I had a small leak in one of my tires, requiring a refill every week or so until I had the time to get it fixed. Since this was the same as the interval for refueling, it didn’t bother me too much, until one of those times I stopped at a gas station and the following happened.

The air pumps there were always free to use (since it’s considered a safety issue), and the downside of this was that it was not unusual to see the pump out of order.

I stopped at the pump (which was turned on, as usual), set the pressure, and attached the hose. Only when I couldn’t hear the compressor kicking in after several seconds did it dawn on me that it was not actually functional, and since there was no pressure in the tank, it drained my tire instead of filling it, making it completely flat.

After some swearing, I figured I had just enough pressure left to crawl to another gas station across the street. But, trying to be a decent person, I went to the station’s convenience store to inform the clerk of the issue, so other drivers would not have the same problem.

Me: “Hey, just so you guys know, the air pump isn’t working properly. You may want to put a sign on it or something.”

Clerk: “Oh, we know.”

Me: “You… know?”

Clerk: “Yeah, it’s been like that for a while.”

Me: “And you didn’t think to put a sign, or at least turn it off completely?”

The clerk stares at me blankly for a couple of seconds.

Clerk: “I don’t know. What’s the harm, anyway? Just go to the other station.”

Me: *Dumbfounded* “You are aware of the fact that when the air tank is empty and someone connects the hose to his tires, it actually removes any air they had left in them? I came here with a drivable car, and now I have a flat!”

Clerk: “Oh.”

Me: “…”

Clerk: “…”

And that was that. No apology — I didn’t actually expect one — and a look that was a mix of “So, I was wrong, who cares?”, “What do you expect me to do with that?”, and “It’s still not my problem.”

I swear, some people are not only incapable of doing the bare minimum of their jobs but also of caring the slightest about other people.

I am shopping in a crowded supermarket. I find a few items I am looking for, add them to my cart, and keep shopping.

Not far down the aisle, I see the same type of items at a better price, so I decide to swap them for the items I have already put in my cart. I then leave my cart where it was and walk the short way back to the place where I had taken the original items off the shelves. It’s a maximum of three metres or so.

I start placing the items I’m not buying back on the shelves in the correct places. A store manager is walking by.

Store Manager: “Ma’am, what are you doing?”

Me: “Oh, I saw similar items a little down the aisle that I decided to buy instead, so I’m just putting these back where they belong.”

He looks stunned and starts absolutely GUSHING:

Store Manager: “Oh, wow, ma’am, thank you so much! It’s so incredible that you’re putting the items back instead of leaving them in some random place in the store for an employee to find and return to their place! Thank you so much, really!”

I’m pretty sure he was gushing partly to make an impression on the other customers, because clearly, my (responsible) behavior was outside the norm, but I think I made that poor man’s day by taking less than ten seconds to make his job just a little less awful.

It still shocks me when I’m in a store with a friend and they decide to just leave something in a random place and say that it’s someone’s job to pick up after them.

My husband is several years older than I am, and while he has a bit of a babyface, he also has a substantial amount of gray hair.

We’re waiting to go on a test drive for a new car. My husband has his head down as he’s looking for something on his phone. The employee walks up to us and asks to see my driver’s license.

Then, he turns to my husband.

Employee: “Young lady, will you also be driving today?”

Husband: *Looks up* “I’m a man, and yes.”

Employee: “Oh, I’m so sorry. And can I ask how old you are? Because if you’re under twenty-six, the insurance doesn’t cover it.”

Husband: “I’m forty-five.”

The employee goes to sort out the paperwork for the drive, and I go to the restroom. While I’m gone, the employee returns.

Employee: “Where did your mom go off to?”

Husband: “You mean my wife?”

Employee: “Your… mom.”

Husband: “My wife!”

Employee: “No, really… Your mom, right?”

Husband: “No, really. My wife.”

Employee: “Erm… okay.”

The employee later apologized profusely for thinking that my husband wasn’t a man, but not for thinking that I was old enough to have a forty-five-year-old son.

This happened several years ago. I used to take lunch in my office in the investigations department at the police station with the door closed but not locked. Sometimes civilians who were referred to me would open the door, see me eating at my desk, apologize, and close the door to wait until I was finished, or they’d ask politely at what time they should come back. Not this guy.

He opened the door and immediately started to rant while waving some form.

Man: “They keep sending me from one office to another. I just need to get a copy of my case!”

Me: “Okay, sir, but I’m having lunch right now—”

Man: “So what? Did you come to work to have lunch?!”

I was actually so shocked by his rudeness that I left my lunch aside to take care of his issue just so he’d get out of there as quickly as possible.

I work for a small company that services industrial laser cutting machines. Since there are only a handful of us service engineers, most of our clients’ employees know all of us. They also know that I’m the least experienced one by far, having joined the company less than two years ago.

One day, I come to service a client complaining that his machine is suddenly cutting very poorly.

Me: “Good morning. What seems to be the issue?”

The client’s employee, who’s the one usually operating the machine, responds.

Employee: “All was fine until yesterday evening, and then it suddenly started cutting like crap. One of the mirrors must have cracked.”

Older laser cutting machines use moving mirrors to deliver the laser beam to the cutting point, and those do occasionally crack due to overheating.

Me: “This may very well be the case, but I need to do some testing first to see what’s going on.”

Employee: “You’re wasting your time. We’re behind schedule already because of this breakdown. Just check the mirrors.”

I ignore him and do my tests. True to his word, the cutting is, indeed, of unacceptably poor quality, but not evenly so across the cutting area, which suggests an entirely different problem.

Me: “It seems that your mirrors somehow got misaligned, not that one of them cracked.”

Employee: “But you didn’t even open the casings to look at them! And why would the mirrors move? Do you know what you’re doing?”

Me: “I’m not going to open the casings, expose the mirrors to dust, and then spend a couple of hours cleaning them if that’s not the issue. Please, let me do my job.”

The employee leaves for a break while I realign the mirrors. He comes back when I’m just about finished.

Employee: “Are you still with that crap? Why don’t you look at the mirrors already?”

Me: “Just finished. Now, time to verify that the alignment is correct. Please load up any of your programs and try cutting.”

Muttering that I don’t know what I’m doing, he does as I ask. The machine cuts perfectly.

Employee: “Well, I’ll be d***ed. But why would the mirrors move?”

Me: “I don’t know. Did anyone hit them by accident?”

Employee: “Not that I know of. What do you think we are, a bunch of apes? We take care of our machines.”

I’m about to leave it at that and write off the reason for the alignment issue as unknown, but then I decide to have a closer look. I’m glad that I did because I notice that the whole laser generator, which weighs over a ton, is not exactly where it used to be judging by the marks on the dirty floor and the bent bolts that hold it in place. Lightbulb moment.

Me: “[Employee], did anyone, by any chance, drive a forklift into the generator just prior to when you started having issues?”

Employee: *Sheepishly* “Um, yeah. Something like that may have happened yesterday.”

Cue me banging my head on the wall. Thankfully, the manager didn’t write off my conclusions as “inexperience” and agreed to install a barrier to prevent this from happening again.