The customer isn’t always right! These cashiers share their ridiculous encounters with entitled customers that caused them to fly off the handle. Take notes, and don’t act like these customers! Content has been edited for clarity.
The Diner Dilemma
“Telling this story would never get me fired because my job was so desperately short-staffed. My managers couldn’t afford to fire me.
Let me start from the beginning.
I worked part-time in a little diner to pay off the last remaining months of my student loans. I paid them off months ago, but as I mentioned earlier, my job was extremely short-staffed. I didn’t have the heart to leave the diner, and my managers knew their time with me was limited.
At the diner, we made pre-packaged holiday meals that fed ten to twelve people. Each meal was packed up cold. All the customer needed to do was pop the meal in the oven. The meals were extraordinarily popular, and the diner sold about three hundred of them. The meals need to be picked up the day before the holidays.
One woman called and asked me about the holiday meals. This was not unusual, but she had a lot of questions. As I was on the phone, the line waiting at my register was building. Two other phone lines were ringing. Six to-go orders were waiting to be packed up, and a delivery driver was there to pick up orders that weren’t even started yet.
Still, I kept answering the woman’s questions only for her to reply, ‘I need the turkey dinners today!’
I gritted my teeth. She called me on her cell phone, and I knew because I could hear the turn signal in her car. The woman could have looked all of this information up on our website, so I was annoyed.
But I kept answering—about the number of sides, the cranberry sauce, our hours, what sides we even carried, and the price differences.
Then the woman asked, ‘How much turkey is in the big meal compared to the small one?’
I explained, ‘It isn’t done by the slice, but by weight.’
She complained about the small turkey amount by saying, ‘The small turkey sounds like it’s only one slice!’
To clarify, it wasn’t one slice. The small meal was a decent amount of food, and nobody ever sent it back to the kitchen to complain about the portions.
Throughout the entire conversation with the woman, she was also talking to her husband. She asked him questions about what sides he wanted, how much turkey, and if he even wanted to order food from the diner. At this point, I was even more irritated. These were things she should have asked her husband before she called me.
There was now an even longer line at my register. I couldn’t check people out because the phone lady had a half-completed order on my screen I was trying to get finished and put in.
Then, the phone lady yelled at her husband, ‘I told you six times! I’m ordering dinner from- (pause) -what’s your establishment called again?’
I repeated the name of the restaurant she had been on the phone with for the past fifteen minutes. The shift coming in to start had already walked in, put their uniforms on, clocked in, and been assigned tasks.
The phone lady continued talking to her husband. The guy at the front of the line starts huffing and getting annoyed. He threw his money down and glared at me.
My blood was boiling by this point. Everyone knew restaurants were short-staffed. Even if you didn’t, this was extraordinarily rude of her to keep me on the phone talking to her husband while customers were waiting at the register.
So finally I told the woman, ‘Lady, is there anything else you want to order? Because if not, I’m hanging up the phone.’
The woman lost her mind. She called me rude, told me my attitude needed to be adjusted, and asked for my full name. I spelled it out for her because, by this point, I was on a roll.
I thought to myself, ‘Call the governor or call corporate. I don’t care.’
Instead, I explained to her calmly how I had a line of people waiting to check out, orders to put together, and three other phone lines ringing while she talked about green bean casserole for a week from now. If she didn’t need help with anything else, I had to go.
The woman yelled, ‘You need a lesson or two on patience!’
I guess I did need a lesson or two because I hung up on her after she began yelling at me.
I walked over to my boss, handed her my clock-out card, and told her the woman’s name. I knew she would complain about me, so I told my boss the whole story in advance.
My boss just shrugged. We dealt with customers like this all of the time.
A little while after this incident, I quit working at the diner. The work eventually got to be too much. There were too many customers making everyone miserable, and managers began taking it out on the employees. I’m glad I finally figured out my worth and left.”
Teenage Drink Thieves
“I previously worked overnight shifts at a convenience store.
We would have at least one person steal drinks each night. Our policy for drink thieves was to press the record button for the cameras, then call the non-emergency police line and report it. Nothing ever happened afterward. I didn’t think the cops cared about drink theft when there were real threats out there.
