People from all walks of life reveal their unfiltered, unapologetic, and often unforgettable “I Shouldn’t Have Said That” horror stories.
We’ve all been there – that moment when your brain hits the “send” button on a remark that should have been locked away in the vault of unspoken thoughts. These are the moments that make us wish for an instant rewind button or a hasty retreat into the nearest wormhole to escape embarrassment. Get ready to cringe, chuckle, and maybe even let out a sympathetic groan!
Reminds me of something my cousin said as a cashier.
He asked a customer whether he’d like a bag for his purchase. The guy bought only one item, I forget what it was but it was definitely a situation where you’d think about not wasting a bag.
“Yes! Why the heck would you not automatically give me a bag? How else am I supposed to carry this?”
“Well, God gave you two hands.” Instantly regretted it.
In high school, I worked as a dry cleaner. A woman came in, and her dad died. Wants me to iron the suit he would be buried in. I asked her what kind of starch she would like. She asks what I recommend.
I, in all of my infinite wisdom, said “Well, I’m assuming he won’t be moving around much so a light starch is fine” and then immediately apologized and mentally died inside.
I was fighting with my mom and she said something about I don’t pay for this house, but since she was and has been a stay-at-home mom at the time, I said “I mean technically you don’t either”, and that was the WRONG thing to say and I knew I had it in for me.
My boss gave me some really menial sh*t work to do when he knew I was too busy for it. He was being a lazy *ss and didn’t want to do it. I literally grabbed one of his hands and looked hard at it. He took his hand back and asked what I was doing, and I looked him dead in the face and said, “Your hands look fine.” Three other coworkers were there around and tried their hardest to not burst out laughing. Pretty much as I was saying it I regretted it.
I used to work in the H&M call centre and this woman’s package didn’t arrive on the day our website said it would, bearing in mind this was an order for H&M basic items which came to about $50. She said that because she had to take a day off work we now owed her lost wages which amounted to $850.
I said to her “You took a day off work where you would have earned $850 to wait at home for a package that is worth $50, do you seriously expect me to believe that?”
Long story short, she hung up when I saw through the obvious b*llsh*t.
When asked in a job interview why I didn’t want to continue working with children, I blurted out that I love my own, but other people’s kids are c*nts. Instant terror inside at my own idiocy.
A guy came in to where I worked and the first thing he said was something like “Do you give discounts?” Not any particular discount, he was just being a cheap a**.
Somehow, without skipping a beat I said “For what? Showing up?”
A number of years ago, my wife was complaining about being overweight. She wasn’t overweight at all. In an attempt to comfort her, I put a hand on her shoulder and said ‘You’d be perfect if I was blind.’ Her reaction was not what I had in mind.
A guy I worked with who I knew solely at work but on a pretty personal level mentioned he may be getting divorced.
A couple of days later I saw his car a few houses down the street from me and asked if he lived there the following day at work. He said he did, so I had never known he lived that close to me.
One day I saw this nice all-black 68 Camaro SS parked outside. Couldn’t wait to talk to him about it.
Me: “Bro you got a 68 Camaro?! Why haven’t we ever talked about that sh*t?! You know I love cars.”
Him: “Pshh I wish I had a Camaro what are you talking about?”
Me: Thinking there’s no way I f*cked up the type of car I saw “The one outside your house, the all-black one.”
And that’s when I knew I f*cked up and he found out his wife was cheating on him.
My brother and I worked at a fast-food restaurant. The one type of new burger we served took 15min to cook though so often we would have to tell customers and suggest they find a table to wait if they were willing.
Well, my brother was working cash and this person in a wheelchair decided to wait. My brother was like: it’ll be a while for it to be done. I’ll bring it to your table when it’s ready if you just want to take a seat sir — I mean pull up a chair— I mean…sh*t…’
Thankfully the person had a good sense of humor but holy sh*t it was funny watching him put his foot in his mouth repeatedly.
When I was in high school, I had a part-time job at a store. One day, probably in April or something, a girl I hadn’t seen for a while came to my register with her mom. As I was ringing them up, I tried to make conversation.
