I work at a gas station next to an interstate with a terrible coworker. It is important to the story to say that this employee is black, and this is her weapon to wield with abandon.

This story is a common occurrence over a period of several months.

Me: “Hey, [Employee], I just finished [task #1] and [task #2]. I’m off to [task #3]. Will you do [task #4], please?”

Employee: “Oh, so you make the black employee do all the work! This isn’t the plantation days! You’re just being racist!”

Me: “No, I’m giving you a task because that is literally one of your jobs, and you’ve been sitting there filing your nails for twenty minutes.”

Employee: “I have a better idea. How about you do that while I man the registers?” 

Me: “Because you work under me, not the other way around, and if you’re not going to get a lick of work done, you might as well go home!”

She then usually storms into the back, and then she’ll parade out with a smug expression and huffily plant herself back in the same spot she has been in.

A few minutes later, I usually get pulled into the back by the shift leader and the store manager. I explain the situation. The cameras are checked, complete with audio. The store manager gives a halfhearted shrug and sends me back out. Then, I go back to my tasks.

The employee then smirks at me.

Employee: “So what did they say to you about your racism?”

Me: “Nothing.”

Employee: “Nothing?!”

Me: “Yep. Not a thing.”

Then, she sat and fumed silently.

The store manager never addressed either report. I have enough imagination to have at least ONE guess as to why her behavior was never addressed, but no proof.

Finally, after several similar interactions, [Employee] got angry that I was not being reprimanded, despite her many “reports.”

She stormed back into the back and I could hear her yelling at the store manager through the closed door! She actually demanded that I be fired immediately, in so many words. Customers could hear her and asked what was going on.

She finally slammed open the office door and stormed out of the store entirely; the manager got fed up and told her to clock out and leave.

She ended up quitting a day later, citing the store manager being racist to “believe the white employee over the black one!” Never mind that her behavior was recorded on audio and video.

To everyone’s utter disgust, she reapplied for the job within a year, and despite everyone’s objections, the manager hired her again. Her behavior hadn’t changed. It took everyone on staff threatening to walk out, leaving the store manager alone with her with literally no other staff on payroll, before he fired her permanently three months after her return.

I’m a gas station clerk. A young man comes to the counter and puts down his things, including a high school library book clearly stamped with “[Local High School] Library.” In other words, this kid is probably underage.

He has a non-alcoholic beverage and, after I ring him up, he decides to try to sneak one past me.

Young Man: “Can I also get [tobacco product]?”

Me: “Can I see your ID?”

He pretends to search his wallet for his identification and, after a moment, mutters:

Young Man: “I must have left it in my other wallet.”

I nod.

Me: “It happens to me all the time.”

I work in a gas station. Many times when our delivery truck arrives, it requires at least three people to unload it, check it, and sort it all out, all during business hours. This day is no different, but it is the first of the month, on a Friday, which means EVERYONE is at our store making purchases. It is an absolute nightmare. In the end, one of my supervisors and two of my coworkers have to go into the back to run the truck, leaving me alone to deal with a line of customers at the counter and a line of customers at the window.

This is a normal arrangement for us, as I am the quickest and most accurate worker. So, I’m running a line of cars wrapped around the building and a line of people out the door, and the phone rings. Caller ID says it’s the other half of the store, so I figure my other supervisor is either calling to check on me, to see if I need anything, to ask for the supervisor running the truck for something, or to see if we have something in stock now that has been sold out.

Me: “Hey, [Supervisor], I’ve got two lines. What do you need?”

Coworker: *Sounding extremely confused* “[My Name]?”

Me: “Yes, [Coworker], do you need something? Make it fast, please.”

Coworker: “Where are you right now?”

Me: “Well, I thought I was in the store, but now I’m not sure. Is this important?”

Coworker: “Did you just come out of the little casino?”

This seems unimportant and I’m very busy, so I just hang up on her and go back to waiting on my lines. Almost immediately after, my supervisor appears in the door from the back, and she looks as confused as my coworker sounded when she sees me.

Supervisor: “[My Name], did you just come in from the little casino?”

Me: *To the customers in line* “Hey, guys, I’ve been in here by myself for the past fifteen minutes at least, haven’t I?”

They all agree that I’ve not left the store for anything but to get items from the back and haven’t been gone long enough for anything else. My supervisor calls in my coworkers to come and take over and takes me into the back. She doesn’t look angry; she looks bewildered.

Supervisor: “[My Name], [Coworker] and I both saw you come out of the front restrooms, not in uniform, and go into the little casino. [Coworker] peeked in and confirmed you were in there, and we called to see where you were.”

For a couple of years now, I’ve had people periodically come up to me and talk to me as if they know me. As my mom is heavily into genealogy, I’ve always just assumed these are people she’s made connections with and played along because it kind of annoys people when I tell them I don’t know them. In fact, I had one at the start of my shift today, which is why I remember it now. I’m finally able to put two and two together.

