Whether you're driving and encounter a jerk on the road, or you're a customer service worker who has to deal with entitled people on a daily basis, you're bound to run into a rude person every now and then. Read on to find out how these rude people received a taste of their own medicine, in the best ways.
1. Car in Tact, Pride in Shambles
I'm driving with my girlfriend through a residential neighbourhood where I go to make a left turn at a 3-way stop sign intersection. Speed limit in this particular area is 15, and this guy in a fancy new two-toned Mustang comes zipping around the corner going at least 30. It's curved, so I didn't see him until the absolute last moment and he came close to T-boning me.
He honks and starts yelling at me, so I flip him off (bad idea, and I accept that). He is then overcome with road rage, hangs a U-turn, and then follows me halfway down the narrow road. He then passes me on the left against traffic, and very nearly runs over a couple of little kids playing in the yard right in front of their mother before pulling in front of me and stopping. He starts getting out of his car and approaches me, yelling about how I better hope my girlfriend can protect me because he's going to kick my ass, etc.
The mother appears out of nowhere furious wielding a brick. The guy starts telling her to call the police (why? So he can tell them that I flipped him off). She charges the guy yelling "SCREW YOU! You nearly ran over my kids and you want me to call the police? Do you like your pretty mustang? Get out of here before I put a hole in it!" The man clearly did like his pretty mustang, as he turned right around and drove away - car intact, but pride in shambles.
Photo by John Sullivan
2. McDonald's Employee Goes McNuts
I worked at a McDonald's in a very affluent neighbourhood of the city I reside in. I was taking someones payment in the drive-thru when my manager comes to me crying, complaining of a customer being overly aggressive with her. I knew I would probably get fired if I reacted unprofessionally, but in an enraged fit I approached the till of the customer.
The woman, a very large, well dressed, individual was complaining about a ten cent increase on a McFlurry and saying it was disgusting that a place could run like this. I had second thoughts, and agreed, but she started to rip into me. With a sudden snap I replied, "You know I'm going to quit after saying this, so any concerns you have you can proceed to shove you know where, am I getting paid to program a till? No, I get paid minimum wage. Everyone here has had enough of your complaints."
My manager, trying to salvage my job, proceeded to make her a McFlurry for free and placed it on the counter. As she reached for it, I grabbed it and spat the biggest loogie of my life into it and calmly placed it on the counter. I then told her to have a nice day. After that, my job was terminated but it was worth it.
3. The Sweet Victory of Standing Up for a Friend
When I was in middle school, I had a friend who was surely on the spectrum. Admittedly, she was difficult to have around, but she was (and still is) a sweet girl. Unfortunately, some people pick on kids if they're a little different. One group of boys decided to pick on my friend. So the head honcho, a completely cruel toad of a kid, was being rude to her right in front of me and a few other people. Thirteen was about the start of my rage issues, so naturally, I walked right up to that kid and punched him in the stomach. He got the wind knocked out of him a little, but I didn't actually hurt him. It was the humiliation of getting bested by a girl that made it all worthwhile.
4. Your Prickishness Got You Into This Situation
Years ago, I worked security for a major resort. We had two valet services, and people were horrible pricks all the time. On one occasion, a guy parked his Maserati in the valet, didn't leave the keys, and ran in. He yelled at the attendants, "Touch my car and I'll have you fired!" He was in the middle of the two lanes and nobody could get around or through the valet, which was a major inconvenience. Nobody knew what to do. On my normal patrol, my partner and I see the car, and ask the attendant about what's going on. He tells us the circumstances.
We make a snap judgement to get some Go-Jacks and move the car. So, we move it across three lots. About as far as you can get from the valet. We tell the valet guys to just tell the guy, "Security moved your car." and then take their time giving him our number. We put a boot on not one, but two of his wheels. We have dispatch put a camera on the car and go about our business. 10 minutes later, dispatch gives us a call. The guy is irate, screaming at the dispatchers, "I was only 5 minutes! How dare you touch my car! I'll have all your jobs! WHERE'S MY CAR?!" Dispatch tells him where he can go get his car, but we're not there.
Our standard operating procedure was to wait 45 minutes before we remove a boot from a car. In this case, rudeness shall never go un-punished. So, we show up, the dude is fuming. He's called dispatch several times, threatened all of them and us with not only losing our jobs, but with physical harm. We get there. There are four of us. Armed. He proceeds to be an asshole. We take our time with the boots. After one boot is off, I notice, on his floorboard, a small baggie of a white substance. I ask him what it is while my partner calls the police. He starts pleading with us, "Oh man, please just let me go. Don't call the cops, oh no man, please!"
To that, I responded, "If you weren't such a dick, we would never have been here, and we would never have seen your stash. Your prickishness got you in this situation." The cops show up, find that baggie and 5 more, plus a scale.
5. A Flight of Karma
I was about to begin a long domestic flight. I was seated next to one of those jerks who is smaller-sized but tries to take up as much space as possible (spreads knees as far as possible so it comes in your space, leans into the common armrest, etc.) He also had on those obnoxious headphones that are loud to anyone sitting in the vicinity, and he had awful taste in music. I hated this guy from the moment he sat down.
