I am a manager at a combined grocery and restaurant location; it is very well known and popular in my part of the country.

This is well into a “shelter in place” and “essential business only” situation.

This lady pulls up through the drive-thru, driving past other customers, and pulls up to the window. A secondary manager and an employee greet her at the window. She speaks demandingly.

Customer: “Go get my items from the grocery section.”

Coworker: “I am sorry, ma’am, but it is company policy that the drive-thru is for restaurant food only.”

She throws a few F-bombs and calls them a few names out of the book.

Coworker: “Again, ma’am, drive-thru is for restaurant food only, and handicapped people only have the option of calling in an order.”

She drives around to the front of the store, parks in a handicapped spot, and starts to motion the cashier out to her. The cashier walks out, points out that she does not have a handicap placard or sticker, and walks back in. At this point, she has dropped multiple more F-bombs and called the employees multiple names.

I have been doing inventory and have not seen or heard any of this until after this is all over. I come walking onto the line as this lady comes into the store, screaming and dropping still more F-bombs.

She motions to a lady with three kids at the front register, and then to another lady with three kids ordering ice cream, finally spinning around, almost hitting them as she flails her arms around.

Customer: “This is f****** why I didn’t f****** want to f****** come in here!”

I walk over as she storms into the grocery section.

Me: “Ma’am, I need you to stop yelling and cursing; there are children around—”

She screams and curses some more, moaning about how she is a caregiver and shouldn’t have to step foot in our store. I give her a second warning about cursing and walk away. The next thing I know, she is screaming at me over the shelves from the next aisle over.

Customer: “I’m not causing a scene; it’s your f****** problem!”

She’s trying to stand in line at the cashier at this point, about four customers back from the register. I walk around the shelves to her and take the half-gallon of milk she has in her hand.

Me: “You need to leave.”

She grabs her ID badge on her lanyard and literally hits me in the face with it, screaming.

Customer: “Do you see this? That means I’m essential!”

I look down at the apron I am wearing. I grab it up and fluff it in her face.

Me: “You see this apron?! This means I’m essential, too! Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here!”

The guy standing in front of her laughs, and the customer at the checkout hollers out:

Other Customer: “Thank you; she needed to hear that!”

She dropped her shopping and left.

I am catching the bus home from work. An older gentleman and I are the only passengers on the bus, and we’re in the middle of the countryside. The old man gets up and speaks to the driver.

Driver: “I’m sorry, sir, but I am not allowed to speak to you while I am driving.”

The old man continues speaking quietly.

Driver: “It is against the law for me to speak to you while I am driving; there’s a £5000 fine. Besides, I am deaf in one ear, so I can’t drive and listen to you.”

Old Man: *Shouting* “I SAID, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME OFF THIS F****** BUS?! I WILL F****** WELL MAKE YOU TURN AROUND AND GO BACK TO MY STOP!”

The driver screeches to a halt by the side of the road and opens the doors, but the old man continues screaming at him. I’m pretty frightened by this point.

Driver: “Here, now I have stopped. I really don’t appreciate being sworn at.”

Old Man: “I wanted to get off back there! I know my f****** rights! It’s a hail and ride zone! I can get off wherever I f***** well like!”

Driver: “Did you even ring the bell?”

Old Man: “No, I didn’t ring the f****** bell! Here, I’ll ring the f****** bell. Does that make you happy? Eh?!”

He goes and aggressively stabs at the bell button.

Driver: “Please stop swearing at me. Please just get off the bus here, and you will not be welcome on here again.”

Old Man: “No! I am not getting off this bus! Give me your name! I am going to complain to the bus company about you! I know my rights!”

He hasn’t noticed me, and I get ready to call the police on my phone.

Driver: “Just so you are aware, this bus has CCTV.”

Old Man: *Goes pale* “Well, then shake my hand, and we’ll part as friends and say no more about it!”

He shook the driver’s hand and happily walked away up the road. I rang the bell shortly before my stop. The bus driver was so nice that he apologised for the earlier incident. I reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, and that there are some people in the world who understand how a bus works!

This story is part of the Swearing roundup!

