Is there anything people won't do to save a few bucks? It seems people will go to any lengths for a discount. Is the customer always right? Or can we just agree that sometimes they are also crazy? Content edited for clarity.
There Are No Limits
“I work at a pizza place. One night, it was just me (female), another manager (who was doing some admin stuff), and a female delivery driver. A group of guys rung up and ordered a few pizzas delivered. I made the pizzas myself, cut them up, put them away for delivery, and gave them to the driver. Needless to say, I got an angry call from them before she’d had even made it back to the store.
‘I want a refund!’ One of the guys screamed.
‘What exactly was the problem with the order?’ I asked.
‘There is SPUNK on my PIZZA!’ He yelled.
I explained to him that the only person who handled the food tonight was myself, and I remembered making that order specifically and reminded him that the driver was female. He continued yelling at me and went on to say that if there was nothing I would do, he’d escalate the matter further and even do a DNA sample to confirm the spooge properties of the pizza. He insisted that not only could he see it, but he could smell it.
It took all the willpower in me to not burst out laughing at the customer and tell him to stop wanking onto his food to try and get a free meal.”
“Taco Time”
“I work at Taco Time. A middle-aged lady came in one slow afternoon, seeming slightly flustered but normal, and ordered a burrito. I rang her up and gave her the change from the $5 she gave me, and she counted it out loud five times (still right) then starred at me for a good 15 seconds or so. Then asked, ‘Is something wrong with your arms?’
I said no, there’s nothing wrong with my arms. She then continued on, ‘No, you’re weird. Something is wrong with your arms. You’re like handing me the bills and dropping the change in my hand.’
In my head I’m thinking the heck?! but of course, in customer service mode, I said, ‘I’m sorry is there some other way I can give you your change?’
She demanded her burrito be free, in which case I said I can’t do that. Then she said, ‘You know what just give me my money back, you’re too weird for me to eat here.’
She took her money and left. As she was walking out the door she said, ‘And I’m licensed to recognize weird.’
She called my manager in the morning, saying something is wrong with my arms, and that I made her ‘reach for her change’ and said, ‘I’m a doctor, he’s weird’ at least six times. But wait, she was not even satisfied. She went all the way to the franchise owner saying the same stuff, but he had my back at least. To this day I am still confused!”
Hi Again!
“In High School, I worked at a regional Texmex franchise and the guy who trained me on the drive-thru was the owner of that store. While he was taking someone’s order, he missed an item so when they came back through he offered the woman the item he missed for free. She wanted the whole meal refunded. He refused and she demanded to see the manager, his reply was to say, ‘Sure! Let me get him for you,’ and turned in a full circle before saying, ‘Hi! I’m the manager.’
She flipped and demanded to see the store manager so he repeated his little circle-turn schpeel and she lost her mind, demanding to speak to someone above him. He replied, ‘Well the owner is here, I can get him.’
He turned one last circle, leaned out the window, and said, ‘Hi, I’m the owner. Get the heck out of my drive-thru.'”
Liar Liar
“I waited tables at a place that had a buffet on Fridays. A lady came in with her twin sons and they all ate the buffet. When I brought her the check at the end of her meal, she flipped out on me because I didn’t charge her for two child buffets. I told her that the cut-off age was 10. She said her kids were 10 exactly.
I pointed out that her kids were wearing the HIGH SCHOOL varsity football jerseys and I knew they were seniors in high school because they were a grade below me and I had just graduated. She called me a brat, then she tried to name-drop the owner’s names, but got them completely wrong. She asked to speak to the manager, so I got the manager from the office, who happened to be the owner’s daughter.
She pulled the whole, ‘I am a close family friend of the owners’ and botched their names again. The manager just said, ‘Well, you’re at the wrong restaurant, because no one by that name owns this place and I am the owner’s daughter, and I’ve never seen you in my life.’
The lady just gave a ‘well, I never,’ and wrote a check. Which bounced.”
Was Anyone A Winner That Night?
“I worked at Chili’s for a year. We had a girls’ middle school soccer team come in that was going to be 24 people. My partner and I jumped at the opportunity of taking the team, because usually organized groups like this were a guaranteed 18% (if not more) and usually, the coaches would keep them in line. Well, this turned out to be a group of parents with their kids, and to boot, there were 33, not 24. For two hours we served this group of brats. Not only were the kids beyond out of control, but the parents were the exact same. Imagine a table of 20 12-year-old girls yelling, whistling, banging their glasses on the table yelling for more strawberry lemonade, when all of a sudden someone yells behind you, ‘EXCUSE ME, we need more chips because it takes so dang long for you to cook our food!’