There are three seats in our row. He has the window, I am in the middle, and a mystery passenger has the aisle. Well, here comes the mystery passenger. A hugely obese guy. He has his wife in tow and she is even bigger. to top it off, her face is ashen and she just keeps moaning about how awful her stomach feels. Panic mode sets in, then I look at the douche next to me and decide the last thing I want to do is sit next to him the entire flight.
I jump up and say to the mystery passenger, "Sir, how about if I trade seats with your wife so you two can sit together, as she's not feeling well." His face lights up and he thanks me profusely. The guy sitting next to me, meanwhile, has gotten suspicious and his shitty music comes to a sudden stop. He looks at me getting up, the dots slowly connect in his monkey brain as he looks at his new neighbour. Finally, he pieces it all together and YELLS, "AW MAN! SCREW YOU, DUDE!" I turned to him and laughed with glee as I exited the row. Enjoy your flight buddy.
6. Caught in the Act
I was doing some volunteer work at a multicultural event with a friend. We ran across two Dutch girls and started chatting them up. My friend decided he liked one of these girls and started making his move. She started talking to her friend in Dutch about how she would let him keep crawling after her, about how it would be funny to keep his attention all night and lose him later.
Anyway, she said to her friend she was going to take him dancing and I said, in Dutch, "I like dancing, why don't you take me instead of trying to lead my friend on?" The look on her face was priceless. My friend and I left and ended up having a great evening.
Photo by Jorge Alvarez Lecaros
7. Leaving Tailgaters in the Dust
I was driving up the Highway 1 canyon in British Columbia, doing a steady 100km/h, when a trucker in a huge rig began tailgating me. I was worried that if I had to hit the brakes suddenly due to a blind corner or rock slide, the trucker wouldn't be able to stop in time. So, I slowly reduced my speed on the downhill and came to a complete stop at the bottom. Then I took off up the hill, leaving the trucker behind in the dust.
Photo by Roberto Lee Cortes
8. Can I See Your ID?
I worked in a gas station this past summer and during my first week a guy comes in to buy a couple of packs of cigarettes. Being new and not a smoker, I don't have a clue what is what, so it takes me some time to find the right ones. Most people are very understanding, but this dude heaves a sigh when I bring back two red packs. He says, "I wanted one of Maverick REDS and one of DARK GREENS." So I apologize, go back and switch one pack for dark greens, and start to ring them up.
As I scan the first pack, he pulls out a bag of change (plenty of pennies), dumps it on the counter, and looks up expectantly. Now, this guy is clearly in his forties, with slightly wrinkled skin, graying hair, and so on. But he's being a jerk, so... I ask for his ID. It takes all of my willpower not to laugh at the look on his face. He whines about it for a while because he doesn't have it on him and eventually I say "All right, I'll give it to you this time but you can't be too careful!" He glares at me and then pushes the change towards me and walks off. I almost felt bad because I'd clearly pissed him off, but it turned out he shorted me after walking off with the change on the counter.
9. A Bit of Humour Never Hurt Anyone
I was working customer service for a crappy cable company, and a really angry customer called in. The guy was so angry that I couldn't even get a word in. He ranted for a good 3 or 4 minutes about the company, myself, and the service. After asking me if I knew what his definition of a moron was, I responded by asking the customer what his name was. To keep the customer service experience going, I added some humour and said, "I'm guessing your definition of a moron is someone who works at this company, am I right?"
10. Think Twice About Littering
While playing tennis one day, I noticed on the other side of the court's fence, a guy park his car and leave a bag of fast food and his drink on the ground. He walked away, but he walked right past a garbage can on his way to the baseball field.
After I finished my tennis, I grabbed his garbage, which had two partially eaten burgers and some fries, and decided to get a little creative. I took the buns off and pressed them against his driver side windshield as well as the patties, I placed the soda and fries under his wipers and felt much better about my lose that day. With a bit of humour, I had my revenge!
11. Rude Bus Ride
I get on a very crowded bus and there is a lady using the seat next to her for a small paper shopping bag. I said, "Excuse me, may I sit here?" She moved her bag to her lap and muttered a very rude word under her breath. As the route runs, more people are departing than boarding. I see a row of three seats completely open and several open two seat areas open. Usually if seats on the bus start opening up, I will move to give both parties more personal space. However, I'm stubborn and I will not reward rudeness. I remained seated next to her until my stop.
12. Don't Mess with a Driver Who Knows the Valve Trick
I observed a jerk in a new Mercedes convertible generally being a rude and obnoxious driver. I decided to take a unique approach to make him learn his lesson. I followed him to his residential destination and waited for him to go inside before I quietly loosened the valves on all of his tires a little. I left a note that read, "The first tire is flat for the guy you cut off at the lane merge onto the bridge. The second tire is flat for cutting me off with that illegal lane change. The third tire is flat for the oncoming driver you cut off with your no-stop right turn at the red light. The fourth tire is flat because you're a jerk. Learn the rules, or learn the bus routes. Be sure to have a nice day."
