(I work in a national chain coffee shop similar to the one with the mermaid logo; we have a rewards app similar to theirs, although neither the app nor our store look the same in concept or design. A customer comes in who has been coming in pretty regularly the past couple of weeks. The first time I saw her, she recognized my boss and had a lengthy conversation with him, so it’s somewhat fair to assume she’s not unfamiliar with our cafe.)

Customer: *pulling out her phone to show me* “I have a free drink with you guys.”

Me: *instantly realizing it isn’t our application* “Um, I’m not sure that that’s our app.”

Customer: *condescendingly* “Yes, it issss!”

Me: “Are you sure? Would you mind taking it to the home page or something really quickly so I could verify?”

(The customer proceeds to exit out of the app, and I see on her screen she has the app for our competitor, which is what she presses on.)

Me: “Yeah, that’s not for this store.”

Customer: *in the same tone as before* “Yes, it issss!”

Me: “Uh, no, this is for [Competitor]. You’re at [My Cafe].”

Customer: “Yes, that’s right.”

Me: “Right, so, it doesn’t work here.”

Customer: “Why not?”

Me: “Um… Because it’s for [Competitor]. Again, we’re [My Cafe]. It doesn’t apply here.”

Customer: “Well, why not?!”

Me: *completely baffled that she hasn’t understood* “Because that’s the application for [Competitor] and it does not work here, because we are [My Cafe].”

Customer: “I don’t understand the difference!”

Me: “It’s for [Competitor], which is not our company. We are a totally separate company, completely unaffiliated with them, and we have a totally different application. Again, that’s for [Competitor], and that’s why we can’t accept it.”

Customer: “Oh! This isn’t [Competitor]?”

(She left after this. I’m still confused how she knew my boss so well and had been coming fairly consistently, yet didn’t realize this entire time that we were a totally different company. Our logos, design, concept, menu, and even colour scheme are completely different. Sadly, this is pretty common!)

(I work twelve-hour shifts in registration in a very busy emergency department. I’ve just walked into work and we are currently experiencing downtime with our system, so I have to manually enter patients in with the correct spelling and date of birth, or the system will reject them. A patient comes up to me to check in.)

Patient: “I need to be seen by the doctor.”

Me: “Okay, I just need your first and last name.”

Patient: *speaking extremely low* “Dara Smith.”

Me: “Okay, did you say Dara?”

Patient: “No, I said Da-ra-thy.”

Me: “So, is that Dorothy?”

Patient: “No, Dorothy has no syllables; my name has three.”

Me: “Okay, can you spell your first name for me?”

Patient: “I can’t believe you don’t know how to spell Do-ra-thy.”

Me: “Is it just the traditional spelling of Dorothy? D-O-R-O-T-H-Y?”

Patient: “Yes.” *shaking her head*

Me: “Okay, ma’am, the way you are saying it makes it sound like there is an A in there somewhere. But I have you checked in, so take a seat and they will call you up shortly.”

Coworker: “And we still have eleven hours to go with this s***.”

(I work at a well-known baby retailer. Guests can return items bought off of their registry. The item will come back at whatever price was paid for it by the gift giver. After returning a baby gate that was given to the customer at her baby shower, she walks over to me.)

Customer: “The price for the gate came back at $19.99; it’s a sixty-dollar gate. I don’t understand.”

(I know she returned it off of her baby registry, because I walked past as the transaction occurred.)

Me: “The prices come back at the price that was paid for it, not exactly the price that is listed. If you want, I can pull up an electronic receipt seeing why there is a huge price difference. Most likely, the gate was on sale or she had stackable coupons. Let me take a look.”

Customer: *looking very frustrated* “I don’t understand! It’s a sixty-dollar gate!”

(I pull up the receipt online, and it shows the gift giver purchased the gate not only on sale, but had multiple coupons that brought the gate down to the $19.99 price.)

