(I work at a family-run dry cleaner. I am finishing up high school, so I am rather young and very inexperienced with customer service. I work at the front counter, taking in clothes for cleaning and receiving payments. We have a policy where items received by 10:00 am are processed the same day, so the morning can be crazy. A lady comes in with a filthy hoodie.)

Customer: “Yeah, I’m in a rush. Can you clean this?”

(Everyone is in a rush.)

Me: “We can try. So, just the one sweater?”

(It’s a hoodie, but there’s no unique pricing for hoodies, and sweaters are the closest thing. The lady nods and I begin collecting her name and phone number and all the information for the order.)

Customer: “Thanks. I hope you can save it. It’s my boyfriend’s favorite. He was in an accident so that’s blood. I’m taking him to the hospital.”

Me: *stunned* “Okay, we’ll try.”

(She left and I had to tag and carry back the blood-soaked hoodie to the “spot” cleaner. I still can’t believe a hoodie was so special they’d stop to have it cleaned before going to the hospital!)

(I am white. One day when I am working the till, an older, very black man who is definitely not related to me — or my father — comes in.)

Customer: “Hi, I’d like to pick up my clean shirts and drop off this one I’m wearing.”

Me: “The one you’re wearing?”

Customer: “Yeah, I’ll just go there—” *gestures to a corner of the store* “—and change.”

Me: “Uh… are you sure?”

Customer: “It’s okay. Just pretend like I’m your dad.”

(The customer wanders over into the corner, hides behind some clothes racks, and strips.)

Me: “…”

(The customer finishes changing, comes back out wearing one of his clean shirts, and hands me the dirty one.)

Customer: “See? Just like your dad.” *grins and cheerfully leaves the store*

(My coworkers look completely baffled.)

Me: “I don’t know what just happened.”

(I work at a dry cleaner.)

Customer: “I am missing a jacket.” *hands me a ticket*

Boss: “This ticket is from 2011.”

Customer: “I know, but I just opened the garment bag yesterday to wear my outfit to church, and the jacket is missing. I want $100 as compensation.”

Boss: “There is no mention of a jacket on this order.”

Customer: “It is a three-piece suit. The dress, the jacket, and the scarf.”

Boss: “There is no jacket listed on the ticket. There are only a dress and a scarf.”

Customer: “Well, that is not my fault. I want my $100.”

Boss: “I’m sorry, but we were not even the owners of this business during that time. Besides, you waited seven years to come up here about this.”

Customer: “It doesn’t matter who the owners were. This is the same business regardless, and you better compensate me.”

Boss: “There is no evidence of a jacket, and we are not going to give you $100.”

Customer: “Then I will take whatever other clothes I have in here and find new cleaners because you won’t take responsibility.” *leaves angrily*

Me: *sideways eye contact with boss* “Well, she won’t be missed.”

(I work at a dry cleaning store. We have a middle-aged lady come in and drop off her clothes. I’m detailing what her clothes are in the computer when she tells me:)

Customer: “Now, honey, please make sure that these are dry cleaned.”

Me: *thinking she’s joking* “Of course, ma’am; we are dry cleaners!”

Customer: “Right, and I want these dry cleaned. No water.”

Me: “Right, ma’am, we can only clean them without water. It’s a dry cleaner.”

Customer: “Yes. Make sure you write a note on there, because if you do them in water, the colors will bleed.”

Me: “Right, ma’am, but… it’s a dry cleaner; we don’t use water washers here.”

Customer: *nodding* “Good. Make sure to write it on each article tag.”

Me: *accepting her ignorance* “All right, ma’am. Have a nice day!”

(Even though I handed her the receipt, the lady continued to stand there. She waited, wanting to watch me undergo the entire detail process before she left, meaning I had to write, “Dry Clean Only,” on the back of our “Special” tags that get pinned to special orders. This meant rewriting the same useless message for all of her pieces, which totaled more than thirty articles. Only after she saw each one detailed did she leave.)

(I work at a dry-cleaners, and sometimes we have customers dropping off clothes with stains that we can’t get out. We always call them about it if this is the case, and don’t clean the clothes. This particular customer we told that we would try, but later on we decided that it wouldn’t be possible. We tried to notify the customer through a multitude of phone calls, all of which went unanswered. This is a Korean-owned business.)

Customer: “I’m here for pick-up. My phone number is [phone number].”

Me: “Okay! Let me just get that for you.”

(I bring the clothes up to the front, half of which are cleaned. The rest have bleach stains that we cannot get out.)

Me: “Unfortunately, we didn’t clean some of stained shirts because it’ll be nearly impossible to get those stains out.”

Customer: “What?! So you guys didn’t even clean them?!”

Me: “No, we tried calling you about it ahead of time—”

Customer: “I didn’t get no phone call!”

(He takes his change and leaves in a huff while spewing insults at us under his breath.)

Customer: “F***! F****** [Asian racial slur]!”

(I proceeded to glare at him, but he was too chicken to turn around.)