Customers complain about everything, but these are some of the most ridiculous stories employees have heard while working in retail.
He Claimed He Was Diabetic But…
“I used to work at Tim Hortons throughout university. We had a guy come in once very angry because we messed up his coffee when he came through the drive-thru. Instead of sweetener, we added sugar. This wouldn’t have been a huge issue to fix and generally, people are level-headed and realize that mistakes do happen. However, he was throwing a hissy fit claiming he was a diabetic and that a spoonful of sugar would have surely killed him had he ingested more than one gulp of the coffee. Because he was freaking out like a rabid dog, my manager stepped in and offered him any other item on the menu for free (because he wouldn’t accept just a redo of the coffee.) Buddy decides he wants a dozen donuts. No problem. I pack up the dozen, hand it to him. He then proceeds to eat not one, not two, but THREE lard-sugar-fat glazed donuts in front of my eyeballs even though he just claimed he was severely diabetic.”
This Woman Got Angry Over The Smell Of…
“I used to work in an F.Y.E. (music and DVD store) in the mall, and we had a tiny employee-only bathroom in the back office. It wasn’t available to the public, but every once and a while you’ll get someone doing the pee-dance that can’t make it to the public restroom 200 feet away. There was a woman that came in and used the restroom, then DEMANDED a discount on her DVDs because, and I quote, ‘The soap in your bathroom made my hands smell like flowers. I HATE when my hands smell like flowers. You need to offer a citrus soap option to your customers.’ I tried explaining that it wasn’t a public restroom, we can choose whatever soap we’d like and that none of this had any bearing on her DVD purchase. She didn’t care. After a half hour of this nonsense, my manager just gave her a 10% discount to get her out of the store for a whopping savings of $3.50. I absolutely despised dealing with customers in retail around the holidays. This lady was ridiculous, but if you ask other holiday retail employees I’m sure this is mild in comparison.”
I Didn’t Change A Single Thing
“Used to work at Starbucks. A lady ordered a mocha and I forgot to add the mocha syrup. Dumb mistake so I fixed it of course. She put it back on the bar a couple minutes later and said, ‘It doesn’t taste right, I want a new one.’ Okaaay I thought, don’t know what else I can do, but sure, I’ll make a new one. I get started on it and she goes to the restroom. She gets back from the restroom before I’m done making it but sees her old drink on the bar that I hadn’t taken back yet and thinks it’s her new one. She looks at and says, ‘Ah, it looks better already!’ She takes a big drink and says, ‘Now see, that’s perfect’ and then leaves before I can tell her I didn’t do a single thing.”
Getting Crabby Over Cabbage
“We had a sale on organic cabbage for 85 cents a pound, and a week later a woman came in claiming we had our cabbage on sale for 25 cents a pound but she had been charged 85 cents a pound. I told her it had been on sale for 85 cents a pound but I would call the produce department to find out for sure, and sure enough, it had been on sale for 85 cents a pound, and now it was about $1.79 a pound. She wouldn’t have it. She threw the biggest fit ever! ‘Even if I’m wrong, you should give me a dollar back! The customer is always right!’ And I’m just like, what? My assistant manager overhears her yelling (since the entire store could hear her yelling) and decides to appease her by giving her a dollar and a $10 gift card for her troubles. The assistant manager later tells me that no one should have a bad day over a dollar – you know, unless you’re employed by the store. Awarding bad behavior is ridiculous, I wish everyone would unite and not give in to the ridiculous demands given by terrible customers.”
We Were Too Efficient For Her
“I used to be a mechanic. Lady calls in one day saying that she needs a new radiator. She has it in her car and is on the way to get it replaced. Apparently, the shop she trusts diagnosed it, but we were closer and she really needed to get it done. She emphasized several times that she was in a rush. As in: ‘I’M IN A RUSH! I NEED YOU GUYS TO GET THIS DONE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE! I HAVE SO MANY IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO! BLAH BLAH BLAH! HOW MUCH IS THE LABOR GOING TO COST ME?’
My boss, the quick thinking guy that he is, pulled up her info and told her that the radiator took two and a half hours so it was going to be around $250 in labor. She said that was OK and that she’d be at there in around 20 minutes. Now usually we were a pretty busy shop, but that day we were deader than a nun’s Friday night. So the two head techs flipped a coin to see who was going to get paid, and they and I all were going to pitch in anyway because we wanted to get this lady in and out and we were bored as anything.
