We are at a theme park. It’s a hot day in the UK – 30°C, which is classed as a heatwave. My son usually gets a ride access pass (like the British version of DAS), but they’ve just changed the system, and we didn’t manage to get a ticket. Because of this, we are queuing.

Luckily, the queues aren’t very long, but on the water ride, it was thirty-five minutes. Five minutes in, we notice that somebody in the group ahead of us is telling two women to join them.

Queue jumping is not accepted under any circumstances in this theme park, and my twelve-year-old son tells them they can’t do that.

“It’s only us”, they say, waving their hand to shoo him away, and cut in front of us anyway. My son looks very irritated at this, but then lets it go, and we queue as usual.

Once we got to the front of the queue, my son very calmly told the attendant that this woman had cut in.

My boy had let the women queue for thirty-five minutes, thinking they had won, only for them to be removed from the ride as they were about to step on to it.

I’m working the express checkout, which, as far as customers are concerned, is a fun suggestion.

A man comes through with a full cart. Not a basket. A cart, and overflowing.

Me: “Sir, this is the express lane. It’s for ten items or fewer.”

Customer: “Yeah? And I’m expressly in a hurry.”

Me: “I understand, but I can’t ring up that many items here. There’s an open lane just behind you.”

Customer: “If I wanted to wait in a long line, I’d have gone there already. Just ring me up. It’s all the same to you.”

I glance at the growing line of people behind him, everyone clutching a sad lunchtime sandwich.

Me: “Sir, this lane is for people with ten items or fewer.”

Customer: “You think I can’t count? I’m in a rush. Just do your job.”

I smile politely, grab my intercom, and page a manager. She walks over, and I gesture toward the cart.

Manager: “Sir, this lane has a limit. You’ll need to move.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous! I’m in a rush! I’m not moving this cart again!”

She shrugs, turns to me, and says:

Manager: “Cool. Just ring up his first ten and hold back the rest. Since he’s in a rush, he can get the rest tomorrow.”

She immediately unlocks a checkout next to me and announces she can take card-only express lane customers there, mitigating the damage this jerk is causing to the line behind him.

Robbed of his power, he sighs loudly and makes a dramatic attempt to move to an appropriate lane.

Related:
Be Careful How You Express Yourself At The Express Lane, Part 2
Be Careful How You Express Yourself At The Express Lane

I own a local electronic repair business: cell phones, iPads, etc. Once I showed up at an office to do a phone repair, and had the client paged to come meet me.

I was wearing a uniform with my company’s name on it and carrying a large tool kit. The customer walked right past me to the person standing behind me, who was wearing a suit and carrying a manila envelope.

Guess my gender. Yep, I’m a woman. Guess the gender of the person behind me. Yep, a man.

It could not possibly have been more obvious which one of us was a technician there to do a repair, and yet…

Manila Envelope Guy: “I’m sorry, but if you want someone to help with your phone, maybe you should ask the lady wearing the [Company Name] uniform behind you.”

Client: “Oh, I talked to a guy on the phone to make the appointment. Do you even know how to fix phones?”

Me: “Sir, I’m carrying a toolbox and wearing the uniform. Why would I show up if I didn’t know how to do my job?”

The client waved his hand dismissively at me.

Client: “I’m sorry, but I need to have a real expert come fix my phones.”

Me: “…Very well. I will close the ticket and mark it as you have refused services from a woman. This will put you on our blacklist.”

Client: “You’re just a tech, so you don’t have that power. You just do what you’re told. I’ll explain things to your Manager.”

Yes, he emphasized the ‘man’ part of manager. Sigh. I can’t make this stuff up.

I walked out, closed the ticket, and filled out the notes part, using my work phone.

Getting back to my building, I walked in to see my [Male] receptionist avidly waiting for my arrival, looking like he was going to bust a seam if he didn’t laugh to relieve the pressure.

Me: “Let it out [Receptionist’s Name], then you can tell me how it went.”

Receptionist: *After laughing his a** off.* “Okay, so I got a call from [Client]. He complained that the ‘little girl’ we sent him was rude, unprofessional, and had no idea what she was doing. I pulled up our app and read your notes out loud to him.”

Me: *Smirking.* “I’m sure he didn’t like that, one bit. Let me guess, he claimed I was lying.”

Receptionist: “Badda bingo. I also told him that his account was marked as blacklisted due to his sexism. He demanded that I remove the blacklisting, as ‘a lowly tech doesn’t get to make those decisions.'”

