I work in a pizza place which has the word “Pizza” in the name of the company. When we answer phones, we always start by thanking people for calling [Restaurant] and asking whether the customer would like to place a carry-out or delivery order. On this particular night, I pick up the phone just as my manager does, and he begins taking the order without realizing I am on the phone.

Manager: “Thanks for calling [Restaurant]. Will this be for pick-up or delivery tonight?”

The customer is clearly drunk and slurring his words.

Customer: “Wha… What did I call?”

Manager: “[Restaurant]. Could I get you a delivery order, sir?”

Customer: “…what do y’all sell?”

Manager: *Deadpans* “Tires.”

Customer: “F***! I was trying to order pizza!” *Hangs up*

I work at a drive-in fast food restaurant where we serve — among other things — forty-four-ounce drinks and shakes. A customer comes in and orders two promotional mint-flavored shakes in the forty-four-ounce size. I take the order and run it out to him when it’s ready.

I have really small hands so I can barely hold the forty-four-ounce cups, and only near the bottom.

Me: “Hello, sir, that’ll be two [mint shakes] for [price].”

The customer gives me his payment and goes to grab the drinks by the top of the cups.

Me: “Sir, I wouldn’t grab there!”

That’s what I would’ve said, had the drinks not exploded in his hands due to the styrofoam bursting where he grabbed the cups. I start trying to clean the bright green goop that was a milkshake off of him, his truck, and myself. He is nice about it and recognizes his part in the mishap.

Me: “Let me get a manager and see what he can do.”

I take the torn-up cups inside and I yell, “Hey, I need these remade!” It’s loud inside and I need immediate assistance.

General Manager: “Okay, fine.”

He tries to take them from me. I hold them firmly and say:

Me: “No. These need to be remade.” *Explains what happened* “I need you to tell me what to do. A free replacement? Or should I charge him for two more? Maybe charge for some smaller ones since he paid for these? What do I do?”

The whole time, he keeps trying to take them, and I hold firm until he states that he will remake them for free, at which point I let go.

Drinks get remade, the customer is happy, and all is good. But later…

General Manager: “[My Name], I need to talk to you.”

Me: “Yeah, what’s up?”

General Manager: “Next time you have a mess up, you need to let someone know ASAP.”

That was my only mess up all night.

Me: “Uh, I did.”

General Manager: “No. You need to let someone know immediately so they can fix it as soon as possible.”

Me: “Uh… You’re talking about the shakes, right? Yeah, I did.”

General Manager: *Smirks* “Well then, who did you tell?”

Me: “I told you.”

General Manager: “Who fixed the shakes?”

Me: “You did.”

General Manager: “Wait, who did you tell?”

Me: “You. I told you immediately, and then you immediately fixed the shakes. Do you need to check the cameras to remember fixing that order yourself?”

General Manager: “Uh… No. Never mind. Just, uh… Carry on.” 

He was the main reason I quit that job.

My coworker is taking a sip from his water bottle when I notice something.

Me: “[Coworker], you know your bottle has a green shade at the bottom?”

Coworker: *Laughs* “My bottle is green.”

It’s not; it is blue, but I decide not to argue.

Me: “Let me rephrase: you do realize your bottle has two different shades of green?”

My coworker looks at the bottom where there is decidedly some algae.

Coworker: “Um, yes, um, I maybe should wash out my bottle.”

As the algae covered about 75% of the bottom, the water just had to have a foul taste. How he could miss that, I don’t know. He stopped drinking from it and had it properly cleaned out before filling up again.

This takes place while I am in college, living in an apartment affiliated with the university. This means it’s not run by the university like a dorm but only students can live on this property. This also means we have a real apartment, with a kitchen, washer, and dryer, our own bedrooms, etc.

When we move in, however, our dryer starts smoking like crazy the first time we use it. We discover it is jam-packed with dryer lint as if the previous tenants had never cleaned the filter, and it is clogging the entire line. We get maintenance to replace the smoky dryer easily, but they’ve forgotten to flush the line. There’s no airflow and our clothes aren’t drying.

I have a chat with maintenance about this.

Me: “The new dryer seems to be working great; we just need all the lint flushed out.”

Maintenance: “This is a brand new dryer we just gave you! It can’t be broken.”

Me: “Oh. It isn’t. It heats up totally fine; we just need the rest of the vent flushed out.”

Maintenance: *Condescendingly* “You know you have to actually turn it on, right? Your clothes won’t dry unless you turn it off of ‘air-dry only’.”

I look at the dryer, currently NOT set to air-dry.

Me: “Yeah, I know how to do laundry. Again, it works great and is heating up, but nothing will dry properly because it seems like it’s blocked.”

Maintenance: “Look. This is the air-dry setting. You don’t want it on this. Watch. To dry clothes, we set them to this setting or this setting and turn the knob. Then we…”

The maintenance man continued to explain how to operate the dryer to me patronizingly and ignored me when I kept trying to explain the issue. He probably spent fifteen minutes giving me a demonstration! He marked the ticket as fixed and didn’t do anything further.

After I complained to the front office, they finally sent someone to do what we’d asked for in the first place. 

Surprise! The dryer worked perfectly after that.

Three of my boss’s bosses are here to look around, so when a customer walks back in after picking up a to-go order looking rather annoyed, we’re all paying attention to see who did something wrong.

Customer: “Okay, I’m really frustrated now. This is the second or third time this has happened. My order is completely wrong.”

Boss: *Opening her box* “Let’s see what the problem is, ma’am. What did you order?”

Customer: “A turkey stack.”

This is a grilled turkey sandwich. The boss looks at her order.

Boss: “Ma’am, that is a turkey stack.”

Customer: “Oh… you know what? I’ve been thinking I’m ordering one of the tortilla wraps. Okay, now I’ll know to order differently next time.”

The customer left since she actually got exactly what she ordered, but I don’t think she even apologized. But at least no one got yelled at since we did our jobs.