Annoying/Rude Customers

[SacredWarrior]

For those who worked in retail or fast food (I work in the latter), we're bound to come across rude idiots that make us wanna go Super Saiyan on their asses. What are some of the worst experiences you've had dealing with customers and what did you do in response?

I work at Hardee's/Carl's Jr and for the most part, it's a chill and cool environment when dealing with co-workers and customers ^_^ However there have been two instances where customers have been assholes to pretty much the entire staff.

Both instances involved our equipment not working (the fryer and the grill to be specific). Basically we had to deal with impatient customers who didn't seem to understand the fact that if our equipment doesn't work, it's not our damn fault! -_-

I've never really worked in retail but I was a witness to two terrible instances that made me not want to!

1. I was at Wal-Mart grocery shopping and while I was in the checkout line, the bitch in front of me was being a total cunt (excuse my language) to the cashier and she had the nerve to say "Retards have no place in this society." Little did she know, the cashier was autistic and broke down crying and sobbing. I confronted the bitch and said that people like her had no place in this society after I called her everything but a child of God. Thank God I wasn't an employee there!

2. At another Wal-Mart, I was shopping with a friend and his aunt who happens to be mentally incapacitated. She was making a lot of noise and this random asshole started yelling at her, saying stuff like "Shut the fuck up! Are you retarded or something you dumb ass bitch?" Let's just say my friend is no longer allowed at that Wal-Mart anymore. That jackass deserved it though.

 

[Celest]

I haven't had anything as intense as that.

I work at a gift shop at a cavern. I've recently been given the responsibility of the front desk and opening and closing the business. The other night, Monday night specifically, I was closing. My boss has this silly rule that even though we close at 6, we can give tours up to 6:05. And that if people come in at 6:15, we can catch them up to the previous tour.

Anyway, these people come in at like 5:55. It's a big family of 15 or 16 people. At first, they didn't know if they wanted to take a tour. They sat there discussing in front of the desk until 6 when they finally decided they would. Even though they needed to go down right then, they decided to shop. They took 15 or 20 minutes.

When they were at the counter, they wouldn't communicate with me about their items or how they would pay. They kept taking away items and then adding more. My boss came over to try and nudge them towards cave entrance. At last they left, but 6 of them stayed up in the gift shop being all loud.

Eventually they went to sit outside on the front benches. When the tour came up, everyone sitting outside came back inside. Fortunately, they didn't stay long. I flew through closing, go out to the front of the store, And they had trashed the porch.

Empty cups everywhere. Pamphlets they didn't take on the ground. I was livid.

 

[Dipper]

Worst I ever had was a woman who got a coffee.

So, here I am, doing my thing. Woman got a coffee. Drank the coffee. Returned to the counter complaining that it wasn't good enough, wanted a replacement. Thing is, she'd already finished it. Policy says we have to give it to her anyway. So I did.

She came back again with the same exact complaint and request.

Did I mention she was the nastiest human being on the face of the earth? She was. Her vocabulary was 80% expletives, and the rest was wailing.

 

[redblood]

I haven't worked that much in retail and the only time I did was on a golfclub, so pretty chill people, but when I worked in the reception at a hostel, I got this weird couple who had to stay there cause the state had sent them cause they didn't currently have a home and they couldn't pay for one on their own. (Around half the guests were people sent there, usually for shorter periods while their living situation was fixed.)

Now, the hostel I worked at wasn't the BEST in the world, but it was a decent place, at least for short term livings... I would never want to stay there long term, but those who did usually didn't have much other choice. The rooms didn't have any windows since all the rooms were in the middle of the building, not attached to any walls, but there was decent air circulation and it was rare to hear anyone complain about heat or anything like that.

Now, the first thing this couple did was to say that there wasn't any air in the room, they didn't feel like they could breath properly and complained about the airwent. So, we changed their room to another one and they continued to complain and said they wanted a room with a window. Well, we don't have any rooms with windows, so in that case they'd have to talk to their case worker and be moved to a different hostel/hotel. I told them that, numerous times, and what do they do? They continue complaining to ME and threatens me with calling the police and child protective services, cause they were certain our room was making their baby sick cause the air was so bad... Doesn't matter that multiple children that small has lived in those rooms without problems before.

