I am an assistant manager at a drive-thru car wash. A lady comes up to me.

Customer: “Can I speak to the manager?”

Me: “I’m the assistant manager today, ma’am. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I’ve been waiting for ten minutes, and no one has come to help me!”

Apparently, she has been sitting at one of our pay stations.

Me: “Ma’am, it’s self-service, and you need to back out from there.”

She backs out, and in doing so, she backs into a curb and scuffs up her rim.

Customer: “You told me to back out! This is your fault! You have to pay for this!”

Me: “No, ma’am, we will not be paying for damages you made to your car for your poor driving.”

Customer: “This was your fault!”

Me: “If you were to come into our parking lot and kill someone with your car due to your poor driving, it wouldn’t be us charged with vehicular manslaughter. It would be you. You hit the curb, so you will need to pay to fix the damages yourself. You can now leave.”

Customer: *Angry* “I will be back!”

I immediately called my manager and told him what happened and what I said word for word. He laughed.

The customer came back the next day and the owner was actually there. He got a kick out of my analogy, as well, and told the lady off. I loved that job.

A few months after we have cameras installed, a group comes in consisting of three adults and two kids who are maybe six or seven. They order and sit at two tables to wait. The adults are at a four-seater table and the kids are at a two-seater right next to them.

Immediately, all of the adults bury themselves in their phones, not paying any attention to the kids. The kids decide it’s a dandy idea to play with the salt and pepper shakers by crashing them into each other. A cashier walks over to very obviously clean a nearby table, giving the adults the opportunity to step in and stop the kids from roughly playing with glass.

Crickets from the adults. They’re too busy on their phones.

The cashier walks over to the kids’ table with a huge smile and takes the shakers OFF THE TABLE.

Cashier: *With a big grin* “Don’t want you to get hurt, guys!”

As she walks away with the shakers, the kids start complaining to Mom. It takes Mom a minute to even look up ’cause, you know, HER PHONE.

Mom: *To the cashier* “Why are you so mean? The kids weren’t doing anything wrong!

Blah, blah, blah. Their food is ready, and they go out ranting and moaning.

Mom: “Well, we were gonna stay and eat, but because you’re so rude, now we’re not!”

We try to hide from our faces that this is a win.

Mom: “And we’re never coming back!”

We try to hide from our faces that this is an even bigger win!

Later in the day, Mom ups the ante. She goes to our Facebook to tell her version of what happened.

Mom: “The cashier screamed at my kids! She wrenched the shakers out of their hands and nobody apologized!”

By the time any of us noticed, there were already a few comments, all on her side. Oh, poor kids, the cashier should be fired, you should have gotten your food for free, they owe you an apology, every retail worker on the face of the earth doesn’t want to work anymore, they and all their family members should die in a fire, etc. It was the standard Internet commentary from people who weren’t there, assumed they knew everything, and had absolutely zero chill.

My IT team — basically my two sons and a nephew — uploaded the footage of what REALLY happened. About the only thing Mom didn’t lie about was that they were there and nobody apologized as there was nothing to apologize for. Nobody screamed, the cashier was showing her pearly whites, and nobody “wrenched” the shakers out of the kids’ hands. BUT someone was more interested in her phone than watching her kids. It showed the kids trying to get her attention and her shooing them away.

The next morning, there were about four phone messages from Mom begging us to take down the video. She was getting roasted and toasted online and begged us to pleeeeeeeeeease take it down NOW.

We did eventually take it down… about a month later.

A customer and his kid come to the register with a six-pack of glass sodas from our shelves. We have four or five flavors, all in pre-packed, single-flavor six-packs. This pack has at least one of every flavor; the customer has made their own mix from various packs.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we cannot sell the pack that way; now, at least four other packs will not be correct and can’t be sold.”

Customer: “This is how it was when I was a kid! We made mix packs all the time!”

Me: “Yes, sir, that may be true, but then, you were bundling loose bottles to make a pack, not breaking open multiple packs to create the mix you want.”

Related:
If You Have To Break It, You Probably Can’t Have It

I own a bunch of restaurants and work in them like a dog, and nobody really knows I am the owner.

Customer: “Straw!”

I assume this is their way of saying, “Can I please have a straw?” but I am not going to reward rudeness.

I put a slightly perplexed but truly concerned expression on my face, get closer, and nod my head.

Me: “Straw?”

Customer: “Strraawww…”

Me: “Yeah, a straw.”

Customer: “Yes! Can I get a straw?”

Me: “Absolutely. I was not sure what you were getting at there.”

I chuckled like they were a kid saying something stupid that everyone finally figured out.

This strategy worked 100% of the time.

I’m not trying to stereotype, but this customer is American. She has made a series of impossible demands and has been getting ruder and more agitated with each refusal.

Me: “I’m sorry, madam, but we will not be able to do that for you.”

Customer: “Whatever happened to companies believing that the customer is always right?”

Me: “The customers drove all those companies out of business. Will that be all?”