While I am trying to get out of a parking lot, a young man gets upset that I have gotten “too close” to his car. He sucker-punches me in the face through the open window of my car. I have a good description of the suspect, a good vehicle description, and the license plate number of the vehicle he was in. There are multiple witnesses and even surveillance video of the incident. The police are duly called and I am given a case number and told a detective will be contacting me.

A week goes by without any information, so I call the police department’s non-emergency number and ask about the case, using the case number provided.

Receptionist: “The case hasn’t actually been recorded yet because it’s only been a week. Call back next week.”

I call back the next week and learn that the report has been filed, and I am (eventually) put in touch with the appropriate office for investigating assaults. I speak to a detective.

Detective #1: “We haven’t had a chance to look at the case yet. Please call us back later.”

I wait a week and call the detective office directly, with the case number.

Detective #2: “You’ll have to talk to our lead detective, [Lead Detective]. But he’s in court all week, so you’ll have to call back next week.”

We are now a month past the date I was assaulted, and no one from the police department has apparently even looked at the report since it was eventually filed. I call back and talk to the lead detective.

Lead Detective: “We don’t investigate misdemeanor assault.”

Me: *Shocked* “Why not?”

Lead Detective: “It’s too hard to get a conviction for stuff like that, so it’s not worth our time.”

Me: *Peeved* “I have five witnesses, security camera footage, a description of the attacker and his vehicle, and his license plate number. I absolutely want to press charges against the idiot who slugged me.”

[Lead Detective] is silent for a couple of seconds.

Lead Detective: “You… you have the license plate number?”

Me: “Absolutely! [Number]. It should be in the police report, too, because I gave it to the responding officer.”

There’s another brief pause.

Lead Detective: “What was that case number again?”

Me: “[Case number].”

Lead Detective: *Furiously typing* “Can you give me a description of the attacker?”

I give him the description from my notes.

Lead Detective: “Huh! I think I know who this person is. Can you come to the station and do a photo line-up?”

Me: “Sure.”

A week later — now FIVE weeks after the assault — I pick the suspect out of the photo array, and it turns out to be the guy [Lead Detective] was thinking of. I am escorted to the prosecutor’s office where I swear out an official complaint, and I am told a warrant will be issued for the young man’s arrest. I am asked if I am ready to testify at trial, and I emphatically agree.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER, the young man who attacked me gets arrested for something completely unrelated and is charged with assault due to the warrant. I am notified by mail of the court date for this case… scheduled for five months later.

More than a year after the actual assault, I finally stand up in court, identify the young man who attacked me to the judge, and describe what happened. [Lead Detective] actually shows up — surprising me — and tells the judge the surveillance video corroborates my story. The judge wants to see the video, but it turns out that the police video system is not compatible with the court’s video system, and the video won’t play. (Seriously?)

The suspect’s defense attorney is diligent and tries hard but keeps getting undercut by her client’s perpetually-changing story.

Suspect: “It wasn’t me.” “The car was being borrowed by my mom, and it wasn’t there. My mom took the car to work.” “Someone else was in the car.” “I was in the car, but in the front seat. I never got out of the car.” “I got out of the car, but I was not the guy who hit [My Name]; that was another guy… who was riding with us… and I don’t know who he was.”

The judge didn’t buy any of it, and the suspect was convicted. He was sentenced to ninety days in jail and given credit for time served for the OTHER criminal case he was involved with, and we went our separate ways having learned our lessons.

I’m not sure what the suspect learned, but I learned that anything short of a felony is fair game in [Town]. Even when given the suspect description, vehicle description, license plate number, surveillance video, and multiple witnesses, the police can’t be bothered to even look for people committing crimes unless those crimes are felonies.

I work in a very large superstore. A young man comes into my self-checkout buying two six-packs of alcoholic lemonade. Per policy, I request to see his ID.

Customer: “Oh, I left it in my car.”

Me: “I’ll hold your purchase for you while you go and get it.”

Customer: “I parked clear on the other end of the store and I don’t want to walk to go get it. Can you just override it?”

Me: “That’s gonna be a hard no; that would get me fired.”

