" ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? WHATT . "
If you’ve ever worked in retail, food, or customer service, you’ve probably had a few experiences that made you do…this.
Minor inconveniences, annoyances, and rude customers are pretty much the name of the game (unfortunately so). Still, sometimes we have experiences with customers that just go above and beyond rational thinking.
I needed a little commiseration hour with my fellow current and former customer service workers, so I scoured Reddit for all the weird, hilarious, and sometimes downright concerning customer encounters shared. Some of these might genuinely make you question how we’ve made it this far as a species.
To anyone reading — don’t be this person:
1.“I’ll start: An older guy ignored my male coworker at customer service and instead insisted on havingme, a girl, to help him. Weird, but OK. I ask what he needs help with. He says a cookbook, because I would know better.ohboyherewego.I tell him I don’t have any personal recommendations (because I’m a shit cook) but I bring him to the book annex since there’s a wider selection of cookbooks at good prices.”
2.“I had a couple of elderly customers come into the contraceptives and women’s health section. One of them started to ask questions about the adult toys, ovulation testing kits, and various performance herbs. They started talking about how they were shopping for their daughter, then looked dead at me in the eye and asked if I was willing to impregnate their 29-year-old daughter since her husband couldn’t deliver. The lady showed me a family photo and was disappointed in my reply when I said no, I am married, sorry.”
3.“It was the way she asked. She was heading into the fitting rooms, but also had a handful of panties. As she passed the desk, she tossed them on the counter and said, ‘Hold mah drawers’ in a whiskey and cigarette voice.”
— SweaterUndulations
4.“Back in college, I rang up a lady’s purchases and gave her the total. She nodded slowly, then slipped a hand down the front of her dress, lifted up a gigantic boob (no bra) and removed a crinkled Ziploc baggie filled with loose change. She opened the baggie, counted out the money for me and then lifted her boob back up to replace the Ziploc bag. I guess owning a wallet was too much of a hassle for her.”
— [ cancel ]
5.“When I worked fast food, a girl came up and very smugly ordered a burger without the meat, bread, ketchup, mustard, or pickles. That’s right. She ordered a few pieces of lettuce and a couple of slices of tomato.”
6.“I worked in food retail for a long time and was in the same shop for several years. I think about odd interactions with certain customers a few times a week, even this long (~9 years) after, and I wonder what happened to those people. At this point, I was behind the counter at a supermarket deli. We sold small goods, cold sandwich meats, raw chicken, and antipasto in the different sections. One woman comes up and asks for ‘some bruschetta’ in a breathy voice. She’s well into her 40s and is nicely put together with expensive-looking accessories. There’s no pre-made bruschetta in our store, so I try to clarify by asking, ‘Do you mean pancetta?’ The woman is flustered and says, ‘No! Prosecco!'”
7.“I once had a woman ask me if my store had any C.S. Lewis box sets because she had given away the one her mother gave her as a child. ‘I hate myself for not holding on to it,’ she said. Then she turned to look me dead in the eyes and with no sign of joking, she said, ‘And I hate you too.’ Then she walked away before I could even answer her question. I’ve had customers call me names, yell at me, hit on me, ask stupid questions, and more. But no single customer has ever confused me to this extent, and I will never forget this experience.”
8.“I had a woman insist that I sell her the top I was wearing (I work in a clothing store). First, she asked me where I bought it, and since it isn’t from a store nearby, I told her. She said, ‘So, it’s not from here?’ I replied with something like, ‘No, sorry!’ Then she asked me how much I paid for it, but I couldn’t remember. She went on to say that I should sell it to her, and that she would buy it for double the price I ‘must have spent.'”
" I honestly thought she was jest at first , so I laughed , but she was n’t at all , and she said , ' You have to let me buy it . The customer is always right-hand , and if I want your shirt , I can have your shirt . ' I told her that she could n’t have it because it ’s not for sale , and she stay on to say that I ' have to give it to her . ' Then , last , the fund managing director pace in and relieved me from the craziness . It was a very weird Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . "
— Julesy127
9.“I work at an outdoor retailer and just last week, a man came in, incredibly inebriated, and promptly shouted ‘WHERE THE BOOTS?’ I showed him to our footwear section, and he immediately picked up the heaviest pair of backpacking boots, thoroughly examining them. I asked him what he would be doing in the boots, he told me, ‘I need ‘em for sex in bed!’ I began laughing so hard, my manager noticed, saw how drunk the man was, and asked him to leave.”
10."‘Does this come in extra-medium?’ Uhh…I’ll check in the back."
— holystar64
" I ca n’t settle if that would be bigger than intermediate or diminished . "
— LIV3N
11.At Trader Joe’s: “Had a woman come in and say the Brazil Nut Body Butter tasted really bad on her toast and wanted to return it.”
12.“I went up front to help cashiers get a line down, when a lady threw her purse on the counter as I started ringing her up. I get a whiff of low tide. She looks at me and goes, ‘Sorry it stinks. There’s dead fish in there.’ OK then.”
— _ wednesday_76
13.“I work in a hardware store, and a woman came asking for animal poison for possums. I then explained it’s illegal to kill possums (Australia) and she should contact her local council for assistance. She then tried to make a deal with me that if I gave her the poison she needed, she would cook the animal for me for dinner. Needless to say, I went and found someone else to help her, haha.”
14.“Every morning, this old man comes in and asks for a receipt. He doesn’t buy anything; he just wants a receipt :|.”
— NeverOC
" base HIS ALIBI ! "
— darth_mo
15.“I was asked where to find crowbars and wire hangers. Twenty minutes later, a car was broken into in the parking lot. My bad.”
— minstrelcramps
16.“I worked at an electronics retailer when the FCC was transitioning to digital television. An old man who looked like Jed Clampett with long hair came in and asked for a ‘digital convertible box with a tanner.’ After I rang up the converter box and antenna, he asked if I could carry it to his truck. As I walked back to the store, the man yelled and asked me to go home with him to set up the converter box. I told him that it was against company policy, and I couldn’t leave work. He then tried to entice me by offering homemade soup, beans, and cornbread made by his wife.”
17.“Found some knickers on the floor by the wine chiller. I reviewed CCTV and found a lady just took them off while waiting in the queue and dropped them on the floor.”
— iamworsethanyou
18.“I worked at a large chain pharmacy and had a regular customer who would purchase cold medication. Every time he came in, he bought a few boxes. Once he came in and asked forall the cold medicine we had. As odd and suspicious as it was, there was no general manager on duty to consult, so I promptly rang up over 200 boxes of cough and cold meds in a bunch of separate transactions.”
And lastly, to end on a bit more of a heartwarming story:
19.“Not me, but my mom worked at a grocery store for a few years. There was this strange older man who would come in a few days a week. He would walk over, pick a book up off the shelf, and just stand there reading for countless hours, only to eventually leave before closing without purchasing a thing. He came in fairly often to read, and everyone thought it was odd, but they just ignored him as he wasn’t causing any harm.”
So, there you have it — just a glimpse into the sometimes weird and worrying world of customer service. Whether you’re cringing, laughing, crying, or all of the above, one thing’s for sure: the people behind the counter have seensome things. Let’s be nice to our cashier tomorrow, OK!?
