My coworker has a table of three that places a dine-in order. About five minutes before their food comes out, a fourth man joins them and orders a pizza. I bring out the other customers’ food, and as I set them down, I turn to the man to let him know his food will be out in just a few. Before I can open my mouth, he crosses his arms and scowls at me.

Customer #4: *Sternly* “And where’s my food?

Me: “It’ll be out in just a few minutes. Your pizza is in the oven.”

Customer#4: *Whining* “But I’m hungry now!“

Caught off guard by this grown man whimpering like a toddler, I respond with the only thing I can think of to say:

Me: “Well, do you want it raw?”

The others at the table smirk and the man flashes a grin. When I get back up to the register, I let my coworker know about the conversation.

Coworker: “Him? Yeah, he’s got a really odd sense of humor, and he usually comes off as a d**k. Great response, though!”

As the table leaves, the man tips his server, my coworker, and then comes up to me.

Customer #4: *Smiling* “I like you. Next time, I want to sit in your section!”

Well, okay, I guess.

My father calls me after I get off of work and asks me to meet him at the improvement store to help him load the wood he needs for the deck onto his trailer. We are waiting in the cashier line. There is an electric crew working on one of the hanging lights with a lift on the X where we’re supposed to stand, so we are slightly to the right of that X.

A customer behind us about three feet away talks to her husband loud enough for us to hear.

Customer: “I just don’t understand why people can’t follow simple rules; there is an X for a reason.” 

My dad is slightly deaf in one ear so he can’t hear what the customer is saying to her husband. I roll my eyes and ignore it.

Customer: “I don’t get it. Are people stupid? The X helps us to stay six feet apart.” 

I bite my tongue once more and slowly begin to take off my employee lanyard with my name on it. Luckily, we are next to cash out and are called the self-service checkout machine. As soon as I insert my card for payment, the customer’s husband walks up right next to me, inches from me, and starts putting his stuff down. 

Me: “Excuse me. Can you wait six feet back at the appropriate X that your wife was constantly b****ing about, that we weren’t standing at due the electrical crew that is trying to fix the light fixtures?”  

He is stunned and turns and glares at his wife as she sheepishly hides behind him. He moves back a couple of feet until I am done with my transaction.

Wife: “I mean, the X is to protect us.” 

Me: “F*** off.”

We’re interviewing a job candidate by phone. As part of the interview process, the candidates log in to a mockup of our database system to demonstrate their technical skills. The current candidate has been doing well but is struggling with a particular task. When she gets an error, we see her circling a part of the error message with her cursor on the shared screen.

Interviewer #1: “Hey, we see you indicating part of the error message. Can you tell us what you make of that?”

Interviewer #2: *On mute* “It would be nice if she could because I don’t have a clue what that means…”

Candidate: “I’ve seen that before in [our kind of system]. Pretty sure someone didn’t set it up correctly, so it’s kind of a security vulnerability.”

Me: “I know we’re not interviewing you for a security role, but can you tell us a little more about what you see here?”

Candidate: *Typing* “Sure. If I were an unscrupulous user, I’d see this error, and… actually, I don’t want to break anything.”

Interviewer #1: “You’re in a test environment. If you break it, we’ll just reset. I’m curious now. Do your worst!”

Candidate: “Okay!”

We wait a few minutes while she types a very long command on the screen.

Interview #1: *On mute* “Who the heck flagged her as ‘less experienced’? I’ve never seen half these words in my life.”

Interviewer #2: “She only has three years of experience with [System]. The rest of the candidates had at least six.”

Candidate: “Aaaaaand… there we go. Okay, I think this is gonna work. Let’s see what happens when I do th—”

As all three of us lean forward to watch what’s about to happen, the computer running the test environment — and the phone call — shuts off. We jump back in surprise.

Interviewer #1: “She was in a virtual machine! How’d she do that?”

I start frantically hitting the ON button on the PC tower.

Me: “The machine won’t even start!”

Interviewer #2: “[Interviewer #1], why’d you have to use the phrase ‘do your worst’ here?”

I get the candidate on the phone, and she says something must have gone wrong and overwhelmed the test environment. When she hears the computer won’t even start, I can hear her start to panic.

Me: “Don’t worry; it’s an old desktop that we needed to replace anyway. If there’s an exploit that can actually break a computer, we needed to know.”

Candidate: “This is a longshot, but… when you were leaning in to look at the code, no one hit anything on the computer, did you?”

I look down. [Interviewer #1]’s elbow is firmly planted on the on/off switch of the powerstrip that the computer is plugged into. We all have a good laugh and everyone calms down, and we restart the computer and resume the call.

Interviewer #2: “By the way, we see you only have three years of experience with [System]. How’d you recognize an obscure error like that?”

Candidate: “Oh, those were three years at [Company that makes the system].”

This story is part of our Best Of August 2020 roundup!

Read the next Best Of August 2020 story!

Read the Best Of August 2020 roundup!

I’m waiting in line behind a couple when a woman with a seeing-eye dog and a white cane walks by. The dog is wearing a vest that says “SEEING-EYE DOG” in large letters.

Man In Line: “Lots of security around here, huh.”

Woman In Line: “Is it really a good idea to let the disabled handle the bomb-sniffing dogs, though?”

Blind Woman: “He’s a seeing-eye dog! I’m blind! I’m not deaf, but after hearing that conversation, I wish I was.”

This story is part of our Best Of August 2020 roundup!

Read the next Best Of August 2020 story!

Read the Best Of August 2020 roundup!

Three of my boss’s bosses are here to look around, so when a customer walks back in after picking up a to-go order looking rather annoyed, we’re all paying attention to see who did something wrong.

Customer: “Okay, I’m really frustrated now. This is the second or third time this has happened. My order is completely wrong.”

Boss: *Opening her box* “Let’s see what the problem is, ma’am. What did you order?”

Customer: “A turkey stack.”

This is a grilled turkey sandwich. The boss looks at her order.

Boss: “Ma’am, that is a turkey stack.”

Customer: “Oh… you know what? I’ve been thinking I’m ordering one of the tortilla wraps. Okay, now I’ll know to order differently next time.”

The customer left since she actually got exactly what she ordered, but I don’t think she even apologized. But at least no one got yelled at since we did our jobs.