It’s the Christmas of 2020, and I’m stuck secluded at home with you-know-what. Everyone in my family lives in another state, so I usually fly out there for Christmas. Not this year. So, there I am, sick and miserable, when I hear the doorbell. Confused and more irritated than I already was, I walk over to the window and open it, planning to tell the person that coming here really isn’t a good idea.

The person in question turns out to be my best friend, who tells me to come to the door and then runs back to a group of some of our other friends. Curious now, I do as I’m told. As soon as I open the door, my friends, who are a safe distance away, start dancing and singing!

Friends: “We wish you a merry Christmas; we wish you a merry Christmas; we wish you a merry Christmas; and a healthy New Year!

“Oh, please stay six feet away; oh, please stay six feet away; oh, please stay six feet away; you’re spreading it through the air!

“We won’t stay if you come outside; we won’t stay if you come outside; we won’t stay if you come outside; so, keep your a** right there!

“We wish you a merry Christmas; we wish you a merry Christmas; we wish you a merry Christmas; and a healthy New Yeeeeeeaaarrr!”

By the end of it, I was alternating between laughing and coughing but felt immensely better emotionally. I also finally spotted the gift boxes at my feet, each of which had a bag of cough drops taped to it. My friends insisted on watching me open my presents right there and requested IOUs for their own gifts.

I have the best friends ever.

I have just been promoted to assistant store manager of the small pharmacy where I work. This is when companies are coming out with various home tests for [certain respiratory illness], but before insurance companies start paying for them up front. If you want to get reimbursed, you have to keep your receipt and turn it over to your insurance company.

It’s an hour before we close, and I’m closing drawers for the night when my cashier calls me to the front.

Me: “Hi, I’m the assistant store manager. What can I help you with?”

Customer: “No, I want to talk to the store manager!”

Our store manager has taken a week off for her brother’s wedding.

Me: “Ma’am, our store manager is out for another few days, but I am more than willing to help you with whatever you need.”

Customer: *Grumbling* “Fine! I bought these home tests here, but when I called my insurance company, they said I never should have paid for them because insurance pays for them now, so I want my money back!”

I stare pretty stupidly for several seconds, knowing this isn’t going to be a fun conversation.

Me: “Ma’am, I apologize, but due to certain health reasons, the tests are non-refundable.”

Customer: “But I have my receipt! I want my money back!”

Me: *Reading the receipt* “Unfortunately, even if these items were refundable, you purchased these items three months ago. Our return policy is sixty days. But again, it is a serious health violation to try to return these tests.”

Customer: “I DON’T WANT TO RETURN THEM! I JUST WANT MY MONEY BACK!”

Me: *Staring at my cashier in disbelief* “You… want to take home your money… and the tests?”

Customer: “This is why I wanted the store manager!”

Me: “Ma’am, even if she were here, she would tell you the same thing. These tests are non-refundable. The CDC has issued this warning. Please understand that there is literally nothing I can do. The system simply won’t allow me to refund these items, no matter how upset you are.”

Customer: “I WANT TO TALK TO THE STORE MANAGER! WHEN IS SHE COMING BACK IN?! NO ONE EVER TOLD ME THE TESTS WERE NON-REFUNDABLE! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!”

Me: “Ma’am, the only thing I can suggest is possibly calling corporate and asking if there’s any way around this?”

Customer: “I’M NOT CALLING ANYONE! I! WANT! MY! MONEY! BACK!”

Me: “Would you like me to call for you?”

Customer: “YES!”

A phone call is placed. The woman screams at the person on the other end for not having a sign in OUR store saying the tests are non-refundable, and she demands to know what he would do to rectify that. I pull away and speak to the person quietly, asking if there is ANYTHING I can do for this woman.

Corporate Representative: “I’m very sorry, but if she wants her money back, she will need to get reimbursed through her insurance company. However, not all insurance companies cover these tests.”

I hang up after several minutes of pleading to find the woman speaking kindly to my cashier.

Me: “Ma’am, I apologize, but he also said the only way to get your money back is to be reimbursed through your insurance company. We cannot do anything for you here. I’m sorry, but that’s the law.”

Customer: “Why’s it so hard for you to give me my money? I work hard to put money in my FSA [savings account], I have a job, I pay my taxes, and I’m a law-abiding citizen! What makes a little white girl think you can just steal my money like that?!”

She’s Black. At this point, I’ve had ENOUGH. NO ONE accuses me of being racist when race was never part of the conversation in the first place and gets away with it. I’m done playing nice.

I step back and point to the door.

