Just keep smiling. What’s that, ma’am? Yes, you’re right. I am an idiot. Just keep smiling. What’s that, sir? You’re right, I’ll never amount to anything. You would know. Just keep smiling. Just keep smiling. Just keep smiling…
This piece is based on an AskReddit thread. Link on the last page.
1/11. A woman came into the charity shop where I used to work and began complaining about every single item loudly to the ten or so customers in there. Along the lines of, This is all crap. Who pays for this?”
Like we’re some kind of fancy boutique with clothes from the back of a van. She clearly didn’t understand how rarely new clothes get donated. Then she got in my face about it.
I was so angry with her for chasing away the other customers that I lost my cool. There was nobody left except her since she’d ranted them into leaving. I told her to get the f out and I that I didn’t give a s about her opinions. She screams her way out of the shop broadcasting it to everyone on the street.
She came back once the manager was off his break and complained again, so I lost my job fairly soon after. I can’t blame her, I’d have done the same. I had just had enough.
TwentySixLetter
2/11. I worked at burger joint many years ago. I was working the drive-thru register, which was close enough to the front counter that I could hear conversations.
One of my co-workers was taking an order from a lady who kept asking how much her total was, and then cancelling and changing her mind. I guess she was trying to keep under a certain dollar amount?
Well at the restaurant I worked at, any cancelled food on an order needed a manager’s password. So the manager had come by 3 or 4 times at that point. This was during dinnertime, mind you, so there was a line of customers out the door waiting to order.
This was a recipe for disaster. (continue…)
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Finally, my co-worker pulled out a pad of paper and a calculator. He started writing this woman’s order down and totalling it out by hand. The woman asked him why he was doing that, and he told her, “When you make up your mind about what you want, then I’ll put it in the register.”
This angered the woman, so she grabbed the calculator and tried to hit my co-worker with it. He snatched it back from her and told her “Get the f out.” My manager was only going to write him up for it since the woman 100% deserved it, but he already had two write-ups on file so she had to fire him.
partofbreakfast
3/11. My mother was working at an upscale cocktail lounge in Arlington, Virginia, just out of college. Fancy place – all DC business men. It was common for large groups of men to come in and get absolutely wasted.
One night, a guy decided, after a few cocktails, that it would be hilarious to untie the wrap skirt that was part of her uniform. Bad idea. My mother was furious and dumped an entire tray of martinis on his head.
She was promptly fired, but still thinks it was worth it.
emergences
4/11. Many a year ago, I worked at a home improvement store. I was a cart pusher, which was nice as I got to be outside all the time.
Anyway, we gather about 25-30 shopping carts together and push them up to the entrance where they are stored inside. Now to get them there we do have to cross the main drive of the parking lot in front of the store. We always stop and let customers drive by.
So as I push the carts up I stop because I see a guy in an pretty nice SUV. He is actually stopped in front of the entrance. So he then looks at me and waves me across – looks like he wanted to finish a call or something. So I wave back and start pushing the carts across. I am on the other side when I feel something clip me across the shoulder blades.
At the same time I heard glass shatter, I turn around and realize that the guy in the SUV clipped me with his sideview mirror. It had swung closed and shatterered the door window.
He pulled over and got out of his car, and you can guess what came next. (continued)
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He was swearing up a storm at me about how I’m a low life piece of s and how I’m going to pay for a new window and that I’m not going to go anywhere in life because I broke his window.
Now I’m the type of person who owns up to his mistakes and fixes the problem. But then this guy hit me.
I blew up on him for about 5 minutes before a manager finally had the guts to come over and pull me away. I didn’t have to pay for a new window as it was on video, but I lost my job because we are not suppose to yell and cuss at the customer.
warmasher
5/11. A long time ago, I worked on bicycles. At the shop I worked at, the head mechanic was popular in the cycling community and a lot of people requested him specifically. This guy wasn’t really good about letting his coworkers know about extra work that we were supposed to do for customer’s bikes if he was out to lunch or running errands.
This was one of those situations.
The customer brought in his bike for some work because he was going racing the next day. The head mechanic had agreed to put him at the head of the repairs queue but neglected to let anyone else in the shop know, and hid all the paperwork so no one else would work on this fancy bike that apparently only he could work on.
So the customer stops in to pick up his bike that he had only dropped off a few hours earlier. Conveniently, the head mechanic had stepped out for an hour, leaving me and cashier alone.
I had no idea hat was going on and the customer was angry about his bike because “Geoff said it would be ready.
Then the guy pokes me in the chest and tells me to fuck off to the storage room and “fetch” him his bike. So I did. When I brought it back, I told him to stick it up his ass. He complained to the manager. I got fired two days later.
vycanismikey
6/11. I used to work at pizza place in a small town when I was a teenager. One night I took a phone order from some idiot woman. This is how it went. (continued)
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Me: Thank you for calling “pizza place”, may I take your order?
