There will always be rude customers but every once in a while they get put in their place. Call it karma! These workers share the moment they experienced a rude patron get their just desserts. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
“Go Talk To Your Husband”
“Not a customer but a salesperson. Being 5 feet tall and really young-looking and probably because I am a female, I never get respect when it comes to ‘man’ decisions. I grew up with four brothers. One was a car salesman at the time and really prepped me to go buy a car and not get scammed.
My husband and I went looking. I knew what I wanted. Did all the necessary prep work my brother told me to do. I tell my husband, ‘I’m going in first alone. I want to see what happens.’
I go in and get the lousiest sales pitch. The salesman gave me the deal and swore up and down that he wouldn’t even get commission on the sale. Then he said:
‘Maybe you should talk to your Dad and bring him in and we’ll do the financing.’ What a moron! I was 35-years-old at the time! How patronizing.
I smiled and agreed. I went back outside and told my husband what happened. We went to lunch and came back about two hours later. We didn’t want to seem obvious as my husband went in asking about the exact same car. He goes in and gets a deal $4K less than mine. My husband told him he needed to talk to his wife first.
He comes outside and gets me and we go in together. Ask for the manager and ask the manager to come with us to talk to the sales guy. When we are all together, my husband introduces me and asks him why he was quoted $4K less than me on the same car. The salesperson turned pale, looked like he saw a ghost, sweating and shaking. I make him tell the story. The guy was fired on the spot.
Normally, I would feel bad, as I am a bleeding heart but this guy deserved it and hopefully, I taught him a lesson or many.”
Blame Karen, Not The Beverages
“Working in bar/restaurants for the last 20+ years, I’ve seen quite a few entitled customers get put in their place. Oftentimes these situations are drinking-related, but there is one particular incident that comes to mind where the sauce was not a factor and it involved a ‘Karen’.
Karen and her husband, I’m guessing both in their early 50s, were having dinner with another couple of about the same age, on a busy Friday night. About eight feet away, there was another table of six, a couple and another adult in their early 40s and three children that I would guess were 6, 8, and 10. The children were laughing, crayons out, playing the games on the back of the kids’ menu. They were really well behaved and content themselves.
Karen, however, had one of the cackling laughs that resonated throughout the entire restaurant. For whatever reason, Karen was getting annoyed by the children. At one point, she decided to let her displeasure be known to the server, ‘Can you do something about those kids? They are ruining my dinner.’ She said this loud enough, and in such a demanding manner, that other guests overheard, including the parents of the children. The server was shocked because you really couldn’t ask for more well-behaved kids in a restaurant.
This isn’t a fine dining place, but an Irish Pub where friends and family come to gather and converse. Although it is not terribly loud and raucous during dinner hours, it is certainly not a quiet place. The server politely explained to her that as far as he could tell, they were not doing anything wrong and that he couldn’t just say something to the parents for no reason. No one else seemed to be having any problems with the kids. If anything, this Karen’s high-pitched cackling was more bothersome to the other guests.
Karen’s table then received their desserts, and when the server asked them if he could get them anything else, she asked for the bill and informed the server that his lack of willingness to do anything about the kids would be reflected on his tip. As Karen’s party was finishing dessert, Karen got up from the table, walked over to the parents, and said, ‘If you can’t keep your kids under control, you shouldn’t take them out to dinner. They’ve completely ruined our dinner.’
At this point, any other people in the room who were previously unaware of the situation were definitely now aware. The other server working that room quickly stepped in front of her and asked her to return to her seat and to leave the other customers alone. I give credit to the parents for staying seated and not engaging with her. As she got to her seat, she turned on the other server and gave her a piece of her mind.
Something along the lines of, ‘We pay good money to be here and if you can’t do your job, I will never come back… These kids ruined my dinner… I want to speak to the manager…etc.’ I, the manager, was already in the room about to approach her when her husband ushered her out of the room toward the front door. The entire room, of about 28 guests, minus the couple dining with Karen, got to their feet and applauded as the husband took her away. She turned and looked at all these people applauding her exit and was completely speechless. I’ve never seen a Karen put in her place to the point that she had nothing to say. They usually have a retort for every situation. The look of shock on her face was priceless. The other couple dining with Karen quickly paid the bill and left the server a really fat tip.
