They say there are no bad customers, only wrong attitudes. But anyone who's ever worked in the service industry will tell you that’s far from the truth. Customers who rant for hours on end, who snap their fingers at you, and forget to treat you as a human being are just a few things from the list. Unfortunately, dealing with irrational behaviors is nothing new, and there’s often not a thing you can do but respond in a respectful manner.
If you are lucky, though, you get to experience the moment when karma quickly catches up with extremely disrespectful people and puts them in their rightful place. Well, at least there's one thread over on Reddit full of these delightful stories.
Created by a now-deleted user, it reached out to retail and service workers: "What's the best instant karma you've seen happen to a rude customer?" The post quickly flooded with responses that prove the universe sometimes works in mysterious yet glorious ways. So, buckle up because we gathered some of the best answers from the thread. Upvote the ones you liked most and if you have a similar tale to share, tell us about it in the comments below!
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#1
Used to work at a check cashing/credit card cash withdrawal booth at a Native casino. One guy was really drunk and being a real [jerk] about how long it took me to get his cash told me I needed to 'hurry the f*** up' or he would make sure I lost my job. I did hurry, and I hurried through the balance on 5 credit cards as he kept coming back because he was getting his a*s handed to him at the craps table. I guess at some point during the night Visa realized this person had blown through about 10k at a casino in a matter of hours so they put holds on every one of his cards(meaning the merchant has to take the card from the customer); I know this because I ran and kept every single last card he had on him. Not happy at all. Another guy who was also a drunk(had a limited Interlock Device license) used to come in all the time and act like a s**t head. Taking it out on us if he was having a bad day at the tables. One night he comes in with a taxi driver in tow; he was meaning to stiff the driver, but the driver just got out and followed him. He cashes a check and counts out what to give the driver but is so drunk he hands the driver the cash he meant to keep(the remainder of $500 probably about $450-475), the driver looked me in the eyes and with my eyes I motion for him to go he turns around and walks away and the drunk is none the wiser that night. A few night later and a little more sober he comes again and asks how much he got out; I tell him and mention that he gave it to the driver. He is [angry] and asks why I let him; I say 'Well you were really drunk and being a major [jerk] to him, I just figured you were making it right by giving him cash.'. 'f***, I guess that is fair; I need to quit drinking so much...' he replies and walks away and I never see him again, I hope he did get it together. Now to even it out. There was a guy who comes in with his mom one day. He says that his dad was a really strict christian and would never allow his mom to gamble. Now that dad died he brought his mom to experience something new. Takes out $200 and gives his mom $180 and says 'I love you mom, now go have some fun.' He then takes the $20 and puts it in this 'Wheel of Fortune(game show)' Machine that sits right next to the booth. He pushes the button, and I hear it hit a Jackpot. Dude won almost $20k. Such a cool thing to happen to a cool guy doing something good for his mom.
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#2
More than a few decades ago I worked at Denny's. I had two male customers that decided to dine and dash. Got their license plate number and reported it to the cops and jokingly mentioned that they didn't even tip! Later that night they got pulled over for DUI, cops recognized license plate number from the report, brought them both back to the restaurant and forced them to pay the bill. After he was done paying, the cop just stood there and looked at them and said well? The guy sheepishly handed me my tip.
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#3
Lady lays into me for the amount of the bill, called me every bad word in the english language. Says we overbilled her, she requested I go through her order. Come to find out we underbilled her by a $ 1000 dollars due to a misplaced zero. The silence on the other line was so beautiful.
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First off, let’s give a big round of applause to all the retail and service workers who continually go above and beyond in helping us out with our questions. After all, it’s no secret they’re doing a tough and thankless job. It takes patience and strength to deal with the challenges they face, whether it’s ignorant managers, long shifts, low pay, or terrible attitudes they have to take in daily. Still, time and again, customers show a complete lack of respect for their efforts but still expect that their rants and tantrums will be met with a smile.
Stories from this Ask Reddit thread prove that the old cliche "the customer is always right" is far from the truth. If fact, sometimes they’re just straight-up rude and have to be taken down a notch. While workers themselves are sometimes too polite or perhaps fearful or the customers going into full-on berserk mode, karmic fate sometimes takes the stage and shows these disrespectful people what the universe really thinks of their actions.