So the lady pulls in, my manager and head tech go out to greet her, and she tosses the keys at them and says, ‘Get it done, ASAP!’ So the head tech pulls it in. In an awesome display of teamwork and skill, we take a still-steaming radiator and replace it with the brand new one she had within an hour. So the head tech pulls the car around and we go in with smiling faces to talk to her and thank her for her business and generally be proud of ourselves. Alas, this was not to be.
The lady was mad. Super mad. As in she was screaming at our manager about how we cheated her, we screwed her over, and we were gonna get sued by her lawyer husband, etc. So he, of course, relayed to her that we were having a very slow day and she expressed a need for urgency. We did our best and had 3 techs working on her car to get it out as fast as possible. He showed her the old radiator and reminded her that she watched us pull the old radiator out and put the new one in. She screamed that she wasn’t paying any money because we had obviously cheated her on money since we did the job too fast.
My manager, who is normally a very kind and understanding guy, had experienced quite enough of this lady’s attitude. He told her that she had two choices: 1) He could call the cops and tell them that she refused to pay for services rendered 2) (With a devilish smile on his face) We could replace the radiator with the old one free of charge. She decided to take the 2nd option. We were sitting just outside the waiting area listening to her wailing. Our manager comes back out and says, ‘Hey, you guys want lunch? You know that Chinese place you guys like so much, but it takes forever for them to get you your food? Why don’t you guys go there and eat in, my treat.’ He hands us a wad of money and tells us to go. After we left (this is according to him, but I believe him due to her evil glare whenever we came back), he went back in and informed her that all the techs went on their mandatory lunch break and wouldn’t be back for an hour. After we came back, funny enough, it took us two hours to put that old leaky radiator back in.”
Fake Commercial
“The opening of Tropic Thunder had a bunch of fake commercials. Keep this in mind. One lady came out of the movie, furious, wanting to talk to a manager. Not knowing the problem, and not wishing to get yelled at, we quickly called one over and hid off in a corner where we could hear the conversation (like responsible employees). Somewhere along the line, we hear something about an offensive commercial for a product that ‘YOU sell in your concession stand’ with ‘black girls half naked shoving their booties in my face’ and ‘everything dripping to the floor.’ The manager was a little confused, and asked her the name of the product. ‘Bust-a-nut Bar! I can’t believe you’d sponsor such filth to be sold.’ We all burst out laughing. It was the fake commercial.”
Say Cheese
“I once worked at a grocery store, and often at the customer service counter, which typically handles refunds, exchanges, complaints, and other odds and ends like cigarettes and lottery tickets. This man comes up with a block of cheese still in its package. I ask how can I help him. Then, our conversation goes something like this: Customer: This is the wrong cheese. Me: Alright. Would you like to exchange it for another kind of cheese or would you prefer a refund? Customer: I don’t want it. Me: Ok, I’ll put through the refund for you. [I proceed to take the cheese, enter the refund into the computer, and hold out the money we owe him.] Customer: What? Where’s my cheese? I don’t want a refund. Me: So, you want your cheese back? Customer: Yes. [I proceed to ring the cheese back into the computer, put the money back in the till, and give him his cheese back] Customer: Where’s my money? Me: You said you wanted your cheese instead of a refund, so I rang it through again. Customer: But it’s the wrong kind of cheese. Me: So, you want to exchange it? Customer: No. I don’t want to bother with it. I’m just telling you it’s the wrong kind. Me: So… what do you want me to do? This still perplexes me, but he ended up throwing a little hissy fit and took his wrong cheese home again.”
She Gave This To A Horse
“A woman comes through the drive thru lane and orders stuff. One of the things is a large diet coke. She pulls around to the window and I look over to see she is driving a full size van with a live miniature horse in the back. I hand her the diet coke and she gives it to the horse. I’m thinking okay that’s weird. I turn away to make sure her order is ready. I turn back around and she is livid. I ask her what’s wrong and she screams at me and throws a broken coke cup at me. She tells me off ranting about how low quality our cups were. Apparently the horse broke the cup and it spilled everywhere. I’m like really you gave it to a HORSE. What did you think was gonna happen? The cup even had dirt and hay on it when I got it back.”