“Haven’t seen you at school recently. Have you picked your university yet?”
She sort of looked away and mumbled “I don’t go to school anymore.” Her mom looked pretty embarrassed.
My stupid sheltered, education-first-and-foremost a** hadn’t even taken into account that some people might not have an answer to that question. I rang them up as quickly as possible and vowed never to ask it again. I didn’t see her after that. She wasn’t in high school anymore and likely hadn’t been for some time. I didn’t see her at graduation, either. I felt pretty bad for putting her on the spot like that at the store.
That said, I’d probably feel worse about it if she hadn’t spent what felt like every waking moment from sixth grade onward bullying the sh*t out of me. Ah well.
When we made a drive-through order, the person who wraps the sandwich would bag it, and toss it across the restaurant to the drive-through person to hand it out after they took the payment.
I was the drive-through person and dropped the wrapped, and bagged sandwich. Without thinking, I just picked it up and handed it to the customer.
He goes “You’re seriously going to serve me that?”
My instant reaction was to ask “Oh, you saw that?”
A friend of mine told me her grandmother passed away recently. And how much she was struggling to cope with that.
So, later that day we were discussing a school-related project with some other friends. We were not going to finish our project before the deadline, so I jokingly said: “Well, what if we pretend someone’s family member died, and that’s why we couldn’t focus that well.”
Right after saying that I looked at my friend who began to tear up a bit. I immediately thought: “Oh sh*t that’s right.. I’m an idiot.”.
My mum was in hospital. As it turns out, she would never leave the hospital. But at this stage, she was sick but not THAT sick.
She had a private room with a little enclosed garden outside. She had a blue tongue lizard who lived in the garden and she would spend her long days watching the lizard scurry around and catch bugs and lazing in the sun.
She would tell us every time we visited what the lizard had been up to. The funny things it had done made her smile during the day. She lit up when telling me about its adventures.
One day when I came in to visit, the blue tongue was out the front of her room in the car park. It had been hit by a car and killed.
I went to visit Mum and she was very sad – she hadn’t seen her friend the lizard all day.
I said to her “Oh yeah I saw him out in the car park – he won’t be back – he got run over by a car”.
As soon as I said it, I tried to suck the words back in. But I couldn’t.
Her face crashed. She was crushed. I tried to say maybe it was another lizard or that her lizard would be back – but it was no good. The damage was done.
A week later she died. She had been in the hospital for 3 months and was getting better they thought. But this day, she just died. They thought she had just given up.
That was in 1996. 22 and a bit years ago. And I still wake from sleep “thinking” about that. I still shudder every time I recall how stupid I had been. I’m now a 50-year-old man and I can never and will never forgive myself for that stupid statement. It still makes me cry.
Waiting tables and I get this friendly-looking couple. I walk up and before I can start with the pleasantries the guy sees me, and in a heavy Australian accent, he says “Hi there mate. How are you.”
I was thrown off by the accent and by being interrupted before making an introduction and for whatever reason, my mind could only focus on the accent, and so, when I went to respond I did it in an Australian accent — “not too bad mate. Yourself”.
I realized I was doing it as it was leaving my mouth but I couldn’t stop. I was convinced I was gonna get pinched square in the face… turns out my fake Australian accent isn’t bad. The guy is delighted to meet an Australian. Asks if I’m in America on the Work program.
Now I’m stuck. If I admit I’m not Australian I’m worried he’ll be offended even though I didn’t mean to offend him. If not, I have to play this part for the next hour.
Yeah. I committed to the role. Got a 40% tip though so that was kinda nice and worth the stress.
Served a customer a salad and was called back almost immediately to the table, there was a cockroach in the salad (it was grossssss!). I stupidly said, “You didn’t order that did you?!”
A customer tried to exchange cash with me and I told her no and explained that we can’t as a policy to protect against fast-change artists. She really suspiciously, in an exasperated voice, was like “But I’m obviously not a fast change artist!” and without thinking I, “That sounds like something a fast change artist would say.”