Me: “I think I have a doppelganger wandering around.”

We go to the door to the cage of the little casino and ask the cashier if she’s seen a woman who looks like me.

Cashier: “Her? Yeah, she comes in a couple of times a month and plays the slots, is rude, and never tips. She looks just like you.”

From then on, when someone would start to speak as if they knew me, my first answer was to always tell them, “I’m [My Name]. You’re thinking of the other one.” And, for the record, I do not have a twin sister at all.

I am working at a gas station. The place is small and pretty run down so sometimes the pumps don’t work correctly. In this situation, I accidentally put someone’s gas on the wrong pump. This is generally an easy thing to fix with the “move pump” button at the register. Of course, this time around, that button is not working for some reason and I see the lady waving me down from outside. I wave her back inside so that I can explain what happened.

Me: “I’m so sorry about that. It seems I put your gas on the wrong pump. I can fix it for you. Did you pay with cash or card?”

We are pretty busy at the time, so it is hard to remember. The pumps don’t specifically tell you how people paid; as I said, they are pretty old and outdated. They just show an amount.

Customer: “It was cash.”

Me: “Okay, easy fix, then!”

I simply pop open the drawer and close it again so that I can re-ring the gas at the correct pump. 

She goes outside and pumps around $40 worth of gas. It dawns on me when she’s coming back to use the ATM that she paid with a card, not cash, the first time around. Since I canceled the pump and re-rang it as cash, my drawer is now $40 short and the money will go back to her card. So, basically, she will be getting this gas for free if she does not pay for it again. If she had said it was a card transaction, I would have simply instructed her to pull around to the right pump and it wouldn’t have been an issue.

Me: “Ma’am, now that I think about it, you paid for your gas with a card, right?”

Customer: “Yes, I did.”

I immediately know that this is going to be an issue. People don’t understand that a pending charge is not the same as an actual charge on her account. It will be refunded in about an hour or so, depending on the bank.

Me: “You told me you paid with cash, so the gas you pumped was rung up as cash. That means it won’t charge your card. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but your gas hasn’t been paid for yet. So, I have to charge your card again or you give me cash to fix the drawer.”

She immediately gets irate.

Customer: “What do you mean, I haven’t paid yet? You charged my card! I can pull it up right here on my phone!”

She pulls up the bank app, and yep, there’s a pending charge. I try to explain to her that the charge will not actually go through because she never pumped the gas from that transaction. I even print the receipt from the gas she pumped showing it as paid with cash. She doesn’t believe me. At this point, I have not been rude and have been nothing but apologetic to her. I understand that it is a weird situation for both of us, but with the system I have, there aren’t many options.

Customer: “I want a manager now!”

I explain that there is no manager here, just me, but that I can call the owner and maybe he could explain it better. He is an immigrant who speaks English but has a hard time explaining things in depth. I dial the number as she’s staring me down. She’s on the phone with her bank while loudly explaining to everyone in the store that there was fraud on her account and that the cashier is trying to steal her money.

Thank God, the owner answers the phone. I start trying to explain the situation and the customer keeps shouting, “You need to tell him this is your fault because you put it on the wrong pump!” At this point, I shout back because I am over being screamed at for something that was both our fault. Plus, I don’t like being accused of being dishonest or a thief when I do everything I can for my customers.

Me: “You shouldn’t have lied and said you paid with cash when you didn’t! And I’m not giving you $40 of free gas! Call the cops if you want to! We have your plate on surveillance as well as everything else you said to me! Yes, I put it on the wrong pump! But that doesn’t mean I’m paying for your gas!”

I put the owner on speakerphone so she can hear what he has to say.

Owner: “We can not give you free gas! You pay, you have to pay again. Your card will get the refund! I promise you.”

She goes out to her car to scream at the bank for a few minutes. I keep watching her making sure she doesn’t drive away. I guess the bank tells her the same thing that I told her — that it is only a pending charge that will go away. She comes back inside with her card.

Customer: “Just charge the d*** card again! Guess I can’t pay my bills now!”

I’m hoping that the next time a customer service rep asks her a question, she will actually listen and respond correctly. And yes, I recognize the fact that I made a mistake, but so did she. If she had just called her bank calmly and asked if what I was telling her was the truth instead of screaming at me, I wouldn’t have had to shout at her. Thinking about her still makes me mad to this day.

I’m standing in line at a gas station waiting to check out, and the cashiers ask each customer if they’re buying a lottery ticket, as only one of the registers is equipped for that. The man in front of me is asked if he is buying a lottery ticket:

Customer: “No, thanks. That stuff is way too dangerous to get into. Could I have a pack of smokes?”