My friend and I are at the drive-thru to a Mexican fast food place.

Friend: “Hi, we called in an order ahead.”

Employee: “Order number and name?”

Friend: “Order 239, [Friend’s Last Name].”

Employee: “I don’t have that order.”

The employee just stands there, as if we’d just go, “Okay!” and drive off without our food.

Friend: “Well, I have the confirmation here on my phone, my dude!”

Employee: “I don’t have that order.”

Ouch. The moment they get stuck in that loop, you know you gotta be that type of customer.

Friend: “Can I see the manager?”

The employee just sighs and slooooowly fetches a manager. Cars are building up behind us.

Manager: “So, you guys are trying to get free food?”

Friend: “What? No! We have a paid order to pick up. Here, look at my phone.”

Manager: *Barely glancing at it* “We don’t have that order on our system.”

Friend: “So, can you make it based on what I have on my phone, and we can pull over and pick it up?”

Manager: “I’m not making you free food.”

Friend: “It’s not free food! We paid for it. If it’s not on your system, then you have a technical issue, but from where I am sitting, I have paid my money for food that you’re not giving me.”

Manager: *Sighs* “Put the order through again, and I will keep an eye on the printer.”

Friend: “But then I will have to pay again.”

Manager: *Sighs louder* “You’re blocking the drive-thru.”

Friend: “Yes, as this is the only way I am getting you all to listen to my problem.”

Manager: “Okay, just pull into the lot and put the order in again, and we will make the food. You can call Corporate to get a refund on the first order.”

My friend is very annoyed, but he doesn’t want to be a jerk to other customers in line, so he pulls into the parking lot and we go inside. He’s putting in the online order again when he smiles at me and hits send.

We are lucky enough to see the printer behind the counter that prints the online orders. An order comes in that just kinda… keeps… going. My friend notices that I have noticed this.

Friend: “I noticed they don’t have a maximum character limit on their ‘Special Instructions’ box on their online order form.”

Me: “What did you do?”

Friend: “I pasted the entire script to the Cats movie into the ‘Special Instructions’.”

I look back at the printer. Yup… still going.

Friend: “Ten times.”

The look on the manager’s face when he saw the print order was worth it, as was the extra long wait to get our food. My friend did eventually get his refund from corporate, and their online order form very quickly added a character limit to their “Special Instructions” box.

Warning: this story will likely make you itch — BAD.

I once had an insane experience with a scumbag landlord, hereafter known as Mr. Scumlord. I moved into a ten-story complex only to discover bedbugs! Mr. Scumlord feigned ignorance and refused to take care of it.

Me: “The apartment has bedbugs in it!”

Mr. Scumlord: “That’s funny; I haven’t received any complaints.”

Me: *Showing him pictures* “They’re literally crawling over each other along the baseboards!”

Mr. Scumlord: *Blank-faced* “That’s funny; I haven’t received any complaints.”

Me: “I’m complaining now! You need to call an exterminator!”

Mr. Scumlord: “I’ve run this apartment complex for years and I. Haven’t. Received. Any. Complaints. Pay the rent on time. I’m not giving you a discount, and I’m certainly not shelling out any money for a non-existent problem.”

Then, Mr. Scumlord shut the door in my face. I stared for just a moment, and then I went nuclear.

I immediately went to talk to my neighbors in my hallway, and of course, they were all dealing with bedbugs and had been for months. They’d been fighting with their own treatments, but since the entire building was infested, cleaning one apartment just made room for them to migrate back in later. Mr. Scumlord would simply stone-face at them and reply that there wasn’t a problem, refuse to accept or acknowledge a complaint, and tell the tenants to use their own treatments if they wanted to be hypochondriacs.

We all cussed and discussed (pun intended) before organizing to submit multiple complaints to License and Inspections. Word spread through the complex, and I got to talk to a LOT of neighbors from other floors. I learned that there was a leak in a wall that had been slowly growing worse, and the tenant was terrified that their bathtub was going to crash through the floor into the apartment below. (They had already warned the tenant below, and both had tried to complain.) I learned that if you touched the hanging lamp in one apartment’s dining room while the light was on, you’d get a shock. 

The stories just piled up, and people got excited when I told them where to lodge their complaints.

