Some people just never grow up! And these adults think that publicly embarrassing themselves, is the right way to act when they don't get their way...
Huge Scene At The Donut Shop Over A Penny?
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“I work in a donut shop. Keep in mind, this was on a Sunday morning, one of our busiest times of the busiest day of the week for us.
The register ran short on change, and we didn’t have any pennies in the back. That morning, a lady came in and bought one or two donuts, and the total was $1.74 with tax and all that jazz. She gave me two dollars, and I handed her a quarter, as change. I explained that we had run out of pennies and that I was extremely sorry, but I didn’t have the .01 to give her.
Well, you know what she did? She threw a HUGE tantrum in the middle of the store, in front of a line of people, saying that I had robbed her and that I shortchanged her on purpose and how I was never going to heaven for it (I live in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt).
I calmly explained that if she wanted to come back the next day, I would gladly give her an extra penny when my boss (the owner) would return from the bank with another roll of pennies. She then threw an even bigger fit, demanding to see my manager. She then began to tell me that she would have my job and that I would never work in this town again. I told her that I was a manager and that if she wanted to come back the next day and get her penny, I would gladly give it to her, but she was out of luck today. She snatched up her donuts and left the store still fuming.
The couple behind her felt so bad for me, that they gave me a huge tip and gave me words of encouragement. The penny lady never came back, for which, I’m incredibly glad.
Gee, I love my job!”
Elongating The Check In Process…
“I worked at a kind of prestigious summer camp where high schoolers would stay for a couple of weeks, take college courses, and then leave.
Part of our check-out procedure required that the adult checking out a student needed to have photo ID. Standard safety procedure.
This woman comes in and one of our staff members reminds her that she’ll need an ID to check out her kid. Immediately she has a bad attitude and says, ‘Well My ID is in the car and I’m not getting it.’ Then she goes upstairs to get her kid. My boss warns me to make sure she shows an ID and When she gets to the check-out table I politely ask for it (even though I know she doesn’t have it). This woman flips her lid, in front of her 2 children and starts screaming about how she’s not going to get an ID and how she can leave with her kid. I tell her it’s a safety precaution and we can’t allow her son to leave without verifying her identity.
Then she starts pushing her son towards the door telling him to go to the car and drags her little daughter along and the kids are obviously terrified. My boss has to block the door as this woman is screaming about how nobody told her she needed an ID (she received an email a week prior and a reminder at the door) and how the parking lot was too far (it wasn’t) and basically the entire lobby is staring at her. My boss tells her he will walk to the car with her son to get her ID. So that happens, she sits across from me all huffy and glaring and when my boss gives her her ID she throws it on the table in front of me and then snatches it out of my hand.
She made a 5 minute check out procedure last half an hour because she didn’t want to make the 2 minute trip to her car…”
Drama Over Free Cone Day!
“When I worked in an ice cream shop, we had one day a year with free ice cream. Free scoop day (now you know which shop I ran).
Free cone day is messy and we have volunteer scoopers, as such, we had a concern about cross contamination from ice creams that had common allergens such as peanuts. So to solve the issue, we took anything with peanuts off the menu for the day. Pretty simple, we still had twelve flavors including gluten free, dairy free and even soy free for people to choose from.
So one year, this grown freakin’ woman comes through the line and orders an ice cream that has peanut butter brickle in it. Well, 1) No peanut ice creams on free cone day and 2) That particular flavor hadn’t even been made in years. I have no idea why she thought she would find it with us.
When we told her we didn’t have it, she started berating us about not having her favorite flavor. Then when we didn’t magically produce it (because we couldn’t) she started screaming. Then crying. She started ranting to the entire store that this was the worst day of her life and everything always went wrong for her.
Now it should be noted that we accept donations on free cone day, all of which goes to a charity of our choice. Our shop used the donations to pay for the medical care of a girl who was very sick (Cystic Fibrosis). This little girl, who at the time was about eight or nine, was there with us, watching this go down.
So this freaking brat was screaming and crying about how awful her life was because she didn’t get the flavor she wanted on a day when we gave away free ice cream out of the goodness of our hearts while a little girl with Cystic Fibrosis was listening to the tirade.
I wasn’t a manager there yet, which is probably a good thing because I would have given her no mercy. As it was, the current manager politely but firmly told her to leave. The woman left, still screaming and crying about not getting a single free scoop of her favorite no longer existing flavor of ice cream.
It was absurd, but we honestly thought that maybe she had something wrong with her. You know, like maybe she wasn’t quite emotionally stable. So we brushed it off.
