Me: “Hello, thank you for calling [Company]. My name is [My Name]. Can I have the spelling of your first and last name?”

Caller: *begins yelling in a strong accent and never lowers his voice* “I’m only going to give you this once, so open your ears and don’t mess up.”

Me: “Okay.”

Caller: “Don’t interrupt me.” *gives name*

Me: “And your call back number in the event we get disconnected.”

Caller: “No.”

Me: “Your zip code and county.”

Caller: “Why do you need this; you have my case in front of you.”

Me: “No, I’m looking at a blank screen. I need to verify your information to pull up your case.”

Caller: *gives zip, county, and date of birth*

Me: “May I have your SSN?”

Caller: “I’m only saying this once, understand?” *gives it in one breath, way too quick to enter*

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but that was much too fast for me; if you want assistance, I need you to repeat that slowly and clearly.”

Caller: “I never asked for a SSN when I came here; why should I have to provide it? You people forced me to get this SSN; I don’t even want it. That’s the problem with America: you people with the government are the devil. I’m not giving you my social again.”

Me: *trying not to laugh* “Sir, I could have already had your case up and be helping you. Please repeat the social, slowly.”

(I get the case up, and advise the consumer that he needs to submit a copy of his social security card or naturalization certificate to verify his immigration status. This leads to the client yelling at me as to how he hates the United States, our government, our blonde girls with blue eyes, and the health insurance company, how he never needed to apply for insurance in Iran, how our military is awful, etc. I’m bored, and I already had a bad call before this one. After ten minutes of not talking and listening to his yelling, I decide I’m just going to remain on the line and let him yell, with my headset on the table. I check back to hear him still yelling every few minutes. He doesn’t curse or use any threatening language, so I can’t just disconnect. After a while, he mentions that he is Muslim, and that the only reason we need documentation is because our government classifies anyone who practices the religion as a terrorist.)

Me: “Sir, Assalamualaikum.” *”peace be unto you” in Arabic* “I’m Muslim.” *a lie to settle him down*

Caller: *stops yelling* “Mualaikumsalam.” *”peace be also with/upon you”*

Me: “Okay. Just to let you know, you’re speaking with a call-center employee. I’m not a government official. I understand how it is overseas; I apologize that you are not happy, but in order for the insurance to be active, you must submit documents.”

Caller: “How are you working for this company? They do not hire people like us.”

Me: “Religion and race have nothing to do with it, sir. Nowhere on my application did I need to say I’m Muslim. Our call center is very diverse, and I work with people of every culture and ethnicity. I sit next to a Polish man, Jamaican woman, Arab, etc. They don’t discriminate here.”

(The caller attempted to keep complaining about our government. He mentioned that he is not a terrorist, and that after one of his calls last week, someone called him a terrorist and disconnected the call. This is extremely unprofessional, and something we are NOT allowed to do. I asked to place him on a hold so I could verify this and check the notes. I found out that day that I work with a lot of racists. There were 20 notes from employees. Three put, “client is irate, disconnected the call due to inappropriate language.” The other 17 stated that the client was a terrorist, needed mental help, was a threat to the USA, and “is un-American, and if he continues to disrespect our great country, I would disconnect call.” The last rep he spoke with stated that he needed to be investigated by the FBI immediately. They also took the client’s address, and called the FBI on him and reported him as a terrorist. The client had his door knocked in by SWAT. After checking back with the costumer, I advised him that I didn’t think he was a terrorist. I told him what to do to get insurance active, and told him I had a few complaints to put through against the previous representatives he’d spoken to. He thanked me, apologized for yelling, and disconnected.)

(I usually work as a cashier, but sometimes when it’s slow they send me out to get carts. Today is the first day we have the Salvation Army bell ringing out in front. I’m just working on carts, and this customer comes up to me.)

Customer: “Somebody should go choke that kid ringing the bell. We don’t need to hear that s*** every time we come to the g**d*** grocery store!”

Me: “Sir, this is the first day we have had the bell out.”

Customer: *speechless*

(It’s my third day, and my colleagues are telling me stories about bad customers and workers. One of my floor colleagues is Turkish but speaks perfect Dutch — the local language — with an accent.)

Turkish Colleague: “This guy is the biggest racist you’ll ever meet. The moment I open my mouth, he screams, ‘GET AWAY FROM ME, TURKISH PIECE OF S***!’ He’s banned from the restaurant, but he isn’t getting the message and keeps– Speak of the devil, there he is.”

Manager: “I’ll go tell him.”

(I’m part Russian, and I normally speak without a trace of an accent, but I can mimic one perfectly.)

Me: “Boss, might I try?”

Manager: “Sure. If you think you can get him out of here.”