Me: “You can see yourself out.”

Customer: “Oh, you’re mad because someone finally called you out on it!”

Me: *With a strained smile* “No. You probably weren’t aware, but you’ve been yelling at me for the last forty-five minutes, and we close soon. So leave.”

Customer: “WHAT IF I WANT TO BUY SOMETHING ELSE?! HUH?! I’M A PAYING CUSTOMER! YOU CAN’T JUST KICK ME OUT!”

Me: “Ma’am, I do not get paid to get yelled at by customers who think they’re above the law. You can leave now, or I will call the cops and have you forcibly removed from this building.”

Customer: *On the way out* “I’M GONNA CALL CORPORATE AND COMPLAIN! I’LL CALL YOUR BOSS! I’LL FIND YOU ON [SOCIAL MEDIA] AND LET THE WHOLE WORLD KNOW! YOU CAN’T TREAT ME LIKE THIS! I’LL HAVE THEM ALL FIRE YOU! YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY!”

I text my boss after we (barely) manage to close on time that night, telling her what happened.

Me: “[Cashier] was present for the entire thing, so he can back me up.”

Boss: “Don’t worry. Once a customer makes the complaint personal, i.e., ‘I’ll find you on [Social Media],’ corporate trashes it.”

Me: “Well, it makes me feel better to know I won’t be fired for not breaking the law, lol.”

Boss: “Oh, I would’ve kicked her out after ten minutes. You have so much more patience than I do. But… does she not know how to read, or is she just blind?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Boss: “Well, she said no one ever told her that the tests were non-refundable, but in order to walk into the store, buy the tests, and then walk out, she has to walk past at LEAST three large, bright yellow signs that say, ‘[Illness] home tests are NON-REFUNDABLE and only covered by SOME insurances.’”

I slapped myself on the forehead for not thinking of that.

I was not fired.

Related:
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 31
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 30
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 29
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 28
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 27

I run an anime/geek store, and we are really lenient with pre-orders. We used to not require a deposit to make an order, and in case you needed more time to pick up an item, all you had to do was ask. We could also hold the items for as long as needed in our storage if you wanted to gather a lot of items so you could save on trips or shipping.

Back in February, Funko released a special edition figure of Naruto Hokage. This one in particular had a one-in-six Chase variant (a rare variant of a common figure, with a slightly different design) that reached a resale value of up to $130. But the way I do pre-orders is that if you order six of the same piece, you are guaranteed a Chase. But if you only order one, you still get a one-in-six chance of getting the Chase. I just mix them up in random boxes and do a public stream raffle on social media, so everyone knows who won the Chase, and I get good publicity.

A client ordered just one and left $5 as a deposit; the piece was $15. This particular client won the raffle (along with several other clients), but he wasn’t that interested in picking it up or paying for the rest of it. I sent him a message letting him know that he had won the special variant and had a week to pay for it or he would lose his pre-order. At first, he was angry.

Client: “I want the normal version, not this yellow thing!”

Me: “We can change it if you want, but this one is far more valuable.”

He stepped away from the phone for a moment and then came back.

Client: “I asked my son, and he wants it anyway. But I need more time to pay.”

We gave him one more week. Then he asked for another week. And another.

Then, we had to close the store for a time — you know, for 2020 reasons. We told the client that we had to close, but we could still schedule an appointment to give him his item or wait until the worst passed. He never answered.

Eventually, we were able to reopen the store with regulations in place. We sent him another message telling him we could save the figure for as long as needed in these strange times. He still didn’t answer the messages, but eventually, he arrived at the store and demanded his money back, citing how we were in the middle of what was going on (fair) and he couldn’t waste money on frivolous plastic (also fair).

Me: “Are you sure? This figure is selling for nearly $150, and you just have to pay the retail price: $10 more.” *Shows him the current selling price*

Client: “I’m sure you’ve just made up those numbers. I ordered the figure for my son, but he doesn’t deserve it. I just want — no, I demand my money back!”

Me: “Fine, I’ll give you your money back. Also, I’ll just put this figure out for sale.”

Client: “Whatever, just give me my money.”

I made a point to grab a sticky note (I use them to put prices on items to avoid damaging the box), write in big, black letters, “$90 bucks, last one”, and put it on the glass window that leads to the street. I could see the client watching while I did this.

While my employee was giving the client his five bucks back and giving him a receipt, a young man knocked on the door. Per [health crisis] practices, I gave him some cleaning goo, checked his temperature, and let him in. He immediately asked to buy the Naruto CHASE figure. The angry client’s eyes went wide open over his mask as I picked up the figure and guided the young man to the desk, where he handed me the bills one by one.