Me: “Looks like she got a great deal here; she managed to use coupons and get a sale price. Were you looking to exchange the gate? Was something wrong with it?”

Customer: “I’m just going to purchase a new gate. I didn’t use the old one. Uh, thanks.”

(She walks off, seeming to understand how the system works. Thirty minutes later, she walks up to the service desk with an $89.99 gate.)

Customer: “This is ridiculous that I have to pay out of pocket for this gate. I should’ve gotten full price for the other one!”

(The cashier calls me over to see if I can fix the situation. At my store we have a “say yes to the guest” policy. No matter how wrong the guest is, or how outrageous the request, we’re obligated to make sure the guest leaves happy.)

Me: “I’m sorry this happened. Let me fix this in the computer so you can have an even exchange.”

(I then adjust the price so that even though there is a price difference, she will not pay out of pocket for anything.)

Customer: “You did not have to do that. That’s not what I wanted. It’s just ridiculous that I would’ve had to pay out of pocket. That doesn’t make sense; you should probably fix your system because I am not happy!” *storms out still mumbling*

(I later received an email from my district manager saying I had pissed off a guest enough to where she called customer service to file a complaint. She demanded compensation for her time and for dealing with “such stupidity.”)

(After work one night, I quickly run to the supermarket to pick up some things. Since I only have a few items, I go to the line for the express checkout for ten items or less. While the cashier checks out the lady in front of me, a woman and her daughter come up with a loaded trolley, full to the brim with groceries and start piling it onto the belt behind me. The cashier, looking tired and clearly at the end of a long day, notices and visibly winces but says nothing.)

Me: *catching her eye and grins* “Do you want me to tell them?”

Cashier: “Oh, no, it’s fine! I can just fire it through quickly. It won’t take long, and they’ve already put half of it on; it’d be too much of a hassle.”

Me: “I worked retail through university. I had to deal with people who didn’t read huge obvious signs all the time; I would really like to tell them.”

(The cashier insists that it’s fine; she can do it quickly while it’s not busy. Not wanting to cause her trouble, I say nothing while the mother carries on without paying attention to what’s going on. When I pay for my things, she smiles when she hands me the receipt and leans in.)

Cashier: “Thank you for the offer, anyway; it’s nice when people speak up and pay a little attention.”

(Little shows of solidarity do go a long way.)

(I’m at a quick-service Mexican restaurant for dinner. I’m not able to finish my meal in one sitting, so I decide to go up to the counter to ask for a to-go container. I was told when I first ordered that some of the equipment used to prepare the food isn’t working properly; one of the stovetops won’t turn on, and as a result the employees are forced to do some of their cooking on the heated tortilla presser. Obviously this means that orders take considerably longer to make than usual. When I get up to the counter, there’s a couple — a man and a woman — ordering. The woman taking the order explains the situation to them, and they say:)

Male Customer: “That’s fine. We’ll have two burritos, please.”

(Because she can’t cook the tortillas on the stovetop like she normally would, she has to press each tortilla and wait for each one to heat up on the presser individually, which takes a little while. The woman behind the counter apologizes profusely for the wait throughout, and each time, both the man and the woman say:)

Male & Female Customer: “It’s fine; don’t worry about it.”

(Once the tortillas are both ready, she asks:)

Employee: “Do you want any rice or beans on your burritos?”

Male Customer: “I want rice and black beans.”

Female Customer: “I just want rice.”

(She puts the rice and beans on the tortillas, and asks:)

Employee: “What kind of meat do you want?

Male Customer: “I want steak.”

Female Customer: “I don’t want a burrito.”

Employee: “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have misheard you, ma’am. Did you want something else?”

Female Customer: “No, I just changed my mind. I don’t want anything anymore.”

(The woman behind the counter was forced to throw out the tortilla with the rice into the trash. Wasted ingredients, wasted time. And that’s the story of how it took me nearly ten minutes to get a to-go container.)