I’m a customer, watching all this happen in a single visit of barely an hour.

My family and I enter a fairly busy fast food restaurant and start placing our order at the kiosk.

The door bangs open and a woman in a pink camo shirt carrying a to-go bag storms up to the cashier. [Cashier] is a tiny, soft-spoken Hispanic woman most customers adore. The woman proceeds to upend said bag on the counter and throws her receipt at [Cashier]. I can’t understand much of what is said, aside from swear words and “wrong” over and over, due to her screaming and her heavy, unidentifiable — to me — accent.

To her credit, the cashier apologizes calmly, fixes the order, and delivers it without so much as batting an eye.

We sit down to wait for our order to come out. A few minutes pass, and another woman, also wearing pink — this time a pullover — suddenly starts hollering across the dining area about how her table never got their coffees and, “What the f*** are y’all doing back there?” Again, this crazy lady and her humiliated-looking daughters are placated with minimal trouble.

My family’s order arrives, and we eat in relative silence, only giving each other weirded-out looks and making “holy crap” comments.

As we prepare to leave… you guessed it… another lady, this one decked in pink from head to toe, comes in. She starts screeching about how dumb they were yesterday for screwing up her order, how she should get a refund and a replacement, how all the “d*** Mexicans” should stop f****** over our society, etc. Every other word out of her mouth is an expletive, and she starts banging on the counter and kiosks.

The exit we need is past her, and as violent as she is becoming, we think it better to stay put and well clear.

The manager, a very large black man, comes out and tells the woman that she is being refused service and banned, and she goes berserk. Luckily, a quick call to the cops has her hightailing it.

I don’t know why pink was suddenly the color of choice for crazy, but it definitely swore me off wearing the color myself for a bit.

Related:
Not So Pretty In Pink, Part 5
Not So Pretty In Pink, Part 4
Not So Pretty In Pink, Part 3
Not So Pretty In Pink, Part 2
Not So Pretty In Pink

I’m a fairly new mobile phone salesperson. A customer I dealt with previously has come back to my store to have me fix a problem with their phone activation. After calling their carrier, I get the error sorted and their phones working.

Customer: “So, where’s our gas rebate?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Customer: “I want a gas rebate! I had to drive a hundred miles round-trip twice to get this taken care of!”

Me: “Well, I’m sorry that you had to make that drive, but all we can do is fix the problem you had with the phone; we don’t do gas rebates here.”

Customer: “Fine. I want an iTunes Store card.”

Me: “Okay, that’ll be—”

Customer: “No, I want it for free.”

Me: “We can’t do that.”

The customer wanders off. Five minutes later, my manager comes up.

Manager: “Hey, we got some people up at customer service that are demanding free gift cards and stuff. I saw you working with them. Did you promise them anything?”

Me: “No.”

They were there for another thirty minutes before apparently giving up. I haven’t seen them since.

My older daughter spent the night with my parents and we are meeting at a popular big box store that is well-known for their samples so I can pick her up.

I am less than a week from delivering my second child, but my bump is quite small. I also have no makeup on, have a youngish-looking face, and am wearing a giant shirt that conceals my belly.

Before I get to my parents, I notice one of the sample ladies is handing out filet mignon. I always crave red meat when I’m pregnant, so I’m thinking, “Score, free steak!”

I approach the sample lady, and the following ensues.

Me: “Hello! Could I please try that?”

The sample lady looks at me with suspicion.

Sample Lady: “Um… No.”

Me: “Oh, okay. Um, can I ask why?”

Sample Lady: *Dismissively* “You need a parent’s permission to try samples, and you’re obviously about sixteen.”

I stand there in shock for a minute. Coincidentally, my parents are about five feet away with my toddler at the moment.

Me: “Ma’am, I know you’re just doing your job, but—”

I pull my shirt tight over my belly.

Me: “—I’m nine months pregnant and twenty-seven years old. But, if you need my parent’s permission, there they are, right there.”

Sample Lady: *Embarrassed* “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. Here, have two pieces!”

The sample lady and I had a good laugh over it — and so did my husband and parents, once I told them — and I got my free steak. My baby came three days later and we’re all good!

I’m on my day off and decide to swing by the bookstore where I work to get a new book that just came out. It’s a Saturday during the holidays, so I’m expecting it to be a bit busy, but when I get there, it’s actually not too bad.

I find the book that I’m looking for and start to head toward the front. When I pass customer service, I see one of our new hires, who we are all betting is not going to be here after the holidays, on his phone.

Usually, one or two of us will take a quick look at our phone as long as it’s dead and there aren’t any customers needing help, and we usually are pretty discreet about it. He’s standing on the floor, with his name badge on, headset on, and holding his phone up like he’s watching something.

A customer approaches him asking him for help. He holds out a hand and tells her she can wait and continues to tap out whatever he’s doing on the phone. I stop dead in my tracks and watch him. The customer looks at him in shock and then tries to ask him again for a book. 

He does the hand gesture again and I see red. I go up to the lady and tell her I’m off the clock but I ask how I can help. She is super sweet and just needs one book, and thankfully, I know where it is so I take her to it. 

After I help her, I head back to the customer service prepared to rip the new hire to shreds for not doing his job. I notice the customer I was helping is standing next to my general manager, who does random Saturday checks to see how we are performing. 

I see the customer nodding and pointing to him and then pointing over to me, and our GM has this look on his face. He walks over to me first and asks me if I helped someone off the clock.

I nod and tell him I am on my day off, but since the new hire couldn’t be bothered to help someone because he was on the phone, and since I knew where the book was, it was no big deal. 

He nods and then goes over to the new hire and asks if he could help him find something. The new hire, still on his phone, holds up his hand and continues to look at his phone. 

The GM taps his shoulder again. Finally, the new hire looks up and asks, with the most sarcastic attitude I’ve ever heard, what he can be bothered helping him with. 

The GM laughs and then tells the new hire to go home and not come back. The new hire begins to sass our GM. Our manager comes up from the backroom and greets the GM, and the GM tells them that he is firing our new hire, effective immediately.

Then, when the new hire begins to whine and fuss, our GM points out that I, on my day off, managed to not only help a customer but do it to the best of my ability, while he was on the clock and couldn’t be bothered.

That’s the story of the worst new hire I’ve ever met and how I got a raise and a letter of recommendation from my GM.

This story has been included in our June 2020 roundup as one of that month’s most memorable stories!

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I work in the deli of a known grocery store. I have to go refill a product in a freezer. Standing next to the freezer is a teenage girl looking at our free recipe card stand. As I’m refilling the freezer, I decide to make small talk.

Me: “How are you today?”

Customer: “Good, and you?”

Me: “Fine. Staying out of trouble?”

Customer: “Well, I’ve yet to be arrested.”

Whoever you are, miss, you made my day.