*Im going to a hobby store with my aunt right after she picks me up from work. I couldn’t change so I still have my work uniform on. I work at a local theater and my shirt even has the theaters logo stitched in very visibly. A lady and her daughter walk up to me and look confused*

Lady: Excuse me, where are the bathrooms?
Me: I’m sorry, what?
Lady: I asked where the bathrooms were. You work here right how do you not know?
Me: I’m sorry miss but I don’t actually work here I work-
Lady: what do you mean you don’t work here?!? Quit lying to me or I’ll file a complaint against you. You’re even in your work uniform and everything.
*The work uniform for the hobby store is sorta similar to mine. Except they have blue shirts tucked into khakis and plastic name tags. While I have a black shirt tucked into khakis as well but we don’t have name tags*
Me: miss once again. I don’t work here. I work at “local theater” *I am now pointing to the logo on my shirt that clearly says the theaters name*
Lady: don’t lie to me I- oh. OH! I’m so sorry. Have a nice night.
*she walks away and I’m standing there face palming thinking “how hard is it to read”

I have just started my first fast food job, and I’ve already been put up front. I’ve been working about an hour now, and have already made a couple mistakes since I’m not used to the screen or anything else, really. This middle-aged guy comes in, and I greet him and take his order.
“Your total comes to —” I give him the total, and he looks at the screen we have for the costumers to go over it. Mind you, throughout the whole order, I was moving pretty slow, and kept apologizing while my face had begun to burn.
“Oh I think you messed up in the middle there, I wanted a number three instead of a number four, and guacamole with that.” He says.
“I’m sorry, let me just fix this for you…” I apologize, and as I’m staring at the screen, trying to figure out how exactly to do what I needed to, he stands there patiently.
“Is everything okay?” He asks, seeing me looking back for some other employee to help me.
“Oh yes, sorry, I’m still new here. Sorry for the wait.” I apologize one more time. I’m a naturally timid person and often apologize a lot, and I’m just dreading meeting one of those nasty customers that everyone talks about.
“It’s okay, take your time.” He says. After a few moments, I’m able to finally correct his order, and with shaky hands I collect his change.
“We’ll have that right out for you.” I say, and he goes to sit down. A few minutes goes by, and he gets his order. I see him come back to the counter with the receipt in his hand, and I go up to him.
“Is everything okay sir?” I ask.
“You guys didn’t give me a fry. I asked for a small fry.” He says.
As I don’t really know if he meant he didn’t get a fry, I ask him if he would like to order a small fry. “No, you guys owe me a fry!” He starts getting a little angry, and I hurry over to my supervisor to help him. It turns out, they just forgot to put a fry on his plate, and I didn’t forget to ring it up. My supervisor gets him his item, and he walks away.
After a while, as I’m cleaning up a few things, he starts walking past me towards the door. I thank him for coming, and see him turn to me. “Thanks, you’re doing a good job, by the way.” That put a smile on my face, and helped me get through the rest of my shift.
So to the stranger and all people who are patient with newer employees, me and every employee thank you!

