Ever been disrespected by a customer? These employees call out the rudest customer they’ve ever encountered. Content has been edited for clarity.
So Much Attitude Over Eggplant Parmesan
“One night I was splitting a large party of about 16 or so with another server. They were clearly a family because they were bickering amongst themselves and we both realized quickly there was one middle-aged woman sitting at one end of the table who was causing all of the conflicts. After my co-worker took drink orders, we dropped them off and he went to get bread as I began to take food orders.
This woman was pretty much bullying her family members into ordering what SHE thought they should order and it was making things take forever as I kept scratching out orders and changing them. Finally, in the end, I came to two elderly ladies sitting on her left and one of them wanted eggplant Parmesan. Since taking the orders was so difficult I wanted to be extra thorough in repeating the orders back and I came to the eggplant, which prompted this awful woman to literally yell at me, ‘NO ONE ORDERED EGGPLANT PARMESAN!’ with as much attitude as I’ve ever heard over something as trivial as a food order that hadn’t even been placed yet but was just being confirmed.
I kinda had an existential crisis for a moment while thinking of how to respond since I was CERTAIN it was in fact ordered. I calmly asked for the last few orders to be repeated. The woman took it upon herself to repeat all the orders. I gathered what had happened was SHE wanted them to share one dish and I guess the sweet little elderly woman hadn’t understood what she was was being forced to order— oops MY MISTAKE.
Throughout the meal, she continued to tell people they shouldn’t have another drink when they tried to order one, that they should take their leftovers home even though they didn’t seem to want to, and generally just be super controlling and obnoxious.
I’m glad I’m not related to her! Way to make what’s supposed to be a nice family outing into something unpleasant. Everyone else at the table seemed lovely.”
A Staring Contest
“There was this guy who would come in often about a year ago where I served at. I never really served him until this day, but it seemed that every time he dined in, the manager had to comp something off of his ticket.
I walked up to his table to start my usual routine, saying hi, etc etc. He already looked like he was in a bad mood, I ignored it and chalked it up to the high heat outside and being hungry. His experience went as normal, ate all his food with a smile. Until the very end where he pulled me aside and showed me the strip of fat that his chicken had. There was nothing on his plate, except the thin slice of fat. This guy had finished everything and expected his whole meal to be comped. If the strip of fat was such a big deal then he would have sent it back immediately or at least after a few bites.
‘Let me go see with the manager,’ I said, after looking at his plate and taking it back to my manager.
I showed it to my manager on duty, who wasn’t a pushover when it came to customers trying to flex their customerness.
He said, ‘They ain’t getting anything free. This guy finished all his food.’
So with that, I went back, and I told the guy something along the lines of, ‘Sorry, sir, we can’t give you a discount because you ate the whole plate.’
He then proceeds to try to stare me down, so I did the same. We get locked in a mini battle of sorts until he looked away and started a conversation with his wife, completely ignoring the fact that I was still standing there.
‘Let me get you your check,’ I said as I walked off to get it.
I gave him his check and he left the money on the table with a grand total of a dollar tip. He then proceeded to leave, while mad dogging me the whole way out.
I never saw him again after that. Good Riddance.”
Con Artist
“A group of four came into our restaurant. They were seated promptly and at the start of my conversation with them, they said they would be paying separately.
As each individual ordered, I had notepaper to track their exact drinks, appetizers, and desserts, all written down by their description. Man in blue shirt, lady in orange dress, etc. I also have a pretty good memory so even with writing it down along with the simple order they placed, it wouldn’t be difficult to split their checks.
After they finished eating and socializing, they asked for their separate bills. I handed each one their bill and, after a brief glance, they handed me their cards and bills back.
I had them in sequence and even identified the customer on the bill. None objected to the bills placed in front of them, so safe to say, it was accurate.
Upon handing it back, the boisterous loud lady said, ‘This ain’t my bill.’
I went over with her a couple of times what she’d ordered, but still, she nodded and said, I kid you not, ‘I know but this ain’t mine.’
So she agreed with all the food charges (and was the only woman at the table), yet kept repeating, ‘This ain’t mine.’
On cue, all the guys started repeating the same thing, ‘Wait a minute, this ain’t mine.’
Everyone was now parroting the same pile of lies. It sounded like the seagulls in ‘Finding Nemo’ saying ‘Mine’— they just repeated everything over and over without listening to me. I was frustrated because speaking to them and getting any sense from them was nauseating.