A customer came up to me asking about the shoes that were on sale for 29.99. I walked over to the fixture and showed him the sign that said the jeans were on sale not the shoes. I then said, “Sometimes you have to read the whole sign.” My coworker had to turn around and walk off so he wouldn’t hear her laughing. I am really surprised I didn’t get talked to about that.
I worked at a gas station for a while. It was independently run and at a service station, so it was admittedly expensive. Most people, if they commented on it, would have a bit of a rant but never at us, as they understood we don’t fix the prices.
Anyway, it’s 11 p.m., near the end of my shift. A woman has come in and she is going off about the prices. She won’t let it drop, she’s dragging out her transaction, and she’s being very rude to me.
“If you’re going to rob people, you should at least be wearing a mask in here,” she says.
“Sorry, left mine at home today,” I reply. It’s my go-to for this line, which I hear about 6 times a day, though people usually say it light-heartedly.
This woman, however, is serious. Oops. She launches into a rant about how she’s never coming back, how she can’t believe it, how can I sleep at night. I tell her I don’t set the prices. She tells me to let my manager know he’s a thieving b*stard. I tell her he doesn’t set the prices either. She says once again that the prices are despicable. The night shift guy has arrived now — I’m supposed to be handing the shift over and leaving, but she’s still b*tching and a queue has formed. She reiterates that the prices are abhorrent. I finally lost it.
“Look,” I say, pointing to the massive sign outside that prominently displays our prices in bright lights. “The prices are right there. You knew how much it was when you came in. You also can use those terrific observational skills to note we’re only 3 miles away from a city with 24-hour supermarkets with gas stations. No one made you come in here, so can you hurry the f*ck up and pay so I can go home?”
I knew I shouldn’t have said it but a) too late now and b) I had cultivated an image in front of my manager of being a bit of a pushover. This meant when rude customers complained about me he wouldn’t believe I would have the balls to say such things. She threatened to report me and I was like cool, OK, my name is on my badge. She also threatened to write a bad review, which my colleague and I had a laugh about when she left.
I left a few minutes later. Imagine my surprise when I saw her sitting in her car on the forecourt, tapping away at her phone. The madwoman actually did it. I checked my review. Apparently, I am “a shockingly rude young man” who “would benefit from a good talking to”. Harsh words.
I was on a call with a customer who was complaining and absolutely irate. I had only been on the job for a few weeks and was becoming flustered. There was literally nothing I could do to calm this person down or get him to accept my answers. I was finally about to get him off the line when he made a sarcastic comment to the extent of “Wow thanks, you’ve been such a great help.” In my rush to say “no problem” or “you’re welcome” I ended up saying “your problem” and hanging up. He called several times after that and I just ignored the calls because I was so exhausted.
Business school interview over Skype. They were very interested in a global conference I was helping organise and suddenly asked, “What would you do in the event of a terrorist attack?”
Blanked out. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Well, the event’s going to be a bomb.”
I was doing work at the family farm when our Mom’s insurance rep was visiting. I overheard them explaining her benefits, that the insurance will pay out at death or age 100.
Mom: “I’m pretty sure my time will come before I’m 100.”
Me: “If not, we’ll just take you out back and put you down.”
The insurance guy looked like a deer in headlights. My 80-year-old Mom got up and chased me down laughing, to give me a fake spanking.
ETA: My mom just called. We revisited that moment and laughed again. Haha!
I answered a customer call when I worked at a movie theater and it was a couple asking me for directions to the theater from wherever they were. They were driving and getting frustrated with me, and I was kind of getting frustrated with them for being mad at me when I assumed they were talking to me on a smartphone, so at some point, I said something like, “Most people would just use the internet.” They did not like that.
I was 17, working at a Meijer, and a slightly older gentleman came up with a basket on his arm and started unloading groceries. Nothing too unusual, except as I’m packing the bags on the carousel, he’s struggling to keep up reloading his little basket. He didn’t seem old enough to really be struggling, but I figured maybe something was wrong so I innocently asked, “Do you need a hand?”
