(I am working as a stylist and assistant manager at a hair salon in a mall. It is closing time and there is only one stylist working on a client who came in for a rather complex colour correction that is taking longer than expected; everyone else is cleaning their stations and the salon in general. As assistant manager, I need to count out the till and balance everything for the day. Luckily, the woman who is still having her hair done instructs her husband to pay for her services before she is done so I can count out the till and send everyone but myself and the stylist still working home.)

Me: *counting the till*

Client’s Husband: *standing over me shouting numbers* “42, 86, 12!” *laughs* “Lost your count did ya?!” *laughs more*

Me: “Yes, sir, I did and I am trying to balance out the till so all the others can go home.”

(I start my count again.)

Client’s Husband: “22, 6, 89!” *laughs* “Gotcha again! If I have to wait for my wife, so should everybody! I paid good money on this!”

Me: “Well, all of these stylists are commissioned-based, so they are not being paid to sit here and wait, yet they cannot leave until I can be assured that the till is balanced.”

Client’s Husband: “Well, then, I want my tip portion back. They shouldn’t be paid to just sit there and wait!”

Me: “Again, they are not being paid to just sit here and wait; they are merely stuck waiting unpaid and have places they need to be. The only people that have to stay until after the till is balanced are me and [Stylist working on his wife]. You are delaying this by preventing me from doing my job.”

Client’s Husband: “Well, what if I wanted to buy some products? You can’t refuse a sale, can you?!”

(He proceeds to grab the priciest items from our retail area, none of which would be helpful for him or his wife.)

Client’s Husband: “Keep the tills open and keep everyone here until we leave!”

(It is then that the client herself comes from the sinks, water dripping in her eyes.)

Client: “[Husband]! Stop being such a d**k! Go get in the car outside and stop it!  Let [My Name] do her job and [Stylist] do her job so everyone else can go home! It is no one here’s fault that I tried to colour my hair myself and it is taking longer to fix it than expected!”

(The client’s husband walked out sheepishly, and I managed to balance the till in no time so everyone else could leave for the night. BONUS: The client came back with flowers for [Stylist], left a generous tip for both the stylist and me for staying extra late, and pizza showed up later with an apology to the entire salon for her husband’s behaviour.)

(I’m a sysadmin at a school. As I’m the only one taking care of IT, I’m responsible for everything concerning IT, from ordering toner cartridges for printers to server maintenance, and everything in between. I do, however, have two people to answer to: the vice principal and the principal of the school. The principal is easy. He told me when I was hired:)

Principal: “I don’t care what you do or when you do it. I only want you to take care of everything IT-ish. As long as everything runs smoothly, I’m good.”

(The vice principal is a different type of person who is always trying to boss me around and trying to interfere in my work. One day, I get complaints that computers randomly start temporarily losing their network connection. I soon discover that a network switch is having problems, but I have to wait until school’s out before I can replace it. I tell the principal what the problem is and that I can fix it, but not right now because that would mean that the entire network would go down. The principal understands, and we agree that’s it’s wiser to wait. So, when everyone’s gone, I start replacing the switch. This involves disconnecting a lot of cables, replacing the switch, patching the cables again, and configuring the switch, which takes me a couple of hours. This solves the problem, but I still have to sync some servers and do some tests. At three am, I go home, knowing that everything is fine. I leave a note on principal’s desk with what I’ve done and at what time I finished. I don’t clock in or out. I pretty much come and go as I please, usually. The next day, I show up at school around noon. As soon as the vice principal sees me:)

Vice Principal: “We need to talk.”

(In his office, he tells me:)

Vice Principal: “We don’t come and go as we please. You’re fired for being absent without my permission.”

Me: “I’ve had enough of you. It’s true that ‘we’ don’t come and go as ‘we’ please, but I do, and if you have a problem with that you should see the principal.”

(And off he goes, straight to the principal. Ten minutes later, the principal calls me into his office to tell me that I’m not fired and that the vice principal has decided to leave the school, so I can delete his account. The principal’s secretary later tells me that the vice principal had given the principal an ultimatum:)

Vice-Principal: “Either the IT-guy is out or I’m out.”

Principal: “I accept your resignation. You have fifteen minutes to clear your desk, hand in the keys to my secretary, and leave.”

