My husband and I order pizza for delivery using a deal code, plus some extra sides. When the delivery guy shows up, he gives me everything except the drink I ordered.

Me: “What about the drink?”

Driver: “Drink? What did you order?”

Me: “A 1.25-litre Coke.”

Driver: *Looks at the receipt* “There’s no drink on here.”

Me: “In the deal?”

The driver rolls his eyes, starts getting grumpy, and admits there is a drink on my order. He checks his car but confirms he forgot it. 

Driver: “I’ll have to go back and get it for you.”

He lingers for a moment like he’s hoping I’ll tell him not to worry about it, but I just nod and thank him.

Husband: “He’s not coming back. Hear how he was talking? Let’s keep an eye on the time so we can call the shop if he doesn’t show again.”

But to my husband’s surprise, there is a knock at the door twenty minutes later, and the grumpy driver slams a bottle of soda into my husband’s hands and storms off.

My husband begins to say the driver must not be too bad after all, but then he opens the Coke and it begins to spray foam all over the bench, obviously shaken up just before delivery.

Thankfully, we opened it in the kitchen, so it is quick to move to the sink, and the benches and floors are easy to clean.

Husband: “I wish he hadn’t come back.”

I work as a manager at a pizza place in a less-than-wealthy area. One night, about ten minutes before we close, a middle-aged woman comes into the store. At this time of night, all of our doors are supposed to be locked, the kitchen is shut down, the registers are off, and all that’s left is counting the money and cleaning up.

Apparently, someone forgot to lock a door, and this woman just took the initiative to come in. After she rings that little bell on the counter — yes, we have one of those for some reason — about a hundred times, I come out of the back office to handle the situation.

Me: “Hi there. I’m sorry, but we’re closed—”

Customer: “Then why are your lights on and your door unlocked?”

Me: “Well, it looks like one of my employees forgot to lock a door. I apologize for the confusion.”

Customer: “That’s stupid. Y’all’s door is open, so y’all gotta serve me.”

She walks over to the soda refrigerator and grabs a two-liter bottle of Sprite.

Customer: “This is all that I want. How much?”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we’re closed. I’d love to sell you that, but our registers are already off for the night, and I therefore can’t process your order or take your money.”

Customer: “So, I can just have this, then?”

Me: “No, you can’t just have it.”

Customer: “Y’all’s is just f****** stupid. Why y’all leave the f****** door open if y’all ain’t gonna sell me s***? F*** y’all.” 

Me: “Again, I apologize for the confusion.”

Customer: “F*** you, stupid f****** idiot.”

This is where my night really went downhill. Instead of accepting that we were closed and I couldn’t take her money, putting back the soda, and leaving calmly, she decided the right course of action was to throw the soda at me, hitting the wall behind me. The soda exploded everywhere, and she left.

End result: we lost money on the soda, and I lost time dealing with the customer and cleaning up her mess. Some people, man.

I am waiting for my pickup order on a busy Friday night, and my name gets called.

Employee: “David! Pepperoni for David!”

Before I can even take a single step, another waiting customer grabs my box, opens it, and grabs one of the pepperoni slices with his fingers.

Customer: “I didn’t order pepperoni!”

Employee: “What did you order, sir?”

Customer: “The garden party!”

Me: “Tell me you didn’t just stick your fingers in my pizza.”

The employee realizes what has just happened, sighs, and expedites another pepperoni. The next pizza comes out.

Employee: “Meat supreme for George!”

The same customer lunges forward, but the employee is quick on the draw this time and pulls the pizza back.

Employee: “Is your name even George?”

Customer: “No, why would it be?”

I work in a pizza place. We have a new general manager while the old one is on home rest after a motorcycle accident. (He is fine, just a broken leg. It could have been worse, as he said.)

The new general manager proceeds to chase away the old crew because she is a nasty person who gets complaints from crew and customers, but her stores run well, so management just shrugs.

I am one of three remaining old hats who knew a better life under the old general manager. My hours have been cut to roughly fifteen a week. I am making minimum wage — $7.25 at the time.

One night, I go to bed around 11:30 pm. I then wake up at 12:00 midnight to a “Blorp, Glub, Blorp” sound from my bathroom. I get up to look, and dirty water is coming up my toilet, which is beginning to overflow.

I begin to bail it into the bathroom sink. (I HATE getting my hands dirty, so keep in mind that I am bailing dirty water and screaming internally the whole time.)

I have to keep bailing, non-stop, from 12:00 midnight until my landlord wakes up at 5:00 am to hear my voicemail. He calls me back and says he’ll have a plumber over ASAP, but no businesses are open yet.

