I’m working my first week (and my first job!) at a fast-food place. We’re about twenty minutes to closing, and I’m cleaning up a closed section of the restaurant. The store manager comes over to me. We haven’t actually interacted until this point:

Store Manager: “You’re [My Name], who started this week, right?”

Me: “That’s me!”

Store Manager: “Stop what you’re doing and come with me. I need to show you something.”

Me: “Uh… okay?”

I walk with him outside to a car that has pulled up outside our store. The driver, some guy, has been staring into our store for the last five minutes. The store manager walks up to the car and gently taps on the window.

Store Manager: “Sir, I know you can hear me, so I am going to explain this loud and clear. The store closes in twenty minutes. You are intending to act our your normal schtick of driving through our drive-thru a minute before closing, making some overcomplicated order for the h*** of it, complaining that everything is wrong and demanding it to be remade, and then sitting at the drive-thru several minutes more to check your items, keeping us all back long after closing.”

Driver: *Rolling down his window.* “I don’t know what gives you the right to approach some innocent guy in the parking lot and—”

Store Manager: *Ignoring him and pushing on.* “—So I am making this very clear. If you wish to order through our drive-thru, you do it right now. You are here, in person; there is nothing preventing you from doing so. You can order whatever you wish, but you will accept the order the first time. There will be no do-overs. You will be gone before the store closes. I have ordered my workers to have the drive-thru window closed at 10 PM, regardless of whether you are there or not. There will be no refunds. Calls to Corporate will result in zero reprimands being made to my staff or me. Corporate has been informed of your behavior, and they have decided that the amount of overtime you inflict upon the store is not worth keeping you happy.”

My manager has finally finished, and the driver is silent.

Store Manager: “I’m done. If you’re not in the drive-thru in the next fifteen seconds, you’re not being served.”

The driver gives us both the finger, roars his engine loudly to make some kind of a point, and screeches out of the parking lot.

Me: “What was that all about?”

Store Manager: “One thing you’re going to learn real fast working in the service industry, is that there will always be miserable sacks of s*** like that a**hole I just spoke to. They get their jollies from making people like us miserable, expecting us to have to bow down to them every time simply because they’re the customer.”

Me: “Seriously?! Why?”

Store Manager: “Maybe they have no one who respects them in their regular life, so they take it out on us. Maybe they’re on a power trip and we’re easy targets. F*** if I know or care, leave that to a psychologist. All I know is that people like that will get nowhere with me as long as I am the manager. You’re allowed to tell people like that to go to Hell. F*** what Corporate says, and f*** that “customer is always right” bull-s***, alright?”

Me: “Uh… alright.”

Store Manager: “Good. I’m glad you got to see that on your first week. Feel free to share the story with anyone else who needs to hear it.”

So, I did!

I’m getting ready to start my closing shift. I see my manager power walking through the employee break room. She’s usually very cheerful, sometimes scarily so, but today she’s looking a little upset.

Me: “Good Afternoon, [Manager’s Name].”

My manager glares at me, and without breaking stride, shouts at me aggressively:

Manager: “Is it?!”

I start my shift and tell my coworker what happened.

Me: “There really must have been a bee in her bonnet.”

Coworker: “Oh, she’s just upset about the ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ pillows in the home décor section.”

Me: “Oh my, we actually sell those cheesy things?”

Coworker: “Right?! That’s what I said! [Manager] insisted it was a legitimate and heartfelt message, though, no matter how many times I told her most people just see it as cringe.”

Me: “So that’s why she’s upset?”

Coworker: “No, she’s upset that we haven’t sold a single one of those pillows, but we sold out of all the others that said ‘Eat, Scroll, Cry’ and ‘Exist, Cope, Hydrate’.”

[Manager] did eventually calm down, but not before saying our generation’s “rampant depression and anxiety” was self-inflicted due to our pillow choices.

This happened a few years ago. I’m sitting in a small coffee shop I’m a regular at. The place has a room full of bunnies that customers can go to for “bunny therapy,” and the owner takes the safety and comfort of those little fluffballs seriously. It’s the last hour before closing, and the place is empty, save for me, the owner, and an intern he’s briefing, which is why I can’t help but overhear:

Owner: *To the intern.* “So we only let a certain number of people into the bunny room, and here is where we monitor the room. See that line on the floor? No one but the bunnies are allowed to go over it, not even to reach with their hands to pet them.”

