My daughter and I had an APPALLING experience at a very popular bagel and coffee chain in the Netherlands, which I normally love when I have the rare chance to treat myself to something.

I can NEVER get myself something amazing like a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon, but yesterday morning, my daughter had a very important meeting about her future, requiring intercity travel. We were out of the house so fast I needed to grab SOMETHING, so I was delighted when we spotted the bagel place.

I have health issues, and my daughter has a post-viral fatigue syndrome so we, unlike seemingly just about everyone else in the city, were wearing masks for our own safety and because we understand asymptomatic transmission — and despite the prevailing opinions, there IS still a health crisis on.

The guy at the counter looked a lot like Hawkeye from “The Avengers,” so our good mood got even better because that’s fun, and he seemed really nice.

Employee: “What would you like?”

Me: “I need to look at the menu first.”

Employee: “Okay.”

Then, he put on a teasing, “you silly person” tone.

Employee: “You know, those masks are no longer needed.”

Me: *Politely* “They’re no longer required by law.”

I thought we could leave it at that or that he might, as has happened before, demand that I list my personal health concerns for him, but no. He rolled his eyes and started laughing.

Employee: “Oh, come on!”

I turned to my daughter.

Me: *Quietly* “Yeah, let’s go somewhere else.”

The employee yelled after us as we walked out.

Employee: “Oh, what? REALLY?! SORRY, OKAY? WHAT THE H***?!”

We just kept walking, so he CHASED US INTO THE STREET, screaming.

Employee: “Hey, you! You… FOOLISH WOMEN! I hope you… I hope you TAKE ANOTHER VACCINE!”

I’m really not sure what that was supposed to mean.

My daughter is painfully shy and autistic, and she has some trauma in her past. This frightened her, so she had to go into her important meeting already far too anxious, so she had a distressing day. (The meeting went great, though.) And I, of course, did not get any breakfast.

I’m trying to figure out how in the world the guy thought mocking, screaming at, and CHASING customers would get them to buy a bagel.

Related:
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 24
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 23
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 22
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 21
An Ugly Side Of Society Has Been Unmasked, Part 20

One part of my job consists of calling the Rental Board (a tribunal dealing with landlord-tenant relations) to ask for certified copies of their decisions for the collection agency we deal with. This is necessary when we sent our one and only certified copy to the bailiff to have a tenant evicted.

The vast majority of the time, I call, I wait thirty to forty-five minutes on hold with some annoying Musak and repetitive messages, I get a Rental Board representative, I ask for the documents, they tell me it will be in the mail in a couple of days, and then, I receive it.

Then, this morning, after forty-five minutes of high-volume Musak and low-volume droning, I get this employee.

Me: “Hello, I am [My Name] for [Landlord], and I am calling to get several certified copies of Rental Board decisions.”

Employee: “Please hold for a moment.”

Cue ten more minutes of auditive torture.

Employee: “Good morning, what is your request?”

Me: “I would like to get some certified copies of Rental Board decisions.”

Employee: “I suggest that you register with [Well-Known Provider Of Rental Board Decisions].”

Me: “This provider only gives regular copies. I need certified copies for our collection agency.”

The employee speaks to me like I am some kind of cockroach.

Employee: “Then you can go to our website and choose ‘Transmit a document to the Tribunal.’”

Me: “But I don’t want to transmit a document. I want to receive a document.”

Employee: “Like I said, you have to go to our website for that. Choose ‘Transmit a document to the Tribunal.’”

Me: “The ‘Rental Board decisions’ option is not even available.”

Employee: “Then you choose ‘Other Documents,’ and then you transmit your demand for the Tribunal.”

Never mind that this website is not even designed for that kind of request.

Me: “You don’t get it, I—”

She cuts me off in a tone of voice one uses on a petulant child.

Employee: “If you are not satisfied with the way I handled your request, you may deposit a complaint on the website. If there’s nothing else, I will disconnect this call. Goodbye.”

This afternoon, I will call again, and I fully expect another representative to tell me that my decisions will be in the mail in a couple of days.

In an effort to encourage exercise and a healthy lifestyle, my company offers reimbursement for gyms and such up to $50 a month. All the employee has to do is submit a reimbursement request with proof of payment. As the administrator, it’s my job to clear these for payroll.

[Employee] has only been with us for a few weeks when he submits a request to be reimbursed for several years of memberships at a high-end gym that charges much more than the $50 limit. I reject his request stating that it does not meet the criteria. He fires back with an angry email, adding Human Resources to the recipients.

Employee: “Why offer reimbursement if you’re not going to follow through? I am entitled to this money.”

