Waiters and waitresses put up with a lot! These customers are straight out of
Vengeful Old Man
“Last Christmas, I was serving an older man who came in during a rush. I served him like any other normal customer. The cooks had messed up his order and I mistakenly hadn’t noticed. The dude was PISSED. He cussed me out in front of multiple other people, cussed me out to my manager, filed a complaint. That was just the beginning. The f— face FOUND MY FACEBOOK AND MESSAGED MY PARENTS SAYING HOW MUCH OF A MISTAKE I WAS. LIKE WHAT. The only good thing that came from it was another customer saw how terrible he was to me and left me $20. Another day in the life of an 18-year-old Frisch’s server”
The Birthday Boy Is A Jerk!
Luis Molinero/Shutterstock
“Once upon a time, I took care of a family of four, and it was the husband’s birthday. They were my last table, so I had tried very hard to give them good service. Being that I worked at this restaurant for years, I was in pretty good with the managers so I could get people upgraded food items for free. Got this guy a free add-on salad and a large chocolate Sunday for his family to share. Dude asks me, ‘Do you play the lottery? Because you just won,’ and proceeds to hand me a scratch off ticket with 50 dollars in winnings as a tip.
Go to the gas station to cash it in the next day, dude had already cashed it in. We paid 3% on our tables totals so I ended up paying like 5 dollars for this guy to eat out and get a bunch of free stuff on my behalf. ????”
The Destroyers
“So I never waited tables but I was a busboy the entire time I was in high school. We had this family that would come in, dude and his wife, their two small kids.
They seemed like the most ordinary family. But they were like Vishnu, the destroyers of tables.
They always left a f—ing disaster. Fries everywhere s— all over the floor.
I sat and watched as one of the kids put the salt and pepper shakers into a glass of milk, and then watched the dad be like, ‘Hey can junior have a new milk, he had a little accident.’
THEY WERE BOTH SUBMERGED IN MILK. Fries everywhere. Crumbs everywhere. 1% of the food had been consumed. They screamed the entire time to zero reaction from the parents. It was chaos for the entire hour they were there, every time.
I had to clean this up probably a dozen times before the hostess asked them not to come back.
Yeah, they threw a f—ing fit. Didn’t come back though
Nightmare.”
So Gross
“Served at Olive Garden for two years.
Typical busy night. Never ending pasta bowl time of year. Yay. It was one of my first tables of the evening. This family of five, mom, dad, two sons, and a little girl(probably 2 or 3). They were all exceedingly overweight, and the daughter had on a dirty shirt and no pants, just a diaper. Well on a check back I noticed an overwhelming scent of s— lingering around the table. I don’t judge, I have no idea what’s going on in their life. I just tell myself someone probably farted & I just walked up at the exact wrong moment.
Well, I return with some refills (s— smell still just as intense as before) and on my way around the table to pass out beverages I pass the high chair I notice the little girl has her hand in her diaper. WTF. I then proceed to watch her pull out a turd & throw it on the floor to join an even larger turd that was already there slightly covered by a napkin. I could not hide the disgust on my face.
I don’t remember exactly the words I used but I turned to the parents & said, ‘Umm, your daughter has a situation going on over here.’ The mother replies, ‘Oh yeah, I know I threw that napkin over it,’ and then continues to devour her third refill on never ending pasta. I was in disbelief. Not only is there two pieces of fresh honey boo boo style s— on the floor, but the girl’s hands are obviously covered in s— & not one family member seems to care in the slightest!!!!! One of the brothers even asked me for another Dr. Pepper, while I was standing there still in shock.
So I immediately told the manager on duty & she didn’t believe me. I said ‘I s— you not Amanda, there is s— on the floor. Go see for yourself.’ She ended up politely asking the mother to clean it up immediately she even gave her disinfectant wipes. The mom became irate and claimed it’s not her job, blah blah blah she feels discriminated that we would ask her to do such a thing. She even demanded that everything they ordered be paid for. But, in the end, she did pick up the s—. She picked it up but she didn’t wash her hands, didn’t clean up her daughter, continued to finish her meal. I thought it was over & they’d pay & get the f— out to never return.. but no, as I’m dropping the check mom says, ‘Uh it’s my son’s birthday don’t y’all sing & give us dessert'”
Arnold Palmer Fiasco
“Okay this is a crazy story all around.