The guy shoots me a look and stares full eye contact at me for like a minute. I’m confused, thinking maybe he misheard me, maybe a little cognitively impaired, and open my mouth to repeat myself. He smiles, pulls down the sleeve of his shirt, and reveals he in fact has a prosthetic hand.
I never understood the phrase “melt into the ground” until that moment, I was almost in tears I was so embarrassed, but fortunately the guy recognized I wasn’t being a glib a**hat, I was just trying to help him and was kind enough to let me off the hook.
About one month after my daughter was born, both my wife and I were sleep-deprived. I usually vacuum the house because she hates it. On this day, I forgot. She got really upset for some reason and said she was sick of having to ask me to vacuum all the time. Me, being sleep-deprived, blew up and asked if she had ever dated a guy who cleaned without being asked. She said yes. I asked where the heck was he now and why wasn’t she still with him. She said that he beat her. I said, “Would you rather be with a guy who forgets to vacuum or a guy who beats you?”
I was talking with a customer on the phone and giving her answers she didn’t like. Then she, this grown-*ss woman, just starts whining. Not like using words with a whiny voice but actually doing a “uuuuuhhhnnnnnnn” kind of whining.
I’ve worked with toddlers a lot so it was just instinct to say back to her “Ma’am, please use your words” as if I was talking to a 3-year-old.
I was on a break with 2 coworkers. One asked me a ridiculous question and for some reason, I have no idea for the love of god why I answered with “N*gga please”. It’s at this point of the story I should point out that the other coworker we were with was a 50-something-year-old black guy.
I honestly don’t know why I said it. It’s not a habit of mine. Heck, it’s not even a phrase I’ve thrown around jokingly. I instantly froze, realizing what I had done. I looked my coworker in the face and said, “I have to stop this conversation and apologize, I have no idea why I said that I’m truly sorry”… He responded back with “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I didn’t hear anything”
He was very gracious and I told him so. I just responded with “Well, you’re a much better man than I” and then he asked about my daughter and I tried to show him pictures of the baby on my phone, but I was shaking too badly and I just walked away. I wanted to puke. It haunted me in my sleep all night, I tossed and turned.
I really have no idea why the f*ck I said that. The only thing I could think of is I just recently started watching The Wire. That’s certainly not a great excuse, it’s not like I could say, “My bad, I’ve been watching black people sell drugs on TV all week”… But that is seriously the only connection I can make to my verbal sh*tball.
I was very pregnant (about 6.5 months pregnant with twins) working at a call center and I got a cold transfer from customer relations from a super rude customer.
I greet him nicely and he interrupts me and asks: Can you see all my information and what I need or do I need to repeat it all over again? (Starts yelling and rants for about 3 minutes) and being the sensitive ball I was I told him:
“Sir, this is the first time I’ve talked to you, you just got transferred and need time to read the notes but it’s very unfair that you’re treating me like this, I was being super polite and you’re yelling at me for no reason! (Now it was my rant for about 2 minutes) I will place you on hold and I’ll read the notes, ok?”
When I put him on hold I was convinced that if my superior was listening I was going to be in trouble cause in CS they want you to let people walk over you and this customer was going to complain about me, but surprisingly when I came back from the hold he sounded ashamed, he apologized to me and admitted he had been a d*ck to me for no reason and that he wanted to start all over and the rest of the call was super smooth but I was very scared while on hold.
I was at work and the director of the company brought his daughter around to introduce her to everyone. We were all standing together and someone said that she looked so much like him. I blurted out “She has a little more hair though!”
I didn’t know that his baldness was a sorely sensitive subject with him. He joked depracatingly about other stuff like his weight and height but I guess baldness was just a little too far. I slunk back to my desk and hid for weeks until he (hopefully) forgot.
I had just been rejected for a date by a friend of mine that I asked out. I asked her out to dinner and she suggested that we bring a third mutual friend with us. I said I’d rather not, and that this was me asking her on a date more than anything. She declined.
And then I screwed up. I texted said mutual friend, because I felt I could talk to her about anything, telling her that I asked the other out on a date and that she rejected me. I don’t remember exactly how it went, but I think she asked me what happened and how I felt about it and I was answering her. At some point, I ended up saying I was frustrated about this and that being friends with the girl I asked out “feels like being a dog with a piece of meat being teased in front of his face.”
