To ask retail staff your worst customer stories?

@Birnamwood it was about 22 yrs ago. They think they can treat people like dirt because they have money. They obviously don't realise they can loose it, just as quick as making it

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That's horrific. I hope you're ok now.

I was also stalked for nearly 2 years. It's suffocating.

I served a premiership footballer and he left me a 1 pence piece as a tip.

Traditionally a 1p tip is a way to express that you didn't forget to tip, you just thought the service was awful. You'd know better than me whether that was true or not, but that's presumably the message he intended to convey rather than just being cheap AF.

DD works in a pharmacy. Sadly, a lot of their customers are rude and shout at the staff in person and on the phone. Part of the issue is that the local GPs aren't very efficient and it all bottlenecks at the pharmacy, also drugs shortages and staff shortages don't help.

Another issue is that customers don't listen to their GPs or the pharmacist's advice or follow instructions properly, and expect miracles.

I used to volunteer in a charity shop.

Once someone soiled themselves and left the soiled pants in the changing rooms.

Another time a very drunk man who clearly was an alcoholic and had a lot of issues asked for help putting on a belt. I felt sorry for him so went over to tie the belt only to look down and realise the entire front of his jeans was missing and he wasn't wearing underpants. My eyes. He tried to pay for the belt but I gave it to him on the house so he'd get the hell out 🤣

When I was a university student, I was working a breakfast shift in an hotel which involved bringing people tea & toast and clearing up. A man got up from his table and walked the entire length of the room so that he could bully and intimidate me (instead of all the tall, male waiters that were much closer to his table) because he had no water on his table. Absolute vile piece of shit. I felt very scared.

Oh yes, forgot the time my colleague was collecting glasses in the bar and had pint glasses stacked up in both hands. A guy tried to give her another one and she said she couldn't carry it, so he just dropped it on the floor. Again - shitfaced.

In hospitality it was always the drunks 🙄

One woman became pretty irrate with a colleague when we couldn't serve her alcohol at ten in the morning when she was attending a mum and babies coffee and cake session in the hotel bar.

Another guy got too drunk to serve one night so we stopped serving him. He set off the smoke alarm and staggered into the night. The whole hotel had to be evacuated.

I've lost count of the number of people who we tried to call cabs for but then the drivers wouldn't take them as too drunk.

Hungover, people reeking of stale booze, getting grumpy at check out next morning (wonder why so grumpy? Could it be the raging hangover maybe)? People smoking in their rooms, kicking doors in, all the rest and ALWAYS drunk.

It's enough to put you off drink entirely tbh 😂

So many. I’d be here all day if I was to go through all of them

But the top few-

• working in a bar, would have to clean the female toilets. Customers would throw plastic cups down the toilet and then proceed to piss/shit/change tampons on top of it. Obviously the toilet wouldn’t flush due to the cup so people would just go on top of whatever was there. So you’d have to manually unblock all of it in one go and it was absolutely rank. Also customers who threw their used tampons on the floor instead of into the sanitary bin beside the toilet
• had a customer who shit herself once in the club. Had to put her bag etc into a bin bag as it was covered in shit and then fashion a skirt out of a bin bag so a taxi would take her home. And then clean the toilet stall afterwards. Lovely.
• the creepy loner guy who would come to the club on his own every week and took a fancy to me. Would follow me around and beg to meet me after work. I started lying and saying I only finished at 6am (I did not, I finished at 3am) in case he did show up, so I was long gone by then.
• the guy who said he wanted to fuck me in his van
• the guy who didn’t have a cloakroom ticket and was screaming at me and threatened to come in there after me and was trying to climb over the door to get at me.

All of this was much worse than the gropes you’d get when you’d bend over to pick up cups on the floor etc. I once got someone fucked out for that at 10.13am. The club opened at 10am.

