I work at a popular café that gets really busy during lunch. One day when I am working at the cash register, an older woman comes in and starts complaining almost immediately, despite being second in line.

Customer: “It’s so busy! Can’t you get someone else to take orders?”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m the only one working on cash register today. I can take your order as soon as I’m done helping this customer.”

Customer: “That’s not acceptable! You’d better get your manager.”

I finish the order and get my manager to ring the woman up, and she spends about ten minutes berating my poor manager. The customer finishes ordering and sits down. About twenty minutes later, she’s back at my register.

Customer: “I’d like to order one of your $1.50 cookies.”

The café has a deal where you can get a cookie for a lower price if you order it with your meal and a drink. The menu clearly states that you have to order everything at the same time, but people still get confused from time to time.

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you have to order the cookie with your meal and drink in order for it to be $1.50 so, unfortunately, I can’t do that. But I can get you a cookie for the normal price if you’d like?”

Customer: “No, I want my discounted cookie! Go get your manager; I’m sure she’ll agree that I deserve this after all the trouble you’ve caused me today.”

I go to the back, where the female manager who initially spoke to the customer is talking to a male manager. I explain the situation to both of them.

Male Manager: “Well, the policy is that—“

Female Manager: “No. Just give the customer the cookie. Don’t put [My Name] through that.”

I am a private tutor. I’ve given one of my students, a fifth-grader, an exercise which I call “reverse word problems”. The student gets a list of equations, and for each equation, they have to come up with a word problem that could fit the given equation. I am reading the answers he’s written.

Me: “You’re a scientist with four-fifth of a dead cow. You’re in a duplication room and you duplicate two-fifths of it. How much of a cow do you have?”

The equation for this one was “4/5 x 2/5.”

Me: *Laughing* “A… a scientist with a dead cow? Really, kid?”

Student: *Giggles* “Well, obviously. It has to be a dead cow. If you have four-fifths of a cow, how can it possibly still be alive?”

Me: *Pause* “You got me there.”

I keep reading.

Me: “You have one dollar and six friends, and you decide to split the dollar evenly between your six friends. How much of a dollar does each friend get?” *Pause* “Wait a minute; this doesn’t work.”

Student: “Yes, it does.”

Me: “No, think about it. Can a dollar divide into six equal parts?”

Student: *Indignantly* “Yes, it can!”

Me: “Okay, how?”

Student: “You take a pair of scissors and cut the bill into six equal parts!”

Me: “I— Well. That’s…”

The student laughs.

Me: “…genius. Forget I said anything.” 

This kid is going places.

I work in central supply at a hospital. Besides individual items, we carry prepackaged kits. 

One evening, I’m returning to the department after making my deliveries. I find a man in scrubs trying to force the door open.

Me: “Can I help you?”

Doctor: “Why is this door locked?!”

Me: “Because it’s after hours and I’m the only one here.”

I unlock the door and he follows me inside.

Doctor: “I need [Specific Brand Kit we don’t carry].”

Me: “We don’t carry [Specific Brand]; we only have [Our Brand].”

Doctor: “I don’t like [Our Brand]! I ordered [Specific Brand]! You’re supposed to have it!”

Me: “I’m sorry. We haven’t received any new products in a while.”

Doctor: “How do you know?”

Me: “Any time we get something new, my manager puts one on the dry erase board. She writes the item number and the location where it’s kept here in the department.”

He’s still not convinced, so I show him the shelves where the kits are stored. Of course, he doesn’t find the one he wants.

Doctor: “Fine. I’ll have to take one of these. I’ll need a couple of other things, too.”

He grabs a few more things and starts to leave when I stop him.

Me: “I need to know where that stuff is going.”

Doctor: *Rolling his eyes* “It’s going with me.”

Me: “You’re taking it home?”

Doctor: “No! I’m going to use it on a patient.”

Me: “Then I need the location of the patient. I have to log it in the book so the correct floor is charged.”

Doctor: “Oh. It’s going to [floor].”

I got everything logged in the book and he finally left.

We never did carry that other brand of kit.

I work in a small bookstore that is part of a very large national chain. A big-deal gay-themed movie has just premiered. I happen to be very familiar with it myself; I’ve already taken out and read the book with the story collection from the library. When the movie comes out, the publisher puts out a new fancy and expensive book with just this one short story; the book chain carries it and is selling many copies.

One day, a man comes up to me at the register. He’s middle-aged and wearing poorly-fitted leather pants that look extremely out of place in this high-end, fashionable neighborhood. He speaks a little tentatively and slowly.

Customer: “Hello, I want to buy the book Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx.”

Me: “Sure! You can find it at the fiction shelves under the author’s last name.”

Customer: *Confused look.* “Um…”

Me: *More carefully* “It’s on our fiction shelves under the author’s last name: Proulx — starts with a P.”

Customer: *Blank look* 

I point at the shelves a few feet away again. We are a small store and the P fiction books are only about three rows in. The shelves are quite short and you can even see all the way to the back of the store from the registers where we are standing. It’s extremely easy to find any fiction book. Everything is plainly alphabetized by author’s last name. I’m on register duty and cannot leave the counter.

I try speaking slower and clearer.

Me: “It’s around the third aisle. Right over there. Under the first letter of the author’s last name. Proulx — starts with a P.”

The customer is just silent with a dull blank look. He looks a tiny bit to either side in complete confusion and stares back at me with empty eyes. I am confused and beginning to get weirded out at this point; he’s starting to somewhat resemble a zombie. I point at the shelves again and speak even slower.

Me: “It’s right over there. On the third shelf. You just need to find the letter P on the shelf.” 

He’s still silent, staring at me with a blank, wide-eyed look.

Me: “You just look for the letter P. Everything is alphabetized. The book will be under her last name. The author’s last name. It’s Proulx. It’s on the shelves right over here.”

No change. Not a sound out of him. Blank look. One of our managers happened to be walking by right then and observed a few seconds of this interaction. He just looked at the customer for a few more seconds and then quickly went to the fiction shelf, retrieved a copy of the book, and brought it upfront. It took him less than ten seconds.

I rang up the book and the customer silently went on his way, still with a blank look on his face. The manager and I silently stared after him in bewilderment. Zombie searching for gay-themed books instead of brains?

Related:
A Brokeback Fountain Of Hate
Not Your Dad’s Cowboy Movie
I Wish I Knew How To Quit This Class
Going For Broke(back)
A Desolate Beauty

I work in a small photography studio. One of our duties opening first thing in the morning is to print the updated session list and call the clients to confirm their appointments; if a client cannot be reached to confirm, their session is canceled.

It’s Easter Sunday and my manager and I are the only two working a short shift for the holiday. We call all the clients. Only one does not answer, so we leave a message and remind them that we close early and failure to call back and confirm cancels their appointment.

It’s now thirty minutes from our closing time and that client has since missed their appointment with no return call. Since no one is scheduled to come in, and no walk-ins have arrived all day, my manager gives me the okay to start closing down the shop while she takes off early.

As I am closing the till, I see a group of around eighteen people walking in the door.

Me: “Sorry, guys, we’re closing early for the holiday.”

Older Woman: “But we have an appointment.”

Me: “What is your name and what time was your appointment scheduled?”

Older Woman: “It’s under [No Answer Client] and our appointment was at [three and a half hours earlier].

Me: “I’m sorry, but you never returned our confirmation call, and you missed your appointment time.”

Older Man: “But we are here now. We had to wait for family coming in from the airport.”

I called my manager to explain and she told me to go ahead with the job, while my family waited for me at home. The clients didn’t even buy anything that day.