I had fairly recently started working as a server and wasn’t fully familiar with our menu. I was working the 11-5 shift. The 10-3 server had just left, and the 3-late server hadn’t arrived yet. So, it was just me in the front and the two cooks (one of whom was the general manager) in the back. The restaurant was empty after the lunch rush when the phone rang.

I answered with the canned:

Me: “Thanks for calling [Restaurant], what can I do for you?”

The lady immediately cut me off with her order. I needed to know if it was a to-go order before I could enter the food items in our system. As I started to ask if it would be for dine in or take out, she cut me off again and said:

Customer: “We’ll be there in five minutes, just have it ready.”

And promptly hung up.

Great. Whatever she ordered wasn’t going to be ready in five minutes. Let me put it in anyways. Oh, great, nothing she ordered was on the menu. Oh well, she’ll be here in five minutes, we can sort it out, I’m sure.

Sure enough, five minutes later, in she struts with sheepish boyfriend in tow. She plops down in a booth and kicks off her shoes and kicks her bare feet up.

I walk over with a smile and two menus, and she yells:

Customer: “I don’t need a menu! I just ordered on the phone!”

Me: “Yes, you ordered burritos, which we don’t offer as we’re a burger place.”

Customer: “Well, what the f*** do y’all offer?!”

I try to hand her a menu, which she again rejects.

Customer: “Do y’all have tacos?”

Me: “No, but we do have a BBQ chicken quesadilla.”

Customer: “Fine.”

I also reminded her that we require guests to wear shoes… she did put them back on.

The sheepish boyfriend had taken a menu and ordered a Caesar chicken salad.

I go to the back and start making the salad, and I can hear her on her phone loudly complaining about me and calling me vile things.

Their food comes out, she takes one bite, spits it out, and screams:

Customer: “Why is there f****** BBQ on this?!”

By now, the general manager was aware of what was going on, so he went out to handle it. He comes back into the kitchen with the quesadilla to make a new one without BBQ. Seconds later, the lady burst into the kitchen and said:

Customer: “Actually, I don’t even want it anymore!”

She then turns to me and goes on a rant about how she was a server once and gave me some “advice” about how to do my job. I just looked at her with a sweet smile and thanked her for the advice.

She stormed out of the restaurant. The sheepish boyfriend stayed to finish his salad, came up to the register to pay, said “I’m very sorry”, and left a great tip.

It seemed unreal to me, but work as a server for a week, you’ll realize some people just act like that.

We’re back at it again with the same store and manager as this story.

Upon seeing the above story get posted to NAR, I decided it was time to go to this store for a visit, and, man, I am convinced that this store is never normal. A bit of backstory first, in Hawaii, we have a food called a Spam Musubi, it’s a brick of rice with a slice of Spam on it, wrapped in seaweed. They are served hot at this store.

This story starts before I arrive and ends with a call to 911.

A female customer is working her way through the store collecting an assortment of items, as people in stores do. Eventually, she gets to the register and puts down her selections, including a fair number of alcoholic products and some hot foods. She then attempted to pay for these items with an EBT or SNAP card.

For those of you who might not be aware, EBT (food stamps) can’t be used to purchase a number of products, including alcohol and foods meant for immediate consumption (hot foods). The employee, who is barely out of high school, smiles as the woman comes up.

Employee: “Hi! Okay, so we’re using EBT? I’ll separate these into two transactions. We’ll do the EBT items first, and then you can pay for the rest with another payment method.”

Customer: “Just EBT all of it, thanks.”

Employee: “Oh, I’m sorry, there are a fair number of items here that aren’t eligible, such as the alcohol and the prepared foods. You’ll need to use another method for those.”

Customer: “Just scan the EBT for them.”

Employee: “I can’t, it’s a legal restriction of the food stamps. There is no way for me to apply an EBT scan to these.”

Customer: “No, you just don’t want to. Just do it.”

Employee: “I can’t, there… There is no physical way for me to enter that into the system.”

Customer: “Just f****** do it.”

Employee: “I really can’t, but I can put the offending items back for you.”

Customer: “Don’t touch my s***! Who the f*** are you to tell me what I can’t use my food stamps on!?”

