As we are all aware of the phrase, 'The customer is always right,' but how true is it? Unless ya consider falsely accusing an employee of an assault or purposely berating employees, then maybe not always. These baristas share the unforgettable encounter when a customer was way out of line with them while on the clock.
Content has been edit for clarity purposes.
Sorry Honey, No More Honey For You
“I worked at a coffee shop/gas station where the drive-thru was still open but the lobby was closed. So today, during a rush this woman ordered a small hot, black coffee with honey. When she got to the window and after she paid, she saw that the honey packets were on the side and asked us to put them in for her.
Now usually, we could but because of the current global crisis happening, we had stricter policies when it came to food handling and everything else. Our honey was in solo packets and we were not allowed to open them, which was why we served them on the side. We explained this to her, she was unhappy with the reasoning but seemed to accept it and just asked for more honey and straw to stir it.
We gave this all to her and things seemed fine until we noticed she was not moving forward. When we opened the window, she was opening the honey packets, adding them to her coffee, then throwing each packet out her window onto our lot. Like, really? If she pulled forward just a bit we had a trash can. Also, we had a line to the street, even the cars behind her were honking at her.
So I said to her, ‘Ma’am, Can I have you pull forward?’
She straight-up refused, then lifted the coffee cup up (still adding honey), and said, ‘Can’t you see I have hot coffee in my hand without a lid?’
I thought, ‘Yes, I can. Maybe next time wait to remove the lid to add the honey?’ At this point, being nice didn’t matter.
My reply was ‘Well if you pull forward like five feet, we have a trash can you can use to throw out your honey packets instead of just throwing them onto the ground like that.’
She began slowly moving forward but then hit her brakes and threw another honey packet out the window. Meanwhile, the cars behind her were still honking at her.
When she finally moved enough out of line, she slowly kept making her way to a pump, still throwing out her trash the entire way. When she finally stopped at the pump, she threw the remaining honey packets and straw just right on the ground, while she was next to the trash can.
I was unsure if this was her being petty because she had to add her own honey into her coffee but it just really felt that way which added on more annoyance to this situation. Like, sorry it was annoying for you to add in your own honey to your coffee but it was not our fault there was a global crisis going on which caused stricter policies.
I think if she ever came back, I’m just gonna magically be all out of honey.”
Ouch!
“I just finished training in a café located in a public market that happened to also be a popular tourist destination. The café area was about two meters by three and a half meters, so it was tiny, but we served over 500 customers a day. We didn’t have our own seating, but we did have self-serve drip coffee and espresso machines. We handed customers the size of cup they wanted, and they could fill it up with either medium, dark, or decaf coffee.
Yesterday, we made changes to how that worked. The coffee jugs had a handle on top that customers pumped to dispense coffee. They used to face the customers, but they now faced towards the café so baristas had to pour coffee for the customers. This was because we didn’t want customers touching anything other than the card reader. Not even the milk jugs. We were pouring everything for them.
Then, this elderly man came. I recognized him as the man who paid for a small cup of coffee, poured a very tiny amount of coffee, then emptied the milk jug into his cup. He ordered a small cup of coffee, then looked very confusedly at the new setup. I explained to him that we now had to pour everything for him. All customers had complimented us for this… except for him.
He tried to grab the cup from my hand and wanted to pump the coffee himself. As I was holding the cup in my hand, he dispensed a cup-full of freshly boiling coffee onto my hand. I shouted a little ‘OUCH,’ but he kept on telling me that he wanted to do it himself.
I told him, ‘Sir, we are not allowing customers to touch anything, not even the handles!’
Thank goodness my manager was there and she took over his order. She told me to run my hand under cold water and to take a five-minute break. It had been a chaotic day with all that new setup and protocols. I guess she had known about him for a while because I didn’t hear anything from him when he left with his coffee.
For the five hours remaining in my shift that day, I had a red mark on my left hand, but my generous manager added five bucks to my tips as a ‘training bonus’ and sent me home that day with a pound of coffee beans.”
Not All Heroes Wear Capes
“I got the call at around 6:30 AM, which was a little after my not-Starbucks chain coffee shop was supposed to open. One of the other managers had quit a couple of days ago, and for whatever reason, nobody covered her shift. The store was empty, and customers were lining up and angry. I should have just gone back to bed, but instead, I got up on my day off and went in to help.
Two important characters are two of my regulars, who I’ll call ‘Jason’ and ‘Sam.’
Jason was probably my favorite regular, always tipped well, and left us good reviews on our company surveys. He was just all-around a nice dude.
