My employer has an automatic prompt every time someone pays with a card, asking if the customer would like to donate to local pet shelters. I am finishing a transaction with a man in his forties who has not acknowledged my existence once.

Me: “Okay. Your total is [amount]. Is that cash or card?”

He puts his card on the reader to use tap-to-pay.

Me: “Okay, card. There is a donation—”

Man: “Did it go?”

Me: “No, not yet. You have to select—”

Man: *Moving his card all over the reader* “It’s not working.”

Me: “You still need to select whether you’d like to donate to local animal shelters. If not, you—”

Man: “No.”

Me: “Okay, just go ahead and press ‘No, thank you’ on the screen.”

Man: “Why isn’t it working?”

Me: “You have to hit ‘No, thank you’ at the bottom right of the screen.”

Man: “I want to use credit.”

Me: “You cannot pay until—”

Man: *Finally looking at the screen* “Is this asking for a f****** tip?! Are you serious?”

Me: “No, it’s asking about—”

Man: “I can’t believe you think it’s okay to ask for a tip for ringing me out!”

He goes on like this for a good minute. I’ve decided to just wait and let him run out of steam. As loud as he’s being, everyone around us knows he’s talking out his a**, so they just watch, either amused or glaring daggers at him.

By the time he finishes, the prompt has timed out and moved on to the payment screen. I haven’t touched the register or even been close enough to the keyboard to do so since the first time he interrupted me.

Man: “…it’s so d*** disrespectful— Oh. Good, there it goes. See, how hard was that?”

Me: “Here’s your receipt. Have a nice day.”

Man: “Get your manager. This tipping culture is obscene. You cannot—”

Me: “Sure. You can step to the side here and she’ll be right up.”

I call the manager over the loudspeaker and address the woman who has been waiting in line behind the man.

Me: “Hi. How are you?”

Woman: “I’m good. Honey, do you really ask for tips? I’ve never seen that here.”

Me: “No, it’s about donating to local pet shelters.”

Woman: “Oh! That’s good! I’ll donate $10 if that’s okay.”

Me: “That’s wonderful! Thank you!”

The man is still there, turning red as we talk. He grabs his purchases and walks out.

A moment later, the manager does arrive. 

Manager: “You called?”

Woman: “That was a man who left. But I will tell you that this girl has the patience of a saint. That man was going on about tipping when he wasn’t even reading the screen.”

Manager: “Tipping?”

Me: “The donation prompt. “

Manager: “Oh. Well… Okay, then. Um… carry on?”

Me: “Thank you!”

I know a lot of places are asking for tips for things that people don’t believe should be tipped, but if he had taken two seconds to read the screen, he would have seen it.

My first client was an $850 website/logo design/business card contract. The ad said, “I know what I want, and I will be picky.”

I know you need to quote how many free revisions you will make on a design — now. This is how I learned. I spent four depressing months making tiny changes for this client — four months of “Can we try a rounder angle?” and “Let’s change the colors (again).” and “Can I see the original design again?”

Eventually, I cracked.

Me: “Look, if you want any more revisions, I’m going to have to start charging you for them.”

Client: “You’re fired.”

He had the gall to tell me that I should try to work for a firm to “get experience”. No firm would let him have as many revisions as he demanded or charge as little as I did.

I was devastated, but two years later I have a thriving design career… and he went out of business.

I’d like to believe that as he went out of business, he was still tweaking that logo.

I work security in a phone shop in a major city. It’s pretty much the flagship shop’s overflow shop, so we aren’t busy unless the main shop is packed. Today, both shops are insanely full. There is a large queue in the shop, and it isn’t getting smaller.

This man walks in and starts walking past the queue. It’s not like the queue is hard to miss. So, I approach him.

Me: “Excuse me, sir. There’s a queue there you need to join.”

Customer: “No, I’m fine.”

Me: “Sir, there’s a queue; you have to join it if you want to talk to staff.”