I used to work at Cracker Barrel and one day our managers decided to run a server contest. They would do this all the time and normally it was with something like carrot cake for example. This time, the manager wanted us to see who could sell the most ‘Arnold Palmers’ (half iced tea-half lemonade).
Now don’t get me wrong, Arnold Palmers are delicious and everything, but there’s something insanely awkward about asking a person, ‘Can I start you off with something to drink? How about a nice refreshing Arnold Palmer??’…
Nevertheless, I wanted the free meal that was the contest prize so I asked every table I had that day. Most tables gave me a weird look, many of them asked me what it was, and a couple actually ordered one. There was one guy with his family, however, who asked me what an Arnold Palmer was and I told him (this is important) HALF-LEMONADE/HALF ICED TEA. So he orders one for himself and his kid says he wants one too. Sweet, two Arnies coming right up!
Fast-Forward to the end of the meal and the guy calls me over and tells me, ‘Where is the whiskey? You didn’t put any in my drink…’ I said, ‘Ummm, we don’t serve alcohol at Cracker Barrel, and there is no alcohol in a traditional Arnold Palmer…’ ‘You told me there was whiskey in one, why else would I have ordered it??’ I responded that no, I didn’t say there was whiskey as it doesn’t come with whiskey and We don’t serve alcohol at Cracker Barrel!. He keeps arguing with me, and eventually I say, sir, you knew there was no whiskey because you ordered one for your child, thinking this bit of logic would help him come to his senses. At this, he stands up and yells at me, ‘Don’t tell me how to raise my child!!’ flips his empty plate onto the ground in protest and tells his family, ‘We’re LEAVING!!’ and they walked out on the check after they had pretty much eaten everything on the table.
Needless to say, it was a very confusing shift”
No One Ordered This!
“I used to work at TGIF as a bus boy and there was this huge group of about 20 people. At the end of their meal, they received the bill. Everyone put in money for what they ordered. They sat there for a while doing the math and finally figured it out. They call their waitress over and say, ‘We ain’t order no gratuity. Show me gratuity on this table.’ They continued to try and argue and made the waitress cry. The manager had to be called in to explain what gratuity was.
They genuinely did not know what it was. They thought someone ordered gratuity and were arguing with each other about who ordered it before asking the waitress what it was.
They were there for about an hour talking to the manager and tried to get out of paying it. They eventually left not sure if they had to pay the tip or not. I wasn’t around for the end”
She Still Has The Scar
“A man comes in alone, looked to be in his late 50s or early 60s, and snaps at me to get my attention. Before I can speak he says,
‘Coke. With a lemon wedge.’
we were a tiny little cafe without the funding for a machine or the attention for a sponsorship, so we didn’t serve soda. I told him so, and he said,
‘I don’t think you heard me. I want a coke with a lemon wedge.’
I was pretty confused because I made it pretty clear we didn’t have coke. Turns out, he actually wanted me to walk next door, buy him a coke, and then bring it in and serve it to him. I told him as politely as I could that this was absolutely not happening, and he picked up the China tea cups we put at each place setting and threw it on the ground, shattering it and cutting open my ankle just a bit. (I didn’t notice until way later)
The whole cafe went very quiet, and I just kind of stood there looking at the mess of broken china. These were beautiful, rare cups that were all but impossible to replace, and I just didn’t know what to do being an 18-year-old facing up against an aggressive older man.
Fortunately, just literally a few second after the China hit the floor, a man got up from his table across the cafe and walked over. He then reached into his back pocket and showed the man his police badge, because he was an off-duty cop. China throwing guy did not get his coke with a lemon wedge or any food, but he did get arrested and a ticket for making threats and breaking public property. The fun part?
‘I JUST WANTED A DAMNED COKE! IF THIS LITTLE GIRL KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT SERVICE I WOULDN’T HAVE HAD TO SET HER STRAIGHT.’
