(I am a manager of a chain beauty store. I am sent to fill in at a location 50 miles from my home store. During the Christmas rush, a nervous customer places nearly $300 worth of merchandise on the counter, and requests a manager.)

Me: “Hi, you asked to see me? How can I help?”

Customer: “Umm… well, um… I need the employee discount.”

(Only managers are allowed to process employee purchases.)

Me: “Oh, of course! You have a great selection here!”

(At the end of the transaction, I ask for her employee I.D. so I can enter it into the system, to complete the purchase.)

Customer: “Oh, umm… I don’t work at THIS location… I was just recently hired. I don’t have a number yet! I work at the [My Home Store] store!”

Me: *faking cheerfulness* “Wow! What a coincidence! That is my store! I am just helping out here today. I don’t remember hiring you, though.”

(She looked like a deer caught in headlights for a few seconds, then bolted out. It took me a few moments to contain my laughter before I could get back to work.)

(I work at an adult store. For obvious reasons there are no returns, but we test everything before it leaves the store so someone can’t bring it back and claim it didn’t work. A customer comes in looking for something he and his wife can use together. I help him pick something and test it for him. An hour or so later, he comes back in.)

Man: “Yeah, can I return this? She wasn’t interested. We didn’t open it.”

Me: “…”

(A young woman, her daughter, and her mother come into the store. The two women stand at the courtesy desk and spend about ten minutes discussing lottery tickets. The little girl, who is about five, immediately runs around the store being a nuisance, knocking things over, and even hitting and kicking employees. Every time someone tries to get the women to pay attention to her, they just laugh about their “precious little [Little Girl].” Note that we’re in an area that is about 99% white.)

Young Woman: “We want games two through twenty.”

Manager: “Okay, that’ll be [price].”

Older Woman: “No, it won’t! That’s way too expensive!”

Little Girl: “Too expensive! Dirty n*****!”

(The whole storefront immediately falls silent. Another mother who is in my line covers her young son’s ears, looking at me, mouth agape in shock.)

Little Girl: “Dirty n*****! Dirty n*****!”

(My manager, who has been serving the two women, stares dumbstruck at them. They’re still looking at lottery games, discussing prices, completely oblivious to what the little girl is saying.)

Customer In My Line: *quietly* “Please, do something! This is horrible!”

(All the while, the little girl has been screaming even more racial slurs, getting progressively louder until she is shrieking. Finally the two women notice what she’s doing and her mother sprints over to her, smacking her across the face.)

Young Woman: “[Little Girl]! That is enough!”

Little Girl: *screaming at the top of her lungs* “YOU’RE A DIRTY N*****, TOO!”

(Her mother picks her up and runs out of the store. The older woman gives the lottery tickets one more look and then follows. The storefront is still frozen for another few moments.)

Manager: *loudly so people can hear her* “Excuse me, customers. I’d like to apologize for what just happened, and for our poor response. I hope no one was too offended or hurt, and if anyone would like to file a complaint, please follow me to the office.”

(One person follows her. She later told me the person was a neighbor of the women and didn’t complain, just empathized with my manager and explained that the whole family is incredibly racist and has a confederate flag in every window of their house. Thankfully, those people have never come back to the store.)

(We have an older regular customer who is notorious for peeling clearance stickers off of items and slapping them on full-priced merchandise. She does this primarily with cosmetic items. The dead giveaway is the fact she puts the stickers over the barcode, which we never do. Even if an item is clearanced, we still get full credit for it. We can’t get any credit if we simply ring it as an open department beauty item, which could be anything from professional hair care to cotton balls. She’s been caught shopping with a clearance sticker on each finger, looking for items to put them on, and she’s been caught opening big bags of candy and stuffing handfuls in her purse. Every time she gets caught, her defense is, “I didn’t do that!” and, “I don’t know!” and, “Those aren’t mine!” We warn everyone about our clearance policy routinely. The sticker is placed visibly on the front of the item, and the price is already adjusted in the system. If a mascara has a sticker on the front for $1.50, the register will scan it for that price. It’s VERY rare a price change gets by the head of the cosmetics department, and again, in order to receive proper credit and keep our inventory straight, we NEVER put stickers over the barcodes. One this particular occasion, the customer greets me and starts loading her stuff on the counter. I start scanning and sure enough, I find a pair of hair clips with a $1.49 clearance sticker over the barcode on the back of the package. I simply peel it off and scan the clips, which are a very popular style and not going to be discontinued anytime soon. They come out to $3.99, and I drop them in the bag before scanning her other items.)

