After working in customer service, there are some experiences that will stick with you long after. These experiences will mostly be the exceptional ones that stand out even from every other bizarre daily interaction.

The feeling of ordering a meal and then disliking it is so awkward. It happens to the best of us. Maybe you decide to try a new soup, only to realize it tastes like seawater and sadness. Or maybe you confidently order a dish you've had numerous times, only to realize this establishment makes the meal with ingredients you don't care for. Or maybe your friends force you to try sushi, and you don't like a single one of those ingredients. But you have to save face in front of your dinner guests. Do…

Even if your work, knowledge, and contributions make you irreplaceable in your organization, your employer is never going to admit it. For one thing, they probably aren't even going to be aware of it until long after you're gone. They probably think that there are dozens of people out there who can do exactly what you do. For another, if they did admit how valuable you were, they know that you'd likely want to be paid fairly for that fact—and that's just never going to happen. No, it's better t…

Hire a new manager and let her run the night shift on her own terms… what could go wrong? Turns out, almost everything, according to one of the workers, u/packrat2488. Night shifts at fast-food restaurants can be wildly unpredictable. Usually, there's a steady stream of people until about 2 AM. Then, from 2 AM to 5 AM, there's almost no one around, so the workers have a few minutes to catch their breath, take a break, and then start cleaning up the place. These hours in the middle of the night…

A manager acting clueless? What a surprise. When restaurants have busy days , they prepare for them in advance. Fast-food restaurants are well aware that certain holidays and the days around those holidays are going to be jam-packed. For example, it's not just Christmas Day that's busy. People are out doing their last-minute shopping for a few days beforehand, and they might decide on a quick meal on their way home. In order to be prepared for that influx of people, restaurants need to have ext…

There's nothing more confusing in life than someone who refuses to accept that withholding a part of their order actually makes it a different order. It's like when someone orders a cheeseburger without cheese but refuses to accept that all that does is make it a hamburger. Similarly, if you're ordering eggs Benedict without Hollandaise sauce, you might as well just be ordering a poached egg on a bun. Making an issue of that fact really just betrays your lack of ability to think logically. So,…

These chefs and waiters have the patience of saints. They've encountered some truly bizarre customer requests, and they're sharing the strangest of them with the r/AskReddit community. When you go out to eat and pay for a nice meal, you want it to be perfect the first time. You shouldn't have to ask the server to send back the dish to the kitchen, but it happens. I once got a green egg at a diner during breakfast, which I sent back to the kitchen with haste (politely!). But I'd never dream of s…

Sometimes you just have a feeling that you can't ignore. A sixth sense or a premonition will creep into your mind, and you decide to listen to your gut. Maybe you have a strange feeling about going on a date with someone new, or perhaps you get a chill down your spine and decide to take a different route home just based off your feelings. These people shared their stories of times they had a feeling that their jobs weren't going to work out, so they just quit. No need to go through months of tr…

This customer was determined to get the exact meal she wanted. She really should've picked another restaurant . Every now and again, people get a craving for a random food they've had before. They might not always recall what restaurant it was from, though. For example, if you're meeting some friends at a restaurant and someone else chooses the location, you might forget the name of that place by next week. Then you're left craving a quesadilla or a burger from somewhere that you can't remember…

The wider world of the internet is filled with stories of ill-mannered customers, making life unnecessarily difficult for the humble working-class customer service rep who had the misfortune of serving them. Still, it's important for us to take a step back and realize that, while it may be nice to root for the everyman, we can't blindly assume that the workers themselves are infallible. There are entitled people on all sides and from all walks of life—and there are certainly plenty of people wo…

It's not uncommon for those in petty positions of power to vastly overestimate the reach of that power. Whatever the words of the message, the point this manager is trying to convey is clear: we know that you need us more than we need you, so we're going to see how far we can manipulate the conditions of your employment in our favor and you're just going to have to deal with it.

There's always at least one person in every workplace who can't help but make everyone laugh. This is the kind of person that people say “lights up every room they walk into.” They just immediately begin cracking jokes and lightening the mood. This kind of person is especially appreciated in high-stress environments---like the back of house at a busy restaurant. Back-of-house, sometimes abbreviated as BOH, refers to all of the workers behind the scenes, like chefs, meal preppers, and dish washe…

One thing's for sure: there's no greater relief than quitting a bad job, especially when you already have another one lined up and ready to go. Everyone, at one point or another, has dreamed of doing this—preferably in explosive fashion. One day, walking and just letting your honest feelings fly before walking out —never to be seen again—while everyone is still sitting there stunned and processing what has just occurred.

Some people want to be food critics with their reviews, but this person took it further by writing a very long message directly to a restaurant. When I worked retail, I always found it so delightful when customers would vow to never return to our restaurant. It was often that they'd come in during a rush, and then were shocked, stunned, and horrified, that they'd have to wait a whole 15 minutes for their meal. Bigger problems are going on in the world. But not to these people. Sometimes they'd…

The best part of managing or owning a business is that you're the master of your own destiny; success or failure rests primarily on your shoulders. The worst part of managing or owning a business is that you're always going to be at the whim of petty delusional customers who, for some reason, any reason, may at some point perceive that you've wronged them in some way, even if the result they're upset about is directly a result of their own actions. Still, they'll leave reviews and maybe even ma…

It can be incredibly difficult and frustrating working in customer-facing roles where your managers refuse to face up and take accountability on behalf of the operation they are managing, instead throwing the lowest-level workers under the bus for things well out of their control. When you're an honest, well-intended person, it can take an unfortunate amount of time to realize that not everyone is wired to be honest and well-intended and that there are, in fact, people trying to take advantage…