The valve trick is good because the victim usually assumes you've just manually deflated his tires. He calls the autoclub, uses his lighter-socket inflator, or flatfoots it to the corner gas station and blows them up again, but he rarely thinks to check the valves. Six hours later, he's flat again, even though this time he parked in his garage.
13. Amusement Park Games
I used to play the games at my local amusement park quite often, but only the ones where you compete against other park patrons. I got good at a handful of the games and could usually clean up on the prizes. I was playing one of those games where you spray water into a target, which made a little mechanical horse compete in a little mechanical horse race.
I had done my research, watched others play the game for about half an hour to determine which horse won most often. I waited for the guy sitting at spray gun #12 to leave, and took his place. I started winning round after round. People would get pissed and leave, and I'd wait patiently for some new competitors (who didn't realize what would happen) to wander along. It would usually take me about an hour and a half total, but I would always win the daily limit.
After I'd been there for about an hour, a woman came up to me and loudly demanded that I move so her son could play. She insisted I play one of the other positions because "That one always wins." I said, "I know it always wins. That's why I waited my turn, and so can your son." She turned to the guy running the game, and demanded that I be forced to move to another location. The poor guy was flummoxed. He pointed out that we were both paying customers, and that I was there first, and he couldn't make me leave.
She demanded to see the manager, who showed up about 20 minutes later. White she was waiting, she was hectoring the poor employee the entire time. The manager came up, listened to her complain for a few minutes, then patiently reiterated what his subordinate had already told her. She went ballistic, started screaming that the park was a rip off, the employees suck, etc. The poor manager just stood there patiently, taking her abuse.
By this time I had won my limit at the game. Arms loaded with stuffed animal prizes, I walked up to them and smiled at the manager. "Thanks for being reasonable," I said to him. I gave him one of the stuffed animals. As I walked away I saw the manager smile and nod at me. The woman called to her kid, telling her to take my seat, but someone else was already sitting there. Ha.
14. Funny Fiasco at Import Car Meet
I was selling T-shirts at an import car meet and I noticed a guy looking at a shirt that was being sold to raise money for relief efforts in Japan. I asked him if he would like to buy it, but he replied, "Why would I buy a shirt in support of Japan, remember Pearl Harbor?" To which I replied, "Sure, that's the way to look at it. Let's dwell on something that happened more than 60 years ago." He then told me, "Well screw 'em, that's what they get."
I then asked him what kind of car he drove, and he replied, "A Honda" To which I remarked, "Hypocrite!" His friends burst out in laughter, and two of them even bought shirts from me.
15. Teaching a Teenager a Valuable Lesson
I was on vacation on the East Coast, and as I was walking into a supermarket to grab some sunscreen, a fast food wrapper flew out of the open window of a big SUV. I picked it up, walked over to the vehicle, and encountered an overweight teenager gulping down some fries in the passenger seat. I threw the wrapper back in through the window and said, "Next time, use a trash can." The look of surprise told me this kid wasn't used to be opposed. Hopefully I made enough of an impression to get him to take care of his trash properly. Nothing exciting, but damn I felt good.
16. Movie Theatre Mayhem
I had a hilarious experience at the movie theatre recently. I was working the ticket booth when a couple rushed in, the woman clearly trying to cut the line. She slammed her two ticket coupons down in front of me, demanding to be served quickly and completely ignoring the five people waiting behind her. I had to inform her that she had to go to the back of the line, which she wasn't too pleased with. Eventually, she got to the front of the line and started yelling at me for making her miss the beginning of her movie. As it was a new movie, the passes didn't work but I wouldn't let her off so easily. In the end, I made her pay for her tickets - it was a simple but satisfying victory!
17. Revenge of the Stop Sign Spinner
I work for the Department of Transportation as a Student Government Intern, so I get to be one of the guys who spins the stop sign at construction sites all summer. To make sure the process runs smoothly, my partner and I communicate via walkie-talkie. She will send the cars she has lined up and give me the colour and make of the last car she sends over. Once the last car from her side has passed me, I repeat the process.
This typically only leaves people waiting about two minutes. One afternoon, I had a teenage girl stopped in front of me in a very nice car. After about 30 seconds, she started yelling out the driver window for me to hurry up and flip the sign. My partner's cars had just started to show up and I saw the described last car. Knowing there was only a couple, I got on the radio and told my partner I was clear and to go ahead and send anymore cars that had come. I kept that snob waiting for 10 minutes.
18. Refund Denied
One day a woman walks into the shoe store looking to return a pair of boys dress shoes she bought 3 days earlier. The kid must have played football in them because they were literally covered in mud, grease, and scuff-marks. This was the ONE person the store refused a refund. She went crazy on the salesperson, yelling, screaming, and demanding a manager. The manager came up behind the salesperson and the woman expected to get her money back, but instead the manager took a look at the shoes and said no. The woman insisted her son had only worn the shoes once, to which the manager calmly replied, "Ma'am, it looks like your son wore these shoes to the Normandy invasion."
