At our sandwich shop, we have orders with numbers that mean they get lettuce and mayo, and if someone orders a “slim [number],” it is just meat and bread. A customer walks in and talks to me very nervously, so I try to be helpful and straightforward as we talk to try and help him relax.

Customer: “I’d like a regular turkey sandwich.”

Me: “Do you mean a slim or the actual [number] sandwich?”

Customer: “I don’t know. My wife asked me to get a regular turkey sandwich here. So, I’ll guess I’ll go with whatever the regular is.”

I explain what comes on the sandwich.

Me: “Sound good?”

Customer: “Sure, whatever.”

Thirty minutes go by and the phone rings.

Me: “Hello, thank you for calling [Store]. How can I help you?”

The caller is a screaming lady.

Lady: “ARE YOU DUMB?! You gave my husband the wrong sandwich. You f****** idiots, I want a refund and a new sandwich!”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, did your husband order a turkey sandwich?”

Lady: “Yes, and there is also all this other s*** on it! Why would you f*** up my order?!”

I attempt to explain that her husband was told everything before ordering, but she continues to cuss me out over the phone, so I set the phone down to get my manager. My manager picks up the phone and we both realize she never stopped her tantrum.

Manager: “Yes, this is the manager, ma’am. You need to calm down. If you bring the sandwich in, we can explain and figure this out.”

Twenty minutes later, I see a woman park in front of the glass of our store, and she looks pissed, so I walk into the back to grab my manager.

Lady: “You f****** idiots, this is not what my husband ordered!”

The manager pulls out our copy of his receipt and tries to explain.

Lady: “Are you all this f****** dumb?! My husband ordered a regular turkey sandwich and you f***ed it up!”

Manager: “Listen, I need you to calm down and stop swearing in the store; I’ll make you a free sandwich.”

Lady: “It’s the least you could do after making me f****** drive down here because of your incompetence; we are never coming here again!”

We gave her the sandwich and to both our benefit, we never saw her or her husband again, but it did explain the nervous demeanor of the husband.

I work in a collections department for a large bank. I’m answering the phone.

Me: “Hello, this [My Name] in collections. How can I help you?”

Caller: “I received a letter saying that I am past due and my account will close if I don’t pay.”

She then proceeds to read the entire letter to me.

Me: “Yes, that would be correct. You are [amount] past due and [number] days past due. Your last payment was on [date]. Do you want to set up a payment?”

Caller: “I have not been paying because I have not received any statements since the last time I paid, so I thought a payment wasn’t due.”

I confirm that her address is still the same and make sure that her statements aren’t being suppressed. There isn’t anything wrong, so I tell her that it might be an issue with the post office.

Caller: “If it was an issue with the post office, then why was I able to receive this letter but not my statements? Can I speak to [Manager], the manager that signed this letter to me?”

Me: “No, ma’am, that letter is automated and they do not work here.”

Caller: “How do you spell your name? What department are you in again? You’re just having trouble finding them. I retired from [Bank] and I know how things work there. Do you work in [State #1] or [State #2].”

We have two main headquarter locations.

Me: “I work in [State #2].”

Caller: *Scoffs* “THAT’S why.”

Me: “Okay, well, would you like to set up a payment?”

Caller: “No, I won’t be paying until I can see the statements showing how much my payments are.”

Me: “Okay. Do you have access to online banking? You can see the amounts on there.”

Caller: “No, I am too old for that; I don’t use that.”

LITERALLY every single job at the bank uses computers all day. Please tell me how you worked here without using them.

Me: “I can get someone to send another statement out, but there is a possibility that it will not arrive before the account closes on [date]. You are still responsible for payments on the account each month.”

Caller: “Yes, I would like another statement sent out. I’ll pay when I receive it.”

I got someone to send the statements out and sent her on her way to another department. I still don’t understand how she worked on computers at a bank but can’t do online banking. I also don’t understand how someone who worked at a bank doesn’t know that a payment is due on an account every month regardless of statement issues. This lady was in her late fifties, so it’s not like she was incredibly old, either. I found it super funny that she thought some manager personally addressed this letter to her.

In 2013, I started my first “real job” as a security guard for an industrial storage facility in Central Oahu. At the time I had a coworker who was habitually late to work. This was a massive problem before I had been hired and it continued to be a massive problem while we worked together.

The nature of our site meant that there needed to be a guard twenty-four-seven, so if she was late, the guard working the shift prior to hers would be forced to stay until she arrived. In my first month, I was held back more than sixteen times for anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours due to her tardiness. She never called to say where she was, why she was late, or when she would be in, and it was always a gamble as to what time I would actually get off work.

