Rude customers are everywhere, but they seem to come out of the woodwork when it comes to food places. Whether it's the grocery store, a restaurant, or a fast food joint, these mean people like nothing better than to make their food worker feel terrible.
“Fire In The Hole” Is The Worst Thing A Drive-Thru Operator Could Hear
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“I was working drive-thru one day when a woman ordered a large orange Hi-C. She got to the window and I saw there were three other people in the car laughing pretty hard. I took her money and give her the drink. About two seconds later, I heard, ‘FIRE IN THE HOLE!’ and saw a large orange grenade in the form of a large cup come flying at me. Somehow, I honestly don’t know how, I managed to reach out with my left arm and re-direct the drink back out the window and into her car. The lid came off and it exploded everywhere. She even had the nerve to ask my manager for her money back. Needless to say, she didn’t get her money back and was told less-than-kindly to leave.”
“Please Don’t Slap Me”
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“I went through a McDonald’s drive-thru once and saw the place was slammed inside and out. After ordering, I was asked to park next to the curb and someone would bring my order to me as soon as possible. A girl walked up to my car visibly shaken and as she approached my car to hand me my food she said, ‘Please don’t slap me.’
I said ‘What?’ She said the last lady she delivered the food yelled at and slapped her across the face because the food took so long.”
“I Can Talk To You However I Want, You’re Just A Pizza Girl”
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“I had a customer come into my workplace about 6 years ago who was upset because her breadsticks were cold. After putting up with about five minutes of vicious abuse (she called me every terrible name under the sun), I finally told her that she couldn’t talk to me that way. She responded with this absolute gem:
‘I can talk to you however I want, you’re just a pizza girl.’
Well, snap. I lost it. I was paying my way through university and was holding down two jobs, as well as my schooling. I was tired and stressed. I didn’t know until this point that ‘seeing red’ was an actual thing. I literally saw red. I think it was probably my blood pressure. I proceeded to tell her that she was a small, spiteful, stupid woman who would never amount to anything and she didn’t deserve to if she thought the best way to make herself feel good was abusing 19-year-old girls. I also lectured (screamed at) her that work is work, and the act of trying to support myself was honorable in itself. She ran away and sent her husband in. He threw the bread at me and a napkin holder off one of the tables and started yelling. The security guard saw and grabbed him while the manager called the police. He got arrested (released later because I decided not to press charges, not worth the stress). I’ve never been so angry in my entire life.”
She Was Just Putting In A Hard Day’s Work When He Called Her THAT Word
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“The McDonald’s I worked at during college breaks was in a small town in upstate New York. There was a long line at the front counter, and the black girl working the register was talking to the guy working the grill, basically just prioritizing orders trying to move the line along. At the same time, another cashier was dealing with an angry customer. I was walking by, out of uniform, about to leave, when the angry guy said, ‘Maybe if that n-word would shut up and do her job, we could get some food.’
I grabbed him by his coat and pulled him down on the counter and said, ‘You call my friend an n-word again and we can be on the news tomorrow, or you can get out right now.’ He left and everyone in line laughed.”
His Two Female Friends Went Way Too Far And Could Have Really Hurt Someone
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“Just last week at the restaurant where I work I was serving a table of three people (two girls and one guy). I had already taken out the food to the girls, and was bringing out the curry dish that the guy had ordered when I slipped and bam, his food was on the floor.
Of course I apologized right away and said the chef would make him another immediately. The dish he’d ordered was also one of the easiest things on the menu to prepare, and I knew the chef could have another one ready in about two minutes. The guy said that was fine, and that he understood that accidents happen. I was thanking my good luck that I’d gotten a friendly customer.
And then one of the girls said that if we were re-making his, we’d have to re-make all of theirs because they weren’t going to sit around ‘for half an hour’ and let their food get cold while they waited for us to make another dish for the guy. I started explaining that the new dish would only take two minutes, and the guy started saying that they could go ahead and start eating without him, when the two girls flung their ceramic plates loaded with hot noodles and sauce at me. One missed and shattered the glass cover on the table next to them, the other struck me in the forehead. I had a bruise from the plate, mild burns on my face and chest from the hot food, and my nicest (and most expensive) white work shirt is ruined from being hit with a full serving of noodles.
The guy got furious with them and shouted a lot about how stupid they were. He was also nice enough to shout for my boss right away, call an ambulance, help me up, and make sure I wasn’t seriously injured. He even offered to pay for all the damage that the two girls had done. My boss refused that offer after listening to what happened, insisting that the guy had done nothing wrong and that the girl were the ones who would have to pay, not him.