I only wish she could have observed what happened next, but at this point she was already walking down the street. A nice older couple was sitting close to the family of six. They were regular customers and some of the sweetest, nicest customers we could possibly ask for. The lady walked over to the table and told them that they have a beautiful family and started talking to the kids, asking them about school, and completely reversed the tone of what had just happened. This couple paid their bill a few minutes later and left. When the family of six asked for their check, they were informed that the couple who just left had taken care of it.
It was fun to see this Karen get put in her place by an entire dining room full of customers, and heart-warming to see someone do something nice for the family.”
Do You Know Who My Parents Are?!
“When I was in high school some friends wanted to go hang out at a classmate’s apartment. Her mom was gone and it was a Saturday night so about 6 of us went over.
About 30 minutes later the property manager who lived on-site because it was over 100 units banged on the door. When my friend opened it he started screaming at us telling us we were too loud and everyone was complaining and we all needed to leave.
I said to the man, ‘It’s 8 pm on a Saturday night. We aren’t drinking or partying or playing loud music we are just hanging out. What is the problem?’ He screamed at me got in my face with his finger and told me to shut up and leave or he would call the police.
I said call them for what? He then almost hit me he was so angry I was talking back at him. I was doing it politely and my friend freaked out and was worried she would get in trouble as I guess this guy was a total prick to all the tenants.
So we left. As we were walking away he screamed at me that I was a hoodlum and would fail in life and I should feel lucky he didn’t call the police on me.
I stopped in my tracks and turned around and said ‘Sir you are WAY out of line. I would check yourself.’
He laughed and said ‘Yeah, what are you going to do?’ I told him – HAVE YOU FIRED TOMORROW.
He just laughed and asked ‘AND HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT. YOU GOT NOTHING…’
I walked up to him and said ‘MY PARENTS OWN THIS ENTIRE COMPLEX. DOES THE NAME MOSELEY SOUND FAMILIAR?
He was silent. I said yeah, I’m Kera Moseley. Then turned away and walked. with my friends one of which said that was so awesome, you totally freaked him out. Especially since your parents don’t own the building.
Actually, my parents did own the building.
I just never told anyone and that property manager was FIRED the next day by my parents.”
The Vegan Devil of Starbucks
“I was at Starbucks, typing away to meet deadlines when a woman’s grunt made me lookup. The barista apologizes for the hundredth time; they simply can’t do her vegan coffee as they ran out of soy milk that evening.
She slammed a hand on the cashier counter ‘I don’t care, get me the soy milk. There’s a Tesco just right around the corner!’, implying the poor girl should now run to get the soy milk.
I don’t know what’s the procedure with Starbucks but I do know most establishments use a specific brand by a supplier to maintain their quality or something etc.
This woman was just not having it. She continued berating the poor girl by telling her she would report this inefficiency issue to corporate blah blah blah. A line steadily formed behind her as the after-office hour crowd streamed in. The other barista (I assume the supervisor) politely asked her to move to the side to allow other customers to order.
But she kept on yapping and yapping like a chihuahua, holding back everyone in line when a guy quipped ‘hey lady if you march your butt to Tesco 5 minutes ago, you could have gotten yourself the soy milk instead of making everyone listen to you whining like the world is gonna end cuz you can’t have soy milk with your coffee!’
And with that, he threw some notes on the counter ‘Here’s the money for your soy milk!’
Shocked that she was yelled at by another customer, the woman picked up her purse, looked wildly around, and quickly exited the store.
The guy ordered, paid for his drink, and told the barista to ‘keep the change. I was a barista 5 or 6 years ago, in this same store. You are definitely not paid enough for that garbage.’”
Don’t Miss With This Granny!
“Right out of high school I was working for a big-box retailer. I had only been working there a couple of weeks when I saw this happen.
I was working as a cashier and this little old lady (around 80-year-old) came up with her items – and she had quite a few of them. She was walking with a walker and moved pretty slowly.
We had just opened the doors for the day, so it was around 7 am and there were only two of us, so pretty barebones staff. The rest of the staff would be in about an hour later – and this lady had been waiting at the door when we got there.
Just as she finished putting her items on the counter, this guy in a business suit comes up to the counter and asks me if I could ring him up really quickly – he was in a real rush.
I told him that was up to the lady who had just finished unloading her cart.
She said no – she was late for an appointment herself and he would have to wait.
