It’s 7 AM, and I’m at the restaurant, letting maintenance guys work on equipment in the kitchen. They have two trucks parked behind the restaurant. We don’t open for four more hours. We’re not a breakfast place, never have been. For eighteen years, we’ve opened for lunch daily at 11 AM.

In front of the restaurant is an empty, morning sun-lit parking lot.

Grandma comes to the door, pulls, pushes. She gives up. Defeated.

Twenty-something grandson pulls, pushes. Also defeated. Honestly, I’m not sure if he could’ve opened it even if it had been unlocked.

The hours of operation and the deadbolt are unforgiving.

Mom goes to open the door for poor Grandma. Yank. Yank, YANK HARDER! She, too, is defeated.

But then Pop swaggers up. His pointless shades at this early hour are perched on his chiseled face. His cargo shorts are full of magical and mystical Fatherhood tools. He’s been waiting for a worthy opponent. He knows his feeble mother and sissy son can’t be trusted.

His white socks are pulled up over his bulging calves, and they strain, even with his New Balance tactical tennis shoes, as he launches himself against the door.

Taken aback that his frontal assault isn’t successful, he grabs the door and, with the power of Odin, his forefather, pulls at the door as if he’s straining to lift Mjolnir to prove his worthiness. The door is still standing.

Finally, he resorts to his last hope. You might be thinking, “Look at the Hours on the door!”

But you’d be wrong. He calls the restaurant. I debate on whether to answer and decide that this should be a learning experience.

Mother and Grandma are peeking into a window, gazing at the chairs stacked on top of the tables. There are no lights on in the dining room.

Pops is standing near the door, cellphone in hand, tapping his bright white New Balance shoes in anticipation of the fight that will soon be happening. He WILL get his family French toast at this steakhouse at 7:05 AM!

Lanky son with his long curls hanging over his eyes looks up briefly. Pushes the hair away from his eyes as he stares at the Hours of Operation.

You can actually see the gears turning inside his head as he desperately tries to figure out what the clues are telling him.

Finally, he slowly lifts his entire arm and points at the sign.

The family slowly retreats to the safety of the shiny black Suburban. They’ll soon forget this defeat as they search for bacon and eggs. So, they’ll be back. Not realizing that we never open for breakfast. They’ll try again soon. Soon.

My line of call centre work deals mainly with businesses. So you’d think they’d be more… on the ball if you know what I mean?

This caller gave me his order number.

Me: “No orders are showing up on my system. Can I have your account number?”

He gave me his account number and every other account number for his company’s branches throughout the UK. That’s a lot of account numbers and orders.

Still nothing.

Me: “How did you make the order?”

Caller: “Email.”

Me: “Can I have the email address used for the order?”

I go digging for this particular email. I read the email, and it literally says:

Email: “This order hasn’t been placed due to an issue with your account.”

It says that along with providing the next steps.

Me: “Can you read the email back to me?”

I ask this to make sure he has the same email up as me, and also to be a bit of a d***.

He had me on a call for one hour, with the email in front of him. He had me digging through thousands of branches for his company, thousands of orders… Dude was waiting two months for this order too…

The checkout furthest from the store exit is card only, and has always been card only. It has about six signs on it, in it, and around it, stating this fact.

A customer sees my manager adding a seventh sign.

Customer: “Is that really necessary? There are so many signs for the customers to read!”

Manager: “These signs, like all the signs in the store, aren’t for customers to read; they’re for us to point to when customers don’t read.”

Customer: “Oh. But I read them.”

Manager: “Have you ever worked retail?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Manager: “That’s why.”

I work in the kitchen department. A woman comes in with a meat thermometer inside its open plastic container.

Customer: “I need to return this. The display keeps reading zero even though the meat is fresh from the oven!”

Me: “That does indeed sound broken. Grab another one for an exchange, and I’ll get you on your way.”

She goes into the department to get one, but then comes back, frustrated.

Customer: “They’re all like that! I think you got sent a bad batch!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, because those are the stickers on the display—ooooh.”

I realize what happened. A half-second later, so did the customer. She picks up the thermometer she’s returning, looks (actually looks) at the display, and peels off the sticker. Red-faced, she runs out of the store.

I’m stacking beer. There are four stacks of beer beside me, each six feet high. A customer walks up to me:

Customer: “Do you sell beer?”

Me: “Nope. This beer is just to show what it would look like if we did sell beer, but we actually do not.”

Customer: “Ah, bummer.” *Leaves.*

Boss: *Walking over.* “You know, I was about to walk over here and give you a grilling for talking to a customer like that, but then he replied, and I figured either he’s trolling you, or he’s genuinely that stupid, and I no longer blame you for saying what you said. Maaaaaybe don’t do it again, though.”