My coworker today happens to be a good friend of mine, so we always have a blast when working together. I’m refilling the drinks machine when I overhear this conversation.

Customer: “Do you sell salad?”

Friend: “Yes, we do. We have four different kinds—”

Customer: “No, I don’t want salad. I hate salad. Do you sell sandwiches?”

Friend: “Yes, right here we have a lot of options for you.”

Customer: “But they have salad inside I see, so are you trying to sell me salad?”

He says it in a rather joking tone, not an angry one. I start to chuckle a bit. 

Friend: “Yes, they do have salad inside them, but only one leaf. You can either take it out or I can ask the kitchen to make you a sandwich without salad.” 

Customer: *Still jokingly* “No, I know you want to sell me salad.”

I have to go inside to get some more bottles for the machine, and when I get back outside, the customer is still there. The conversation has obviously been going on for the past several minutes. I proceed to refill the machine, not really listening to the conversation anymore, when I suddenly hear: 

Customer: “You know, I know you’re trying to sell me salad because I’m a secret detective! I’m detective Snuffles!”

I completely lose it and start laughing, trying not to make any noise. Since I’m still behind the customer, he doesn’t see me, but my friend does and has to keep herself together while still talking to the man. 

Friend: “But if you are a secret detective, maybe you shouldn’t tell me that?”

Customer: “Well, I wanted you to know.”

He then walked away happily without buying anything and my friend burst into laughter with me. To this day, I’m still very impressed by how she held herself together during the conversation. I couldn’t have done it. Detective Snuffles really made our day!

I work in the billing department of a mobile phone provider.

Me: “Good evening, how can I help?”

Customer: “Can I pay a bill, please?”

He is the clearest-spoken human being I have ever heard. He is an elderly man with an upper-class English accent. He sounds like an aristocrat.

Me: “Certainly. Can I have your name?”

Customer: “I am Lord [Customer], the Seventh Baron [Town].”

Me: “Thank you. Let me bring up your details.”

His address is an old aristocratic mansion in an affluent area.

Me: “How would you like to pay?”

Customer: “Credit card, please.”

The payment clears.

Me: “Thank you, sir. Can I help you with anything else?”

Customer: “Yes, one large gin and tonic, please.”

I am laughing. I have had customers pull my leg before, but an aristocrat? It was totally unexpected compared to the standard behaviour of many wealthy customers.

Me: “Sure, I’ll see what I can do about that. Have a great weekend!”

Customer: “Only if you do, too!”

I amended his next bill and added a surcharge: “£0.00 — gin & tonic, per customer’s request, [date]”.

I’m waiting tables at a Greek restaurant in the summer. I have a party of ten to twelve people in their thirties celebrating a birthday at a table outside of the restaurant. Everything goes smoothly and they have fun, ordering their dinner and drinking beer.

When I want to clear their plates, one of them complains jokingly.

Customer: “We’re always out of beers! Why don’t you bring us five beers every time you come outside, and just put them on the table here and we’ll pass them around as needed?”

Dutiful and with a huge smile — big table, funny as can be, and drinking their heads off — I comply and bring more beer than ever outside and am always greeted by “oohs” and “ahhs” and sometimes clapping and comments like, “You saved the day!”

I have a lot of fun and think to myself that this will be the table that will be tipping the most, and certainly, I have genuine fun waiting on them. They leave sometime later and my boss rings them up. When I ask, they have left no tip — in Germany, it is common but not necessary to leave a tip — and I’m a little bummed.

The next day, the birthday boy himself and his girlfriend come back and ask for me. I get €50 as a tip for the last evening.

Customer: “I was so d*** drunk last night that I forgot about the tip! I wanted to thank you for making that possible for my friends and me. I’m sorry for forgetting.”

They made my day and I had another delightful shift with my tip money in my back pocket!

I just got back from a week at a summer away camp. I’m tired out, so we go to my favorite restaurant for lunch. I order the same thing I always do.

Me: “And could I have a Sprite, please?”

Waitress: “Of course.”

Mom: “And can it be a big one?”

Waitress: “I can do that.”

Me: “Yay!”

I eat my lunch and feel a lot better. I leave a $15 tip because she was so nice and I was tired.

Fast forward a year. I’m going to the same restaurant and I get the same waitress.

Me: “And could I get a large Sprite?”

Waitress: “Yes— OH, MY GOSH, how was camp?”

Me: “Hi! I didn’t recognize you at first. It was good! How are you?”

Waitress: “I’ve been good. Do you want the same thing again?”

Me: “Yes, please!”

This isn’t weird because I eat the same thing every time we go there, sometimes with onion rings.

Waitress: “I’ll have that right up for you.”

That was an awesome thing to have happen. I haven’t bumped into her yet this year, but I think I might!

My fifth-grade teacher gave the whole class a dollar each once, and kids still complained about the amount they received. It was so disgusting to know she took money from her paycheck which isn’t even a lot, and they didn’t appreciate the money. They would have been satisfied with around three to five dollars; it’s messed up to expect that much. Not only that, but she bought happy new year cards for all of us. That is such an expense for children that age and she probably knew we wouldn’t remember.

That’s not even all she did. She made us pies, we had pizza parties, and we had dessert parties. She wasn’t making a lot of money and she would do stuff like this a lot. Just the fact that she went through that financial struggle to make our day is so selfless. She was such an amazing teacher and continued to make special events for us, even when some kids didn’t appreciate it.

We were only in her class for a year, and it was her starting year, but she handled the negativity so well. It’s just such a messed-up situation to give that much and get nothing in return.

She was uncomfortable with her name, and at the end of the year we asked her for her name and she said that she would tell the class, but she asked us not to make fun of it. We agreed and she said her first name was Phone. Then, of course, the class clown and the “popular” girls and boys made fun of it. She kindly asked them not to, but they continued.

She didn’t continue the conversation after that, and she went to another school after a while when she was offered the same job at better pay. I feel so bad for her, knowing what she did for us. It was when we were so young that we didn’t know how to appreciate something verbally.

She was just such an amazing teacher and I plan on visiting her later on to try to help her out.