[Coworker] is a nosy woman; she’s always in other people’s business. Most people accept it, but it annoys me no end.

I have a couple of VIPs visiting. [Coworker] has been bugging me for information for weeks, despite it having nothing to do with her.

The morning of the visit:

Coworker: “Oh, I booked meeting room one for you.”

Me: “You had it booked? I was trying to book that for weeks!”

Coworker: “Well, now you don’t have to, and I got lunches ordered.”

Me: “Err, why did you order lunch?”

Coworker: “A ‘thank you’ is more normal.”

Me: “Sorry, thank you. But why did you order lunch? Did you get approval? You don’t even know allergies.”

Coworker: “Well, no, but guests always eat lunch. I paid and will claim it back.”

Me: “I would talk to [Manager] if I were you. Booking anything without authorisation might not get approved. Also, we aren’t staying for lunch. When I couldn’t book the room, we decided to take the VIPs to [Other Site]; we will eat there.”

Coworker: “Well, you could take the food with you!”

Me: “We booked tables days ago. You should have said something.”

Or just kept your nose out and let me do my job.

Coworker: “Well, what am I supposed to do with fifty sandwiches?”

Me: “Talk to [Manager]. I can’t make use of them, sorry.”

[Coworker] ran off to argue with the manager, who told her that she shouldn’t be booking things without authorisation or even talking to others and that she was lucky she had paid her own money or she would be getting a write-up for spending company money.

Apparently, [Coworker] tried selling the sandwiches in the break room but took the majority home with her.

I’m in line at a warehouse chain’s gas station. The lines are nuts because gas prices are nuts and this chain’s gas is cheap and convenient. Everyone is on edge. The gas employees have to periodically sweep the lanes and clean up spilled gas. Just like at the registers when they close a line, they stop people from lining up in that lane. They finish the people currently in the queue and direct other customers into different lanes so they can cone off the lane and sweep.

I’m pumping gas and see this go down. A woman drives around the cones and into the lane they are sweeping like she’s exempt from the process and is going to get gas. An employee jogs over.

Employee: “Sorry, ma’am, this lane is closed for the moment. Can you please pull around into a different line?”

Woman: “Why?”

Employee: “This lane is closed.”

He sees an empty spot not yet filled in the adjacent lane and points.

Employee: “You can go there.”

She starts screeching.

Woman: “You don’t have to talk to me that way! I don’t appreciate it!”

Screech, screech, screech!

A guy gets out of the passenger seat. The employee is babbling, pointing, and waving. He points at the cones, the empty lane, and the broom. Screeching Lady turns into Cursing Lady and starts dropping expletives about how you can’t treat me this, and effing that, and so on. The passenger gives the employee the finger. The employee is looking around because he’s in over his head.

Woman: “Your manager is going to hear about this! You just lost your job!

Screech, screech! She and the passenger get back in the car and peel out, leaving.

I finish pumping and go find a place to park. I Google the store phone number and call. I hit the number to speak with a manager.

Me: “Can I speak to the manager of the gas station, please?”

Store Manager: “Sorry, he’s gone for the day. Can I leave a message?”

Me: “Okay, can I tell you, then? I just saw this whole thing go down. In a minute, you’re going to get a call from a lady claiming she was just disrespected by a gas employee and complaining up a storm. Let me tell you what actually happened from an objective observer, because there’s no way this guy did anything wrong, and it’s going to come down to his word versus that crazy lady.”

Store Manager: “Okay, thank you for the heads-up. It’s nice to hear that he was doing the right thing. Oh, actually, your lady is on the phone with this other manager right here it sounds like. I’ll pass along your message. Thanks for calling!”

I work in a store that sells just infomercial products. I love my job because the owner allows us to have a backbone and refuse service. Since it’s a small mom-and-pop shop, we can’t give you your money back, only store credit within two weeks. Technically, we can’t take any returns.

I come in ten minutes early to open the store like I usually do, and an old lady tries to barge in after me with a bag. I stop her from coming in.

Me: “Woah, there! We open at 11:00; you’ve still got ten minutes!”

Customer: “Oh, I didn’t notice.”

I doubt that but she waits outside until we open. I tend to open the doors five minutes before 11:00, but I know how this interaction is going to go, so I open the doors when the clock actually hits 11:00.

The woman wants to return two cat things: one a four-in-one cat toy and the other a pet hair trimmer.

Customer: “I had this toy out for an hour, and my cats didn’t touch it.”

I take the toy out of the box, and it isn’t damaged or anything, so I can exchange that.

Me: “Okay, it doesn’t look damaged or anything, so I can exchange that. What about the trimmer?”

Customer: “It just didn’t work that well.”

I open the box. The trimmer has black and grey fur all over it, and the blades are all dirty and have cat hair, too.

Me: “Well, we can do a return on the toy but not the trimmer because of how dirty it is.”

Customer: “Oh, my son must have forgotten to clean that.”