The mutual friend was like “What the f*ck why would you say something like that” and revealed that her best friend, the girl I asked on a date, was sitting right next to her watching the conversation unfold.
I will never live that down. I will always have that night in the back of my mind, torturing me. Those two were indeed the best friends I ever had. And I ruined it, and there’s no turning back or making what I said go away. If such a thing is possible, I ruined my own reputation forever.
Neither of them has communicated with me at all for about 5 years now. I miss them.
I used to work tech support over the phone for CenturyLink.
One day, I get a call at about 5 PM Friday from a woman who is freaking out because she’s going to have her kids over and they don’t have internet.
Okay, I walk her through the troubleshooting and it turns out she’s gonna need a technician. They don’t do weekend stuff, so she’s SOL for the weekend.
Cue a freakout. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY KIDS I HAVE MY KIDS THIS WEEKEND. THEY NEED XBOX AND CABLE. OMG. And on and on.
So I accidentally blurted out, “Have you tried paying attention to them?”
The line went dead silent. And then she hung up. 😡 Oops.
We had this old lady who worked in the office of my Uni. She was an absolute b*tch to everyone and everything. Rude and clearly hated her job. But she was in control of things like the fax machine.
I had a long application for a job that took a year back in college. I was always sending faxes of important files and had to deal with her regularly. Every single time she gave me sh*t. Yelled at me for putting the papers the wrong way, yelled at me for telling her she was putting the papers in the wrong way, and yelled at me for interrupting her work. Finally, one day, I came in and she was yelling at a student for something. He left in a huff.
She sat down and I came to ask to use the fax. As I’m asking, she puts her finger in my face and starts a call to her friend or something.
I see a girl on the seats waiting and I look at her and mouth, “What a B*TCH!”
I used to work at a fast food restaurant that legit just worked you to the bone, when I’m saying I was pulling doubles, like 6 AM-6 AM, and I was really tired and I had just worked three back-to-back shifts and this guy pulled up to the window and he’s all like “I hate your fries, I hate your sandwiches, I hate your fish, your food always cold “and me being me my instant response was “why do you come here then? “, Needless to say, I was sent home that day and got a write-up but if anyone is interested in the guy’s response he said “you’re right” then pulled out of the drive-thru.
I’m not good with people crying. I tense up, panic, and have no clue what to do.
One day I was at my ex’s (GF at the time) and we were just sitting talking and she started crying because she missed her grandpa who had died the year prior.
Me, having no idea how to handle it, decided to put my arm around her, kiss her forehead and say “You know crying not going to bring him back, right?”
I was working at a pet store and we sold those spray bottles for training dogs and cats. Anyways customer comes in b*tching that it’s not working and how we are complete scum and con artists stealing her hard-earned money so I decided to test it out. Filled the bottle up with water, turned the lock on the nozzle (which the customer hadn’t turned) and proceeded to spray the customer in the face. I stood there for a few minutes with the customer in silence thinking “Did I just f*cking do that.” Then I said “See it works” to try and break the tension… it made it worse. The owner tore me a new one, manager loved it and had the security footage saved to the desktop of the office computer.
Worked in a coffee shop. We didn’t open to the public until 7 am but staff arrived at 6 am to clean and prep the shop. On the front door, we had a metal shutter that was 3/4 down and I was busy mopping the floor. One lady just climbed underneath it and asked me for a latte to go at around 6:30 a.m. whilst I was mopping the floor and all of the chairs were up on the tables.
I reply; “Sorry we aren’t open, you’ll need to leave”
“Yeah, but I just want a latte.” “I just said we aren’t open. Please leave.” “Oh c’mon, it’s just a latte!” I hold up my mop “Try again at 7 am when we are open.”
She storms out of the shop and yells “You’ve just lost a customer!”
“We need to be open first to have one, you moron!”
I have been known in the past (I control myself much better now) to become completely horrid to individuals who have hurt someone I care about. Just evil. Anyway.
