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    "It Cost Him $800": Employees Are Sharing The Dumb, Unbelievable Things They've Had To Deal With At Work

    Every company should have an "I dealt with an idiot" bonus, tbh.

    A while ago, I shared some bonkers workplace horror stories as told by the folks of Reddit. Y'know, stuff like this:

    Well, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share their own wild workplace encounters...and y'all did not hold back! Here are 20 of the very best ones:

    Note: Submissions have also been sourced from this similar thread.

    1. "I worked at a bakery for two years, and I had to deal with honestly the most HEINOUS and rude customers ever. I've worked in the food service industry my whole life, AND lived in Toronto up until three years ago, and I have never dealt with such entitlement. Anyway, one day one of our staff members quit by text message five minutes before her shift, and 30 minutes before we were set to open at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. We were hard pressed finding someone to cover, so I was alone until a front of house person was able to come in about an hour later. I had one of the kitchen staff helping me, and all they could do was grab things and bag them as they weren't trained on cash or coffee."

    "So here I was, running around trying to help customers, make coffees, ring people through, etc. I was clearly very stressed. This douchebag man was really annoyed that he had to wait, huffing and puffing. Eventually, he loudly exclaimed, 'Fuck this, I'm not fucking waiting for this shit,' and proceeded to throw his bagged muffin at my head and storm out. I legit almost chased him down, I was livid."

    u/LilRed2112

    2. "This one guy basically hated his order so much, he waved me over and told me to put my hand out. He proceeded to spit out entirely what was in his mouth into my hand, then told me to refund him and make him something else. I was too shocked to really retaliate to what he did at that moment. I don’t like confrontation, so I walked away to the bathroom and cleaned my hands for what felt like hours. My co-worker saw what happened and told my boss, who kicked him out and he was no longer allowed back."

    u/Loves_me_tacos125

    3. "I once worked at a Wendy's. This middle aged lady ordered 30 chocolate Frostys. We made the frostys, gave them to her, and carried on. Then, about seven customers later, a teenager pulled up in the same car. He asked for a water, and I went to get that for him. When I came back with the water, he started throwing the frostys through the window. And he had an arm, too. He nailed my coworker in the side of the head and hit me center mass. We called the cops, and they caught him as he tried to flee."

    —Anonymous

    4. "I worked in retail back in the matching velour tracksuit days. A mother bought her daughter a tracksuit and came back the next day wanting to return it. We didn't do returns, so I started folding the pants as I was explaining that. Then, I noticed that the inside of the pants were all bloody all over the crotch and down the legs. I told the woman there was no way the store could take them back and showed her the inside of the pants. She pointed at her daughter and said 'She's not even having her period, you can take her in the bathroom and check her!' Yeah, the customer wasn't right that time!"

    —Anonymous

    5. "I used to work in a bar that sold very old booze. A drunk man tried to impress his friends by chugging from a bottle of amaro from the early '60s. He had to pay for the whole thing because his lips touched it and it was now useless to us. It cost him around $800."

    u/Kaygarthedestroyer

    6. "In my early twenties, I was working as an overnight stocker at a 24-hour retail store. It was our break time, and my coworker and I were in line to pay for our drinks. There was a young guy in front of us who had something hanging out of his pocket. We thought it was part of his keychain and said, 'Excuse us, sir. You have something about to fall out of your pocket.' He turned around with this 'deer in headlights' look and grabbed a handfuls of g-string panties out of his pockets. He handed them to us, shouted, 'I'm sorry!' and ran out. We were just staring dumbfounded with bunch of undies in our hands. The paranoia was strong with that one...we had no idea!"

    saladmunch

    7. "I used to work at a waterpark. If a wave pool is ever closed for 15-20 minutes, it's because something was found in the water like poop, condoms, tampons, or pads. We would say we were closing for preventative maintenance, but it was really just to add some chlorine and cycle it through a bit. One time, though, someone pooped on the steps of a water slide and another person stepped in it and got it all over the steps and on the slide. We had to shut down a total of five rides because the poop water cycled through all of them."