Her Bunny Did WHAT To Her Computer?
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“While working at the Apple Store, I was assisting another customer at the ‘Brilliant Saloon’ when I heard a rather angry customer yelling at someone delivering some bad news. I finished up and decided to go help her out and inquired about her problem. She said she was told she was going to have to pay a very large amount of money to repair her laptop due to liquid damage, but it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t think she should have to pay for the repair. I was intrigued so I inquired who’s fault it was (dumb question, it’s always the company’s fault) and she immediately blamed the design of the laptop. Explaining that her ports are always open and her bunny likes them a little too much, he made a mess inside one. I immediately assumed the bunny peed inside the laptop, so I began to say that while it’s unfortunate the bunny peed inside the ethernet port when she stopped me. ‘He didn’t pee inside the port!’ she said indignantly, ‘He had his way with it! Gosh!’ I bit my lip just shy of really hurting myself to stop from blasting out loud with laughter. She went on to complain that if the ports were covered this never would have happened, and that is all our fault demanding that we charge her nothing to fix the laptop. I somewhat calmly explained why ports are accessible, and that she will still be responsible for the cost regardless. That’s when she asked for a manager. I very quickly ran to the back room to laugh, and inform my manager of the situation. Needless to say, she said the cost stands and the lady took her ‘LoveBook’ away with her. I can only assume it is now a bunny toy.”
The Most Ludicrous Complaint Ever Received
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“I worked a 9.5 hour shift on a very, very busy overnight at the convenience store. 7 AM finally arrives, I clock out, grab my keys and head to my car across the parking lot. I still have my name tag on. An older woman comes up to me and asks me if I’d like to go to church with her. I politely decline, and tell her my wife was waiting for me at home. She then asks what church I go to (which is not an altogether uncommon question in the South). I tell her that I prefer not to give out information about my life outside of work (even to my coworkers). I then said goodbye and thanked her for her offer (it takes me a bit to get out of customer service mode, which is a bit irritating) and went home. Three weeks later, at my one on one meeting with my manager he tells me that someone complained to corporate about me, asked if I remembered a customer inviting me to church, and handed me the complaint (which I still have hanging on my fridge):
Dear [Company], I want to express my concern regarding one of your employees. He works Saturday overnight at [Location], and his name tag said [Name]. On August 26, as he was leaving, I met him in the parking lot, and invited him to come with me to church. While he was polite enough, he declined, and then refused to answer me when I asked him which church he attended. It is clear to me that he is an atheist, and I must ask that he be fired. It is a terrible thing to be giving non-believers jobs, when there are plenty of good Christian-folk who do not have them. Thank you for your time, [Name].
I looked up from reading it, and even my manager was shaking his head at it. The response from my company was something along the lines of offering her a gift card, apologizing for the inconvenience, and dancing around the issue that they could not fire me for not going to church with a customer. My manager’s response was ‘good job at being called polite in a complaint, and remember not to do that thing again.’ ‘What thing?’ ‘I have no idea.’ Still the most ludicrous complaint I’ve ever received.”
She Left In Silence
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“When I was working at a hardware store, I overheard my manager and a little old lady’s conversation an aisle over. Manager: ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ Lady: ‘I hope so, you’re all out of my size of air filter!’ Manager: ‘Which size was that, ma’am?’ Lady: ’10×20.’ Manager: ‘Let me see here.’ Manager looks around the shelf. ‘Here you go.’ Hands the Lady a 20″x10″ air filter. Lady: ‘I said I need 10″x20″!’ Manager keeps quiet, takes back air filter, holds it out in front of him, rotates it 90 degrees, and hands it back to her with the widest grin. Lady leaves in silence, with the 20″x10″.”
This Woman Wouldn’t Believe Her Son Was…
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“I used to work tech support for a cell phone company and we would get calls from people wanting to argue over billing issues because they just refused to believe some of the download charges on their bills. Once a woman was telling me that there is no way in the world her son was downloading ‘Hot Girls’ and ‘Wild Cheerleader’ wallpapers on his phone because he is only 16 and 16-year-old boys do not know of such things. I actually said, ‘Ma’am, I can tell you from PERSONAL experience, 16-year-old boys are looking at much worse than PG-13 wallpapers on their phones.’ She refused to even ask her son about it, so she got no credit.”
