I did IT consulting back in the early 2000s. I am out at a law firm that has a bunch of older women for secretaries. Their scanner/copier/fax machine is completely down. The toner has somehow exploded on the inside and coated every last internal piece; they have no idea how, no one will cop to it, and that’s how it is when we get the call.

I am NOT the copier guy, and they have a contractor to call when that stuff explodes, but they instead call me to drive out there to CALL SOMEONE ELSE to come fix it. They will not let us call from our office — oh, gods, no — we have to drive twenty miles to their downtown office to CALL the number on the front is in big bold letters that says:

Sign: “CALL US FIRST IF THERE IS A PROBLEM: 1-888-DON’T-BE-EFFING-DUMB.”

I take out the toner and do some spot cleaning just to be nice. The scanner/copier/fax machine is wide open, all the doors on it are open, and the toner cartridge is sitting next to it. This unit is like four and a half feet tall, so it’s hard to miss when it’s broken.

One of the ladies walks up and pushes the filthy cartridge over. It hits the floor and goes “poof”. There is ink everywhere.

She then closes the doors to the machine and tries to scan a document. The unit is off with no power so, of course, she yells at me.

Worker #1: “WHY CAN’T I SCAN?! I NEED TO SCAN! HURRY UP AND FIX THIS!”

Me: “This machine is obviously down. The company that you have a contract with is coming out to resolve the issue.”

She storms off and yells very loudly at the boss that I am incompetent. Sigh, fine. Mind you, the office manager sent out a companywide email thirty minutes ago saying that the unit will be down for the next day or two.

I then grab a white sheet of legal paper and write on it in giant Sharpie letters.

New Sign: “UNIT IS NON-FUNCTIONAL. USE UNIT ACROSS THE HALL.”

I then go grab the broken parts and put them in the trash. I come back two minutes later.

Another lady has taken the paper note that I wrote, crumpled it up, tossed it aside, and is trying to scan.

She looks at me covered in toner, then at the walls covered in toner from the previous worker knocking it over, and then at the unit covered in toner with the doors wide open.

Worker #2: “Is the scanner not working?”

If I had any humanity left in me, it would have died right at that moment.

I started a new job as a lorry driver and had perhaps the worst possible thing happen on delivery. I lowered my tail lift to the ground, and the back door man took the delivery off and reloaded my tail lift with waste and returns. Our tail lifts have ramps that lock upright to restrain the load on the tail lift. It is impossible for me to see from the trailer, and the back door guy must ensure that it is safely locked before I move the tail lift. He gave me the all-clear and I lifted away. I pulled a cage off the tail lift into the trailer and I heard the worst possible noises: crashes and the screaming of a child.

I lept out of the trailer and noticed that the contents of the tail lift had fallen off the unlocked ramp and landed on a small girl who was passing by with her school group. She seemed mostly unhurt but obviously upset. She had two teachers looking after her, so I ran to the back door guy to ask what had happened. He hadn’t stowed the tail lift and was having a cigarette when he should have been supervising.

I reported the incident to my office, and then I followed their advice and reported the incident via the store’s incident report line. The back door guy lied and said that nothing had hit the girl, just landed near her and scared her. When I got back to the yard, I went straight to the office and wrote a statement admitting to any errors I think I made, as well as the fact that it was witnessed and I took details.

Fast forward a month. I’m dragged into a meeting and suspended pending investigation and likely sacking. The manager attempts to steamroll me, but I manage to speak up.

Me: “I will not sign anything here or agree to anything without a Union representative present.”

Reluctantly, the manager calls in a rep, who talks me through everything. He has me accept the suspension and explains that it’s a formality and that the main investigation will be where I can make my case. He somehow gets the investigation arranged for the next day. During the investigation, he lets me speak but adds context or helps me to explain things better. At the end of the meeting, he makes his own statement, which calls out the main three reasons that I was suspended.

