Customer service TikTok is alive and… well, struggling as we head into the holidays—but at least workers have the commiseration of viewers. And one stressed-out barista clearly needed that as she recently shared a story about “one of the worst customers” she says she’s ever had.
Popular TikToker @jorlala, the bhadbharista, regularly recounts both the good and bad from her job, and one incident she shared in early December falls squarely in the latter category, with the TikToker calling it one of her top three stories.
“I cannot believe the f*cking audacity of some people,” she began, before pivoting to a reenactment in which a customer couldn’t seem to comprehend that the only pastries they had at the shop were the ones in the case at the front. The back-and-forth from that sounded exhausting enough, but then the woman got another customer involved.
@jorlala said that after she let the customer know the coffee would be $3.15, the woman allegedly decided that was too high, and that she would merely pay $3. @jorlala said that didn’t fly with the customer, so she started “snapping at the customer behind her in line,” ultimately demanding he pay the difference.
“He walks up. I don’t know why,” the TikToker said. “So I hand him his change, and I tell her, ‘I’ll have your coffee right out,’ because I wanted to ring this poor man up.”
The woman reportedly took issue with that, too, causing more trouble simply because she didn’t want to move to the side.
“I have no words,” @jorlala, who has a hefty 183,000 followers, wrote of the incident.
@jorlala i have no words. #baristalife #baristatok #baristadaily #workstories #customerstories #customerstorytime #customersbelike ♬ original sound – bhadbharista
Her video now has 494,000 views. Customers’ bad behavior shouldn’t surprise any of us at this point, but fortunately, the type that doesn’t seem compatible with bare minimum common sense human decency still elicits frustration online.
“I will truly never understand why some people are like this,” reads the top comment on the video.
“Customer service is crazy, people are so mean. like why?” asked @madyharvey5.
“No because something like this happened to me and instead of asking a random customer they took the change from my tip jar,” another viewer shared.
“I can’t express to you how much I appreciate you making these videos,” @jewseabootea added. “I deal with the same exact interactions at least once every shift. Watching your videos makes me so happy to know I’m not the only one.”
@jorlala also claimed that the woman was a “known f*cking scammer” who frequently comes into her workplace “on some bullsh*t,” helping to explain why the whole thing was particularly exacerbating. And several commenters expressed similar repeat experiences at their own jobs in response.
“This one dude at rite aid every single day would be like DAMN IM 5 BUCKS SHORT,” wrote @kettingsam79. “And some random would ALWAYS pay for them. He was just hussling.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @jorlala via TikTok comment.