The Customer Is Always Wrong
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“I was a waiter at a large hotel which happened to be hosting a wedding on this night, and whilst returning after a round of glass collecting, a woman yanked my tray arm almost sending the entire pile of about twenty glasses flying onto the crowded dance floor. I looked at her expecting her to be spastic wastoid, but instead, she was angry at me.
She accused me of collecting her full glass of straight Tia Maria. I asked which glass was hers, as the ones I was currently carrying were the only ones I’d collected within the hour. Realizing I knew she was lying, she doubled down, warning me not to imply she was wrong. She said that she specifically watched me take it, which just wasn’t true.
She then demanded a new drink to replace the one she was lying about. I explained again that if her drink wasn’t on the tray then I couldn’t have taken it. She demanded to speak to my manager, and of course, she got her new drink, and I got bollocked.”
She’s Lucky She Wasn’t Seriously Injured By That Madman
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“One time, I got freshly poured coffee dumped on me by a customer. And then had another customer ask me to clean their coat because one drop landed on their coat. My co-workers just stood there and watched. After covering myself in burn gel and then putting my soaking wet clothing back on, and working the rest of my shift (I was closing, so I had five more hours to go). I was soaked to the bone. Nothing like coffee soaked underwear and bra squishing against your body and sliding everywhere because of the burn gel while you smile and make small talk.”
No One Around To Help
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“I work in a fairly small restaurant where we all pitch in together rather than dealing with sections. We seat people, run the food, get our own drink orders, bus tables, etc.
Last night was fairly busy with the whole restaurant essentially being full at 7 pm, with tables ranging from four to more than 10. By 9 pm, all but one table had paid up and left. We had one table left of 6 which dwindled to just one couple, the husband drinking what was left of the bottle of vino and the wife, drinking water.
My two colleagues were on break and I was just dealing with getting everything ready for service the next day, polishing cutlery and cleaning up. I saw the lady at the table rush off to the bathroom and her husband approached me. The lady had been downing vino at the encouragement of one of the members of the party who had left. I think you can see where this is going. She had puked all over the table, the chair and the floor, which is carpet.
The husband said I shouldn’t have to deal with it because I’d been working all evening and he’d seen how busy I had been. So I got him stuff to clean up but still stayed nearby in case he needed help. Well, he wasn’t as trashed as his wife but he wasn’t anywhere near sober, either. So, he was making the situation worse.
Here’s where I stepped in to assist whilst trying very hard not to puke myself, I cannot describe how bad the smell was. So I was disinfecting everything that looked like it could be contaminated, including the underside of the table and chair legs. I was also trying to figure out how I was going to deal with the carpet after I’d gotten the chunks of vomit up.
The lady came back and she had puke on her dress but didn’t seem to care. She simply sat in a chair at the other end of the table while the husband argued with her, telling her they needed to go home and how he told her not to drink.
So I sorted out their bill and they left, with him basically carrying her. I cashed the tab out and see they’d left a 10% tip. Now, I’m from the UK, so tipping isn’t necessarily a thing in the same way as it is in America. But I was dumbfounded. All I could think was if I were in a restaurant with friends and someone puked on the carpet, I’d darn well make sure to give at least 20-30% (if not more) for the inconvenience and just the sheer embarrassment of the situation.
After they left, I went to check on the toilet she’d used and there was vomit on the door handles (inside and out), the sanitary bin, in the sink, on the back of the toilet and around the base of it as well. So I then spent a further ten minutes scrubbing and disinfecting that. Again, trying not to be sick myself. The carpet was scrubbed with disinfectant also but still had a lingering smell when I clocked out.
During all this, one of my colleagues, the team leader, came down and talked about how we all needed to pitch in to deal with the mess. Are you kidding? I’d just done the majority of it for you while you had your break! I noped out of there and went on my own break.”
They Isn’t Enough Money In The World To Clean This Bathroom
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“I was a cashier at Chipotle. I was the lowest paid employee at $8.25/hour after being the longest tenured non-management employee (and the only cashier that stayed longer than told months). Another employee came over as I was discussing inventory with the store manager, and told me the women’s bathroom was covered like a freestyle poo-caso in poop. Cleaning bathrooms is the cashier’s responsibility but honestly, they couldn’t afford to lose me and I was aware of that.
I looked my boss dead in the eye before he could ask and said, ‘Hows my raise coming?’
He told me they were still ‘reviewing the store budget.’
To which I replied, ‘Then you don’t pay me enough to clean that bathroom right now. Have fun!’
I walked back to the register and he went to the bathroom with a jug of bleach and the cleaning cart. Fun times.”
Poop In A Tube
“I worked at a Chuck E. Cheese-like place called Celebration Station. A kid took a dump in the tubes and I was told I’d have to crawl in and clean it up.
I said no, I will absolutely not be doing that.
They said I had to.
I said no, I will quit this job before I do that.
They said, well you may be looking for a new job tomorrow then.
I said I may well be. Seriously, just say the word. They found someone else to do it.”
