For background, our store had display-only boxes for certain high-theft items. The premise was simple: put them on the shelf, the customer takes it off the shelf, finds a staff member/bring it to the front cashier, and we ask the shift manager to check the back.

The drugstore I worked at had these boxes for oral care (i.e., electric toothbrushes and their heads, and in this story’s case, whitening strips). Each of those items had one or two things that made them different from each other, and so people would look for them. Otherwise, if it was on sale, people would try to ask us if they could buy it.

A customer comes up to me with a huge order. No biggie; we were really slow at the time anyway. I scan his stuff, bag it, and ask how he would like to pay.

Customer: “Actually, I need to buy some whitening strips.”

Me: “Oh. Okay, that’s fine.”

We stare at each other uncomfortably.

Me: “Did… did you take the display box from the shelf?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Oh, it wasn’t there?”

Customer: “Well, I thought you guys would’ve had it behind the counter.”

Me: “We, uh, don’t.”

Customer: “Oh. Well, you guys would know what I need.”

Me: “Uh, dude, we have a bunch of whitening strips, and they have different uses. I can ask the manager to bring up the ones we have, and you can—”

Customer: “No, can you guys grab an empty box from the shelf for me instead?”

Me: “I mean, what I said is easier and—”

Customer: “Nah, you’ll know which one I need.”

I am honestly baffled by this customer’s… well, actually, I can’t even think of the best way to describe this. I try radioing a stocker; unfortunately, he was too busy flirting with one of the cosmeticians (indicated by him looking at me from the perfume department and mockingly shaking his head at me). Annoyed, I decided just to embark on this customer’s quest to… find a fitting whitening strip for him?

In the aisle, I’m looking at the display boxes and wondering to myself just what possessed this customer to assume that we would know which one we needed when something caught my eye. It was our store brand’s whitening strips.

Now, the other brands were on sale, while the store brand wasn’t. However, the other brand’s prices were roughly $30 to $34, while the store brand’s were $35. Not that much of a price difference, but still a higher price for generic quality-especially since the strips that were on sale were the higher-quality ones.

It’s at this point I knew what to do.

Me: “[Shift Manager], come in?”

Shift Manager: “What’s up?”

Me: “Can you see if we have store brand whitening strips in the back, and if we do, bring a pack to the front counter?”

Shift Manager: “Store brand? Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, store brand, please. Also, can you check on [Stocker]; I radioed him earlier, and he hasn’t answered!”

Shift Manager: “Got it, I’ll meet you at the front.”

I head back to the front, where [Customer] was waiting.

Customer: “Is it coming?”

Me: “Sure is, he’s coming with them in a moment.”

No sooner had I said this, [Shift Manager] came up to me with a box of store-brand whitening strips. He handed them to me.

Shift Manager: “Here you go; luckily, we had a bunch in the back! Now if you’ll excuse me, I saw [Stocker] goofing off again and have something to ask of him.” *Turns to leave.*

I scan the whitening strips and throw them into a bag. At this point, [Customer] is looking at both the whitening strips and the price in confusion. He turns to me and is prepared to say something, but stops himself.

Me: “How would you like to pay today?”

The customer simply pays and leaves with his bags. He stops, takes his receipt and the whitening strips out, looks at both of them again, and slinks off in defeat.

I never saw the customer again, nor did I know if he ever bought any more whitening strips the more practical way, or if he returned the ones I figured would fit him. What I do know is that [Shift Manager] forced [Stocker] to stay in the perfume department, help any customer that came by, and put out the order of perfume and makeup that came in that day.

[Cosmetician], meanwhile, was mysteriously absent while [Stocker] was there, but always came back to cash out customers before disappearing again, to [Stocker]’s chagrin and [Cosmetician]’s and mine’s amusement.

It’s crazy how many customers think it’s okay to have me enter their entire Gmail login while I’m helping them activate a new phone. This mainly happens with older customers, who are often far too trusting of a lowly retail employee.

I’m activating one customer’s phone when we reach the Gmail sign-in screen.

Me: “Okay, you’ll need to enter your email address and password here.”

Customer: “You do it.”

He hands me a piece of paper with both written on it.

Me: “Sir, you really shouldn’t give your password to other people.”

