People really treat other people like trash. Check out these horror stories that people had to deal with on the job, from their worst customers.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
Math Is Hard
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“I was working at a home improvement store. I was a manager in the millwork department at the time, where primarily we sold doors, windows, and the like. I usually try to go out of my way to help people if they ask me a question in a department I don’t work in because, hey, it’s not that hard a job. But don’t, for the love of whatever god you believe in, snap your fingers at me and yell to get my attention. Enter Crazy Old Lady (COL):
COL snaps her fingers from about 100 feet: ‘HEY! HEY YOU!’
Now, at this point, I’ve already determined I’ve no cares to give this lady, so I make eye contact and stand, waiting. Waiting for her to turn back into a functional human and address me politely.
COL: ‘HEY! I NEED HELP OVER HERE!’
I raise my eyebrows and furrow. She’s beginning to understand.
COL: ‘Could you help me, please?’
Me, walking over: ‘Sure, what can I do for you today?’
COL: ‘Well, I’m looking at these shelves here, and I need to know if this shelf will fit in a three-foot space.’
Now, this is a prepackaged shelf-in-a-box. I do what any good retail employee does when someone asks me a question. I read the words on the package. I politely take the package from her and start flipping the box over. Ah — there it is!
Me: ‘Well, as you can see, this is a thirty-six-inch shelving unit. So… (I trailed off, hoping she’d put two and two together. She was rude, but at this point, I didn’t want to embarrass her).
COL: ‘SO WHAT?!’
Ah, so she’s an idiot. A mean idiot. Game on.
Me: ‘Well, it just so happens that thirty-six inches is exactly three feet. So if you’re looking for a shelving unit that will fit in a three-foot space, this is perfect.’
COL: ‘WELL HOW THE EFF AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? I DON’T DO INCHES!’
She then proceeds to grab the shelf-in-a-box out of my hands angrily and storms off towards the registers. Holy. Cow.”
Unpronounceable
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“This one guy continually butchers the name of a product on a level that doesn’t even make sense and gets annoyed that no one knows what he’s talking about.
I work at a retail pharmacy chain…
M=Me; He will be CN=Cheese-Nez.
I’m stocking product on the shelf when the guy walks up to me.
CN – ‘Where’s the cheese-nez?’
M – ‘Cheeze-nez? Do you mean Cheez-Its? They are on aisle…’ (guy cuts me off)
CN – ‘NO. C H E E S E – N E Z’
He says it slower as if that will make me understand what he is looking for.
M – ‘Okay, sir, I’ve never heard of cheese-nez. What is it used for?’
CN – (Loudly sighs) he starts outlining the shape of a box with his hands and says, ‘You know, cheese-nez!’
M – ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you know what it’s used for?’
CN – ‘Someone else might know.’ He starts looking around.
M – ‘Well, I’m the manager, and if anyone would know, it would be me.’ (I know our entire stock enough to know when we don’t carry a particular product.)
The guy shakes his head and walks off. About five minutes later, the guy walks back up to me with A BOX OF KLEENEX in his hand and waves it at me with a dumb look on his face to show that I am the one who should know what he is looking for. Then he had the audacity to say Kleenex correctly and ignore the fact that HE was pronouncing it completely wrong.
Now my co-workers and I use the word ‘cheez-nez’ when talking about Kleenex.”
Playing The C-Card
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“We have a regular who comes in once every couple of weeks to look at our wares, make lots of loud noises about the things she wants, and then react, loudly, in horror at the prices. She has been caught switching tags in the past. As such, she is not exactly beloved within our walls.
She comes in 30 minutes before we close (yeah, you already know how this is going to go) and clomps around. She uses this weird lurching, swinging walk, where instead of walking like a normal person, she swings each leg in a wide, sideways arc before setting it down in front of the other foot. Her whole body is involved in this exaggerated method of locomotion that looks like she’s either wasted while walking on a rolling ship in a storm or wasted while swinging from vines Tarzan style. She’s huffing and puffing and blowing out her breath and making agitated, unhappy noises. Every heaving breath she takes looks like it’s going to throw out her back. To sum up, if you are easily irritated by the sound of someone chewing or making noises on a constant basis, this woman will make you go postal in five seconds, guaranteed.
I am not that sensitive, and even I’m developing an eye twitch. Calm. Calm. I am cool. I am fine. She’ll be out of here soon enough. Be chill. Cool like the mountain breeze.