Technology At It’s Worst
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“Imagine, if you will, a slow night in a grocery store. I was ‘cash office,’ which meant my duties basically amounted to pulling tills, counting the money, and babysitting cashiers in case customers got annoying. When suddenly, I couldn’t enter my counts into my computer, and I got panicked screams from my cashiers that their register stopped working.
To make a long explanation short: the store servers had gone offline, rendering every register completely useless. Not to mention knocking out the phones and the controller computers I needed to enter my counts into. After getting the manager for the night, who was useless in the best of times, we went to the server room to hear them all screaming about losing power. I went downstairs to try to control customers while he called IT, and I basically started letting people with small orders leave because I couldn’t do anything.
I was told that I couldn’t leave the store if we closed early (by 30 minutes) because if the servers came back up, my useless manager couldn’t finish the stupid count on his own. So I started to look into the problem myself since my major is IT, despite my manager not wanting me to but not getting anywhere after talking to IT on the phone for half an hour. The problem? A bad UPS. Unplugged the servers from the bad one, plugged them into a random one I found in the room, Bob’s your uncle.
Also worth mentioning, this happened two more times, both while I was working. Luckily, I knew how to fix it this time, so it went a lot smoother, but shoot, if those servers didn’t take forever to come back online. By the time I quit, the issue still hadn’t been addressed by the store manager, so no proper IT technician had been in to look at the problem.”
A Liquified Fish Stinks Up The Place
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“I was a bag boy at a grocery store. My job description was to bag groceries, collect shopping carts aka trollies, and make the store aisles presentable by turning the products to face one direction. I was getting $7.25 an hour.
One day, this fairly attractive lady, maybe around 30 at the time, came in, used our bathroom, and left. Mind you, the register I bag for is right next to the customer bathroom and she was the only one to use it after I cleaned it.
After she left, I walked into the bathroom and there was a crazy amount of blood on the walls and floor. This nasty woman took her pad off and stuck it to the wall and looked like she smeared her blood everywhere. On handles, on faucets, on the mirror, everywhere. My boss told me to clean it. I said it’s a health hazard and it’s not in my job description.
Another time, my coworker got fired and he pushed an entire shelf of product over and while people were busy cleaning that, he went over to the meat section got a fish and threw that thing on top of the drinks cooler. After a while, it started to reek and no one but me knew where it was coming from. I didn’t want to say anything and then have to clean it. A manager finally found it. It was liquefied and he had to clean it AND his vomit.”
Nit Picking The Ridiculous
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“A few years ago, I was managing a ‘Freaky Fast’ sub shop.
Some corporate auditors come in once a month and inspect your store. They will look for anything to take points off because if you score high enough, you’re supposed to get a bonus from corporate.
The guy wasn’t finding much wrong in our store, so he unscrewed the floor drain, reached down to his elbow in the drain, and took points off for not cleaning all down the pipe.
He then proceeded to cut up magic erasers into tiny squares and demanded that we clean the grout between wall tiles.
I decided to find a new job shortly after that day.”
Hated By The Boss
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“I have been working at Domino’s for about nine months now. I asked the boss for more hours during the summer, but instead he gave more hours to a new person who had only been there for about two months while I have been here for over half a year. Also, during the month of Ramadhan, he made me work 10-12 hour shifts every Sunday.
Recently, I asked him to give me a day of delivery, but no. Instead, he hired two brand new drivers, one of whom was his cousin and did not speak English at all. I asked him if he could pay me cash, he said no, but he pays other employees in cash. One of my co-workers has been there for a few months longer than me and barely does anything and gets paid more than me. We have an assistant manager who does nothing but complain. The boss is also my neighbor. I’m at the end of my rope and I’m quitting in two weeks.”
A Wasted Manager Is Too Much
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“I was working at a Subway when I was around 18. I had a manager that was on top of his game most days except this one night.
It was just me and another employee working the night shift, the manager was only there during the day. That night, while I was on my smoke break, the manager came into the store messed up on some pain medication. He could barely stand or speak and was freaking out the customers, so I took him outside to a bench and sat him down and told a friend that works in the pizza place facing the bench to keep an eye on him.
Thirty minutes later, my friend came in and told me the manager passed out and fell from the bench to the ground. He’s completely out, so I had to go through his phone, call his parents, drive him to their house, and explain what happened.
All while leaving my coworker alone for an hour and a half on a Saturday night. I put in my notice later that month for other reasons as well but that was the final straw.”
The Manager That Just Doesn’t Get It
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“I worked in retail as a baker at a Sam’s Club –
It was my first time working with people from corporate coming in. My manager walked in and told me that I needed to bake 36 of the 84 count cookie trays when we had 24 already out, and the sales projections showed that the highest we ever sold on a Monday that month was three. All because ‘They want it to look full.’ Our 24 84 count’s currently out there were sorted by eight stacks of three on a small table. ‘Well, they want it to look taller.’ I told her the sales again and that we could just condense it.
She still didn’t agree, so I told her fine. She left and came back, asking for 20 more 36 count yeast rolls. I told her that’s physically impossible because we don’t have that many racks, even if I was finished baking, and bread has to proof for 15-18 hours. She rolled her eyes, thinking I insulted her and asked what else we could build on.
