My husband is getting his hair cut while I wait for him. The salon is in a mall, so it’s generally pretty busy, but this is a rainy Saturday, so it is VERY busy. A woman in her fifties walks in with her mother around 11:45.

Customer: “[Customer] for an appointment at 11:30.”

Stylist: “We have you down for a 12:30.”

Customer: “Well, I need 11:30.”

Stylist: “I see. Unfortunately, we are fully booked today, so—”

Customer: “So, figure it out. I drove fifteen minutes to get to you, and I have an appointment. My mother can barely walk, and you’re going to make us come back again? I might as well cancel and take my business elsewhere if that’s how it’s going to be.”

Stylist: “Okay, ma’am, I will remove you from our system. Have a nice day.”

The stylist smiles politely and walks away. The customer is left standing there, open-mouthed.

Customer: “Hello? Hello, I’m not done talking to you. Hello! Excuse you!”

Customer’s Mother: “That’s enough, [Customer]. You opened your mouth; now you deal with the consequences. Let’s go.”

Customer: “I need my hair cut, Mom!”

The mother walked away — not remotely limited in movement as her daughter had implied — and the daughter soon followed. The stylist returned and apologized for the commotion.

Related:
Oh, No! If It Isn’t The Consequences Of My Own Actions!, Part 2
Oh, No! If It Isn’t The Consequences Of My Own Actions!

I worked as a parking lot attendant and cashier when I was sixteen. I pushed plastic carts all day, or I rang up people’s groceries.

I was halfway through my shift out in the sun getting carts when I decided to take a small break under the shade near the bench beside the front entrance of the store. I didn’t pay much attention to the few people in the area, but this very nice older Chinese lady struck up a conversation with me.

I was a bit stunned because it came out of nowhere. She started talking to me in a thick Chinese accent about my job and saying stuff like:

Customer: “You have a good job, and you earn good money.”

This weirded me out at first, but she kept the conversation going and talked about how in China, people would work out in the soybean fields and rice paddies only to get very little money at the end of the day.

I was taken on one amazing trip in this chat with this lady, and I still don’t understand why. To end this conversation, she said:

Customer: “You do a good job. Thank you.”

And with that, she kinda just walked away. I never saw her again, but I wish I had. Those words and that lady have stuck with me ever since. I’m sure I did a better job after that because it was very motivating to hear some positive feedback from customers for once!

I am discussing something with my manager when one of our new starters, an eighteen-year-old man who started working here last month, interrupts us.

New Starter: “There’s a mistake in my paycheck. I didn’t agree to pay taxes.”

My manager and I stare at each other for a moment. Once we’ve confirmed that we did, in fact, both just hear what we thought we heard, my manager turns to him.

Manager: “What do you mean by not agreeing to pay taxes?”

New Starter: “I’d rather not do the whole tax thing, thanks. Do I need to opt out, or is there something I need to do?”

Manager: “You can’t just ‘opt out’ of taxes. If you’re a citizen of this country and you work, you pay taxes.”

New Starter: “But… I don’t want to.”

Manager: “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

New Starter: “But… it’s my money!”

Manager: “Well, it’s the government’s money now.”

New Starter: “No! I want it back! I didn’t agree to give the government my money!”

Manager: “If you work here, the taxes come out of your paycheck automatically. You agreed to that when you signed your contract to work here.”

New Starter: “No one reads all of that!”

Manager: “Be that as it may, you agreed to have a percentage of your paycheck be taxed. If you wanted to do your own taxes, you’d need to work for someone else who allows it or be self-employed. Outside of that, there’s nothing I can do.”

New Starter: “This is bulls***! I can’t be the only person who has complained about this!”

Manager: “Welcome to the real world, [New Starter]. The only constants are death and taxes.”

New Starter: “Wait… So, everyone pays tax? Like… every paycheck?”

Manager: “If they’re not, they’re breaking the law.”

New Starter: “This is bulls***!”

Manager: “How do you think the roads you drive on are maintained? Or the police get paid?”

New Starter: “Ugh! Well, I was against it before, but now I want to defund the police, too!”

He storms out.

Me: “Sadly, I’ve seen that happen when every person opens their paycheck in their first ‘grown-up job’.”

Manager: “They snoozed in history lessons at school about tossing that tea into the harbor, but as soon as they start working, they finally get it.”

It is Cinco De Mayo, and as we’re a well-known Tex-Mex place, we’ve had a busy day. (I know, I know, CDM is more an American thing than a Mexican thing. I just serve people tacos…)

Customer: “I’ll get the taco combo, but… uh…”

He leans in closer and whispers.

Customer: “Can I get that white people spicy?”

I try not to laugh, and I assure him that we will make it mild. We bring the meal out to him, and I note that he is struggling after the first bite, drinking cold water as he goes.

Customer: “I thought you said this was mild!”

Me: “It is, sir. The salsa is extra mild — and also on the side, sitting there untouched by you. You’ve just eaten a bite of corn taco and unseasoned ground beef.”

The customer noticed that I was right and immediately calmed down. The placebo effect is a crazy thing…

I just started driving for a rideshare/food delivery company to make some extra cash. I live in a small town. It’s not so small that everyone knows each other, but it’s small enough that there isn’t much crime to speak of. But as a smaller female, I was still nervous about giving rides to people at night, because people in my town are heavy and frequent drinkers. I considered getting a dash cam as a safety precaution, but I didn’t have the money to invest in a good one just yet, and I felt like I probably wouldn’t need one, anyway.

Once I started getting the hang of rideshare driving, I felt more comfortable driving into the night a little bit, because I found that most people were just trying to get from Point A to Point B without incident, and I had some very fun conversations and interactions with most passengers.

However… there’s always one bad apple in the barrel, right?

