(I’m on a delivery, after handing over the food and waiting for her to hand back the credit card slip.)

Customer: *holding out a $10 bill* “Can you change this into quarters for me? I need money for the laundry.”

Me: “Uh… I’m sorry. I don’t carry coins on me.” *definitely not forty quarters!*

Customer: *looking completely shocked* “Oh. Okay, then. I guess I’ll have to get them somewhere else, then. Come on in.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry. For safety reasons I’m not allowed to enter the homes of customers.”

(The look on her face is such complete horror and appall I realize she must have misheard me say something fantastically offensive.)

Customer: “EXCUSE ME?”

Me: “I’m sorry, but our company rules do not allow us to enter people’s homes.”

Customer: “I have never had anyone have a problem coming into my home before!”

Me: “I’m sorry. I just have to follow rules or I could get fired.”

Customer: *thrusts my receipt back at me* “Funny how your ‘rules’ don’t stop you from taking tips.”

(By the time I get back to the store she has already called to complain two times — first, about how horribly rude I was and how I wouldn’t come in. The manager she spoke to supported my actions and explained that this was indeed our policy. Then, she called back to complain that our pizza looked like crap. I am lucky enough to catch the third call.)

Customer: “You gave me a frozen pizza! There is still ice in the middle. Come pick this up!”

Me: “I’m very sorry about the pizza, ma’am. We will remake a hot, fresh one for you right now.”

Customer: “Oh, h*** no. I owned a restaurant. I know what you do to people’s food when they complain.”

Me: “I’m sorry you were forced to work in such unprofessional conditions, but I can assure you that no such things will happen here. Let me make you a pizza that is hot.”

Customer: “No. You will just spit in it; I’m not stupid. Just come here and give me my money back.”

Me: “Since you paid with a card, I can refund it from here and the money will go straight back into your account.”

Customer: “You’d still better come out here and pick up this pizza, then.”

Me: “If you don’t like it, you can just throw it away; we don’t need it back.”

Customer: “H*** no. You come and pick up this crap you tried to give me; I’m not throwing away your garbage for you.”

(Yes, I went back to retrieve the pizza and yes, it was thrown at me.)

(I work in a call centre in Christchurch. This conversation takes place a few months after we had our earthquake.)

Me: “Welcome to [Company]. How can I help today?”

Customer: “I have just been sent a reminder letter and you have charged me $5. I want you to reverse that.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but our letters are automatically sent out if you do not pay your bill by the due date. I cannot reverse that fee for you if you have not paid your bill.”

Customer: “I demand to speak to your manager.”

Me: “I am not going to get my manager for you, because the answer from them will be the same. If you read your terms and conditions, this is one of them. We charge fees if you do not pay your bill by the due date.”

Customer: “I hope you get another earthquake.”

Me: “Excuse me? You do realise that people actually died in the earthquake and a lot of people have lost their homes. That is a terrible thing to say.”

Customer: “I hope you get a tsunami as well and lots of people die.”

Me: “I will no longer be continuing this conversation. I am horrified that you would even say this.”

(I hung up after that and sat at my desk for a little bit. I was shaking because I was so angry. I have never heard anyone say something so terrible before.)

(When my husband and I got married a couple of years ago, we did not have a lot of money, but I secretly saved up for a couple of months and bought our wedding rings as a surprise. They were custom made to fit his style and mine, and although they were not extremely expensive, they were a little over our budget. Now, I am sitting in my office, very pregnant, and a new coworker comes in.)

Coworker: “Who is the father of your baby?”

Me: “Um… my husband.”

Coworker: “Oh, you are married? So, why don’t you wear a wedding ring?”

Me: “I do.” *lifts my hand with my ring on it*

Coworker: “Where is your engagement ring?”

Me: “I don’t wear it at the moment.”

(I had to take it off a couple of weeks into the pregnancy because my fingers got a little swollen and I didn’t want to end up having to cut it off.)

Coworker: *looks at my ring* “I don’t like your ring; it’s very ugly.” *walks away*

(I nearly started crying. How he doesn’t understand why nobody likes him is beyond me.)

