I got a new phone, and it blew up with calls from debt collectors. Most people can just send unknown callers to voicemail. I, unfortunately, worked tech support for a large company at the time, so I had to answer every call.

I’ll spare you the details of how annoying those folks are. “Very” should suffice. And I got tired of it pretty darn quick. I put up with it as long as I could, but then something broke. I needed to f*** with these a**holes, inasmuch as it was possible and legal to do so.

Mostly, I just wasted as much of their time as I could. But for the really annoying ones, I had a routine that I developed over the course of about a year.

Dunner: “Is this Joe Debtor?”

Me: “Is this about the unpaid phone bill from 2010?”

Dunner: “Yes. Mr. Debtor, are you going to pay—”

Me: “—Hang on a sec. I never said I was your dude. I work with him, though. He sold me this phone a couple of weeks ago and told me I might be getting a few of these calls. Listen, could you please just call him directly? I can give you his new address and phone number, and the phone for our HR department if you want that too.”

Dunner: “That would be wonderful. Thank you!”

Me: “Are you ready to write this down? It’s—” *Click!*

Invariably, they’d call back, thinking I had just accidentally disconnected. I’d say something like:

Me: “Sorry. Cell coverage sucks around here. I apologize. Do you still want me to—” *Click!*

You’d be surprised how many times they’d try again. I answered, and pretended to accidentally hang up, every single time.

They all eventually figured it out. Not before getting REALLY ANGRY though.

The temperature today is -16, and yesterday was about -25. Both days, I’ve had idiots coming in here and asking a variation of:

Customer: “So, do I qualify for a discount?”

Me: “For what reason, sir?”

Customer: “Because I’m still here shopping when it’s cold out. I’m bringing you business!”

Me: “Um, no? If anything, things should cost more, because you coming in here means that I have to come in when I would much rather be at home too. Also, it costs more to keep the place warm.”

Customer: “I should still qualify for something.”

Knowing I am the only one who can make it into the store during weather like this, therefore, with some job security, I say:

Me: “You don’t magically qualify for saving money just because you’re stupid enough to decide you need cigarettes and a candy bar in icy sub-zero weather.”

When I worked at a sandwich place in high school, there was this guy who came in with his wife almost every day. He was a complete jerk and talked to you like you were an idiot. Not because he was in a bad mood, but because he thought it was funny to be an a** to kids working fast-food jobs.

One day, I had enough.

Customer: “Make sure you get my sandwich right this time. This is the best job you dropouts are ever gonna have, so don’t f*** it up.”

I took the sandwich I was in the middle of making and threw it into the garbage can.

Me: “Oh, just f*** off.”

Customer: “You can’t talk to customers that way!”

Me: “I just did. F*** off.”

Customer: “I’ve got the owner’s number, and I know your name!”

Me: *Pushing my name tag forward.* “Make sure you spell it right when you call him.”

He did call the owner, right in front of me. He dropped my name and tried to get me fired, but ended up with a very sour face and stormed out.

Later, I found out what happened from the owner. He’d said:

Owner: “If [My Name] blew up on you like that, then I know it was probably deserved. You must have been the a**hole of all a**holes. Please don’t return.”

Customer: “You allow your people to talk to customers that way?!”

Owner: “Not customers, just you. It takes a lot to get [My Name] even mildly irritated, so she wouldn’t do something like that for no reason. I’m going to hang up now, and I expect you to leave. I’m going to call the store right now to make sure you’ve done that.” *Click.*

This woman, who used to come into the coffee shop I managed, was the real-world equivalent of Dolores Umbridge. She was smug, obnoxious, and delighted in being a giant pain in the a**. She came in daily and had a ridiculously complicated drink order that she was unnecessarily nitpicky about. 

She came in one day when our grinder was having issues, which I warned her about. I happened to be on register and not on bar, so my employee (who was my best employee at the time) made the drink. She took it and left.

The next day, she came in, and before she even hit the register, she announced very rudely in my general direction:

Customer: “You’re making my drink, right?”

I switched places with the person on bar in order to make it. As her drink was so wildly complicated, it took several minutes to make. Throughout that time, she told me how terrible her drink had been the day before, how it had ruined her day, how she’d lost faith in the company, etc.

I apologized profusely and offered to comp her drink.

That was not good enough.

Customer: “I want the person who made my drink yesterday fired.”

I lost my temper.

Me: “I’m sorry your drink wasn’t up to par yesterday, but I already apologized, offered you a free beverage, and warned you that we were having equipment issues. That’s the likely culprit, not my employee.”

She sneered at me.

Customer: “You must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Me: “No. You are a giant pain in the a**. Your order is obnoxious, and we bend over backwards to accommodate you daily.”

She had a whole list of demands beyond the drink; a specific number of napkins, the sleeve facing a certain way, and more.

Me: “If that’s how you feel, please take your business elsewhere.”

Coffee Umbridge tut-tutted her way out of my shop in a huff.

I didn’t even care if I got in trouble for telling her off. (I didn’t.)

We have one of those repeat problem customers that we all hate to serve. I usually get this customer as I am a veteran cashier and can usually handle their ranting, but I am having a rough day, and my patience is wearing thin…

Customer: “You’re scanning slower than usual. Are you sick? You shouldn’t be here if you’re sick. It’s not safe for the customers!”

Me: “I’m not sick, ma’am, I am just tired after a long shift—”

Customer: “—Tired? Tired! Are you serious?! You get to sit down all day and just scan stuff! You haven’t earned the right to feel tired, especially after such terrible service over and over again!”

Me: “Ma’am, seriously? You seem to always get terrible service here, literally every week. If it’s happening to you and only you over and over again, haven’t you ever stopped to think that it could be you, not us?”

Customer: “How dare you! Are you implying that your terrible service is my fault?”

Me: “No, I’m implying that our service is fine, and that you choose to never be satisfied as some part of a power trip, for reasons I cannot say, as my life is currently fulfilled enough that I don’t need to regularly denigrate helpless retail workers to reach some form of contentment.”

Customer: “How… how dare you! You will summon your manager now, and I shall tell them everything you just said!”

Me: “Will do, and please do!”

My manager, tired from just LOOKING at the regular problem customer, comes over and has the situation explained to him by the customer.

Manager: “Ma’am, maybe you should shop elsewhere if you cannot be satisfied in our store. It’s obvious we cannot match the standard you seem to have for a grocery store.”

Customer: “You’re the only one on my drive home! Now, what are you going to do about this situation?!”

Manager: “I am going to give you an ultimatum. Either you’re done abusing my employees, and every future shopping trip by you will be without complaint or incident, or this will be the last time you set foot in these premises. That is what I am going to do about it.”

Customer: “You can’t do that! I’ll call your corporate offices!”

Manager: “Feel free to do that, ma’am. They are already aware of you, thanks to your regular complaints you’ve sent to them. I’ve already told them that employee welfare is just as important as customer welfare, and that if they don’t respect whom I ban from the store, then we will all walk. They will not side with you over the majority of the workforce of the highest-earning [Store Chain] in the region.”

Customer: “You’re just making all that s*** up!”

Manager: “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, this conversation is over. Either you stand here in silence and pay for your scanned items, or you leave right now and never come back.”

Customer: *Fuming silence.*

Manager: “Very good, ma’am. Please pay and have a nice day.”

The repeat problem customer became a repeat customer. She still glared at me, and her face was the very vision of distorted rage, but she never said another word. I guess being the only store within a fifty-mile radius forced her to take the loss and accept she wasn’t going to use us as her emotional punching bags anymore.