The Not Always Right 2025 Retrospective: 25 Of Our Favorite Stories!

Roundups | Right | January 9, 2026

Dear readers,

The 2025 retrospectives conclude! Today, we are going to look at all the stories that the editors most enjoyed this year that they felt needed another look!

Today: 25 of the Editors’ favorite stories of 2025!

Suit Yourself… Somewhere Else – Record profits and a happy workforce that doesn’t put up with customer refund BS. Correlation? Causation?

Closing That Chapter – You don’t mind reading about spectacular karmic justice, do you?

Closed To The Pain Of Others – Necessary reminders that retail workers are human beings.

Check, Mate – We score this story 💯 points.

When The Drive-Thru Becomes A Killing Floor – Some people just want the world to burn. Some managers have fire extinguishers at the ready!

This Is My Room And You’re Just Playing In It – Assuming customers like this care about dignity was your first mistake…

Death Is The Only Escape From These Customers – In hindsight, we should have published this story on Halloween! 👻

Repeat Until It Sticks: DEI Does NOT Equal Unqualified! – We wish this anti-DEI stuff would just D.I.E.!

When You’re Working To Turn Over Tables And The Tables Have Turned – From the comments: “WOW….it’s not often that you see a restaurant where a serving of CROW is on the menu.”

Gas, Snap, And Boom! – Also, some people just want the world to burn and are allowed to get dangerously close to flammable material…

They Said It! They Said The Thing! – They’ve been saying “the thing” for 130,000 stories and counting…

Boris Takes The Bus – This gets included for the final line alone.

A Customer Face Off – This also gets included for the final line alone.

Sadly, These Kinds Of Customers Are Not In Decline – It’s okay to be broke, but it’s not okay to be ignorant about being broke.

Commission Without The Commiserating – Clients from Heaven!

It’s Funny When Racists Try To Sound Smart – A racist is a racist is a racist.

Another Great Reason Not To Be A Jerk In Public – Sometimes the stars align, and beautiful things happen.

The Dollar Menu – A supreme example of the a**hole tax! 🇳🇿

Fries, Lies, And Bye Byes – Those who have the power ego but no policing ability.

No Hang Ups About Denying Certain Customers – Eliminating the sauce of your discontent.

Manager? I Hardly Know Her! – UNO Reverse working in the real world…

Funny How You Can’t Amend Amendments – The sad part was that we had more of this type of story this year than we knew what to do with…

When They Know Someone But You Are THE One – This story was originally published on NAR years ago, and then disappeared for reasons that were too technical for the editors to understand, but we found it again and republished it this year because it was so good. So, here it is on this list. Editor’s prerogative!

Gotta Be Careful When Crossbreeding Dad Jokes – When a dad joke meets its match.

You Picked The Most Un-Sue-table Coffee Place – All the lawyers in the city versus, I dunno, Susan, or something?

We hope you enjoyed this collection of the Editors’ favorite stories of 2025. Check out our 2025 retrospectives below: