I’m sitting in a waiting area at the grocery store with my brother and I have a large cast on my foot. I get approached by a customer who keeps glaring at me, walking off, and coming back. Eventually, he speaks up.

Customer: “If only someone could be bothered to help me.”

I don’t know if he is talking to me. Frankly, I am in a bit of pain and don’t care if he is. I don’t have the patience today.

Customer: “If only a worker would actually do his job.”

He is staring at me now.

Me: “Are you talking to me?”

Customer: “Yeah, who else would I be talking to?”

Brother: “He makes a good point.”

Me: “Shut up. Don’t wind him up anymore.”

Customer: “Are you going to show me where the rice is or not?”

Brother: “Sure, hop to it, won’t you?”

Me: “Maybe he can just drag me down the aisle and I can point in the right direction.”

Brother: “Nah, better to stick you in his trolley; you could even make the beeping reversing noise as we went.”

Me: “Maybe he could… Oh, wait. He left.

The man apparently finds a manager and drags him over. The manager takes one look at us and turns to the man.

Manager: “They clearly don’t work here, do they? Even if they did, that one has a broken leg. How would he even be able to help you?”

Me: “Oh, we had some suggestions.”

He did not want to hear our suggestions. The man thankfully disappeared after glaring at us some more. We got our things and the leg healed really well.

Related:
I Don’t Work Here, Does Not Work Here, Part 34
I Don’t Work Here, Does Not Work Here, Part 33
I Don’t Work Here, Does Not Work Here, Part 32
I Don’t Work Here, Does Not Work Here, Part 31

I’m not feeling great and I go to my local large pharmacy. I’m masked up and keeping my distance; unfortunately, this woman isn’t. She looks like she is wandering around aimlessly, but she keeps getting in front of me, indecisively picking up everything or right behind me, impatiently reaching across me.

As I said, I’m not feeling great, and the constant rudeness is getting more and more on my nerves. She ignores all my requests for distance and I eventually cuss her out, so she stays away.

Feeling no better, I get all my medicine, food, and drinks and stand in line to pay. It’s not long before the woman joins the line behind me, no surprise standing way too close.

Me: “You need to back off. Give me some space.”

Customer: “What?”

Me: “Move back and stay back.”

Customer: “Or what?”

I’m not proud of this, but as she spat out the sentence, the pain in my stomach doubled. Without much control, my gaseous medical calamity revealed itself, silently but oh, so noxiously.

The thing about a man in his thirties who has a protein-rich diet with a particular interest in real ale is that this would be a particularly bad event on its own, even if I wasn’t also feeling so unwell.

The woman being so close felt its full force and coughed herself away and out of the shop.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t bear to look the cashier in the eye and had to leave my purchases. Luckily, I managed to get most of what I needed from another store.

I thankfully got better very quickly. As embarrassing as it was, I couldn’t lie, it was a really effective way to deal with these idiots.

Related:
You’ll Back Off One Way Or Another

Last year’s work Christmas party was a mess. There were complaints from nearly everyone about the food, restaurant, and dates, and complaints from people who said they didn’t get asked. But worse was that so many people didn’t turn up, meaning those that did had to stump up an extra bill.

I’ve been asked to organise it this year, as I am super organised and tend to enjoy these sorts of things, so I get to work.

Months in advance, I send out a poll with a choice of restaurant and a selection of dates. I get the menu as soon as it is released and stick it on the board and email it out. I make sure I get a response from everyone regarding their attendance and any allergies.

I chase everyone down who didn’t respond, especially when it comes to collecting a deposit. It’s strictly a “Don’t pay, don’t come!” scenario.

I track down one of the non-responders.

Me: “Last chance to come to the Christmas party.”

Coworker: “Oh, no! I want to come. Where is it?”

Me: “It’s at [Restaurant] on [date].”

Coworker: “Oh, I don’t really like that place. Can’t we go somewhere else?”

Me: “I sent out the options months ago. Sorry, it’s all decided. Do you want to come?”

Coworker: “Err… Sure. Okay.”

Me: “Okay, I need your deposit by the end of the day. Cash is fine, or you can transfer the money.”

Coworker: “Well, I didn’t know about—”

Me: *Interrupting* “I emailed everyone three times about this and it has been on the canteen and office notice board.”

Coworker: “Fine!”

Me: “Great. Everyone who has paid the deposit will get invited to the group chat for any updates.”

I send her an email, and then another the next day. She doesn’t pay. I collect everyone’s deposits, set up the group chat, and think we are pretty much done.

A few weeks later…

Coworker: “Oh, I realised that I never gave you that deposit. Here.”

Me: “Yeah, I already paid the restaurant. If you don’t pay them you can’t have a space.”

Coworker: “Well, you could have just paid it for me.”

Me: “You and the other fifteen people who didn’t pay me?”

Coworker: “Look, just sort it out or I will go to Human Resources.”

Me: “No.”

Coworker: “What do you mean, no? You’re excluding me; this is bullying.”

Me: “No and no. Firstly, you had plenty of notice and I don’t owe you anything, and secondly, we moved the meal to last weekend. Everyone who did pay the deposit had a great time.”

She swore at me and ran off. I think she might have made a complaint, but it never reached me. The next year, she made a big bid to organise the meal, presumably to spite me or “forget to invite me,” but she ended up going on holiday and half-a**ed the meal planning, and I had to step in again.

We had a good time without her again.

I work on a temp team that was formed to deal with a large-scale mistake caused by the incompetence of a government-controlled body. On the team are two non-British people. They’re honestly the two most friendly and fun people on the team. English is their third or fourth language, and they are extremely fluent, but they struggle with some phrases. The team leader has just wrapped up helping the Bulgarian with a call.

Team Leader: “You need to call [company] at three-ish, [Bulgarian].”

The leader then walks off without waiting for questions or anything. [Bulgarian] sits there, confused, and then turns to [Ukrainian] and says something in a language that I don’t understand, mentioning the word, “three-ish.” [Ukrainian] shrugs and responds in the same language, also mentioning “three-ish” and my name.

Bulgarian: *To me* “What is this ‘three-ish’ he speaks of?”

Me: “Around the time of three.”

Ukrainian: “This ‘ish’ is what? Many words have it but they’re not the same?”

Me: “We add it to the end of words to mean… um… ‘sort of’ or ‘kind of’… or ‘about that’. So… you know what someone who’s happy is, yes?” *They nod.* “If they were happy-ish they were kind of happy but also not happy. It’s not as strong as the emotion of being fully happy.”

Ukrainian & Bulgarian: “Ahhhh. Yes!”

Ukrainian: “Things start to make a bit more sense. Silly English and their silly added words to make more words… like the Germans. ‘Handschuhe’! ‘Handschuhe’!” 

English Coworker: “Why are we yelling in German?”

My girlfriend and I are attending the wedding of one of her friends. When it gets to dinner, I’m served chicken.

Me: “Err, when you ordered the meals, did you get me a vegetarian one?”

Girlfriend: “Yes… No. I don’t remember. Can’t you just eat it?”

Me: “You know I don’t eat meat. I’m going to ask for something different.”

Girlfriend: “I don’t understand why you’re making a big deal out of this.”

Me: “I’m not discussing this with you now.”

I managed to get hold of a waiter, only to find out that only a certain number of vegetarian meals were made and there were none left. So, for dinner, I had a slice of tomato and five green beans. My girlfriend blamed me.

We aren’t together anymore.