Because I mentioned this story in a comment on this NotAlwaysLegal story, and it’s apparently rather popular, here’s the whole shebang.

I worked in a fast food restaurant, and this was my third robbery in as many months. I’d been working doubles due to an especially cruddy general manager calling in every day, and I was just dead on my feet as the only competent manager left in the store willing to work. (I was not paid enough to deal with that, but that’s a fiasco for another time…)

It was about 10:45 pm, and we were getting into the first big after-bar rush that hit us when my drive-thru cashier heard a rattling sound in the lobby. None of us thought much of it; it was an old building, after all, and it was summertime, so we just figured it was the AC unit. We got through the first rush mostly fine, if absolutely barren for fried foods, so I decided to just drop some fries and make everything else to order, as late as it was. 

The rattling sound came again, louder this time, and I was cussing my way back up to the lobby to make yet another maintenance report when all of a sudden, this scrawny guy in his twenties appeared from behind the pop machine. For reference, the center of the dining room was hidden behind this behemoth, so we had no clue he was out there in the slightest. 

At first, I thought that I’d locked him in and started apologizing profusely; I was on day fifteen of seven, but I felt awful that I’d missed a customer…

So I’d thought. 

He demanded chicken tenders and all the cash in the store, waving what I (and my coworkers) thought was a knife. He was definitely high on something, and something inside me simply… snapped. I told him in the deadest voice I’ve ever produced:

Me: “You’ll be waiting ten minutes for the fryer. And I only have fifty bucks available. All the other registers have been removed and the cash dropped, and I just cleaned out the drive-thru’s excess cash before the last rush.”

I’m guessing it was due to the drugs, but he simply nodded and shuffled over to wait at one of the tables. In the stronger light over the table, the knife was revealed to be a piece of metal. I started the tenders, had my team hide in the back while I grabbed my phone, and breathed a sigh of relief when the sheriff’s deputy and a squad car showed up. 

The guy got pretty new bracelets and an attempted robbery charge.

And I made him pay for the tenders.

Related:
Forget Nerves Of Steel; This One’s Got Nerves Of Retail Exhaustion

I work at a big box store as a cashier. I grew up very conscious of waste and so I started out trying my best to give customers as many shopping bags as they needed and no more. We have tiny bags, normal bags, and giant bags.

A customer is buying just one or two normal-sized bottles of Gatorade. They are just about the perfect size for a single tiny bag, so I started to bag them.

Customer: “Wait! I don’t want that bag; I want the normal bag! Those heavy bottles will go right through the plastic!”

As this is my first retail job and I am very young and naïve I guess I still thought I was a normal human being when wearing the uniform. I also know those bags have pretty much the same strength because they have the same construction, just a different size. I am confident that the tiny bag will hold those bottles fine, so I say, a little confused:

Me: “But it’s the same plastic?”

Customer: “…Cancel my order and I’ll take my business elsewhere. Or maybe we should get a manager?”

Me: “Here’s your normal bag, ma’am. This is your total. Thank you and goodnight.” 

She went straight to the customer service desk to complain about me anyway. The shift manager and the desk clerk came to me after she’d talked to them and left in a huff. Apparently, they were both baffled by her story and needed me to even clarify what she wanted. One of them said, “But… it is the same plastic?”

In the early 2000s, I was working at a large church (over 2,000 members), and on Sundays, I ran the audio and video booth. We had three services: a 7:00 am early service, the main service at 10:00 am, and a late service at 11:30 am. Each service ran for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

One Sunday, during the 10:00 am service, the pastor’s wife went into labor — three weeks early. The pastor left in the middle of his sermon, and the youth pastor took over. The youth pastor did a great job of taking over and wishing the mother and baby well, and that service wrapped up early.

We had a quick meeting to decide what to do about the 11:30 service, and the youth pastor volunteered to give a sermon he had prepared for the youth group later in the week. It was his first time giving a sermon in front of that many people up on the big stage. He was nervous and rolled through it quickly, and then he forgot about the closing songs, so church ended at 12:15 instead of the normal 12:45.

