(In our deli, we have to change gloves when switching from handling meat to cheese, but not usually when switching between other cheeses or meats. As a result, our line moves more quickly and we use fewer gloves if we handle one kind of product for as long as possible before switching. This exact conversation happens multiple times each day.)

Me: “Hello, welcome to the deli. Are you getting any cheese today?”

Customer: “Half a pound of ham.”

Me: *after changing gloves and slicing their ham* “Anything else?”

Customer: “A pound of American cheese.”

Me: *changes gloves and slices their cheese while wondering when it became okay to ignore someone once they put on a name tag*

(I am working the night shift. A young man approaches my register:)

Customer: “Pack of [Popular Cigarettes]!”

Me: “ID, please.”

(I have the cigarettes in my hand and am waiting for his ID. He does give it to me but there is one problem; it is split down the middle, lengthwise. It literally is in two pieces. Even besides that, I can’t read the dates on it as the protective covering is gone. Everything is faded but the picture. I put the cigarettes back and hand him his ID back.)

Me: “Sorry, I cannot accept this!”

Customer: “What do you mean, you can’t accept my license? It is perfectly acceptable and valid! You’re just a b****!”

Me: “First off, I can’t read the dates, and that is not a valid license. I can be fired. Not even a cop will accept that!”

Customer: “YOU ARE GOING TO REGRET THIS, B****! Just wait; you will regret not treating me with respect!”

(The entire time he is screaming at me, he is walking to the door. At the door, he points at me and then walks out.)

Manager: “What was his problem?”

Me: “I denied him cigarettes because his license was broken in two.”

(My manager walks away, laughing. The next day, I get called to come in early.)

Store Owner: “Yesterday, did you deny someone cigarettes because his license was cracked?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, but for the record, his license was in two pieces and the protection cover was gone, so it was hard to read the license!”

Store Owner: “Well, that idiot is my son-in-law, so don’t worry about him! Plus, good job.”

(She was true to her word, especially when I found out that my manager had even spoken on my behalf about his attitude. I did see him again, but he couldn’t look me in the eye and his wife was the one I helped while he stood by the door. It was the best knowing my bosses had my back.)

(I am in my second week of starting my new job, so my manager is nearby to supervise and help me. I’ve largely got the hang of it by now, though I do appreciate the occasional help. A customer walks up. I am the most free at the time since my manager is frying chips and my coworker is on break, so I walk up to her.)

Me: “Hello. What can I get for you?”

Customer: “Hi. I would like eight fried chicken legs.”

Me: “Well, it’ll be a lot cheaper to get the eight-piece set, since it’ll have to be rung up as eight chicken legs.”

Customer: “Don’t worry, since it’s the eight-piece on sale.”

Me: “Um, I cannot substitute pieces for a set.”

Manager: *who was nearby with the fryers* “What’s the problem?”

Customer: “I just want the eight-piece on sale with the eight chicken legs.”

Manager: “Ma’am, that does not apply. Look up and you’ll find the eight-piece set on sale.”

Customer: *looks up briefly* “Yeah, but it’s different than what’s on the glass counter.”

Manager: “Look up again.”

Customer: *takes a longer look at the sign above* “It is the same one.”

Manager: “See?” *goes back to frying more chips*

Me: “Okay, shall I get you the eight-piece set?”

Customer: “No. Instead, I want five fried-chicken legs.”

Me: “Um, Okay. But it’ll be cheaper to get the eight-piece set.”

Customer: “Don’t worry. I want the five chicken legs.”

Me: “Okay.”

(I go and get her the five chicken legs and, after ringing it up as five chicken legs, which is more expensive than the eight-piece set by a few dollars, I give it to her and give her my farewell. I then take a few steps back to my manager, who’s frying a new batch of chips.)

Me: “People can be pretty weird.”

Manager: “I hate people.”

(In my department, we have four flavors of rotisserie chicken: traditional, lemon pepper, barbecue, and a seasonal flavor. We identify and often refer to them by the colors of the strings they come tied in: white, yellow, red, and blue, respectively. A normal cook consists of eight birds, two of each color, but we run out of some flavors faster than others, and sometimes the flavor proportions are wildly unequal.)

