Build-A-Bear Employees Describe Their Weirdest Customers

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mattstaff
Nov 25, 2019 10:00 PM EST

Someone on AskReddit asked for Build-A-Bear employees to share their strangest interactions with customers. There are a surprising number of people who want to have the ashes of their deceased loved ones, put inside of stuffed animals. Outside of that, doesn't get more awkward than a bored boyfriend trying to look excited about his girlfriend dressing up a bear to match his outfit. 

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  • 01
    Text - Cabtalk 1d A Native family wanted to put a real bear tooth inside the bear (it was for a newborn). I made sure to check the sharpness of the tooth so it wouldn't puncture the fabric. Nothing weird with that job though. Although, there was a time when this old, drunk guy walked by the store and tried to grab a little girl near the entrance. A father intervened and got her back, but people were more bewildered by this guy doing it so obviously rather than get upset. Ihated the store's music
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  • 02
    Text - MistressFreyjaX 1d S 1 Award Back in the earlier build a bear days, I was asked to put an urn that contained the ashes of their father who had recently passed from cancer into the bear. I didn't know what to say and my manager was on break. They were really sweet and I completed the task for them (reed teddy, if recall correctly). They also had previously recorded his voice so that also went into the teddy. 20 minutes later when my manager returned, I informed her of what happened and how
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  • 03
    Text - tigerlilly_50049 1d I worked at Build A Bear for 8 years. It honestly was a pretty great job. They weirdest request I ever had was a woman brought in a moose (not our brand). It was a gift from her boyfriend and her children had ripped the head clean off. She wanted to know if we could fix it. I was one of the better ones at the sewing so the manager brought it to me. I told the woman would do my best. I was able to get the head back on. Returned it to the woman and she said it looked as
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  • 04
    Text - evanstravers 1d My girlfriend and her grad school friends made a bear called Catastrophe Bear and he said "everything is awful"
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  • 05
    Text - GMHGeorge 1d Not an employee but at the one in the mall near me the employees told me that a lady would come in with her pet monkey that she treated as her child. She used it as a clothing story for the monkey. She also tried to sue the local school district into letting the monkey attend but was unsuccessful.
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  • 06
    Text - amazing9999 1d I have been censored in my bears name twice at a build a bear. One happened when I was five, one when I was six. When I was five I got a bear who I wanted to name Honeypunch (shut up I was five). The attendant told me no punch is a bad word so she forced me to change it to bunch. The same thing happened with the second best next year, albeit different first half of the name
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  • 07
    Text - Ivytongue 1d My mom and I are both adults and we both like stuffed animals. My mom wanted a lion from Build-a-bear a long time ago and the employee wouldn't let her finish making her look until she made a wish on the heart. The strangest request she probably ever got was, "Stop telling me to make a wish."
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  • 08
    Text - Hopefulkitty 1d Watching a teenage girl make a bear dressed like her boyfriend, for her boyfriend, while he was there. I have never seen someone try so hard to look interested, but failing. Teenage love I guess. The weirdest thing is all the middle aged women who come in Everytime somehow new is released. They collect them, but are always super weird people.
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  • 09
    Text - zeromig 1d Oh god, I worked there a lifetime ago, around 2000 or so. I loved that job. One of the weirdest things was when a customer brought a pet's ashes in a little plastic baggie.I was no longer surprised by the ashes thing, butI was really surprised when they asked me the baggy of ashes to the outside of the stuffed cat. I really can't remember if this is 100% true, but I think I passed off that customer to my manager, mostly because I can't sew that well. Another one: my store was i
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  • 10
    Text - 099uyx 1d I was not an employee but I interviewed. It was a group interview and they asked us all questions. Toward the end they asked us individually if we wanted to sing a song but stressed we didn't have to. Only employees who sang moved on in the interview process.
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  • 11
    Text - countryprincess 1d Thad parents come in and ask me to put their young daughter pacifiers into the bear. They insisted she agreed as a way to stop using them. The little girl looked horrified the entire time We stuffed them in the bear, she definitely was not ready to let them go
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  • 12
    Text - amandaMidge 1d I never worked at a BAB, but I worked at a store next to it for about a year. I was friends with the manager there at the time. She told me that a grandma had a bear made with a beating heart (I guess that's an actual thing and surprisingly not the weirdest part) and she had asked to sprinkle her dead grandsons ashes in said heart. It also came out during this conversation, that the grandma had stolen the ashes from the actual mom just for this reason People grieve in weird
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  • 13
    Text - polkadotcroc 1d Inever had any weird guest experiences, just weird experiences with the management. I was ultimately fired because I refused to stand outside the store and dance. We were on the lower level of the mall and the manager told me to try to make eye contact with children on the second level and, in so many words, get them to throw a tantrum so the parent would bring them in. I'd been a good employee and the job was otherwise very fun, but I was glad to go. That manager lived an
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  • 14
    Text - lulalethal 1d interviewed for them last year - My hair was a very light blonde but I had dark roots so it was easy to tell it wasn't my natural color - Although it was a very natural color, my interviewer asked me if I could dye it black because it was unnatural and "parents would throw a fit." I told it wouldn't be possible because it took me months to get that blonde. She then proceeded to write the number one on a piece of paper. "This is what I have graded your interview on a scale of
    via u/mttp1990

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customer service wtf cringe Awkward ridiculous weird
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