I work at a fairly large, fairly well-known cancer treatment center. I am a scheduler, so I’m not clinical, but I do work in the clinic and often see patients after their appointments, so I wear scrubs. Each team’s scrubs here are color coordinated so staff and patients know what team you’re on, and it’s a pretty good system. But outside of the center, they just look like everyday scrubs. You can probably see where this is going.

I am grabbing some snacks for the office on lunch break at the grocery store when I get a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a lady with a fairly full buggy grinning at me.

Lady: “Hey. Can you take a look at this spot on my son’s foot? It’s really been bugging him and it’s super swollen and I’m just worried about it.”

I am confused, of course, but she points at this huge ace bandage she has wrapped around her toddler’s foot. It does look big, but of course, it is out of my range of expertise.

Me: “I’m sorry. I’m not a nurse or clinical or anything. I’m a scheduler.”

She just continues to give me this condescending smile.

Lady: “But you’re wearing scrubs.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. I work in the clinic of a cancer center, but I’m a scheduler, not medical. You should take your son to a doctor or an urgent care if it’s that bad.”

My easy and concise explanation goes right over the lady’s head.

Lady: “But you’re wearing scrubs.”

Me: “Yes. But I’m not a nurse.”

I don’t know how else to reply because she just keeps staring at me. I repeat the thing about urgent care and go back to looking at chips. The lady is not happy; she blows up.

Lady: “Is this because of money? Can’t you do something nice for a single mom?! Aren’t you supposed to help people?! All you nurses and doctors care about is money! None of you give a d*** about the patient!”

Me: *Snapping* “Lady! I’m not a nurse!”

She continued her rant.

Lady: “Well, you shouldn’t wear scrubs, then! That’s fraud! That’s impersonating a medical worker! That’s a felony! I bet you just want the attention because of the health crisis! You need to—“

I just grabbed my chips and walked away. I swear as I did I could hear her stomp her foot like a child. I can see the confusion, but I have no idea what this lady’s logic was. Literally no medical professional is going to give a diagnosis in the grocery store unless it’s an emergency. I hope the kid is okay either way, though. He was very well-behaved for a toddler who was probably in a good bit of discomfort.

Before moving out, I used to occasionally work as a volunteer in a historical church, and I’ve seen my share of visitors, usually foreigners, trying to come in with shorts, bare shoulders, or even swimsuits, and the need to direct them either to the “disposable veil” bin or the outside of the church, something the signs outside explicitly tell you. However, there are also other unspoken rules when it comes to churches…

I was sitting down at the pamphlet table, when I saw an older man enter with his dog, which looked like some sort of bulldog. I immediately got up.

Me: “Excuse me, sir, pets aren’t allowed in the church, there’s a dog parking outside where you can leave them.”

He looks at me as if I had told him his dog had to be butchered and served to the poor.

Man: “What? Why I can’t take my dog in the church? He’s a good boy, he won’t bark or make a mess inside.”

Me: “Sir, unless your dog is a service animal, he really cannot enter the church.”

Man: “Well, he isn’t a service animal, but I want to take him inside the church! It’s too hot out there; he’d get a heatstroke!”

Me: “Don’t worry, the dog parking is in the shade and has a bowl of water if he needs it.”

Man: “But what if somebody steals him? Besides, why do you care so much? Can’t you just let me take him in?”

Me: “Sir, I can’t make any exceptions.”

Man: “You’re a d*** and not Christian at all, you know that? For people claiming to be so tolerant, you sure like to boss people around.”

He then left in a huff. I know that “no pets allowed” isn’t commonly found on church doors, but shouldn’t the saying “being treated like a dog in a church” be a hint on how acceptable they are in a church?

I was working in the window department of a large department store. A woman made her way over to the clearance section of our window coverings. She scanned the shelves for a bit before bringing over about six of a specific type of curtain.

I began to ring them in as she watched the total add up.

Customer: “Whoa, your system is wrong. Those are supposed to be $30 each. Why are they ringing up as $60? There was a sale sign!”

Me: *With a brief smile and nod* “I can go check that sign with you if you’d like so we can make sure they aren’t ringing incorrectly.”

Customer: *With a huff* “Yes.”

We made our way over to the sale sign. It simply stated SALE with a list of three different styles of curtains reduced to $30.

Me: “Ah, I see the confusion. This sale only applies to [styles #1, #2, & #3]. The one you picked is [style #4].”

Customer: “I want a manager now!”

I radioed my manager over. As soon as he arrived, she started to yell.

Customer: “THIS! IS! FALSE! ADVERTISING! DO YOU SEE THIS?! This is RIDICULOUS! I want these reduced to $30 as you are all trying to trick me into getting attached to this curtain and then selling it for MORE money than listed!”

My manager stared in astonishment before gathering his composure.

Manager: “Ma’am, this is not false advertising. It is clearly listed on the sign which items are discounted to $30, and I know for a fact that the one you picked out is discounted, as well. That is a $150 curtain you have in your hands, and it is now reduced to $60. It is simply not listed on the sign. False advertising would imply that the sign is presenting false information, which it is not.”

She ended up just throwing the stuff on the ground and storming out. My manager was defeated. He kind of just looked at me like “WTF?” and walked away to the back of the store.

I work night shifts at a petrol station. When we first opened, we had a really bad manager who refused to hire new night staff when others quit, so there were only two people to cover fourteen shifts a week. The way he did it was to force each of us to work two shifts alone every week and work every weekend together.