I keep telling them that it's up to THEM to ask their CASE WORKER to move them to another place, cause I can't magically get a freaking window room to appear out of thin air. If they seriously were that worried about their kid, they had the option to talk to their caseworker and telling them that it wasn't a good environment, AND they could have taken the kid to the hospital, cause IF something was wrong the case worker would have needed to move them, and going to the doctor is next to free here in sweden, and they seemed to have lots of freetime during most of the day time as I saw them around a lot during my shift. What's their excuse for going to me who can do NOTHING rather than actually followin the advice they're given? You have a kid whom you seem to be seriously worried about, WHY NOT DO SOMETHING INSTEAD OF REPEATING THE SAME ACTION OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO SOMEONE WHO CAN'T HELP YOU?? As parents you've failed cause you couldn't take the logical step of GOING TO THE FREAKING HOSPITAL AND TALK TO YOUR CASE WORKER!

Now, is there a chance that the child did get sick cause of the air in the room? Sure, the child could have been more sensitive than other children that had stayed at the hostel, but it can also be the parents paranoia that took the overhand and they wanted to see symptoms where there were non. I dunno, the few times I saw the kid, it didn't look nor sounded sick, but I was never in the actual room with them so I wouldn't know. Either way, they were stupid for ignoring GOOD advice and complaining to someone who clearly couldn't do a thing cause I wasn't the one making them stay at a hostel without a window.

I wonder what they even thought would happen by complaining so much... Did they think we could move them to a different hotel/hostel? Did they think we could build a completely new room in a day for them? I don't understand the mindset! GAH!




The worst I had at the library I'm working at now was a woman who came in one minute before the doors were locked, asked me to help her find books five minutes after we closed (which I told her, to which she said "this will go fast") then once she had her books we realized she hadn't used her library card in so long so it had gone inactive, so then she wanted to have a new library card, and at the time I was relatively new and didn't know all the things, so then I couldn't find the library cards (they were there but I accidentally missed them and thouht we had run out), I didn't know you could register someone just on their social security number, I thought you needed the card, so she said "well call your boss to ask what to do."

sighting I take the phone and call, and she KEEPS talking to me while I'm making the freaking call. BITCH, I'M PISSED! It's 15 minutes past closing, I should be getting ready to go home! I talk to him, he explains what to do when there are no library card involved, I get back to her (cause she was such a blabbermouth I just went and locked myself into the staff room while talking to the boss), we create a library card (which takes some time, cause you need adress, phone number, name, yadayadayada) and then I need to help her borrow the books and then FINALLY she leaves. I was pretty tired that day, I just wish I could have said "GET OUT, we're closed." But customer service is a thing Dx Need to be nice. She even said at one point "well, you didn't have any open hours on the door, so how would I know."

... We have our open hours on the door... I look at them... Every time I come to work... Just to make sure I remember which time we close that particular day... You could have checked on the website before you left home as well... I seriously thought about just figuring out where she works and go invade her work right before her shift ends so she'd have to stay overtime D: But that would be hard if she wasn't working customer service xD

Worst I ever had was a woman who got a coffee.

So, here I am, doing my thing. Woman got a coffee. Drank the coffee. Returned to the counter complaining that it wasn't good enough, wanted a replacement. Thing is, she'd already finished it. Policy says we have to give it to her anyway. So I did.

She came back again with the same exact complaint and request.

Did I mention she was the nastiest human being on the face of the earth? She was. Her vocabulary was 80% expletives, and the rest was wailing.

