A tornado has recently destroyed a large part of my city. When the tornado warning goes off, servers and the back-of-house staff gather up everyone. The staff goes into the walk-in coolers, and the patrons go into the bathrooms.

Chaos erupts outside, but thankfully, the building stands strong. The warning is eventually over and we all come out. An inventory of people is made: everyone is safe and accounted for. No one is hurt.

Outside, part of the parking lot is a mess. Vehicles are no longer neatly parked but have been tossed around like an upended box of Matchbox cars. Across the street… there’s destruction. The tornado plowed through the town literally across the street. We, obviously, have no power.

Then, a lady pipes up.

Customer: “So, why haven’t we gotten our food yet?”

Seriously?!

Me: “Ma’am, you were in the bathroom. The staff were in the fridge. Were you not aware that the reason for this was a tornado?”

Customer: “Well, we ordered over thirty minutes ago!”

Me: “Yes. And everyone was preparing for the storm. No one was going to continue making food and risking their lives.”

Customer: “Yes, and now it’s over. I expect my meal to be comped.”

Manager: “Well, since we have no power, you’re not going to GET your order. No one is. As of right now, we’re closed. I suggest you go see if your home is even still there.”

Customer: “You are being very rude!”

Manager: “And you’re being an idiot. Now get out of my restaurant.”

Male Voice: *From the crowd* “[Customer], let’s go see if we even have a car to take us home.”

Customer: *Storming out* “My car had better be there, or I’ll sue the s*** out of [Restaurant]!”

Male Voice: “Shut up, [Customer] just… shut the h*** up.”

The crowd slowly began to sort themselves out. I think most were in shock from seeing the mess outside, but at least everyone else had their heads screwed on straight. Even though the manager promised that meals were comped today, most people paid with cash and left impressive tips.

We got a phone call later with an angry woman’s voice screeching about how rude the staff was. The manager was the same, so she didn’t get very far.

Sometime later, higher-ups got in contact with us, not to hand down punishments, but to basically point and laugh at a series of complaints. There were several complaints about the restaurant not answering phones DURING THE TORNADO and demanding that the staff be reprimanded for job abandonment. The highlight of the list was a complaint about the restaurant refusing to serve food after the power went out and the rudeness of the manager.

It just goes to show you: nothing will stop an entitled customer from throwing a tantrum, not even a tornado.

I am visiting Texas and staying at a nice hotel. I’m brown and I’m an IT executive.

I order takeout from a local BBQ place, and I am going back to my hotel with my food in a large paper bag with the name of the restaurant written in large letters on the side.

There is a group of people outside the hotel, and as I approach the hotel entrance, this woman rushes over and grabs my bag of food. I yank it back.

Woman: “I’ve been waiting for this!”

It hits me that she thinks I’m her food delivery driver here with her food.

Me: *Politely* “I’m not your delivery driver, ma’am.”

Woman: *Looking confused* “Are sure? You look like one.”

At this point, I just want her to let go of my bag. A few of her guy friends come over and tell me to stop giving her a hard time and to hand over her food. I spell it out for them.

Me: “I am not your food delivery driver. This is my food. I’m a guest at this hotel.”

I yank the bag away from her, and as I enter the hotel, I see her pulling out her phone.

Woman: “I’m calling [Delivery Service] and telling them what an a**hole you are… and I want my money back!”

Go right ahead, lady. Go right ahead.

In hindsight, I was actually not upset over the whole thing but simply amused by it. Sometimes, you just have to laugh your way through an uncomfortable situation.

I had a client who wanted a menu designed for their restaurant. They asked me to take inspiration from some menus that Jamie Oliver used while giving it an identity all its own. I did some work I was pretty happy with, but then…  

Client: “I need this designed in Word so I can edit it whenever I want.”

A woman comes in complaining about how a business card she herself designed (NOT us) online has text that’s too small to read, and she immediately blames us even though all we do is click and print things.

I take a look at the original file she had and notice that her screen is very zoomed in on the design, so obviously, the text size she’s seeing isn’t going to match the final product.

Me: “You see, your screen is zoomed in right now on your phone. Compare that to the card that’s in my hand right now; you can see the confusion as to why the text seems so small.”

Customer: “Well, this isn’t my fault! Clearly, you guys did something wrong when you printed it out. I want to get a refund on this order!”

Me: “Ma’am, all we are given is the file to print out and then cut. We do not have the capability to make edits or do anything weird like that. I’m sorry, but because the issue is on your end, you are not eligible to get a refund on this order.”

Customer: “Well, how was I supposed to know the font size wouldn’t match what’s on the card?!”

Me: “Let me ask you this. You designed this yourself, right?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Me: “And you added the text yourself and paid attention to the point size, correct?”

Customer: “Yes. I even laid out the text inside a text box. I also saw that it was poking outside the work area, so I took the corner and dragged it inward so it would fit within the box!”

She shrunk the text down even smaller to make it fit, basically.

Me: “So, let me get this straight. You put in the text yourself, typed everything out, and then willingly shrunk it down below the minimum size recommendation to make it fit, and you’re saying it’s our fault.”

Customer: “…I want to speak to your manager!”

I let the manager handle it, and they gave her the same information I had just finished explaining while I went to eat a sandwich on break. She never got a refund, and she threatened to call corporate just like 90% of other entitled customers in the country.

I babysit a lot as a teenager. I have regular families that I babysit for and other families that I have been recommended to. One of my neighbors recommends me to one of his employees.

When I get to the man’s house, it’s a mess. He can’t find his keys, there is zero food except for basically chips and cookies, and there’s nothing to make a lunch out of. He has two kids — nine months and two and a half years — who he says do not take naps. (They do.) He also has dogs, which he does not give me a heads-up on.

After a long day, he calls.

Client: “Hey, I’m fifteen minutes away. How much do I owe you?”

Me: “$70.”

An hour and a half later, he finally gets back home. He hands me the $70.

Me: “And I’ll need another $20 from you.”

Client: “Why?! You said $70.”

Me: “And you said you were fifteen minutes away. It’s now been an additional hour and a half. $70 is for when you were fifteen minutes away. If you had told me an hour and a half, I would have told you $90.”

After the third time this happened, I told him that was the last time I was babysitting for him and that he needed to find someone a better fit. My neighbor was frustrated that I dropped his employee and asked why I couldn’t do a solid for him. I told him charging only $10 an hour for two kids in a dirty, messy house without food was doing him a favor and he abused it.