I’m selling tickets on a fairly busy Saturday night. A group of five teens comes up to me and all purchase their tickets separately for an R-rated movie. I am one of the sticklers for checking ID, unlike some of the other employees and managers. I get to the third boy in line.

Me: “And if I can just see your ID, please.”

Teen: “Why do you need my ID?”

Me: “Because the movie is rated R. It’s federal law that I check it or you be accompanied by an adult over twenty-one.”

Teen: “Well, I don’t have it.”

Me: “Well, I’m terribly sorry, but we have a strict ‘No ID, no sale’ policy here.”

By now, the boys around him are groaning and looking irritated, oddly enough, at him. The boy looks away, huffs, and then grins like he has a million-dollar idea.

Teen: *Badly flirting* “Come on, you won’t lose your job. Do it, just for me? Come on!”

Me: “As I said before, no ID, no sale. Come back with a valid state-issued driver’s license and I’ll sell you the ticket.”

Teen: “Seriously?!”

The group wanders off for about ten minutes while I furiously deal with the line they caused. The boys then come back, and the obviously underage one shoves a plain card in my face; in the second he has it there, I read, “fishing license,” and note that it has no picture.

Teen: “There! That has my birthday on it! Now sell me the ticket.”

Me: “Sorry. I still can’t. I don’t know if that actually belongs to you because it has no picture and I said driver’s license. That could be someone else’s, for all I know.”

Teen: “JUST SELL ME THE TICKET!”

I’m stressed and agitated, and I do something I have never done in the six years I’ve been in retail: snap back.

Me: *Leaning over the computer* “Look! No amount of yelling is going to get me to sell you the ticket, okay?! Bring. Back. Your. License. And I will sell you the ticket. It’s rated R for a reason.”

Teen: “WHATEVER! Have an awful day! Just whatever.”

Related:
Rated R You Serious?, Part 2
Rated R You Serious?

I am at a hairdressers’ shop I don’t normally visit, because I’ve heard good things about it and I’ve decided I don’t mind its price tag. I’m introduced to my stylist and she asks what I want. I show her with the images I brought in.

That is as far as the conversation side goes with her. It’s not like she doesn’t partake in any small talk, she just doesn’t talk to me. During the wash station and cut, she chats to everyone but me. When I do talk, she either goes, “Uh-huh,” dismissively or flat-out ignores me in favour of talking to other clients and staff.

She has just finished my hair and I’m paying for the cut; I opt not to mention her ignoring me and just not leave a tip… until this happens.

Stylist: *Loudly* “What, no tip?”

This results in people looking over.

Me: *Just as loudly* “You ignored me for the entirety of the hour and a half I was in here and you want a tip? How about putting conversation with your client higher than conversation with other stylists’? After all, I’m the one who pays and tips you, not them.”

She went bright red, and I left.

I work at a large electronics retailer with a very well-known computer repair and technical service department. I work in the computer department. I am approached by a very irate-looking customer.

Me: “Can I help you with anything today, sir?”

Customer: “You sure as h*** can! I been waitin’ up there fer yer [Technical Service] fer forty-five minutes! I got things to do!”

Me: “Well, that is an oddly long time to wait; usually, they are much quicker than that. What is it that they are doing for you?”

Customer: “I BEEN WAITIN’ ON THEM FER FORTY-FIVE MINUTES! THEY BEEN ALL KISSY-KISSY IN LINE!”

The customer holds up his minutely folded receipt.

Customer: “When I signed this, I considered that a contract for service! I HAVE [Electronics Retailer] IN A CONTRACT!”

Me: “Well, sir, again, they usually don’t take that long. Let me go up and talk to them and see what the issue is.”

I accompany the man, who continues to yell about people in line and such, up to the support counter. I try the entire way to figure out what kind of service he’s waiting for to be done.

Customer: “I was guaranteed twenty minutes by the gal! I been waitin’ for over forty-five!”

As I approach the counter, I see that they are well backed-up due to call-outs, and I get immediately waved over behind the counter by one of my tech coworkers.

