A customer is paying by card and gets to the payment confirmation prompt. It’s “yes” to confirm payment and “no” to cancel it. They hit “no”.

Customer: “Something’s wrong with your machine.”

Me: “Looks like you hit ‘no’ at the confirmation question. Just hit ‘yes’ if you want to pay by card.”

I put it through again, but the customer presses “no” again.

Me: *Forced smile* “Whoops! You pressed ‘no’ again, sir. Just press ‘yes’ when you are asked to confirm the payment amount.”

One more time, and guess which button he presses AGAIN?

Customer: “You keep doing something wrong!”

Me: “Sir, if you don’t want to cancel the transaction, just press ‘yes’.”

Customer: “Oh… hehe, I am so used to knowing not to press ‘yes’ on my computer because my son said if I did that, I would get a virus! Force of habit!”

This time, I watch very carefully as I run the card through yet again. I end up having to jump in front of the customer and force-press “yes” just to get to the PIN screen.

Customer: “Oh! It worked that time! Well done!”

The card declined, and he paid with cash.

I work at a huge Walmart-type store that’s right next to a Toys R’ Us. I am working at the register, and I greet a customer as she comes into the front of the store.

She marches past the produce and the deli section and starts to look around, appearing really confused. She then disappears for a few minutes, and I later spot her staring at some vegetables.

Eventually, she blurts out:

Customer: “This isn’t Toys R’ Us!“

That took her a scarily long time.

Many years ago, I worked for a multinational engineering company in the aerospace industry. At this point in my career, I was on secondment to the Health, Safety, and Environment department, writing procedures at the site and corporate levels. And as such, I would periodically meet up with a group of HS&E managers from other sites.

Before one particular meeting, the HS&E manager of one site was having a bit of a venting session about what had happened at his site. In addition to HS&E manager, he was also the facilities manager for that site. His site was getting ready to move to a brand new facility. One of the things that wasn’t going to be there was a heat treatment plant. The old site had one, but it wasn’t being moved.

Heat treatment is required for things like hardening steels. Being an aerospace company, there are extremely strict processes that have to be followed, and only facilities that have proper aerospace industry accreditation can be used. You can’t take a component that’s going onto an aircraft and have it heat-treated at just any old place; even if that place did it properly, if the place wasn’t certified, you’d be breaking the law to put the component on a plane.

Even with certification, a change of heat treatment plant would require full inspection of the first batch of each component that goes through it. It’s not a quick process. 

Hence the venting session. You see, this move had been known about for a couple of years. And everyone knew that the heat treatment plant at the old site would be switched off for decommissioning on a certain date — no ifs, no buts, no extensions. 

How did everyone know? Aside from the usual site-wide communications, there were regular start-of-the-week production meetings attended by managers at all levels. And this facility manager attended these meetings to remind everyone that on this particular date the heat treatment plant would be switched off. So, that was at least one reminder a week for over a year.

Our meeting happened a few days after The Big Switch-Off. 

He was venting about all the managers who rang him up on Big Switch-Off Day to complain that they couldn’t get their parts heat treated and to demand to know why they hadn’t been told.

One of my coworkers will take any and every chance she can to complain about how overworked she is and how she never has time to do anything. She’ll complain about how she “has” to keep answering all these little requests, even though management told her she DIDN’T have to and in fact, NOT to do it before her main tasks were done. She’ll complain about having a million unread emails and then go four hours without even looking at her inbox. She’ll refuse help, say she can take care of it all, and then turn around and complain that there are not enough hours in the day.

Basically, she’s got a weird mix of issues and is both consciously and unconsciously making everything even more difficult on herself.

Fortunately — for me, at least — I don’t have to directly interact with her that much for work. Unfortunately, my desk is right outside her office, so I get to hear her constantly throughout the day. I do end up needing to ask her one question, so I get up and knock on the open door. [Coworker] starts frantically waving.

Coworker: *In a stage-whisper* “I’m on the phone!”

Me: “Okay, later.”

Coworker: *Louder* “I can’t now!”

Me: *Already leaving* “Fine!”

Coworker: *Actually yelling* “This is important!”

Me: “Then get back to it; mine’s not!”

I’m already sitting back down at this point and just stop answering her.

A couple of minutes later, she comes storming up to my desk, furious.

Coworker: “I just had to hang up on [Super-Important Supplier] trying to fix the issue with their last shipment! What is it?!”

I stare at her incredulously for a few moments and then hold it a few more as I slowly blink.

Me: “Why, in God’s name, would you do that when I specifically said, ‘Okay, later,’ and told you to get back to the phone call?”

Coworker: “Because you had to come interrupt my call!”

Me: “No, you were talking super quietly with your head down, so I didn’t know you were even on a call. And I left as soon as you said you were.”

Coworker: “Well, once you were in there, it completely threw me off. I can’t concentrate when I have people walking in and out and asking me things!”

Me: “Then just close your door! Get a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign! Flip them the bird, something!”

Coworker: “Just tell me what it is you wanted!”

Me: “‘Kay. ‘Hey, [Coworker], ignore the email from me. I meant to send it to [Different Coworker with same first name] and misclicked.’”

Coworker: “THAT’S IT?!”

Me: “Yeah, maybe listen next time someone says their thing isn’t important.”

She let out a frustrated growl and then turned around and stalked off to the kitchen… where she spent twenty solid minutes complaining to the people in there on their lunch break about not being able to get her work done. Gee, I wonder why?

And as a final note: the Friday afternoon after this happened — with at least one other shouting match happening in between and God knows how many errors on her part beforehand — she was let go due to “performance and attitude” problems.

When filling up my car, I usually use prepaid pumps where you run your card, a certain amount gets reserved, and once you’ve finished pumping, you can simply close your fuel cap and drive off.

Today, I was at a fuel station where you pay afterward with a real person. Unfortunately, my mind was on autopilot, so I drove off without paying. I realised this a few minutes down the road, so I turned around and went back. 

When I got back, a police car was parked in front of the shop, and inside, the officer was chatting to the cashier.

Me: “Hi, I’m here to pay. I drove off about fifteen minutes ago. I’m terribly sorry; I usually use prepaid pumps, and I totally blanked out. I hope I’m still good?”

Cashier: “Ah, thanks for coming back. The amount is [amount].” *To the officer* “I think we can cancel the report then.”

Me: “And could you also add a double espresso, please?”

The officer burst out laughing.

Officer: “Sounds like you needed that a little earlier, man!”