One driver who worked for the city bus company didn’t take any holiday; he just kept doing the same work (exact same routes and times) for years.

Eventually, he’d built up so much time off that he was forced to take some.

About a week into that driver’s forced PTO, I’m talking to a coworker.

Coworker: “Strange, my route has been so much easier this week.”

Me: “Huh. How come?”

Coworker: “I got like, half the usual number of passengers. Maybe lots of people are on vacation or something.”

Me: “Wait, don’t you usually drive the bus immediately behind [Driver On PTO]?”

Coworker: “Yeah… why?”

This prompted an investigation.

Turns out, the original driver had been signing out his bus, then parking it somewhere and reading the paper for eight hours. 

For… years.

My coworker found it easier to drive because he wasn’t picking up twice as many people as he was supposed to, as the replacement driver actually did his d*** job! That original driver was not only fired, but some kind of court action was taken.

When technology advanced, and buses got GPS, this s*** was no longer possible, but back then it was the wild days!

I’m riding the bus home from a routine ultrasound (baby’s fine). It’s off-peak hours, so there are maybe half a dozen people on board, and I’m eight months along, so I’m up at the front and get a nice, chatter-free, front-row seat for this.

The bus stops at a stop where two guys are waiting to get on. The first one to approach stops while he’s blocking the doorway, trapping the other guy on the sidewalk behind him.

Guy: *In doorway.* “Uh… hey, I lost my transfer…”

Driver: “Yeah, so?”

Guy: “I lost my transfer.”

Driver: “Your transfer is your responsibility, sir. For you, no transfer, no [transit] card, it is 3.75 to ride.”

Guy: “Yeah, I had a transfer. I just lost it.”

Driver: “No transfer, no [transit] card: 3.75.”

Guy: “See, I’m trying to get to [Street]?”

Driver: “This bus does not go to [Street].”

Guy: “Well, actually I’m trying to get to [Destination near street]?”

Driver: *Sigh of soul leaving body.* “You have any magic words?”

Guy: “I… what?”

Driver: “Magic words.”

Guy: “I… I don’t… uh…”

By this point, I’m covering a laugh while the guy diagonally behind me isn’t even trying to hide the fact that he’s snort-chortling. Probably has something to do with the rising panic on the doorway guy’s face.

Driver: “Magic words! Usually, people use them when they want something!”

Guy: “I… I don’t know. I, uh… What?”

Guy Trapped On Sidewalk Behind Him: “God! PLEASE AND THANK YOU!”

Guy: “Oh! Oh. Please, uh… and thank you?”

Driver: “Welcome aboard, sir!”

So, the guy in the doorway comes aboard and does a walk of shame back past me and everyone else, wearing a deer-in-headlights look that says he’s learning an important lesson about something. And the guy behind him gets to pay and ride on schedule.

I’m working in a sporting goods store a few years ago. A customer walks in and asks my coworker about some helmet options. They go back and forth a bit, then the customer seems shocked at the prices. They then turn to walk away.

Customer: “These are way too expensive for my needs!”

Coworker: “You know what else is expensive? Brain surgery.”

The customer did not purchase a helmet.

I’m working a quiet shift at the grocery store with one other cashier, a teenage girl at the next till. There’s hardly anyone in the building when a man walks up and stops between our two lanes.

He looks at her, then at me.

Customer: “No way I’m having a brown girl ring through my groceries.”

For a second, I honestly think I misheard him. I grew up in a big city until I was sixteen, and we moved to a small town. This is the first time I’ve ever heard such a vocally racist person (never witnessed anything like this in the city), so it really boggled my mind!

Me: “…Excuse me?”

Customer: “I said I’m not letting her touch my stuff.”

Me: “Then I can’t help you.”

Customer: “What?”

Me: “If you won’t be served by my coworker, you won’t be served here.”

He opens his mouth like he’s about to argue. I don’t wait. I turn off my light, step away from my register, and grab my jacket.

Me: “You’ll need to go to a different store.”

My coworker just shrugs and smiles. She’s obviously used to this kind of behavior, sadly.

He stands there in the middle of the checkout lanes with his cart, suddenly having no cashiers at all.

In a store in deep rural Alberta.

The next nearest grocery store was… not walking distance.

The look on his face when I pointed this out was great. The look on his face when my coworker pointed out that she is, in fact, First Nations, was even better.

I was a small-time, rural small-town computer tech support. I get a call from a regular customer saying they have no Internet and they want help.

I drive out to their acreage and belly up to one of their computers. Yep, no Internet connection.

Me: “I’ll call your Internet Service Provider for you and ask what’s going on. Can I see your latest bill to get your customer number with it?”

Customer: “We don’t have one.”

Me: “You don’t have a bill for me to see?”

Customer: “We never got one.”

Me: “Have you paid them?”

Customer: “We never got a bill.”

Me: “But … have you paid them?”

Customer: “We never got a bill.”

Me: “YOU call them. I’m outta here.”

For some reason, this customer thought that they could get a service and not need to pay for it because they never received a bill. Turns out they changed ISPs (Internet Service Provider), asking the new ISP to send the bills to the e-mail address they had with their old ISP’s domain, which was, of course, cancelled when they terminated that service.

Why the new ISP let e-mailed bills “bounce” without contacting the customer in any other way makes as much sense as the customer giving an invalid e-mail address.