We’re understaffed at our superstore, which means that it falls on us to put back returns for departments that don’t have anyone working them. I am putting up returns for Pets, Paper, and Chemicals when a lady walks over to me holding a large container of bleach.

Customer: “Can you help me carry this?”

Me: “Oh, sure. Are you just heading to the checkout?”

I set down my handful of stuff I’d needed to put back on the shelf.

Customer: “Oh, no. I still have some shopping to do.”

Me: “Er… ma’am, I can grab you a grocery cart if you’d like.”

Customer: “Why can’t you just carry it for me?”

Me: “I still have quite a lot of work to get done.”

Also, I’m not your pack mule!

Customer: “Oh, forget it. What’s your name?” *Looks at my name tag.* “Ah, yes. Well, if I end up spilling this big thing of bleach, I’ll be sure to tell management whose fault that was.”

And with that, she tottered off with a threatening aura.

This is a story from a while back. I was working in IT support in the glory days of WinNT. Back then, we had to set up each user on each machine individually. None of those new-fangled roaming profiles or automatic setups. One of the areas we supported was our University’s Finance department. We noticed that we were having to do an awful lot of setups and moves for these guys. At least one a day, for an office of about thirty people. So eventually we asked what was up.

It turned out that the previous Finance Director had gotten everything set up exactly the way he wanted it. Every person had a job, their computer had the software, or in some cases hardware, they needed. Every person knew their job, and only their job. It was all one well-oiled machine.

Which would jam up if anyone took leave, so he didn’t let them. Now, I was hearing this after the fact, so I don’t know how that worked in practice, but that was what I was told. Perhaps the American readers are nodding their heads as if this were self-evident, but we have different standards in Australia.

However, he managed it; it all went well until he left, and a new Finance Director took the position and lost their s***. Let me explain two things. First, under our workplace agreement, neither sick nor annual leave expires. If you’ve worked there for ten years, and you don’t take leave, then you have sixty weeks of leave accumulated. (four weeks annual + two weeks sick multiplied by ten).

The second thing is Long Service Leave. In Australia, it’s common to have a provision where if you’ve worked for the same company for seven to eleven years, you get a big chunk of leave, say ten to fifteen weeks, all at once. The numbers are a range because they vary between companies. At our university, it was thirteen weeks after seven years.

All this accumulated leave, thirty years’ worth, I’d guess, is considered a liability to the organisation. So, the new Director’s number one priority was to have her staff take their leave. Immediately.

Except… the machine still needed to work.

So… they’d get a temp person in, train them on their role so the original staff member could go on leave, then they’d get a new person for the next role, etc. The guy who told me this was about to go on leave for eighteen months.

So that was why we had so many new setups. Eighteen months later, I ran into that Finance guy again. He was back after his break, which he said was very refreshing.

I’m checking out a woman’s groceries and bagging them as I go. I bag up her regular milk, and then I get started on the four cartons of chocolate milk.

The customer notices this and stares at me suspiciously as she says:

Customer: “Huh, you segregated my milk.”

Thank god she had both white and brown bread, which both went into the same bag and allowed me to redeem myself.

I’m working concessions at a movie theater.

Customer: “What’s the difference between the regular hot dog and the jumbo hot dog?”

Now, this isn’t as stupid as it sounds, as sometimes customers refer to the toppings.

Me: “The size, ma’am. The regular hot dog is six inches, and the jumbo is twelve.”

Customer: “Is it really bigger, though? Or do you just make the bun smaller?”

Me: “That would be dishonest, though, ma’am. I promise, both the hot dog and the bun are bigger when you order the jumbo.”

The customer doesn’t seem convinced, but she orders the jumbo anyway. The hot dog and the bun are the same length. She still gets an actual tape measure out and confirms that the hot dog and bun are both, in fact, twelve inches. She glares at me one more time but goes on her way.

Coworker: “That is a woman who has been lied to by many men about size and inches…”

I have just switched internet providers, and I have received the router from the new one.

The box has a huge print on it:

Box: “Do It Yourself Box.”

As soon as I open it, a slightly smaller print, but still very large, says:

Box: “Do not install by yourself, wait for our technicians.”

I check twice, just in case I got Schrödinger’s Internet.