Me: “Hi, [Employee]. Unfortunately, we are only able to reimburse the value you spent up to $50 per month that you have been employed at [Company]. I see that you were hired on [date], which means we can reimburse for all gym membership charges starting that day. Before that, we are not going to reimburse. Thank you for reaching out for clarification.”

Employee: “Nowhere does it say I can’t get my money back for the time before I worked here. I was still a member. This needs to be fixed and added to my payroll this week.”

Human Resources chimes in.

HR: “[Employee], you are eligible for $50 per month that you are employed at [Company]. Any value over $50 or prior to [hire date] is not eligible. This is the final decision and any further communication on this subject will be viewed as insubordination. Thank you for your time.”

He did stop badgering about the money he was “owed,” but he made several comments in the following months about how much [Company] was ripping him off. I don’t miss him.

I’ve gone into a popular Canadian fast food chain to get some food on my way home from work.

Me: “Hi. Can I please get a grilled chicken sandwich with cheese and bacon, with a [side] and [drink]?”

Cashier: “No problem, that’ll be [price that’s almost $10 more than what it should be].”

I look at the order screen and see she’s rung in the chicken sandwich combo without cheese or bacon, and a separate bacon cheeseburger.

Me: “Sorry, no, just the chicken sandwich combo, with cheese and bacon on it.”

Cashier: “Right, a grilled chicken combo and then a bacon cheeseburger.”

Me: “No. Just the grilled chicken. I want the cheese and bacon on the grilled chicken. Just the one sandwich with [side] and [drink].”

Cashier: “Yes, that’s what I have here. The grilled chicken sandwich combo and a bacon cheeseburger.”

Me: “That is not what I’m asking for. I just want one grilled chicken sandwich, and I want the grilled chicken sandwich to have cheese and bacon on it.”

Cashier: “So, two grilled chicken sandwiches and a bacon cheeseburger.”

Me: “No. There is only one chicken sandwich. That’s the only sandwich I want, and I want it with cheese and bacon on it.”

Cashier: “So, you want the bacon cheeseburger as a combo, too?”

I’m seconds away from just walking out.

Me: “There is no bacon cheeseburger. At all. I do not want a bacon cheeseburger. I just want my grilled chicken sandwich to be made with cheese and bacon on it.”

Thankfully, another employee can sense my agitation and comes over. I repeat my order one more time in front of the second employee. They can definitely tell I’m annoyed, but I’m still maintaining a polite, if firm, tone.

Employee #2: “[Cashier], they want cheese and bacon on the grilled chicken sandwich. Not a bacon cheeseburger.”

Cashier: “That’s what I put in!”

Employee #2: “Just let me do it.”

They shoo the cashier away and start ringing everything in properly.

Employee #2: “Sorry about that. I have no idea why that happened.”

Me: *Starting to relax* “It’s okay, I don’t mind clarifying my order, but I really don’t know how else I could have said it.”

Employee #2: “I understand. Thank you for letting me help make it right.”

I don’t necessarily hold it against the first cashier, but if someone is saying they didn’t order something, why keep insisting you’re correct?

For a while, I used to sort out the mail for a big company that outsourced its mailroom to my employer. Due to downsizing, the mailroom had even been moved to our building — which wasn’t even in the same town as their head office, mind you!

A very interesting experience in those days were letters that were not specifically addressed to departments, but to employees in person. Naturally, this happens, but contrary to my predecessor, who had been doing their mail for nearly forty years, I had no clue where most of these people worked.

Luckily, [Predecessor] had not always known, either, and had taught me the way to find out: look it up in the staff guide on their intranet network. So I did. 

Obviously, that did not necessarily help. Firstly, people tend to neglect to update their profiles. Quite often, I found profiles claiming the employee in question worked in a building that had been closed off and sold a few years ago, due to… downsizing. Thankfully, the courier often just called the head office reception, where his wife worked, who would often know better.

Even worse is when someone sent in a letter addressed to someone with a quite common surname, without adding any further information, like, y’know, a first name or something. Imagine getting a letter addressed to “Mr. Smith,” without any first name, initials, or a department. Good luck finding out for whom the letter is meant.

At some point, I was so done with this that I simply left the letter for “Mr. Smith” for the courier to find, with a post-it on which I wrote: “Which one of the literally dozens by that name?” Obviously, he and his wife had no way to find out, either. At least, he took my (quite passive-aggressive) note in good humour. When I came back, he had written under it: “Whatever you feel like. :)”

Please address your letters properly, folks — especially when you send them to a big corporation with hundreds if not thousands of employees.