Customer Service

<p>If you&#39;ve ever worked in retail, food service, or really any customer-facing job &mdash; you know the hell that is dealing with rude customers. One coffee shop employee who was fed up with dealing with customer temper tantrums came up with a brilliant hack for shutting them down.</p><h2>The barista&#39;s &quot;hack&quot; is that anytime a customer raises their voice or complains about their order, the barista&#39;s co-worker pretends to be the &quot;boss&quot; and &quot;fires&quot; the barista on the spot while the customers cringe and try to retract their complaints, fearful that their petty grievances just cost someone their job.</h2><p>The anonymous barista shared their story to Reddit&#39;s &quot;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e5k3z2/aita_for_pretending_to_get_fired_when_customers/">Am I The Asshole</a>&quot; because one of their friends thought their coffee shop hack was a &quot;mean prank&quot; to play on the unsuspecting customers, so the barista had to wonder if they were the asshole in the situation.</p><h2>The teenaged barista explained how they were fed up with rude customers that came into the coffee shop.</h2><blockquote> <p>So sometimes customers will come in and just be angry about such little stuff. Like literally blow up about nothing. I dunno if theyre in a bad mood already and looking for someone to take it out on or what, but it&#39;s a lot... Like how sad so your have to be to be a grown-ass man taking your anger out on high school and college kids.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>So OP and their co-worker &mdash; and fellow high-schooler &mdash; James decided to play a little prank on mean-spirited customers and &quot;fire&quot; OP each time they supposedly screwed up a customer order.</h2><blockquote> <p>So one day I was at work and some guy was having a temper about how we don&#39;t make the coffee hot enough... Which I couldn&#39;t do a thing about because I gave it to him right out of the machine.</p> <p>So James came in and was like &quot;sir is there a problem here&quot; and the guy started ranting at him too. So he was just like &quot;OP, this is unacceptable, you&#39;re fired.&quot;</p> </blockquote><h2>After OP&#39;s co-worker pretended to fire her, OP would play it up hard.</h2><blockquote> <p>I started acting real sad, like &quot;no please don&#39;t fire me, my family needs the money, I need this job, pleaseeee&quot; and he played up being a hard-ass, telling me to take off my apron and leave.</p> <p>The angry guy started to backtrack, like &quot;It isn&#39;t that big of a problem, you don&#39;t need to fire her over it. I didn&#39;t mean it&quot; and James was like &quot;No, we pride ourselves on the best customer service.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>OP says that they and their co-workers found it real &quot;satisfying&quot; to see the customers freak out after learning they&#39;d gotten someone &quot;fired. &quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>And we&#39;ve done it a couple times, whenever a customer will lose their temper...James will storm in and &quot;fire&quot; us. And almost every time, the person who had come in angry will apologise and say that they didn&#39;t mean it. It&#39;s kind of satisfying, making people realize their actions might actually have consequences.</p> </blockquote><p>However, the barista&#39;s friends thought they were rude for making people think they had caused someone to lose their job, but Reddit chimed in with full support for the barista and most echoed the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e5k3z2/aita_for_pretending_to_get_fired_when_customers/f9k5lfx/">sentiment</a> that their little &quot;prank&quot; is a &quot;perfect way of dealing with hostile customers&quot; and that OP is definitely NOT the asshole here.</p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e5k3z2/aita_for_pretending_to_get_fired_when_customers/f9ke6wy/">Commadusaurelias</a> thinks that OPs &quot;tactic&quot; will teach rude customers to stop complaining so much.</p><blockquote> <p>&quot;When the hostile customers try to backtrack what they say makes it worth it. OPs tactic hopefully teaches them to stop complaining to service workers about things out of their control.&quot;</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e5k3z2/aita_for_pretending_to_get_fired_when_customers/f9k55ot/">Lolak1445</a> thinks OPs hack is &quot;hilarious.&quot;</p><blockquote> <p>NTA. I think it&rsquo;s hilarious and maybe it&rsquo;ll teach some people a lesson about controlling their assholery.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e5k3z2/aita_for_pretending_to_get_fired_when_customers/f9khfow/">Pap-no</a> wished they had OPs confidence to do the same at their job.</p><blockquote> <p>This is so great I&rsquo;ve been threatened by customers saying I need to be fired for being &ldquo;so incompetent&rdquo; at my serving job I wish I could do something like this!</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/e5k3z2/aita_for_pretending_to_get_fired_when_customers/f9v948t/">Thechosenjuanliveson</a> agreed that the best way to diffuse a stressful situation is to politely get the customer to see how unreasonable they&#39;re being.</p><blockquote> <p>Definately, I&#39;m a retail manager (in the customer service department, no less!) And the best and easiest way to get a person to calm down, is to show them the extent of their logic (if you can).</p> </blockquote><p>The OP is most definitely not the asshole here, and we&#39;d go so far to say that OP is a damn hero. On behalf of everyone that has ever worked in customer service, bless you.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Barista responds to rude customers by pretending to get fired in front of them.