At that point, I wanted to turn around and just tell her she would get more chips when these spawns of Satan were done screaming at me. My partner and I kept our cool, their food came out, and things got slightly better. Well when it came time for the check, we had to split it 17 different ways. It’s sad when you have to explain to some of these kids whose parents gave them $10 that the drink doesn’t come with the meal, though you feel slightly less sorry knowing these kids only had $10, but still chose something on the menu that cost like 12-13 bucks. Well, two of the moms got up and apparently went and asked another waitress for the manager, instead of us for some reason. Our general manager came over and she yelled at him that the food took too long, getting a table took too long and that we were awful waiters. My general manager explained to her that it was Friday night and we were on an hour-plus wait time, he broke his own rules by pushing tables together to accommodate this gargantuan sized party they brought, that we were the best servers he has and that he was on the grill helping cook all their food to try and get it out faster. He then left without giving her a chance to complain about anything else. I think everyone said something about how they would not pay the 18% auto gratuity and we were left with making $10 on a $328 meal. There were only two good things to come out of this.
My manager ended up comping about $70 off their ticket after they left so that my partner and I could split it and each make about $20 an hour, which was awesome. And all the little teenagers that whined to me really set me off. I calmly explained to them the reason there is supposed to be a tip was that I only make $2.63 an hour and I get paid in tips. I also explained the process of tipping out to my bartender and busboy and how I could lose money serving a table that doesn’t tip. A few months later, I had a table of about 14 that included a lot of these girls. They told me they remembered me. Much more well-behaved, and all of them left me the 18% plus a few extra dollars!”
Where Did That Come From?
“I was managing a fast-casual restaurant while I was in school. We had one lady who would always have problems with her food and would always want her money back. So she comes in one day with her whole family, and my server said he wasn’t going to deal with her since she always had problems. No problem, I took her order repeated everything back to her. Then I went to the kitchen and cooked every item myself to make sure there were no problems with it.
After I brought everything out to them and made sure everything was okay, I left them to their meal. After they had finished almost everything, I went back to clear some plates and guess what, there was a penny sitting right on top of an untouched dish that was for nobody, apparently. She wanted a full refund for the entire mean. I told her, ‘Sorry, I cooked your entire order myself and no there was not a penny there. There is nothing I can do for you.’
I got yelled at but whatever, it was the last time we saw her.”
Read My Mind!
“I work at Wendy’s, as a cashier. A woman came up very shortly after she got her food.
‘This sandwich isn’t right. I wanted a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger!’ she told me.
‘I’m sorry. I must have hit the wrong button. I rang you in for a chicken sandwich,’ I said.
‘Well that’s what I ordered, but that’s not what I wanted!’ She said back.
I stared at her, stunned. I must have made some sort of confused face because the next thing she said was, ‘You know what? Let me speak to your manager.’
I walked away and brought up my manager.
‘I ordered a crispy chicken sandwich and they gave me this!’ The woman held up her chicken sandwich and shook it at the manager.
‘I’m sorry, Ma’am. What’s wrong with it?’ The manager asked.
‘I wanted a Junior bacon cheeseburger. You’re going to make them fix my sandwich, and you’re going to give me my money back.’
My manager said no, she started getting angry and yelling. I hate confrontation so I walked away to go get something from the back. I took my time and when I came back she was gone. She probably ended up with either her food or her money.”
“No, It’s Dirty”
“Once I had a group of eight people at my table. It seemed to me that they were work friends, enjoying each other’s company, but not really that close. Everyone was really nice, except this one lady who kept looking at the menu somewhat nervously. She ordered a water, the quiche, and a small side salad. As soon as I brought out her salad, she picked it up and said, ‘I wanna talk to your manager.’
I said, ‘Of course, is there anything wrong?’
‘Yes, this plate you gave me is dirty,’ She replied.
I brought out my manager and he asked to see her plate. She refused, saying, ‘No it’s dirty, I want a discount.’
He said, ‘Okay, well let me take your plate, tell me where it’s dirty.’
It went on for a while until finally, she relented. It turned out to be a little bump on the plate, like, a flaw of the plate itself, not anything dirty.
SHE STILL WANTED A DISCOUNT. Her friends were cringing so hard. After my manager told her we couldn’t give her a discount and left, one friend said, ‘Don’t worry guys, I got the check this time’ (good guy, it was so obvious he was doing it for her benefit). He left me an exaggeratingly good tip.”