Photo by Alexandra Maria
19. A Story of Defeat and Resolve
A few months ago, I had driven to my parent's house pretty late in the day. After leaving, I'd noticed a dog had been hit and was lying in the middle of the road. So I parked my car and put on the emergency lights, with my headlights clearly illuminating the dog. I put on a pair of gloves so I could move it to the side of the road, where it wouldn't be hit anymore. When I finally made it up to the dog, it had lifted its head, and was breathing normally. Turns out, the car had only hit and broken the dog's back legs.
The dog was fully responsive and didn't seem to have lost a lot of blood. Thinking this meant that the dog had a chance of living, I went to spread out a couple plastic bags in the back seat of my car. as I was doing this, I noticed a car speeding down the road. I had rushed to the side of the road, directing the car to move to the opposite side, to avoid hitting the obviously visible dog lying in the road. Instead though, the driver ran right over the dog, right in front of me.
I was pretty freaked out to have watched this dog be brutally run over by a speeding car. I just stood there motionless, staring at the dog's remains. I noticed that the car pulled into a house only a couple houses down from my parents'. Being blinded by a mixture of rage, shock, and disgust, I decided this dog needed a proper burial. It was about 1 in the morning by this point, so I went into my parents' back yard and grabbed a shovel and a wheelbarrow. I lifted the dog's body into the wheelbarrow and wheeled to the drivers house, where I dug a hole, lowered the dog's body inside and proceeded to bury it.
I placed a large stone on top of the hole, and left a note on the driver's door. The note said, "Hey, I'm sure you feel pretty bad about killing that dog last night, so I'm sure you won't mind that I buried it in your front yard. It's what she would have wanted."
I left for home feeling nothing but defeat.
20. No Excuses
I used to work as a paramedic in a small town, and one day I noticed a woman pull up to a convenience store in her mini-van with two young children, both clearly under the age of 5. Neither of them were in car seats. I called a friend, who happened to be a police officer, and asked them to meet me at the store. When he arrived, he wouldn't let the woman leave until she had her children properly restrained or face a hefty fine. Eventually, her boyfriend showed up with car seats and the kids were safe.
21. Fired Employee Gets Sweet Revenge
I worked for a popular hotel chain several years ago. It was going under and some independent family owned company bought it out. They came in and fired all the good management members, and kept and promoted the horrible ones. The hotel was still going down hill, it was basically a brothel at this point.
After a few months of being over worked, under paid, and horribly mistreated, I gave my two week notice and was working an overnight shift on my last night. My former front desk manager and the former bartender (who had both been fired) came to say hello. We all got to talking about how awful the owners were, when the former manager had this great idea.
The key card machine had a login for employees to use to make room keys, and a master login to access everything. The new owners hadn't thought to change the master login. So my former manager gives me the instructions on how to delete all the key cards, and then delete all the logins. When my shift ended and my relief front desk attendant showed up 45 minutes late, I decided to go for it. As she was counting her drawer, I wiped all the key cards, cleared the logins, then locked the system and walked to the back to clock out. As I was walking out the door to leave, I heard her telling a guest, “I have no idea what’s going on with this machine. I can’t log in to reset your key card.”
22. Coffee Shop Showdown
My friends and I were in line at a coffee shop on a boardwalk after a day of surfing. Suddenly, the woman in front of us went absolutely berserk and started screaming at the barista, demanding soy milk because she was deathly allergic to milk. She was told to stop swearing or they would call the police, but she refused to back down. I then stepped in and pointed out that she never asked for soy milk, which I could prove with my buddy's GoPro I still had mounted on me. The woman then called me a 'big man with a small brain' and asked me to prove it. I then showed the BacPac screen to prove that she was wrong. She hastily steamed away and the barista thanked me and gave us free coffee!
23. Mess With The Wrong Guy
A few years back, after having gone shopping, I was in traffic waiting to get out of the parking lot. A few cars ahead, there was this car with 4 teenagers in it. Fairly douchy looking dudes, shirts off, board shorts and sunglasses on (we were nowhere near a beach). Anyway these 4 teenagers had a megaphone with them in their car and thought that it would be hilarious to shout out profanities at other cars and people. An employee that worked at the shopping centre drives by in one of those tractors with a trailer attached for transporting shopping carts and upon seeing him, the guys in the car start shouting shit at him through the megaphone. "Why don't you get a real job you loser!" and so forth. The employee just put his head down as he drove by.
Next the 4 teenagers decide it would be funny to start shouting profanities at some guy in a massive off-road 4x4 with a bull bar on the front. Bad move. The guy wasn't having any of it. He calmly drove his car out of the queue and got about 25 meters distance perpendicular to the teenagers' car. Then he hit the gas and T-bones their car into the wall. After, he calmly backs up a little and then takes his turn to exit the carpark and goes on his merry way. The employee transporting the shopping carts nearly fell off his tractor with laughter.
24. You Can Wait Your Turn
I was standing in line at a bank waiting to deposit my pay check when a young woman came in talking loudly on her phone. The line was pretty long, and I was two people away from the front. She started complaining to the person in front of her how little time she had and how much of a hurry she was in. People got tired of listening to her and decided to let her pass them. When she got to me, I was next in line and she looked at me and said, "You know I'm going next, right?" I looked her in the eyes and replied, "I don't know what you THINK is about to happen, but I've been waiting my turn and I'm not about to let some you cut in front of me because no one else wants to tell you no." She got mad and actually hit me in the arm. A security guard saw that and pulled her from the line and threw her out.
