For those who work with the public: What was the worst situation that occurred between you and a customer?

A man went on a misogynistic tirade and punched me.

He wanted some thing we were out of stock of. Then he wanted some other thing for free because we were out of stock of the first and I told him I could give a discount but not free. He got increasingly mad. I offered to have the store call him when we got the thing in stock, referred him to another store where they did have it in stock, offered coupons, nothing deescalated him. Lots of screaming, calling me bitch, cunt, whore, etc. He reached over the counter to punch me, which fortunately took a lot of power out of the punch and gave me enough time to shift so he hit my arms instead of my face (mostly).

I hit the panic button early on but the response was a couple min too late.

He was arrested and pled guilty without me having to talk in court, so that was nice.

A guy strung out on meth robbed me at gunpoint with the smallest pistol I have ever seen. I was so surprised I asked if it was real and he said "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?" why chuckling. He politely took the cash and left a big old hand print on the glass door so he could be caught about an hour later robbing his third store where they did confirm it was real and loaded.

He was far from the worst as far as hostility since he was polite and all, but he did point a loaded gun at me while high on drugs which is just plain unsafe.

So, so many; I have spent far too long in hospitality.

A relatively benign one: At a small coffeeshop. Found a quirky little hat behind the counter - a tweed fedora thing with a rakish orange feather in it. Full of youthful high spirits and caffeine, I proceeded to lark around the shop in the hat (yes I wish I still had that much energy), much to the amusement of my coworkers. A lady walks in, interrupting us. She'd left her hat.

At a bar: A nonzero amount of customers buying a bottle of beer and then pouring it into the tip jar (edited to add: thinking it a glass for their beer). Some version of "how was I supposed to know?!", repeatedly. I don't know, maybe the fact it was covered in chalk pen, contained money, and was very, very ugly?

At a pub: boomer getting very angry at me because he'd asked for a spiced rum and coke and I'd offered Sailor Jerry's (cheapest). Apparently that was a wussy drink. No, he clarified, a girly drink. He chose some other rum with coke. Yeah drink your sugar water old man.

Many years ago, I was supervising at a supermarket checkout. An older lady (late 50's / early 60's) started berating one of the young checkout girls, she was newish about 16yo.

I over heard, it was hard not to after a little while. I walked over, I was 19 at the time. I'm not a big guy 5'9" and weighed around 60kg (checks math...132lb). The old woman sees me and begins to go into a rant, to which I simply said, get the fuck out of my store. It was latish (8:30pm), there were no managers left in store.

She went into (what is now called) full karen mode, ranting about calling my manager. I got a bit pf paper and wrote my managers and the store managers numbers down with their names and said, "go ahead, call them". She quickly calmed down and went to go stand back in line....I said, "no I told you to get out".

I misgendered a woman who was already very irate. This was probably 30 years ago, before trangenderism was as common as it is now (or at least as publicly presented). It did NOT go over well, to say the least. Other customers were smirking and giggling, and even a coworker was having trouble keeping a straight face. In my defense, she was heavyset, had shaved hair and a raspy voice. Luckily I didn't say any of this to her. I just got my manager and let her yell at me (and him) for 10 minutes. I learned the value of keeping your mouth shut until you're certain that day.

Many years ago Inworked at an Arby’s inside a food court. A man and woman came in, and she ordered a Jamocha shake while he got a free cup of water. They then went back into the mall.

About 20 minutes later they come back and he complains about a fly in his water. The assistant manager (I was just a cashier) said sorry and gave him a new cup of water.

“What are you going to do to make it up to me?” Seriously? It was free, we could give you 10 times what you paid and it’d still be $0. Plus, the fly probably came from you going out in the mall.They didn’t get their way so she asked for a refund on the shake and got that. Ridiculous if you ask me.

