Not all customers are created equal. Some are great, appreciative, and courteous. Others are not. These poor retail workers had to deal with customers who were the bottom of the barrel. As soon as they sensed they weren't getting their way, they got over-the-top angry.
They Refused His Return, So He Wrecked Up The Place
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“I worked as a customer service supervisor at Best Buy 13 years ago. A guy tried to return a busted up car stereo head unit that he’d purchased six months ago. It was abused or had been physically damaged in an accident, plus he didn’t buy the warranty. I told him that we couldn’t do anything. He called me a homophobic slur and I said something like, ‘I’m sorry we can’t help you any further.’ He got mad, threw a chair at me, missed, and told me he’s going to violate me when I left the store. Then he stormed off.”
She Was Always The Customer No One Wanted To Serve
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“This lady, who was always a colossal pain, came in and wanted to buy her husband some video games. She held up Madden ’07 and MLB 2K7 and asked, ‘What is the difference between these two games?’
My response was, ‘Madden is football and the other is baseball.’
Her face went sour and her nose scrunched in what I could only describe as a grown woman pooping her pants as she screamed, ‘No, what is the difference between these two!’ I guess my previous answer wasn’t good enough because she stormed out.”
When A Customer Is This Wrong, It’s Best To Just Leave Them Be
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“I used to work at a skating rink. Part of my job was renting skates. One day, a customer came up to me holding his skates. He said they were too small and he needed to exchange them. No big deal, common problem. I took the skates from him and saw they were a size nine, so I went and grabbed tens. ‘Here, try these.’
He glanced at the skates and threw them back down on the counter. ‘What are you, stupid? I said they were too small!’
‘Er, yes, and those are a size up. Do you think you need a size 11? I can get those for you.’
‘What? No, you effing moron, 10 isn’t bigger than nine.’
I gave him an eight and decided it was a good time to take my break.”
She Absolutely Insisted On Paying Him In “Exact” Change
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“A woman came through the checkout line at my department store with her daughter. The woman was probably in her mid-30s, the daughter was in her early teens. They were buying a bunch of clothes, a few grandma-y home decor pieces, the usual. We were busy, and they had ‘the look,’ so I was trying to get them out of here as quickly as possible. That seemed fine to them, as they had ignored me thus far and were too busy looking bored on their phones to acknowledge my existence.
I can’t remember her exact total, but it was something like $61.78. I saw her going into her wallet and knew she was going to pay in cash. What’s more, she’s decided that she was going to give me exact change. On a busy day. This never turns out well.
So she handed me three 20s and a dollar. Ok, cool. Now she’s digging through her coin pouch. She turned to her daughter to solicit coins from her because she didn’t think she had enough, but she was now determined to give me exact change. So the mom scrounges money from daughter and handed it to me in a big pile. It’s not three quarters and three pennies. No, that would be too easy. So I sifted through the pile of a couple quarters, nickles, dimes, and pennies, and discovered that she handed me 93 cents.
She handed me the wrong amount of money. I knew this was going to get ugly, but I had no choice but to plow forward. ‘Are you sure you want to give me this much?’ I asked, quite politely. ‘You only need to give me 78 cents.’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘I need to get rid of the change.’
Ok, fine. Have it your way, lady. So I punched in the amount into the register and, of course, it spit back to hand her some money back. So I popped open my drawer and started to sift out 15 cents to hand back to her. Now, of course, she’s confused. ‘Why are you handing me money?’ She said. ‘Didn’t I give you exact change?’
‘No, ma’am, you gave me 15 cents extra.’
‘Oh for goodness sake,’ she snapped again. She reached over the counter, pried the money out of my hand, then reached into her wallet for another dollar. She then hands me another dollar and three quarters. ‘There, you do that and give me 42.’
What? She is making zero sense to me. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You take that, and give me 42 back.’ She finally huffs a sigh and reaches forward, grabs the three quarters, again, prying them right out of my hand. ‘Ok,’ she said, ‘Clearly this is too much for you, so I’m not going to bother. Nobody knows how to do change anymore. No wonder you’re working here instead of in school. They don’t take the mentally disabled at college. Just effing forget it. Keep the effing change. Jesus Christ. Unbelievable.’ With that, she left me with $62, grabbed her bags, and stormed out. Her absorbed-in-her-iPhone daughter trailed after her, glancing at me in confusion but saying nothing. The next customer who walked up looked after her as they left and then looked at me. She couldn’t believe it either.”
She Was So Certain She Was Supposed To Get Her Computer From There
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“I worked at Staples as a tech. It was the Monday after Black Friday.
A customer came in and said they were there to pick up their computer. I asked for a name and it didn’t sound familiar, but I checked anyway. Only seven computers were eligible for pickup, but nothing was under her name. Long story short, she did not have a computer with us at all.
Commence the screaming.
She went from ‘sour lemon face’ to full out, red-faced screaming about how terrible we were. Spittle hit my face and her breath was god awful.
After about an hour of off and on screaming, she realized that it was Best Buy, not Staples, that had her computer.
It was probably the worst day of my life, but revenge was mine.