    azepp

    8. "When I worked at a gas station, a woman was helping her elderly father use the bathroom. On the way out, she came to me and apologized for making a bit of a mess in there. It was faaarrrr from a bit of a mess. They got crap all over the toilet, floor, roof, up the walls, all over the sink, and some how inside the garbage can. Like, they removed the garbage bag, shit in it, and then but the bag back on. I was alone, so I locked the bathroom and put an 'out of order' sign on the door. A guy came in and said I had to open the bathroom because he needed to piss. I told him I couldn't open it due to it being biologically unsafe. The guy pissed on the floor outside of the bathroom, all over the handle, and along the door, before flipping me the finger and walking out. IDK why I didn't just quit that day..."

    hereorthere

    9. "I worked at a wholesale club's customer service desk. An older man came in and plopped a big plastic bag with bits of meat in it. He had a dinner party, served steak, and decided that the steaks were too tough. He angrily told us that he went around the table and demanded that his guests literally spit the steak they were chewing out of their mouths into his bag of chewed up grossness. He demanded his money back and I obliged, but noted his face so I could 'take a bathroom break' if I saw him in line for customer service. Can't imagine what fun his parties must be!"

    —Anonymous

    10. "I was working on a cruise ship and a passenger asked me where I slept. I was joking around and said that a helicopter came every morning and night to bring us back and forth from the cruise ship. I giggled to myself and thought nothing of it...until I was called in to the managers office. On the passenger feedback form, that person wrote, ‘I enjoyed this cruise, apart from the helicopter waking me up each morning.’ What? If they had been awake, they would have known there was no noise...and no helicopter, for fucks sake."

    —Anonymous

    11. "I worked in fast food in high school. A man ordered a double cheeseburger with extra cheese and received one with four slices instead of the usual two. Two minutes later, he was absolutely red in the face and screaming at the poor cashier. He demanded to talk to the 'little shit' that made his sandwich and asked if we thought this is some kind of joke. Apparently, when he ordered extra cheese he wanted one extra slice, not two."

    u/Davran

    12. "When I was an office manager many, many years ago, I once got a call from a lady who was mad that people kept calling her business on accident instead of ours because the name was similar. I was polite and apologized for what was happening, but explained that I wasn't sure what I could do to prevent it. I asked her to please give people our number when it happened, and likewise if people called us on accident, I would do the same for her. This apparently was not satisfactory. She got more and more flustered and then told me I needed to call Google to get it fixed."

    bmoney1212

    13. "Around Valentine's Day, I was working overnights in retail. One night, this lady came up to my register with one of those HUGE heart shaped chocolate boxes stuffed under her sweatshirt. She then put a candy bar on my counter, like she was being slick and I wouldn't notice the box if she was paying for something. I calmly scanned the candy bar, then asked, 'Are you going to let me scan the chocolate under your shirt too, or would you rather just give it to me so I don't have to bother the police?' She threw the box on the counter and bolted. It's not that crazy, but come on, girl. You really didn't think I'd see the two foot long heart shaped bulge?"

    congdongracie24

    14. "I worked in a popular restaurant for a while. We usually have quite a long wait time (30 to 40 minutes) during dinner service, and people are warned by the hosts about this. There was this lady that got fed up with the wait after about 10 minutes. She stormed into the restaurant, stood next to a table of four, and literally asked them, 'Are you guys done? We've been waiting for a long time now and would like to have the table if you guys are just chatting." I was completely mindblown at how little of a fuck they gave to pull this in public."

    u/daofuu

    15. "I worked at customer service for a big box store and had to deal with interesting returns all the time. One lady wanted to return underwear because 'they didn't absorb right' and another lady tried returning super tampons (the big ones) and said they were defective, because every time she stood up, the tampon would fall out. It’s been almost 20 years since I left that job and I still have no idea what the underwear was supposed to absorb or why the other lady was having issues with the tampons, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know!"

