8 Customers Everyone Hates
Let's face it: most of the people reading this have had jobs in the service industry. Waiter, barista, the shoe guy at the bowling alley. Everybody does it at one point in their lives. A low point.
After all, no matter how much you love people, dealing with customers still pretty much sucks. Here are the ones that all of us in the customer service brigade have learned to hate:
The Stoner
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Tomato Eyes, Jamaican flags.
Now don't get us wrong; there's nothing wrong with the occasional trip to Stoneyville. If you can keep the fact that you're high as a kite discreet, more power to you. However, once your being stoned out of your gourd interferes with other people's jobs, you've crossed the line. Especially when it handicaps you from making the crucial decision of what you want on your nachos.
"What happens now?"
Enter the Stoner, the guy who has no shame at all for being ripped off his ass. This dude is weaving in and out of reality, absolutely baffled as to how he got into Taco Bell. Now, we understand your situation : You're the hungriest you've ever been in your life, but you're also, in your condition, borderline useless. Unless you've planned ahead (you didn't) you'll have to make a monetary transaction involving you and another human being.
But it's not like the extraordinarily complicated system of menu-order-wallet-money changes once you've decided to puff the magic dragon. This is something you've been doing on a daily basis for a good part of your life.
"I'd like eleven hundred tacos. And then eight tacos. Please."
Come on guys, either wait until after you've got your food to smoke, or get a grip for the 30 seconds it takes to order a churro.
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
Being constantly stoned out of their minds. While this may not seem like much of a punishment, they will then be made to solve riddles, with each wrong answer resulting in a swift kick to the nuts.
The Soapbox (a.k.a Captain Linger)
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Having no company, reeking of desperation.
Some people have no friends, no one they can chitchat with about the stupid things that they can both relate to. To remedy this problem, some of these people go out and actually make friends. Others simply go to their local coffee shop to talk to strangers working behind a counter, people who don't know/care who you are and are literally forced to listen to you in order to earn a paycheck.
"I'd like to tell you about all my feelings."
Taking full advantage of their captive audience, the Soapbox will proceed to bore you to tears about uninteresting details from their day, their iguana's ailing health and their arsenal of closed-minded opinions and politically incorrect jokes that you have to chuckle at because your boss is standing right next to you.
They will then linger for the next twenty to thirty minutes, talking to you while you're helping other people, trying to hide your waning interest in whatever the hell they were talking about. Sorry dude, but there's a difference between making small talk and forcing someone to listen to your nonsense. Lingerers, as a rule, have not yet discovered the Internet and blogging.
This will absolutely change your life.
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
Chihuahuas grafted to each shoulder, constantly barking in their ears, with no possible escape.
The Anchor
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Dust forming on shoulders.
Ah yes, the sweet victory of coming to the end of a long line. It took forever to finally get there, so what do you do now? Do you make sure that you finish whatever it is you've been standing in line for quickly and efficiently, out of consideration for those that are in your former predicament?
Fuck no! You lay anchor! That means your job is to waste your time and everyone else's, savoring the moment by asking pointless questions, making brilliant insights ("I'll tell ya, I was just standing in line") and commenting on how the place is run ("What you've got is an inefficient floor plan"). The Anchor is also the master of not taking no for an answer. They refuse to believe that the person helping them isn't just arbitrarily withholding the answer they're looking for.
"I know it's not on the menu, but can I have a functioning motorcycle?"
The logic is that if they ask a question that cannot be answered enough times, the answer will magically conjure in the clerk's mind, or that the out of stock product will magically appear.
"Do you still have the eggnog milkshakes?"
"No, that's just for the holidays. It's June."
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Quite sure."
"Because I could really go for an eggnog milkshake right now."
"It's just I'm craving eggnog, so...you know. Are you sure?"
The Anchor is most commonly found at information kiosks and anywhere you can ask a virtually endless amount of questions, multiple times. Think the old Jewish lady from Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, or any middle-aged businessman who's taken one too many leadership seminars.
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
Being reincarnated as an actual anchor.
The Micromanager
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Neurotic behaviors, darting eyes.
You will encounter this customer if you work any place where your work area is visible to the public (i.e. a coffee shop, bar, deli, Subway). This sort of environment is supposed to reassure the customer of the care that is going into their product, and is not meant to be an open invitation to critique sandwich making abilities.
The Micromanager has zero faith in your sandwich-mastery and isn't the least bit shy about expressing this verbally. It doesn't matter that this is your job and that after working here for the last couple years you kind of got the hang of how to spread mustard. The Micromanger is with you every step of the way; telling you how many pickles make the best sandwich and why its way better to cut it diagonally.
