Everyone should work in a customer service job at least for a little while in their lives.

That way, if you end up moving on to another job in another industry, you’ll know what it’s like to wait on people…and you’ll realize that you shouldn’t treat them like garbage.

What a concept, right?!?!

But, of course, we all know that a lot of people are gonna be terrible and annoying customers no matter what, so here we are with these stories.

Let’s see what AskReddit users had to say about really ridiculous customer complaints.

1. Make up your mind.

“Restaurant with open kitchen, so customers and us cooks can converse freely. Customer wanted crispy fish. Made it really crispy.

Not done enough. I cooked a new one, literally like 15 minutes on the fryers; I cooked three or four other orders around it.

She then complained that it was too hot and she didn’t want it.”

2. Get outta here.

“Worked at a coffee shop that wasn’t Starbucks.

Frappuccino is a trademarked word for Starbucks blended coffee drinks. When customers would ask for frappuccinos we would just put in the order as what we called it and let them know the name for it at our store so they would recognize it when the barista called it out. Had a women get so upset she was screaming, all over the word frappuccino.

According to her it was the traditional Italian word for a blended coffee drink (it’s not) and we obviously thought she was stupid to tell her otherwise and how dare we insult her like that. Tried to calm her down and just say we called them something else but it would be a similar drink…didn’t even correct her about the rest.

She continued to flip out and literally looked up and called our corporate customer service line in front of us, holding up the rest of the line, to have them tell her the same thing.

She then started screeching to demand to talk to the president of our company, and started knocking stuff off our counter top. That’s when we called security to escort her out of our store.”

3. It’s too cold.

“I was a lifeguard for 2-3 years in high school. Everyday I would get people complaining about the pool temperature as if I could do something about it.

“Ma’am, the pool does not have a heating system, I’m sorry. Larger bodies of water hold their temperature longer, which is why it’s so cold”. And they would complain ALL. THE. TIME.

“This is your job, you need to fix it!” I’m sorry lady. This isn’t the 4 Seasons Hotel, this is a community pool. It was never young people, always the old ladies who would come in at 5 am to do water aerobics.”

4. What is tax?

“I worked at Subway in high school and a customer demanded to speak to a manger because her $5 footlong was not exactly $5.

I tried explaining to her that sales tax is normal and $5.35 is the price of anything after tax that is $5 she continued to yell and cuss at me. She even specifically stated she does not have to pay a tax.

It was at that moment I accepted that there was no being rational with some people…”

5. Nothing better to do.

“When I was at DirecTV I received a call from a man whose sole purpose was to complain that this is the United States and there should not be a Spanish option in the automated call tree.”

6. You can’t win with some people.

“Customer was sent a bill in an envelope with a plastic window part for the address and called to complain that our company was single handedly (her words) destroying the planet by sending so much plastic through her door.

Turns out she’d had several letters as she was significantly behind in payments and there was a previous complaint on her records where she had insisted all correspondence must be by post.

Literally could not win with the woman.”

7. Huh?

“We couldn’t get a $5 coupon to scan so we just took it off in another way and she ranted and raved because she didn’t like how it was going to look on the receipt.

Legit yelled at one of my cashiers for this. I’ll never understand.”

8. That’s pretty rude.

“The best is always people who aren’t using your services or paying you for anything but demanding your time and attention.

Work at a vets office part time and every shift someone calls in asking about some random medication or another vet clinic when we insanely busy (we see roughly 40-50 pets a day) and demand that I look up phone numbers and pricing for other clinics, people act like smart phones and the internet aren’t at their disposal.

The best was one time this lady called because she found a wild rabbit and wanted us to give it an exam. Explain to her to put the rabbit back outside as it could have a number of diseases and it’s not safe to keep a wild animal in your house, also we don’t see anything other than cats and dogs.

She then demanded I look up a vets office that did take wild animals, told her “ma’am, we are very busy and this is a personal issue and you aren’t a client. I will not do research for you. Have a great day.”

She then left us a one star yelp review and tried to write a complain to the better business bureau.”

9. Get over yourself.

“I worked at a campus coffee shop in college. It had multiple locations, and my position was to fill in for people who didn’t show up.

One morning I ended up having to open a location I had never been to by myself. A woman came in to buy her regular coffee and yelled at me because I had put the milk and sugar out on the wrong side of the room.”

10. Too late, buddy.

“Ah I got a great one.

So I have a small retail business with my mom that’s strictly brick and mortar. Normally our return policy is within 21 days for store credit. During the holidays we extend it so that anything purchased between black Friday and December 24th can be returned up until the end of January.

