I work for a banking call center in the fraud department. Most of our calls are inbound, but on rare occasions, we have outbound calls, as well. These are the absolute worst, especially if the customer has to be authenticated to the account.

One day, I get that dreaded call. The automated line informs me that it’s an outbound call and that I must authenticate the customer. When I pull the information up, the phone number that was called was put on the account only days before, making this a “High Risk” call. If I don’t verify him to the account — What if the number was put in incorrectly and I’m calling the wrong person? — I can probably be fired.

Me: “Thank you for holding for [Bank] Debit Card Fraud Services. This call may be recorded or monitored for quality assurance purposes. My name is [My Name], and to begin, who have I reached today?”

Customer: “[Customer].”

This is the name on the account, but that’s just the first step. I have to ask one more question, and I’m frantically trying to find the most innocent thing I can.

Me: “Thank you, Mr. [Customer]. Now, before I can begin, I do have to verify that I have contacted the correct cardholder, and to do that, I’ll have to ask a quick security-related question. Would you consent to be authenticated to the account? If you don’t want to do so, please let me know, and then hang up and contact the number on the back of your debit card to be assured that you’re speaking to a [Bank] employee.”

Customer: “No, that’s fine.”

Me: “Very well, Mr. [Customer], thank you. Would you be able to confirm for me the date of the last deposit into your account?”

This is a very low-risk question, and unless the employee asks for that information, knowing it won’t get someone into your account, usually. All I want is either a number or a day of the week.

Customer: “Actually, let me ask you something. Is your mother proud of you, knowing you’re too r******d to suck c**k for a living? That you have to resort to stealing money from hard-working people?”

Me: “Sir, failure to authenticate at this stage will result in a block being placed on your card, and you’ll have to head into your nearest banking location to have it undone. Will you be able to authenticate to the account?”

Customer: “Here, why don’t you just suck my d**k sideways? Your mouth’s clearly big enough.”

Me: “Very well, sir. As you are refusing to authenticate, your card has a hold on it now. Please step into your nearest banking location and have the associate call us to have it removed. Thank you for banking with [Bank].”

I disconnect the call and notate, “DO NOT SERVICE OVER PHONE. CUSTOMER BECAME VERBALLY ABUSIVE AND REFUSED TO AUTHENTICATE. SEND TO BANK.” And then, I forget all about it.

About four hours later, an inbound call comes in. I pull up the information, and the first thing that pops up is a note on the account stating, “DO NOT SERVICE OVER PHONE. CUSTOMER BECAME VERBALLY ABUSIVE AND REFUSED TO AUTHENTICATE. SEND TO BANK.” I check the ID number that placed the hold and realize that it was MY number.

The same man has called in, and as luck would have it, I am the next available agent able to speak with him. I answer my phone with the biggest smile on my face and with my most chipper customer service voice.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Bank] Debit Card Fraud Services! This call may be recorded or monitored for quality assurance purposes! My name is [My Name], and who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?”

There’s a brief silence on the other end of the phone.

Customer: “Oh… I, uh… I guess you are with the bank… aren’t you?”

Me: “You are correct, sir, I am a [Bank] Fraud Analyst. How may I assist you today?”

Customer: *Pauses* “You’re not going to unblock my card now, are you?”

Me: “Well, sir, according to the notes left on the account, it seems you became verbally combative with the previous associate and, as such, your card has been blocked for all transactions. To have this block removed, you’ll have to go to the nearest [Bank] location and have the associate there call us.”

Customer: “But… but I live in [State].”

Me: “Okay then, it looks like your nearest banking location will be in Tallahassee, Florida, sir. Thank you for choosing [Bank] and have a wonderful rest of your night.”

I used to work in a [Coffee Chain] kiosk before moving to a better coffee shop with tips, privileges, and benefits. I haven’t had one difficult customer since starting there, but today I go to [Coffee Chain] to get my mom and my sister their daily fix, and the line is MASSIVE.

When I quit, I caused a mass quitting, and now there are only three fully-trained baristas there and everyone else is in training. Two trainees are in the kiosk.

