I work in a deli that also serves hot, ready-to-eat food like chicken wings, rib tips, potato wedges, and whole rotisserie chicken. A woman comes up to our hot case and waves me over.

Me: “Hi, how can I help you?”

Customer: “I was just wondering, are there bones in these rib tips?”

Me: “Yes, there are.”

Customer: “Oh, well, what about the chicken wings?”

Me: “Those have bones, too.”

Customer: *Looks disgusted* “I don’t want any food with bones in it. I’ll just get a rotisserie chicken.”

Me: *Confused at the stupidity* “You want a whole rotisserie chicken?”

Customer: “Yes! How hard is that to understand? I just want a chicken because all your other food has bones!”

Me: “All right.” *Packages and gives her a chicken* “Enjoy!”

I can’t help but wish I could’ve seen her face when she got home and found there were bones in her whole rotisserie chicken.

I am a deli clerk in a big chain grocery store in Canada. My job involves slicing meats behind a service counter, with our opened chubs in bags with their shelf life represented in orange stickers. Recently, all employees had to do a racial and discrimination course to ensure we were dealing with customers properly, and I am extremely wary of offending anybody. This is also during the health crisis, so a lot of customers are wearing masks. I have been wearing one myself every shift since the beginning of April. A customer comes up to my counter and pulls down his face mask.

Customer: “I have strong accent; maybe you cannot understand me.”

He sounds Russian but I have no issues with that at all and actually enjoy listening to certain accents.

Me: “Maybe, but I have no difficulties understanding you at all. What can I get for you?”

Customer: “I want 300 grams European Bologna sandwich sliced.”

Me: “Okay.”

I walk over to the case and dig for the correct product.

Customer: “That will not be enough. I don’t want tiny piece. You cut it from this one.”

He indicates the closed chub on display.

Me: “Sir, there is more than enough on this piece to fill your order without giving you the end piece. We are not allowed to open multiple chubs of one type of meat—”

Customer: “That isn’t enough. Cut it from the new one.”

Me: “Sir, if you’ll let me—”

The customer cuts me off and begins complaining to the other staff that I refuse to serve him his meat.

Customer: *To anybody near enough* “This lady refuses to give me product from my own country!”

Me: “Sir, I have no issues filling your order, but I could get in trouble for opening multiple meat chubs of the same thing.”

The customer continued to cut me off multiple times, the conversation going around and around like this. After a few moments, I realized that I was not going to get a word in edgewise. Even lifting my hand to signal him that I was trying to speak didn’t help.

In the end, he left without his meat, complaining to two colleagues of mine on the way out of my department. The next morning, I sliced that same exact piece for our case and it would have easily filled his request without the end piece being too small.

Sometimes, when it’s not too busy in the office, I’ll play music quietly from my Bluetooth speaker.

Coworker: “Hey, that’s [Christian Singer].”

I check my phone’s screen.

Me: “Yup.”

The wheels started turning in her brain.

Coworker: “But… you’re an atheist.”

Me: “Umm, yeah?”

Coworker: “But… that’s Christian music.”

Me: “Listen, you know I love music and go to a million concerts. If I let religion dictate what I listen to, I’d miss so much good stuff. Sinead O’Connor is now Muslim, and I love to drive to Hindi music. I listen to country when I draw and play pop when I’m entertaining. Christian music is uplifting and I just wanted a pick-me-up right now.”

Coworker: “But I like [Christian Singer].”

Me: “Great. What’s your favourite song?”

I reach for my phone to pull it up so we can share it.

Coworker: “I don’t know.”

She walked away, seeming kind of upset that a heathen like me could listen to music she likes. My lack of belief has always kept her at arm’s length from me, but now I think I may have ruined her enjoyment of music. Oops.

My friend and I like going to thrift stores and just looking around, even if we’re not going to buy anything. One day, we notice a very nice wedding dress and I decide to try it on. I pick it up and start walking with it to the changing rooms. I happen to look into the dress and see a large spider. My idea of a large spider is about two inches long, and I have severe arachnophobia. I freak out.

