(I HATE my job and am only going in order to continue to be able to pay my bills. I’m looking for something else that pays similarly, as I’m actually making above minimum. It’s a sunny afternoon moving into early evening, and there are three of us in the store: me, a coworker who smokes, and the unbalanced kitchen manager, who is technically higher ranked than us but also not our boss. My coworker has just stepped out for a smoke and I have just finished a task that required the step ladder, which is typically kept in the far back corner of the kitchen. As I am moving to the kitchen to put the ladder away, I see the front door open out of the corner of my eye. I call out to the kitchen manager that I’ll be right back to properly put the ladder up and whip around to the registers, a good six feet away on a slightly raised platform. The intrusion was my coworker and as I’m moving back to the kitchen to finish with the step ladder, it comes sailing at me from the kitchen door. I leap back and it clatters harmlessly to the floor, but I am badly shaken.)

Me: “What the f***, [Kitchen Manager]?! I said I’d take care of it.”

(I am so shaken, I actually don’t remember if he responded, or how. He leaves for the night soon after. A few days later, the store’s general manager arrives at my apartment to give me a lift into work, as he insists on scheduling me before the buses start for the day.)

General Manager: “So, [My Name], I heard there was an incident with [Kitchen Manager] the other night.”

(I’m unsure where he’s going with this, and I’m already uncomfortable with him because he’s my boss and I have some fear issues with authority figures and this guy has already proven to be unreliable.)

Me: *cautiously* “Yeah.”

General Manager: “Well, how could you have handled that better?”

(I am stunned enough that I respond in a manner much unlike my normal self with management.)

Me: “Besides call the police because that was attempted assault?!”

(At this point, my general manager started spluttering, shocked that I had reached that very logical conclusion. He began to try to placate me, telling me that it wasn’t [Kitchen Manager]’s fault, that he hadn’t been taking his medication for a while. I let him know that that wasn’t an excuse and then, fortunately, we were at our store and I ended the conversation by walking away to clock in. In the end, the kitchen manager was let go, but unfortunately, that was well after I quit for a job that paid about $1 less per hour.)

I finally got to see my favorite band in March. My fiancé and I drove three hours to do so. We left home late and had to go straight to the concert. We called the hotel to let them know we’d be there after the concert. The receptionist said no problem, even though the website said reservations wouldn’t be held after a certain time. I pointed that out and asked if she needed my information to pass on so I wouldn’t have trouble later. She assured me it would be no trouble. 

Lo and behold! When we arrived, there were “no rooms.” After waiting thirty exhausting minutes in the lobby and watching an obvious hookup walk through the lobby a few times, the front desk manager found us a room. We trudged around to the elevator, which was stained, dimly lit, and damaged. 

We found the room pretty easily. I wish we hadn’t. 

•   The door was loose on its hinges and had obvious fire damage on the inside.
•   There was a vacuum just inside the room, propped up on the wall next to the bathroom.
•   The cord was torn and the dumb thing couldn’t stay upright on its own. We put it in the hall.
•   The tub in the bathroom was stained. The dryer was hanging off the wall and was obviously not functional.
•   The carpet in the room was cigarette burned, as was the duvet on the bed.
•   The bolts holding the TV down were loose and scraped. The nightstand was broken — badly.
•   The brightest lighting was barely more than a streetlamp. 
•   The air conditioning unit was broken.
•   There were dirt and dust everywhere. 

We did not stay for more than five minutes, and the only reason we stayed as long as we did was so I could charge my cell phone, which had been taking pictures all night, naturally. 

We asked the desk to refund our money and were told the manager would have to handle it in the morning. 

Of course, we left immediately.

(I am a 16-year-old that suffers from a bone tumor in my pelvic bone. This has prevented me from walking long distances. When this story takes place, I am just about to have my first surgery out of three. We are in a famous retail store and I am in a scooter as I am under strict doctor orders to not walk. I am looking at some dresses when a lady in her fifties marches up and the following happens:)

Lady: “I didn’t know that being lazy was a handicap. Get up. I need to use that.”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m not lazy. I am three days away from undergoing a–”

Lady: “SHUT UP! YOU ARE JUST A LAZY B**** THAT DOESN’T KNOW WHEN TO SHUT UP! EITHER GET OUT YOURSELF OR I WILL GET YOU OUT MYSELF!”

Me: “I wish you luck with that. If you touch me, I will press charges. My family is close with [Sheriff]. My mom grew up with him and my dad is a deputy. So, either leave me alone or I will press charges for harassment.”

Lady: “You liar! I’ll sue you when I hurt myself!”

Me: “Ma’am, I am a 16-year-old going to high school to become a lawyer; you can’t sue me. Even if you could, my uncle is a lawyer and will be very happy to hear how you are trying to force me out of my chair as well as harassing me. He will have a field day when he hears about this.”

