I work at a grocery store. We use a third-party service for delivery. Yesterday, a delivery driver picked up two orders and accidentally delivered one to the wrong customer. The customer called us right away and got our department manager, who luckily was able to get in touch with the driver before she arrived at the second customer’s house. She turned around and drove back to this customer to deliver the correct items.

The drivers are required to take a picture of the orders on the doorstep, and our manager is able to see these. We have visual proof that both orders were left at the same condo as the unit number is visible in both photos.

You’d think that would be the end of it, but the customer called back twice this evening after our manager left demanding a refund for the order she never received. Both times she called, she got a coworker who was off yesterday and didn’t know the details, and I only know what the manager told me. It’s also late, so all of salaried management has left for the day; we’re on our own.

Coworker #1: “I’ve got this customer on the line saying she never received her birthday party supplies yesterday and was promised a refund she hasn’t received yet.”

Me: “Oh, that’s the lady the manager was on the phone with all day yesterday. The driver did go back and deliver the correct order. She shouldn’t be entitled to a refund.”

One hour later, she calls again.

Coworker #2: “This lady is yelling at me over the phone because she received toilet paper instead of birthday party stuff yesterday and is demanding a refund now.”

Me: “The driver delivered them. The manager got the pictures. The condo unit number in the picture is the same for both the wrong order and the right order, so we know they got dropped off at the same place.”

Coworker #2: “She just keeps repeating that she doesn’t want the toilet paper. She wants her $400 and party supplies.”

Me: “She should have received her items. [Store] isn’t going to issue a refund since, according to our photos from the driver, she got them. She has made it very clear she received the items she didn’t want, and the condo number in that photo from the driver is the same condo number as the photo with the party supplies.”

Coworker #2: “Now she’s demanding she speak to you because you clearly know everything.”

I take the phone.

Customer: “Since you’re just feeding that boy information like he’s a puppet, I’ll just talk to you. I received toilet paper. I don’t want toilet paper. I want $400!”

Me: “Ma’am, unfortunately, because we have the photos from the driver of the party supplies at the same condo as the toilet paper you did receive, we can’t issue a refund.”

Customer: “I don’t care about those photos! I did not get my order!”

Me: “Listen, ma’am, our manager has gone for the day. We don’t have any authority to help you tonight. You can call the manager in the morning, and she can help you more than us.”

Customer: “I hope you know I am pressing charges. I am recording this phone call and will be sending it to the police. Now give me your name, rank, and job title.”

Me: “I am a personal shopper. I have no rank and cannot help you anymore tonight. Please call tomorrow when our manager is here.”

She hung up on me.

The manager called the customer who had actually ordered the toilet paper. We repicked the items for her and she came to get them herself. That customer did not give us any trouble.

I illustrated a sixty-page book for a client I had previously worked with satisfactorily for many years. The book is now in stores. The client and their publisher contact me; they want to make a larger version of the same book.

Client: “We want you to redeliver the illustrations for the new version. The proportions are different, so you probably have to change the composition of each page. And we need you to redo all the illustrations because we actually didn’t like them at all in the first book. Make them more beautiful, with more details, like a real illustrator would. Oh, and since we paid you too much on the first version, it seems fair that we don’t pay anything this time around for what are essentially fixes.”

Me: “Wait… The budget for the first book was proposed by you, and all illustrations were happily approved after some corrections. And now you want me to redo the whole book for free?”

Client: “Yes. The whole project depends on you!”

A lady comes in to cancel an item off her order since the delay is several months. I cancel it for her.

Customer: “Does this mean I lose my discount?”

At my store, we calculate discounts by taking the total amount of the discount and distributing it among all items.

Me: “No. You still get your discount on the other item. Canceling the one won’t affect the other.”

Except that wasn’t the question she was asking. This customer thought that we should give her the discount she received on the canceled item and apply it to the other one. No. Absolutely not. First, the second item was $70.00 (originally $130) and the discount for both items was $100.00 total, so she had already gotten it heavily discounted.

When I explained this, you would have thought I had cussed at her.

Customer: “You are robbing me of my money! You should give me the added discount since the delay was your fault!”

I said no again. She took her things, told me to keep the canceled item on the order since she didn’t want to lose her discount, and yelled that I was robbing her.

Yes… I am robbing you of $50.00 you didn’t pay. To top it off, she had gotten something else entirely free for the delay weeks prior.