A week later we get a phone call from corporate. The read us an email where this same woman called corporate and told a tale about how we had made fun of her weight and basically said, ‘We have no free ice cream for you, fatso.’ We told corporate what really happened and the representative said, ‘Yeah, we know you guys, you’re not evil or nuts and you would never do this. We already told her to pound sand and to never go into one of our shops again.'”
Old Woman Decided To Throw Her Cane?
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“We had a woman throw her cane at us over the counter because we couldn’t magically make her medicine that we don’t carry appear right that second.
She slammed her cane on the counter a few times and banged on it with her fists. She yelled and screamed. We offered to call another, bigger store and she wasn’t having any of that. The closest store had it, but she was like I can’t get there. I don’t drive. How can I get there? To be honest, I was thinking ‘Get on your broom, woman!’ There was a line of people and a woman, who was a nurse, called security. They got her away and then they took her off to get something to eat.
She came back a couple of hours later and said it was because she was hungry…that was hangry in action for sure.
Another one was angry because the doctor didn’t fax a prescription at the exact moment that the patient was there. They called her and said it was able to be picked up at the doctor’s office. But she thought WE called and we hadn’t. We were told how much we sucked and that the whole freaking place sucked and how that she’d sue us all for not letting her get her medication…I swear like a sailor, but dang, not every other word is curse word!”
The Mayonnaise Lady!
“So for starters, I work at a Subway at a popular amusement park. Said park usually closes at 10 pm and thus all the restaurants and attractions inside close as well. Unfortunately, on this particular day, we were so swamped that we ended up being open up until 10:30 am. So it’s 10:30 and we are serving our last guests of the day, a middle aged woman with 5 young children, and then a man and older women behind them.
So at this point in time we are 30 minutes past close we and thus have started to run out of items, and it being a REALLY busy day don’t have much in the way of prep in the back for the next day. So we make this woman and her 5 kids their sandwiches and get to the very end where we add condiments. The woman requests that we put mayonnaise on each sandwich but unfortunately we’re out. So tell her this and at first she is a completely reasonable human being and we offer her light mayonnaise instead which she accepts. So we put light mayonnaise on each sandwich when lo and behold, one of her demon spawn of a child starts screaming.
Apparently, the child is so distraught at having light mayonnaise instead of regular that the woman demands we scrape off all the mayo off of each sandwich. So we do. She then decides this isn’t good enough and demands we throw all 6 sandwiches away and remake her new ones. I’m pretty ticked off, at this point, and so as we go about making them a second time we proceed to run out of even more ingredients. Though when I inform her that we are out of, for example, banana peppers because she wasted the last of it, she surprisingly took it well and moved on.
So here we are at the condiments again and she does her famous line, ‘Now, put mayonnaise on all of them.’ because for some reason between the time it took to remake her sandwiches she forgot that we are LITERALLY OUT OF MAYONNAISE IN THE ENTIRE FRICKEN STAND. So I tell her again, we are out, to which she proceeds to scream and cuss me out for an impressive amount of time. So I decide to go in the back to ‘look for more again’ and to get away from her screaming with another supervisor. We sit back there, staring at each other in disbelief until one of us decides, screw it, we take a spare light mayonnaise bottle from the fridge, take off the cap that’s labeled ‘Light Mayo’ and replace it with a regular Mayo label. (Now I would usually never give someone some food item they didn’t ask for such as coke instead of diet because I don’t know their dietary needs but screw this lady I wanted to go home).
Triumphantly, we bring the ‘completely regular mayonnaise’ up front and make up some lie about how it fell behind another bottle. She rewards us by screaming some more about how we lied to her all that time about not having any before etc etc etc. we finish her transaction and send her happy self and her demon brigade on their way.
Humorously the man and older woman behind her happened to be her husband and mother (or mother-in-law) who apologized to us profusely and were all around very kind people.”
“Worst Customer Service” At The Video Store
“I work at a video store and we do this thing where if you get a certain color gumball out of our gumball machine, you get a free one dollar movie rental. There’s a sign that says, in plain English, you’re limited to one per visit.
So for example, if the color is pink and you get two pink ones, we’re only allowed to actually use one.
Anyways, one day a grandma comes in with her grandson and her daughter. They go straight to the gumball machine and proceed to get two gumballs that were the winning color for that week. I basically told them, ‘Great! We can only use one though.’ Obviously, they didn’t listen. When it came time to check out, the grandma let me know, ‘These two will be free because we got gumballs.’ I told her, once again, that we could only do one free rental.
