But the student did absolutely nothing. Even when I gave her make-up assignments, extra-credit work, and modified tests, she did absolutely nothing.
She spent most of her class time trying to play her 3DS or trying to watch anime on Netflix. When I took up her phone and/or 3DS (after a few verbal warnings of course, from both myself and the in-class inclusion support teacher), she would sit and quietly pout. At times, she would request to see the counselor and since the district had a ‘no refusal’ rule for counselor visits, I had to let her go, after which she spent the time mostly sitting outside the office because she changed her mind about going in. Even with all of that considered, I couldn’t just give her grades. So, I just had to put in zeros and failing grades with at least two to three pages of documentation for each instance. I actually had a huge section of my accommodation log binder just for her.
Eventually, the mom finally decided to act, despite the numerous emails and phone calls she never returned. The thing is, the kid was in the Math and Science magnet program at the school, and she had to be passing at all times. The kid was also zoned to another school in the district, meaning that if she failed out of the program, she had to go to school on the rougher part of town.
Knowing that, I still did everything I could to make sure she didn’t fail because A) I wasn’t some unsympathetic jerk, and B) I couldn’t just forget the law, cook the books, and fudge the numbers for non-existent grades.
Even with my documentation, the parent called me a number of explicit names and demanded a conference with the grade-level principal present.
After the panicked, one-on-one talk with the principal with all of my documentation, she very reluctantly agreed to have my back at the conference.
Now, given the situation, I can understand why the parent lashed out like that. I was expecting some kind of apologies and a calm, collected conference about what we could do moving forward.
Boy, was I wrong.
The mom walked in looking like she had just gotten out of bed and threw on some sweats. She also looked like she had been drinking all night. I could smell it in her breath, plus a pack-worth of cig smoke from her clothes.
All throughout the meeting, she was wagging her finger and clapping at whomever she was trying to make a point.
Remember how I brought up the kid’s developmental issues? The parent was in complete denial of the Asperger’s. She ranted about how the psych was just conspiring to steal her money because of those ‘stupid depression pills’ and screamed, ‘Imma go off on you if you insist Jesus didn’t make my baby PERFECT.’
After her thirty-minute tirade about how her child ‘wasn’t going to no ghetto high school (even though it wasn’t),’ she asked if she could get some grades entered for the missing assignments. No questions about assignments or instructions. Just how she was going to get some grades entered.
When I and the grade-level principal politely (and very tactfully) declined, she began screaming and stamping her foot on the ground.
If you thought she was insane then, she proved that any type of terrible behavior can only escalate. I’m talking about hitting rock bottom and digging.
She yelled at the principal and screamed, ‘Mother (clap) Eff (clap) You (clap)! Gimme them grades before I bring the district on your freaking behind.’
It was just becoming more clear that the parent was mentally ill, and it was clearly obvious she was a heavy substance abuser. If anything, I felt so bad for the kid, mainly because now I fully understood, at that moment, she had nothing but a terrible parent to come home to every day. The fact that she could calmly say, ‘The weekends aren’t exciting,’ without breaking down spoke volumes about her character.
Long story short, the mom had to be removed under threat of getting arrested. But she would not go out without kicking, screaming, and crying to the heavens. She even threatened to sue the campus police officer for standing in between her and the principal, since she ‘swears to the Lord he freaking touched her.’
Thankfully, the kid got her credit recovery opportunity via a resource English class, and luckily she did the work. It’s just unfortunate that CPS hasn’t taken the kid from the mom and locked that awful woman up for her psychotic parenting.”
No One Gets Special Treatment…Even Famous NFL Players
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“Back when I was working retail, a former NFL player who had been a reasonably big deal in the late 90’s came in with his herd of kids, did some shopping, and headed up front to pay. Once he got up there, he immediately started freaking out because of the ‘line’ (my cashier was checking one person out and there was one person waiting, so it would have taken at most three minutes for him to wait). He stood by the registers literally screaming for a manager. He stomped his feet and waved his arms around like he was trying to get someone’s attention.