She Drove This Far Without An Oil Change And Then…
“I used to work at a lube oil change franchise and we had some incredibly stupid people pull in. My favorite was The Chick With the Volvo. It was a slow day. We didn’t have anything going on, and this woman pulls up in a fairly nice Volvo.
She pulls up to a bay, we ask her what she wants, and she says an oil change. We get her info, take down the mileage (50,467, I will never forget that number), and pull her car into the bay while my manager talks up the extra services. She gets over the pit, I pop the hood and open the oil cap. Black, billowing smoke comes out. I call down to my pit guy, ask him to pop the oil pan. He starts coughing. Black, billowing smoke comes up from the pit. I get my boss, and tell him we’ve got a problem. He comes out, sees the smoke, and says, ‘Don’t touch a THING.’
He walks back into the office, and I follow out of curiosity. He looks at the customer and says, ‘Ma’am, there seems to be a very serious issue with your car. You might want to get hold of whoever did your last oil change and get their info for a warranty claim. Who did your last oil change?’ This lady looks him square in the eye and says, ‘Nobody. This is my first scheduled oil change.’
We both stare at her in shock. She’d gone over FIFTY THOUSAND miles without an oil change. My boss stares at her some more while slowly trying to explain that cars are supposed to be serviced every 3k-5k miles. This lady starts screaming at him; who does he think he is, he’s not a mechanic (he’s ASE certified powertrain and electrical), he ruined the car, it even says so in the owner’s manual that it’s every 50k! Well now.
So, we ask her to get the manual. She does, looking all smug, like, ‘Now I’ve got these idiots,’ written all over her face. She whips it open, looks for the maintenance schedule, and finds the part we’re all waiting for. She’s not letting us look at it yet, and we can tell reality hit her because her face falls a bit. Then, she has the nerve to tell us that we’re wrong anyway.
My boss looks at her and says, ‘Lady, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna pop the cap back on, and leave the FACTORY FILTER on your car. We’re going to top off your washer fluid, and we’re not going to charge you anything. Then, you can go down to the Volvo dealership and tell them what you did to their $55k paperweight, have a nice day, get out of my shop.’
The kicker is, we got a call from the dealership a couple of days later, and the service writer is laughing his butt off. Says this really mean lady came in and complained that our shop had ruined her car. They took one look at it, figured out what happened, and said they were going to have to charge her for a crate engine. SHE COMPLAINED TO THE SERVICE MANAGER that they weren’t going to cover it under warranty!”
She Told Me I Traumatized Her Kids
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“I manage the front desk at a recreational center in a relatively affluent area with lots of luxury SUV-driving, stay-at-home moms. One day a mom called up and ripped me a new one over the phone, claiming the swim lesson teachers somehow didn’t have her kids on their class roster on the first day of class, thus we were wasting her time and money and (somehow?) traumatizing her kids.
I checked with the teachers, who informed me that those kids WERE on the roster, but they hadn’t shown up for class. The second day of class comes and goes, and the teachers tell me the two kids didn’t show up again. So, being the semi-decent customer service provider that I am, I take it upon myself to call the woman back and try to figure out what was going on.
Turns out, after some investigation, she’d been taking her kids to an entirely different, unaffiliated facility all the way across town. Now, rather than thank me for taking the time to follow up and make sure her kids didn’t lose any more class days, she gets embarrassed and tries to blame me and my facility, claiming it’s our fault for ‘offering classes too similar’ to the other facility, AND gets mad that we are ‘so much farther away’ that she can’t possibly be expected to actually come to the place SHE registered at (our address is plastered all over our website and all over all of our class schedules, you can’t mess that up).
THEN she gets mad that I won’t refund her money per our very publicly published refund policy (even though she admitted the teachers at the other facility were letting her kids into their swim classes for free, probably to avoid the ire I was now receiving), continuously refusing to admit that she was the one who messed up AND despite the fact that I told her we were still holding her kids’ spots in the classes. And don’t even get me started on every parent who thinks their five-year-old is the next Michael Phelps. Some parents, man.”
