My girlfriend comes home to find me setting up a pair of surround sound speakers.

Girlfriend: “Are these new?”

Me: “Yeah, they are the ones I told you I was getting.”

Girlfriend: “They look expensive.”

Me: “They were a bit, but I’ve been putting money away.”

Girlfriend: “Well, if you have all this money, you can treat me.”

Me: “Wait, no. I saved up while you spent your money on yourself. I suggested you start a savings account, but you didn’t want to.”

Girlfriend: “You have savings and you are going to just spend it on yourself?”

Me: “Yes.”

Girlfriend: “Well, maybe I will do the same!”

Me: “You do already. You spend every paycheck on clothes and shoes. I told you that you should have at least some savings. What happens if your car breaks down?”

Girlfriend: “I’ll just use yours.”

Me: *Pauses* “I’m not sure you’re getting this whole equal relationship thing.”

I guess that was the beginning of the end. We never moved past the “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is also mine” thing. It didn’t last long.

I live in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a Homeowner’s Association, but it does have an old retiree that still seems convinced it is his job to enforce some nebulous rules for the neighborhood that he has made up in his head.

My wife and I are expecting our first child, so my office needs to be turned into a nursery. I decide to build a detached garage/office in our backyard since I work from home and think we will need the storage. I’m building it myself but I do everything by the book and have all the proper forms, signatures, and building codes all checked and double-checked.

The retiree still takes extreme offense to this for reasons I will never quite understand and has delayed the build by months, as the city continually asks me to stop work while they investigate “anonymous” reports of me violating building code or doing work without a permit. During one of the periods between investigations, I am doing work on the building when the retiree walks up to my front yard and starts talking to me over the fence. 

Retiree: “Why are you still building that thing?”

Me: “Why wouldn’t I? My wife and I want it built, so it’s getting built.”

Retiree: “The city came out here the other day to shut you down for building that death trap.”

Me: “No, the city came out the other day to investigate the fourth ‘anonymous’ tip that turned out to be false — just like the last time, they said it was up to code and perfectly fine.”

Retiree: “What do you know? You aren’t a builder. You’re just throwing up that eyesore that will probably cave in the first time it rains! You need to pull this all down!”

Me: “Okay.”

Retiree: *Pauses* “Really?”

Me: “Sure, as soon as you give me a million dollars.”

Retiree: “Why on earth would I do that?”

Me: “For a million dollars, I’ll sell you the property and you can do whatever you please with it.”

Retiree: “I’m not paying you any money!”

Me: “Then you don’t get a vote on what I do on my land. Either turn your a** around and get off my property or the cops will remove you.”

The cops did end up needing to come to remove the man. But thankfully, the record of him trespassing and making multiple false reports discredited his future reports to the city and I was able to finish the building in peace.

I am the author of this story of a previous associate that, after making a big deal of legal breaks and scheduling, claimed to my store manager that I had fired her. I became involved in a minor HR case that was tossed out the window due to no evidence that such a thing had occurred. I haven’t thought about this associate in years, but I definitely remember her.

One night, I get called to customer service to help dispute a customer’s problem with our return policy. Lo and behold, it is the former employee that is berating my cashier. We lock eyes and she immediately shuts up. Feelings of irritation bloom, but I push them aside and put on the best, overly-sugary customer service voice that we all have.

Me: “All righty, what can I help out with?”

Cashier: “She would like to return this belt. It’s broken, but there are no tags and no receipt.”

Customer: *Curtly* “Yeah, and you didn’t have any more belts, so I just want a refund.”

I take a look at the belt to see if there is anything we can do. The belt is completely destroyed; the buckle is torn off and there are tears connecting the holes. Our last-ditch option would be to find a belt on the sales floor, but since she said she didn’t find any in stock, she’s sealed the fact that she won’t be getting a refund.

Me: “Why, I’m surprised at you, [Customer]. You know our policies. You know we can’t return anything without the tags and receipt.”

Customer: *Glaring at me* “[Location] lets me return things without the tag or receipt all the time.”

Me: “Oh, will they? Well, I’ll have to give them a call and fix that problem. However, we won’t be returning this for you today. There is no way to get it back into our system without a receipt or a tag. Sorry about that.”

Customer: “You can’t look it up in the system or whatever?”

Me: “We’re not supposed to, but I could humor you. Which store did you purchase it at? What method of payment?”

Customer: “At [Location] with cash.”

Me: “Ah, I’m afraid we’re hitting a brick wall again. We don’t have access to [Location]’s purchases, and a cash tender won’t be enough to identify your previous purchases.”

Customer: “THIS IS F****** BULLS***!”