Customer: *watching the transaction on register like a hawk* “Those clips were $1.49.”

Me: “No, they weren’t.”

Customer: *huffy* “Well, then, I don’t want them. I’m not paying that much.”

Me: “No problem.” *takes the item off* “Is this all for you today?”

Customer: “No, I want [most expensive Pack of Cigarettes] and I want it in this bag.”

(I grab the hair clips and stuff them in my pocket, as she’s also been known to stuff her rejected items in her purse when the cashier’s back is turned. I retrieve the costly cigarettes. They come out to about $7 and change, with tax. I also put it in the bag she requested.)

Customer: *takes her change after I finish the transaction, and roots around in her bags* “How much did this cost?” *shoves an item at me*

Me: *glances at her receipt and reads the price*

Customer: “Humph. What about this?”

Me: *does the same thing again*

Customer: “And just where are my cigarettes?”

Me: “In the bag you told me to put them in.”

Customer: *looks in said bag once more, mad that she couldn’t trip me up a fourth time, and proceeds to storm out the door*

Me: “Have a nice day!”

(We still can’t work out why she’ll buy our most expensive cigarettes, but paying full price for cosmetic items is just too much.)

(I work at my company’s in-house IT help desk. A few months ago we switched our mobile service provider, and now every employee only has limited — but combined — mobile data volume for their phone and laptop. Once the volume is used up, they get a text message informing them that their bandwidth is now reduced quite a bit. While every employee can order new gigabytes by simply replying to the notification, sending a simple text message to our provider, or checking a web portal, a member of our higher management seems to be too stressed out by this procedure one day and calls us.)

Me: *picking up phone* “Hello, this is [My Name]. How can I help you?”

Employee: “Yes, hello, my Internet is really slow. I already called [Provider] and they said I didn’t get a notification message because of some maintenance work. Now I can’t reply to the message and get new data volume.”

Me: “Ah, okay. No problem at all. You can also just send a text message saying, ‘[simple word],’ to [number]. Or use your phone to go to [Web Portal] to check your status and buy new data volume there.”

Employee: “But I didn’t get a message! Can’t you call [Provider] and tell them to send the notification message again?”

Me: *slightly irritated* “Um, like I said, you just need to text ‘[simple word]’ to [number] or check the webpage.”

Employee: *starting to get annoyed* ”No, no. I’m at a big event and right in the middle of a meeting. I can’t handle composing a whole message right now. Can’t you just call them and have them send me the notification again so that I can reply to it?”

Me: *a bit dumbfounded while processing that request* ”Well, um, like I said, you… could just send a text message yourself… right now.”

Employee: *in a slightly aggressive tone* “So, what you are telling me is that you refuse to call [Provider]? That you don’t want to call them?”

Me: *still in disbelief* “Well, of course I can call [Provider] for you, but that way you will still have to send a text message. The process on your end will pretty much be the same.”

Employee: “Great, just call them and let them send the notification again! Thanks.” *hangs up*

Me: “…”

(I wound up calling our provider and booking new data volume for the employee myself. Afterwards I wrote an email with detailed instructions on how to get new gigabytes yourself and sent it to the employee. With all the waiting in line, dealing with robots and the call center employee, and writing the email, I spent about 40 minutes on what could have been done with a simple text message in less than ten seconds.)