Of course, once the manager arrived, the line was already gone. My cashier tried to tell him that she could now check him out, but the guy was too far gone for that to work. The manager also tried to explain to him that there was no line, but the guy was still screaming that he shouldn’t have to wait behind ‘those (racial slurs) over there.’ He then started dropping the ‘Do you know who I am?!’ card. Once the manager FINALLY got through to him that there was no line, the guy immediately started asking what we were going to do to compensate him for what had just happened. Fortunately, that manager actually had a spine and told him that we were going to do literally nothing for him.
After gathering up his kids and throwing the products that he was trying to buy at the manager, the guy stormed out, screaming the whole time that he was going to buy the store and fire us all, that we’d be hearing from his lawyer, and so on.
A couple of years later, he got arrested for doing lines off of a toilet in a nightclub bathroom, which I think explains a lot.”
He Got A Good Deal On His Thanksgiving Turkey…And He Was Furious About It
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“I worked at a local butcher shop. We are one of the few places in my town that got fresh turkeys in yearly for Thanksgiving. Given how small we were and how busy we were, I was working 8 am – 7 pm that entire week while still being a student. How our system worked was you had to call in to reserve a bird and then we would organize our orders by weight. When the birds came in, we would match them to our orders as close as we could but of course, there would be a couple orders that were a .5 pound or so off. I figured this was common sense. You can’t order a 12.3-pound bird and expect that exact weight when you come get it.
We had a middle-aged gentleman come to pick up his bird and he told me his name so I went to retrieve the order. He had ordered something like an 11 or 12-pound turkey. When I got it, I noticed this bird was actually 2 pounds heavier than he wanted, but he got charged for the smaller weight he requested. I explained this, handed him his bag and wished him a happy holiday so he could go pay and be on his way.
Dude looked at the tag and said, ‘Wait, are you freaking serious?’
‘Sorry, is there a problem?’ I asked.
‘Uh, yeah. I don’t know if you can read or not, but this isn’t the weight I ordered.’
I responded, ‘Sir, we can’t match every single order to the exact weight requested, we do our best and charge you for the weight you asked for if you get a larger bird.’
Dude scoffed at me and started raising his voice, ‘I’VE BEEN A LOYAL CUSTOMER HERE FOR 3 YEARS AND THIS IS BULLCRAP. I DEMAND TO TALK TO insert owners name here IMMEDIATELY!’
He started yelling about how incompetent I am that I ‘can’t even match two numbers.’ I was in shock that this dude was yelling at me for getting a larger bird for cheaper than what he asked for. Luckily, the owner actually loved to put guys in their place when they were behaving like children and told him to either leave and never come back or thank me for helping him.
He stormed out like the freaking child he is and we ended up with an extra turkey for sale. Funny thing is, he came back right before close and apologized. As I mentioned above, I had worked several days 12+ hours each day. I wasn’t in the mood and didn’t even acknowledge him until he said he’s ready to pay for the bird. I gave him the biggest grin I could muster and informed him I sold it to someone. He walked out shaking his head and muttering under his breath and never came back.”
Apparently Closing Times Don’t Apply To This Guy
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“I used to work at a large event stadium that housed several of the state’s sports teams. I can’t remember which team was playing (I think basketball), but it was definitely New Year’s Eve and I had been assigned to the private suites (the hoity-toity rooms that the owners of the teams and various companies use to schmooze clients and order food at 5 times the normal price).
We had been explicitly clear that the suites would not be open until midnight. Guests could go down to one of the large event rooms where there was food/drinks/games/etc, but the suites were closed by 10 pm. We sent out emails explaining this, there were flyers left in the room with a reminder and directions to the festivities, and we were made to remind each guest beforehand, face to face, to avoid any confusion. Needless to say, the staff wanted to get out of there early enough to enjoy the holiday themselves, so we all made sure to be on top of this.