Sam was the exact opposite end of the spectrum. He came in once a week and ordered eight large drinks (skim white mochas with hazelnut and vanilla). He then took them home and put them in his fridge and would microwave one every day. We dreaded seeing him as he majorly messed up our times, and caused any poor soul who was in line after him to wait upwards of ten minutes to get their order. He was also been known to tell us to remake all of his drinks if he tasted one and it wasn’t ‘right’ (It hadn’t happened on one of my shifts and I was really waiting for the day it did so I could tell him to pound sand, but I digressed.)
Another important detail is that my coffee shop was a kiosk inside a grocery store. So often, customers would order their coffee and then picked it up after they got their groceries.
Anyways, I got into the store at around 6:45 and started setting up shop. I had to explain to several customers, including Sam, that I just got here and it took some time for the espresso machines and coffee carafes to heat up and to come back in 20 minutes. Sam said something about how I shouldn’t have been late and I shoot back that it was my day off and that he could take it up with my boss if he had a problem. He grumbled something and left to peruse the groceries.
I was putting the finishing touches on my open when Jason sauntered up. It was around seven by now. I explained the situation to him and told him I was almost ready to open when one of my espresso machines finally fully powered on, which meant it was ready to go and I could open. Awesome! Since Jason was right there in line, I started making his drink first. Jason was happy, and he left a nice tip. He sat down and waited.
While I was making his drink, guess who else joined the line? Sam.
He opened by saying, ‘I’ve been here since 6 AM and I should’ve been helped first.’
I thought, ‘Well, you left, and you have eight drinks that you want. You can wait.’
I didn’t say this to his face, of course, because I liked my job. I rang him in and he threw a 50 at me (his order was usually around 48 bucks) and sneered at me to keep the change. I finished up Jason’s drink and started the task of making Sam’s drinks. The entire time I was at the bar, he was hurling insults at me. Talking about how lazy millennials were, how poor the management of my store was, you get the gist.
At one point he started pestering me about, ‘When’s the next time your boss works? I’m gonna tell him how rude you were to me. I’m a regular and I deserve better.’
I started crying. This made Jason confront Sam.
Jason said, ‘Hey, they’re obviously understaffed today, and she is doing a great job. They didn’t have to come in today but they did and you should be grateful. If not, there are about a hundred other coffee shops in a 10-mile radius that you can go to instead.’
Sam shut up, and I got to finish his drinks. Jason threw an extra five bucks into my tip jar for dealing with that, and so did a couple of others in the line. I calmed down and got through the line, and finished out the shift without much further incident. I hadn’t seen Sam since then, and the next time I saw Jason, I comped his drink. He deserved it.”
Typical TJ
“I worked at a small-town coffee shop that had managed to adapt and stay busy during the global crisis by utilizing a window for walk-up service.
A regular problematic customer, let’s call him ‘TJ,’ was a typical middle-aged man riddled with toxic masculinity. He often made female employees and customers uncomfortable with his comments. Lately, he had been around a lot, being typical TJ.
Today he came to our window and ordered a coffee. Cool, nothing out of the ordinary. A coworker asked him if he would like to tip via our square register (we normally don’t verbally ask customers, but with the current global crisis we are not allowing customers to touch our iPad system).
He proceeded to tell her to put 100 bucks, and reassured them he wanted to tip that much because he, ‘appreciates our hard work and effort and wants to chip in since our business has been a bit slower.’
Ok, I gave him that and almost had a change of heart about TJ. We both outwardly thanked him and he went on his way.
I texted my boss about this uncharacteristic interaction with TJ and through their end of the register system she was able to look at the transaction. They noticed that not only was the credit card he used not in his name but in his boss’s name, on their company card.
Typical TJ. What a joke.”
He Picked The Wrong Place To Be Rude
“During my early morning rush (in which I did 300 bucks per hour in sales by myself), I had a customer walk in and saw the line to the door (they all were regulars of mine. They loved me, my drinks, and the punk playlist of the day so they were chill about waiting 10 minutes for good coffee). Instead of waiting in line, he simply shouted his order at me from the door and sat down. About 30 minutes later, my line was slowing down but I still hadn’t made his drink, so he angrily stomped up to my till demanding to know where his coffee was.
Me: ‘I’m sorry, what did you order?’
Guy: (half shouting) ‘I told you what I wanted when I came in!
Me: ‘Oh, I’m sorry! You can’t shout your order at me like it’s a New York deli. This is a coffee shop, sir.’
Guy: (fully shouting something incoherent)
I saw a few more of my chill regulars walk in and since he wouldn’t tell me what he wanted, I was going to help my regulars who I already knew what they wanted.