25. Don't Abuse the Parking Attendants
I work for parking services at a decent sized university. I don't write tickets, I just man the front desk, answer questions, and enter permits and changes into our database. We get yelled/cussed at a lot, so it's nothing new, but this person comes in raising hell over some tickets they rightfully got. They were being so ignorant and rude about the whole situation but despite this, I politely look up their account to see if I can find any errors or anything that might help them. T
hey are abusing me the whole time I'm trying to see what I can do for them. In the database, I see the hundreds of dollars worth of tickets aren't being linked to their account for some reason. I don't tell them this, but I do ask to see their last ticket so I can check if everything is right. Little do they know, with the info I got from the ticket, I transferred all of those tickets they got onto their account. If they would have been nice about the whole thing, they would have probably gotten away without ever having to pay those. Now they have a few hundred bucks worth of tickets.
26. Epic Prank on a Sleazy Bar Regular
I work at a bar and for a few weeks I was dealing with a sleazy customer who constantly tried hitting on me, touching me, etc. One day, I was off and decided to visit work and have a few free drinks. I brought my boyfriend to the bar and as soon as we sat down, this guy comes up. He ignores my boyfriend and puts his hands on the small of my back and says, "Hey you, I have a booth if you wanna put your hands to work." He looks at me and grins a sleazy smile. "You got nice hands," he said but I had no idea what he was talking about since my hands were nowhere near him.
He then looks at his hands at my lower back and his face goes pale. The hands he's holding belong to my boyfriend, who snuck his hand to hold his and made this jerk think that I was holding his. My boyfriend then looks at the guy and starts talking in the most feminine voice, "You know it, baby! Now where's this booth?" He then KISSED the guy's hand! The guy's face was PRICELESS! He let go of my boyfriend's hand and ran out of the bar. My co-worker was standing there looking at everything and started cracking up. It was the best.
27. A Tale of Line-Cutting and Justice
I was in a massive line at a store. I'm next in line, but the person in front of me has a ton of stuff. A helpful clerk sees the mess and opens another isle saying, "I can help the next customer." Well, that's me. However, the checkout counter has two sides: a right and a left. It is set up for people to come to the right side, but the left can be used as well. As I am stepping over to her counter, this jerk from the very end of my line is sprinting to her counter, pushing people. He arrives right before me. There's a mountain of items in their cart, which he starts throwing on the checkout counter. I am standing there on the other side with my one item, burning with rage. Checkout girl waits until he stacks all of his shit on the counter, looks at me, looks at him, and says to him, "I'm sorry sir, you're on the wrong side. You'll have to go to the end of the line." Which is now massive. I put on my biggest grin, made eye contact with him as long as possible, and loudly told the clerk how awesome she was.
28. Shopping Victory
I was next in line at the grocery store and there was a pretty long line. This woman behind me was making a huge fuss about them needing to open more registers. She was swearing and muttering under her breath. When a second clerk appeared at the next register to open another register he looks at me and says, "I can help the next person in line, sir." I saw the woman barreling towards the open register, so I swiftly pushed the cart blocking her path and moved my basket into the now open register. Her face got so red and looked like she was going to explode. I just looked at her and said in the most innocent voice, "Oops, he did call for next in line." I smiled and got checked out. Best part is one other person managed to sneak in behind me and she ended up having to wait longer as a result.
29. Tailgating Jerk on the Interstate
My wife and I worked at the same place. We had different working hours, so we took two cars with me leading and her following. On one particular day, we were driving along the interstate and all was going well. Suddenly, some jerk squeezes his car in behind me and cuts off my wife. He then proceeded to tailgate me and I could barely see his headlights in my rearview mirror. I started to slow the car so that traffic in the lane to our right was moving faster than us. People behind us were trying to escape, but there were few openings. I could see the jerk getting angry as he flashed his lights and hammered his steering wheel. Eventually, an opening appeared and he took it. My wife quickly filled the gap and we both sped up, leading a train of cars behind us. As we passed him, my wife flipped him off and we watched in the rearview as he was left behind with nowhere to go. It was so satisfying!
30. Justice Served
My wife and I were on the receiving end of someone's 'justice'. We'd gone out to a local sports bar for dinner on a Saturday night. Unfortunately, the local football team had just started playing and the place was packed. While we were waiting in line, we heard the conversation between the folks in front of us and the hostess. They were a party of 8 and the hostess tried explaining that they could not quote an exact wait time, as the game just started and they were very busy.
After a ton of back and forth, the guest finally moves and it's our turn. We say there's just the two of us and the hostess starts in on the "we can't quote times" speech. My wife says, "Don't worry, we heard what you said to the last person, we're not in any hurry and we know how busy you are right now." We get our blinky alert box and find a spot to wait. Literally 2 minutes later our box starts buzzing. We'd been bumped to the front and were being seated. The best part is that when we got to our table, there was another empty table right next to it which could have been made to seat 8 people, but the hostess and waitresses made sure to not seat them. Oh, and the wings were delicious.