(I go up to the man and start speaking Russian.)

Man: “SPEAK GOD-DANG DUTCH, YOU A**HOLE!”

Me: *with the most comical and thick accent I can do* “Very sorry, sir. I forget I should do Dutch. Table for one?”

Man: “F*** you!” *storms out*

Manager: “That went better than expected.”

Me: “Honestly, I didn’t expect him to leave. I was about to call [Turkish Colleague] to step in if he wanted someone else.”

(I am meeting with the leader of a volunteer organization for my son’s school to interview for the treasurer position. As we are talking, conversation gets around to where I work, and I mention I work for [Fast Food Restaurant]. When I say this, the club president gets an annoyed look on his face.)

Club President: “You don’t work for [Fast Food Restaurant] in [Town #1], do you?”

Me: “No, I work for the one in [Town #2].”

(He looks relieved and goes on to tell me about his last visit to [Fast Food Restaurant] in [Town #1].)

Club President: “Oh, good. Those people who work there are useless. They are so stupid. I went there a few weeks ago at like two in the morning and they had their drive-thru all blocked off.”

(I used to work for this store, which is a 24-hour restaurant; however, they do have to close for about four hours every three months to have their exhaust hoods serviced. Since the hood cleaners need to have their truck close to the store and the roof access, the drive-thru is blocked off with large caution cones, and a brave employee will generally park their car at the entrance of the drive-thru to prevent someone running over the cones and entering the drive-thru, anyway. Signs are posted on the doors, the drive-thru window, and the drive-thru speaker, letting guests know about this. I am about to explain this when he continues.)

Club President: “Yeah, they had cones and a car right there so no one could get in, so I had to drive my truck over the curb.”

(I am pretty surprised at this. While he has a large truck that could easily do this, in all my years at that store I had never heard of someone seeing the cones AND a vehicle blocking the drive-thru and deciding to jump the curb, instead of trying to come inside to see what is wrong.)

Club President: “I get to the speaker and no one answers. I’m sitting there for ten minutes and no one is answering. I can’t leave because there is this truck just parked in the drive-thru, not moving, and there were a bunch of cars behind me that went over the curb when I did, so I can’t get out. I finally manage to get out, and I go to the door, and it’s locked. There is this little midget inside, and she won’t open the door for me.”

(I know the employee he’s talking about, and while dwarfism does run on one side of her family, it is considered very insulting to call a little person a midget. The club president is a VERY large man, and I could totally see a small young woman not wanting to open the door for a very angry man who is at least six times her size.)

Club President: “So I walk around to the drive-thru window, and finally the midget opens it for me, I ask her why the hell the drive-thru is blocked, and why the doors are locked. She gives me this annoyed look like I’m stupid and says, ‘Umm, because we are closed.’ I ask her if I could order now, since I am there, and she won’t even take my order! How useless is she? I’m glad you don’t work for those losers. I won’t go there ever again, if they don’t even know how to run a business!”

(He changed the subject after that, and I didn’t try to correct him. I didn’t want to cause a personality conflict when I was just trying to help my son’s school. He turned out not to be bad to work with, aside from trying to make me change my voicemail message on my personal cell phone, because it was inappropriate — it was an iconic character from a fast food chain saying I was his wing-man. The club president and his wife did a lot of wonderful things for my son’s school.)

(At our restaurant, which closes at 4:00 am and opens again at 10:00 am, the bathrooms close at midnight. They open again for neither love nor money, so at 2:00 am, I’m cleaning one of them.)

Random Dude: *kind of angrily* “Yo, can I use the restroom?”

Me: “Restrooms are closed. There’s a public restroom at the end of this building; it’s around the corner, on the left.”

(The guy mumbles something I can’t understand about his friend and the public restrooms, to the eventual effect of, “I don’t want to use those.”)

Me: “Restrooms are closed.”

Random Dude: “When do they open?”

Me: “10:00 am.”

Random Dude: *suddenly shouting* “Well, f*** you, too, b****!”

(I shrug and finish cleaning up the bathroom, and then come back behind the counter.)

Random Dude: *in the middle of talking to one of the managers* “That’s him! That’s the guy! He said, ‘F*** you! Restrooms are closed!’”

Me: “Sir, I did not use such language.”

(I continue to the back to put up the cleaning supplies, and when I return to the kitchen…)

Manager #1: “Did you really say that?

Me: “No, I did not.” *I relay the exchange* “—and then he started screaming profanities at me.”

Manager #2: “Yeah, I didn’t give him anything. I gave him the number to the franchising office, told him we were store number [other location’s number], and said your name was [Not My Name].”

(I nodded and continued with my shift.)