After a few months of working at this deli, we start doing $5 Friday deals; certain items each week are $5, and it gets us a lot more business.

This particular day, fried chicken is the special, and people buy it so fast that we have backlogs, even as we fry it as quickly as possible.

We finally work off the backlog and are cooking the first spare batch in hours when another customer comes in.

Customer: “I want the chicken!”

Me: “That’s going to be about fifteen minutes before it’ll be done.”

Customer: *Flipping out* “Why are you so slow?! You should have the chicken ready for me if there’s a deal!”

Me: “It’s because of the deal that we’re behind.”

Customer: “Well then, I’m not bothering!”

She leaves, but she comes back half an hour later after we have sold all the chicken and gotten ANOTHER backlog.

Customer: “What?! You still don’t have my chicken ready?!”

Me: “You told us you were leaving.”

Customer: “You should have known I was coming back!” 

Me: “How should we have known that?”

Customer: “The same way you should have known that I wanted chicken half an hour ago!”

She got her chicken… eventually.

Customer: “May I have a half pound of oven-roasted turkey?”

Me: “Of course. Which brand?”

Customer: “Yes.”

None of the brands sounds remotely like “which”, but we finally get on the same page and I cut the turkey, showing her the first slice for approval.

Customer: “That’s fine.”

I start cutting it, but when I’m just about at the half-pound:

Customer: “Oh, I want it thinly sliced.”

A customer has asked for a sandwich containing Swiss cheese. I am placing the cheese, and he suddenly barks at me.

Customer: “No! I said Swiss!”

Me: “This is the Swiss, sir.”

Customer: “Swiss cheese has holes in it!”

Me: “Oh, I see! Not all Swiss cheese has holes, sir. I assure you; this is still Swiss cheese.”

Customer: “Get me your manager! You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

My manager is called, and the customer makes his complaint.

Manager: “Sir, like [My Name] has already assured you, this is Swiss cheese.”

Customer: “But Swiss cheese has holes in it!”

Manager: “So, the only thing stopping you from believing this isn’t Swiss is the lack of holes?”

Customer: “Swiss cheese has holes!”

Manager: “One moment, sir.”

My manager takes a couple of slices of the Swiss and proceeds to cut little holes out of it using a small knife. I really, REALLY need to point out that he does all this in clear view of the customer.

My manager then takes the newly trypophobia-inducing slices of cheese, places them on the customer’s sandwich, and then looks pointedly at the customer.

Customer: “Thanks!”

He left happy as a clam.

I have a German last name, my lineage is primarily Irish, and my skin tone can best be described as “one shade shy of freshly fallen snow.” I’m basically saying I’m very, very white.

I’m on a trip up to New York to meet up with an online friend group that’s mostly from the area. We spend all morning sightseeing and getting to know each other personally rather than online handles and what we let out over the Internet. We’re all various levels of gregarious and loud, but one girl’s a bit quieter and more withdrawn. No issue, right? Lots of folks are shyer in real life than online.

The truth comes out when we’re sitting around at lunch in a little deli. Someone sneezes, I say, “Gesundheit,” and all of a sudden, the quiet girl SLAMS her hands on the table and yells at the top of her lungs.

Friend #1: “I DON’T NEED ANY MORE OF THAT HOLOCAUST S*** AROUND ME!”

The background volume at this little deli goes from “normal Manhattan place at lunchtime” to dead silence. For the record, it’s not like she is sitting down with the Aryan Nation; she’s the only Black girl of the group, and there are four white people, but there are also two Latinos and one mixed Asian/Pacific Islander.

Me: “Uh… Chill. It’s German, but it’s not—”

Friend #1: “Nah, nah, nah, you been pushing that Nazi crap all day, singing that Nazi garbage earlier and marching around!”

Friend #2: “What are you talking about?!”

Friend #3: “You know not every German’s a Nazi, right?!”

Friend #1: “Oh, please. If this were the 1930s, he’d be marching me into the camps himself!”

Me: “No, you idiot, I’d have already been in them if I had lived that long!”

She opens her mouth to say more, but I put my hand up to stop her and then start counting out fingers.

Me: “Same-sex relationship. Atheist. Leftist. Protester against fascist government overreach. Religious freedom advocate. Gender equality advocate. What part of anything past ‘my great-great-grandfather left Germany before World War I even started’ ties me to anything involving Nazis?”

[Friend #1] just glares silently.

Me: “Please, oh, please do not tell me you’re one of those ‘all white people are actually racists’ folks?”

Friend #1: “No…”

Me: “Then what?”

She continued to glare at me for a few moments and then excused herself to the bathroom. I stepped outside to get some air and cool down, both literally and metaphorically. She got back before I did, took her stuff, and went home early. The mood was a bit soured but we eventually enjoyed the rest of the day.

Later that week, I got a half-hearted “my mom made me write this” type apology, which I accepted just to try to get things civil. But she barely spoke in the group chats anymore and eventually left; folks that were still friends with her said she “wasn’t comfortable” anymore.

For the record, the “Nazi songs” were from a couple of German metal bands, one of which was nearly banned — among other reasons — because their use of anti-Nazi imagery was a little TOO extreme!

I had a horrible store manager when I worked in a grocery store. I was a transfer, and he was pissed that he didn’t get to interview me because he would have said no.

The store I came from was severely understaffed and hired me even though I had pink hair, which was against policy. I did not know when I applied. I did my best to keep it hidden, which was easy; I wore a bandana and hat because I was in the deli.

The first day, I walked into the new store with my bandana on but no hat because I had forgotten it at the other store when it permanently closed. The deli manager brought it to the new store for me because she transferred, too.

[Manager] lost his mind. He literally followed me to the deli and started yelling the second we were in the back room.

Manager: “What the f*** are you doing?! You will not be f****** working without a hat to cover that hair!”

I said nothing. I just held eye contact with him while another deli employee slowly handed me my hat.

Employee turnover for him was insane. I only lasted five months there before I “dropped out” — just stopped going. That man only spoke to me when he was yelling. He never said a single nice word.

I’m pretty sure it was forced, but he retired a little less than a year later.