(It turned out that a lot of teachers had complained about his behaviour to the principal and that the principal also didn’t get along with this guy.)

(My store’s return policy is sixty days. We used to be lax about this and accept returns even outside of that timeframe, but because of how many customers abused this policy, corporate decided we were losing too much money and tightened the policy. Now, if someone comes in with a return that is more than sixty days old, the registers physically will not allow us to process the return, and not even the store manager can override this. When I see a customer come in saying she’d like to make a return, and she pulls out a model of purse that I recognize as being several months old, I think I can predict how the conversation is going to go. I’ve been through it many times by now.)

Customer: “I bought this bag as a gift for my mom a few months ago, and she doesn’t like how the zipper works, so I’d like to return it.”

(She demonstrates that the zipper is a little tough to get started, but still zips up just fine after the first half-inch or so.)

Me: “Okay, just so you know our return policy is sixty days, so if you bought it a few months ago, it may be outside of policy. But let me double check on the register.”

(I scan the bag, and sure enough, a screen pops up telling me that it’s been more than sixty days since the bag has been purchased. Sighing internally, I launch into my usual spiel about how I’m so sorry, but unfortunately, since the bag is outside of our return policy, we can’t process the return, there is nothing we can do, blah blah blah…)

Customer: “But I bought this as a gift for my mom and she doesn’t like it. The zipper doesn’t work. Can’t I at least get store credit or something?”

Me: “Unfortunately, no. Again, the register freezes us out; we physically cannot process the return.”

Customer: *sternly now* “Can I talk to a manager?”

(Using all my willpower not to roll my eyes at the customer, I call my manager up to the registers. The manager arrives and the customer explains the situation again, and again demonstrates the zipper which, despite sticking a little at first, still works perfectly. I expect my manager to repeat what I just said, but instead, she hands me the phone.)

Manager: “Can you call internal customer service and see if they’ll process the return, since the zipper is broken?”

(Utterly defeated to see a pushy customer getting her way, but knowing there’s nothing I can do at this point, I make the call. While I’m explaining the situation to the customer service rep, the customer picks up her very young child, who, up until this point has been sitting in her stroller shrieking loudly over our entire conversation. The child, who can’t be more than two or three years old, finally quiets down in her mother’s arms, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to get through the rest of the transaction a little more calmly now. No such luck.)

Customer Service Rep: “Because the product is defective, I can process the return for you. What is the customer’s loyalty program number?”

Me: *gesturing to the customer, who has wandered off at this point* “Ma’am, are you a member of our rewards program?”

Customer: *coming back to my register* “No, I’m not.”

Me: *to the rep* “She doesn’t have a membership. Will that be a problem?”

Customer Service Rep: “No, I just need some info off the receipt.”

(We go through and get the purchase amount, transaction number, and a few other pieces of info so the rep can pull up the transaction from her records. Meanwhile, the customer has decided to stay near my register, still holding her daughter, which is honestly a relief, because I don’t have to flag her down again if I need more info from her.)

Customer Service Rep: “Okay, I can submit the return, but because it is outside our return policy, the customer will need to create a loyalty account so that we can make all the proper notation.”

(I look up to pass this on to the customer and see that her daughter has grabbed a necklace off of a nearby jewelry display and is chewing on it. Assuming it’s a necklace the customer is planning on buying, I choose not to say anything. I explain to the customer that we need to make a loyalty account for her, and ask her for her ID so I can get the needed info for it — full name, address, etc. She hands me her ID, and I pass the info onto the rep, until it comes time to get her phone number and email, which, of course, are not on her ID. Just then, I hear a loud crash and look up to see that her daughter has pulled down a small rack of necklaces off the jewelry display. One necklace shatter, and beads fly everywhere. While two coworkers rush to clean up the mess I, in shock now, do the only thing I can think to do: get the customer’s attention again so I can finish processing the return.)

Customer Service Rep: *after I give her the customer’s phone and email* “Okay, I’ve put the return through. Please let the customer know that we will email her a receipt, and that she should see the refund posted to her account within three to five business days after that. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

Me: “No, thank you. That’s all I needed.”

