I work at a fast food restaurant that serves burgers among other things. We have multiple burgers, including our garden burger that is commonly confused for our vegetarian sandwiches, but is easy to distinguish. This occurs during a lunch rush, and since I am in the mindset of getting customers in and out quickly, I’m used to asking questions fast in order to accomplish this. A women approaches my register, where the interaction occurs:

Customer: “Hi, I’d like to order a burger with a veggie patty.”

Me: “Oh, do you mean a garden burger? That’s our veggie patty burger.”

Customer: “No, I want a burger with a veggie patty. I don’t want to pay the extra charge for a garden burger.”

(The garden burger does have a slightly higher charge due to the ingredients that make up the burger)

Me: “Umm, I’m not quite sure-”

Customer: “Just ring me up for what I said. It’s cheaper that way and I’ve ordered it like this before.”

Me: “I’ll have to check with my manager about what he wants me to do.”

(The woman nods and I go over to my manager, who is handing orders to customers as they come out. I explain the situation and he tells me that I do have to ring it up as a garden burger, which I was thinking, but maybe she meant putting it on a different bun like the hamburger’s bun. The main difference is a potato bun versus a whole wheat bun.)

Me: “Okay, so you were wanting to do a garden burger on a potato bun?”

Customer: (becoming visibly frustrated) “Oh my god, what don’t you understand about this? I want a freaking burger with a veggie patty; how hard is that! Just give me what I freaking asked for or I’ll make sure that I get you fired for your incompetence!!”

Me: (taken aback) “Um, if you want, I can get you my manager so he-”

Customer: “YES! Go get your manager, maybe he’ll get me what I want.”

(I go to my manager again, and explain that she wants to explain her order to him. He agrees, and asks me to hand out orders in the meantime. I hand out orders for about five minutes, when I see the woman walk off. Thinking my manager had successfully taken her order, I walk back to my register. However, as I approach my register, I see him voiding the entire transaction.)

Me: “So you couldn’t get her order?”

Manager: (shaking his head) “Nope. I told her the same things you had, she had no issue telling me that. Then she demanded that I give her the meal for free because of all the trouble she went through. I told her I couldn’t do that, so I made her leave.”

My friend is the bad customer here. A few friends and I are eating late at night at a diner. My friend orders a ham and cheese sandwich and modifies the order some way, but I don’t remember exactly what he changes.

When the waitress stops by and asks how everything is, my friend smiles.

Friend: “Yeah, good, thanks.”

We all ask him why he didn’t speak up and he shrugs. At the end of the meal, the waitress brings the bill.

Waitress: “Okay, guys, here you go.”

Friend: “Well, actually, as you can see, I didn’t even eat this. It was gross, since you guys got my order wrong, and I couldn’t eat any of it.”

The waitress looks confused.

Waitress: “I’m sorry. When I asked if everything was all right you said yes, so I assumed…”

She looks at us for confirmation and we glare at my friend. He rolls his eyes.

Friend: “Yeah, well, clearly, it wasn’t. I didn’t eat it, so I’m not paying for it. And the fact that your kitchen got this basic modification wrong is horrible communication.”

We gaped at him, utterly confused by this sudden behavior; he is usually very temperate. The waitress apologized and went to remove his food from his bill. The rest of us rushed to pay our bills, so we could leave as fast as possible once he was done with his.

The waitress came back and my friend inspected the bill carefully to ensure he was not charged for it.

We left the waitress a big tip and berated my friend as soon as we were outside.

I work at a hospital in the central supply department. We carry just about everything: patient care items such as deodorant or slippers, first aid supplies like bandages or gauze, large items like crutches or commodes, and everything in between. Basically, if the nurses carry it in the supply closet, it probably came from us.

One night, I get a call from a nurse on the fourth floor.

Me: “Central Supply, this is [My Name].”

Nurse: “Yeah… is this Central Supply?”

I can feel my eye twitch.

Me: “Yes. Can I help you?”

Nurse: “I’m looking for… a… thing.”

Me: “Okay. What kind of thing?”

Nurse: “It’s plastic. It comes in a package.”

Me: *Putting on my best customer service voice* “That’s about 75% of our inventory. Can you tell me what it’s used for?”

Nurse: “It’s plaaaastic. It comes in a paaaackage.”

Me: “IV tubing?”

Nurse: “No.”

Me: “Catheter?”

Nurse: “No.”

Me: “Oxygen tubing?”

Nurse: “No. It’s plastic. It comes in a package.”

This goes on for a few minutes with me trying to guess the item or trying to get her to describe it to me. The nurse keeps giving me the same answer; only the pronunciation of the words “plastic” and “package” changes.

Me: “Do you have an empty package I could look at?”

Nurse: “No.”

Me: “Is there more than one in the package?”

Nurse: “It’s plastiiiiic. It comes in a packaaaaaage.”

Me: “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re asking for. You’re welcome to come down and look around. Or maybe you could ask one of the other nurses.”

Nurse: “I—”

Me: “I’m getting a call on the other line from the ER. I have to get it. Let me know if you find out what it’s called. Okay. Bye.”

