‘He threw the laptop on the ground’: Employees Share Most Amusing Customer Encounters at Work

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
May 5, 2024 12:00 PM EDT

Customers are super amusing… some of them will assume you can give them stuff for free, while others think they can talk to you however they like because their mother told them that they were 'very special'. Customer service is the worst, and you really get to see another side to humanity that you might not encounter on your regular day-to-day basis. It's no surprise that most of the world's population isn't the greatest, but sometimes you do meet some pretty awesome folk.

Below you'll find a hilarious thread where employees share the most entertaining customer encounter they had at work. From people who played social experiments at their workplace, to customers who did not know how to accept 'no' as an answer, there are some pretty funny replies. After you check it out, here is a story about a housemate who took all his furniture and put it in his room after his roommate overcharged him $6 for rent. Classic.

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  • 01
    "He threw the laptop on the ground..."
    via Canva
  • 02
    what's the weirdest customer encounter you've had at work?
    via u/shaybestie
  • 03
    lostsparrow131986. 15 hr. ago A slightly disheveled woman comes into our store with her hands full of clothes. I say hi to her, and she ignores me and walks to the back of the store. In the back are rows of racking with bins full of various parts for purchase. She proceeds to pull out bin after bin, seemingly looking for something in particular. After 5 minutes of this, she crams all the clothes into one of the bins and places it back on the shelf. She wanders up towards the front and mumbles so
    via u/lostsparrow131986
  • 04
    She proceeds to put her forehead down on the counter and rests it there for a full 2minutes while my coworker and I ask if she's ok or needs help. This lady finally brings her head up and is now holding a water bottle that she had just broken out of the cases of water we had for sale. SHe pops it open, drinks it, grabs a handful of plastic bags from our register and walks out the door. My coworker and I just stare at each other with a 'V 'F JUST HAPPENED' look. We head to the back and find this
    via u/lostsparrow131986
  • 05
    The_Owl_Bard. 15 hr. ago · edited 14 hr. ago I used to work at a retail store as the onsite IT guy. Think Best Buy/Office Depot/etc. Anyways, the guy comes in and he got a virus on his computer. We charge money to remove the virus. He was upset that we wouldn't do it for free despite spending "a lot of money on the laptop" ($300-ish dollars) but he had refused any sort of antivrus software and he seemed like the kind of guy to click on any sort of popup.
    via u/The_Owl_Bard
  • 06
    He gets upset and he's yelling but we hold firm. He turned around, takes a few steps forward, and then throws his laptop to the ground. It's nothing impressive, the guy looked like he was in his late 60's so how much strength could have possibly have to do any real damage, but we just stand there and watch. After a few seconds of nobody saying anything, he picks it back up and leaves.
    via u/The_Owl_Bard
  • 07
    adventurouslina - 15 hr. ago Was at the cash register when a foul smell hit me like a bus. Turns out someone took a dip in the TOILET PAPER isle and ran away. The camera got the guy ofc, but still... Told my manager I wasn't gonna clean that up and he got mad, threatening me with a smaller paycheck since I'm not doing my work. Got out and quit. Not taking any more son that job, quite literally!
    via u/adventurouslina
  • 08
    baconatedwaffle · 14 hr. ago I worked at a convenience store near the state fair grounds. One year a clown in black and white makeup came in at 1 in the morning and tried to pantomime what kind of cigarettes he wanted. after three minutes of me being the worst charades player ever he got frustrated and tried to come behind the counter to I guess pick them out, but that freaked me into broom grabbing defensive mode. he kept trying to get in, I kept trying to tell him he couldn't come behind the c
    via u/baconatedwaffle
  • 09
    Flailing_Aimlessly. 14 hr. ago Working at Gamestop had a guy come in to return something 10 days after the returns window was closed. Didn't tell him "no" just explained that the manager would have to approve the return and he didn't come to work for another 2 hours. The man stood in my store for just shy of 2 hours and berated me, yelling that I wasn't a real man, I was , I was a corporate fool. Asked me to let him steal an equal value amount of merch, to just do the return... left and came bac
    via u/Flailing_Aimlessly
  • 10
    slinkocat 14 hr. ago A woman called into my job and refused to provide us with any identifying information. I told her I cannot assist her if I don't know who I'm speaking to. She said we were going to steal her information and sell it to migrants. I wished her a nice day and disconnected the call.
    via u/slinkocat
  • 11
    Brilliant Weekend2417 13 hr. ago I think I was the victim of a social experiment one night. I was bartending, we had a couple come in once a week, usually order the same thing every time. One week, they were 30 minutes late, when a couple who looked exactly like them came in, sat at their seats, and ordered pretty much the exact same stuff. When I say they looked exactly alike, I mean all the guy did was have on a convincingly good looking fake mustache, everything else about him was a dead ring
    via u/BrilliantWeekend2417
  • 12
    Towards the end of their meal, I confronted them "Hey, you're so and so, right? Is this a joke or something?" to which the guy replied "I'm sorry sir, you must have us confused with someone else." The "original" couple didn't come in that night, but they came in next week for their normal dinner, and when I asked them about it, they denied it being them, and we never got them to even hint that it may have been them, and everybody pretty much acted like it never happened and wasn't them, but I wa
    via u/BrilliantWeekend2417
  • 13
