37 Wildly Entitled And Rude Customers Who Prove 99% Of People Are Just Giant Tantrum-Throwing Toddlers
Recently, we asked the former servers and retail workers of the BuzzFeed Community to talk about their worst, most entitled customers, and they had plenty to share.* Here are some infuriating things people dealt with on the job, from wildly entitled requests to straight-up terrible people.
*We also used responses from these three Reddit threads.
1."I work at a concert venue. I had a customer call the day after the show wanting a refund because the artist did not play his favorite song."
2."A table of 30 came into the restaurant I cook at. The manager let us know so we at least had a heads up for the very large incoming order about to be placed. The servers took their orders and entered them in. Everyone on the line started to bust their ass getting this food out. SEVEN FUCKING MINUTES LATER, our manager came back to tell us the table was leaving because we had apparently been taking extremely too long. Not even McDonald's can serve a 30-set in seven minutes, let alone a casual dining restaurant."
3."I worked at a local upscale restaurant in the Midwest. We had bad weather coming in one night that turned from a tornado watch to a tornado warning. I stayed later than the rest of the staff, minus two other managers who were going to stay put since they lived half an hour away and the tornado sirens just went off. I was on my way out the door because I lived five minutes away, and I ran into a 20-person reservation that didn't answer their phone when we called five times to tell them we were closing due to the tornados. So we were outside in a thunderstorm, with the tornado sirens blaring, and these people could not grasp the situation. They were acting like it was just a normal day. I tried to get reason in their heads for a few minutes, but they were having none of it. So I got the two other managers to deal with it and went home because I couldn't handle that level of idiocy anymore."
4."A lady came into our restaurant an hour before closing time and announced she was having her bridal shower (at our restaurant) of 60 people in about 15 minutes from then. We told her we'd do our best to accommodate them, but we already had a wedding party in our private room (which only seats 50 anyway). We said we were happy to accommodate her group in the regular area, but we warned her that we aren't set up to just immediately feed this number of people this late at night, all at once. I heard her say, 'Well, this is ridiculous; I sent out invitations to my guests two months ago!'"
"My manager replied, 'Well, we didn't get one of those. You've made no reservation, and we'll do what we can to feed your group, but the meals will not come out at the same time.' The lady started having a hissy fit about us 'ruining her dinner.' She was rude enough that the manager then informed her that we'd love to help her, but a party this large, at no notice, at the end of the night would require a 30% mandatory tip, and we would only stay open long enough to serve their food plus 20 minutes to eat. She stormed out, and a lot of her party ended up just eating dinner at our restaurant (we didn't enforce the required tip for them) because they had no other option. Most tipped at least 20% anyway. Several of them left glowing reviews for how accommodating we were, how great the staff was, how much they enjoyed the food, etc."
5."I'm a long-haul flight attendant. We once had a passenger on a flight who had laid their eight or nine-year-old on the ground to sleep. I asked the mother to politely pick her up as it wasn't safe. The mother informed me it was safe and pulled the 'I've done it plenty of times before' line. Things escalated dramatically from here when I insisted she pick her child up. It took 20 minutes of arguing, waking up the entire aircraft, including the Captain and the Purser, and threats of restraint to calm her down. We eventually managed to get the child in the seat with a pillow I had found in the aircraft cupboard."
"The reason we can't have anyone on the floor is that in the event of sudden decompression, the masks won't reach ground level. A person has around four seconds of useful consciousness in a worst-case scenario, so the mother wouldn't be able to take her mask off to bend down, pick her child up, and put her on oxygen. This is also why we tell you to put your own mask on before assisting others — it's a hell of a lot easier helping your child with their mask while you're conscious."
6."While I was waiting on an older lady, she fainted and hit her head on the counter on the way down. Everyone went over to help her, talking to her as she regained consciousness, pressing a paper towel to her bleeding head, keeping her calm as we waited for the ambulance, etc. Another lady stepped over her prone body to the counter and demanded to be rung up as she was in a hurry."
