(I work at an office supply store that wears red shirts. After work, I go to a grocery store where employees wear black shirts. As I’m heading toward the deli section…)

Deli Worker: *pointing directly at me* “He’ll show you where they are.”

Customer: “Sir, where are your onions?”

Me: “Uh, I’m really sorry, but I don’t actually work here. I have no idea why that employee pointed to me.”

(The customer walks away.)

Grocery Store Manager: *walking up to me* “Uh, excuse me? That is not acceptable behavior! Come with me right this instant!“

(I try to tell her that I don’t work here, but she won’t let me finish. She keeps demanding that I shut up and follow her into the office. At this point, I’m feeling mischievous, and I slowly start to grin. I decide to play along, just to see how long it takes, and follow her.)

Grocery Store Manager: *pointing to a chair* “Sit down!”

(I’ve now got a GIANT smile on my face, and I sit down. She begins to berate me and tell me she’s had issues with me ever since hiring me, and that she’s received many complaints.)

Grocery Store Manager: “So, in your words, what should I tell the district manager about how you will change your attitude?”

Me: “I’m not going to change anything about my attitude.”

Grocery Store Manager: “Well, then, I have no choice but to write you up for insubordination!”

Me: “Okay.”

(I’m still smiling the biggest smile I can. She still hasn’t picked up on the fact that I’m not one of her employees, even though I’m not in a uniform that her store uses, and my actual store name is clearly visible.)

Grocery Store Manager: “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Me: “Actually, I do. I have a question.”

Grocery Store Manager: “Go ahead.”

Me: “Do you recognize me… at all?“

Grocery Store Manager: “You’re the new guy.”

Me: “Are you sure?”

Grocery Store Manager: “Why?!”

Me: “Because I work at [Office Store], you idiot. Read my shirt!”

(She finally did. I watched her arrogant expression transform to disbelief, then to a kind of horror as she realized that she’d just dragged a customer into the back and spent a good chunk of time yelling at them. I laughed and told her to get her glasses checked, got up, and left the store. I still shop at that store, but I have never seen her there ever again.)

Occasionally, lost items are handed into reception at the school where I work. Two weeks into the term after Christmas, the caretaker hands me a diary with the calendar year stamped on it. He tells me he couldn’t figure out the owner is so he will leave it with me.

I leaf through it to see if I can find a timetable or similar notes, as this helped me identify an owner before, and I find the week’s pages are full of complaints about the teachers who have given this child detention, complete with the times the entries were made. This helps me narrow down the lesson, and thus the class, and looking through the sanctions on our database I pull a name.

I ask the teachers to pass this on, but when this fails, I delivered it to his last teacher for the day personally.

I’m either going to be very popular with this student for returning their diary, or very unpopular as I cross-checked their complaints with their behaviour record to do it.

(I’m working in a small, locally-owned bakery. We close fairly early every weeknight, at six pm. We have closed and locked the store, and my coworker and I are going about our closing duties. I’m in the front cleaning the glass cases, and my coworker is in the back taking care of some other duties. While I’m cleaning, with my back to the entrance, I hear a gentle tapping behind me. It doesn’t sound like a knock, just a tap. I think it’s probably one of our rotating display cases making noises and ignore it. I go in the back for something and come back out into the storefront, where I see a man standing at the front door, knocking ever so gently. I shake my head at him, mouth, “We’re closed,” and go back to cleaning. The man stays there, knocking, and I alternate between ignoring him and indicating, again, that we’re closed. I start to wonder if maybe there is something wrong, like he’s having car trouble, and wants to use our phone, but not long after this occurs to me, I see him on his cell phone, so I know that’s not it. I go back to ignoring him, and finally, he leaves. Not two minutes later, a car pulls into the parking lot, so quickly and so haphazardly that I think for a moment it’s going to plow through the front window. It doesn’t, thankfully, but the same man from before gets out of the car and gets his phone out again. This time, our store phone rings. I’m suspicious, but I answer it, anyway.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Bakery]. This is [My Name]. How can I help you?”

Caller: “You are not letting me in.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve closed for the night.”

Caller: “I want to order a cake.”

