I’m in line at a small gas-station shop, with a man in front of me being very argumentative to the cashier (who has a distinct Middle Eastern accent) about cashing in a lotto ticket.

The cashier is waiting for his supervisor while trying to get through the line of people in the meantime. The customer in front of me grows impatient and starts mocking the cashier’s accent, eventually cumulating with him saying:

Customer: “Do you even speak English?”

Suddenly, from behind me in line, I hear:

Other Customer: “He speaks English fine. The problem is he doesn’t speak a**hole.”

I’ve never seen a more challenging figure than the petite, young, blonde woman responsible for that comeback.

The customer in front of me turned bright red and sulked in the corner, but otherwise waited without a peep.

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Back in the late 90s, I worked Saturdays at a stationers/newsagent (convenience store). It was a typical day, most of the customers were nice, but there were a lot of them, and I’d been on my feet for quite a while. In the queue was a young man, maybe seventeen or eighteen, but certainly, within the range of asking for ID – you had to be over sixteen to buy cigarettes at the time.

Which I did. He didn’t have any, so I said I couldn’t serve him. He wasn’t happy, and shouted at me, then stormed off.

I assumed that was the end of it, and carried on with my work, serving customers, restocking the cigarette display, etc, when about half an hour later, he shows up again, cigarette in hand, and proceeds to blow smoke right in my face.

Customer: “See, I told you I was old enough.”

And with that he stormed off again, as I called after him:

Me: “It’s no smoking in the centre.”

Obviously, his having been served cigarettes elsewhere in no way proved his age. He just came across as incredibly immature and petty to come all the way back (the nearest other tobacco shop was outside of the shopping centre), just to blow smoke at a seventeen-year-old shop assistant.

CONTENT WARNING: Death

My Nana had recently passed away, which would have been bad enough, but less than a week after her funeral my mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so I’m in a bad state.

It was a busy day at the store. I was the only senior member of staff working, excluding the manager, and we had about four newer kids, high-school-aged, all working together with me. And by working what I really mean is running around the store, smacking each other with flyswatters that had just arrived in the product loading bay.  

I had a line-up snaking halfway around the store, had been serving non-stop for about five hours, and was hitting the assistance bell more times per transaction than items being scanned, and no one was coming up to help. The manager even popped his head out at one point to yell about the noise I was making with the bell and then slammed the office door shut. So no help there.

I’m stressing out, alone with increasingly annoyed customers, and seriously concerned about killing the electronics in the assistance bell when SHE arrives.

SHE was a regular customer. Always brash, never patient and for some reason seemed to believe we existed only to burden her life with incompetence, which also seemed to be her favourite word.

She’s huffing, rolling her eyes, tapping her feet, and grumbling the whole way through the line up.

When she was about five customers away from being served she started the running commentary: nit-picking every move I made, exclaiming in mock shock at the fact I could in fact walk more than a few steps when retrieving requested behind-the-counter items, and verbally abusing me every time I rang the d*** bell. 

I was over it.

Once she was my current customer, I had resolved to simply scan everything, accept whatever money she decided to hand over and simply cover anything she was short by out of my own wallet just to yeet her out the doors as quickly as possible. But no, I couldn’t even do that.

She outright refuses to let me touch her products to scan them and instead clutched them to her chest and screamed at me. 

I finally broke.

I started crying, ugly crying, and tried to explain the situation I was in with being the only one serving between sobs and globs of mucus now strangling my windpipe. She wasn’t having any of it. Other customers in the line at least had the decency to look sheepishly at the floor when they heard that the other workers are goofing off and I’m trying my best alone. Not HER, she just went in for the kill instead.

Customer: “Your best isn’t good enough. Surely you can’t blame your entire incompetence on your workmates? What else had you so d*** stupid today? Huh?! Huh?!”

So I told her…

Me: “No, that’s not all. My mum has cancer and is dying… that combined with today’s roster of idiots has led to this stupid situation. I’m sorry it has taken so long but I really am just trying my best, I can’t do everything alone but I’m trying.”

Other customers have awkwardly left, or muttered condolences, or otherwise shut their complaining mouths after listening to my broken tale of woe, but not HER…

Customer: “If you can’t handle your job or your emotions then you shouldn’t even be here. F*** off out of here and bring someone actually competent up to the service desk.”

Me: “I can’t… this bell you keep hearing me ring is meant to call up coworkers to assist me but they’re all ignoring it. I’m not ringing it for the fun of it, you do realise that, right?”

Customer: “Then maybe your mum deserves to die then. Gets rid of the shame of having you for a daughter at least.”

I don’t really remember what happened next. Apparently, a couple of customers violently escorted her out the doors while the rest swarmed the desk to hug or otherwise assist me. I don’t remember sitting down, or having a mug of tea made but suddenly it was in my hands and all these random customers are asking if I’m okay.

I wish the story ended there with me surrounded by the support and love of total strangers but this is the real world and instead we were all written up for playing with flyswatters, yes me included, and the customer wrote a lovely letter to corporate telling them I was “abusive to customers, throwing things around and laughing at how much time I was wasting and then had the audacity to taunt her when it was her turn to be served”.

I was written up twice and then had to defend my right to remain employed for about a month while corporate conducted their investigation. I think I still have a photocopy of that damning letter somewhere in my moving boxes, I was given the copy to read and “make adjustments to my attitude” during the write up.

So yeah… f*** you customer. The rudest customer to ever disgrace my area.

A customer has taken an item from our heated section, paid, and left with it. Half an hour later, he comes back with the item mostly intact.

Customer: “Your heater is broken.”

Me: *Checking the heater* “It seems to be working fine, sir.”

Customer: “But my burrito is cold!”

Me: “You took it out of the heat drawer over a half-hour ago.”

Customer: “So?”

Me: “So… it will get cold?”

Customer: “But why?”

Me: “…thermodynamics?”

Customer: “Well, can I change my burrito for one without that… themo-theatrics?”

Related:
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 5
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 4
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 3
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 2
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here

A customer is buying alcohol. We check for ID no matter how old they look.

Me: “May I please see your ID, sir?”

Customer: “H*** no! I leave that at home. I don’t want the government to know who I am!”

Me: “But it’s a government ID, sir.”

Customer: “So?”

I look at my manager, who is looking back at me.

Manager: “Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”