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

I used to work for one of the major home printer companies, representing them at a big box retailer on the weekends. A few of our competitors also had representatives in the stores on weekends doing the same thing, with all of us vying for the attention of the same customers.

Probably the best competitor we had in terms of photo quality — so maybe hardest for me to sell against when they had a good representative in the store — got a new representative who was a pretty slick guy in his mid-twenties.

He was decent at the job, but he preferred to game the system in any way he could more than actually doing the job. This included going to a completely different store he wasn’t contracted at, writing down their serial numbers, and reporting them as his sales. He would also just peace out in general to go to a birthday party or whatever.

The store employees didn’t care one way or the other, so the only risk was that his field manager would stop by while he was out. We exchanged phone numbers, and I agreed to cover for him and text him if his manager ever came by. I couldn’t have been happier to help my competitor get away with not competing with me.

Sure enough, one day, someone wearing a company shirt showed up.

Manager: “Do you know where [Representative] is?”

Me: “Oh, sure. He literally just left for lunch before you got here. He should be back within thirty minutes.”

I texted him, and he managed to hightail it over and check in within time, and his manager was none the wiser. He kept his job, and I maintained one less serious competitor to worry about.

I used to be in charge of the printer room in a rather large company. We shipped a ton of product every day, and everything shipped had to have the accompanying printed label and documents. Nothing could even be loaded onto the trucks without this paperwork. Now, this was in the olden days of the 1990s, so we had seven massive, four-foot-tall dot matrix printers that did all the work.

These printers were temperamental b*****ds, and if the paper jammed, the printer did not automatically stop printing. It would just keep pushing/jamming more and more paper into the machine until, if left unattended, it would break down.

Running the printer room was a two-person job. When I started, I trained for two full weeks with the two current printer room employees. (One was being promoted; I was replacing him.) It was a rough two weeks, let me tell you, getting the hang of the job and the various things you had to learn, do, etc. One thing that made it even more complicated was the fact that each printer had its own personality with its own problems. Another was the fact that a problem in one printer could have a different fix than the exact same problem in another.

The job would be quiet for forty-five minutes straight, during which we did routine maintenance and such, but it was really slow and quiet and restful. This company processed its shipping orders in batches, once an hour. And then, boy, on the hour, every hour, the batch of orders would go through and thousands and thousands of orders would come spitting out.

Now, if you were on top of things and kept everything running smoothly, the orders would print out very neatly and quickly. But if you didn’t know what you were doing, and if you didn’t maintain things just right, you’d get a back-up and things would go to s*** very, very quickly. And when one machine went down, you had to fix it FAST, before the next one jammed; guaranteed, those machines would jam up multiple times on every batch print job.

I had been working in the print room for several months, and things were great. Then, my coworker gave his two-week notice. We tried to train his replacement, but he was incredibly lazy and got fired — fairly — a few days after the end of his training. That left me in the printer room alone.

Then, the bosses informed me that my “position” was being phased out, and I was going to be replaced by two employees transferred from a different department. So, not only was I losing my job, but I had to train my replacements. And I desperately needed a good recommendation from this company, so I couldn’t just quit or half-a** it.

I quickly learned that both of these transfers were lazy and useless. They’d been with the company for decades, had friends in the head office, and knew their jobs were safe. I’d show them how to do something, and they’d flat-out laugh and say, “Yeah, I’m not doing that.” Every day, I’d try to train them and they would ignore me, chat with each other, or leave to go sit in the cafeteria — leaving me to do a two-person job alone. Luckily, I was good enough to handle the workload, but it was annoying.

Mindful of the fact that I needed a reference from this company, I kept extensive notes on each day’s progress. I clearly documented every single instance of the replacements refusing to learn or even listen to my instructions. I also followed up daily with my direct supervisor, and he knew what was going on. My notes went into the company files and were passed up the line.

Despite my scathing reports, the head office did nothing.

Now, it was my last day. This was the day the training process directed me to let the newbies work alone, with no help or supervision allowed, to see how well they handled the job and the pressure. I was, in writing, FORBIDDEN from helping them or answering any questions.

As I expected, things fell to s*** pretty much immediately, minutes into the first batch of orders. One of the biggest printers jammed, and the clueless t**ts had no idea how to fix the printer jam — because they had ignored me every time I tried to show them how.

So, they turned to me and demanded that I fix things. I was sitting on a desk, coffee in one hand and an apple in the other.

Me: *Smiling* “Yeah, I’m not doing that.”

One of them started yelling at me while the other was basically thumping uselessly on the printer like a gorilla that had just found a candy machine. Then, a second printer jammed.

Paper started spilling out of the back of the first printer. (If you knew the job, this was a really, really, REALLY bad warning sign.)

Me: *Standing up* “Well, I’m going to go to the cafeteria, good luck!” 

As I was leaving, I heard a third printer cccrrrruuunnnch and jam up.

I went to my supervisor and let him know what was happening.

Supervisor: “I expected as much. I even predicted it repeatedly to my superiors.”

He once again specifically forbade me from offering any help, so I went to the cafeteria and read my book for a little over an hour.

Then, my supervisor came to me to let me know what had happened. The entire printer room was down, and every single printer had either jammed up or actually broken. The company was losing thousands of dollars every single minute. One of the shipper/receiving supervisors found me, all in a panic, begging me to get the orders printed.

Me: “Sorry, I’m not allowed to do that.”

Now, several people were running around outside the cafeteria, all in a panic, running from place to place to figure out why they didn’t have any shipping orders.

The chaos took HOURS to resolve. And I wasn’t allowed to fix the problems. Any time someone started giving me a hard time, my supervisor would intervene and show them the memo from the bosses stating that I was forbidden from helping in the printer room that day.

I spent my entire last day at work drinking coffee, chatting with coworkers, and reading my book. The whole fiasco ended up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars.