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A restaurant patron berates a waiter for delivering the wrong entree. A traveler cuts in line at an airline ticket counter and demands immediate service. A manager refuses to gather the documentation an outside consultant needs to provide services. As these examples suggest, the obnoxious customer has many faces. Equally troubling, the reasons behind corrosive customer behavior - whether unrealistic expectations, sheer orneriness or just ignorance of company rules - are not always clear. One thing is certain, however: When a customer behaves poorly, businesses pay a high price in declining employee satisfaction and performance. Companies can therefore benefit from understanding what''s behind nasty customer outbursts and by designing effective interventions. A new study identifies common problematic behaviors and proposes intervention strategies, relying on service employees'' accounts of unpleasant encounters with customers - on the assumptions that servers'' emotional responses affect a company''s ability to satisfy customers.