7."I worked at Walmart. A middle-aged man asked me for moving blankets. I apologized and said since we were a smaller location, we didn't have any, but if he wanted, I could show him to the bedding department, and he could see if anything may work for him. He agreed. I walked him over and asked if he wanted any further assistance, and he said no. I went along my merry way. 20 minutes later, I looked up, and he was angrily walking towards me to confront me. With a mouth full of venom and his finger in my face, he spat out, 'YOU should go home and f****** un-alive yourself,' and he turned on one heel and walked out."
—Anonymous
8."I used to work at a buffet as a manager/cashier, and I remember this one customer who wanted a free meal because our food made her 'throw up.' She claimed that she threw up in the bathroom, so I went to check up on it. The entire bathroom floor was littered with UNEATEN food straight from the buffet bar. I returned and (politely) called bullshit on her story. Her response, and I shit you not, was, 'Then are you calling me a liar? Do you really think I'd waste food like that?' I smugly checked the cameras (we had one facing the hallway leading towards the bathroom) and showed her the footage of her heaping a plate with food, entering the bathroom with said plate, and leaving with a magically empty plate. The look of horror and embarrassment on her face was priceless. She paid in the end, too."
9."I was working in the hardware department in the plumbing section. A customer came up to me, clearly looking for help, and when I asked, 'Can I help you?' they looked me up and down and said, 'I want to speak to a man.' I thought, 'Oh great, another sexist one,' and so I found my male co-worker, who barely knew anything about plumbing. The customer seemed upset when my male co-worker could not help him, but as I was still in the vicinity and listening, I was able to chime in when I knew the CORRECT answer to the customer's question, to which they once again looked me up and down with a scowl and went, 'Oh...well, I guess I'll buy that one...'"
"Treat retail workers with kindness. Just...be a decent human being."
—Anonymous
10."I'm a restaurant manager. We were short-staffed one day and getting slammed, so I waited on a table to help a server get caught up. When I sat the drinks down, I put them in front of the wrong person at the table. The woman glared at me and then snidely told the man I assumed was her husband, 'This is why we go to college.' I just kind of laughed it off, but the day before, I had turned in my thesis to receive my master's in business."
—Anonymous
11."A seven-top table got excellent service. The bill was $140 or so. The person paying the check was friendly, and all smiles...and tipped $0. He waited at the door to see the sad, dejected look on the waitress's face as she looked at the receipt and gave a Hannibal Lecter smile. You could just tell he derived pleasure from her pain."
12."I worked in a vitamin store. A lady came in like a bat out of hell and stomped to the counter. She cut the entire line to make a return. She was angry that one of our salespeople sold her a product, and she later saw on Dr. Oz that it really didn't help much. I told her to please wait in line, and we would get it sorted for her. She was insistent that she be helped now. She said her doctor said it wouldn't help her, so I asked if her doctor was Dr. Oz. She got so pissed and started to act like a child. The guy behind her was my hero that day. He just calmly said, 'Calm the fuck down, lady, and wait your turn.' Customers like that guy make my day as a retail employee. Not all heroes wear capes; some wear tank tops too big for them that expose their nipples."
13."I work in a bagel shop. I was grabbing a customer’s dozen bagels and had the box ready in my hands when my manager walked past and said, 'I gotta sneeze.' She went to the back so she wasn't germing the place up. I turned to look back at the customer, and he was staring me dead in the face. He said, 'You can sneeze in my box.' I froze. What do I even say to that? Why on earth do you think you get to bring that s**t into my store? And how do you STAY after you utter those words in public to an unsuspecting food worker instead of spontaneously combusting on the spot out of embarrassment??? My autopilot took over as I grabbed his bagels and got him out of the store. My manager says he’s been suggestive to her in the past. We quote him all the time now, and it takes everything in me when he visits the store (yes, he still eats here) not to shout, 'SNEEZE GUY!'"
—Anonymous
14."I work for a tax agency, and taxpayers can be assessed a late payment fee if they don't pay their taxes in full by a specific date, usually based on how much they owed and when they filed their tax forms. These fees can be waived, but they are one-time things and may or may not have a dollar limit. One afternoon, I got a call from a man who is a 'high earner' (between $3 and $4 million a year of income). He had a history of not paying his taxes on time and had already had roughly $8000 in fees waived over three different years, and now he was demanding I waive another year of fees totaling nearly $2000. His reason for not filling in time, he said, was he had brain cancer that particular tax year."
