In retail, the number of customers who are convinced they know better than you is endless… Better than you when it comes to the products, better than you in terms of your store's policies, and better than you when it comes to the legalities under which you're trading. Having access to all the information with little understanding has emboldened people into thinking that they're experts after a few Google searches, even on impressively technical subjects. Of course, the rehearsed script often ru…

Dodgy off-book leave policies are something that you just come to expect after a while of working in the restaurant or retail world. From the first time you go to book leave and are met with the strong insinuation that maybe you shouldn't be taking any leave at all, giving you reasons of being too busy or too understaffed to possibly afford to be a “man down," you're going to be feeling that old resigned feeling of knowing that this is going to be that kind of place. The reality is that you're…

At certain times in your life—particularly when things have gone sideways—it's important to take ownership of the fact that your own actions and decisions are the things that got you there. Unfortunately, most of us struggle with this and, as a matter of self-preservation, will seek to displace blame towards anyone or anything that we can point a finger at. Sometimes, this displacement is plausible, reasonable even, but at other times, it can get unreasonably ridiculous… Tell me again, Carl, ab…

If there's one person you don't want to mess with, it's an EMT who has just finished their shift… EMTs are some of the hardest working individuals with a job that necessitates sleep deprivation, self-sacrifice, and trauma that reaches far, far above their pay grade. Even a shift for them that is “not bad” would be enough to send the rest of us looking for another line of work. While they're some of the nicest people, every EMT I've ever known personally gets through their job by being partially…

These customers didn't let their poor social skills keep them from dining at restaurants . Instead, they showed up ready to eat food and interact with wait staff as minimally as possible. We all have days where we want to be left alone. Sometimes you just don't feel like interacting with people, and instead, you just want to curl up on your couch, order food delivery, and watch a movie. It's odd that apparently lots of people decide to go to restaurants when they're feeling antisocial. Why woul…

It's kinda sorta hard to dress too casually for a job you don't have. For one thing, it's not your job, and, for another—well, it's not your job. As long as you're wearing a shirt and shoes, you can pretty much go anywhere you'd like… Although those signs usually fail to mention any requirement for pants, so that one's up to you.

Being a retail veteran means that you're nearly immune to the tactics of wily entitled customers, hardened to the core with the scar tissue of encounters with other customers—that or just completely dead inside—but it's all the same thing, really. Even if you leave the retail industry far behind, you remember the way people can act toward retail staff long afterward and how it's almost like people become another person when they begin talking to someone they deem to be a “servant" and beneath t…

The only people more confused than these customers were the befuddled employees trying to help them. If you've ever worked in customer service for any amount of time, you already know that some customers just need to rant and vent and get all their anger out. You can offer them solutions to their problems, and that's not good enough for them. Sometimes they'll just reject your ideas outright and demand a manager. As you can read about in one story about a block of cheese, some customers have no…

Some days at work will stick in your head more than others. If you're working hundreds of days each year, you probably won't recall what you were doing on some random Tuesday in April. What you'd definitely remember are the days that caught you off guard . Maybe you walked into the office and suddenly saw that the big boss chose that day for a surprise visit. Perhaps you'd recall the day that a customer made a giant deal with your company, leading to a huge celebration. When u/Voraxia had an un…

No matter how clear the rules of your business are, some customers just won't abide by them. Even when these rules are utterly crucial, some folks either won't understand, or they'll forget. Or, they might just choose to ignore them, like the guy in this malicious compliance story. It doesn't necessarily matter how strong you are when it comes to moving giant bulky items like couches or refrigerators. You certainly need to have some big muscles to move those things, but it's easier if you can u…

Here's hoping all late-night delivery drivers get a raise. You know they have to put up with more nonsense than most workers do. Let's start with the possibility of working during inclement weather. I'm the type of person who complains about having to commute to an office in those conditions, while delivery drivers are zig-zagging across town as part of their job. Next, there are the bizarre food requests and, even worse, the strange notes left by customers. This list, which was compiled from t…

Some people flourish under pressure. Don't ask me, something about a tense environment, or rather, a chaotic setting, drives them to excellence. Us mortals, on the other hand, crave a peaceful work environment with warm and amicable coworkers. While we all recognize the burdens of working in customer service, I think we ought to address the burdens of the customers themselves. The story below is an account of an innocent customer who is overtaken by an entitled individual who believes himself t…

Supermarkets are already a relatively overwhelming experience for most of us, akin to navigating a labyrinth that's been starkly lit by harsh-white fluorescent lighting while a string of the most infuriatingly mundane acoustic covers of songs that were popular ten years ago play omnipresently throughout.

This person came by to “forgive” some employees who made him mad, but then he started yelling at them instead. In an odd video posted by u/galaxystars1, a bystander is filming inside of a AAA as a (former) customer flips out. There are two sides to every story, and we only see a small segment of what happened here. But as the upset customer says, he had a 26-year-long membership with AAA, and the company cancelled it. Though they don't say why, someone mentions that this dude shows up often to…

When you find yourself answering the same queries over and over, it can make you think, “There must be a better way.”

This customer woke up and decided everyone else should revolve their lives around his happiness. Some people wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and decide to ruin everyone else's day too. In customer service, this kind of entitlement is all too common. Some folks never seem to realize that they are one of 7.8 billion people on the planet. Instead, they think that everyone should wait on them like they're royalty. They lack the ability to put themselves in other people's shoes . The person in…