A few years ago this guy came in around the end of April trying to return Christmas gifts on DRY CLEANING HANGERS. When I told him I wouldn’t take it back, even for a store credit, he blew up on me and cussed me out in front of other customers in the store.

He then proceeded to leave a 1 star review and bash the store saying how he’s “never been treated like that before at a store”. How tf do people like that exist?”

11. Which side are you on?

“A few years ago I was cashier at a retail store. A pregnant woman came up and said that she was trying to leave but couldn’t get into her car because a truck was parked very close to her. I paged the driver of the truck up to the cash desk.

The truck driver, a middle aged woman, came up, and she and the pregnant woman got into an argument because truck lady didn’t want to leave her shopping to go move her truck. I didn’t get involved and continued to cash out customers, and eventually truck lady moved her car so the pregnant lady could go home.

Later as I was cashing out the truck lady, she asked to speak to my manager. Afterwards my manager told me that she was complaining about me because at some point she said it looked like I nodded, so I was clearly siding with the pregnant lady.

My manager said “I told her I’d talk to you about it, so here I am talking to you about it” and just left it at that.”

12. Weirdo.

“I worked at a shoe store and I had a guy come in and ask where he could get some books packed up for free and shipped. I said I wasn’t sure and that maybe Staples would do it because they have a UPS area there.

He said he already tried there and then he called me a fat *ss (I wasn’t fat. Just very pregnant) because I couldn’t be bothered to get off the ladder to help him.

I was like dude. I sell shoes. I don’t know what you want from me.

He storms out of the store and like 3 years later I’m still super confused about the whole situation.”

13. I’m appalled!

“A lady ordered a sandwich and then cancelled her order because she thought it took too long.

Someone else from the party she was having called and made an order. We made it and delivered it without issue. Same lady calls back APPALLED that we would allow one of her guests to order from us after she made it very clear she wanted to cancel her own order.

It’s not my business if other people at her party want to order food and I had no idea it was her party anyway. I told her it was very common for multiple deliveries to go to the same house party, why wouldn’t we make them sandwiches?

She then told me I would obviously never amount to anything in life and she was going to make a formal complaint against me. It was such a weird complaint. It was probably 10 years ago but it still bugs me sometimes.”

14. Disappeared.

“Many years back, worked for a store chain which sells all products related and connected to Nature.

Among them, the Himalayan salt stone lamp. It’s a stone made of salt that encases an electrical bulb. It is supposed to help for regulating ions in your home/office.

A customer called us to complain that their stone disappeared at home, and asked for a refund. As open mind as I can be, I however tried to understand what she meant exactly by “disappeared”.

Story is, customer removed the stone from the bulb and put it in her dish-washer to clean it…

I had to be super nice with her to make her realizing that salt dissolves in water.. Specially in hot water.. Without her getting upset and getting offended… It was a lonely moment…”

15. Not too bright.

“A guy asked if I was the manager. I said,
“Yes, can I help you with something?”

Angrily: “Yeah, three Saturdays in row now I come down here at 4:30, and every Saturday you close at 4.”

“Uh…yeah. We close at 4.”

“F*ck you.”

At least he left then. The worst ones don’t leave. They just keep going.”

16. You have a choice.

“I work for a popular roadside assistance company and had a guy call in wanting to get roadside assistance for his daughter who was stranded.

His daughter was not on his membership and there was no room to add her because he already had his wife added. So I suggested he remove his wife for now and add his daughter so she can get roadside assistance and then switch them back afterwards.

Apparently this was the most outrageous suggestion. He went and told my supervisor that I was “making him choose his daughter over his wife and no father should have to make that kind of decision” LOL.

17. Weird.

“I was working at OfficeMax during back to school season. This woman comes up to my register with a few things and I start scanning it in. She notices the one item rang up less than she was expecting.

She actually got an attitude with me because we hadn’t had a chance to print new shelf tags for that aisle yet. I told her I would wait if she wanted to get more. She declined and continued complaining to me about it.

I said “well I can override the price to what the shelf label said.” I realize now that I was being a bit of a b*tch by saying that. She politely declined that as well, paid with her card, and rushed out the door with her things.”

18. Hahaha. Wow.

“Had a woman call me racist because I asked her if she needed utensils for her take-out.”

19. Touched a nerve.

“I was running register at the grocery store and this couple got in my line. I could tell they were together because they were talking and interacting with one another. However they had two different baskets and left a small gap between their respective items without placing down the divider.

