I’m a butcher at a meat and seafood market. A customer looks at our display and then almost starts foaming at the mouth.

Customer: “How dare you!”

Me: “Uh, sir?

Customer: “How daaaaare you!”

Me: “Sir, what’s the problem?”

Customer: “You’re selling dog meat! That’s… that’s… reprehensible!”

Me: “Sir, we don’t sell any such… ah…”

I see what he’s pointing to.

Me: “Sir, those are bags of mixed lamb and beef bones; we label them as doggy bones for the dogs to chew on. They’re not dog bones.”

The customer glares at me for a moment before looking at some of the bones on display and realizing it would be a bit of a stretch for a dog to be that big.

Customer: “Well, then I want a discount on the lamb chops for stressing me out so much!”

And THAT is how we had to add an extra line to the sign saying: “Doggy bones: bones for the dogs, NOT dog bones.”

Our meat counter has ‘minute’ cutlets, which are thinly sliced pork cutlets that cook rapidly.

Customer: “What kind of animal is a minute?” *Pronounced ‘meen-yute’.”

Me: “Uh… It’s a kind of pig?”

Customer: “Oh, nice. I’ll take half a pound!”

I’m working as a meat cutter at the grocery store.

Customer: “I need a prime rib.”

I grab a ribeye roast and hold it up, about to ask how much, but then:

Customer: “No, no. I said prime rib.”

Me: “Yes, this is it. Ribeye roast and prime rib are the same cut.”

Customer: “No, they aren’t!”

Me: “They really are the same thing.”

Customer: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Me: “It’s the same piece of meat. The difference between a ribeye and a prime rib is in how the butcher cuts and prepares the two.”

Customer: “Either get me what I ask for or get me someone who knows what they’re talking about.”

I pause, nod, and set the roast back down.

Me: “Okay. Then I guess we’re out of them.”

Customer: “F****** typical! This is the third place I’ve tried!” *Storms out.*

Customer: “I’ll take a porterhouse.”

Me: “Yes, sir. Which one would you like?”

Customer: “Any of them. They all look good.”

I select one that has a nice-sized fillet and good marbling.

Customer: “Wow. You’re lucky I’m not picky.”

Me: “Did you want a different one?”

Customer: *Sighs.* “No. That one is fine… I guess.”

Me: “I can get you any one you want.”

Customer: *Deeper sigh.* “This one is fine.”

Me: “Seriously, these are all available.”

Customer: *Deepest of all sighs.* “No. I just have to accept what life has chosen for me.”

Me: “Okay.”

I bag up and hand over his steak. As he’s paying:

Customer: *Sigh that breaks existence.*

I was working a second job at a small grocery and butcher shop a few nights a week to help pay for my kids’ activities. I was hired specifically as a cashier.

One night when I came in for my 6 PM shift, I was told there was a “new system.” Apparently, the person who used to do the butcher shop’s end-of-day cleaning and sanitizing had quit. Instead of hiring someone new, the owners decided that the cashiers could just do it in between customers.

The setup was this: the owner would sit in their office (watching TV, of course), and when a customer came in—the doorbell would ring—they’d buzz the phone in the butcher area so a cashier could run out and check them out. Meanwhile, the cashier was expected to scrub down the butcher shop in the back between customers.

Owner: “So from now on, you’ll clean the butcher area while you’re on shift. When a customer comes in, I’ll buzz you.”

Me: “Uh, no. I was hired to run the register and stock shelves, not clean up the butcher shop.”

Owner: “Then you’ll clean the butcher shop, or you can consider yourself fired.”

And with that, they turned and walked away.

Me: “Fine.”

I grabbed my things, walked out, and went home. Done. Game over.

What the owner apparently assumed was that my “Fine” meant I had given in and gone to clean. So, for the next two hours, every time the doorbell rang, they buzzed the butcher area… with no one there to answer. No one came to check customers out. By the time they figured it out, the store’s liquor, cigarettes, and scratchers had been cleaned out by opportunistic customers.

At 7:30 PM, I got a screaming phone call from the owner.

Owner: “Where the h*** are you?! Do you know how much has been stolen? I’m calling the police! You’re going to be arrested for this!”

Me: “You fired me, remember? You literally told me to consider myself fired. That’s exactly what I did.”

Owner: “This is your fault! You abandoned your post!”

Sure enough, the owner called the police and tried to have me arrested as an accomplice to theft because I had left. The cops called me and asked me to come to the store, which I did. I explained the situation and told them to check the security cameras.

They did. And there, in crystal clear audio, was the owner saying:

Owner: *On tape.* “Then you’ll clean the butcher shop, or you can consider yourself fired.”

Case closed. The police told me I was free to leave.

I estimate they lost about $30,000 in inventory that night. Actions, meet consequences.

This story is part of our Highest-Voted-Stories-Of-2025 (Other Categories) roundup!

Read the next story!

Read the roundup!