(We have a variety of individuals who frequent our cafe. This particular individual is from South Louisiana and has a very thick accent. I am grateful she has such a sense of humor. I have already taken her beverage and meal order and served both.) 

Customer: “May I have a fly swatter?”

Me: “Excuse me, I misunderstood. What may I get you?”

Customer: “A fly swatter.”

(I am confused as to why she is asking for a fly swatter. She is seated outdoors, but I don’t see any flies. I return with a fly swatter and hand it to her. She looks at me, very confused.)

Customer: “Well, what did you hand me this for?”

Me: “I thought you asked for a fly swatter.”

Customer: *laughs* “I said… ‘May I get a glass of ice water?’.”

(My apartment complex has a large playground in the middle where kids from all over the neighborhood come to play, even on cold days. One Saturday, I am coming out to the car to go to the store, but I have to scrape ice off of the car. I unlock my car, pull out the scraper, and then start scraping the frost off my windows. When I get around to working on the back window, I see some movement by the driver door. I turn to look just in time to see a little boy, about eight or so, opening the door and climbing inside.)

Me: “Hey!”

(Before I can circle around the trunk, he pulls the door shut and I hear the sound of the locks locking on the car. I walk up to the driver door and he is sitting there with that mischievous grin kids have when they are doing something they know is bad but think is exciting. I knock on the window.)

Me: “Kid, you need to get out.”

(He just keeps grinning. I look around and see a woman making her way over. I think she is the kid’s mom, coming to get him and apologize. Silly me.)

Woman: “What are you doing to my baby?! Get away from my boy!”

Me: “Then get him out of my car!”

(I back up, but she just stands on the sidewalk by the front of the car and glares at me, like I shoved her kid into my car myself or something. After a few seconds, I lose patience and circle around, quickly scraping off the passenger windows. I then go to the rear door on the passenger side. Because my car is so old, the lock on that door doesn’t actually work, but it would cost too much to actually replace the whole thing, so I just live with it. I pull the door open and the kid’s face immediately goes from gleeful to wide-eyed surprised. The mom comes circling around the front.)

Woman: “Get away! Get away from my baby boy!”

Me: “THEN. GET. HIM. OUT. OF. MY. CAR.”

(Apparently, me shouting with no door between me and him was scary enough for the kid to decide to get out. He unlocked the door and shoved it open, banging my neighbor’s car, and ran off. Naturally, the mom didn’t go check on him. Nope, she kept yelling at me about staying away from her boy and about how she was going to call his uncle and have him come whoop me. I just closed the door, circled back around, climbed in the driver’s seat, and drove off, leaving her screaming on the sidewalk. Luckily, when I got back, there was no sign of her or her kid, and I haven’t seen her since then. I was able to explain the dent in my neighbor’s car to the owner, who laughed it off, and we both laughed about the messed-up mom.)

(I work in a discount retail store where, since it’s getting close to Christmas, we are receiving Saturday shipments of merchandise and the usual stockroom team will not come in on the weekends, which is why I am here. I’m currently in the stockroom where I am processing clothing to go out to the floor; we are also overloading with shoe carts that need to go out to the floor. I notice a customer peeking through the small window on the stockroom door and knocking on it. My coworkers look at me since I am a senior employee. I eventually open the door to see what the customer needs.) 

Me: “Hi! Is there anything I can do for you?”

Customer: “Shoes, I need the runner to run the shoes so I can purchase them; his name is [Coworker].” 

Me: “Oh, I apologize but that employee has already left for the day. We typically can’t run anything when we are short of stock staff on the weekend, but it will be run to the floor on Monday!” 

Customer: “No, you don’t understand. [Coworker] always runs the shoes when a truck comes in.” 

Me: “Yes, ma’am, but we are on a tight budget on weekends, so [Coworker] has gone home for the day and the shoes will be run on Monday. If is there a particular shoe I can find for you?” 

Customer: “Are you f****** kidding me? How does a business expect to stay open if shoes aren’t being put on the floor?! I need [Expensive New Style of Jordans that we won’t carry for another year]! ARE YOU THE MANAGER?!”

Me: “I do apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am, but I can’t do anything for you and no, I am not the manager on duty. And no, we do not have any Jordans back here. Our merchandise should be out any later than Monday. Have a great day!” 

(I close the door and go back to my duties. The customer pushes open the door and starts browsing the selection of shoes in the cart.)

Me: “MA’AM, YOU CANNOT BE BACK HERE! THIS IS FOR EMPLOYEES ONLY.” 

Customer: “You said you couldn’t bring them to the floor, so I thought I could just come to look at them.” 

(I got written up for the incident because I couldn’t provide proper customer service, even though I asked her if she was looking for a particular brand.)

(I work at a university. We’ve been hit by weeks of scammers who have managed to fake the outgoing call so it looks like it’s coming from the school’s IT office. Meanwhile, my boss is waiting on a call back about a computer issue. The office phone rings.)

Boss: “Hey, [My Name] and [Other Employee], get over here and listen up! I’m going to teach you how to test for real IT.”

(She answers the phone.)

Boss: “Hello?”

Caller: “Hi, this is [University] IT. I’m calling in response to a ticket you filed earlier today. Can you give me your user ID?”

Boss: “My user ID is [user ID]…”

Caller: “Okay, thanks.”

Boss: “…and my password is G, O, F, U–“

Caller: “No! Never do that! Why would you do that?”

Boss: *covering phone* “Fake password, but real IT!”

(This takes place shortly before theaters are required to convert to digital projectors. As such, the procedure when a movie is dropped is that the projectionist takes the print the theater was given, breaks it down, and places it in a case; then, someone from the studio comes in and picks up the print. Our projectionist at the time has a bit of a drinking problem.)

Studio Guy: “Hi. I’m here to pick up [Movie we have just dropped].”

Me: “Really? That was fast. Okay, I’ll go check to see if it’s ready.”

(I head to where the broken-down prints are usually stored, but I don’t see it, so I run upstairs to find the protectionist, but I can’t locate him. Finally, I decide to head out and see if maybe he’s at the bar next door.)

Bartender: “Hey, looking for [Projectionist]?”

Me: *somewhat annoyed* “Yeah.”

Bartender: “He’s in the restroom. He should be out shortly.”

Me: “Great… Thanks.”

(When he gets out, I tell him about what’s going on and we both head back to the theater and to the projection booth, where I help him to break down the print, which ends up hitting a snag… literally. When running the print through the machine to break it down, the projectionist’s shirt gets caught in it, taking even more time to get everything straightened out. Eventually, the general manager comes in.)

General Manager: “Hey, guys, is that print ready yet?”

Projectionist: “Not yet; we had a few hangups.”

General Manager: “Okay. I just told the guy what’s going on, and he’ll be back later to pick up the print. [My Name], I need you to head back downstairs. I can help out up here.”

Me: “Got it.”

(The process practically takes the remainder of the evening as the projectionist keeps going off to do other things before the print is even finished… including taking a nap in the storage room. Finally, the print is ready, and the guy comes back to pick it up. By this point, we’re closed for the night, and I’m waiting for the general manager to come down since he was supposed to give me a ride home, but he has to take care of a few things with the projectionist. When he does finally come down, he’s about as angry as I’ve ever seen him.)

General Manager: “Yeah… he is so fired.”