31. Me vs. Drunk Racist Dude
I was working at a car wash and one Saturday, this guy rolls through and we were decently busy. He rolls down his window and it's clear he's been drinking (it's 11:00 AM). He immediately starts getting rude about how we didn't wash his car well the last time he was through. I was in a good mood at the time, so I offered him a couple free air fresheners and told him I would take care of his car myself. I ring up the sale and return with a couple peace token air fresheners. It was at this point his wife, who was in the back seat with their baby, thanked me. The husband loses his temper at her, saying she is not to talk out of turn or unless spoken to first by a man and then he made some racist remarks towards me. I kept my composure, sent him on his way, and then called the cops to tell them what happened. Told them he was drinking and gave them the make, model, year, colour, the direction the guy turned, and his license plate number.
32. Donut Shop Worker Gets Sweet Revenge on Rude Customer
I worked at a donut shop and on one particular day, we were very busy. A group of girls came in around our busiest time, so it was pretty hectic. One girl asked for a job application and filled it out while the rest of her group ordered. They had a huge order and we did our best to get it out quickly, but it was obvious from the looks on their faces that we just weren't quick enough for their liking.
They sat down to eat their food, and the girl who just turned in her application got back in line. I spotted her right away; she was standing with a glaring face, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, trying her best to look obviously pissed off. I motioned for her to come up to the counter, where she slammed her bottle of soda in front of me and barked, "THIS IS FLAT!" It was a bit accusing, as though it were my fault that the bottle of soda she just opened was flat. So I took it and told her to get another one out of the cooler, then check it to make sure it was good. After all that, she asked for a refund. I said, as politely as I could, "Ma'am, I replaced your soda, sorry if there was an inconvenience but I don't think a refund should be necessary."
So she stormed, pissed off, back to her table and started complaining loudly to her group about not getting a refund. I was having an awful day and really could not see a person like this working for us, so I threw the application in the trash while she watched. The look on her face was priceless!
33. Unsolicited Marriage Counselling Services
I provided unsolicited marriage counselling services to a jerk. I worked at a hotel several years ago and had to deal with insufferable pricks about a dozen times a day. The big utility company in our area was having financial issues and the guy was the leader of the auditing team that was sent in to straighten it out. I interacted with him at least a few times every day I worked, and he was ALWAYS very rude and condescending. I noticed that he had developed a relationship with one of the younger women on his auditing team. I vowed revenge. His wife called in to speak to him later that night, and I connected his wife to his mistress' room. They got a divorce. He stopped staying with us shortly after "the phone call."
34. The Election Conversation
Waiting in line to vote today, I was fortunate enough to meet a very well educated Asian man with interesting insights about the current election season. After it was his turn at the registration desk, the woman there asked him if he spoke English and if she'd be able to understand him. In response, I said that he spoke English a whole lot better than her and wasn't anywhere near as rude as she was. The man and I had a good laugh about it afterward.
35. Seniors, Humour, and High Heels
I'm a manager at a grocery store, so I encounter rude customers on a daily basis. Every Wednesday is senior discount day. You have to be 55-60 to qualify for the discount. Needless to say, Wednesdays are tense. Lots of seniors, and lots of other people who don't want to deal with the seniors. This particular Wednesday, there was one customer who was being a huge pain in the ass from the moment she walked in. She was tall, blonde, high heels, very made up, and dressed to the nines. She was probably late 30s to early 40s. She came storming up to customer service, "There are NO parking spots. This is ridiculous. I'm going to request to corporate that you expand your parking lot, since you don't seem to have the initiative to request that yourself." Off to a great start, lady.
She comes storming back up about 45 minutes later. "I am in a HUGE hurry, and every line has someone in it. I need to check out here." We had three lines open, and each one had ONE single customer. I say "No problem, but I'll get you at a checkout." She has a HUGE hissy fit. "I don't have time for this. Let's GO." As I'm checking her out, it is constant complaining. "You only have one brand of makeup? That is ridiculous. I only wear MAC, but I was going to settle for Revlon, but you don't even have that. Now I have to make a whole separate trip." "Please don't put my bread on top of my eggs, the eggs could roll over and crush the bread." "Please bag my avocados separately; I need to use those for a face mask tonight. They need to be perfect, I have a photo session for work tomorrow. I'm in a magazine." She was unbelievable.
Finally, at the end, I had enough. As she's about to pay, I say, "Don't forget today is senior discount day! You get 5% off!" She just stared at me. I smiled broadly. "Every Wednesday, senior citizens get 5% off their bill. I'll go ahead and take it off. You are 55-60, right?" She is staring at me, debit card in hand, cheeks getting red. I lose my smile slowly and say "Oh, you don't qualify? Sorry about that. Maybe next year! Thanks for your honesty." I haven't seen her in the store since.
36. When They Think You Don't Understand Them
I used to work for a major bank and while doing my stint there I came across a ton of assholes. I was taking a deposit for a lady and her daughter and I heard them speaking a Middle Eastern language. At first I wasn't paying attention but when I realized they were speaking Farsi, I was all ears. They were talking about how much of a loser I was, how this job as a teller was the only thing I had in my life, that I probably didn't have a girlfriend and didn't attend school.
