Pranks at work can be a lot of fun.
Until someone gets fired… or pretend fired for that matter.
Granted many customers get out of control.
So how does one teach them a lesson without going too far?
Case in point…
Redditor throwRA-fhfsveyary wanted to discuss their experience and get some feedback. So naturally, they came to visit the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
They asked:
“AITA for pretending to get fired when customers get a temper with me?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I am a high schooler with a weekend job at a coffee shop.”
“My coworkers who work weekends are…”
“James – the owner’s son, he goes to my school.”
“He’s a shift manager but it’s not a real formal thing, he’s a friendly guy.”
“Danielle – A college student who sometimes works weekends too.”
“So sometimes customers will come in and just be angry about such little stuff.”
“Like literally blow up about nothing.”
“I dunno if they’re in a bad mood already and looking for someone to take it out on or what, but it’s a lot.”
“Like how sad that you’re a grown-a** man taking your anger out on high school and college kids.”
“So James and I were joking about having a little fun with them and hopefully getting them off our backs.”
“So one day I was at work and some guy was having a temper tantrum about how we don’t make the coffee hot enough.”
“Which I couldn’t do a thing about because I gave it to him right out of the machine.’
“So James came in and was like ‘Sir, is there a problem here?'”
“And the guy started ranting at him too.”
“So he was just like ‘OP, this is unacceptable, you’re fired.'”
“I started acting real sad, like ‘no please don’t fire me, my family needs the money, I need this job, pleaseeee.'”
“And he played up being a hard-a**, telling me to take off my apron and leave.”
“The angry guy started to backtrack, like ‘it isn’t that big of a problem, you don’t need to fire her over it. I didn’t mean it.'”
“And James was like ‘No, we pride ourselves on the best customer service.'”
“Of course, after all that drama I still had my job, we were just acting.”
“And we’ve done it a couple of times, whenever a customer will lose their temper at Danielle or me.”
“James will storm in and ‘fire’ us.”
“And almost every time, the person who had come in angry will apologize and say that they didn’t mean it.”
“It’s kind of satisfying, making people realize their actions might actually have consequences.”
“Anyway, I was telling my friend’s from school about this and a few of them thought it was a mean prank, to let someone go away thinking they’d gotten someone who desperately needs the money fired.”
“AITA for this joke?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“NTA. That’s a perfect way of dealing with hostile customers.” ~ bellePunk
“Agreed! And 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.” ~ commadusarelius
“To be honest, I’m surprised more of these rude customers aren’t satisfied with the ‘firing.'”
“I think it’d be even funnier if they were happy with it and then they came back, only to see OP still working there.”
“The potential explanations of ‘oh that was my twin brother, but now it’s my job to support my dying mother and six siblings,’ would be hilarious.” ~ ZeroCalGal
“NTA – Customers can be freaking *icks.”
“Usually people are pretty respectful and reasonable, even when they have a legit complaint.”
“But every now and then there’s the one guy or gal that comes in and just can’t be made happy.”
“They’re the worst.”
“I’ve taken the approach of ‘killing with kindness’ and being sarcastically polite…”
“‘Oh, ok sir. I can microwave your coffee for you, would you like 2 minutes or 5?'”
“It’s fun, usually pisses them off more but they can’t do anything because you’re not saying anything wrong.”
“I’m curious how the customer acts when they come in the next day/following week and you’re still behind the counter?” ~ BeardedBandit
“This kind of reminds me of a video on youtube where a kid (teen) goes to a barber for a haircut.”
“And I can’t remember what the prank was but his intention was to prank the barber with some kind of shock reaction prank.”
“Well, someone had told the barber about what the kid had planned so the barber had his own prank planned.”
“When the kid did his prank, the barber faked a heart attack and ‘died’ right there on the barber shop floor.”
“It was hilarious.”
“I know this isn’t the same thing as OP post but for some reason it made me remember it.” ~ pamela271
“ESH. The customers are obviously assholes for being assholes for no good reason.”
“Yes, you are a little bit of an a**hole.”
“Is it justified? Absolutely.”
“Are you still an a**hole? Yes.”
“Unfortunately, in a customer service role, you are always going to have to deal with people who are angry over absolutely nothing.”
“It is part of the job. Is it fair? No.”
“In a perfect world, those customers would not exist, but we live in reality and that is part of the reality, especially of that job.” ~ Frejian
“YTA this situation seems pretty uncomfortable for everyone in the cafe.”
“Most people go to cafes to relax.”
“I know if I saw it happen I would think the place has a**hole managers and I wouldn’t come back.”
“I would probably tell all my friends not to go as well.”
“Customers blowing up is something you will occasionally have to deal with in the service industry.”
“It’s literally what managers are paid to deal with, and your mate is not dealing with it appropriately.”
“Is the owner aware you and his son are pulling these little pranks at the cost of his business?”
“I imagine when he finds out you might be fired for real.” ~ Workchoices
“NTA. I also think this is hilarious and saw a variation of this in a corporate environment with the father of an acquaintance of mine who was a stockbroker in the old days.”
“A client would yell at him and he would yell back in agreement and then they would 3 way call a dummy line where the broker would yell at the guy on behalf of the client and it would eventually calm everyone down.” ~ Stup2plending
“NAH but this kind of thing creates a nasty breed of customer who believes that (s)he has the power to get employees fired simply by causing a scene.”
“r/IDontWorkHereLady is filled with anecdotal stories of encounters with this type of customer.” ~ imakesawdust
“NTA it’s a funny way to diffuse a tense situation.”
“Might get awkward if the customer returns another day and there you are.” ~ niapattenlooks
“Good for you, hopefully they learned that yelling at retail workers isn’t like yelling into a void online.”
“It can have life-altering consequences for people and they should think twice before making a huge deal out of something that either doesn’t really affect them or isn’t that important.”
“So NTA. This is the dream of retail workers everywhere.” ~ MyName___YourName
“NTA. This is actually a job some retail stores had, where someone would be hired to pretend to be fired when a customer was being super pissed, as a tactic to show how much they respect the customer and stuff.” ~ Kemo_Meme
“I once got written up because a patient/friend of the doctor asked me if it’s always so busy in our practice.”
“I said, verbatim, ‘It’s always a busy day when Dr. B is working.'”
“The patient then told the doctor I said It’s always a ‘bad day’ when he’s working.”
“That doctor no longer wants to work with me.”
“NTA. You can ruin someone’s life with your sh*tty attitude and it’s about time the old adage ‘the customer is always right’ gets retired.” ~ existencedeclined
“OH MY GOD THE COFFEE ISN’T HOT ENOUGH!!! Rrraaaage!!!”
“NTA. Trolling a troll is always funny and well-deserved.”
“Only question I’d have is whether any of the customers ever came back another day and saw you still working.”
“Coffeeshops have a lot of ‘regulars,’ although I’d hope people wouldn’t be a giant D-bag at a place they were a regular.”
“I mean, people shouldn’t be D-bags to begin with, but you get the idea.” ~ pinniped1
“NTA. This is the most brilliant way to deal with that I’ve ever heard of.”
“You literally get the customer to realize that what they were implying should happen is incredibly stupid and that they are being dramatic.”
“It’s brilliant because you get them to come to that conclusion themselves without ever saying anything.” ~ bearbrobro
“NTA. Unless the person sees it as vindication and is happy and then continues to berate others hoping for the same conclusion.” ~ Bleacherblonde
Well OP, Reddit completely understands your actions.
Sometimes customers need a lesson or three.