(I’m using a pair of scissors to curl some ribbons for a project, and humming to myself as I do so.)

Coworker: “I was watching Dexter last night, and you humming with those scissors made me think of that…”

Me: “Oh! Well… if it makes you feel any better? I was humming the Gummi Bears theme.”

(The store I work in is located in a mall, and despite being a candy store we also sell plush toys, with a display set up at the front of the store. Because of this, small children will often fuss at their parents to buy them said toys as they pass by on their way to or from other stores. A little boy wants a stuffed penguin, which his mother pries from his hands despite his protests.)

Mother: “We’ll get it on the way back!”

(Sulking, the boy follows his mother away from our store.)

Manager: *laughing* “So many LIES! When will it END?!”

(Close to Christmas, a customer approaches me with a long list and begins rattling off things that she needs. I begin to help her, not realizing that she had previously approached a different employee, and we are only supposed to have one employee working with a customer at a time. When it comes time to check out, I have to compile what she got from me with what she got from the other employee, and she also wants the order to be shipped to a third party by mail, which I have never handled before. My manager stands behind me, irritated and snappy.)

Manager: “This is why you’re only supposed to have one person working with a customer at a time! If somebody is already working with them, you don’t help them! Didn’t I show you how to do a shipping order?”

Customer: “Woah, you’re… being a little hard on her.”

Manager: “She’s been working here for a month. She should know this.”

(Later, the manager coldly informed me that I had done nothing wrong, and that that was just a difficult customer, but didn’t apologize in the slightest for throwing me under the bus.)

(The district manager is visiting. She and the store manager are discussing candy canes, as we typically have FAR too many of them every year, and the majority go unsold. I like to stir my hot chocolate with candy canes, for minty hot chocolate.)

Me: *confidently* “I’ll buy all of them!”

Store Manager: “Two hundred!?”

Me: *confidently* “I’ll buy thirty of them!”

(Customers can serve themselves in the store I work at, and the candy is priced according to its weight. We have many options of what to put the candy in, with the two most popular choices being simple plastic bags or colorful ‘Chinese take-out’ boxes. A boy is excitedly telling his mother all the candies he wants, while she is trying to ask him what color box he wants to put it all in.)

Boy: “And I want Coke bottles, and gummi frogs, and gummi rainbow frogs!”

Mother: “Slow down! We need to choose a box, first! What color box do you want?”

Boy: “Look at all the gummi bears! I want blue ones and green ones and red ones…”

Mother: “Okay, but what color box do you want to put them in?”

Boy: “And I want the raspberries, and the BIG Coke bottles!”

Mother: “[BOY]!”

Boy: “Huh?”

Mother: “Do you want a BAG, or a BOX?”

Boy: “A box.”

Mother: “What. Color?!”

Boy: “I want gummi cherries!”