I am on the bus one night coming home from a late class. I’m sitting along the side of the bus, opposite the courtesy seats for elderly and disabled people. There’s a middle-aged woman sitting in one of these seats opposite me. For reasons that will become apparent, we’ll call her Bus Hag.

A musician — bass guitar on his back, carrying an amp on a dolly, the whole bit — gets on the bus. He places his amp in front of an empty space, sits on it, and holds the dolly with one hand and the pole with the other. We shall call this man Ponytail Dude.

Bus Hag: “Hey, buddy, can you move that thing? I don’t want it falling on my knee.”

Ponytail Dude: “Sorry?”

Bus Hag: “The dolly. It’s going to fall and hit my legs.”

Ponytail Dude: “It’s not going to fall. I’m holding onto it.”

Bus Hag: “Look, the f****** thing is going to fall.”

Ponytail Dude: “It’s not going to fall.”

Bus Hag: “It’s f****** dangerous. It’s going to fall and break my leg.”

She is, of course, referring to the dolly, which can’t weigh more than five pounds.

Bus Hag: “You’re f****** blocking the aisle, buddy. It’s dangerous. You’re a f****** sociopath! Blocking the aisle, blocking me, you’re creating a dangerous situation.”

Passenger #1: “Shut the f*** up, lady. He’s not hurting anybody.”

Bus Hag: “Watch your f****** language, buddy. Someone better wash your mouth out.”

Passenger #1: “Wash your mouth. You’re the one swearing.”

Passenger #2: “F*** off, you old bat.”

Bus Hag: “I should wash your mouth out.”

Passenger #3: “Shut up.”

At this point, Bus Hag returns her anger to Ponytail Dude, who has said very little in the past few minutes. She pulls out her phone and — rather obviously — tries to take a photo of Ponytail Dude, but he blocks her camera.

Bus Hag: “Get your f****** hand out of my face!”

Ponytail Dude: “Don’t take my picture.”

Bus Hag: “I was checking my f****** Facebook!”

Me: “You know we can hear your camera from over here, right?”

Bus Hag: “F*** you, you little s***. I was checking my f****** Facebook.”

Me: “We heard your camera. Were you maybe taking a self-portrait of you checking Facebook? By the way, I think your duck-face needs work.”

Bus Hag: “F*** off.”

Passenger #2: “Shut up, lady.”

I turn to Ponytail Dude, regarding the amp.

Me: “Could you pick that up and just drop it on me?” *Removing my hat* “Just right here, I want to forget this whole d*** experience as soon as possible.”

Finally, Bus Hag gives up and moves to the back.

Me: “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Passenger #1: “Hey, lady, you forgot your broomstick!”

Ponytail Dude: “Sad thing is, I’ve actually been on the bus with her before.”

Me: “I pity you, my friend. I am truly sorry for you.”

A friend of mine has invited me along with some other friends to play in a tabletop roleplaying game. The setting is fourteenth-century France. I speak French fluently; my friend has very limited French.

Friend: “Okay, so, the neighbourhood you guys are going to settle in is called Port du Rhin.”

He pronounces it as rhyming with “tin”.

Friend: “I chose this one because I think I can pronounce it.”

Me: “Could you spell that for me?”

Friend: “R-H-I-N.” *Pause* “What?”

Me: “Nothing.”

Friend: “I’m saying it wrong.”

Me: “Um… a little bit.”

Friend: “How should you say it?”

Me: “Rhin.”

For people who don’t speak French, the word consists of two sounds that don’t exist in English. It sounds vaguely like you coughed while saying the word “ran” and didn’t finish closing the “n”.

Friend: *Pauses* “I have chosen poorly. Moving on…”

I work with a woman for whom English is not her first language. Her English is actually great, but I think she thinks it is a lot worse than it actually is, so she overcompensates… which leads to scenarios like this.

Coworker: “Do you know what happened to the towels in the bathroom?”

Me: “No, I don’t.”

Coworker: “Oh. Well, I sent them to be cleaned at [Other Location]. Do you know?”

Me: “I don’t know.”

Coworker: “Oh. Well, I put a tag on them and sent them to [Other Location] to clean, but they didn’t come back. Do you know?”

Me: “I. Don’t. Know.”

Coworker: “Oh. Okay.”

I turn around to gather my stuff to go home.

Coworker: “But I put a tag on them. And sent them to [Other Location] for cleaning. And they didn’t come back. Do you know?”

I turn back to her with an incredulous look.

Coworker: “Oh. You don’t know.”

Me: “No. I don’t.”