I arrived at the pick-up destination for a rider one night, which was (I assume) his home, way on the outskirts of town, in the middle of nowhere, where it’s very dark. I didn’t pull fully into the driveway because I didn’t trust myself to back up all the way back onto the road in the dark (and snow), with sharp ditches on either side of the rural driveway, but I was completely off the road just fine.

My rider stumbled out of his house (uh-oh), and on his way to my car (staggering the whole way), he made dramatic sarcastic gestures to showcase how much of the driveway was there that I could have pulled into. Great.

He got in the car and immediately got on my case for not pulling as far into his driveway as he felt like I should have. I stated my reason for not doing so and began the navigation to his destination, which was to a bar back in town, about fifteen minutes away.

He looked at my navigation screen from the back seat.

Rider: “Oh… Are we going to [Bar]?!”

Me: “Yep, it looks like it.”

He clapped his hands like a child and squealed:

Rider: “Yay!”

Yeah, this guy was already fall-down drunk. He was slurring his words and acting drunkenly obnoxious and loud. I was annoyed but didn’t feel unsafe.

As I started driving, he called his friend to let him know he was on the way to the bar.

Rider: *On the phone* “Yeah, I’m on my way. Have you gotten kicked out yet?” *Pauses* “Well, don’t get kicked out. Get me a [Beer #1]. Oh! And get one for the [Rideshare] driver, too.”

Me: “I’m on the clock, sir. I can’t have a beer with you.”

He ignored me.

Rider: “Yeah, she wants a [Beer #2]. Yeah, that’s what she wants.” *Pauses* “You get a [Beer #1] for me and a [Beer #2] for the driver. Yep.”

I rolled my eyes but just stayed quiet. I’ve learned from experience that you can’t win an argument with someone that drunk. But then, he said this…

Rider: “Yeah, we’re gonna make babies! Haha! Yep! Me and the [Rideshare] driver are gonna make babies!” *Laughs obnoxiously*

Oh, God.

Once he got off the phone, my hope was that he was so drunk that he’d already forgotten he’d said that, or maybe he was just making a crass “guy joke” to seem cool to his friend.

Nope.

Rider: *To me* “So… we’re gonna do that, right?”

Me: *Playing dumb* “Do what, sir?”

Rider: “Make babies! You’ll make babies with me, right? I wanna make babies with you!”

Yes, I know I was within my rights to stop the car and kick him out right then and there. However, it was the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and very cold outside. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to abandon a person this drunk in such circumstances. I was very annoyed and uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel like I was in danger, so I just figured I’d get him to the bar and that would be that.

Me: “No, sir, I’m afraid I’m spoken for.”

Rider: “Awww… d*** it. What’s his name?”

Me: “[Boyfriend].”

Rider: “Oh… Yeah, I can’t compete with [Boyfriend].”

Me: “No, you can’t.”

Rider: “He must have a huge d**k!” *Laughs obnoxiously*

Me: “He is a big dude — as in he benches 300 pounds, has muscles as big as my head, and could knock someone out with a single punch.”

This was actually true. My boyfriend has been on the bodybuilder path for a couple of years, and he is remarkably muscular and strong. And he used to do martial arts and never lost a match. He absolutely could have stomped this guy just by looking at him. Unfortunately, he’s a trucker and was at work at the time, about 200 miles away. I had activated the “share my ride” feature in the app the second I’d seen my rider stumbling to the car, so my boyfriend was aware of my location. I had told him that I would activate that if I ever felt nervous on a ride, so in some way, he was “there” with me.

Rider: “Oh. Well, if you ever get tired of him, you call me! Then we can make babies!”

Me: “Uh-huh.”

Rider: “So, your boyfriend has a huge d**k. I have a small d**k, but I can still make you laugh!”

Me: “Uh-huh.”

Rider: “We can have a good time together, even though I have a small d**k. I can make you laugh, and we can have a good time.”

I tried to change the subject.

Me: “I hope your friend didn’t get kicked out of the bar.”

Rider: “If he did, you’ll just drive us to another bar, right? And come and drink with us, and then drive us to the next bar!” *Obnoxious laugh*

Me: “No, sir, I won’t do that.”

Rider: “Awww, come on! We’ll have fun together. Hey! You’ll call me when you break up with your boyfriend, right?”

Cripes…

I finally got to the bar and parked on the street to let him out. He took an annoyingly long time to exit my car.

Me: “Okay, sir, here we are. You have a good night, okay?”

Rider: *Not leaving the car* “Hey… hey… If you and your boyfriend don’t work out, you’ll call me, right? We’ll have a good time.”

I just wanted him out of my car.

Me: “Sure. Have a good night, sir.”

Rider: “Hey! Will you be my driver when I leave?”

Me: “If you call for a [Rideshare] and I’m still on duty, maybe.”

Not a chance, my dude.

Rider: “Oh, I hope so. Hey, you call me, okay?”

He finally opened the car door to leave.

Me: “Have a good night.”

I watched him cross the street to the bar and immediately rated him one star in the app, citing “Disrespectful, Conversation, and Other” as the reasons for my rating. I clocked out of the app and went home. That had done me in for the night.

Once I got home, I called my boyfriend and told him what happened. Though my boyfriend is an excellent fighter and enormous (muscle-wise), he’s a gentle giant and not violent in any way, nor does he have a temper, so I knew telling him about this guy wasn’t going to send him on an “I’m gonna find him and kick his a**!” rampage. He simply sighed heavily listening to my ordeal and agreed that this guy was totally out of line, and he said he thought I handled it well.

Then, I went back into the [Rideshare] app and officially reported the rider for sexual harassment. The help team responded a little while later saying that he had absolutely violated the Community Guidelines, and they temporarily suspended his account.

I was fairly certain that was an isolated event… but I did buy a dash cam the next day.