The attendant comes over and pulls the spider out.

Attendant: “It’s just a spider, dear.”

It may be just a spider, but it is in a dress that I was about to try on. No one wants to wear a spider dress.

Back in the early 2000s, I worked for a computer company as Level 2 support. Level 1 support would answer the calls and if they were stumped or had a difficult customer they would get a Level 2, to come and help them. As I was making my way around the office, one of the Level 1 support workers stopped me and asked for help.

Level 1: “[My Name], can you help me, please?”

Me: “Sure, what seems to be the problem?”

Level 1: “The customer is upset because I won’t warranty her computer. Her warranty expired over a year ago.”

Me: “What is the problem with her computer?”

Level 1: “Her CD-ROM isn’t working.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll take over the call from here.”

I looked through her information and verified that her warranty had indeed expired. I also saw that she was calling from a business.

Me: “Hello, ma’am, my name is [My Name]. How are you doing today?”

Customer: “Not so great; the other guy won’t help me out with my problem.”

Me: “[Level 1] was telling me that you are having some issues with your CD-ROM. What is it that he won’t do for you?”

Customer: “He won’t replace the CD-ROM for me. Mine doesn’t work, and I need a new one.”

Me: “Your warranty expired over a year ago so, unfortunately, we cannot send one out for you, but I can put you through to the sales department and they can set you up with a new CD-ROM.”

Customer: “That shouldn’t matter. I need it replaced. It’s not my fault it’s not working.”

Me: “I understand that, ma’am. But without a current warranty in place, we are unable to send out a new CD-ROM. I’d be happy to try some further troubleshooting with you if you are okay with that.”

Customer: “No, I don’t want to do any more troubleshooting. Just send me a new CD-ROM.”

Me: “Without a warranty, we can’t do that.”

Customer: “That’s stupid! Who cares about the warranty? Your product broke and you have to fix it.”

Me: “Ma’am, if you took your vehicle into the dealership and the warranty was expired, would you expect them to fix your vehicle for free?”

Customer: “No, of course, not. But this isn’t the same thing.”

Me: “This is the same situation, just with a different product.”

Customer: “But my warranty is only a little expired. So, you should honor my warranty.”

Me: “If your warranty was only expired by a month or so, I would send you a new CD-ROM, but yours is expired by over a year. I see that you are calling from your business. Is that correct?”

Customer: *Now getting a little exasperated* “Yeah.”

Me: “Do you offer warranties on your products?”

Customer: “Of course.”

Me: “If I came into your store and bought a product and then came back to get it fixed or replaced due to an issue, but the warranty had expired a year ago, would you honor that warranty?”

Customer: *Quite annoyed* “No, of course, I wouldn’t.”

Me: *Frustrated* “Then if you agree that a vehicle with an expired warranty shouldn’t be repaired for free, and you wouldn’t honor an expired warranty for your store’s products, why then should [Computer Company] honor an expired warranty for you? It doesn’t make any sense that we should honor an expired warranty.”

Customer: “Listen to me. You have to give me a new CD-ROM.”

Me: “No. No, I don’t need to give you a new CD-ROM.”

Customer: “If you don’t give me a new CD-ROM, I will be contacting my lawyers.”

We had been trained that if anyone ever mentioned anything about speaking to lawyers, we were to give them another number to call and let them know that we would be ending the call. Then, we were to tell our senior management.

Me: “Ma’am, here is another number to escalate this matter further. Due to you informing me that you are going to call your lawyers, I can no longer help you, and I will have to end this call.”

I then went to my senior management and told them about the call. They had no issues with it and said that the Level 1 support and I did the right thing. I went into the customer’s file about a month later to check and see if anything else had happened after our call. From other notes on her file, I saw that she had called in a few more times and each call was escalated to a Level 2 support, and each call except for one was ended due to her saying she would call her lawyers. The last note call was to the [Computer Company] sales department, where she ended up buying a new CD-ROM.