Me: “Please watch your language, [Customer]; this is a family-friendly store. I’m sorry we couldn’t resolve your issue today. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

She grabs her destroyed belt and stomps out of the store.

Cashier: “What just happened? She was cussing me out before you got here, and then she went silent.”

Me: “She used to work here a couple of years ago and accused me of firing her. She was mad because I wouldn’t let her go to lunch on a three-hour shift.”

Cashier: *Pauses* “I’m glad I never got to work with her.”

Related:
Won’t Be Long Before You (Lunch) Break

I make and sell custom scented candles on my own website. I always try to accommodate my customers to make them happy as well as making sure I turn a reasonable profit to keep the business going. As such, I have certain policies in place.

I have a twelve-hour cancellation window because I work quickly and can’t afford to use materials on orders that might get canceled and then just sit there, unsellable. I have a “No Returns” policy to save customers and myself return shipping costs, but if there’s an issue or something gets damaged in transit, I send a replacement at no charge to the customer.

If a cancellation is requested outside the policy time frame, I always try to find out why so that I can work with the customer, if necessary, since I might then be out the cost of unsellable merchandise. Sometimes an unexpected financial hardship is the reason they want to cancel, which, of course, I am fine with honoring. All my policies are clearly stated on the website as well as on the order confirmation page where they physically have to tick the box to say they agree to the policies before confirming the order.

The customer orders a candle. More than twenty-four hours later, the customer contacts me via my business email.

Customer: “Hi, I’d like to cancel. If I can’t, what’s your return policy?”

Me: “Cancellation requests are limited to within twelve hours of purchase, and I have a ‘No Returns’ policy, as was clearly stated on the website and at the bottom of your order confirmation. But may I ask why you want to cancel?”

Over a week goes by and I don’t hear back from the customer. I’ve already made this particular order, so I haven’t put through the cancellation until I hear back from them, in case we can work something out.

Customer: *Over a week later* “Hi, did my order get canceled?”

Me: “Did you receive my reply? I was waiting to hear back from you before proceeding.”

Customer: “I shouldn’t have to tell you why I want to cancel.”

Me: “I often make candle orders right away and sometimes ship within twenty-four hours, hence the policy. And since you requested the cancellation outside the timeframe, I asked for a reason so that I can work with you. Otherwise, my policy is pointless.”

Customer: “Since it didn’t get canceled, it should have been processed by now. Why hasn’t it been processed?”

Me: “Because you requested a cancellation, and I was waiting to hear back from you and you took over a week to respond. Would you prefer the candle or the cancellation?”

Customer: “Well, since I obviously can’t cancel and can’t return it, then I want the candle.”

Me: “It’ll be in the mail tomorrow. Thanks.”

In mid-2020, I saw a job listing for a small local business that made award ribbons and trophies. It was a will-train, full-time position, with “no smokers” being a requirement. (Nobody wants award ribbons that smell like cigarettes.) I applied and got an interview which ended in a job offer. The pay was significantly better than my part-time minimum-wage retail job, as was the regular nine-to-five weekday work schedule. I was thrilled.

The first two weeks went very well. I learned quickly and got along with my boss and the coworker who was training me. The third week, I was asked to only work part-time since business was impacted by the health crisis. I agreed to the cut and figured I’d be fine until things improved, so long as I had at least one full day of work per week. I wanted to make a career out of this job, so a (relatively) short-term sacrifice seemed worth it for long-term employment. 

Four months after being hired for a full-time job, I found myself working one to two days a week and often being sent home early. I did what was needed to help the business during this difficult time without complaint. Then, one Friday, my boss told me, “We need to talk,” as she handed me my paycheck. These words filled me with dread.

My boss launched into a speech about how bad business was.

Boss: “There’s not much work to be done right now. Things always slow down in the winter; in fact, we close during the winter.”

I was never previously informed of that. Then, she moves on to talking about me.

Boss: “While your work is of excellent quality, you’re far too slow.”

This was the first I’d heard any negative feedback regarding my job performance.

The boss then looked me in the eye.

Boss: “You don’t actually want to work here.”

This was a statement, not a question. I was so shocked and upset that I couldn’t think of a response and just silently stood there.

Boss: “We’re going to look for someone else to fill your role, but we’ll call you in to help with large orders.”

I agreed to this, still in shock at being essentially fired without warning. Just as I thought I couldn’t possibly feel any worse, the boss dropped one last comment.

Boss: “I had a lot of men apply for this job, but you were the only woman I don’t hire men.”

All this time, I thought I’d gotten the job because of my relevant qualifications and abilities. But it turns out none of that mattered; I was hired because the boss is sexist.