They had a policy that said you had to give them more even though they drank it all? o_o Sooo weird.. That's something just asking for being exploited >_< I would say a good rule would be "If you taste it and it's not good enough and want a replacement, THEN you can get a new one, but if you drink the whole thing, you gotta pay for the next fucking drink cause clearly it wasn't that bad." Seems like common sense to me xD

 

[Dipper]

They had a policy that said you had to give them more even though they drank it all? o_o Sooo weird.. That's something just asking for being exploited >_< I would say a good rule would be "If you taste it and it's not good enough and want a replacement, THEN you can get a new one, but if you drink the whole thing, you gotta pay for the next fucking drink cause clearly it wasn't that bad." Seems like common sense to me xD

Yep. Nobody with more than one functioning brain cell is going to think it's a good policy. Manager didn't care, though. The only thing that really bothered me was the fact that she kept coming at all. Very demanding sort.

 

[Vars]

I was a cashier at a grocery store. I was new and I don't remember what I did wrong (or even if I did do anything wrong, maybe I was just going slow). But she seemed to be in a hurry and was very irate. However, her cart was OVERFLOWING with items, so even the best cashier was going to take a while.

Something happened, I want to say she had WIC and I had no idea how to process that but I could be wrong and maybe I just double-rung something and couldn't figure out how to void it. Anyway, whatever happened, she got TOTALLY LIVID and BLEW UP. She started throwing her items around and screaming at me.

Another of the cashiers opened up a new register for her and tried to take her over to that register where it was just her, and she was throwing her items from my belt to the other one. And I mean like, literally throwing. Overhand.
That lady must have been having a seriously bad day.

--

So I lived in the south, georgia to be precise, in a very affluent and very white, christian, neighborhood. And pretty much everyone who's ever lived in one of these areas who works retail knows that the after-church crowd is THE WORST. Anyway, it was Easter. Major christian holiday. My store was open, the christian grocery store, Publix, was not.
That day, everyone who was christian who normally shopped at Publix made themselves very known. They were all very rude, and one of them specifically mentioned they were only there because Publix was closed and they hated Kroger (where I worked at the time).

Just... Holy shit, man. Maybe if these christians were really christian, they wouldn't be shopping on the holiday, and even moreso, they wouldn't be such assholes. Christians are supposed to be nice. Everybody's supposed to be nice to eachother. But I dunno what makes christians so much more assholey than other religious zealots who preach niceness.

 

[PoetLore]

I have only ever worked Retail, either fast food (Arby's) or in malls, though I did ahve a time I sold high end furniture (LOVED that job).

Most retail places have that stupid rule that the customer is always right, but I'm sorry. NO THEY ARE NOT! They will lie, cheat, fake and bully their way to getting a discount, free meal, a lawsuit, whatever they can get. I had a dude jump over the counter at Arby's and threaten to lock me in the freezer because his fries were cold. (He had just gone through the drive thru. They were fresh, and HOT....I had bagged them myself). Luckily for me, not him, there was an odd duty cop in line, who also jumped the counter and bashed the guy into the floor.

Had another time I was working at the furniture store, and this guy calls and he is screaming into the phone at me, telling me our prices were too high. He worked in furniture too, so he knows the mark-up and that we were way out of line. I calmly told him that he was welcome to shop at the store with the better prices, and that I was sorry he was dissatisfied with his experience with our store. He then started a run of expletives (Some of which I had no idea were words...and even less of a clue what they meant) but when he got to the c word which I hate, and think is vile I banged the phone on the desk to get his attention and then i sweetly said. "Sir, I am an employee here. I do not make policy or set prices and I do not have to listen to anyone talk to me in such a manner." I put the phone down and looked at my boss and said THAT one is all yours. And walked away.


On another note. While i was working at Sears(an end unit mall store) I was working the first shift of black Friday. If you are ever considering working a mall, don't start until AFTER black Friday. Just good sound advice for free. Anyway, our manager decided to open at 4 am instead of midnight like everyone else. His reasoning was that after 4 hours the crowds would be less energetic and our store wouldn't get as trashed. Now I am not a Black Friday shopper, so this was my first experience with the phenomenon. (Again...not recommended) So he went to the mall entrance to open our metal door and my jaw hit the floor because there were people ON THE FLOOR crawling under it to get at the electronics department because we had a TV for 3...count them 3 dollars less than Best Buy. My manager had to pull me into the menswear so I wouldn't get trampled in the aisle, because I was dumbfounded and in shock. I'm sorry, I don't need ANYTHING bad enough to crawl on the floor at a mall. Still weirds me out to this day.

 

[SacredWarrior]

I had a dude jump over the counter at Arby's and threaten to lock me in the freezer because his fries were cold. (He had just gone through the drive thru. They were fresh, and HOT....I had bagged them myself). Luckily for me, not him, there was an odd duty cop in line, who also jumped the counter and bashed the guy into the floor.

If that happened at Hardee's where I work at, the employees and managers would've jumped that guy! What a cocksucker -_-

He then started a run of expletives (Some of which I had no idea were words...and even less of a clue what they meant) but when he got to the c word which I hate, and think is vile I banged the phone on the desk to get his attention and then i sweetly said. "Sir, I am an employee here. I do not make policy or set prices and I do not have to listen to anyone talk to me in such a manner." I put the phone down and looked at my boss and said THAT one is all yours. And walked away.

You handled that MUCH better than me because I would've been returning all of those words and then some before hanging up on him. What a dick >:(

 

[PoetLore]

@SacredWarrior

I'm not one for expletives ever. I am always around small children and they pick up on that really easily, and well....to me is screams of lack of imagination. Most of them mean nothing anymore. I once had a teacher that said swearing shows a lack of education, because there are always better words to say what you actually mean, and with a good likelihood that the victim of your tirade will not even know what you just called them. So..thanks to that 8th grade English teacher I have a pretty good vocabulary.

About the counter jumper, that happened so fast I was halfway to the freezer before anyone realized what was going on. yeah that was crazy and a bit scary too. Three people quit on the spot, so I ahd a LONG night understaffed.

 

[SacredWarrior]

I'm not one for expletives ever. I am always around small children and they pick up on that really easily, and well....to me is screams of lack of imagination. Most of them mean nothing anymore. I once had a teacher that said swearing shows a lack of education, because there are always better words to say what you actually mean, and with a good likelihood that the victim of your tirade will not even know what you just called them. So..thanks to that 8th grade English teacher I have a pretty good vocabulary.

I usually swear all the time but I do have a good vocabulary and am fairly educated :P It's just a matter of environment in my case so I know when to and when not to curse XD

About the counter jumper, that happened so fast I was halfway to the freezer before anyone realized what was going on. yeah that was crazy and a bit scary too. Three people quit on the spot, so I ahd a LONG night understaffed.

Damn :( I highly recommend taking self-defense lessons in the future so people will think twice about doing that. I know I'd be beating someone down!

 

[PoetLore]

@SacredWarrior

I have since done so! My kids were all into Tae Kwon Do, so I took the beginner class, and the women's defense class. The Master of the dojo was very nice, after hearing about my experience and allowed me to take the classes for free. Or maybe he felt he was already taking enough of my money with 6 kids in his classes, either way...I was grateful!

 

[SacredWarrior]

@SacredWarrior

I have since done so! My kids were all into Tae Kwon Do, so I took the beginner class, and the women's defense class. The Master of the dojo was very nice, after hearing about my experience and allowed me to take the classes for free. Or maybe he felt he was already taking enough of my money with 6 kids in his classes, either way...I was grateful!

That's great to know! :D I wanna take some self defense myself and eventually get a gun (I live in Tennessee so that's not hard to do) so I can protect myself against the crazies!

 

[PoetLore]

I know how to use one, but I don't own one at the moment. If I ever go back to living alone I will buy one though. Crazy world we are living in.

 

[Vars]

I got a possibly weird, slightly-unrelated question.
So for you males in retail... how often do you get creepy comments by people? Creepy like "That person totally wants to have sex with me" type of creepy.

I know women get it pretty often...

 

[Ashi]

Maybe if these christians were really christian, they wouldn't be shopping on the holiday, and even moreso, they wouldn't be such assholes. Christians are supposed to be nice. Everybody's supposed to be nice to eachother. But I dunno what makes christians so much more assholey than other religious zealots who preach niceness.

