People Share The Strangest Things They've Come Across People Doing In Stores And Restaurants, And They're Completely Idiotic

If you've ever had a retail job, or one in the restaurant world, there's no doubt you'll relate to having seen some seriously unreal people through out your work day. Unfortunately people are demanding, feel totally entitled, and continually make messes. As if we don't have other jobs to do, right?

Fortunately for us though, generally many laughs are had over the public's ridiculousness. So much that a Reddit user by the name of Dead—Inside, created a thread asking employees what kind of utter nonsense they've just so happened to witness while they've gone about their work day.

Without fail, people delivered. Of course, the public is unreal! Check out the stories they shared below.

1. Say what now?

“I was at work in an ice cream shop. A lady comes in and orders a vanilla milkshake. She gets this nasty look on her face when I add the milk, but shrugs it off when I ask her about it. So I’m ringing her out, and she pays, and then goes right to my owner and complains about the service: “I’d like to let you know that the ‘boy’ who just served me (I’m 19) was very rude to me.”“What’d he do ma’am?”“He made my milkshake with milk in it and I’m lactose intolerant. I demand a refund and for him to be fired.” I’m just sitting here dumbfounded how anyone could be so stupid. Ice cream, by it’s very nature, Has milk.”—HopSins01 

Research indicates that when people encounter frustrating behavior in public spaces, it often triggers a sense of entitlement or superiority, leading to irrational reactions. According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, individuals may perceive themselves as victims when their expectations aren’t met, which can exacerbate negative interactions.

Understanding these psychological triggers can help individuals manage their emotions more effectively. Practicing mindfulness techniques can reduce impulsive reactions and foster a more empathetic approach to frustrating situations.

2. Wtf.

Worked at a pet store and watched a guy try and shove a huge aquarium filter in his hoodie. Then he had the balls to approach the counter with this protruding abnormally from his belly and tried to buy something. I laughed and told him to return it or I’d call the cops, he looked shook up, waddled back to the aisle and put it on the shelf. I told him on the way out to never return. Another one from the pet store was back when Finding Nemo came out a guy called in about getting a clownfish. So we explained the requirements of setting up a saltwater tank. The guy says “aww that’s way to much work can’t I just paint a goldfish?” We all had a good laugh about that one.”—SchwiftySqaunch

3. Lawwwwd, people like this exist LOL.

“The woman who was arguing with me (I was working in the produce dept of a grocery store) about how she didn’t like how one side of the watermelon was flatter, paler, and a little dirty. I said, “That’s just how they get when they are on the ground.” “What do you mean, ‘when they are on the ground’?” she thought watermelons grew on trees.”—NecroJoe

4. He must've been really hungry? Lol.

“I used to work at a hotel that was dog-friendly. One night someone came to the lobby, grabbed a newspaper, and then grabbed a “cookie” from the ceramic jar labeled “woof” directly above the dog bowl. He bit into it before I could stop him, and his embarrassment quickly switched to rage when he realized his mistake and that I had seen it. He, without exaggeration, screamed full volume for a minimum of 15 minutes about how awful it is on our part to have dog treats that look like cookies (they were the most generic dog treat you can imagine, I’ve never seen a human cookie look like one) in a jar without a label (the jar said woof). I think the dumb part wasn’t even the mistake of eating it, but the attempt to blame us for his own stupidity.”—gah514

5. Whyyyyy just why!

“My girlfriend works at a reptile store. There are signs plastered on every surface that clearly say “DO NOT OPEN ANY CAGES ASK A REPRESENTATIVE IF YOU WANT TO SEE AN ANIMAL” Well, these two girls strolled in and just decided they were going to open up the tank of a Burmese Python, which is a massive snake that if hungry would probably not hesitate to attempt to feast on a hand. Luckily a couple employees saw and flipped out on them. To this day I do not know what made those girls think they had any business reaching opening and reaching into a giant snake’s tank.”—gamercboy5 