"Now, I'm as empathetic as the next guy, but this guy started the conversation with me with this, and he brought it up constantly during the conversation, to the extent I was beginning to suspect he was lying about it. I also had a brother die of brain cancer a few years ago, and some of the things the man was saying weren't tracking with what I knew of the illness based on what I knew my brother went through.
Either way, given he'd already had so many waivers (based on the notes I saw on his account, he had a long history of calling in and using a serious illness of some sort as a reason to give him a waiver), I was unable to give him a fourth waiver and neither could my supervisor. He argued with me for easily a half hour, with me giving him the same answer. He finally said, 'Well, I hope you or someone you love gets brain cancer and dies from it!'
I hung up on him at this point because all I could think about was my brother, who did die from brain cancer, who was poor as a church mouse and would never talk to someone the way this man talked to me. The wealthy are extremely toxic and entitled people, especially when it comes to their money."
15."I worked a late night cocktail shift in a cardroom at 21, and a guy my age was playing poker and ordered a steak. When it was brought to him, he asked me if I could cut it up for him. The rest of the players were all older guys, and luckily, they made fun of him enough that he changed his mind."
"I had another guy that was also the same age and a decently good-looking guy, but he gave like a super creepy American Psycho vibe and would ask me for back massages at the table and follow me around."
—Anonymous
16."We had a customer slip and fall on our property. It was freshly shoveled and salted but still slippery. For the next eighteen months, every time she wanted us to break the rules for her, she would say, 'Well, I DID fall on your property — you owe me' or 'I could have sued the pants off you, but I didn't.' I think our organization's attorney finally sent her a cease-and-desist letter because I haven't seen her since."
—Anonymous
17."A man threw a hissy fit (in front of his young daughter) because we didn't have a product that he drove THREE HOURS to buy SPECIFICALLY. It wasn't a fantastically popular product so we didn't keep a lot in stock. We'd just sold the last one on the shelf the week before, and he hadn't called ahead to ask if it was in stock. He demanded we sell him the half-used sample bottle and complained when we refused because we weren't allowed to (for health and safety reasons). We offered to check if the store a few miles away had any in stock, but he refused, saying he had already driven far enough. We offered to order it for him and have it shipped to his house and would make him a sample to last him until it arrived, but he also refused and insisted that we either sell him the sample bottle or he would never come to our store again. To his credit, I never saw him again."
"If you have to drive a long way to get a product, maybe call to make sure it's in stock before you make the trip. Also, don't be an asshole in front of your kids. His poor wife looked so embarrassed."
18."This guy orders a double cheeseburger with extra cheese. So I make him his burger with four slices instead of the usual two. I wrapped the thing up and forgot about it. Five minutes later, he was red-faced and having it out with one of the cashiers and my manager, demanding to see the 'little prick' that made his burger. So, I obliged him. He thrust the thing in my face and continued his rampage, asking if I thought this sort of thing was funny. Apparently, 'extra cheese' meant three slices, not four. Why he had to cause a scene about it is anyone's guess..."
19."I had a customer call the store claiming that she had gone through the drive-thru earlier that day and asked for a large Coke with light ice. She told me there was definitely the normal amount of ice in this drink, and she demanded a refund, a new Coke, and a milkshake for her inconvenience. I was speechless."
20."I once had a family of four come in — a wife, husband, and two kids. The wife ordered a cheeseburger. Everything seemed to be going well. I asked if they liked their food and if there was anything I could get for them, and they said everything was fine. The wife finished her burger and got my manager. She told her that the burger was absolutely horrible and that she wanted a refund for the whole meal. My manager almost laughed at her and told her if she hadn't finished the burger and had said something at the beginning, she would have gladly gotten her another burger, but there was no way she was getting a meal for four for free, nor was she getting hers for free because she, at first, told me she liked it."
21."I used to work at a hotel, and a guest said he had left his laptop charger in a room months ago during a previous stay and wanted to check the lost and found. I called down to housekeeping to check the lost and found and they said there were no chargers for his brand of computer. He then asked if he could go look to find a different one that would work on his laptop. I told him he could not because it was not his; he could not just take someone else's charger because they may come back looking for it like he is now. He then went through a cycle of asking again. I would say no, he would just ask 'why?' like a child, and I would again explain that those chargers did not belong to him."
