(It’s about fifteen minutes after closing. All of our exterior building signs, the parking lot lights, and the menu board are turned off, and there are bars over the windows. I still have a headset on because it is the easiest way to communicate with a crew member doing closing tasks on the other side of the restaurant without yelling. A car pulls up and I decide to greet them before they start honking to get our attention, which comes across as VERY loud over the headset.)

Me: “Hi! I am very sorry, but we are closed for the evening. Our store on [Street] is open 24 hours a day.”

Person In Car: “So, that means we can still order, right?”

(I am walking out of my office just as another coworker is walking in. We nearly crash into each other.)

Me: “Hi, I’m solid.”

Coworker: “Hi, I’m liquid.”

(For weeks after that, he continued to greet me as “solid.”)

(I’m on a medication which, unfortunately, has some side effects like body pains and exhaustion. Most days are fine, but on this day the pain is in my back, making it difficult to walk around. When I’m done grabbing my groceries and head over to check out, there is only one lane open and there is a huge line. There are four self-checkout lanes, three of which have long lines; the fourth is empty so I walk over and start scanning my groceries.)

Rude Lady: *very passive-aggressive* “It’s not like we were waiting in line or anything.”

(This lady was in line at one of the other self-checkout lanes before I even got to the lane. If she wanted to check out, she could have. I’m already irritable and just want to get home and lie down, so I reply.)

Me: “Yes, you were and are still in line for that checkout line; I went to this empty one that no one was in. Maybe you should have been looking for an open lane instead of a reason to complain.”

(I’ve finished scanning my last item and am about to pay when the rude lady lines up behind me.)

Rude Lady: “Well, at least you didn’t take your time.”

(As soon as I’m out of the way putting my items in my cart, she starts scanning her items. Before I leave, I figure I can at least be a little helpful.)

Me: “By the way, since you have trouble noticing things, this is a card-payment-only lane.”

(She stopped scanning her items and looked at the sign I was pointing at. She then glared at me, grabbed her scanned items, and got back in line for one of the other lanes.)

*Two older Caucasian ladies come in*

Me: “Hi there, for two?”

Lady #1: “Hi, I’m looking for a restaurant I’m meeting with friends around here that serves a soup with coconut milk. Do you guys serve that?”

Me: “Ahh miss we’re a Japanese ramen restaurant, we don’t add any coconut to our soups. I know Thai restaurants do that, although I don’t know of any Thai restaurants around here.”

Lady #1: “Oh right, Thai. I guess we’ll just eat here and wait for our friends.”

*During the entire time they ask a lot of questions regarding our soups which I don’t mind. They finish their meal, leave, and 3 minutes later come back storming in*

Lady #1: “YOU LIED TO ME!. We just walked by this Thai restaurant next door and saw our friends that we’ve been waiting for this entire time and you said there were no Thai restaurants around here!!”

Me: “Uhhhh, that’s a Taiwanese restaurant.”

*Completely oblivious, she continues to try and argue with me about the differences in the two countries. She also lectures me about if I were to go Germany and pronounce words I would be in the same situation*

Years ago, my brother was working as an accountant for a small chain of mini-marts. Since he was considered management, he was not eligible for overtime, but they wanted him weekly to be on call and to come in on his day off to some task that was not part of his job and not a management task. California law indicated he might be eligible to collect overtime for that after all.

So, he requested about $10,000 to cover the unpaid overtime. The company refused, so he took them to the Labor Board.

He lost his suit with the Labor Board, but as part of the investigation, the Labor Board discovered that the company was shorting the overtime for other employees. The company was forced to pay the overtime and close to $100,000 in fines.

In addition, the investigator discovered that the company had official inventory taken, but then fudged the numbers on the tax returns and kept both the correct and the fraudulent inventories. So, the investigator turned them into the IRS. They were audited and ended up paying close to $500,000 in back taxes and fines.

This put a major crimp in the savings and income of the partners. Whether it was because she didn’t have enough spending money or because she did not want to be associated with the cheats, one of the partner’s wives filed for divorce and in the community property state, she ended up with a quarter of the business, which she insisted on taking in cash.

This resulted in the company going bankrupt. And it all could have been avoided for $10,000.