I knew what was coming and shared grins with him.

Receptionist: “Oh yes, I did indeed tell him, ‘Sir, that was the company OWNER you just disrespected. Since there’s nothing else that can be done for you, I’m ending the call here.’ Then I hung up on him, sputtering.”

Me: “Thanks, [Receptionist]. That’s the second-best comeback to ‘Sir, this is a Wendy’s.’ ”

Receptionist: “What happens if you actually tell them that you’re not a tech, but the owner?”

Me: “Best case, they laugh, then look embarrassed when they realize I’m not joking. Worst case, they tell me to go home, make my man a sandwich, and stop taking jobs from qualified men.”

Receptionist: “Yeouch. I’ve got to admit, I was surprised by his attitude. Did I pop into a way-back machine to the 1970s?”

Me: “Sadly, no, This kind of thing has happened multiple times to me over the years, all of which have happened between 2014 and now.”

By the look on [Receptionist’s] face, I feel like I might have destroyed his soul a little bit. For me, it is, sadly, business as usual.

One of my coworkers is from West Africa. He’s an intelligent polyglot who is up for a promotion; however, one of the managers who makes the decision is a bigoted a**hole. It’s noticeable that he never promotes anyone who isn’t white, despite 70% of the workforce being people of color. 

That could just be a statistical anomaly, but it doesn’t excuse all his casually racist snipes at coworkers who have darker skin or thicker accents.

I’m in the factory office one afternoon running through some data entry numbers with an admin guy, when the racist manager comes storming out of the office in a rage. He curses, kicks a trash can, and storms out.

From out of the office comes the site manager, the big boss.

Me: “What was that all about?”

Site Manager: “After I said my choice for the promotion was [West African Employee], [Racist Manager] wanted to insist on a literacy test as part of the promotion process.”

Me: “Okay? And you disagreed?”

Site Manager: “Oh, no, I agreed. Whoever gets the position will be writing up reports, so proficiency in English is a requirement. We introduced the test a couple of weeks ago.”

Me: “Then… why is he so angry?”

Suddenly, from behind [Site Manager], comes the HR lady and [West African Coworker]. They were all in the meeting together.

Site Manager: “[West African Employee], do you mind if I tell them what you wrote down as your answer to question seven?”

West African Employee: “I don’t mind!”

Site Manager: “The test is quite simple, mind you, it’s just designed to gauge basic English skills. [Racist Manager] insisted that we should fail [West African Employee] for getting question seven wrong.”

Me: “What was question seven?”

Site Manager: “What is the shortest month?”

Me: “February?”

Site Manager: “[West African Employee], what was your answer?”

West African Employee: “October 1582.”

Me: “You’ve lost me.”

West African Employee: “In October 1582, the pope of the time, Gregory XIII, cut out ten days from the month to fix a discrepancy from the Julian calendar that caused the equinox to drift too far. It was a hard reset that introduced the Gregorian calendar, named after said Pope. October 5-14, 1582, don’t exist.”

Me: “Wow! I never knew that!”

Site Manager: “[Racist Manager] wanted to disqualify him on the basis that the answer should have been ‘February’ and I argued that if the point of the test is to evaluate proficiency in English… well…”

Me: *To HR Lady.* “Wait, are you okay with us all talking about this out in the open. What if [Racist Manager] complains?”

HR Lady: “You’d have a point if [Racist Manager] was a current employee. He quit about ten minutes ago…”

Everyone who heard the story kept scrolling back on the calendar apps on their phones to 1582 to see that it really WAS the shortest month! That was a good day, although I am sure [Racist Manager] wished that day was also one that didn’t exist!

That was about five years ago now, and in that time, [West African Employee] was promoted again to take over the role that [Racist Manager] had vacated.

An older man comes up to the edge of the lap lane I’m monitoring. He’s wearing water shoes, a rash guard, and a snorkel.

Man: “Just so you know, I’m not here to swim, I’m here to condition. That means I’ll be going under and doing my own drills.”

Me: “Okay, just stay in your lane and follow the same rules as everyone else.”

Man: *Scoffs.* “I don’t need your rules. I trained under Navy standards back in the day. I probably know more about water safety than you do.”

Me: “Cool. Then you’ll know exactly what to do when I blow the whistle and point at you for breaking every one of them.”

He rolled his eyes and started power-snorkeling across three lanes like a motorized sea cucumber.

I gave him one warning, and then he was benched by a coworker young enough to still get asked if her parents are home.