A few years ago I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm. Our office hours are 8-5, Monday-Friday. I have a new client whose case has been assigned to me. I speak with the client several times over the phone. She tells me some things about herself and her case. One thing she tells me is she works part-time at a local company doing payroll. She says she works 8-2. I know where the company is located that she works for; it’s about fifteen minutes away.

Every Thursday she would stop in the office to speak to me about her case. That’s great except she would come by at 4:50. She would talk a lot. She usually would leave at about 5:15.

She did this every time and despite me telling her we close at five, she would do this.

I asked my boss if I could tell her to either come earlier or when it was five I could tell her politely we were closing, and we could just discuss what she needed over the phone. He told me to try both. Well, she never could come earlier, so the next time she came dragging in it was 4:55.

I politely informed her we were closing the doors at five and if she just wanted to discuss whatever she needed over the phone. She said no, she wanted to talk about it then. I let her know she had five minutes.

Client: *Getting upset.* “It’s not my fault! I can’t make here any earlier!”

Me: “Ma’am, I thought you got off at two and you are only fifteen minutes away. Can you not come after work?”

Client: “No. I have things to do after work and then I go get my nails done every other Thursday or I go get my hair done, so I can’t get here sooner on Thursdays.”

Me: “You are welcome to come any other day.”

Client: “No I can only come on Thursdays. I go home and watch some TV and then I take a nap.”

My boss overhears this.

Boss: “Sorry, our business hours are Monday-Friday, 8-5. From now on you will need to make an appointment to come in. No appointments after 3:45. We will no longer allow clients to just walk in. Or you can call us instead before four if you have something to discuss. We close at five and there are no exceptions.”

Client: “Um, okay can I make an appointment to come in next Thursday at 3:15?”

We told her yes and scheduled her.

Next Thursday I call her at 3:15, no answer. I try her two more times and no answer. At 4:45 she shows up at the office with no explanation as to why she didn’t answer the phone and just says:

Client: “I was over here in the area anyway, so can we talk?

Me: “No, we not taking walk-ins anymore.”

Client: *Pouts.* “Well my hair appointment ran over. I couldn’t answer the phone. Once it was done, I had to go visit my boyfriend!”

My boss steps over again.

Boss: “If you want us to represent you then you will need to schedule hair appointments or go to see your boyfriend around your appointment with us.”

Client: “No. I’m the client so you’ll do what I say.”

Boss: “Okay then, I am afraid we will no longer be able to represent you. Good luck finding another attorney.”

She looked surprised and as she started walking away, she said:

Client: “I will find a firm that works with my busy schedule!”

A guy comes into our salad shop and he’s bleeding. It’s running from his arm, down his wrist, and dripping off of his fingers.

Me: “Sir, you’ve got some blood. Over there.”

He glances at it curiously, then looks away from it.

Customer: “I’d like to place an order.”

Me: “Sir. You are bleeding. It is all over your hand. You should seek medical attention. Or at least bandage that.”

Customer: “I’m fine. I’d like to place an order.”

Unfortunately corporate will probably be pissed at me if I tell him to go away.

Me: “Fine. I will not be accepting any cash from you if it’s smeared with blood, and I don’t want to have blood swiped into the card reader, so we are only doing a contactless payment. Your credit card can do contactless, correct?”

Customer: “Yes. I don’t get what the big deal is, but I can do contactless with my card. Is this a pandemic thing?”

Me: “No sir, this is not a pandemic thing. You are bleeding.”

Customer: “I said I’m fine.”

Me: “Tell me what you want, and don’t touch anything.”

He makes his order, I take the payment, and I sit him in the corner then pointedly mop up the trail of blood he left on the floor while my coworkers made his salad. While glaring at him passive-aggressively the whole time.

His order comes up, and I bring it to him. A little later he shouts:

Customer: “What’s the big idea, you can’t expect me to eat this salad?”

Me: *Fed up and out of patience with this guy.* “Why. The h***. Not.”

Customer: “There’s blood in this salad.”

Me: “It’s your own blood. You’re bleeding.”