Me: ‘Hey, good morning Tom! How’s the wife? Are you getting your usual today?’
Tom: ‘Hey! My wife’s doing great and ya, I’ll love my usual.’
Me: ‘Cool beans! I’ll have that right up for ya!’
The guy was seething at this point and said, ‘Where’s MY drink!?’
Me: ‘You still haven’t told me what you wanted or paid for a drink, sir. What can I make for you today?’
Guy:’ I just want a dang latte!’
Me: ‘Okay, and what size and milk?’
Guy: ‘Just make me a dang latte!’
Me: ‘Ya, no. You’ve just sworn twice at me. You need to leave.’
Before he could even reply, all my regulars were taking him to the door and kinda forced him out. They didn’t take kindly to someone yelling at their favorite barista and some even doubled up on their tips.
Ps. I should note that this coffee shop was on the municipal side of downtown, so my regulars were lawyers, District Attorneys, city officials, city workers, police, and state troopers.”
False Accusation
“A few days ago, one of our regulars who was a full-on Karen and just did not like anybody who served her came in and ordered her dark roast. I rang her up, then walked away real fast to get her the dark roast. I then heard her asking if it was fresh and made me double-check both pots to see which one was fresher. I literally just finished brewing one five minutes prior and she almost didn’t buy it, complaining that we never had things done right -blah blah blah. She always did this. She also got mad that we charged for the double cup.
So, I grabbed her the double cup of coffee, charged her for the double cup, and she asked me for a stopper. I got one out of the little box next to me, and I set it down on the cup for her.
Then this happened –
Karen: ‘YOU DON’T HAVE TO THROW IT AT ME. THAT IS AN ASSAULT.’
Me: ‘Oh! Miss, I apologize. But I don’t think it hit you. I set it right on top for you so it’s already there.’
Karen: ‘What is your name?’
Me: ‘My name is __. I apologize if you had a problem. Would you like your receipt?’
Karen: ‘I’m calling corporate and you’re going to get fired for THROWING something at me.’
Me: ‘Oh, okay. Have a nice day.’
My coworker who was restocking pastries was a witness and even said to me after she left that she saw me put it on top of her up gently without touching the part that goes in, or touching anything else.”
“Service Is Worse Than McDonald’s
“In addition to coffee/espresso/baked goods, we also had a small hot food menu with basic items like hot dogs, corn dogs, soft pretzels, and other similar food items. It was spring break here so we had been busy with families that whole week.
One family came to my register and started rambling off their order before I could even finish writing the first drink on the cup. So I asked them (very nicely!) to give me a moment, please, so I could catch up. They ignored that and kept listing things so I had to ask them to repeat parts of their order a couple of times. I read their order off to them and asked them if they’d like anything else.
They said, ‘No, it looks perfect (a hot dog, a few snacks, and four drinks).’
About 10 minutes later, the one family came up asking where their corn dog was. I thought, Oh great, here we go.
I told them one wasn’t ordered, I pulled up their ticket and showed them.
I explained, ‘I did read the order off and asked if it was correct, I was told that everything looked good. I’m happy to make a corn dog for you if you’d like to buy one, but there hasn’t been one purchased at this point.’
They walked away without saying anything and they left shortly after. I was checking comment cards from that day and they left one saying, ‘You messed up my order. I had to repeat myself three times and you forgot my corn dog. Service is worse than McDonald’s.’
As the manager, I suppose I have to write myself up now for such awful service.”
Why Did She Come?!
“I was showing the new girl how to make an Americano coffee on her first day. This was the first drink order, which was just hot water and espresso. It takes like one minute to make.
A lady came up next and I was about done showing her how to make the Americano step by step. I would have helped her as soon as I saw her but she snuck up to the counter.
She said, ‘We have a sick person waiting. You can train her some other time!’
I glanced over behind her and low and behold was what I was guessing was either her sister or daughter sitting with some other family members at the tall tables. She had bandages around her head and looked utterly miserable.
I turned back to her, kinda mad that she snapped at me and said, ‘This is her first customer, on her first day. You can wait.’
I thought, If you want to be like that, I’ll make you wait.
She shut up and let me finish working with the new girl. I didn’t know why she stopped for coffee if she had a sick girl waiting. If it was really that bad you wouldn’t have stopped at all. And I didn’t make the sick person wait. She did by coming in at all.
I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: coffee is a want, not a need.”
Ten Minutes Before Close
“It was the middle of summer, my coworkers and I were almost closed down, and the store was virtually empty. So far so good. Ten minutes before closing, as I was bringing in the outside furniture that wasn’t being used (there was one couple who was sitting outside on one of the tables), a middle-aged lady came up to me and asked if we were still open.
