A couple approaches me with their items, and the woman instantly gives me a disgusted look.

Female Customer: “I don’t know. I don’t like his energy.”

Male Customer: “Oh, God, not this again. He’s fine!”

Female Customer: “He’s been around angry people all day! I don’t need all that ambient negative energy touching my fruits.”

Me: “I can hear you, ma’am. And I promise you the only way a customer can make me angry is to make incorrect assumptions about me.”

Male Customer: “Ha! He told you!”

Female Customer: “See?! He’s so negative! I need to surround myself with pure and positive energy!”

Male Customer: “You binge-watch murder documentaries and b****y reality shows, and you have a constantly updating group chat literally called ‘Gossip’.”

They checked out with me, but she kept her distance because of my “energy.”

Related:
I Don’t Have The Energy To Argue

CONTENT WARNING: Abusive Parenting

I am working at a sandwich shop. A woman walks in with her timid-looking teenage daughter.

Customer: “I’ll have the six-inch [sandwich].”

She completes her order and then pushes her daughter to the front.

Customer: “Order your sandwich.”

The daughter is unable to make eye contact, she’s visibly distressed, and she looks like she’s trying to mouth some words, but I can’t hear anything.

Me: “I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

The daughter suddenly starts crying and turns to leave. Her mother tries to get in her way.

Customer: “Oh, no, you don’t! Honestly, it’s a simple sandwich! Just order it! How are you not embarrassed to be this way?!”

Me: “If you know her order, ma’am, I can take it from you. Or she can write it down if—”

Customer: “No! She has to get over this ‘social anxiety’ thing! This is because these kids spend all their time on screens and never interacting with other actual humans!” *To her daughter* “Order your food, or you’ll get nothing.”

The daughter pauses, looks at me for a split second, starts crying again, and rushes to the exit.

Customer: “Ugh! Probably off to cry to her ‘friends’ on her K-Pop forums. Anyway, can I get an application form or a link to your online vacancies?”

Me: “Are you interested in applying for a job here, ma’am?

Customer: “Me?! Oh, God, no! It’s for my daughter! She needs to get a job out in the real world so she can get over her social cowardice!”

Me: “Ma’am, if her social anxiety is so bad that she can’t even order food, then I don’t think working in a place where she has to interact with strangers all day taking their food orders is going to be a good fit for her.”

Customer: “She’s never going to get over this ‘social anxiety’ nonsense if she doesn’t put in the work! If she stays comfortable all the time, she’ll never grow out of it!”

Me: “I’m not qualified to comment, but I don’t think she’ll enjoy working here.”

Customer: “Nonsense! It’s work; you’re not meant to enjoy it! Do you actually enjoy this job?”

Me: “Not at this very moment, no…”

The very first real job I ever had (besides delivering papers) was at a fish-and-chips chain restaurant, and the franchise was owned by a husband and wife. I started out as a dishwasher and ended up working on the line as a cook within about five months due to the high turnover.

With my departure from the dish pit, we needed another set of hands. A friend of mine dropped off her resume and was hired on the spot — great! Due to further turnover, she too ended up in the kitchen, and an older man was hired for the dishes. For reference, I am also female.

To my friend and me, this was an amazing arrangement, and we felt really special. From the outside looking in, it was illegal in so many ways; we were fourteen years old and essentially ran the entire kitchen from 3:30 pm to 10:00 pm every night, including school nights. Our parents were both very old-fashioned and believed this hard work would be good for us, so they also were none the wiser about the legalities of it.

One day, we were scheduled for our regular shift, but midway through school, I was called to the office and dismissed early from school. My grandfather had fallen down some stairs, broken his hip and knee, and been rushed into surgery. He survived and was fine, though he now walks with a permanent limp, but in that moment, it was incredibly scary, and due to his medical state, the doctors were extremely concerned.

On the way to the hospital with my mom, I texted my friend that I’d be either late or absent, and I called the restaurant owner to advise the same. He said it was no problem, to take the night off, and he would cover for me. My friend said the same, and it ended up being a super slow evening anyway; Mondays always were.

The next day, I went to school and work as normal. It was Tuesday, which was All You Can Eat Fish & Chips Day — INSANITY every Tuesday. We would not get a break or any relief between the 4:00 pm early birds and the 7:30 pm late diners; it was constantly hectic between those hours. The only relaxation we had was when it slowed down around 8:00 pm. The dishwasher no-call-no-showed, so my friend and I were pulling double duty by keeping a constant flow of food and clean dishes.

At 8:30, the owner came up to me.

Owner: “[My Name], pop in the office, and let’s chat.”

Me: “Is everything okay?”

Owner: “You lied to me.”

Me: “Sorry? About what?”

Owner: “Your grandfather didn’t go to the hospital; that was a lie. You no-showed to work to go party.”

Me: “Um… what? No, that’s not true! You can even call my mom!”

Owner: “I looked at your [old, obsolete social media website that no longer exists], and you posted a photo of yourself with a bunch of teenagers last night.”

Me: “You mean my cousins? At the hospital?”

Owner: “It doesn’t look like a hospital.”

Me: “It literally is. Look!”

I showed him the photo on my phone and pointed out the hospital chairs and window behind us.

Owner: “No, you’re a liar, and I don’t employ liars who make up such vulgar fibs to get out of work.”

Me: “I have never missed a single day of work! Ever! I’m always here right after school and stay until after closing to finish my work! I’m sorry, but please call my parents and ask them!”

Owner: “I’m going to have to let you go.”

I started to cry softly and went back into the kitchen. In my inexperienced and childish mind, I had to finish my shift and duties… so I continued doing dishes!

After about twenty minutes, the owner walked over.

Owner: “I fired you! Get out!”

My parents took an hour to come to pick me up as they were busy when I called, so I sat behind the restaurant in an alley crying. My friend quit the next day after hearing what had happened; she thought I had gone home early to spend time with my grandfather.

The restaurant declined severely in quality and service, and it ended up being sold to a new owner a few years later after the previous one cited “staffing issues”. I wonder why!

This was seven or eight years ago before I quit smoking. The place I worked at had an outdoor smoking area where most people gathered to socialize. At the time I, a woman in my late twenties, had my bag with a bunch of geeky pins, including several Marvel pins. A new guy came up to me, looked at my bag, and scoffed.

New Guy: “Are you even a real fan?”

Any girl into geeky stuff knows where this is going.

He started quizzing me on Marvel but in a weird, obscure way. Like, “In which issue of ‘X-Men’ was Kitty Pride first introduced?” kind of obscure — pedantic statistic kind of questions. When I didn’t know, he rolled his eyes.

New Guy: “I knew you were just another fake fan.”

My turn. I put on my best “clueless girly-girl” voice.

Me: *Faking confusion* “Aren’t you going to answer some questions, too? You know, to really root out any fake fans, since you seem so concerned about the concept.”

The guy was wearing a Deadpool shirt.

Me: “What’s Deadpool’s full name?”

New Guy: “Wade Wilson.”

Me: “No, his full name. What’s his middle name?”

He didn’t know. I asked if Deadpool had any kids. He didn’t know. A few more (actually) basic Deadpool questions later, he hadn’t gotten any right.

Really upping the girly-girl voice, I said:

Me: “Huh. You asked me all those weird questions, and I just asked for the name of the guy on your shirt and whether he had kids or not. I guess both of us are fake fans, then?”

And then, I just beamed at the guy. His face turned red, and he stormed out. He didn’t even finish his cigarette.

He never talked to me again. There’s no “…and then everyone clapped,” but I did get a high-five and a smirk from another smoker who had been watching.

Pulling an Uno Reverse while ramping up the girliness has become my go-to move against gatekeeping a**holes, and it is AMAZINGLY effective. I highly recommend it!

I work in a hotel. It baffles me that so many random people walk in and say they would like an upgrade. It doesn’t work like that. We don’t just give free upgrades to anyone who asks. We don’t even randomly upgrade the [Rewards Program] members. If we make a mistake with your room or reservation, we’ll ask if it’s okay to upgrade you. If we accidentally overbook a certain room type, then we’ll offer someone an upgrade. If something in your room is not functioning and it doesn’t represent the standards we keep, we’ll upgrade you. If it’s a slow night and we know you’re having a hard time, (e.g., you had a car accident, you’re escaping domestic violence, you unexpectedly lost someone close to you, etc.), we’ll quietly ask if it’s okay to upgrade you.

Sometimes, third parties upgrade people without asking them first, and I’m the one who has to take the s*** when they don’t want that room. Sometimes, (a lot of the time), third parties literally just lie to people. And sometimes, people are entitled bungholes. Even worse are the entitled bungholes who book using third parties. That’s the type of person this story is about.

It’s a very busy night. We are completely booked and have no rooms left to sell. [Guest] comes in around 9:30 pm having booked a pet-friendly single room (one queen bed) as a prepaid, nonrefundable reservation made through a third-party booking site.

Guest: “My name is [Guest], and I’ll take a free upgrade, thanks.”

And then, she just keeps going through her purse as if she didn’t just say some entitled s***. That ain’t how it works, ma’am. I blink at her a few times until she looks up.

Me: “I’m sold out. There aren’t any other rooms available to upgrade you to.”

Guest: “Well, [Booking Site] told me I could book this room and then ask for an upgrade when I got here, and you’d give it to me.”

Did they now? I can’t say whether they did or not. To be honest, it could go either way; I can see [Booking Site] doing that s***, and I can also see [Guest] making that up. Let me also say that if you book through a third party, we aren’t giving you an upgrade unless something in your room is seriously messed up and another room of that same type isn’t available. If you book a prepaid, nonrefundable reservation, I can’t put you in any other room type anyway. When thinking about who to upgrade, we cross off third-party reservations first.

Me: “Ma’am, even if I did have a room to give you, I wouldn’t be able to switch you because you booked a prepaid nonrefundable reservation, and I’m not able to edit those in that way.”

Guest: “But [Booking Site] said you would give me an upgrade!”

Well, [Booking Site] lied to you, bro.

Me: “Like I said, this is the room you booked. I’m all sold out and I can’t change your reservation.”

Guest: “Well, what am I supposed to do now? Huh? I have my kids and husband with me, and we can’t all sleep in a single room!!”

Okay, then don’t BOOK a single room for your whole family and assume I’ll give you another one for free when you show up. The entitlement! I can’t believe I have to say this, but if you’re traveling with your whole family, you need to book a room that accommodates YOUR WHOLE FAMILY.

Me: “That’s up to you. I can bring some extra pillows and blankets if you’d like, and I think I still have a rollaway available if you want that.”

[Guest] primarily speaks another language, so she has trouble understanding what I mean by a rollaway. I try using a few synonyms (cot, portable bed, etc.) and describing it, but she’s not getting it. That’s fine; I deal with language barriers on the daily with this job. Meanwhile, her two daughters are standing a bit behind her while this is all going down, and the older one — probably about ten or eleven — steps in to translate for her, which is super helpful.

Guest: “That’s not acceptable! I want to be upgraded!”

Me: “That’s the best I can do. Bottom line. Would you like the rollaway bed I offered?”

[Guest] starts to take a breath, but her daughter interrupts her and says yes.

Me: *To the daughter* “Sounds good. I’ll bring it to your room when I have a minute.”

And then I finished checking them in.

It’s pretty bad when your ten-year-old kid is more reasonable than you are.

I told my manager about it, and she checked the cameras. I thought [Guest] was just going to have four people in the room. My manager told me she counted nine people going into that room. She said, “Holy s***, it was like a clown car; all these people kept packing in there. All I could think was, ‘Yep, that’s a fire hazard.’”

Insane. People, book the room you need. Don’t walk in and expect us to give you a free upgrade. A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.