Everyone knows that working in the food industry sucks. The ridiculous customers are a large part of the reason why. These workers share what happened to make them never forget particular customers.
“He Was Told Many Times To Never Come Back”
Ljupco Smokovski/Shutterstock
“Guy was a regular old guy. We had a small cafeteria. He who showed up literally every single day, Thanksgiving? He was there, Christmas Eve (we closed on Christmas) he was there, wanting his ‘senior coffee’ for 52 cents. He peed himself (and licked his pee covered fingers) multiple times. Crapped all over the bathroom multiple times, purposefully ran into (he had his own custom Amigo mobility scooter) customers, team members, and even tables, just because someone made him angry.
He was told many times to not come back, but our manager is a pushover. He threw punches on 3 different occasions, twice at team members and once his own wife! He wiped crap all over a chair, tables, and our glass window out front.
He’d berate anyone and everyone in the vicinity. Threw coffee on a regular basis on the floor – the big coffee pots, just threw them, they are around $800 each, if it wasn’t ‘hot enough.’ He threw a chair once at a kid (missed thank god and mother wasn’t watching) but then he tried to sue us because he ‘hurt himself’ in the process. He would randomly rearrange the produce section, pull random carts out, cause a huge mess, and a lot more. He was one of the worst we ever had, we were so happy (and so was everyone else) when he died.”
“The Lady Was Not Happy With Having Her Parenting Judged”
CREATISTA/Shutterstock
“I work at a fast food store. On New Year’s Day, a festival nearby had just ended and management was unaware, and so we were understaffed for the rush of people leaving the festival. Also important to note is that it was summer and so it would have been well over 30 degrees Celcius (86 Fahrenheit) outside. People were waiting over an hour for their orders, it was ridiculous. One lady came in with like a 3-year-old kid, ordered her food then went back outside. She came back in a little while later without her kid and after a little while waiting she walked up to the counter and said to the manager, ‘Excuse me, how long is my food going to be? I have my kid waiting in the car.’ Our manager replied with, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have left your kid in the car,’ because you know, it was hot outside, and it’s very illegal to leave kids locked in hot cars. The lady was not happy with having her parenting judged and literally smacked every drink off of the front counter. Because it was so busy literally the entire counter was covered in drinks, this included hot coffees and frozen drinks, all of which ended up covering the girl behind the counter. She ended up storming out without her food.”
“Yellow Backpack Guy”
“I was the assistant manager of a gas station. ‘Yellow Backpack Guy’ was a regular customer, resident of the nearby trailer park, and had a raging drinking problem. All the staff was told to look out for this guy, as to not sell him any brews if he’s already wasted. Well, one fateful Saturday morning it’s around 10:30 am and it’s been a good day so far when my clerk says, ‘Oh boy here he comes, he’s early today.’ I glance out the window and sure enough Yellow Backpack Guy is staggering and stumbling across the parking lot literally using parked cars to support himself. In hindsight I should have nipped this in the bud and confronted him outside, but of course I didn’t do that. So he makes his way into the store and starts making a beeline for the adult beverage section. I pipe up and say, ‘Hey buddy, you’re obviously wasted. I can’t sell you anything, sorry.’ He either legit didn’t hear me or just completely ignored me and immediately grabbed two of the biggest bottles possible and shoves them in his (yellow) backpack. So I go around the counter and start yelling, ‘Hey man! What are you doing? I told you I’m not selling you anything! Get out before I call the cops!’ Well, this startled Yellow Backpack Guy and since wasted people don’t have the best balance, he turns to look at me and in doing so loses his footing and begins staggering backward. In an attempt to catch himself he wipes out an entire shelf, easily 15+ broken bottles. And now this wasted idiot is rolling around on the floor like a turtle that got flipped over on his shell. I locked the door and called the cops. It took them about four minutes to get there, he still hadn’t gotten up. The worst part was that he also peed himself during the ordeal. Worst day of work to date and hoping to keep it that way!”
“He Handed Me A 100 Dollar Bill And I Knew The Second I Touched It It Wasn’t Real”
Chris Howey/Shutterstock
“Guy comes through the drive-thru, orders a couple things off the dollar menu. Hands me a 100 dollar bill.
Standard procedure was for us to put it directly in the bill feeder in the safe. This is for counterfeit detection purposes, but at this point, I’ve handled so much money that I knew the second I touched it that it wasn’t real.