One week, my colleague was on holiday, so I had to do all five of my shifts by myself, including the weekend, because they only got someone to cover two shifts midweek. We are surrounded by about five different pubs, and we are the only place in our area with a twenty-four-hour alcohol license, so it was ridiculously busy on a Friday night. Luckily, there’s a store policy that when you’re alone working, the door must be locked at all times. No customers can come in; they get served through the night pay window.

Within the first half an hour of my shift, I had a customer have a go at me.

Customer #1: “Why can’t I come in?!”

Me: “We’re short-staffed and I’m on my own.”

Customer #1: “That’s bulls***! I always see loads of people in the store!”

Me: “Yes, but that’s day staff, and none of them are willing to do a night shift.”

Customer #1: “Fine. Can I get [items]?”

I went to get his items as he continued to complain, and then I came back.

Customer #1: “What kind of sandwiches do you do?”

I started listing them.

Customer #1: “Oi, I was only joking. I don’t actually want one.”

I just stared at him.

Customer #1: “Hey, I was joking! Smile, would you?”

I continued to stare at him.

Customer #1: “Ugh, you won’t let me in, and now you won’t laugh at my joke!”

Me: “You know what? I’m not serving you.”

I went and sat in the office and watched the cameras until he realised I was serious and left. That set the mood for the entire night.

I had queues across the entire forecourt for at least the first three hours. A drunk customer decided to press the switch to turn off all the fuel pumps because he thought it was a doorbell. And because I was so busy and on my own, I couldn’t go and fix it or put a sign up to say that the pumps weren’t working, so whilst I was busy serving a queue of people, someone was trying to get fuel. I didn’t realise, so he shouted across the forecourt:

Customer #2: “Are you gonna turn the pump on or what?!”

Me: “They’re not working at the moment, sorry!”

Luckily, I couldn’t hear what he said, but he definitely said something because the customers I was trying to serve turned around and shouted at him, “Hey, it’s not her fault!” So, clearly, it was something about me.

Someone else started shouting at me for being a jobsworth or something, but I can’t actually remember the reason why. And, of course, I had to do all this whilst attempting to sweep and mop the entire shop, clean the staff and customer toilets, clean the cafe, and cook the cookies, doughnuts, pastries, bread, and hot food to be ready for the morning. I also had to take in that day’s delivery by myself, too, because no one would even come in one hour earlier to help me with it.

Of course, the manager came in and asked why I hadn’t done any stocking up. I was due to do that Saturday night by myself, as well. I tried to refuse.

Me: “If you make me do it, I’m just going to close the shop and ignore customers.”

They didn’t sort anything out, so I closed the shop. After about an hour, I had a phone call asking why I was shut. We have to give notice to the area manager if we need to be shut.

Me: “I did tell you I would close if you forced me to do it again.”

Area Manager: “You’re not allowed to close!”

They forced me to reopen.

When the duty manager came in the morning, she told me:

Duty Manager: “Oh, I looked at the CCTV from Friday night, and it did look really horrible. I wouldn’t have wanted to work like that… but you’re still not allowed to close.”

Luckily, those two managers no longer work here. In fact, one was later forced out of the company as he was caught stealing money.

One day, our manager was in and out of a horrible mood for almost our entire shift. Things really hit the fan at around 12:00 pm when she burst from her private office into our general work area like a tornado.

Manager: “I don’t know what you people are trying to pull, but today is not the day to mess with me!”

My coworkers and I looked at each other curiously. It had been a rather lazy day apart from a minor incident with our Xerox machine, which was currently being serviced.

Coworker #1: “What are you talking about?”

Manager: “I have been looking for my g**d*** keys for forty-five minutes! I know one of you has them!”

Coworker #2: “None of us went into your office.”

Manager: “Yeah, right, like I believe that. I know I didn’t misplace them, and I am not in the mood for your office games today!”

Me: “Why would we take your keys as a prank?”

Manager: “I don’t know! Why do you guys do anything as a prank?!”

Me: “Fair.”

Manager: “So, give them up! We are not doing this today!”

None of us moved; obviously, none of us had them.

Manager: “Well?!”

Coworker #3: “No, really, none of us have your keys.”

Coworker #2: “As I said, none of us went into your office.”

Coworker #1: “They probably fell down.”

This conversation bounced back and forth with both our manager and my coworkers getting exceedingly more irritated at each other. By the end of the day, her keys had still not been found, and despite us staying for an additional two hours past our shifts to help her look — after we had convinced her we had nothing to do with it and she apologized for her behavior — we were not successful in locating them.

The result of this was that we had to call the owner of the company, who was then forced to pay to rekey every internal and external door for our structure. Our manager was saved by her tenure but still received a massive write-up on her employee file for “negligent handling of company property resulting in a steep monetary loss.” This made her the first person in company history to receive that write-up without crashing a company car.

The days went on, the weeks passed, and the seasons changed, and then one day, a visitor arrived. He was there to repair our manager’s typewriter which was still used on a very occasional basis to create mailing envelopes.

Allegedly, what had happened was that our manager had placed her keys inside of the typewriter while replacing the white-out ribbon and, distracted by a phone call, closed the machine back up without grabbing them. Of course, she didn’t notice this until she needed to use the typewriter again, and it was jammed due to the keyring inside of it, prompting her to call for repair.

Maybe we should stick to handwriting our envelopes.