I’m at a cafe. I get my food and I take a bite, and it’s definitely not right.

Me: “Sorry, but this isn’t right. Could I send this back?”

Waitress: “You don’t like it?”

Me: “I don’t know what it is but it’s not what I ordered. What I wanted was—”

She takes the plate without letting me finish and comes back suspiciously quickly. I open the sandwich and it has the same filling, and then I realise it’s the same sandwich. They cut off where I bit it and put it on a fresh plate!

I head up to the counter. The waitress sees me coming and disappears to the back, leaving me with the cashier.

Me: “I was served the wrong sandwich. They took it back and gave me my old one back.”

Cashier: *With attitude* “I’m sorry, sir, but if you don’t like what you ordered, you can order something else, but you will have to pay for it.”

Me: “I ordered a cheese salad; this is some sort of meat. Now are you going to sort this out or not?”

Cashier: “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. They told me— It doesn’t matter. Yes, I’ll get them to sort it out for you.”

Me: “Actually, you know what? I don’t think I trust them. Could I get a refund, please? And the name of a manager. “

I did get the refund and made a complaint, but I never got so much as an acknowledgment. Good job I didn’t have an allergy or restrictive diet! I’ve chosen another place to eat from now on.

At my job, there’s a regular customer who complains about everything. She’s gotten to the point where only the managers are allowed to deal with her. She’s actually a coworker’s sister, so she should know better or be banned. I go into work and overhear two coworkers talking about her.

Coworker #1: “I think [Customer] is going to be banned after this morning.”

Coworker #2: “Why? What did she do this time?”

Coworker #1: “She saw me drop the lid to her drink and threw a fit.”

Me: “Wait, she threw a fit because you dropped something? That’s stupid.”

Coworker #1: “No, she was complaining because I picked the lid up and put it on her drink.”

Coworker #2: “She used to work here; she knows the floor is clean.”

Me: “But you picked something up off the floor and put it on her drink, where customers could see you, and now you’re complaining about getting caught?” 

Coworker #1: “She’s a major b**** anyway.”

Coworker #2: “You wouldn’t believe what we’ve done to people’s drinks.”

I walked away at that point. I mentioned everything to the owner and nothing was done about it. Thankfully, I left that job.

Once upon a time, I got a letter from a copyright troll “threatening” me — it was carefully worded NOT to meet the legal definition of a threat, but yeah, it was a threat — with a lawsuit for copyright infringement I hadn’t committed. I even checked the provided IP address against my own logs and found that it didn’t match with any of the IPs I’d had with the ISP I had been with since before the time of the alleged infringement.

I contacted them, and they told me they were absolutely certain I was guilty and that I should pay up the €800 they were demanding as compensation. I told them I was not going to pay compensation for something I didn’t do. I posted my story on social media, instead. The troll contacted me again about being aware of my social media posts on the matter, hinting at taking separate legal action because of it, I just laughed because it’s not libel if it’s true.

I filed a formal request with my ISP for a complete record of the IP addresses I had had in my time with them so that if the copyright troll tried to take me to court, I’d have documentation to prove my innocence.

The law regarding this sort of request defines, in detail, the manner in which the request must be done — which I complied with to the letter — and what the options for the personal information registry owner are; either the ISP provides the requested information free of charge, or they reply with a written letter detailing their reasons for not complying with the request. I got neither. Instead, I got an email telling me they “didn’t consider” my IP address history to be the kind of information they are required by law to hand over free of charge, but that they were happy to provide the information I had requested for a price of something like €50 per hour of work compiling the information, a minimum charge of half an hour.

I called them and the representative I talked to said the email was correct. When I mentioned how the consumer protection ombudsman had stated that it actually WAS the kind of information an ISP must hand over free of charge.

Representative #1: “Well, that’s just an opinion.“

No, it really isn’t. The closest it is to an “opinion” is in the sense that a supreme court ruling is “an opinion.”

Me: “Are you saying you refuse to hand over the information as required by law?”

Representative #1: “No, nothing like that. We are more than happy to provide the information, for a price.”

I hung up and went on social media, telling about my experience with their illegal behavior and tagging the ISP in the post. A week later, I received an email from high up in the ISP’s food chain.

Representative #2: “We have changed our policy regarding your kind of information request. If you still want this information, we can have it mailed to you in a few days.”

Naturally, I said yes and got something like fifty pages of IP logs in the mail. As I already knew, none of the addresses matched with what the copyright troll had claimed had been my IP address at the time of the alleged infringement.

However, the copyright troll never bothered me again after I got a government-paid attorney to write a letter to them on my behalf.

I am with another ISP now. My only regret is that, while the reps I dealt with on the matter above broke the law, for the most part, their customer service was better than my current ISP’s. Then again, my current ISP is well-known for defying market court rulings requiring them to hand over names and addresses of their customers to copyright holders, meaning even if I did do that sort of thing, for the foreseeable future the copyright trolls will never get my personal information again.

I have a retired racing greyhound. Obviously, she loves to run, and one of the “rules” for adopting her was that she always has to either be in an enclosed area or on a leash. If she got out, we would never catch her!

We recently moved into a house with a fenced yard — yay! I ordered a sign for the gate that says, “Warning: There’s a greyhound in here. Keep gate closed at all times,” hoping that it would help the gate, you know, stay closed so I wouldn’t have to check it every time I let her out.

The very first person other than my fiancé and me to use the gate was a utility worker, coming to install a new water meter. As he needed to get into the basement, I told him to go around back and I would open the basement door. About an hour later, he was back at the front door to let me know he was finished. I’m sure you know where this is going.

Later, I noticed the gate was open. Luckily, we hadn’t actually moved the dog into the new house yet. We’re going to padlock the gate for extra security, but I’m a little bummed that my sign didn’t work at all. Although, as a reader of this site, I’m not sure what I expected.

My husband, two-year-old daughter, and I are at a popular furniture store. Before we go up the escalator to enter the main part of the store, I take my daughter to use the restroom. The restrooms happen to be near where the drop-off childcare area is, which is closed due to the health crisis. The elevators are located there, as well, including where the carts are.

An employee watches us walking toward that area and steps in front of me, blocking me from the restrooms.

Employee: “The child’s area is closed.”

Me: “Yes, I know. I’m actually just taking my daughter to the restroom.”

I try to walk around them and they step in front of me again.

Employee: “Ma’am, I told you, the child’s area is closed! You can’t take your daughter there.”

Me: “I’m just trying to take my daughter to the restroom before we join my husband upstairs.”

They huff at me but stand aside to let us through. My husband has already gone upstairs via the elevators with a cart. When my daughter and I finish, my daughter wants to go up the escalator, which involves walking past the employee again. They block us again.

Employee: “The carts are over there and you can take the elevator.”

Me: “My husband is already upstairs with a cart. We’d like to take the escalator.”

Employee: “But the carts are over there! You have to get a cart.”

Me: “My husband already grabbed a cart and is waiting for us upstairs. Please stop blocking us.”

Employee: “FINE! Do whatever you want, then. Don’t blame me because you don’t listen.”

Me: “Pretty sure I’m not the one that’s not listening.”