Her: ‘Oh, I like that thing. And that one. And that one. Please take those out of the case so I can look at them. This is great; I want that. Wait, it’s $75?’
The sound of cracking teeth echoes through my head as I clench them. And so it begins.
It’s a glass statuette of a horse in green glass, hand painted with a flower motif from some company that apparently custom makes them and sells them for well over $100 each. I know enough about the way we handle prices to know that getting it for $75 is a steal.
Her: ‘You know I just came from the doctor, where they discovered that I might have cancer.’
Me: ‘Yikes. That’s a bummer.’
And while cancer is serious business, the timing of her mentioning this is suspicious.
Her: ‘They’re going to do some more tests to confirm it, but I need to do something nice for myself to keep from flipping out about it, and my family’s not supportive right now, so I’m shopping for myself.’
Me: ‘Okay.’
Time check.
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; we will be closing in approximately 20 minutes!’
Her: ‘I know! I know! Are you sure there’s no wiggle room on that horse? Because I like it, but I don’t know, it’s not nice enough to pay THAT much for it.’
Then you don’t want it badly enough.
Me: ‘We look these things up online, then discount the retail price some 75 to 80 percent, ma’am. We’re not likely to go lower on it.’
Her: ‘Yeah, that’s not true. There’s no WAY that is 80-percent off.’
Oh good, she’s calling me a liar to my face because that’s how you endear yourself.
Me: ‘That’s the way we price everything, ma’am. Regardless of what we’re selling, our pricing policy is uniform across all the boards.’
Her: ‘There’s still no way that’s 80-percent off.’
Okay, fine. Forget it. I’m not going argue with you anymore.
‘Me: ‘Sorry, but whether or not you believe me, that’s the price. We don’t discount an item until it’s been sitting around for over 30 days.’
Her: ‘Are you SURE you can’t discount it to $20? Even though I might have cancer?’
Nope, don’t care.
Me: ‘Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the answer, ma’am.’
Her: ‘MY GOD, you are heartless!’
Now I don’t care at all.
Me: ‘That’s right ma’am! I am! I’m a raging witch. I’m going to sacrifice a goat after work tonight.’
My supervisor and coworker make muffled choking noises around the corner but are straight-faced when I glance their way.
There is no one else in the store. The usual customers have drifted to the registers at the half-hour announcement. No last minute stragglers except Mrs. Cancer.
Her: ‘I believe it! You won’t even discount for somebody who may be dying of cancer!’
Lady, even if I believed you, my behind would be kicked from here to Timbuktu for arbitrarily (and massively) discounting prices on somebody else’s territory. You’re not worth that, cancer or no cancer.
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; we will be closing in approximately 10 minutes!’
Her: ‘I know! I’m almost done!’
She takes a wide-swinging-leg-huffing-puffing tour of the store, occasionally bringing some random thing for me to hold.
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; we will be closing in approximately five minutes!’
Her: ‘I know!’
Me: (Announcing to the store in general) ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen; IT IS NOW 7 PM, AND WE ARE NOW CLOSED! THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BRING YOUR PURCHASES TO THE REGISTERS!’
Her: ‘I know!’
She messes around for five MORE minutes before coming up to the registers. She waffles around, asks if we can discount a $50 hand blown, hand-painted vase, complains a little, looks at all the crap that she has supposedly planned on buying, then rejects most of it for the vase.
Ten minutes after we close the store, she finally swing-walks outside, huffing and puffing and complaining loudly about us being heartless. Naturally, she leaves the pile of merchandise for us to clean up.
As I watch my supervisor lock the door behind this obnoxious lady, I can see through the windows that her wildly awkward walk straightens up, her posture corrects, her walk becomes normal, those deep, throw-out-your-back heaving breaths disappear as if they never existed and she saunters through the cold to her car, quite calmly and easily.
She was doing it all JUST to be as obnoxious as possible.
Supervisor: ‘You know, if I thought I might have cancer, I wouldn’t spend $50 in a thrift shop. I’m pretty sure I’d hang onto that money to… you know… pay for the treatment.’
Coworker: ‘Yeah, go figure.'”
That’s Not How This Works…
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“I know in some states there’s no sales tax, but not my state. So one day a couple comes to my checkout lane and I ring them out.
Me- ‘Total is $200.23.’
Guests shows me his state ID.
G- ‘Here you go.’
