Our store manager is one of the worst people I’ve ever met. A new cashier starts. She is seventeen, nervous, and three shifts into the job. She’s also just found out she’s pregnant and has horrible morning sickness.

Mid-shift, she’s in the bathroom next to the break room, loudly vomiting. The manager and I both hear it. 

She comes out pale and shaking.

Cashier: “I’m really sorry… can I please go home? I can’t keep anything down.”

The manager doesn’t even look sympathetic.

Manager: “If you’re not back here in thirty minutes with a doctor’s note, don’t bother coming back at all.”

The girl bursts into tears, runs out of the store, and, unsurprisingly, never comes back.

A few years later, after I was thankfully let go myself, I heard what finally happened to that manager:

She was escorted out of the store in handcuffs for financial fraud.

Some people get the ending they earn.

Related:
A Sickening Lack Of Empathy

I have the female ♀ symbol tattooed on two of my fingers. A customer notices as I am checking them out.

Customer: “Isn’t that the symbol for women?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Customer: “You have it twice.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Customer: “Does that mean you’re a lesbian?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Customer: “Oh. Well, you’re fine with me. I choose to hate the sin, not the sinner.”

She beams proudly, as if she’s said something selfless and charitable.

Me: “Oh, I’m the same way, ma’am. I hate the belief, love the believer.”

Her expression soured completely after that…

I work the opening/early shift at my store. I am waiting for my closing/late shift coworkers to come in, but they’re running late. All of them.

Me: “[Boss], can I go home? My shift finished, and—”

Boss: “No, we need at least one person manning the checkouts until the closing crew arrives.”

Me: “But they’re late. They’re all late, always.”

Boss: “Chill, [My Name]. Enjoy having the extra hours.”

Me: “No, because I have a bus to catch and it’s once every hour. If I miss it, I have to wait a whole other hour in the cold, and I’d rather stick to my schedule.”

Boss: “Just wait until they get in.”

This kept happening. I decided that since the boss wasn’t going to do anything about it (and we had self-checkouts), one shift, I just closed up and left on time.

Apparently, all the customers started to complain to the boss that there was no one around to help. The boss tried to write me up for it, but I said:

Me: “You can’t write me up for not working involuntary overtime. Either change the shifts to allow the late shift workers to come in earlier and overlap with mine, or punish them for coming in late. I won’t be staying late anymore.”

The boss looked angry but knew he had no solid argument. My coworkers come in on time now.

My husband and I are announcing our pregnancy to both sets of parents at a family gathering. My parents are overjoyed. My mother-in-law, not so much…

Mother-In-Law: “You’re adopted, right?”

Me: “Yes, you know that.”

She brings it up all the time, like she thinks she can sling mud with it. It bothers her how unbothered I am about it.

Mother-In-Law: “Well, since nobody knows where you came from, aren’t you afraid of what could be wrong with your baby?”

Me: “Excuse me?!”

My Parents: “Are you being serious?!”

Mother-In-Law: “What?! She has no heritage, so it’s a risk!”

Husband: “Mom, considering how much you drink and that you take so many antidepressants, you rattle, I’m going to take my chances that our child turns out more like my wife than like you. Now, are you going to be happy for us or are you going to leave?”

She left.

Our daughter is now almost a year old. Mother-in-Law has met her precisely once.

My high school algebra teacher asked me to hang back after class.

Teacher: “I’m convinced you cheated on the last test, so I’m failing you.”

Me: “What?! I didn’t cheat!”

Teacher: “You got almost every question correct, but you didn’t show any of your work. You must have copied the answers from somewhere. Tell me where.”

Me: “I did them in my head.”

Teacher: “What?!”

Me: “I did the algebra in my head.”

Teacher: “You can’t do algebra in your head.”

Me: “No, you can’t do algebra in your head.”

That was probably not the best response, but I was angry. I made a complaint to the principal, via my parents. When I demonstrated that I could complete a new algebra question in front of them without writing down my work, the teacher was forced to give me my passing grade.