16 employees who got fired for snapping at a rude customer share their story.

While the training video and employee handbook might tell you that 'the customer is always right,' anyone who has worked in retail or the service industry knows that every shift is a test in how long you can choke down your rage with fake smiles...

There are some days, though, when not even the strongest people among us can resist snapping at the entitled demon of the coffee shop threatening to ruin everyone's lives on Yelp. So, when a Reddit user asked, 'People who have been fired for finally losing your temper on a customer, what's your story?' frustrated (former) employees everywhere were ready to share the details of the straw that broke the Karen's back. Remember to return your uniform and grab your dignity from your employee locker before storming out!

1.

Anyway one morning a guy came in to the store and decided to pick me to angrily yell at about some of the items being from Mexico. I told him he probably needed to take a nap and laughed. He rolled up one of his sleeves and said he needed to teach me a lesson and I responded 'go ahead, but I'm gonna hit you back and it is gonna f*cking hurt.' Got fired on the spot. One of my favorite life moments though. - jaimakimnoah

2.

Bartender here. I worked at the same place for about a year and there was this one woman who got on my last f*cking nerve. Not even counting personal reasons, she just always tried to pawn her drinks off onto other people's tabs (guys she'd flirt with).

She got away with it most of the time because they were drunk but there were a few times the guys would literally come up and tell us 'DO NOT put her drinks on my tab.' We were incredibly happy to comply.

One night, her sh*t wasn't working on anyone and her tab ended up being $99 even. She left as we were literally kicking people out (in MS there's a law that all alcohol has to be in the trash, bar wise, by 1:30 or there's a bunch of fines), and when she heard what her tab was she argued with me then threw a $100 in my face and went to walk out.

I'd been dealing with her sh*t for years as a general human being with friends of the (somewhat) same social circle along with dealing with her in the bar for a year (while she was sleeping with the owner and basically got away with anything because of it) and I'd had enough.

I grabbed the money and as she walked out I very loudly said 'thanks for the tip, b*tch.' She turned around and looked at me like I slapped her. Fast forward later into that week.

I was working alone during the day & she and a friend came in to eat/drink. I served the friend but refused to serve her. She told me I had to and I plainly told her to tell my owner to come pour her a drink if she wanted it that badly.

Owner lived upstairs & when I went up to grab food for someone else rolled his eyes and told me to serve her. I politely told him that I wasn't serving her anymore based on everything in the past & that I'd rather go home than deal with her. About 20 minutes later he came downstairs and sent me home. - Allisonnleighann

3.

A 'gentleman' called the winery I worked at, demanding that some guest he had sent in be seated in a certain chair, given free sh*t, and a bunch of other less-than-reasonable demands.

He never actually explained what I could do for him, but he did tell me the wine tour company he owns, asked me if I knew who he was (because 'you're damn sure gonna meet me'), and let me know, twice, that he thinks I'm a f*cking idiot.

I went on his website, and left a nasty review. I also left the same review as a Yelp review. I specified who he is, and spelled out the disgusting way he treats customer service people. I let him know that he should be ashamed of himself, and that I would never recommend his services to anyone, ever.

This made me happy, because I knew lots of people would read it, including people at his company. And they did! He called our GM FURIOUS, and very embarrassed - as he should have been!

I was let go last Tuesday, but I already had another job lined up (the winery I was at sucked), so I'm doing that now. Woo hoo! The Yelp review is still up. - Capt_Gingerbeard

4.

It wasn't a customer, it was the owner's son. I was sitting in the staff room eating my lunch. I'd had spinal surgery a few months earlier, but was pretty anxious about being touched because I'd spent so long having to be genuinely afraid of being knocked over.

As I was sitting there her son (about 6-8 years old) came up behind be and whacked me over the back with a largish pipe. It was like stuffed vinyl something like that. I freaked out and spun around and snarled at him, just as my boss walked in. Never got another shift. I should have controlled my temper, I just flipped out, it hurt terribly. - MoscaMye

5.

