I work as a customer service operator for a bank. Our offices are closed due to the health crisis.

Me: “Hello, how may I help you?”

Caller: “I need to change my bank number and I need to change it fast! Like, now. At this moment. Now.”

Me: “All right. In order for us to change your bank number, we need your signature. We have a form for that on our site, so you can download it and fill it in. You can mail it back at us to [email address].”

Caller: “I don’t know how to find that; I’m terrible with computers.”

Me: “I understand. Do you want me to mail it to you?”

Caller: “No, I don’t have a printer. Can’t I come pick one up?”

Me: “Unfortunately, our offices are closed due to lockdown. You could always ask someone else to print the form or go to the library, or I could send you one by post.”

Caller: “But that takes too long!”

Me: “I’m very sorry, but that are the options we have. We can’t change someone’s bank number without their signature.”

Caller: “Ugh, never mind. I’ll just print it myself!” *Ends the call abruptly*

Wait… didn’t she just say she didn’t have a printer?

At our ice cream shop, we have a marble stone where we mix toppings into plain ice cream. Depending on the degree of toppings and the type of ice cream, the process can soften the ice cream some. My coworker is assisting a customer when the following incident occurs.

Customer: “No! What are you doing? Just put it on the stone!”

Being a manager, I intervene.

Me: “Hello, ma’am, is everything okay?”

Customer: “She’s squishing my ice cream up before she puts it on the stone!”

Puzzled, I glance at my coworker, who is simply portioning two flavors before she brings them to the stone for mixing.

Me: “Oh, no, ma’am, she’s just portioning—”

Customer: “It doesn’t matter. I just want the ice cream to go on the stone.”

I take over from here. I grab the spades to pull her ice cream.

Customer: “Make sure those are dry!”

As we keep them in water to prevent ice cream from sticking and making it impossible to mix, I’m hesitant to oblige but do so, shaking the spades off considerably before moving to pull her ice cream again.

Customer: “Can you dry them off completely?”

Me: *Pause* “Sure thing, ma’am.”

I take some paper towels and wipe them off before finally proceeding to pull her ice cream. At this point, there is a line to the door. I barely mix her ice cream per her indications, and I’m putting it into a larger cup so that it’s not a nuisance for her to eat.

Me: “Ma’am, I’m going to pop this into a bigger—”

Customer: “I ordered a small!”

Me: “—cup so that it won’t be too messy for you. Enjoy.”

We get to the register and she actually does tip us. Lo and behold, however, she leaves her cell phone behind. When she comes back to retrieve it, we’ve placed it in the safe for her.

Customer: “Did I leave my cell phone here?”

Me: “I believe so. Let me check for you.”

Customer: “I guess that’s what I deserve for being so rude.”

Me: “Oh, it’s all right; here’s your phone, ma’am!”

She actually continued to be a dedicated customer. She still has the same expectations each time she comes in, but she always tips! As someone who has always worked in customer service, a little humility goes a long way, and I’d much rather be appreciated and acknowledged for going above-and-beyond than get fed up with a demanding customer.

I’m a barista and shop assistant in a French chocolaterie. Pretty much everything in the shop is chocolate.

Customer: “I’d like to buy half a brownie, please.”

Me: “Half a brownie? You mean, paying half the price?”

Customer: “Yes, thank you. So that’ll be [amount]?”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, we don’t sell them by halves.”

Customer: “But I only want half! Why should I pay for half a brownie I don’t want?”

Me: “Well, we won’t be able to sell the other half, you see, so we’d be losing money. I can cut the brownie in half for you and put half in a separate bag for you to keep for later, but you’ll need to pay full price.”

Customer: *Aggressively* “Aren’t you listening? I only want half. Are you trying to make me fat?”

Me: “Er, no. Look, if you like, I can cut the brownie in half for you, and then you can throw the other half away! You don’t actually have to eat the other half. That is entirely up to you. But you’ll need to pay full price.”

Customer: “I won’t be able to not eat it if I have it! I only want half! You should be ashamed of yourself. Don’t you know that it’s people like you that are causing the obesity crisis in this country?”

The customer purchases a whole brownie and storms off in a huff.

Me: “Enjoy!”

This story is part of the Coffee Shop roundup!

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I work security and concierge for a high-end condo complex and have been doing so for ten years. I am female. I am covering for another guard who broke a hip in a major auto accident.

As the site is an extremely expensive condo complex, I have been warned that some of the residents, all very rich people, are… well… a trifle rude and overbearing to those they consider beneath them.

As an aside, I broke my back a year before I took this site and I am unable to lift or carry anything over ten pounds. I am lucky to still be able to walk.

I am at my post greeting residents, calling for the valets to bring their cars, arranging for limos, and coordinating deliveries for them when one well-heeled resident walks in the doors. She is carrying multiple heavy, stuffed grocery bags and two suitcases. She immediately drops them on the floor of the lobby.

Resident: “You!” *Points at me* “Take those up to 713! Now!“

I stare at her. This woman is at least fifteen years younger than I am, and since she doesn’t have a job — a “kept” woman — she spends a large chunk of her day working out in the complex’s extensive gym. While we may arrange for cars and drivers and do other minor tasks for residents, we are not to leave our post and are absolutely not their personal slaves.

