My family lived across the country, so I would usually buy a flight to get there. It’s during the holidays, so everything is backed up and there are a lot of storms. When I got to my first layover, my flight was cancelled, and they couldn’t get in their system to get me a hotel, so I slept on the airport floor that night, clutching all my bags.

By the time I got onto the plane, I had spent twenty-four hours in the airport. Luckily for this flight, I had booked first class. I get on the plane and get comfy, and I’m just so happy that I’ll be home soon after the last couple of days I’ve had.  

A really nice flight attendant comes over and points at the empty seat next to me and mine.

Flight Attendant: “A mother forgot to book her toddler a ticket, and she was wondering if they could take your seat.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’ve had a really long day, and I paid extra for this. I would like to stay.

The flight attendant was very nice and said no problem. She let the woman come sit in the empty seat next to me with her toddler on her lap (he looked to be just under two). If a child is under two, the parent can fly with them on their lap instead of buying them a seat ticket. I’m assuming this is what the woman did and was hoping she’d get an extra seat.

She immediately looks at me with a scowl and says:

Woman: “I can’t believe you wouldn’t trade your seat for a kid.”

Me: “Ma’am, I paid extra for this seat. You should’ve booked him a ticket. This isn’t my fault.”

She keeps going off, saying things under her breath and to her toddler, like I can’t hear her. And then she tells her kid:

Woman: “Make as much noise as you want! Do whatever you want!”

This is on top of the things she keeps saying to me. I can’t believe this entitled woman. I finally lash out and say:

Me: “Will you shut the f*** up?!”

I’m not proud of myself for this, but with the last couple of days I had, I didn’t care anymore.  

Finally, my saviour came in the form of that really nice flight attendant. She bent down to the woman’s level and said:

Flight Attendant: “Ma’am, you were lucky to be able to switch seats, and all I’ve heard from you since you switched is you threatening this woman and telling your child to be noisy. This plane hasn’t left yet, we have no problem kicking you off this flight, and if you continue to do this while we’re in the air, you will be banned.”

I couldn’t help but smile. She finally shut up! I was so glad that I had downloaded ‘Sex Life’ on Netflix so I could finish my steamy show right in front of her.

I want to start by saying I’m not proud of myself for this. I generally think I’m good under pressure and can separate someone’s “true self” from how they act in a given moment. My mom always tried to instill in me the idea that anyone can have a bad day, and treating them terribly in return doesn’t do anything.

With that said:

I worked at a music venue. We had a very popular band come around to play a very sold-out concert, meaning we had already released more general admission tickets than we originally meant to.

The headlining band had been onstage for about half an hour, which is around when the box office area starts winding down. I should add that the band in question drew a college-aged crowd primarily and was known for their wild/drunk concert environment. Management had left the box office to go do some office work, my coworker had gone for a break, and security was minimal as they had some other stuff to do as well.

These four college-aged kids come in and come to my window.

Customer: “Four general admission tickets.”

Me: “Unfortunately, we’re sold out on the floor. We have some canceled house tickets in the balcony, so the best I can do is sell you those.”

I hear them talk among themselves that they’ll just take the balcony tickets and go to the floor anyway.

Me: “Guys, you need a wristband for the floor, so you would need to be upstairs.”

Customer: “Just print the floor tickets.”

Me: “Again, those are sold out.”

Customer: “Oh, come on. Stop being lame and just print four more! It’s not a big deal.”

Me: “The tickets you want don’t exist.”

After some more hassling, I show them my computer screen (a big no-no), displaying that the floor tickets were greyed out, so I literally can’t even select them.

Customer: “I can’t f****** believe you won’t f****** man-up and just help us out! Are you f****** serious! Just f****** let us get into the f****** show! WE’RE TRYING TO GIVE YOU MONEY! What the f*** is wrong with you!”

So, I predated that SpongeBob meme by about six years and just said in a very idiot voice:

Me: “DUHHH, OKAY, I’LL JUST PRINT THEM FOR YOU LIKE YOU SAID, BOSS!”

Dramatic pantomime keyboard clicking.

Me: “DUHHHHH, HERE YA GO, BOSS, JUST LIKE YOU SAID!”

Pantomime making it rain phantom tickets to them.

Them: “Just give us tickets!”

