I am managing a retail store with very specific hobby equipment. I was hired personally by the owner, as we’re not a global chain, just statewide.

Customer: “I want to speak to the owner, [Owner].”

Obviously, knowing the owner by name is as simple as a Google search, but he is adamant that he knows and deals with [Owner].

After some back and forth, I give the owner a call (which he doesn’t usually like) and tell the guy’s full name. After a brief pause:

Owner: “That guy owes me a bunch of money. He’s jumping between stores, buying items with this same ploy, getting discounts, buying with stolen credit cards, and creating financial disputes. Call the cops and keep him there.”

How stupid can you be? Why did he ask to speak to the owner? Was he there to pull the same stunt? Did he not think I would call the owner?

Not the smartest. He got arrested.

I’m a taxi driver. I pick up a young couple. As I start driving towards their destination, one of them says:

Passenger: “Last night, I drove with a really weird taxi driver.”

Me: “Oh? Why is that?”

Passenger: “I was going all the way to the end of [Road where pretty much nothing happens after 4:00 in the afternoon]. He drove 50 km/h all the way.”

Me: “But 50 km/h is the speed limit there?”

Passenger: “Yeah, but there was no one there.”

I’m sorry our drivers see the speed limit as an actual limit and not a suggestion, I guess?

The director at my company owned a white Humvee that I swear could double as an ocean liner on wheels. The monstrosity barely fit in a parking spot, and it was lifted to a degree that it just barely fell short of needing an elevator or a sizeable ladder to get in. What she was compensating for, I’ll never know.

The director felt that she deserved a close parking spot because of her job title.

She used the visitor parking spaces for a while because they were “more convenient” than the employee parking. Keep in mind that the employee parking is close to an Employee-Only door with an employee badge access scanner. Not only would this get her in quickly, but she would be close to the staff area where her locker was located. No matter the weather, she would have a spot close by. By parking in visitor parking, she had to come in the front door and walk halfway across the building to put her things away.

The higher-ups got on her case for taking up visitor parking, and after a small tantrum, she started parking in a new, even more inappropriate spot. If you guessed it was the disability-accessible parking, you’re very close! Since parking in an accessible spot would get her a ticket, she parked next to the accessible spot… in the “crosshatch” area. Yep. You can get a ticket for parking in an accessible spot but not, apparently, in the parking stripes next to accessible parking spots! Right? Right?

Wrong.

She was soon screeching about getting ticketed and was gobsmacked that no one sympathized with her.

A company-wide email “reminder” from the vice president directed at “all staff” reminded everyone not to park in areas not designated specifically to employees, under threat of being ticketed or towed. In professional language, the message was, “If you’re stupid enough to illegally park, you deserve what you get.”

Of course, the director got another ticket for doing the same thing, and the third time, she got towed. She threw a tantrum and ultimately got fired. 

She was breaking company policy and violating state law by interfering with an accessible spot. So, not only does she have to pay for the tickets, but she’s jobless, too. A cushy paycheck was ripped from her hands because she felt entitled to a special “parking spot”.

I work as a bartender at a nightclub in New York City. Two fellows with thick European accents come up to the bar, and one asks in all earnestness:

Customer: “Two lines of Coke, please.”

I just stare at him for a couple of seconds. Yup, he’s serious.

Me: “Coke… Uh… cola?”

Customer: “No, to sniff.”

He then does a little mime demonstration for me to really drive home what is by now abundantly clear.

Me: “Ah, I see; you’re an idiot. Go get arrested somewhere else.”

When my father was in the US Air Force in the 1960s, he came down with an infection that required him to be hospitalized. His roommate was a deserter who was serving time in a military prison and consequently had a Military Police officer guarding the door at all times.

One night, my father got up and tried to leave the room.

MP: “Where the f*** do you think you’re going?”

Dad: “Um, the bathroom.”

MP: “The h*** you are, [Prisoner]!”

It turned out that when the shift changed, the new guard didn’t know which patient he was supposed to be watching, so he asked the prisoner. The prisoner pointed to my sleeping father and quickly left the hospital. While my father was easily able to prove his identity, I’m sure the MP had an interesting story to tell his superiors. “But he said he WASN’T my prisoner!”