(The lady sputters and walks away. I drive back to my parents and tell them what happened. They are happy to hear that I stood up for myself as I normally am the person that lets people walk all over me. When we go to pay, the lady storms up to us with the manager. The manager is friends with my family and goes to church with us, so he knows us well.)

Lady: “THERE SHE IS! SHE SHOVED ME OFF THE SCOOTER AND CUSSED AT ME WHEN I ASKED FOR IT BACK! I DEMAND SHE BE ARRESTED FOR ASSAULT!”

Manager: “[My Name], what happened?”

Me: “I was looking at dresses when she demanded that I get out of my scooter. When I told her no, she threatened to throw me off herself.”

Lady: “LIAR! LIAR! SHE’S JUST A STUPID CHILD THAT HASN’T GOTTEN A GOOD BEATING!”

Manager: “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave; you have threatened this minor and you won’t stop screaming. Either leave or I will call the police!”

Lady: “I WON’T LEAVE! I’LL GIVE HER THE BEATING THAT SHE DESERVES BUT NEVER GOT!”

(The lady jumped at me and started to slap me. My dad quickly restrained her while the manager called the police. She was thrown in jail for a couple of years. The funny thing was, she tried to press charges on my dad for assault, but when her lawyers saw the video, they laughed her out of the building. I am doing fine now, although I am battling round two of my tumor.)

First customer of the day walks in:

Me: Good morning!

Customer: Do you sell Hot Chocolate?

Me: Yes Ma’am, we do.

Customer: How much is a small?

Me: *Looks it up in the register* $3.07 after tax.

Customer: Okay, I’ll take a small White Mocha.

Me: ….

I used to work for a third-party call center contracted to a large, national bank, where I was a Debit Card Fraud Analyst. I enjoyed the job, but I had my fair share of belligerent customers. 

My supervisor was going in for surgery for a chronic condition, and I had been teasing her all week that my last call of her last night as my supervisor, I was going to get an “Orange Flag” call. This was simply a piece of orange, laminated paper with instructions on what to do with a threatening call; you would pull it off the board by your computer and wave it in the event of a threat. These events would take close to an hour to resolve, so I was basically telling her I was going to keep her over. She would laugh at me and we’d go about business.

My crew was the last to go home from this center, we’d leave at two in the morning, and on her last night as my supervisor, we had back-to-back calls. Finish a call, the next person was on the line at once. At 11:58, my cubical partner and I both got calls and as we went to pull information up, nothing worked. None of our systems would come up, nothing. We apologized to our customers, who were thankfully understanding, and put them back in the queue. At 12:02 in the morning, nothing. No calls. Everything seemed to have crashed on us, including the phone systems.

We now had close to an hour between calls, and the supervisor found out that the bank had taken its systems down for maintenance. Nothing would go through. All debit, credit, and ATM cards would not work for the next several hours, and if a customer happened to get through to us, we were to let them know to try again at a certain time. I wrote up a phone script for myself and ended up giving it to everyone there. I sounded like an automated phone system and used it to my advantage to not talk to customers. It politely let them know that our systems were down, we were unable to help them, and to please try again at the specified time. Of the five customers who managed to get through to my phone, four of them just hung up.

At 1:57 in the morning, one final call came through. I opened with the script I’d written: “Thank you for calling [Bank] Debit Card Fraud Services. We regret to inform you that all of our systems are currently down for maintenance and customers will be unable to use their Debit, Credit, or ATM cards until six am Eastern Standard Time. If any trouble persists after that time, please call the number on the back of your card to speak to an associate. Thank you for your understanding.”

And he responded with, “WHAT THE F***?!”

I tried again, but he launched into a tirade on me. “NO! NO! YOU STUPID F****** B****! NO! SHUT UP! SHUT THE F*** UP! I HAVE A FLIGHT TO CATCH IN THE MORNING, AND I NEED TO BUY MY PLANE TICKETS RIGHT NOW, AND YOU’VE BLOCKED MY CARD!”

He wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to explain to him that our systems were just out, and I was thinking to myself, “Why would you wait this late to book your tickets anyway?”

Then, he gave me this gem: “IF YOU DON’T UNBLOCK MY CARD RIGHT NOW, I’M GOING TO FIND YOU! I WILL FIND YOU, AND I WILL F****** KILL YOU AND YOUR WHOLE G**D*** FAMILY! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I WILL F****** SHOOT YOU!’

I muted my mic, sighed, and waved the orange flag at my supervisor, who just stared at me. She took over the call from there and I sat and listened to her deal with this man for a good forty minutes, taking down information. I went to clock out, use the restroom, and get a drink, and came back to ask what happened.

Turns out, he was already on file for making threats like that against employees pretty regularly, and that was his last strike. The bank was going to close out his account with them and blacklist him as a result.

My prediction came true. On the last call of her last night, I had to give her an orange flag. I couldn’t have timed that better if I had tried.