(This is my second month working at a large coffee chain, and its a rather slow night when we have someone pull into the drive-thru.)

Me: “Welcome to [Coffee Shop] my name is [my name] what can I get for you this evening?”
Customer: “I want a Red Bull.”
Me: “I’m sorry sir, we don’t carry that drink. Can i offer you something else?”
Customer: “No. I want a Red Bull. I know you guys sell them, I come through this drive-thru everyday.”
(At this point my manager has walked out of the back room with her own headset on, listening.)
Me: “I’m very sorry sir, but we have never sold Red Bull, we do however have [company drink] which is also an energy drink, and comes in different flavors.”
Customer: NO! I CAME HERE YESTERDAY AND YOU SOLD ME A RED BULL AND THAT’S WHAT I WANT! STOP LYING TO ME!”
(At this point I’m not sure what else I can do and my manager takes over the order for me.)
Manager: “Sir, I have worked here for 9 years and we have never sold that drink. I assure you [my name] is not lying to you. I will gladly make you any other drink you would like.”
(After roughly 5 minutes she finally has hi convinced we don’t carry red bull, and he orders a different drink and pulls up to the window.)
Me: “Alright sir, that will be $3.75. (He hands me his card and I run it but it comes up declined.) “I’m very sorry sir, but it says your card has been declined. Do you have another form of payment?”
Customer: “NO! I don’t have another form of payment, and there’s no way my card declined! I used it to buy a red bull here yesterday!”
(I call for my manager and she attempts to calm the man and offers him the drink on the house hoping to get him to leave. The customer takes the drink from her hand and dumps it on the ground between them and drives off.)
Me: “Has he ever been here before?”
Manager: “Never.”

(A couple enters the furniture store where I work. They are older folks, and they say they are looking for many things. I give them a very short version of the floor layout and ask them if it is all right for me to check on them sometimes to make sure their questions are answered. They say this is fine. The first time I check on them, the very friendly husband asks me some questions, and I answer them and then dismiss myself to allow them to keep looking in peace. The second time I check on them, the husband finds a very nice oak CD rack and asks me if we have anything more narrow. I tell him I might, and that I’ll check around the store and catch up to them in a few minutes. I dismiss myself after answering another question of his about a table. I find an item that matches the description of the oak CD rack, but I cannot find the husband for the life of me. I see the wife walking by and go to inform her that I’ve found it.)

Me: “Oh, ma’am, about that item your husband was looking–”

Woman: “Look, I didn’t come here to chat! I came here to just look!”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Woman: “Well, you did!’

Me: “Just trying to feed my children, ma’am.”

(With that, I looked down at the floor, turned on my heel, and walked away pitifully. It had the desired effect — I don’t even have kids — and the customer lost all of her zeal, looked down at the floor, and walked straight out of the store in shame. Maybe she’ll think twice from now on before she explodes on another retail salesperson for no reason at all.)

(I work as an expediter at a famous restaurant chain. Guests can request fries to be salt-free if they have an allergy.)

Server: “Hey, I need you guys to make this pound of fries no-salt. She says she has allergies.”

Me: “Can you find out what her allergy is?”

(The server leaves and then returns, smirking.)

Server: “She says the doctor diagnosed her with seasonal allergies. So no seasoning on any of her food.”

(I’m in a convenience store perusing the aisles when a couple of middle-aged blonde women walk down the aisle I’m on. I’m pretty sure they are tipsy, and they’re talking really loudly in thick southern accents… but I am in a good mood and they are all smiles and giggles, so I can’t bring myself to be annoyed. I see them staring at coffee brands before I walk to the next aisle over, and I can hear them on the other side of the aisle trying to sort out what coffee brand they should buy.)

Lady #1: *after a couple of minutes of loudly discussing it with her friend* “We should call someone over here to help. I can’t decide.”

Me: *snickers to myself as her friend starts bellowing*

Lady #2: “Blondes in aisle twelve need service! Blondes in aisle twelve need service, over!”

Me: *from opposite the rack on the adjacent aisle, in my best official mock-intercom voice* “Customer service suggests that the blondes on aisle twelve chose the [Brand], over.”

(They burst into laughter asking one another who the heck had said that. Meanwhile, I walked down the aisle with a grin on my face, and one of the employees told me that they ought to hire me for customer service. Made my day, and the women’s day, too.)

Anchorage, Alaska experienced a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on the morning of November 30th, 2018. There was significant damage to infrastructure, roads, and buildings, but no collapses, and only a few older buildings have been deemed unsafe. No deaths reported! 72 hours after the major destruction of some of our main highways, they are back in commission, paved and striped. All the recovery efforts are simply amazing.

Stories have poured in thanking our amazing engineers and workers of the Alaska Department of Transportation getting our roads safe and fixed, the utility workers for going 24 hours a day to get us back on the grid and get us safe drinking water, and our first responders for a quick and calm emergency response.

But I’d like to take a minute to thank the gas station attendants who stayed at their jobs right after the quake to service the hundreds of panicked people filling up on gas before attempting the four- to five-hour trip home — a normal commute of 30 to 45 minutes — to Eagle River and the Mat-Su Valley. I would like to heartily thank the hundreds of grocery store clerks who stayed that day to keep the stores open, and who put in countless hours to clean up warehouses of glass and spills so that we could go in and get bread, water, and necessities — like deli sandwiches and any wine that survived the shake-up. And I want to thank the baristas who showed up at five am the day after, who held down the shaking syrup bottles through the many, many, many aftershocks and kept smiles on their faces. I just cannot even.

I would like to extend my enormous gratitude to the store clerks at our local True Value Hardware who swept most of the mess into a roped-off corner and opened early the next day because, “People are going to need to fix stuff up, and they need us open, not picture perfect.” At the same store, my husband witnessed a clerk scolding a fellow for trying to buy more than one set of water heater hoses saying, “Do you have multiple water heaters?” The fellow responded by shaking his head. The clerk asked, “Are you helping your neighbors?” The fellow sullenly shook his head in the negative again. The clerk said firmly, “Then I’ll only be selling you the one set; there are going to be a lot of people needing those today.”

To the cheerful diner waitress who kept our coffee topped up the day after this crazy event, to the artisans who forged ahead with a holiday craft show because people needed to have some cheer, to the musicians and actors who said that the show must go on… thank you a thousand times. THANK YOU.