Shockingly, he was best described as grudgingly nice about it, and even more surprisingly, he actually came back with his ID and purchased his beer!

My coworker is a chore to work with. Ask him to do anything he doesn’t deem “his job” and he refuses. I have actually watched him not report a smoldering fire because he was going on his break. He just said, “I am entitled to a break; someone will sort it out.”

I think he thinks he is some great hero of the people, fighting some bourgeoisie. In reality, it is a small family business, and his stupid behaviour makes people dislike him.

Christmas is coming up and I am putting in some extra hours to earn some extra cash. All hours are posted on a notice board; I’m happy to see that I’m scheduled again for both shifts. 

Coworker: “How come you got overtime again?”

Me: “I can run [machine]; that’s where the work is.”

Coworker: “How come you got training? I wasn’t offered training!”

I sigh as this is going to be another of his outbursts to deal with.

Me: “I got training as I volunteered to help set the machine up. I also took the time to read the manual, which is available to everyone and still is.”

Coworker: “Well, I could have done that!”

Me: “Yes, but you didn’t, did you? We needed as many volunteers as we could; instead, we spent a whole weekend struggling.”

Coworker: “I didn’t know I would get overtime out of it!”

Me: “None of us did. We volunteered because they asked us and it needed to be done. Maybe if you helped out more, they would—”

Coworker: *Cutting me off* “This isn’t right. I’m being discriminated against. I’m speaking to [Manager]!”

I can only assume they told him to shut up and get back to work, as he reappeared moments later. [Coworker] never got on the overtime sheet, but he complained all the way up to Christmas about it, still not actually making any effort to learn the jobs that were in high demand.

I have been ordering a lot of things online over the last year for fairly obvious reasons. On this occasion, the delivery company provides tracking updates by email. At 1:30, I get an email saying that the package is with the local delivery agent and they will be delivering it between 2:00 and 5:00 pm. At 3:30, I get an email saying that they failed to deliver for the third time and will be returning it to the sender. 

I have been having issues with the wireless doorbell for my top floor flat, so I’m not too surprised at missing the delivery, but that was a first attempt, not a third. I decide to email customer services. Unfortunately, the company has made their customer service email address rather hard to find, so I am very annoyed by the time I find it. I try to remain polite in my email, I state my tracking number and what happened and then I ask if they intend to claim they tried to deliver three times in an hour and a half, which defeated the point of redelivery, or if their delivery staff were just being lazy.

I never get a direct reply to my email or any response indicating it has even been read, but the next day, I get a tracking update telling me there will be a delay in my package. The day after, another tracking email says it will be delivered the next day.

By this point, I have bought and installed a new doorbell, so the delivery goes smoothly, but when I get back to my flat, I notice that a new delivery sticker has been placed over the original one and the delivery instructions read, “3 comes after 1 and 2.”

I guess my email did get read after all!

Our self-scan checkouts are quite close together. When social distancing is required, we are not able to move them further apart, so we have big screens put in place between each checkout. It’s a squeeze, but everyone is able to stay safe.

A customer at till four calls me over as the till is claiming her bags need authorising, even though everything seems fine. I head over to till four and stand by till five, since the buttons I need to press are on that side. I scan my ID and tell the till to accept the bags, and the customer is very grateful. Suddenly, the customer at till five speaks up.

Customer: “Excuse me! You are far too close! Two metres!”

In her defence, I did not see her when I walked over. I very quickly move out of the way, apologise, and after making sure the customer at till four is fine, walk off back to the attendant stand. The customer at till five is still complaining and tells another customer to keep their distance. Eventually, she grabs her shopping and starts to walk off.

Customer: “How do I get out?”

Me: “Turn left here and follow the arrows, and you’ll get to the exit.”

Customer: “That’s a long way! Why on Earth do I have to go all the way over there?”

Me: “We have to have the one-way system for everyone to get out safely.”

Customer: “I’m not walking all that way!”

She walked toward one of the main, manned checkouts which had a narrow aisle full of queuing customers and squeezes her way through them in order to get out “quicker”. She stormed off towards the exit. The customer at till four and I could only watch with “That just happened, right?” expressions. Do as she says, but not as she does, I guess!