Now, I can judge how they’re performing silently all I want, but they’re new, and of course, it’s going to take them more time to get through customers and drink orders, so people should be prepared for a wait when getting in an already massive line.

An older lady gets in line a few people behind me, and I immediately feel bad for the two East-Indian baristas in the kiosk, since this lovely lady is very volatile with POC; it was always my job to handle every part of her order when she came in because I was the only one she wouldn’t yell slurs at. (The store managers wouldn’t allow us to refuse service to her despite how hard I fought for it.)

Eventually, I hear her witch-like, raspy squeal:

Lady: “Why don’t you get in there and help them?”

She isn’t a daily customer, but she comes in at least once or twice a week, and I haven’t worked in the kiosk for six months at this point, so I’m looking around trying to figure out who she’s talking to. She points her cane at me as she speaks again:

Lady: “Get in there and help them! At least you can understand the customers.”

I groan and decide to interact.

Me: “They’re doing just fine. They’re new, so we all have to be patient. And I don’t work here anymore.”

This does not satisfy her.

Lady: “No, you work here! And even if you don’t, you used to, so you can go fix their mistakes!”

Constantly fixing the kiosk’s problems is why I left in the first place.

Me: “Ma’am, even employees can’t go in to help without clocking in or writing it down due to the union and work safety laws. This is especially true for me because I’m a customer just like you are; I don’t work in this establishment anymore!”

Lady: “You know how to use the PA; go call backup for them!”

Me: “I can’t use the PA because I’m not a store employee.”

Lady: “You should at least try, or you could tell the baristas to work faster or something!”

Me: *Less than kindly* “If you don’t want to wait, you don’t have to. Not serving someone as ungrateful as you wouldn’t be heartbreaking for those baristas.”

Thankfully, she shut up after that, instead of her usual tirades. But after she gave up in the line, I saw her talking to one of the supervisors at the customer service desk while I was heading to my car.

I didn’t handle it the best, but years of her being a monster and having to pretend to be nice to her really ate away at me, so I definitely needed the release. Hopefully, our little conflict stops her from going in for quite some time.

I am working the opening shift at [Pizza Chain] with two other people. It’s around 10:40 am, so we are putting everything in the oven so we can open at 11:00. Hearing a knock at the door, I look up from cutting a pizza and see a woman teetering in front of the door with two small children next to her. I notice her parked car taking up two spots before noticing we still have fifteen minutes before we opened. The assistant manager is a stickler for the rules, so he tells us to not let the person in until we open. I’m fine with that since we don’t have anything ready.

Cut to 11:00 when I go to unlock the door before taking the register. The lady and her two kids enter. The kids run to the table in the corner, while the lady stumbles to the counter. I can now smell the alcohol emanating from her, and I solve the mystery of the parking situation. She orders a couple of pizzas and breadsticks — nothing too fancy. I proceed to give her the food, and as I hand it to her, she blurts out that she wants to talk to the manager.

Knowing something is about to go down, I proceed to get him and return to the oven. Nothing is coming out, giving me plenty of time to listen to the conversation between them — not that it’s hard, as the woman immediately starts screaming at my manager.

Woman: “You didn’t open on time! You were supposed to open at 10:30!”

I guess she knows our schedule better than we employees.

Woman: “And my food took way too long to make!”

We serve Hot-n-Ready pizzas, so as soon as I got the money in the register, I turned around and grabbed the food.

The manager is trying to calm down the drunk woman, who is threatening to call the police now. He is halfway through a plea before being cut off by the woman, belting out what will become his future nickname:

Woman: “YOU OL’ [RACE] B*****D!”

She stormed out of the place, leaving the food with the kids still sitting at the table. She walked back in a few minutes later, now carrying a paintball gun she had grabbed from her van.

The other coworker and I had made our way to the back of the store to burst out in laughter. The manager was still standing at the register, in a combined state of confusion and anger. The fun was only beginning.