If you're going to be involved with every single factor of making something, why not just make it yourself? In fact, if the managers were all that smart, they'd hire this guy as the human equivalent of a training video.
"When you cut the tomatoes, whisper to them."
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
Spending the rest of eternity in a cell with their in-laws, where their every action will be criticized.
Cellphone Shitheads
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Either a) Glued to a cellphone, or b) Having the appearance of a schizophrenic engaged in a one-sided conversation with themselves.
The advent of personal communication devices has given birth to a relatively new species of horrible customers: the Cellphone Shithead. Apparently there are people who have not caught on to the fact that talking on the phone in a store is both obnoxious and extremely rude. Sometimes they will up the ante, and choose to engage in a phone conversation while simultaneously ordering food, paying for said food and ultimately eating food, all while giving a play by play to the poor bastard they're talking to.
"Let me just call my bro and tell him I'm eating."
Seriously people, we don't want to listen to you shouting at your phone through a mouthful of hamburger. The Cellphone Shithead's coup de grace, however, is when they have the audacity to give the "just a minute" finger when you ask them "how can I help you?"
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
A bluetooth permanently grafted to skull, but the only person on the other line is Fran Drescher.
The Ticking Timebomb
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Steam billowing from ears, hooves.
As soon as T.T.T. comes through the door, you sense a disturbance in the Force. You feel the wind shift and realize that there's a storm coming, one that's about to rain an ungodly amount of shit on you and everyone within earshot. The Ticking Timebomb enters with an enormous chip upon their shoulder, and its only a matter of time until they snap.
Try as you may to please this customer, they'll find something to explode with rage over. Oh shit, the cold cook forgot to hold the onions on the salad, here comes the hurricane. The Ticking Time Bomb has now transformed into the Fire-Breathing Dragon of Rage. Sure to be insulted are: you, the restaurant, the food, the prices, the service, the management, the consistency, the wait, the lighting, the music, the bathrooms, that horrible smell and how weak his wife's margarita is.
And being that the customer is always right, you have no choice but to bend over and take it like this is Cell Block D. Nothing you do can possibly console the F.B.D.R., and your only hope is that he'll punch you in the face so that you can a) karate-chop his ass, or b) sue him for punitive damages.
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
There is an entire circle of Hell devoted to these people, and their punishment is that they have to live around each other.
The Procrastinator
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Blank stares, preoccupation.
When you arrive at a business establishment and begin your journey through the line towards the register, it is wise to take advantage of this free time and figure out what the fuck you want to eat. The Procrastinator, however, finds this concept foreign.
"Apparently I've been in some sort of line. Huh."
Seriously, you've been waiting in line for ten minutes now--just now-- you notice there's a menu? All this time, the Procrastinator's been too occupied texting, rocking out to his iPod or chitchatting with his stupid friends. The world starts and stops at the Procrastinator's convenience and, when the Procrastinator is your customer, there is not a damn thing you can do about it.
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
Spending the rest of eternity in a line waiting to get into Heaven, while some guy at the front of the line forever tries to decide what color robe he wants to wear.
The Dinosaur
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Crotchety behavior, dementia.
Don't get us wrong, there's actually quite a few cool elderly folks, like Grandma from Garfield. For some however, keeping up with the times seems as pointless as watching Deal or No Deal. Meet the Dinosaur, who among other things doesn't seem to realize that inflation is a very real and constant thing, prices adjust over time and that's that.
Unfortunately, the Dinosaur believes that there is a worldwide conspiracy involving inflating prices in order to scam them out of their pensions. But that's not all. This conspiracy also includes you personally removing or replacing the old products that they've grown so fond of. Why would they show patience for companies putting a fresh face on their products every now and then, when they can tell you that "Goldbond hasn't changed their packaging for the last hundred years, and they're doing alright."
But if there's just one concept that the Dinosaur cannot grasp, it's the fact that you, the lowly clerk, have absolutely no control over what is on the shelves. Of course bitching at you is like a parent going to their child's elementary school and complaining about poor educational standards to the janitor. They're talking to the wrong person; you could honestly give less than a shit. But you can't tell that to them.
Not even close to giving a shit.
Suitable Punishment in Hell:
Forget hell, just force them to live in the future. Or Tokyo.
For more people to hate, check out The 5 Worst Sources of Advice on Television. Or find out what science has to say about our number one in 6 Obnoxious Old People Habits (Explained by Science).
And stop being such a jerk and go to Cracked.com's Top Picks.
