Some customers love making the same tired jokes before acting like they delivered the comedy moment of the century.

Imagine a customer kept making jokes at your expense while you were simply trying to do your job. How would you respond? Would you smile politely and laugh it off? Or would you wait for the perfect moment to throw one of their jokes back at them?

In the following story, one pregnant warehouse employee deals with this exact situation and does the latter. Here’s what happened.

Today I got to “joke back” with a customer who THOUGHT he was being hilarious and it may have been my best ever moment in retail.

You guys know those customers who crack jokes, either at your expense or just that you hear a thousand times a day, and always think they’re SUPER hilarious and original?

I had such a man today.

I work in a warehouse, and the guy comes through my line holding a box and a few small things. He says he’s going to need someone to carry his stuff out to his car, bc it’s all really heavy.

She tried to explain why she couldn’t help him.

My first thought was that he was just being lazy and didn’t want to carry his own things, bc he carried everything through the store just fine, but whatever.

I told him I can’t carry anything heavy right now, but I can certainly find him someone who can.

He asks why not?

I tell him I’m very heavily pregnant.

He goes off. “That’s not an excuse! My grandmother had sixteen children, and she NEVER used that excuse! She even carried my grandfather!”

He countered her response with another joke.

I kind of stared back blankly and said, “It’s not an excuse…you’re not supposed to do heavy lifting when you’re pregnant.”

After he sees my reaction, he laughs and jokes, “Sorry – I have mental problems, as you can see!”

At this time, another female coworker wanders up. He gives her the same spiel, that this is super heavy and he needs help carrying it to his car, and exaggerated point “THIS one can’t, but you don’t have the same excuse that she has!”

Then, she turned his words around on him.

My coworker says, “I don’t.” And then grabs the box he’s pointing to. She looks at him and says, “Are you sure there’s even anything in there? That’s not heavy.”

He says, “It is to me. I’m an old man!!”

And I see the perfect opportunity that I NEVER get, and I say, “Come on now, that’s not an excuse. Your grandmother carried your grandfather!”

It was clear he wasn’t used to people doing it back.

I guess he’s not used to people joking back, bc his face dropped and he said: “Well, that’s not nice.”

I fake-laughed and said, “Sorry. I like to joke back!”

He chuckled weakly and waved at us and said, “Have a good night.” No more jokes, tho.

Wow! If you can dish it, you should be able to take it.

Let’s check out how the people over at Reddit feel about this encounter.

This person loves the story.

Here’s someone who doesn’t sound very impressed.

 

According to this reader, their father is like that.

He definitely didn’t expect that.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.