Fortunately, the call from the ER is an easy one. But as soon as I get off the phone with them, I receive another call from the fourth floor.

Me: “Central Supply, this is [My Name].”

Charge Nurse: “Hi, this is [Charge Nurse] from [department].”

Me: “Hi. How can I help you?”

Charge Nurse: “Do you carry water pitcher liners?”

A light bulb goes off and my customer service filter vanishes.

Me: “Oh! Is that what she wanted?!”

Charge Nurse: *Chuckling* “Yeah.”

Me: “Yes. We have those; I’ll bring some right up.”

Not the strangest call I had while I worked there, but definitely the most frustrating.

A few years ago, I — a sixty-four-year-old male — had a bad bicycle accident. The damages included a concussion, broken right collarbone, broken right elbow, four broken ribs on my right side, and three fractures in my left pelvis; if you can explain the physics of that, I’m all ears.

Four days in the hospital got me stabilized, but then I needed rehab and was sent to a nursing home. That’s when the fun began.

I was transported to the home at about 6:00 pm. After intake, I struggled for a few hours to find a comfortable position and finally got to sleep, only to be awakened at 11:30 pm (!) to have them take pictures of my bare backside to see if I had bedsores already. Two days later, I was awakened at 4:45 am (!!) because the traveling technician was going to take my blood and wanted to get done early.

I was getting both physical and occupational therapy from the same outsourced company. The routine was to do the PT first at one end of the building and then get wheeled back to my room for the OT. The third day, the occupational therapist was taking me back to my room and one of the physical therapists came with us. The two men were discussing a barbeque they were going to have that weekend.

No problem, except that when we got to my room they stopped in the hallway and talked over me for five minutes. I called out the OT when we were alone; to his credit, he apologized and said that I wasn’t their typical patient, meaning I had no dementia.

I was on a schedule where I was given two assisted showers a week. This wouldn’t have been too bad, except that the home had no air conditioning and we had a heatwave in the nineties the second week. I was waiting for the aide to take me when I noticed five young women hanging around the door to my room. When I asked, they told me they were going to watch my shower as part of their training. I informed them that no, they weren’t, so they waited outside the shower area with my wheelchair.

By that point, I could walk slowly with a cane, so after getting dressed, I limped to my chair with help from the aide. One of the women was standing behind the chair with her hands on the grips. I let go of the cane, grabbed a handrail on the chair, and almost fell on my face as the chair moved out from under me! She hadn’t set the brakes on the wheels and hadn’t held on to the chair. I was lucky there was no damage but it hurt like crazy.

In addition to the therapy for my hip, I needed to wait until the swelling in my broken elbow went down before surgery. When it was ready for the procedure, I went to the hospital having had no food or drink for over twelve hours. I was lying on the gurney about to go into the prep room when I was approached by a young doctor I’d never met. She wanted me to give her permission to perform a “nerve block” on me after the operation. In her telling, this would keep me from feeling pain afterward.

This had not been discussed before, I had no knowledge of what a nerve block entailed, it sounded dangerous, and this person was a total stranger. She was persistent, I’ll give her that, but she finally took the hint when I told her to get the h*** away from me.

The surgery went fine and I had no real discomfort afterward, even to the point where I never filled the prescription for the opioid painkiller I was given. So much for the nerve block. I was not, however, forewarned about another side effect of the anesthesia. It is common that urination is inhibited after the procedure, and by 6:00 pm, I was in real pain.

The nurses’ aides didn’t have the authority to give me a catheter and had to get permission. An hour later, I got my first experience with the process. Then, they took it out. And a few hours later, the pressure built up again.

This time, they didn’t want to put the tube back in; their training said they had to wait four hours. My wife had to yell that she’d take me to the emergency room and file charges against them before they fixed the problem. This time they left it in, and by the following evening, the plumbing worked.

As to the home itself, my stay confirmed my fear of the places, even without a contagion situation. Most of the other long-term residents had some degree of dementia and there was lots of moaning and shouting at all hours. And the food was just as bland as the stereotype; luckily, my wife brought me meals a couple of times a day — including the occasional illicit cold beer.

I got out three days after the elbow surgery and was able to navigate my house, including the stairs, immediately. In another week, I rarely used the cane and have a story for my grandkids.

Today, I was talking on Messenger with a friend whom I haven’t gotten to see in months because of the quarantine. She was feeling particularly down-in-the-dumps, so I decided to send her some fun GIFs to cheer her up.

After some browsing, I found a GIF that showed a clip of someone pushing brightly-colored confetti across the floor, reversed so that it revealed the words “ur pretty”. Content with my light-hearted choice, I clicked the GIF and watched it send out into cyberspace.

And then, I watched in horror as the GIF played again on my screen. After the person in the GIF revealed the words “ur pretty,” there was a pause before they continued moving to reveal the word “UGLY” in much larger letters. I hadn’t realized there was more to this GIF!

I quickly scrambled to apologize to my friend who, luckily, found it hilarious. Lesson learned: watch the entire GIF before you click!