While it's all good to want your job to follow a predictable and streamlined pattern, the nature of dealing with the public is that you're going to have to be ready and anticipate pretty much anything unexpected. And at a certain point, you need to remember that even if they're wrong, they're still the customer. 

Everyone has encountered this customer service rep before—one who has handled one unruly customer too many and is now on the warpath. Usually, this type of attitude can be displayed by doctor's office receptionists who, for some reason, find it necessary to be as brutally condescending as possible over attending or scheduling a simple appointment. In fact, it's almost as if that particular trait is a requirement for the job. Still, these reps can also be found at airlines, banks, and cable companies that employ bureaucratic inertia as a weapon against their own customers to stonewall their requests into an impotent whisper. 

This reads heavily like someone chucked a prompt into an AI and just let it rip without any proofreading or comprehension of the output. Still, someone at least must have added something to the prompt along the lines of "make this statement as authoritarian as possible" without understanding the full extent of the direction they have asked the AI to take. If this is the case, it's just another instance of the AI "monkey's paw" curling along the lines of the "Willy Wonka Experience" that went viral a few months back. It certainly won't be the last before the final curling into SkyNet occurs. With the recent worldwide outages due to a faulty update, SkyNet seems more likely than ever.

One of the customer service rep's customers who received their bizarre out-of-office email shared the email with this online community sparking discussion and causing the email to go "viral." 

Don't push for a return-to-office mandate if you can't follow it yourself.

It seems that transparency has been replaced by shady behavior these days. This has especially become true when it comes to job interviews. We're accustomed to this lack of transparency in job advertisements, not that it should be the norm. You know what we're talking about: those common vague phrases like "fast-paced work environment," "competitive salary," and many more that are either immediate red flags or questions that must be addressed during the first interview.

Here, we have a Redditor whose husband had undergone multiple rounds of interviews and seemed close to getting the position. Everything seemed set in stone on both sides until one day he learned that some re-budgeting had to be done and now, the salary for this position had been cut by $40K. Now, some folks in the comments section believe this was a trick: to lure the candidate in and then pull the rug right out from under him. Others believe there may have been some actual re-budgeting. Regardless, the sudden change shows a complete lack of organization and competence. 

Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. For more, check out this post about the top choosing beggars of the week.

Every business has a different hierarchical structure that is exclusive to it. The account provided in the story below comes from a former student. The original poster (OP) was a university student majoring in English. During her time as a student, she launched the department newsletter and helped with the editing and publication of the annual literary journal. She significantly improved the newsletter and the magazine, but since she was still viewed as a junior editor, she was expected to perform within the call of duty rather than going above and beyond. Essentially, she was expected to 'stay in her lane' and let the adults run the show.

Naturally, OP was not pleased with this. She then made the conscious decision to address the issue head-on and came up with a cunning plan that would persuade the professors to accord her the respect she deserved. So, if you're interested in learning more about what happened then be sure to check out the story below!  After you're done, don't forget to read the tale of the micromanager who writes up a part-time employee for not returning calls on his day off!

Maintaining a rural property is more work than you think. City-slickers and townspeople never realize the daily labor that goes into keeping up seemingly natural land–as it turns out, nature always has a way of dismantling our fences, seizing back the natural landscape, and filling in man-made ponds. Not only are the calluses on your hands in danger of bursting, but rural landownership can cost a pretty penny when unnatural water features fall into disrepair. 

When the landowner in our next story saw the receipt for the cost of managing a man-made pond on his property, he just about fell out of his porch chair. With a hefty $10,000 annual pond management fee dangling over his head, the original poster of this story (OP), decided that he didn't need to deal with the hassle of a water feature on his land and decided to fill it in. For everyone's safety, a filled-in pond was less hazardous than an improperly maintained deathtrap. 

But apparently the HOA wasn't having it. 

Although the pond was well over the property line, the neighborhood Karens and Kevins decided that, despite the cost to OP, they wanted to keep enjoying the aesthetics of the pond. Keep scrolling to read how this property owner reeled in a victory over a stubborn HOA by playing the card that nobody can beat. 