It took every fiber of my being to not let the stupidity make me say something snarky. I failed. ‘I just told you that’s impossible. You can relate to that, just like my patience.’
Everyone but one member of the visiting corporate team asked the same things as her and got the same answer. The one who didn’t was their leader, who asked for the sales reports. He looked at my current breakout, looked back at them, and said this was good enough, and any more would create shrink. The freaking lemmings instantly agreed and left.
I asked/chided manager if ‘pretty picture politics’ were the new breakout plan the next day. I was coached, and I know I was brash, but I’m not paid enough to sit down and just agree with that level of stupidity. The same manager now gets singled out by site and in-store reviews. I try to not be vindictive, but that’s one case I’ll happily make an exception.”
Don’t Help Rude People
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“I work a local grocery store and I have three stories. The first one is when I came in for a full day shift and the first thing I was told was that there’s a problem and I was needed upstairs. I thought this was the manager’s office and I was nervous. Come to find out, I was going to the bathrooms because someone had gone #2 on the floor and no one wanted to clean it. The dumb part is that it was only about an inch from the toilet and I don’t know how they didn’t make it!
My second story comes when I was at the register (now being a cashier and not a bagger anymore) and someone had a small order with some adult beverages. I can usually tell when someone is old enough to not need an ID but this lady, in particular, looked a little too young for me. I asked for an ID and she said she was 38 and said it was her birthday. I said that I needed the ID because anyone could just say it’s their birthday. She called me an idiot and asked for a manager. I stopped her order and she went to the front where my girlfriend’s mom was the manager at service desk that night (thank God). My manager asked what’s wrong and the lady started screaming at her, too, saying I asked for an ID and once she heard the reply that it’s my job to do that, her tone instantly flipped. She was given her bottles but the manager said, ‘You look old so I’ll give it to you.’
My final story is another customer incident at the register where I had a young couple come up to me after I called them away from someone’s register who needed their break. I asked how they’re doing and the girl said, ‘Why would you even ask that. Do you expect me to say I’m good and then ask how you’re doing? You don’t care, so why ask a rhetorical question?!’ I had nothing to say, I was just really confused. These guys were buying adult beverages and luckily provided an ID.
Then, as the guy was paying, he said, ‘All Americans do is eat, sleep, assault, repeat,’ as if this was targeted at me, which didn’t make sense considering I was working right now and doing stuff with my life. He said this line about six times and then finally they left. After they left, I just wished I would have forced their transaction to halt and have voided the whole order to send them away to somewhere else while saying, ‘I don’t serve rude people. Go to my manager, they’ll serve you but I won’t.'”
Jack Would Not Of Approved This
“I worked at Jack in the Box. My shift was supposed to end at 10 pm but almost every night I’d have to work an hour or so late because I wasn’t supposed to leave until after I mopped the floor (which I couldn’t do until there were no customers waiting for food).
Anyway, this night, I was already there 30 minutes later than I should have been when a lady came through the drive-thru and ordered 40 tacos and a bunch of other food, ok not an issue. I asked her to pull ahead into one of the parking spots so I could take other orders but she refused. She clogged up the drive-thru so far that cars were in the street. She sat there and complained loudly the whole time. It took 20 minutes to finish her order and when I gave it to her, she snatched it out of my hand and made another snarky remark.
As she began to drive off, I flipped her off and said, ‘EFF you, too!’
She immediately slammed on the brakes and some tweaker dude I didn’t even notice jumped out of the car and ran up to the window screaming, ‘Don’t you ever talk to my girl like that! I’ll rip your freaking head off!’ I egged him on a bit and he started trying to crawl through the window to get inside. Before things could progress further, my manager ran up and started trying to close the window on him and called the cops.
The dude ran back to the car and they sped off. Five seconds later, I quit.”
Finally, She Just Snapped
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“During my last two weeks at Taco Bell, they kept making me work line. I specialized in drive-thru because I was literally the best drive-thru cashier they had. Sure, I got upset during rushes, but I did my job with precision and speed.
Anyway, they knew I hated working line but, ‘we need everyone to train as a cashier and a line worker in case we are short-staffed.’ A lazy solution to use instead of just firing all the people that called in to go hang out with friends…
Anyway, it was late night at this point. Most of the time when it was 10 pm-12 am, people would order 12-packs. We had about three to four 12-packs already queued up. Just a side note, I was an incredibly slow line worker and the cashier was a manager who was a really fast line worker. The person who works with the hot ingredients has to wear a headset so they can make orders as they come in. I was making a Crunchwrap as someone ordered another 12-pack and I lost my mind. I probably swore or something, but I do remember slamming the tostada shell onto the tortilla with the nacho cheese, making chips fly everywhere. Got in an argument with the other line worker and I just about walked out.
Although, I must say; aside from all the moronic customers, people that whisper/scream when they order, or the jerky kids, most customers are really great. I had someone bring a blow-up doll through the drive-thru, once. He yelled at me for ‘laughing at his girlfriend.’
I got to see a lot of old friends and make new ones by cracking jokes at frequent customers. But that one time mad me snap”
