My husband and I are looking to buy a new car. We’ve booked an appointment with the same garage we purchased mine from a year ago. We have our appointment with a salesman and explain the specifications we want.

Salesman: “Let me go speak to my manager about pricing really quickly.”

He leaves. Five minutes pass. And then ten minutes. And then fifteen.

I flag down another salesman who promises to find him. He never comes back.

Twenty-five minutes later, I ask the receptionist — who has just returned from lunch — where our original salesperson is, and she shrugs.

Receptionist: “Well, I don’t know, do I?!”

We left. I fired off an email to their head office and got an instant reply apologising, offering us a substantial amount toward a new car and a private appointment with the head of the area.

When we went back, we found out that the salesmen had been playing a game seeing whose customer would wait the longest. This was an expensive game; it cost three salespeople their jobs and the company nearly £3,000 on us alone.

I go to a fast food restaurant for a late-night snack. I get there about forty minutes before they close. When I get in, I see a young woman in uniform mopping the floor in the dining area and attempting some… erotic… dance moves with the mop. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in the restaurant, so after a minute, I call out to the woman to let her know I’m inside. She doesn’t seem to hear me, so I start to walk closer and realize that she has earbuds in her ears. As I reach out to tap her shoulder and get her attention, she turns around, sees me behind her, and gets startled.

Woman: “What are you doing? Enjoying the show, pervert?”

Me: “No, I’m trying to order some food.”

Woman: “Nice try! We’re closed.”

Me: “The sign on the door says you close at midnight. It’s only 11:20 right now.”

Woman: “Well, too bad. I don’t serve perverts who break in and ogle me like that. You need to leave now.”

Me: “Is there a manager I can talk to?”

Woman: “Nope. Just me. You’re lucky I’m letting you just leave instead of calling the cops on you for breaking in and sexually assaulting me.”

Me: *Shouting* “HELLO! IS ANYONE BEHIND THE COUNTER?”

The woman’s face falls when a manager comes out of the employee office.

Manager: “Can I help you, sir?”

Me: “Your employee said you were closed, even though the hours on the door show that you’re still open for half an hour.”

Manager: “[Woman], is that true?”

Woman: “He was trying to grab me, so I wasn’t going to serve him.”

Me: “I wasn’t grabbing you, I was going to tap your shoulder because you had earbuds in and didn’t hear me calling you.”

Manager: “[Woman]… were you wearing earbuds and dancing while you cleaned again?”

Woman: “I need to practice! I have a show tomorrow night!”

Manager: “Why don’t you grab your stuff and go home? You’ve caused too many problems lately, and I’m tired of dealing with all your made-up complaints about customers, and the real complaints about you from customers.”

The woman tries to argue for a bit but gives up and storms to the back office. The manager finally turns to me.

Manager: “I’m sorry about that. You’re obviously not the first person she’s done this to. She’s just causing drama. Her show is tomorrow night on stage at [Local Gentlemen’s Club], if you want to see her again. Honestly, I don’t know why she always complains about guys staring at her when she makes a living putting herself out there like that. Now, what can I get for you?”

I suddenly wasn’t very hungry anymore.

We’ve planned an outing to visit my wife’s brother in another state. The night before, we stay with my in-laws in the hopes of getting to our early morning flight at 6:30 am. Just as we park the car at the hotel offering airport parking, I get this email.

Email: “Your upcoming flight has been delayed to 10:10 am. Apologies for the inconvenience.”

Okay, no problem. That gives us time to relax before the flight. We check in and go through security and find the gate at one end of the concourse and walk to get breakfast. While getting breakfast, we overhear the PA.

PA: “Flight rescheduled for 10:10, moved from gate 22 to gate 2.”

Okay, no big deal. It’s just a good walk from one end of the concourse to the next. So, after moving our carry-on, we settle down and wait for our flight. 

Then, I hear the gate agent say something about the flight. I check with the website and they have moved the gate again. We look at the flight information board but nothing has changed. I go to the gate agent and double-check, and yes, the gate has changed, so we move over and proceed to wait until boarding time. 

Around boarding time, we head to the gate because it is odd that they are not announcing anything. A few minutes later, they start boarding group A, and while it looks like we might be delayed some more due to boarding procedures, it is not that bad as we will still make it to our destination and be able to do activities while the day is young.

Suddenly, the boarding agent gets on the PA!

Boarding Agent: “Now that we’ve boarded group A, we have to pause the process because we are having issues related to the plane.”

Everyone is worried, but no problem; airports run into issues all the time and get things quickly resolved. An hour goes by, and we suddenly see the gate doors open and those that boarded are getting off. Those at the gate are worried, and we wonder about the fate of the flight before noticing that those getting off do not have luggage; they are just going to get snacks and drinks while they wait. Another hour goes by, and people are getting antsy with the non-response the boarding agent keeps announcing. Someone finally says:

Flyer #1: “Hey, man, everyone here is getting anxious, so could you please do your job and tell us what is going on?”

Boarding Agent: “I am sorry I have not announced everything, but the explanation is that the fueling truck overfilled the plane’s tanks, and the plane now weighs too much, and we waited for the defueling truck. The truck started defueling the plane, but then the battery died, so now they are trying to fix it, but if they cannot, we will need to call another fueling contractor to send another defueling truck.”

A few more minutes go by, and the boarding agent comes back and announces some news with his hands raised in fists.

Boarding Agent: “We fixed the problem, and now we can start boarding normally!”

Everyone cheered — sarcastically, of course.

The two-hour flight proceeds normally, and once we reach the destination, the flight attendant makes the usual announcement.

Flight Attendant: “Thank you for flying with us and we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Flyer #2: *Sarcastically* “As long as you are sorry, that makes everything all better.”

