Working in customer service has its ups and downs. Yes, it’s nice to work a flexible schedule, but dealing with rude customers is a major buzzkill. And depending on a worker’s financial status, not everyone can risk getting fired for blowing up on a customer. However, these employees found a way to get back at rude customers without getting caught. And things get petty! Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
Missing Phone
“I had just started serving tables at a restaurant, and I was working my first super busy brunch shift. I had 6+ tables and I’m not gonna lie, I had a tough time running all the mimosas that my tables were ordering. I could tell one table of all women was getting abnormally angry about their drinks taking a while. I apologized for the delay and made a joke about it being an especially busy shift. I offered them a round of drinks on me to smooth the situation over.
When I walked away, one lady murmured under her breath that I was an ‘incompetent twat.’
Let’s stop there, it’s common for people to treat servers like crap, but this was the first time I ever had experienced being spoken to like I was garbage. I shook it off and continued to be nice to them, but it only got worse from there.
They started to laugh at me, and shit-talk me to one another. They told me my future career looked pretty bleak, considering I couldn’t even serve tables. ‘Honey, even a toddler can deliver drinks.’
When I took their order for food, one woman REFUSED to speak to me. She just stared at me while her friend ordered for her. By then I was ticked off.
I asked her, ‘Why do you feel the need to have your friend order for you?’
She laughed in my face, looked down at the menu, and said. ‘Because you’re a dumb little prick.’
Due to the fact, I was at work, I couldn’t argue or tell her to eat shit for treating me like I was a dog. If I did, my boss would have fired me. They ended up stiffing me on their 200-dollar check, not leaving a tip.
Once they left, I realized the woman who gave me so much trouble had left her phone. I took it and went out the back door to smoke a cigarette and try to calm down. I thought, ‘Who the hell did that women think she is?’
So I promptly turned off her phone, threw it in the trash compactor, and turned it on. She came back minutes later and asked multiple staff members if we found it. I told her I didn’t see it when I bussed the table, and that I would call her if it turned up. I never told anyone but I never regretted doing it.
When you treat people like shit, expect shitty things to happen to you. Lastly, I’ve been in the service industry for a hot minute and I’ve only experienced this level of disrespect twice. Whether you believe it or not, some people actually think they have the right to talk to servers like this and many restaurants don’t care.”
What Happened To Her Money?
“I was working the drive-thru window at a bank and this happened. A lady pulled up and threw two $100 bills in the slot with her deposit ticket and said she was in a hurry and drove off before I even said a single word to her.
I pulled the drawer in, took out the slip and the money, threw the slip in the shred bin, and set the money inside my cash drawer but not with the other money. I never processed the deposit.
At the end of my shift, I counted up my drawer. Inside the drawer, I folded the 100s and palmed them as I was walking to the vault. Yes, I pocketed the money. I was in a spot with no cameras but even if they were directly on me it wouldn’t have mattered.
She came back a week later and complained about how her money was never deposited. She said she gave it to the guy. Since I was the only male teller, I came over from my window to the customer and teller. They explained there was never a deposit in her account.
I asked, ‘Do you have your receipt?’
She said, ‘No.’
I asked, ‘Do you remember which day you came to ‘deposit’ the money?’
She said, ‘I think it was Monday or Tuesday of the week before, I’m not sure.’
I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t remember her or the deposit.’
She cursed and squealed the tires of her minivan and drove off.
As far as I know, she never complained to anyone above me. And it wouldn’t have mattered since there was no camera directly on the teller at the window. It was an old building set up in an odd way.
I honestly don’t feel good or bad about it. I never did it before or since – I could have done it more but I didn’t want to be a dumb criminal stealing from everyone and making it obvious. I stole once, what I felt like I needed, and that was it. Why get greedy?
I could make lots of ‘excuses’ like she should have been more careful – who DOESN’T get a receipt for depositing cash? Who waits a week to realize 200 bucks wasn’t deposited? But in the end, none of that matters. It was her money. I took it and I don’t feel bad.”
Sandwich Making Gone Wrong
“A couple of years ago (when I was 21) I used to work at this gourmet café/sandwich shop which I absolutely hated. My coworkers and manager were great, but it was the customers that really ticked me off. We were located in the financial district so which supplied us with a constant stream of insufferable, entitled pricks from professional backgrounds. A lot of people treated us like complete shit just because they thought we were defenseless, naive little kids.
We all had different ways to deal with our pent up anger/frustration. My coworker (who was my age) used to spit in people’s food and drinks. We actually used to prepare the sandwiches and salads in front of the customer but she had a few tricks up her sleeve. When I first witnessed it, I halfheartedly told her to stop but honestly didn’t care. This carried on for months. Sometimes the person wasn’t even that rude but she’d still spit in their food. I was the only person who was aware of this and kept it to myself. Sometimes I’d complain about an asshole customer I dealt with and gave her a precise description so she could do her thing for me. By the way, I had different methods of dealing with my anger so I’m not a saint myself.
But wait, there’s more…
During one afternoon, business was particularly slow and we had almost no customers within the last hour or so. At one point this attractive young guy in a suit came in but sadly he was a raging douchebag. He was extremely impolite and one of the worst customers we ever had.