Upon seeing the paintball gun, the manager asked me to call the police. However, the police were already pulling up. Apparently, while the woman was grabbing her paintball gun, she actually did call the police. The officer made his way into the store and took a look around, noticing the drunk woman in the corner of the store with a paintball gun and two kids, the manager at the register slowly turning red, and two employees stifling laughter.

The officer tried to get both sides of the story. The manager calmed down and told him our side of it. However, the woman was arguing with us the entire time. By now, the officer could smell her new perfume, Eaux de Jack Daniels, and gave her a breathalyzer. Five minutes later, she was being carried out of the store in handcuffs.

I’m the manager of the front end/customer service area and frequently work as a go-between when it comes to angry customers; it’s my job to shut them up and give them what they want without getting an actual manager involved if it can be avoided.

A man comes in wanting a refund on a copy of Microsoft Office. Immediately, red flags go up for me, because under no circumstances are we allowed to refund software unless it’s faulty in some way, and even then, we can only do an exchange for the same product. Any actual returns have to be processed through the manufacturer, and all their information is printed on every box of software.

I walk this guy over to the customer service desk where I examine the copy of Microsoft Office he has thrown on my counter. I’ve worked in retail for a long time and have seen people do all kinds of stupid backhanded stuff just to get their money back, but this guy doesn’t even try to make the package look unopened. It’s duct-taped shut, plain and simple.

I very politely try to explain that I cannot process the return, and he completely loses his s***. He swears up and down “that’s the condition I bought it in” (yeah, okay, buddy) and that “you have to refund my money!”

I decide to call over a manager without him even asking me to because I know that sometimes just a manager’s say-so will shut up the rudest and most ridiculous customer.

My sales manager comes over, and I calmly explain the situation to him while this guy is screaming his head off about how we’re trying to rip him off to anyone in his vicinity. Other employees and shoppers are now staring at this point. My manager tells the guy that there is no way he’s walking out of this store with a refund, but he’d be glad to do an even exchange for the same product.

The dude continues to flip out, shouting racial slurs, etc. This goes on for a few minutes, until finally, he gets fed up, throws his duct-taped copy of Office on the counter, points right at me, and screams, “THAT WASN’T EASY!” (“That Was Easy” is our store’s motto, of course.)

I told him to have a nice day, and he stormed out.

My big sister is getting married and she wants me to go clothes shopping. We have a “can’t live with each other, can’t live without” relationship, but things go amazingly well between us that day… except the shopping itself. I am plus-sized — too big for “regular” clothes and too thin for the “special plus-sized stores” — and they just don’t have anything decent in my size.

I enter a boutique, and the lady behind the counter immediately states:

Employee: *Bluntly* “We don’t have anything for you here. Nothing will fit you.”

She doesn’t bother to ask about my size. After a few checks (we are desperate at that moment), nothing seems to fit, and we leave.

After seven — SEVEN — hours of shopping with no luck, we enter a store that has easy access to the mall that is attached to the train station. We just plan on going through the store, especially since it is fifteen minutes before closing.

Sister: “Wait, they have dresses here. Let me check real quick.”

I am depressed by now, but sure, let’s check things out. We end up in the cocktail dresses section.

Sister: “They have your size!”

We hurry as fast as we can, looking through the dresses, and we find a nice one. I rush into the dressing room, and other than being super long, the dress fits!

Saleslady: “Excuse me.”

We are worried the lady is going to ask us to leave, but she would have every right to.

Saleslady: “I just wanted to say that if Miss comes over here, she can have a better look at the dress. Oh, and a seamstress can easily make it shorter for you. Oh, and it’s on sale today; I thought you might want to know that.”

We still hurried, and after a thumbs-up from my sister, we got the dress. My mother had an education as a seamstress, so with joy, she shortened the dress for us.

My family thought I was completely overdressed for the wedding, but since I received a thumb of approval from the bride herself, I couldn’t care less and felt pretty for the first time in my life. The store no longer exists, but I still remember the warmth that the saleslady gave me. Even if she just did it for a sale, just let me keep my warm fuzzies.