19 Karens So Entitled, These Retail Workers Will Never, Ever Forget Them
It's no secret that working in retail is a tough job that requires a whole lot of patience. From packed stores to rude customers, there's no shortage of chaos going on every day.
NBC
I asked the retail workers of the BuzzFeed Community to share their entitled customer horror stories. Here are 19 of the most jaw-dropping ones:
1."A woman came in expecting us to exchange a USED loofa that she openly admitted to using for the past month because she’s obviously 'a clean person'."
"She clearly knew to take advantage of our store's no-questions-asked return policy. The worst part about it is she came back three weeks later and tried to tell us we 'double charged her' for said exchanged loofa."
2."When I worked at a makeup store, a lady didn’t get the discount she wanted, so she started hurling nail polish bottles at the ground. She didn’t even have a coupon."
3."A table of eight came in on a Saturday — two women and six kids under 10 years old. The kids ran wild, to the point where they actually ran to the other tables and stuck their hands into other people's food. The moms did nothing."
"I asked them nicely to control their children and got yelled at for even suggesting it. So I went the general manager, and in the time it took me to find him, the kids had crawled up onto the bar's wall of liquor and pushed every single bottle they could get their hands on onto the floor. Everything broke.
The manager went nuclear. He couldn't get the women to pay for what their kids had done, so he banned them for life and had their pictures circulated to every other store in the chain."
4."A mom asked if her ten-year-old daughter could use our employee bathroom. Customers aren’t allowed unless it’s an emergency — and the public bathroom was like two doors down — so we said no. The woman then took her daughter into the dressing room and let her pee on the fucking floor."
5."The other day I had a customer call me an idiot and refuse to leave the store (until we called the police) because I told him my register was closed."
"He kicked off, starting muttering and cursing, and told me he was recording me being an idiot and was going to go to the police to get me fired. All I did was tell him that my register was closed and he would need to use the next open one."
—Anonymous
NBC
6."There was a massive snow storm and pretty much the whole town lost power. My store had a generator to run the basics, but not the fridges and freezers. A woman came marching up on day three of no power demanding to know why we didn't have any food frozen food."
"I explained and advised her to not do a lot of grocery shopping for foods that needed refrigeration, as people were still sporadically losing power and I didn't want her to waste money. She responded with, 'Power outages only affect poor people. I'm better than that.'"
7."A customer didn’t want sauce on her sandwich, but didn't tell us. It automatically came with sauce, and when she saw her sandwich, she demanded a new one and THREW it at my manager."
8."The home store I used to work at would take back any returns with no questions asked. TWICE I had customers return those toilet lights you put inside the bowl. One lady placed the light directly into my hand and told me her husband used it as 'target practice' when he peed."
"She was flabbergasted it only lasted a year. It was yellowed and disgusting. I left her at the register and went to bathroom to scrub my hands clean."
9."When I worked at a baby retail store, a customer came in to return a cozy coupe he got as a gift, because it was missing parts. He had no receipt and I couldn't find any missing parts, so I told him I couldn't process the return. He got upset and decided that he'd keep it, but only if I assembled it for him. I was seven months pregnant."
"I was shocked. I informed him that I was unable to spare an employee to build his toy for him. He said he didn't want another employee to build it, he wanted me, specifically, to build it. He refused to leave. After a lot of back and forth, the store manager said to just make him happy. Another manager spent her lunch break building the toy because she refused to let me do it. The customer stood there and stared at her while she did it, then left without thanking her."
—Anonymous
10."I worked at a well-known, bougie athletic store. A customer was trying on leggings and managed to get literal shit in multiple pairs. They had the audacity to just hand them to us and say they didn’t work out."
"We had to wrap them in multiple plastic bags to try and dampen the smell."
—Anonymous
Fox
11."I was a manager at CVS, and the pharmacy had closed for the night. A woman called and asked me to get her grandmother’s medication, but only the pharmacy staff had keys to that door. I politely explained, only to have her start screaming at me about how I was personally killing her grandmother. After I suggested she call a 24-hour pharmacy and hung up, she kept calling back and leaving me death threats."
—Anonymous
12."When I worked at Hot Topic, one customer came in and asked if we had any Marvel stuff. Things were going fine, then she grabbed a bunch of shirts, unfolded them, and threw them back into the shelves. With a smile, she said, 'I’m going to make you work.'"
"Then she walked away to search for other stuff in the store. I just stood there awkwardly, contemplating whether I should call her out or reframe so I don’t get fired."
—Anonymous
13."I worked at a used book company that bought and sold books from the public. A lady came in with a tied plastic bag, and I told her I would have a look and make an offer. I opened the bag, and found a bunch of roaches crawling on the books."
"I had to set it outside. She came back and I explained what happened. She just stared at me, and started ranting about how they are 'great' and 'new' and I should just 'wipe them up' over and over with increasing intensity. I finally walked off and my manager got the next earful."
—Anonymous
14."I worked in the lingerie section of a major department store. A middle aged woman brought in hundreds of dollars worth of what used to be white bras and underwear because she accidentally washed them with something red and turned them pink. She demanded I exchange all her items since we hadn’t told her how to wash the items when she purchased them, so it was our fault they were ruined."
—Anonymous
15."I worked as a gift wrapper at a popular store. A lady came with her son and put items on the counter to be wrapped. While I was working on them, her son started to whine that he wanted to help. I thought his mom would tell him no, but this lady straight up just looks at me, and said, 'You heard him.'"
"I told her that I wasn't allowed to do that. She wasn't having it, and told me that they're HER gifts that I'm being paid to wrap, and if HER son wants to help, then I should let him. After all, without her I wouldn't have anything to wrap, ergo I wouldn't have a job. Meanwhile, her son is throwing a tantrum. In the end, I had to let her son wrap one gift, while Karen complained that the store had terrible customer service, and demanded an apology."
NBC
16."I work at Starbucks. One day, a regular (who was always extremely rude) dropped her keys in the condiment bar trash can. She demanded we get them for her. The supervisor told her we could help in a moment, because we were slammed. She pulled out the trash can, pushed aside other customers, and placed the trash can on TOP of the hand-off bar."
"We then had to stop, sanitize everything, and our supervisor took the can in the back to find the keys while the customer waited angrily. "
17."We had an older gentleman who wandered the store, thinking he worked or even lived there sometimes. One night, he was wandering after closing time and a woman started banging on the door saying she needed to come get him. Turns out, she would drop him off at the store and leave, because caring for him was exhausting and not what she signed up for when they started dating years earlier."
"She said she knew he'd be fine here alone, because there were so many people around."
18."I worked at Abercrombie & Fitch. Just before Black Friday, we put out our new fall clothes and there was a popular women's flannel that I bought for myself to wear at work. Black Friday comes, and the flannel sold out. I was helping this woman who really wanted one. She got upset and started pulling at the one I had tied around my waist, demanding I sell it to her."
—Anonymous
19."A man purchased an assembled elliptical machine and tied it upright in the back of his truck. We got a call about an hour later, saying that the elliptical was broken and he wanted to return it. He came back and the machine was trashed — he clearly forgot about it and tried to drive straight into his garage, crushing it. He threw a fit when we said he couldn't return it. He said he would sue us for not taking it back AND for the damage to his garage."
—Anonymous
Now it's your turn! Do you work in retail and have an entitled customer horror story like these? If so, tell us about it in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.