Man barked 'you serve me' at a woman defending customer service reps. Realizing she didn't even work there made his meltdown even worse
Initially, he mistook Stephanie for another employee, but when he realized she was just another customer, he barked out angry words and left
Service workers often get caught in limbo because even if the customer is unruly, they can’t possibly step out of the interaction. In an Oregon bank, when one service worker got entangled with a rude man, another customer present there stepped forward to speak up. Stephanie Castillo (@stephjcastillo), a Portland-based photographer, butted heads with the man, but soon realized that he was adamant in his behaviour. He had mistaken her for another employee, but when she revealed that she, too, was a customer, he blew a fuse and stormed out of the bank. Castillo’s July 28, 2026 video of the episode has been viewed more than 3.2 million times.
Hypocrisy of emotional intelligence
The episode unfolded when Castillo visited a bank in Beaverton, Oregon, on an appointment. This man showed up with two kids, gloating that he didn’t need an appointment because "the manager had told him." Everything was okay until his behavior turned disruptive towards a worker, and the customers around started feeling unsafe and harassed. So, Castillo stepped up to correct his behavior. “The way you are speaking to him is not okay,” she told the man. What started as a trivial tiff turned into a chain of explosive arguments.
Stick to your job
He mistook Castillo for an employee and snarled at her to stick to her job. Even after she clarified that she too was a customer and insisted that he shouldn’t talk to people rudely, he continued harassing her with bitter words. In what seemed like a contradictory statement, he asked Castillo to “show some emotional intelligence.” Luckily, she had managed to take a picture of him once the argument concluded. She posted the picture at the end of the video, and one viewer revealed that the rude man is actually a motivational influencer who operates Instagram accounts by @chartraiders and @c0tt0nc4ndyta. When Castillo tried to access his account, she realized that he had blocked her. However, her followers soon flooded his comments which led him to switch them off entirely.
Service workers pay the toll
Despite being vital engineers of the management and retail ecosystem, frontline workers often become the targets of customer incivility and have to bear an undeserving toll of harassment and verbal abuse. In a study, Perceptyx surveyed 21,000 frontline workers and found that 53% reported experiencing emotional or verbal harassment from customers at work. Another study published in Cogent Business & Management found that rude customer behavior negatively affects frontline workers in the banking sector, leading to increased turnover.
Normalization of unruliness
In response to the video, viewers roasted the rude man and reflected that he should have at least thought about what example he was setting in front of his kids. @allamabuck commented, “’ Have some emotional intelligence,’ he says. I’m screaming! Listen to his weaponized therapy-speak.” @cinid01 said, “He turned off all his comments. He is trying to hide.” @mollynicolewaite said, “As someone who works at a bank, yes! At my branch, we do not tolerate clients speaking to us in a bad manner as well as clients speaking to each other in a bad manner. Or I just get petty and serve it up the exact way they’re talking to me, and they switch up real quick.”
You can follow Stephanie Castillo (@stephjcastillo) on Instagram for photography and lifestyle content.
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