I used to be a barista at a popular coffee chain. We had a woman who would come in every morning and order, I kid you not, a double-tall vanilla latte with three-eighths of a pump of vanilla. Not half of a pump. Three-eighths of a pump. She even made one of the baristas mark our bottle pump with a Sharpie. This lady was universally disliked by employees and customers alike.

Every single day, the first cup we would make for this woman, no matter who made it, was always wrong; it was either too sweet or not sweet enough. So, after a while, I began to just pretend to make another drink. I’d pull the steam wand and wave my hands about like a fool behind the machine. I would hand her back the same drink we made her the first time, and it was ALWAYS perfect the second time, even though it was the same drink.

On my last day of work, this woman decided to come in twice that day. She was being overly obnoxious and talking on her cell phone about “deals” and “her assistant” and essentially just announcing her importance to everyone in the room.

It was 3:00 in the afternoon, in the spring, and the place was filled with teenagers ordering frappuccinos. I had both blenders going and both steam wands going when this woman decided to yell at me.

Customer: “GOD, I CAN BARELY HEAR MYSELF THINK!”

Me: “Funny, I can still hear you complaining.”

If you knew me, you’d know I had the perfect facial expressions to go with it; I looked like a snarky little s***. I told her that I’d been handing her back the same drink every morning for over a year, too. I said, verbatim:

Me: “It’s kind of embarrassing now that you know, right? Three-eighths is half a pump for all intents and purposes here, ma’am.”

She LOST IT.

She demanded that my manager fire me on the spot or she’d call corporate and we’d lose her business, blah, blah, blah.

I HATED my manager. He was the opposite of a “spirit of the rules/law” kind of person and really enjoyed making our lives more difficult than they needed to be. I knew that firing me would actually reflect quite negatively on his quarterly reviews, and I knew he wouldn’t do it.

My manager came out to talk to the woman.

Manager: “Ma’am, it’s [My Name]’s last day. The best I can do is send her home early, which would be a reward rather than a punishment since we’re so busy.”

I think my manager also offered her a gift card, but she was still upset. She proceeded to spend the next two hours on hold with corporate outside. Then, when corporate either accidentally hung up on her or told her to shove it, she threw her glasses, called me a “little b****” in front of a ton of kids, and ran to her car.

When I was an undergraduate in university, I worked part-time at a well-known international coffee chain. I had been working for this chain for about three years at this point, but I had only recently been transferred to this location. It was the closest to campus (there wasn’t actually one on campus), and I would often work four-hour shifts between my classes. My availability clearly showed which days and hours I was available to work.

Transferring to a new location meant transferring to work under a new manager. His policy for “requesting time off” was fairly standard. He had a big black book in his office that had a calendar for the year in it. You just had to get the book, write down your name on the date you couldn’t work, indicate which hours on that date you were unavailable (or “whole day” if that was the case), and write down a reason (e.g., “appointment”, “vacation”, etc.) 

Exams were coming up, and as those didn’t occur during my normal class hours, I went into the back and got the time-off book. I noticed that another coworker had written down which days they needed off with “exams” as their reason. (Since this was the closest [Coffee Shop] to campus, many of us baristas were students. Their exam schedule didn’t overlap with mine. I grabbed a pen that was laying on the desk, wrote down the days I couldn’t work, and, just like my coworker, wrote “exams”.

I came in the next week to see that, although my coworker had gotten every single day off they had requested, I had been scheduled for EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. MY. EXAMS. Some of them were days I didn’t even normally work but had requested to book off just in case! 

I went to talk to my manager about it.

Me: “Hey, I requested these days off because I’m actually going to be writing exams at these times. I’m not going to be able to come in for these shifts.”

Manager: “Well, you’re going to have to figure it out. I scheduled you for those days.”

Me: “Why did [Coworker] get their exams off but I didn’t? Obviously, neither of us is going to be able to work since we both are students and have finals.”

Manager: “[Coworker] requested their time off in pencil. You wrote in red pen, and that made you look extremely entitled.”

Me: “What?! I just used whatever pen you had on your desk!”

Manager: “That doesn’t matter.”

Me: “Okay, well, again, I’m not going to be here for these shifts, so you can either change the schedule so someone can be here or have this shift be understaffed.”

Manager: “Well, here’s the thing… I don’t work for you.”

Me: “I guess I don’t work for you, either, then.”

And with that, I took off my apron and left.

I never had any complaints during my three years working for this company, I won “Employee of the Month” several times, and I won several of our internal “who can sell the most bags of coffee” contests we held. I had always gotten along with my managers and coworkers, would pick up extra shifts when other people were feeling sick/just didn’t want to come in for their shifts, would work until close if I was needed, and just overall enjoyed the job. However… apparently, none of that mattered.

This [Coffee Shop] ended up closing down a couple of months later. I wonder why.

Our coffee shop has a group of old ladies from the same retirement home who gather twice a week to chat and do some crafts like knitting. It’s cliché, but it’s true! Today, as I bring them all their mugs, I see the group making what I would describe as rustic stick figures.

Me: “Oh, not knitting anything this week?”

Old Lady: “No, we’re all making these today.”

Me: “What are you making?”

Old Lady: “Voodoo dolls.”

Me: “Uh…”

Old Lady: “One of the Black ladies in the home died a few months back. One of the racist old c***s in the care home said, ‘At least the n-word won’t be doing voodoo anymore.’”

Me: “That’s awful!”

Old Lady: “So, we’ve been making these Blair Witch stick figures and leaving them where that troll will find them. She’s found seven so far.” *To the group* “Now, don’t dawdle, ladies. We need at least another ten of these before the bus picks us up!”

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When I was a barista, I used to get a lot of clueless idiots. My coffee shop would have multiple different kinds of coffee brewing on any given day. Two were regular, one French roast, and one Full City roast, usually with different countries of origin.

Customer: “I want a cup of coffee.”

Me: “Would you like the Ethiopian or Kenyan?”

Customer: *Yelling* “I don’t want any flavored coffee! I just want regular!”

We have a regular who never waits in line. She always marches to the front and just places her order. We tell her she needs to wait in line every time, but then she causes a scene and slows down service, to the point where the other customers just tell us to serve her, or our manager will just deal with her if he’s free.

This has never sat right with me, and I want her to learn that bad behavior is not to be rewarded. I come up with a plan (inspired by a story from social media) and get the okay from my manager. FYI: We’re allowed to give away one free drink a day.

The regular comes in and skips the line again, as usual. This time, we don’t kick up a fuss and we just make her order. The next customer (the one the regular immediately cut in line in front of) then steps up to give their order.

Me: *Loudly* “Congratulations, ma’am! You’re our 100th customer today, which means your drink is free! It’s so crazy, I looked at the line and I thought you would have been our 99th customer today, but I guess I was wrong!”

The customer is ecstatic about getting their drink for free, and the regular is glaring (even though she never takes off her sunglasses, even indoors).

The next day, she cuts the line again. And once again, when I am serving the customer she cut in front of:

Me: *Loudly* “Congratulations, sir! You’re our 100th customer today! That means your drink is free!”

Another happy customer, another glare from the regular. This happened two more times, and by the end of the week, the regular had shockingly stopped in line! She went back to her bad habit the next week, and the “100th customer” deal came back until she gave up and just stopped coming back in altogether.

Our manager says that any obvious line-cutting will now be resolved with this karmic tactic.