I grabbed my manager. She canceled the transactions and asked them what they’d ordered. As she took down the orders, she realized the original transactions were correct. She again repeated the same bills and gave it to them.
They again said, ‘This ain’t mine’. This time they were annoyed that she’d done it a third time. By then, the superficially irate customers demanded free eclairs (our house specialty dessert ) and that their food be compensated 100 percent.
My manager was livid by this point. Luckily, this tough old lady held her ground and said, ‘You all are playing games now, you won’t be compensated. Your server had the correct bills.’
Then they claimed they didn’t have a Coke, but instead, they’d had water and so on. Now all of a sudden, the order my manager took down was wrong.
They said they didn’t get dessert and they ordered ‘one appetizer’ while two were clearly made.
Needless to say, they paid, but I was not tipped by the con artists. I was over-compensated well by the other decent customers who watched all this go on. One even gestured to me that the group were overheard talking about planning this.”
Threat
“It was a busy Sunday morning, with me (senior hostess) and two other hostesses. We’ll call them ‘L’ and ‘T’. Now, L was not known to be the best worker. And T was helpful but most of the time, it was me doing all of the work and telling them to help me when there was a line.
So, about three hours into the rush, I heard some commotion. Now, as our restaurant was known for being a family establishment, we got a good mix of large families and couples, with some working one-seaters every so often. This commotion was caused by a table that needed to use two of our high chairs, with a bunch of smaller children seated there as well.
You can already see where this is going.
An older man with his wife, who had been waiting in the lobby for a table for about six minutes came raging up to the little podium that I was at and told me he couldn’t handle the screaming, and that I needed to do something about it. I kid you not, this 70-something-year-old man told me to ‘Shut that dang baby up before I do it myself!’
The lobby went so quiet you could’ve heard a pin drop.
I was wide-eyed, little fourteen-year-old me with almost eight months of working there, and this man not only was demanding me to possibly hit a baby but then said he would do it himself.
Ding-ding, idiot, don’t say that nonsense.
He looked so smug, expecting me to go over there and just tell the party to shut up, or to somehow apologize and try to accommodate him. Heck no.
The manager was already walking up to us when I went off.
I said, ‘Sir, I’m not sure if you noticed, but I have no custody nor any power over that child nor their parents. And not only that, but you just told me you would go over to that baby and shut it up. I consider that a threat.’
Mister Old Guy was starting to realize just exactly what he said and tried to backpedal.
I continued, ‘While the sound of a child screaming can be annoying, sir, I promise you this. I’m not going to do a single thing about that baby because it stopped crying a minute ago. And you know what?’
Adults were staring as a voice in my head was telling me to ‘Shut up or you’re going to get fired.’
I finally said, ‘This is a family establishment. Expect some kids.’
The geezer left, never saw him again and was given a five dollar tip out of nowhere.”
A Group Of 16 Vs One Tiny Waitress
“A group of 16 came in, proclaiming they deserved a discount because they were on time for their reservation.
Throughout the meal, they claimed not to have ordered this or that, this wasn’t right. This needed to be remade, or it wasn’t what they wanted. It wasn’t big enough/it was too much. They should get that free because they sent it back, on and on and on. Demanding compensation.
The waiter did an amazing job jumping at every whim, making everything right. I even gave his other tables to other servers because these people were so difficult. They were overheard challenging each other to see who could get what free.
Since my server was able to not only call them politely on each thing, he was able to tell them why something wouldn’t be free. Primarily because they ate it.
When he was then REDOING the separate checks, another server heard one say, ‘I guess someone’s gonna have to fall to get something free here.’
Well, lo and behold, an aged grandma got up. She headed for the front of the restaurant, when the next thing I know, she’d fallen in the host area.
I came out immediately to find her whole family had come around the corner, en force, to help her up to a bench.
Then came the accusations, ‘She slipped on water. You’re endangering the customers!’
‘There is no water here,’ said I.
‘Then I tripped on that rug,’ she claimed.
‘You said you fell here,’ I said, pointing the way ahead of where she was heading and not over the rug where I was pointing below my feet. ‘No rug.’
She said, ‘Well, I fell.’
Someone from her group said, ‘She needs medical help. Are you denying her medical help!?’
I was already dialing 911, and several began screaming, ‘NO! YOU DON’T NEED TO DO THAT! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? WHO’S GOING TO PAY FOR THAT?’
