When I was very young, my great-grandma and great-grandpa lived on the beach. Whenever we visited them, my great-grandpa and I would always go for a walk along the beach. We would look at what the ocean washed up and even looked into a tide-pool once.

One day, while we were walking along, a wave rushed up onto the shore and swept me off my feet. My great-grandpa, who wasn’t very fast and walked with a cane, rushed and managed to catch me before I was swept out into the ocean.

He then smiled and told me I had to be so wonderful and important that the ocean, which had been around for millions of years, wanted to keep me.

It is something I carried with me for all of my life, even after my great-grandpa and great-grandma passed on.

This story is part of the Beach roundup! This is the last story in the roundup, but we have plenty of others you might enjoy!

23 Hilarious Stories About Customers Versus Mother Nature

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(I work at a craft store as a stock person. A truck comes in at three am and we have until nine am [when the doors open] to get things put away. Each person usually gets a section of the store to work on. Mine is in framing, a total of ten aisles of product, some of them itty-bitty to go on individual pegs. Everyone else only has two aisles. I am usually alone with six u-boats [think of narrow, flatbed carts, piled as high as you are tall with boxes]; everyone else gets two or three. My manager storms over and loudly berates me where my coworkers can hear her.)

Manager: “It shouldn’t take you this long to put stuff away! We’re going to be hiring seasonal people soon, and if they end up working circles around you, then you won’t be working here anymore!”

Me: “[Manager], I have double the workload of everyone else, and five times the distance to travel.”

Manager: “I don’t want to hear excuses. Next time you have a shift, I’m going to watch you to see how you can do better.”

Me: “All righty then.”

(The next shift, the manager has totally forgotten. I call her to observe. She tells me to sort everything into piles [which is how I always do it anyway]. I call her again when I finish that. She says she’ll be right over. After two minutes of standing around doing nothing, I give up and go to put the trash in the compactor, halfway across the store. I come back to my department and wait some more. And more. After ten more minutes of standing around, doing nothing, the manager shows up, barely glances at the piles, and says…)

Manager: “Good job. That’s all I wanted to see,” *walks off*

(My eye develops a twitch. A friend of mine says I should invoke the Three D’s of Retail: Document, Document, Document… because this looks like trouble. My next shift, the manager shows up again. She walks up with a slow, menacing pace, puts her hands on the counter between us and leans forward in an intimidating manner.)

Manager: “You have four u-boats. You have an hour and a half to get them all done. If you are not done, I will send you home and put someone on the section who will get it done more quickly.”

(I’m stressed now. I have to go into hyper drive. I throw empty boxes in a huge pile on the floor [at her command], sort things, and take things to each of the aisles at a dead run. Where I usually slide product where they belong in the proper slots, now I have to jam them in haphazardly. Products break, and have to be swept up and taken to the damaged bin. Ten minutes to my deadline, my stuff is put away, and I’m scrambling to put away my overstock.)

Manager: “See? You’re done!”

Me: “Actually, no, I’m not. I’m still putting my overstock up, and I was unable to bring anything down from our overstock to fill the holes.”

Manager: *visibly hesitates, then says* “But you’re done putting stuff away!”

Me: “Yes, I suppose technically I am, despite not being able to do my whole job.”

Manager: “But you’re done! Aren’t you proud of yourself? You should be proud of yourself!”

(I am not proud of being bullied into haphazard work and still only getting a third of my duties done. I am then sent to another section, again at her command, leaving a huge mess for someone else to have to clean up after me. Yet another shift comes by, and my manager drags me off the floor and rips into me.)

Manager: “I don’t know what we’re going to do to make you work faster, [My Name]. You should have been able to put all your stuff away, put up your overstock, and bring extras down to fill the holes. What can we do to bring down the time it takes you to do your job?”

Me: “I don’t think you can. I already said that I have double the workload of everyone else, and five times the distance to travel. If you could assign a coworker to help me with the workload…”

Manager: “You know what, all I’m hearing out of you is excuses. It’s the holidays; we’re going to be hiring 20 new people. I think you need to go home and think about it. Next week when you come in, I want you to either have a list of things we can train you on to do things better, where to put you where you CAN be effective, or you need to tell us whether this company is right for you.”

(I was silent and absolutely stunned. Had she seriously just told me to work off the clock?! I had been documenting from start to finish, so now it was time to bring down the hammer. I called the company hotline and listed everything; unreasonable demands, hostile attitude, toxic work environment, and the demand that I do a work-related project off the clock. At this point, I was done; if I got fired, I didn’t care. The company jumped like it had been stung. I was contacted by a local bigwig within a week, and I handed him my documentation, so that he could read everything. He spoke a lot of soothing, pretty corporate platitudes about the company working like a machine, and how much corporate wanted everything to be nothing but happy rainbows, and that if I HAD worked off the clock, he would have moved heaven and earth to make sure I was paid for that time. But after looking over my documentation, he sweated a few bullets and promised me that I would be kept anonymous, but that they were going to take care of the problem. To be fair… he told the truth. My manager left me alone from then on, only talking to me to give me directions and send me on my way. There wasn’t a single peep out of her about my speed for the rest of the time I worked there, until I moved and had to quit.)

