(It’s forty years ago and I am working in the men’s department during my senior year in college. A curmudgeonly man drops a load of shirts on the counter and demands a refund. The policy is to collect a great deal of information from the customer, issue a receipt, and have the customer go to the service center to get the actual cash. The shirts are obviously quite old and worn, and the man doesn’t have a receipt. The best I can do is give him $0.99 per shirt. After a bit of a tirade, he decides that is better than nothing.)

Me: *takes out receipt pad* “May I have your name?”

Customer: “I didn’t need to give you my name when I bought these.”

Me: “Yes, sir, but I have to fill out this form to get you your refund.”

Customer: “It’s [Customer].”

Me: “…and your address?”

Customer: “Why do you need to know my address? It doesn’t matter where I live!”

Me: “Yes, sir, but I have to fill out this form to get you your refund.”

Customer: “It’s [Street and number].”

Me: “…and the city?”

Customer: *rolls his eyes as if trying to randomly pick a nearby town* “Fenton.”

Me: “…and the ZIP code?’

Customer: “I don’t know what the ZIP code is! I never mail things to myself!”

Me: “…and your phone number?”

Customer: “Not everyone has a phone.”

(I fill out the form to the best of my ability, and hand it to the customer. He glowers at me for a moment and practically yells:)

Customer: “Well? WHERE’S MY MONEY?”

Me: “If you take this up to the customer service department, they will issue your refund.”

(He storms over to the escalator and begins elbowing people out of the way to get to the top as quickly as he can. I wish I could have followed him, because I knew the customer service department would require that he show a driver’s license or some other official identification to prove who he is and that he lives at his address before they will issue his refund. A few minutes later, as I am about to collect up this guy’s garbage and toss it in our compactor bin, I hear him elbowing his way down the other escalator, with the form I had filled out waving madly in the air. He comes charging over to my counter like some mad bull in a rodeo, snatches up the tattered old shirts that he had obviously been wearing for years, and turns toward the nearest exit. I step directly in front of him.)

Me: “You can have the shirts or the receipt, but you can’t have both.”

(I think that had his hands been free, he may have tried to take a swing at me. As it was, he made a good attempt to crumple up the receipt and throw it at me without dropping his shirts, and stomped out of the store.)

(I work in a large convenience store based on the West Coast, and work graveyards. We get quite the colorful rotation of regulars which I’m seasoned enough to deal with.)

Customer: *approaches me with a coffee, a new one, that I just watched her make* “It’s a REFILL!”

(She then pulls out a clearly snapped-in-half debit card, covered in electrical tape. I remember her card not processing a couple weeks ago, and giving her coffee for free. The queue behind her is growing. I try her card every which way I can think of, including manual entry. No dice.)

Me: “Ma’am, we’ve had problems with the card reader all night. I’m terribly sorry. I’ll cover the coffee.”

(She then UNLEASHES her fury over not being able to swipe her card over $1.06 and abuses my machine to the point where I give up and ask her to hand it over. Yep, will not read. Again.)

Customer: “There’s 134 god-d*** DOLLARS on here! Why can the OTHER CASHIER make my card work and you can’t? You f*** up my time every time I’m in here!”

(I noticed the line was growing behind her. I lost all patience and called my coworker over while she huffed and puffed about how it JUST worked in the ATM today (incredibly doubtful) and we just wanted to refuse her card. It didn’t work on any card reader that night and she grabbed her coffee and stomped out of the store muttering about how “if we’d just TRY to run her card RIGHT!” I’m not sure if she’s trying to scam us out of a dollar or just stupid.)

(I have gone to a sports and hiking store that has a big sale going on, and I figured they would have backpacks on sale, too. A couple of women enter the store, very fashionably dressed and looking quite out of place compared to the other customers. I overhear this conversation between them when passing them:)

Woman #1: “Hey, [Woman #2], what do you think I should buy? I just love sales!”

Woman #2: “I don’t know; just pick out something cute.”

(Most items on sale in this store can’t be described as “cute,” more like practical and comfortable, but I don’t pay any more attention to them after I have passed them. I notice a black backpack that I am looking for, the last one of that color. I examine the backpack and look at the price tag; it is quite cheap. I put it down on an empty shelf, still steadily resting my other hand on it, and flip my wallet open to check if I have enough money to buy it. Then I suddenly feel the bag being pulled away from under my hand. I look up and see one of the women from before, triumphantly holding the backpack up to check it out.)