Within the next month of working, my sixteen-year-old car decided that having an alternator was no longer on its list of priorities, and while I was waiting on getting paid to buy a replacement part, I was fortunate enough to have my father to take me to work. I maintained my standard of not being late for work until the second week when there was a car accident on the freeway and we got stuck.

Three minutes after my shift was supposed to start, [Coworker] called me to ask me where I was.

Me: “It appears there was a bad accident on the [Freeway]. We are trying to push to [Valley] to get off and continue to the site on surface streets.”

[Coworker] immediately went off.

Coworker: “You need to be on time! It’s incredibly important that you’re here to relieve your coworkers! It’s about work ethic. You have a responsibility to be at work not only on time but early for the pass-down of information between shifts!”

I absolutely lost it.

I knocked her down several dozen pegs and told her in no uncertain terms that she, of all people, did not belong talking to anyone about being on time. I outlined all of the times she had been late and how late she had been. I pointed out the fact that I had never said a thing to her about it and asked her how she could have the balls to speak to someone that she had been screwing over since day one about “responsibilities”.

She didn’t have a response. Apparently, prior to my arrival, the other guards had just taken this kind of thing in stride. In her pause, I continued, telling her that she was not a supervisor or an assistant supervisor and that she did not belong calling me and trying to level corrective actions, especially on my personal phone.

She was pissed and ended up hanging up on me after sputtering some nonsense about “tact” and “manners”.

By the time I got to work, she had left, leaving the supervisor at the time manning the guard shack. The supervisor asked me what in the world had happened as [Coworker] had asked him to handle it for her and I told him straight up, verbatim, the entire conversation.

The supervisor laughed. He agreed with me on every point and was actually happy that someone other than him had finally put their foot down with her.

[Coworker] didn’t last much longer past that day. She ended up getting eliminated when Hawaii enacted the Guard Card later that year as she did not possess the required high school diploma or GED to qualify for the license.

Unfortunately, she was replaced by the biggest problem to ever set foot on that property, but that’s a story for another time.

I worked at a liquor store that sold wine. People often wanted help finding wine. Some of these people were happy to have help. Others didn’t want a lowly service worker knowing more than them. Those people would demand wines that didn’t exist — i.e. a red Pinot Grigio or a sweet chardonnay — or they’d confuse brand with wine variety.

My favorite was when they’d say they had this wine someplace and give me a vague description of the wine and expect me to know it. I hated having to deal with them because they were always short with us, and they’d belittle us and whine about how we didn’t help them.

I also loved the situations where they’d gotten wine as a gift. They knew nothing about the wine they were buying, but they complained about every suggestion based on what they told us.

And then, there was this customer.

Customer: “I’d like to buy my friend a nice Pinot Noir for under $15.”

I offered her a selection of wines.

Customer: *Angry* “Why are you showing me cheap wines?! I want to buy your budget fine wines!”

Our doctor’s office only has a small car park. When that is full, you have to go up and down the narrow adjoining road hoping to find a space. Even though I’m early, by the time I find a space, I am already late.

Me: “Sorry I’m late. Some clown parked across both parent and child spaces. It took me ages to find one with enough space.”

Reception: “Good timing. I was about to give away your appointment.”

Me: “Busy again, then?”

Reception: “Yes, always is this time of year. I have a dozen people waiting for a cancellation.”

I sign in and the receptionist quietly asks me:

Reception: “What was the registration of the car you mentioned.”

Me: “Oh, I… err, don’t know, but it was a grey Ford, fairly big one.”

She types away.

Reception: “Could it have been a grey Ford [model], registration starting with L14?”

Me: “Yes, exactly that.”

Reception: “Yep, I thought so. Thank you.”

I sit down and wait. I wasn’t expecting what happened next:

Reception: “Excuse me, Mr. Smith?”

Mr. Smith: “What?”

Reception: “Can you move your car, please?”

Mr. Smith: “I’ve only got a check-up. I will only be five minutes!”

Reception: “We have asked you before about your parking. Please move your car.”

Mr. Smith: “…”

Reception: “You won’t get seen without moving your car.”

He reluctantly stomps out of the office. As I get called to go in to see the doctor, I have to say something.

Me: “That was amazing. Thank you.”

Reception: “Oh, that’s nothing, but if he’s not back in fifteen minutes, he will lose his time slot. Now that would be amazing!”

I had my appointment, and on my way out, I couldn’t see the grey Ford anywhere. I can only wonder what happened.