The angry man stood there shocked as the younger man gushed about how hard that figure was to get and how he was getting it for half the price other places were asking for — and in such perfect condition, too. I couldn’t have had a better reaction even if I’d paid him for it!

The young man completed his purchase and left as fast as he’d come in. The angry man looked at me, almost as if accusing me of taking advantage of him.

Me: “Well, you got your money back. I’m happy that you are happy. If you need anything else, please let me know, and stay safe out there.”

The man didn’t have much else to say and just left. It was kind of a small and silly thing for me to feel good about, but 2020 hit us so hard that any unexpected profit was cause for celebration, so we celebrated that good sale with some (instant) ramen, Naruto style.

CONTENT WARNING: Harassment/Stalking

I’m a woman in my late twenties, and I work in a restaurant. I have a male customer, around fifty, whom I have served a couple of times before. He asked me out sometime in early 2020, and I told him no.

The day after Christmas of 2020, this man came in alone and sat in my section. I was hoping that he wouldn’t recognize me this time because I was wearing a mask and I had changed my hair. Unfortunately, he did remember me, but his meal was fairly uneventful.

The issue started when I dropped off his check. As I reached to pick up his payment, he grabbed my hand (during a global health crisis) and said:

Customer: “I love you.”

I was caught very off guard, so I just gave an awkward laugh and walked away to swipe his card and get him outta there. When I walked back with his receipt and card, he asked:

Customer: “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve? Would you like to go out with me?”

Me: “No, I will be home with my husband.“

Customer: “Oh, I didn’t realize you were married.” *Looking at my wedding ring* “Well, he’s a lucky man.”

And he winked. Gross. I told him to have a good night and walked away, deciding I was not going back to my section until he got up because he was creeping me out.

I figured that would be the end of it and I could go on with my night. No such luck. He sat at the table for another fifteen minutes waiting for me to return. I refused to go over there, so I asked other servers to run my food, and I helped run their food to other parts of the restaurant.

He finally got up, but then he went and stood by the host stand for another twenty minutes watching me. At that point, I was feeling super uncomfortable and getting very anxious about him still being there. I finally told my boss what was going on and that I was uncomfortable, so he kept his eye on the customer for me.

When the man finally left the building, [Boss] came to tell me that he’d watched the man get in his car and I could relax.

About thirty minutes later, [Boss] started hovering around my section.

Boss: “You haven’t done anything wrong, but I am going to be spending some time in my section.”

He did this twice, and over an hour after the customer had left, he pulled me to the side to talk to me.

It turned out the guy never left and was still sitting in his car. He had walked into the restaurant twice looking and wandering around and went to the bathroom. [Boss] was worried about me and called the cops on the guy. The cops came in to ask me what had happened, and they asked if [Boss] and I would like to have him trespassed.

Boss: “It’s your choice, [My Name].”

Me: “Yes. After this, I can’t imagine having to see him again.”

The cops pulled the man out of his car and told him he would be arrested if he ever came back to our restaurant.

This incident gave me pretty bad anxiety for a week or two after it happened. Why was he sitting in his car for so long? By the time the cops got to him, he had been at our restaurant for over two hours after he finished eating and paid for his meal. What would have happened if [Boss] hadn’t been watching him? I wouldn’t have known that he didn’t leave. Was he waiting for me to get off so he could follow me, kidnap me, rape me, murder me? Several weeks later, a manager is still walking me to my car every night when I leave.

I’m grateful my manager had my back and took my concerns seriously. But I hate that it went so far. I wish I would have had the quick thinking and the courage to tell him, “DON’T TOUCH ME.” I wish I could be more verbal and stand up for myself sooner instead of having a freeze-and-appease reaction. But I do feel like I learned from the situation, and hopefully, if there is ever another time I’m in a similar situation, I will be stronger.

For the last year, I worked at a small town grocery store. Since we are about three years out from the start of the global health crisis and infection rates are down, masks are optional and only a handful of staff and customers wear them, and I am one of the few. 

One day, I think, “You know, my coworkers aren’t getting sick. Maybe it would be okay to unmask.” And I try a shift with no mask. 

It goes fine until my last customer of the day, a little old man, open-mouth coughs in my face through the entire transaction. I take a step back to try and be as far from his cigarette breath as possible while trying to get him through my line as fast as I can. It is skin-crawlingly gross.

And this is why I will probably continue to wear a mask when working a busy public-facing job, health crisis or not.