I spoke only English to her and every time she responded to my requests she would smile and then say something nasty about me in Farsi. At the end of the conversation, I switched up the language and said, "Just because I work at a Bank doesn't give you the right to say things about me behind my back. I'm in grad school to become a Psycho Therapist and this job is for spending money. This isn't how Persian people behave and you should be ashamed. Is there anything else I can help you with?" This made her daughter snap and leave the building. Her mother was embarrassed and apologized profusely before leaving. I never saw either of them again.
Photo by Pixabay
37. The Highway Pissing Match
My husband and I were driving just over an hour home from my in-laws' house and we were in separate vehicles. To make the trip more tolerable, we had each other on speakerphone. Although the highway was not particularly crowded, he was a bit further behind me, directly behind another car that was driving very slow. So, he put on his left blinker to go around the guy. As soon as he started to move left, the guy abruptly cut him off only to keep at a snail's pace in the passing lane. By that point, I had slowed down enough to catch sight of them right as this was happening. My husband, being much more patient than I, decided to just pass him on the right without signalling.
When he started to move right the guy swerved right. Only, my husband hadn't given him the benefit of a blinker warning, so they were nearly side by side by the time the other guy started to move right and the guy had to swerve back into his own lane to avoid a collision. Before the other driver had time to make it more of a nonsense pissing match of trying to get in front of one another, I was slowed down right in front of him.
Again, there really weren't many other cars on the road at all, and since we were on the phone, we could coordinate. I slowed down in front of him, my husband kept pace with him on the right and he had the cement wall on his left, so he was boxed in and forced to slow down to our pace, which for me, dropped from 75 mph to about 50 mph. We decided to keep it that way, for the remaining 30 - 45 minutes of our drive home. He never signalled or honked, but he did make a ton of confused and frustrated faces. I giggled uncontrollably the whole way. Definitely worth the extended driving time.
Photo by Garvin St Villier
38. The Power of Kindness
I went to go get my exhaust fixed, no big deal, pothole poked a hole in it. When I went to go pick up the car a couple hours later, I encountered a woman SCREAMING at the guy behind the counter. She was positively fuming because she had been waiting nearly 30 minutes for her car to be fixed. She even went so far as to call the guy an “INSIGNIFICANT LAZY IMMIGRANT.” The guy looked at her, then looked at me. He threw me my keys and said, “Here you go, your Magnum’s ready. No charge.” He looked her directly in the eyes. “Looks like it’s going to be more expensive than we originally thought. Would you like us to call you a cab?” I returned shortly afterwards with pizza for the shop. Moral of the story: always be kind, you never know who’s watching!
39. The Spaghetti Murderer
I was working in an Italian restaurant that was originally opened by a man and his wife, but after their divorce, the daughter had taken over. The father, who still worked there as a cook, was a bit of a jerk. He was known to make comments and scream at the women, and there were even rumours of a 'mishap' with some fryer oil and a fry cook a few years back. When he made a snide comment to me one day, I had the perfect retort. I calmly told him that the next time he said something like that to me, I would throw the food on the floor. I then proceeded to pick up a plate of spaghetti and meat sauce and flip it over in the window. The expo guy had a look of admiration on his face, and the father never hassled me again.
40. Revenge of the Cyclist
I was riding my bike to work one day and when crossing a street (in the legal zone with a walk sign) a woman ran me over. She drove through the crosswalk looking to turn right and ran right into me. She stopped after I got bumped by her fender. I got hit hard enough to have some bruising all down my side. She gave me an exasperated, "my bad" wave and continued to talk on her cell phone, ignoring me as I picked myself and my bike up. I walked right up to her open window, grabbed her cell phone from her ear, and chucked it into a nearby parking lot as hard as I could. I swear that was the farthest I have thrown anything in my life. She gaped at me in shock as I struggled back onto my bike and slowly rode off, fuming yet victorious.
41. Tales From the DMV
I used to work for the Department of Motor Vehicles and the one I worked at had pretty limited parking. I had left for lunch, came back and was having a hard time finding a place to park. I finally found a spot so I drove up to it and put my signal on showing that I was waiting for it. People, in my experience, usually respect this and continue on. Not this time. Just as the car was backing out, a car came from the opposite side of the lot, made eye contact with me and then shot right into the parking space.
I was so mad because now I would be late after looking for a new spot. As I drove past the woman that had taken the spot, I just shook my head and she responded by shrugging her shoulders, smiling, mouthing the words, “oh well” to me and then ran her finger from her eye down her cheek as if to mock me crying about it. I continued into work, got in trouble for being late, but had actually forgotten about the incident until who’s number gets called to my station, but Miss Spot-Stealer herself! The look on her face was priceless!
Keep in mind that I’m not your average DMV worker, I understand that stuff happens and waive penalties all the time and treat my customers with respect because I know how crappy it is to wait at the DMV all day! I’m usually so nice about getting penalties taken off of people’s accounts that I get in trouble for it at times. So, I greet Spot-Stealer as nice as I would anyone else, in fact it may have been even nicer than normal. She may have thought I didn’t recognize her.