Employee: “It’s not me, ma’am, it’s a limitation placed by the government entity that issues the—”

Three things happened at once.

I walked into the store. The manager walked out of the back to tag the cashier out and handle the woman herself. The woman picked up a spam musubi from the counter and pitched it directly into the cashier’s face like a baseball, spraying steaming hot rice everywhere as it hit her hard enough to break through the wrapper.

Manager: “OI! OKAY, NOW YOU AND ME ARE GOING TO GET INTO A CON-F***-ULATION YOU C***!”

The manager literally jumps over the counter instead of walking the half foot around it. Meanwhile, I go behind the counter from the other side to check on her staff member who was kneeling behind the counter, yelling, while trying to get rice off her face.

Woman: “F*** YOU! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT!?”

She picks up a glass bottle from the counter and whips it at the manager, who catches it and puts it down on the microwave.

Manager: “You’re going to jail. Whether you are conscious or not when the police get here is up to you, b****.”

Something clicked in this woman’s mind and clued her into the fact that she was in a dangerous situation, and she ran for it… badly. She tripped over the magazine rack right next to the door, taking it outside with her, and at this point, it somehow gets tangled in between her legs, and she face plants into the front of a Chevy Silverado in the parking lot. 

The Silverado was fine.

The Honolulu Police Department was quick to arrive, along with some EMTs who evaluated both the woman and the employee.

Now covered in sticky rice and teriyaki sauce, the employee decided that… maybe… it was a good idea to go home for the day. My manager friend gave her the keys to her car and told her to go home, wash up, rest, and be back in six hours to pick her up.

Of course, the employee refused several times, but you don’t argue with someone who says things like “con-f***-ulation” for very long, and she eventually accepted the offer rather than taking the bus.

I stayed to help clean up the rice explosion.

Me: “I’d like to come to visit one day and not have something absolutely insane happen.”

Manager: “Not on your life, [My Name].”

Related:
Eggsplosive Breakfast
First, Look At The Hot Dog Inside Yourself…

I work in an independent store owned by a family friend. I’m opening up on a Monday morning, when a customer storms in and starts speaking at me (not to me) so angrily, I swear there’s spittle.

Customer: “I drove here yesterday, and you were closed!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, we’re closed on Sundays.”

Customer: “I drove all that way! How dare you!”

Me: “How… dare I? Ma’am, I just work the hours my boss sets. I don’t dare to do anything.”

Customer: “Well, I came here to tell you that I found another store that sold what I wanted, and it was open on Sundays! Tell your boss that he lost out on business for being lazy!”

Me: “Cool, will do.”

Customer: “That’s all you have to say to me?!”

Me: “What do you want me to say?”

Customer: “At the very least an apology!”

Me: “Okay, well, I’m sorry that you obviously find using Google challenging, as well as looking up our times on our website, or calling the same number on that website. It must be very hard for you.”

Customer: “Where is your manager?!”

Me: “He doesn’t come in until this afternoon, what with being lazy and all.”

She swears a little and then storms out the same way she stormed in. I told the boss about it, and he laughed, saying:

Boss: “Spend my Sundays with family and friends, or force myself to work so I can spend time with people like her. Hmm, what a hard choice…”

I used to work at a really popular clothing store here in Australia, most famous for its underwear and socks, but also sold clothing good for casual wear. We had a sale that was 30% off all women’s outerwear (read: clothing).

Customer: “Why is that ringing up as full price? You have a sale on!”

Me: “The sale is only on outerwear, madam.”

Customer: “Bras are outerwear, so are included in the sale.”

Me: “No, madam, our company classifies bras as underwear, not outerwear, or outer clothing. Our sale applies to the outerwear only, like tracksuit pants, jumpers, the shirts and shorts, etc.”

This woman then removes her top. She is now only wearing a bra above the waist.

Customer: “There! Now it’s outerwear!”

I call my manager over, who stalls a little when walking over and sees what the customer is (or isn’t) wearing. He decides that if she’s that desperate for a discount, he’ll give it to her.

After she leaves:

Me: “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Manager: “I know. I just wanted to get rid of her.”

