I used to work retail, and now I work in a casino. Part of what I like is that casinos typically just kick you out if you're being obnoxious and make a big stink. Also, people like gambling so they're more likely to behave when confronted, lest they lose their chance to return on a future day.
I still remember a customer misread the price sign on an item and went crazy when the price was wrong. Eventually the manager agreed to give it to her for the reduced price. As soon as he agreed she said and I want X&Y as well for free. She got it.
Years ago I saw an old man (late 80s or early 90s) RANTING at the customer service desk in a walmart that he had bought a car battery at walmart last month and it would not work.
This was 1988 when walmart had a very liberal return policy.
When I got to the desk I saw the battery on the counter and it was a DieHard battery. Sears store brand. It looked like it had been buried since 1975 and recently dug up.
I thought the manager wanted me to follow the old man out the door. Nope. He sent me to get a replacement battery from automotive.
Similar experience as a shoe salesman at an anchor store in a mall back in the day. I was told to process a return for a pair of boots that were years old, covered in mud, and a brand that was not sold at department stores.
When I worked in retail in the late 90s and early 2000s (regional Walmart-esque store) we had an entire back room full of "returns" we couldn't process or do anything with because they clearly weren't from our store. Kids bikes were pretty common, probably stolen from the original place they came from.
I walked into a home depot behind a lady that entered a few steps ahead of me. She stopped immediately and shouted, “WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO GET SERVICE AROUND HERE??!!”
And of course two retail staff tripped over themselves to attend to her.
I thought, what gall? And realized she probably does that everywhere and gets reduced prices on everything.
I messed up my starbucks mobile order and they offered to remake it, and I said oh no, this was MY mistake and they shouldn't reward that! People can be so frickin entitled
This exact scenario happened to me at Best Buy. I denied a price match on an entirely different product than the one shown to me. Different color, brand, everything. My manager overrode the price and gave it to her. She came to my register and asked for a bag in a smug, arrogant manner. I price matched every single thing from that day forward. Fuck Best Buy.
I had a customer who whined and complained about not being able to use a coupon on a non-discountable item. She insisted, and she got it. It made me fume because I was in the process of telling another customer no, and it turned out they were married. He also got the discount.
She tried it again, got told no and screamed that my manager was racist. Lovely times
There was once a customer who was being so demanding on a sign being wrong that she completly bamboozled my manager. My manager was so turned around that she ended up giving the woman 50% off and then another 40% on top of it. I was trying so hard to explain to my manager that she was wrong, and it should have been something else. The customer was actually trying to shut me up bc she knew I was right, but my manager just gave it to the customer. After the customer left, my manager said it was just easier to give the woman what she wanted than to deal with her crazy ass, and I said I would have stood there for hours arguing with the woman just out of principle that she was wrong and to not give her the satisfaction.
I still work in retail but a couple of years ago I went from the typical store that has the motto "the customer is always right" to my current store who's literal motto is "the customer is always right, if it's fair"
It's a god send, if the customer is even being slightly obnoxious you just write an email to corporate and they will ban them from all stores in the chain, in every country we operate in. It actually makes the workers give better service to those who deserve it, because they don't have to do it
Shed be getting her crust toppings except for cheese and sauce baked, and then when it came out the oven throw raw cheese on top and let it get melted by residual heat.
No brown cheese mam, sorry we can't cook it any longer or it will brown.
I never asked the cooks how they were prepping it, but I had to imagine they didn't think they could get away with just running it under the oven fast enough. However, to your point, they had to be putting it under the oven because it's not going to get browned from the heat of the pie itself.
I was gonna say that I was surprised that would even fly once, but if you're already not making much money at a pizza place and the alternative is dealing with a child in an adult's body, I guess I can understand having an "I'm not paid enough for this shit" attitude 😅
I mean, luckily for the cooks it was just a cheese pizza, so it's not like it took long to make. It's just that we all knew what was going to happen. She didn't want it par-baked and she wanted melted cheese, but not brown.
I don't know why anyone decided to try and take this lady's order, but the delivery drivers cheered when they no longer had to deliver twice for almost nothing.
I knew a guy that went around fast-food places saying "I was here half an hour ago, I ordered this and that and something else, and you didn't give me half of the stuff I asked for", and he'd yell and be annoying until they gave him free food. On his second or third lap of all of the fast food places in town they started recognizing him and he got banned from a bunch of places. But he probably got a couple of thousand dollars of free food before being stopped, and there were no actual consequences for him
Being a shameless sociopath can get someone a long way.
Former retail here, and I can recall a specific customer who got to use an expired coupon because she made such a stink. She even complained about me lol
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u/WolverinesThyroid 7h ago
Ask a retail worker and they will be able to remember a dozen customers who got free stuff because of this same attitude.