I am in the drive-thru at a pharmacy chain to pick up a refilled prescription after work. This typically takes less than five minutes. There’s one car ahead of me and one behind me. I realize after about ten minutes of scrolling through my phone that nothing seems to be happening.

I roll down my window and hear the customer in the car in front of me.

Customer: “No, no. It’s not [price]. It should be [lower price].”

Pharmacy Tech: “Give me one moment; I’ll check your insurance again.”

Whatever. I roll up my window and resume my scrolling. Several minutes later, the car still hasn’t moved and there are now three cars behind me. I roll down my window again.

Customer: “I’m not paying that!”

Pharmacy Tech: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but your insurance—”

Customer: “No! Go check again!”

Pharmacy Tech: “Ma’am, like I said, it’s an insurance issue—”

Customer: “Check again. I’ll wait. My insurance has always—”

Forgetting that my window is rolled all the way down, I let out an exasperated yell.

Me: “Will you just go inside?! I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes!“

The car in front of me goes silent.

Customer: “I… I think I’ll come inside and speak to the pharmacist.”

She speeds off. I pull up and give the pharmacy tech my information. They send my prescription out in record time.

Pharmacy Tech: “…and you’re all set!”

Me: “Don’t I owe you [normal copay amount]?”

Pharmacy Tech: “No, you don’t. Have a fantastic day, Ms. [My Name]!”

I am working in the early hours of Saturday morning at my bagel shop (around 7:30), and I am helping in the drive-thru. Our location has an obnoxious dinging noise whenever a car comes through, and I swear I hear it in my sleep. I hear that annoying ding and I start the transaction.

Me: “Good morning, how may I help you?”

Customer: “Can I have a minute?”

Me: “Sure, take your time!”

She only takes ten seconds, which makes me happy.

Customer: “Okay, I’m ready!”

Me: “Okay!”

Now, with most normal people, when I say, “Okay!” in a sunshiney voice, they get the idea that I’m anticipating them ordering. Not this lady.

She just sits there and doesn’t respond to me. This is by far one of my biggest pet peeves working at my job.

After another ten or so seconds, I ask her:

Me: “What do you want?”

I don’t say this with any attitude or sarcasm. I just ask her what she wants so I can move the line along.

Customer: “A plain bagel.”

When someone says this, we’re trained to say, “With nothing on it?” because a lot of the time, people think that we’re mind readers and that we know what they’re thinking. We only say this when someone says a bagel and then says nothing after that. That’s what this lady does.

Me: “…With nothing on it?”

Customer: “You didn’t let me finish! A plain bagel, not toasted, with cream cheese.”

Me: “Oh, okay, so a plain bagel, not toasted, with cream cheese. Can I get you anything else today?”

I’ll admit that I am extremely sarcastic when talking to her at this point because she is being rude.

Customer: “Yes, I want someone else to help me.”

Me: “I’m sorry, that’s not possible right now. Everyone else is busy.”

Customer: “Well, I want someone else. I really don’t want you helping me.”

Me: “Well, that’s too bad because no one else is available, so you’re stuck with me.”

She finishes her order and drives up. She comes up to the window, gets her order, and asks the guy if she can speak to the manager.

Coworker: “Okay, but you were just talking to her.”

Customer: “You’re the manager, and you were just taking my order?”

Me: *With a big smile* “Yup!”

Customer: “You were extremely rude! ‘What do you want?’ That’s so rude!”

Me: “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I was just trying to get your order, and you weren’t answering me.”

Customer: “You need to speak to people better.”

Me: “I really don’t see the issue here. I was trying to help you, and you weren’t answering, so I said what I had to in order to get the answers from you. If you don’t like that, I have nothing else to say about it.”

Customer: “You were really rude!”

Me: “I’m not worried about it. Are you worried about it?”

Customer: “You should be. You were really rude!”

Me: “Oh, well, I’m not.”

She kept yammering on.

At this point, I was grinding coffee, which happens to be next to the window. I wasn’t actually standing there talking to her because I knew that this wasn’t a situation that I needed to or wanted to defuse. I just let her talk while the window was open. Finally, the window automatically closed on her, and I just turned around and walked away.

I’m not sure what her reaction was, but I like to imagine she was stunned that her complaining was cut off and no one was going to engage with her anymore.

It’s times like these when I’m glad I’m a manager. People try to pull nonsense with me, and I just tell them no. They have no choice but to accept it.

I work in a small chicken place in a relatively rural Australian town. We’re between two larger cities, so we often get a lot of people coming in from the highway. We also get the same bad jokes all the time from customers thinking they’re being funny, so our manager takes them on thanks to our store being privately owned and not a chain.

I am taking orders at the drive-thru.

Me: “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Customer: “A million dollars!”

Me: “With or without cream?”

Customer: “Huh?”

Me: “The ‘Million Dollars’ — the shortbread syrup flavoured coffee drink. With or without cream?”

That’s when the customer notices our expensive “specialty” drink selection at the very bottom of the menu with a lot of creative names. At this point, the customers can usually admit they made a joke lame enough to warrant a menu item being named after it, or they pony up. I honestly thought no one would spend $12 on a crappy coffee drink instead of admitting the former, but I guess my manager knows retail better than I do.

Customer: “Uh… without cream. Please.”

Other drinks on the “specialty list” include “The Winning Lottery Numbers”, “Your Phone Number”, “World Peace”, and so on…

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Customer: “You made my sweet tea wrong yesterday, so I want it free today!”

Me: “I’m sorry about that, sir. Do you have your receipt?”

Customer: “No, but I still have the cups in my car to prove it!”

He pulls up the payment window where I am and confidently places down a half-full McDonald’s cup of sweet tea.

Me: “Sir, this is a Starbucks.”

He looks at my uniform, then looks up at the building, then at the cups, and then at me AGAIN in case I am just screwing with him.

Customer: “Well, your tea sucks, too!” *Drives off*

Customer: “I want my bacon cheeseburger with only ketchup and all the condiments.”

This confuses me because sauce and vegetables are both considered condiments.

Me: “You want everything the burgers come with, and ketchup added on them?”

Customer: “No, I want only ketchup.”

Me: “Okay… only ketchup would mean only ketchup and the cheese and bacon.”

Customer: “And all the condiments!”

Me: “That means the other sauces and vegetables.”

Customer: “No! Just ketchup!”

He finally pulls up to the window and starts arguing with me.

Customer: “Do you not know what a condiment is or are you stupid?!

He starts laying into me and calling me names. I ask my boss loudly enough for the customer to hear:

Me: “Please take over here. I’m done. I can’t deal with this idiot right now; I’m about to lose my mind.”

Later on, I find out I got his order right in the first place, but he just felt the need to argue.

Manager: “He kept trying to tell me that condiments are only vegetables, which is not true.”

Me: “I’m glad it wasn’t just me that was confused!”

Manager: “But he also said tomatoes aren’t condiments because he likes them, so I asked him if he thought condiments were just things he doesn’t like?”

Me: “What did he say?” 

Manager: “Well, you heard his engine rev up, and I’m still holding his burger… so…” *Shrugs*