They Claimed Their Pizza Would Taste Like…
“I am a manager at a local restaurant. It was a pretty busy night, especially for pizzas. It was clear to customers ordering at the counter than we had our hands full. Two women came in with two kids, a young boy and girl. They ordered 2 specialty pizzas and only those 2 pizzas. They said they would be dining in, and the kids were commenting about how hungry they were. I told them it would be just a bit of a wait but that we would bring the pizzas out as soon as they were ready.
The women sat within eyesight of our pizza maker and the oven. They could see the cooks and the pizzas coming in and out of the oven. Again, it was a pretty hectic night and it wasn’t hard to overlook something and make a small mistake. Our pizza maker misread the ticket for their order and thought it was to-go so he had two pizza boxes open and ready to put them in. I saw him doing it but didn’t know it was for their order, otherwise I would have said hey those are for here. He took them out of the oven, slid them each into a box, and put them on top of the oven.
WITHIN 30 SECONDS of this happening, one of the women approached the counter and got the pizza guy’s attention and inquired about the ticket number asking if they had been their pizzas. He checked and saw that it was their order for here and sincerely apologized, saying he would bring them right out. The woman said ok that’s fine, and sat back down. He got out two stands and trays and put the pizzas on them, still piping hot and delicious and melty, even my mouth was watering.
Another server and I carried both pizzas out and set them on their table, and the kids were so excited that the food was there and they were reaching out for it. One of the ladies pushed their hands back and told them to wait, and I watched her sit there and poke the pizza with her fingers. I asked if everything was ok and she said in the rudest tone, ‘Ummm, yeah, we’re not going to eat these.’ I asked why and she said, ‘Because they’re going to taste like box now.’
I couldn’t believe it. I asked her to clarify what was wrong because I couldn’t really comprehend that she was actually saying this, and she said that the pizzas were both going to taste like cardboard because they had been in a box for not even 30 seconds. She didn’t even bother to taste it. The kids started crying and asking her to keep them but she demanded that I take them back and remake them. I had to grit my teeth and bring them back, and they made those kids wait another 20 minutes for them because by that time there were even more pizza orders our pizza guy had to get to. I couldn’t believe how snooty they were, hundreds of pizzas are made to go daily and picked up in boxes and enjoyed at home, how could you possibly believe being in one for not even a minute destroys it?”
“There’s Always A Catch With You”
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“I work at a phone store and just yesterday a customer came in ticked off about the bad service one of our other locations gave her. Because the other location was apparently so busy and made her wait, they generously gave her a $25 dollar gift card or a ‘second chance’ card. So she’s in my store returning a phone she didn’t like for a different phone and the total comes to $0.00. Then she says ‘And I want to use this gift card, too.’ Me: ‘Um, the total is zero dollars so there’s nothing to use it for.’ Her: ‘Well then why did you guys give me this?!’ Me: ‘Well it never expires and you can use it for anything we sell to get it for free.’ Her: ‘But I can’t use it today? See?! There’s always a catch with you guys.’ Me: ‘Well, no. It’s not a catch, its just we gave you money to spend on something that costs money. This does not. I can take it back if you don’t want it.’ Her: ‘No, whatever I will keep it.'”
“As Soon As We Heard Her Voice We…”
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“When I worked drive-thru, we would have someone (a female and her boyfriend) come through almost every night and order a large iced vanilla coffee with extra cream, extra sugar, extra vanilla. We would hand it to her exactly as she ordered it and then two seconds later she would come up and have her boyfriend tell us that it was made wrong. We would make it again, slightly differently. They would come through again and be all angry at us so we would make it how we did the first time (aka the correct way). Then they would leave. It got to the point where as soon as we heard her voice we made up three iced coffees. Two to act as decoys, and the third to hand out. All made exactly the same. She didn’t keep the other coffees either, we made sure to take those away.”