Everyone had cleared out of the church by 12:30-ish. I shut down all the equipment, turned out the lights, and went down the hall to make sure the lights were out in the classrooms, like I normally did.

One light was on, and I found another church employee who worked in the nursery on Sundays. She was sitting in a rocking chair rocking a toddler, and I saw tears rolling down [Employee]’s face.

Me: “What’s wrong?”

She could hardly speak, she was so upset.

Employee: “This child’s parents dropped him off before the early service and never came back. He’s been here for almost five hours! The parents didn’t give us a contact number. All I know is his first name.”

I immediately called the youth pastor, who quickly turned around and came back to the church. The child was very out of sorts, either hungry or tired. We had snacks but no food, and there wasn’t really a place to put a kid down for a nap. I ran to get some chicken nuggets while they figured out what to do.

When I got back, a couple had pulled in right in front of me.

Man: “Where is everyone?”

Me: “Church ended early today.”

Woman: “Oh, okay. We’re just here to pick up our son.”

I wasn’t about to get involved with the drama, so I just unlocked the door and let them in.

The youth pastor was livid and lit into them.

It turns out the parents wanted some time alone and had been dropping their kid off at church and then leaving to go do stuff. They had been doing this for weeks — just dropping him off around 7:45 am and coming to pick him up around 12:45 pm.

Here is the part where the parents were really entitled: they got mad at the youth pastor for ending church early. They yelled at him for “endangering their child” and threatened to sue. The dad was up in the youth pastor’s face, and I thought they might fight, but the youth pastor was a BIG dude, and I think that kept the dad from doing anything else.

I didn’t stay in there; I went into the next room with [Employee] and the child and gave him the nuggets, which he gulped down.

The parents finally took the kid and left. The youth pastor and his wife took us to lunch because we (mostly [Employee]) were still upset by the whole thing.

I think about that kid a lot. I hope his parents didn’t abandon him. I wish I had a follow-up, but as far as I know, they never came back.

Related:
Some Parents Are Way Too Comfortable Leaving Their Kids With Strangers, Part 3
Some Parents Are Way Too Comfortable Leaving Their Kids With Strangers, Part 2
Some Parents Are Way Too Comfortable Leaving Their Kids With Strangers

Customer: “I can’t afford this book right now, but I have half the money. Could I take half the book now and pay for the other half later?”

Me: “Uh… no. That’s not possible.”

The customer then holds up the book, neatly split in half down the binding.

Customer: “Well, it seemed pretty possible to me.”

I call my manager, who bans them from the store. Later, he is moaning:

Manager: “But… how did he even rip it in half?! Did he Hulk out? And hasn’t he heard of a library?!”

Customer: “I want this but in black.”

Me: “I’m afraid that only comes in red or blue.”

Customer: “But I want this in black! Order it for me!”

Me: “I’m afraid it doesn’t come in black, only red and blue. I can’t order that in.”

Customer: “Get your manager to do it, then! You obviously don’t have much say in your business.”

My manager has been next to me helping another customer. Their customer has just left so my manager helps me immediately.

Manager: “Actually, I am the manager, ma’am, and [My Name] is correct. That item only comes in red and blue. It does not, and it never has, come in black.”

Customer: “This is really bad service!”

Manager: “I am sorry you feel that way, ma’am.”

Customer: “This is how you treat your customers? How did you get to be a manager? It must be nepotism; you’re too stupid to help me!”

Manager: “If you say so, ma’am.”

Customer: “I’m never coming back, and I’ll tell all my friends!”

Manager: “You could have just said you’re “never coming back” and left it at that. Same net result.”

The customer storms out at an angry pace.

Me: “I don’t think she realized you just said she had no friends.”

Manager: “Safe guess. Who would want to be friends with that?”