(I work at a very popular thrift store. One day, our Wi-Fi goes out so we can’t use our computers. This means that while we wait for the Internet providers to fix it, we have to write up all the receipts by hand and can only take cash. There are signs on the door when you walk in, on each register, and all over the store. My manager makes announcements every 15 minutes, and I apologize to each customer for the inconvenience. But even with all that, this happens multiple times.)

Me: “All right, now that I’ve added in the tax, your total will be [amount].”

Customer: *pulls out a card and tries to hand it to me*

Me: “Um, we can only take cash right now.”

Customer: “Really? Are you sure?”

Me: “Positive.”

Customer: “Well, I really wish someone would’ve told me beforehand.”

Me: “…”

(Also, while most customers are very understanding, patient, and nice about the situation, I still have a couple of these.)

Customer: “Well, this is just very bad business. You need to fix this immediately.” *leaves in an angry huff*

Me: “Oh, sure. Let me just grab my trusty screwdriver and fix the Wi-Fi. I’ll have it up and running in no time.”

(At my store, if a customer wants to do a return, we have to pay them back the way they originally paid for it. A woman and her daughter come in to return a bra.)

Customer: “I’d like to return this.”

Me: “All right.” *scans receipt and bra* “You’ll be getting back $5.18, and you paid with card, so that’s how we’ll give it back. Please insert your card when it asks.”

Customer: “But I don’t have the card.”

Me: “Well… I’m not supposed to do the return without the card—”

Customer: *cuts me off before I can tell her I’ll still do cashback* “WELL, Y’ALL ARE GONNA GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK! WHERE IS YOUR MANAGER?!”

Me: *signals to the manager to come over* “We may still be able to give it back in cash since it’s a small amount. But next time, please try to have your card so that we can do the return properly.”

Customer: “NEXT TIME Y’ALL ARE JUST GONNA GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK REGARDLESS OF IF I HAVE MY CARD OR NOT BECAUSE I BROUGHT IT IN WITH THE RECEIPT!”

Me: *ignores her yelling to ask for the go-ahead from my manager, though now I have an attitude, as well*

Manager: “It’s fine.”

(My manager tries to calm the woman down because she’s still yelling through the whole thing and even stays after I’ve handed her the money to give us “a piece of her mind” so we’ll “know how to properly run a business.”)

Customer: “…and you’d better not ever try to take my money again! You need to change that policy because it’s bulls***! And next time—”

Me: *fed up after hearing her rant for the past five minutes and slams my hand on the counter* “LOOK! We don’t make the rules, so you continuously yelling at us over five dollars isn’t going to change what corporate decided.”

Customer: “I didn’t say anything about you making the rules! I’m just saying—”

Manager: *cuts her off, sighing* “Ma’am, it’s just store policy. You’ve been shouting for well over five minutes now. We went against store policy and gave you the money back. Can you just drop it?”

Customer: *walks to the toy section with her daughter still loudly going on about how she hates our policy*

Customer #2: *walks up and sets her stuff down rolling her eyes* “I promise I won’t be difficult like that.”

Me: *smiles* “Thank you.”

(Yes, I admit I could’ve handled that better; I lost my temper, and raised my voice. But after dealing with customers like her for nearly a year and getting yelled at earlier that day because our computers shut down, I just had little patience for getting yelled at for five minutes straight over a policy I didn’t make, especially after I had already broken the rules for her.)

(I work for an Internet marketing company. I provide a variety of Internet marketing products to a variety of clients, but I do not speak to the customers directly. That aspect of the job is handled by an account manager. This is a conversation between myself and one of my account managers. It is important to note — for this story — that both the account manager and his supervisor are African American. The customer in question owns a music store.)

Assistant Manager: “So, [Client] asked me to remove all images of African American people from his site and the marketing products and replace them with images of ‘beautiful Caucasian women with blonde hair.’”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?!”

Assistant Manager: “Yeah, it was an awkward phone call. He feels that black people don’t represent his customer base or his business.”

Me: “Does he… Does he think that black people don’t play instruments?”

Assistant Manager: “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Me: “I’ll just remove all images of people in general and we can tell him that we didn’t have enough stock images featuring ‘Aryan’ women playing instruments.”

Assistant Manager: *dies laughing*

(The account manager took the request to his supervisor — again, also a black person — who told us to just make the changes to avoid an escalation. I wonder if the client knows that a large portion of the people he works with at this company are not white?)

(I am serving two elderly ladies. There is a senior special available on weekdays, but they are concerned that this is going to be too big a portion for them, so they are asking for recommendations.)

Me: “Well, I recommend the fish goujon starter to come as a main. It comes with a little salad, you could have some chips to share if you wanted, but the senior special comes with the dessert.”

Elderly Lady #1: “Oh! Fish goujons! That’s like them things you like, them, er… them chicken condoms!”

(I try not to react to her words because it is busy and I am almost sure I misheard her. Her friend speaks up.)

Elderly Lady #2: *to me* “Don’t worry, dear; that’s just what I call them.”

(I feel the blood rush to my cheeks and the ladies notice my reaction, but I can’t contain my giggles.)

Elderly Lady #1: “Oh, look, she’s blushing!”

Elderly Lady #2: “You’d think we were sex addicts, wouldn’t you?”

(At this I almost lost it, because about fifteen seconds before, honest to God, they were the kindest, sweetest ladies you could meet. We all had a giggle, so I put the order in and broke down with laughter in the kitchen. When I took their food, they brought it up again and I started up again. I never, ever expected it, but they were very self-aware about what they were saying!)

(My young children take swimming lessons at the local YMCA. The lessons are held from 7:00 to 8:00, and I always take them out for a quick meal beforehand at a diner. My kids finish their dinners before me, so while I polish off the rest of my food, my younger daughter amuses herself by asking me for pennies and dropping them into her half-full water glass. I don’t mind, because it is keeping her quiet, and I have every intention of removing the pennies from the glass before we leave, since I don’t want to leave them for the server to deal with. Then, I realise to my dismay that it is getting late.)

Me: “Oh, dear! We’d better get going, girls.”

(I stuff the last bite into my mouth, grab a $5 bill, and leave it on the table for a tip. We dash out to the car…)

Daughter: “Mummy, here, you forgot this.” *hands me the $5 bill*

Me: “Oh, no, honey, that was meant for our server. Quick, let’s run back into the restaurant and give it to her.”

(As we re-entered the diner, I realized two things. One, I’d forgotten to remove the pennies from my daughter’s water glass. Two, our poor server was looking at the pennies in dismay, thinking that they were her tip, and wondering what on earth she’d done to deserve that! I apologized profusely for the pennies and gave her the $5.)