(I hung up and looked up just in time to see the customer take the necklace that her daughter had been chewing on for the last several minutes and place it, toddler-slobber and all, back in the jewelry display it had come from. Dumbfounded, and honestly just trying to get this lady out of the store as quickly as possible, I explained to her what the rep had told me. She thanked me and left. Once she was gone, we had to damage out the bag, as well as the necklace her daughter broke and the one she slobbered on. And we had to search that whole area of the store for stray beads so that no one would slip on them. All in all, between the return and the two damaged necklaces, she cost us over $150. I hate when the customers win.)

(The entire extended family has gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. Among them is a married couple who have been on the ketogenic diet for going on three years. They brought their approximately 18-month-old baby with them, and everyone is thrilled to see the newest family member. He’s cuddled and passed from aunt to grandma to uncle to cousin all afternoon. This, inevitably, results in people trying to slip him snacks.)

Grandma: *holding the baby* “You’re just precious. Yes, yes, you are. Here. Try this.”

(She breaks off a tiny pinch of her plain sugar cookie and offers it to the kid. He takes a nibble and then claps his hands excitedly. At that moment, the baby’s father enters the room. He storms over and rips his son away from his mother-in-law.)

Father: “We do not feed our child sugar! That stuff is poison!”

(He takes the child away in a huff, leaving the grandma to look absolutely mortified in front of everyone else. About an hour later, he’s cooled down and returns with the child in one arm and a small glass of Jack Daniels in the other. Conversations continue while the father bounces the baby on his knee.)

Father: “He looks so happy. I know what will make him so happy!”

(He gives his son a sip of his Jack Daniels. The child makes a completely disgusted face while his father bawls laughing. The room goes silent. His wife, the child’s mother, is glaring at him.)

Mother: “Can I talk with you… a moment… in the kitchen?”

(Her face was completely red and her hands were shaking. I don’t know what happened next, since the mother was so angry she was beyond yelling and the entire conversation was done in enraged quiet. But the rest of the day, she did not let anyone else hold her child, and he didn’t stay in the same room as them.)

My friend and I are at a local coffee shop. We both just left school so we are wearing our backpacks, which are bulky and cumbersome. As my friend is walking past a table to leave, her backpack catches a spice shaker and knocks it onto the floor. The shaker is small and doesn’t make much noise when it lands. That, coupled with the background noise in the coffee shop causes her not to notice what happened.

She is already out the door, so I go to pick the shaker. Then, this woman, whom I have never seen before in my life, comes up to me ranting and raving about disrespectful teens and how we can’t just start destroying things and not picking up after ourselves. I point out that I am picking it up, that my friend knocked it over by accident, and that there is no harm done. This does not placate the rude woman. She then starts yelling at the barista that my friend and I are trying to destroy coffee shop property and should be banned. The barista, who was watching this whole insane situation, takes my side and tells the woman she cannot harass other customers.

I leave the coffee shop and my friend asks me what delayed me. As I am explaining, the rude woman comes out after me and starts screaming at my friend and I more. My friend’s dad pulls up in his car to drive us home; we hurry to the car as the woman is yelling incoherently behind us. He asks us what happened as the woman is literally banging on the car windows and yelling about how disrespectful and awful both my friend and I are.

I’m shaken but I explain the best I can. My friend’s dad isn’t amused; he rolls down his window enough to roar at the woman to keep her hands off his car. She pales, shuts up, and backs up. My friend’s dad then gets out of the car and marches into the coffee shop. A minute later he and barista appear, and the barista starts talking to the rude woman, who begins crying and storms off in the direction of the parking lot. My friend’s dad explains that the barista has banned the woman from the coffee shop.

About a week later, I am walking home. I am passing a crosswalk that a man is crossing when a convertible comes out of nowhere and screeches to a halt right in front of the man, nearly hitting him. The driver then starts screaming at the man for being in the middle of the road, saying it would have been his fault if she had hit him, and so on. Lo and behold, it is the same rude woman from the coffee shop. The man she nearly hit just flips her off and walks away.

The rude woman turns towards me for support, saying that you just can’t reason with some people. I tell her I agree completely and that I see she’s just as unreasonable and crazy wherever she goes. Her face first goes blank, then bright red as she recognizes me. She steps on the gas pedal and swerves off, tires screeching, towards a street corner that a cop usually stays by with a radar gun, waiting to catch people speeding. I walked away cackling as she was screaming at the police officer for pulling her over.