    Leopard__Messiah. 14 hr. ago At an Italian restaurant and the woman at table next to ours asked the server what was the ratio of chicken to cheese in their Chicken Parm. The server thought really hard about it for a second and then replied "I'd say it's about normal". And the woman was satisfied with that. She ordered the Chicken Parm, and ate it without further comment.
    via u/Leopard__Messiah
  • 14
    sammy5585. 13 hr. ago I wouldn't immediately call this weird, but I think of it very often. I worked at a farm supply store for a while. Once a year, baby chicks are delivered and we kept them in a corral in the middle of the store. One night, a exceptionally tall (probably 6'9"-7') man comes in. He was very pale, had dark hair and dark eyes, and was wearing a very long, black trench coat. He walked in and gazed at the chickens for a while. I remember thinking, "This dude is TOTALLY a vampire lo
    via u/sammy5585
  • 15
    He asks me "May I ask you an unusual question?" "Sure!" "I breed reptiles and I notice you have baby chicks. My pets need to eat and those are much too small for the animals I have. Do you perhaps have larger ones out back? Closer to full grown?" I was a bit stunned but hey, I know animals need to eat and there wasn't a rule stating we couldn't sell them for animal consumption. We sold meat birds for human consumption constantly. Coincidentally, one of my regulars came in earlier asking me if I
    via u/sammy5585
  • 16
    "Uh, no, I don't have any larger ones out back. But I may know of someone who has something similar for sale, how many are you looking for?" "Well, how many do they have?" "She has 50-100 full grown quail." "I certainly don't need all of those at once, but maybe I could buy a coop and keep the quail on hand... can you show me your coops? And do you have her contact info?" This man went on to buy almost $1000 in coop supplies, food, bedding, etc. He told me that he breeds snakes mostly, and has a
    via u/sammy5585
  • 17
    humidity controls for his snakes. He had a 17' Burmese python that he would let hang out with him on the couch, and even showed me a photo of his toddler son sitting with the Burmese watching tv. He had various other large snakes that he showed me photos of too. I realize that reptile breeding really isn't strange, and lots of people do it. But I was NOT expecting that one random evening in the middle of a small farm town. I know from speaking with our regular, that he picked up 50 quail, and pl
    via u/sammy5585
  • 18
    thatworkaccount108 15 hr. ago Banker at the time. Girl roughly my age (25ish) comes in and is giving me the whole sob story of why she has so many overdrafts and if there is anything I can do to help her out? I had already cleared 3 of her overdraft fees (my max) a sentence into the story, blah blah blah. I let her know and she immediately responds "oh my goodness I'm so happy I could kiss you right now! Me: "No stress at all, super easy have a great day!" her: "No seriously I could kiss you rig
    via u/thatworkaccount108
  • 19
    Glossiebabee 13 hr. ago I posted something about this in a thread a while back. Back when I was taking my bachelors degree program, I was working in a fast food pita-typed restaurant. It was set up kind of like Subway where you select everything you want on the pita. The only difference was that we cut up all the veggies fresh, and the meat was nice quality that we cooked on a grill. At night time in the winter (Canada) we did not usually get many customers. One particular night I was working al
    via u/Glossiebabee
  • 20
    Unfortunately, a customer walked in, so I pleasantly walk up to serve him. He was an average looking guy, maybe a little haggard looking. Just tired and stressed from driving in the storm I thought. He ordered a chicken pita with extra peppers. So I put the peppers in, and he said "no no, more peppers, I need more peppers". I put the peppers in free of charge, they were going to be thrown out at the end of the night anyways (new veggies every morning and afternoon). It was LOADED with peppers, a
    via u/Glossiebabee
  • 21
    This is where it gets interesting. He literally had a mental breakdown right in front of me. He took a few bites of his pita, then SLAMMED it down on the table. He started screaming about how much he hates peppers. "I F NG HATE PEPPERS WHY WOULD YOU PUT PEPPERS", then started just screaming incoherently. What followed is probably the strangest thing I have ever seen. He took off his parka to show that he wasn't wearing a shirt underneath, then started rubbing the peppers from his now destroyed p
    via u/Glossiebabee
  • 22
    This guy was straight up flipping out. He was knocking chairs over, and walked up to the cooler full of bottled drinks. He PULLED the cooler over (almost onto himself) and all the drinks smashed on the floor. Then he went and curled up in a ball on the floor crying. The dispatcher had decided to send over the police as well, and it didn't take long for them to get there since the station is right down the street. They loaded him up into the ambulance and took him away, and I filled out a police
    via u/Glossiebabee
  • 23
    Sven_88 14 hr. ago I was ringing up a customer and making small talk being my usual goofy self. She looks at me then says "you remind me so much of my son" pauses for a bit and then says "I miss him so much”. I guess it's not the weirdest but has stuck with me over ten years.
    via u/Sven_88
  • 24
    Cathlem 15 hr. ago A guy came up to the front and asked me where we kept our alarm clocks. I said "If we have any left they'll be in the back corner with the rest of the electronics." He started walking to the back of the store, got halfway there, then I heard him yell "IF?!" and he stomped out and we never saw him again. The whole time he was muttering "If" to himself. Sorry dude, I work upfront, I know where they are, not if we have any right now.
    via u/Cathlem

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customer service buying humor boss employee work stories server retail workplace stories reddit customers working restaurant employees entertaining laptop funny store
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