I learned later he was the town looney who had actually done something like this in several other locations in town. I still have the scar from the piece of China that cut my ankle”
So, You Like Garlic?
“Every so often, this woman and her sister came into the pizza place I worked at. They always started off the phone call with how much they loved our food, how fantastic the service was, etc etc but that we also never put enough garlic on the crust. And I’m talking like 5 minutes of buildup to just tell us she wants extra garlic.
So I tell her don’t worry, we’ll make sure to put extra garlic on the crust. They come in, get their food, and leave. No problem.
Except for 5 minutes later, they’re back. She starts grilling me on how there was almost no garlic on the pizza, I take a look at it, and there is considerably more garlic than normal on that cheese disc. Not only did she get a free pizza, but she kept the one she complained about! This happened a few more times, each time with more and more garlic. I’d have thought she was going vampire hunting but also wanted a snack. She got like 3 free pizzas total.
However, I remembered the name that came up whenever they ordered – it was a pretty unique name, but let’s just say ‘J.’ So, a monthish later, I pick up the phone and see J on the Caller ID. I take their order, we go through the garlic spiel, the call ended.
Both I and my manager were fed up with this chick at this point. The garlic bottle needed to be refilled, but it still had enough garlic for maybe 6 pizzas. My manager says, ‘Hey, watch this.’ DUMPS the garlic on the entire pizza, not just the crust. It was an apocalypse of garlic. Lakes were forming on the cheese of the pizza, and the crust was stained a bright, sickening yellow-orange. It soaked through the box and stained the table underneath it. It was truly an unhealthy amount of garlic for anyone and had I seen it without context I would likely advise not eating it.
J showed up, opened up the box, and seeming satisfied, paid for her order and left. I was dumbfounded. I am seriously concerned with her wellbeing. She hasn’t been back since”
The Denny’s Regular
“I worked midnights at a college-town Denny’s for over a year and for the most part it was one of the better experiences of my life. There were some interesting moments, to be sure. I was usually the only male on staff, which meant that I would volunteer to serve any of the more slimey or gropetastic customers. Somebody was going to get a s—ty tip either way, I figured no one deserved to have their night ruined as well… at least on my watch.
At the time, one of our more notorious customers was an old guy named Ollie. You could tell that Ollies was a sad tale. You could also tell it was entirely his fault. He was like if Santa Claus had a charming brother and some terrible beast had chewed him up and digested all of the charisma leaving a bitter unlikable shell that yet thought it was entertaining. He wore the same s—ty red T shirt and a baseball cap that had the eyes of the Tazmanian Devil emblazoned on the front… to perhaps hypnotize the terribly drunk like some horrible white-trash Cobra.
He often talked about how his wife hit him with a bat.
When I first met him I was sympathetic. The ladies simply asked if I would cover him, he just needed coffee refills. No one shared anything about him besides the fact that he was a coffee sipping lunk.. and with that off-white soup-stained beard I didn’t expect a tip going in. All night he kept putting a lit cigarette on the bar, standing on its butt (you could smoke in Denny’s at the time) and telling female passersby that ‘He-is Raockit Shi-ip wus abut to BLASHT OFF.’
There was a period in which he had a single razor-wide strip of his beard shaved off of his left cheek. No one wanted to know why.
As the months went on, I became aware that he had been grab-a–ing the ladies. Or worse. I caught him blocking someone in the bathroom once. Not physically barring the door, but being too damned creepy and getting too damned close. It wasn’t immediately obvious, mind you. He backed off when I got there and the look on the ladies face as she escaped the bathroom told me the rest of the story. Had she fessed up about what happened I would’ve booted that creepy f— immediately, but she left as soon as she could (and I don’t blame her).
Then came the fateful night where he ordered food. I knew he didn’t have the money to order from us, he’s never ordered from us. Had he not been a creepy f— I would’ve just paid for his meal and called it a reverse tip. But this was all I needed. He finished his meal, I delivered the bill and he told me he couldn’t pay. I made sure to say it loud enough for all the ladies of Denny’s to hear: ‘Alright Ollie, get out. And you can’t come back.’
