23 Terrible Stories That Will Instantly Trigger Everyone In The Retail And Service Industry
Shutterstock / Sergey Miron
1. A guy came up to the register and ordered a cheeseburger (you cant mess that up right?), well I took his money, gave him his change and a minute later, his cheeseburger. A few seconds after I hand him the cheeseburger, he looks at me and goes, “You stupid inbred piece of shit! I wanted a big mac!” I was 16 at the time and was horrified that a grown man would shout at a freaking kid over something that was not my fault… My manager came over and ripped this guy a new one for being so stupid.
2. I used to work at Wendy’s. Once a woman came up and gave me the most complicated, ridiculous order I’ve ever heard.
She was so indecisive and couldn’t decide what she wanted, and kept changing things. Plus, we had the oldest cash registers in Wendy’s history (from the 1960s, I’m not kidding, it took 5 buttons just to order a small drink). Finally she finished, I ran through her order with her STEP BY STEP and she approved it.
It took us a while to get the order done, it was close to an $85 order.
I reviewed her receipt step by step again, made sure everything was in the bags, and gave her the food.
15 minutes later, she comes storming in, holding a bag of fries, saying “THIS ISN’T WHAT I ORDERED YOU STUPID BITCH, DID YOU EVEN FINISH HIGH SCHOOL OR ARE YOU A PATHETIC DROP OUT DRUG DEALING IDIOT?! YOU ARE SO BEYOND INCOMPETENT, I ORDERED 7 LARGE FRIES, NOT 6, GIVE ME MY OTHER FUCKING FRY BEFORE I SET YOU ON FIRE.”
I wish I was overreacting. I will never forget those words. Side note, I was an Honors Student at a Big 10 University at the time.
I was just shocked. One of my co-workers took the fries out one at a time and counted them (there were 7). I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it involved asking the woman where the fuck she learned to count.
I will always be respectful to people who work in fast food. ALWAYS.
3. When I worked in a call centre doing tech support:
“Go fuck yourself.”
Customer: “So you close in a few minutes?”
Me: “Yes, we do.”
Customer: “How do you get home?”
Me: “I take the train.”
Customer: “Well I’m going to keep you on the phone until you miss your train.” (They failed.)
4. I worked as a pharmacy tech in college, dispensing drugs to every kind of person imaginable, and some of those people were not very nice. A very large percentage of people didn’t understand their insurance plan or how deductibles work, and that makes them surprisingly angry.
One gentleman whose deductible had not yet been met had been given a prescription for a more expensive antibiotic and the patient cost was over $300. Seeing the price, rather than ask why it was so expensive, he went off on a tirade of anger. He yelled that he was going to wait for me and rape me in the parking lot that night; that he was going to find out where I was living and rape me in my home.
I was so upset and the pharmacist just stood in the back of the pharmacy hiding and didn’t say anything to this guy. No one at the store did anything at all, actually. After realizing that the guy was indeed sitting in the parking lot nearly an hour later, I called the cops on him and reported his threats to them. He was removed from the property, but it was a huge scene.
I ended up getting written up for calling the cops on this guy by the manager of the pharmacy. I transferred to a new store after that.
- Anonymous
5. This guy was trying to get insurance information from his ex wife over the phone. I was new to the pharmacy and didn’t realize I could get it off of her profile. She, not realizing she’s on speakerphone said, “What kind of fucking idiots do they have working there?” Everybody in the store heard her say it.
The guy saw how embarrassed I was, looked at me saying: “That’s why she’s my ex wife.”
6. I worked in retail and would often get shoplifters, but we couldn’t do much other than follow them around and if we saw them put something in their purse/bag/pocket offer to place that item at the cash register for them.
We technically couldn’t accuse them of shoplifting because if they dropped the item and no longer had it, they could sue the company for false accusations. Really messed up considering it was a Fortune 500 lingerie company.
One day I came out from the back and walked into a situation where a frequent shoplifter was having a stand off with my boss. Accused my boss of being racist and then threw cookies at her. Yes, cookies. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever witnessed, other than the time I caught a man shoving about 8 bottles of perfume down his pants.
“Excuse me, sir, can I offer you a shopping tote for those perfumes? I see they must be your favorite, can I interest you in our store card?”
Yeah, I don’t miss that job.
7. There was a big line at my work and only two of us working. So I ended up being the only one on cash with a huge line.
