I worked one winter as a seasonal driver’s helper for a popular shipping company on a combined business/residential route. Most of the time the customers were happy to see us.

A small personal care and beauty products store received shipments at least once a week. The owner and sole employee was known to be highly eccentric but I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I worked for the shipping company. We always parked around the corner from the shop and scanned the items as delivered before exiting the truck. All packages were left on the sidewalk outside the door, and said sidewalk was almost always littered with soggy cardboard bits.

The regular route driver explained that the owner wouldn’t accept packages delivered from a foreign-built vehicle — the truck he drove was an import brand — or that he knew had been scanned with “the evil contraption.” He washed the packages open before taking the product into his shop, spraying the cardboard boxes with a high-pressure hose nozzle until they fell apart, because they may have been handled by “those people.”

My high-school-age daughter was a volunteer page at the adjacent public library and the shared wall was always wet and moldy. They discovered that he was not only washing product on the sidewalk, but also regularly hosing down the product as it sat on the shelves to wash away any lingering contamination.

That shop has closed — I believe evicted due to damage — the library has moved to a new, larger location, and a different business is now occupying an area of the shopping center that includes both storefronts. They said they had to totally strip, seal, and rebuild the interior where that shop was located due to water damage, mold, and mildew and even now, several years later, an occasional customer will comment about a musty smell.

(I work in customer service for a big phone company. One afternoon this month, I get this call.)

Me: “Hello and welcome to [Phone Company]. My name is [My Name]; what can I help you with?” 

Caller: “Hi. This might be a weird question, but I figured I’d ask anyway.” 

Me: “Okay, shoot.” 

Caller: “I ordered Internet not too long ago and have been waiting for the router to arrive. Well, as it happened, I was out for a walk today when I got the notification telling me it had arrived, so I figured I’d go get it right away, since the router is kind of small, right?”

Me “Yes, that’s right. So, what exactly is the problem, sir?”

(A moment of embarrassed silence.)

Caller: “I got eight of them.”

Me: *trying not to laugh* “Excuse me. Can you repeat that?” 

(It turned out eight routers wasn’t all he got! The system had gone haywire and given him eight different broadband services too. Of course, I fixed it, and the caller was nice and even laughed about it.)

(At the restaurant where I work, there is a server who used to work at a different restaurant chain. He had regulars there who were really strange, and he tells me about them when he first starts working at my restaurant. I guess I don’t fully believe him until a group of three people — I assume a husband, wife, and maybe adult son — comes in. They request the aforementioned server. They’re very quiet people, and the woman has a dopey smile on her face. Her clothes have stuff all over them, which I can only assume is a mixture of food and bodily fluids. Her husband only responds to any questions I ask in grunts and groans, though he will use words when speaking to his wife and son. The son is obviously mentally handicapped, so I have nothing bad to say about him, because I don’t discriminate against the mentally disabled. However, his parents are honestly just weird.)

Me: “Hey, [Server], I sat you at table 72. These people are kind of weird, though.”

Server: *his face completely falls* “Oh, God, no.”

(It turns out they were his regulars at his old job. I worked there for about two years, and until the server left to work in a state penitentiary, this group came in every Wednesday wanting to sit with him. Some things I caught them doing were chewing up their food and spitting it into napkins as if that was all they wanted, farting loudly with no excuses or apologies, asking other hosts if they would be willing to change their son’s diaper, bringing cans of soda into the restaurant — we have soda! — but not drinking them and instead pouring them into our live plants outside, and worst of all, the woman would walk to the bathroom and on her way there she would take food off of dirty tables. Yes, this was food that another customer had bought and was sometimes half-eaten. She just walked by, grabbed half a steak with her bare hands, and ate it on the way to the bathroom. Apparently, when they came in to the server’s old job, they were told he’d moved to this new restaurant, so they followed him. And since my restaurant is much more expensive than the previous one, they yelled at the server until he gave them his employee discount. Not even the right one! Employee’s family and friends discount is 50% off two meals, 33% off three, 25% off four or more. They should have gotten 33% off, but they yelled until all three of them were crying so he would give them the full 50%, which almost got him fired. Luckily, he worked there for a year before he left. They’d come in and ask for him and I had the satisfaction to tell them he no longer worked there. They’d just get quiet and shuffle out but still try again the next week, as if he might suddenly work there again.)

(I work in a large bookstore. We have a large section of coffee table books, mostly art and photography. A customer approaches me.)

Customer: “Do you have any coffee table books on famous actresses?”

Me: *thinking of icons such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe* “Well, we might have some. Are you looking for something specific?”

Customer: “YES! I would very much like to have a richly illustrated book about the actress who played the mother in Back to the Future! Do you have that?!”

Me: “Erm… Sorry, we don’t have any illustrated books on her…”

Customer: “Oh, what a shame. I would love to have a book on her…” *wanders off* “A fine, fine lady!”

(I work at a family-owned pizza parlor. I receive a call for delivery, and I swear the caller is housing an angry demon, based on the crashing noises in the background.)

Me: “This is [Restaurant]. How may I help you?”

Caller: “Um, yeah, can I order a pizza I don’t want?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Caller: “Like, I don’t want it now…”

Me: “Oh, you want to order ahead?”

Caller: “Yeah!”

Me: “Okay, we can do that.”

Caller: “I need it ready by seven… o’clock… pm.”

Me: “Sounds good. What did you want to order?”

Caller: “Oh, uh, a small cheese pizza.”

Me: “Okay! We’ll have it ready for you!”

(There’s a huge crash from his end.) 

Caller: “Good Lord! I need to make that a large, please!”

Me: “Yes, sir… Um, can I have a name for that order, please?”

Caller: “Ben.” *another huge crash* “Fine! Benjamin if you want me to be formal.”

Me: “Thank you, sir. Your pizza will be ready at seven.”