94 Times Customers Were So Clueless, Employees Didn’t Know Whether To Laugh Or Cry

Dealing with difficult customers is probably one of the oldest problems in the world. You could be selling fresh figs in the blazing sun of 16th-century Istanbul or scanning plastic-wrapped chicken thighs beneath the fluorescent lights of a Florida supermarket, and you’d probably encounter the same kinds of annoying people.

The ones who complain about everything, think they know better than the person doing the job, or seem determined to start an argument over absolutely nothing.

Even in ancient Greece, there were plenty of customers who tested everyone’s patience. The philosopher Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, described many of them in his work Characters, a collection of 30 sketches of irritating personality types in Athenian society.

He had a sharp eye for the little habits and behaviors that made people so unbearable to be around. Quite a few of them would have been an absolute nightmare for anyone working in customer service today.

For example, one of the characters Theophrastus described was the Shameless Man, who would remind a butcher that he was a regular customer, hoping to get special treatment, before sneaking extra meat onto the scales without paying for it.

Then there was the Impudent Man, who would help himself to fruit from a market stall while distracting the seller with conversation. And let’s not forget the Braggart, who wanted to look wealthy without actually spending any money.

He’d act as though he could afford an expensive horse, then pretend his servant had forgotten the money when it was time to pay. That way, he could leave without buying anything while still looking like a rich man.

You could probably find all three of these characters wandering around your local department store.

Bad customer behavior certainly didn’t disappear as the centuries went by. In fact, even the great composer Beethoven reportedly had his moments. According to his pupil Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven once became furious when a waiter at Vienna’s Swan tavern brought him the wrong dish.

When Beethoven complained, the waiter argued back instead of apologizing, which made the composer so angry that he grabbed his plate of food, containing calf’s lungs and plenty of gravy, and threw it at the poor man’s head.

The waiter was left covered in sauce, and the two began shouting at each other while the other diners watched, until Beethoven himself burst out laughing.

Of course, today’s customer service workers are still putting up with some pretty outrageous behavior, although hopefully fewer flying plates. According to a 2026 survey of nearly 9,000 retail employees in the UK, 78% said they had experienced verbal mistreatment at work during 2025, while 54% reported being threatened.

Meanwhile, research from Ireland found that 70% of retail workers had encountered rude or inappropriate behavior from customers. Among those affected, one in three said it happened at least once a week.

But why is it that some people seem to lose all self-control the moment they’re speaking to a customer service worker? After all, you don’t usually see someone screaming at their boss because a meeting ran late or throwing a tantrum at the office because the printer stopped working.

Part of the explanation comes down to the imbalance of power. As Melanie Morrison, a psychology professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, explained to the BBC, customer service workers often have little say in these interactions, making them easier targets for people’s anger.

She pointed to something called “scapegoat theory,” which describes our tendency to look for someone to blame when we’re frustrated. And because there are usually more consequences for lashing out at a boss or colleague, service workers can end up bearing the brunt of that anger instead.

Another reason is that people generally don’t like it when things don’t go according to plan. As San Diego-based psychologist Reena B. Patel explained to the BBC, even something as simple as a long line at a coffee shop can be frustrating because it threatens to throw off the rest of someone’s schedule.

And when that inconvenience comes on top of everything else that’s already been going wrong, it can be enough to make someone lose their temper. Unfortunately, the first person in the line of fire is often the employee behind the counter, who probably had nothing to do with any of it.

Sadly, there’s probably no way to eliminate difficult customers altogether. As history shows, we’ve been dealing with demanding and unreasonable individuals for thousands of years, and there’s little reason to believe they’ll disappear anytime soon.

But what we can do is make sure we’re not the ones making customer service workers’ jobs harder than they already are. A little patience and understanding can go a long way, especially when you remember that the person serving you is just trying to do their job. A bit of kindness might make their day a little easier.