She was actually quite intelligent and knew three or four different languages, but… boy, her questions could sure be tiring sometimes.

The story with this customer is a bit of a saga. It begins in late fall of 2019 and continues into March 2020.

We have an older semi-regular shopper at my grocery store who is just an a** to all of us. He has never once been polite. I honestly don’t remember what he said to me the first time I had him at my till, but the interaction caused me to dislike him from the start. I think it was just his “cashiers are worthless and your only purpose is to serve me” attitude.

The second time this customer came through my till, I was warned by my supervisor that he would be difficult to deal with, and I received similar treatment from him. I was yelled at for not immediately moving to load his single bag of groceries into his cart. Admittedly, loading carts is something we are required to do by corporate. However, since we are the only store in the area with that policy, most customers load their carts themselves, especially if they have small purchases. They always thank us when we do it for them. But not him.

The third time I saw this customer, I was the supervisor on duty, and he went through a coworker’s till. I went over to her till and bagged for her — even though cashiers at my store are supposed to work without a bagger — because I knew this customer would be disrespectful to her. I was right. He yelled at her for touching his groceries before he had everything out of his cart and then yelled at her again when she took too long to ring him up… which wouldn’t have happened if she could have started when he was loading the belt.

The fourth time I saw this customer, I was again the supervisor on shift, but I couldn’t get to my (other) coworker’s till in time to help her. He berated her for similar “mistakes.” He first yelled at her because she offered to put his receipt in a bag. Then, the customer yelled at her again when she asked if he would prefer to hold on to his receipt or have her toss it.

I’m sure you get the idea; this guy is a piece of work. None of us like dealing with him, but you know how it is when you work in customer service. No matter how big of a jerk someone is being, you still have to smile and be polite.

The most recent time I see this customer is in March 2020, during the crisis. A lot has changed in my store in order to keep it running. Now, there are plexiglass screens in front of the tills, sliding doors behind them, and markers every six feet so customers know where to stand in line. We’ve also had to hire a lot of new people, both to cope with panic buying and because we need to have more tills open to reduce the number of people in close proximity to each other. Also, corporate has suspended our cart-loading policy for the moment, since it would mean getting within six feet of customers.

This time, my supervisor notices this customer first, as he gets into line at a till manned by one of the new hires. At her suggestion, I let the new hire out on break so she doesn’t have to deal with him on her third day after training.

He is just as rude to me as he has been in the past. I complete the sale with a smile on my face in spite of this. When I finish ringing him up, he demands I move his groceries to his cart. I take great pleasure in telling him he will have to load his three bags himself, as I am no longer required to do so by corporate, due to the current crisis.

It’s not much, but boy, did that feel good.

I am a baker but I also do customer service. Our bakery does a ton of pickup orders but we also have a selection of ready-made items to buy.

A customer walks in wanting to buy a pie for a birthday that evening. It’s late afternoon right now.

Me: “Hi there. What can I get you?”

Customer: “I wanted to get a pie for my friend’s birthday.”

Me: “Okay, what kind?”

Customer: “What kinds do you have without dairy? He is deathly allergic to dairy products.”

Me: “Well, at the moment, I don’t have any vegan pies, just conventional ones. So they all have dairy in them.”

Customer: “What about just an apple pie? Is there dairy in that?”

Me: “Yes. We use butter in the pie dough. For vegan pies we don’t, but I don’t have any ready-made.”

Customer: “Butter? Butter isn’t dairy.”

Me: “Um…”

I am trying not to be rude.

Me: “Yes, it is. Butter is dairy.”

Customer: “No, milk is dairy. Butter isn’t dairy. Butter is butter.”

Me: “Butter is made from cream. It is 100% dairy.”

Customer: “Well, he can have butter. Butter is fine. He is allergic to dairy. So no milk. Does that pie have milk in it?”

Me: “Technically… yes. If your friend is deathly allergic to dairy, then he can’t have any of the pies I have ready.”

Customer: “I said he can have butter. I’ll take the apple pie.”

Me: “Okay. But he shouldn’t eat it. He will die.”

Customer: “He just doesn’t like creamy things, okay? He doesn’t like the custard-y pies. I just wanted a pie with no dairy in it.”

Me: “Okay. I’m glad he won’t die.”

Customer: “Yeah, I’m sure you’re really glad.”

She angrily bought her pie and stormed out. After she left, I had flashbacks of working in fast food and customers ordering fries with no salt FOR HEALTH REASONS, thinking they were tricking me info making fresh fries… when they could have just asked for fresh ones. Sigh. Joke’s on them. I ALWAYS forgot to add the salt packets they would ask for.