Years back, I used to work on the melt deck at a foundry in the area. It was a union job, so everyone had their own roles to do. I was in melting, and one of our jobs was to melt the iron for another department to pour into the molds.

Every so often, we would trip a breaker on one of the furnaces and had to call an electrician to come up to the melt deck to fix it. The panels for the furnaces opened up, and the electricians would just flip a switch, and it’d be fixed. The problem was that sometimes it would take over twenty minutes for an electrician to show up and fix it.

Waiting a few minutes wasn’t much of a big deal, but when it would be over thirty minutes, it would start cutting into our pay since we got paid based on tonnage melted, and when we couldn’t melt iron… no money.

Eventually, our ATF (Assistant to the Foreman) got sick of it and would open the panel and flip the switch himself so we could keep going.

The electricians found out what we were doing and had a meltdown (no pun intended), and told us we weren’t allowed to do that and not to touch anything electrical if we weren’t an electrician.

Some words were had, and we agreed, only for the electricians to go right back to taking forever to respond to our calls. Everyone on the melt deck decided that ANYTHING electrical was out of our pay grade.

We then proceeded to call electricians up to the melt deck to plug in and unplug our phone chargers, stating, “It’s electrical, I can’t touch it”. Of course, we wouldn’t tell them that over the radio, just that we need an electrician on the melt deck for an electrical issue.

They didn’t find it as funny as we did, and eventually we all agreed to stop calling them for our phones, and their response time significantly improved.

I’m a customer during a slow hour at the supermarket. As I’m getting in line, the (female) cashier is finishing scanning the items of the (very male) guy ahead of me.

Cashier: “Is that everything for you today?”

Guy: “Nah, can I get your phone number?”

[Cashier] proceeds to LAUGH AT HIM. Loud, hard, gleeful. I see cashiers in other checkout lanes, and their few customers, all turning towards her as she clutches the counter, trying to stop herself from falling over out of how hard she’s laughing.

Guy: “What the f*** is your problem?”

Cashier: *Desperately trying to stop laughing long enough to speak.* “I could ask the same of you!”

Guy: “Get me your manager!”

Out of breath from laughing, [Cashier] reaches for something under the counter, and a manager seems to appear from out of nowhere.

Manager: “What seems to be the problem here?”

Guy: “Your cashier started laughing at me for no reason! Fire her!”

Manager: *Turning to me.* “Did you happen to see this exchange before you got here?”

Me: “Uh, yes, sir. He asked for her phone number.”

Guy: “What the f***, dude?”

Manager: “That’s all I need to hear.” *To [Guy].* “My cashier has done nothing worth firing over. Pay for your things and leave.”

[Guy] yells in frustration and storms out, leaving his would-be purchases behind.

A customer has just checked out and has left her cart at my register. As she’s walking away:

Me: “Ma’am, you forgot something.”

She looked at me like I had just insulted her.

Customer: “It’s not my job to put it away.”

Me: “Well, it’s not my job either!”

She does not know what to do with that response, so just stands there kinda stunned for a moment. I break her out of her daze by taking my forefinger and giving the cart the gentlest of nudges toward her. She just takes it, puts it back, and leaves.

There’s this local guy who comes to the shop I work at, many times a day, mostly to buy beer, lottery tickets, and scratch cards. He almost always smells like a brewery, is extremely annoying, and barely understands personal hygiene.

A couple of months ago, I was closing the store after a really busy late Saturday shift. It was ten minutes past closing time, I was tired and cranky, and then suddenly he forced the store doors open (had them set to exit only, not locked).

Me: “Hey! We’re closed.”

Customer: “You can close when I go.”

Me: “No, we’re already closed, get out.”

Customer: “No! You gotta cash out my scratch card! I won! It’s the law!”

He’s waving around the cheapest scratchcard we sell, and he’s won a total of… one dollar.

Me: “No! We’re closed! Get the f*** out of the store!”

Customer: “You can’t swear at customers!”

Me: “We’re closed! You’re not a customer! I want to go home! Get the f*** oooooout!”

I’m usually very patient with customers, but I just “boiled over” with anger. He has never done that again, and now I always lock the door at closing time and let customers out manually if they’re still in the store.

That customer has tried to come back a few more times, but every time he walks up and sees me, I just glare at him, and he pretends he was walking in another direction all along and turns ninety degrees left or right.

This story is from a long time ago, so it is somewhat paraphrased.

At a movie theater, for specific holidays, it doesn’t matter how many people you have scheduled. It doesn’t matter if everyone shows up. You’re still shorthanded.

Usually, one person would work the counter and the other would get the food ready. So, you’ve got two people per register. 

I’m one of the more senior people working this holiday outside of management, most of whom are currently helping to clean the theaters so we can admit the huge crowds in time. It should also be noted that even though I am not management, I am one of the longest serving workers here, and am trained on certain tasks that even some managers cannot do. This meant that when something came up in the back that threatened to delay the making of popcorn, I had to go take care of it.

A coworker tapped me on the shoulder, informed me of such an issue, and I’m about to go to the back, and some guy standing in line yells out:

Customer: “Don’t leave the register! It’s slow enough as it is and I’m f****** hungry!”

Me: “Sir, I understand much better than you what it’s like to be hungry since I haven’t eaten all day, so that I can serve you and everyone else here.”

Customer: “Then you should hire more people!”

Me: “Sir, we could stand here and argue that point, but if you want me to come back as quickly as possible, then I have to be allowed to do my job. You can either wait or take my place.”

Customer: “Well… hurry up, d*** it!”

I mentally roll my eyes as I go to deal with whatever the issue was. I fixed that within five minutes, and when I came back, the same customer was getting served his popcorn.

Customer: “I’m finally getting my food, no thanks to you!”

I glance at his movie ticket.

Me: “Enjoy the movie, sir, that you’re getting to enjoy because as the only available person trained to deal with biological waste, I was able to get your auditorium ready in time.”

Customer: “Bio… logical?”

Me: “As in something that came out of a human. As for what it was, and what seat it landed on, I simply don’t have the time to tell you! This line needs to be served! Enjoy the movie, sir!”

I get back to getting customers their popcorn and snacks, and the customer slowly walks into his theater, seemingly less excited about the movie than he was before.

Coworker: *Quietly.* “Eww, was it pee, poo, or vomit?”

Me: *Also quietly.* “Nah, the lights weren’t turning off, so I had to reset them. But he’s about to spend the next two and a half hours worried that he’s sitting in a seat that might have been exposed to any of those three or worse, and the thought of that will sustain me until I get some actual food myself.”

Sometimes it’s the little things that get you through the day…