Well, whether or not you practice things like not going anywhere but church on Sunday depends on how orthodox you are. I myself am Christian, living in the southeast United States. Treating people kindly is a thing Christians are supposed to do. The thing is that, no matter what you believe, there are always going to be assholes who believe it too and give all the other believers a bad name. I believe that may be a southern thing, what with the good-ole'-boy network. I've witnessed a lot of people acting that same way, with this "I'm better than you" or "Holier than thou" kind of snootiness. I don't get it either. But this isn't the proper place for that discussion. ; )

My first job was with Target as a cashier. I trained quickly and was on my own within a day. It was around October that I started, when they start hiring holiday workers. This job lasted less than two months. My encounters there, as well as my coworkers, caused a huge blow to my self-esteem and I ended up quitting. This story took place on Black Friday. This lady came through my line with a cartload of toys and electronics. My eyes widened when I saw her coming - her cart was overflowing! I didn't even get to ring anything up because she jumped right to the chase - her card. Looking back at it now, I don't think it was hers. She said she couldn't remember the PIN number for this card, but she wanted to use it purchase all of this stuff. She asked me if I could access the card information over the internet. I told her I couldn't do that, since the cash register was just that, a cash register. In spite of the computer screen, it had no computer capabilities. I even turned the screen around to show her that it couldn't do what she was asking. She threw a fit. She started going off about how her husband was a shareholder and she would be having a word with him about all of this. All the while, I was looking helplessly around for a manager or someone I could call over. I wasn't supposed to leave the register unattended with a customer there. She then said something along the lines of, "Let me tell you something: I work in the customer service industry and this is not good customer service" and proceeded to berate me. I just smiled, apologized, and excused myself to go find a manager. When the manager got there, she continued to make a scene, spouting on about her shareholder husband, when the manager told her that we couldn't access the card info. She left in a huff and the cart was put aside for reshop.

For the past two years, I've worked with a chain of franchise hair salon companies. I'm a receptionist and I do everything except cut hair: sweep the hair, check people in and out, clean the salon itself, make sure the stylists have plenty of combs and water in their spray bottles, tell them when to go to lunch, inventory of retail products. The list goes on. There is one stylist in particular who is extremely popular that had just come back from vacation. So many of the people that came in on the day in question were there to see her. The customer in question called to get her hours and ask when she was taking her lunch break. Well, with how busy the stylist was, I really couldn't pin-point an exact lunch time for her. I can tell the stylists when to go, but they don't always go then. There may be a customer who's like "Can't you do just one more cut before you go?" So, the lady asked me to go ask her when she thought she'd go to lunch. I put her on hold, go ask the stylist, and she said "I don't know, you're the receptionist. You tell me." Like I said, they don't always go when I tell them - especially not her. Usually, she just goes when she wants, so that she said that was kind of hypocritical in my eyes. Well, a few other people came in and I had to tend to them, then check some customers out. I didn't get back to the phone until the lady already hung up. So about thirty minutes later, she walked in the door, clearly pissed - as I knew she would be. I apologized to her, but she wouldn't have it. She went on to throw a fit with my boss in front of me, saying I should be fired. I talked to my boss about it and thankfully she was understanding and said not to even pay the woman any mind.

 

[Supernova]

I have been asked by a customer if he could tug on my ponytail while I was on break. We don't have a breakroom so most of the employees spend the short time at the counter that's in the front of the store so we kind of have no way to get away from the customers. Since we aren't allowed to take a break in the warehouse, but I digress. I was a little surprised someone would legitimately ask that while in public, but retail is a crazy place. I turned around and promptly told the guy if he touched me that I would beat the piss out of him and that it was great if weird things like that were okay in the past but it didn't fly these days.

 

[Decimate]

Target GSA reporting.

This is essentially my life at work (a bit NSFW, but accurate nonetheless):

Spoiler

 

[Dipper]

I have been asked by a customer if he could tug on my ponytail while I was on break. We don't have a breakroom so most of the employees spend the short time at the counter that's in the front of the store so we kind of have no way to get away from the customers. Since we aren't allowed to take a break in the warehouse, but I digress. I was a little surprised someone would legitimately ask that while in public, but retail is a crazy place. I turned around and promptly told the guy if he touched me that I would beat the piss out of him and that it was great if weird things like that were okay in the past but it didn't fly these days.