He Tried To Return A Used…
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“I work at customer service at a home improvement store. A few months ago, a customer brought in a poop-smeared toilet seat. He claimed that he had purchased it this way, but didn’t discover the hershey stains until he had guests visit a week after the transaction. He claimed it was ‘egregious’ that we would sell disgusting merchandise, and that we owed him money and an apology. In diplomatic customer service fashion, we explained to him that we could not return it due to the health hazards associated with it. He proceeded to shout at everyone at the return desk and the manager that had walked over (after seeing the commotion). He then demanded that we throw the toilet seat away for him. We explained that we could not do that for him since it was a health hazard. We explained to him that he needed to throw it away himself. He stormed out of the building yelling obscenities. A few minutes later, the store janitor came to customer service informing us that there was a toilet seat on the trash can outside. Our trash cans sit outside of the main entrances/exits and have ash trays on the top of them. The disgruntled customer had laid the toilet seat so that the ash tray was in the center of the seat, exposing the poop stains to entering customers. The coup de grace was that the customer left a note on the seat which read, ‘If it looks like poop, they won’t take it back.'”
“I Always Win”
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“I used to work at Mikasa (back when they had actual stores). I’m ringing up a customer, she uses her 20% off any one full price item coupon that they mailed out when you’re on the mailing list (the coupon value is important here). Next woman comes up with a $2 thing from clearance and demands that I give her a coupon to use. I try to diffuse with, ‘If you sign up for the mailing list you’ll get them pretty regularly.’ But NO, she wants THAT coupon and she wants it NOW for this item. I try to explain that I cannot rescan that coupon (or pull it out of the drawer) AND she can’t use it on her purchase anyway since it’s for a regular price item, not clearance.
She loses it, starts yelling at me that she’s going to get me fired, she’ll have everyone in the store out of a job, she’s going to have the whole operation shut down (over 40 cents, just let that be known, this is happening because I’m denying her a whopping 40 cents off of her 2 DOLLAR item). I try to explain that I can’t give her the coupon, I can’t I don’t have the power to, I’m just a cashier (though I was seriously tempted to just pay for the thing myself if it would make her leave). She is still losing it, her friend is pretending she doesn’t know her. My manager comes over and gives the lady the senior discount of 10% knocking a whopping 20 cents off her massive purchase, she smiles smugly at me and goes, ‘SEE I always win.’ Okay lady get down with your bad self, you just accosted a minimum wage employee over 20 cents and looked crazy to everyone in a crowded store. So yes, you’re the winner here.”
He Put This In A Washing Machine…
“I used to work for Sears and a co-worker told me this story. He sold a top loading washer to gentleman and a 5 year service agreement. The service agreement covered most things except customer negligence. He came back into the store about a week later, absolutely livid. He was complaining that the washer wasn’t working correctly, it was all off-balanced, and the drum was ruined. So a service call was scheduled for the technicians to figure out what the problem was. A few days later when the technicians went out to his house, they were shocked at what they found. Now this is according to the technicians as none of us were there, but the drum was cracked, and the machine itself barely ran. Apparently it in no way resembled a brand new washer. The technicians refused to do any type of repairs or order new parts for free (which is part of the service agreement), citing evidence of customer abuse. The next day the man returns to the store even more mad than he was before. During a long argument between the man, my co-worker, and department manager, the man revealed that the first thing he did with the washer was wash a bowling ball. Apparently he did not realize that would be bad for the machine. His service agreement, of course, was void after such a blatant display of negligence. And of course he did the customary vow to never shop at our store again.”
She Really Wanted To Leave A Tip
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“During my sophomore year of college I worked at a Baskin Robbins. While I worked there I gained a little reputation as being the guy who gave double scoops for the price of one. Everyone loved it because let’s face it, Baskin Robbins is a rip off for the scoop size.
Every Friday night around 7:30, wave after wave of parents accompanied by their loud messy children would come in and order copious amounts of ice cream. After about a month of working the same shift I began to recognize the regulars. One larger fellow with his family would come in and order the Banana Royale, with just about everything on it. I mean everything! Nuts, gummy bears, caramel, peanut butter, various fruits, whatever we had. If we didn’t have it out at the front, he would ask if I could check the back for whatever he wanted. Being the nice guy I always checked, even if I knew that the store didn’t have any.
