One crabby old lady has gained a little reputation among us for her insane nastiness. Despite coming back again and again, she ALWAYS finds some tiny thing to raise a huge stink over.

I am taking her breakfast order in the drive-thru. She holds up her phone just as I’m taking her card and about to pay her out.

Customer: “I’ve got a $5 reward here.”

Me: “Okay, one second.”

Luckily for her, it’s not too late, so I apply the $5 reward.

Me: “That’ll be [total under $10].”

Customer: “What? That’s still too expensive!”

Me: “Well, you did order our breakfast combo with the coffee, and that includes tax.”

Customer: “That’s still too much money! Let me see the receipt.”

I pass her the receipt along with her card. She studies the fine print intently.

Customer: “Your prices shouldn’t be this high! I shouldn’t be paying this much for this kind of food! I’ll be calling corporate about this today!”

Me: “Okay.”

I hand over her food and coffee.

Customer: “Is there cream and sugar in this coffee?”

Me: “Yes, I believe so.”

Someone else prepared the coffee for me, but I trust my coworker.

Customer: “There’d better be!” *Gazing into her bag* “And there’s only one napkin in here, and no knife to spread the mustard. They never give me enough napkins here!”

The utensils and napkins are right behind me.

Me: “Hold on. I’ll grab you some.”

I give her a full knife, fork, and spoon set, along with a small handful of fresh napkins. She doesn’t thank me as she takes them. These are her final words before she drives off.

Customer: “You people are always giving me a hard time, every single time I come here!”

Me: *Biting my tongue like a piece of gum* “Have a nice day, ma’am.”

Guess some folks really have nothing better to do… and I wouldn’t want to deprive them of one of the few pleasures they’ve got left.

Related:
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 13
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 12
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 11
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 10
Some People Just Want To Watch The World Burn, Part 9

I work as a test proctor at my college in between classes. Finals are upon us, and the testing center is completely swamped. We have a high volume of students taking the final for a general education class that uses a third-party software.

A student taking one of these tests gets up from the computer and approaches my coworker.

Coworker: “Do you have a question, sir?”

Student: “I need to retake it.”

My coworker thinks something may have gone wrong with the software.

Coworker: “What happened to your test?”

Student: “I failed. I need to retake it.”

Coworker: “I’m sorry, sir, but retakes can only be approved by your instructor, and even then, only for emergencies.”

Student: “But I failed. I need to retake it.”

Coworker: “We are truly unable to schedule another appointment for you.”

The student picks up his bag and marches out of the testing room. He heads straight for me at the front desk.

Me: “Finished with your test, sir?”

Student: “I need to retake it.”

His face is emotionless. His voice is completely monotone.

Me: “Hmm, it looks like you were in here to take the [class] final. We cannot schedule retakes for that test, but—”

Student: “But I failed. I need to retake it.”

Me: “But your instructor is the one who handles retakes. You must get in contact with them. However, they aren’t likely to issue a retake unless—”

Student: “I failed.”

Me: “Unless you missed the test due to an emergency.”

He just stands there, completely still, face unreadable.

Me: “Do you have any other questions?”

As mechanically as a robot, he picked up his bag and stiffly walked away. 

Poor guy.

I work at a popular sandwich shop. We get a new hire, and he’s not the greatest of workers. He tends to show up late, if he shows up at all, often with little to no warning beforehand. But it’s nothing too bad, and I start to think he’s an okay guy.

About five weeks in, my manager decides to have him trained to open. On his first day opening, I come into the store for the evening shift to find things are not going well. They ran out of bread earlier in the day and had to bake more. I just think it was super busy that day and the new hire didn’t bake enough bread in the morning. As things go on, I find out more and more.

Every day, the evening worker is supposed to put a certain amount of frozen bread in the retarder, which will soften the frozen sticks and make them faster to bake in the morning. One of the most important opening jobs is to bake all the bread in the retarder. The new hire didn’t bake any of that bread. Not only that, but he didn’t cut any of the vegetables, which is another one of the most important opening jobs. I also find out that when one of my coworkers came in for the midday shift, the new hire was sitting outside in front of the pizza place next door where his girlfriend works and ended up leaving an hour before his shift ended.

Amazingly, the new hire doesn’t get fired for this fiasco, though he does get written up and chewed out, and he is warned that if he misses another day or shows up late without warning, he will be fired.

The next Wednesday, he sends a message to our group chat asking for someone to cover his shift that Friday for him, but nobody is able to. The next day, he sends a message saying that his brother has been hit by a car.

Friday is Homecoming for the local high school, and this is a small town with not many places to eat, so when I come in for my afternoon and evening shift, I find the store packed with high school kids that have been let out of school early. The new hire is nowhere to be seen, so it is just my boss and me left to fend off about forty teenagers. I find out that the new hire didn’t come in for his shift and ended up coming an hour or two later just to tell my boss that he didn’t want to work Fridays and Saturdays. I guess his brother was fine if he was able to take the time to do this. He ended up getting fired.