So I start walking to the safe, and in my head I’m screaming WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME DUDE. So I give it three attempts to feed it. And surprise surprise, it spits it back out every time.
So, we are trained that it was now our legal obligation to send the fake to the secret service. This means I can’t give this dude his fake 100 back.
So I go and tell him, and he speeds off. Whew, that was easy right? Nope. This guy storms into the dining room, right up to the counter and sticks his finger as close to my face as he can get across the counter, yelling super loud that 17 years old white me was clearly a racist (he was black), that I had some kind of agenda to rob him of his hard earned money, and demanded I be fired on the spot.
Manager comes out to see what the commotion is and it gets repeated that I’m a racist bigot hate mongerer and thief. I hand the manager the bill still in my hand and he’s like, ‘Sir this one of the worst attempts at a counterfeit I’ve ever seen. Where did you get it? You should bring it up with the people you got it from.’
He stormed out. I felt vindicated, and kind of hurt being called a racist when I was trying to do the right thing.”
“He Grabbed My Butt”
Seasontime/Shutterstock
“I present: The Butt Toucher.
I work at a health foods store and one day, an older (think mid-50s) gentleman who honestly always gave me the creeps asked me where the hazelnuts were. Being the good little retail drone I am, I walked him to the product, making small talk as we went. When we get to the hazelnuts I gestured to them and then felt it. He grabbed my butt. I was sure this was a mistake, I backed into him on accident, something like that. So I moved to the side. His hand followed me. At that point, I muttered a ‘Well, okay then.’ And ran up front to tell my manager.
It was our new store manager’s first day on the job and he had to ban some old guy for grabbing my butt (this wasn’t homeboy’s first strike, he had also been writing inappropriate notes to our barista for a couple weeks).
GET THIS THOUGH.
About a year later, I guess he was wondering if his ban was still intact, so he started coming into the store again, just going to the coffee bar and walking out, until he saw me that is. Then he just started coming in every morning and just sitting in a chair staring into my department (at one point he stayed for 4 hours) just waiting to get kicked out I guess? Finally, he did it on a shift my manager was in at, and my manager made sure to be like, ‘Dude, we had this conversation a year ago. You can’t come in here if you can’t respect my staff.’ And he had the gall to act like he didn’t know what my manager was talking about.
Stupid man. I see him around town all the time and I wanna push him.”
“Before We Had The Chance To Ban Him He Was Arrested For…”
conrado/Shutterstock
“Crazy Mike was an old Vietnam vet with a lot of money and zero cares to give, he was a regular at my bar; he tipped fat, drank extra dirty drinks, brought in high dollar floozies, and frequently tried to fight other bar patrons.
While he may have tipped fat, he was becoming a big problem and, after like the 2nd near-fight where he threatened a former employee’s life, we were going to ban him.
We had planned on barring Mike from returning next time he came in, but before we had the chance he had been arrested and charged with a murder that took place right outside during one of my shifts. He was at a nearby restaurant with an floozy who had been harassed by a panhandler outside. Mike confronted and shot the guy in the face not 100 feet from the bar.”
“Nothing Seems Too Out Of The Ordinary Until She Grabs…”
LADO/Shutterstock
“One day the plain clothes security guard was called to follow this lady and watch her because she was acting rather strangely. Well, while he was observing her she proceeded to go down the snack aisle. She’s acting weirdly but other than that nothing seems too out of the ordinary, that is until she grabs for a box of Cheese Nips. She then proceeded to open the box and start shoveling handfuls of the snack crackers into her bra. The poor man had to catch her mid-act, hand down her bra and all. Long story short, Cheese Nips now have a very literal meaning among us.”
“He Started Screaming That I Was Trying To Rip Him Off”
Ollyy/Shutterstock
“I work in a cafe. We used to have this guy come in at like 7 am every Sunday but now he’s in at 7 am every single day. He’s rude, yells, underpays us, asks other customers for money, always leaves a mess and we can barely understand what he says because he talks in grunts. I always felt a bit sorry for him as he’s clearly lonely and I have a lot of patience so I was always nice to him. Anyway, he comes in one day and orders a Coke. It’s $4, but because he demands senior discount (even though he’s barely 50), it’s $3.70. He only has like $2 on him, throws it at me and says he’ll pay the rest next week. I tell him no, I can’t give it to him unless he pays for it in full as he had done this a few times and we were getting in trouble. He grudgingly pulls out his card and says he’ll pay the rest on that. Our register doesn’t allow discounts and a split payment at the same time so I explain that to him and he eventually just agrees.