Me: “DUHH, I JUST DID, DIDN’T I? THAT’S WHAT YOU WANTED, RIGHT? TICKETS THAT DON’T EXIST FOR A SECTION THAT YOU CAN’T GET INTO, RIGHT? LOOK, THEYRE RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU!”

Thankfully, the boss came back around, told them off a little, security got them out, and I got a stern talking to that didn’t bother me one bit.

Had this couple tonight: woman was nice but quiet, said little, ordered nothing; man had terrible energy, palpable as soon as I approached the table. He ordered a steak entree and had two beers; every time he was required to engage with me, he acted as if he were being forced at gunpoint.

I’m generally good at being able to get people back on track when they arrive in a bad mood, and I completely ignore poor attitudes until they realize it’s getting them nowhere. I also understand that the majority of the time, their behavior has nothing to do with me.

By the end of the night, I thought he had chilled out. He still wasn’t friendly, but he was neutral, which is better than where he started. He gave me his card to close out, and it declined. I never vocalize this to a guest; I simply write “card is not being accepted” on a piece of paper, slip it back in the book, and hand it back the same way I would if they’d paid.

I did this with him, put the book on the table, and went about picking up the checks/cards at the nine other tables I had to also close out. This took about a little less than five minutes, but when I returned to the man’s table, he was LIVID. He wasn’t quite yelling, but his voice was a bit more than raised.

Customer: “You couldn’t just wait for me to hand you a new card? You had to throw the check down and run off?”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir?”

I’m asking because I was thrown off guard and wasn’t sure I was understanding him.

Customer: “I SAID, you couldn’t just wait for me to hand you a new card? You had to throw the check down and make me sit and wait for you to come back?”

Me: “Sir, I didn’t throw anything down, and I was trying to be respectful by not hovering by your table while you searched for another card—”

Customer: “—but you just had to make me sit here waiting for you, right?”

Me: “Sir, I had other tables to close out as well, and I—”

Customer: *As he thrusts a new card at me.* “—I JUST WANT TO PAY THE BILL!”

Me: “And you already would have if your card hadn’t declined, but here we are.”

I absolutely knew I shouldn’t have said that. I knew his anger was likely embarrassment at his card declining, but y’all, after twenty-seven years in this industry, I’m reaching my limit with this kind of s***. 

There were a few seconds during the interaction where I ALMOST told him to go f*** himself and was ready to accept the consequences.

I worked at a chain pizza restaurant. I was the assistant manager, and we were a smaller store than average for our chain, so we only had one cashier. It was a Friday, and we just got a fifty-pizza order (we argued that we weren’t equipped for it, but corporate says we have to accept large orders last minute, no matter what). Hence, we were slammed.

It didn’t matter how prepared we were; we couldn’t fit any more pizzas in the oven. It was hectic and insane. We had a bunch of call-ins, and some of them got confused or misheard because of how much was going on. 

We have this one guy who comes in all the time, and every time he is a jerk. He treats us like slaves and doesn’t leave until he’s figured out a way to make us bend over backwards for him by inventing more and more outlandish demands, like “I want this pizza cut into nine slices, not eight! Do it again!”

I was not having it this time. 

He called in prior, and I got his pizzas. He looked at them, then looked at me with disgust. He then throws the pizza on the counter and says:

Customer: “This isn’t what I ordered, not even close.”

Me: “We’re slammed tonight, so it was probably misheard. I do apologize. We can get that remade for you right away.”

Customer: “The person who took my order must have been f****** deaf!”

I can tolerate s***ty people (hello, I work with customers), but if you insult my employees who are working their a**es off, then I’m going to say something.

Me: “Stop right there. Don’t you dare insult my employees. They are back there working their a**es off; we are very busy. And I’m sorry your order got messed up, but understand it happens; we aren’t perfect. Now, I have offered to get those pizzas remade for you. Are you going to be a good little human being and wait, or are you going to keep acting like this? If you choose the latter, then you can get the h*** out.”

All these years of this customer treating us like crap, and this is the first time I’ve snapped at him. He takes a moment to recover.

Customer: “I… I’ll wait.”

Me: “Okay. It’ll be fifteen minutes because that’s what we’re supposed to say, but I can get it for you in ten. Okay?”

Customer: “…yes.”

Me: “Yes…?”

Customer: “Yes… thank you.”

He got his pizzas in ten minutes, aaaaand he tipped.

Snap at your problem customers, people! Bullies are mostly bullies because they pick on people who they think won’t fight back!

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.