I am showing an older gentleman some features on his smartphone.

Customer: “I bought this phone from one of your stores in Florida.”

Me: “That’s cool. How can I help you?”

Customer: “I’m visiting, and I don’t have a car here, so my son told me to download the local taxi app.”

Me: “I can help you with downloading the app from the app store.”

I bring up the app store.

Me: “Did he say what the name of the app was?”

Customer: “Uber.”

Me: “Oh, I can see that you already have Uber installed.”

Customer: “Yes, I installed it in Florida.”

Me: “Ah, then you’re all set. Did you need help logging in and learning how to use it?”

Customer: “I know how to use it! I just need to download the local one.”

Me: “What do you mean by ‘the local one’?”

Customer: “The local Uber!” 

Me: “Your Uber will work here.”

Customer: “But I downloaded that in Florida!” 

Me: “Yes, but it will still work here.”

Customer: “Are you serious?!”

Me: “Yes, I’m serious!”

Customer: “And if I call a taxi right now, how many hours is it gonna take for the driver to get all the way to here from Florida, huh? You’re a whole lotta stupid, you know that?”

He grabbed his phone and stormed off.

Via the cameras, I spot a customer taking a pair of sunglasses and sneaking them into their handbag. I wait at the checkouts to give them the benefit of the doubt, but sadly, they walk straight through without paying.

Me: “Ma’am, can I see what you have in your bag, please?”

Customer: “I have social anxiety!”

Me: “I understand. I just need to quickly look in your bag.”

Customer: “No! Your behavior is very triggering for me right now! You’re bringing up a lot of trauma!”

Me: “That’s not my intention, ma’am. I just need to quickly look in your bag.” 

Customer: “Why are you targeting me? Is it because I’m neurodivergent? Oh, my God, are you being ableist right now? So sad. You should do better.”

Me: “Ma’am, I am not trying to do anything else — literally anything else — other than look in your bag.” 

Customer: “Don’t call me ‘ma’am’! I’m non-binary! That’s offensive! Your language is very triggering!”

Me: “I apologize. But I still need to check your bag.” 

Customer: “But why?”

Me: “To be perfectly honest, because our camera caught you putting a pair of unpaid-for sunglasses into your bag, and I need to confiscate them.”

Customer: “Oh, my God! You were watching me?! Are you a creep? Is [Store] run by perverts?!”

Me: “Ma’am, please, just—”

Customer: “I’m non-binary!“

Me: “…Please just return the sunglasses. You’re lucky I am not calling the police and that I am simply asking for them back. Give them back, and we can both just walk away from this conversation.”

Customer: “You want to call the police?! You want them to shoot me?! I’m one-sixteenth Native, and they shoot people like me! Why are you being so racist?!”

Me: “Okay, I am done with you.” 

I motioned the security guys over, who kept them cornered until the police arrived. The police managed to get them to take the stolen sunglasses out of their bag — after the same run-around of social anxiety, trauma, ableism accusations, misgendering accusations, pervert accusations, and finally, racism accusations, in the exact same order. And then, the police escorted them out, not because they had stolen from us, but because we could all smell the alcohol on them and they had driven here.

A client calls to complain about a website that was pushed out months ago. Trying to diagnose the problem, I notice that the overall layout has changed.

Client: “No, the layout has not been changed. Everything’s just been better arranged.”

Me: “Well, the new layout seems to be the issue.”

Client: “What new layout?”

Our shop has a weird layout, and it makes more sense if you’re actually standing in it, but I don’t have the time or patience to try to describe the layout here. A customer comes up to me looking lost.

Customer: “Help! I am trying to find the cheese and dairy aisle, but I can’t find it for the life of me.”

Me: “Haha, I get it. This is a very big shop! Oh, that’s in aisle fourteen.”

Customer: “Thank you.” 

The customer looks up at the aisle numbers and looks puzzled.

Customer: “I can only see aisles five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, fifteen…” 

Me: “Yeah, our store is weird; the even-numbered aisles are behind you, around the corner.” 

Customer: “That’s very odd.”

Me: “Yeah, I—”

The customer is beaming at me.

Me: “Oh, haha. I fell for that one. Very good!”

Customer: “I was looking for the cheese, but the odds were against me.” 

Me: *Walking away* “Very good, sir!” 

Customer: “Thanks for even-ing everything out!”

Me: *Picking up the pace*

A father is in the store with his young son, maybe five or six. The father is engrossed with something on his phone while his son, bored out of his mind by the looks of things, starts trying to climb the shelves.

As soon as I realize the father is not about to notice, I head on over. I’m about forty feet away, so I start shouting as I make my way. 

Me: “Sir… Sir, your son!”

Father: *Looking at his phone* “He’s fine.”

Me: “Sir, that’s dangerous! He could injure himself.”

He looks at me and then back at his phone, but he’s still not looking at his son.

Father: “He’s fine. He’s right next to me.”

Me: “Technically correct, and about a foot above you.” 

The father snaps out of his doom-scrolling and looks down to where his son was, then over at the shelves, and then eventually… up.

Son: “Dad, look! I’m Spider-Man!”

The father leaps forward and grabs his son, safely carrying him down to the ground in time for my arrival.

Father: *Looking at me* “Shut up. No need to say it.” *To his son* “We’re going.”

He grabs his son and starts storming out of the store.

Son: “That was so cool! Mom never lets me play Spider-Man!”