She pulls off a good portion of the hair stuck between the blades.

Customer: “It’s still good! I just want my money back.”

Me: “We can’t take it back. This is one of the items we have to be really careful and strict with. We’ve had a lot of people buy razors and trimmers, use them up, and try to bring them back with the argument that they bought them that way, full of dirty hair.”

Customer: “It’s not fair that I can’t return this! I want to speak to a manager!”

Me: “I’m the only one in the store, but I’ll call the manager.”

I call her, since she’s the one who works there six days a week anyway and was working yesterday when the lady bought the trimmer. I bring the manager up to date on the whole story (or as much as I can with the customer standing right in front of me listening to me) and send her pictures of the product.

Me: “Is this something I should return? I mean, you’re the one who will have to deal with cleaning it and possibly putting it back on the shelf.”

Manager: “It’s up to you. You also have to add the factor of whether it’s legitimately broken or not. If it is, then yeah, we can swap it out. If it’s not, then maybe we can exchange it if it’s clean. But I’ll go on your word.”

Me: *To the customer* “Did the trimmer not work at all, or did it just not work well enough?”

Customer: “It worked, but not well enough.”

I thanked my manager and hung up.

Me: “I’m not going to exchange the trimmer because of how dirty it is. We’ve had too many people bring back razors with hair or even grease on them.”

Customer: “Call your manager again! She said if the trimmer doesn’t work, I can return it!”

I call again and ask if I can put it on speaker. They argue for a bit. The manager tells her exactly what I did, and she adds the fact that we technically don’t even have to accept the return, but we do it anyway for the benefit of the customer. The customer is unhappy but ends up accepting it. I hang up the phone.

Me: “Looks like you’ll be getting $22 in store credit.”

Customer: “That’s not right! The manager I spoke to yesterday said I could return it for my money back within two weeks with the receipt!”

Me: “You’re mistaken; you must have misunderstood her. Maybe she said ‘return’ and you thought she meant ‘refund’. That’s a common misconception.”

Customer: “I want to talk to your manager again! Call her!”

So, I call her AGAIN.

Me: “What did you tell this lady when she asked about the return policy yesterday?”

Manager: “I said what I usually say: store credit or exchange.”

She allows me to put it on speaker again. They argue again for a bit, the lady insisting my manager said something completely different from what my manager actually said. She finally accepts that she will get store credit.

Customer: “Does this store credit expire?”

Me: “No, it works like a gift card.”

Customer: “Can I use it at any other stores?”

Me: “No, all the as-seen-on-TV stores and websites are independently owned.”

She finally leaves. Ten seconds later, she comes back.

Customer: “I want your name and your manager’s! I going to file a complaint with [some bureau, I don’t remember].”

I give her our first names.

Customer: “I want your last names, too!”

Me: “There are a total of three employees at this store, including me. Our first names are good enough. It’s a very small business and none of us have the same names.”

Customer: “I want your manager’s last name!”

I refused to tell her. She kept demanding it, so I ended up giving her a fake last name for myself. She finally left, saying she was going to file a complaint with the owner. We haven’t heard from her since.

I am working at my local grocery store in a lower-income part of town. Our store is having a bit of a promotion; every time someone buys something, a $5-off coupon prints out with the receipt. It is one coupon per customer, per order, and they have to spend at least $5 before the coupon will even go through.

One day, this older gentleman walks up to the cash register with his little handful of items. It all rings up to about $4.35. He then hands me the $5-off coupon.

Me: “Oh, sorry, I can’t use that right now. You need to have at least $5 worth of stuff before that can go through. Is there anything else you want?”

Customer: “No, this is it. I don’t want anything else. Just use the coupon.”

Me: “I can’t use it until you reach $5. We sell bags for $0.11 if you want some of those?”

Customer: “No, I don’t want any bags! I just want what I have and for you to use the coupon!”

I know I could probably just charge him for the bags so the coupon will go through, but I hate charging people for things that they don’t end up taking with them — it slightly feels like stealing — so I decide to try some other things.

Me: “How about one of the candy bars? It’ll be enough to push you over $5.”

The man huffs, grabs the closest candy bar, and hands it to me. I scan the candy and coupon. He ends up being $0.23 over. The transaction proceeds as normal, minus the grumpy attitude of the dude. After receiving his change, he proceeds to chuck it into the back of the room.

Customer: “I don’t like chocolate bars!”

The guy ranted about it to himself for a minute before my supervisor came over to ask what was wrong. He told her that I wouldn’t use his coupon and that I forced him to buy candy and he doesn’t even like it. She then turned to me and told me that I should have just charged him for bags.

I occasionally have to deal with customers who swap price tags on things to try and get a lower price. One time, when a customer tried this, I told them what I usually do.

Me: “That was stupid. What you did could constitute fraud, which actually has a harsher sentence than theft.”

Customer: “You can’t talk to me like that!”