At 6:00 am, I call my work to tell [General Manager] I won’t be in… but she’s not in yet. I know she was scheduled for 6:00 am because I photograph the schedule.

By 7:00 am, she’s still not in.

By 8:00 am, still not in.

At 9:00 am, no [General Manager].

At 10:00 freaking am, an hour and a half before my shift, [General Manager] is FINALLY in! And this is our conversation.

Me: “I won’t be making it in. My toilet has literally been spewing dirty water since midnight. I have been bailing water since midnight.”

General Manager: “That’s no excuse.”

Me: “No, I’m pretty sure it’s an excuse.”

General Manager: “You need to give us three hours of advance notice to call in.”

Me: “You mean like how I left a message at 6:00 am?”

General Manager: “I never heard it.”

Me: “And how I called back at 7:00 am? And 8:00? And 9:00? And 10:00? AND YOU CAN HEAR MY TOILET IN THE BACKGROUND?!”

General Manager: “Well, I did not hear you at 6:00 am—”

Me: “Because you were four hours late! How is that my problem?!”

Keep in mind, I’m STILL bailing water while I have my cell phone on speaker.

General Manager: “Well, you did not give me three hours of warning. You need to come in, or you will be written up as a no-call, no-show.”

Me: *Sarcastic* “So, you want me to stop bailing water, let my apartment flood, and lose every bit of furniture on the left side of my apartment. For a minimum-wage, part-time job flinging pizza?”

General Manager: “It’s called being a responsible adult—”

Me: “Oh, like you ‘responsibly’ got to work four hours late?”

General Manager: “Either come in or face the consequences.”

Me: “’Kay!” *Hangs up*

Her “consequences” are cutting my hours to zero. I still spend the next two-ish months walking the 2.5 miles to work weekly to see that I have zero hours until she finally pulls me aside.

General Manager: “Stop checking. You are no longer on the schedule.”

Me: “So, I’m fired?”

General Manager: “Yes.”

Me: “There now. Was saying that so hard?”

For the record: a root from the tree out front had grown into the pipe and the two upstairs apartments were flushing things that did not biodegrade. These things got caught in the roots and caused a blockage.

My apartment, being the basement apartment, was the first stop for all the backed-up water.

And no, neither apartment was kind enough to stop using water while I waited for a plumber, even though the landlord called them both to let them know that water was backing up into my apartment. One of them even started their dishwasher. Sigh.

I went to an all-you-can-eat pizza chain on a Saturday. They open at 11:00 am, and I got there around 11:15. As I walked in, there were already seven tables completely full of people. Out of those seven, two were hands down the worst customers I have ever seen.

For around twenty minutes, the first group hovered around the buffet and shooed people away. When a pizza was cooked and placed down, they just grabbed the whole pizza and walked away. This was a table of six. At one point, they had twelve pizzas at their table. The manager had to come out and tell them that they couldn’t do that. That led to the customers yelling and screaming that the restaurant was racist and trying to starve them. They threw two pizzas on the ground and stormed out.

Now, that was bad. What came next was worse. As this group was making a scene and walking out, another group came in with five kids. The kids were terrors, yelling, screaming, and running all over the place. They ran into other customers, and the parents simply shrugged it off. But I guess the patrons were used to this kind of thing… because they didn’t say anything and let it be.

I guess when the kids realized that the customers didn’t care, they moved to a brand-new tactic: once the pizzas were placed on the buffet, they would run up to the pizza and scream, “MINE!” Then, they would shove their hands into the pizza and run away, destroying the pizza that was just made.

Now, some of you might see where this is going. Brand-New Pizza Out Of the Oven + Child Hands Touching Pizza = Burns. This is apparently what happened. On the second round of pizzas, one of the children slammed his hands on the pizza and then immediately screamed and started crying. Cue the angry mother. She stormed up to the buffet and demanded to talk to the manager.

Manager: “Yes, ma’am?”

Mother: “You did nothing to protect my child from burning his hands. You did this!”

Manager: “Ma’am, your child ran to the buffet line and slammed their hand on a pizza that just came out of the oven. We have utensils out to prevent burning.”

Mother: “I spent $11 a person here! It is your job to keep my kids safe! You burned my baby!”

This went on and on and eventually led to the mother picking up plates and throwing them on the ground, breaking a few. As I was walking out, the manager was threatening to call the police due to the threats and the damage being caused by the tantrum being thrown.

Yet another parent customer whose lack of doing any actual parenting is both the establishment’s fault and putting the poor child in danger. Just like in these other 10 Stories About Parents Who Are Going To Get Their Children Killed!