I did this with all of my suites and they nodded in agreement except for one guy, let’s call him Entitled Man-Baby (or EMB). When I politely reminded EMB that the suites would be closed at 10 pm, he instantly looked over at his friends and said, ‘Yeah, we’ll see about that,’ and walked away without a word to me. I tried to press the matter, but he refused to look at me. Eventually, his friend just nodded and shooed me away. Sure enough, when 9:55 came rolling around, they still had their stuff everywhere and were opening new drinks and trying to order more. I politely reminded him that we would be closing in five minutes and he said, ‘Uh, we’re not going anywhere. I’m very close friends with insert the name of the sports announcer here and we’re not leaving for a long while.’
Me: ‘Sir, I’m sorry there seems to be a misunderstanding. The suites are closing in five minutes but we’ll be more than happy to show you to the New Years Event just a few minutes away.
EMB: ‘WE ARE NOT LEAVING!’
And again, he just turned away and refused to acknowledge or look at me.
That jerk refused to leave for an hour and a freaking half. My boss came to nicely explain to him, my boss’s boss came to nicely explain to him, then security came to explain it to him. At that point, his friends couldn’t contain him any longer. He was exactly like the quintessential image of a spoiled child throwing a tantrum as he clenched his fists, stomped his foot and held his breath until his face was red. Then he let out the highest pitch and loudest freaking sound that I have ever heard come out of a human being: ‘I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE. WE KNOW [SPORTS ANNOUNCER]. I WAS PROMISED THAT I COULD STAY HERE AND I’M NOT LEAVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNG!!!!!!’
It was almost worth it just to see the faces of his friends drop in utter disbelief. They had been enjoying the slightly silly ego trip he had been having, but this was over the top. The entire room just stood silent for a solid 30 seconds before my boss’s boss said, ‘Yeah, okay…’ She turned and walked out. Shortly after, the infamous Sports Announcer guy walked in himself and started apologizing to EMB
Announcer: ‘Oh, it’s good to see you. So sorry for the mix-up, I have a nice private room waiting for you, come with me. So sorry…’
Those jerks left at 11:45. I spent midnight on the train headed back home.”
The Pressure To Impress A Client Really Got To Him
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“I was a part-time graphic designer and they stuck me with making this training CD presentation for a client.
I basically had to learn to code HTML to do the thing, figure out how to get it to autorun, how to organize the pages, organize and build ALL the graphics for it as well as edit this small amount of video they wanted to be embedded in the presentation.
The only thing I could not figure out how to do was make the video auto-run when the page loaded…so I just had to have a ‘click to start video’ button on it.
My boss flipped out. He started panicking, ‘The…the client is coming to see this later today! AND THIS IS IT FOR THEM! IF THIS VIDEO DOESN’T AUTOMATICALLY PLAY, THAT’S IT, IT’S OVER! THEY’LL CANCEL THE WHOLE PROJECT!’
He started crying in front of me. This was a grown, mid-50s man, I’m talking about here…and I was a 19-year-old college student at his first job.
The dude finally turned to his business partner, sobbing, ‘BILL! WHAT…WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO, BILL?!’
And Bill just looked at him like he was freaking crazy and said, ‘We tell them to push the dang button, Steve, get a freaking grip!’
In the end, the client didn’t even notice the video didn’t autoplay…they just clicked the button to play it and they never thought twice about it.”
He Assumed There Were No Witnesses
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“My (psycho) ex-boss thought he was alone in the office one night and Excel chose that time to mess with him. It wouldn’t calculate a formula correctly (couldn’t be the fact he didn’t input it correctly, no), so he absolutely LAUNCHED into a swearing tirade at maximum volume. I froze in my cubicle, afraid to touch my keyboard and inadvertently announce to him he, in fact, wasn’t alone. He kept trying to re-do the cell, and every time it failed, he would get more and more belligerent. His voice started rising higher and higher while I remained frozen. Eventually, he started freaking crying. He blubbered about this stupid program and I was now panicking. I couldn’t walk out because the door was right next to his office. I couldn’t make a noise. I was stuck.