Got fired for calling out our weekend manager for regularly stealing wine from stock to sit in the bathroom and get pissed instead of doing her job. Was told to come back with proof, came back with a video of her doing exactly that and fired two days later. Apparently I'm not a 'team player' - whirler_girl

6.

I didn't lose my temper but I couldn't hold my tongue anymore. I'd worked in the high-end same salon for 7 years. I'd seen more than enough clients bitch and moan about their hair and crap and I was already on the verge of not giving a shit anymore because I'd had enough of the spoiled rich clientele and the stupid high standard of customer service I had to provide to them.

One day this man came in for a haircut with his son. I got called from my receptionist that the man wanted to see a supervisor. I walked over and asked him how I could help him. He said he was very unhappy with his son's haircut. I took a look at it and, I admitted, that it was not a good job. So I apologized to him and offered to have another stylist fix it. Well, for some reason, he didn't accept my offer and all he wanted to do was complain about it.

I was just about to offer him a refund but then he said this: 'This is the third time in a row I've come here and each time you've messed up my son's hair.'

To which I replied: 'Sir, if this is the third time in a row you've been unhappy with our service, then why do you keep coming here?'

Him: 'I will make sure your manager knows you said asked me such a question.'

Me: 'If you feel that way, then go ahead.'

I don't remember what happened immediately after. But since that day, I began of spiral of I-hate-this-place attitude and I was fired a couple weeks later. - [deleted]

7.

Not me but my old boss at Starbucks in New Mexico. He's a great guy, played Rugby so he's big and tough. Anyway, his girlfriend broke up with him and he was attached to her kids. We're at work and this b*tchy self-righteous customer came in. You know the type, 'I'm too good for this town but I'll never leave so f*ck you.'

Her: Extra hot mocha

Boss: What temperature would you like? (Gives ranges)

Her: I don't know, extra hot.

Boss: Ma'am, I need a number, I don't want to burn you.

Her: I don't know! Just make it extra hot!

He then grabs the cup, slams against the wall spraying mocha everywhere! Boss: Get the f*ck out of here! She leaves and we close the store early. He is a legend. - LeviCA86

8.

Obligatory 'not me but my friend'. He was working at a ShopRite at the time. He was a cart boy to be exact. He's a pretty mellow guy and it takes a lot for him to get mad, but one day, a lady parked in the fire lane. He went up to her car and calmly told her that that was the fire lane and she couldn't park there.

She ignored him. He told her again that she couldn't park there and she said 'Are you security?' My friend says no. Lady goes 'Then shut the f*ck up.' That's when he loses it. I don't remember what he said, but I know that they got into a shouting battle.

His manager told him that he should've gotten someone to take care of it, and he should've carried on with his job (I agree with this, I know that you should never raise your voice at a customer, no matter how ignorant they are). He was fired at the end of his shift. - Keeks15

9.

I go to a small college in a big city. At the time I was dating an athlete on a team with several international players. A bunch of us went to a club for a friends birthday and the club was absolutely packed.

You could see from the outside that it was overcrowded and the bouncer wasn't letting anyone in except for a few girls so I got in, but there was about to be a riot outside because of a bunch of foreign drunk college students wanting in.

The bouncer climbed up on a table and shouted 'I DONT GIVE A DAMN IF YOURE A MOTHERF*CKING AUSTRALIAN YOU'RE NOT GETTING IN!' The owner reportedly heard this and fired him after his shift that night. - squidshae

10.

My company was 'fired' as a contractor. We did IT for a particular franchised hotel chain. I was on-site moving some network equipment that was in a closet attached to the main lobby area while they were doing some renovations. A guest walked up to me while I'm carrying a blade server starts chewing my ass about being able to smell the pool.

I told her nicely that I don't work for the hotel and that I'm sure someone at the front desk can help her. I start waking toward my cart to set down the server that was becoming pretty heavy at this point and she steps in front of me and basically calls me a liar then going into a rant about nobody will take responsibility for anything anymore, etc.

I step around her and set down the server and then tell her in a slightly less polite way that I don't work for the hotel and have no responsibility for the pool or it's smell and that she might as well be at Home Depot complaining about Wal-mart.

