Customer: “I’ll take four of the Boston creams.”

Me: “That’ll be $7.96.”

Customer: “I thought they were 99 cents each?! I have the coupon!”

Me: “That was a promotion we had last week. It ended yesterday.”

Customer: “But I have the coupon!”

Me: “It has expired, sir.”

Customer: “Well, is there anything you can do for me?”

Me: “We don’t have anything on sale right now.”

Customer: “That’s so unfair!”

Me: “I’m very sorry, sir.”

Customer: “Are you really very sorry?”

Me: “Well, I am really very sorry that you can’t read expiry dates.”

Customer: “I… I guess I deserved that.”

I work in a grocery store bakery. We have a self-serve case for individual donuts. There is a code you can use for them at self-checkout. None of the bakery employees know it by heart — primarily because at self-checkout you can also just enter by name. The second you enter the letter D, “donut” pops right up.

I’m reorganizing the donut case when a customer starts bagging himself some donuts next to me.

Customer: “What’s the self-checkout code for these?”

Me: “Oh, you can search by name. It will pop up immediately when you enter the first letter.”

Customer: *Suddenly angry* “That’s not what I asked! I asked you what the code is for the donuts!”

Me: “I… don’t know it by heart?”

Customer: “How do you not know it?! How long have you been working here?!”

Me: “Uh… Long enough to know it’s easier to type in ‘donut’ than try to memorize some random group of numbers that are pointless.”

He ends up complaining to a manager, who also has no idea what the code is and tells him to do the same thing I did. He begins yelling and swearing about how unacceptable it is that nobody knows the code.

Manager: “Sir… do you not know how to spell ‘donut’?”

I work in a bakery inside a grocery store. While we do take orders directly at the bakery, we also have a separate position called “event planning”. We are trained to direct all bakery orders to event planning first since their primary job is to take orders and help customers choose what they want, while all of us in the bakery are almost always multitasking as is. That being said, we don’t complain or drag our feet if event planning is unavailable, or even if a customer would just rather place an order directly with us.

Me: *Answering the phone* “Thank you for calling [Store] bakery. How may I help you?”

Customer: “I’d like to place a cake order for tomorrow.”

Me: “Absolutely. One moment, please, while I transfer you to event planning, who will be happy to help you take that order and answer any questions you may have.”

This standard sentence that we’re trained to say is almost always responded to with a simple, “Okay, thank you!”, but not this time.

Customer: *Instantly furious* “Ex-cuse me? What on earth do you mean?!”

Me: *Briefly taken aback* “Oh, my apologies. Usually, we do have someone from our event planning department take our bakery orders, but if you’d prefer to place it direc—”

Customer: “No! No! Last time, I placed the order in the bakery! There was no ‘event’! What is your name?!”

Fortunately, my manager already heard the customer screaming, and she gestures for me to hand the phone over to her before I need to respond.

Manager: “Hello, I’m the manager of this bakery. While we are always happy to take your order here in the bakery if you prefer, event planning is the department that takes orders first if they’re available. If you’d prefer not to place your order with them and instead place it with us, that’s perfectly fine, and you need only ask. Now, may I ask why you felt the need to scream at my employee over what should have been a very simple interaction?”

A few moments pass.

Manager: *Turns to me* “She hung up. Hand the phone straight to me if she calls back, okay?”

Me: “Yes, thank you.” 

She never called back.

I’m working in a bakery and a well-to-do-type lady walks in with her husband and looks past me at the loaves of bread on display.

Woman Customer: “George, the bread here is too big.”

Man Customer: “Yes, yes it does seem a little on the large side.”

Me: “We sell smaller loaves as well, ma’am.” *I point to another display rack.*

Woman Customer: “Oh no, no. Those are also far too big. We usually get small thin pieces.”

Me: “Like slices of bread?”

Woman Customer: “No, thin breads that are white in the middle and brown around the edge.”

I walk over to the bread slicer and grab an offcut slice of bread and show her.

Me: “Like this?”

Woman Customer: “Yes, that’s it. Can I have fifty of those please, I’m hosting a gathering tonight.”

Me: “…”

A couple has ordered a cake decorated with “rainbow colors.” I make them a tie-dye-esque beauty. The next day, they come for the cake. I hand it to them, but they look at the cake, at me, and at the cake again.

Customer: “We can’t buy this cake.”

Me: “I’m so sorry. Is something wrong?”

I am thinking that maybe it isn’t up to par, even though my manager loved it.

Customer: “This cake has a rainbow. Rainbows support the gays.”

I stare at them, thinking it’s a joke because there are NO RAINBOWS on the cake. I didn’t even put the whole spectrum on the cake because it blended horribly! It is red, yellow, green, and blue. But that’s not the worst thing, because they ORDERED… RAINBOW… COLORS.

I laugh and shrug it off. This has to be a joke.

Me: “Well, have a lovely day!”

Customer: “Well, are you going to replace the cake?”

They aren’t kidding.

I’m a calm person. I’ve been jumped, mugged, and insulted. That didn’t upset me in the slightest. But guess what? I’m gay! So, I’m insulted, angry, and generally not a happy camper.

Me: *With my best fake smile* “I’ll get my manager.”

I get my manager and explain the situation.

Manager: “What you ordered is what you get.”

Customer: “We want to speak to the store manager.”

We got the store manager and explained the situation. He told us, for the sake of his sanity, to redo the cake. The manager dolled up another cake, and the family grabbed it and left.

Twenty feet away, the mother decided to whip out her phone and started texting while holding the cake in one hand. Splat went the cake. Even better? The family was done up in their Sunday best. The cake was in a plastic container, not a box, so it popped right open when it hit the ground and got icing all over their fancy clothes.

They came back to the counter begging for a freebie. We didn’t make them another.