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I walk into a fast-food restaurant. There are two cashiers at the registers, a big open space on this side, and then two ladies, both standing well back from the counter over by the pick-up area. I head up to one of the open registers. As I approach, one of the ladies suddenly calls out.

Lady: “We were here first!”

I glance over and then just nod.

Me: “Okay.”

I then turn back and finish walking up to the register.

Worker: “Hi. What can I get for you?”

Me: “I’d like to get—”

A hand clamps down on my shoulder and tries to turn me around.

Lady: “You aren’t—”

Without looking at her, I slap her hand off my shoulder, hard. She shrieks and takes a few steps back, before she starts to shout.

Lady: “YOU HIT ME! HE HIT ME!”

The cashier in front of me looks rather uncomfortable, while the other cashier just looks annoyed.

Me: “I’d like [combo].”

The cashier types it in and takes my money, all while this lady is still standing there, screeching, “HE HIT ME!” I get my receipt, go fill up my cup, and then go back up when my order is called to see the lady still standing there yelling, at a manager now, while the other lady hasn’t moved from where they were originally standing.

Lady: “HE’S THE ONE! HE HIT ME! KICK HIM OUT!”

The manager didn’t do anything as I collected my food. I went to sit down and eat it. I didn’t hurry, but I didn’t take too long, either. When I finished, the lady was still there shouting at an entirely different worker as I walked out the door.

We have all seen stories here about multi-level apartments where the upstairs neighbors are the worst because they make so much noise. This is going to be a story about when the downstairs neighbor was the bad guy.

I lived with my best friend and her husband in a two-story apartment that took up the second and third floor — the third floor was a loft — of a three-story apartment building. We were on the corner of the building. One interior wall was shared with the building’s stairwell to get from the first to the second floor. The other interior wall was shared with the building’s laundry room.

This essentially meant the only people we had to worry about bothering were in the ground floor apartment below us. My bedroom was up in the loft so it would be rare for me to bother ground floor people unless I was on the second floor. There were two bedrooms on the second floor — one in front where my best friend and her husband slept and one in the back that was used as an office.

Every time we took note of someone moving into that apartment, the three of us would go down and introduce ourselves to explain that the husband had a heavy step and got loud playing video games but would try to keep quiet after 10:00 pm, and that between the three of us we had four cats ranging from six pounds to twenty pounds — all approved by the leasing office — that could get hyper and start playing at any hour of the night.

During our year and a half there, we only had to do introductions three times. The first ground floor neighbor was fine, and there were no problems for anyone. The second ground floor neighbor did get loud enough one time butchering something that I could hear it in my bedroom, but we let it slide. The third ground-floor tenant… was a Karen.

Sometime before they moved in, my best friend had broken her ankle and by the time the Karen moved in, my friend had graduated to a medical walking boot and we both had gotten new jobs working a night shift and would be home after 1:00 am. This new information was provided along with our normal introductions and the Karen seemed fine with this.

Not too long after, the leasing office sent us a notice that a noise complaint had been filed against us. My friend limped to the office with her boot strapped in place to find out what was going on. The office took one look at her and tossed the complaint since they had already disregarded part of it due to our cats. Though the leasing office couldn’t tell us who filed the complaint, they did show my friend a detailed list that had been provided to them with times and days of the noises. It was easy to tell that it was the Karen because they started the day after we introduced ourselves and explained what to expect.

A few weeks later, three of the heaviest cats and I were the only ones awake at 4:00 am. I was watching TV with headphones on and heard a banging on our apartment door. I went to check it out and realized it was a police officer! Apparently, his station got a noise complaint about our apartment and was sent to investigate. I showed and explained my friend’s medical boot, and the three heaviest cats were busy playing, so he immediately apologized for the inconvenience and headed on his merry way. 

I should note here that there was a clause in the rental agreement that all noise complaints had to go through the leasing office and not the cops. I was betting that the Karen had been complaining to the office since the first complaint and was getting brushed off because we provided proof of why we were unintentionally loud.

The next day, my friend and I went and knocked on the Karen’s door. She and a friend we hadn’t met before answered. According to the Karen, her friend had heard loud thumping in the back bedroom for five minutes at 1:30 am. We explained that the back bedroom was an office so no one sleeps there or was likely to be using the room at 1:30 am.

