A crazy rush has just ended, and the floor of the place is dirty. I take a minute to catch my breath when the manager walks out of his office. He has not been seen since the rush started.

Manager: “[My Name], if you have time to lean, you have time to clean!”

Me: “If you have time to stare, you have time to spare.”

Manager: “…whatever.”

He goes back into his office. We work faster when he stays in there anyway.

Related:
If You’ve Got Time To Moan, Then Clean It On Your Own, Part 2
If You’ve Got Time To Moan, Then Clean It On Your Own

Me: *Taking a call.* “You’ve reached [Pizza Place].”

Caller: “I just got my pizza from you guys, and it’s too hot!”

Me: “Oh, well, if you just let it sit for a few minutes, it should cool down.”

Caller: “Why should the customer be the one putting in the hard work of waiting?! Next time, you guys wait longer before delivering it!” *Click.*

Seriously, the hard work of waiting?

The store I used to work at has a front that faces west, and it’s all windows. We’re in Texas, so it’s always hot with the sun streaming in and, of course, the sun glares in our eyes and the register screens, etc.

Customer: “You should have blinds or something!”

Me: “We agree, but we’re not allowed to put blinds up.”

Customer: “Why not?!”

Me: “Some time before I worked here, when there were still blinds on the windows, a customer drove by through the parking lot, saw the blinds were closed, and instead of reasoning that it’s very sunny hence the blinds, parking and going up to see if the store was open, or calling the store to ask if it’s open, she called customer care to complain that the store was apparently closed in the middle of the day because blinds down equals store closed. Corporate responded by taking the blinds away and banning them.”

Customer: “…oh.”

Me: “Of course, you could call corporate yourself and say you’d like the blinds put back.”

Customer: “Hmm… nah, that sounds like a lot of work.”

I used to work for the US Department of the Interior. This happened when I’d been there about six months, back in 2006:

Manager: “Did you sign [Coworker]’s retirement card?”

Me: “[Coworker]? Uh, this is embarrassing, but I don’t know who that is.”

Manager: “Oh, she doesn’t leave her desk much… or do much… so that’s understandable.”

Later that afternoon, there’s a small fuss made over an older lady leaving, a bit of cake, and then everyone goes back to work.

Me: *To manager.* “I can honestly say I have never seen that woman in my life.”

Manager: “Yeah, well, the last administration took over, they made a bunch of changes that made [Coworker] detest doing her job. She had over thirty years under her belt by that point, so she just decided to come into the office, sit at her desk, and do nothing. She’s refused to do any work until she eventually qualified for retirement with full benefits, so… here we are.”

Me: “[Department Head] didn’t try to get rid of her?”

Manager: “They never even bothered because they knew she would retire before they could jump through all the necessary hoops.”

Me: *Moment of realization.* “Wait… you said this started when the last administration took over.”

Manager: “Yup. George W Bush.”

Me: “That… that was five years ago.”

Manager: “Yup. She got sooo much knitting done.”

I work as a donation attendant at a Goodwill-type place. Encyclopedias are one of the items listed as ‘do not accept’. We had this one lady with a trunk full of them.

Me: “Ma’am, we can’t take these.”

Woman: *Shouting.* “What, why not?!”

Me: “It’s just our policy not to take them anymore.”

Woman: *Now angry and shouting.* “Don’t you guys send stuff overseas?! Can’t you give it to kids in Africa?”

Me: “If you feel some kids in Africa need your 1987 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, please feel free to send it to them!”

Woman: “That’s your job! I’m doing a good deed already by bringing them here!”

Me: “Ma’am, these are out of date, and we have the internet now. You’re not doing a good deed; you’re using us as a place to dump thirty heavy books that can only be used as doorstops now.”

She shouted a few more times and drove off. The next morning, I came to open the store in some heavy rain, to see the encyclopedia volumes dumped at the front door, ruined from water damage.