In my junior year, I was PE assistant three days one week, two days the next week, and so on for the semester. On the off days, I was in study hall (school library). I played varsity basketball. So, for the off days, being bored out of my skull in study hall, I asked the teacher for a hall pass to go work out in the weight room. He made the pass out in pencil. WOW! 

For the next month, I would take the pass and change the date and time and, sometimes, I’d leave the building for an hour and go riding around. Often I did this during study hall; I would ask the teacher if I could go work out and then take off.

Finally, the end came. After I asked the teacher for permission to go to the weight room and was given the okay, I was walking toward the door of the room when this came from the teacher’s mouth.

Teacher: “Mr. [My Name], don’t you need a new hall pass? Surely you have rubbed a hole in the one you have.”

All that time, I thought I’d been getting away with this ruse, not realizing that he knew what I was doing all along.

End result: that was so embarrassing back in that day to be called out on what I had been doing, in front of the other kids, that I sat back down and never left for the rest of the semester.

Because I mentioned this story in a comment on this NotAlwaysLegal story, and it’s apparently rather popular, here’s the whole shebang.

I worked in a fast food restaurant, and this was my third robbery in as many months. I’d been working doubles due to an especially cruddy general manager calling in every day, and I was just dead on my feet as the only competent manager left in the store willing to work. (I was not paid enough to deal with that, but that’s a fiasco for another time…)

It was about 10:45 pm, and we were getting into the first big after-bar rush that hit us when my drive-thru cashier heard a rattling sound in the lobby. None of us thought much of it; it was an old building, after all, and it was summertime, so we just figured it was the AC unit. We got through the first rush mostly fine, if absolutely barren for fried foods, so I decided to just drop some fries and make everything else to order, as late as it was. 

The rattling sound came again, louder this time, and I was cussing my way back up to the lobby to make yet another maintenance report when all of a sudden, this scrawny guy in his twenties appeared from behind the pop machine. For reference, the center of the dining room was hidden behind this behemoth, so we had no clue he was out there in the slightest. 

At first, I thought that I’d locked him in and started apologizing profusely; I was on day fifteen of seven, but I felt awful that I’d missed a customer…

So I’d thought. 

He demanded chicken tenders and all the cash in the store, waving what I (and my coworkers) thought was a knife. He was definitely high on something, and something inside me simply… snapped. I told him in the deadest voice I’ve ever produced:

Me: “You’ll be waiting ten minutes for the fryer. And I only have fifty bucks available. All the other registers have been removed and the cash dropped, and I just cleaned out the drive-thru’s excess cash before the last rush.”

I’m guessing it was due to the drugs, but he simply nodded and shuffled over to wait at one of the tables. In the stronger light over the table, the knife was revealed to be a piece of metal. I started the tenders, had my team hide in the back while I grabbed my phone, and breathed a sigh of relief when the sheriff’s deputy and a squad car showed up. 

The guy got pretty new bracelets and an attempted robbery charge.

And I made him pay for the tenders.

Related:
Forget Nerves Of Steel; This One’s Got Nerves Of Retail Exhaustion

In 1979, I got a call one afternoon at my accounting office from a medical clinic thirty miles west of me.

Clerk #1: “We need a payment on your bill. It is ninety days past due and will be turned over to collections soon if you don’t make a payment.”

Me: “Who was treated at your clinic?”

Clerk #1: “Your wife had an appointment with our OBGYN.”

Me: “And when was this appointment?”

Clerk #1: “In February.”

Me: “Well, that is not my responsibility.”

Clerk #1: “Your wife gave us your name as the responsible party.”

Me: “Well, you see, our divorce was final last December, and I don’t believe I am responsible.”

Clerk #1: “You will need to send us a copy of your divorce decree to clear this up.”

And I complied.

In May, I got a call from a clothing store in a town about fifty miles southwest of me.

Clerk #2: “Sir, you must make a payment on your account.”

Me: “Who are you?”

Clerk #2: “We are [Women’s Clothing Store], and you have an account that is gravely past due.”

Me: “Where are you located?”

Clerk #2: “[Town].”

Me: “And when were these clothes put on my account?”

Clerk #2: “Your wife charged over $500 in clothes in March and listed you, her husband, as the responsible person.”

Me: “Well, gee! I don’t think that is the case since we were divorced last December.”

Clerk #2: “You will need to send us a copy of your divorce decree.”

Me: “Not going to happen. This is not the first time she has done this. It is not my fault you did not check with me before you set this up and let her leave with the clothes. If you want a copy of my divorce, then you call the clerk of the district court in my county and pay for your own copy. That is your responsibility, not mine.”

I’m working at the fitting rooms in a big box store when a family consisting of three children, their father, and their grandmother comes along. The oldest child goes in to try on some clothes while the rest of the family waits outside. The two smaller children ask their father if they can have some of the candy that they have in their cart.

Father: “No, we have to pay for it first.”

A few minutes later, they ask their grandmother, who opens up the package and gives them each one.

Father: “I told them they couldn’t have any until we paid for it.”

Grandmother: “It’s fine, as long as we pay for it.”

Father: “No, we have to pay for it first.”

They turn and look at me.

Grandmother: “What do you think?”

Me: “I think I’m going to stay out of this.”

Father: “That’s smart.”

Years ago, I worked in product support for a company that made all kinds of GPS devices. My team worked mostly with customers in Latin America, troubleshooting problems with products designed to keep track of various sports activities.

One day, I took a call from a customer in South America. He was absolutely furious because his biking activity had not been recorded on the bike computer after a long ride. He refused my assistance for troubleshooting and then my offer for him to take his device to the repair shop we had in his country, which, lucky for him, was actually in the city where he lived. He demanded we get him his missing data, impossible to do as the device hadn’t saved any. He wanted a refund, which we could not do as he’d purchased his device from a third-party vendor. He then insisted I personally needed to deliver a replacement for his device as compensation. His volume increased with each demand.

Me: “Sir, you dialed a number for the USA. We are not in [Country]. Your request is impossible.”

Customer: *Screaming* “I don’t care! Get on a helicopter and bring me my new [device] right now! I am not moving from here until I get it!”