6. Karma hit him pretty quick.

“I was working the customer service desk at a grocery store a few years ago, we sold Keurig coffee makers. Some dude tried to steal one, box and all, by putting in under his hoodie and walking out the door. When confronted by management for his obviously box-shaped torso he decided to sprint for the door. The door he chose only opens automatically from one direction, not the one he was going either. So he slams face first into the door, broke a pane of glass and knocked himself the f*ck out. I was on the floor struggling to breath from laughter for a solid 5 minutes.”— jkoh

7. Unbelievable.

“Furniture store I worked at. Smaller items (anything smaller than a recliner) could be arranged to be shipped to the store for pick up, saving the customer the delivery fee, but the customer just has to bring a proper vehicle to pick it up. So a couple comes in saying they have an order to pick up. I ask if they have the receipt (we give a physical paper one and an email one) and they say yes, but don’t get anything from a pocket. After about 10 seconds of silence I say “…can I have it?”To which they reply, “I don’t see how that’s relevant, let me talk to the manager”. Manager was right there since I was fairly new, and eventually got the receipt from them, they paid their remaining balance, and I got the item for them (a twin-sized bunk bed). These people had a tiny car (civic or something) and it was packed up like they were going on a month-long road trip, and they complained about us not telling them the box would be that big (packaging dimensions are listed online). They had to leave it with us. They never came back for their fully paid for bed. We sent it back to the warehouse and sold it again. They left a 1-star review of the store, and acted like we were the villains for not giving them (who could have been randos off the street until they gave us the reciept) their product and for not helping them load it into their car. The review was taken down. We had a good laugh about it the next morning.”—White-Luster-Soldier

8. Please don't touch people. Literal face palm.

“This actually happened today. I’m a food and drink vendor so I go to different stores everyday to see if they need anything that we sell. There’s a lot of dumb stuff that happens but this one is still fresh. So I’m in an aisle at one of these stores and this old man wearing a mask(which is good) calls out to me and asks me if I work at said store. This happens a lot and it’s not a big deal. I tell him “Sorry no, I’m a vendor”. He laughs and apologizes. I walk away and proceed 3 aisles down.Same guy comes up to me and asks me again. I tell him that I’m the same guy he just asked. He laughs and apologizes profusely. He then says that he’s looking for coffee filters and can’t find it. Having an idea of where it is, I walk him to the aisle where the coffee is and point to where the filters are on the shelf. Nothing really dumb going on at this point. Just a little funny. He then starts to firmly pat me on both shoulders continuously while thanking me. This guy has a mask on but just reached out and rubbed his hands all over me. F*ckin a.”—Gloomy_Objective

9. You watched WHAT!?

“I watched a toddler drink nail polish. His mom didn’t do anything besides take the bottle and do the weird violent angry whisper thing.”—ddenis69420

10. I can't stand people that do this.

“As someone who worked in retail, people who get things, put it in their cart, walk around the store, then realize they don’t want it and plop it where they currently are. Extra hate if it is a cold/hot item.”—benx101

11. Beauty of drumsticks. LOL.

“About a month ago I was waiting in line at the grocery store, one lady in front of me, and one guy sort of off to the side. It looked like he might have been waiting, but I wasn’t sure, and he was having a VERY LOUD conversation on his phone so I didn’t really want to ask. All he had with his was a box of ice cream drumsticks, and he seemed to be rolling on speed or something. This was his side of the conversation as I can recall: …”TALKIN’ BOUT A MEAT SWING!!! GOT THE F*CKIN’ DRUMSTICKS F*CK!”—davidmitchellseyes 

12. Poor thing.

“This was me and I don’t think I’ve seen anything dumber. I was four and we went to the pet store. I wanted a frog and a fish. My dad said no. When he wasn’t looking I pocketed a goldfish and a frog. When we got to the car I showed my dad. He made me return them. The frog made it, the fish did not.”—graciepaint4

13. Why would you even..?

“Just joined the party after years of lurking around. Not a store but restaurant. I had a gentlemen specifically request pecans on the side of his salad. When I arrived with his request he was very upset that they weren’t far away enough….he was allergic. Didn’t want them in the first place.”—pabstdrinkinslasher

