I’ve always hated negative generalizations about younger generations, but this interaction made me start to wonder. For context, I’m in my early thirties, and I would estimate the cashier to be around fourteen to sixteen, based on the conversation.

I am in line at the grocery store checking out, and it is moderately busy with people behind me. After the person in front of me finishes, instead of starting to scan my groceries or greet me, the cashier picks up her phone that is sitting at the register and texts furiously for a good thirty to sixty seconds. 

It doesn’t sound like long, except when you have nothing to do but stand there looking around, since my stuff is already on the belt, and a line full of people is behind me. Finally, she greets me while shooting off a few more texts, then puts her phone down and begins scanning. 

I honestly wouldn’t have even thought too much about this, maybe thinking it was something important. But then she decides to explain herself while scanning:

Cashier: “Sorry about that!”

Me: *Making polite responses.* “Oh, it’s… fine.”

Cashier: “It’s just, I’m making plans to go to the mall after work, and they have this stupid new age limit thing on the weekends.”

Me: “I think I heard about that…”

Cashier: “Yeah, so my friend and I can’t go ourselves, and I’m trying to get my mom to go with us, but she doesn’t want to. And now I’m like, coordinating with my mom and my friend. I told my mom she could even just drop us off and it would probably be fine, you know? The age thing is so stupid.”

Me: “…Haha.”

Cashier: “So, I just have to figure out this ride thing, and it’s so stressful.”

She finishes checking me out and immediately picks up her phone again to text, while I wander off to contemplate if I have finally reached That Age.

I’m in a restaurant. I have an intolerance to dairy, so I check the list of what comes with the appetizer I am interested in getting. I don’t see any ingredients containing dairy, but I ask the waitress to double-check.

Me: “Is this dish vegan?”

Waitress: “Everything that comes on it is on the menu.”

Me: “Perfect. I don’t eat meat or dairy, and none of that is listed, so I will have this dish, please!”

The dish comes out and has a pinkish sauce on top that was not listed on the menu description. I Google the dish, which I admit I usually do before ordering anyway, but it’s my birthday celebration so I was distracted. Google says the dish is vegan as long as you get it with no sauce.

Our waitress hasn’t come back to the table for a few minutes, so I have to walk around the restaurant to find her. When I do, I let her know that the dish came with a sauce that isn’t vegan. She says she will ring in a new order for me without sauce. When she brings the new dish, she leaves the original one on the table. Since she doesn’t take it away, the other people in my party decide to eat it so as to not let the food go to waste.

Lo and behold, when the check comes, guess who got charged for TWO of the appetizers? Now, yes, the first dish was eaten, and in retrospect, we should have asked the waitress why she wasn’t taking it away. However, the waitress specifically said it was vegan, and then it came with non-vegan sauce that was not listed on the menu. When you give the wrong information, especially when it’s a health concern, that’s not okay.

The waitress brings the manager over, and he is so condescending.

We explain the mistake.

Manager: “Well, we will take it off the bill for you, but normally, we charge for food consumed.”

Me: “But normally, don’t you take away food that’s a mistake?”

He flushed bright red.

In the end, they did take the first dish off the bill, and we still obviously tipped our waitress well, but the way the manager handled the situation was so rude, especially when we were celebrating a special occasion. Maybe update your menu to include all the ingredients in a dish, or train your staff to know the dishes better!

About five years ago, we took up a lot of scam callers out of nowhere. Normally, I’ll just look at the ID, and if I don’t recognize it — or the ID system tells me it’s “potential spam” — I’ll take the phone off its cradle and then immediately hang up without saying a word so they don’t clog my voicemail. If it’s a legit call, I know they’ll try to call back immediately.

One night, I get a call at 3:00 in the morning so, naturally, my deep sleep cycle is interrupted, and I am not happy about it. I take one look at the ID and don’t recognize it, so I do my thing of picking up and hanging up the phone so the ringing doesn’t persist.

A minute or so later, the phone rings again, and it’s the same ID. Realizing this could be an important call, I pick it up and answer.

Me: “Hello…?”

Scammer: “Yes, hello. This is Microsoft Support. I’m calling to let you know that you have a virus on your computer, and you need to take immediate action to get rid of it!”

I have a bit of a hair-trigger temper for having my time wasted (especially when it’s about trying to get enough sleep for work tomorrow), so immediately, in my half-awake state, I tear into them. Hard.

Me: “Is this some kind of sick joke, you stupid [insult]? It’s three in the f****** morning, and I have a MacBook! Get the h*** off this line before I put your number on a call-blasting list, you dumb con artist!”

