The customer might always be right, even when they're clearly wrong, but that doesn't mean they have to be such
This Guy Takes “The Principle Of The Thing” Very Seriously
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“I worked the customer service desk at a grocery store. One afternoon, a guy came storming over after getting checked out and threw a package of beef in front of me. He started going off, yelling and cussing at me because he was supposed to get a $3.54 discount, but the register only took off $3.53. He was screaming at me that he wanted his penny back and that it wasn’t even about the penny, but it was the ‘principle of the thing.’ By the time he was through, he had yelled at me, my customer service manager, and our store manager on duty.
As soon as I gave him that penny though, he shut right up and left.
The principle of the thing, I guess.”
When He Learned That The Food Wasn’t Halal, He Threw The Biggest Fit Ever
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“I was running a coffee shop by myself when this dude came in. He asked for an egg sandwich, no big deal. I start making the sandwich when the next customer asks for a BLT. I started warming the bacon on the skillet next to first customers egg and this guy waited until I hand him the already made sandwich to freak out. He needed his food to be halal, but our coffee shop was very much not halal. After demanding free food, refund, etc, he started getting heated and loud. He tried to pull the whole, ‘Let me see your manager thing.’ Unfortunately for him, it was me.
He literally had been yelling at me for 15 minutes when I said, ‘You know what? Let’s call my friend, the owner of this establishment, and see what they have to say about it.’ I dialed her up, explained what’s going on, he grabbed the phone from me, told her he was going to call the police and file a lawsuit for discrimination, threw the phone on the ground, and then stormed out.”
They Had All The Options Except What She Really Wanted
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“I worked at an independent chocolate shop that sold various flavors of truffles, brownies, and drinks. We had non-dairy options, vegan options, and nut free options. A woman demanded to speak to the manager because we did not have a dairy-free, nut-free, sugar-free, vegan option. Luckily the owner literally just laughed and said, ‘We do have one, it’s called water.’ I have never seen such entitled rage.”
She Couldn’t Believe They Wouldn’t Kick That Poor Guy Out Of His Seat So Her Family Could Have It
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“At Five-Guys, we get huge rushes like any other fast food place. Our kitchen is right in the lobby, though, so people can see all our employees when we need all hands on deck. Anyway, we have a couple homeless people who come in occasionally and pay to sit down to eat a burger and fries.
So one time during a huge rush, a lady came over with her kids and look-away husband (knows his wife is crazy and doesn’t say anything) and she demanded that the homeless man who was sitting down eating had to leave to make room for her family.
I was in disbelief. I explained to her that her logic was wrong and that both she and that man were paying customers and entitled to sit down and eat, but since he was there first, I couldn’t make him get up.
Well, she wasn’t having it. Our seven to eight minute ticket times (time from order placed to order served) turned into 10 to 12 minute ticket times because this lady was screaming bloody murder that we were refusing to let her family sit down and eat. Our general manager called the cops after she pushed our box peanuts off the counter all over the floor.
They left with their food and things went back to normal. Our GM apologized to everyone and explained the situation to the cop who showed up and offered to show her the surveillance. I swept the peanuts and talked to the homeless man, who laughed gently because someone stuck up for him and made him feel human.
I hoped a secret shopper was there to witness it, but nope.”
The Woman Was Upset She Didn’t Have A Reservation…That She Was Cancelling Anyway
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“Working in a relatively higher priced chain restaurant that somehow attracts those in the lesser affordability spectrum, I have my fair share of stories. I’ll share two:
1) A lady calls in to cancel her reservation for the evening, but we don’t have her reservation in our system. Hostess hands me the phone. The lady is very upset that we don’t have her reservation that she is looking to cancel. There is zero record of her in our system, and my hosts have not been known to just completely not make a reservation for a guest while they’re on the phone with them. Why even answer the call if you’re going to do that?
