(I’m a front side service member, meaning I do everything from cleaning to taking orders to checking out customers. This happened a year or so ago, when contactless payments or card “tapping” started to become more commonplace.

A customer comes up to the till.)

Me: “Afternoon, sir! Enjoyed the meal?”

Customer: “I did, actually. Here, my ticket.”

Me: “Thanks. All right, we had [order]. That’s a grand total of [price].”

Customer: “Debit card, please.”

(The customer starts tapping his card to the side of the terminal.)

Me: “Oh, I’m afraid the tapping feature is disabled. Our register system isn’t set up to accept those yet.”

Customer: “What do you mean? This is a contactless card, and the terminal says I can pay contactless.”

Me: “True, it does say that. But all that means is that the terminal could, in theory, assuming the register is set up. Ours isn’t, so you’ll have to insert the card.”

Customer: “No! I can and I will pay contactless!”

Me: “Sir, I’m sorry, but that’s not possible at this time. We’ve tried to get it online, but it broke down right after. Just insert your card, please, and we can pay it the old-fashioned way.”

Customer: “No! This is ridiculous! I should be able to pay however I want!”

(The customer left without paying. Since he was a lot bigger than I am, and I had a line of customers to deal with, I didn’t stop him. Instead, I noted down his license plate, checked with the manager if the cameras were running, and sent the bill to his home address… paired with a lovely dine and dash fine.)

(I work at a car rental shop where we have our own garage for small repairs with mechanics who are offered jumpsuits to protect their clothes. We also have a policy of no animals in the cars and no smoking.)

Customer: “Hi. I just checked out my car and it smells a bit like smoke; can I get a new one?”

Me: “Yes, of course! I’m very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you.”

(The customer leaves with no other problems and returns the car on time with no complaints.)

Me: “If you could just wait right here, I’ll go check out the car to make sure everything’s in order. It won’t be too long.” 

(I find a large amount of dog hair in the back. After talking with another employee, we agree the guy broke the contract.) 

Me: “Sorry, sir, there seems to be a slight problem with the car.”

Customer: “What?! I did nothing wrong! I am a good customer; you should be honoured to have me!”

Me: “Sir, there is a large amount of dog hair in the back of the car. You signed a contract before leaving agreeing to no animals in the car.”

Customer: “How do you know it was me? It could have been one of your employees! Stupid kids, always pinning the blame on someone else!” 

(Right then, a mechanic comes around the back after hearing half of the conversation.)

Mechanic: “Hey, just finished cleaning another car.”

Me: “As you can see, sir, all of our employees are required to wear these suits when cleaning and keys are locked away at the end of the day to ensure safekeeping.” 

Mechanic: “And from breaking contract, you will have to pay to have the car cleaned.”

Customer: “This is all some Commie scam! You just want to get the hard-working guys like me! We get no break! When else are we supposed to drop off our pets to the kennels?! This is horrible! Here! Take the d*** money. I’m never coming back here!”

(He promptly tosses €100 at us to cover for cleaning and storms out.)

Me: “Doesn’t it only cost €20 to clean the cars?”

Mechanic: “Looks like you just got a bonus.”

Last century, my grandad was one of the first people to have a tracheotomy for throat cancer and survive. With it came speech therapy and an alternative way to speak, based on a technique of burping. He was ashamed to do his exercise but quickly found a way around it.

He was taking long walks with his then youngest grandchild, my brother, all the while practicing his speech. Nobody thought it strange as people make all sorts of sounds to babies. As my brother was between six months and a year old, he was at his most receptive for language development and was quick to pick up what my granddad was doing.

One night, in his crib, he was imitating the sounds my granddad made, sounding as if he was choking, scaring my mum and making her rush to him. It took a while before she made the connection and understood what the baby was doing.

And that is the story of how my brother learned to speak at an early age and how, to this day, he can belch upon request.

(Small things like cutlery or bottle openers go missing all the time from our kitchen. There is a wine-tasting scheduled for selected customers and we have no corkscrew.)

Coworker: *upon hearing this jokingly addresses our intern* “Hey, [Intern], you’re French; you should have a corkscrew on you.”

Intern: “What? You need a corkscrew? Of course. One moment.”

(She goes to her handbag and fishes out… a corkscrew. We almost die of laughter. All bottles are uncorked; we try to return it to the intern.)

Intern: “Oh, no, it is fine, I have three or four more at home.”

(I guess it is a necessity having a six-month internship in another country, and yes, she meant her temporary lodgings.)

When my brother and I were teenagers, we were hired by my dad’s office for two weeks.

They were going to move locations soon, so they hired a bunch of students during the summer to put files in boxes to prepare for the move, basically.

My brother and I were working in the same department, which wasn’t the one our dad worked in.

Our supervisor told us how to proceed. Apparently, they had hired two students — specifically one girl and one boy — for each department. The boy was supposed to put the files in the boxes and lift the boxes and the girl was supposed to take inventory for the content of each box. In her words, the boxes were too heavy for teenage girls and teenage boys were too sloppy to take inventory correctly.

My brother and I looked at each other in silent judgment and we thought that that was going to be very inconvenient. She basically wanted my brother to put files in a box, close the box, move the box to me, then for me to open the box again to go through the files to add them to the inventory, and then to call my brother again so he could move the box.

We decided quickly to disregard that and asked my dad if he could get us a second computer. We got one and we both took care of everything — adding the files to the inventory, then putting them in the boxes, and then moving them.

Surprise, surprise, I was more than capable of moving boxes — that weren’t even that heavy — and my brother was more than capable of taking a simple inventory.

In the end, we finished way earlier than students in other departments and our supervisor was very satisfied with our work.