In the 1980s, I worked in a newsagent at a local train station.

One afternoon, when rush hour was almost over, I was refilling our drinks cooler while my female colleague was at the cash register. A man came in and asked [Colleague] for a pen and some paper. He then stood to one side and wrote a note of some kind.

All of a sudden, a train or a bus had come in to the station and the shop was flooded with customers. I stopped what I was doing and went to the second cash register to help get people out the door again. After a couple of minutes, all the customers were gone and the man from earlier came to the register. He put a note on the table and looked expectantly at both of us.

Me: “What am I to do with the note?”

Man: “One of you should read it.”

I picked up the note and read the first line.

Note: “This is a robbery. I want a minimum of 10,000. If you try contacting the police, you will be dead.”

I then noticed that he kept his right hand in the pocket of his jacket. I immediately pressed the alarm button which called the police and had the instore camera take one picture every second.

I turned the note over and noticed that something had been written on the other side, though it had been partly crossed out again.

I gave him back the note.

Me: “Which side am I supposed to read?”

Man: *Snarling* “Don’t try to be funny!”

As I had now pressed the alarm, I tried to stall for time. I took the note again and read it three times. I must admit that my hands were shaking a bit, but I gave the note back to him.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t read what it says. Could you read it to me?”

Man: *Annoyed* “I’m going to shoot if you don’t give me 10,000 kroner.”

As I removed banknotes from the register, when there were above a certain number of them, I truthfully told him:

Me: “We don’t even have that much money.”

Man: “Do you want me to shoot you or shoot up in the air?”

Me: “I don’t know, but I don’t have that much money.”

Man: “Fine, just give me 5,000, then.”

Me: “We don’t have that much, either.”

Man: “How much do you have, then?”

At this point, I had noticed that his eyes seemed unfocused and his last statement told me that he wasn’t exactly in control of the situation. I opened the cash register and started counting the banknotes. Having counted them, I put them back in the cash register and closed it.

Me: “There are almost 1,500 kroner in there.”

Man: “Give them to me.”

As he hadn’t complained while I was counting the money, I opened the cash register again and counted them while wrapping every tenth note around the other nine. When I’d counted all of them, I recounted them while putting them on the desk between us. At this point, I had left the cash register open, and there were a lot of ten- and five-kroner coins.

Me: “What about the coins?”

He glanced at them.

Man: “I want those, too.”

I started taking them out of the cash drawer one at a time while counting them. I then counted them again as I put them into the plastic tubes we used when depositing them at the bank, each containing twenty to twenty-five coins depending on which coin it was for. I had done this with all the ten- and five-kroner coins and was counting the third tube of one-kroner coins when the police came in. At this time, I think almost ten minutes had passed.

Police: “Is the alarm from in here?”

That was the moment I was ready to throw myself on the floor. If the man really had a gun, this was likely when he would choose to shoot.

Me: “Yes, could you please take care of that man?”

We locked the door. One officer questioned my colleague and me while the other one questioned the man. The other officer came back and told us that the man didn’t have a gun and that he claimed that I had written the note.

They ended up arresting him and taking him to the police station. I then called my boss and explained what had happened. He laughed and told me that I should just open the shop again. I was the one on closing duties at 10:00 pm. The police left a little after 6:30 pm, and those last three and a bit hours were horrible. I knew that the man wasn’t coming back, but I was rather shaken.

There had been a number of customers while this took place. [Colleague] took care of them while I was dealing with the robber. Apparently, not a single customer noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Over the next week, I was annoyed that everybody I told the story to ended up laughing. I certainly didn’t find it funny. After that week, I slowly began seeing that the entire thing was rather funny because the man obviously had been out of touch with reality.

Three months later, [Colleague] and I were in court as witnesses against the robber. Our names and addresses were read aloud in court while he was present. All I know about him is that he was thirty-seven and from a neighbouring town. I don’t even know what kind of sentence he got if any.

I know that I behaved in a less than rational way, but you can’t plan ahead and know how you will react in a stressful situation like that, especially when you haven’t been told by corporate what you are supposed to do. Picking up on his not-being-quite-there and trying to stall for time led to things happening this way. 

I have twice since been in similarly stressful situations and have learned that I’m good at keeping calm while things are going on. Afterward, I tend to end up shaking all over.

A load of school kids like to hang around outside our little shop. They don’t buy anything; they just get in the way of people trying to get in or out, or they hang out on the road itself messing around.

We have a lot of elderly customers who complain, and many go elsewhere as the kids don’t get out of people’s way and their language can be pretty offensive. I don’t blame them.

We have tried moving them on ourselves, getting the schools involved, and even reaching out to parents to help. No one seems bothered; they think it’s fine because “kids will be kids.”

This all changed when one of my regulars nearly hit one of the kids in his car after they stupidly jumped in front of him to prank him or something. I waited for the ambulance to get him oxygen as the kids ran off laughing.

Eventually, every lunchtime I would go outside the shop and loudly read from a textbook, sometimes physics, sometimes history, sometimes whatever I could download. I was giving them more school on their lunch, and they hated it.