During one late Friday shift around 9 PM, the larger fellow showed up with his family and ordered the usual. While him and his family ate quietly in the corner, a woman (who clearly had been drinking) entered the store and proceeded to shout that she was ‘here.’ After announcing to the world that she had arrived, she continued to scan the thirty-one flavors. I swear she must have been out of her mind because she took about 15 minutes to decide that she wanted strawberry cheesecake, a more popular flavor. Once she had finished ordering her ice cream she asked if she could give me a tip. I directed her attention towards the small tip jar which had been filled throughout the shift. She looked at it for 20 seconds, and then she checked her wallet. After realizing that she didn’t have any cash she asked if we accepted tips through debit or credit. Unfortunately, the Baskin Robbins I worked at had a policy to not accept tips through any means besides cash. This was because of previous workers stealing from the people using cards to tip.
The woman in her tipsy state attempted to convince me that our store policy allowed it. I politely stated that I was fine with not receiving a tip (let me make it clear the room is filled with children and their parents). A brief moment of silence; it was as if she didn’t comprehend what I had said. The woman then erupted with anger saying that our store accepted tips through debit or credit. She then proceeded to scream ‘screw you’ and ‘I’m reporting this to your manager.’ For two minutes she cursed me out; going through the entire list of vulgar words. I stood there listening to every word, attempting to calm her down, while the entire room was in silence. Some parents were beginning to approach the woman.
At the third ‘screw you’ I was done with being nice. In the deepest and harshest tone, which I reserve for the jerks of the world, I bellowed ‘GET OUT.’ She screamed, ‘What’s your manager’s phone number?’ I ignored her request and continued to tell the lady off. I went through everything that she did wrong; explaining that it was inappropriate behavior, especially in the presence of children. The whole room was silent; even the woman was stunned. In a more calm and collected tone, I said again ‘get out.’ She collected her things, walked to the door, turned around and screamed ‘screw you’ one last time as loud as she could. Once she left all the parents thanked me for halting the verbal diarrhea that had assaulted everyone’s ears. As I began to start closing the store the larger fellow I spoke of earlier approached the counter and put an extra two dollars in the tip jar; then proceeded to say that I had ‘done good.’ It was single-handedly the proudest moment I’ve ever had while working at a minimum wage job.”
Throw In A Little Something Extra
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“I worked at an artisan pizza joint for a few years. I believe it was designed so that people with dietary restrictions could enjoy pizza too. We had this one woman who would call almost every other Friday for a delivery. This woman would make it incessantly clear to me that she had both dairy and garlic allergies, as well as an aversion to several vegetables when she called every other Friday. So, every other Friday she would order a large, no cheese, no sauce, pepperoni pizza. Just crust and pepperoni. Then, like a chip was implanted in her brain, she would call me 20 minutes after the driver dropped off the pizza to complain. Apparently, a crust and pepperoni only pizza is too bland. She couldn’t understand why we could never do ‘a little something extra because she was a repeat customer.’ I’ve inquired several times and I still don’t know what that means. She pulled this stunt to the point where my manager could no longer offer her any more apology discounts. I would just apologize and say something like ‘we will try better next time.’ I quit that job more than a year ago and still don’t know why we put up with her.”
She Made Up The Whole Scenario
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“I was working in a restaurant a few years ago. It was pretty late after closing, and I was waiting for the last table to finish eating so I could clean up (not my table). In the meantime, I was doing some other closing work on the other side of the restaurant, talking to a co-worker, and glancing occasionally over my shoulder to see if they had left yet. The lady at the table comes up to me, demanding to see the manager. I say okay, not really grasping how angry she is, and go get him. She begins to rant about how my co-worker and I were laughing about how she and her friends were ‘dogs.’ In actual fact, my co-worker and I were talking about how he was looking after another co-worker’s pets while they were out of town. In the empty restaurant, they had overheard a few random words and pieced together their own little puzzle that my co-worker and I had nothing better to do than talk about them (says volumes about their self-image I suppose). She unloads on our manager, who doesn’t believe for a second that my co-worker and I would even think, much less say anything like that about these women. Knowing there has obviously been some misunderstanding, he calls us over, and I proceed to explain how we were having a conversation about a co-worker’s pets. I swear I saw a look of embarrassment flash over her eyes, but she just continued flipping out. My co-worker and I left the scene so the manager could cool her down, but after calling us rude names for the better part of 5 minutes she eventually just walked out without paying. Her friends followed her out a minute or two later, saying they aren’t paying for her meal, but that we’ll ‘probably just force it through’ on one of their credit cards anyway.”