(I’ve had problems sleeping most of my life. I’ve mentioned this to doctors before, but I have always been told it is stress and/or that I’ll grow out of it by the time I am 20. I finally go to a new doctor at age 23 to try to get a sleep study to find out if there’s an underlying issue, and I decide before going in that I am not taking no for an answer, collecting everything I can to back my case up. This is my exchange with the doctor.)

Me: “I’ve hardly had what constitutes a ‘good night’s sleep’ in ten years. It takes me two hours to fall asleep at night, regardless of what time I go to sleep, but during the daytime, I can fall asleep within minutes.”

Doctor: “Well, maybe if you didn’t take naps, you wouldn’t have a problem. Why don’t you try that?”

Me: “I have, actually. I’ve done tests on myself using a sleep tracking app and trying two-month test periods of going all day every day without a nap, and then again taking a thirty-minute nap each day. There’s next to no change in the nighttime data, and my self-rating of how I feel after I wake up is the same, too. I’ve repeated this for the past year with variables like listening to music and using a weighted blanket with the same results.”

(I show him the graphs I’ve made from my data.)

Me: “Not to mention, I hardly spend any time in deep sleep. It’s all light.”

Doctor: “Well, sleep tracking apps can be very unreliable. You shouldn’t trust it just because it’s on your phone. Even though it says you’re in light sleep, you might be getting deep sleep.”

Me: “I know it’s not 100% accurate, but it still shows approximately when I fall asleep, and it’s never less an hour and a half, and that’s on my best nights.”

Doctor: “That’s normal! You’ll grow out of it!”

Me: “But when? I can’t wait until my 30s to ‘grow out of it.’ It’s affecting both my work and home lives. I can barely get any housework done on the weekends or after work because I’m too tired, I sleep through holidays with my family, and I have to call into work at least once a month due to exhaustion. Just last week, I was pulled over because a cop saw me nodding off at a red light.”

Doctor: “Just get some melatonin and you’ll fall asleep in no time. And if that doesn’t work, try valerian!”

Me: “I have. Both of them. There’s no effect on how long it takes me to get to sleep or how I feel when I wake up. If anything, I feel worse in the mornings after I take them. I really think I need a sleep study to figure out if there’s something wrong with me. I’ve literally broken down crying because I was so tired before.”

Doctor: “Are you sure it isn’t just PMS?”

(We go back and forth like this for almost fifteen minutes, him suggesting ideas and me telling him I’ve already done it and recorded my data — all of which I’ve already mentioned to the nurse and on my new patient forms. I’m growing frustrated and, thanks in part to the continuing exhaustion, nearly start crying again under his line of questioning. Finally, I’ve had enough.)

Me: “I am not leaving this office until you set me up with a neurologist for a sleep study. I have a family history of sleep apnea, and I need answers.”

Doctor: “So, you want drugs, that’s it. You’re too young and skinny to have sleep apnea.”

Me: “What? Sleep studies don’t even involve drugs! I am literally getting less than five hours of sleep a night; that should be reason enough for me to get a sleep study right there!”

Doctor: “I don’t work with people hunting for drugs.”

Me: “And I don’t work with f****** crackpots who don’t listen to their patients!”

(I stormed out without paying and reported him to my insurance, and I have an appointment with a new doctor this Friday. Hopefully, this one will actually listen to me.)

(I am working one night in a small shop on the corner. Think quaint English village, where everyone knows everyone. The owner’s daughter has come in to pick up a set of keys as she is locked out of her home. She lives above the shop. She is almost six feet tall, very blonde, and slender, and is one of the kindest and most beautiful people you would ever meet. I am the opposite: grumpy and short, with dyed black hair and facial piercings.)

Drunk Customer: *staring at the owner’s daughter* “Oh, sweetheart! I would give her one all right! Right in the–”

Me: “I’m going to stop you there. You really don’t want to finish that sentence.”

