Mistaking another customer for a worker can be an embarrassing, humbling experience… but not if you're so entitled that you are completely incapable of realizing you've made a mistake. In a thread posted to Reddit's r/IDontWorkHereLady subreddit community by Redditor u/Tactical-Pixie-1864, the original poster shared their tale of being accosted by a wild Karen when they were trying to pick up dinner after a shift. They worked as an EMT and were already at the frayed ends of sanity after their s…

This employee works for a retail store with an online presence on eBay.

There's a prevalent school of thought that prevails when it comes to client servicing: Do anything (and everything) possible to keep them happy and contracted; having worked in these sectors in the past, upper management never likes seeing a contract cancellation notice pass across their desk, even if that contract was costing the business money. I've seen sales departments signing clients at unserviceable rates—with wildly unfulfillable resource estimates. Why? Because the sales team got a com…

A botched pizza order fueled this parent to write to r/TalesFromTheCustomer to share her story — and figure out what to do. U/momnation was just trying to throw a nice birthday party for her son . She preordered what should have been some easy food — pizza. It's a great party food; everybody loves it and ordering it is supposed to be super fast and painless. However, when the OP sent her husband to pick up the order for five pizzas, the pizza joint had some bewildering news to tell him. They di…

Often when we see stories online about customer service people, it's regarding the abuse they receive from customers. But, since service industry workers are people too, it should be expected that there are plenty of examples of the worker themselves being unreasonable or entitled. These stories don't fit the popular narrative, so they often don't get upvoted as frequently, getting shared less overall as a result. It's no surprise to anyone that ‘upscale’ trendy establishments can have a bit of…

As someone offering your services to a customer, you give a price, and the customer tries to bargain said price… that's just how it goes. It's a frustrating, but necessary, part of the job. However, when a customer attempts bargaining AFTER you've completed the work… well, that's a whole different story. After settling on a price, you shouldn't have to deal with someone who refuses to pay that cost. That is what happened to a contractor who collected rubbish for a customer who decided after the…

This boss thought that all management involved was kicking back, relaxing, and letting everyone around him do 100% of the work. His employees pushed back, and made him regret his laziness with their own form of petty revenge. This guy seems like he was living out every salesperson's ideal career. He claimed that after working hard for years, he finally became the “ top salesman ” at a phone store. And now that he'd moved up to management, he planned on doing next to nothing. This seems like a d…

Why does it feel like there's nothing more anxiety-inducing than navigating my interaction with the pizza delivery guy? As it turns out, I can be a fully grown adult with a full-time job and plenty of responsibilities, but I still can't wrap my brain around what to say to the dude in the Dominos cap when he knocks on my door. For starters, there's the impulse to apologize for making him deliver my pizza. Then there's the impulse to pretend like there's someone else home so it doesn't look like…

A hasty and rude retail worker quickly corrected this woman when she pointed out a pricing error on a chef's knife she was interested in. She relented in revealing the mistake to the worker and ended up with a deal on a great knife. This story was shared to the r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/TIL_eulenspiegel , the woman in the story, where it earned 19k upvotes as of the writing of this post. When she went to the department store, she was greeted by an "older man" who was extremely helpfu…

Whoever came up with the saying "the customer is always right" should be seriously questioned. In this instance, we have an intense conflict between a technician and a so-called “engineer” customer. This guy went against the technician's advice several times and insisted that the technician perform what he knew would be a destructive test. The technician shared his story via this thread on Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit. He tried to explain to the customer that this was a mistake, eve…

We've said it once, and we'll say it a thousand times: When making a demand from an underpaid retail worker who would probably rather be somewhere—no, anywhere else than standing here listening to you, you'd better choose your words wisely. You might end up with exactly what you wished for—just… not quite how you pictured it. (The monkey's paw curls .) That's what happened in this classic case of malicious compliance, which was shared to the popular Reddit sub of the same name by Redditor u/Lai…

After being ignored for over a half hour while shopping, this dude had a complete meltdown! While sharing his story to r/AmItheA**hole, this dude made sure to preface his story. He wrote that he's been around service workers his whole life, and worked service industry roles before, so he apparently knows what it's like to be in that line of work. However, he clearly forgot that when he went to a store and got ignored. The first red flag is that the OP thought he'd get great service inside a dea…

“Why don't you just fire us then.” is an empty threat that you should never make, somewhere along the lines of “If you don't do this I quit” or “Why don't you just leave if you don't like it." When one makes such threats they're saying it thinking they're in a position of power. It's a power move and manipulation tactic to force a subordinate (or someone you otherwise have power over) into reluctantly accepting whatever terms you are proposing. By giving them an “out”, the person in power is ps…

Waitstaff have to deal with wild customer interactions constantly, like this woman, who just didn't understand why she had to take her food to go.

There is no greater horror when working in service and retail than having a customer come bursting through the doors moments before closing—sometimes, as you're literally turning the key to lock them. Some people have no chill and not a lick of common sense; they really don't understand that these workers want nothing more than to go home the moment their shift is done—with every right to feel that way. This post was shared to Reddit's r/quityourbulls**t community by Reddit user u/NarutoCell, w…

This groomzilla had a mouthful to say to one of his wedding vendors. But luckily, this vendor is not new to the scene — or to cranky clients being totally demanding and insane.