(I’m working in the deli at a popular grocery store when a customer comes up to me:)

Customer: “How long will it be until some fresh rotisserie chickens come out?”

Me: “About fifteen minutes.”

Customer: “But the timer says eight.”

Me: “Yes, but I still have to get the chicken out, label them, and bag them up. It may not take fifteen minutes exactly, but it will be close.”

Customer: “Oh. Well, I thought you had a machine for that.”

I work on a deli bar for a high-end retailer in the UK. We stock a variety of top-end products that you wouldn’t normally see at the more cost-competitive franchises.

It’s our company policy to offer tasters and samples, but not to have them signposted, so that potential customers will question what the product is, giving us the opportunity to create a sale. In theory, this works, but 90 percent of the time people will just take the food without batting an eyelid as to what it is.

I’m serving a lady a salad, at the farthest point away from where I have put up haggis pies on tasting. Then, whilst I’m weighing up her product to give back to her, a woman approaches me and asks me to “pop this” in the bin. Due to how normally she asks, I don’t even think as to what it could be; I assume it is an empty pot — they often fall over the counter. Boy, was I wrong. She’d chewed the pie up, realised she didn’t like it, spat it out, then handed it to me as if that was a perfectly normal thing to do.

So, I’m stood there in shock, and I say, “Are you for real?!” to which she replies, “Sorry, I didn’t like it,” and wanders off.

I wash my hands for what feels like hours, but I still feel dirty now even typing this. What really gets me was that she acted as if this was normal.

For the record, right next to the tasting area there is a designated pot for waste like cocktail sticks, etc. She could have easily placed it in there.

(I’m a female. I am working in a deli inside a grocery store. It is fairly busy, so lots of coworkers are going back and forth down behind the row of slicers. It’s a narrow area, so we often get in each other’s way. I am slicing meat for an older, female customer when a coworker needs to walk behind me.)

Coworker: “Excuse me.”

Me: “Okay.” *moves to the side while still slicing meat*

(Later that day, the male store manager stomps over and calls me into the office, along with my female department manager.)

Store Manager: “We received a customer complaint that you were rude to your coworker today.”

Me: “When?”

Store Manager: “He needed to get by you, and you refused to move out of his way.”

Me: “The only time anybody asked to get by me was during the lunch rush. I wasn’t rude!”

Deli Manager: “Let’s just look at the tape.”

(The store manager pulls up the tape, and all three of us watch me move to the side so he can walk by.)

Store Manager: “So, why didn’t you move out of his way?”

Deli Manager: “She did.”

Store Manager: “Clearly, she did not. She was in that young man’s way.”

Deli Manager: “Where would you have liked her to go? The roof? She did nothing wrong!”

(The store manager let us go back to work, but I continued to have problems with him telling me I disrespected male coworkers for things like not saying hello the right way.)

(My coworker created a deli-themed rapper alter-ego for himself. Sometimes when we’re not busy, he talks about what his alter-ego would sing about or what his concerts would be like.)

Coworker: “What do you think about this for the cover of the [Deli-Themed Rapper] album?”

(He crouches down with a box of fried chicken in his hand and tries to look tough.)

Me: “I think you should turn around and be like Nicki Minaj.”

(He and our other coworker crack up.)

Me: “My album cover would be my headless body slicing my head on the slicer, while it looks at you and grins horribly.”

Coworker: “Dude, that’s awesome.”

Me: “It’s like something out of Garbage Pail Kids. Or Iron Maiden, if they did deli stuff.”

Coworker: “I think, ‘Iron Maiden if they did deli stuff,’ might be the weirdest phrase I’ve heard all week.”

Me: “Cool. My job is done!”

(I work at a deli in a grocery store. Sometimes customers place their baskets on top of the high counter, which is against health codes because we stack them on the floor when they’re not being used, and also because it blocks other customers from receiving their cold cuts and blocks us from seeing the customers. This day in particular is very busy. A customer comes up to the counter and orders while placing his basket on the counter.)

Me: “Sir, could you please take the basket off the counter?”

Customer: “Well, where do you want me to put it if I do?”

Me: “You could put it on the ground or hold it. We don’t allow them on the counter because the bottom can be dirty and it blocks our view of the customers.”

Customer: “I don’t want it on the ground! The ground is filthy, and I have food in my basket!”

Me: “Then you can most certainly hold the basket while you order.”

Customer: “Listen, little girl, I’m not putting my basket on the floor, and I don’t want to hold it, so just give it a f****** rest, b****.”

Me: *smiling* “Well, then, sir, I’m going to have to stop slicing your order until you take the basket off the counter.”

Customer: “All right, you little s***, let me speak to your manager!”

(As he asks for my manager, there is a loud crash and we look over and see that his basket has fallen off the counter and all of the contents are covered with milk and tomato sauce.)

Manager: *from the other end of the deli* “THAT’S ALSO WHY WE DON’T ALLOW BASKETS ON TOP OF THE DELI COUNTER!”

(The customer, red faced and cursing, walked away from the scene, while the other customers clapped and booed him since they had been waiting so long while he fought with me!)