I accidentally typed in the wrong cash amount on the register but didn’t realize, (I hit $1 instead of $2) and he started screaming saying I was trying to rip him off. I hadn’t seen the register mistake so assumed he was yelling about not giving him the discount. I’m trying to explain to him how the registers work, but I can barely get a word in and the ladies behind him were starting to get involved and having a go at him for screaming at a 21-year-old girl. Eventually, he finally says I typed the wrong amount in the register and I tell him it’s an honest mistake. He was still yelling saying I was trying to rip him off.
The jerk comes in a couple days later and tries to have a deep conversation with me about how he’s going to die alone because no one likes him and he has no friends or family. Wonder why.”
“Everyone Who Closes Absolutely Hates Ice Cream Guy”
Jasminko Ibrakovic/Shutterstock
“We have a guy at work (grocery store) who we like to call Ice Cream Guy. This guy is a regular who will visit up to multiple times a week, and before he comes he will call every time without fail and ask whoever answers what kind of ice cream is on sale. They’ll tell him and he hangs up. Now, Ice Cream Guy will only visit right before we close at 10 pm. Sometimes he will come as early as 9, but he, in my experience at least, has never checked out before we were technically closed. He never gets more than a small basket full of items either and it is never urgent, and of course, he never apologizes for keeping us waiting. He always takes his sweet time to browse wherever he feels like.
We are open for 16 hours a day, plenty for a small town like mine, and he always has to wait until we are basically closed, sometimes as late as 10:30, to buy his handful of snacks and stuff. I know this isn’t the worst thing a customer can do by far, but everyone who closes absolutely hates him. Worst part is that for some reason, (not sure if due to some law or just a policy) we can’t kick him out if he entered the store before 10. Luckily though, the manager on duty will usually let whoever the last cashier is punch out if he is really taking his time.
I can’t wait until the day I don’t work there anymore, and I can show up when he’s there and tell him off for all of the time he’s costed me and my coworkers just because he loves to leisurely shop past closing time.”
“I Called On The Loudspeaker…”
Olena Zaskochenko/Shutterstock
“I was working at a Bottlo (spirits store) with a high amount of theft. I was on registers for the day, and we can view the security footage from the computer next to our register. A dodgy looking guy came in and headed straight for spirits. Since I was on registers, I couldn’t follow him, so I watched him on camera, and surprise, surprise, he shoved a bottle of Bundaberg down his pants. I called on the loudspeaker, ‘Attention all customers – can the man who just put a bottle down his pants please put it back and leave the store? You are on camera.’
He put it back, but as he passed me at registers, he told me in a wounded, angry voice, that ‘That was a dirty trick!’ Really, mate?”
“She Wasn’t Grateful At All”
Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
“Work at a grocery store. I was already 20 minutes past the time I was supposed to get off. Customers finally got the hint that I was closed and so I was able to get off the register. This customer said to me as I was leaving, ‘Are you open? These lines are ridiculous!!’ (We were busy but not slammed) and I politely said, ‘No sorry, I already signed off.’ And then I left to go clock out but I saw her there waiting and I did feel bad because it was busy so I went back on and told her I could ring her up. She was like, ‘Good because it’s ridiculous to have to wait in that long of a line.’ So I was annoyed she wasn’t seeing that I did this only out of the goodness of my heart. She’s putting the groceries on the belt and asked me not to start ringing them up because she wanted to check all the prices! A complete waste of time. And of course, when everything was up all the prices were ‘wrong’ (they actually were right she just can’t read advertisements correctly). She had many, many complaints about us not having certain items which isn’t even my fault. Anyway, I got her groceries all bagged and she was still being rude. She also made me take out her groceries to her car in the pouring rain and she wasn’t grateful at all.
An awful experience.”
“She Demands An Employee Shop With Her”
Pop Paul-Catalin/Shutterstock
“I work at a grocery store. This one woman, in her late 80s, maybe 90s, always comes in and hands an employee – the first one she sees – her grocery list. She then demands that that employee shop with her to help her find the items ‘because she is new in town and doesn’t know where the items are in this store,’ even though she’s in once a week. Sometimes we entertain her, sometimes we don’t have the time. Thing is, the guy (I’m assuming he is her son or paid to take care of her) who drives her to the store just sits out in the car waiting for her, usually sleeping, in the handicap parking spot.