Anyways, the lady demands compensation because what if she had come in for her reservation? I politely tell her that we would have simply addressed that situation when it came up, and it would have been no problem finding room for her party of two had she actually come in to dine with us.
She refused our request, but we asked if she would like to dine with us anyways. She completely blew up at me, asked for all the numbers of all the higher ups. Never heard a word about it.
2) This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to my fellow manager (who is actually my GM now) – all of this is from what I saw on the security footage and first-hand accounts.
Table of three (woman, man, and teenaged boy) that are known to be constant complainers didn’t like their food. After having a few go-arounds with them about their experience, the manager gets their food made completely correct to their ridiculous specifications. He brings the food to the table and explains that they will be eating for free today, but to please never come back to our restaurant because we obviously can’t operate to their standards.
The lady loses her mind and throws a pint glass at the manager’s face and the teenage son jumps on the manager’s back. (Manager is about 280 lbs, not a small man) A few seconds later, the other dude at the table stands up, but instantly gets detained with a giant bear hug by a guest sitting at the bar.
A short scuffle between the lady, son, manager, staff, and guests ensue. The dude that got bear hugged somehow talked his way out from his captor and rather than help his wife/girlfriend/baby momma who was swinging her way out of the building or his son/brother/girlfriend’s kid who was being held on the ground in a chokehold by a very large and angry man, he instead walks back to his table and continues to shovel his meal into his face like nothing happened.”
These Guys Really Thought Their Little Scam Would Work
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“I was managing a restaurant in Dublin. I had a table of six or so apparently well off, late-20s/early-30s British guys ordering T-bones and rib-eyes (and all well done – peasants), the good wine, the works.
About halfway through eating their shoe-leather, the waitress covering the table said she had a bad feeling about them. They were talking as if they were getting the food for free and wanted to check what the story was, so I made a point of regularly checking their table to make sure everything was ok.
Come time to pay and there’s a big huddle at the table with lots of not very hushed, ‘You do it…’ ‘No, no, it’s your turn,’ etc.
I caught the eye of our bouncer, made a, ‘We might have some trouble here,’ look and headed over. Turned out that despite clearing their plates, they weren’t paying because the rib-eyes had bits of fat in them, the steaks weren’t cooked properly, the sauces were wrong, and despite dining in some of the best steak-houses, this was the worst steaks they’d ever had, ever, blah blah blah. One sucker even piped up ‘Yeah, and my steak (a T-Bone) had a big bit of bone in the middle of it — that’s not right,’ causing a ripple of titters to pass around the table. One of the guys even mentioned that he personally knew the owner of the restaurant, Mr [restaurant name], which was like saying he knew Ronald McDonald. I laughed in his face at that.
Anyway, I wasn’t letting those smug suckers win and flatly refused to let them off. When they started getting offended and threatening to call the police, I told them that was a great idea, motioned for the bouncer to call the police, but he nodded and held up two fingers, he’s already called them and they were two minutes away, good man, so I stalled them a bit longer.
At this time, Temple Bar in Dublin was just kicking off as a big tourist attraction and the police were patrolling heavily at the weekends, keeping a high profile. Being a good neighbor, I’d always chat to them, gave them a cup of tea if it was cold, plus our bouncer knew a good few of them personally. It was time to get payback for those 37 cups of tea!
Sure enough, a couple police officers turned up, I explained to them the situation, pointed out the waitress nearly crying from the crap they’d given her, and they sidled up to the table. They explained that, here in Ireland, if they ate the food, they had to pay for it. That, or they were going to spend the rest of their trip in a prison cell. They argued a bit, and I could see the police were looking forward to putting these smug pricks in their place, but in the end, they coughed up, and at the officer’s gentle suggestion included a hefty tip.
It’s the small victories.”
The Woman Started Out Unreasonable, Then She Just Went Nuts
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“I worked at a popular ‘quick service’ (aka fast food) chain and was listening to one of my crew members interact with a customer in the drive-thru. The customer was asking a lot of questions about prices on meals with/without drinks, but wasn’t really listening and kept asking the same questions over and over. My crew member, I’ll admit, definitely had a sassy attitude, but part of the reason I was listening in on them was because she was being so patient with this customer for once!