Those girls got banned from the restaurant and had to pay a fair bit for all the damage they did. They’re also paying my salary during this week off for recovery. The guy got his replacement meal free, and my boss told him to come back anytime (without the girls) and we’d give him a nice discount on future meals.”
“You Don’t Know Me, Sucka, You Want Some?”
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“I worked at a local sports bar and had two men and their dates come in along with their children. These women had three children with them aged approximately 2-5. The 5-year-old was running around the restaurant picking food off of people’s plates. The middle child was changing the TV stations in the middle of baseball playoffs. The youngest child was sleeping on the table while these couples proceeded to drink margaritas.
I served them their food and immediately, as soon the youngest child took a bite, he threw up, completely covering the table. I attempted to be a hospitable server and cleaned it up, expecting that the customers would be appreciative. Nope. Ordered more margaritas.
At that point, I refused to serve them anymore (they’d all had two margaritas each) because they were extremely disrespectful and I was not comfortable serving people who are responsible for getting children home safely.
That’s where crap hit the fan. These women proceeded to stand up and scream at me from across the table, saying, ‘You don’t know me, sucka, you want some?’ I had my manager come over and kick them out.
The kicker? Before they left, they poured out two full ketchup bottles underneath the table and left no tip.”
Their Fancy, Fur Coats Didn’t Keep Them From Being Kicked Out
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“I worked at Cold Stone in high school at an outlet mall, so we had all sorts of people who would walk in our store. On this particular occasion, two women came in about two hours before we closed. Let me say that these women strolled in in these huge, fur coats (mind you, I don’t own a fur coat, so I’m not sure if they were real or not) and a bunch of gold jewelry.
So one asked for some ice cream but dithered around for about five minutes contemplating on the size. She was apparently getting some for her son, so I offered her a pint (always gotta up sell). She declined and went for the ‘Gotta Have It’ size, which is a large. She then proceeded to fill this crap up with all sorts of goodies. Candy, sprinkles, and cookies.
When I finished with it, it was freaking huge. So I gave her the cup loaded high. This was when the attitude started.
Lady: ‘Oh my God. Don’t you have a lid? How am I supposed to carry that?’
Me: ‘I didn’t realize you needed a lid, let me take that back and I’ll take care of it.’
Lady: ‘Hmm, ok. Well, yeah, ok, that’s fine. Just make sure it’s not messy. I don’t want to get dirty.’
Me: ‘Sure.’
So I’m thinking that this order was so huge, I was gonna have to put in two cups. I was planning on just putting it in a pint container, but I realized we were out of lids for them, so crap would have really hit the fan if she wanted the pint.
Me: ‘I’m sorry, is it ok if I put this in two containers? It will not fit in one with the lid on.’
Lady: ‘How am I supposed to carry two containers?’
Me: ‘Well, we have bags…’
Lady: ‘Yes, and have it spill all over? You must be effing stupid.’
Me: ‘Excuse me? I’ll just put it in a quart size. By the way, no, I’m not stupid.’
When she called me stupid, I was pretty much done with this lady. So I then scooped up 2/3 of the ice cream and put it in its proper, ‘Gotta Have It’ cup and then I smashed that lid down. Ice cream spilled out the sides, but I just wiped it up with a napkin, thus making the sides sticky.
Me: ‘Here you go, ma’am, I managed to make it fit in one cup.’
Lady: ‘You stupid idiot, this is all sticky. I need a napkin.’
Me: ‘Ma’am, if you keep calling me names, I WILL call security.’
Then, the kicker, BOTH of these witches started laughing.
‘I dare you to call security, you idiot, hahaha!’ She then rants about how much money she makes and how stupid I am. She knows I’m an ‘idiot’ because I work here and all this other crap. So I’m fuming at this point. I started to ring her up and I made sure to put everything she got in there, even the whip cream that she only wanted ‘a little bit’ of. Normally, I would have not given a crap about that. So I tell her the total and it ended up being like $15 for some freaking ice cream.
That’s when she really goes off.
‘That is for this ice cream? What the eff did you ring me up for, you stupid bimbo!’
Me: ‘Ma’am if you call me that again, I will call security.’
Lady: ‘Screw you, you STUPID BIMBO.’
Me: ‘Actually, no, screw you. I am now refusing you service. You’re the stupid bimbo.’