    —Anonymous

    16. "After a wedding reception ended at our facility, we were clearing up and I began the cleaning process on our espresso machine. The process takes 12 minute and the party had been over for almost a half hour already. People were still there as the party slowly let out and the father of the bride asked me for an espresso. I told him I could get it to him (as we have a strict policy of always trying to satisfy a guest's needs), but the machine was cleaning and it would be done in about 10 minutes. He begins ranting about how much he paid for the wedding and stormed to our banquets manager and told them I refused to make it for him. The manager was a total douchebag and started ripping me a new one in front of the guy. I showed both of them that the machine was just finishing the cleaning process and it was impossible to make it beforehand. I got suspended for two weeks."

    u/whomper13

    17. "Barista here. I had a guy that regularly came in and ordered a complicated drink. He always finished the order by asking for a 'finger swirl' in his drink. If you gave him a confused look, he would say, 'Well how else am I gonna taste you?' He was the worst."

    u/VulnerableKimchi

    18. "A former co-worker accused me of drinking the office coffee and not paying into the coffee fund multiple times. Her 'evidence' was that my water cup had a handle shaped like a coffee cup's, and she could see liquid in it. Several times, I took the lid off and showed her that it was only water, but I could tell she didn't believe me. I drink tons of water and she really thought I was just guzzling over a gallon of coffee a day at work."

    absepa

    19. "I worked at a place that had good food except for this one dish: steak frites. It was a small hanger steak cut into strips and served with fries. That's it. The steak was always tough and under-seasoned, and frankly it wasn't a lot of food for the money. One day, a guy asked me for some recommendations, so I made a couple. He apparently wasn't impressed by my suggestions, so he asked about the steak frites. I said, explicitly, that I wouldn't recommend it. So, that's what he ordered. After taking a couple of bites, he pushed the plate away then asked me to call over the manager. He then complained to the manager and complained not about the food, but about me for giving him an awful recommendation. I'll never understand why people make their dislike for a restaurant's food into a bizarre personal grudge against the server."

    u/SuitcaseMurphy

    20. "I work at a restaurant, and I had a customer order the crab-crusted salmon. After about 30 minutes I brought out the food and the customer then decided to tell me that they couldn’t eat it, as they were allergic to crab and they didn’t read what the meal was. Both my manager and the chef were pretty pissed because the customer then didn’t want to pay for the meal."

    u/koledgeguy

    21. "I worked at Friendly's in high school. I worked my ass off all night once for a whole soccer team and their parents who came in with no notice. At the end of the night, they wanted everything split up. The kids were sitting at different tables, so trying to get the right kid's food to the right parent was nearly impossible. Not to mentions some kids split meals or got specialty drinks and ice cream or appetizers. Some parents were trying to tell me what their kid ordered, others were just saying, 'Whatever the blonde kid with the headband ordered.' Not to mention about half of them had coupons that they were all switching around with each other. Some of them were even expired, but they requested to use them anyway because they were 'spending so much money.'

    "A huge portion of the bill had to be comped because no one would claim a bunch of the items and I didn't think to tell them beforehand they couldn't split the bill 17 ways. After reprinting checks about 10 times — because god forbid someone pay an extra $2 on a milkshake they said their kid didn't order even though you could look over at the table and see half the kids had milkshakes — I was in the back crying. My manager was yelling at me over what a fiasco this was and got mad because the kids had been drawing on the tables and throwing crayons at other customers over the partition. I finally came back out to hopefully get everyone change or swipe cards or whatever and one of the dads had the audacity to tell me to 'not look so stressed out, it's just Friendly's.' FUCK YOU, whoever that guy was. They then left me about a $15 tip in total for the three-ish hours I waited on them with a bill that was EASILY over $400. A lot of them tipped on the coupon price instead of the ACTUAL cost and a lot of them just left whatever change was leftover."

    u/PleasantSalad

    Now its your turn! Do you have a ridiculous workplace 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.