Yes Tomato? Or No Tomato?
“My family owns a small diner, so we have had many of these instances over the years. The one that sticks out in my mind was a lady who came in for breakfast and ordered a Texas omelet without tomato. She got her omelet and ate it all, along with the toast and home fries that came with it.
My sister was the server, I was the cook, and my father was at the cash register. She was served promptly, and the food was made to order so we were all surprised when she said she wouldn’t be paying for the food when she got to the register because there was no tomato in her omelet. We went through the typical we-will-offer-you-a-discount stuff (many times it’s easier to offer 10% off than argue) but she wouldn’t let up, even though she ordered no tomato.
As the conversation went on she kept getting louder thinking that if she made a scene she would get her way. My father at this point was angry and he wasn’t going to let her get the best of him. He went back into the kitchen grabbed an empty pickle bucket and said, ‘If you’re not going to pay for the food we made you, we want it back.’
At this point, she had the attention of the whole place, many of whom are regulars. She got pretty embarrassed because no one had ever asked her to puke in a bucket. The birch finally paid and I haven’t seen her since.”
A Salad, A Large Diet Coke, And Three Happy Meals Walk Into A Bar
“While working the drive-thru window at a fast-food joint in high school, I had a verbally abusive mini-van mom scream at me because we weren’t serving breakfast(at 12:30 pm). While trying my best to calm her down, she demanded that I comp her entire order (A salad, Large Diet Coke, and three Happy Meals).
I said what any rational 17-year-old would say, ‘No?? We can’t do that, just because we aren’t serving breakfast.’
To which she proceeded to throw her entire tray of drinks at me while screaming from the top of her lungs that I was a butthole as she peeled out of the parking lot.
Later that evening, she tried to file a complaint against me with the company. She exaggerated the details and quoted me as saying, ‘I ain’t gonna help you, you f – ing bleep,’ (she also left out the part about throwing a tray of drinks at me).
I could have lost my job; luckily, I had multiple witnesses and my awesome manager who backed up my story. After about a week she came through the drive-thru a second time. She even had the nerve to complain as she was ordering that she came through last week and was treated very poorly and was refused breakfast, and that this meal should be comped, my manager asked her to drive around. She then confronted her at the window, stating that she not only assaulted one of her employees but also attempted to have him fired under false pretenses and that we would not serve her.
Needless to say, she filed a complaint against my manager as well. Which unfortunately didn’t get as easily dismissed. She was suspended for a week without pay. This incident actually happened back in 2002, so the story continues from there. The manager who was suspended, later left for another chain about a month or so later, where she took a lesser position. In a little over a year, she was promoted to General Manager. About five years after that, I saw her completely at random in a Walmart of all places. I thanked her for sticking up for me and told her the job was never the same after she left. She confided to me that being suspended was actually one of the best things that happened to her, as she was actually now a district supervisor for the chain she had defected to.
A close friend of mine who worked with me at the time swears up and down he saw the same woman on the news several years later. Apparently, she sued a construction company for having lewd pictures displayed in their work port-a-potty which was visible from the road. Some people really are just walking turds in a skin suit.”
XT XT Hot
“I used to work at a small pizza place and I was on the phone taking a guy’s order. He was being a real prick about everything. He said something like, ‘I want the absolute hottest wings you’ve got because I got the extra hot last time and they weren’t hot at all. You guys need to learn how to make wing sauce.’
We had mild, hot, and extra hot. So I took the extra hot wings, loaded them up with as much hot stuff as I could muster (jalapeno juice, a ton of cayenne pepper, whatever the frick I could find). It actually tasted fairly good, and it was pretty darn spicy.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, the idiot called back about a half-hour after picking up his order and screamed about how his wings were too spicy. We didn’t give him anything, because it was a tiny pizza place and I did whatever the heck I wanted to do. Instead, I just politely explained that I spent 10 minutes making the extra hot sauce hotter specifically because of his own request and that he would not be getting anything from us. I don’t think I ever saw him again.”
“Such A Weirdo”
“I went around and topped off the drinks at the table I was serving. I usually only top you off if you have visibly drank some. No need to top off a drink that’s already full, right? This man (a regular, who I swear had it out for me from the start) wanted a free meal because I didn’t top his drink off along with everyone else. When I told him I wasn’t giving it to him, he yelled at me and my manager. He tried to claim discrimination. It was a very uncomfortable day for me.