Me: “Hey, I’m sorry, ma’am, I intend to buy that. Can I please have it back?”

Woman #1: “No! You weren’t holding on to it enough, so now it’s mine! Find another one!”

Me: “That black one is the last of its color, and I really would like to have it. I was just double-checking to see if I had enough money to buy it. And I was actually holding on to it. You snatched it out from under my hand.”

Woman #1: “Yeah, right! You’re just too poor to buy it, and you just left it there without even putting it back! You are the reason people hate working in retail because people like you never put anything back in its own place!”

(By this time she had raised her voice so much that she was drawing attention to herself from all the other customers, and I even saw a security guy on stand-by, ready to intervene. I decided to try to be firm but nice, so I wouldn’t come out looking like the crazy one.)

Me: *taking a non-menacing step forward and stretching out my hand* “Could I now please have the backpack back?”

(Even though my movement was relatively slow, the woman somehow took it as a threat and suddenly yanked me by the hair and gave me a push. I was totally unprepared for that so I crashed into a shelf, luckily not tipping it over.)

Security: “Okay, ma’am, you’re behaving in a threatening way and you attacked a customer. You need to come with me.”

Woman #1: “No! She tried to take my backpack! She probably can’t even afford it. Look at her! It’s my right to buy it!”

(She proceeded to rip down every display backpack from the shelf and tossed them on the floor. It didn’t take long for the security guy to overpower her and escort her out, while she was still screaming bloody murder.)

Woman #1: “This isn’t the end of this! I demand that I get to buy that backpack!”

(After the commotion, I got the backpack back and went to the check-out with it, where the cashier actually gave me a 30% discount on the already discounted price, to make up for the trouble I went through. I did catch a glimpse of the other woman outside the store, and she gave me an apologetic look and mouthed “sorry.” Well, the main thing is that I got my backpack, even though the process wasn’t exactly drama-free. Considering that the woman didn’t even know what she was going to buy when entering the store, she sure made up her mind in the end!)

(It’s the middle of a fairly busy lunch. A furious customer storms up to the counter, where I am waiting to take orders.)

Customer: *yelling* “I don’t know if you made messed this up on purpose or if you just don’t care if your customers’ orders are right or not!”

Me: “I’m sorry; let me get a manager.”

Manager: “What was wrong with your order?”

Customer: “I wanted more mayonnaise than this, and I didn’t want tomato!”

(He takes the slice off his sandwich to prove his point.)

Manager: “I’m really sorry about that; I’ll tell the kitchen to remake it right away.”

(He leaves, and I remain with the customer. My hands are on the counter.)

Customer: “Here: you can take your sandwich!”

(To my surprise, he literally smacks the sandwich, which is half-eaten, onto the back of my hand. Before I can react…)

Customer: “Oh, here: you can take your tomato back, too. I don’t need it!”

(He dropped the tomato onto the sandwich, which was still on my hand, and returned to his seat.)

(I work in a small branch of a popular store in a small town. Every Wednesday we offer discounts to customers over 60, but this can’t be used with any other offers in the store. I’m working the till when this happens.)

Customer: “Hey. Just these, please.”

(He hands me three items on a multi-buy offer, which I don’t notice. I put the items through the till, and then, when handed the discount card I scan it automatically while talking to the customer.)

Me: “Okay, that’ll be [total].”

Customer: “That’s not right; that should be less! I have my discount card!”

Me: “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir; I didn’t notice that these items were on offer. Unfortunately, it won’t take the discount off without voiding the offer that’s on.”

Customer: “This is a scam! You just want my details; that’s all it is!”

(I try to explain to the customer why it won’t work, and that we don’t have access to any of his information as it’s stored on a database at the main office. After dealing with the customer for a while, I begin to lose my patience, as I have a queue building.)

Customer: “No, I want my discount. Nowhere does it say I can’t use it with this offer!”

(I turn around, get a new card with the application still attached, slam it on the till in front of him and, while reading it, slide my finger under the line that says, “Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers or promotions.” The customer then throws the items at me, tells me it’s a scam one more time, and makes his way towards the exit.)

Me: *to next customer* “Hi there.”

Next Customer: *loud enough for the last customer to hear before he leaves* “Hey there. I’m sorry that you had to deal with someone like that.”

(After that day, every time I sign someone new up for the card I make sure they know the T&C’s, as this was about the third, but most definitely the worst customer I’ve had do this.)