I was going fairly quickly and still being cheerful so I thought I was doing fine, then this woman about two customers back says, loudly, “This retarded girl shouldn’t be allowed to be on till alone if she is going to be that slow.” She said this to her 8-year-old daughter.
8. I worked as a customer service rep at a cell phone company in college and would hear terrible things all the time but, the worst would have to be when I heard a man literally almost beat his wife to death.
She was the account owner and had not authorized him to access it. They must have been having a pretty heated argument already because he was calling in to disconnect her line. She wouldn’t give authorization so, in response, he began to beat her. It was the most awful thing I have ever heard. I could hear each time he made contact and the sounds she made still haunt me when I think about them. I hit trace on my phone, muted and waved my supervisor over. She and I were able to get the police to their home in a matter of minutes but it felt like an eternity because there was nothing I could do except wait.
The police finally arrive and contain him, I hear the paramedics asking her questions but I don’t hear any responses – against my choice, I had to hang up, note the account and move on with my shift, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I spent the next month thinking about her, hoping that she was fine before I finally accepted the fact I would never know. But, one day when I came into work, I had a letter on my desk.
The letter was from her. I don’t even know how to explain how relieved I felt seeing her name as the return address. She wrote about how she was in the hospital for two weeks from her injuries, she is happily in the process of divorce and the husband is now in jail. She had called in after getting home to try and find “the girl that saved her life.” I am glad we were required to note every account or my name would have been lost and I would probably still be wondering years later.
- xl3lait
9. I used to work at the infamous Ponderosa Buffet as a line cook. Fun fact, you can actually order meals there other than “buffet, please.” So with these so-called meals, you get choice of side: either french fries, or baked potatoes. One day we got slammed with business and completely ran out of baked potatoes, and had some in the oven starting to cook.
In walks The Customer. He stands at an ample 6’4. He’s a wide man, clad in denim and full of beefy desire in his heart. His mustache, thicker than Sam Elliot’s. This is an American man made by and for his time. His lips part, and out come the words: “Buffet and a Ribeye.”
The host begins to speak, but is shut down. “With a baked potato.”
“We currently are all out of potato. We can offer you-”
The man’s face turns a shade of fuchsia not even Crayola could name. His eyes bulge, his lips tighten. The air blowing in and out of his mouth creates a rippling tornado of absolute fury around him.
“NO POTATOES.”
“WE-”
“NO POTATOES?!”
He moves faster than anyone of his girth should and ever has since. He pokes his angry face back into the kitchen.
“NO POTATOES! WHAT’S GOING ON AT PONDEROSA?!?!”
“NO POTATOES!!! YOU SHOULD BE FIRED,” he proclaimed, waving a finger at me.
His family had to pull him back to the front desk, him still hollering. He accepted the sad terms we had to give him. French Fries. The kitchen was on the other side of the wall from the buffet line, so I walked around to see him eating his steak.
He just ate it with pure spite. I’ve never seen anyone mow on a buttered well-cooked steak with just pure hatred. He didn’t even enjoy the buffet. He just sighed when he had to pick up the tongs/spoon/ladle like it wasn’t enough. There will always be a baked potato shaped hole in that fat man’s heart.
10. I worked at the paint department at Lowes. And one time an older black couple said I was making them wait because they were black, even though they were behind three people I was helping.
I asked them how could they possibly think that, and they said, ” Your ears turned red when you talked to us. Thats how we know you’re racist.”
11. I was working my store’s service desk when this dirty (literally dirty) old guy walks up with some opened light bulbs. He’s muttering to himself for a minute or so before telling me that he wants to return them. Naturally, he has no receipt. Now, we’re not supposed to do anything with opened bulbs, but I told him that he could replace them if he wanted. He told me our return policy was communism before taking the bulbs and shambling away, muttering to himself. I honestly didn’t think he’d come back.
About an hour later, he comes back with the bulbs and a half dozen cans of cat food off the shelves. He scowled at me and asked if what he had was good enough. I told him that, again, all I could do was replace the bulbs. He yelled, “WELL, YOU CAN KEEP THE SON OF A BITCH AND STICK IT UP YOUR ASS!” and proceeded to throw all of the items at me. I’ve been called a lot of things and had various items thrown at me, but this is still the only time I’ve been told to stick stuff up my ass.
He missed, by the way.
- Anonymous
12. Elderly man told me I should be taken out back and shot…
Apparently not having a specific brand of milk is a pretty big deal…
- Anonymous
13. Woman walks up to my register with her 2-year-old.
Orders a drink.
2 year old reaches into our tip jar and pulls out a quarter.
