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Working in retail, restaurants, hospitality, and the like is always… definitely… something.

Besides the long work hours, the tedious duties, and the very often inadequate pay, there’s all these clients to deal with, and not all of them are pleasant and civilized. That’s not say they’re the polar opposite, necessarily, but they are surely far far away from what makes a 5-star client because of their aggression or awkwardness or just flat-out bizarreness.

Image credits: TheBlackNerd

Whatever the case may be, there are loads of stories of less-than-favorable clients from people working in these industries, and one former Starbucks barista has sparked a bit of a story-fest with his tweet recalling a customer interaction that still haunts him to this day.

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Space Whale
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I read the last bit first and I am 𝓼𝓵𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓵𝔂 disappointed

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Writer, reviewer, and host of the @LowStakesShow, Terence Wiggins, also known as The Black Nerd, went to Twitter to share an interaction with a customer he won’t forget anytime soon because of how haunting it was.

Back when he was working at Starbucks, one day he was cleaning the restrooms and knocked on the women’s restroom door to check if anyone was inside. Lo and behold, there was, but instead of casually saying it’s occupied or something among those lines, he got a very angry “WHO IS IT?”

He also asked folks who worked similar jobs to share their haunting conversations with clients. And boy, did Twitter deliver!

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Nathaniel
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not that I am defending this man, but it is some kind of stupid to bring your wife and your mistress to the same places. Keep everything separate.

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“I usually check my Facebook Memories first thing in the morning and I'm constantly reminded of the years I spent working at Starbucks,” Terence explained the origins of his tweet in an interview with Bored Panda. “I don't remember which memory made me ask the question but I'm sure it was something bad.”

Needless to say, when the tweet started racking up likes left and right, Terence was very surprised when the counter nearly reached 10,000 for both quoted tweets and likes. While he does have a modest follower base, the tweet went beyond the usual metric.

“It just exploded and I started seeing replies and quote-tweets from celebrities,” elaborated Terence.

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Stories from workers in retail, restaurants, and the like often circle around customers from hell as most of these places are very accessible to anyone and so the chances of running into a difficult clientele are high. But that’s not the only reason, as explained Terence:

“I think there's a certain type of person who views customer service workers as less-than or someone that they can boss around without any consequences. It's really not most customers, 90% of customers are fine but there's a 10% that have a brain that's a jar full of angry bees and they have to let it out on someone who can't do anything about it.”

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El muerto
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

next time jesus comes around, he will turn chicken into cheese...and sprite to tequila

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As mentioned previously, Terence’s tweet inspired quite a lot of people to share their experiences.

These included everything from exposing mistresses to customers discussing wounds to elderly people shouting gun violence hypotheticals.

And then there was this 6-tweet story by a guy who used to work at a Taco Bell and had a client who was described as a satanic cowboy who took half his order before storming off, then returning after about 20 minutes, getting upset about his other half of the order, which he wrongly remembered, and then chanting in Spanish, while his bodyguard counter-chanted something as well. That one also received over 8,000 likes.

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Now, in some cases these difficult customers might just have interesting personality quirks or could just be tired, but in other cases they could also be inherently angry, sad or straight up weird if they act that way in public. So, we asked Terence what his take on this was, and he had this to say:

“I think it could be both. There's harmless people who have weird personality quirks or are tired or some such thing and they will definitely say something weird that'll stick with you. On the other hand, there are people who have some inherent anger or sadness that they've decided to take out on other people and that other person is usually an employee getting paid minimum wage and can't possibly fight back.”

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E B
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, corporate apparently has no idea what customers actually want.

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OK, PSA time.

“Employees are people. They have about as much power in the situation as you do and unless the employee is being an a-hole for no reason, just cool your jets about small things. Your food or drink will eventually get made, you'll eventually get that product you want, there's no such thing as the mythical ‘back room’ where we're just hiding products from customers,” said Terence.

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If anything, be kind to your waiters, store clerks and everyone else who makes your life easier.

You can check out everything we talked about in context here, and you can also take a look at Terence’s socials like his Twitter account and his Low Stakes Show podcast as well as his Ko-Fi shop.

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Moezzzz
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes, because everyone knows that gay equals pedophilia. (My eyes cannot roll far enough into my head for this train of reasoning....)

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Bedlamite
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was in the hospital after appendix surgery, there was another woman in the same room, she was nice enough, but Sunday came around and a whole gaggle of Church ladies came to see her. I was trying (pretending) to sleep until one of them came over to me and laid hands on my head while praying. I'm non-religious, and don't have anything against people who are, but keep your bleeping hands off me. I felt so violated. That was over 25 years ago and I still get pissed when I think about it.

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Claire Stanfield
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Had a regular who would send back the first side of fries claiming they were 'greasy'. We prepared another side of fries exactly the same way, and they were fine. Every time.

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Francesca Annoni
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I worked for years in a shop... an Italian luxury underwear brand.. You don't know how many time we had to tell the customers you must try the bottom piece of underwear and swimwear OVER your own underwear... and sometime I found underwear stained..why try underwear if it's this time of the month? Without your underwear?? It was unbelievable ...and disgusting...

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