I foster cats and kittens and have for about five years. I have two of my own female cats, and about two years ago I was given a stray female that someone had rescued from their yard where their dog tried to eat it. She was under a year old and heavily pregnant, which is usually a really bad combo. Sure enough, three weeks after she arrived, she popped out three kittens. Despite my best efforts, including hand-feeding the tiny black kitten she rejected, none of them made it past day two. Whilst very sad, this is pretty common, given she was injured and very young to begin with.

I kept her for another two months, getting her used to humans and caught up on her vaccines. She went from a terrified, half-starved, neurotic mess, to a very friendly and playful cat. I posted an updated photo of her into our foster group chat. One of the newest members was a middle-aged woman who had just moved to town and told us she’d been fostering animals for years.

She asked if she could have the cat, as she looked just like her old cat that had died the previous year. She even offered to take care of the vet bills if she could have the cat. I explained that the cat was due to be desexed in two weeks but she said that would be fine.

I thought, “Score!” to myself, happy that the kitty dubbed Lady would be going to another experienced cat owner. I dropped her off at this woman’s house and the woman seemed ecstatic. Lady seemed pretty happy, sniffing around the woman’s hallway and batting at a fake plant. I handed over the vet bills and didn’t think much of it again, which for me is a coping mechanism because I do very much miss the cats I hand over.

About a month later, there was a huge fight in the group chat between the “private” fosterers and the ones like me who are attached to a local vet’s office, who also runs the pound. As a result, the group chat disbanded and two separate ones were made, but I remained friends with a couple of the private fosterers and they reached out from time to time with questions or random comments. One day, one of the other girls messaged me, telling me I was going to be mad.

Turns out “Miss Experienced Fosterer” had never gotten Lady desexed, and had continued fostering male cats that had not been desexed. She had posted a picture in the group chat of poor Lady, again heavily pregnant, her ears and face covered in scars and missing fur from where she’d clearly been attacked, probably during mating. My poor former kitty looked miserable. The woman’s message said, “Can anyone take her? I don’t have time for kittens.” Most people in their chat had obviously forgotten where she got Lady. Luckily, my friend offered to come get her right away and brought her straight to my house. When she saw me and my cats she collapsed on my lap and refused to move for three hours, with my other cats coming over to lick her and snuggle. I took her to the vet, had her wounds addressed, and brought her home again.

That was over a year ago. She and her two kittens, Comet and Captain, are all desexed, vaccinated, and living happily at my house, where they will stay. Lady still panics whenever we go on holiday and hides immediately when she sees a male cat. She’s much shyer and more skittish than she was when she left here the first time, and it will probably take years for me to gain her real trust again. 

I have never and will never give up cats to anyone without a background check and check-ins again.

This story is part of our Animal Shelter Roundup!

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(I work at a reggae festival every year with some family and friends. We usually have our shift at the entrance, where we check if people wanting to get in have the correct wristband to be allowed in, or if they have a correct form of prepayment, scan that and give them a wristband before letting them in. Without a correct wristband or prepayment form, they are not allowed in. This happens during a rather quiet moment of few people coming through my lane at the entrance.)

Me: “Hi there.”

Customer: “Hi. Can I come in?”

Me: “I see you’re not wearing the wristband. Did you prepay online? Because if so, show me the form and I can give you a wristband.”

Customer: “Nope.”

(The customer just keeps staring at me for a moment.)

Me: “All right… You can go there to get your wristband, then. It will cost [amount] and I can let you through when you come back wearing it.”

(I point in the direction he needs to go. He, however, looks that way, turns back to me, stares for a moment, and speaks up again.)

Customer: “Can you let me in if I give you a fish?”

Me: “Sorry, what?”

Customer: “A fish!”

(The customer proceeds to open his backpack and take out a living goldfish in a small plastic bag filled with water.)

Me: *taken aback slightly* “Where did you even get that?”

(The customer doesn’t say anything; he just seems to point in a general direction.)

Me: “Sorry, man, no. Can’t let you in. You should go get a wristband there.”

Customer: “Bummer.”

(The customer then sat down next to the entrance, until a moment that one of the lanes was abandoned because the wristband checker there had to do something quickly and the guy just ran through. People like me are not allowed to physically stop or chase people; that’s what we have a security guard for. The security guard looked at the dude sprinting and followed him with his eyes running all the way out of sight around a corner, at which points he slowly got up, let out a loud sigh, and started walking in the direction the guy had run in. Fish dude got free entrance that day.)