Working in any kind of customer service, you're constantly exposed to the worst sorts of people. When you're still fresh and green into a customer service job, you approach it with a certain sense of optimism, telling yourself and anyone who asks how excited you are to help people and make a difference in their life with your incredible service. With bright eyes, you look around you, wondering why your seasoned coworkers are so haggard and embittered, approaching the day with a thousand-yard st…

Working as a barista, you get to meet a bucketload of the general population, most of whom are wildly entitled, despite the fact that underneath their short blond haircut and agitated pointing finger, they're just like you: a human being. Unfortunately, customers were either brought up without manners and never managed to get a knack for them, or they were brought up with manners, and chucked them out the second they turned 18. In any case, OP was working as a barista at a cafe, when a Karen re…

For some people, it's not actually winning that makes their gears hum—it's thinking they've won. Let's be honest… they're so singularly focused on winning that they probably don't even realize what it is they were actually arguing about in the first place. The fact that they're not getting what they want doesn't matter as long as they feel like they've won. This is a problem you will run into time and time again when you engage with the masses in a retail or customer service role. When you're d…

Fighting back the urge to laugh when an adult is having a full-blown meltdown right in front of you over basically nothing is one of the most challenging parts of working retail—but you only reach this level of reaction when you've put up with it enough times that you no longer have the ability to experience the trauma of being shouted at that you did when you first started. Not only that but—when they're making obscene demands—you have to fight every muscle in your body that wants to do precis…

Starting a new job is always tough. Sure, you might have tons of knowledge and industry experience, but there's always a different way of doing the same old thing at every new organization you walk into. You might think that a square peg would always just fit into the square hole, but your new job may require you to revolve the square 360 degrees clockwise, counterclockwise, and then on a vertical axis—all before putting it in the same square hole you always did before. Sure, it may be stupid,…

Staff working in the service industry are often greeted by unruly Karen customers who march in like they own the place, demanding discounts and ordering them around. Often because of poor management, the staff are forced to deal with the impolite attitude quietly inside their heads, as opposed to talking back and standing up for themselves. In this case, OP was working as a barista at a coffee shop where they served such a Karen customer, who happened to be a regular. Karen was manageable up un…

Dealing with customers is probably the worst part of working retail or service jobs. It can be the best part too—but ten positive experiences can be overshadowed by one violent, screaming adult tantrum. If you've ever worked one of these jobs—you know exactly what I'm talking about. It may be no use crying over spilled milk, but that didn't stop this grown adult woman from throwing a complete tantrum over the temperature of it. After collecting a cup of “warm” milk from a location of a major co…

Working in customer service, hospitality, retail, or any other field that requires you to have human interaction with Karens on a daily basis, gives you a strong backbone you never asked for, and bucketloads of apathy. At first, you feel like a failure when a customer screams at you, demanding a free refill because your coffee tastes like the back of a dump truck. You realize it's ridiculous that a total stranger has the power to make you feel like a blundering fool, all over a cup of coffee. E…

If you're going to be this confidently incorrect about something and then be rude when the person who knows what they're talking about tries to correct your mistake—you deserve whatever is coming to you. In this case, what's coming to you is a horrifically inconsumable sugary drink of the likes your tastebuds have never encountered before. When working in customer service, you end up dealing with these people quite often. Over time, instead of bending over backward to correct their mistakes (ge…

It can be incredibly frustrating when you repeatedly ask someone to do something, only for it to remain still undone or incorrectly finished… (or so my girlfriend tells me, at least.) Most of us will also agree that an incorrect or ruined food or drink order can ruin the one thing that was going to be great about your day. Now, most of us will probably be too diffident to do or say anything about our spoiled beverage, instead be resigned to our cup of overheated milk that has just the slightest…

Karens enjoy being given attention (albeit negative), and unfortunately, it tends to come at other people's expense. Especially those who work in customer service, AKA baristas, servers, retail workers, etc. This Karen picked the wrong day to mess with this barista, as it was the employee's last day. Karen had a constant rude, demeaning attitude, making employees and customers hate her alike. So it couldn't have been that much of a surprise that this employee snapped. But of course, we're talki…

One high schooler asked r/AITA a question about her job conduct: was she in the wrong for playing a ‘mean prank’ on a customer who berated her?

There are some moments in life where the stars align and you get to live out your dreams. Such was the case for one off-duty barista. As the OP shared, she had a day off work, and stopped into a coffee location to grab a quick drink. She wasn't alone, there were tons of customers, and the baristas working the restaurant seemed overwhelmed. But does that ever matter to a Karen? No, absolutely not, never ever! But the OP wasn't working, and spotted a chance to get some incredibly satisfying reven…

Don't even talk to this police Captain before he's had his coffee! If there's one thing you don't want to do in any line of work, it's depriving your boss of their caffeine while simultaneously wasting their time. That's a recipe for disaster, and you do not want to know how that meal tastes. Unfortunately for this police officer, that's exactly what they did when they blocked off a barista's driveway, which prevented her from getting to work on time. This meant that one of her regulars, the po…

Society would crumble without the hardworking baristas who get up very early every morning to clock in and make us our lattes and americanos. I pledge my allegiance to the baristas everywhere who make it possible to order a fine caffeinated drink and receive excellent service each time. Working at a coffee shop is no walk in the park, though, as this collection of memes from barista-focused pages will reveal. You might think you know what goes on behind the counter of your favorite Starbies, bu…

Your first job in the service industry (or retail, I'd argue) is a formative experience. For most of us, it comes at that time in our life when earning some cash is a necessity: Maybe you've just graduated high school or college and need a job; maybe you're still in high school; maybe the career you thought you were going to have as an Olympic level athlete didn't quite work out, and now you have no idea what you're doing with your life. Ignoring the fact that the last example is oddly specific…