Coworker: “He hasn’t been waiting that long. He’s been up here ten minutes; I’ve been counting.”

Me: “Okay… what all is he waiting to have done?”

Coworker: “Just to get his new computer set up. There are at least three customers waiting ahead of him.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll talk to him.”

I go back to the customer, who’s not far away.

Me: “Sir, how long did you say you’ve been waiting?”

Customer: “For f***’s sake! Far too long! I WAS GUARANTEED TWENTY MINUTES BY THE GAL!”

Me: “Well, as you can see, they are quite backed up—”

Customer: “THEY BEEN LETTIN’ PEOPLE GO AHEAD OF ME!”

Me: “Well, sometimes they have scheduled appointments they have to make. May I just see your receipt to verify who guaranteed you twenty minutes?”

The customer hands me his uber-folded receipt.

Customer: “Sure, but they broke their guarantee!”

I take a look at the receipt, first at the employee number and then the time stamp on the transactions. It reads 17:06. I have been working with him for nearly five minutes already.

Me: “How long did you say you’ve been waiting, sir?”

Customer: I was guaranteed twenty minutes by the gal; it’s been over twenty minutes!”

He has noticeably changed from “over forty-five minutes.”

Me: “Well, sir, if they did guarantee you a twenty-minute wait, then they are still within that time period. The receipt says the transaction ended at 5:06 pm. I have, on my watch, 5:21 pm. So, they still have five minutes left.”

Customer: “Really? Is that the stance you’re going to take?”

Me: “Well, I’m afraid that time doesn’t lie, sir. You are still within that time frame.”

Customer: “If that’s the way you’re going to be, then you’re gonna lose a lot of business!”

The customer then took his receipt in a huff and went to sit on the bench, just like that. He probably extended his wait by acting so childish, since no tech really wanted to work with him.

I am working the only open register on my end of the store. The store has a strict carding policy for forty and under. A woman in her mid-thirties walks up with a bottle of vodka, talking on her cell phone.

Me: “Hi. Did you find everything okay?”

Customer: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

She seems to be in a hurry.

Me: “May I please see your ID?”

She sighs and pulls it out, all flustered and rushed. She’s still on the phone.

Me: “I’m so sorry, but I cannot sell you this vodka. Your ID is expired.”

Customer: “You’ve got to be kidding me! I am obviously over twenty-one.”

I point at the pin on my shirt stating our forty-and-under policy.

Me: “I’m sorry, but it’s store policy and I am on camera.”

Customer: “Well, here’s my liquor license; it has my date of birth on it.”

Me: “A liquor license is not a valid form of ID. It says so on the bottom of the card.”

She angrily picks up her IDs, putting them away, still all flustered.

Customer: *Talking into her phone* “You will not believe this. The dumb b*** at the grocery store won’t sell me the booze cause my ID’s expired!”

She stormed off out the door and up the street. Serves her right. I wouldn’t have carded her if she hadn’t been sooo rude walking up on her cell phone and acting like I was an inconvenience.

My friend is the kind of person who would happily go to the ends of the earth to help his family or friends, but on the flip side, he has no patience at all for people who are intentionally rude or stupid.

A while back, his neighbor started an argument with him over some minor issue — I don’t think either of them even remembers what the original complaint was — and the neighbor blew it all out of proportion and ended up banning my friend from setting foot on his property ever again and blocking all forms of contact with him.

This suited my friend just fine, and he happily ignored the neighbor for some time. That is, until a package intended for the neighbor got delivered to his house by mistake. Irritated that he now had to do something about this package, he decided to be a bit maliciously helpful.

My friend took the package up to the start of the neighbor’s very long driveway and followed the rules to the letter: without setting foot onto the neighbor’s property, he leaned carefully over the property line and chucked the package as hard he could toward their house. As it flew down through the air, the wind caught it and pushed it to the side… and right into a deep snowbank. The package was covered in white plastic wrap, so it became instantly invisible.

Well, he thought, I literally did everything in my power to help, without breaking any of their rules. Not my problem anymore.

We never did hear from the neighbor about it, but we assume they were probably quite confused to find the package there when the snow melted.