And then in retail

• Got screamed at by a man who was an hour and a half late to an instore service we offered that had separate opening and closing times to the store itself. These opening and closing times were clearly signposted online, on the door of the store and on the booth. He just started lying (“I’ve been served at this time before” and going on about how he was an NHS worker. This wasn’t long after Covid so he clearly felt like he should still get some sort of priority due to it)
• The drunk man who sat on the floor at the front of the shop and vomitted everywhere and wouldn’t leave. Had to call the police to remove him
• The career criminal who had been locked up hundreds of times over the years for really awful things (like SA, there are news articles about him) and every time he got out he’d come down to the shop and make an absolute nuisance of himself and end up getting re arrested. He once sat down outside the shop and got his penis out in front of everyone. Was arrested. Prior to that he threw jars of food at staff members when they told him to leave. He would also stand in the middle of the road for ages and refuse to let cars drive past him, causing tailbacks for miles.

It’s wild out there.

Oh loads, but this is the worst. When I was working as a doctors receptionist, a patient had form for ‘losing’ a certain medication, and had, on this occasion, been told (over the phone) that we simply couldn’t issue yet another prescription. Well. He came to the front desk, under the influence of something, and absolutely let rip at me (on my own, 32 weeks pregnant). This is a big bloke, probably 6ft2 or 3 and built like a brick shithouse and he was punching the door between the waiting room and the reception desk (I locked it when he came in, so glad I did!!), spitting at me, screaming that he was going to kill me (amongst other, much more disgusting threats), trying to lunge through the gap above the desk etc. It was terrifying and I don’t frighten easily. One and only time I sent out an ‘all practice SOS’ alarm, altho I expect the ruckus could’ve been heard throughout the building anyway.

In our call centre we had some serial offenders.

One guys with a sexual fetish would call and sound genuine until he got around to his real reason for calling. We had a high turnover so he'd always find new staff to dupe into helping him get off on the call.

Another was a serial bully and would scare and threaten staff, I know where you work, I'm going to follow you home and find out where you live - kind of stuff. He's always call with a complex problem then twist the staff's words and try and make them feel stupid and small. He was really, really nasty.

I work in a bookies and we get at least one aggressive customer a day. Two nights ago we had a man threaten to hurt us (myself and my colleague who are both 20 year old girls, we are the only staff there) and smash stools into our TV screens, knock things off the wall and say he was going to wait for us outside at close (it was already 7pm and the shop was empty so you can imagine how scary that was). All because my colleague very politely asked him what he had written on his bet!

Oh and I forgot the lady who demanded my help on the kiosk-clicked her fingers in my face

I cheerfully (through gritted teeth and a cheerful smile) helped her place her,her 2 grandsons and adult dds order-she was rude the whole way through

I got her to the 'please insert your card' part and was just about to walk away when she leaned over and hissed at me to 'now fuck off,you thick bitch'

Her cokes with no ice got extra ice and her smartie ice creams got one smartie topping rather than two-i know it was petty but I'd had enough

I swear I'd done nothing to trigger her

A man came in shop asked for change , company policy not allowed to change any money throu tills !
i was polite and explained this , came back 10mins a later and bought a packet of gum with a £50 note 😩

From the ages of 16-20 I worked for a big supermarket on the checkout. (Late 2000’s)

a man came to my till with a huge trolley load of shopping and just had a terrible attitude. He was moaning about the prices and queried the price of one item - when I told him the price and that we couldn’t discount it he threw a cabbage at my head and started screaming at me - like full on screaming. The whole line of checkouts went silent and he was escorted out by security.

I have so many fun retail stories 🤣

It was a busy Sunday afternoon and I was working one of the little basket tills they used to have at supermarkets before self scan checkouts came in to play.

The basket tills were busy with people paying for their few items, and the main checkouts were also busy with people paying for their full shops.

