I am waiting to be served at the service desk of a major supermarket in a suburb known for drug problems, crime, and s***ty people in general. This store only has a handful of trolleys, and today, there are none in the bays. The cashier is a young woman of eighteen or nineteen.

The cashier has just started to serve me when I’m pushed out of the way.

Customer: “Why aren’t there any trolleys?”

Cashier: “Ma’am, please don’t touch other customers, and wait your turn.“

Customer: *Now yelling* “F*** THE OTHER CUSTOMERS! WHY ARE THERE NO TROLLEYS?“

Cashier: “Customers are using them?“

Customer: “THIS IS F****** RIDICULOUS! WHY ARE THERE NO TROLLEYS?”

I’ve had a long day at work and just want to do my return and go home, so I step in.

Me: “Because some idiots take them away from the shop and don’t return them.”

Customer: *Turning to me* “WHO THE F*** ASKED YOU?”

Me: “Well, considering you literally pushed your way into my conversation and are harassing a poor worker who has no control over how many trolleys there are, you did. Now, shut the f*** and use a basket like anyone with half a brain. Just f*** off and let the five actual customers here get served, or the security guard there can call the cops and I’ll press charges for assault. Take your pick.

Customer: “F*** YOU, YOU FAT—”

Me: *To the approaching security guard* “Please call the cops. This woman just… Oh, look at that; she ran away.”

I work for a store that sells most items at seventy-five percent off and has large price tickets showing the original price and the discounted price, which we always place at the right hand top corner on the front of the product.

A customer asks me the price of one item.

Me: *Looking at the price tag* “It’s $19.99.”

Customer: “No, that’s not right. It’s too much.”

Me: “It’s discounted from $79.99.”

Customer: “No, that’s not the right price. Look, it says the price here.”

The customer points to a small white sticker on the back that has the product description and a product number.  

Me: “Sorry, but that’s the product number.”

Customer: “No, it’s the price. It says three eighty-five right there, and that’s all I am paying.”

She will not listen to a word I say, arguing back until I get fed up.

Me: “Okay, you can have it for that price.”

A smug “I win” smile comes to her face until I continue with:

Me: “That will be $385, thanks.”

Customer: “WHAT? No, it’s $3.85! How did you come up with that price?”

Me: “The number is written right there. As you can see, there’s no decimal point between any of the numbers, so it’s three hundred and eighty-five. Come to think about it, there’s no dollar sign before the number, which indicates that’s not the price, but you said that was the only price you were going to pay.”

The customer called me a b**** before storming off.

I’m the author of this story. This story takes place about three months later in the same upscale spa in a five-star hotel.

Management has recently decided to overload all therapists with more bookings than we are legally allowed to do, with almost no turnaround time between clients, while constantly running out of supplies. As such, every single therapist is racing to get rooms set up for long and complex treatments.

On this particular day, I begin with a thirty-minute facial and a two-hour package afterward consisting of a foot bath, body scrub, body massage, and facial. I’ve managed to set everything up in with seconds to spare and take a deep breath to steady myself after such frantic running back and forth.

My moment complete, I head out to find my client.

Me: “Hello, [Client]. My name is [My Name], and I’ll be your therapist today. Are you ready to come in with me?”

She shifts her designer sunglasses and literally looks down her nose at me.

Client: “What is wrong with your voice?”

Me: “…I’m sorry?”

Client: “Your voice. I don’t like it. You sound breathy. Do you actually want me here, or should I come back another time?”

Me: “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I absolutely did not mean to come across that way. I have everything ready for your treatment, however, so if you’d like to follow me—”

Client: *Interrupting* “No, I don’t want you. I don’t like your voice. It’s too breathy. You don’t sound right.”

She looks me up and down with obvious contempt and points.

Client: “I only want this spa at its best, and it’s clearly not today if someone like you is here.”

Me: *Forcing a smile* “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. If you’re not comfortable with me, then you are free to speak with my manager.”

The client hightails it to the front desk and starts demanding her appointment be changed this instant. The manager explains that this is not possible, as we tend to book out a month in advance, this will mean a two-hour slot will be wasted, and her not liking my voice isn’t a valid reason. After all, I simply need to ask some basic questions such as allergies, etc., and then we don’t have to talk. Therefore, changing her appointment is really quite difficult and unreasonable.

To say the client is affronted would be an understatement; she looks as though someone has suggested she go bathe in garbage water.

Client: “That is unacceptable. I want my appointment changed now! I only have spa treatments every two weeks, and it’s important that I only get the best! This therapist…” *points to me* “…is clearly not the best.”

Manager: “Ma’am, her voice is not a valid reason to change your appointment so suddenly.”

Client: “Are you refusing to do what I want?!”

Manager: “Not exactly, but I’m just saying that it’s not—”

Client: “I want to talk to the manager!”

Manager: “Well, that would be me.”

I should point out that my manager is Mexican. The client is white.

Client: *In a tone of absolute revulsion* “You? Someone like you actually owns this place?!”

Manager: “…No, I don’t own the business.”

The client marches over to a seat and parks herself.

Client: “Fine. I’ll just wait here while you escalate my case to your superior!”