He cut her off and INSTRUCTED me to ring him up right then. I said no. He then told me to get another cashier upfront, right this dang minute. I told him the only other person working the store at the moment was the receiving guy and he was unloading the truck – and couldn’t use the registers anyways as he didn’t have the codes to the registers. I was the only cashier and would be until 8 am.
He got really irate – I’m going to call the manager, etc., etc., etc. He was kept raising his voice until he was almost screaming. Other customers started to gather to watch.
When he finally got to the question of ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ the little old lady yelled back at him – ‘Yeah, you’re a prick so shut the F up before I ram this walker where the sun don’t shine!’ She also said some other very choice words to him, but it’s inappropriate to say here.
He was just shocked by this little lady. He was so embarrassed, that he left his stuff in the basket, dropped it on the floor, and left.
Turns out, this little old lady was in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve during World War II. As the women’s division equivalent of a drill sergeant. She had been married to a USMC drill sergeant and her two kids became USMC drill sergeants.
She didn’t take nonsense from anybody.”
he Power of Peer Pressure
“Years ago, we were attempting to complete a safety demonstration on a Boeing 727 aircraft. I was working in the First-Class cabin, and we had to stop the demo several times for a woman sitting there. I suspect that she had been drinking because she was loudly talking over the demo to her seatmate, discussing ‘important’ business affairs, distracting others, and making it difficult for them to hear.
I asked her to keep her voice down, and she said, ‘We fly a lot, and we’ve heard it so many times that we know it by heart.’
The second time we stopped the demo and I asked her to speak quietly, she said, ‘I’m a CEO of a large corporation and I have business to do.’
The third time, she rolled her eyes dramatically and informed me that I was getting tiresome and should mind my own business! ‘You go along and do your pretty little presentation and leave us alone to handle the important things!’
Before I could reply, a passenger seated behind her stood and motioned for me to let her speak, she leaned over the seatback to speak to the loudmouth, and sweetly said, ‘I get it. You’re pretty important to be a CEO!’
‘Dang right I am! And I worked hard to get here!’ loudmouth replied.
‘I’m sure you did!’ the woman said. ‘It’s not easy.’ And her voice took on a hard edge, ‘But you know,’ she went on, ‘these people don’t come into your boardroom and interrupt you when you’re making a presentation. And you’re in their office now. You need to afford them the courtesy of making their presentation without interruption and without being so rude. They’re doing their job, and the rest of us need to hear them. So, this behavior is going to stop, isn’t it!‘ That last two words were a statement, not a question. And they were very firmly stated!
Surrounding passengers grinned in approval, some even snickering. Looking around and realizing that she was alone, loudmouth immediately shut up and sank down into her seat, looking properly chastised. We continued with the safety demo and she didn’t utter a peep until we were done. And for the rest of the flight, she spoke in near whispers.
Peer pressure can be extremely effective!”
A Different Time
“1972, Los Angeles, California
My friend and I would sometimes go to a high-end department store just to dream. We both worked entry-level jobs so our salaries would definitely not support our fantasies. We in no way looked like we belonged in that store.
The staff there never hovered, unless a customer wanted them to, but they were quietly and unobtrusively vigilant. These people knew we weren’t there to buy, but they treated us as respected customers.
A well-dressed black woman and her young daughter were looking at little-girl dresses. My friend also had a daughter (not with us), so she, too, looked at the outfits (way out of our price range).
A slightly older, white woman aggressively snatched a dress from the black mother and snarled, ‘That’s mine!’
The black lady quickly moved to another rack of clothes. The white woman did it again. And again. She snapped, ‘You don’t belong here, girl.’ This was all in less than a minute.
The black woman started to speak, looked at her frightened child and moved away. The white woman stood with hands (still clutching the children’s clothes) on her hips glaring after them.
The store staff saw it all. As one saleslady moved towards the woman and her child, a very distinguished-looking floor manager approached the other woman.
He bowed slightly (it was a different time) gently taking the merchandise from her (which she didn’t want to buy after all) and offered to take her to a more comfortable place so she could calm down.
She looked so pleased with herself! He asked if she had the store privilege/ credit card so that he could change her status (an upgrade for being nasty???), and she beamed!
He took her arm and led her OUTSIDE the store. We couldn’t hear what was said, but her face…
It seems that he told her she was no longer welcome and refused to give back her card. The guard at the door blocked her when she tried to re-enter.