Customer: “Why not? I need you to put it into the phone.”

Me: “I can show you where to enter it, but your password should remain private.”

Customer: “You’re already setting everything else up. Just type it in.”

Me: “I’m happy to help, but you don’t know me. Someone dishonest could use your Gmail account to access personal information, reset passwords for your other accounts, or even steal from you.”

Customer: “But you work here.”

Me: “That doesn’t automatically mean you should trust me with access to your email. A dishonest employee could copy your login details and use them later.”

Customer: “You wouldn’t do that.”

Me: “I wouldn’t, but the next employee you hand your password to might. People have made a lot of money stealing other people’s information.”

He looks me up and down.

Customer: “Well, you look thirty, and you’re still working retail. If you were smart or brave enough to get rich like that, you’d have done it by now.”

Me: “Well, you’re never too old to start!”

Maybe it was my devilish smile, or my insistence on saying each letter and number of the personal information out loud as I typed it, but the customer grabbed his phone back a few letters in and typed the information out himself, albeit very sloooooowly.

Boss: “[My Name], you rejected my request to team you up with [Coworker].”

Me: “Yes, I did.”

Boss: “Why? We need [task] completed for the project by the end of the week, and it’s a two-person job.”

Me: “When it comes to work, [Coworker] doesn’t count as a person. He’s lazy as f***.”

Boss: “Now, no need to be so coarse—”

Me: “You could assign him three tasks to complete, and by the end of the day, five of them would be unfinished.”

Boss: “Okay, maybe if you—”

Me: “If there was work in the bed, he’d sleep on the floor.”

Boss: “Okay, I get it! I’ll talk to his manager. Do you want to pick your own person to team up with?”

Me: “You can pick someone, just literally ANYONE else except him.”

Boss: “Fine.”

I was assigned the task with a competent coworker. [Boss], wanting to see if I was exaggerating, assigned a non-critical one-person task to [Coworker] to be completed by the end of the week.

When [Coworker] realized he would have to do some work and couldn’t get anyone else to pick up the slack, he suddenly called in sick and was out for the rest of the week.

When [Boss] tried this two more times, resulting in another sickness and a sudden family emergency, it became clear that I wasn’t talking out of my a** after all…

The post office I work at is located near another post office. Our post office is located on [Street Name]. The other post office is called [Street Name] Post Office. Unsurprisingly, we would get customers coming in to our post office thinking we were [Street Name] Post Office. This is despite the fact that below the name of the post office, there was an address that obviously was not near [Street Name]. And most of the time, their excuse was that they saw [Street Name] and immediately assumed it was at our post office. 

But I digress. This story won’t be about a customer making this mistake.

It was around an hour to closing, and a customer came. Looking rushed and disheveled-almost annoyed even-he pulls out his phone and asks to check if his parcel was at our location. I punch in his tracking number into the program that lets us process pick-ups (this becomes extremely important), and nothing shows. 

I look through the program that lets us track parcels…and one thing shows in bold.

Program: “Item is ready for pickup at [Street Name] Post Office.”

Me: “Your parcel is at [Street Name] Post Office.”

Customer: “It is?”

Me: “Yeah, I’m tracking it, and it says it’s there.”

Customer: “Oh. They told me it was here.”

Me: *Perks up.* “They did?”

Customer: “Yeah, they did. Can you ask them if they have my parcel? They said they don’t have it at all when I went, and I was there ten minutes ago!”

At this point, I am disturbed by this. How is that even possible? But I was curious-how did they even conclude that my post office had it? In any case, I decided to call them to see if [Customer]’s parcel was there. Maybe they just received it and just processed it?

In any event, someone from [Street Name] Post Office picks up the phone.

Clerk: “Hello?”

Me: “Hi, this is [My Post Office], how are you?”

Clerk: “I am good. How can I help you?”

Me: “So, uh, I have a customer here who wanted to see if their parcel is at your location. I can give you the tracking number.”

Clerk: “Okay, sure. Let me open [Tracking Program] (a moment passes). Okay, I’m ready.”

Me: *Gives [Customer]’s tracking number.*

Clerk: “So, uh, yeah, it says it’s supposed to be at your location.”

Me: “Uh, I have it open, and it says it’s with you guys. Not us.”