He decided to get up and take a walk, and that’s when his tirade paused dead in its tracks. My eyes shot to my desk lamp. Crap. It was on. Then I heard footsteps approaching. Crapcrapcrap. I scanned my desk. An idea flashed into my head. My hands shot out, grabbed my headphones, and threw them onto my head in one quick movement. I started bobbing my head when he walked around the corner and said, ‘Well that was a bit embarrassing!’
I ignored him, facing my screen, pretending the music was blaring.
He tapped me on the shoulder and I acted all shocked. I took off my headphones and faced him. He was sweating. He said again, ‘Well that was a bit embarrassing – did you hear my tirade?’ I told him I did not. My music, just too loud, you see.
We talked a bit, whatever. End of the story. I’ve never heard in my life a hissy fit like that, and I hope I never do again. It went so far past amusing, past cringy, to downright scary.”
He Wasted Everyone’s Time Over Five Cents
“Ages ago, I worked at a post office for minimum wage. In the post office, there was a photocopy machine that clients can pay to make photocopies before sending them in the mail. This was a service provided by a third party and we had signs saying as such. The provider even had a sign up saying ‘Call this number if you have problems with this machine.’
Cue this man coming in to mail something. He wanted photocopies. Not a problem, so I pointed to the machine across from me. He put money in and started copying. At some point, he started cursing under his breath. He walked up to the counter and started complaining that the machine ate 5 cents. Yes, 5 pennies worth of money. One-twentieth of a dollar. He was yelling and demanding the money back. I told him there is a number on the machine and I can’t just give him money from the business.
He threw an absolute hissy fit. He kept going on and on and refused to call the number. He asked for a supervisor. No problem, I didn’t make enough to deal with this. I called her over and she looked at me and went, ‘Can we give him the money back?’ I said no. She looked back at the client and said, ‘Sorry, but we can’t give you the money back. Call the number.’
He spent at least 20 minutes with the supervisor. He refused to leave, so I called security. Security showed up and literally said the same thing. He still refused to call the number.
Security physically carried him out. He kept shouting at the store manager on the way out. All of this over 5 pennies. He refused to dedicate even a minute to call the number on the machine, yet he complained while wasting almost an hour in the store.”
Tourism Produces A Lot Of Tantrums
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“Back in my teens, I worked on a guided tour in my city. The tour took place in a small car designed to look like a train and people would sit in wagons behind it while it drove around as I explained stuff about our city.
We also provided a shuttle service at set times to and from a parking place for a theme park nearby.
Outside of these times, we would not give rides because we weren’t paid at all.
We drove the whole morning until 12 and then we drove from 4 to 8 pm.
I experienced many tantrums, as one does in tourism, but one of them I can still see as clear as day.
There was a family of six people, who approached us while we were off duty. The ‘trains’ were all parked. The father of the family approached me and said that they would like to go back to their car. I explained that we did not drive during those hours and that we did specify that during the ride over here. He called me a liar.
My boss was in the train reading a magazine and this guy walked towards him all huff and puff. So my boss opened the windows and asked if he could help him. The dude asked the same question, my boss gave the same answer.
This guy just flipped his lid, he started yelling and screaming like he was seven. He was jumping on the train and off, punching the windows, all the while turning red with tears running down his face.
His wife in the meantime chose to walk away with the children, looking all embarrassed.
An old man who was with them calmly walked toward the man having a tantrum and said, ‘Get down.’ The guy kept screaming at me, my boss, the old man, and anyone else who came near him.
This old man walked closer to the guy and suddenly jumped up, and grabbed the screaming man by his ear and dragged him from the train. The guy screamed, ‘Sorry Dad, sorry.’
This was a grown man, behaving like he was seven. It still stumps to this day that some people are like that.”