I work for a pizza place. I’m a driver mostly, and I’m also a shift leader when needed. I’ve been doing this for seven years.

This morning, I have a customer call in a plan-ahead order a couple of hours in advance for a party at a local park. No problem; the order is only five pizzas, and it is close by.

My driver takes the order, and I get a phone call from the customer. I look up at our tracking screen and see that the driver just left the park. I’m expecting a complaint.

Customer: “I feel bad because your driver never gave us a receipt; she just dropped the pizzas on a table and left without saying more than ‘hello’. I tried waving her down, but she didn’t notice. I wanted to leave a tip!”

Me: “You can still tell me what you’d like to add, and I can have it adjusted.”

She is so nice and sweet and feels so bad.

Customer: “Please add $16.”

Fast forward to my driver returning. The front door opens, and the first thing I hear is my driver yelling and complaining.

Driver: “I got stiffed on that order!”

This driver has been a huge pain for the last few weeks, and she’s already on my last nerve.

Me: “Shut up.”

I point to the adjustment for the tip.

Me: “Why didn’t you give the customer their receipt? It’s no wonder you didn’t get a tip there.”

Driver: “There’s [health crisis], so there’s no point.”

Me: “The order wasn’t even ‘no contact’.” Even then, you still have to give the customer their copy of the receipt.”

My driver gave horrible service to someone who was the nicest person I’ve had as a customer in a long time. That was the most undeserved tip I’ve ever seen. I honestly debated removing the tip, but there was a risk of the customer seeing it, so I left it.

I am working as a bartender during Halloween. I came dressed as an old western-style bartender, complete with mustache and accent. We have the evening split up into a little costume party for kids and families in the earlier hours and then an adults-only costume drink-fest later on.

Regular: *Laughing at my costume* “You look so stupid.”

Me: “You should probably come back after the kids have gone because you’ve come dressed as a c**t.”

He didn’t talk to me for weeks after that. It was blissful.

Client: “We need a new menu designed for our restaurant.”

Me: “We can do that. We will make a proposal and send it to you next week.”

Client: “Maybe you can work on it during your free time to get it done faster.”

Me: “Oh, h*** no.”

There’s an evil woman who is good friends with my boss and always needs special treatment.

She comes in one day and starts talking to my coworker.

Customer: “I just got back from vacation and got my bill. I went over on my minutes, and I need a bigger plan.”

This plan is $40 more a month. My coworker is going to set her up on this plan, but I decide to try and help. If she was on vacation and used all her anytime minutes roaming, then she will only pay the overages once. She doesn’t have to pay more.

Me: *Casually* “Oh, where were you vacationing? If it’s one of the countries on our roaming list we can—”

Customer: *From zero to screaming* “If you interrupt me again, I will talk to [Boss] and have your a** fired.”

Okay. Pay more. F*** you.

And she did pay more.

We sometimes need to travel for work, and when the global health crisis hit, we were stuck with lots of unused airline tickets. While the airlines gave us travel credit, they are in the name of the passenger, so while I paid for their ticket, it is each employee who has the credit.

Talking with our clients, it appears we’re going to be meeting virtually for the foreseeable future. Rather than let the travel credits expire and have no value after December 31, 2021, I told our team that they can use them for personal travel; I’d rather see them use them for a vacation than for them to go to waste.

Remember, the credits are only in the name of the original passenger, nobody else, so my employees can use them for themselves but not other people, e.g., spouses, children, etc.

After announcing this, I got an email from [Employee]’s wife, who already contacted me asking for a free color printer earlier this year.

Wife: “I think it’s nice that you’ve given the employees the option to use the company airline tickets for personal travel, but it’s only good for him, not me, and not our kids. I was wondering if you’d consider offering some sort of deal for us, like 50% reimbursement, so we could all go on vacation.”

WTF?! At a minimum, I’m paying for 25% of their vacation airfare, but that’s not good enough! I emailed back with a curt message.

Me: “No. This was offered as a token of appreciation for the hard work everyone is doing. Going forward, please do not contact me in the future unless it is an emergency regarding [Employee].”

I then called my employee and told him that, barring some emergency involving his grave illness or death, I didn’t want his wife emailing or calling me ever again. Despite my tone that, in hindsight, was probably harsher than it should have been, he was very apologetic and said she’d written to me without his knowledge.

You know what they say: no good deed goes unpunished.