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Serving fajitas hot is not a walk in the park. It’s rather like walking on eggshells, ‘cause an encounter with a customer can go sour anytime. And forget the mantra “The Customer Is Always Right.” Reality is a teeny tiny bit different.

The truth is, some customers are just too much. From ordering something that’s virtually non-existent and coming up with their own takes on the menu to plain yelling and calling corporate, this is the daily bread of food industry workers.

Thus, fed up with entitled customers, people on Twitter got together for this viral thread and shared their stories of working as food servers. Nobody said that accommodating serial a-holes for a living was meant to be easy, but nobody warned them it’s that damn hard, either.

#2

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WilvanderHeijden
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Is it me or has anyone else noticed that common courtesy isn't common anymore?

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Bored Panda reached out to a college student named Palmer, better known by his Twitter handle Decent Pigeon, whose tweet on delivering Grubhub to a problematic customer went viral with 374.2K likes as well as 58.7K retweets and comments. In addition to creating content for Twitter, Palmer has also worked for DoorDash and Grubhub for the past three years and he agreed to share what it was like.

“The funniest part of the industry is that when a customer is mad, they have (a couple of times) tried to degrade me based on my job title, the ‘service industry worker,’” Palmer told us. “It’s almost like I only do it on the side while I study in college to get another job.”

Palmer can’t wrap his head around the customers that degrade the industry they rely so heavily on. “I’ve encountered tons of amazing people in the industry, so why chalk it down to just their job title?” he continued. “Cliche, but people just need to learn to respect one another.”

This viral thread has shown Palmer that he is not alone, “and that I am not cursed with all the psychos of the industry.” He also said that none of the stories truly surprised him because “many customers in the service industry are extremely entitled and rude.”

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Oskar vanZandt
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Just nod your head and give them what you were going to give them... no sense talking to some people.

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#6

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ArawnNox Report

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Raine Soo
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I hate to say this, but that is why the US is in so much trouble right now.

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In Australia a lot of our cheese is labelled as Tasty cheese. I didn’t know Tasty cheese was in fact cheddar cheese until I was in my 20’s. I always thought the US orange cheese was cheddar and Tasty cheese was different (besides the obvious colour).

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Niffler_13
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not all cheddar cheese is yellow/orange. The better tasting cheddar cheeses are white

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Beeps
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had the opposite one happen to me: I asked what kind of cheese they had and the girl behind the counter said “yellow.”

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Stille20
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's customer service. People WILL ask you questions without thinking. If you want to die every time some asks a dumb question, well then you are just setting yourself up for disappointment and misery.

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Sasha Kuleshov
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same with the Fried Cheese Fingers, they'll ask if they have CHICKEN in them XP

twinkletoes37 avatar
Megan
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm the type of person who would ask this question after a long day and then hate myself for being so stupid.

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Paige Garberding
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They could also be functionally illiterate or low skill readers or mentally lazy or have too much of their own noise in their heads to focus ....

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Meami
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, in defense of this seemingly inane question - the "cheddar" on an Arby's Beef n' Cheddar hardly qualifies as cheese, let alone Cheddar. I think what they may have been really asking was, "is it real cheese. or is it some kind of 'cheeze' sauce?".

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Nathan Neustaedter
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

dumb person: i know!!! Pepper jack! me: Cheddar stupid, even i know i'm 10

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Lynn Morello
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

English Cheddar. Don't say Old English Cheddar, because they might get the wrong idea.

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Jennifer Doscher
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Reminds me of selling peaches at a farmers market...being asked what they taste like, and customers refusing samples, aaaand disbelieving me when I said, 'yes, they're sweet.' smh.

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Courtney Christelle
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've asked this before, but how do people like this pass kindergarten?

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H Edwards
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

To be fair, what they call cheddar in the USA is some weird orange stuff that is definitely not cheddar.

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Cecilia Cheung
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lol reminds me of the time when I worked at a supermarket, and a customer asked me if carrots were a vegetarian food

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Laura Gastelum
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We're in trouble now, but give it 15-20 years you will long for last year. Stupid kills, but not nearly enough

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Thalia Lovering
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

But you left us wondering about the kind of cheese in the Beef n' Cheddar...

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Ray Gassert
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They could possibly be asking if it is sliced cheddar or liquid.

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Catlady6000
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A common one at my last job, "What's the difference between American and cheddar?"

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Something
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The purple finch, the black box on the airplane, catgut... not everything is what it sounds like, and it's not stupid not to make assumptions.

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Monday
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Those examples really don't apply here though....It's very stupid to not make assumptions about food ingredients when it's in the name of the bloody food.