This employee is living the dream: they got out of work, and they also got to be a little sarcastic towards their boss. What a delightful combination! 

This person shared a story that happened when they were working at a grocery store, and they assured people that it was "by far the worst job I've ever had." They write that there were a few rules that always had to be abided by, and if not, it would result in a writeup. No matter how silly the rules might seem, they're there for a reason, and managers don't take kindly to employees who ignore the rules.

The rules at this store were made to keep customers from slipping and sliding all over spills. This seems to happen frequently at grocery stores. That's why a lot of them have "wet floor" signs that can be placed around the mess while an employee goes to grab a mop. Seems simple enough… but apparently not for this boss. I wonder if this person will inspire a change in their workplace. 

After that, cool off with some mildly infuriating moments of summer, like one person who spent all summer waiting for their homegrown watermelon to ripen, only to open it to a sad surprise. 

Having a guest in your house can easily feel like a boundary has been crossed, but these house guests really overstayed their welcome. Some of them violated clearly defined rules and regulations, while others made the kinds of unfathomable choices that no host could have predicted.

These stories range from entitled mothers-in-law (yes, there were multiple anecdotes about in-laws) who rearranged the kitchen cabinet without permission to visitors who used the laundry machines far too many times until the entire appliance stopped functioning properly. Look, we've all been hosts and house guests, and we've all messed up from time to time on both fronts. Perhaps you didn't make your rules clear or perhaps you momentarily forgot that this was not your home. Regardless of what transpired specifically, the best way to handle these situations is to come clean rather than trying to conceal a mistake. Unfortunately, most of these folks ended up doing the latter rather than doing the decent thing. 

Keep scrolling below for the full stories. When you're done, check out these top choosing beggars. 

This guy kept trying to help his neighbor out, but the neighbor just couldn't accept it.

When there's a bad storm coming to your area, you already know the drill. You make sure the windows are shut, bring in your flags or delicate decorations, and maybe check the gutter to make sure it's not too clogged with leaves. Even so, some people still experience terrible flooding on the regular, no matter what they do to try and stop it. When those gallons of water start rushing in, it's hard to stop, and the mess of a flood can cause permanent damage. 

This dude's yard has been flooding basically every time it rains. It's not that they aren't trying to fix the issue. In fact, they know exactly what's wrong. But their uncooperative next-door neighbor is stymying them at every turn. The neighbor has a gutter that doesn't flow into a drain. Instead, it flows into u/ilikesillymike's side yard, and it's gotten so bad that the front yard is starting to flood too! 

In order to salvage their yard, this person had to contact their HOA and maliciously comply. You can check out their full story down below. 

Next up, read about some of the absolutley nonsensical questions these customers had, like one person who earnestly asked, "How many days do we have for a 45-day return?"

Imagine your boss having this amount of entitlement and audacity to claim that they deserve your first class upgrade.

This employee, unfortunately, found themselves on the same flight as their boss after a business trip. The two were originally meant to be seated together, until the employee received a first class upgrade because, although the company booked the original ticket, the employee often flies with this airline and uses their credit card. However, that was not enough of an explanation for the employee's boss, who felt that she deserved the seat upgrade simply because she is more senior at the company. She clearly does not understand how arbitrary workplace hierarchies simply do not apply to where someone sits on a plane. When the two reconnected at baggage claim, she gave the employee a stern speech about how disrespectful it was that they did not give up their seat. As you can probably imagine, folks had a lot to say in the comments.

For more, check out this post about another feud between two coworkers.

Everyone wants to know what tricks they can use to try and rig the system, especially if it means they can save money. It doesn't matter who is on the other side of that exchange, as long as you come out better on the other side, right?

Well, no. As fun as it can be to find little ways to "save" money, there is a clear line between using acceptable little tricks to spend less money or get better deals, and actually lying and cheating others.

The hotel guest in this Reddit story tried to rig the system and get a refund on a room after they already stayed in it, and he did it by contacting his online travel agent and claiming he was never in the room in the first place. Unfortunately for him, the travel agent didn't immediately issue a refund and decided to call the hotel to make sure he didn't show up. It is not surprising that the front desk clerk could easily see that the guest was lying…

Scroll down to read the full story. After that, click here for a story of an entitled driver who pushed a pedestrian out of a parking spot, using her car.

