I took a laser cutting class a few years ago and, now with the lack of work due to the health crisis, I’m reworking some of the art I cut into jewellery. I’ve listed on a few online selling sites, including a second-hand clothing one, just to cover all my options.

I only get a few bites, but one comes from across the country, ordering a cutout of a pair of one-inch-tall boxing gloves hanging from a chain.

One morning, I get a rather angry message from the buyer saying that she didn’t get what she ordered; they were supposed to be 3D gloves.

Me: “But, it says, ‘laser-cut,’ in both the title and the description. The image looks a bit 3D because of the design, but you can see by the shadow that it’s a 2D cutout.”

She then sends a photo of herself holding the gloves, complaining that it looks nothing like the listing’s photo; I take it and paste the listing’s photos side by side. They look identical.

Me: “I don’t see a difference here.”

She then complains over and over that it has “holes” in it, which is part of the design that gives it the 3D feel of highlights.

We went back and forth for hours over the website’s complaint chat until I stopped responding.

Later, in the afternoon, I got a resolution email from the company ruling in my favour. I knew that the company would be watching the chat and considering the buyer’s complaints. I kept the whole conversation VERY (almost too) professional, while she came off as a petulant two-year-old.

I hate selling my art because people are so disrespectful and many know how to game the faceless, online system. Before all this, most of my work was sold by commission through stores, and then by my friend who travels around offices in our business selling her art and mine during the Christmas season. We usually make an absolute KILLING, raking in thousands of dollars throughout the month and the present-buying rush. But now, these desperate times call for desperate measures.

It is September.

Patron: “I’m here to pick up an Architectural Digest magazine I put on hold.”

She accidentally put two of the same copy on hold, so I hold them up and ask if she wants both.

Patron: “Oh, yes, I’d like both. Actually, what month are they?”

Me: “December of last year.”

Patron: “Oh, no. I need December this year.”

Me: “But… it… December hasn’t happened yet.”

The patron gives me a blank look.

Me: “It’s September…”

Patron: “Yes, and I need the December one.”

Me: “Uh…”

Patron: *Realizing* “OH, MY GOSH! December hasn’t happened yet!”

Me: “I thought you might be a time traveler!”

We both had a good laugh about that one!

I am working as a server at a popular beachfront restaurant.

Me: “What can I get you to drink?”

Guest: “I’ll have an iced tea, but with no ice.”

Me: “I can get you a tea with no ice, but it won’t be cold.”

Guest: “Well, then, why do you call it iced tea?!”

Me: *Pause* “Because it’s normally served with ice in it.”

Guest: “Fine, I’ll have it with ice, just as little as possible!”

I work in a local supermarket on the hot deli counter part-time on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The store closes at 10:00 pm on Saturdays, and the counters close at 9:00 pm.

On Friday, as per usual, the store is quiet. The last chicken gets taken around 8:00 pm and we spend the last hour cleaning and preparing for the morning. We leave at 9:00 pm.

I come in the next day only to be taken into the office by the line manager and the store manager.

Line Manager: “Why didn’t we have any chickens left at half-nine?”

Me: “It was quiet and I leave at nine.”

Store Manager: “Tonight, I want to make sure we don’t run into the same situation and that the cabinet is full when you leave.”

Nine pm comes. The store is dead. We have a full cabinet with easily eighty or ninety chickens all bagged up. My job is done.

I come in the next week and I’m hauled into the office by the store manager.

Store Manager: “We had over £1,000 worth of food waste thrown away on Saturday! What the f*** are you playing at?!”

Me: “I’d like to gently remind you that you wanted that cabinet full until the end of my shift. What the f*** did you think was going to happen?”

Store Manager: “Just run it how you used to. Who wants chickens at half-nine on a Friday night, after all?”

Halfway through my sophomore year of high school, sometime around 2012, our English teacher leaves and a new teacher comes in. The new teacher upends the old teacher’s curriculum and leaves us all frazzled as a result. We also discover that she has some backward ideas of what makes a good presentation or report, so we all start failing our presentations, to our frustration. She decides to give us guidelines finally.

Teacher: “Your presentations aren’t exciting enough! They have to engage the audience. Use as many fonts as possible on the Powerpoint to keep attention. Use the fun fonts! The cursive ones!”

Student #1: “It’s tough to read some of those fonts on the projector, though. It’s a little blurry and the text comes out so small.”

Teacher: “No. You’ve just lost the art of cursive! How many of you were even taught how to write in cursive?”

To her dismay, every student raises their hands and she sputters.

Teacher: “Well, you don’t use it enough! It is very legible on the projector; you just can’t do it anymore. You also don’t put enough words!”

Student #2: “I thought text on Powerpoints were supposed to be bullet points and short summaries.”

Teacher: “Absolutely not. How am I supposed to know what you’re presenting on? I want full paragraphs of every word you say on those slides. And you need more pictures. Fun pictures. Like those moving pictures!”

Student #3: “You want GIFs? On our slideshows?”

Teacher: “Yes! Lots of them! They’re fun. They catch attention! Speaking of, use more bright, bright colors for your text! You make all the text black and it’s just so boring; it doesn’t catch attention! Use the highlighter button!”

The rest of the students eventually stopped arguing with her and we all learned to make the absolute ugliest slideshows for only her class. One time, I included several slides in a row that were just low-quality, blown-up GIFs, as a joke, and she gave me extra credit for “really knowing how to be engaging!”