I used to assemble products and when someone came in for a pickup we always asked for a receipt as it was the easiest way to find what belonged to them. If they didn't have it we'd just need to look it up on the computer, no big deal

I was about 16 or 17 and guy comes in and says, "I'm here to pick up my X". I asked for the receipt. He instantly blew a gasket "I'm no thief, don't you dare accuse me of stealing, blah blah". When he settled down I said I only wanted it to find his item easier, which of course started him on another shouting rampage. I was the only one in the department and I remember him shouting a lot and then had his finger right in my face. It was my turn to lose it, I told him if he didn't get his finger out of my face and stop shouting I was going to kick seven shades of shite out of him. The commotion had caused other staff members to show up, then the manager came up. I told the manager I wasn't serving him, find someone else, theres more chance of me breaking his nose than me getting his shit. I explained what happened out in the back store and the manager said it was fine, I heard nothing more about it

I had another customer lose it at me in the same place as he said good were faulty. I said no you broke it. He said it just happened. I laughed at him. He lost his mind. I didn't GAF when I was that age. Manager replaced his product FOC. I laughed at the manager about that too

I teach outdoors for school groups in a nature area and a part of that process is a discovery hike. Its me, about 12 kids, and a parent chaperone and as we are walking through the woods we see a deer. All these kids, who were in 4th grade, were so excited! We very quietly watched it grazing around in this woods, not giving us any mind at all, when it sort of gets its antlers tangled in some vine and ends up pulling a dead tree down on top of it.

The deer is now flailing under a whole ass tree that collapsed right on to it, and it clearly is suffering. It is making the worst kinds of noises and I have the parent keep the kids back as I approach this crazed stag. It clearly suffered head trauma and was bleeding. The worst part is that it was right on the path back and, due to the terrain, there was really no way to get around this deer without being close to it. After trying and failing to get the deer loose, I had the children all vlimb over the tree and we went back. To top it off they all immediately got on the bus to go home, so it was the last memory these kids had of the place.

I ended up going back and putting the deer down. Absolutely traumatizing.

I worked in fast food. There was a young-ish guy who came in twice a week or so, often high. Fair enough, but he was a jackass who often made staff and other customers uncomfortable. Had to threaten to call the cops a couple times.

One day I show up for my shift, and I'm informed I have a new trainee. Sure enough, it's Stoney McJackass. The manager and I (both who had just shown up for our shifts) inform the owners, who tell the guy to get the hell out.

He comes back toward the end of the shift and orders something. Whatever. Then as I'm getting something from under the counter for him, he spits on me.

Anyone else been spat on?

I worked at a deli and a woman came in. My CO workers were helping others so I nodded to her so she knew I saw her before I got new gloves on. When I turned around to get my gloves she fully goes into raging manic mode screaming, telling everyone how I'm a little expletive and I'm ignoring her and I'm awful etc. swearing the whole time. I was wearing a mask after COVID and couldn't get a word in. Random other customers who were there were coming to my defense, so she yelled and swore at them too. After about 30 seconds I just walked away and got the manager. I am glad I was wearing a mask because the whole thing was so surreal and amusing that someone would completely loose self control so quickly without a word stolen to them. My facial expression was probably not the regret she wanted to see, more shock and then adjustment, because this is the stort of thing people go gotcha, hidden camera for. Looking back, I'm very glad there was a larger counter display case between us, because her mood could have because physical very quickly. That customer was put on a watch list for the store, if she did anything out of line again she wasn't allowed back.

I am in one of those jobs that invites me to visit people in their homes, and there are just so many that aren't homey. Think the mother of all messes but not as fun.

Two of us running a quiet little wine bar, him behind the bar, me taking a break at the back of the room. Three lads come in and we both recognised them as the ones who had trashed one of the rooms upstairs the previous week. When my co-worker refused to serve them, one of them grabbed a bottle and hit it against the bar, trying (and failing) to break it for a weapon.

I saw red. All 5'4" of me advancing in fury, yelling "get out" repeatedly at the top of my voice. They looked at me, froze for a second, then scrambled out the door.

I was quite impressed with myself until I turned round and saw one of our regulars, a great big bear of a man, had heard the commotion and come in from the back room to see what was going on.