Patience is a virtue.

Customer service workers, you're doing the world a favor every time you politely answer the silliest question you've ever heard. They won't train you for this in most customer-facing roles. You think that customers will more or less know what's going on… but that's not the case. In fact, it seems like many jobs just require the worker to answer the same customer questions over and over and over. 

Some customers are special, though. They're so confused that their questions make the workers pause to make sure they've heard the customer correctly. Like, what do you mean you can't use the password provided? You didn't think it would work? So you deleted the email containing the password? And now you're wondering why you can't log in? The question answers itself, but the customer is still utterly clueless.

More than 15,000 people responded to the question on u/Emmaleep's mind: "What is the dumbest question a customer or client has ever asked you at your job?" You can check out some of the funniest answers down below. 

After that, read about the people who have at least one coworker they cannot stand, like the bartender who can't handle pressure, yet keeps picking up the busiest weekend shifts to work. 

When conversation starts about working from home or the office, many employers insist that their staff work from the office—even when they could easily do their tasks from home. This is especially so when the employee's work involves handling sensitive information, meaning devices need to be kept safe and secure under lock and key. Still, what constitutes "sensitive" is a grey area. When you're a middle manager of a retail operation, there's probably a good chance that the information you're handling really isn't all that sensitive. However, your employer might still insist on the same security all the same because they read it in a book somewhere.

Of course, even for those handling legitimate sensitive information, these policies were suddenly capable of being changed when certain global-events-that-cannot-be-named in 2020, which forced the whole world to work from home… or not at all. Suddenly, as it turns out, everyone was capable of taking their equipment home when grand-scale productivity was on the line, and some organizations began requiring workers to take their laptops and phones home with them so that they could still work if something were to keep them from coming into the office. Funny how that happens. 

Anyways, some employers continue to insist that their staff keep their equipment under lock and key, and while it's better than dealing with an employer who insists on you practically being on call all the time, silly policies such as this tend to be a hindrance to all parties, as any absolute and inflexible rule is. In this instance, the insistence that this worker does not take their equipment home resulted in the authoritative IT manager being out of a job.

Those who are prone to road rage are capable of creating real messy situations for themselves and the people around them. Although we all feel the anger bubbling inside us whenever we are stuck in traffic, or can't find a parking spot, some people tend to give in to that anger and let it consume them, and that can be pretty dangerous. 

Take the woman in this Reddit story for example, after letting her anger get the best of her, she was willing to push a stranger with her car just so she could park it. OP (original poster) was standing at a parking spot trying to guide her driving sister in with their car when an entitled woman started driving into the parking space herself. She didn't care that someone was already driving into it, and she definitely didn't care that a pedestrian was standing right there.

Scroll down to read the full story. After you are done, click here for a story of a micromanager who forced their employee to sign NDAs.

On February 1st, 2015, for just over 12 and a half minutes, more than 114 million viewers tuned in to what became the second-most-watched television program in the history of the United States at that time. The program had nothing to do with an election, nor was it a national emergency or historic breakthrough—unless you, like us, consider 'Left Shark' to be of national cultural significance. Wherever you stand on 'Left Shark' (probably to the left), it remains a fact that 114.4 million Americans tuned in to watch Katy Perry perform a campy spectacle of bubblegum pop selections at the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show. At that point, only the moon landing generated greater viewership–that is, until Rihanna and Usher surpassed the record in 2023 and 2024, respectively. 

You probably remember this performance. There were guest appearances by Missy Elliot, Lenny Kravitz, and, of course, 'Left Shark,' but the credit belongs to the pop hitmaker herself. Regardless of how one may have felt about the quality of her music or the social implications of her persona, with nine number one hits under her belt, undoubtedly, on February 1st, 2015, it was Katy Perry's world and we were lucky to be living in it.