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Remi Flynne
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes it is. It originated in Cheddar in Somerset, England. Some cheddar facts: the term cheddar cheese is widely used and has no protected designation of origin. However, in 2007 a Protected Designation of Origin, "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar", was created and only Cheddar produced from local milk within Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall and manufactured using traditional methods may use the name. Outside of Europe, the style and quality of cheeses labelled as cheddar may vary greatly, with some processed cheeses being packaged as "cheddar" while bearing little resemblance (maybe the ones you've had?). Certain cheeses that are more similar in taste and appearance to Red Leicester are sometimes marketed as "red Cheddar".

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It’s not the first, and let’s be real—probably not the last time we hear about entitled customers. Just take a look at our previous post on people sharing ridiculous demands from customers from hell or this post on customers acting like total jerks and getting shamed for it online. Such incidents are all too common, but there may be an underlying reason for it.

In fact, American consumer culture focuses a lot on making people feel special and people come to expect it. This article suggests that “They feel like they have a right to act however they want towards others until they’re appeased—which winds up isolating the consumer and shaping their view of the world as 'me against them.'”

This type of rude behavior is related to the entitlement mentality which basically screams “Me!” in most daily-life scenarios. Psychiatrists say it is manifested in an over-exaggerated sense of self-importance, lack of understanding of others, and unwillingness to compromise.

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#7

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WilvanderHeijden
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Never argue with stupid. Just humor them and let them pay champagne prizes if they want Sprite in a champagne glass.

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have heard similar variations of this so many times, it is really concerning how many people do not grasp the concept.

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When it comes to the food service industry, bad customer behavior is usually associated with attitude problems and plain rudeness. But this research showed it’s much more sinister than that: “behaviors of entitled customers negatively impacted waitstaff employees.”

Moreover, “the participants in the study have reported 'physiological arousal, negative affect, burnout, and feelings of dehumanization as a result of dealing with these patrons.'” In these cases, sticking to the age-old mantra “the customer is always right” may make matters even worse.

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Kevin Wayne
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Quote by Albert Einstein: "two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity and i'm not sure about the universe"

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#11

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Pseudo Puppy
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

laughing at stupid customers, while out back, is the ONLY thing that keeps customer-service staff sane. Retail, hospitality, corporate..... we all laugh at stupid customers while out the back. Only way to survive.

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#12

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

These are the a******s that make those of us with real food allergies look bad

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#13

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Must have been the same dipshit that didn't want cheese on his cheeseburger!

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#15

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Bill Taylor
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Should have called it a "special order" and charged him triple for the one pound container...

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#17

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Tabitha L
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I really really don't understand the cheeseburger, no cheese thing. What do they think a hamburger is? Do they think hamburgers are made of ham?

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#19

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Troux
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

With all the cameras at fast food places, I would think you could catch who this was by their license plate, and yes it's absolutely worth it to press charges against harassment of any sort.

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#20

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can kinda understand this coz cold hot chocolate tastes different to chocolate milk.

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#22

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually, I have never had them charge my credit card either when checking in. They give me the option at check out to pay with the card, with another card, or with cash. When I am checking in, there shouldn't be a charge at all since I just got to the hotel and haven't even walked into the room yet let alone stay in it.

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#24

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Andris Valdmanis
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There is cheese with lactose and there is cheese nearly without lactose - depends on the manufacturing process. You cannot know, you have to read the product analysis if you are lucky enough, that there is one. I know it, because I am lactose intolerant and had to learn it. And then there are people that are lactose-intolerant, and there are people with an milk allergy, also two seperated issues. So it is not allways a dumb question, even if it feels like it for someone who has no idea, because he has not to deal with it.

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Without any other context I am presuming the customer didn’t really speak english, had an intellectual disability, had a stroke or a neurological disorder etc.

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#27

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BluEyedSeoulite
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I love to torture my Italian friends with our fake Italian foods! So yummy but so wrong

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#29

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Because her kid would have had a full blown temper tantrum right there in the restaurant so she tried to make the best of it by ordering what the kid wanted and expected Jay to understand. sheesh!

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Ksenia M
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It seems like Subways work differently here because you can definitely get all the vegetables without paying extra. Is that different in the US, you only get like tomatoes and onions but you pay more for pickles?

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Amanda Sherland
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

God, I have a friend who does this and it drives me bonkers to listen to him talk on the phone, ordering something or getting customer service. He always talks over the person and misses all their questions and then gets mad at them.

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WilvanderHeijden
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Should have rung it up as a cheese pretzel wo cheese. That's one dollar extra...

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#33

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Queen Jackson.
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's stealing tell her to get the f**k out. I feel like I'd be fired the first time this happened to me, cause I don't like entertaining b******t.

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