(I work as a grocery delivery driver for a well-known UK supermarket. Once a year we cancel all the deliveries in the afternoon and have a training session. These sessions involve senior managers; they are also a chance for staff to relate issues they have. I’ve recently begun to get a little tired of management constantly ignoring complaints regarding the work we do.)

Me: “I mentioned this a year ago, but the vehicles we have are a complete joke; they break down frequently, are filthy inside, and are dented to hell. Most of them would probably not qualify as road legal. What are you going to do about it?”

Manager: *has repeated this to me several times now* “It’s up to you to ensure the vans remain workable; this means taking responsibility for clearing up and reporting defects and never taking out vans that are not road legal.”

Me: “Okay. So, to be 100% clear, if I get a van that is not road legal, I can refuse to drive it?”

Manager: “Well, of course. You are responsible for ensuring the vehicles are road legal.”

(Over the following two weeks I refused to take out five vans due to defects which were not road legal, and defected around eight more for various faults. This lead to several van trips being cancelled. A few weeks later the manager was back in the store. He was annoyed that we had had a sudden surge in cancellations and a bill for van damage that stretched into five figures. Turns out when the manager had said that I was supposed to take responsibility, he’d meant that I should just shut up and drive the garbage. Our store was put under review, and two months later our whole fleet was swapped out for brand-new vans. Sadly, the people I work with are morons, and in the space of a month all the vans had damage all over them.)

I sometimes randomly faint. It doesn’t matter if I’ve eaten or not, or if it’s hot outside or not, I just faint, or everything goes black, but I’m still technically conscious. I can’t avoid it, so the only thing I can do is sit still wherever I can.

I was in the line in the supermarket with my mother when I felt an “attack” coming. There was a wooden couch very close to the lines, so I knew I could make it there instead of having to sit on the ground. There was an old couple in front of me, so I politely asked them if they could move. They completely ignored me. Normally I’d repeat it louder, but I was feeling very fuzzy at this point and could only repeat it at the same volume. After the third time, I just pushed past them and walked to the couch. I felt kind of bad for doing that.

After a couple of minutes, I felt well enough to go to the line again so I could help my mother with the heavy bags. When I arrived, I saw that she was having a big argument with the old man and that a random woman in the line had joined in.

Apparently, the couple had heard me, but had chosen to ignore the “stupid, young, lazy brat.” After I had left, they’d started insulting me and complaining about me “pushing them to the ground because standing for a minute is too much for the youth.” My mother did not appreciate that and told them off. The old man had then started insulting her, too, and a woman in the line had jumped to her defense. Meanwhile, the cashier was attempting to convince the old woman to leave because she was done scanning their stuff and they had paid already.

The old man then attempted to make it physical, but after trying to shove my mother weakly, security showed up to escort him and his wife out.

My mother and I thanked the random woman, and I was offered something to drink by the manager, but I declined because I just wanted to go home.

The old man ended up banned from the store.

(I work in a bakery at a chain grocery store, but I am also cross-trained in the deli department, which is connected to the bakery. We just hired some new people, and I am scheduled to work in the bakery at the same time as a trainee is working in the deli by herself. The manager asks me if I can keep an eye on her in case she needs help, and I happily agree. It’s also important to note that we just switched some of our deli meat brands and flavors after we finished training our new employees, so some of the meats that we had when she first started training we either no longer carry or we carry it in a different brand. I’m working in my department when I hear this:)

Coworker: “Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you with something?”

Customer: “I would like some oven-roasted turkey.”

Coworker: “Okay. Would you like [Brand #1] or [Brand #2]?”

(Somehow, this question sets him off. He turns red in the face and starts yelling at my poor coworker.)

Customer: “You are so incompetent! Do you not know what you are doing? How hard is it to slice some meat?!”

(He goes on, and my coworker is too shocked to say anything. I step in to see if I can defuse the situation.)

Me: “[Coworker], are you okay?”

Coworker: “I just asked what brand he wanted because I couldn’t remember if we had the same flavor in another brand…”

Me: *to the man, as sweet and cheery as I can be* “Can I help you with something, sir?”

Customer: “NO! This entire store is filled with incompetent people! I just asked for some meat and she can’t slice it for me? How hard can it be to slice some meat?! I just want some meat!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. We are currently switching our brands, and my coworker was confused about which brand of turkey you wanted, Did you want [Brand #1] or did you want [Brand #2]?”

Customer: *throwing a temper tantrum at this point* “I just want some meat! How hard is that?! You are all incompetent, and I will never shop here again! I’m about to leave and I will never come back!”

(I can deal with rude customers, but at some point, a switch just goes off in me, and I’ll be d***ed if I’ll let a customer talk about my coworkers like this. However, instead of blowing up at rude customers, I have a different tactic.)

Me: *with a sweet, peppy smile* “All right, sir! Well, you have a good day! Thank you for shopping at [Grocery Store Chain].”

(The man looks like he is about to lay an egg — just totally shocked. He shakes out of it, and angrily grabs his cart and goes to check out.)

Me: *to coworker* “You okay?”

Coworker: “Yeah… I just asked him a question.”

Me: “Don’t worry about it. Some people are just jerks.”

(I went back to my work and our shifts continued normally. He must have had a bad day, because there is no way that turkey is so important that you have to have a meltdown in the middle of the store over it. That employee left a couple months later; most people don’t stay too long. I still work here, but I graduate school soon, so hopefully, I will never have to deal with rude customers like him again! If I do have a rude customer, I just kill them with kindness.)

(A customer comes up to my register with some assorted groceries, including meat, vegetables, eggs, and a gallon of milk.)

Customer: “Bag this light, please. I can’t carry anything too heavy.”

Me: “No problem, ma’am.”

(I separate the items into smaller bags — meat in one, milk in another, etc. She pays and leaves. About ten minutes later, my boss walks up to my station.)

Boss: “You have a customer complaint.”

Me: “What? Why?”

Boss: “Apparently, there was a lady who asked you to bag her items light, and you didn’t.”

Me: “But I did! I separated all the items out, put the eggs in one bag, the milk in another– “

Boss: “That’s the problem. She said the gallon of milk was too heavy for her to carry.”

(My boyfriend has taken a liking to a European candy that randomly showed up in our local grocery store, but once they run out of the first shipment they never seem to restock. We find the same candy at another branch of the store, but the packaging seems much smaller than the ones we got before.)

Boyfriend: “Huh, these only come in fours; the ones we got before were in eights.”

Me: “Maybe we accidentally had two stuck together last time and didn’t realize.”

Boyfriend: “That couldn’t be it. The alarms would have gone off, then, wouldn’t they?”

Me: *looking at him quizzically* “Huh?”

Boyfriend: “Yeah, if you don’t scan the barcode, then the alarms by the doors will detect it and go off, right?”

Me: *fighting down laughter* “That… that’s not… those sensors detect the electronic tags they put on expensive items, not barcodes!”

Boyfriend: “What?”

Me: *still trying not to laugh* “How would it detect a barcode through your bags? Even the checkouts can’t do that!”

Boyfriend: “So… Wait, what keeps people from stealing the stuff without tags?!”

Me: “Cameras and common decency!”

(I swear my boyfriend is normally very smart, but I was reminded very strongly that day that he has never in his life worked retail.)