(I work at the supermarket deli, and there is a regular I always hated serving. She is a grouchy old fusspot who always seems to find a problem in something. She comes up to the counter and I’m readying myself for another miserable experience.)

Fusspot: “I want some of that meat, sliced.” *points to case*

Me: *trying to see where she is pointing* “The olive mortadella?”

Fusspot: “Yes.”

(In case you don’t know, mortadella is Italian sausage meat that tastes similar to bologna, but is fancier and made of higher-quality meat. The olive mortadella is stuffed with green olives, and the olives themselves are stuffed with tiny pieces of red capsicum, or bell pepper for my American readers. I pick up the opened chub of olive mortadella to bring it to the slicer, but she starts protesting.)

Fusspot: “No! I want the other one!” *points again*

Me: *putting a hand over the chub she’s pointing at* “This one?”

Fusspot: “Yes!”

Me: “Yes, that’s the olive mortadella. The one you’re pointing at is unopened; I have the opened one here.”

Fusspot: “No, they’re different!”

Me: “They’re the same, and I can’t open a new one until we use up the opened one.”

(The deli workers often make an exception upon request, if the chub is very close to the end, but this chub has barely been used; it’s only had maybe a quarter of it taken off, if that.)

Fusspot: “No, the one I’m pointing at has something else in it. It has that red thing in it.”

Me: “That’s the red capsicum stuffing in the olive. This one has the same stuffing, as well; once you slice through the olive you’ll see the red stuffing inside it.”

(After some back and forth, the fusspot stalks off to the customer service desk. She comes back shortly after with the customer service worker in tow, who is a lovely person but doesn’t know much about the deli. By this time, I’ve explained what transpired with my coworkers in the deli.)

Fusspot: *points to me* “This girl refused to serve me what I wanted.”

Coworker: “Which meat did you want?”

Fusspot: *points again* “That one.”

Coworker: “That’s the olive mortadella. This is the unopened one; it’s the same thing.”

(The fusspot starts arguing with my coworkers and me, and we reiterate our policy that we can’t open a new chub when there is so much left on the opened chub, and that we guarantee that the olives in both chubs are stuffed with the same red capsicum, but it almost always falls out when it hits the slicer. Initially, the customer service worker suggests we slice the opened one and discard the first slices until the stuffing appears, but as the stuffing ends up predictably falling out, it just results in a pile of wasted sliced meat. We try to show her this, but she won’t accept this explanation or that the same thing will happen when we open the new chub. Eventually, the customer service worker tells us to just open the new chub anyway and give her what she wants. My coworkers are fed up and comply. As the first slice comes off the slicer, lo and behold, the red stuffing that the fusspot had been coveting falls out, and the slice is identical to the ones we’ve already sliced. I have been teased before by my coworkers for always being “mellow” in the face of problem customers, but at this point, I am well and truly pissed off. I pick up the slice of mortadella from the new chub that she requested, and march over to the customer, displaying it to her in all its stuffing-less glory.)

Me: *not making any attempt to mask the steel in my voice* “There’s the slice from the new chub that you wanted. As you can see, the stuffing has fallen out.”

Fusspot: *looks down meekly and mumbles something*

Me: *unwavering death glare for five seconds before I silently turn around and continue about my business*

(I know it sounds like a minor thing to get worked up over, and maybe it is, but I hate wasting perfectly good food, and I had reached the end of my rope with this crazy lady. To my pleasant surprise, however, the fusspot returned many times after this incident a reformed customer. She never gave me any problems after that. Somehow I must have scared her into being nice.)

(My store sells small helium balloons, already blown up, on plastic sticks. They’re quite popular with kids, and a lot of people give them to the kid to hold, who proceeds to lose the stick. As a result, the balloon just gets dumped. We have a random balloon, minus the stick, on the customer service desk. A manager tells us to just pop it and throw it away, since it won’t sell. My supervisor is generally quite serious and wouldn’t ever do anything silly in front of customers.)

Me: “You know, the last time [Manager] told us to pop one of these, [Coworker] did a tannoy announcement after inhaling the helium. It was brilliant.”

Supervisor: “Really? Did she not get in trouble?”

Me: “Nah, [Manager] found it hilarious and none of the customers seem to listen to the tannoy anyway…”

(I turn away to do something for a moment. When I turn around, [Supervisor] is inhaling the helium and trying to ring our HR manager. When the HR manager doesn’t pick up the phone, she inhales a big gulp of helium and does a tannoy announcement. A few minutes later, when I’ve stopped giggling, the HR manager wanders over.)

HR Manager: “What on earth was that?!”

(She found it funny, as well, and nobody got in trouble. Now, whenever I find a balloon, I ask if anybody would like to do a tannoy announcement before I pop it!)

(I work behind the customer service counter at a grocery store. I’m used to people leaving stuff at the counter for us to watch while they run out to their cars: groceries, shopping carts, whatever. But this is new.)

Customer: *approaches the counter with a one-year-old in the child seat of a shopping cart* “Is it cool if I leave her here for a few minutes? I need to run out to the car.”

Me & Coworker: “Uh…?”

Customer: “I’ll be right back.”

(She pushed the shopping cart with the baby behind the counter and ran out of the store. Fortunately, my coworker was able to keep the baby entertained until her mom came back a few minutes later!)

(I have just gotten off of work and need to stop by the grocery store for a few things. During my work shift, a coworker finds a marker we use to check for counterfeit money and draws all over me with it. I am very pale so it is easily visible.)

Small Child: “Mommy, look at that lady! She’s got stuff on her face!”

Parent: “It’s rude to point, sweetie.”

Small Child: “But look! She looks like she’s got the chickenpox!”

(The lady finally looks up to see the marker all over my face and screams.)

Parent: “You should be ashamed of yourself! How dare you come out in public, let alone to work in such a horrid condition? You probably just infected this entire store, you filthy heathen!”

(The lady picks up her child and runs screaming from the store. After a long day of dealing with people just as crazy, I merely go back to shopping. However, an employee approaches me, having heard the commotion.)

Employee: “I’m sorry, is everything okay over here?”

Me: “Yeah, some crazy lady thought I was diseased and took off.”

Employee: “If you don’t mind my asking… what’s all over your face?”

Me: “Do you guys have those counterfeit markers here?”

Employee: “Yes…”

Me: “My coworker got bored.”

Employee: “Oh! Right… Yeah, that would do it. Have a great day!”

(I work in a supermarket that has self-service checkouts as well as regular kiosk and belt checkouts. We are encouraged to bring queuing customers through the self-service at busy times and offer assistance when the customer is unfamiliar with its workings. I take a lady through who immediately starts complaining. She has expressed a preference for me to put her items through for her, as she has never used a self-checkout before.)

Customer: “I hate these things; I think it’s awful that they exist.”

Me: “They aren’t so bad. They’re quite handy when you don’t have many items and the other tills are busy.”

Customer: “I just think it’s terrible that it’s putting people out of a job, everything being automatic!”

(I am still scanning and packing items for her.)

Me: “As you can see, you using this today for the first time has actually given me something to do for five minutes, and now you know how to work it, too.”

Customer: *realising what has just happened* “Oh, right, yes, I suppose it has! I take it back.” 

(She pays and thanks me for my help.)

Me: “Thank you and see you again soon!”