He shuffled out and they all swarmed over to learn what had happened. It was true, Ollie was 86ed. None of the ladies could ever prove that he grabbed them, but we could conclusively prove that I was stiffed. They cheered as one voice. It was almost as glorious as when he tried to come back the next night. The lady who had endured his hands more than any other was working that evening and came to me doe-eyed to thank me personally. When Ollie inevitably lumbered up to the door she ran to intercept at full speed and held it shut with all of her might screaming at him that he could never come back. One of the happy endings I was able to supply in my life, I’ll never forget it”
An Honest Mistake
“When I was in high school, I worked at a Johnny Rocket’s. It was maybe my second day waitressing, and a guy with his family ordered a plain burger. Put the order in, but put it in slightly incorrectly so it came out with none of the toppings, but it did have thousand island dressing. Honest new kid mistake. The guy was totally pissed, made such an angry face that I can still recall it 13 years later, and then, out of nowhere, smeared the burger all over my chest and walked out”
The Hockey Star Sucks
“I used to work at a bar/restaurant that was inside a hockey arena. It was a cool place and the people who worked there were fantastic. However, the arena was home to a (now defunct) OHL hockey team. On the surface, it was pretty cool because one of the banquet rooms overlooked the ice, so when it was slow during games, staff could check out some of the action, and see a few guys who made it to the NHL.
But the players were f—ing awful when they would come in after the games. Most of them were 18-20 at the time, they never had any money and they acted like they owned the place. One night, after a game, a player (best kid on the team, blue chip, top five NHL prospect) comes in, orders a pizza, eats, gets the bill, waits until I’m out of sight, leaves the book on the table and leaves. When I approach the table, I assume he’s left cash. Nope.
Little prick left me five promotional hockey cards that the team gave out that night. And one of them was the f—ing mascot. I go tell the manager, and he says that I’m going to have to cover the $12 bucks for the pizza. I, a 24-year-old waiter, am irate at having to pay for a meal for a kid that is getting ready to sign a huge NHL contract, throw a huge hissy fit and eventually he agrees to void it. The guy is still playing in the NHL and is having a pretty solid career. I should have just paid for the pizza and had him sign his dumb card…”
She Broke The Rule!
“Once, when I was working at this insanely popular breakfast joint, my first table of the morning was a seemingly adorable old couple. After going through our specials, at their request, she ordered the duck hash special, and he ordered 2 boring poached eggs on toast. All good.
I bring them their food and the guy starts freaking out. You see, I didn’t bring him a tablespoon for his eggs. Granted, he didn’t ask for one, but according to him, everyone knows that poached eggs are supposed to be served with a tablespoon. I’ve been a waitress for nearly a decade, and I’ve served a LOT of poached eggs, and I’ve never heard this rule.
Nonetheless, I apologize profusely and tell him I’ll go grab him a spoon. ‘No!’ he yells. ‘My breakfast is ruined now!’ and then, this grown a– adult throws his plate of food at me and storms out. His wife gives me a sympathetic smile as she slinks out behind him, and I work the next 8 hours with egg yolk stains all over me”
Bad Mom, Bad Customer
“When I was working at Rita’s (a water ice stand) I had a lady come to the window with her two children. First off, she had on booty shorts with her a– checks hanging out and a corset type top that was 10 sizes too small. It just barely covered her nipples. And did I mention she had her two young children with her?
Well anyways, it’s busy and the line is long and she comes up. I take the order for her daughter and then her son says he has to pee. She then takes her son to the side of our building (we have windows on the side so we get a full view of the front) and has him pee there when there was a huge tree about a few feet away AND we had a bathroom that we allow kids use.
Well anyway, she’s taking long and with the line wrapping around the building, I take the next customer while she lets her son piss up our building. She then comes back, and steps in front of the lady and says she’s ready. I asked her to give me a minute since I was almost finished with the customer that she just stepped in front of. She then goes on to yell really loud how unprofessional I was and how I had terrible customer service.