So I wasn’t sure if they were paying for everything all together or separately. I say the generic things, hi, how are you, did you find everything okay, etc and then politely asked, “together or separate?” The lady gave me a death glare and said “why on earth does it matter?”

I gave her a blank stare and slowly said “so…. that I know whether to keep ringing you up…or cash out the order….” All I can think is they must have been having some relationship problems because she jumped right to that, haha.”

20. Some people…

“Worked in an electronics store in the computer department.

An old lady comes in, asks where the dairy section is, and needs help finding the milk. I told her, kindly, that we weren’t in a grocery store. She looks confused and leaves.

A couple of minutes later her son walks in, and starts chewing me out because I wouldn’t help her find the milk. When he was done, I slowly waved my arm across the store and asked him which one of those aisles looks like they might have groceries in them.

He stares for a good few seconds, and then starts b*tching me out saying that I’m an *sshole, and he wants to see a manager.”

21. Unprofessional!

“The store manager was walking by my register as a customer was walking up to check out. My manager said I had to take my break in 15 minutes to which I said, “Okay”

The customer complained that it was unprofessional for the manager to speak to me and that I was unprofessional to respond when a customer was approaching the register because I needed to be focused on her and greet her appropriately.”

22. Too hot? That’s the point!

“I used to work at a pizza place with a small dining room. So many people would complain that their pizza was too hot to eat. Of course it is. It just came out of the oven.

This is why you chose to drive yourself here to eat instead of having it delivered. Because it’s fresh!

Fresh pizza is hot!!!”

23. Please stop doing that.

“I owned a computer biz for a few years. The one that always got me was this chick that brought in her computer slammed with viruses, spyware, etc. so bad it wouldn’t boot.

Got it all fixed up and she picked it up. Brought it back the very next day with the same thing. I asked what sites she visited since she picked it up and she, completely unashamed, said “oh my bf and I are on p*rn all the time”.

Um, ok. I told her I would go ahead and clean it again for free but if she visited those sites I couldn’t do it again without charging. Picked it up same day. Back in the next.

Me: “did you get back on the p*rn sites” Her: “of course”. I could not make her understand why this kept happening and would continue happening so I just asked her to go somewhere else.”

24. A Taffer tip.

“I’m a bartender and just last night a came in and I knew something would happen.. they are sitting at their TABLE and ask for some margaritas. I go make them and bring them out to the table.

He proceeds to tell me “here’s a TAFFER tip; if someone orders a cocktail you should make it in front of them” I replied, well if you were sitting at THE BAR I could do that… Do you want me to bring the blender out to your table and make your frozen drink for you there!?

One of the dumbest things I’ver ever heard.”

25. Dummy.

“Working pizza delivery.

One time a guy called in, threatened to kick all our *sses and more because we put sticks in his pizza. I told him I would be happy to come pick it up and examine it (we got a LOT of fraud calls, people trying to get free sh*t every day).

When I got there his tone changed (I am 6 foot, 270 pounds) and he showed me the “sticks” in his pizza. You know what they were? He ordered thin crust, and some of the crust broke off onto the pizza. He was nice as can be after I pointed that out.”

26. Ridiculous.

“I once had a customer come in and the following ensued:

Customer: “Hi I am here to return this power washer”

Me: “Sure you have your receipt?”

C: “Well I bought it “As Is” two years ago. I used it for the first time last year and it didn’t work. I saw it this weekend cleaning the garage. I’d like my money back”

M: “Ah yeah we can’t do that. This product is 3 years old and was sold as is”.

C: angry tone “Oh yeah buddy? What kind of f*cking store is this then? Let me talk to a manager.”

Manger proceeds to give them store credit for the amount of a brand new one. I put my two weeks in shortly after.”

27. Call the health department!

“I work at a bakery and we sell pigs in a blanket for breakfast. A few years ago one of the kinds was a spicy blueberry sausage (it had blueberries inside the sausage link).

One day some lady got one (knowing it was a blueberry sausage link), bit into it and noticed some dark looking things inside the sausage link (surprise, it was a blueberry) but for whatever reason she thought that a flake of black gunk from inside our oven somehow managed to get inside the sausage link (even after said link was rolled in a croissant). She called the health department on us and tried to get $50+ of free food.

My boss asked her what she ordered, he brought out a link of the sausage to show her and she immediately shut up and left the store. Unfortunately we stopped selling that kind because “if one idiot is gonna think that then others will”, which is sad because they were pretty good.”

How about you?

What are your nightmare customer service stories?

Please share them with us in the comments. Thanks!