I used a fast food bakery’s app to order soup for my mother and a salad for me. I walked into the bakery, saw a bag with my name, checked the list on the bag, and took it to my mother’s house. We sat down and opened the bag and pulled out a mac and cheese and two steak sandwiches.

After checking the tag again and seeing my name and my order, I decided I should call and let them know what happened as there would be an upset customer who paid more than I did and got less food.

Employee: “Hello, [Bakery], how may I help you?”

Me: “Hi. This is [My Name]. I wanted to let you know that I got the wrong order. It had my name and my order listed on it, but it’s two steak sandwiches and a mac and cheese.”

Employee: “You must have picked up the wrong bag.”

Me: “No, it has my name on it and my order.”

Employee: “I have been filling orders for six years. I know what I’m doing. You picked up the wrong bag.”

Doubting myself, I check the paper again.

Me: “No, I’m looking at the paper and it has my name and my order on it, but it was someone else’s order.”

Employee: “You must have picked up the wrong bag.”

Me: “I picked up the bag with my name on it.”

Employee: *Sighing* “Well, I suppose I’m going to get another call.”

Me: “Yes, I just wanted to let you know.”

I am the hiring manager for a large retail store. On this particular Monday, I have been reaching out to applicants about different openings and setting up phone interviews. One applicant states that she is interested in one of our openings, so I send her the link to schedule her phone interview online. These links expire twenty-four hours after being sent — which she was told about — as we typically have a lot of people scheduling interviews and it is first come, first served. When visiting the link, it gives you all available times for the next three days.

This applicant schedules her interview for the following day, Tuesday, late in the afternoon. That Tuesday morning, I get a text message from her at 9:00 am stating she is too busy for her fifteen-minute phone interview scheduled at 5:00 pm and wants to reschedule. I immediately respond.

Me: “That’s not a problem. Just click on the same link I originally sent you, and you can change your time from there.”

At 3:00 pm, I see that she still hadn’t rescheduled it, so I reach out to see if there were any problems getting it rescheduled. I ask if she needs assistance to get that processed or if she just wants to stick with the original interview time. Her interview time comes and goes with no response.

I am actually off the following day, Wednesday, but when I come into work on Thursday, I still have no response from her, so I can only assume she is no longer interested. I remove her from consideration to give other applicants the opportunity to interview for that position.

At 8:00 pm on Friday, she sends me a rude message stating that the interview link has expired. Since I am an hourly associate and I was off at 5:00 pm on Friday, I don’t see this message until I come in on Saturday at 7:00 am. I reply.

Me: “Yes, the link expired because it was only good for twenty-four hours. You haven’t responded to any of my previous messages to get a new interview scheduled.”

Her response comes within about fifteen minutes, and it blows my mind.

Applicant: “Well, excuse me for having a life. Maybe you should get one, too.”

This comes from someone who applied for one of our openings and responded enthusiastically when we reached out to her initially because she was “definitely interested” and even thanked me to the opportunity to interview. 

I have actively had to stop myself from messaging her back with the same type of attitude because, unlike her, I want to continue working and actually love my job. So, instead, I just reached out to the other stores (within the same company) in the area letting them know that that particular applicant probably wouldn’t be a good fit in a customer service role and clearly had no desire to work. I wonder if she will be able to afford this “life” she is so smug about considering our company has the highest starting pay rate in the city with the most flexible hours for scheduling around school, and she just burned three bridges.

I’m performing a client tax interview. The clients are a middle-aged woman and her equally middle-aged husband. They have two children who are in college and are not along with them today. I need birthdates to finalize taxes.

I ask the clients when the wife’s birthday is. She opens her mouth to answer, but the husband speaks first.

Husband: “I don’t know.”

His wife sighs.

Me: “Okay. When’s your birthday?”

Husband: “I don’t remember.”

I sigh.

Me: “How about your children’s birthdays?”

Husband: “I don’t recall those, either.”

Me: “Do… do you know anyone’s birthday?”

Husband: *Proudly* “I know my dog’s birthday!”

His wife snorted like she was trying to repress a laugh and then handed me a sheet on which she’d written everyone’s birthdays… except the dog’s.

I’m a bank teller.

Me: “Do you have any preference for what denominations I give you this money in?”

Customer #1: “Nope, doesn’t matter!”

I give them their money how ever I see fit.

Customer #1: “I WANTED TENS AND TWENTIES!”

The next customer comes up.

Me: “Do you have any preference for what denominations I give you this money in?”

Customer #2: “No, I don’t care. Anything is fine. But make sure it’s three twenties and four tens exactly.”

I work at a famous customizable sandwich shop. We have a pair of regulars, a husband and wife, who always order the same sandwich for their son. Today, we get to the vegetables and the wife stops me.

Wife: “My son always complains that you put too much lettuce on the sandwich. It’s really annoying me. Please put one, and only one, of each kind of vegetable on the sandwich. One slice of cucumber, one tomato, one thin strip of onion, and one-half inch long piece of shredded lettuce.”

We’re not monsters, so I gave them a reasonable amount of vegetables in a salad container.

The next time they came in, the regulars laughingly said the son didn’t speak to either of them for an entire day afterward, and the wife then prompted me to put more lettuce on the sandwich.