One reason customer service is so tough is that often, keeping your job means keeping your mouth shut when people are being rude.

Savvy clerks have learned how to keep their cool, but sometimes, even they have reached their limit.

Read on to find out what happened when a pushy and rude customer met a (literally) sick and tired gas station attendant.

It’s safe to say he wasn’t expecting her to be so honest.

The One Time I Talked Back

At the time, I was a shift lead at a gas station, which basically meant I got paid $0.50 more to do twice as much work as I had as a cashier.

But, it was a franchise run by the owner, his daughter, and her husband, and I knew all of them really well.

The husband was the GM, and he was fantastic and actually taught me a lot about the inventory and sales side of the business! But I digress.

It should have been an easy and quiet shift.

I almost always worked the Sunday afternoon shifts by myself, and this particular Sunday I had come in a few hours early as our morning shift had decided that working at a gas station was beneath them, so in I was called to take over.

While I was getting over a cold. But I needed the money, so I loaded up on dayquil and packed as many cough drops as I could fit into my purse and hoped for the best.

The whole day went surprisingly smoothly, everything had been quiet except for the occasional customer (lucky thing about being next to 2 busy roads, most people don’t want to stick around and chat.

Our regulars could be in and out in under 30 seconds if they knew what they were doing), until…

Of course, someone showed up intent on ruining that peace.

Me is me, and UM is Unreasonable Man.

UM: Hey, uh, something’s wrong with your soda machine, this coke tastes like bad juice (his actual words)

Me: Oh, sorry about that, go ahead and get any of the others you want for free and I’ll go check and see if the bib needs to be replaced. If you want you can wait up here to see if it’s better!

Reasonable accommodation wasn’t enough for this guy.

UM: (stares intently for a minute) …and?

Me: Oh, was there something else?

UM: Well I hope there is, this is a gas station, the one thing you should have is a working drink machine. I’m asking, and what else are you going to do for me?

Me: Sir, I’m not charging you for the drink, our machine doesn’t tell us when the bibs need to be replaced we just have to eyeball it and wait for one to go bad… Like I said, I am sorry bout that and I’ll go check and replace it for you.

UM: Well aren’t you so nice, letting me drink this garbage for free. Give me your name and your manager’s number, let’s call them and see what somebody who knows what customer service ACTUALLY is can do.

She wasn’t about to hand this joker off to the manager.

Now, at this point I don’t know what got over me, I honestly don’t. I never confronted customers because I usually just didn’t care enough.

Maybe it was the exhaustion or the cold medicine or something, but I just decided I’d had enough.

Me: Yeah, no I’m not gonna do that.

UM: (eyes practically bulge out of his head) WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?

Now for the grand finale.

Me: Look, sir, I don’t know what you expect to happen from calling my manager, but I’m sick and have been working at this place for the past 11 hours straight, and will be here for another 2 before my relief comes in.

I don’t want to deal with you, and neither does he. It’s 8:30 at night, he’s eating dinner with his family, I’m not bothering him with this because frankly it doesn’t matter to him.

You could literally never come back and nobody here would ever care. I know the manager and the owner personally and the worst that’ll happen is they tell me I shouldn’t have given you a free drink because that affects our sales.

So yeah, I’m not gonna do that. Have a nice day.

Unreasonable Man said a few more choice swears, but then stormed off when I decided to just ignore him.

Still have no idea what came over me, but damn if I’m not still proud of it.

I bet that felt so good.

And I seriously doubt her superiors were even mad.

Let’s find out if Reddit got a kick out of this one.

Some people really need perspective.

And his rant wasn’t even technically correct.

It’s impressive to actually say what you want to on the spot.

Telling people they don’t matter is top tier.

Because you know they won’t.

Some people need to be taken down a peg.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.