I’m sure you can imagine how very, very, VERY interested the city became in the absolute flood of complaints from the entire building, complete with photographic evidence of the bedbugs from all of them. The floors were literally crawling with the little bloodsuckers, and the edges of the room were black with droppings of digested blood.

The city quickly sent an inspector, and I gave her the door code to come and go as she pleased. Mysteriously, no matter how busy many tenants were, there was nearly always someone home during her visits to let her in to discuss concerns and take photographs. She inspected that ten-story building from top to bottom and found tons of other violations.

She insisted on a very expensive remediation process. Mr. Scumlord was told that if he didn’t follow the process, the city would immediately condemn the entire complex, as well as slam him with an a**-puckering set of fees. She was already dragging him over some very hot coals about tenants’ rights and how he was personally responsible for providing every tenant in the building accommodation while the complex was brought up to code.

Mr. Scumlord was soon eyebrows deep in renovations and treatments. I heard he eventually just ripped out the flooring and replaced it because the infestation was so bad that it couldn’t be cleaned.

I had to bag up all of my clothing and wash them. I had to throw out my mattress and nearly everything I owned because within days of moving in, they were all stained with bedbug fecal matter. I got out of the lease and moved; luckily, a friend of mine had a spare room I could stay in. 

Many tenants couldn’t do the same, so on top of the renovations, Mr. Scumlord had to find them places to live and ensure that no bedbugs migrated with the families. He’s not bankrupt yet, but some other properties he owns are apparently under scrutiny, as well, so fingers are crossed.

Related:
This Is Why People Have Big Feelings About Landlords, Part 2
This Is Why People Have Big Feelings About Landlords

I used to work at a restaurant that had a central bar with the restaurant surrounding it, and it had wings on both sides and in the front. To get to the wings required a step up, and there was a set of stairs on both ends of each wing. On the night in question, I was working the wing that had tables 11 through 19. Next to me, down a couple of stairs, were the 20s.

This couple came in and was seated at table 15, right in the middle of my section. They had an attitude and a chip on their shoulder the size of Texas. From their very first words to me, they were talking to me like they thought that they had seen fish with higher IQs. As they placed their order, they described in painful detail what other servers had messed up when they had placed this order on previous visits to this restaurant. The order concluded with the following words:

Couple: “I hope you paid good attention. You do want a tip, don’t you?”

My jaw hit the floor. I told them I was going to go grab their drinks and ring their order in. Grab their drinks I did. Ring their order in, I did not. But I had something else to do with the computer, probably printing off someone else’s check, so I did that. I had to take care of other tables, refilling drinks, grabbing sauces, running food out, the usual. But every time I had to get from tables 11-14 to tables 16-19, I took a detour through the kitchen and came back by way of the 20s. I made sure to never pass table 15.

I would never do anything disgusting to anyone’s food. But you can bet that it was a good twelve minutes between the time that they gave me their order and the time that I finally saw fit to think about ringing it in. And when it came up in the heated expo window, the expo on duty told me that the order for table 15 was up, and I said I’d get it as soon as I brought drinks out to another table. I went and checked on the rest of my section, but table 15’s glasses contained nothing but ice. As I finished up with table 16 and turned to take my detour, I briefly saw table 15 try and wave and grab my attention. But I pretended not to see them. I had to turn really fast so that the illusion was believable — and so that they couldn’t see me smirking.

When I went back into the kitchen the next time, well… if you’re a server, you can just look at food and tell if it’s been sitting in the expo window for a minute. Table 15’s order had definitely acquired that look. Someone shouted, “Hands to 87!” so I grabbed the food for table 87 and followed its server out to their section, and then I went back into the kitchen to refill dressings.

As I was walking back from the cooler where I had just put the ranch dressing away, I saw the order for table 15 going out the door after only about seven minutes in the expo window. I honestly don’t know how long I was going to let it sit, but the expo valued her space and made someone else get that food out of her sight.

I stopped by table 15 to check on them.

Me: *Pleasantly* “Did everything come out okay?”

Couple: “We need some honey mustard dressing, and we need a refill on our drinks.”

Me: “Sure, no problem!”

As I delivered the only refill of the night, I said:

Me: “Oh, you asked for honey mustard. So sorry. I’ll go get that right away!”

By the time they actually got honey mustard, there wasn’t much chicken left to put it on.

I spent most of the rest of their meal studiously avoiding passing by their table. I delivered their check with a smile, picked up the card quickly, and delivered it back with a pen for a signature.

