Mom: “I couldn’t find any regular milk so I got Oregon; is that okay?”
I give her a blank look.
Mom: “It’s still 1% but Oregon; is that okay?”
Me: “Oregon?”
Mom: “You know, when they feed the cows grass.”
Me: “Oh, organic! Yes, it’s fine.”
Related:
The Oregon Fail, Part 3
The Oregon Fail, Part 2
The Oregon Fail
I work security and concierge for a high-end condo complex and have been doing so for ten years. I am female. I am covering for another guard who broke a hip in a major auto accident.
As the site is an extremely expensive condo complex, I have been warned that some of the residents, all very rich people, are… well… a trifle rude and overbearing to those they consider beneath them.
As an aside, I broke my back a year before I took this site and I am unable to lift or carry anything over ten pounds. I am lucky to still be able to walk.
I am at my post greeting residents, calling for the valets to bring their cars, arranging for limos, and coordinating deliveries for them when one well-heeled resident walks in the doors. She is carrying multiple heavy, stuffed grocery bags and two suitcases. She immediately drops them on the floor of the lobby.
Resident: “You!” *Points at me* “Take those up to 713! Now!“
I stare at her. This woman is at least fifteen years younger than I am, and since she doesn’t have a job — a “kept” woman — she spends a large chunk of her day working out in the complex’s extensive gym. While we may arrange for cars and drivers and do other minor tasks for residents, we are not to leave our post and are absolutely not their personal slaves.
Even though I am bristling and just itching to tell her off, I have to remain polite.
Me: “Ma’am, I am building security and cannot leave this post.”
Resident: “Pick up those bags and take them upstairs now! I have more important things to do than talk to useless menials!”
Me: “Right now, the only important thing you need to be doing is learning some g**d*** manners. Pick up and carry your own d*** bags!”
The resident’s face goes bright red and she stalks off towards the elevators, without the bags and suitcases, which she leaves in a pile on the lobby floor.
Me: “Hey, you! If you don’t have these bags cleared out of this lobby in ten minutes, they’re all going in the garbage!”
The resident muttered a string of expletives as she got into the elevator. I gave her a little longer than ten minutes and then had another worker help me drag the bags into the security office. Had she come back even within a couple of days, her stuff would have been returned — any longer and a lot of the groceries would have spoiled — but her precious groceries ended up being donated by me to a women’s shelter.
I kept the suitcases and their contents in Lost & Found for three months and then donated them to the same shelter. I figured the hard-working, very deserving women who were forced into that shelter deserved all that nice stuff far better than that rich b**** did.
Having just spent Christmas in British Columbia with my family, I am waiting for my flight back to the UK and decide to buy a British Columbia keyring as a tacky souvenir. There are two old ladies behind me in the queue.
Me: “Would you like to go ahead of me? Looks like you’re stocking up on souvenirs!”
They are carrying loads of stuff.
Ladies: “Oooooh, that’s very kind of you, dear; we always get carried away!”
Me: “No problem at all!”
We engage in minor chit chat while we wait about Christmas and our families, etc. At this point, my flight is called.
Me: “Oh, d***, that’s my flight! Oh, well, my keys are heavy enough as it is; I’ll leave it.”
Ladies: “Safe flight, dear. Nice talking to you.”
Off I run to catch my flight. I’m sitting in my seat on the plane and there’s a tap on my shoulder.
Lady: “After our little exchange, we thought you deserved a souvenir.”
She handed me the keyring they had bought for me! I thanked her profusely; it made my day! I can’t work out how two old ladies managed to get on the plane before me, though.
This story is part of our feel-good roundup for August 2020!
Read the next feel-good story here!
Read the feel-good August 2020 roundup!
I’m picking up some assorted foods at the local big box grocery store on my way home from a meeting. I recall my wife has asked me to pick up a roll of “that sushi with the fake crab and the avocado,” i.e., a California roll.
As I pick up an avocado roll for myself along with her California roll, I notice a sign advertising sushi as 10% off. When I get to the checkout, I notice — on the screen, before I’ve paid — that the California roll has rung in as 10% off, but the avocado roll didn’t. When pointing this out to the cashier, she quite politely informs me:
Cashier: “I’m not sure why that happened, but I can get my supervisor to check into it.”
Me: “It’s forty-two cents on a $60 grocery bill. I think I’ll survive.”
She looks at me as if I have three heads.
Cashier: “I wish I had more customers like you. I once had a customer tie me up for half an hour over a nickel, and she ended up being wrong in the end.”
Minimum wage in Nova Scotia is $10.15 an hour, making my $0.42 worth a maximum of four minutes if you take income taxes into account. That woman’s nickel was worth about thirty seconds, not thirty minutes.
Since lockdown, we’ve been closing from 12:00 to 13:00 for walk-ins to avoid having to sanitize the reception desk area computer, phone, chair, etc. We’re still available by phone. A client comes in at 13:00 sharp.
Client: “You’d better have a good reason to be closed during lunchtime! And you’d better not tell me it’s ‘cause of that corona, ‘cause that’s not a good reason!”
Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but that is why. We can—”
Client: “That’s not a good reason!”
Me: “As I was saying, we cannot sanitize the area and share the desk every day; it would take too much time.”
Client: “You guys really need to let your clients know! This is ridiculous. That’s not a good reason. I’ve been here twice during lunch to make a payment and you were not open.”
Me: “Sir, it says right on our door and when you call that we’ve modified our hours and are closed from noon to one.”
Client: “That’s not good enough! You need to advise me by mail. I need it to be written down! I came here and it was closed.”
Me: “Sorry, sir, but that would make no sense. We can’t send a letter to all our clients to advise that we’re closed to walk-ins from noon to one temporarily.”
We’re a local business but have over five-thousand clients; that would be thousands of dollars for something they would literally know by calling.
Client: “That’s stupid. This makes no sense. It’s not a good reason. Anyway, you guys suck and I won’t be your client again next year.”
Me: “No problem, sir. How about we cancel today, then?”
Client: “No! I don’t have time for that.”
We proceeded to payment. He asked a question and asked if we were going to be open at lunch then. I told him no and he stormed off, yelling to make sure I told my boss about this. I did. They laughed.