This woman comes to me with a massive trolley full of shopping. She obviously didn’t want to queue up at the main tills. I told her she has to use the main checkouts for that amount of shopping, but she said she isn’t budging and proceeded to pile her items on the teeny little shelf where the basket would go. Again I told her she really shouldn’t be on this till and snapped that she knows someone high up and she will do what she wants. Her shopping kept falling on to the floor off the shelf and she blamed it on me.

Honestly I felt like logging off and walking away to leave her stranded. Even my supervisor just told me to serve her and it’s ok and didn’t back me up. Made my blood boil how she thought she’s too important to queue like everyone else.

Oh I could write a book!

Started working in pharmacy right before covid hit. A woman wanted to buy four boxes of co-cocodamol (so I had to refuse) She told me she hoped I caught COVID and died. Christmas day many furious customers as we didn't have a lot of Christmas gift sets. Someone furious because I wouldn't set their broken finger. A heroin user wanted me to check his infected injection site, it was on his arse and was covered in shit. And lots of times people generally hurling abuse and threats because I wouldn't give them prescription medication without a prescription. Oh and all the people who came into the pharmacy with covid and told me they weren't starting their isolation until they'd been to the shops to get stuff.

Several years in retail of people screaming abuse at the window of the shop after closing telling me I was ruining Christmas because I wasn't letting them in to buy gifts. Shoplifters that we'd caught waiting outside to threaten us when we left at night. Customer taking a shit on the shop floor in the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon.

Thank you
I swear it's all true-as you know!
Retail is a thankless job sometimes

When I worked for a national supermarket open 24 hours, we had someone come in during the night and use the changing rooms as a toilet.

I was also sworn at by a delightful gentleman because we didn't have any breaded ham available in a 400g pack and he didn't see why he should have to buy two 200g packs for a lower price instead 😂

I later moved into clothing retail and got sworn at for not having a size 12 dress available in the Boxing Day sales.

People are horrible.

@Aqua20

If that happened to me, I think I'd probably end up getting the sack because my instinct would have been to reply with "I don't know who you are but I know what you are. A twat,".

@Pebblesflintstoneandbambamrubble I believe you! I’m so sorry. I’ve been groped, shoved, had my breasts grabbed and been threatened with rape by customers. Also had them shooting up in my toilet (before I stopped letting people use it) and shagging in the changing cubicle. I used to say that 99% of people are lovely but some of them hide it well; now I honestly believe that a LOT of people are horrible and they are the ones who (sometimes) hide it well 😓
I think I know which family you were talking about re the fire - it was all over the news at the time. Those poor kids. RIP.

I've worked in retail for the last 7 years-im known got being cheerful,sorting out any issues with a smile

I've been sexually assaulted 6 times-and called a liar on here

A bloke walked in pissed out of his skull-he went to the toilet,had a shit-and smeared it all over the ceiling,walls,toilet etc
I mean it was falling off in lumps-I didn't know a human could create that much
He came in the next day and had a fit because he was now banned

Punched at least 8 times

A bloke came in and as I passed him his coffee I asked if he'd like any sugar
He lost it-he was going to come back once my shift had finished and 'rape your burnt corpse' (I think he'd been watching too much Depp v's heard)

Screamed at over nothing-at least once a shift

A family came in the other day Just as I'd gone on my break
They got their food and walked out-only to come back in screaming that we'd only given them half their order
The new manager doesn't take any shit and double checked
They had got all their order and where trying it on
He refused to give them free food so the dad upended a table,tried to punch the manager and stormed out
Only to see me sat at a table just outside,so he went for me
I managed to get away with a few bruises and a sore eye as he stomped off screaming that 'you don't know who your dealing with!'

