Not sure if this is Not Always Right or Not Always Working. A bit of both, maybe.

I am last-minute shopping for some essentials. I take my purchase from the shelf and make a beeline for the cashier, trying to be in and out ASAP.

The cashier is sort of polite, says hi, and scans my purchase. But the moment she sees the receipt, she smiles like crazy and her tone is suddenly the overly nice one.

Cashier: “I hope you found everything just all right today! On your receipt, there will be a link to a survey.” 

Me: “Nah, thanks. Just give me the receipt; I’m in a hurry.”

I take my purchase — already paid for — and extend my hand for the receipt but the cashier sort of leans back to take it out of my reach.

Cashier: “Oh, it will be just a moment! I’ll explain it to you. I can write my name for you, so you can mention it.”

Me: “Either you give me the receipt now and I’ll just go or you’ll continue this nonsense and I’ll give you the worst review I can think of. What do you say?”

She then sort of threw the receipt at me and I left. And no, I did not leave a bad review for her.

I work at a bookstore that provides gift packing for your order. Packing something costs about €2. We also have online orders to be picked up at our store. On our website, you can order gift packing and you have to pay at the cash desk. I’m always doing gift packing and then answering orders so customers can pick it up and already have it packed.

Customer: *Walks to my cash desk* “Good afternoon, I’m here to pick up my order.”

Me: “Sure, what’s your name?”

There are two of my coworkers at that time.

Customer: “My name is [Customer].”

I start looking for his order. When I find it and show him his order, he seems to be angry.

Customer: “I didn’t want it to be packed. I need to put something inside this book.”

Me: “Well, you ordered gift packing and we do it immediately. You could write it in the notes that you want it to be packed later.”

Customer: “Well, can you unpack it, so I can put it in?”

I do what he wished for. My coworker approaches me and whispers.

Coworker: “Put it twice in his price.”

I scan his order and put packing twice in his price.

Me: “It will be €14.”

Customer: “Why that much?”

Me: “You had it already packed, but you wanted me to do it again. It’s for the double work and material.”

Customer: “I don’t get it. Why do I have to pay this much?”

Me: *Trying to be calm* “I already said it’s for the work and material I had to use.”

Customer: “I’m not paying for that.”

I delete the packing, as I haven’t repacked it yet.

Me: “It will be €10.”

Customer: “Where’s the packing?”

Me: “You said you were not going to pay it, so I deleted it.”

Customer: “But I want packing.”

Me: “Then you have to pay €14.”

Customer: “That’s too much.”

My coworker comes up to help me.

Coworker: “You made her pack it twice, so you have to pay it twice. Do you get it?”

The customer then paid for two packings and left without saying goodbye.

Related:
The Gift-Wrap That Keeps On Giving

I have a quite stressful job at quality assurance in our factory. Luckily, we are a great team. One of my coworkers, otherwise a silent, nice guy, is a bit of a walking Wikipedia, and from time to time, he decides to entertain us with bits of trivia he finds interesting. Despite how it sounds, he comes out as the opposite of annoying as those little bits, completely unrelated to our work, are like little tea breaks for our high-strung brains.

One day, I am venting about our cafeteria, which is not good at all. Basically, there is only some sort of chicken, five days a week. My coworker lets me calm down, and after some time, he starts:

Coworker: “[My Name], you know, there are very interesting bugs, called Dermestidae, often called skin beetles or museum beetles. There are about 1,600 species of them and some are considered pests because they eat grain or clothes, but overall, they are very useful, as they get rid of dead organic matter. In the show Bones, they use them to clean the bones of the corpse! And there is one subfamily of them called Thaumaglossa. They are very specialized, as they only eat ootekas — egg containers — of mantids. Really, the only thing they eat is ootekas.”

Me: “Is that so?”

Coworker: “Yes! So, why do you complain about having to eat chicken?”

My colleague was genuinely startled when the whole office exploded into laughter, as he did not realize that our colleagues listened to him. We all agreed that this one took the cake for a surprise ending. The cafeteria is still crap, though.

For health reasons, everybody has to cover their mouth and nose. A woman wanders in to the store with her boyfriend, who doesn’t have a face mask.

Me: “I’m sorry, but you have to cover your face.”

Woman: “We are here together!”

Me: “…”

This story is part of our Anti-Masker roundup.

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I work for a company which mostly deals with international clients, which means we mainly communicate with our clients via email or phone, but sometimes we have foreign visitors who don’t speak Czech.

[Coworker #1] is a serious gentleman in his sixties; [Coworker #2] is a quiet woman in her fifties. We have an open space office, and both of them sit in the row next to mine and neither of them speaks any foreign language.

There are two visiting Finnish engineers sitting right next to my table. The word “paska” in Czech means “duct tape,” while in Finnish it means “s***”. The whole conversation is in Czech.

Coworker #1: *Yelling* “Hey, does anybody know where the ‘paska’ is?!”

The Finnish engineers raise their heads and give him a deer-in-the-headlights stare.

Coworker #2: “I think there is ‘paska’ in the office kitchen.”

The Finnish engineers look shocked.

Coworker #1: “Is there a ‘paska’ in the kitchen?!”

Someone: *Yelling from the kitchen* “No, the ‘paska’ isn’t here! Have you checked the supply closet?!”

The Finnish engineers now look like two scared owls.

Me: “Guys, can you please stop yelling ‘paska’? Our guests seem to be shocked.”

Coworker #1: “Why?”

Me: “Because ‘paska’ in Finnish is ‘s***’. I’ll explain it to them. Please use ‘izolepa.’

“Izolepa” is another word for duct tape.

I explained to the engineers that my coworkers weren’t yelling, “S***!” at each other, just looking for duct tape. They were understanding and found it funny, especially when they looked at [Coworker #1], who gave them a sheepish smile and said, “Sorry?” with a very strong Czech accent.