I worked at a chain pizza restaurant. I was the assistant manager, and we were a smaller store than average for our chain, so we only had one cashier. It was a Friday, and we just got a fifty-pizza order (we argued that we weren’t equipped for it, but corporate says we have to accept large orders last minute, no matter what). Hence, we were slammed.

It didn’t matter how prepared we were; we couldn’t fit any more pizzas in the oven. It was hectic and insane. We had a bunch of call-ins, and some of them got confused or misheard because of how much was going on. 

We have this one guy who comes in all the time, and every time he is a jerk. He treats us like slaves and doesn’t leave until he’s figured out a way to make us bend over backwards for him by inventing more and more outlandish demands, like “I want this pizza cut into nine slices, not eight! Do it again!”

I was not having it this time. 

He called in prior, and I got his pizzas. He looked at them, then looked at me with disgust. He then throws the pizza on the counter and says:

Customer: “This isn’t what I ordered, not even close.”

Me: “We’re slammed tonight, so it was probably misheard. I do apologize. We can get that remade for you right away.”

Customer: “The person who took my order must have been f****** deaf!”

I can tolerate s***ty people (hello, I work with customers), but if you insult my employees who are working their a**es off, then I’m going to say something.

Me: “Stop right there. Don’t you dare insult my employees. They are back there working their a**es off; we are very busy. And I’m sorry your order got messed up, but understand it happens; we aren’t perfect. Now, I have offered to get those pizzas remade for you. Are you going to be a good little human being and wait, or are you going to keep acting like this? If you choose the latter, then you can get the h*** out.”

All these years of this customer treating us like crap, and this is the first time I’ve snapped at him. He takes a moment to recover.

Customer: “I… I’ll wait.”

Me: “Okay. It’ll be fifteen minutes because that’s what we’re supposed to say, but I can get it for you in ten. Okay?”

Customer: “…yes.”

Me: “Yes…?”

Customer: “Yes… thank you.”

He got his pizzas in ten minutes, aaaaand he tipped.

Snap at your problem customers, people! Bullies are mostly bullies because they pick on people who they think won’t fight back!

In the department store where I worked, if you were under eighteen (such as I was at the time), your name on your name tag was highlighted red.

Two guys, easily mid-to-late thirties, come in and beeline straight for me.

Guy #1: “Where’s the underwear department?”

Me: “Fourth floor.”

Guy #2: “No, that’s the guys’ underwear. Where’s the underwear for the ladies?”

Me: “Second floor.”

Guy #1: “Wanna come with us and maybe try some on for us? We’ll buy you the ones that look good on you.”

Ick.

Me: “No, thank you.”

I immediately turn to get away, and I think it’s apparent how freaked out I am about their behavior based on how quickly I want to get away.

Guy #1: “Hey! You gotta help us!”

Me: “No, I don’t.”

Guy #2: “Yeah, you do, or we’ll tell your manager you’re being an absolute b****.”

Me: “And I’ll tell my manager you’re trying to get a sixteen-year-old girl to strip out of her underwear.”

They both look a combination of horrified and shocked.

Me: “So back off, dumba**!”

They both got out of the store so fast it was practically a sprint.

I told my manager about it, and he found their faces on the store camera footage and added them to the banned customer list. The faces also go on a wall of shame that we keep near the entrance to help greeters identify banned customers.

I wasn’t here for this next part, but my manager told me that a woman wanted to speak to a manager to ask:

Woman: “Why is my husband’s face on that wall?

The manager told her. She did not look happy… or stay in the store very long after finding out.

Actions have consequences, d***-head!

Our state is going through its worst snowstorm in a decade, but of course, my manager calls me and tells me I still need to be there to open the d*** store. Why me?”

Manager: “You live closest! I’ll see you when my shift starts!”

I turn up and open the store at 9 AM, and it turns out I was the only one who could make it into the store. Normally, we’d have three or four people working opening shift, but this wasn’t a problem today, as we had zero customers. Zero. The snow was still coming down, so it wasn’t a surprise.

My manager calls me at 2 PM:

Manager: “Yeah, so I can’t get in for my shift. The freeway closed.”

Me: “No s***. So, do I close up and go home?”

Manager: “What gave you that idea? You need to stay until closing.”

Me: “You want me to stay until 9 PM? Even after I opened?

Manager: “No one else can make it in!”

Me: “That applies to the customers too, you know?”

Manager: “Stay until close.” *Click.*

I should have told him where to stuff it, but I was young, and I needed the job, so I dealt with it and actually worked the full twelve hours. I didn’t mind so much because we had zero customers; I was able to get a lot of college studying done without the distractions of home.