Also, as an employee, I was not allowed to interfere in any way. So, most thieves grabbed their drinks as we silently watched as they ran out the door without paying. I never said or did anything. Sure, it was frustrating. Until one night, I had my chance to get back.
It was about ten at night and I was the only one in the store, so I decided to go out in front of the store and smoke. As I stood there, I noticed the same SUV drive slowly past the store at least three times back and forth while I was outside for two minutes. So, I headed back inside because I knew what was coming.
I watched as the SUV pulled in backward on the right-hand side of the store parking lot. I could see the back of the SUV from the register. Four teenagers walked in, each grabbed an eighteen-pack of drinks and headed out the door.
As the last kid sped by, I told him, ‘You know, I can see your license plate.’
I really couldn’t see it.
The kid stopped and asked, ‘Wait, are you serious?’
He got quiet and looked worried.
I said, ‘Have them bring all of the drinks back, and I won’t call the police.’
His eyes got wide and he asked, ‘Really?’
He dropped the case of drinks, ran to the front door, and screamed, ‘Guys, come back! Bring the drinks back! He has the license number, and we are in my mom’s car!’
A few seconds later, each one of the other three kids slowly walked back into the store with their heads down, drinks in hand.
‘Go put it back!’ I said as I tried not to laugh.
They all walked over to the cooler, put every eighteen-pack back, and walked towards the door.
I looked at the main kid and said, ‘I won’t call the cops, but next time, don’t use your mom’s car.’
He said thanks and ran out the door. I started laughing as I watched them drive off. I felt like I finally got payback for all of those drink thieves.
I couldn’t tell anyone at work because I could have gotten in trouble, but my girlfriend sure laughed.”
“The Customer Went Ballistic”
“Sixteen years ago, my fiance and I were in Las Vegas to get married. The night before our wedding, we stayed at a hotel we liked and thought we would go to their gift shop to get some mementos.
As we browsed around, we noticed there was only one other customer in the shop, and he was at the counter. We noticed this because he was being very loud, demanding he wanted different sizes and colors of the items he had. We stopped browsing to watch and listen. Because, you know—entertainment.
The customer was finally satisfied and the very polite and friendly cashier rang up his total. The customer gave her a card, and the cashier ran it through the machine, handed it back to him, and said ‘I’m sorry sir, your card was declined.’
The customer rudely replied, ‘Impossible! You need to try again!’
The cashier didn’t say anything and simply run the card again. When she told the customer his card declined a second time, he went ballistic. He yelled and cussed at the poor employee until his face turned beet red.
The customer ranted and raved, ‘You don’t know who I am! I could sue you and buy this place! I’m calling the corporate office and you’re getting fired! I’m leaving!’
He finally started stomping toward the door when the cashier retorted, ‘Good, go act like a fool somewhere else!’
My fiance and I dissolved into hysterics, and we laughed so hard that the man and cashier both heard us. The man kept going and left the store. The cashier got flustered and apologized profusely for her language. We reassured her we were not offended and agreed with her opinion of the customer.
And, as such things go, it has become a private joke between my now husband and me to say, ‘Go be a fool somewhere else!’ when one of us is being too demanding.”
The Cruel Café Customer
“When I was a young student, I worked at the register in a café. It was an okay job and it paid some bills, but some of the customers had short tempers. I knew one day I would end up clapping back at a customer, no matter what the consequences were I would have to deal with afterward.
Anyway, there was a regular who came into the café, and he was always rude to the other employees and me. Once he paid, he would pester me to tell the barista to hurry up and make his order. I tried to ignore him, but it was hard to help other customers when he kept trying to seek attention.
One day, the café was extremely busy, so I told the regular, ‘Please be quiet for a second. I’m trying to count the money in the register and you are confusing me. It’s making it hard for me to do my job.’
The customer yelled, ‘I don’t care! I paid, therefore I want my coffee. Now!’
‘There is a line, and you will get your coffee when it is your turn,’ I patiently replied.
Again, the customer said, ‘Do you think I care about the line? I paid already!’
I completely lost it and yelled, ‘So what if you paid? You have paid for a cup of coffee, and yet you behave as if you bought me, my mother and father, my boss, and the general manager’s coffee too! What makes you so entitled?’
I only stopped because I realized my boss was standing behind the customer looking at me. The barista then gave the customer his coffee by slamming it on the counter. The customer went mad.