#4
Currently at a consignment shop. We have two stories of furniture, and it's only things people bring in for us to sell for some of the profit. A lady came in her with her son (he was 5 or 6) and she looked around. We had two bar-stools and she came up to the desk and said "I'd like to order two more of these bar-stools" I smiled and said "We can't do that, those belong to someone and that's all they had to consign with us." She looks back and says "Well why the f*** can't you order ones like this?! I'm sure you can find them online!!" I clench my teeth and smile again, saying "Ma'am we really can't do that. If you'd like to go online you are more than welcome to look for yourself, but I can't help you and I'm sorry." She huffed and started walking to the door, talking about getting me fired.. Making a horrible review of this place.. She then got a nice big face-full of door. It's a push door and it was locked. She looks at me and screams "*WHY THE f*** IS THIS LOCKED?!*" I have no idea. Then her son looks at her and says "Mommy you were mean to that lady and I don't wanna go till you say sorry". Best. Kid. Ever.
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#5
I'm not sure if being a public defender counts as a retail or service worker, but considering that I provide criminal defense to indigent clients facing deprivation of their rights and freedom, I'll consider it service nonetheless. I was representing a [jerk] client who was a massive meth head who got high and beat the h**l out of her eight year old daughter with a belt after she accidentally broke mommy's meth pipe. She was charged with child cruelty and possession of meth, and, given her criminal record, the DA's plea offer was three years of prison. Needless to say, my client didn't want to go to prison for "giving that c**t what she deserved" and started f******* out at me when I told her that's the best offer I was going to get from the DA, and it was either accept that offer or go to trial. I further pointed out the mountain of evidence against her, primarily: the photographs of her daughter's injuries, the [darn] belt that was recovered from her bedroom, the broken meth pipe w/ meth residue in it, and the fact that her daughter was going to testify against her at trial. After she was done cursing me out, calling me a "public pretender," and every other derogatory name she could think of, she fired me and somehow managed to hire a private attorney for the low price of $8,000 (I still don't know how she managed to come up with that, but I have plenty of reliable guesses). The private attorney "guaranteed" her that he could win her case at trial, and that's exactly what she chose to do. Long story short, the private attorney clearly never even read this woman's file before trial. The trial lasted roughly three hours, the jury was literally out for only five minutes, and the judge sentenced her to ten years of prison. It was a good day.
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#6
Worked at Best Buy 10 or so years ago, this happened on Black Friday. Most of the customers were in bad moods since they'd been waiting hours to come in and stand in more lines. But this one lady was a raging b***h. After yelling at everyone in my department about how she NEEDED the laptop that was on sale despite it being sold out, she proceeds to tell us she'll have the store closed down because she "works with the city and knows the fire marshall and we have too many people in the store." So she calls him, we tell her to leave, and nothing happens to the store. However we called them as well to report what she'd said, and she got fired from her job for abuse of power.
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Alexander Kjerulf, the creator of The Chief Happiness Officer Blog and founder of Woohoo Inc., a training company specializing in happiness in the workplace, previously told us that some customers have been getting worse. That's partly why we see so many stories about their disrespectful and ignorant behaviors shared online.
"Especially in America, there's been an increase in entitled belligerent jerks who think they can get whatever they want if they yell loudly enough about it. But it's also because employees finally have online forums where they can share their stories and support each other," he told Bored Panda.
#7
Standing at the counter of the pizza place I work at. Lady storms in and slams a pizza down on the counter. "This isn't the f*****g pizza I ordered, what the h**l are you going to do about?" She asked. I look at the pizza then at my buddy Nick and turn back to her and say, "Nothing". She then goes on a long rant telling how we are going to be fired, how stupid and incompetent we were, she actually told me I must be r******d, then asked why the h**l we weren't going to do anything? I said "Because that pizza came from the pizza shop across the street." I think she actually managed to shrink in size and slink out looking so pathetic and beaten I almost felt bad for laughing till tears dripped down my face as she slunk off.
