I am a cashier at a pharmacy, and we get a lot of unsavory characters. An older man walks in and comes to my counter to complain about a battery he bought for his blood sugar tester. Since it’s a new battery, I can only conclude that the plastic is still on. Lo and behold, I open it up and the plastic is still on.

He thanks me profusely and I wish him a good day, thinking that he is satisfied and will be on his way. He puts a test strip in the machine and takes his blood sugar at the counter. I ask him to please wait until he gets home. He says, no, no it’s fine; this will only take a minute. I again plead with him not to do it because it is very unsanitary to have blood on or around my counter. He argues with me the whole time, and when he finishes I make sure he puts his test strip in the garbage himself; I hold the can up for him since it’s behind the counter.

He starts to get angry at me, saying that it’s no big deal and I’m being dramatic. In my head I say, yes, I am being dramatic that a total stranger is pricking himself on the finger, squeezing blood on a test strip, and had to be coerced to even dispose of it properly. After he leaves, still upset, I make sure I grab the disinfectant wipes and clean every part of that counter.

(I work in a true dollar store; everything really is a dollar or less, so the company cuts corners where they can to save on expenses. Some bank has put out television commercials explaining that their “new” debit cards “work just like a check!” A customer comes up with an armful of items. Not much at all. I scan everything.)

Me: “Your total is [amount less than ten dollars].”

Customer: *silently hands me a card*

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry! We only accept cash or checks.”

Customer: “This is a check.”

Me: “No, it’s a debit card. We only accept paper checks.”

Customer: “This IS a check. It is a check card.”

Me: “Yes, I know. But we don’t accept them. We never have.”

Customer: “You said you accept checks. This is a check card. You will accept it.”

Me: “I’m afraid we can’t. We have never accepted debit cards.”

Customer: “It works just like a check!”

Me: “Actually, it really doesn’t. It takes money from your checking account, yes, but using them requires additional equipment that the store does not have as well as a dedicated phone line, I believe.”

(Our cash registers are extremely barebones. Barely a step above old-fashioned mechanical types as far as capabilities go.)

Customer: “Are you calling my bank a liar?”

Me: “Maybe not a liar, but certainly misleading from the business perspective.”

Customer: “Well I don’t HAVE cash or a check! YOU just lost the store a sale.”

Me: “Sorry?”

(My family is eating Thanksgiving Dinner. We’ve said grace and have been eating for about five minutes, little clusters of us all engaged in different conversations over the meal, when my aunt speaks up.)

Aunt: “All right, everyone!”

(We quiet down, expecting her to have some kind of announcement.)

Aunt: “Your first assigned topic is to discuss your first concert. [My Father], you go first!”

(We all stare at her blankly for a moment.)

Aunt: *more forcefully but with overzealous cheer* “[My Father], what was the first concert you attended?”

(My dad eyed her confusedly, before going back to discussing a recent golf game with my uncle while my aunt scanned the group with an expectant smile on her face. None of us ended up participating in our “assigned topic discussion.”)

(I’m an academic advisor. Most of my students are freshmen, so they don’t know how the registration process works. I send a short email with bullet points of all the information they need, and tell them they need to meet with me at some point during the next two weeks so they can be ready to register for spring classes. One student comes to see me. They have a question about another issue, and I tell them where to go to resolve it. They show me the forms, and I again tell them to go to the other office and they’ll fix the issue. We talk about classes, but they don’t know what to take. I look at their records and tell them two classes I strongly recommend taking ASAP, and pick out four other possibilities and suggest choosing two of those. The student seems satisfied.)

Me: “Okay, look over these, go to [School Website], and pick out the sections to make a schedule you like. Then, you’ll need to fill out this pre-registration form and bring it back for me to sign, and then you’re all set to register online on [date the following week].”

Student: “Okay. Wait, what about [issue we talked about before]? I need you to fix that.”

Me: “Oh, no, you need to go to [other office] to fix that; they’re in the next building.”

Student: “Oh, okay. Then can you sign this form?”

Me: “Your forms for [issue]? No, [other office] needs to sign them.”

Student: “No, this form, [the pre-registration form they haven’t filled out yet].”

Me: “Sorry, no, that’s the one you need to fill out with your classes, and I’ll sign it once it’s filled out.”

Student: “Oh, okay.” *starts to gather their things* “Okay, thanks! Oh, before I go, can you sign this form?”

Me: *staring* “No, that’s the one you need to fill out first.”

Student: “Oh!” *laughs* “Sorry, okay.”

(The student gets all their stuff in their bag, stands up, takes the form from my desk, and moves as if to leave.)

Student: “Thank you for your help! Oh, wait, I need you to sign this form.”

Me: “No. That’s the pre-registration form you still haven’t filled out. I can’t sign it before you fill it out. Come back anytime before [date next week] and I’ll sign it. Then, you can submit it at [location] and you’ll be ready to register online.”

Student: *pause* “Oh…”

Me: “Fill out that form, then bring it back for me to sign. If I’m not here, drop it off with the receptionist, and I’ll sign it and submit it for you.”

Student: “Hmm…” *leaves, without another word*

(Yesterday was the student’s registration day, and they never brought back their form. Maybe it’s an antiquated system to have to get the advisor’s signature, but it’s not really that hard.)

(I’m at a quick-service Mexican restaurant for dinner. I’m not able to finish my meal in one sitting, so I decide to go up to the counter to ask for a to-go container. I was told when I first ordered that some of the equipment used to prepare the food isn’t working properly; one of the stovetops won’t turn on, and as a result the employees are forced to do some of their cooking on the heated tortilla presser. Obviously this means that orders take considerably longer to make than usual. When I get up to the counter, there’s a couple — a man and a woman — ordering. The woman taking the order explains the situation to them, and they say:)

Male Customer: “That’s fine. We’ll have two burritos, please.”

(Because she can’t cook the tortillas on the stovetop like she normally would, she has to press each tortilla and wait for each one to heat up on the presser individually, which takes a little while. The woman behind the counter apologizes profusely for the wait throughout, and each time, both the man and the woman say:)

Male & Female Customer: “It’s fine; don’t worry about it.”

(Once the tortillas are both ready, she asks:)

Employee: “Do you want any rice or beans on your burritos?”

Male Customer: “I want rice and black beans.”

Female Customer: “I just want rice.”

(She puts the rice and beans on the tortillas, and asks:)

Employee: “What kind of meat do you want?

Male Customer: “I want steak.”

Female Customer: “I don’t want a burrito.”

Employee: “Oh, I’m sorry. I must have misheard you, ma’am. Did you want something else?”

Female Customer: “No, I just changed my mind. I don’t want anything anymore.”

(The woman behind the counter was forced to throw out the tortilla with the rice into the trash. Wasted ingredients, wasted time. And that’s the story of how it took me nearly ten minutes to get a to-go container.)