Her: Yes, I’d like a large pizza. Half pepperoni, half sausage, and half black olives.
Me: Ok, did you want the toppings combined or separated?
Her: No, I want half pepperoni, half sausage, and half black olives.
Me: Ok so you want 1/3 pepperoni, 1/3 sausage, and 1/3 black olives?
Her: No! I want HALF PEPPERONI, HALF SAUSAGE, and HALF BLACK OLIVES!
Me: I understand the toppings that you want, but I’m not understanding how you want us to put the toppings on your pizza. Do you want them separated by thirds? Combined together? Or do you mean put half the amount that we usually put on?
Her: What’s so hard to understand?! I WANT… HALF… PEPPERONI… HALF… SAUSAGE… AND HALF… BLACK OLIVES!!!!!
Me: Lady, there’s only 2 halves to a pizza!
Her: I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER!!!
I got fired on the spot. It was easier for the manager to just hire another person than it was to lose a customer in a small town.
Oh, and the lady wanted the toppings divided into thirds. She told the manager the same thing and he just went with her math. I am sad to report that this garbage person also got her pizza for free.
WallOtterCarpetSeal
7/11. I have a speech impediment and back when I worked at Starbucks, this African-American kid, maybe 14, would come in every day after school and order a caramel frap.
Every time I told him it would be “$3.50”, he would laugh uproariously and ask me to say it again.
After a few weeks of this, he’d start bringing in his buddies as well. Each one would order the exact same drink then ask me to keep repeating the price for them again and again while they laughed at my disability. (continued…)
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After a few months of this, I broke down and yelled: “You boys should know how much the drink is by now!”
My manager overheard and claimed I was being racist by calling them ‘you boys’, even though they were all middle school age! I was fired.
I still see the kids around town and they always shout at me: “How much are those caramel fraps again?”
laterdude
8/11. I used to work at a store that sold video games. One day, a guy came in with about 100 games to trade, all with discs and cases mismatched. It took about 45 minutes to process, and when I told him the total we were offering him, it was low (because they were all old, scratched games). This man then tried to negotiate with me.
I kept telling him I can’t change the price, which only made him angrier and louder. Eventually he yelled “listen you stupid [racial slur], I need at least $300 for all of this crap and you’re going to give it to me.”
My coworker proceeded to put all of his games in a bag, walk outside and toss them into the parking lot. Then he told the guy to take his “racist, cousin-loving ass somewhere else.”
The store manager came out of the back room and fired him on the spot. The customer stormed out and the second he left my manager said, “Jesus what was his problem? Alright get back to work.”
My coworker didn’t get fired; it was just theatrics for the racist guy. I felt like an idiot for just standing there, but it took everything I had not to hop the counter and hit the guy.
Lets_Do_Butt_Stuff
9/11. I lost my job at a vet clinic. The story goes like this: a woman brought in her 5-year-old dog that had diarrhea for the past week, which had gone untreated.
She said she was tired of the dog messing in her house. So instead of having the dog treated for the condition, she decided it would be easier for her to just have the dog killed. She asked me to put it down. (continued…)
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I absolutely refused. When she insisted, I let fly and proceeded to call her a dumb b while explaining to her the responsibilities that are involved when you decide you want to own a pet. I was fired. But I did not harm that innocent dog. I never looked back.
onnicitta
10/11. A friend of mine used to work in a pizza place. I’d hang out in the lobby playing their Pac-man machine (yeah it was a long time ago).
Anyway, my friend was taking orders when a guy stormed in, screaming about receiving the wrong toppings. He removed the pie from the box and frisbeed it into my friends face. My two-time Detroit Golden-Glove boxing champion friend.
What followed was the worst beating I have ever seen one man take. Needless to say, my friend lost his job.
Rhooster313
11/11. I worked at a pretzel place where you hand make everything. A lady came up and asked, “Hi, can I get salted nuggets? But are they fresh?”
“Indeed, ma’am, I’d be happy to make you fresher ones if you want to wait five to ten minutes. But I literally just put these in here.”
She seemed happy and content. “Sure, I’ll take those. Thanks.”
Not even five minutes later, she comes back hollering at me that I’m a liar, that I must be stupid because the nuggets were hard. What gets me is she decided to yell at me came back EVEN THOUGH she came back with an empty cup. Those nuggets must have been terrible, right?
So after I get called a liar, a moron, and she had the audacity to demand a refund and new fresh nuggets another three times, I turned to a coworker and I said, “Someone needs to help this garbage lady because I’m not doing it loud enough for her to hear, and I stormed out of the store to the back room to cool off.
Thankfully, my manager was cool and didnt fire me.
blamethecranes