I then explained to her that while she had her son pee on the side of the building I decided to try and get the next person out of the way. She then goes to deny her son peeing on the side of the building and says she would like to speak to my manager. (My manager doesn’t believe in the customer is always right crap and hated people like this.) So I gave her his number and wrote down my name for her to tell him, which pissed her off even more.
She did wait to get her stuff though, screaming the whole time I’m making it, then huffs off. The people behind her each apologized for the way she acted and all told me I was doing a great job and gave me tips. & there’s also the pedophile that we had to call the cops on because he would wait until we closed and try and get us to come to his house to ‘clean.’ Yup, I don’t work there anymore”
Crazy Bacon Lady
I used to work at Subway. There was one legendary customer that we only refer to as ‘Crazy Bacon Lady’
She was an older woman. She came in and asked how much a 6″ BLT was. We told her it was 3.50 plus tax. She then proceeded to yell at us saying it was $2 when she came in yesterday (hint, she didn’t come in yesterday. In fact this was the first time she had even been in our store. Plus the fact that the BLT was never at any point $2 in the 3 years I had worked there). She barks out her order the whole way up the line saying such gems as:
‘I am a good Christian woman, I don’t deserve to be treated this way’
‘For 3.50 that bacon better be fresh!’
‘The service here is terrible! I’M NEVER COMING BACK, YOU HEAR ME!’
And the best one of them all, when she gets to my co-worker who is manning the cash register and he tells her the total of 3.68 (tax and all) she says:
‘You people are workers of the DEVIL!’
She plops down exact change, snatches up her bag, and storms out the door.
Whenever I see my old co-workers, we still have a good laugh about it”
Deathly Allergic
“A lady and her husband came in and before sitting down told us that she was deathly allergic to white wine saying, verbatim, ‘If you feed me white wine I will die.’ So I run around double and triple checking recipes and ingredients and making sure the kitchen is ready so when she orders I know her food will be safe. Her husband orders the special and I make sure to tell her not to eat any of his meal as it is dressed with a beurre blanc made with white wine and I’d like her to survive her dining experience.
Well I bring out their food and the first thing she does is scoop a big old’ forkful of hubby’s special and I cry out in dismay as she shoves in her dumb f—ing mouth and says while chewing, ‘Oh, one bite won’t hurt.’ She also single-handedly weeded every server on the floor by forcing them into inane, inappropriate conversations while they were trying to take care of their busy sections, AND cornered another guest in the tiny corridor leading to the bathrooms to tell him, aggressively, he was being too loud.
Long story short, ‘I’m deathly allergic to X’ == ‘I don’t really like X’ in old lady lingo, and busy servers don’t give a s— about your week”
Jersey Shore In The House
“I went to college in NYC. To make money on the side I worked as a cocktail waitress/bottle service hostess at clubs and lounges. So the lounge I worked at was a popular place in manhattan so obviously, lots of people from Jersey and Long Island would come there on the weekends. And these people would come only for special occasions. Now think of the crowd as either old/professional or young and jersey shore like.
So this group of loud people from long island (could tell by their accent) were at one of my tables. So I’m super friendly and its part of the job to be super nice and flirtatious so you get the guys to spend more money. So this group of like 10 guys and like 4 girls were celebrating one of the guys birthdays. So they’re getting bottles on bottles on bottles. I was extra nice that day because the more the get, the more I make (20% commission + 20% tip the tip is split between me and the busboys/bouncers/bartenders etc).
So fast forward, these people have fun, no drama with me or the place. Everyone’s happy. Time for them to go, so the birthday guy’s brother hands me his card and tells me to give his brother a birthday kiss. I give him a kiss on the cheek, laugh it off and go to close them out. So when I’m closing them out, the credit card is declined. Their bill was $3800. Usually, when ppl get tables, I take the person’s ID and credit card to make sure its the same person. I didn’t take his ID because I forgot in the heat of the moment. It’s 3 AM and, just imagine dealing with drunks since 11 PM being completely sober.
So, I come back to the table to tell them their card is declined… but these mother f—ers left. Like they dipped out of there so fast. I run out the lounge I’m telling security they ran without paying.. so I’m running down 9th avenue chasing these people and they’re just walking away like nothing ever happened. At the very least I still had that a–hole’s declined card which had a name on it so I could easily tell the cops.