Coworker: “Can you print me some price tags for these bad boys?”

Me: “Sure. What flavors you got?”

Coworker: “Seven yellow and one white.”

Me: “Seven yellow and one white?!”

Coworker: “Yup. So, it’s like the student body at Harvard.”

Me: *disbelieving Pikachu face*

(I work at the supermarket deli, and there is a regular I always hated serving. She is a grouchy old fusspot who always seems to find a problem in something. She comes up to the counter and I’m readying myself for another miserable experience.)

Fusspot: “I want some of that meat, sliced.” *points to case*

Me: *trying to see where she is pointing* “The olive mortadella?”

Fusspot: “Yes.”

(In case you don’t know, mortadella is Italian sausage meat that tastes similar to bologna, but is fancier and made of higher-quality meat. The olive mortadella is stuffed with green olives, and the olives themselves are stuffed with tiny pieces of red capsicum, or bell pepper for my American readers. I pick up the opened chub of olive mortadella to bring it to the slicer, but she starts protesting.)

Fusspot: “No! I want the other one!” *points again*

Me: *putting a hand over the chub she’s pointing at* “This one?”

Fusspot: “Yes!”

Me: “Yes, that’s the olive mortadella. The one you’re pointing at is unopened; I have the opened one here.”

Fusspot: “No, they’re different!”

Me: “They’re the same, and I can’t open a new one until we use up the opened one.”

(The deli workers often make an exception upon request, if the chub is very close to the end, but this chub has barely been used; it’s only had maybe a quarter of it taken off, if that.)

Fusspot: “No, the one I’m pointing at has something else in it. It has that red thing in it.”

Me: “That’s the red capsicum stuffing in the olive. This one has the same stuffing, as well; once you slice through the olive you’ll see the red stuffing inside it.”

(After some back and forth, the fusspot stalks off to the customer service desk. She comes back shortly after with the customer service worker in tow, who is a lovely person but doesn’t know much about the deli. By this time, I’ve explained what transpired with my coworkers in the deli.)

Fusspot: *points to me* “This girl refused to serve me what I wanted.”

Coworker: “Which meat did you want?”

Fusspot: *points again* “That one.”

Coworker: “That’s the olive mortadella. This is the unopened one; it’s the same thing.”

(The fusspot starts arguing with my coworkers and me, and we reiterate our policy that we can’t open a new chub when there is so much left on the opened chub, and that we guarantee that the olives in both chubs are stuffed with the same red capsicum, but it almost always falls out when it hits the slicer. Initially, the customer service worker suggests we slice the opened one and discard the first slices until the stuffing appears, but as the stuffing ends up predictably falling out, it just results in a pile of wasted sliced meat. We try to show her this, but she won’t accept this explanation or that the same thing will happen when we open the new chub. Eventually, the customer service worker tells us to just open the new chub anyway and give her what she wants. My coworkers are fed up and comply. As the first slice comes off the slicer, lo and behold, the red stuffing that the fusspot had been coveting falls out, and the slice is identical to the ones we’ve already sliced. I have been teased before by my coworkers for always being “mellow” in the face of problem customers, but at this point, I am well and truly pissed off. I pick up the slice of mortadella from the new chub that she requested, and march over to the customer, displaying it to her in all its stuffing-less glory.)

Me: *not making any attempt to mask the steel in my voice* “There’s the slice from the new chub that you wanted. As you can see, the stuffing has fallen out.”

Fusspot: *looks down meekly and mumbles something*

Me: *unwavering death glare for five seconds before I silently turn around and continue about my business*

(I know it sounds like a minor thing to get worked up over, and maybe it is, but I hate wasting perfectly good food, and I had reached the end of my rope with this crazy lady. To my pleasant surprise, however, the fusspot returned many times after this incident a reformed customer. She never gave me any problems after that. Somehow I must have scared her into being nice.)