It’s the late 1980s. The reception area where I work mainly deals with incoming and outgoing mail and business clients. While I’m on my own, a well-dressed gentleman walks in and addresses me in an American accent.

Visitor:
“Good afternoon. I’m here to see Mr. [Senior Partner].”

Me:
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir, but the Partners’ Entrance is just across the way, over there. If you speak to the receptionists there they’ll be able to get Mr. [Senior Partner] for you.”

Visitor:
*Losing it* “G**D*** IT! I have flown all the way from San Francisco for an important meeting, and all you can do is tell me I’m in the wrong place! WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH THIS G**D*** COUNTRY?!” *Storms out*

I am left there, thinking to myself:

Me:
“I don’t know what the country’s problem is, but I know what yours is. Seriously, you just flew five and a half thousand miles and you’re complaining about walking another ten yards?”

I am having dinner at a restaurant with a young woman. We are sitting near the hostess’s podium. Two women in their fifties come in and wait by the podium. One of them looks at me, sniffs, and says in a loud voice, “I don’t think much of men who go out with women young enough to be their daughters.”

I respond in an equally loud voice, “It’s not surprising that this woman is young enough to be my daughter since she is my daughter.”

The woman is gracious enough to apologize.

While I am running the cash register, I notice two young women in their early twenties join the line, whispering to each other and glancing at me. When the first woman comes up, she blatantly ignores me for the first few items, and then gets angry when something goes wrong. The scanned prices weren’t what she thought they should be, she swiped her card backward, cancelled her payment, dropped the receipt, etc. Finally, she walks away, waiting just outside the store. The second woman approaches.

Me:
“Hi, did you find everything today?”

Woman:
“Yeah, I guess. What was her problem?”

Me:
*Confused* “Oh, I don’t know.”

Woman:
“What are you going to do about her attitude?”

I realize she’s trying to get me to say something about the previous customer.

Me:
“Nothing.”

Woman:
“She was kind of a b****, don’t you think?”

Me:
“No, things happen.”

Woman:
“But she was being rude. Doesn’t that piss you off?”

Me:
“I’m okay.”

Woman:
*Getting annoyed* “But she was accusing you of all that stuff.”

Me:
*Shrugging* “Your total is [total].”

Woman:
“You’re absolutely fine with someone talking to you like that?”

Me:
“She’s entitled to her feelings.”

Woman:
“I can’t believe— Don’t you want to slap her?”

I hand over her receipt, smiling.

Me:
“No. Here’s your receipt. Tell your friend to have a good day!”

The woman stood there for a moment before snatching the receipt from my hand. When she got out the door, the first woman met up with her, where they stood talking and looking at me for quite a while. I smiled and waved at both of them. They turned and disappeared into the mall.

Where I am, the law states that stores can only sell beer and wine up until 11:00 pm, and the registers will refuse all sales at 11:00 on the dot — they won’t even scan at that point until 8:00 am — and at 9:00 we lock the door so people can only be buzzed in or out. One night, at 10:50, two guys come in, of age, asking about what beer is on sale.

Me: “We have [lists brands], but you have less than nine minutes to get it to the register; otherwise, I can’t sell it to you.”

Customer #1: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

The customer is clearly not listening. I go about my business tidying things up and doing my job. I see it’s now 10:55. They’re still looking at different beers, picking up the cases, looking at the prices, discussing, just taking their time, so I go into the beer fridge.

Me: “Hey, guys, if you want beer, you have to grab it now and come to the register. At 11:00 exactly, the registers don’t allow any sale of alcohol; it’s out of my control.”

Customer #1: “Yeah, yeah.”

Customer #2: “Hey, man, we’re deciding; just give us a minute.”

As they say this, other customers come in for random snacks, soda, cigarettes, etc., and I vaguely forget why the original two customers are in. They finally decide on a case after another five minutes, and when they come to the register, there are three people ahead of them. I see this, and when finishing with the first customer I let them know:

Me: “Hey, guys, I can’t sell you that. Please either put it back or put it down, and you can buy anything else, but both legally and literally, I cannot sell that to you until 8:00 am tomorrow.”

They don’t respond and just roll their eyes. They finally make it to the cash, and I’m hoping (incorrectly) that it’ll be easy.

Customer #1: “Hey! So, just this, and two packs of cigarettes!”

Me: “Two packs of cigarettes coming right up!” 

As I say this, I grab the case of beer, put it on the floor behind the register, and turn to grab what they asked for.

Customer #2: “Hey, man, that’s not funny. Give us our beer.”

Me: “I told you multiple times and was nice enough to warn you when you had five minutes. You’re well past the cut-off point of buying beer.”

Customer #1: “You didn’t say s***, you f****** a**hole! You’re gonna give us our beer for free now for this or I’m going to jump over that counter and f****** kill you.”

I’m used to angry people by now, so the second he got belligerent I hit the silent alarm, and the police station is literally across the street, so within seconds I can see three officers walk out the front steps and cross the street, headed straight for our door.

Me: “Our cameras record sound, too. And kudos to you if you can reach me before they reach you.”

I pointed to the officers moving very quickly towards us. It very quickly turned into the most bizarre cat-and-mouse game inside the store I’ve ever seen, with one of the idiots trying to run full speed, arms outstretched, into a pull door laughing, thinking he was making it home free.

This story is part of the Convenience Store roundup!

Read the next Convenience Store roundup story!

Read the Convenience Store roundup!

Due to my experience with databases and the specific reporting software we use, I often get called in to help build reports that coworkers in my company will run and use. This experience means that I’m also generally their first resource when those reports break or give odd data.

On this particular day, I am contacted by a fairly new coworker who is taking over a particular report that a prior coworker had been running. She wants me to explain how the report works so that she can understand it all. I am ahead on my work, and I’m happy to do so as my coworkers understanding the reports cuts down on the amount of troubleshooting I end up needing to do. I go over to her desk and sit down to explain things.

Me:
“To start with, how familiar are you with [Reporting System]?”

Coworker:
*Cheerfully* “Totally unfamiliar. This is my first time using it.”

Me:
*Laughing* “Well, that’s okay; it is designed to be pretty user-friendly. It mimics a lot of the reporting functions of [Common Database Program], if you’ve used that.”

Coworker:
“Nope!”

Me:
“That’s okay. So, first, let’s open up the report.”

My coworker opens the program, then pauses.

Coworker:
“Um, where is the report?”

Me:
“It will be under [Folder] in the Report tab.”

I walk her through opening up the report and go through the various columns in it, explaining where the data for them came from. The entire time, she is cheerful and attentive and seems to be following along easily.

Me:
“All right, so, this last column is a bit tricky, because I had to manually code it rather than relying on what [Program] has available. It pulls from–”

Coworker:
“Don’t condescend to me.”

Me:
*A bit startled* “Uh, sorry, I didn’t–”

Coworker:
“I’m a professional. You shouldn’t talk down to me.”

It was like a switch had been flipped. She went from cheerful to icily angry in an instant. There was nothing different about how or what I was explaining, as far as I could tell. I kept going, finishing up the explanation, and she ended up thanking me in the same cool tone. I went back to work, feeling slightly weirded out from the sudden tone shift.

I ended up getting called into my boss’s office a week or so later to be asked about it, because apparently, my coworker had complained to the boss about me trying to “foist off” my reports onto her. That really confused my boss, given that she was the one who’d assigned my coworker to take care of that report in the first place.