Rep: “‘Number one: the incident wasn’t reported properly.’ [My Name] followed the direct advice of management and then further wrote a statement without being prompted. ‘Number two: the tail lift ramp was not secured.’ It was impossible for [My Name] to see if the ramp was secure, and he relied on the back door guy to clear it. He can’t be held accountable for the ramp since he wouldn’t have been able to secure it even if he did see it. ‘Number three: [My Name] did not immediately check on the person who had been injured.’ Firstly, had the ramp been stowed, this would not have happened. Second, the girl was being attended to by her teachers, and [My Name] wouldn’t have been able to help much more. He did offer to call an ambulance and offered to share details when asked. All in all, whilst this is a horrible, unfortunate incident, [My Name] was incredibly unlucky to get caught up and did everything right from his end. I don’t see why it took a month for this to be investigated since [My Name] did report it.”

The end result was that I was completely cleared of fault. The back door guy was sacked for not doing his job properly and not reporting the incident. The store manager was sacked because he did not ensure that his staff knew the correct back door procedures, and the third back door guy (who should have assisted with the delivery in the first place) was put on final warning for not doing his assigned duties. (He was actually clocked out on break during the incident.)

Our store has just closed at 10:00 pm. We announced that the store was closing three times: a half-hour before, fifteen minutes before, and five minutes before. Finally, it is closing time, and I am talking to the last customer in the store.

Me: “Excuse me, sir, the store has just closed. Please bring your purchases to the checkouts.”

The customer nods but continues to browse. I go and complete a few closing duties, but I still see him browsing five minutes later.

Me: “Sir, just to let you know, the checkouts will turn off automatically a few minutes after the store closes; I would advise proceeding to the checkout immediately.”

The customer nods again but makes no attempt to move. I go and complete some more closing duties. I notice that the customer is STILL browsing, so I get my manager to make an announcement over the store speakers that we are closed.

Finally, after two store announcements and with the closing duties now complete, I walk up to the still-browsing customer and hand him a mop and bucket.

Customer: “What’s this?”

Me: “For cleaning. I assume, since it’s now forty minutes past closing, you’re still here after four announcements, and the registers closed ten minutes ago, that you’re volunteering to help us with closing duties?”

Customer: “How rude! Where is your manager?”

Me: “My manager is the one that told me to give you the mop and bucket.”

The customer — finally — stormed out. Apparently, they complained to corporate, but corporate’s response was that after closing time, you’re not a customer… you’re a trespasser!

Related:
Not So Closed Minded, Part 29
Not So Closed Minded, Part 28
Not So Closed Minded, Part 27
Not So Closed Minded, Part 26

I’m a beverage vendor for [Globally Popular Company], and my job is to stock shelves of various grocery stores with our product, which gets delivered daily by our company trucks. (My boyfriend happens to be the truck driver for this route, so he knows what I go through at my job, and vice versa).

I’m having an already particularly rough day at work, with nearly double the amount of work I usually have to do, because the vendor who works on my days off called in sick and left me with all their work from the day before.

I’m huffing and puffing around my second grocery store of the day, sweating up a storm, pulling one-ton pallets of beverages, and my back and legs are killing me. I see a lady up ahead, standing at the mouth of the aisle I’m approaching with her back to me. I just have a feeling she’s going to back up the moment I try to pass, pulling my one-ton pallet behind me, without looking. My instincts are correct.

She backs up, stepping right into my path, still without looking, and I heave my entire body weight (which isn’t much) against the pallet jack to get it to stop. I must make quite a commotion of sounds as I attempt to skid to a stop with the handle of the jack slamming and digging into my already sore back, as my feeble 125-pound body attempts to halt the momentum of one ton of beverages to avoid us both being roadkill, as she turns around, startled.

Lady: “Oh!” *Laughs* “Careful, those things will run ya over!”

She laughs some more and wanders off — back down the aisle she just backed out of. I keep quiet but resume trying to get the pallet going again with a subtle scowl on my face.