So far, so familiar. I’m about to zone out into my own world until…

Owner: “And if someone harasses the bunnies, you drop anything and everything to intervene. If I spontaneously combust right next to you, but someone is bullying a bunny, you help the bunny before getting a flame extinguisher.”

I had to bite my tongue to not interrupt the training with laughter. I miss that coffee shop a lot!

I go through a fast-food drive-through, place my order at the speaker, and pull up to the window to pay. I ask for a receipt – something I always do – but this time, the employee says the printer is out of paper and they haven’t had a chance to swap it yet. I tell them that I’m OK waiting, but by the time my food is ready, the paper still hasn’t been swapped out.

I look in my bag as I’m rolling away from the window, and immediately notice that I’m missing an item. I drive around the restaurant and find a regular parking space, and go inside to ask for my item.

Cashier: “Welcome to [Restaurant], what can I get for you today?”

Me: “I just went through the drive-through, and I’m missing [Item].”

Cashier: “I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have a receipt?”

Me: “I asked for one, but I was told that the printer was out of paper.”

Cashier: “Unfortunately, without a receipt, there’s nothing I can do for you.”

Me: “Is there a manager I can speak with, please?”

It took a few minutes of arguing, as politely as I could, with the manager to convince them that I had in fact ordered the item. No matter what I said, the only thing the manager would tell me was that “without a receipt, I can’t prove that I ordered [item], so he can’t just take my word for it”.

I finally threatened to call corporate and report the restaurant since it was their own fault I hadn’t received a receipt, even though I had asked for one. The manager finally grabbed (item) off the serving window, which had clearly been sitting there the entire time, and handed it to me with a less-than-sincere “There. Are you happy now?”

I still sent in a complaint to Corporate when I got home, but I doubt anything will happen. The only explanation I can think of is that the manager, and probably other employees, were running a scam to get themselves free food by stealing items from people’s orders and then not giving a receipt so they either had to leave without their item or pay for a new one.

I have never left a drive-through without a receipt since this incident, just to make sure I don’t run into this kind of situation again.

Both my partner and I work as salaried specialists, with no overtime pay. We love our jobs, and we often help out even if it goes over our weekly contractual hours. Since we had our daughter four years ago, our world has become smaller, with her being our first priority, then our jobs, and whatever is left goes to our relationship. And it is not much, as our families live in another country and can’t help.

The last six months, my boyfriend has been working on a huge project, with a demanding client that is located several time zones away, resulting in late online meetings and calls almost every day. I also sometimes work a couple of hours in the evenings after our daughter has gone to bed, but not nearly as much.

I shared this with my manager as we have a very nice and personal relationship. She came up with an idea to pick a slower day, possibly a Friday, and just block an hour or two for a nice, long lunch with my boyfriend, while our girl is in daycare. She said I was welcome to do that once a month or so, as she had full trust in me managing my time and not falling behind on my tasks. I shared this idea with my boyfriend, and he was on board. So, we picked a Friday a couple of weeks ahead, blocked an hour in our calendars, planned to both work from home that day, and reserved a table in a nice little cafe just around the corner of our house.

The day comes, and we are both home, working. I can hear him pick up a call with his manager. I can only hear his side of the conversation:

My Boyfriend: “Correct, I am not available between 12 and 13, I have blocked that hour a long time ago and made sure no calls are scheduled there.”

Pause.

My Boyfriend: “None of what you are mentioning is urgent, I can take a look at the report later today. The client specified that they only need the comments next week.”

Pause.

My Boyfriend: “No, I will not move my personal commitment, and trust me, you are very interested that I don’t do that.”

Pause.

My Boyfriend: “Because now I am working a bunch of unpaid overtime hours every week, and if my relationship fails and I will have to be a single dad every other week, my availability will be severely limited.”

Pause.

My Boyfriend: “Happy to hear that it can wait until next week. You know what? I am taking the rest of the day off.”

I quickly shot my boss a message that I will probably be offline for more than an hour, and she replied that she does not expect to hear from me before Monday. We had a lovely long lunch and started planning a vacation together for next year. My boyfriend still works in the evenings, but he is a lot more protective of his personal time now, seeing how much he was being taken for granted.