(I’m taking care of a big rush of customers at the register as quickly as I can, with another cashier and one of my managers, when a customer comes up with a hair dryer that she wants to exchange.)

Customer: “Hi, I bought this a few months ago and it just stopped working on me for no reason. I don’t have the receipt.”

Me: “Okay! Do you have a loyalty card with us? We can look it up.”

(She gives me her number and it pulls up her mother’s account.)

Me: “I’m not seeing this product. Do you have your own account that we can look it up on?”

(The woman clearly looks annoyed, but gives me her number. Our system usually will trace back purchases for about nine or ten months after, but nothing is showing up in her transaction history)

Me: “So, I’m not finding it in this one, either. You said you bought this a few months ago?”

Customer: “Yeah, can you just go back and find it?”

Me: “That’s the problem, ma’am. There’s absolutely nothing here to go back to. If you want to grab the new hair dryer you wanted to exchange it for, you are more than welcome to.”

(She leaves and I begin to process the return without a receipt. When you don’t have a receipt or proof of purchase, our system rings it up at the highest price possible. The woman is very upset that we can’t evenly exchange it.)

Customer: “Well, this is just ridiculous. I shop here all the time and spend a lot of money here, so it should be in there.”

(The rush has died down, so my manager comes over to ask what is going on. I explain the situation.)

Manager: “Let me call customer service to see what’s going on. Why don’t you go help the other guests at a different register?”

(I obliged, and was grateful she took over. Especially when I found out that the customer had not made a purchase at our store for four years and tried to exchange a hair dryer from 2011!)

(I work at a hiring agency where we interview people, then send them out on jobs that they are interested in. To be placed on a job, you have to come into one of our offices and fill out some paperwork, including a background check, hire sheet, etc. It’s just three pages, doesn’t take a lot of time to fill out, and is very similar to a hire sheet that you could fill out for any other job. I’m working the front desk as the receptionist when a gentleman walks in.)

Me: “Hi, how can I help you?”

Applicant: “Yeah, I’m here to apply for a job.”

Me: “Okay, go ahead and sign in and fill out these papers, and I’ll have someone help you once you turn it in.” *gives man a clipboard with said papers*

(He walks off to fill out the paperwork, and I keep doing what I’m doing. He walks back about ten minutes later, handing the clipboard to me.)

Applicant: “I’m done.”

Me: *surprised, because people usually don’t go through the paperwork that quickly* “Er, okay. Let me see.” *looks through papers to make sure everything is in order* “Oh, sorry. It seems that you didn’t fill everything out. You need to sign several things, and there is a backside to one of these.”

Applicant: “Yeah, the thing is, I just don’t feel like doing all of it. Just put it in.” *arrogant smirk*

(I have the rare applicant walk in that IS reluctant to fill it out, but I usually just brush it off and hand it off to one of the interviewers. But I’ve had an unusually stressful day with my fair share of biting my tongue.)

Me: *irritated* “Yeah, and I don’t feel like dealing with your attitude, but we all have to do things that we don’t want to. So, you can sit back down and fill out the rest, or leave.”

(The applicant is clearly surprised by my sharp response, and demands to talk to my supervisor. I gladly comply, knowing that she has a shorter fuse than I do. I call her over, and she glances briefly through the paperwork.)

Supervisor: “How do you expect us to find you job if we have no idea of your experience or what you want? Fill it out.” *promptly gives the clipboard back to the applicant and walks away*

(He glared at me, as I grinned victoriously, before filling out the rest of the paperwork. He sulked the rest of the time he was in the office, but I was practically on cloud nine.)

(I’m shopping with my brother in a well-known retail store. My brother goes off somewhere, and I am walking around looking for him. I pass a salesman selling cable television.)

Salesman: *as I am walking by* “Excuse me, miss. Do you have television?”

Me: *smiles* “No.”

Salesman: “Oh, did you move recently?”

Me: *still smiling* “No.”

Salesman: “Why don’t you have television?”

Me: *saying the first thing that comes to my mind* “My mother doesn’t believe in television, and thinks it will cause our future children to become monsters who enjoy a chaotic world.” *smiles*

Salesman: *wide-eyed and shocked*

(My mom really doesn’t believe that, but she hates cable because she thinks it’s pointless.)

(I go to pick up an item that is on sale, but I can’t find any of them. There is one on a display.)

Employee: “Can I help you find anything today?”

Me: “Yeah, I’m looking for the [item] that’s on sale, but I don’t see any.”

Employee: *turning away from me* “Yeah, we put all of those out; if you don’t see it we don’t have it.”

Me: “Your website said you had some in stock, but I don’t even see a shelf space for them.”

Employee: *turns back around and points to an empty spot on the shelf* “They belong there, and as I told you, we are out of them.”

Me: *examines shelf spot* “That says it’s for [different item].”

Employee: “Oh, right. We don’t sell [items].”

Me: “I find that hard to believe, since they are on your website, and you have a display [item] right here.” *points to the exact item on display*

Employee: “I don’t know what you want me to say to you.”

Me: “How about you say you’ll look for it?”

(The employee called a manager over at that point. We found the item and I got a discount.)

(This happens to my husband while on a road trip. He pulls in to a well-known coffee chain and sits in his van in the parking lot, just going through the accumulation of stuff from his trip, throwing out trash, etc. A woman in a Range Rover pulls into the space on his right, so close that the side mirrors are nearly touching. She then puts down her window, motioning for him to do the same.)

Husband: “Can I help you?”

Woman: *very snooty* “You have positioned your vehicle in such a way that I am unable to get out of mine. I need you to move.”

Husband: “Lady, I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes. You parked too close to get out.”

Woman: “Well, are you going to move?”

Husband: “No!”

(She sat for a minute, and then when she realized he really wasn’t moving, she huffily left, presumably to park in one of the other spaces. The kicker? Two spaces away, in the same row, there were at least five empty spaces in a row.)