My boss told the customer calmly, ‘You need to leave now.’
My boss then went back to the kitchen without saying a word.
The barista and I were like, ‘Now, what do we do?’
At the end of the shift, we both went to talk to the boss.
I explained, ‘I couldn’t help it, and y understand if you want me to leave.’
To our surprise, the boss told us both to forget about it, and to let him know if the customer ever stepped foot in the café again.”
Pizza Chain Problems
“This didn’t happen to me, but to one of my employees at a pizza chain where I was a manager.
One of the restaurants was located in a bad neighborhood, and we didn’t deliver to most of the surrounding area. When we did deliver, our drivers were harassed one too many times, and quite a few of our orders went unpaid. There were some nice people in the area, but overall, it wasn’t a place you wanted to be after dark.
So one night, I was at this particular restaurant location. A woman walked in and immediately began hissing at my employee working at the register. The woman placed her order, and the employee asked for the money.
The woman immediately got defensive and began yelling, ‘I’m not supposed to pay for the food until it’s ready! I’m not paying for anything!’
I came over to intervene, and the woman began yelling at me.
I explained, ‘We do orders this way at this location because we have had a high number of thefts and fake orders.’
‘This is stupid,’ the woman yelled, ‘I’m going to sue you and own this restaurant!’
Finally, I asked, ‘Do you have the money for your order or not? If you do, just show me and you can pay whenever you’re ready.’
The woman then reached into her purse and pulled out food stamps.
I told the woman, ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we cannot accept these for pizza.’
The woman got extremely angry and kept saying, ‘Food stamps are like money, so you should take them.’
I told her again how we couldn’t accept them, and how it was actually against the law if I took them.
Then the lady exclaimed, ‘I’m the customer here and money talks!’
The employee working the register spoke up and said, ‘Lady, those food stamps don’t say anything here.’
The woman stomped out of the place. The employee turned and looked at me, terrified I was going to fire her on the spot.
I asked the employee, ‘Has this happened before?’
She simply nodded, and I nodded back. Unfortunately, this was just something I had to get used to working in customer service.”
Movie Theatre Madness
“‘I’m sorry sir. You didn’t give me ten bucks, you gave me fifty.’
True story. My manager didn’t believe me, either.
Way back in the eighties, I worked at an AMC movie theatre as a cashier. A man walked in, totally distracted by his two children and wife. Without looking, he handed me fifty bucks to pay for something totaling maybe eight bucks.
So, I handed the man his change. It was forty-two bucks.
Still somewhat distracted and thinking he was being a good guy, the man replied, ‘No, this is too much,’ and kept insisting to the point where my manager came up and thanked the guy for his honesty and tried correcting my mistake.
I hadn’t made a mistake, so I tried to stand my ground. Eventually, the guy, dumbfounded, looked at me and walked away. He was the only customer who had ever paid with a bill of more than twenty bucks, and I was the only person working at the register.
My manager tried reprimanding me by saying, ‘The first rule of customer service is the customer’s always right.’
The customer made a mistake and was distracted, so I tried to help him out. This led to a pretty harsh exchange of words when my manager wound up trying to fire me.
Ultimately, my manager ended up escalating the situation to the general manager, the only person with firing power. The GM sided with me, but he was relocated to another theatre shortly after.
My job tried to steal money from a distracted customer’s pocket. I had to draw a firm line between what was moral and ethical and what wasn’t.”
“I Was Surprised I Didn’t Get Fired”
“I worked at Home Depot for about five years from the late nineties into the early 2000s. I was promoted to head cashier in my last year of work and transferred to a store set to open soon.
On opening day, a man came into the store, strolled up to the help desk, and tried to return some roofing tar with no receipt. My returns cashier called me over because the customer was adamant he purchased the product two weeks ago from our location.
I asked the customer, ‘Are you sure you got it at this location?’ while I pulled up sales on the product. There hadn’t been any sales of the product at any store in the area in weeks!
‘You’re a liar and a thief!’ I told the customer, ‘This store just opened today!’
The customer wanted to speak to my manager because I refused to give him store credit. The manager talked to the customer, heard his story, and gave him two options.