If he’s her son, he’s a jerk. If he’s paid to assist her, he’s doing a horrible job.”
“He Said He Was Going To ‘Invite The Wrath Of The Lord’ On To Me”
“I work at a grocery store that has its own deli department. I work as a checker. At around four in the afternoon on a Wednesday, a gentleman came through my line with a handle of Captain and a bag of chicken from our deli. He was an older man wearing rather torn up clothes, so I suspected he was homeless as soon as he walked up. Before I could even greet him, he told me he had paid for his bag of chicken at our deli department. I’m pretty used to people trying to scam us and asked to see his receipt. Before I could even finish the sentence, he said, loudly enough for half the store to hear, that I ‘could go straight to the underworld.’
Again, I’m kind of used to this, so I immediately called a manager up and asked again to see his receipt. He proceeded to tell me that he was King Solomon and that he was going to ‘invite the wrath of the Lord’ on to me in my sleep. I tell him firmly that I wasn’t going to be spoken to like that, and he said that ‘God talks however he pleases.’ My manager shows up, and as I turn to explain the situation to him, King Solomon tried to throw a punch at me. His arm is too short by about two feet and we ignore him. My manager, wanting this to end as fast as possible, rings the guy up for his handle and orders him out of the store. Solomon tells me that I’m going to wake up in the underworld and leaves.
So I turn to my next customer, shaking my head at what just happened, and she tells me that I ‘shouldn’t antagonize the mentally ill like that.’ Forget her. Someone did leave a name tag in my locker that said King Solomon on it though, so it wasn’t all bad.”
“She Came Storming Back In Red Faced”
Kues/Shutterstock
“Retail sucks but this one just stands out because it’s so ridiculous.
Where I work we have a meal deal section (it’s basically where you can get a main, snack and a drink for around £3). A customer had purchased a sandwich about half an hour before but came storming red faced back into the store demanding that we return an item for her. We have a ‘say yes’ policy which is literally where we have to say yes to most returns to keep the customer happy, so I had no problem doing it for her – until she pulled out this empty sandwich box. I calmly explained that I couldn’t return something that wasn’t there but she was having none of it. Manager then got involved because she was causing a scene. After we processed the return the customer proceeded to follow my manager around shouting about how I should be fired. Security eventually removed her. I nearly got fired because I wouldn’t return a sandwich that had already been eaten.”
It’s All Funny Until The Preacher Completely Loses It
Gutzemberg/Shutterstock
“My friends worked at a sandwich place and said they had an angry preacher come in once. Like, full outfit, complete with a Bible and actual soapbox to stand on. He was preaching from the dining area and everyone was super into listening. All of the non-manager level employees were high school kids, so they just had that ‘you seeing this’ look while waiting for a manager to do something. The other managers were out and the last one remaining was notorious for sleeping in his office, so it usually took an actual knock on the door to get him to come out. Everything is pretty funny until the preacher starts dropping eff bombs like crazy.
An ad-lib would be something like, (normal voice) ‘And what he said to his disciples was (shouting) I WILL SAVE, I WILL EFFING SAVE YOU.’
An employee had to race a customer to the manager door because the manager would have gone ‘fire people’ mode if the customer complained while staff knew this was happening. The manager comes out and is shouting for him to calm down and go home. The preacher argued with the man while packing up. He was not seen back again.”
“One Kid Went Into The Restroom With A Backpack Looking Super Guilty”
Ljupco Smokovski/Shutterstock
“There was one kid, probably 11 or 12, who went into the restroom looking super guilty, with a backpack. I work in retail. It couldn’t be more obvious what he was doing, but I don’t know why he didn’t just go for the doors. Anyway, I walk into the restroom, and wash my hands for a bit. I can tell he’s scared, and I was hoping he’d just dump the stuff and run. Security at the store is pretty tied up when it comes to actually stopping people from stealing, so they weren’t any help.
I left and stood outside the restroom, and a minute later he exists, I make eye contact, and he knows I know. He bolts for the door, and I went into the stall and found the tags of the bottles he stole.
Honestly, I felt bad for the kid, if you have to be stealing spirits at that age then your life can’t be all that great. I just hope he’s okay.”
