(I have been working at a restaurant owned by a German man for the last five months, and he is, hands down, the best boss I have ever had. He moved to the States eight years ago when he married an American woman. Back in Germany, he had three successful restaurants which he sold once he moved, and with the money, he opened one in Chicago. He does not believe in the American way to run restaurants, so he does it the same way he did in Germany. Plates do not overflow, there are no free refills, the customer is not always right, and the best, the staff does not rely on tips to pay rent; we get a proper salary — and still get tipped! After two weeks of working there, I have the unpleasant task of serving one of “Those” tables. The four ladies eat everything they are served, and once I bring them their bill this conversation happens.)

Customer: “I will not be paying for our second round of drinks, and I will not pay for the meals, either. They were disgusting.”

Me: “There are no free refills at this restaurant, so I am afraid you will have to pay for all your drinks, ma’am, as you will have to pay for your food.”

Customer: “NO, I WILL NOT PAY. I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR BOSS!”

(There’s no need to call the owner as he heard the screaming and is already on his way.)

Owner: “Hello. My name is [Owner], and I am the owner. May I ask what the issue is?”

Customer: “We were charged twice for our drinks, and our food was disgusting; we will not pay.”

Owner: *to me* “Have they been charged twice for the same drink, or were they given drinks twice?”

Me: “They all had two drinks.”

Owner: “Okay, madam, we do not do free refills here, which means you are going to have to pay for all your drinks. Regarding the food, you ate everything, so it couldn’t have been that disgusting. However, if it was, you now know what not to order next time.”

Customer: “Your waitress was very rude! I demand to be compensated!”

Owner: “I am sure she wasn’t; we’ve had no complaints thus far. Anyway, if you consider the service to have been subpar, don’t tip your waitress. I now have other customers to attend to. I wish you all a nice evening.”

(At this, he turned around and went back to charming the remaining customers. The complaining customer stood up and left, but fortunately one of the other three ladies had the decency to stay behind and pay.)

(A customer is calling about their coffee machine.)

Caller: “For lack of a better word, my machine is peeing all over my counter.”

Me: *pause* “Leaking?”

Caller: “Yeah! Peeing!”

(I have a slightly unusual name that people often mishear.)

Me: “This is [My Name]. How may I help you?”

Customer: “Sherry, you said?”

(I say my name again, spelling it right after.)

Customer: “Oh, like the w**** on [Popular TV Show]! Uh… I mean…”

Me: *cracking up* “I think she spells it differently, but yes.”

(We go through the order like normal.)

Me: “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Customer: “Nope, that’ll be all. Sorry for comparing you to a w**** earlier!”

Me: “Hey, she’s a pretty cool w****. Have a good day!”

(On the 401, the travel centers can get very busy from time to time. But this day not many people are out and about because of the weather, and the atmosphere is quite calm. While I am manning the sandwich station, there are two other cashiers: our supervisor and a trainee that has been getting used to doing cash on his own. We have a line of maybe four or five people. Everything is going well until a man near the end of the line becomes impatient.)

Customer: “Oh, my God. Why aren’t you taking customers’ orders?! What the h*** do you think you’re doing?!”

(He is referring to the trainee, who has just finished a customer’s coffee order and is getting a filter to make a new pot of coffee.)

Me: “Sir, he’ll be with another customer in a moment. He needs to make a pot of coffee.”

Customer: “He’s supposed to take our orders first before he starts restocking. This is insane!”

Supervisor: “Sir, as she just explained, he needs to make coffee first before he takes another customer. If he doesn’t, he won’t be able to give anyone coffee.”

(I’ve noticed the trainee starting to shake slightly. I don’t have any orders, so I tell him to go back on his cash while I make him more coffee. The customer is still loudly exclaiming how this is all unacceptable. While I ignore him and try to help the trainee, our supervisor keeps going.)

Supervisor: “Sir, you need to stop. You will be able to order shortly. He needs to restock his coffee in order to take customers. If that is too confusing for you and you continue to berate him, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Customer: “I’M ALLOWED TO BE HERE!”

(This creates the start of the trainee’s anxiety attack, so I tell him to give me his swipe card and to go talk to the baker. This is usually how we calm down: by complaining to the baker.)

Me: “Sir, there is no need to yell. We can all hear you. And once my supervisor or I am done with our current customers, we can take your order.”

(He continues to grumble, but stays silent otherwise. I finish up the customer the trainee started, and call over the man to take his order.)

Customer: *grinning widely* “Yes, I’d just like a coffee, please, Miss—“ *looks at my name tag* “—[My Name].”

(He acts as though he hasn’t just screamed at our frontline staff, and makes me severely uncomfortable with how nice he is acting. He even leaves a five-dollar tip! Once he leaves and our line is gone, I tell my supervisor about the tip, and one of our managers overhears.)

Manager: “Go give it to [Trainee]. I heard the guy screaming from the office. I wish he got a punch to the face, honestly.”

(I work tech support for a software company that provides digital signing services. We often send customer’s documents to their email addresses, as they often accidentally delete or lose the documents. My coworker recently got off the phone with someone and they sounded upset. A moment later, the phone rings again, and I take the call.)

Customer: “Hi. I need you to send me this document again. [Coworker] sent it to me, and it’s all wrong. Send it again, please.”

(I look into the customer’s account, find the document, and check it over. It looks completely normal to me, so I send it to her email again.)

Customer: “No! This is all wrong. I just want the document, not all this other stuff!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not sure I’m following. What do you mean by ‘other stuff’?”

Customer: “ALL THIS OTHER STUFF! ON THE SIDES IT SAYS, ‘FILE,’ AND, ‘EDIT,’ AND ALL THESE OTHER THINGS! I JUST WANT THE DOCUMENT, BY ITSELF. PLEASE SEND IT OVER BY ITSELF!”

Me: “Ma’am, I only sent you the one document; are you referring to the buttons around the sides of the document, with options for what to do with it?”

Customer: “Yes! I don’t want all these buttons; I only want the document.”

Me: “I apologize, ma’am, but that is completely normal. Your computer has to use a program to open the document. It sounds like you are using [Very Common PDF Viewing Program]. Those buttons are standard. I cannot remove them.”

Customer: “It never did that before! I don’t want my client to be able to edit the document.”

(This went on for a while, and eventually she got the drift. She was pretty nice, just extremely confused.)