I suggested she should make herself comfortable because it would take time since it was 11:00 on a Friday night and these nights are busy for paramedics.
But before I could offer to get her a cushion or something to be more comfortable, they were screaming again, ‘ARE YOU DENYING MEDICAL TREATMENT? YOU’RE DENYING MEDICAL TREATMENT!’
In the meanwhile, some of her party had gone back to the table, trying to scrape water from the kitchen to the path grandma would have taken. The server put a stop to that with, ‘We have cameras. Don’t get yourselves prosecuted for fraud.’
While the grandma was mumbling about an accident report. Which I already had in hand, with my GM’s business card.
Her family circulating like vultures saying, ‘Yeah, a report. We want that report. You better make that report.’
I asked her if she was certain she didn’t want to go to the hospital.
She mumbled, ‘No, I’ll go tomorrow. I want a copy of that report.’
They finally filed out, ‘You’ll hear from our lawyers. Lawyers will be calling!’
Two tried to walk out of their checks, but my kitchen people came to stand at the doorway while the server and I chased them down in the parking lot. I didn’t realize the cooks were there, but they could hear it all and they take care of me. Anyway, We got our money.
You might ask why we put ourselves through this? My server’s entire income that night came from that table. It was a 400 dollar check, which is very hard to achieve in my restaurant. They came in sleazy. It became a point to collect that money.
And later, yes, we got a complaint about it, but my Area Director was able to pull the footage of not only her fall, but as he put it, all those large people circling and yelling down to a little, tiny woman. Me. He saw me try to call 911, and he saw me fill out the accident report. He saw them trying to make the floor wet.
Those are the reasons we just didn’t comp the whole thing and say, ‘Get the heck outta here.’
Unsupervised Children
“I had been working at Posadoes in Texas for over a year and usually handled the patio but had two tables inside as well. A lady walked in with her son and his two friends and soon as they sat down she told the boys goodbye and left them there in my section. These boys couldn’t have been older than eight or nine years old and personally, I would never leave such young kids alone in a restaurant, but I still had to serve them regardless.
I walked up with the usual greeting and asked what they wanted to drink and if they wanted an appetizer. They each got a coke and ordered some cheese fries. I put the order in and brought out their drinks asking for their order and they immediately told me they could only spend ten dollars each. I tried to explain to them their drinks were about three bucks each and if they split the amount of the appetizer, they already owed about five bucks each. Of course, they complained but there was nothing I could do at that point as they already had their drinks and the cheese fries. They were kids so they kinda ignored me about prices and ordered their entrees anyways.
After they got their food, they kept asking for straws or silverware. When I asked why they said, ‘We just wanted to see how many times you’d do it.’
I told them how disrespectful they were being. The next time I stopped by their table I just dropped off their split bill and only went back to pick them up. They paid and of course, being kids they didn’t tip me, not one cent. They were still being rude asking for refills and other things like I was their maid. Finally, the lady came back to pick them up.
The obnoxious thing was when the lady returned, her kids complained to her that I was rude and didn’t explain the prices of food and now they didn’t have enough to go to a movie.
She said, ‘I’ll cover the movie.’
Then she told them to wait in the car and walked up to me. She started lecturing me on how to handle children, yet she was the one who them alone in a restaurant.
Kids that age don’t understand money very well and I tried to tell them, but they ignored me. I was not a babysitter, I was a waitress, I was not responsible for them.
She then asked me if they left a tip to which I told her. ‘No ma’am, they didn’t tip me.’
She just shrugged and walked away.
Why ask if you aren’t going to right their mistake!”
Insults
“When I was in high school, my mom was put in charge of her employer’s major fundraising event for the United Fund. The Chairman/CEO picked my mom out of the 2,200 employees. This was a ‘there can be no goofs’ event.
She asked if I and my best friend would consider helping out that night. We could pour drinks and in general be that friendly face. Our reward would be some great food, a hockey game after clean-up, and she might not notice if we slipped some Grey Goose in our own glasses now and then.
We were both 17 but we looked old enough to be 18 so no one would question us.
So we were there and most of the people were fine. We poured, a few thank us, but most just went on their way. Some got a little antsy as game time approached.
They said, ‘Can you speed that up please?’
The way this worked was that free drinks ended when the game started. Naturally, there was some jostling when people thought they might be cut off before they could get that last free one.