I wasn’t actually in any position or mood to really take any action on that, but my words must have gotten to the scammer considering I heard them drop their phone in a panic and spill what sounded like a big container of pens before I hung up on them. I would have chuckled if I wasn’t so sleepy.

Apparently, I look like I work everywhere I go; people (usually older people) constantly ask me questions about where to find items in the aisles of stores I frequent. In their defense, I help run a restaurant and usually DO know where things are when people ask me for assistance because I’m there all the time. After my partner witnessed this phenomenon the other day, he reminded me that this was not new; I guess I’ve been doing this for quite a while.

More than twenty years ago, I was living in Cincinnati, and my phone number was one digit away from a doctor’s office. This mean old guy would call all the time asking for a ride for his wife and himself to their appointments. (I found out later that this was a service they provided for their elderly patients who could no longer drive themselves.)

No amount of explanation would convince this gentleman that I did not, in fact, work there and that he had the wrong number.

I’d finally had enough of this verbal harassment. With a huge sigh, I just asked for his address and the time and date of their next appointment. I then found the doctor’s office’s number and called to ask if they could help. Because of privacy laws, they regretfully informed me that they couldn’t confirm that the couple were even patients, even though we both knew that they absolutely knew this couple.

With another big sigh, I drove to their house the next day, picked them up, and took them to their appointment. The look on the receptionist’s face when I walked in the door said it all.

Receptionist: “Holy s***. Please tell me that I didn’t just talk to you on the phone yesterday!”

Me: “Yup, that was me.”

So, for TWO YEARS, I would get the call and go pick them up for their appointments. I wish this story ended with the couple being happy and appreciative, but no. The man never hesitated to complain that I was late, that my vehicle was difficult for them to get into, or that I should look “more professional”. I would always politely remind him that I didn’t actually work there, to no avail.

To be honest, I kind of loved it. He was such a cranky ol’ b*****d, and his grumpiness was so incredibly entertaining to me, but his wife, who was obviously suffering from dementia, was such a sweetheart who thought I was some family member doing them a favor.

When I moved from that area, I was super concerned about them and made sure that the office had someone to take my place. The last time I took them, the folks at the office had a bouquet of flowers and a box of bakery cookies for me to wish me well on my adventures.

I left them with my new contact information, and about six months later, I got an email telling me that Sir Grump-a-lot had come in for an appointment with the new driver (actually set up by the office this time) and complained because “the other girl was so much better”.

It totally warmed my heart as the real reason I even started this was that I’d hoped that if either myself or any of my family were suffering from dementia or any other affliction, someone would look past it and help out. I still don’t regret giving that crabby ol’ b*****d and his sweet lovey wife a ride.

I’m lower-middle management at a machine shop. I’ve got a welder on shift who works very fast; he produces about ten parts per shift each with a 120-inch weld. I’ve also got a welder who’s a bit slower; he produces five parts on each shift each with a 49-inch weld.

The thing is that my fast worker’s welds all fail ultrasound testing. He does 120 inches of welding per part, and every single part has about an inch that fails ultrasound and needs to be redone. This is part of the time it takes him to do the ten parts per shift.

My guy who does 49 inches on his parts fails a section of weld less than once a pay period.

We have a holiday shift open up doing different parts because a lot of people are going on vacation. There’s a two-times holiday differential pay for the people who stay on.

Both of these guys apply for one of the slots. Obviously, I take the guy whose welds don’t fail very often over the faster guy who fails a weld every part and needs to redo them. He’s not going to be as fast working on unfamiliar parts and is likely to make even more errors.

The faster guy gets b****y about it, complaining about how I didn’t take him for the holiday shift. He complains to me. He complains to his buddies. He complains to my manager.

So, I sit him down and explain that I would be more than happy to take him if he improves his failure rate. He nods along.

The next week, he produces only two parts per shift. This would be… acceptable, but less than ideal… if they didn’t fail ultrasound testing, but he still fails ultrasound testing twice that week.

I approach him about it, and he says, very smugly, that he is working on his accuracy. He practically sneers it at me. It is clear that he is daring me to complain about his reduced speed.

The next shift, I watch him, and he is mostly goofing off. He is making an effort to be more precise… but he is also doing every other task comically slowly.

I confront him about it and threaten to write him up.

Employee: “You need me more than I need you! A guy with my speed and welding experience could find work anywhere. You can’t write me up; I quit!”

Me: “Okay.”

We’re operating a bit slower without him, and his replacement isn’t fully trained up yet, but we certainly didn’t need his attitude.