He has now walked past the queue, which is about ten people long, and is standing opposite the desk by the wall.

Me: “Sir, if you want to talk to staff, you have to join the queue.”

Customer: “I heard you the first time.”

Me: “Okay, but you will not be served before the people in the queue.”

Customer: “Whatever. You go back to the door and leave me alone.”

I looked at the manager, and he gave me a nod to let me know he had this.

The man tried a couple of times to be served, but the staff told him to join the queue. Then, they just ignored him as they served the people in the queue.

The queue did not get smaller; in fact, it grew a couple of times. I watched the man get annoyed and start huffing and cursing under his breath.

He had to wait for almost an hour and a half because he wouldn’t join the queue. When the shop was finally empty, the staff took their sweet time with the paperwork. (The manager said they could and he would sort the man out.)

The manager approached him, and he was not happy. He complained about the wait, and the manager just looked at him with absolute incredulity. The man eventually said something racist to the manager, and the manager kicked him out.

For the last year, I worked at a small town grocery store. Since we are about three years out from the start of the global health crisis and infection rates are down, masks are optional and only a handful of staff and customers wear them, and I am one of the few. 

One day, I think, “You know, my coworkers aren’t getting sick. Maybe it would be okay to unmask.” And I try a shift with no mask. 

It goes fine until my last customer of the day, a little old man, open-mouth coughs in my face through the entire transaction. I take a step back to try and be as far from his cigarette breath as possible while trying to get him through my line as fast as I can. It is skin-crawlingly gross.

And this is why I will probably continue to wear a mask when working a busy public-facing job, health crisis or not.

I had just finished playing a few hours of “Demon’s Souls” when my Min Pin [Miniature Pinscher] started to beg for some attention. It was around 3:00 pm, so she was probably hungry. I grabbed my keys and drove a few blocks to my local [Supermarket Chain]. I just needed puppy food and a bottle of Tapatio hot sauce to complete my shopping for today.

I grabbed the puppy food first and then headed for my hot sauce. As luck would have it, there was only one left, but it was on the top shelf, and in the back corner. I’m 5’10”, and I have a pretty good reach, but this one was a bit too far for me. I looked around for an employee but could not find one. I decided to just hang tight and simply ask a normal customer who was tall if they would not mind lending me a hand. The first guy who walked by my area happened to be tall, and I decided to ask for help.

Me: “Hi. Sorry to bother you—”

Guy: *Cutting me off* “I don’t work here.”

Me: “Sorry, I know you don’t work here. I was just wondering if you would be so kind as to lend me a hand. You are taller than me, and I am not able to reach a bottle. Would you be able to assist me?”

I figured that if I told him I understood that he was not an employee and that I was simply asking for a quick hand from another human being, he might be cool with it. Wrong.

Guy: *In the d****iest way possible* “H*** no.”

Me: “Okay, no worries. Thank you.”

I figured he was under no obligation to help me, so don’t be rude, and don’t say anything else.

The next time a person walked by, I asked the same question, and they said sure, no sweat, and handed me the bottle. I thanked them for the help, and off I went to pay for everything.

The fifteen-items-or-less line was long, so it took me a bit to get out of the store. When I got to my car, the tall guy from before was struggling to open the trunk of his car and not drop all his groceries; he had tried to carry a bunch of bags in both arms and also carry a few boxes on top, using his chin to hold them down. He was a few moments away from toppling over and losing his eggs and fruit bag when he noticed someone nearby — me.

Guy: “Quick, I’m about to lose my grip! Please help.”

I stopped. I am guessing he knew what was coming from his expression.

Me: “I don’t work here”

I unlocked my car, and as I was getting in, I heard something hit the ground and the guy started yelling something. I don’t know what he said because I was too busy not giving a single F about that p***k. I did see in my rearview mirror that his eggs were splattered on the ground, and some fruit was rolling away under some nearby cars.

You don’t want to help a person? That’s fine; just don’t expect help in return.

Related:
Turnabout Is Fair Play