My husband and I own and run two sets of self storage units. The office phone is advanced to my cell phone after hours in case of emergencies. Just as I get dinner on the table at 6 p.m. on Friday night, the phone rings. It’s a very loud gentleman who is yelling at me, “They can’t get in. She paid her $21 and they’ve got a trailer there and they are waiting.” Since we have two sets of units — one that is fenced in and one that isn’t, I ask him if the issue is that they can’t get in the security gate or the actual unit, thinking it will at least let me know which of my locations he is talking about. “They can’t get in the gate and you need to go down there and let them in because they are waiting with the trailer.” Since we work with a web based program, I pull up our database on the home computer (while dinner is getting cold on the table) and ask “Can you give me a unit number or a name so I can see if they are current on their bill.” He could only tell me the woman’s first name, he couldn’t remember her last name, and gave me a number to call “Annie.” The number was disconnected. I called back, he gave me a different number, it was disconnected. I called back and he has me on a three-way conversation where he is yelling at some guy with extensive profanity about Annie’s number and I get a third number where I finally get in touch with Annie. The conversation goes like this:
Me: “What’s your unit number and maybe I can figure out what the problem is?”
Annie: “I don’t have one, I put the money in the kiosk and I was supposed to get a unit.”
There is only one set of storage unit in our small town that uses that system and it’s not us. Me: “I’m sorry, that is not one of our storage unit sites so I can’t help you.”
Annie: “I’m just trying to find out why I can’t get in and this is the number I called to get the unit.”
Me: “I’m sorry but you couldn’t have called earlier about the unit because I would have taken the call and I haven’t talked to you before. Those are not our units and we have nothing to do with their management.”
Annie: “Well I’m just trying to clear up the confusion and you aren’t being helpful. And I don’t like your tone. The least you could do is be polite.”
Me: “There really isn’t much I can do to help you. Those are not our storage units and I have nothing to do with their management.”
Annie: “You don’t have to be so rude.” Then she hangs up on me.
I think the whole thing is over and we sit down to eat our dinner. The phone rings again. This time my husband, Rick, says, “Let me talk to her.”
I can overhear Annie insisting that she called our number and rented a 5 by 10 unit from Destiny for $21.
Rick: “We have no one who works for us named Destiny. We have never rented a storage unit for $21. We have nothing to do with XXX Storage Units.”
Annie: “Well I know I called this number and I rented a storage unit from Destiny and I’m just trying to clear up this confusion.”
Rick: “The only one confused is you. I don’t know how we could be clearer that have never had anyone working for us by that name, we have never rented any of our storage units for $21, and we do not manage XXX Storage Units. You were also rude to my wife and we are trying to have dinner.”
Then he hung up.
She called back again and I used the call blocking feature on my cell phone. There are advantages to being the owner/manager.

I work part time in a hardware store whilst at university. I get a lot of weird customers who don’t believe me (either because I’m young, or because I’m a girl, usually) or who are generally a bit odd, but they’re usually not too bad. This takes place at around five minutes before closing (note: we chain the stairs to the upstairs showroom around 10-15 minutes before close, so we can all go home on time).

I’m walking down to the other end of the shop, past the stairs to the showroom, when I see an older couple walking down (the upstairs has been closed for some time, since it was a slow day, so I apologise for what I assume is my colleague not checking properly and unlatch the chain).

Me: I’m so sorry, did [Colleague #1] not check to see if there was anyone up there?

Customer #1 (the wife): What? We just unlatched the chain on the other set of stairs and came up! (I’m pretty shocked, since it is quite clearly very dark, and being quite a full showroom, potentially dangerous for them to go up there, but whatever.)

Customer #2: And why is this bit closed? We wanted to look up here! It’s awful not thinking people might want to go up there!

Me: Okay… Is there anything I can help you with? We are closing very shortly, which is why this area is locked up.

Customer #1: Well I came in two days ago and saw an [item] that I wanted to purchase, and now I can’t find it! Why isn’t it there anymore?

Me: Well, I’m afraid I haven’t been at work since Saturday, but I assume it has probably been sold, since we don’t keep them anywhere else.

Customer #1: (VERY rudely) Well you’re obviously not going to know anything, are you, since you’re only part time! That item cost nearly £20, no one else is going to buy it, are they? Don’t be ridiculous, no one would buy it. I wanted it. Call that man over there, [Customer #2]! He’ll know what he’s talking about!

Customer #2 does so, only to be informed that my colleague, who ‘knows what she’s talking about’, did indeed sell the item, the day before. So not only did they break a chain to get into a closed area, not believe I could possibly know anything, but also refuse to believe anyone else might want an item they wanted to buy!

*At a small tearooms with two tills, but one is broken and only accepting cash. Tills are about 10 steps away *
Employee: Hi there, were you looking to pay by card or cash?
Customer: *in a huffy, hurried voice* Card obviously!
Employee: sorry ma’am, you’ll have to come to the till just around the corner
Customer: I don’t have time for this *starts muttering* Honestly, the incompetency from these Hicks! You know what, I don’t have time for this!
She threw her drink and chips on the floor, causing the drink to explode, then stomped out.