(This takes place over the phone:)

Customer: “Hi, can you tell me which side of the street your store is on?”

Me: “Absolutely, we’re on the west side.”

Customer: “Is that on the left or the right?”

Me: “That depends on which direction you’re coming from. Are you coming from the North end or the South end?”

Customer: “I don’t know!”

Me: “Well, will you come through [major Southern intersection] or [major Northern intersection]?”

Customer: “How the h*** am I supposed to know? Look, is it on the left or the right? What is so hard about this?”

Me: “If it helps, we’re in the same plaza as [Chain Restaurant], and across the street from [Chain Store].”

Customer: “No, that does NOT help! I’m new to the area!”

Me: “Do you have a GPS? I could give you the address to plug in.”

Customer: “I don’t need a GPS! I have a great sense of direction!”

(Our library policy is that you must either provide your library card or a form of photo ID to check out items or use a computer. A patron comes in, selects a few DVDs, and comes up to the front counter.)

Patron: “And I don’t have my library card or my ID, so just look me up by my last name.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but we’re going to need either your library card or your photo ID to check out your items.”

Patron: “You know who I am! I’m in every day! Why can’t you just check me out?”

Me: “I’m sorry; it’s our policy.”

Patron: *points at a new coworker who has only been working a few weeks at this point* “Well, SHE checks me out all the time without my card! Isn’t that right?”

Coworker: *deer-in-headlights look* “Uh…”

Me: “I’m afraid it’s against our policy. Would you like me to hold your DVDs for you, and you can check them out the next time you come in with your card?”

Patron: *angrily throws the DVDs across the counter at me* “Never mind!” *storms out*

(The coworker was apologetic, saying she’d never seen this woman before and had no idea what she’s talking about. Sadly, this isn’t the first time someone has used the “but so-and-so lets me check out without a card” excuse, and it’s unlikely to be the last…)

(I work in an eye doctor’s office, selling eyeglasses. This happens entirely too often.)

Customer: “Do you take my insurance?”

Me: ” Well, what’s your insurance?”

Customer:” I don’t know…”

Me: “Well, do you have your card on you?”

Customer: ” No, why would I need that?”

(The building where I used to work 10 years ago contained several restaurants; you could walk through some of them to get to the others. The restaurant next to ours has a few slot machines, which are on the “border” between the two places. Our break room is next to the machines. One day, one of the gamblers gets angry about not winning again. This time, he takes it out on us.)

Gambler: “Hey, keep quiet! I can’t hear the slot properly!”

Coworker: “Ehm… what?”

(Some of these gamblers seem to think that, if you listen very carefully, you can hear a click which tells you when to push the “stop”-button. Apart from the fact that this is nonsense, there is always noise in the restaurants.)

Gambler: “You guys are making way too much noise, with all your talking and laughing in there! Come on! Get a life!”

Coworker: “Are you seriously telling us to get a life, just because we have a nice chat while on break? We’re not the ones sitting behind a gambling machine all day, wasting our time and money.”

(I work at a movie theater as an usher and part of my job is cleaning after the movie is out. There are only three boys of around 10-13 years in one of the screens and we’re all already pretty suspicious, as all of them bought our jumbo buckets of popcorn.)

Coworker: “I bet they’re gonna throw the popcorn.”

Me: “Yep, definitely.”

(As we keep an eye on the monitors behind our tills, we see some popcorn flying.)

Me: “Knew it.”

(I rush to the screen, enter the room, and watch the boys throw their popcorn at the screen. As the movie finishes I stand in front of the closed door, two vacuums beside me.)

Me: *sweetly* “Well, since you’re having so much fun, would you mind helping me clean the mess you made?”

Boy #1: “Are you f****** insane?”

Boy #2: “Yeah. It’s your job to clean, b****!”

(The third boy keeps nodding and empties the rest of his bucket in front of my feet.)

Me: “Well… it is my job indeed. But you know, I was kind enough to watch you throw that popcorn for almost two hours, when I could have kicked you out immediately. So either you start cleaning now, or you will never ever step into our theater again. I don’t know you or your parents, but since I’ve seen you coming here pretty often, I think you would want to use our service again, am I right?”

Boy #1: “I’m gonna complain to your boss! I’ll get you fired! You are just too stupid to do your own job, b****!”

(They start vacuuming the whole screen. I let them do every row and follow them back out. They rush towards a woman who seems to be one of the boy’s mother.)

Boy #3: “She made us clean the entire screen! Get her fired now, Mom! She’s crazy! She made me f****** clean everything!”

Me: “Excuse me, miss. Those boys were alone and started throwing popcorn everywhere. I’m wondering if they ate anything out of their 21€ purchase. I made them vacuum everything since the theater was clean before and I do not clean after such rude customers if I see what’s happening.”

Boy #3: “See! This b**** made us do her f****** job!”

Mother: “Oh, really?” *looking at me* “Thank you. I guess they needed that. Boys, shut up or you’ll never go to the movies again!”

(This mother’s reaction really made my day and I saw her get back at the still-pissed boys outside of the cinema. Never felt so good to see a kid put back in its place.)