While she waits, two more women come in screaming about the hotel sauna being closed for cleaning, even though that has nothing to do with the spa, and the delightful woman from before starts commiserating with the newcomers about how incompetent we are, etc.

They go on more about my manager’s accent and so forth, pretty much being exactly the kind of people you’d cross the street to avoid. While I’m standing there questioning every single thing that has led me up to this point, the two sauna clients leave amid more shouting, and the first woman is told that the owner has agreed to switch her appointment.

Client: “About time. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a complaint or anything!”

She is FINALLY gone, and the next thing I know, my manager is rounding on me.

Manager: “HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?!”

Me: “What are you saying?”

Manager: “You should have taken charge of that situation! You should have done more to reassure that woman! You should have done more to calm her down!”

At this point, I am barely holding back tears.

Me: “…she said my voice annoyed her. How was I supposed to calm her down when that was her issue? And she insulted me right to my face. I don’t want to deal with that kind of rudeness!”

Manager: “YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE TO CALM HER DOWN! YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE LET HER GET THAT UPSET!”

Despite saying that she wouldn’t complain, the client called the head office to complain before she’d even left the building. As compensation for her unspeakable trauma, she received free products, free treatments, and free upgrades.

That was the beginning of the end for me. Thanks to this woman, all levels of management proceeded to chew me out throughout several meetings over multiple weeks over the incident, and they cut my hours as punishment for not “calming and communicating with the client”.

They were utterly shocked and furious when I left a few months later, and I have since left the beauty industry entirely thanks to that place.

Related:
Meet The Mister Looking For His Miss-ogyny

I run a secondhand bookshop. The key word here is “secondhand”: it’s a lucky dip as to what we’ll have at any given time. We do occasionally get new books in and they tend to sell well, albeit at a slightly higher price. I also try to keep complete series together as a set as, naturally, they sell better than just odd volumes.

One day, I have a brand new, complete, matching series by a popular author, come in — an unwanted gift.

A lady comes in a few days later and is looking for one of the books of the series. I show her the new set.

Customer: “No, I only want the one title. I have the others.”

I have a look out the back to see if I have an extra copy; unfortunately, I do not.

Me: “May I suggest that you bring in your old ones and trade them in on the set?”

Customer: “No, I just want that one, and I want it now.”

Yes, this lady insisted that I needed to break up a complete, matched set of brand new books so that she could have ONE out of the middle. She was not happy when I refused, and she ended up storming off in a huff.

I’ve never seen her again, but I have sold the set!

This is more of a lifetime of experience, but one moment sticks out. Australia is a multicultural country, so most people inside Australia don’t see “Australian” as a culture of its own, more like a flavour of their own culture. In day-to-day life, it has little bearing as people don’t really care, but every year of school and every course I have done has had a section dedicated to culture.

It’s just bureaucrats patting themselves on the back about being inclusive, and it’s usually extremely offensive. As a kid, I was taught and performed a traditional Māori war dance despite none of us being Māori and half of us being women. As an adult, I was taught that if I’m going to meet someone at work and their name is foreign, I should research their culture and at first meeting, greet them in the traditionally appropriate way. (I was smart enough to never do that.) I could go on and on, but the most common was writing an essay about my culture and how that impacts my interactions with other cultures. “Australian” was not an acceptable answer.

I try explaining that aside from being Australian, I don’t have a culture, but that answer is only allowed if you can point to the stolen generation or some other racist movement that stripped your family of its culture. But I am very, very white and can actually name my genealogy (a handful of the whitest white places ever), so I am left arguing with teachers to convince them I really don’t have another culture.

Me: “No, really, it was just my parents and siblings in my life until I started school. I grew up with the same books, TV, and holidays as everyone else.”

Teacher: “What about other family? Grandparents?”

Me: “I only really have one grandparent, and I barely see her. If she has any particular culture, she has never shared it with me.”

Teacher: “Even just your parents, then — someone had to raise them. They will have a culture that they raised you with; you just haven’t noticed that it isn’t the norm.”

Me: “Look. My mother was abandoned to raise herself, so she wasn’t raised with a culture, and my father was disowned, so if he had one, he actively rejects it and didn’t teach it to us.”

Teacher: “I’m sorry, disowned?”

Me: “Yep. Apparently, his side of the family is really strict and traditional, so our entire branch was disowned for something.”

Her eyes lit up like she had caught me.

Teacher: “Traditional how?”

Me: “I don’t know. I was disowned. I know it’s a large family that has lived in Australia for generations, but I have no contact with any of them. Our name is from [culture #1], and we’re descended from [culture #2], [culture #3], and [culture #4], but while I know the names of them, I know nothing of their practices. I could research them, but they have no bearing on who I am as a person.”

Teacher: “Hmpf.”

That was the end of the conversation; she just stared at me until I sat down. I wrote about not having a culture and feeling disconnected from those around me. I probably would have gotten a bad grade if it was that sort of course. But it was just pass/fail, and unless you say something racist, you pass.

I have since learned a lot about my genealogy, and it is quite interesting, but to this day, I am simply Australian.