14. Mighty convenient.

“My friend had someone purchase a suitcase. When she opened it as a matter of standard practice at check out, the rookie shoplifter had filled it with clothes. They just stammered that they didn’t know any of that was in there. So she pulled it all out and put it to the side, at which point the cutomer decided they didn’t want to buy the suitcase after all.”—headcase-and-a-half

15. LOL Oh.my.goodness.

Texas stores are weird. At night, some of them will lock the door on the right side, but it’s something you wise up to after living here for a while. I was in a Racetrack gas station/convenience store at about 3am. I was buying gas and I went inside to pay first. A guy comes in, looks around, opens the cooler and grabs a 12 pack of Bud Light (I mean Bud Light, seriously man?) and runs for the door. I’m guessing he wasn’t from Texas, because he hit that right hand door going full tilt boogie and I swear he bounced. Broke his nose, knocked himself out and laid there groaning when the deputies showed up to take his ass to jail. They weren’t real happy with dealing with such a dipsh*t and they just kind of slid his ass out to the patrol car by his jacket collar. Had to hurt.”—keystonepaloalto

16. Ha, I couldn't even imagine.

“I was buying alcohol with a fake id in high school for a friend and a buddy of his who I didn’t really know. We were all at the checkout in the liquor store and his dumb ass friend decided to try to steal a lighter from the counter while the clerk was ringing us up. The guy working the register was basically looking right at us so he obviously saw and told the guy to put the lighter back. Instead of just putting it back this kid decided to play dumb and act like he didn’t take anything. The guy working the register yelled to the security guard who blocked the door and told the kid to turn his pockets inside out.Of course, the lighter fell out onto the floor and 4 or 5 shooters that I didn’t even realize he had pocketed while we were in the store. I was sweating bullets because I thought they were going to call the cops and I was going to get busted when they figured out I wasn’t 21. Luckily the guy working the register was cool about it and just told us to get out of the store. I never understood why the kid didn’t just put the lighter back considering how much other sh*t he had stolen that would’ve gone unnoticed. I always went into the store alone when using my fake after that.”—Chill_Charro“I worked at Albertson’s in Boise, Idaho quite a few years ago. We had a man named HB come into the store with a rifle. We thought that he was going to rob us, but instead… he went to customer service with it and asked if he could pawn it so that he could get beer. The dude is a straight-up kook. He says that God told him personally that it was his destiny to be POTUS. No joke.”—The_Dark_Dualist

17. Nothin like MadDog!

“Pay for 2 pints of MD 20/20 orange jubilee. Already too drunk to stand. Take the change, pass out hit chin on the countertop (3 stitches) can’t stand up, the ambulance comes, sh*t himself went to the hospital. BAL .245 (.08 is legally drunk) spent 3 days in hospital suffering withdrawal. Proud to say that I’m now 17 months sober.”—solo_een_vir

18. Full on Karen, LOL.

“I was at a Walgreen’s near my workplace, and I’m glad I got into the line at the end of this particular event. Apparently one particular shopper didn’t understand the concept of carts, or lines. She went down one aisle, picked up all the products she was able to carry, took them to the register, and had the clerk start ringing them up. But she wasn’t done shopping. She went down to the next aisle and picked up another armload of products to buy, and brought them up to the clerk for another set of ring-ups. Lather, rinse, repeat for (I counted) at least five different rounds, holding up the entire line while she did her shopping in phases. And she went full-on Karen if anybody tried to bypass her. Including me with my two products. I was late back to work from my lunch break that day.”—Hysterical_Realist