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#8
Let me preface my story by saying I work near Baltimore. Yeah. So, I manage a plus size womens clothing store. We actually get a surprising amount of...lets call them 'non-traditional' customers. Guys who need a dress for a charity show, cross dressers, genderfluid people, transgender women, and drag queens aren't unheard of. So a drag queen comes into the store to pick up some shoes they ordered online. They must have been either coming from or going to a show because they were still in full makeup. I get their name and during our conversation another customer walks in. I call out a greeting and say something like, "I'll be right with you." I go to the back room, and it takes a minute to go through all the web orders. I find the one I need and am on my way back to the counter, when the new customer throws her arm out to stop me from passing. She then says, "I am a new customer and I've been here for 20 minutes and no one has spoken to me." A.) I greeted her when she came in and B.) She had only been in the store for 5 minutes at that point I resigned myself to groveling, but before I could say anything the drag queen stomps over, glares at the customer, and says, "B***h, she said *hello* to you." Complete with sassy finger snaps. The Queen then made a big show of thanking me for getting her p******, and gave me a big sparkly kiss on the cheek before she left. The other customer sheepishly paid for her Spanx and didn't make eye contact when I told her to have a good day.
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#9
Working the window at Mcdonalds late night. Guy orders whatever and pulls up to the window. I'm cooking and handling the window, so I wasn't there when the customer pulled up. When I walked up to the window, I didn't see the f****r with trash in his lap. I open the window to take his card/cash and he throws a bag of trash at me. I take a step back, bothered that I just got trash thrown at me, and I watch his car speed off. I'm [angry], but there's nothing I can do. A couple seconds later I hear a small bang of metal on metal. I walk to the lobby and look out the windows. The [jerk] slammed into a police cruiser who was about to loop around and use the drive thru himself. Of course I also went to tell the officer what just happened inside.
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According to him, when the customers are throwing accusations and insults at the staff like there’s no tomorrow, it’s the boss’ job to deal with them. "My advice to bosses is to kick those customers out," Kjerulf said. "They're bad for business, they cost a lot of time and money and they will never be happy no matter what you give them. In fact, if you give in this time, they'll be back soon with even stupider demands. Kick them out!"
#10
Worked at a telecom in Canada (I am no longer an employee thank god) Lady comes in with a broken iPhone is demanding to get a new one for free. If you don't know, in Canada the iPhone 6s is going for about $400 upfront on a two year contract at a minimum $80 plan. She had a good plan, but wanted it for free. She called up our loyalty team in store and spent the next two hours screaming at them. Finally, they agree to a deal, and she is getting it for zero. She looks at me and goes I do not want a case, and AppleCare is a scam. (We work on commission, so this essentially meant I was getting nothing and ruining my numbers). She keeps telling me to hurry up through the setup and I was trying to get them out of the store with everything transferred over and set up. She grabs the phone and starts marching off saying I was a terrible employee. She gets three steps out of the store and drops the phone. Shattered screen, and white screen of death. She ran back in asking what I can do. I shrug and went 'Sorry, but AppleCare sure would have helped eh?' EDIT: The cell phone dream got me gold... Thank you kind stranger
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#11
I worked for an online banking help desk and this 18yr old lad phoned up saying he had seen a transaction for £7 to allpay.net and because he didn't recognise it, he decided the bank were robbing him of £7 and that I was in on it and I was a "thieving little [jerk]." Then he gets his dad on the phone who stuck up for his s**t of a son, saying I was a pathetic [jerk] for stealing £7 off an 18yr old boy, even though it was a debit card transaction and I simply worked in the department which helped people use online banking. But anyway, I phoned our debit card services to see if they could give any more information, and boy could they. I then had the pleasure of relaying back to this little s**t's equally [bad] father the following: "Hi sir, thanks for holding. I've checked with our debit card services team and I now understand why your son would not have recognised the payee 'allpay.net'. That's a deliberately vague term used for discretion when the customer has subscribed to online
. That's what it was for. Your son has been paying for online
. Would you like to pop him back on the phone so I can tell him it's a payment for his
, or will you pass on the information?" The father just muttered that the issue did not require any further investigation, thanked me for looking into it and hung up.
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#12
Guy comes in and is being a complete a*****e. Not wanting to show ID to buy beer even though he looked 20 at the oldest, constantly yelling and swearing. He also had parked in the handicap spot despite not having handicap tags or plates on his car. One of my regular customers, who is a sheriff's deputy, was also in the store. Saw how the guy was acting. Saw where he was parked. Went out, got his ticket book, and wrote the guy a ticket. Guy realized he wasn't getting his beer, went outside...to find he was getting ticketed. I could not stop laughing.