Clerk: “But it says here [Street Name] from my end!”

Me: “Yes. [Street Name] Post Office. Which is you guys, right?”

Clerk: “Yes, we are [Street Name] Post Office.”

Me: “So can you check if you have this parcel, please?”

Clerk: “Uh, yeah, I recognize this tracking number now. I already told [Customer] it’s with you guys. So, you guys should have it.”

Me: “Look, I’m looking at [Tracking Program], and it says it’s with you guys. I even checked [Parcel Pick-Up Program], and it says we don’t have it.”

Clerk: “Yes?”

Me: “Can you see if you have [Customer]’s parcel? Please?”

Clerk: “How?”

Me: *Looks at the phone in absolute confusion.*

In the midst of the conversation, the customer went from annoyed to pitiful towards my dilemma.

Me: “Look, you just need to go to [Parcel Pick-Up Program] and type in the tracking number. It will show if [Customer]’s parcel is there.”

Clerk: “No.”

Me: “Pardon?

Clerk: “You need a parcel barcode. [Parcel Pick-Up Program] doesn’t accept tracking numbers.”

Me: “Yeah, they do.”

Clerk: “No, it doesn’t!”

Me: “Yes, it does. How do you think I checked if [Customer]’s parcel was here?”

Clerk: “But [Parcel Pick-Up Program] doesn’t accept tracking numbers!”

This went on three more times, with me trying to explain that [Parcel Pick-Up Program] can take tracking numbers and the extremely unqualified and possibly obtuse [Clerk] saying they don’t. Finally, I got annoyed.

Me: “Okay, look, I can tell what to do, okay? So open up [Parcel Pick-Up Program] and-

Clerk: “Oh, uh, I can’t. My system’s not working right now; I’ll call you back when it does!” *Hangs up.*

Me: *Stares at my phone in awe, wondering how it is that someone like that even got hired.*

Customer: *Equally in awe.* “I… I am so sorry. Just confirming, you said my parcel is there, yes?”

Me: *Uses [Tracking Program] to look up [Customer]’s parcel again.* “It is, yes.”

Customer: “Alright, I’ll just head there tomorrow and pick it up. If that lady is still there, I don’t want to risk her serving me again! (he turns to leave, then turns back around) What’s your name, by the way?”

Me: *Gives my name.*

Customer: “Thank you. You’re really patient, and I’m sorry again that you had to go through that. If the manager is here tomorrow, I’ll make sure they hear that from me, and how great you were!” *Turns around and leaves.*

I won’t lie, I was somewhat touched by what [Customer] said; it honestly made up for the fact that I had fifteen minutes to fully close up the post office. Still, [Customer], if you’re reading this, thank you. I really hope you got your parcel and did not have to deal with [Clerk] while doing so. And yes, I did close up quickly-unlike [Clerk], I knew from the back of my mind how my post office worked.

I practiced law for a number of years at the same firm. The firm had this policy where all the attorneys, partners down to the junior associates, would have lunch together on Fridays, and there would be a presentation of the cases that had been recently decided in the area of law that we practiced.

Prior to my arrival, only the junior associates and not the partners gave this presentation, but that had changed so that both a partner and an associate would now give the presentation. There were enough attorneys in the firm that your turn would come up once a year, and it was a fair amount of work to put together the presentation for the Friday lunch.

I got paired with a newly made partner for my very first presentation who was very disgruntled about having to do the presentation, as he was now a partner and he thought he shouldn’t have to do them anymore. He decided not to prepare any of the cases and told me that I was to do that and he would be there to answer any questions that came up. Being junior, I didn’t say anything but went ahead and prepared the cases and gave the presentation.

After I had summarized the first case, one of the attorneys in the room asked a very detailed technical question about the case, to which I responded by turning to the partner and saying, “Gee, I don’t know, perhaps [The Partner] can answer that,” which is what I did with all of the questions I was asked that day.

Naturally, the partner had not read any of the cases, so he couldn’t coherently answer any of the questions. He wasn’t well liked by the other attorneys in the room, who quickly figured out that he had me do all the work for the presentation while he did nothing. So, they began asking more and more complex questions to which I would turn to him for an answer.

By the end of the lunch, he was beet red. Going forward, he did his share of the presentations in the future…