Mess with you…I’m gonna mess with you!

That’s the theme of a lot of stories from Reddit’s “Petty Revenge” page and this one falls into that category.

Read on to get all the details about how this barista got some revenge on a rude customer.

Make a mess at my job, I’ll make a mess at yours.

“Before COVID I worked at the Mermaid Coffee Shop.

This location was in a strip mall, and I had worked there for about a year at the time.

There was a matcha green tea latte which normally had 4 pumps of sweetener in the medium cup (at the time, I’ve heard it may have changed).

A common substitution was vanilla instead of the regular sweetener.

Sounds like a bit much…

If someone said they wanted vanilla, we normally didn’t also put the regular sweetener in.

Honestly, it’s a service, 8 pumps of any type of sugar is a LOT for most people.

So anyways, it’s sort of a slow period so its just me and my shift supervisor out front.

I’m managing cash and making the drinks as the shift cleans.

In comes Karen.

She looked maybe 24-26 and was dressed very nicely in an all black outfit.

The encounter starts normally, with me ringing her in at the cash (an iced matcha green tea latte with vanilla) and then go to make her drink. Of course, I only put the Vanilla and not the regular sweetener.

Uh oh…

I hand the drink to her and she takes a sip.

Her face scrunches up and immediately she turns to me all upset.

Her attitude goes 0 to 100 as she raises her voice to start in on me about the drink not being right.

Well, luckily for her, its an easy fix.

I tell her I’ll just put the sweetener in, no problem at all.

So she hands the cup back and I pump the sweetener straight in the cup (totally normal) and make sure it’s mixed.

I ask her if she’d like to taste it before I put a lid on to ensure its sweet enough.

She agrees.

It’s important to note that this is normal.

We often hand out drinks without lids so I’ve pretty good at knowing when something is a spill risk.

It wasn’t even close.

Oops!

She picks up the cup and takes a sip and it spills down her front.

I honestly don’t know what happened, maybe the ice moved oddly or something.

Still, it wasn’t a big spill and she was wearing black so you couldn’t see anything.

Either way, I’m reaching for paper towel and asking her if she wants a wet one.

She fully goes off on me: it’s my fault she spilled the drink, if I had just put the sweetener in at the beginning this wouldn’t have been an issue, etc.

She’s swearing, waving her arms everywhere and throws the cup on the ground and starts screaming that the coffee shop better pay her dry cleaning bills, etc.

I’m just kinda staring at her having a full on tantrum in the shop.

My shift boss notices the drama and comes rushing over.

Karen continues to go off on a tirade about me and the company and this store.

The shift boss ends up giving her a refund and another drink, but says -obviously- theres nothing the company can do about her spilling a drink on herself.

Karen is mad but accepts it and leaves the store, a huge mess in her wake.

I have to go get a mop to clean up the drink she slammed on the ground. Green tea latte EVERYWHERE.

They noticed something…

Now, what I haven’t mentioned in this story yet is that this Karen happened to be wearing a name tag which said her name and company, and this company happened to be a shoe store in the same strip mall the coffee shop was in.

I simmered over the rest of my shift about whether I should actually do what I was thinking or not, but at the end went ‘screw it, I’m going shopping’. So after my shift I head on over.

A large part of me doesn’t expect to actually see her, but there she is.

She’s in the aisles, stacking shoes.

She seems to be the only one out front. I head on over and ask her for assistance.

I think it took her a minute of talking to me to realize who I was, but I knew everything had clicked when her face suddenly goes from customer service to shock.

Still, I act as if I don’t know who she is and ask her questions about a random pair of shoes.

Let’s have some fun!

I ask to try them on, and give a range of three sizes, lying to say I don’t know what size will fit.

She offers to do a sizing and I refuse, saying I just want to try on the shoes.

She brings out three pairs.

I try them on, making a mess of the boxes, papers and shoes, before telling her none of them are what I’m looking for.

I make no attempt to put things back (which, not gonna lie, kinda hurt me to do, lol)and grab the nearest shoe and ask her to try on the same sizes in that shoe instead.

Rinse and repeat for many pairs of shoes.

There are still no other customers in the store.

At this point she looks really annoyed, but another person (a supervisor, as I found out later) has come out from the back to handle the cash register so it’s not like she could say or do anything.

Around and around they went…

Overall, this process of back and forth takes about an hour or so.

I got really into the role of ‘ridiculously picky customer’ which was fun when you’re purposefully messing with someone.

I was polite as all hell but just wouldn’t give her the opportunity to escape.

Only a few other people come in the store but the supervisor helps them.

Eventually I decide I’m done and pick out a pair of socks and head towards the cash register.

The supervisor rings me out and I head on my way.

Karen messed with the wrong tired barista that day.

She came into my work and made a mess, so I went into her work and made an even bigger mess.”

Here’s what folks had to say on Reddit.

This reader weighed in.

Another individual was impressed.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another person chimed in.

Two can play at that game!

And sometimes they will.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.