Normally it isn’t that big of a deal, but our district manager at the time was a real stickler for following company policy. After I let her know she would only be getting one, she lost it. Immediately went red in the face and started screaming at me. ‘WE SPENT FOREVER TRYING TO FIND BOTH AND NOW YOU WON’T GIVE US BOTH! WE PAID 50 CENTS FOR GUMBALLS THIS IS THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE I’VE EVER HAD blah blah blah.’ I simply listened, let her yell and then informed her, ‘I did tell you. There’s also a sign. Sorry.’
Cue her slamming her wallet down, throwing money at me, and informing me that ‘your manager will hear about this.’ Like, yeah, okay, because I’m doing my job, great.
She did end up coming back to complain to my manager and all my manager said was, ‘Did you not see the bright yellow sign?’ All over a free dollar movie rental. I hate my job.”
Flipping Out Over Paper Bags?
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“I worked at an airport bookstore. My county had just created a ten cent charge for bags, and explaining this to non-locals (everyone, basically) was hit and miss. Some took it as nothing, others lost their freaking mind.
This lady lost her freaking mind. She was blonde, in her mid-30s, and Midwest from the twang. She bought a pack of gum or something small and I asked her if she wanted a bag. She said no. I gave her her change and she just glared at me and asked me where her plastic bag was. I said we don’t carry plastic, we have paper and it’ll be ten cents. She starts yelling about why and how and this is stupid and I’m stupid and I don’t know how to do my job, the works. My shift is ending and my boss is behind me a coworker coming to take my register and the three of us watch this lady go beet-red in the face, over ten cents.
She eventually takes her gum or whatever and stomped out of the store towards the gates.
I don’t miss that job.”
Happy Meals At McDonald’s Aren’t Served In The Morning, Ma’am!
“It was 10:45 am on a Saturday in the good ‘ol McDonald’s drive through when a patron we’ll call Mickie came through. Now you’ve got to understand that we didn’t start serving lunch until 11:00 am on weekends, so that meant we couldn’t ring up orders for anything with French fries or chicken nuggets for another 15 minutes.
Mickie comes through the drive through and I prompt her for her order Mickie: ‘I’d like 2 chicken nugget happy meals.’
Me: ‘Sorry ma’am, we don’t serve lunch until 11:00. You could either come back in 15 minutes for lunch or order something off of the breakfast menu. I’m sorry for the inconvenience’
Mickie: ‘What? That’s insane! 15 minutes? I’d like 2 chicken nugget happy meals.’
Me: ‘I’m sorry ma’am, but I’m not able to ring those up for you right now.’
Mickie: ‘I’ll just sit here for 15 minutes – I don’t give a care! I want my dang happy meals!’ (Mind you, her kids are in the back seat.)
Mickie then sits at the microphone for telling us all about how she’ll write a strongly worded letter to corporate, how she’ll sue us to the ground, and how horrible of people we are for doing this to her children. This goes on for five or six minutes until – all at once: it all stops.
Silence.
Mickie: ‘Fine…I’ll take 3 hash browns and an orange juice.’
Me: ‘That’ll be $4.37 at the next window, thanks!’
The best part was she could’ve ordered happy meals by the time she got her order.”
Promise To Sue The Hotel?
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“When I worked at a hotel, I met possibly the most irritable man on the planet. He came to the front desk to check in and when I asked for his name, he said ‘I’m a regular here.’ And I said okay, I still don’t know your name, he said ‘I stay here all the time, I’m a VIP. Didn’t they tell you I was coming?’
This hotel was a Best Western. If any of you readers are unaware of this particular chain, no Very Important Person has stayed at any Best Western location, ever.
I said, ‘Thank you for your business, I have only worked here a few months and I apologize if I’ve checked you in before and didn’t recognize you, but I really do need your name to find your reservation.’
Finally, after a little more back and forth verbal abuse, he spits out his last name and I search for it in this system: nothing. I try a few different spellings: nothing. I ask him to spell it.
‘Are you kidding me? First, you interrogate me, now you’re saying I don’t have a reservation?’
‘No, sir, I’m just having trouble finding it. If you’d please just spell your name for me–‘
Then he started screaming at me about how ridiculous this was, how he would never come back, how he was going to sue the hotel, etc. He stormed out and I heard his car peel out of the parking lot.