I explained. ‘Yes we were, but we close in 10 minutes.’
She then asked, ‘Have I got enough time for a coffee?’
I said, ‘It depends on how fast you can drink and how fast the drink is made.’ How else was I supposed to answer?
So the customer proceeded to enter the store and order her drink with the barista on the coffee machine, who was also the supervisor on shift that day. She took a few minutes deciding what she wanted, then she finally ordered her drink – an extra hot latte with extra hot milk. Again, my supervisor explained that we close in 10 minutes, and recommended making it in a takeaway cup so that she won’t have to rush (also, so we can turn off the pot wash as fast as possible). The customer refused and said she wanted a glass. Okay, maybe she could drink piping hot coffee.
When the customer got her coffee, she sat down and started reading. It was now five minutes until closing at this point, so everyone was finishing up their drinks and starting to leave. One minute until closing, the same customer still hadn’t touched her drink. Turns out that she had been waiting for the couple who was sitting outside to leave in hopes she could take their seat and stay longer.
It was now 6:10 p.m, and the customer was sitting outside, coffee still untouched. So I went outside and politely let her know that we were closed and that she would have to finish her drink and leave. She. Went. Insane.
She started screaming at me about how both my supervisor and I said she had plenty of time to finish her coffee and it was not her fault that we couldn’t make a coffee fast enough. I tried to explain we both told her that we closed at 6 pm and I had given her extra time (even though it was only 10 minutes, our company had strict rules on making sure everyone was out by closing time) to finish her drink.
She said, ‘Well I was told that I had enough time, so I’m going to sit here and finish my drink in my own time.’
Whatever lady. I went back inside and explained what the customer had said to me to my supervisor. My supervisor ended up marching outside with a takeaway cup, pouring the coffee into the cup, walking back inside with the glass, and locking the doors. The customer was beyond ticked off. The next day, she came marching in and demanded to speak to my store manager. She then started yelling at my manager about what happened the night before.
My manager, being the most awesome woman she was, just said, ‘Well, we were closed. And since we asked you repeatedly to leave and reminded you that we closed at that specific time, my staff did nothing wrong.’ Then walked away.
The customer just stood there, gobsmacked, before turning heel and stomping out of the store. Needless to say, we never saw her again.”
Who Did She Think She Was Talking To?
“The coffee shop I worked at was inside a store that was used almost exclusively by middle-aged people who could afford to spend 10 bucks on a carton of orange juice.
One middle-aged woman made her order, which took about three minutes of staring at the boards and talking to herself and ignoring when I asked if she needed help. Her order came out to not even six bucks. When she pulled out her wallet to get her rewards card, she dug through a pile of cash and multiple credit cards. I didn’t usually look at what people had in their wallets but she literally spread this out on my counter.
She gave me her rewards card, which she told me also had the money to pay. I put it in as rewards and then ran it as a gift card because when I checked her in it said that she had over 20 bucks on her card. Normally, this worked just fine. Unfortunately, it didn’t go through, so I ran it two more times in case it was just a glitch (old machine), and both times it declined. This was a system error that happened sometimes and there was nothing I could do about it.
I apologized and told her the system wasn’t running her card, giving her the slips of paper that my receipt printer gave me each time it declined.
Her response, while all her contents were still all over the counter: ‘Well, how am I supposed to pay?’
I apologized again for the machine not taking her gift card, specifying I was only talking about the card I was handing back to her and letting her know it did work for points and she did have money on it, but she had to call the customer support to get it working as a gift card again. I didn’t tell her how to pay. Apparently, she didn’t like that I didn’t tell her which credit card to use or that she had to use cash today. She switched into the tone you used with a three-year-old who wasn’t understanding something you’ve said 12 times.
‘That’s not the answer I’m looking for. How am I supposed to pay?’ She said with the most condescending facial expression I had ever seen.
There were a lot of things I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her if she knew what one plus one was if she had to be told the 300 plus bucks she had just sitting on my counter count as a valid currency.
I wasn’t smiling anymore, because I really hated being talked down on. I believe that everybody deserves a basic level of respect she wasn’t willing to give because I didn’t point at her money for her.
I said in a pretty flat voice: ‘Well, not with that card.’
Her, still in the extremely condescending tone: ‘There’s the answer I’m looking for. I don’t want coffee now anyway.’
She then organized her cards/cash on my counter and put them all back in her wallet before walking off to do whatever shopping she had to do. I understand I could’ve handled it better but if you’re gonna talk to me like I was a freaking child I was not going to smile and give you a discount on your coffee or give it to you for free.”