Not only did they leave my customers alone, but the local paper somehow got wind and the shop got loads of publicity for teaching pupils for free. So, thanks, I guess, kids!

The convenience store I work for is next to a large casino. By “next to,” I mean that we are in a corner of their parking lot. A lot of customers will park in spaces meant for us and go gamble for hours, so we put up signs warning them and begin having them towed off.

I am checking the outside trash cans when I see a large truck parked in a disabled spot against our building. The vehicle has no indication that it’s allowed to park there — no tags, no placard, nothing.

I check inside with our only customer at the moment, and she confirms it isn’t her vehicle. I call the casino and ask them to page the driver to come move their truck or it will be towed.

As I am outside again to finish checking the trash cans, an angry man storms up to me.

Driver: “What the f*** do you mean, I have to come move my truck?!”

Me: “Sir, not only are you not allowed to park in this area to visit the casino, but you’re parked in a disabled spot with no indication you’re allowed to.”

Driver: “Bulls***! It wasn’t marked when I parked there!”

He’s trying to intimidate me, but the manager tends to side with the workers in cases like this. As it’s all women on my shift, we have permission to “fight back” against abusive customers, as long as we’re not threatening them or physically touching them.

Me: “Yes, sir, you are completely correct. I violated the g**d*** laws of physics to lift your heavy-a** truck into the air and paint the universal ‘disabled’ sign underneath it. Move your truck out of this parking lot or it’s getting towed.”

He gets in his truck and moves it to the next spot to the right.

Driver: “There, you f****** w***e. Now I have another fifteen minutes!”

Me: “Dude, if you walk off, you’re getting towed.”

He flips me off and storms back to the casino. I call the tow truck, who arrives a half-hour later. He mills around for five or so minutes to get a drink and then leaves. Another forty-five minutes later, a security officer is taking his break in the store when the man barges in, furious.

Driver: “Where the h*** is my truck?!”

Me: “I dunno. Probably the impound lot by now. It’s, like, $400 to have it released. I went with the cheaper option for you. Hope you hit a jackpot.”

Driver: “You can’t f****** do that!”

Security: “Yes, she can.”

He took one look at security, sputtered, and ran out. I never saw him again.

At my job at a convenience store, we sell cigarettes, and because of that, we must ID people that look under thirty to see if they are eighteen years of age to buy them. Of course, there are some rules with ID. It must be a photo ID, so no health cards. It must be government-issued, so provincial ID, military ID, and driver’s licenses work. We do not accept Treaty Status cards. And finally, the ID must be up to date, so if you are twenty years old but your card expired even one day ago, we cannot sell to you.

Of course, we also have to make sure the ID is real. Failing things could mean a loss of license, a fine, the employee getting fired, or all of the above, with some stores closing because of it.

I was working the last fifteen minutes of my shift, getting ready for the person working the night shift coming in, when a customer came in asking for cigarettes. He looked to be over thirty, so I grabbed the cigarettes he wanted.

He took his ID out. I put the box to the side and checked it, and lo and behold, I saw that the ID he used, a driver’s license, had expired in 2018.

Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t sell to you today. Your license is expired.”

I put away the cigarettes.

Thus opened the gates of Hell as the customer got pissed.

Customer: “You never asked for my ID, and you were going to give them to me!”

Me: “But you did show me your ID, and it was expired. I cannot accept it as valid.”

He then tried to get my coworkers on his side, but they all agreed that it did not matter. He had shown ID, it was expired, and by law, I could not sell the cigarettes to him. After he realized that he was not getting his way, and we explained that it was the law, he flat-out stated:

Customer: “You don’t need to follow the law!”

My assistant manager barred him from the store and had the phone ready to call the cops if the customer didn’t leave. He did leave, and my assistant manager congratulated me.

Me: “You know, I would have sold them if he hadn’t shown his ID; he looked to be over thirty.”

Assistant Manager: “Yeah, but he was a moron.”

I work late shifts at a restaurant, and on my walk home to my metro station, I always pass the same twenty-four-seven shop and always buy the same kiddie-marketed soft drink to get some sugar and fluids into me after ten hours on my feet with no break. It costs eighty cents, and I drop the last twenty cents I get back for my 1€ into the tip bowl every time because I’m grateful to the only shop open at this time to get me my drink.

One time, because of a weird shift change, I get to go home in the early evening instead of at night, and I decide to still get my drink. As I step into the shop, the night cashier starting his shift immediately spots me.

Cashier: “Sister!”

This is an extremely unusual greeting in Germany but typical for friends in the Arabian community of the area.

Cashier: “You’re too early! Luckily, we just restocked your drinks in the cooler!”

Another time, at my usual hour, he greets me before I even reach the coolers.

Cashier: “Sister! We’re all out of [flavour I like]. Don’t worry, I hid one for you in the back!”

He ran off to get it before I could even tell him I’d be fine with other flavours, too. I doubt it’s my twenty-cent tip that made him remember me but rather the fact I was the only one buying a kid-friendly soft drink while everyone around me was buying beer and hard alcohol for the night, but it’s still nice to be recognised.