M- ‘That’s an ID.’
G- ‘Yes it is.’
M- ‘You can’t pay with an ID.’
G- ‘I know that, don’t I not pay sales tax if I’m from a tax-free state?’
M- ‘No, you still pay sales tax.’
G- ‘That’s absurd, I’m showing you my ID.’
M- ‘You still have to pay sales tax.’
G- ‘No. Other stores do it.’
M- ‘They might, we don’t.’
G- ‘No this isn’t right, you’re infringing on my rights.’
At this point, I’m like ‘uhhhhh wut.’ I don’t know what to do so I just keep talking.
M- ‘What stores do it?’
G- ‘What does it matter if you’re not gonna do it?’
M- ‘Just curious.’
G- ‘Are you gonna do it or not?’
M- ‘No I’m not, you have to pay for the sales tax.’
G- ‘Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous, is there someone I can talk to?’
M- ‘Yeah, gimme a minute.’
G- ‘No want them now!’
I kind of want to slap him for this stupidity, and it’s been about 10 minutes at this point which is a LONG TIME. Finally, the manager comes over and this moron explains the situation to her. She has this stunned look on her face as she can’t believe how dumb he is being, and just like I told him MANY times, that he has to pay the sales tax. He responds that this is infringing on his rights and begins cursing her out.
G- ‘Forget it I ain’t buying anything, I ain’t shopping here no more.’
M- ‘Ok.’
Now as he leaves, he knocks over our gift card display and now there’s like a thousand gift cards all over the floor. Unbelievable.”
More Like Self-Serving Prophecy
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“I work with self-checkouts at a grocery store.
We were extremely busy yesterday. There were customers at every register, lines wrapped around the store, and we were understaffed. I needed a manager override for two registers, and of course, nobody was picking up the phone.
As I was dialing various phones and paging different people just trying to get ahold of someone while also talking to two customers, I heard a guy yell, ‘YO’ from one of the registers on the other side of the store. I looked over and saw a guy leaning on the produce scale/scanner, and the machine loudly telling him to remove everything from the scanner. This was something people did a hundred times a day. So I put down the phone and walked over to tell him this, and he instantly became hostile.
Me: ‘You can’t lean on that, it’s a scale.’
Guy: ‘First of all, DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN’T DO! And I wasn’t leaning on the scale!’
Me: ‘I just watched you lean on it.’
Guy: ‘I WAS NOT LEANING ON IT.’
Machine: ‘Please remove all objects or items from the scanner!’
Me: ‘You’re leaning on it right now.’
This went back and forth for a bit. I kept telling him it wouldn’t let him start if he continued to lean on the scale. He kept insisting he wasn’t leaning on the scale while leaning on it and continued to make a big show out of looking at my nametag and mispronouncing my (very common) name. He asked for a manager, so I went over to page someone for like the fifth time.
He kept arguing with me and yelling for a manager while I tried to tell him that I had already called her, and then he dropped this bomb on me:
‘Are you telling me that me leaning on the scale is the reason I didn’t get a receipt?!’
I never told him that, and until this moment, he never mentioned anything about a receipt.
As the whole store was a mess and there were carts of both bagged and unbagged items scattered everywhere, I didn’t even know he had already paid.
Just as I finished processing that this was what I was supposed to gather from him loudly screaming ‘YO’ at me from 20 feet away, the manager walked up. I walked over to my computer and printed out a receipt for the guy, while the manager checked the printer on his register. It turns out the roll of paper ran out, and he started screaming about how I KNEW it was out of paper because he used to work there.
As he was yelling about that, I handed the manager the printed receipt because I didn’t even want to look at this guy. Finally, the guy left, screaming at the manager the whole way out.”
“I’m Holding You Responsible For Costing Me A Million Dollars!”
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“This was a while ago when I worked at the mall location of a certain cell phone provider.
It was a normal day when a guy in a suit came in and was demanding we fixed his phone. From this point he’ll be SG (suit guy) I’ll be M (me).
M: ‘Welcome to my store how can I help you?’
SG: ‘Fix this now!’
M: ‘Um ok, what’s wrong with it?’
SG: ‘I can’t hear out of it so my calls won’t work!’
M: ‘Ok, can you make calls?’
SG: ‘Of course I can! What, are you stupid?’
M: (Deep inner sigh) (Call coworker (CW) over) ‘Hey let me call you from this phone and see if I can hear you.’