I would like to know why, but at the same time, I'm afraid of the answer.

 

[Supernova]

Honestly I don't have an idea why... It's happened twice and it doesn't get less weird.

 

[Esmeray]

One time I was working in a pet store, and since we were slow at the time I decided to go front facing (puling all the merch forward) the shelves of dog food. An old lady comes up to me and starts wasting my time talking about how she's having such a hard time with the store. Something about the prices not being the same as another store, and just a slew of other shit. She even complained that she had forgotten her dogs food during their trip and that she was in such a fuss because she had to leave her beach house to take care of her dog. Literally some entitled cow acting like her dog was so inconvenient for her. Literally she complained about so much stuff that by the time I found a manager (because for some fucking reason the phones used to call managers were missing) I had forgotten everything she had asked me/complained about. I check the register real quick before I go hunting for this old ass lady in the store to inform her of what I knew, and she was already there waiting at the register. I go up to her, and I start explaining things to her, and she actually interrupts me with "Did you not listen to a single thing I told you? I didn't want to know about that." even though she made such a HUGE fucking deal about it. Now at this point I'm getting flustered because she's going out of her way to be rude to me when I am just trying to help her have a better understanding of the store. I apologized and explained that I had asked my manager the wrong question, and that again I did not have my phones. I told her that I would go look for one, and she cuts me off again with "Don't bother, I'm going to find someone that actually knows what they are talking about myself." and then storms off with her bag of dog food. She leaves, giving me a nasty look, and five minutes later our store manager comes up to me saying that some older lady complained to her that I was on my phone while checking her out, and that I was chewing gum. Even though I didn't even have any gum on me, and my phone was tucked away into my pocket. So not only did she decide to berate me in public, but actually lied to my hiring manager as an attempt to get me fired. Worst part is that my manager was actually considering on reprimanding me because a customer had called Karson (co-manager) earlier that week complaining that I "wasn't friendly enough because I wasn't smiling." which is total bullshit. Like fucking really? You're going to go out of your way to WASTE YOUR TIME to complain about someone not being friendly enough for you?

Most recently at my current job, we had a fundraiser for a church near my work. The thing is that I didn't know about the fundraiser until the day before hand, and when I expressed to my boss that I was not comfortable handling the fundraiser by myself since I had NEVER WORKED ONE BEFORE she brushed it aside. Sure, fine, whatever. Morning rolls around, and I show up and start cleaning the froyo machines. Well low and behold I am having troubles getting the machines back together, and this group of people come in a half hour before I normally open. At the time I thought we didn't open until noon, but apparently we actually open at 11:30. I am gravely behind, when the lady who applied for the fundraiser shows up. During which she is very nice to me, and understanding. She even helped put the spoons and tongs into the toppings while I worked on the machines. I take a pause to check her out, and I am explaining to her that I didn't know we were opening at 11:30 today. I apologized for the unprofessionalism, and even gave the bitch a coupon. After I check her out, I get my paper to write down her total for the fundraiser and she actually stops me and asks me what I am doing. I told her I was writing down the total for later since that is what I was told to do. She then goes "Wouldn't it just be easier to make a copy of the recite?" and to which I agreed. She tipped me, and then left seemingly satisfied or at least pleasant. Well ten minutes after I get a call from my boss about how the lady complained about how unprepared I was and told my boss that I had said that I had no idea there was going to be a fundraiser that day. WHICH WASN'T TRUE. Again, another snake over exaggerating and half-lying to my hiring manager about my service. I had to clarify TWICE that all I told the lady was that I did not know that we opened at 11:30. THAT'S IT. Eventually, my boss took my side of the situation because she just decided it was a misunderstanding, but apparently the lady got really huffy with my boss because she refused to sign the check to her personal bank account. That's not how fundraisers work, the check is always signed towards the ESTABLISHMENT because my boss has to claim it on their tax returns. Really shady shit if you ask me.

Like why do people do this crap?