(A new worker has been put on the fitting rooms this shift. I walk by him occasionally, and after his first hour I decide to see how he is doing. I check the inspection log and see that he hasn’t completed it.)

Me: “[Worker], have you been trained on fitting room procedures?”

Worker: “Yep!”

Me: “Have you checked the fitting rooms? You need to do it when you first start, and every hour after.”

Worker: “I can’t go in.”

Me: “Are there customers in?”

Worker: “No.”

(Not believing him, I inspect them myself. The men’s is a mess, and I find several tags stuffed behind the handicap chair. I inspect the women’s, and given I am a man, I shout beforehand. I quickly tidy up and sign the log.)

Me: “If no one is in there, you are allowed to go in. With the men’s you can go in anytime, but with the women’s, shout beforehand just in case.”

Worker: “But I can’t!”

Me: “Why not?”

Worker: “The customers might get offended.”

Me: “[Worker], if a customer gets offended by something you have the authority and responsibility to do, there isn’t much else we can do there.”

Worker: “But, the customers!”

(As hard as I tried, he just couldn’t get past the risk of offending customers. I dropped by for the rest of his shift and inspected for him. He was moved onto something else in later shifts, which he fared better with, but he would completely freeze if a customer approached him. Several customers even expressed concern with him — I decided not to tell him about that. Over his remaining time here, he seemed to suffer more and more from anxiety, and he eventually resigned, saying working with other people was probably not for him. I gave him the details for a mental health organisation which helped me deal with my husband’s death. I haven’t heard anything else from him, so I hope he is doing better.)

(I work the front desk at a hotel that offers complimentary shuttle service to local areas. Guests call the front desk when they are ready to be picked up.)

Caller: “I need the shuttle to pick up us.”

Me: “No problem. Where are you guys?”

Caller: “We’re outside Joe’s.”

(There is no business nearby called “Joe’s,” or even anything close to that.)

Me: “I’m sorry. Did you say, ‘Joe’s’?”

Caller: “Yes, ma’am.”

Me: “I apologize, but there isn’t anything close by called ‘Joe’s.’ Could it be something else, or are you possibly dialing the wrong hotel?”

Caller: *suddenly irate* “What the f***?! NO! Your shuttle dropped us off here at Joe’s Peppers less than an hour ago! I demand you pick us up!”

Me: *finally clicks* “Did you say, ‘Joe’s Peppers’? You mean, ‘Jose Peppers’?”

Caller: *silence for a few seconds then starts laughing maniacally* “I called it the wrong thing! Yes! Jose Peppers.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, no problem. The shuttle will be there for you in about ten minutes.” *hangs up*

Me: *to shuttle driver* “You have a pick-up. Careful, though; she’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster!”

This story is part of our Joe roundup!

Read the next Joe roundup story!

Read the Joe roundup!

(My family has just flown back to the UK from a trip abroad. My sister and her husband, who no longer live in the UK, are renting a car to use for the week they are staying with my parents. After a long, very delayed flight, we are tired and sweaty, and we just want to get the car and go. Naturally, the agents at the car rental office are eager to up-sell my sister to a bigger car and go through all the tricks, even trying to convince us that we will never fit all our suitcases in the car. The agent suggests we look at the car just to be sure we don’t want the bigger one. Her husband and I go outside to see the car. The agent pops the boot.)

Agent: “See? Not a lot of room here. Not for your five bags.”

(I am so fed up at this point that I just want us to be done; I know we can fit the bags with no problem.)

Me: “I’d fit a dead horse in there.”

(I must have delivered it with a very serious tone; the agent just went silent and stared at me for a moment, before quietly closing the car, returning to the office, and completing my sister’s rental application without much more to say. It’s worth noting that both my sister and I love animals, are vegetarians, and would never dream of hurting animals… but I was fed up.)

When I was in high school, we had this eccentric teacher that pretty much did his own thing, to the point that he raised a few million dollars to buy the property adjacent to the school and build a fish hatchery, which also served as his classroom. He was beloved by the students and hated by the administration.

One of his yearly traditions was called the “Bear Test,” a 72-hour “test” for his senior wildlife biology class. The idea was that the students were stuck in the wilderness and had to find their way home while being hunted by a bear. The test included, among other things, the teacher dressing up as a bear and “hunting” the students. He would go to their homes and wake them up, go to their work, and hunt them during school. Nowhere was safe. If you saw him, you had to curl into a ball, and he would come poke you a few times and then wander off.

To make sure he only hunted the right students, he had his students wear these horrible-colored shirts. It was a color that most people don’t normally chose to wear. He was color-blind, and for him, the color stood out like a neon sign.

I was in my junior year and it was the first day of Bear Season. I was leaving my first class of the day and going to my second. The Bear Test kids were in small groups of two to five, for safety, darting quickly around campus, hugging the walls and peeking around corners to make sure it was safe. In the middle of the quad was a large grassy field that one of the kids was just brazenly strolling across like he hasn’t a care in the world. Then we heard it: the loud roar of The Bear. He came charging across the quad, gleefully screaming, “I’ve got you!” as he tackled the kid a few feet away from me.

The Bear then looked down into the screaming, terrified face of a freshman who had never heard of the Bear Test before, and just happened to have very poor choice in clothes.

The kid was okay, and after that, they made sure to make freshmen aware of what was happening. I heard from my little sister that, in his senior year, the kid took his Bear Test and went hunting the Bear to take his revenge via water pistol.

This story is part of the Wildlife roundup!

Read the next Wildlife roundup story!

Read the Wildlife roundup!

(I work at the customer service desk for a very large grocery and retail store. It has been a busy day full of customers, and it has finally slowed down. Then, I have a woman approach the customer service desk wanting to make a return.)

Customer: “I need to return this; it’s no good.”

Me: “Okay, may I see your receipt? Let’s have a look at the return.”

(I open up the bag with the return. It’s the remnants of a pound of individually-packaged cheese slices.)

Me: “All right… What seems to be the problem?”

Customer: “I can’t get any of it to melt; this cheese is non-meltable!”