A hungry Redditor craved the $9.99 prime rib special, only to join a line twisting deep into produce behind an ultra-picky customer demanding four dinners. The woman endlessly examined every slice, then begged the frazzled carver for one extra-large portion to “treat” her husband. He firmly refused, citing store rules about equal sizes while the queue swelled and patience evaporated.
She grudgingly stepped aside for sauces. Moments later, the same carver grinned at our polite hero, held up the leftover double-thick slab, and asked, “Want the big piece?” Karma seasoned that steak perfectly – or so the Redditor thought.
Redditor scores massive prime rib slice while another customer’s request gets denied.
Lining up for discount ribs can be exhausting on its own, let alone being behind someone with ‘special needs’. But this story is less about prime rib and more about the unspoken rules we all pretend to follow until we decide someone deserves a public pettiness.
Relationship and etiquette experts often point out that small public moments like this reveal bigger patterns in how we handle fairness and flexibility. In this particular situation, the carver was rewarding perceived good behavior and punishing perceived bad behavior in real time.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s analysis of retaliation in social psychology, “The act of retaliation is equivalent to revenge where a person perceives unfair treatment and attempts to restore equilibrium by taking the matter into his or her own hands.”
Though said quote is for relationship at workplace, it could also be applied perfectly here. This drive to “settle the score” explains why the carver might have bent the rule for one customer while enforcing it for another, it feels like justice, even when it’s technically inconsistent.
On the flip side, customer service studies repeatedly show that employees under pressure are more likely to make exceptions based on how politely they’re treated.
A 2022 Cornell University study on service industry emotional labor found that “workers reported giving preferential treatment to friendly customers 68 % more often than neutral ones, and actively withholding perks from rude customers even when policy allowed flexibility.”
So was the carver a hero of the people or just a guy having a bad day? Probably both. The real lesson: when the sign says “limit one per customer,” but the last piece is comically oversized, politeness might literally make your portion bigger.
Here’s what the community had to contribute:
Some people found the story highly satisfying and praised OP for the petty revenge against an entitled customer.
Some people defended the woman, arguing she was polite, just trying to do something nice for her husband, and was unfairly humiliated.
Some people reacted positively to specific details or themes in the story, like manners or wanting to see the result.
Some people criticized the story as exaggerated or pointed out practical difficulties with portion control in similar jobs.
![[Reddit User] − Woman asks for slightly larger piece because she wants to treat her husband, moves on without arguing when told no.](https://dailyhighlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/wp-editor-1764725882673-1.webp "Woman Demands Bigger Prime Rib Portion For Husband, Gets Refused, Then Watches Next Customer Get It")
At the end of the day, one Redditor went home with a steak the size of a small throw pillow, one carver got sweet silent revenge. Was the carver petty? Absolutely. Was it glorious? Maybe it depends on who you ask.
So tell us, was this justified chaos or customer-service sabotage? Would you have taken the big piece with pride, or felt bad for ES? Drop your verdict below!
