(I work at a convenience store in Allentown PA. It was in the evening when two young girls come up to the register)

Me: Hi! What can I get you?
Girl1: I’ll take a pack of [brand name cigarettes].
Me: Sure, can I see your ID please?
(Girl hand me her ID).
Me: That’ll be [total].
(Girl hands me the money and I make the change)
Me: How may I help you [to girl number two]?
Girl2: I’ll have [same as the other girl].
Me: Sure, can I see your ID too?
Girl2: Oh, I left it in the car.
Me: Ok, well, I need to see your ID. I’ll suspend your sale while you get it.
Girl2: Well, I don’t feel like going out to get it.
Me: I’m sorry, I still need to see your ID before selling you the cigarettes.
Girl2: But, you served my friend and we’re the same age.
Me: Yea, and she showed me her ID which allowed me to sell her the cigarettes.
Girl1: Oh, HERE, Here’s my ID, I’ll by them for her.
Me: I’m sorry, I can’t sell them to you.
Girl1: Why the hell not?
Me: Because you’re buying them for your friend which cannot produce an ID for to which is illegal.
Girl1: But, how would anyone else know?
Me: It doesn’t matter who knows or not, I’m not going to risk me getting fined, the company getting fined and losing my job because your friend cannot produce the proper ID and you’re purchasing them for her. I’m sorry either she can show me the ID, or you can leave.
Girl1: I’ll call corporate if you don’t sell them to me.
Me: Go ahead. They will reiterate the same thing I am telling you and will side with me.
Girl1: F****** HICK! GO TO HELL!!!

(They both left in a huff and I didn’t see them again).

There is a convenience store that I pass every day during my commute. I’ve never gone inside it before, but I develop a hankering for a soda on the way home one day, so I decide to give it a shot. There is nobody inside except for one cashier, whom I presume to be the owner.

I go over and pick out my soda. While the shelf advertises them at two for $3, I only want one. I don’t mind paying the regular price, but it is nowhere to be seen. I take my soda up to the counter to pay.

Cashier: “You have to buy two of these sodas if you want the deal.”

Me: “I know. I only want the one, though.”

Cashier: “You can’t buy only one. You have to buy two.”

Me: “I understand. I don’t mind paying the normal price; I just want to know what the normal price is.”

Cashier: “You have to buy two! You can’t buy one!”

Me: “I understand! I just—”

Cashier: “No, you do not understand! Get out of my store or I’ll call the cops!”

I gave up at this point and left empty-handed. I got my soda fix at a fast-food place just up the street. If anything, at least I now have a partial explanation for why that convenience store’s parking lot is almost always empty whenever I pass it on my commute.

While in the middle of my morning commute, traffic is stopped at a traffic light that connects straight into a convenience store’s driveway, even though the light is green. A fire truck and an ambulance coming the other way pull through the intersection and into the store’s parking lot, going around the gas pumps and up to the building. I notice there are no customer cars, so the person in need must be an employee, and the store, while still fully lit, must be closed right now.

Not ten seconds later, the light having changed, a white Jeep pulls into the lot and moseys up to a gas pump, while multiple people are coming out of the store and heading for the ambulance.

The light changed again, so I didn’t get to see what the driver did, but since I’m pretty sure the law doesn’t allow pump operation when staff is not present — and if a manager was there he/she would have been tending to the situation at hand — I don’t think they got to fill up there today!

(Now with fire fighters being experts at pumps and hoses, maybe this Jeep driver thought they would gas up his/her vehicle… but I certainly hope not!)

It’s late at night and I’m supposed to be picking up my boyfriend from work, but I leave a bit too early so I decide to stop at a local convenience store to grab a bottle of water. This store is on a somewhat bad side of town.

As I enter, I notice the clerk is bent down under the counter stocking cigarettes, and there is one other customer who is on the opposite side of the door. 

Customer: “I bet you hate having to work here all night with crazy people on drugs trying to steal things from you.” 

The clerk obviously can’t hear the guy. The customer walks up to the counter and I get in line behind him. 

Customer: “You don’t have to be such an a**hole, man! I was just trying to make conversation and be nice!” 

Clerk: *Politely* “I’m very sorry, but I couldn’t hear you.”

Customer: “That’s bulls***! You’re a f****** a**hole and I’m not going to pay for this stuff now!” 

Clerk: “I can’t let you do that, sir.” 

Customer: “Well, I’m going to and you can’t do anything about it!” 

The clerk snatches an orange juice out of the customer’s hand, but before he can grab anything else, the customer runs out of the store. I pay for my things and tell the clerk I’m sorry he had to deal with that, and I start to walk out to my car. In the parking lot, the guy pulls up, almost hitting me with his car, and gets out. 

Customer: *To me* “I guess I should go pay the guy since he has to deal with such a**hole druggies all night.”

Considering the fact that a police station was less than a block away, I’m pretty sure the guy was just trying to avoid having the cops called on him.

Years ago, my grandfather owned a number of convenience stores. He hired and fired all kinds of crazy cashiers; the ones that stuck around for years might have been the craziest, but they were reliable. Every summer for years, I would be one of those cashiers; from the ages of fourteen to twenty, there I was every summer. 

Since he usually had regular turnover, it wasn’t hard for him to find me a shift to work, but one year he was fully staffed; he was just miffed by one employee. 

This one girl was great at all the assignments — stocking, cleaning, maintenance — but my grandfather noticed that he was going through a lot of rolls of dimes and pennies, and usually on her shifts. So, he decided to sort of watch her one day. It wasn’t until someone was owed $0.97 in change that he put it together.

Sure enough, this cashier gave the guy nine dimes and seven pennies as change. 

He tried to teach her, but it didn’t stick. 

Needless to say, he still found an opening for me that summer.