I’m a cook in a little deli. Our kitchen has a little window where we put orders up and call them out on intercom, so customers can essentially come up and talk to the cooks directly.

I get an order for over-easy eggs, make them, and send out the order. Only about one minute later, a lady comes up to the window, furious, yelling at me.

Customer: “I’ve never seen such an ignorant cook! Come over here and look how f****** runny these eggs are!”

Me: “Ma’am, you ordered over-easy eggs; that is basically the runniest form of an egg you can order.”

Customer: “Do you think I’m stupid and don’t know food?”

Me: “I did not say that, but you may want to look over the egg cooking types again.”

She got furious, found my manager, and demanded that I be fired on the spot. My manager basically told her the EXACT same thing I’d told her about learning egg temperatures. A pretty sweet manager and one dumb lady.

In sixth grade, my history teacher once gave us a fairly easy test, but with a question on a topic that we hadn’t learned in class. Being a huge history nerd, I had no problem answering it, not even thinking much about it.

When she gave the test results back, everyone had an eight; they had just missed the last question. I, however, had a zero, even though everything was correct.

Me: “[Teacher], why did I get a zero?”

Teacher: “Since we haven’t covered that topic yet, it’s clear that you cheated.”

Me: “I just love history; I’ve already read about that topic just for the sake of it.”

This happened in 2006, so there was absolutely no way I could have Googled the question on a smartphone, and she kept all our textbooks during tests. She looked in my desk and even in my backpack. She found no evidence of cheating, but she still insisted I had cheated.

I decided not to argue with her and instead took it to the principal. Since cheating accusations were taken very seriously at my school, the next day, my parents, the teacher, and I were called to the principal’s office. After my teacher explained the whole situation, my father went straight to her.

Father: “So, you wrote a question on a topic that you hadn’t taught, expecting everyone to fail to answer, and then you punished the only student that answered? Why did you put that question in the first place? Did you put it intentionally to lower their grades, knowing that the highest grade would be eight? Are you such a bad teacher that you don’t even know what you have taught? Or are you such an a**hole that you feel the need to bully some twelve-year-olds because you know more about history? And since [My Name] knows history, you decided to bully him?”

My teacher was livid. She tried to answer but couldn’t find the words.

To be honest, before this, the teacher had been actually a very good teacher, and I did learn a lot with her. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time she had picked a student to bully, and she was fired on spot.

I’m a receptionist at a salon. During a busy day when there are about eight people waiting for a haircut, a woman comes in and walks up to me.

Customer: “I’m in a hurry, and if you could take me right away, that would be great.”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, but others have been waiting here before you. You’ll have to go after them.”

Customer: “Why can’t you just take me now? I don’t need that much done!”

Me: “We see our clients in the order they come in.”

Customer: “You’re discriminating against me!” *Storms out*

I’m working in a fast food place, and I answer the phone. The caller starts trying to place an order.

Me: “Ma’am, we’re not equipped to take orders over the phone, but you can order through our app or through a delivery service.”

She is LIVID.

Caller: “Why do you even have a phone, then?!”

Me: “It’s for customer complaints and questions and for employee communication.”

Caller: “Well, I have a complaint! You shouldn’t have a phone!”

I chuckled a bit and hung up. She tried calling back, but I told my coworkers it was a prank call and to not answer.

This happened years ago when I worked at a big box furniture store. This store was massive, with a marketplace, warehouse, and two restaurants. It had dozens of departments, and every employee had specific tasks. Mine happened to be cart retrieval and helping customers load their flat-packed furniture into their vehicles.

One random weekday, my coworker called in sick, so I was carrying double the workload. The cashier manager contacted me over my radio.

Cashier Manager: “A customer at the exit needs help loading.”

Me: “Got it.”

I was finishing up with another customer not too far away so I was there within a few minutes.

Me: “Hi. I’m here to assist you. Where is your vehicle?”

Customer: “It’s about time! I’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes!”

She hadn’t been; I had just walked by there five minutes beforehand.

Me: “Sorry about that; I was with another customer. I came within a few minutes of being told you needed help. Where’s your vehicle?”

Customer: “Are you saying I haven’t been waiting that long?”

Me: “No. I’m just saying I came within a few minutes of finding out that you need help.”

Customer: “I don’t need your attitude after waiting so long. I want an apology.”

Me: “Ma’am, I already apologized to you. Where’s your vehicle?”

Customer: “Forget it! I’ll find someone else!”

Me: “I am literally the only person here that can help you.”

Customer: “I’LL. FIND. SOME. ONE. ELSE!”

Me: “Okay.”

I walked away and continued working since I was incredibly busy loading other vehicles and retrieving shopping carts from everywhere, including the occasional cart corral.

Thirty minutes later, the cashier manager came across my radio again with a slightly annoyed tone.

Cashier Manager: “That customer by the exit still needs help.”

Me: “I offered her help. I told her I was the only one to help her, and she refused, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

Cashier Manager: “Ooooookay?”

Twenty minutes later, I saw my manager, the cashier manager, and the warehouse manager talking to her. The cashier manager had called my manager and gone to meet the customer. The two of them were middle-aged women who then had to call the warehouse manager to load this large box containing a dresser. I walked past them, leaned against a post, and watched.

The customer was irate, yelling and complaining about customer service. She spotted me and scowled at me before getting in her car and driving away.

I approached the managers and explained what had happened. One of them said, “We get it,” before we all separated and went back to work.

That customer had to wait over forty-five minutes because she was too entitled to wait for five minutes. I’d like to think she learned a valuable lesson, but she probably tells a very different version of the story.

Related:
You Ever Hear The Expression, “Patience Is A Virtue”?