The customer’s first option was to leave the product and the store. The second option was to wait for the police to come.
The thief wound up leaving and the manager commended me for my actions. I was honestly surprised I didn’t get fired for being rude to a customer.”
“There Was Never A Dull Moment”
“As a manager of a chain pizza establishment, I had a woman come in to pick up a pizza she had called in. My cook was in the back doing prep and I was working in the front. I made the woman’s order myself, so I knew it was right. She had ordered a large pepperoni and black olive pizza with extra black olives.
As soon as the woman walked in she demanded to see the pizza, so I showed it to her.
The woman claimed, ‘No, this pizza isn’t right at all,’ so I put more olives on the pizza and heated it to cook them in.
I had the woman take a look at the pizza again, and she wailed, ‘No, why can’t you get it right? This is still short on black olives!’
At this point, I had doubled the number of black olives on the pizza. I could barely see the pepperoni! The woman demanded I completely remake the order instead of adding more olives.
I figured what the heck, it was a slow rainy day, so why not. I remade her pizza, pulled it, cut it, boxed it, and showed it to her. The woman again insisted it wasn’t good enough, how it was just wrong, and how I needed to listen to her better and make the pizza how she wanted it.
I patiently told the woman, ‘Ma’am, this pizza is exactly what you ordered. I put double the number of olives on it, and even put more on just to be sure.’
The woman continued to argue, so I pointed out the window to a competitive pizza shop across the street and said, ‘Lady, I think the pizza you’re wanting is over there instead.’
The woman went bonkers and screamed, ‘I need to call your supervisor! I’m calling corporate too, and I’m going to get you fired!’
I gave the woman my name, my supervisor’s name, and the corporate number. I even asked the woman if she wanted me to dial the number for her. If steam could come out of her ears, it would have.
I watched as the woman almost wreck her car pulling out of the parking lot. The first thing I did was call my supervisor and let him know things were about to blow up, but I never heard anything else about the situation.
There was never a dull moment working as a cashier.”
Crummy Customer Complaints
“I worked at Target as a cashier in the eighties. The person I was waiting on had something without a price tag on it, and at this time, there was no such thing as bar codes yet. I had to call for the price and wait for someone to respond. The customer stood in my line complaining and fidgeting about how the line was taking too long.
Down at the other end of the registers, there were the ten items or fewer lanes. I was getting sick of listening to the customer, and so was everyone else in line.
I told the customer, ‘If you’re in such a hurry, you could have gone to the ten items or fewer lanes! There are big signs, you could have found the lanes very easily!’
The customer simply looked at me, stunned. Hy stayed in my line and shut his mouth.
The woman in line behind him told me, ‘Good for you!’ after he’d left.
I called my manager over as soon as I was done with the awful customer and told him what had happened and what I’d said. He wasn’t even fazed by it. My manager told me I was too good of a cashier to lose over someone being stupid!”
“I Wasn’t In The Mood For The Customer’s Attitude”
“I was ringing up a customer’s items. The conveyor belt was to my left, and I was working fairly quickly.
All of the sudden, another customer behind the woman I was helping cried, ‘Hey, you’re ringing up my stuff, too!’
The woman I was helping apologized, and I replied, ‘No need to apologize. The items behind yours aren’t your responsibility.’
The customer left, and I told the next customer in line to simply use a red divider next time.
The customer replied, ‘What? Three feet of space isn’t enough for you to know her order ended?’
I wasn’t in the mood for the customer’s attitude. I already had people pushing my buttons for hours, and this was it.
I angrily told the customer, ‘I don’t know what school you went to, but this (holds hands about four inches apart) isn’t three feet! We have dividers for a reason. Her stuff, your stuff! How do I know? Well, it’s divided!’
I sat there absolutely berating the customer the entire time I was ringing her out. As she was walking away after I had finished, I was still on fire.
I screamed, ‘Hey! I wasn’t done with you yet!’
The next person in line, terrified, told me, ‘I used a divider for my order!’
Another customer quietly said, ‘I used a divider, too.’
A customer at the back of the line said, ‘I even used two dividers!’
It was really hard to not laugh right then, as furious as I was. I had no idea how a manager or supervisor didn’t hear me putting this woman in her place. For all I knew, they heard and simply didn’t care.”