Customer: “I’m fine. The guy who made the salad must have bled in it. he must have cut himself making it or something. I demand a remake.”

Me: “No. Get out.”

Customer: “You can’t do this to me! I’m a paying customer. I’ll sue!”

Me: “Get out.”

I went to grab the salad from him, but he hissed at me.

Customer: “No! This is evidence!”

He took the salad with him and left. I cleaned up the multiple handprints and drippings of blood he left on the table and chair and everything in that little area.

Well, his lawyers got in touch with our lawyers, and he took his salad to a genetic testing lab to prove it wasn’t his own blood for a lawsuit against us. Guess whose blood it was?

His. It was his own f****** blood.

I work in a swanky and admittedly bougie coffee place. Almost on a weekly basis we get this one customer and her two very-badly-behaved kids come in. She always lets them run around the seating area bothering people, and as much as we plead with her to “please corral her children”, she just says “boys will be boys” and lets them run amok. We try to get management to tell her, but they say:

Managers: “There’s nothing we can do if the other customers aren’t complaining.”

Then the day happens. One of them spills a guy’s coffee all over his laptop and themselves. The kid starts crying because the coffee is hot. Instead of checking on the health of the kid, she marches over to the guy:

Mother: “You spilled your coffee over my kid!”

Customer: “No, he ran into my table because you weren’t watching him.”

Mother: “I’m going to sue you for hurting him! Everyone here is a witness!”

At this point, the customer starts laughing.

Mother: “What’s so funny? You won’t be laughing this hard when I see you in court!”

The customer stands up and hands her his business card.

Customer: “Look around. This coffee house is the ground floor of a skyscraper full of law firms, including State Attorneys, of which I am one. Everyone here is indeed a witness… and a lawyer, and they’re all watching your neglectful parenting get more neglectful by the minute the longer you continue to ignore your crying son.”

By this point, a coworker and I have come over to check on the boy. He’s not burned, thank goodness, but definitely a bit shocked and embarrassed.

Customer: “I look forward to hearing from your lawyer.”

She grabs her kids, screeching at me as I apply ice cubes to his arm:

Mother: “Let go!”

They storm out. The customer walks over to me.

Customer: “She in here a lot?”

Me: “Once a week.”

Customer: “She pay by card?”

Me: “She does.”

Customer: “Tell your manager that someone from CPS might be calling for some receipts at some point.”

And with that, we replaced his coffee, and he went upstairs to get to work…

I attended a deposition for a car accident; another car hit mine. The other party’s attorney was asking me questions.

Attorney: “How close would you say you were at the time of impact?”

I asked him to repeat the question, which he did, clear as a bell. I could see the stenographer struggling to hold in her laughter.

Me: “Considering his car was touching my car at the time of impact, I would say we were very, very close.”

I’m an attorney, and although I’m young, I’m in a managing position. The firm hired a new, older attorney. Needless to say, he was already having a hard time adjusting to the fact that his boss was twenty-five years younger than him, but he held it together… except that he was awful with support staff, paralegals, and legal assistants alike.

This guy was so entitled that he would accost the senior paralegal (my paralegal) — because he “should not have to use a legal assistant given his ‘seniority’” — daily and command her to transcribe his notes for him. Once, I overheard him call her “girl”.

Me: “Don’t call her that, [New Attorney]. I also want to remind you that she doesn’t work for you. If you need help with something, you should tell me.”

He continued. It turned out that he was technologically inept. Human Resources forced a meeting to discuss basic tech stuff, and we all needed to attend. [New Attorney] fell asleep during the meeting. I called him out during the meeting and told him to go splash water on his face.

After the meeting…

Me: “What the h***, [New Attorney]?”

New Attorney: “I thought the meeting was for the girls.”

By that, he meant the support staff.

So, long story short, I fired him this morning. He was not happy. He felt as though his “seniority” was not appreciated and that had he worked too hard in his life to have to do his own work. He expected to have his own associate to boss around and was disappointed to see he had to respond to me.

I’m taking the “girls” out for drinks today. Good riddance!