But there’s still more.

That evening, I am working with the closer when the recently fired ex-coworker comes into the store and grabs the key: apparently, he thinks he’s still opening tomorrow. When he leaves, I quickly excuse myself from the line and send a quick message to our boss to let her know.

When I come back the next day, I’m told that this guy came into the store and started putting the key back in the safe. My manager was there training another coworker to open so he could cover the recently fired worker’s shifts. She asked him what had happened the day before and he nervously and quietly muttered, “My brother got hit by a car.” He was informed that he would not be opening that day or the next day, and my manager went back to training the other coworker. After staring at the register for about ten minutes, he left his store-issued hat on the counter and left the store. A few minutes later my manager got a text from him: “I quit.”

In the end, I guess he did get those Fridays and Saturdays off like he wanted. My manager says hiring that guy was her worst mistake.

I work for a car dealership. My job is to monitor the website. When someone requests more information about a particular vehicle, it comes in as a “lead.” To send in a lead, the customer must put in their email address, phone number, and name, and they are notified that someone will be reaching out. My job is to watch for these leads and reach out to customers as quickly as possible after the customer requests information about a vehicle to help answer their questions and see if they’d like to come to take a look at it.

A lead for a truck has just come through.

Me: “Hello, sir, my name is [My Name] and I am reaching out about your interest in our [Brand] truck. I’m happy to answer—”

Customer: “DON’T SAY ANOTHER WORD! DON’T CALL ME AGAIN! I’M GOING TO COME TO THE STORE AND PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE!”

The customer then hangs up on me. I go down to tell my manager what has just happened in case the guy actually does come in. One of the salesmen, an old, grumpy retired Marine who is also quite the rough-and-tumble cowboy, is standing nearby listening to our conversation. He and I are good friends, and he looks out for me like one of his granddaughters. I mention I’ve been threatened with physical violence.

Salesman: “I’d love it if he came in here. I’d like to see him try and get past the door.”

He then stationed himself next to the door for the rest of the night!

A customer comes in with some family members in tow and starts yelling about how her phone is broken and she’s on vacation and needs a new one. The phone is older and still has a removable battery. The phone isn’t actually broken; the battery just doesn’t last as long as the customer wants it to.

Me: “Do you use all of these apps? It looks like some of them take up a lot of battery and constantly run in the background. If you are able to remove any of them or just close them when not in use, that may help save your battery life.”

Customer: “Absolutely not! I use all these apps. I can’t get rid of any of them. The battery is just garbage. You need to give me a new phone!”

Me: “Well, the good news is that it looks like it’s just the battery that’s bad, and there’s a battery store across the parking lot. I know they stock this type of battery and it will only cost you about $20!”

Customer: “You’re just trying to palm me off on someone else! You just don’t want to help me! You think I’m a problem and want me to be someone else’s problem! You have to give me a new battery!”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not trying to palm you off on anyone. We don’t carry batteries, but the store right across the parking lot, about thirty feet away, will be able to help you with a replacement.”

Customer: “You have to fix this now!“

My manager comes out to see what all the shouting is and the customer continues demanding a battery. My manager goes to the back to see if we have anything that would work with the phone, but we don’t.

Me: “Well, you also have the protection plan. If you don’t want to replace the battery, I can overnight you a new phone for free. It will be shipped directly to you!”

Customer: “No, that is absolutely unacceptable. I cannot wait that long. I need a new phone now! You have to give me a battery or a new phone. You are just trying to send me away!”

Me: “Well, if you don’t want to pick up a new battery across the lot or have a new phone shipped overnight to you, the other option would be to pay this phone off and purchase a new one. We can get you the same type of phone or a newer one, whichever you’d prefer.”

Customer: “Fine! Just go get me a new phone!”

I go back and grab the new phone and see that she has just purchased her current phone, which is $350, and she hasn’t made any payments. I brace myself for what’s coming.

Me: “Here’s the new phone. In order to purchase this today, you will have to pay off your current phone, and there is an upgrade fee of $40 plus taxes, so your total today for the new phone will be $420.”

She throws her debit card at me.

Customer: “You’re crooks! You’re just trying to take all my d*** money! All you want is my money! You should just give me a phone! I can’t believe you’re actually charging me for this!”

I quickly process the payment and hand her the new phone.

Me: “It should activate on its own when you turn it on. Let us know if you have any problems with it!”

The customer’s family just stood in the back, quiet, the whole time. One of them tried briefly to calm her down but gave up pretty fast. I’m still shocked she decided to pay $400 for a new phone on the spot rather than spend $20 on a new battery or even get a replacement phone for FREE. Luckily, she came in right at close and we were able to lock the doors so she couldn’t come back in. I never saw her again.

Related:
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 8
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 7
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 6
About To Get Charged With Battery, Part 5