"Then he started counting how many times I explained it, 'That's the third time you told me that...that's the fourth time you told me that...' in a very condescending tone as if I didn't realize I was saying the same thing over and over. He thought he was making a point, but the only point he was making was that he was an asshole. After the fifth time, he asked for a manager who just gave him a random charger. I'll never forget the guy's face, and I hope to run into him in the future."
22."I was a hostess at a fairly popular restaurant close to a movie theater. This can attract some large families on busy nights, so we strongly suggest reservations in our advertising. It's a Friday evening, and we're already on a wait. This family of seven saunters in, and the father asks us for a table. I tell him that we do have about a 40-minute wait, but if they'd like to wait on the patio and order an appetizer, there is space for them. He frowns, whispers to his wife, then turns back to me. 'Nah, we're going somewhere else. Go fuck yourself.' I almost didn't believe I had heard it at first. Seriously? I was blown away that this father, husband, adult man felt like it was okay to say that to a 20-year-old hostess."
23."While I worked in an all-you-can-eat restaurant, we frequently got customers who would eat, say, three or four plates of food, then go and fill up another five, leave them all full on the table, and claim the food was all disgusting and refuse to pay. One time in particular when a couple tried to do this, the managers got involved and were refusing to let the customers leave while they called the police. The woman in the couple tried to push past one of my managers, but he took hold of her arm to stop her from leaving. Cue shouts of assault and harassment, and male partner suddenly going ape shit shouting, 'Don't you fucking touch my woman,' etc. Luckily, there was a full restaurant of people who were watching the show, so they couldn't get away with it. Douchebags..."
24."I work in retail. We sell soup that you serve for yourself at my job. I had a customer who wanted me to give him a discount because he filled the soup container half full, and he got mad at me because I wouldn't give him a discount!!! He said I gave shitty customer service. Dude, you are the one who filled it halfway!!! The price is by container!!! Who wouldn't fill it up?!!!"
"I've been in customer service for over nine years. The entitlement of customers and disrespect for service workers has never been worse. Just be glad I showed up for work. And people wonder why no one wants to do these types of jobs anymore for no pay and beyond rude customers."
—Anonymous
25."My first job was at a locally-owned video store. One busy day, with a line of people all the way to the door, a customer got to the counter and said the DVDs he bought were unplayable. He wanted to return them and get a refund. I apologized and said no problem, then asked to have a look, knowing full well that we don't sell DVDs with scratches on them. The movies were basically destroyed. It was like he went to town on them with a box cutter and then got his cats to play with them. I told him I was sorry, but we couldn't resell these in their state. Buddy LOST it and started raising his voice, asking what I knew, saying I wasn't the one who sold them to him (I was, he just didn't remember), and pointing his finger in my face. Keep in mind, I was a small 15-year-old girl, and he was a 50-something-year-old man. I kept stuttering out apologies for five minutes until he finally left."
"The next customer came to the counter, after seeing the whole scene, and casually asked, 'Miss, could you tell me where I might find the movie The"Jerk?' Even if it was a coincidence, bless you, friendly customer. You restored my faith in people for a brief moment."
26."I was the only vet in the clinic at the time (middle of the night), and I was dealing with a crashing patient. The receptionist went to tell the person waiting to be seen that I was dealing with another pet, who was basically dying, and the person respond with, 'Well, that animal is basically dead, so why can't he just come and see me?'"
—Anonymous
27."I work in a grocery store bakery as a cake decorator and people really freak out over their cakes. I took this one ladys cake order and she wanted a transformers cake for her sons birthday but she didn't like the two options we had. She could either get the cake decorated with the toy on top or the cake with an edible photo of the transformers on the cake. She kept showing me photos of other cakes on her phone and I had to keep telling her no because we are working under strict copyright laws and can only decorate what we have been given permission to decorate."
"So she ordered the toy, or so I thought. The husband picked up the cake, said it looked fine, and took it. She called the store saying she wanted the image, the cake was ugly, and her six-year-old son was crying. She then rounded off the whole experience with, 'I just want to come in there and smash the cake in that girl's face!' I had never in my 10 years of retail been threatened before, and for that threat, she did not get any sort of refund and got chewed out for making threats."