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We have long heard that good customer service includes leaving your personal troubles at the door and trying to help people leave with positive experiences they would later share with anyone who will listen. However, speaking to buyers with a forced smile and manufacturing your emotions can take an emotional and physical toll once you head home.
When your job involves meeting every client’s need with friendliness, no matter how unreasonable it may be, you’re experiencing something called emotional labor. According to Keren Levy’s article for BBC Worklife, the term was first coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild. It describes the work we do to regulate our emotions to create "a publicly visible facial and bodily display within the workplace". In short, it’s when we put up a front and express emotions we don’t genuinely feel.
#13
I worked at a restaurant that was very popular for brunch and Mother's Day was probably our busiest day of the year. I had a customer call the evening before and asked for a table for six and he was incredibly rude when I informed him that this would simply be an impossibility. He kept getting more and more worked up, asking me to speak to my manager. At first I didn't want to pass the phone over (my manager wasn't the nicest guy and we were in the middle of a busy dinner shift) but my manager came up behind me and demanded to know why I had been on the phone for so long. I was like "f*** it, this customer isn't going to listen to me anyways" and gave the phone to Mac. Mac asked how he could help, listened for about 15 seconds before telling this dude something like, "so you're tying up my hostess in the middle of dinner even though she's already told you nicely that we can't fit you and your [darn] family in the night before our busiest day of the year? f*** your buddy!" And hung up the phone.
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#14
Warehouse worker here. Customers have to show a card to shop, and even though we're not technically a grocery store, we don't allow pets. One dude tried to power walk past the employee at the entrance door holding a big pit bull puppy on a leash. We stopped him and told him he couldnt bring his dog inside and he LOST IT. He's our best customer and he's here 5 times a week and he owns stock, blah. Whatever. He demanded to know why we don't allow dogs. We explained how it's a food safety issue, especially with an untrained puppy. At this point our manager came over and just waved him through (bc no backbone/customers always right). Well not even 5 minutes later this dog squats in the middle of the main aisle and pees, followed by p**p. The man turned so red and dragged the dog towards the exit, abandoning his groceries. We stopped him and asked him nicely to please clean up after his pup. "that's the reason we don't allow them, sir"
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#15
It couldn’t have been more obvious that a guy was trying to return stolen merchandise. He “lost” the receipt, didn’t know when it was purchased, paid with cash so we couldn’t just easily look up the transaction on a credit card... He said he would call his friend to ask if they knew when it was purchased, and then he took out his iPhone and without pressing a button started to talk on it. I was like...I can clearly see the home screen with no call happening. When he “got off the phone” I got a little bold and in my best retail manager voice said something to the effect of, “oh that’s cool! Is that a new update where you can talk to someone without actually calling them?” He left after that.
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When employers expect a specific behavior from their staff when communicating with customers, employees may start to feel workplace anxiety. Especially when they have to deal with poor attitudes while feeling worried or frustrated themselves. "This continuous regulation of their own emotional expression can result in a reduced sense of self-worth and feeling disconnected from others," clinical and occupational psychologist Lucy Leonard said.
#16
Late to the party but whatever. Back when I worked at a Blockbuster we'd occasionally deal with thieves. The standard was just to let them go, not endanger employees or customers. One time this guy Grabs some stuff and bolts. My manager runs after and points him out to two cops that had parked in our parking lot. They give chase. This guy dodges and weaves through people and traffic. He successfully crosses the street with cops on foot. Desperate to lose them, he jumps down some stairs to gain a lead but breaks both legs.