At one point, my crew member accidentally said the wrong price. You know how often you jumble up words when you’re speaking off the top of your head?
The customer got quiet, then said, ‘You know you’re kidding me, right?!’ And proceeded to freak out over our speaker, asking to speak to me. I took over on the headset and tried to explain to her that my crew member accidentally said the wrong word, that her meal without the drink would indeed be cheaper.
She wasn’t having it. She cut us off and came to the window, still going off. She asked me, ‘What is wrong with you?’
And I had zero idea what she meant so I asked her, ‘What do you mean?’
We’re obviously idiots, according to her, so she said, ‘I mean, what the heck is wrong with you?!’ Okay.
It basically went on like that for a good five minutes. She was just accusing us of pretty much nothing, just yelling that we’re liars and frauds and the like. I was absolutely dumbfounded. After people behind her started honking, I think eventually I just gave her the meal for free to get her the heck out of there. Also pretty sure she asked for the corporate number, which I gladly gave her along with my name and our restaurant number. Try explaining whatever the heck we did to her to corporate…
The next customer that came up to the window immediately went, ‘Dang. That lady was crazy!’ Made the whole thing worth it.”
She Was Convinced That Cow Was Up To Something Inappropriate
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“I used to manage at a restaurant the serves chicken but has a lovable cow as a mascot. We were in a mall so lots of times we would put someone in the cow suit and let them roam the mall. It reminded people that we were there and was fairly easy for this person in the suit.
I once had a lady come and complain to me about the person in the cow suit, saying that they were being pervy by paying more attention to girls than boys and that I needed to talk to whoever was in it and write them up or some other stupid thing. I thought she was joking because I had only ever gotten compliments about this particular cow, so I just smiled, thinking she was about to compliment him. Nope. She was serious and got even madder.
The part that she didn’t know was that the person in the suit was gay and was probably paying more attention to girls so no one could accuse him of wrongdoing. I didn’t tell her that though because it probably would have shattered her little ‘bubble.’ Looking back on it now, I wish I would have.”
She Probably Regrets Her Behavior That Night Since It Led To Her Incarceration
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“I was the manager at the time in a hospitality setting.
There were three of us on shift. One of my staff, let’s call her Steph, had blue hair and piercings. Whilst I was handling the kitchen, cleaning up and cooking stuff (our job emphasized everyone being able to do every task), she and the other staff member, Abby, were serving customers at our front counter when an out-of-state family came through and placed a bunch of orders.
Now, unfortunately, I wasn’t there to hear it, but shortly after they had arrived, Abby came back and told me that a bunch of customers had come through and harassed Steph for her appearance. I headed out front, told Steph to follow me to the back, and after she broke down explaining what happened, I gave her a free (paid) break to just take it easy for a bit. I hopped out the front to have a chat with Abby about how to handle that situation (namely, grab me so I can take over the transaction), and how we’re going to break down the rest of the work if I decided to send Steph home early.
It’s at this point that the mom spotted me having a discussion with Abby from across the food court, and decided to approach us. The mom, it turns out, was the person in this family group responsible for giving my employee the most crap. And oh boy, does she have views.
From five feet away, she yelled at me that what I was doing was incredibly disrespectful to all of my customers (so loud that the 100 other patrons of the food court stopped and stared, from as far as 30 meters). I briefly told her that I was not being disrespectful to anyone and that I was just explaining to my colleague the plan for the rest of the afternoon. As a side note, it’s obvious she’s assumed that I’m badmouthing her in some way, and presumably has made this assumption because the way she’s acted so far has been below the standards I’d expect even from human garbage.
The mom (still yelling) told me to get the manager. Now.