If you&#39;ve ever worked in retail, food service, or really any customer-facing job &mdash; you know the hell that is dealing with rude customers. One coffee shop employee who was fed up with dealing with customer temper tantrums came up with a brilliant hack for shutting them down.The barista&#39;s &quot;hack&quot; is that anytime a customer raises their voice or complains about their order, the barista&#39;s co-worker pretends to be the &quot;boss&quot; and &quot;fires&quot; the barista on the spot while the customers cringe and try to retract their complaints, fearful that their petty grievances just cost someone their job.The anonymous barista shared their story to Reddit&#39;s &quot;Am I The Asshole&quot; because one of their friends thought their coffee shop hack was a &quot;mean prank&quot; to play on the unsuspecting customers, so the barista had to wonder if they were the asshole in the situation.The teenaged barista explained how they were fed up with rude customers that came into the coffee shop. So sometimes customers will come in and just be angry about such little stuff. Like literally blow up about nothing. I dunno if theyre in a bad mood already and looking for someone to take it out on or what, but it&#39;s a lot... Like how sad so your have to be to be a grown-ass man taking your anger out on high school and college kids. So OP and their co-worker &mdash; and fellow high-schooler &mdash; James decided to play a little prank on mean-spirited customers and &quot;fire&quot; OP each time they supposedly screwed up a customer order. So one day I was at work and some guy was having a temper about how we don&#39;t make the coffee hot enough... Which I couldn&#39;t do a thing about because I gave it to him right out of the machine. So James came in and was like &quot;sir is there a problem here&quot; and the guy started ranting at him too. So he was just like &quot;OP, this is unacceptable, you&#39;re fired.&quot; After OP&#39;s co-worker pretended to fire her, OP would play it up hard. I started acting real sad, like &quot;no please don&#39;t fire me, my family needs the money, I need this job, pleaseeee&quot; and he played up being a hard-ass, telling me to take off my apron and leave. The angry guy started to backtrack, like &quot;It isn&#39;t that big of a problem, you don&#39;t need to fire her over it. I didn&#39;t mean it&quot; and James was like &quot;No, we pride ourselves on the best customer service.&quot; OP says that they and their co-workers found it real &quot;satisfying&quot; to see the customers freak out after learning they&#39;d gotten someone &quot;fired. &quot; And we&#39;ve done it a couple times, whenever a customer will lose their temper...James will storm in and &quot;fire&quot; us. And almost every time, the person who had come in angry will apologise and say that they didn&#39;t mean it. It&#39;s kind of satisfying, making people realize their actions might actually have consequences. However, the barista&#39;s friends thought they were rude for making people think they had caused someone to lose their job, but Reddit chimed in with full support for the barista and most echoed the sentiment that their little &quot;prank&quot; is a &quot;perfect way of dealing with hostile customers&quot; and that OP is definitely NOT the asshole here.Commadusaurelias thinks that OPs &quot;tactic&quot; will teach rude customers to stop complaining so much. &quot;When the hostile customers try to backtrack what they say makes it worth it. OPs tactic hopefully teaches them to stop complaining to service workers about things out of their control.&quot; Lolak1445 thinks OPs hack is &quot;hilarious.&quot; NTA. I think it&rsquo;s hilarious and maybe it&rsquo;ll teach some people a lesson about controlling their assholery. Pap-no wished they had OPs confidence to do the same at their job. This is so great I&rsquo;ve been threatened by customers saying I need to be fired for being &ldquo;so incompetent&rdquo; at my serving job I wish I could do something like this! Thechosenjuanliveson agreed that the best way to diffuse a stressful situation is to politely get the customer to see how unreasonable they&#39;re being. Definately, I&#39;m a retail manager (in the customer service department, no less!) And the best and easiest way to get a person to calm down, is to show them the extent of their logic (if you can). The OP is most definitely not the asshole here, and we&#39;d go so far to say that OP is a damn hero. On behalf of everyone that has ever worked in customer service, bless you.