Me: “I mean it. She’ll be back, and next time she’ll be trying to buy panties…”

It’s the middle of the day, and I’ve just finished with a customer when I hear a page for a manager to come to the checkout desk. There were three of us, me and two upper managers. The other two were at the back of the store, so I let them know I’ll go up. When I get there, I see our lead cashier and one of our cashiers by the computer.

The cashier is near tears. [Cashier] is a friend, and I didn’t learn until much later that the customer had called her a f***** b****.

Me: “Hey, hun, what’s going on?”

Cashier: “I can’t deal with this. If that woman says one more word to me, I swear to god—”

Me: “What’s going on?”

The lead cashier replies:

Lead Cashier: “We can’t find her membership, and she’s p***ed.”

Now our membership is entirely electronic. We tell our customers the best way to keep it available is to simply download our app and log in with their account info, which keeps their barcode handy to scan whenever they shop. If they choose not to, we can look up their membership through our computers with their email. [Lead Cashier] has the customer’s name and email written down on a paper slip and says they’ve tried to look it up multiple times.

Me: “Alright, hang here for a sec while I go talk to her.”

[Cashier] and [Lead Cashier] are okay with this plan.

I walk over to the register where the customer is waiting and, in my most obnoxiously pleasant customer service voice, call out:

Me: “Oh, hello! I understand we’re having some difficulty finding your membership. Not to worry, we’ll get it sorted out in a moment. Could you just verify this is the correct email for me?”

The customer stares for a moment before opening her mouth to unleash her hellfire like a California Barbie turned Charizard.

Customer: “Are you f****** kidding me? Are all of you people so f****** stupid?! I’ve been over this a dozen f****** times with them already! You are the only ones who have this issue every f******* time! Why can’t you just—”

Cue static, white noise, more cursing, maybe the insinuation that my mother is a goat, who the h*** knows. I mostly just stopped paying attention as this continued for a solid twenty seconds or so.

I see her pause for breath and take the opportunity to jump in, again with Obnoxiously Pleasant Mode still fully engaged.

Me: “I understand, ma’am, and I’m very sorry. Now, could you verify this email for me, please?”

She stops. She stares. I stare back. Her eye may have developed a twitch.

Through clenched teeth, the customer hisses out her email, confirming that yes, it was written down correctly.

Me: “Thank you so much. Now, I’ll go see what I can find for you.”

I turn to head back to the computer and leave the customer stewing in her funk and muttering angrily. While I’m looking into her account, one of the other managers hurries over, apparently having heard the customer’s shouting from across the store.

Other Manager: “What’s happened?”

I sum it up as simply as I can.

Me: “Lady needs meds.”

[Other Manager] requires a few more details than that, though, so I explain what’s going on and say I’m doing a deep dive into her orders to find her membership and figure out what’s wrong with the account.

Other Manager: “I’m just going to discount her purchases and get her out of here; she’s being way too disruptive.”

[Other Manager] walks over to the customer and opens her mouth to tell her exactly that, but the customer cuts her off with another geyser eruption of hate. [Other Manager] stares at her, wide-eyed, and tries to cut in to let her know that we just really want her gone and will do nearly anything at this point, and we’re just going to comp her a discount, but the customer just does. Not. Stop. [Other Manager] just turns to me and mouths, “Call [Highest Level Manager].”

While poor [Highest Level Manager] and [Other Manager] are trying to deal with the customer, I’m continuing to look into the membership, looking through the orders that are linked with her name until I finally find the payment for the membership.

There’s a TYPO in the email linked to it.

So, with our memberships, they’re basically logged as an order and can be done either at home or in the store with an associate. And depending on the order number, you can tell if it was done through a store’s server, through corporate (calling our customer service number), or at home.

By her order number, it was DEFINITELY done at home.

As I bring up the details on the membership, I hear the customer screech:

Customer: “I want a f****** refund for this useless f****** membership!”

Her ANNUAL membership is set to expire next week.

Eventually, her husband comes back into the store (apparently, he ran the moment she started getting angry) and asks her:

Customer’s Husband: “What the h*** are you doing?! Why do you always act like this?! This wouldn’t keep happening if you’d just downloaded the god-d*** app like they said we should in the beginning!”

For f***’s sake.