Her registration is FAR past due, with hundreds due in penalties. I let her tell me her whole sob story, then finally tell her that she owes in full because she was aware of her due date. She argues it a little until, out of sight from my manager, I mouth the words, “oh well” and drag my finger from my eye to my cheek, mocking her tears. At that point she puts her head down and proceeds to take out her card and pay the full amount. What goes around, comes around!
Photo by Mak_jp
42. Battle of Wits with a Drunken Douchebag
I was out at the local spot having a some drinks with a group of friends. The group became larger and larger with time. After a while I got separated from my fiancé. I was introduced to a guy, we'll call him Bob. After telling him my name, he says some nasty things about people with the same name asme. Now, I don't get bent out of shape without good reason, so I just brush it off as drunk banter and shook his hand. The rest of the night, he would go to the bar, walk back and give me the stink eye. For whatever reason, he didn't like me.
The feeling was becoming mutual. I decided ignoring him would probably be best. He was certainly not in his right mindset... right? A few hours passed and I was sitting by his female friend, having fun talking and giggling. He puts his elbows on the table in between us, staring at me like I had done him wrong somehow. I just kept on with our conversation and ignored him. He then puts his nasty face right next to mine and called me a nasty word. My temper (and alcohol) got the best of me, I yelled "What the is your problem exactly? I've been doing my best to ignore you. Get a clue." He then chest bumped me and said, "Do you wanna go?!?!"
I'm all for equal rights, but this was the first time an able bodied adult male has asked me, a girl, if I wanted to throw down. I walk over a few steps to my fiancé, who is talking to a bouncer friend of ours, and said "This guy says he wants to kick my ass" while the douche just keeps advancing. The bouncer looks at him, gives a hand signal, soon 5 other bouncers surround him. He was "escorted" out of the bar and went to his minivan, drunk. I called work... I work for the Sheriff's Department. They got a good tip on a sure thing DUI. I might not have thrown down, but I think I won that round.
43. The Most Fun Removal
I was working as a manager in a big nightclub about a year ago. I didn't wear a uniform, but had a radio and ran the security team. The venue had a great smoking section that looked out onto the street. One night, the venue was packed so I did my usual walk-through making sure that there were no problems. Suddenly, a guy stares me down and calls me over. He starts screaming at me for no reason and tells me that "pieces of shit like you could never even get into a venue like this."
I realized that he had no idea I was the manager, so I stayed calm and decided to take the situation outside. I told him that he could have a free swing if he wanted and he took the bait, taking off his jacket and storming outside. As soon as he was outside, I walked back inside and told security not to let him back in. The look of shock on his face when he realized I was the manager was hilarious, and then the realization that he couldn't get back into the club was priceless. It was the easiest and most fun removal I have ever done!
44. Theatre Tales
I work in local theatre, and we have a lot of rude, awful women who are part of local ballet schools come through our venue, usually the mothers of the dancers. Once, this woman called the day before a show, wanting seats to an almost sold out ballet performance that had been on sale for 4 months. She did nothing but abuse me for 5 minutes and whined about how she shouldn't have to pay for her kids, whined that we should get a bigger venue, then put me on hold while she called 3 of her relatives to see if they wanted seats too. She was positively awful.
The seats I was about to sell her were the only ones in the theatre left, and they were good seats. While I'm on hold, a grandma of one of the ballerinas comes to the desk and asks if we have any seats left, as she'd been in hospital and couldn't buy them earlier, but said she'd understand if we were booked out. I put the phone with the on-hold music down and sold this old lady the last seats for the show. I even gave her an invite to next year's dance season for her granddaughter and herself, so she'd know exactly when all the important dates were coming.
She thanked me over and over. 2 minutes after the old lady leaves, the lady on the phone finally takes me off hold and says she wants the remaining seats that we have left. I tell her, "Sorry we've just sold out while you had me on hold, better luck next next year, anything else I can help you with?" She was choking with rage on the other end of the phone, it was fantastic.
45. A Tow Truck Tale
I used to work in a big chain bookstore and we accepted returns without a receipt. One day, I was stuck on the register with a giant line when suddenly, a woman cut to the front and dropped a huge bag of books in front of me. She tells me she wants to return them and I tell her she needs to get in line. She looks at the 7 people behind her and scoffs, telling me to just do the return. I respectfully tell her no, and ask her again to get in line and I'll help her as soon as I can. She tears the bag off the counter, mutters something, and gets in line.
When she finally gets back to me she drops the books and just impatiently stares at me. I dig through the bag and the books have all obviously been read, some even have library stickers on them, and for the ones that don't, there's no receipt. I explain to her why I can't process the return and she responds by telling me that I'm a racist for not doing it. I offer to call a manager over to explain why, to which she just says "Screw you," and storms off.
As she's leaving, I notice that she forgot her keys on the counter. I promptly drop them right into the garbage. About an hour or so later, I leave my store for the day and head to my car. On the way, I see the same lady standing by her car as a tow truck slowly lifts it up. She did not look happy.