Then I threw her ice cream away. I went in the back, told the other employee to go out there and make sure the woman didn’t vandalize anything and then I called security. She left as soon as security walked in, still calling me a stupid bimbo.
She later called the corporation, but security had an incident report, so I didn’t get fired.
I would have loved to have thrown that ice cream in her face.”
She Walked Away Like No One Expected Her To Pay
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“I used to be a shift manager at McDonald’s. I was standing at the front counter and watched a girl walk into the restaurant with a large cup, fill it with tea, and head towards the door, without buying anything. I called out to her and told her that it would be $1.07 for the tea she just got. First, she acted like she was just leaving, until the other manager working at the time got on the phone and was calling the police (fine, it was just a dollar, but that’s still stealing). The girl walked out to a car, came back inside and held her hand upside down over the counter. As soon as I got my hand under hers to take the money, she flung the $1.07 (in dimes and pennies) at my face. My first reaction was to jump over the counter, but a crew member I was pretty close with was standing behind me saying, ‘She’s not worth it; she’s not worth your job.’ So I really couldn’t do much, but wish her a good day and walk away.”
They Acted As If They’d Be There All Night Even Though The Workers Were Trying To Close Up
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“McDonald’s always seems to bring out the best in people.
I used to be a manager at one right off the interstate. This was before they went to 24 hours or open late, so we closed at midnight.
Around 11:45, we had a family come in. Three adults and one little girl who looked to be about 7 or 8. When we saw them come in, we were all naturally dismayed (as we had already started cleaning everything for closing), but we still served them because, well, it was our job and we were still technically open.
When I handed them their food, I already had it bagged up (so they’d take the hint that we were about to close), but they just took the bags of food to a booth, sat down, and started eating. Okay, no problem. Maybe they’ve been driving a good bit of the day and just needed a few to relax. That’s understandable.
Midnight came around and I went to lock the doors. As I went to lock the doors nearest to them, I told them as politely as possible that the store was closed and we needed them to finish their meal as soon as they could, so we could finish our closing routine.
12:10 rolled around and they were still eating. At this point, I needed them to leave because I could get into trouble if one of my bosses or the owner decided to drive by (they were weird like that).
12:20 rolled around. Most nights, we were done and out of there by then, yet these people are still taking their sweet time. It seemed as if they were doing it at this point just to be jerks and I was starting to lose patience.
I went up to them, explained why I needed them to leave, and asked them as nicely as I could to finish and leave. It’s been a while, so I can’t remember what they exactly said, but the gist of it was, ‘Screw you, we’re customers, we’ll leave when we want.’
I took a deep breath, counted to five, and calmly informed them that if they weren’t gone within five minutes, I’d have to call the police. This set them off. They started cussing at me. ‘Call the police, I don’t care,’ and so on. I felt bad for the little girl, as you could see it in her eyes she was scared and her family was acting horribly.
So while they’re mid-rant, I turned around, walked back behind the counter, and waited for five minutes to be up. Right at five minutes, that poor little girl came up to the counter and said, ‘Please don’t call the cops, we’re leaving.’ My heart went out to this girl, but I could see that her family was finally leaving.”
This Impatient Business Woman Couldn’t Care Less If The Hostess Injured Herself
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“The summer before I went to college, I worked as a hostess at Denny’s. We were understaffed one day, and so I was tasked with not only seating everyone but also cleaning off all the tables as they cleared out and taking and delivering the drink orders.
During the lunch the lunch rush, a couple of mean business women in their expensive power suits came in and gave me grief because I wouldn’t let them cut ahead of the 14 people ahead of them.
When it was finally their turn, I was leading them to their table, and my knee chose that very moment to give out in a spectacular fashion. I collapsed onto the floor, menus and napkin-wrapped silverware flying everywhere.
The Alpha Witch rolled her eyes and exclaimed, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! I don’t BELIEVE this!’ And then she reached down, scooped up the menus, kicked me out of the way, and proceeded to sit down at the nearest empty booth (which wasn’t where I’d been taking them as it wasn’t clean yet).
I quit, that day and wound up getting to have surgery on that knee the week before I moved to college. Hooray!”
His Mean Words Brought Her To Tears
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“I worked at Chick-Fil-A when I was 16. This day, I was a cashier working the counter during breakfast. The manager hadn’t come back with the change from the bank, so I didn’t have a lot of change left in my drawer. I had a line of a few people in front of me and so did the other girl next to me. I started running out of change and let the guy know that, unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to take his order at my register because I didn’t have change to give him and the girl next to me would have to take him.
