A customer comes into the store and looks around the TV section. He is male; I am female.

Customer: “Can I speak to someone about the TVs?”

Me: “I can help you, sir! What kind of TV are you looking for today?”

Customer: “Can I please speak to a man?”

Me: *Without skipping a beat* “Why?”

Customer: “So he can talk to me about TVs.”

Me: “I’m helping you with your TV needs, though.”

Customer: “Look. Can I please speak to a man, please?”

Me: *Again, without skipping a beat* “Why?”

Customer: “C’mon… you know.”

Me: “I really don’t. Please tell me.”

Customer: “Because… well…”

Me: *Stares expectantly*

Customer: “Men are all just better at this stuff.”

Boom! Sexism confirmed!

Me: “I understand. If you’d like, I can fetch the associate who was responsible for setting up all the TVs in the store.”

Customer: “That would be great, thank you.”

I turn around a complete 360 and face the customer again.

Me: “Hi! I heard that you wanted to talk to me about buying a TV?” 

The customer just stared at me blankly before slowly realizing what had just happened and emotionlessly walking out. I have precisely zero tolerance for his particular brand of BS, so that was fine by me!

My mother once worked with a manager who didn’t take crap from any customer, and he outright refused to reward bad behavior. I had to meet my mother at her job one day just before closing time, and I got to witness one of “those” encounters. I just caught the tail end, but it ended with the manager telling the idiotic, irate customer, to whom he refused to issue a refund for something they purchased several months before:

Manager: “You are not getting a refund, and I will not be giving into your nonsense. So, you have two choices here. Turn around and leave on your own, and learn to behave yourself, or I will call the police and have you trespassed from this store. Your choice.”

The customer finally acquiesced and left once the manager started dialing the police. My mom said she never saw the customer again after that in the subsequent twenty years she worked there.

I wish there were more managers like that.

I am working at a visitor’s center at a large national park. A visitor approaches me.

Visitor: “Do you have any paths to [Remote, Isolated Location] that are wheelchair-accessible?”

Me: “I’m afraid that since that area is quite remote and still very much as nature intended, it’s not a suitable place to visit for anyone but our more experienced hikers.”

Visitor: “So, you discriminate against the disabled?”

Me: “Uh… no, we have plenty of trails and paths that are very accessible to wheelchair users. This is a large national park, and large sections of it are kept as nature intended, which does limit their accessibility.” 

Visitor: “Are you saying nature intended to discriminate against wheelchair users?”

Me: “Uh… I don’t think nature intended anything. It’s just the way it is.”

Visitor: “I will be writing to everyone that [National Park] hates disabled people!”

The visitor leaves, but another visitor is in line behind them and speaks up.

Next Visitor: “In nature, any creature that can’t walk doesn’t live very long. Would they prefer we go back to that system?!”

I’m neurodiverse and rather obsessive. Back in my fruit store days, I had a whole system for how I input the produce and another system for how I packed the bags. Someone outside my brain watching me work would often be really confused, but the end result was that I didn’t space out halfway through the sale and forget what I’d done AND I could pack everything so nothing would get damaged.

The only cashiers faster than me were the ones who would throw stuff in pretty much however, so mangoes would go in the same bag as a two-kilo bag of potatoes and have a high chance of getting smushed. As such, when I was told off for going too slow, I’d try to speed up a little, but I refused to compromise on the quality of my work.

We were quickly approaching Christmas and, naturally, the store was getting busier and busier. I was getting chewed out more often for “being slow”, but most of my customers were more grateful for how much care I was taking with all their stone fruit, grapes, and other fragile summer fruit — Christmas in Australia means A LOT of fresh fruit — so I didn’t care.

I was also slightly hampered by my charm bracelet — the old-fashioned kind, not the kind that is more like fancy beads. All those dangly charms with all the orange and onion nets were an extra challenge, but the sensory feedback I got from my bracelet made me happier than the frustration of getting slightly snagged occasionally.

One busy day, a customer approached me with a small charm for my bracelet — a lovely silver snowflake.

Customer: “This is a thank-you for taking such good care of my fruit yesterday!”

I was amazed and tried to give it back at first.

Me: “I can’t take such a gift for just doing my job!”

But she insisted, so I took it, thanking her a dozen times, and I got quite teary, to be honest. Tips are practically non-existent in Australia in restaurants, and they’re unheard of for cashiers.

That charm is still on my bracelet today. Honestly, the snowflake is now one of the worst culprits for getting snagged on things on my whole bracelet, but it never annoys me because I will always remember that customer’s kindness, even if I don’t recall her face! (D*** face blindness!)

One night, I stopped by a diner after work at about 10:00 pm. I was seated at the table and the waitress had taken my order. I heard a strange sound overhead, and the next thing I knew, I was covered in crumbled ceiling tile and pissed-off raccoons.

I screamed and started flailing. The raccoons screamed back. I got a lot of little claw marks and a few bites as they tried to get safely off of me without letting me pry them off.

I managed to get them off of me, and one of the chefs and the waitress chased them out the front door.

Nervously, the chef asked me if I still wanted my order and offered to comp it. I ate, and it was okay.

I got a rabies vaccine after, just in case.