So finally I catch up to them with one of the bouncers behind me. And I tell them very nicely, like maybe there’s a mistake with the bank because its a random charge, but your card has been declined. They got SO offended and started screaming s— at me. Like one of the girls was like ‘B—-, do we look poor to you? You’re the whore working, not us’ and just stupid s—. I’m just standing there running out of patience. So O just tell them to shut the f— up and pay their bill, and if they can’t, I will be more than happy to call 911.
This girl LEAPED at me like a f—ing cheetah in the wild and knocked me down to the ground. I’m 5’9 and 130 pounds. This girl was shorter than me but she weighed 200 pounds EASILY. She doesn’t beat me up or anything. She’s literally straddling me on the ground touching my face. I’m screaming for her to get off me and as the security guard is grabbing her, she rips out my fake eyelashes from my eyes and starts screaming ‘What now b—-, what now?’
They’re all laughing and celebrating as if they just won the super bowl. I’m confused as f—. Security is confused as f—-. And this b—- is waving my eyelashes around like it’s a trophy. Now I have dealt with drunk people before but never have I ever dealt with a drunk group that stole my eyelashes.
After this happened, there was an NYPD car driving by and we called them. The second we started waving at the cops. All of a sudden these guys are pulling out $100 bills from their pockets. The security guard was like, ‘You need to put a 30% tip on that for all the trouble you caused’ which was like another $1k… the eyelash thief threw a bunch of hundreds at me and called ME pathetic”
You Get What You Pay For
“I’ve posted this before but: I had been working at this Thai place in my town for about 8 months, and for the last 4 months, I’d seen the same teenaged couple come in every Sunday and leave 0% regardless of service.
One day my boss decided enough was enough. ‘Tui noy!’ she all but yelled to me. (That’s my Thai Nickname. It’s an endearing name generally given to chubby children that loosely translates to ‘little something’) ‘I don’t care whose turn it is, you take them next week, and you make sure you earn that 0%’
I do a bit of a double take… She can’t possibly mean what I think she means. ‘You mean?’ She nods and gives me this smile that is equal parts devious and smug. A week later they come in 5 minutes into my shift. She seats them in my section, smiles at me and tells me to do my worst.
Here is a fairly detailed account of the wonderful 45 minutes that followed:
I wait a good 5 minutes before going to greet them and bring waters. They’re ready to order. I don’t have a pen. I’ll be right back. I promise. I go out back, power smoke a cigarette (takes me about 90 seconds) before I return. They’re my only table and I’m not handling food yet, so I don’t wash my hands. I reek of smoke.
I take her order, pad thai no bean sprouts like always. As he opens his mouth to tell me he’ll have the same I give him the ‘just a minute’ finger and pull out my phone. I text my fiancé and ask if he wants to get dinner from my place or his tonight. I take his order. I somehow misunderstand and write down extra bean sprouts. Their food comes up while I’m telling my boss and the other waitress a story about my cat. I finish telling the story before I get their food. I bring it out and walk away as they’re starting to complain about the sprouts. About 5 minutes after they get the food I get a second table. One is a customer from a former job of mine and we spend a few minutes catching up when I go to greet them.
The 0%’s try to signal me as I leave the table, but I stare straight ahead. I come back for my new table’s order and see that their glasses are missing roughly four sips of water. This simply won’t do! I hang their ticket and come back to fill their glasses. I look at 0%’s empty glasses, look the guy straight in the eye, smile, and walk away. He stops me as I’m walking over with apps for my new table and asks for boxes. I tell him I’ll grab them right after I drop off this food.
I play a game of 2048 all the way up to 1024 before bringing them one small box. They ask for two bigger boxes and the check. I promise I’ll be right back, and then ask my boss to keep an eye on the table I like while I go smoke again. (Obviously I don’t usually take this many smoke breaks, especially not this early into a shift.) I come back and my boss tells me they came to her for boxes and to pay and told her they’re never coming back. She voids their check, gives me the $20 some dollars, and tells me I earned it”
Filet Mignon Fiasco
“I wait tables in a country club. I had a couple come in once and as they were sitting down before I had even introduced myself the woman was already complaining since they had to wait 5 minutes while we resat ‘their table.’