Shortly after that, I have a pallet parked in an aisle as I’m pulling from it to stock shelves. I have it as close to the opposite shelf as possible to allow for customer traffic to easily pass by. Most customers are fine and give me the classic Midwest “Ope, lemme just sneak right past ya, here” with a smile and go about their shopping. Not this gal. She approaches from the east, stops, and glares at my pallet that isn’t even in her way.

Gal: “Well, geez! Just park everything right in the middle of the aisle, why don’t you?!”

She makes a big show of pushing past me and my pallet (with plenty of room to spare) while glaring at me the entire time. I silently go about my business, my Give-A-F***-O-Meter ticking down several more notches.

A little while later, I’m stocking our products near a self-serve water jug filling area that the grocery store provides. The grocery store employee uniforms are black polos with nametags and dark slacks. I’m wearing my bright red company T-shirt with the well-known logo blazed across the entire front and gray shorts. A man turns up and picks up one of the big empty water jugs.

Man: *To me* “It says ‘pre-pay’. What does that mean?”

Customers frequently can identify what company I work for and ask specific questions about our product, or they just make casual conversation with me, knowing I don’t work for the grocery store. I casually shrug.

Me: “Hmm, I don’t know.”

The man gets a sour look on his face and mutters as he turns away.

Man: “Fine, then. Just play dumb, I guess.”

Me: *Gesturing to my shirt* “Sir, I don’t work here, so that’s why I don’t know.”

Man: “Uh-huh. Whatever.”

I finally finish my extremely long and tiring day, clocked out, and drove home, where my boyfriend was already relaxing on the couch after his long day. Without so much as taking off my shoes, I collapsed face-down onto his lap.

Me: “Just kill me.”

He gave me a foot rub, instead.

The state of New Jersey has skipped the “make you pay for single-use bags” at stores and jumped straight to “grocery stores can’t give paper or plastic single-use bags.” Fast food places, restaurants, and other to-go type services can. This was finalized about six months before it went into effect, but some places have tons of signs up and are playing announcements, while others seem to pretend the law isn’t going into effect, and everything in between.

I’ve gone ahead and purchased a pile of reusable bags after stockpiling as many plastic ones as possible. (They’re perfect for the little “food scraps” bin in the kitchen.) The law is now active and bag holders are removed or filled with reusable ones you have to purchase. I make my first purchase with my new bags at one of the stores that DID have signs up everywhere.

Then, I get home and realize I only have the few that had stuff in them. Panicking, I call up the store I went to.

Me: “Hey, um, I’m a bit of an idiot. I think I left a few reusable bags on the self-checkout register? The one all the way on the end by the counter.”

Clerk: “Hold a moment, please.”

The clerk goes off to check, I assume, and comes back with a bit of attitude in her voice.

Clerk: “Can you describe the bags please, sir?”

Me: “Yeah, they’re canvas totes about the size of your old single-use ones, they have obnoxiously long handles and [Brand] stitched on the inside of the rim, and they’re kind of a beige, light tan sort of color?”

Clerk: “…Oh. Yes, we have them. Will you be in to pick them up?”

Me: “Any chance I could grab them on the way in to work tomorrow morning?”

Clerk: “Of course. I’ll be in tomorrow; just ask for [Clerk] at the desk.”

I go in the next morning, and sure enough, she’s there, and after confirming, she hands me the bags.

Clerk: “I’m sorry for giving you the third degree on the phone last night. We’ve had a lot of people trying to scam bags since the law started the other day.”

Me: “Honestly? You asked like two questions, standard check stuff. Let me guess, ‘You never let us know,’ ‘This is illegal,’ ‘I deserve compensation,’ yadda, yadda, yadda?”

Clerk: “Yesss! How did you know?”

Me: “Five-year veteran of the Great Retail Wars at [Other Supermarket] and general hater of average human stupidity.”

She laughed. I thanked her and wished her a good day. I turned to leave… and immediately doubled over laughing when the person behind me tried to say he “deserved free bags” because “nobody told him” about the new law. I don’t think he got them.