I started a new job while the direct manager was on paid time off. I’d only met them for a short period of time during my application. I was hired for a vacancy that had been open for quite a while and the company just couldn’t get someone to stick it out with them. That was a huge red flag, but it was a very difficult and specific role and I’d done something very similar for a partner company, so I knew it was possible that they just hadn’t found the right person so far.

I started training under the supervision of my manager’s manager and a colleague who had done the job on top of her own for a time, and everything went well at first. It was extremely similar to what I had done in the past, and after just a few days, I was doing it on my own. The colleague was very relieved and complimented me, and the manager was satisfied with the positive feedback we got from the customers.

Then, my direct manager came back and I found out why all the others had quit.

Manager: “Did you do [task]? And why didn’t you send me a list if you’ve done it?”

Me: “I did, and the list is on your taskboard in the program.”

Manager: “No, that’s all wrong! I need that in my mail so I can print it out and check it! Don’t you know anything?”

Me: “We are not allowed to print that data! And what do you mean? Check it? There’s nothing to check. It’s just a list with all jobs done today, automatically documented by the system. What do you want to check on paper? Just do the final authorisation in the system.”

Manager: “I need to check if you’ve run all jobs! Are you stupid?”

Me: “Again, how do you do that on a printout? The list is generated by the system when a job is run through. A job that’s not on the list isn’t done and still stays in the inbox until it’s done. I finished all the jobs I could. The others are on ‘wait for reply’. They’re not authorized by the customer yet. So, what do you need that list for? Since we are not allowed to print that, there’s no way to get it out of the system into a list to send to you.”

Manager: “Then type it out and stop arguing. I need that list!”

He stomped off and I was stumped. I then wrote a mail to him, with his boss and my colleague in CC, telling him that I wasn’t trained in creating the list he wanted, asking how to get that data out since typing a list with hundreds of jobs wasn’t feasible, asking if there was any news about a change in data protection I wasn’t told of, and telling them that I didn’t appreciate not being fully trained.

I got the answer that there weren’t any changes in procedure and to just do my job as I was told and send in my list.

Five minutes later, my direct manager appeared at my workstation again and started berating me. In his opinion, I was belligerent and insubordinate.

Unbeknownst to him, his own boss, who had been in the loop during training, had appeared behind him not much later. He turned white as a sheet when he heard his boss quietly telling him to come into his office.

The next day, I got a message saying that, from now on, all processes would run directly through my boss’s boss, and my former direct manager was no longer responsible for me.

I was now directly supervised by my boss’s boss, and the coworker who trained me was then given the role to follow up and authorize the jobs I’d finished.

That wasn’t a problem for her to do since that last step was a mere formality; she was only expected to do a random test on a few of them and then mass-authorise them all — a job that could be done in thirty minutes tops.

In the following days, we could see our manager’s boss meandering through the department, speaking with everyone, asking them what they did and how they did it. After a few more weeks, my former direct manager was gone and my colleague was promoted to his role.

As we heard through the grapevine, that stupid moron had created tons of extra steps and “checked” all kinds of lists all day that no one needed with several colleagues who thought it was all authorized by his boss.

Somehow, he’d managed to convince his boss that all of them were needed because his employees were so lazy and constantly skipped steps. No one ever spoke up, so it went on and on.

But the person who had my job retired, and he tried to pull this stunt at that task, too, although it was impossible to follow his demand and the retiree didn’t do it, either.

But the new hires didn’t dare to fight that nonsense; they tried to type the list and finally quit in frustration since they couldn’t get any real work done because of that and got scolded. Neither his boss nor the colleague knew about what was going on.

Me not being able to keep it down and bucking against his insane demands exposed his practices. It turned out he’d barely done anything productive all day when others followed suit. I’ve always been a hothead, and it had gotten me in trouble before, but this time, it was just what was needed: a person without a filter!

Our big boss was now much more involved in our everyday work to not let something like that happen again. He mentored my former coworker much more closely and she became a great manager.

I worked the night shift as a senior carer. One morning, I had a spasm through my neck and shoulder and couldn’t move my head at all. I needed help to stand due to pain. I hoped it would ease through the day, but by 3:00 pm, I still couldn’t move.

I contacted the off-duty seniors to see if I could cover the shift and got a possible yes. I called work at 4:00 pm — my shift was to start at 8:00 pm — and spoke to my superior.

Supervisor: “Can’t you just come in?”

Me: “I can’t physically f****** move without help. [Husband] is having to help me go for a f****** piss. How the f*** do you expect me to assist anyone with anything? I’ve tried to sort cover for you. Next time, I won’t f****** bother.

And then, I hung up. I expected to get written up but surprisingly didn’t.