Later on, I did find his reservation — his name had a very odd spelling that I hadn’t guessed earlier — and when I told the manager the story, she said ‘Well, yeah, that sounds like him.’ Apparently he was just that irritable all the time. (And I checked his room history, his last visit was three months before I started working there, did he think we kept portraits of all the guests and memorized them?)
I saw many, many adult tantrums at the hotel. We were the first hotel driving into town off a long stretch of highway so many of them I chalked up to people who were tired and cranky from the road. But lots of people just wanted to throw a tantrum to get a better rate on the room, and of course, the people who just like to abuse service workers.”
Special Treatment At Joann Fabric Store…
“I used to work at Joann’s, one day a woman came in and she wanted to buy an item but wanted to make sure that it worked first. Well, we can’t open packaging, it’s store policy. I explain this to her. Also on this particular day, I was stuck in the ‘Customer Service box’, so I was the person that people would go to to ask their dumb questions. So she starts flipping out on me that I should let her open it before buying because she has cancer and she really needs to see if the item works.
So she’s standing at the customer service box screaming at me acting like a child. I’m just standing there because SCREW Joann’s. My manager walks up, and she’s like ‘Dude, what’s going on?’ I explain to her what the guest wanted, the manager looks at her and goes, ‘Yeah, we can’t let you do that.’ So the cancer patient guest starts throwing another hissy fit about how it’s not fair and all this stuff. She eventually leaves after taking a step back from the box and just stands there screaming at me.
I literally ignore her and continue helping other people who aren’t being complete lunatics. Eventually, she leaves, my manager comes back up to me and was like, ‘So yeah that was a first.’
I don’t know why people have to use their illnesses to try and get us to break rules. One person could make me lose my job and screw it wasn’t going to be her.
I willingly left that job January’16 and haven’t looked back. Best decision I’ve ever made.”
Psycho Woman At The Supermarket
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“I was at a supermarket and the woman in front of me was acting like a child. She was in her 40’s and wearing some formal clothes (kinda like a suit), so this surprised me a bit. She snatched the receipt out of the cashier’s hands, crumbling it in the process. Then she screams at the 17-year-old or so cashier, ‘What the heck this stuff is’ (talking about the wrinkles in her receipt I guess?) and shoves the receipt in the cashier’s face. Then she goes back down to her stuff and starts putting it in her bag, but then walks back up to the cashier halfway through and says, ‘This is freaking unbelievable, you should be ashamed!’
During all of this time, I have no idea what her problem actually is. Neither did the cashier. We just looked at each other and kind of laughed at the crazy lady.
The lady then turns to me and asks what the heck my problem is. I told her: ‘You are an adult, behave like one. Nobody wants to listen to you.’ She starts yelling, ‘You’re freaking disgusting!! Move out the way, little boy! Screw you! Get the heck away from me!’ Now, half the store is looking at us. I just keep telling her to, ‘Have a really nice day!’
She speeds past me and walks super fast to her car. Then, as I’m walking home down a gravel path, she comes from behind in her car, accelerates and flies past me, leaving a huge dust cloud behind her car.
My friend and I just look at each other and say: ‘What the heck was her problem?'”
No Receipt? No Return, Sir!
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“I work at a well-known clothing store, we also sell jewelry in some stores as well.
Two years ago I was covering our jewelry department since our clerk needed lunch. About 15 minutes in, a couple came up and wanted to return some items (Our store has a really specific policy for jewelry returns that we HAVE TO explain to every customer when they purchase). So I tell him to let me see the stuff he bought and his receipt.
This bracelet he had was the most disgusting piece of jewelry I had ever seen in my life. They had it not even a month and it was caked in black gunk, dirt, and I’m pretty sure he tried to melt it together (the bracelet was broken in two). So I told him no he couldn’t return it unless he has a receipt. And he immediately started yelling at the manager, telling customers how our company had ‘screwed him,’ swearing in front of children that were less than 2 feet away.
So I’m a key holder which means if there’s no manager, then I’m in charge, which was the case that day. So I ask him to calm down and refrain from swearing in our store, and that I was the manager on duty.
Now I’m 24 at the time but I look fairly young and this for some reason pushed him over the edge. He screamed at the top of his lungs about me being 12 and not able to be a manager, he started trying to rally other customers to get me fired, and at one point he was pushing things off our counters. And this is all before I even got to ask him why he was bringing it back, or if I could look up his receipt.
This went on for almost an hour, at one point he claimed it was fake gold because a pawn shop wouldn’t give him what he paid us for it, that care plans are a rip off and they offer them on milk (I really don’t know) and he wouldn’t buy milk in this country anymore, and more general weird stuff.”