retail nightmares

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Those of you in service and/or retail:

Describe your most heinous customer yet, and your worst encounter with that person.

I worked in a gas station back in the 1970s for a while. I can't remember any real bad encounters, though.

I always laughed at people who would buy store brand candy, eat it all, and return it saying they didn't like it.

Working at macys sucked! You deal with people who dont have a lot of money.... but act like they do.

I had customers go and move a whole stock of 90 dollar shirts to the clearance rack and then come up to me with one and ask about the price. When I would tell them they would be all like "Oh, well there all a whole bunch of them on the clearance rack so I should get the discount price on them"

or people would try to use coupons that expire three months ago and would get mad that i told them they cant use them.


I hate people who treat retail workers or restaurant employees like their personal slaves.

There's a certain type of customer who I deal with on occasion that gets my ire up. They seem to operate on these principles...
1. I have an IQ of an eggplant.
2. It is their inalienable right to have me cater to their each and every whim because they are Customer.
3. I am an appendix of the corporation I work for, therefore any problems with any possible area of said corporation are my fault.

Actually, the one of the worst customers that I ever had at the bookstore where I used to work was probably an Aspie. He was a professor in the physics department at UAB and he came in maybe twice a year, looking for all these expensive, obscure books and scholarly journals and he would be extremely nasty and hostile when we told him we'd have to special order them. His voice was loud and whiny and harsh and I was scared to death of him.

One of the worst customers at the grocery store where I worked didn't mean to be a bad customer. I felt kinda sorry for her. But she bought all this really gross food, like souse and chitterlings and stuff like that, $100 worth, and then reached down the front of her dress and rummaged around and pulled out a moist, sweaty wad of $1 and $5 Food Stamps. I have nothing against Food Stamps, having used them myself, and she was elderly and poor and probably lived in a dangerous area so it wasn't safe to keep them in her purse, but still...

I have lots of nightmare stories from retail. It's the only job I could get for the 1st 12 years of working life, besides food service.