I’ve worked at the same bakery for ten years. When I started, it was literally a wholesale operation in my boss’s garage. In ten years, we’ve changed locations three times and grown from a small, wholesale-only bakery into a big, well-liked local cafe.

In that time, my boss, the owner, has never really gained the skills of a good manager. He’s arbitrary, easily distracted, and inconsistent. We’ve never really had good policy documentation. He’s also very bad at hiring and firing. He’ll keep people on who are detrimental for months or years longer than he should, but he will also fire people seemingly at random.

I no longer recommend working here to my friends after some disastrous situations. I still stuck it out for years because the pay was good and I was mostly left alone. Until recently.

We’ve only had paid time off for about four or five years, and in that time, we’ve never had a hard and fast policy regarding it. We have sick time and vacation time, but it was always told: “Your time is your time, use it the way you see fit.”

Last summer, I didn’t even take a vacation; I just burned up my vacation time to make sure my checks got forty hours a week. The owner had even floated the idea of just keeping one single pool and having it accrue slightly faster. Over the last few years, I’ve had some health problems that wiped out my sick time, and I’ve never really recovered.

The week before last, I was really sick. I only had about thirteen hours of sick time, but I had twenty-seven hours of vacation. I thought:

Me: “Alright, that sucks, it means I can’t take a vacation this summer, but I’m fine with that.”

I got the shifts covered. I put in my PTO for next Sunday.

That Thursday, when we received our pay stubs, I was short the 21 hours of vacation time I’d put in. I texted my boss, and several hours later received this text message, which I suspect was written by ChatGPT:

Boss: “Just to clarify, we don’t have a general PTO bank. We have state sick time and separately approved vacation time. You had thirteen hours of sick time available, which was applied. The additional days you missed were not approved in advance as vacation, so those hours were unpaid. Going forward, vacation time must be requested and approved ahead of time.”

I checked with some of my coworkers. No one had EVER heard anything about having to submit vacation time for approval. This was just the final straw; there had been other things leading up to this, but I was done.

I texted some friends who I knew might be looking for employees at their places of business, finished what I was doing, texted my boss that I was quitting and good luck, and got out of there.

Ten years of blood, sweat, and tears to help this guy build his business, and he couldn’t even text me to let me know they’d apparently secretly changed their PTO policy. I already have a new job a week later, it’s a massive pay cut, but I’m tired of constant disrespect and low morale.

I was working at my mom’s new bakery in my hometown when a young mom came in with her probably six-year-old son, shopping for a birthday cake.

My mom always hated requests for fondant/sculpted cakes because people never took into account how much time they actually took to decorate, but this one request blew my mind, and I’ll never forget it.

This young mom whips out her phone and pulls up images of an elaborate Minecraft village made out of cake. It literally had buildings, landscapes, characters, and everything, sculpted out of cake, fondant, and probably Rice Krispies treats. It likely took twelve to fifteen hours and a lot of talent to make. 

My mom begins suggesting:

My Mom: “That level of detail would take a long time and increase the price. Do you have any simpler ideas?”

She looks at her son and says:

Customer: “Well, he wanted a village, or I’d have made it myself.”

My mom realizes her heart is set on this elaborate cake, so she asks:

My Mom: “Okay, well, how much are you looking to spend?”

Customer: “Well, I’m not trying to spend more than $50 on a cake.”

FIFTY DOLLARS. FOR A F****** 3D REPLICA OF A DIGITAL VILLAGE MADE OF PIXELATED BUILDING BLOCKS.

Even if you’re paying minimum wage for something that requires skill and talent, $50 doesn’t even cover the cost of a cake that takes four hours (after ingredients), let alone twelve!

After my mom gave her a three-digit quote, they settled on a single grass cube with plastic characters on top.

The grocery store where I work has the bakery next to the deli, which is where I work. I am a witness to my coworker in the bakery talking to a customer.

The customer is holding some unsliced bread. To clarify, the bread was a style that was unsliced in the store for a reason.

Customer: “What’s this?”

Coworker: “That’s [type of] bread.”

Customer: “No, it’s not. Bread comes in loaves, and is sliced.”

Coworker: “That’s a round loaf, and it’s unsliced.”

Customer: “Well, what am I supposed to do with it?”

Coworker: “You eat it.”

Customer: “Okay, but what am I supposed to do with it?”

Coworker: “You can use it to make sandwiches, or—”

Customer: “But it’s unsliced.”

Coworker: “Yes, you slice it at home.”

Customer: “How?”

Coworker: “With a knife.”

Customer: “How?”

Coworker: “You, slice it open with the knife.”

Customer: “How?”

Coworker: “You… you move your arm back and forth until it’s in slices.”

Customer: “How would my arm do that?”

Coworker: “No, the knife does that.”

Customer: “What knife?”

Coworker: “The knife you’re using… to slice the bread.”

Customer: “Okay, but how?”

Coworker: “Y’know what, ma’am? Let me get you a different type of loaf that’s pre-sliced. I don’t think you should be going anywhere near a knife…”

I work for a popular independent bakery. A customer comes in demanding a seasonal item that’s on sale. After I explain that the item is out of season and not currently being sold:

Customer: “But the internet said you had some in stock and on sale!”

Me: “We don’t have a website.”

Customer: “Yes, you do!” *Shows me.*

Me: “That’s a Google Map listing that we have no control over. Also, that photo of the sale was taken by a customer a year ago; you can see when it was taken. It’s not an official marketing release from the store.”

Customer: “But the internet said so!”

Me: “Well… believing everything you read on the internet is certainly a choice!”

Customer: “I’m going to write a bad review on Google because of this.”

Me: “So your solution to the misinformation problem it to leave a bad review about us on the platform that supplies the misinformation?”

The customer didn’t respond; she just took a photo of the bakery display and stormed out. The one-star review was up within hours, but their wording was incomprehensible, and all it showed was a surprisingly well-taken photo showing all of our delicious-looking pastries. Considering we have over two thousand positive reviews, we decided to leave that review up and thank the customer for the great picture!

Back in the late nineties, I worked at a Panera Bread. I remember when I had to go out back to ask the manager (who is very professional but also a great joker).

Me: “Hey, [Manager], can you come out front and say you’re Mr. Panera?”

Manager: “Uh… there is no Mr. Panera.”

Me: “Yeah, but this customer just said that if we didn’t refund her order, she’s gonna call Mr. Panera himself and have me fired! Apparently, he’s good friends with her husband. They even grew up together!”

Manager: *Sighs.* “Fine.”

My manager walks out to the front, sees the customer in question, and says:

Manager: “Ma’am, who is your husband? If we grew up together, he never mentioned you. Oh, wait, are you the wife who s*** her pants at her wedding? Oh yeah, you look like her. How’ve you been since… You know… the procedure?”

She did not wait around to hear what else my manager could come up with.