The manager called me at 10 PM to ask how the day went.

Me: “I’m just leaving the store.”

Manager: “Why so late? I thought you said foot traffic was light?”

Me: “Practically non-existent. But I did get an urgent customer come in ten minutes before close.”

Manager: “Well, at least you were able to help someone with an urgent need.”

Me: “Yeah… an urgent need to do a huge-a** refund. Which meant we ended the day with negative sales. Oh, and kept me behind an hour past closing, which means I’m getting paid more for a negative sales day.”

Manager: “…” *Click.*

The manager reviewed the footage the next day and confirmed that we had zero customers in twelve hours (apart from that one at the end), and I got a lot of studying done! Did this change Corporate’s policy when it came to severe weather events? Ha ha, of course not.

It’s my first day on the job. A guy comes up to my register and has this big bag of dog food. He’s a middle-aged man who looked fairly strong, probably worked on a farm (common in my area), and came across as very intimidating. He seemed to be in a bad mood and a rush, but we were told in training (that I had literally just gotten out of) to be nice to everyone, especially people like this, to maybe brighten their day a bit. 

He throws the thirty-pound bag on the counter, like he actually threw it, so it was pretty loud, catching the attention of other customers, cashiers, and the manager who were nearby. So now I know I’m gonna have an audience. 

It is normal for us to ask for the customer’s zip code before scanning their things, so when I did, he just stared intensely at me. At this point, my heart starts beating a little faster, not really knowing how this is gonna play out. Anyway, I skip the zip code, scan his dog food, and tell him the total, looking forward to just moving on to the next person in line.

But that wasn’t good enough for him.

Customer: “The h*** it is! Every time I buy the dog food, it’s on sale! You’re gonna change the price to [whatever price he thinks it should be], and then a little lower because you and everyone in this store is so incompetent that I deserve to have a lower price.”

I call over the head cashier and the manager.

Manager: “Sir, this dog food is ringing up at the correct price.”

Customer: “Fine, but it’s still probably this stupid cashier! They probably did something with the computer to give me full price!”

Head Cashier: “Wow, even I don’t know how to do that! If this cashier, who is working their first day by the way, figured out how to do that, they must be pretty darn smart!”

I chuckle a little at that, which p***es the customer off even more. It’s obvious now that he came into the store in a bad mood, looking for a fight, and he was going to find one no matter what, so no point in trying to placate him. 

They finish his transaction, and as I greet the next customer, I hear a loud crumpling noise, then feel something hit my temple. This dude actually just threw his receipt at me, then screamed right in my face:

Customer: “F*** YOU, I’M NEVER COMING BACK TO THIS STORE AGAIN!”

He stormed out of the store, swearing under his breath, and after he was gone, everyone in the area: my line, the neighboring lines, and some cashiers, all kinda told me to keep my chin up and that some people are just like that.

I saw him again about nine months later while bringing in carts (so he did end up coming back) and was buying more dog food. I saw the car he came from and purposefully left a group of about eight carts right behind his car, boxing him in. Was that a little uncalled for of me? Sure. But he could easily move them out of the way, and it’s not like I rammed into or scratched his car. I just wanted a little bit of payback and to annoy him.

Related:
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 39
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 38
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 37
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 36
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 35

I work at a Home Depot, we have a preset range of music stations to listen to – it’s commonly left on the 80s or 80s/90s mix station, but one of our managers loves country music, but most of the staff either hate the genre with a passion, and the ones who like country hate that station in particular due to the very short playlist and most of the songs being awful.

Every time someone complains about the station being switched to country, said manager tries to figure out how to make us beg to get back to country by trying to find a music station even more disagreeable to us.

First time (before I was hired), he switched to the Spanish station; most of the staff didn’t mind, but they got so many virulent racist comments from customers that they switched.

Second time, he switched to 2000s-2010s music, aside from that one earworm song, nobody minded, then he switched to the 70s station.

The 70s were basically the favorite due to their very large playlist and variety (soft rock, disco, folk, GOOD country music, and pop), which frustrated him even more, as apparently, he hates disco as much as we hated the country station.

Then I came in, and was confused by a warbling aria… apparently, we have an opera station?

We had a channel for opera music. I’m not sure who was more confused, the customers or us. I actually like opera, and even my coworkers who didn’t care for opera tolerated it because at this point we all knew what was going on and decided to wear him out.

Eventually, he gave up and left the music on the 80s channel.