CW: ‘Ok.’
Proceed to call everything sounds fine.
M: ‘Looks to be working fine.’
SG: ‘Well its not! Do you really think I would be wasting my time here if it was working fine?’
M: (Another deep sigh) ‘Ok well your account shows you have insurance – Yay! Here’s the info, you can file a claim online and you’ll have a replacement phone tomorrow!’
SG: ‘TOMORROW!!!! That’s unacceptable, I run my whole business off this thing I can’t go a full day without it. I’m expecting a very important call and if I miss it, I’m holding you responsible for costing me a million dollars!’
M: ‘Oh wow that’s a lot of money.’
SG: ‘Yeah it is, so fix it or give me a new one.’
M: ‘Well you can’t upgrade yet so that’s out the window, but if there’s a million dollars at stake here, why not just buy the new phone you want? I mean, I know if it was me, I’d rather spend $750 than lose 1 million.’
SG: ‘That’s not the point! Are you going to fix it or give me a new one for free?’
M: ‘Sorry, we don’t have a technician at any blue store in this area and we cant use in-store inventory for replacements unless it is within the 14 day grace period.’
He huffs and puffs and calls my manager over. I get told to help another customer while my manager tries unsuccessfully to help him. Guy ends up leaving threatening to cancel his lines due to bad service. Some days guys, some days…”
Not Getting Your Way Obviously Means They’re Lying
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“This is an encounter I had with an awful man who just refused to believe I know what I’m talking about. I’ll be B for Baker, he’ll be M for Man:
M: ‘Do you have any mincemeat pie?’
B: ‘Hello! No, we do not currently have any mincemeat pie, and I don’t think we’ll be getting any this season.’
M: ‘What do you mean you don’t think you have any. Go check.’
B: ‘Oh, I meant, I know we don’t currently have any. Corporate is just a little slow on communicating to anyone except managers so I’m not sure if we will be getting any mincemeat pies this season.’
M: ‘Well can you go check?’ said is a very condescending tone.
B: ‘I just finished our shipment for the day and I spend about 4 hours a shift in our freezer. Trust me, I’m the first to know when we get a new product! If you leave your name and number, I’d be happy to call you if/when we get mincemeat pie!’
M: ‘Forget it, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll wait for someone who does.’
B: ‘Okay! Well, I’m the only one here for the rest of the day and 6/7 nights of the week. So if you’d like to double check, you’ll have to come in or call in the morning.’
M: ‘You had mincemeat pie last year. I know you have it.’
B: ‘We really don’t. If it’ll make you feel better though, I will gladly check the freezer.’
M: ‘Finally! I need two.’
I pop into the freezer real quick and just hang out for a second. I come back out and tell him the bad news.
B: ‘Gosh, so sorry! We do not have any mincemeat pies.’
M: ‘What’s your name? You clearly don’t know anything.’
B: ‘My name is [Name] and my manager’s name is [Manager]. If you’d like, I can call a general manager over and you can voice your complaints to him?’
M: ‘No, I’m going to speak with your manager and get you fired for not knowing how to do your job.’ [stomps away]
I came in early the next day and heard Manager talking to Decorator about mincemeat pies and the guy actually called in to complain about me. Obviously nothing was done, but I fully believe that man was trying to get me fired because he thought I was just purposefully hiding frozen mincemeat pies from him.”
They’re Not There Just Because They Look Good
“I work at a pretty large DIY store chain in Ireland/UK. We have hundreds of shopping carts outside, of different types. One day, I was busy stocking some shelves when a man started storming towards me telling me to get him a cart.
I advised him if he walked straight out the door he could get one himself. He furiously told me there were none out there and demanded I get one for him.
Usually, I wouldn’t humor someone so rude, but I was curious how we could ever run out, so I went out to have a look.
Low and behold, there were the hundreds of shopping carts.
I pointed at them, and said to the man, ‘There are loads there, just take one.’
To which he angrily replied, ‘Those?! I thought they were just display shopping carts; you should mark them more clearly!’
I may not be the most well-traveled person, but I am almost sure that in the history of retail, there has never been ‘display shopping carts.'”
Can’t Win For Trying
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“A customer came in this morning and attempted multiple times to purchase gas, but all three of his cards were declined. I was in a good mood because I won $200 on last night’s mega millions, so I figured I’d spot him $20 for gas. He then went to the pump, pumped $5, and came back inside to demand change.