There was a girl in my grade who immigrated to the US from Germany, and Bosnia before that. When she first came over, she was one of the nicest people ever. Talked to everyone (even though her English was very choppy), super friendly, etc. After a couple of years, everyone grew up and entered junior high, and this girl lost weight and became super hot. Then she became a major b*tch to a lot of people and only talked nicely to her little clique of guys and girls just like her.
One day, a bunch of us were in the hall before gym class and one of my good friends tried to compliment this girl on something she was wearing. She called my friend fat and said she was just jealous…seriously after my friend had complimented her! I became super angry and before anything else was said, turned to the girl and came out with, “[Girl], what happened to you? You used to be so nice when you first came here! Oh I know, you didn’t know English yet!”
Although I still believe, to this day, that the anger was warranted, It was a pretty stupid thing to say and made myself seem so classless and entitled, and the amount of people around us who heard what I said was much larger than the amount of people who heard what she said. I was known as a b*tch by quite a few people after that. And the girl was left completely speechless. I kind of feel bad for not having more class.
My ex-boss once called us into a meeting and said that she noticed that our morale was low, and she was wondering why? Everyone exchanged looks, but no one wanted to say it. She pressed us, and finally, I said “Because you’re so negative all the time.” I could tell by the looks of my coworkers that I’d said something bad. It was the truth though.
Moral: Bosses don’t like being told the truth. She blamed me for some mistake that her husband made and fired me very shortly after that.
My Dad’s new girlfriend was telling me about the progress in her divorce case and I casually asked if my Dad was getting divorced too now that they were together. She gave me a funny look and said “Honey, he is divorced.”
No, he wasn’t. My parents had been separated for years and had a fully legal separation agreement but never finished the paperwork to end their marriage. The girlfriend was NOT happy that she found out about it from me.
I was a college tour guide for some time. Loved the role and the mix of people you’d always get. Some people were kind, friendly, and excited to be touring a campus; while some, were just plain upset they had to be there.
On one tour full of accepted and wait-listed people, I had one mother and daughter at one point who were upset that skateboarding (as a mode of transportation) was allowed on campus. The mother launched into this “I can’t believe that my daughter is accepted to a school full of hooligans who think skating around is safe for them and others around them! She’s going to get hurt, or worse, end up doing drugs!” Paraphrasing here, but you get the idea. She asks why these “gang bangers” aren’t arrested yet. I informed her that our police force is tolerant of it and that in fact multiple members of the police own and use skateboards in certain areas of the campus instead of a Segway or walking. (Really chill cops by the way).
Finally, after a bit of back and forth, the mother looks at me and says, “I refuse to allow my daughter to go to this school! What do you think of that?”
My response was, “I’m sorry to hear that ma’am, but having just one student who was accepted drop will not harm this school in any manner. Instead, it will allow for someone who is wait-listed the opportunity to attend. To some people, this is their dream school, to others, this is just a school. Whoever gets the spot of your daughter, may become the happiest person out there because they are now afforded the chance at an education at a school in which they willingly stayed on the waitlist.”
She didn’t like that, and reported me to my boss, my boss does this whole charade of “don’t do sh*t like that” in front of the mother. Moment mother walks off, the boss goes “Good job! F*ck her”
Customers come to my window all the time on their phones. We have a strict “no phone calls at the window” because we need their input on several key factors and some information from them. One older woman springs to mind, who wanted to renew her registration tags (TX) but wouldn’t put her phone down.
She hands me her renewal notice, and then she tells me “Just the renewal” she tells me. “Alright,” I reply in a peppy tone, “I’ll start once you’re done with that call.” This turns her expression sour and she glares at me; “This might take awhile.” To which I unflinchingly answer her; “I’m here ’til 5, and I’m getting paid to be here, ma’am. I can wait here all day if you’d like.”
She called my supervisor over, who politely pointed to the “NO PHONES AT WINDOW” signs posted on every clerk’s station. Begrudgingly, she shuts down the phone and looks at me as if we’ve insulted her entire heritage.