She started off by telling me every time she gets the filet mignon it’s awful and cooked wrong. I suggested she tried something else. Nope. Goes for the same thing again. I gave the kitchen heads up and make sure it was perfect and save us all a headache.
Steak comes up, seems fine. I drop her plate in front of her and I can already see that bulls— smirk people get when aren’t amused. She grabs her butter knife and legit slaps the top of the steak with the flat of it 3 times and goes ‘this is disgusting.’ She hasn’t even cut into it or tasted it. She has me take it back and bring her a new one.
So, of course, we do it… She gets her new one. She eats half of it and takes the rest home, wants to talk to a manager. She complains until she gets her whole meal free and desert. Leave me a garbo tip even if you don’t include the free steak and desert.
Even left me a comment card, just saying ‘STEAK SUCKED’ and 1 star for service”
Entitlement And A Frappucino Problem
“I was able to do this once in god knows how many years of retail service. I was working in a coffee shop (NOT Starbucks) and we had a regular who was insufferable. She was your average white suburban stay at home mom with a massive entitlement problem. Funny thing about MOM, all her kids were in school for 7-8 hours a day and she spent her time shopping, going to the gym, and getting lattes and our Frappucino knocks off.
Our biggest problem with her is that no matter what you made for her, YOU f—ed it up and it tasted terrible. She’s had this drink a hundred times before and knows exactly how it’s supposed to taste, so you’ve done something wrong. MOM would bring the drink back, complain, and want a refund and a new drink. Depending on who was working, she’d either get one or both of those things.
I got stuck working the afternoon shifts for about a month or so and I noticed she came in 3-4 times a week, right around 2 o’clock. And the same routine occurred every time, no matter which employee helped her. After 3 weeks of watching this petulant b—- pull her ‘customer is always right’ bulls—. I decided we were done with this.
I waited for a day when I was on shift with one of the newer employees and no managers were in the building. She comes in and orders a mocha frappucino. I make it with painstaking accuracy, measuring out each ingredient precisely and in full view. Swirl the whipped cream beautifully, drizzle the chocolate, put a lid on and serve. This smoothie thing looked gorgeous, it could have been used in a print ad it was so appealing.
Serve it, wait. Sure enough, two minutes later she comes back to the counter complaining that it isn’t as sweet as it normally is and she wants her money back and a new coffee blended candy bar. I flat out told her no, she’s not getting either. She was speechless for a minute, I’m guessing because no one’s ever called her out on her bulls—scam before, and then demanded to speak to the manager.
I lied, said I was the manager, and that she wasn’t welcome at this store anymore. I’d seen her do this multiple times over the past few weeks and we weren’t going to be giving in to her little con game she was running. MOM was pissed, grabbed her frappe back and stormed out of the store.
The other barista clapped and one of our other regulars gave me a shiny $100% bill for standing up to that wretched woman.
Just kidding, she actually called the store manager the next day and complained. He was pretty pissed at me. I saved my job by sitting down with him and showing him how much money and the free product she had scammed out of us in the last month. He wasn’t happy with what I did, but he couldn’t deny that this woman was definitely just getting free s— by ceaselessly complaining. I got to keep my job and she never came back so I still call it a win”
How Violent!
“This guest was incredibly drunk, couldn’t even sit properly anymore let alone talk – we refused to get him another drink, he threw a glass at my head”
What Did She Think It Stood For?
“The thing that sticks out to me most is when I managed a sandwich shop. This lady comes in with her kid, orders a BLT and waits for her food. She then proceeds to yell at me because her BLT had bacon on it which she didn’t order. I tried to explain that anywhere she goes, a sandwich with an ingredient in the name is going to come with that ingredient unless you exclude it. She then called the owner who told me to apologize to her which I refused- I was able to go forward with the knowledge that some people are real jerks”