I told her that I am the manager, and would gladly address her questions if she had any, though I can reassure her there has been no disrespect to anyone so far, and could you please calm down and explain to me what the problem is, as my job is only to help.
She calls bull and asked for my direct supervisor. I told her the only person directly above me was the owner, and that he’s out of state at a conference. She asked for his supervisor, and I told her the only other person she could talk to above me would be the development manager for our state, who is also at the conference.
At this point, she realized that she’s not getting hold of another set of ears above mine, so she launched on into a tirade, and I kid you not, said word for word:
‘I don’t know how you idiots do it down here, but I come from a suburb of the next town over, I manage a store there, and up there the customer is always right and should always be respected, and that means when I pay you, I get what I want and you do not get to say anything about me to anyone.’
I assured her I hadn’t said a word about her, was confused about what she was alluding to and could she please explain what caused this entire situation in the first place, as I now had a very nice young girl crying in the back of my store and believed I may have to call security due to the continued harassment of mall employees. At this, she pales and calls her sister over. Before she can arrive, I assured the mom that it would be in her best interest to detail any problem she has with my store to my head office in an incident report on our website. I then handed her a business card and told her as quietly as I could that due to their ongoing escalation of the issue, they were no longer welcome around my premises and I would be getting in contact with mall security to file an incident report and have them permanently barred from shopping at the mall.
At saying that, I can honestly say I have never seen two grown women run so fast in my life, and by the looks of it, I doubt they’d ever tried to either. Security later swung past, having caught them at one of the exits, and it turned out they’d been shoplifting from a number of boutique stores using their kid’s stroller, with the kid still in it. Security asked if I could please give them a statement and security camera footage for the interaction?
Some people, man.”
Her Crazy Antics Peaked His Interest And Her Reason For Her Tirade Was Utterly Absurd
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“In my days as a mall cop, I was in the Tim Hortons in the mall to grab a coffee before my shift. I had my earbuds in and wasn’t paying much attention until I suddenly saw a lady going insane at the counter person.
I pulled my earbuds out and asked the person in front of me what was going on. She shrugged and said the lady just started yelling after the counter girl asked a question. The woman was yelling, ‘I want the manager! I want the owner! This is bull!’
I had my jacket on over my uniform and stepped over the line to get in front of the woman and ask her what the problem was, in the middle of her yelling at a shift manager. She first told me to screw off and stay out of it. I explained who I was and that she could leave if she didn’t calm down and explain herself. She then told me to screw off again, at which point I told her to leave or the police were going to be called. She then tells me the issue.
Woman: ‘She asked me if I wanted a hash brown with my bagel sandwich and coffee, and I think that’s rude. I don’t want that.’
Me (long pause): ‘What?’
Her: ‘You heard me. That’s rude. I don’t want the hashbrown. Why is she asking me if I want it?’
Me: ‘You realize that’s part of her job and that literally all you have to do is say no, right?’
Her: ‘No! It’s ignorant! It’s harassment! I want to talk to the owner of Tim Hortons!’
Me: ‘Get out of here. Now. You’re insane.’
She then yelled about how she’d never be treated like this in America (this was in Canada) and stormed off.”
Libbie Was Every Starbucks Barista’s Worst Nightmare
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“So when I worked at Starbucks, we, as you can imagine, had plenty of crappy, entitled people come in expecting the world of employees barely paid above minimum wage who’ve been awake since 3 a.m. or earlier. We had people blaming us for the fact that they were late for work and were going to be fired, people blaming us for being late picking up their kids, kids blaming us for being late to school. Plenty of ‘But I ordered a venti, why did you give me a grande,’ or ‘This coffee is cold because I’ve left it sitting out for an hour, but I want you to make me a new one for free,’ or ‘You aren’t being enthusiastic enough after eight hours of being here and so sleep deprived you don’t know what your name is.’ But probably the worst/funniest was Libbie.