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#17
It wasn't the customer, it was the manager. She was AWFUL. She was rude, intentionally picked out favorites and gave them presents in front of everyone (even when they didn't like her and tried to avoid it), messed up schedules on purpose for people she didn't like, etc etc. Worst manager ever. So there was a huge storm coming in, and people were really worried about it. Like the news telling people to stay home, other businesses closing, etc. So it was up to her to either keep our store open or close it. Of course, she kept it open. Because schools closed only half our scheduled employees showed up, the rest called in - and she called her favorites and told them they didn't have to come in. Well as the like 5 of us who showed up were standing there, watching out the front windows (there were ZERO customers) she starts yelling at us, threatening to write us all up etc, and we are like - no one is here, all the work is done, we are watching the wind BEND TREES OVER and worried about if we are safe/will be able to get home. Right about this time we hear a SUPER LOUD crashing noise. CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - CAHCHUNK - WHAM! As the industrial air conditioner on top of the building got BLOWN OFF. Like it rolled along the roof, then went flying into the parking lot. - Right onto her car. It was so perfect it was surreal. Dead center, smashed her car flat. Like if she had been in it, she would have died. And it only happened because she parked right up by the building, where we had SPECIFICALLY been told not to park. All our cars were out in the farthest corner of the lot. We later found out it her car wasn't paid off, it was some stupidly expensive BMW or something, and her insurance didn't cover the damage because it was an "act of god".
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#18
I was waiting at a hotel reception while a young staff member checked me in. A really obnoxious woman flounced over, interrupted what the girl was doing and proceeded to b***h about the standard of the kettle in her room. She ranted on and on about only having a "normal kettle" until I told her to wise up and get in [darn] line behind me. She shouted that she had been travelling all day and that the room was not a suitable standard. I pointed out it was a f*****g airport hotel, we'd all been travelling all day and that she should just get lost. By now the girl at the desk was b***d red and tearful. The woman b***** her fist on the desk, demanded to see a manager, and then had a fit of coughing. She promptly shat herself all through her beige trousers. She didn't hang around after that.
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Alexander Kjerulf agrees with this line of thinking. "We know for a fact that having to fake emotions is stressful. And on top of that, it feels deeply unfair to see the worst customers get the most benefits through the brattiest behavior," he told Bored Panda. "It's about time that companies realize that coddling the worst customers is a terrible idea. It costs time and money AND it frustrates your employees. Stop doing it."
#19
This tale takes place roughly 22 years ago at a community college bookstore. As with any college bookstore, the start of the semesters were incredibly busy. In order to help ease the insanity in our small store, we set up a table outside the front door for doing returns. And that's where I was stationed for the day. People got in line. The got to me. I processed the paperwork for their return and sent them inside for the cashiers. This is an important point. I had no cash, no ability to process cards. Just me, a table, a stack of paper, and some pens. That's it. Well, a middle aged lady gets to me. She is obviously not lacking in funds. Her son has dropped all his classes and she is returning his books. Ok. Cool. I do all the paperwork, hand her back the document and direct her inside. And she goes BALLISTIC that she has to wait in line again. I mean starting nuclear wars ballistic. The customers in line behind her actually went to my manager to file formal statements about her behavior. Not mine. Hers. Because they knew..... I take a break and shake it off. Everyone has bad days. And I know that I have the customers's statements to back me up. A few days pass and the manager gets a call. It's the president of the college. With a complaint. THE WOMAN CALLED THE PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ME. So my manager and I head off to a meeting with the president and the woman. We walked in calm and polite. The woman tells her tirade, still screaming and cursing. My manager pulls out the statements and without a word, hands them to the president. The president calmly read them. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I do remember watching the woman turn more and more red. I do remember the word "entitled" used a whole lot. And I do remember him saying "Don't waste my time ever again." before he showed her the door.
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#20
Once I saw a woman being really terrible to her kids. They were maybe 6 and 9 but she was swearing at them (things I have never heard said to an adult) and calling them names they were both crying hysterically just trying to eat their pizza. The only other table in the place was a trio of construction workers sitting behind them. I had asked the woman several times to calm down but she would just say she wasn't hurting anyone and basically to b**t out. She would swear at me and threw a piece of chicken at me as I walked away. I called my manager up but he didn't like to remove customers so he wanted to wait and see if this continued. Then she smacked one of the little girls on the back of the head. Before my manager of I could react one of the construction workers walked over and He asked the mom to join him at the bar. I think she thought he was hitting on her cause she was all smiles and flirty. As soon as she was away from the kids he told her: "If I see you lay a finger on those kids again I will do the same thing to you but 10 times worse. Have a nice evening." She immediately left and they followed her to the door. I can only hope she learned something.
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