My coworkers are unusually rowdy and immature today — playing practical jokes with work equipment, swearing within earshot of customers, congregating so our managers have to break them up to get them to do their jobs, and just being a general headache to work with. They begin making fun of a customer who has an unusual gait, though he is thankfully out of earshot. We all complain about the bad ones, but he was a model customer and there’s no reason they should be making fun of him.

Coworker #1: *To me* “Do you see him? It’s so weird!”

Me: “So he moves his hips when he walks. It gets him where he needs to go, doesn’t it?”

Coworker #1: “But it’s so weird!”

Me: “Leave him alone. Some of us like to show our fruitiness.”

Coworker #2: “Wait, are you gay?!”

Me: “Yeah?”

Coworker #2: “What kind?”

What did she want me to say? The kind who fell head over heels for her female best friend at age eighteen? The kind who wore nothing but T-shirts and flannels in high school? The kind who doesn’t think you should be making fun of how someone gets around?

I can only work part-time due to chronic illnesses, so to make some extra money, I do artwork commissions. All of my artwork is physical, on paper with Sakura pens and Copic markers. This is stated quite clearly in my bio, and I ask for a physical address for the finished product to be shipped to when I take an order. I can, of course, scan the image into my computer and send a digital file, but with my current home scanner, you’re not going to get the same vibrancy of the artwork as if it was professionally scanned. However, if people ask, I do include a digital file free of charge.

A woman contacts me asking if I can draw her original character in the style of Naoko Takeuchi, who is the artist for the “Sailor Moon” graphic novels. I accept, give a time frame, confirm a delivery address, and take payment.

The artwork comes out rather well, and I prepare it for shipment. I ship all of my work inside a hardback children’s book from the thrift store, which I then include a note asking the recipient to donate. It keeps the post office from bending the artwork, and a book gets donated to a library or charity.

I package it up, label it, ship it out, and send the tracking number to the client.

Good to go, right?

Wrong.

I get a message that night at around 11:00 pm.

Client: “What does this mean?”

Me: “What does what mean?”

Client: “These numbers.”

Me: “That is so you can track your artwork while it’s being shipped.”

Client: “Why did you ship it? You were supposed to email it.”

Me: “I’m sorry, did you also want a digital copy? I can only do that if I’m informed before shipment.”

Client: “I paid for a digital copy.”

Me: “You bought a physical artwork. I don’t have proper digital art software, as stated in my bio. All of my work is on paper with pen and markers. If you’d asked, I could have tried to scan it into a digital file, but my scanner does not handle bright colors well, and the artwork would be less vibrant.”

Seriously, all of this is explained on my page. I’m fine attempting a scan if asked, but I know it’s not going to be the same quality, which is why I don’t charge anything if people also want one.

Client: “You need to refund me.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but the artwork has been completed and has shipped. You should receive it in three to five days.”

Client: “No, I won’t! You f****** r****d. Give me a refund!”

Me: “I completed my end of the contract. I will not be refunding you. Once the artwork arrives, I advise you to take it to a print shop, where they may have a proper scanner to create a digital file.”

Client: “If you won’t refund me, send me another!”

Me: “That would require making the piece over entirely again, which you would need to pay for.”

Client: “I’m not paying. You sent it to the wrong address.”

Me: “You gave me the address [address].”

Client: “Because I didn’t think you needed a real address for a digital file. I thought you were just being nosy.”

Me: “It is clearly stated in my bio. If the package is returned to me as undeliverable and you would like to provide me with the cost of postage, I will gladly send it to the correct address. Otherwise, this is out of my hands.”

The client engages in a long string of insults with several slurs.

Me: “I’m blocking you now. If the package is returned, I will get in touch.”

The package was not returned. The client tried to badmouth me, but thankfully, I’ve done work for many of the people she talked to, and all of them were highly satisfied. Several defended me saying that IT WAS IN MY BIO and that they’d just gotten the image professionally scanned and it was all good to go.

So please, read everything in the description before you buy from an artist. And if you have questions or concerns, please ask. I’m happy to include everything, from a digital copy, to the list of the colors I used, to a copy of the inked artwork in case you want to try coloring it yourself. Just please be nice to me and understand that not everyone who is excellent at physical media art can make the transition to digital easily. I’m learning, but it’s taking time, and chronic illness makes it more difficult.

I was recently selling pastries at the local Greek festival. The biggest seller was, of course, baklava, but there had been some kind of mix-up and there were like three thousand more pastries than we needed, so we decided not to sell pieces in anything less than groups of three.

Of course, we got some people asking for individual pieces of baklava despite the sign saying that, nope, we don’t sell that. Most of them just grumbled a bit and then bought three — because the more baklava the better!

But this one customer couldn’t seem to understand.

Customer: “One piece of baklava.”

Me: “We sell them in portions of three.” *Points to the sign*

Customer: “No… one.”

Me: “I can’t sell you one. The smallest portion is for three.”

The customer tutted and left, but then they came back a few minutes later to talk to my coworker.

Customer: “One piece of baklava. Just one.”

Coworker: “We only sell them by the three.”

Customer: “No! I want one! Just f****** one!”

Coworker: “I can give you one piece, but I have to charge you the same for three.”

Customer: “I’m not f****** paying for three!”

Coworker: “Then can you please leave? You’re holding up the line.”

The customer then came back a third time, practically hyperventilating! I explained once again that we didn’t sell individual pieces.

Customer: “Someone said you would.”

The same coworker stepped in again, but instead of leaving, the customer totally freaked out and yelled a bunch of incoherent stuff about how they “don’t understand why you can’t just sell single pieces”, barged around the counter, threw a couple of dollars at me, grabbed a piece of baklava, and ran off.