C: ‘Change from pump three, please.’
Me: ‘What?’
C: ‘Change from pump three. I only pumped $5.’
Me: ‘I offered you $20 in gas. I wasn’t planning on giving you change.’
C: ‘Let me speak to the manager.’
Me: ‘The manager is here from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday.’
C: ‘Give me his number.’
Me: ‘Sorry, but the company doesn’t provide work phones, and I can’t give out his personal number.’
C: ‘Where’s your corporate number?’ (now yelling)
Me: ‘Outside, on the door.’
Fast forward two hours, and the police arrived. The responding officer told me someone said there was a cashier here that was refusing to return people’s change. I explained the situation to the officer, who then asked to see the tapes. I had to call the manager, who was irate because he had to come in on his day off. After about 30 minutes, my manager arrived and played the tapes for the cop. They came out of back office, the officer apologized to the manager, and left. The manager then told me that if the guy came back to the store to refuse sale and tell him not to come back.
I guess it doesn’t pay to be nice.”
Never Turn Down Your Radio
“I work at a gas station where there is a glass window between the customers and me; we push products through a drawer, and they give money through the same one. The microphone is lower towards the ground, so if customers get too close to the glass, we can’t hear them.
Queue this idiot who decided to walk up BLASTING music on his phone (relevant).
Me – ‘How can I help you?’
Cust – ‘CAN I GET JFTJTFFFT?’ (As the music drowned out what he said.)
Me – ‘Sorry what was that?’
Cust – ‘MMMTFTEFFFT!’
Me – ‘Can you take one step back from the mic? I’m hav…’
Customer – ‘MARB BLACK!’
Me – ‘Okay, regular or 100s?’
Cust – [Looks at me like I’m stupid and says], ‘Hundreds and I have djdhdhrjrb.’
Me – ‘So, 100s, and what was that?’
Cust – Obviously annoyed, I can’t hear him from being too close to the window and over his music. ‘Watermelon gum, and I have this coupon.’
Me – ‘Ok.’
Cust – ‘You need to get a mic here.’
Me – [Take coupon and money finish out transactions]
Cust – [Trying to be a pain] ‘What specials you got?’
Me – ‘Water.’
Cust- ‘What’s the deal?’
Me – ‘The price.’
Cust – ‘Okay’ and walks away.
After all that I saw his coupon expired last year, so I’m probably going to get in trouble for that too. Can’t believe people like this exist.”
Well, This Is Awkward
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“A customer was purchasing a bottle of tiki fluid, but it didn’t have a price on it. So I asked another co-worker to get me a price. She came back and told me that there wasn’t another one on the shelf, so she had to go all the way to the back to get the price on the computer. I turned to the gentleman (OG) and apologized that it was going to take a while.
OG: ‘Whatever. I’ve come here once a month for the last two years, and it never has a price, so I just wait here.’
Me, internally: Okay. Why wouldn’t you just remember the price then? Whatever.
Me: ‘Then, would you mind if I take the customer behind you while we wait for her to come back?’
OG: ‘I’d rather just wait.’
So then we awkwardly stood there for like five minutes waiting for a price on this bottle of tiki fluid. He was just the grumpiest man ever, and I have never had someone refuse to step aside for the next customer.”
Snow Brings The Crazy Out Of People
“I just started my job as a cashier at a grocery store about 2 weeks ago. I’m in a register by myself now and it’s going alright.
There’s a forecast for heavy snow later that night, so the store is slammed. People were fighting over items in the aisles, over carts, and over places in line. I’m not sure what it is about snow on the weather forecast that makes people lose their minds.
A customer comes up to my line and I’m scanning through his items. He’s complaining about the busy the store was and how long the lines were through the transaction, which is understandable.
After I ring up his purchases, he hands me a coupon for his corned beef. There’s a huge discount on it in preparation for St. Patrick’s Day.
However, the coupon didn’t start until the next day. I informed him of this and he said, ‘It’s only one day, can’t you give me the sale price anyways? What does it matter to you?’
After telling him I couldn’t use the coupon, he picks up the package, yells ‘WELL THEN I DON’T WANT IT’ and throws it at me. Hard.
I managed to dodge it so it just brushed my shoulder but it hit the floor with a lovely ‘splat’ sound.
It was so busy that I didn’t want to bother anyone so I just picked it up, voided it, and rang him out, but I really should have told him to leave right then and there.”