After ten years without a trip to a dentist, I decided to look for a local office after my new job’s insurance kicked in. This conversation happened upon my first phone call to a dentist’s office in the next town over. The nice woman asked me to provide some basic information, and the question of my insurance came up.

I was on break at work at the time and thus hadn’t thought to have my insurance card handy to give her the information. Since I was wearing gloves and my work pants had some odd back pockets, I struggled to fish my wallet out. I felt I was taking a little long, so I decided to break the silence.

Me: “So, how are you doing today?”

There was a long silence. I figured the woman didn’t hear me somehow, and I was willing to just not ask again as my wallet was now in my hand.

Lady: “Oh, were you talking to me?”

Me: “Yeah! How you doin’?”

Lady: *Suddenly very giddy* “Oh! I’m doing good, thank you! How are you?”

The rest of the conversation went normally. I imagine this woman deals with a lot of rude people in her day to day or just isn’t used to being asked such things. Either way, the joy in her voice was enough to make my day.

I work for a small shop that is usually micromanaged by middle- and upper-management at a distance. It’s difficult for any minor mistake to occur without getting the third degree from someone, and verbal abuse is common. Nonetheless, it’s one of the better-paying retail jobs in the area, so we mostly just grit our teeth and deal. 

Sometimes, though, I can’t resist making my accusers look like a**es. 

An annoying middle manager sends me an email.

Middle Manager: “Hi. What happened to this purchase order from [date]? Why didn’t you receive it into inventory?”

I look it up, and sure enough, the purchase order has been completed; the inventory just hasn’t been received into the system. Stuff happens, but I wasn’t at the store that day, so I couldn’t tell you why.

Me: “You might want to ask [Coworker]. I’m assuming she just made a mistake. Easy enough to fix.”

[Middle Manager] is not content with the problem being solved. Oh, no. She needs someone to blame!

Middle Manager: “I’m asking you.”

Me: *Growing increasingly annoyed* “Well, I wouldn’t know.”

Middle Manager: “That doesn’t make any sense. You’re the full-timer. Can you help me understand why you wouldn’t know?”

Me: “Because I was attending a funeral that day. The funeral that you approved the schedule change for.”

She did not email me back.

I have been working at my grocery store for a few years so whenever we get anyone new on the floor I take them under my wing until they’re up to speed. Our latest hire is a super-sweet sixteen-year-old girl who is working at the weekends to save up enough to not be a burden on her parents who are struggling a bit. She’s super nice and super hard-working.

This is why it pained me to see her walking away from a customer with tears down her face.

Coworker: *Through sniffs and crying.* “Can you please assist the customer in the baking aisle, I… I wasn’t able to give her what she needed.”

She pushed on through to the back to no doubt calm down, and I proceed to the customer she had just interacted. And there she stood… imagine the typical Not Always Right customer and she fitted the description to a tee – the oversized sunglasses, the designer bag, the “I want to speak to the manager” hairstyle, it was almost comical.

Before I could even speak, she starts running her mouth.

Customer: “Hopefully you’ll be of more use to me than that child you have working here. Absolutely useless, I should complain to management about your hiring processes but lucky for you all I am pressed for time.”

She’s pressed for time, but she hasn’t actually asked me anything yet. I stand and smile patiently.

Customer: “I’m making a mirror-glaze cake for the school bake sale and I refuse to be outdone. I need gelatine for the glaze and your stupid little colleague asked me if I would be making the cake for vegetarians! As if I would be stupid enough to accidentally put any meat into my cake!”

I realize my coworker was trying to be helpful and was likely recommending gelatine products that were standard (i.e. made from collagen from animals) or vegetarian options. However, this customer has still not stopped rattling on.

Customer: “I have been making the best cakes at my school bake sales for years and no one can believe they are vegetarian and vegan, and I do not intend to lose this year! Now if you would like to not get management called, please fetch me five more of these.”

The customer holds up a package of the gelatine she is using for her mirror-glaze, a brand that is most definitely NOT vegetarian.

Me: “Certainly, ma’am. I wouldn’t want to tell you how to bake your own cakes, especially when it sounds like you have as much experience as you do.”

She sniffs in approval of my “subservience” and I fetch her items for her.

Just over a week later I am working in another corner of the store, and I hear a loud barrage of obscenities and the voice of my manager trying to calm someone down. I peek my head around the corner, and I see the same customer, snarling and almost foaming at the mouth. She is pointing at my sixteen-year-old coworker and the manager is standing in the way.

When I next see the coworker in the break room, I ask what that was all about.

Coworker: “Oh, that. That woman is the mother of someone I go to school with, the leader of the “mean-girl” pack. Her daughter gets away with bullying because as soon as there is a complaint, she rolls up in her fancy car and strong-arms the principal into doing her bidding.”

Me: “Okay?”

Coworker: “She’s run the school charity bake sale every year since I can remember, something to make her look good but she uses it for bragging rights. She always boasts that her cakes are vegan and such, so when she found me in the aisle last week asking about gelatine I thought I should confirm if she was making a vegan cake or not. That’s when she exploded on me and I… I got a bit upset.”

Me: “You did fine, don’t worry about that.”

Coworker: “Oh I’m not worried. I posted this on the school’s Facebook page on the bake sale event.”

She shows me her phone. She posted this next to a picture of her “vegan” cakes.

Coworker’s Post: “Hey, Mrs. [Customer’s Name] if your cakes are vegan why did you scream at me to the point of crying last week when I tried to stop you from buying [meat-based gelatine] to put into your cake?”

What followed was a string of comments stating shock and disgust, such as “I’m a vegan and you made me eat meat?!” and “I’m never eating your s*** ever again!” and so on. It got worse, but hey… internet comments.

Coworker: “So she came back and tried to get me fired. Not much they can do though – I read the rules – I am simply a student at a school sending a personal message on said-schools private chat group. It’s a school issue, not a [Grocery Store] issue. She couldn’t get me expelled so now she’s trying to get me fired.”

She was right. The store or management couldn’t do anything, and the customer couldn’t even get Corporate to do her bidding, something she wasn’t used to. My sweet young coworker who I thought was going to be a quiet little sensitive thing only needed to work in a grocery store for a few weeks to become something scary and capable of revenge. Ah, retail…

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When my father was in the US Air Force in the 1960s, he came down with an infection that required him to be hospitalized. His roommate was a deserter who was serving time in a military prison and consequently had a Military Police officer guarding the door at all times.

One night, my father got up and tried to leave the room.

MP: “Where the f*** do you think you’re going?”

Dad: “Um, the bathroom.”

MP: “The h*** you are, [Prisoner]!”

It turned out that when the shift changed, the new guard didn’t know which patient he was supposed to be watching, so he asked the prisoner. The prisoner pointed to my sleeping father and quickly left the hospital. While my father was easily able to prove his identity, I’m sure the MP had an interesting story to tell his superiors. “But he said he WASN’T my prisoner!”

I am going through the store, picking up the items customers have left behind in the wrong locations so that, when we close, we can sort them and put them back in the right locations.

My store has stopped mandating the wearing of masks, but I continue to wear one because I think it’s kind of nifty not to douse people in germs and micro-spit particles when you talk to them.

A customer approaches, so I get ready to ask if she’s finding everything okay. She’s not wearing a mask.

Customer: “Why are you covering your face?”

Me: “I’m trying to be conscientious during a [health crisis] and take precautions against spreading disease to others.”

Customer: *Leans in conspiratorially* “I seen you before the [health crisis], though, and you didn’t show your face, then, either. Maybe you just ain’t got a face worth showin’.”