28."After we had closed, there was a family still shopping. I mentioned to them we were closed, and the older lady blew up and spent the entire time checking out, yelling at me how 'We were coming to the register! You're being rude and ignorant!' Note that this was a dollar store, and we counted things by hand rather than scanning them. I had to count over 100 items while being yelled at. The cherry on top? Our machine didn't accept the family's card, so we had to put everything back."
29."A customer came out of his theatre ranting and raving about how 'The images in the movie keep flying out at him.' He had 3D glasses in his hand, so I told him, 'Yes sir, the movie is in 3D. That's what happens.' He flipped out and demanded a refund."
"I also had a woman complain that the movie didn't make any sense, so she wanted a refund. I was confused, as it was less than five minutes after showtime (there are usually 10-15 minutes of previews), so I told her the movie hadn't started yet...and that she was watching the previews. She said, 'Ohh,' and walked back to her theatre."
30."I work at a car wash. A guest came through and said since she had a car accident on the street in front of our building — which we had nothing to do with and were honestly unaware even happened — she deserved a free car wash. I had her repeat herself twice because I didn't want to imagine her making such a dumb request. When I told her no, she threatened to call the police and threatened to bring her son next time so we could have a 'physical meeting.'"
—Anonymous
31."Working in a furniture store, I got a call from a customer, who said, 'I want to return my computer armoire' (remember those massive things?). I asked why — 'I bought a new computer and it doesn't fit.' He had bought it two years ago, and he had moved halfway cross country. And, yes, he expected us to arrange pickup and a full refund."
" I just turned him over to a regional manager."
32."I worked in Hecht before it became Macy's at the mall. On Black Friday, this lady came in with her own shopping cart filled to the brim with kids' clothes. She then grabbed a handful of clothes, pointed to the size, and started yelling $7. These prices were not $7; I couldn't understand where she got that number from. After a minute or two of her yelling at me, I realized she was trying to haggle with me. She thought the sizes on the garments were the prices and that she could do better."
"This wasn't even my department — I was in luggage on the opposite side of the store, and I had a full line of people in front of me. I pointed to the tag and said that seven was the size, not the price, but that didn't stop her. She kept yelling at me for changing the prices and yelling out $6, going down like I was an auctioneer. Luckily, because it was black Friday, my manager was around, so they moved her over to a different register so I could deal with the line. But she wasn't happy with them either and got even louder. My manager refused to haggle. I don't know what happened, but at some point, she fainted/collapsed/sat on the ground. She must have bought some stuff because I remember a giant pile of clothes that needed to be put away the next day."
33."I worked at a self-serve frozen yogurt place about a year ago. It still shocks me how many people would walk up to me and place an order after we politely explained that they serve themselves and we simply ring them up. I mean, it said SELF-SERVE right on the goddamn door, but what do I know? Anyway, we had one man go completely apeshit, saying he didn't understand why he couldn't 'just wait for one of you people to bring me my ice cream. Are you not competent enough to take orders?' One of my managers overheard this from the back room and immediately came out and explained to him that it was self-serve, and after a long back and forth, she threw him out."
34."I waitressed in high school. This happened when I was ~16 or 17. A guy came in to eat with his family (a little girl and his pregnant wife). They were really friendly; at first, I thought it was a great table. The wife went to the bathroom, and the guy asked for the check. On the check, he wrote his phone number in the tip area along with 'call me, baby.' I ran his card, waited until his wife came back, and brought over the guy's card and his receipt. I handed the receipt to the woman and told her something was wrong with the tip. She got SUPER upset, and I got in a lot of trouble with my managers for stirring shit."
"In retrospect, I probably didn't handle that the best way, but at the same time, I was fucking furious that some guy would come to eat with HIS PREGNANT WIFE (they were both wearing wedding bands, acting couple-y, 99% positive they were married, pretty much 100% confirmed when I gave the wife the receipt with the guy's 'tip' on it) and try to hit on a girl half his age. Wtf. If he's pulling that shit so brazenly, god knows what else he's doing behind his wife's back."