19. How can people live their lives like this?!

“I used to work at a three-story big box retail store. Some new kid was working stocking shelves on the upper level. His hand slipped opening a box and he cut himself really badly with his box cutter. Fine, accidents happen. There are a few things one might do to remedy this situation. Perhaps, use his store issued walkie talkie to call another employee for help. Or maybe he could use one of the many cardboard boxes he had to contain the blood while he went for help. Maybe even use one of the dozens of conveniently placed and clearly labeled first aid kits. Nope, unfortunately his solution to the gaping hand wound was to walk across the entire upper story to the escalator take it down to the second story. Then, inexplicably, instead of getting on the escalator to the bottom floor which was right there at the foot of the escalator he just got off, he crosses the entire second floor to take the elevator down.Naturally, the elevators were in the exact opposite end of his true destination—the store entrance. So he crosses an entire floor for the third time, leaving a trail of blood across the entire store. Then he just left, never saying a word to anybody. Store policy was that no spills can be left unattended until they are cleaned up, but only a small fraction of the staff was trained to handle biospills. Also nobody ever planned on a store-wide spill of this magnitude. We had to shut down all registers except the self checkout and have all the cashiers, back room, managers, security, basically everybody in the store that wasn’t at lunch, make a human chain spaced throughout the store to block off as much as they could. The store manager had to wait outside and prevent more people from entering (this was a busy weekend day too).Then the small number of people who were allowed to clean up blood started working their way through the entire store, cleaning up an upsettingly high volume of this kid’s blood. Bizarrely he came back to work the next day, on a shift he wasn’t even scheduled for, wearing a giant wad of gauze and tape on his hand, and tried to act like nothing had happened. He got fired and the entire store was required to train for biohazard cleaning on their following shift.”— Fortwyck 

20. LOL, this is too good.

“I worked at Albertson’s in Boise, Idaho quite a few years ago. We had a man named HB come into the store with a rifle. We thought that he was going to rob us, but instead… he went to customer service with it and asked if he could pawn it so that he could get beer. The dude is a straight-up kook. He says that God told him personally that it was his destiny to be POTUS. No joke.”—The_Dark_Dualist

Examining Social Norms and Deviance

Behavior observed in public spaces often reflects the boundaries of social norms, which dictate acceptable conduct. When individuals act in ways that defy these norms, it can elicit strong reactions from onlookers, ranging from amusement to outrage. This phenomenon is rooted in social psychology, which examines how societal expectations shape behavior.

According to a study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, deviations from social norms can be categorized as 'deviant' behavior. This labeling process can have significant implications for how individuals perceive themselves and their actions, often leading to stigmatization or reinforcement of conformity.

Interestingly, the reactions to such bizarre behaviors can be understood through the lens of cognitive dissonance theory. When we witness acts that conflict with our expectations, it creates discomfort, prompting us to either adjust our perceptions or rationalize the behavior. This psychological mechanism plays a crucial role in shaping our social interactions and responses to others.

Furthermore, a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology emphasizes that our reactions are often influenced by our cultural background and personal experiences. Understanding this can foster more empathetic responses to seemingly idiotic behaviors.

Psychological Analysis

In-house observations suggest that many of the behaviors described stem from underlying psychological needs for attention or validation. When individuals engage in outlandish acts, it often reflects their desire to stand out or connect with others in a meaningful way, albeit through unconventional means.

Analysis generated by AI

Analysis & Alternative Approaches

In summary, the absurd behaviors people engage in public spaces often serve as reflections of broader social dynamics. Understanding the psychological underpinnings of these actions can promote greater empathy and awareness of the complexities of human behavior. As we navigate social interactions, recognizing the factors that influence our responses can lead to more constructive engagements.

Social psychologists have long studied the phenomenon of social norms and their impact on behavior in public settings. Research from Harvard University demonstrates that people often conform to perceived societal expectations, even if those behaviors are irrational or inappropriate.

This tendency can explain the bizarre behaviors witnessed in stores and restaurants. Encouraging individuals to reflect on their values and question social pressures might mitigate such conformity, promoting more respectful public interactions. Cultivating self-awareness is key to breaking free from detrimental social influences.

Therapeutic Insights & Recovery

In summary, understanding the psychological underpinnings of public behavior can lead to more positive social interactions. As research from the American Psychological Association indicates, fostering empathy and self-awareness can significantly alter how individuals respond to frustration in public spaces.

Engaging in reflective practices, such as journaling or mindfulness, can enhance emotional regulation and improve interpersonal dynamics. By consciously choosing how to react, individuals can contribute to a more respectful and enjoyable environment for everyone.