Me: “Sir, you’re more than welcome to come back or call tomorrow, but we’ve closed for the night. And all orders require a deposit, and as I’ve already taken down the registers, I can’t process that for you, anyway.”

Caller: “Why can’t you just let me in? I just want to order a cake.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot let anyone in after closing hours.”

(I can’t remember if he hung up on me or I on him, but the call ended and I went back to cleaning. By this point, my coworker was aware of what was happening and she and I discussed our mutual disbelief at this man’s persistence. The store phone rang again, and it was the same number on the caller ID as before. We both ignored it. He continued to call repeatedly, and when that failed, he literally found the only, tiny, two-inch gap in the blinds in our front window and STARED at us through the glass. Now, my coworker and I, two girls in our early 20s, were nearly done closing, and we were beginning to worry about leaving the store since all exits out of the place would eventually lead right past this guy who was staring at us and refusing to leave our parking lot. We had no idea what this man was capable of, and he had shown himself to be irrational and intimidating; what were we supposed to think? I even went so far as to look up the number for the local police department and have it at the ready, but luckily, by the time we had gathered our things, the parking lot was empty and he had left. He showed up again about a week or so later, with his family, who proceeded to show themselves behind the counter to look at a case full of cakes — cakes that were not on display yet, in an area only open to employees — and then insisted upon a very specific custom order for two days away, even though we had reached our order capacity for that day earlier in the week. I think the owner ended up making them something very basic to appease them, but the guy was rude and insistent and generally self-important the entire time. I never saw him again and couldn’t have been more relieved.)

(For a few years, I’ve spent the holiday season working at a well-known bath and body store that is known for having products displayed without packaging. The idea is that everything is meant to look like a food market. In particular, our bars of soap are cut fresh to the customer’s desired weight and then wrapped up for them. A man walks in with two teenage daughters, goes straight for a wheel of soap, and takes a huge bite out of it.)

Male Customer: “What the f***? This tastes terrible!”

Me: “Sir, that’s soap. It’s not meant to be eaten.”

Male Customer: “Well, why would you have it displayed like this?! I thought it was cheese!”

Me: “So, if it were cheese in a store, you’d just walk up and take a bite out of it before having it cut and paid for?”

(I technically should be reprimanded, but the only people on the floor are me and a floor leader who is a take-no-s*** kind of woman. She makes him pay for the entire wheel of soap — about $90 — and leave. Two days later, a different customer comes in holding an empty container that our fresh face masks are sold in.)

Female Customer: “Hi, I need to return this. I, uh… had a bad reaction to it.”

Coworker: “I’d be happy to return that for you. We can give you a refund or exchange it for a product that is better suited for your skin. Could you tell me what happened?”

Female Customer: *very shyly* “It, uh… made me poop my pants.”

Coworker: “Ma’am, these are face masks. They are not edible.”

Female Customer: “Well, how was I supposed to know?! It says, ‘cupcake,’ on the label!”

(Believe it or not, I have dozens of variations on these two stories. Something about the holidays, mixed with the fact that our store is the size of a tuna can, really brings out the weirdos.)

When I was younger, I always loved reading. I still do, even though I don’t have as much time as I used to. In my school, we were allowed to quietly read after we finished our work, something I took full advantage of… at least until my grades started drastically dropping in one class.

I always did my work before I pulled out a book, so I was confused. A parent-teacher meeting was called, and my teacher told my parents that she hadn’t been receiving any papers for me. The decision was made to ban me from reading at all in her class.

I still did my work, and my grade in that class didn’t get much better, but since the apparent “reason” had been taken care of, nothing more was done until one day, when we had a new kind of assignment.

This new one was a magazine for kids with short informational stories. We then had to fill out a little quiz on the back of it. I turned mine in, went back to my seat, and waited.

Towards the end of class, the teacher read out the names of everyone who had turned them in… and mine wasn’t there. I knew I had turned it in, so I asked her if I could look through them, which she allowed. And about midway through the pile, I found it: my work, with my name erased and another name written over it. How did I know?

Well, once you wrote on those magazines, the indent would still be there, even if it was erased. I showed it to my teacher, pointed out the indents, and the person who stole that paper — and several before that — got in a lot of trouble. I had more problems with her, but this was the biggest stunt she pulled by far.