35."I work at a local tourist spot as a food services supervisor, and we have a few different food outlets in the park. Near the very end of the day, a lady came up to our fish and chips window and ordered a four-piece chicken strip combo. She said that she wanted it split four ways for her four children. My co-worker said sure but informed her that since the combo just came with a small fries, each of those four portions would include just one chicken strip and a few fries. He repeated it several times, but she impatiently told him that was okay. You can probably see where this is going. When she came to pick up her order, she was irate. From the sounds of things, she wanted each portion to have at least two strips and a small fries — even though she was only willing to pay the price of a single combo. She screamed at my co-worker and told him he was incompetent."
"The fish and chips place is in a remote location from the main kitchen, so there was no manager there — just supervisors. She wasn't willing to pay more, though, and my co-worker wasn't about to make her more chicken strips and fries for free, so finally, he told her the outlet was closed and that if she had any more issues, she should take it up with the manager. She left, and he closed the shutter, but then she came around to the side door of the building and screamed at him some more. Even when they closed the door, she waited for them and followed them across the park when they walked back to the main kitchen...where they met up with the manager, and she was asked to leave the park.
We don't allow meal-splitting anymore — if customers want something split, we'll give them plates and knives, and they can do their own portions."
36."I worked in a high-end resort. Think Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Gates stay here, type of high-end. In hotels, a lot of guests ask to check in early. You can't guarantee it, obviously, because you have a checkout time (usually around 11 or 12), and then you have guests who have late checkout requests or simply refuse to leave their room until whenever the hell they feel like it. This guest came in and said that he talked to someone who guaranteed him a 9 a.m. check-in. We told him, 'I'm sorry, but we don't have your room ready yet. We'll be happy to hold on to your luggage.' So he went to the pool and then came back; the room still wasn't ready. He went to the bar area and then came back; the room was still not ready. And so on."
"Finally, it's around 12 p.m. at this point, and there's a lobby full of people. His room was still not ready, but we were doing the best we could. He was very upset at this point. I watched him tense up for a moment, and then suddenly, he let out a GIANT fart.
So here's a grown man...standing in the middle of a hotel lobby that just went through a multi-million dollar renovation, which many CEOs, corporate bigwigs, actors, and politicians have graced with their presence...who has quite literally resorted to farting until he gets what he wants.
A manager had to come out and escort him outside. I'm not sure what happened after that."
37.Finally, let's end with a story where the horrible customer got what was coming to them: "I worked at a soup and sandwich cafe. We offered quick breakfast options — bagels and cream cheese, breakfast sandwiches and burritos, and a quick two-egg breakfast with toast, hashbrowns or grits, etc. We offered a $1 small cup of coffee because Starbucks was two blocks down, and my manager was like that. We broke even on the coffee, not really hoping to profit, just trying to get people in the door and serve quick, good food. A super-yoga soccer mom started coming in every morning to buy a coffee. She would bring in her own bagel and cream cheese. She would purchase the coffee and then ask us to toast her bagel and put her cream cheese on it for her — and expect us to run the food out to her like we did for every other paying customer."
"It was not a big deal the first few times because the owner (a working manager) was trying to keep his customers happy all the time. However, this budding new cafe was starting to increase in business exponentially. This Bagel Lady started coming in every single day. The boss grew a little tired of her request because, after all, he didn't see the benefit of selling her a $1 cup of coffee and having us prepare her food for her. She didn't tip either. However, he allowed it because my boss always lived by the 'the customer is always right' rule.
She came in on a Saturday morning once. Thinking she got special treatment because she was a regular customer, she skipped the line and put her bagel on the counter near the register. She then waited in line, purchased her $1 coffee, and noticed her bagel was right where she left it, untouched.
'Excuse me, I expected this to be toasted and ready when I purchased my coffee. I come in all the time; you should know me by now. I am one of your most frequent customers.'
'Yes, Ma'am. I apologize; I did not see it. Here is your coffee, and I will bring it to you in a moment.'
'I just don't understand you people sometimes- so incompetent and rude to your customers. This is the kind of behavior that leads to disease and sickness in restaurants.'
I didn't realize my boss was standing over my shoulder during this encounter. He sort of pushes me out of the way, grabs her bagel, takes a bite, goes to hand it to her, then drops it and asks her to leave with a mouthful of bagel. He goes to his office and closes his door, still chewing the bagel. He comes out and says, 'Coffee is now $2.' Problem solved."