Drunk Customer: “What do you know, you gothic c***? What kind of religion lets someone into heaven if they do something so stupid to their face?!” *gestures to my facial piercings*

Me: “I warned you.”

Drunk Customer: “She’s legal, ain’t she? Oi, sweetheart! Come home with me?!”

Me: “She’s fourteen.”

(The drunk customer paled just as the owner came out, having heard the tail end of his lewd remarks. You know how I said the owner’s daughter was six foot? She got her height from her father, who is almost seven feet tall and built like a rugby player. The drunk customer was in such a hurry to leave that he fell and chipped his tooth on the railing outside.)

(I stock shelves for a grocery store. I have Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning type of autistic spectrum disorder. My manager is fairly new, but he has taken a disliking to me and often treats me poorly compared to my coworkers. This happens one day while I’m stocking pasta sauce.)

Customer: “Excuse me. Do you have any more of this sauce in the back room?”

(She’s holding a jar of an uncommon variety of sauce that we have recently discontinued. I know for a fact that we do not have any more in the back room because we just received our sauce shipment the other day, and none of it was of this variety.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that sauce is actually discontinued and is on clearance.”

Customer: “That’s bulls***! I know you have more back there! Go and get me some, now!”

Me: “I cannot do that, ma’am, as we don’t have any more.”

Customer: “LIAR!”

(Without any warning, she SLAMS the jar of sauce onto the ground at her feet, causing it to shatter. As if on cue, the manager comes over.)

Manager: “Is something wrong?”

Customer: “Fire this brat! Now! He threw this jar at me!”

Manager: “Is this true?”

Me: “No, sir! She threw that jar herself!”

Customer: “You liar! I saw you throw that at me!”

Me: “That’s not true! I—“

Manager: “Enough. I’m sorry, [My Name], but I simply will not tolerate this behavior, so I have to let you go. Go pack up your things and leave the store. I am very disgusted with your behavior.”

(I sheepishly punched out and left, but I wasn’t about to let myself be fired on such bogus grounds. As soon as I got home, I got on the phone with HR and explained the entire situation to them. Three days later, I got a call from the district manager offering me my job back. As it turns out, the whole incident was the latest conspiracy by my now ex-manager to get me fired because he didn’t want to work with someone on the autistic spectrum. The customer turned out to be his wife, and the whole scheme was planned out well in advance. One thing that he, quite foolishly, forgot to take into account was the security footage, which clearly showed his wife throwing down the jar of pasta sauce, contrary to what they claimed to have happened. He was fired almost immediately, and both he and his wife are now banned from setting foot in any of the company’s stores. I’m still working there to this day, and just recently got a promotion to assistant department manager.)

(My boyfriend and I have a mutual friend who’s the manager at a nearby town’s tractor and farm supply store. Yesterday, we got a snap chat from her with the following message, verbatim:)

Friend: “Someone s*** themselves in the middle of an aisle and then proceeded to grab a nearby shopping basket and finished in that. Wiped themselves with the pantyhose socks used to try on shoes. Then hid everything in the basket under a bin of socks.”

(As the manager, she was the only one certified to clean it up. They don’t pay her enough.)

Related:
Welcome To Retail, Part 3
Welcome To Retail, Part 2

(Unfortunately, my mother is the bad customer. She makes a habit of telling her waiters she’s allergic to foods she wants excluded from her meal. On this day it is onions. At this point, we’ve been waiting for about thirty minutes.)

Mom: *to the waitress* “Miss, why is our order taking so long?”

Waitress: “I asked the chef to clear and clean the whole flat top to avoid cross-contamination. It’ll be out soon.”

Mom: “How soon?”

Waitress: “In about ten minutes.”

Mom: “That’s a really long wait.”

Me: “It’s fine. Thanks for asking the chef to clean. We appreciate it.”

Mom: “That’s still a long wait.”

Me: *after the waitress has left* “Do you see what you do to people? ‘No onions’ was enough.”

Mom: “You never know with these people.”

(My mom was a waitress for ten years. I don’t know why she can’t be polite to them.)