The Karen blew us off, saying that something had to have been making noise, and we repeated the fact that three of our four cats were fat and were probably playing. We also found out through careful questioning that the friend was planning to live in the apartment for several months without going on the lease, which was also a requirement if a tenant decided to get a roommate.

We reported the Karen for violating the rental agreement for both calling the cops for a noise complaint as well as for having a roommate not on the agreement. Later, when the Karen’s motorscooter fell on someone’s car and dented it pretty badly and they moved the scooter to another place to avoid getting in trouble, we reported that, too, since the damages looked to be about $1,000 to repair.

We moved out before the Karen and her friend did, so I do not know what became of them, but good riddance. The place we are in now has concrete in the walls to muffle the sounds coming from all sides, so it’s blissful silence unless I have windows open.

I work for a resort in a very tourist-heavy area. I’m not at the front desk, but I’m basically your dial-zero-and-ask-for-extra-whatever person, and I delegate it out to whomever. 

Guest #1: “Hello, can I please get extra towels, about four?”

This guest is staying in a room where only two people can stay, according to Virginia fire code laws; therefore, they can only get two towels per day without an upcharge. I don’t want to upcharge them, because the guest who’s currently calling has been very polite with me.

Me: “Let me see if I can do that for you. Normally, we can only give two towels a day and others are an upcharge. What’s the reason for needing so many towels?”

Guest #1: “Ah, well, there’s a lot of water on the floor in my bathroom because of my son taking a bath.”

It’s a bulls*** excuse, but it is enough to placate a manager if the need arises, so cool! I’m good!

Me: “All right, no problem. I’ll have them up right away, no charge.”

The call ends. Not two minutes later, the same room calls and I get another guest. She is very rude, very irate.

Guest #2: “How dare you question why I need towels?! It’s my birthday weekend! I live locally and I don’t have to spend all this money to stay. I could just stay home but I chose to come here, and you’re such a horrible person for not giving me customer service! We should have more towels in the room, anyway! You do not want to go there with me!”

I try my best to calm her down, again reiterating that I’m only asking because I admitted that I’m supposed to charge for towels beyond the daily amount, and that we give two towels for her room type because of the Virginia fire code law.

Also, I just want an excuse to cover myself while still providing them towels without charging them. When you work in customer service, you cling to those corporate policy excuses and laws to try to get you off the hook and pray and hope an irate guest understands you are only trying to do your job.

The fire code law sets her off, and she goes on again, this time calling me a b****, saying I’m the worst customer service ever, she wants to speak to my manager, she’ll be on her way downstairs, and it’s none of my d**** business how many people are in her room.

Me: “Yes, ma’am, okay.”

I was not apologizing or trying to defend myself anymore. She commented on how I obviously didn’t care that she was upset — she wasn’t wrong — and called me a b**** again. I honestly believe she was looking for anything to report me on, and I wasn’t giving her the satisfaction. You work in customer service long enough, you learn when s***ty customers are trying to bait you for free stuff and want to use how “rude” you were to them as the excuse.

Finally, I got off the phone and checked her reservation. She was a Groupon customer; she had not spent lots of money AT ALL. Not only that, but she had apparently been absolutely horrible to everyone she’d come in contact with. Yeah, we record in comments and notes under your reservation any time we interact with you if it gets ugly or you had a complaint. This is pretty standard at any resort or major hotel.

She got her karma, though, because I immediately emailed my superiors, explained EVERYTHING, including me trying to get away with not charging her towels and my kindness apparently being what set her off. She had gone downstairs and went off and was given a complimentary dining card to basically shut her up.

Later that night, she got evicted for multiple noise complaints from other guests, playing music way too loud, and smoking weed. Groupon reservations are also non-refundable.

Her room was totally trashed to the point we had to charge her for damages and, of course, the weed smoke in the room; we had to use special machines to get the smell out. We charge on that ALONE $250 for smoke damages.

To be honest with you, it’s normally let go because the paper trail involved is a headache for upper management — incident reports, pictures to be taken, witness statements, etc.

Not for her, though.