He got super mad and started screaming and yelling at me, telling me how horrible and stupid I was and how I ruined his morning. Totally created a scene in front of everyone. On top of this, I was super emotional and burst into tears. The owner came out and asked the guy to leave and told him he wasn’t welcome at that Chick-Fil-A any longer.
I moved over to the end of the counter and started portioning out cheesecake while trying to compose myself and a few ladies came up to me to tell me I was doing a great job and to ignore that man. Kind of restored my faith in humanity.”
Not Only Did He Have A Dirty Mouth, But He Left A Nasty Mess
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“When I was about 17, I worked in fast food. An elderly man came up and placed his order, which included french fries. We needed to drop some more in the fryer and it was going to be about a two-minute wait. When I informed him of this, he called me a very nasty name, took the rest of his order and went to sit at a booth in the restaurant. I was stunned to say the least. So when the fries were done, I walked them over to his table, just said, ‘Here,’ gave him his food, and walked back to the counter. He sat and ate for about a half hour, got up and left. The real shocker came when I went to go clean his booth. This crotchety old man had strewn and smeared his food all over the booth and left a handwritten note on the back of a place mat that read: ‘Since you can’t get your orders right, I won’t be coming back to this crappy place!’ Well, good riddance Pawpaw. The only thing that makes me smile about the whole incident now is that I can take comfort in the fact that he’s dead and rotting.”
To Her, There IS Such A Thing As Too Much Coffee
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“A young woman walked into the small movie theater I worked at.
She proceeded to order a cup of coffee, black, not too hot. She seemed nice so I decided to upgrade her cup to a mug, the larger of the two containers we offer as we were pretty much out of cups, (we had about two cups left). I handed it over to her and she stared at me like I’ve just murderer her first-born. She basically shrieked, ‘DID I NOT ORDER A CUP?’
I was shocked, but rolled with it and said pleasantly, ‘I upgraded your coffee for free.’
She replied, ‘I ORDERED A CUP AND IT’S WHAT I BETTER GET, MAKE ANOTHER ONE!’
So I grudgingly made her another coffee and delivered it to the snide remark, ‘Looks like you finally did it right!’
Now, I know she ordered the cup and I’m obliged to carry out her order but seriously, is a free upgrade not a GOOD THING?”
She Takes Identity Theft Very Seriously, Even When It’s Not Actually Happening
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“I worked at Stop and Shop (supermarket) when I was in high school. I usually ran the front end/checkout area of the store, but would sometimes switch hit and run the customer service desk.
At the time, we were required to run credit checks on customers when they signed up for loyalty cards IF they wanted to be able to pay by check. Understand, of course, that the majority of people who do this are middle-aged and elderly people.
Anyway, one day, I’m setting this lady up for check-payment privileges. She had a full cart, her order was well over $300. The problem arises, as it always does: the credit check company (Equifax) runs on social security numbers.
When I asked her for her social, she became rather unhappy. After trying to explain for five minutes why it was necessary, and offering to let her pay with a credit/debit card instead, she chose to completely flip out.
She ranted about how unethical it was to ask for personal information, how she was going to have the store and myself prosecuted for identity theft, blah blah blah. She punctuated her rant by throwing her new loyalty card at me, which bounced off my dumb, astounded face. She stormed out, leaving her full cart of groceries behind.
Also, one time a guy came in on welfare day, tried to use his EBT card, which was denied – apparently he had been cut off. He proceeded to pull down his pants and take a crap on the floor, and then fled the store. Good times. I laughed, and felt bad for the janitor.”
Her Rage Erupted After She Was Denied A Free Sandwich
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“This woman sent her 7-year-old into the store to get a 12″ sandwich with a note listing the ingredients she wanted on it. At the cash register, I rang in the sandwich, and the little girl passed me one filled out sub-club card, which was good for a discounted 6” sandwich with purchase of a 28oz drink, and just stood there.
I cleared the cash and rang it in again, discounting half the sub and charging on a drink. I told the girl how much and she just stood there looking at me.
I asked what was wrong and she said that her mom never gave her any money. I asked if her mom was outside and if she could go get her.
The girl left and came back in, crying, and getting towed behind a raging mammoth of a woman who was demanding to talk to my manager about how she was being disrespected.
I explained to her the usage of the card and pointed out where the details were printed on the card.
She screamed, reached over the counter, grabbed the sandwich I’d just made for her, and then threw it at my head.
My manager later saw the security footage and called me laughing his butt off about it.”