(I’m 16 years old and have been working at my first job, a popular teen clothing store, for a couple months. A woman approaches me asking for help locating an item.)

Customer: “I was just in here a couple days ago, and my daughter saw this shirt she wanted, so I came back to buy it for her birthday, but I can’t find it.”

Me: “Great! Can you describe it for me?”

Customer: “It was blue.”

Me: “What shade of blue? We have all kinds of blue shirts, from pastel to navy.”

Customer: “I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t blue… maybe it was white?”

Me: “Hmm, all right. We’ve got a few light blue shirts over here.”

(I take her around the store, showing her a few options.)

Customer: “No, it isn’t any of these.”

Me: “No problem, we’ve got a bunch of blue or white shirts all over the store. Do you remember if it had any patterns or designs on it?”

Customer: “Yeah, I think so. Maybe.”

Me: “…Okay, what colors were in the pattern or design?”

Customer: “I don’t know.”

Me: “All right, how about this. What style was the shirt? Was it form-fitting or loose, with long sleeves or short sleeves?”

Customer: “I have no idea. It may have been a dress.”

(Trying very hard not to show my frustration, I decide to let her browse, since she has no idea what she’s looking for.)

Me: “The majority of our dresses are on this rack here, and the shirts are spread out all over the store. I’d also check the clearance racks to see if you find something that looks familiar. I’m not really sure what shirt or dress you’re looking for, so please feel free to look around and let me know if there is anything else I can do for you, or if you remember any details.”

Customer: “You just had a it a few days ago! How can you not know where it is?”

Me: “It’s possible that I do know where the item is, but your description matches nearly half the store. It could be anywhere. If you can’t give me more details about it, I have to just let you shop so I can help other customers.”

(The customer walks off in a huff, and I see her at the register about 15 minutes later, purchasing several pairs of jeans and a red blouse with no designs on it. She notices me and holds up the shirt.)

Customer: “Hey, look! I found it! It was on the same rack as before!”

(I am an apartment manager. I receive a phone call from a woman asking for information about our apartments. She asked me a series of questions regarding the rental amount, utilities, parking, etc., all very good questions. Finally, she asks:)

Caller: “How close are you located to the beach?”

Me: “Our location is 3½ miles to the beach.”

Caller: “Is that walking or driving?”

Me: *holding back laughter* “Either one. We are located 3½ miles to the beach.”

(She seemed a little frustrated that I wouldn’t tell her whether that was walking or driving.)

(My parents are, unfortunately, the ripe age for being picked on by scammers. Some of these scammers can be obvious. Others… not so much. This one was sent via email to my mom one summer’s eve. Please note that I can’t remember the exact lettering of the first email, as it is very official looking and contains a lot of legal jargon. Therefore, I’m shortening this submission, to keep it short and simple.)

Email: “Dear [Name], We have received information regarding a lawsuit against you. If you do not comply to relinquish [amount] by Friday, we will be forced to alert the proper authority! Sincerely, [Official-Sounding Legal Office].”

(This sounds a little fishy. I know where my family is financially and we aren’t exactly lawbreakers. We decide to respond, regardless.)

Me: “What are the charges, may I ask?”

Email: “Give [amount] to our company and we won’t call the cops.”

(Okay… maybe a different approach was needed to get some information?)

Me: “Listen. You say you have information. We are legally obligated to ask what charges you have. Also, we’d like proof that we are the people that you’re after.”

Email: *provides specific information about my parents, but still refuses to list the charges*

Me: “Okay, could you please send us a legal document regarding the matter, a police report or some sort of report regarding how much we owe?”

Email: *sends document*

(This… document… makes me fall out of my chair from laughing. It is very official looking; my mom and I are actually a little shaken… until we see the name of the location and the seal on the document. It reads, plain and simple, “Law Offices of Happy Hills County.” No state, no city, no name of clientele. The seal? A crappy attempt at [Popular Coffee Shop]’s logo, done in black and white, and made to look like a stamp.)

Me: *shaking while typing* “Really? ‘Happy Hills?’ Mind if I ask where that is, who your client is, and most importantly, what the charges are?!”

Email: “Just give us the money, or we’re calling the cops.”

(This was the only email I recall completely. They’d dropped the whole legal act, and now just sent a threat. My mom called the police on the matter and was told not to worry about it. It turns out that that particular scam had been called in a lot. On top of that, after their “threatening” email, the scammers never did message us again, nor did the cops show up at our door regarding the matter.)