I protest.
Mother responds, “It’s just a quarter. I give you people too much already anyway.”
Mother and daughter turn and leave.
- Trinilos
14. my first job was as a waitress and I had a particularly surly old man one day that spent the duration of his meal insulting me, asked me to turn around for him, criticized the way I styled my hair and overall just gave me a hard time about every little thing. He left without giving me much of a tip even though I tried my best to remain polite and professional. The lady sitting at the table beside me noticed how rude he was and went out of her way to compliment me and left me a 20 dollar tip on a 40 dollar bill. It was probably my first real life encounter when I realized that despite the grumps in the world, there are people out there that show genuine sincerity and kindness to strangers.
- Anonymous
15. I worked at a Steak ‘N Shake right outside the metro area of Atlanta for about 3 months with my best friend at the time, who is black. There was a customer she was serving who didn’t like something about the service (she didn’t get the customers drink quickly enough or something, during a rush) The customer stands up and yells “You stupid fucking n–ger!” in front of the whole service floor. My friend handled it the best she could and walked away, and the whole staff saw it, including management. What shocked me the most was that they didn’t ask this woman to leave. My friend finished her shift, and someone else served the psycho. People are crazy man, I work in retail and I get someone about once a week who is institution worthy.
- Anonymous
16. I had 6 middle aged females (generally, notoriously bad tippers) sitting at a table for lunch – they were celebrating one lady’s birthday. They were super demanding, dismissive, and condescending – basically had me running around all shift. At the end of the meal, they requested (read: demanded), that I split the check by seat and then allocate the birthday lady’s bill onto their tabs (so she wouldn’t have to pay). It’s not super hard, but time consuming and kind of a hassle (busy lunch – have to swipe cards / make change for 5 different tabs – but whatever, it’s my job).
In the end, I only made about 10% in tips off of the table. They all leave, I’m a bit upset about being treated like crap and not even being paid well for it. All of a sudden the birthday lady walks up to me at the door of the kitchen, hands me $20, smiles and says “I know how they can be. Thanks.” Faith in humanity restored!
17. I was working register one day when this couple comes up with a bag of dog food. I ring them up and tell them their total ($40.34 or something like that). The wife says “Hold on I think I have the change… no never mind I don’t.” So I take what they give me, get their change, close the cash drawer, turn to hand their change to them and see she is holding 2 quarters to give to me. She has an angry look on her face and I said “Oh I’m sorry, you told me you didn’t have the change.” The thing that baffles me is that while I was getting her change, she could have spoke up and said, “Hey wait I have it!” But she chose not to. So in anger she turns to her husband and says “What does she have? Fucking downs syndrome?” They both start laughing and I’m standing there shocked that something as terrible as that would come out of someones mouth. And that’s when the customer behind them said “What are you? A fucking bitch?” The couple storms out and I’m just standing there still in disbelief that someone who is supposed to be an adult would say something like that.
- Anonymous
18. My friend and I were next in line at the concession counter of a movie theater and the customer in front of us was being an absolute prick to the young girl working behind the counter for no apparent reason, except that he was just a flaming asshole. She was so flustered and nervous that she was shaking, it was very sad to watch. So I began to comment very loudly to my friend something like “Look at this fucking guy, picking on a teenage girl.” So he looks back as if he is going to lay into me and sees two big guys staring him down. He quickly flips back around and stares at the counter. I then say something to the effect of “You know, people like this deserve to have the fucking shit beaten out of them. I hate fucking pussies.” My friend made some comment in agreement with my sentiment. Mr. Asshole became visibly nervous – it was a glorious turn of events! I felt like I had made the world a little better place that night.
19. When I was working at McDonalds a guy once came in to promote the new church/cafe he had opened. He went on about how they did mainly lunches and whatnot for the poor. Then he says “I assume since you work at McDonalds you must be really poor or not all there.” The girl in the drive through and I just stood there staring at him untill his meal came up and he left.
20. I work as a hostess at a nicer restaurant in a Big-10 college town. It was my first time working on a football game day, and we were completely packed. We were on a three hour wait, which basically meant that people were camping out at tables until the game was over. A group of six or seven 60- to 65-year-old men barged through the door and completely ignored our hellos, pushing through a crowd of 20 or so customers standing around waiting and drinking beer. Before they got too far past the foyer to hear me, I told them that if they’d like a table, we could put their name on the list. One of the men turned back at me and literally sneered. I looked at the door guy for some help but he was trying to kick out a drunk mom, so it looked like I was on my own here.
