“He had to disconnect the phones during a busy rush because she called 30 times…”

There are glorious times in customer service when doing what the customer has asked necessitates doing technically nothing. It's a rare occurrence but oh-so-good when it happens to chance upon you. When this worker promised to give an angry Karen a refund, they did so by promising to refund the amount that it would cost them to park on the street: Nothing. This left the Karen happy to go merrily on their way, and with the problem now out of sight and out of mind, she was never the wiser. It's g…

The leave approval process exists for one reason and one reason only: To ensure that workers have a proper guarantee and assurance that they will be able to be absent on the submitted dates before spending money and making social commitments. It's a rather simple process, black and white, really; can the employee take leave or not? Yes or no? Well, this manager decided to introduce a whopping massive grey area into the middle of “Yes” or “No” by first saying yes, forgetting they had approved th…

There are times in life when temptation is just too great and leads us toward doing something that we probably shouldn't be doing… Take, for example, serving a customer a calzone containing entire chicken wings (bones and all) after they obstinately and repeatedly request it as a special order. When you've been working in the service industry, retail, or customer service for long enough, you get a growing itch to pull off something like this. With every entitled customer interaction, you can fe…

If you've ever worked in a restaurant then you know chaos lives there. Whether it's working along toxic managers and coworkers or having to deal with entitled Karen customers—it's unavoidable in the service industry.

Some say the little white lies are necessary, others are disgusted by the “unprofessional” deception.

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…

There's nothing that makes you feel so entirely helpless as being bullied by children. It's this weird catch-22 where you both are unable to retaliate but are rendered completely vulnerable by their cutting words. Kids know exactly what to say to cut you down, and their frank honesty can leave you with no retort or means for retaining your pride. This is even worse when you're in a customer service role. Being bullied by anyone in a customer service role feels like crap, but when it's kids doin…

This entitled dad is lucky the waiter didn't press charges!

This hotel employee concocted the most elaborate revenge plot on an awful, entitled guest!

Working in retail, customer service, or in the service industry opens you up to a variety of mind-numbing experiences. The first category would probably be the repetitive tasks that you have to do day in and day out. These chores all require next-to-no brain power and could be completed by a monkey. There are only so many shirts you can fold, walls you can merchandise, or stock-takes you can complete before beginning to contemplate moving out to an off-grid cabin in the woods.

The unspoken meaning of words can say more than the words themselves. For this reason, it's always best to guard one's words carefully to ensure that you don't accidentally give the wrong impression or make the wrong implication. That's what this guy failed to consider when he basically accused a bakery owner of lying to him when he insisted on receiving only fresh pastries. He had already been into the bakery earlier in the day and been told that the pastry he was after was not ready yet. When…

The problem with misusing your authority and making a scene is that it makes all those you are associated with look bad — this includes any organizations or groups who you might be affiliated with. This is why it's so important to conduct oneself in a manner that suits your station -whether you're on duty or off. Just take this off-duty hotel manager who was fired for being rude to the staff of another hotel as a prime example. This server took to Reddit's r/talesfromyourserver community to sha…

It's okay to feel a little bit sentimental about your favorite type of sauce. I, for one, am a ketchup guy through and through, you won't catch me far away from a little red bottle that's packed with that sweet tomato-y goodness. Sure, the actual contents of ketchup are probably like 80% sugar, 19% vinegar, and 1% ketchup but that's not something that bothers me in the slightest. I'll eat ketchup on anything and am happy for the disgusted reactions that my creations sometimes evoke. So, in this…

I'm still not entirely convinced that this waiter hasn't accidentally found themselves inside of a Nathan Fielder bit here. This is either a really clever gaslight on the part of the patrons, or they really are just on/from another planet. It's impossible to believe that anyone could be this incredibly dense or has otherwise somehow managed to avoid learning basic restaurant etiquette somehow. It does make for an interesting thought experiment though. Anyways, this waiter shared a lengthy, but…