As he passed us, we thanked him. He nodded slightly and continued on his way to the mother and daughter.”
Swallowing His Pride
“I was at the airport. It was awesome.
This was a long time ago. I was probably 25 or so, flying from Denver to New York. I entered the Denver airport and headed to the United counter to check in — the United First Class Counter because a rich relative had bought me the ticket. There was no line — the place was pretty empty — but the woman at the counter was clearly in the middle of doing something, so I approached the counter but stood a few feet back until she looked up at me.
It didn’t take long. She looked up and smiled and asked how she could help me, and I started stepping all the way up to the counter when suddenly a guy came out of nowhere and quickly squeezed in front of me. I had to hop out of the way so he didn’t knock into me. I started to express surprise, but he just turned his back to me and said to the woman, ‘I need to check-in for my flight.’
The woman looked at me, and I just shrugged. This guy was older than me and looked like he belonged in first-class — nice suit, briefcase, busy air about him. And he was sort of out of breath, so I figured he was late for his flight. Whatever. I started to back up so she could help this guy check-in, but then she says to the guy, ‘Sir, this young woman was here first.’
He didn’t look at me, just responded something like, ‘But I’m going to be late.’
And then she tells him:
‘Sir, if you would like to check in ahead of this passenger, you’ll need to apologize to her and get her permission to take her place in line.’
He paused.
And then he did it! He looked at me for the first time — 20 years his junior, wearing fraying jeans and flip-flops — squirmed for a moment, and then said he was sorry and asked if he could go ahead of me.
I looked at the woman at the United counter, and her face was impassive, totally professional. I told him, ‘Sure, no problem,’ and stepped away from the counter.
I still can’t believe she did that. I can only imagine when you work First Class you see a lot of entitled behavior, and she just didn’t take that trash anymore.”
“Vegetarian Chicken”
“One afternoon, my oldest son and I were at Whole Foods, waiting in line at the butcher counter. My son was about 17 at the time. The lady in front of us is screaming at the man behind the counter that she wanted ‘grass-fed, vegetarian chicken’.
So a bit of background… we have had chickens for most of my kids’ lives. They’re fun pets and breakfast producers. So, my son knew chickens and they are anything but grass eaters. They are feathery miniature t-rexes when it comes to eating.
As she was getting more ticked off and the man was trying to explain they had grass-fed beef, but not chicken. My son couldn’t keep his laughter quiet anymore and he let out a big guffaw that led to a few minutes of serious laughter.
The woman turned around and in the same condescending tone she was using with the employee, shouts at my son, ‘What’s so funny?’ And he says, ‘You! Chickens are far from vegetarian and there’s no way they would be able to live eating grass.’ And kept laughing. He couldn’t help himself. Honestly, it was all I could do to stifle my laughs.
She then turned on me asking if I was going to make my son apologize. Oh, no honey. I gave her a quick lesson on chicken digestion and that even the grains they get in the prepared feed are pretty much just used as more grit in their gullet. And proceeded to tell the story of one set of young hens we had that would play keep away with field mice until they’d finally eat them. And toads, frogs, insects, whatever they could get their beaks on.
She got really incensed and stormed off. The butcher was so pleased she was gone he gave us a discount on the meat we were getting.”
Treat Others As You Would Like To Be Treated
“I was checking out my once a month groceries with four kids under the age of 10 and the woman behind me started ranting about how ‘It’s people like you that are overpopulating the earth and making it difficult for rest of us to exist!’ She continued snide comments until people started to look around. I turned to look at her as the cashier two aisles overmatched the woman’s volume and greeted me by name and asked if the kids’ adoption was final yet.
I smiled at the cashier and said, ‘Go easy, she is setting a great example to the kids as to why kindness and good behavior are important for everyone to learn.’ They may be young and many, but even they knew the importance of respect for everyone because we never know what happens in people’s lives that leads to moments of poor behavior or bad choices.
I have never forgotten the sound of that woman’s screechy comment and the kids saying softly to each other, ‘She’s just havin’ a mean minute.’ and the younger one telling me, ‘She needs a nap.’
With the bio parents convicted on 32 counts of criminal neglect, these young ones had known more trauma and loss in their short lives than this indignant woman would probably experience in all of her years. As we were loading the groceries into the car one of the kids simply said, ‘I’m glad she’s not adopting us.’
I chuckled, gave him a hug and said, ‘I am too!’”