I walk back to the closet and grab the other blade server and as I'm walking around her to set it on the cart she steps in front of me again causing me to lose my balance and drop the $15,000 server on the floor as I fell on my face trying to save it.

Understandably, I lost my sh*t. I told her to get the f*ck out of my face and she'd be lucky if I didn't call the cops. The hotel ended up suing her for the damaged server and all my time to replace the parts and reconfigure it, but when contract renewal came back around, they chose not to renew because I had handled the situation unprofessionally.

I didn't bother to defend myself, it was just an excuse to go with a cheaper contractor, and we ended up having to come in on a time and material basis to fix stuff the cheaper guys couldn't figure out. - Jeff_play_games

11.

Had a guy come into the store about a week ago who kept calling me Jose, I let him know that wasn't my name but his reasoning behind it was...If you were Mexican, he'd call you Jose. Whatever, I shrugged it off and continued helping him until he stated 'it seems since your a Jose, you lack the intelligence to even help me'...

At that point I told him to f*ck off and get out of my store! His response was 'I'll make you pay for this', 'you'll regret saying that to me!' my final response to that a*shole was, if me and you were outside and I wasn't wearing this shirt you wouldn't speak to me in that manner!

So if you'd like, we can go outside but I guarantee you I'm gonna pop you in your mouth! I've worked in retail for many many years, never have I been so angry.. I regret even letting that a*shole get to me the way he did. - [deleted]

12.

I was 23ish and working as a bartender at a newly opened hotel. We opened without a bar mgr and the plan was to hire internally after 2 months. I put my name in for the position, but of course it went to the GMs BFF. This woman was a grade A moron.

The sort of moron that puts 60 gallons of fresh oj in the dry storage in Texas for a month and then says to sell it anyways when confronted about it (I tossed it all in the dumpster when she left for the day). Because that makes sense over the person with pertinent experience and studying engineering.

Anyways, we had health and safety forms where we had to record temperature of all cold storage because we sold food too. This, of course, ended up being my job because the bar mgr was too much of a moron to remember. And 100% of the days I was gone, it wasn't done.

I show up one day and all of the sudden my initials are forged on the places where there were blanks before. Obviously, I'm not cool with that so I go to the GM who says 'I'll take care of it.' The next day I show up and get fired because 'obviously things aren't working out.' - wasabi1787

13.

Bartending. Some very rude customers at one end of the bar were trying to get our attention so they started whistling at the guy I was working with. He turned around, said 'I am not a f*cking dog' and carried on working. The customers complained and he was suspended. He ended up just leaving and moving to Spain. - betneey

14.

Customer service, working for a bank. A very rich customer rang in complaining that the interest rate on her account had gone down from something like 2.75% to 2.5%. She had over 200 grand in the account.

She just kept screeching and screeching at me. I threw my headset at the screen and hung up on her. Manager witnessed the whole thing (she was surreptitiously listening in to the call at the time) and the incident contributed to my being fired weeks later. - [deleted]

15.

I was 17 and working at a movie theater when 'Two Weeks Notice' came out. It was opening night, and we were busy as hell so I was already a bit stressed out. I was working concession, and we had just finished up the final night's rush when a group of 14-year-old girls came out and started asking for free stuff.

When we told them no, they got super belligerent with us. We managed to get most of them to settle down once we threatened to call security, but one girl just wouldn't go away. She was talking sh*t to all of us, threatening to break stuff, and basically being an entitled twat.

We called security and they told her to get in the auditorium or get tossed out, and she went back in. Not 10 minutes after the security officer left, that sh*tty little girl came back out to f*ck with us again.

I'd had enough, so I got in her face and told her if she didn't leave, I would 'end' her. Turns out, my boss didn't take death threats lightly and I got fired. The girl was banned from the theater from then on, though, so I guess it evened out. - Pillowfiend

16.

'LADY IT'S $7.50 AN HOUR NOT TO BEAT YOUR A*S. YOU REALLY THINK YOU'RE WORTH THAT RIGHT NOW!?' - MHodge97