Libbie was a regular who we really wished wasn’t. She was overly demanding and had one of those super complicated ‘half-caf double soy triple whip hold the cream half the sugar and do a backflip when you serve it to me’ types and she could tell if you got her order wrong and would make you remake it until it was right. She also would steal from our tip jar right in front of our faces (she’d pretend to put a five in and then pull out four ones, but she’d take out five or six ones instead), and one time during this little switcheroo of hers, she accidentally dropped a $100 bill out of her wallet.
The good thing about Libbie was that she only came in once or twice a week, but that meant that we were the ones who had to find this $100 for her. She didn’t notice it for a few hours afterward and when she did, she called in and asked for the manager, and asked her if she’d seen it. Since she would have dropped it out in the lobby, where we very rarely went since we were so busy in the back of the house, we went out to check, but found nothing and told her that a customer must have taken it and that we were sorry, but there was nothing we could do.
She. Flipped. Out.
‘That’s my rent money. I’m going to get kicked out of my house. Do you want me to be homeless? You hate me and want me to be homeless. I hate you and you’re terrible. Screw off and die!’ The supervisor came out and gave me the gist of what she’d said while begging me to find this money. There were also some racist accusations since the neighborhood this Starbucks was in was predominantly immigrants and Libbie was your standard ‘white liberal until put under pressure.’
Anyway, so a week passes and still, the money hadn’t shown up. Libbie called us each day, multiple times a day, to find out if we’d found her money; sometimes she yelled and screamed, sometimes she didn’t. Either way, the answer was always the same: we hadn’t found her money.
So she came in again and pretended like she hadn’t been cussin’ us out for a week straight, was all happy and bubbly, and joked about losing the money and how she’s just so scatterbrained sometimes. Ha. Ha. She tried to talk me into giving her free coffee since we lost her money, but I told her that she had to pay anyway. She grumbled and opened up her wallet, pulled out her card and out fluttered a $100 bill. It landed on the counter. We both looked at it. She looked into her wallet and after a moment went, ‘Oh that’s right! I hid that $100 in my credit card slot for safe keeping so I wouldn’t lose it! You can stop looking for my money now.’
That was it. No apologies for the abuse throughout the week, the accusations, anything. I know I shouldn’t expect one, but dang. I think she realized that she screwed up, though, because she didn’t show back up for a couple of weeks.”
They Got In For Free, But Still Expected The Star Treatment
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“The theater I work at has a customer appreciation week every summer where movies are free. Needless to say, every cheapskate within a 50-mile radius shows up, not just our good customers. This makes it very, very busy. If you want a seat, you better show up 30 minutes early. Want to sit together? 45 minutes. Some people come and grab tickets a couple hours early then leave, which is fine, but we warn them that they still need to come back early if they want to sit together.
Well, two non-regulars that we’ve never seen before decide to show up 10 minutes before our most popular movie. They had gotten tickets early, but wanted snacks. The line for concessions is super long and the popcorn machine is tiny and trying its best to keep up. Nevertheless, they join the line. It takes them 20 minutes to get their popcorn and soda. They then try to find seats in the theater which is completely sold out. Surprise surprise, they can’t find any.
They come screaming up to the still busy concession stand, and the manager goes in and informs them that there are seats free, just not together. They say that this is unacceptable and demand we stop the movie, make everyone move so they can sit together, and completely restart the film.
Ummmm…no. My manager informs them that they should have gotten here earlier. They start screaming at her that we should have reserved seats and roped them off for people who bought tickets early. They then demanded a refund for their concessions which were somehow half gone already.
You did not buy tickets. They were free.
We do not have numbered seats. We are a small theater and aren’t that fancy. Also, we don’t want to deal with that crap.
We are not going to rope seats off so that your entitled self can swagger in 10 minutes into the movie.
My manager gave them a refund just to get them to leave. They said they were never coming back. Oh no.
An hour later, she gets a complaint via email about the rude employees at the theater that should be fired. It was detailed. They hadn’t realized that the head manager had been helping them. She had to walk away before she replied to that one.”
