(I’m ringing up a customer who has been staring down her nose at me for pretty much the whole transaction. She has a trolleyful, and since it is an express store we only have tiny checkouts. She doesn’t even offer to help pack anything, and I have to ask her nicely to get her to move full bags off of the till so I have room to keep packing. She glares at me several times. Finally, I tell her the total.)

Customer: “Oh, and check this for me.” *throws a lottery ticket down*

Me: “No problem. I’ll do the payout once I’m finished with your shopping.”

(The woman looks at me like I’m stupid.)

Customer: “Can you do it now? I need the money to pay for the shopping. There should be ten pounds on it.”

Me: “I’m sorry. The tills won’t allow a payout until the transaction has finished.”

Customer: “That’s ridiculous! Other shops do!”

Me: “I’m sorry. It’s the way the tills work.”

(The woman carried on giving me a look as if I was completely thick as she gave me the money, and as I gave her the payout from the tickets. She then took her own sweet time getting her things together, even having a conversation with a friend, while a queue of customers built up behind. When I said goodbye, she merely threw me another dirty look. I love customers who know how our tills work better than we do.)

(I stock shelves for a grocery store. I have Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning type of autistic spectrum disorder. My manager is fairly new, but he has taken a disliking to me and often treats me poorly compared to my coworkers. This happens one day while I’m stocking pasta sauce.)

Customer: “Excuse me. Do you have any more of this sauce in the back room?”

(She’s holding a jar of an uncommon variety of sauce that we have recently discontinued. I know for a fact that we do not have any more in the back room because we just received our sauce shipment the other day, and none of it was of this variety.)

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but that sauce is actually discontinued and is on clearance.”

Customer: “That’s bulls***! I know you have more back there! Go and get me some, now!”

Me: “I cannot do that, ma’am, as we don’t have any more.”

Customer: “LIAR!”

(Without any warning, she SLAMS the jar of sauce onto the ground at her feet, causing it to shatter. As if on cue, the manager comes over.)

Manager: “Is something wrong?”

Customer: “Fire this brat! Now! He threw this jar at me!”

Manager: “Is this true?”

Me: “No, sir! She threw that jar herself!”

Customer: “You liar! I saw you throw that at me!”

Me: “That’s not true! I—“

Manager: “Enough. I’m sorry, [My Name], but I simply will not tolerate this behavior, so I have to let you go. Go pack up your things and leave the store. I am very disgusted with your behavior.”

(I sheepishly punched out and left, but I wasn’t about to let myself be fired on such bogus grounds. As soon as I got home, I got on the phone with HR and explained the entire situation to them. Three days later, I got a call from the district manager offering me my job back. As it turns out, the whole incident was the latest conspiracy by my now ex-manager to get me fired because he didn’t want to work with someone on the autistic spectrum. The customer turned out to be his wife, and the whole scheme was planned out well in advance. One thing that he, quite foolishly, forgot to take into account was the security footage, which clearly showed his wife throwing down the jar of pasta sauce, contrary to what they claimed to have happened. He was fired almost immediately, and both he and his wife are now banned from setting foot in any of the company’s stores. I’m still working there to this day, and just recently got a promotion to assistant department manager.)

(I have my headphones in while I approach the self-checkouts at my local supermarket. As I finish my purchase, I see the man next to me making exaggerated gestures. I take my headphones out to see what the issue is. He notices.)

Man: “These things are bulls***. They don’t work half the time!”

(I look at his machine and see it is telling him the machine is card only and asking him to confirm before using it.)

Me: “Are you paying by card?”

Man: “Ugh, yes.” *seeing me lean over to tap the screen* “Don’t bother; it won’t let me do anything!”

(After tapping, the message disappears.)

Me: “Try it now.”

(The man mumbled that I was young and not listening, but he tried it anyway. His cereal scanned and he stared, mouth agape. I picked up my bag and left the checkout. I had to walk past him again to leave the store. In that few seconds he had started another rant about young people thinking they always know everything. I put my headphones back in and left.)

(A lady is looking at our local honey display and comes over to me to ask how much bee pollen someone should take a day. I have no idea, so I go to some coworkers and see if they have any idea. None of us has any idea, so I get on my coworker’s cell phone to see if I can find a quick answer. The customer comes to where we are standing.)

Me: “I’m looking to see if this website has any recommendations about what dosages to take.”

Customer: “All right, I was surprised you have it so cheap here. At natural foods stores, you would pay in the 100s for this product.”

Coworker: “Yeah, local honey can be really expensive, but it is good for you.”

Customer: “Yeah, it builds up your immunity to local pollutants. That’s the reason I’m trying this. I’m allergic to pollen.”

(My coworkers and I stare at her for a second, horrorstruck.)

Me: “Ma’am, if you’re allergic to pollen, please do not use this bee pollen. I’m scared you’re going to get really sick!”

Customer: “But it’s for building up your immunity.”

Coworker: “Well, the honey is good for that but it’s probably not a good idea to use that product.”

Me: “Yeah, please talk to your doctor or even our pharmacist before you take this!”

Customer: “But I am not allergic to tree pollen; I’m only allergic to flower pollen.”

Me: “But, ma’am, the bees get their pollen from flowers, and this is local honey, so that pollen would probably do awful things to your body.”

(This lady didn’t believe a word I said until the website I pulled up said that pollen was a trigger. She eventually put the bee pollen back, but I’m still worried she is unintentionally going to kill herself.)

(I am a 16-year-old working at my first job ever as a grocery store cashier. I get put in the express lane quite often because I am one of the few employees who does not complain about it. The express lane can be either insanely busy and backed up, or there can be long stretches of time in which I don’t have a customer. During one of these slow periods, I am observing people around me when I see a young man walking by with a shopping basket. He’s quite handsome, and since I am a bit boy-crazy, I watch him until I get a new customer. About half an hour later, he walks by again. I see that he has swapped his shopping basket for a shopping cart, but only has one item in the cart. I think it’s odd that he has only one item in the chart after a half-hour of shopping, but he has been walking quite slowly during both encounters, and I vaguely wonder if he is simply new to the store and does not know where anything is. Another half-hour later, I see him walking by ONCE AGAIN, but now he has swapped out his previous item, a large package of paper towels, for a different item. Finding it extremely suspicious that he has been walking around the store for an hour with only one item in his cart, I finally call the manager over.)

Manager: “Yes, [My Name]?”

Me: “There’s a man who has been walking around the store for close to an hour. I keep seeing him walk by, and he only has one item in his cart and never picks up a second item. It just seems really strange to me, like he might be scoping out the store.”

Manager: “Hmm… that is odd. Can you describe him for me?”

Me: “He’s in his twenties with blonde-brown hair, a red shirt, and khaki pants.”

Manager: “I’ll call security over and see if they can find him.”

(A few minutes later, I see the man walk by again, but this time he is going to the customer service counter without a basket or a cart. Confused, I start to wonder whether the store employs plain-clothes security guards. A few minutes later, the manager comes back over.)

Me: *embarrassed* “He was a security guard, wasn’t he?”

Manager: *laughing* “Yes, but good job! You noticed something strange and reported it, so I am going to give you a free lunch coupon from our hot foods sections.”

(I didn’t dare to look that handsome security guard in the eye for the rest of my shift!)