[Flyer #3] pulled out their phone and started playing “At Last” by Etta James.

And that’s how a two-hour flight ended in a nine-hour-long wait inside the airport due to an issue that’s definitely a first for me, and probably the last for that fueling contractor!

I work in a big-box superstore. It is Friday, and it’s payday. Even though I have most Fridays off, I stop in today to pick up my check. I make my way back to the fitting room where the checks are distributed as usual, expecting to pick up my check and get out of there.

I give the new girl at the fitting room my name so she can find my check in the check box.

New Girl: “Ummm… I don’t think it’s in here.”

Me: “Could you check again? I kind of need it.”

New Girl: “Could it maybe be under a different name? There’s another check in here with the same last name but a different first name.”

Me: “Nope, it’s [My Name], same as always.”

She searches through the box a few more times before we both come to the same realization.

Me: “That person with the same last name… Did they sign off that they received their check?”

[New Girl] looks at the paper and gets an “Oh, no!” kind of look on her face.

New Girl: “Yeah, they did, actually.”

I sigh and head up front to explain to the human resources lady my suspicions that someone picked up my check by mistake. She sends me back to get the sign-off paper and the check box from [New Girl].

When I return, she checks for herself and, sure enough, it appears that some other employee with the same last name as mine picked up my paycheck by mistake. She decides to call her so she can bring the check back. Hopefully, it’s a simple “no harm and no foul” and we’ll get everything sorted out.

Easy, right? Wrong.

[HR Employee] explains over the phone that she got the wrong check and asks her to please bring it back. All of a sudden, though, [HR Employee] gets quiet.

HR Lady: “What do you mean, you cashed it? How can you have cashed it?”

Apparently, the other employee had gone to a check-cashing place and had MY paycheck cashed under HER name. How the heck she managed to do that, though, I haven’t a clue. It’s not like our first names are similar and easily confused; mine is much longer and starts with a completely different letter than hers. First and last names are both clearly printed on both the check and the check envelope. If she even glanced at her check, she would clearly notice that the name was not hers.

Besides that, anywhere that cashes checks is supposed to check ID specifically to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Also, there was a huge difference in the amount that each of us was to receive this pay period, so how she didn’t notice that she was being paid way more than she should’ve been is also beyond me.

This complicated matters, and the head of HR had to step in and talk to the other employee.

He told her that she needed to contact the check cashing place and return the money so that she could get the check back. (Apparently, I could not get paid until they received my original paycheck back.) Then, she needed to bring the already cashed check back to the store, give it to them, and have a talk with the head of HR to figure out how this mess even happened in the first place. He also asked for the name, number, and address of the check cashing place since they clearly cashed the check without asking for ID.

After he got off the phone, he explained that I couldn’t get paid until they got the check back. Also, since the check had already been cashed, I’d have to be paid with a voucher instead of a normal paycheck. This meant unnecessary fees from my bank over a mess-up that was completely not my fault. He apologized for the inconvenience and told me he hoped to get this resolved and have me paid as soon as possible. 

You can bet that I wasn’t happy. At the time, I only had $15 to my name until I got that check, my rent was due in a few days, and I had to get another bus pass for the month in another few days so that I could even make it into work, since I live two hours away and don’t drive. 

I finally got my paycheck about a week and a half later — just in time to get paid again! I had to borrow money from my mother-in-law for rent and a bus pass so I wouldn’t starve, but it’s all sorted out now.

Before they caved and did a voucher, they gave me the voided check — complete with white-out and another person’s signature on it — and told me to try and cash it. It didn’t work, for obvious reasons. Also, apparently, one of the other managers had handed my check to the other employee, so it was a failure on the manager’s part, the other employee’s part, AND the check cashing place’s part.

At least I finally got my money in the end.

I’m thirteen and my grandmother has decided that I need a bra. Instead of helping me find one, she just takes me to a lingerie shop and hands me over to one of the saleswomen, telling her I need to get measured, and goes to browse the shop for herself. I’m very shy at that age, especially concerning anything about my body that is going through teenage growth spurts.

Saleswoman: “All right, then. Strip down and I’ll measure you.”

She almost pushes me into the changing room and steps inside with me.

Me: “What? N-no, I don’t wanna get undressed in front of people.”

Saleswoman: “You need to so I can get the right size. Now get on with it!”

She’s still standing in the room with me, staring me down.

Saleswoman: “Listen, girl, everyone does it. I’ve seen hundreds of naked ladies in here. Don’t be so shy.”

All this is said in the most condescending voice and accompanied by an eye-roll. While I slowly start taking off my sweater and try not to cry from nervousness, the changing room curtain opens and an older lady — apparently the manager or boss — looks in.

Manager: “What’s going on here?!”

Saleswoman: “This girl wants to get measured for a bra, but she’s making a fuss about it.”

The manager sees me clutching my sweater to my chest, still wearing a thin tank top.

Manager: “Are you all right, darling?”

Me: “I just, I didn’t know I had to get naked in front of people. My grandma didn’t tell me.”

Manager: “I understand.” *To the saleswoman* “You can go and help some other customers.” *To me* “We usually take measurements in the nude to get it exactly right, but maybe we can figure this out. Are you wearing anything under that tank top?”

I shake my head as the rude saleswoman leaves the changing room.

Manager: “Okay, then I’ll measure you with the tank top on, and we’re just going to subtract an inch and see how some bras fit.”

She helped me find some well-fitting bras that were also far more appropriate for my age than most of the lacy, sexy things available in the store. She continued explaining everything to me with a very caring voice. She then apologised for her employee and promised they’d have a talk. Years later, as an adult, I’m still glad she noticed a little girl in distress and helped her through a very awkward situation.

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