My coworker started making his sandwich and he was so damn impatient. He was also giving her backhanded compliments and almost negging her in a way. Then she just snapped. She opened the sandwich while he was watching and spit directly into it. Not once, not twice. She spit THREE TIMES in three different places, effectively contaminating the whole sandwich.
She put it on the counter and kindly asked, ‘Do you want anything else?’
I just thought to myself, ‘RIP, it was nice knowing you sister.’
The situation got EVEN WEIRDER.
I was ready for hell on earth but the guy was eerily calm. He grabbed the sandwich, made eye contact with her, and took a big bite out of it. Then he slammed it back on the counter and literally threw the money (which included a huge tip for some reason) at us as if we were lowly beggars. He did it all so swiftly and seamlessly that I didn’t even have time to mentally process everything.
After that, he walked out without saying a single word and slammed the door shut. It was all so bizarre that I started laughing out loud. Like what the heck just happened? I have NEVER seen my friend so speechless. She was completely shocked and confused. For the rest of our shift, she was unusually quiet and seemed a little absent-minded.
She actually stopped spitting in people’s food from that day on. We never talked about this incident again and both quit after a few months. Our manager never found out.”
“If An Employee Damages A Vehicle, They’re Either Fired Or Charged”
“For the past year, I’ve been working as a valet for an upscale steakhouse. Our lot was about 20 spots long, with big square concrete pillars between every 3 spots. It was my first day so I was still trying to settle in and get comfortable with how the way things ran, and of course, I wanted to impress so I was going as fast as I could within reason. Well as more and more people showed up I guess I started to rush.
As I was parking this brand-new Toyota Camry, I pulled forward to adjust and accidentally turned it into a pillar, completely destroying the left side from the front fender to the back door. Since it was my first day, I was too embarrassed and nervous to say anything. As I said it was when I parked it so I had to keep working knowing the customer could come out any second. Luckily it had gotten dark by the time they came out so I pulled the car up, and they approached from the right and left sides. Since the left side was very dark, the customers didn’t even notice, but my manager did see the damage.
Luckily, he assumed it came in like that since the customers didn’t mention it. Since then I haven’t had a single problem, not a scratch! For what it’s worth, most of our customers are very well off so I’m not exactly boiling over with guilt. Just grateful I got to keep the job and not pay for the damage.
The customer never returned or called, and company policy is if an employee damages a vehicle they are either fired or charged for at least half of the damage.”
At Least The Frappuccino Tasted Good, Right?
“When I worked at Starbucks, there was a regular customer who was very difficult and rude. I was warned of this customer on my first day of training. She came in every morning and would try to rush the workers on doing their job and made other customers feel uncomfortable.
Three months into working, she came in one morning and caused absolute hell. She was complaining about her drink while one of my coworkers was making the drink. As soon as she got it, she accidentally ‘spilled’ it and asked for a completely different drink. She wanted a Frappuccino. I was so fed up.
Then she went to the bathroom while we were making the new order. I switched with my coworker and made the drink. Instead of almond milk, I made the Frappuccino with regular milk. The drink was ready by the time she left the bathroom. She took the drink and took a sip and didn’t complain.
Five hours later, she called the Starbucks from the hospital and I was the one who picked up. She got in a car accident trying to rush to a bathroom. She said she shitted her pants. I couldn’t be anymore happier that she was safe but got her karma.”
Shoe Sale
In 1984, I was 16 and working in a shoe shop. We had one regular obnoxious woman customer who came in every Saturday afternoon whilst the store was at its busiest and literally asked to try on every pair of shoes in the shop before leaving an hour later without buying anything. I was the new boy and the youngest, so all the other staff always dumped her on me.
One day, she was up to her usual Saturday afternoon hobby, and an elderly lady, obviously visually impaired handed me a pair of shoes and asked me how much. They were the obnoxious customer’s own shoes that the elderly woman had picked from the floor. I quoted her a ridiculously low price and she bought them immediately.
Ten minutes later, the awkward customer started shrieking about how she couldn’t find her shoes. After complaining to the manager, she believed they had been stolen by shoplifters. Since this was before CCTV, all we had were our eyes to monitor, which were more focused on our stock than this lady’s shoes. My manager was having none of it, stating it wasn’t the company’s fault if customers had their personal property stolen in the store. The woman had to buy a new pair of shoes or leave barefooted. We never saw her again.”
Incorrect Weights
“I worked overnight at a gym at a small 24/7 gym. We had a customer, ‘Bob,’ who came in between 4:00 and 4:30 am every day of the week. Every morning I greeted him, and every morning he ignored me and went about his workout. After a couple of weeks of his rude behavior, I decided to teach him a lesson. I started to track his schedule for a few weeks, carefully noting every workout he did, in which order, on which day of the week, and which weights he used.
He was a creature of habit and used the same dumbbells each time. After 3 full weeks of meticulously tracking his workout routine, I decided to order a few sets of dumbbells with the incorrect weights listed on them. I had to call the company and ask them to specially mark the dumbbells. I bought two sets of each weight listed below, to swap out.