I worked for a betting shop in the UK for around five years. For two of those years, I was stuck with one of the absolute worst people for a manager. She was a power-tripping, egotistical bully who believed she knew best in any situation just because she had worked in the industry for more than a decade. Here are but a few of the terrible things she did.

She didn’t fully train me on how to use the shop systems and got irrationally angry when I asked for help on something she hadn’t trained me on. (I had to teach myself 75% of the job.)

She blamed any and all cash discrepancies in the shop on anyone besides herself because her till could never be wrong.

She refused to postpone her breaks and help out when the shop entered busy periods, yet she expected everyone else to drop everything to help her.

She abandoned me to work a nine-hour shift (12:30 pm to 9:30 pm) by myself as punishment for some minor infraction.

She would expect the shop to be perfect 100% of the time and would repeatedly scream at any employee, including me, over the tiniest mistake. The till was £0.50 short? Screaming. One small area of the shop was dirty? Screaming. We were unable to get the right marketing information out due to a high volume of customers? Screaming. We were unable to do something the instant she asked for it regardless of whether we were helping a customer? Screaming.

That last one caused my mental health to completely tank. I had to take three weeks of sick leave and be moved to another shop closer to where I lived in order to continue working. Some people have told me I should have just grown a spine and stood up for myself, but when this is happening daily, and I had very little confidence due to it being my first-ever job, that gets pretty hard to do.

The silver lining is that this manager was eventually suspended due to a not-so-significant amount of money — at least £250 — disappearing while she was on shift, leading to her leaving the company. Whether she was fired or quit I don’t know; I was with a much better manager who actually cared about her staff at the time. But she was left with a permanent black mark on her record.

It’s a Thursday night. There is a terrible winter storm that started around noon and could end up dumping several feet of snow on us by Friday night. By 5:00 pm, about half the staff has had to call off because the roads are unsafe, and the staff that is working is getting worried about getting home safely because it’s the opening night of a big movie, and we won’t be able to leave until after midnight since the last show goes in at 11:00 pm — especially several staff members who have to rely on rideshares and cabs.

By 6:00 pm, it’s terrible outside, and we’re being inundated with calls from customers asking if they can bring their tickets in on a later date to see the movie since they don’t want to drive. We’re obviously saying yes because nobody should be out in the weather.

By 6:45 pm, roughly 90% of the tickets we have sold have been canceled online or over the phone. Around 7:00 pm, my manager talks to his boss and is given the go-ahead to cancel every show after 7:45 pm so the staff can try to get home safely and only a manager will have to stay, especially since there are essentially no people coming into those times anyway due to the weather.

We stick signs up on every single door explaining that we’re closed due to the weather, and alerts are sent out online to anyone who still had tickets.

Right as we’re about to lock doors around 8:00 pm, a car pulls up into the parking lot, sliding all over the place in the snow and slush for a solid minute, losing control several times. A guy in his forties gets out and wanders in, COVERED in snow from the thirty seconds he was outside, ignoring all of the signs on the door. He wanders up to the box office, where my coworker is in the process of closing out the register.

Customer: “I’m gonna need four tickets to the 11:00 pm [New Release].”

Employee: “Unfortunately, we are actually closing in just a minute due to the weather. The conditions are terrible outside, and we’ve had to cancel the rest of the shows for the night so the staff can try to get home safely.”

Customer: “Oh, f*** you! I drove in just fine! It’s nothing! My kids need to see [New Release] tonight!”

I almost laugh at the “I drove in just fine! It’s nothing!”, as we literally just saw him nearly spin out about a half-dozen times just trying to park in a near-empty lot.

Employee: “Unfortunately, sir, the call has already been made, and I cannot sell you tickets for that showtime. They’ve even removed it from the schedule.”

Customer: “Well, I’m seeing [New Release] tonight at 11:00.”

Employee: “Uh, no, sir, you are not.”

Customer: *Narrowing his eyes and growling* “I ain’t leaving until you sell me tickets, f***-o!”

Employee: “Sorry, but I literally cannot do that.”

Customer: “Manager! Now!”

My coworker leaves to get a manager. The guy turns and looks at me and gives me a look and a shrug as though I’d agree with him.

Customer: “Stupid f****** kid can’t sell me tickets. Can ya believe it?”

Me: “Well, yeah, because we’re closing in a minute due to the weather.”

Customer: “Oh, for f***’s sake? You, too?!”

He begins ranting under his breath. About thirty seconds later, my manager walks up to him, while a supervisor walks by and begins locking the front doors, which makes them one-way — you can get out but you can’t get in.

Manager: “Yeah, we’re officially closed now. We can’t sell you tickets.”

Customer: “I ain’t steppin’ one foot out of this theater until you sell me a f****** ticket. My kids need to see [New Release] tonight!”

Manager: “You’re seriously going to bring your kids to see a movie at 11:00 pm on a school night in the middle of a horrible winter storm? Get out of my theater, please.”

Customer: “Hmmph!”

The customer turned and stormed back outside, and we watched him awkwardly try to drive away, at one point losing control and ending up halfway over a small curb. He finally made it out of the parking lot after another thirty seconds of awkwardly trying to correct his car and sliding more than once.

We got our closing duties done in record time and were all set to leave by 8:40 pm. It normally takes me about ten minutes to get a rideshare and another ten minutes to get home… but that night, it took me nearly thirty minutes to get a rideshare due to the lack of drivers and about another thirty minutes to get home because we couldn’t take a lot of the roads and had to drive at a snail’s pace the entire time.

Related:
A Storm Of Protest, Part 3
A Storm Of Protest, Part 2
A Storm Of Protest