All this to say, if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep after Perry's Super Bowl halftime show and woke up today, he would have a lot of questions about Katy Perry's career decline. Flash forward from that night to July 11th, 2024, less than a decade later, and he would quickly discover that this spectacularly successful pop star managed to achieve such a spectacular fall from grace, with various causes contributing: from her lyrical content, her choice of collaborators, and the imagery in her new music video to just on the whole failing to read the moment and capture a zeitgeist that had already passed. 

However, perhaps there is a greater explanation that goes beyond this mediocre pop song. Fans of pop music who have been following Perry's career over the last decade have witnessed an artist who found it challenging to grow and evolve authentically with the times and who has consistently misunderstood the current landscape of popular music. For our theoretical Rip Van Winkle's sake, let's break down Katy Perry's professional decline, how her attempts at achieving authenticity in her music backfired, and how her subsequent embrace of her old sound and persona failed to generate the commercial reception she once earned with ease.

Are you available 25 hours every day?

Who doesn't love a good instant karma story? Especially when it's a couple of entitled people who have no concern for others around them. A pair of Karen's, if you will. This entitled couple was waiting in line for airport security. According to the Original Poster (OP), the line wasn't too long, but there was only one employee checking every single person, causing the line to go dreadfully slow. Unfortunately for the OP, he was standing in front of the entitled couple. Every time the line moved, he would take a step forward, as one does, only to get rammed in the legs by the entitled Karen's suitcase. At first, he played it off. It's no big deal; accidents happen. But then it happened again. And again. And again. After making deliberate eye contact with the couple after each time he was rammed into, they would apologize, only to do it again. Thankfully, an employee noticed the whole ordeal and stepped in to get justice once and for all. 

Every food service worker has that one Karen story that they love to tell. While working in fast food service, employees are bound to encounter crabby customers daily. Customers show up at their hungriest, ready to eat ASAP. They often won't bother being polite to the employees, and if their food takes more than a minute or two, they'll start loudly complaining to everyone in earshot about it. 

Other people will get their food, but insist it just "isn't quite right." Maybe they insist their fries are cold, even though the bag is steaming right in front of them. Other times they'll complain about their sandwiches. It's a ploy to get free food and some sympathy from the nearest manager. 

Managers deal with these cranky types all day long too, though. They're only willing to put up with so much before asking that customer to leave and not return. There's only so much you can do to help a customer… after a while, it's clear they don't want results, just attention. Check out u/Top_Philosopher5090's story about the way they and their manager dealt with an irritating customer. 

Up next, read about the hotel workers who have joined together to give demanding social media influencers the worst rooms and grossest foods just to get back at them for their impolite behavior. 

Who doesn't love a painfully accurate starter pack meme? Sometimes, there is simply no better way to describe a common trope among human beings. You could be describing that kid in high school who asks a question when there are two minutes left of class. You could be describing the entitled parent in your neighborhood who seems to think their kid is the greatest gift to the universe. 

The key to a quality starter pack meme is a level of perceptiveness regarding the commonalities, the details, and the era-specific qualities of a given phenomenon. That's how you get your audience to recognize and identify with exactly what you're talking about. Starter pack memes are a lost art, but we still love them here at FAIL Blog. Keep scrolling between for this collection of throwback memes. When you're done, check out this compilation of the top choosing beggars of the week as well as this list of the top ridiculous reasons why people called in sick to work.  

We all have a favorite coworker and a least favorite one, and that least favorite one can make the workday go a lot slower. There are a lot of reasons why a coworker might get on your nerves. For some people, they get irritated at coworkers who are super messy, like one dude who apparently never cleans up any of his coffee mugs after his morning cup of joe. Instead, he just leaves them on his desk to grow mold. If no one else cleans that up, I guess it'll just sit there for ages. Gross! 

Other people have that infuriating type of coworker that is impossibly bad at their job. It seems like they cannot do a single thing right, and everyone around them has to take time out of their own projects to help this person. This tends to really stress out those around them, who aren't sure why they're working so hard while this employee just… isn't. Sometimes this person will complain so much about being asked to do their job that people will stop asking them to do stuff. 

Up next, this hotel receptionist was bemused by an influencer who kept insisting that he wanted "deals."