They had definitely spent more time than they had planned on spending in that restaurant that night, so as soon as they were able to sign the credit slip, they hurried out to wherever they were headed next.

The tip written on the credit slip was zero, and boy, did I ever earn it!

I am a curvy girl, and I’m at the merchandise booth of a music festival. A couple of my friends and I find an empty spot at the counter and wait to be helped. The employees are in the midst of helping other customers when we walk up, but even after money has been exchanged, none of the employees move on to me or my friends. I figure they’re still in the middle of a transaction, looking for other merchandise for their customers, etc. But after a few minutes of them wandering around the merch area and no other festival goers at the counter, it’s obvious they’re not waiting on anyone else.

I’m just about to get someone’s attention myself when one of the male employees finally sees me.

Employee: “Can I help you?”

Me: “Yeah, that blue tank top, second in from the right on the bottom row?” *Points* “Can I see that in a large?”

He takes a long look at the merchandise wall.

Employee: “Which one?”

I point again and try to be as clear as possible with my instructions since the shirts aren’t numbered — “right above the purple top on the table,” “the middle of those three tank tops,” etc. Finally, after several attempts at describing the location of the tank I want, the employee walks over to the wall and points at the one next to the one I want, which is also blue.

Me: “The one right next to that… Yeah, that’s the one.”

Employee: “The crop top?”

I didn’t realize it was a crop since it’s quite a flowy, boxy style, so I’m a little surprised.

Me: “Oh, it’s a crop?”

The employee gives me a sympathetic look and speaks with a dejected tone.

Employee: “Yeaaaah, it is.”

He begins walking back over to the counter without the top, which annoys me a little since I never said I’d changed my mind.

Me: “Oh. Okay, well… can I see it in a large?”

He returns to the merch wall and glances into the box where they have the tanks I want.

Employee: “We’re out of that in a large. We have it in an extra large… or just small or medium.”

He begins walking back to me again.

Me: “Can I look at the medium?”

He finally brings me the top. It’s definitely a loose-fitting style, and it looks very similar in cut to a few crop tops that I already own. Plus, I know the brand, and I already own a size medium tank from the same company, so I decide to get it.

Me: “Okay, I’ll take it.”

The employee folded the shirt while I got my money out. He didn’t tell me my total but just waited expectantly for me to hand over my cash. I did so, and he gave me my change and my shirt without another word.

After that pleasant encounter, I still had to wait almost five more minutes for my friends, who’d had to move to another part of the counter before they were actually waited on.

To those several unhelpful employees: I hope you were just tired that day, because every single other festival employee was outperforming you by miles. If you aren’t going to give the great service that’s expected at this event, please consider working elsewhere at the festival.

CONTENT WARNING: Thoughts Of Suicide (Happy ending!)
 

This story reminded me of some experiences during the first year of the global health crisis. 

I did a lot of volunteering via the NHS (National Health Service), mostly shopping and other errands for people whose doctors had told them to shelter at home. 

But sometimes I would do check-in-and-chat. It’s a simple concept. Those people who had been told to stay at home were offered the chance of getting a call from a stranger to see how they were doing. I only did a few of these because I would find myself crying quietly after the call. 

But the most harrowing and then heartwarming story was one I heard of through an online support group for volunteers. Early in the first lockdown, a volunteer rang an elderly woman to see how she was doing, and she was distraught. There was a cold snap with temperatures below freezing overnight, and her boiler had failed, so she and her home were literally freezing. She’d become so desperate that she was looking through her medicines trying to work out which combination would most quickly end her life!

The thing is, she had boiler cover; she was paying [Energy Company] hundreds of pounds a year so this would not happen, but they were refusing to come out for “health and safety” reasons, even though her life was in danger. The volunteer called them. There was no doubt they understood, but they would do nothing.

The volunteer came online to find out what to do. He lived too far away and had no car. We were all desperate to help. Luckily, another volunteer lived near her and knew a plumber. The woman’s boiler was fixed a few hours later, and the only payment the plumber took was a cup of tea (plenty of sugar!) and two biscuits.

The lady did not want to fuss, so unfortunately, no formal complaint was made. I’ve just checked, and they would charge me £600 a year for this “service”. I didn’t hear any reports that they stopped taking monthly payments during lockdowns.

Related:
Their Cold Heart Is In Need Of Some Heating