I finally got through the crowd and found the men sitting at a table that had literally just been cleared off. I remember taking a huge breath to steel myself before asking them to move, because I’m already pretty put off by older men, and these guys were shitfaced on top of that. I said something like “Excuse me, I just need to let you know that right now we’re on a three hour wait and there are about 20 groups waiting to be sat right now. If you wouldn’t mind getting up and heading back to the entrance so we can put your name on the list, that would be great.” One of the guys stands up and is pretty much towering over me. I’m about 5’1″. He was roughly the height of a pine tree. Intimidating a young girl? Classic move, dirtbag!
“Listen, nobody ever told us we’d have to wait. We’re not moving.” So I said, “Well, with all due respect sir, you walked past about five hostesses on your way in, and we did actually tell you that there was a wait. You just ignored us. So I’m telling you again to make sure you understand.” The guy literally SPIT on the ground at this point and stares at me with the creepiest eyes in the world and goes, “I didn’t hear any of you lazy cunts say anything to me.” I am pretty sure I have never been more indignant in my entire life. I remember being in complete shock and just walking away.
One of the servers stopped me, saying that I looked like I had just seen a ghost, so I told him what happened. He stared open mouthed at me and told me to go tell our manager, so I did, even though I was pretty embarrassed that I had tears in my eyes. I just assumed this sort of thing was normal on busy days like this and that I just wasn’t used to it yet.
When I told him what had just happened, he got this look in his eyes that I have come to enjoy seeing, because it usually means it’s about to go down. It was pretty awesome. He had me point out which table they were at, walked up to them, and said, extremely calmly, “Nobody ever speaks to my employees like that, and nobody EVER speaks to a woman like that. You crossed a line. Get the fuck out of my restaurant.” The guys were extraordinarily pissed and said stuff like, “We’re alumni, we are important here,” and “You’ll never get our business again,” etc. and my boss says, “Eh, I don’t really care. Your money is worthless here.”
And then all was well again in the world.
My least favorite people in the world are middle-aged men who think they’re back in their fraternity house as soon as they arrive on their old campus, but my favorite people in the world are bosses who actually care about their employees.
- Anonymous
21. People are terrible to waitstaff.
I once had a man order nachos that had the whole shebang- salsa, sour cream, chili, lettuce, tomato, onion, butt load of shredded cheese, cheese sauce and two types of beans. This dish is a HUGE appetizer and can easily be split between 5 people. Well this man eats exactly half of it and then tells me it’s “too dry” so I offer to get him more salsa, cheese sauce, and chili and he said “Are you fucking STUPID? I said it was DRY not that I need more shit to put on it!” And I was a little dumbfounded so I just said something like, “Oh, sorry sir, what can I get you then?” He glared at me and said “Get me your fucking manager you incompetent bitch.” I do so and, it being a corporate chain, I expected my manager to side with the customer.
However, this manager must have also been told off because I over heard him say “Well, you ate half of it so that first half must have been fine. Therefore, if you are going to talk like that to me and my staff I demand you pay for this and get the hell out of here.” As the man was leaving he asked my manager if I was new to which my manager said, “Well she’s been here for a few months.” And the guy looked straight at me (I was cleaning a nearby table) and said “I can tell, she’s never going to last if she can’t figure out how to do the simplest tasks. She’s a complete fucking idiot. Save yourself time and money and fire her already.” He was promptly escorted out of the restaurant.
22. I worked in a movie theater back in the day and when I told a very elderly man how much his popcorn and soda cost he immediately erupted into a verbal blitzkrieg which basically accused me of being a raging antisemitic.
Granted it was expensive as fuck but he was literally claiming I was making up different prices for different creeds. He even brought Palestine into it.
Plus he was the perfect distance from the other customers earshot so when they all looked over, it probably looked like I was oppressing this poor old man.
It’s like come on, man. You look like an old bag of skin I can’t even tell what you are. Besides don’t feel special, were robbing everyone.
23. I work in customer service for a very well-known credit card company. I had a younger lady call in, very confused about her AMAZON account. I attempted to explain that I can help with her credit card, but I regrettably don’t have access to her Amazon account. She proceeded to mock me… everything I would say she would repeat back in this twerpy little voice. She called me a stupid bitch. Stating that I was nothing but a blood sucking whore. Seriously. I apologized, asked her to keep it professional, and proceeded to transfer her to Amazon for further assistance.
Sourced from thoughtcatalog.com
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