Even though I am bristling and just itching to tell her off, I have to remain polite.

Me: “Ma’am, I am building security and cannot leave this post.”

Resident: “Pick up those bags and take them upstairs now! I have more important things to do than talk to useless menials!”

Me: “Right now, the only important thing you need to be doing is learning some g**d*** manners. Pick up and carry your own d*** bags!”

The resident’s face goes bright red and she stalks off towards the elevators, without the bags and suitcases, which she leaves in a pile on the lobby floor.

Me: “Hey, you! If you don’t have these bags cleared out of this lobby in ten minutes, they’re all going in the garbage!”

The resident muttered a string of expletives as she got into the elevator. I gave her a little longer than ten minutes and then had another worker help me drag the bags into the security office. Had she come back even within a couple of days, her stuff would have been returned — any longer and a lot of the groceries would have spoiled — but her precious groceries ended up being donated by me to a women’s shelter.

I kept the suitcases and their contents in Lost & Found for three months and then donated them to the same shelter. I figured the hard-working, very deserving women who were forced into that shelter deserved all that nice stuff far better than that rich b**** did.

The professor in this is one of my favorites to this day. I took many of his classes. He was my mentor, gave great advice, was funny, and made me strive to be the best I could be, and I visited him a few times in grad school to catch up. But this one story still gives me anxiety to think about.

In my junior year, I take [Professor]’s class that requires all students to go on a mandatory field trip as a group during spring break. However, I am attending university under two separate scholarships, one academic and one athletic for rowing. Every year, spring break is dedicated to three-a-day practices and is extremely mandatory; it’s a big deal.

I approach [Professor] on the first day of the semester after he speaks to the class about what to expect for the required field trip.

Me: “[Professor], I’m really sorry but I can’t do the field trip. I have spring break training every year and it’s mandatory. Can we find an alternative option?”

Professor: “Then you’ll get an incomplete in the class.”

Me: “…”

Professor: “…”

Me: “I… I’m not really sure what you want me to do here. I can’t go, and this class is required to graduate. I can’t have an ‘incomplete.’ But I can’t miss spring break because of my athletic scholarship.”

Professor: “Can’t you talk to your coaches? They need to know that this field trip is essential.”

Me: “With all due respect, so is spring break training. It’s the final race prep before racing season begins and because it’s such a team sport, if one person misses, it messes everything up.”

It doesn’t matter a ton, but the position I usually sit in the boat sets the rhythm and pace for the whole boat, and I try to explain that to him. Also, for those thinking, “Well, the field trip will set you up for your career,” I already know I don’t want to go into that particular field, and I am going to an additional five-week field course this summer anyway, also required in order to graduate in that major.

Professor: “What if you take this class next year and take the field trip then?”

Me: “That’s the same issue; we have spring break training every year. And I’ll be a senior so that would be even worse to miss.”

Professor: “Well, then I need you to ask your coaches to bend the rules for this. This is extremely important.”

I agreed to ask but warned him it would be a no-go. I did ask earnestly because I respected him and knew I was missing out on something valuable and fun, but I was right about their response.

Thankfully, after some back and forth between [Professor] and my coaches, he agreed to let me skip the field trip and assigned me an independent project that I would need to turn in before finals in order to avoid an “incomplete” in the class. All seemed well. My team had a great racing season — my boat placed first in conference championships — and I dove into the project.

Fast forward to the end of the year. I turned in the project with plenty of time for the professor to grade it before grades were due. Then, I waited. And waited.

As the deadline was approaching and I saw my other professors posting their grades, I still saw my grade for [Professor]’s class listed as “incomplete.” I bugged him and he assured me that he could change it after the deadline passed, and it wouldn’t matter in the long run if it said “incomplete” for a week or so. So, I stopped pestering.

Then, a few days after the deadline, when I was already home for the summer, I got a stern email from the university saying I had lost my academic scholarship because I had an “incomplete” in a class. Turns out, even just having that there on my record for a short time triggered a cascade of problems.

After a panicked email, [Professor] quickly posted my grade and apologized because he didn’t know that would happen with my scholarship. But after several weeks and calls to the administration, no one could help me sort out why I wasn’t able to get my scholarship reinstated.

I eventually called my coaches and had to escalate the issue up in the athletics department because I would not be able to cover costs without both scholarships. I had to get them to intervene and get someone to actually fix my issue in administration and get the records and scholarship cleared.

Say what you want about whether college athletics are overrated or not, but I was grateful to have those resources to help me. To this day, I still don’t know what the holdup was. Maybe it was because it was summer vacation, but that’s not a great excuse when a student is uncertain about whether they can return and pay tuition and rent in the fall.

Thankfully, everything worked out and [Professor] presented me my diploma the next year. He even wrote in my grad school recommendation letter, “She excelled in school while being a varsity athlete; imagine what she can do if she isn’t rowing.”

I took it as a compliment and commendation, but still, it seemed like tough love. Also, I’m still rowing and have even been a coach at times. You shouldn’t have to compromise your passion for your career… though I recognize that’s said from a place of privilege!