Another time, someone called to have a pizza delivered, and she spoke lovingly of how she loved the cheese when ‘it was all melty and gooey and perfect.’ She asked if I could make sure her pizza turned out like that. I was pretty creeped out by this point (it took her a long time to describe the perfect cheese. I think she was high), but I told her I would let the cook know, and I wrote her request on the ticket. After her pizza was delivered, she called to yell at me because the cheese wasn’t perfect. She wanted a promise of a free pizza next time with the gooey melty perfect cheese. Such a weirdo.”
Lemonade Scam
“We had a lady who would come in and say, ‘I want a bowl of lemons with my water, and you might wanna bring some extra sugar.’
If that wasn’t bad enough, she was good about not tipping barely a dime. Then to top it off, she loved to just throw the sugar packets and squeezed lemons on the table and make a nice sticky clumpy mess. You’d almost need a putty knife to get the goop up. I waited on her once and was fuming when she left. Then the rest of the staff told me that she did this every time she came in.
The next time she came in and I had to wait on her, I got her a nice big bowl of lemons and plenty of sugar. I was exceedingly polite for her whole lunch and even had a good conversation with her. The whole time watching her pile lemons and sugar packets on the table and not on a side plate or anything. The more I watched, the more I knew I was going to do it.
Let me just say I have never been short on sarcasm and never abundantly in possession of giving a shtick. So I charged her entitled self for lemonade. I didn’t even hit the easy-out button of soda. LEMONADE. When she got her bill she flipped out, she didn’t have any lemonade! I asked her, ‘What do you get when you mix lemons, sugar, and water?’
She began to insist that since she made it herself she couldn’t be charged. I told her that we had to pay for the lemons and the sugar that she shouldn’t get for free. Well yeah, she demanded a manager.
The manager lost her mind and threatened to fire me. It was all I could do to not smile. She couldn’t deny my logic but said that we just couldn’t do that. That was the very last time I had to clean that sticky mess though. Never saw her again.”
Absolutely Not
“I worked at a very busy Mom and Pop style seafood restaurant which had an (on average) 30-60 minute wait for a table on a Friday night. I had a soccer-type mom come in and demand a tale for her group of 25 people with no reservation. I looked at her like she was on crank, but kindly explained to her that I would put her name on the list, but the wait for a table for 25 would be over an hour and a half. She flipped her lid on me, calling me every name in the book, right in front of her group which contained around ten or so children.
She then called for my manager and started telling him that I was being completely unreasonable and rude to her and her party and demanded that she get the next open tables and a discount on all 25 meals. My manager laughed and informed her I hadn’t said one rude thing to her. Little did she know that we’re on an earpiece system so we could easily communicate with servers and other host staff, and he had heard everything on his. He told her he didn’t have time for it and she could leave. I smirked at her and told her to have a nice night. It looked like she was about to explode.”
He “Ruined Her Night Out”
“I was working as the duty manager in a steak house back in ’95. We had a packed house and were running around like crazy when one of the waitresses called me over to her table.
It was a table of four, old mom and dad and their two adult kids. The old guy was having a heart attack. When I got there, I checked his pulse which was faint and erratic so put him flat on the floor. I kept checking for a pulse and felt it fade away then stop, so I started CPR and heart massage while telling the waitress to call an ambulance. Obviously, everyone was looking as people do.
I continued trying to revive him and was joined by an off-duty paramedic and between us, we gave him chest compressions and blew into his mouth to keep oxygen circulating. It took about twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive and during this time we were unable to get his heart going. I knew he was dead but could not bring myself to tell his wife and kids so I just kept going with the CPR. When the ambulance arrived, they took over and decided to get him on board and take him to the hospital. His wife and kids got in the ambulance. I was totally shaken up after having this guy literally die in my arms.
As I walked to the kitchen to take a time out, a fat woman from one of the tables nearby stopped me and started complaining that it put her off her meal and ruined her night out. I was seething as she said we should have had some form of portable walls so diners would not have to watch ‘that sort of thing.’ I could tell she had just thought it would be a good opportunity to get a discount on her bill.
I was livid and nearly punched her when my boss pulled me away and made me sit outside. I think my parting words were something along the lines of, ‘Your freaking night was ruined? Think about that poor family who has just lost a father you freakin’ slag.’
That was the day that I realized that some people are just messed up in the head and lack any compassion or empathy. A couple of days later, the daughter came in to tell me her father had passed away and to thank me for my efforts. I felt for her so bad.”