The family of 5 who came in,made the biggest mess I've ever seen and fucked off into the toilets
I went in after them and they'd all shat next to the toliet-not one had aimed at it-5 lots of shit all over the floor-and it was all crawling with threadworms

A woman who went upstairs when it had been closed (clearly marked as closed) and deep cleaned by me (so I could go home) and refused to move downstairs as 'my children want this table' (she'd made a massive mess and the kids where running round,dropping food over my clean dining area)
When asked again if she could please move downstairs for reasons mentioned above,she went for me
Seemed surprised she was banned when she came back a week later,and she kicked off again

The bloke who threw his food at me-it was too hot for him

The family who came in,sat down and started eating
The little girl stood up,pissed all over the floor and sat back down again
They didn't bat an eyelid

The family who came in and ordered
Mum and dad where loud,rude and entitled-all 'Get me this' and 'I want that'
The kids where mute-they didn't say a word-just a row of 5 mute kids
The following week they where in the papers-theyd smoked that many fags,one sparked and burnt their house down-4 kids dead-the youngest survived
Made the news-they lived round the corner to me-ss admitted the kids should have been removed due to other concerns,but 'lessons will be learned'

The bloke who grabbed me by my hair-ripping loads out

Injecting drugs in the loo

The amount of men who seem to shit their pants in the gents,and leave their boxers behind the u-bend for me to sort out is unreal

People having sex in the toliets-all ages-and all sexs-at least once a week
Sometimes they leave the used condoms for me to find

The bloke who threatened me as we'd (not me) forgotten his dips
He was going to 'batter me'
I just handed him his ketchup and he stormed out

The bloke who tried to break our windows by headbutting it

During eat out to help out,two families got into a fight over covid
I had to get in-between them-and got a few thumps for my trouble
Oddly,it was the little old lady doing the thumping-the 6 foot 6 bloke who could have knocked me out just by looking at me,was calm and collected-and very polite,checking to see if I was OK afterwards

I mean 99% of my customers are lovely-can see I'm overworked and tired but I try to sort out problems quickly and with a smile

But there is always one...

I had a shop for 8 years. If you’re of a sensitive disposition I wouldn’t read my post.

My worst experience was the lady who couldn’t / wouldn’t speak, who came in with a friend? carer? relative? who asked if she (the mute lady) could use my toilet. Of course I said yes, because I’m nice, although I did feel that something was a bit “off” as the mute lady wouldn’t look me in the eye and was generally looking quite shifty. Anyway, after a few minutes she came out of the loo and off they both went. I was serving a customer so I just waved and said “bye” and didnt think anything of it.

* Do not read on if you are eating!!!! *

My loo was at the back of my stockroom, so quite a way away from the shop floor, but after 20 minutes or so I could smell something really awful and went to investigate.

There was runny shit EVERYWHERE. All over the toilet, the basin, the floor, even up the walls.

To this day I don’t know how she did it - did she bring a load of bags of the stuff in with her, concealed under her clothing? How did she get it up the walls?

I had to get a professional cleaning firm in to sort it, and I had the loo and basin replaced. I never let customers use the facilities again after that. I assume the lady had a neurodiversity or mental health condition, and I don’t actually blame her, but the lady who was with her and who must have known what was going to happen??? - how can she live with herself?!

Just remembered another- this one made me furious at the time and still irks me now if I think about it 10 years later!

Working at the watch designer brand, we had fancy display tins that customers could chose from (free) but you could only have one if you bought one of the full price watches and not the clearance ones at the front (they had their own plastic boxes)

Guy walks in wanting a work watch, I assist him. He’s rude but curious, asking multiple questions about certain specifications which I gladly answer. Wife and 2 kids walk in a few minutes later and they start messing with the displays and the tins. They go off and shop and he eventually chooses a watch from the clearance bit. At the till he starts badgering me about wanting a tin. I calmly explain to him that the tins are only for the full price watches, apologising, but he won’t stop, getting more and more cheeky and irate. He wore me down and I begrudgingly said that he could pick one, just to get him out of the store even though I knew management wouldn’t be happy with me. He then turns to his kids and tells them to pick a tin EACH. I’m gobsmacked and can hardly finish the sale as I’m livid.