32.5 lbs marked as 30 lbs, 35 lbs marked as 32.5 lbs, 37.5 lbs marked as 35 lbs, 40 lbs marked as 37.5 lbs, 42.5 lbs marked as 40 lbs, 45 lbs marked as 42.5 lbs, 47.5 lbs marked as 45 lbs, & 50 lbs marked as 47.5 lbs.
Every Tuesday, he came in and did back and biceps. Every Tuesday at around 3:30 AM, I went and replaced 1 of each dumbbell with my custom-ordered ones. He had been doing bicep exercises with a 2.5lb difference in one hand. The right hand was the heavier one so as to not draw suspicion. I guessed he was right-handed because he carried his keys when leaving/entering in his right hand, and his gym bag over his right shoulder.
It had given me great joy watching him move up the weight and seeing his right arm progress quite a bit more than his left. He was only up to the 40lbs so I figured I have at least another year’s worth of his progression, so I was glad I invested the extra money for the additional 10 lbs in dumbbells.
A few months later, I saw him flexing his biceps in the mirror and he seemed to notice, because he started flexing them one by one, and a few minutes later actually came and talked to me for the first time, asking if we had tape measures. I said no, sorry, and turned back to my computer acting busy.”
Easy Money
“I was about 18 at the time. I worked at a rental car company as a cleaner. Basically, when customers returned their rental cars, I cleaned the car and then it was rented to a new customer.
It was one of the larger rental companies. It was a very large wash bay/maintenance bay/office facility; and also where all the new cars would show up. Our lot inside the facility was massive, but it was gated. However, we also had an employee/visitor lot outside the gated facility, this lot was also massive.
There was a race track down the road from the facility; every year there was a monster truck event there. Well, the parking lot at the track was tiny. So people had to park 2-3km down the road and walk (cars parked the whole way down the road).
Anyways, this day was the monster truck day. It was a weekend, and the part-timers were pretty much on their own, like always. Our manager had asked me to put out signs and pylons saying ‘No parking’ in our lot (since every monster truck event visitors take over our lot instantly). Well, I got an idea.
I could stand at the entrance of the lot and charge $5 for people to park. Once it filled up, I’d go back to work. If my manager asked, I would say I was busy and by the time I went out they had already filled the lot.
So I did just that. Stood at the lot next to the bumper-bumper traffic, and anyone who asked was told they could park for $5. People jumped on it. Once the lot was about 3/4 full I started charging $10. I put out signs saying ‘Not responsible for theft or damage’ (just in case). I
f anyone complained or tried to tell me I wasn’t allowed to do it, I told them ‘In that case its private property and you have to leave.’
After about 40min, I had the lot full and had made around $350. I went back to work, and 5 hours later the event ended and everyone left – flawless.
I’m not sure if I really feel bad about this. I was just a kid looking for some extra cash while in college and such. No one was hurt by it (other than losing $5-$10) and no one got in trouble or anything. Just one of those things I think about now and then that I probably shouldn’t have done.”
Too Many Food Orders To Care
“When I was 14, I worked in a rinky-dink deli near my house. The deli owners lost their passion for the place and it showed. We would charge high prices for low-quality sandwiches and salads. I still took pride in my job, and always made food I would want to eat myself.
The kitchen was small and would get crowded when we got hit with breakfast and lunch rushes.
During a breakfast rush one morning, we had a long line of breakfast sandwiches to make. I remember I bumped into someone and they dropped an almost finished order on the floor. I vividly remember it was a turkey egg and cheese on toast. The sandwich fell turkey side down, with all the other components melted onto it. In similar situations, I would have thrown the whole thing in the trash and remade it. But on this day, one of the owners was working in the kitchen with me.
She saw the sandwich fall, but when I went to throw it away, she instructed me to finish it and send it out. I was confused, as I was utterly disgusted with the thought of someone eating it.
The floors were rarely washed. It was down there for more than 5 seconds.
My boss came over, topped the sandwich, cut it in half, and wrapped it up. She said we had too many orders and no time to remake it.
The sandwich left the kitchen and went into someone’s stomach. To the customer who ended up with it, I hope you didn’t get food poisoning.”
Cash Registers Down
“I worked at a music store that had a Ticketmaster. I was broke. Not in dire straits or anything. I asked a girl out on a date and didn’t have enough money to pull for dinner type of broke. I had a place to live and could afford the essentials. Anyway, we had a big sale that day and our cash register computers went offline, but the Ticketmaster terminal did not. We were able to print out tickets still with the help of their tech support.
So I began writing out ticket prices and increased the price of each ticket by $10. I wrote the numbers down so I could easily reference them, not so good at mental math. I figured I’d get a few hundred dollars. By the time the sale was done, I had taken in nearly $5k USD. No one questioned me, not customers or my co-workers.
When the computers came back online, I manually entered the ticket sales with the real prices. No consequences for this stunt, but I never did anything like that again.
After my shift, I took myself and a friend I had a crush on out to sushi, and proceeded to overpay a number of bills I owed, and paid a few people back the money I owed to them.”