Most people treated us as if we weren’t there. Just a meat-machine attachment to a beverage pouring handle. A few would be nice when the lines were short and made small talk like, ‘Gee, what group are you in? I’ve never seen you around the office before.’
But then there was THE ONE.
My mom was standing nearby when someone walked up to her and said, ‘Gee Pat, I didn’t know you had mentally challenged kids.’
My mom looked at him like ‘What the heck?!’
The guy continued, ‘Those two over there. Someone said one was yours. And obviously, no one does a job like that unless they’re slow. I thought you only had a son who was accepted at Harvard. That can’t be him.’
My mom flat-out asked, ‘What are you talking about, Bill?’
And he again said, ‘Those two over there— they are mentally handicapped, right? I mean no college eligible kid is going to take a job pouring pop. But you better watch them a lot more closely. I’ve been keeping my eye on them and they’re pouring themselves drinks now and then. They might be legal age but I don’t think someone like that should be drinking. They’re clearly not fast in the brains department, to begin with.’
But he didn’t stop there. He continued, ‘The other servers here, with the caterer. They are what I’d expect from low-class girls, doing the only job other than being pregnant they know how to do. They can be trained to wait tables as they’re doing, but those two, I’m sorry if one is your son, but they’re just not ‘fast enough’ to be doing that job. While I can understand wanting to include a slow family member, I think you made a big mistake and it’s going to get back to Mr. X (the Chairman/CEO).’
This was not hearsay either. He evidently thought that I and my friend were so slow that he could say it standing just a few feet away. We both heard the whole thing. We also saw my mom’s face go from total confusion to outright rage. She could do nothing on the spot since he was an executive. Also, he appeared to be at least somewhat tipsy and was looking for a fight. My mom needed the job and didn’t need to be fired for insubordination.
This was an old school company where no matter how right you were, you were wrong if what you said involved insubordination. She handled it by going to the Chairman’s assistant after the event. It was very quietly taken care of, not that I ever got an apology. But my mom did, along with a huge raise, got a promotion from Clerk I to Secretary.”
“The Worst Display I’d Seen From Human Beings Ever”
“While I was a waitress at Pizza Hut, I once had a table of four males from an oil rig come in and intentionally cause trouble. We were slammed so bad and understaffed that people were lined up around the building to get in.
Well, these guys made fun of me for my weight and looks, complained about their dinner, and constantly made snide comments about me knowing others were hearing it all while I had to grit my teeth, bearing it since ‘the customer is always right’.
I had been on my feet from open to close without a break at all because of the understaffing we faced that day. My manager saw the distress I was under and took over to give me my first break of the day (this between seven and eight pm). He handled the table and when I came in they were gone. They had intentionally gone out to their truck, gathered a bunch of trash, and left it on the table with no tip either.
That was the worst display I’d seen from human beings ever.”
Miss Know-It-All
“A lady came in the other day and stated she was gluten, so I had to change my gloves. I always wear two or three gloves, so when I changed my top set of gloves and grabbed a small salad bowl, I asked her which type of lettuce she would like.
She started screaming at me, ‘You are doing it ALL wrong! YOU need to take off your gloves, wash your hands, put on new gloves, and take everything I want in my salad from the bottom of the cooler.’
I told her I did change my gloves, but she was not paying attention to me. Instead of talking to her friend so she didn’t see me. She got mad and stormed out as her friend stayed and laughed out loud.
She said, ‘Don’t you just love those people that don’t work here trying to tell you how to do your job?!'”
His Own Fault
“A guy yelled at me because he had ordered the wrong food. Where I work, we have three different kinds of steak: entrecote, pepper steak, and bacon-wrapped tenderloin.
He called in and ordered one of the steaks as carry-out (I can’t remember exactly which one it was). When he came in to get it, he said we had made the wrong one. I offered him a new steak, told him that it would only take about 15 minutes to make the right one. At this point, he lost his mind.
He started telling me how no one in my city actually liked our food, how we were morons to think that people actually want to dine with us, and how those who actually did, were just mentally insane. I could not even talk back to him, but trust me when I say that I really wanted to.
The funniest thing? He did not have time for us to make a new steak because he had parked badly outside the restaurant. It all ended with my colleague asking him to leave because he was so rude, and me running into the kitchen to cry.
I have been told to lay over guests´ lap to clean the table, and one even told me to give him a hug so that he would pay for the food, but the yelling one is definitely the worst one.”