(I’m trying to figure out how to get a replacement phone. The one the store sent me was defective, and because it was a refurbished phone, the physical store in town says they can’t help. They give me the number to call and I do. I’ve talked to about five people and been transferred to multiple departments, and I’m getting irritated.)

Me: “I really need this fixed. It’s not acceptable that I was sent a defective phone.”

Employee: “I completely understand. I’m going to get this fixed.”

Me: “Great. Thank you.”

Employee: “Okay, which location did you bring the phone to?”

Me: “The one at [Street in Town].”

Employee: “Okay, I need you to take it to [Store in City I haven’t lived in for a decade].”

(I’m stunned, because this information has certainly been updated then. All bills and new orders have been delivered to my new address.)

Me: “What? I haven’t lived there since I was twelve. Why is this location being brought up?”

Employee: “I need you to bring it there. That’s how it will get fixed.”

Me: *sighs and hangs up*

(I eventually called back after the rage passed, got it worked out by someone who didn’t want me to travel 1,000 miles.)

I am still fairly new to my job at a call-center for a car-sharing company. We were told in training that if a caller cursed at us directly, or threatened us or the company, we would be allowed to hang up. Nothing was ever said about whether we could disconnect calls with creepers.

This day, our client’s website goes down. That also means we can’t offer much caller support, since we use the same site our client’s members do. We do a lot of apologizing and offering to call people back once the site comes back online.

Then, I get a caller who seems normal at first. He asks plenty of general questions that I can answer — average membership fee, car types available, etc. And then, out of nowhere, the guy asks me if I’m from the Midwest. I tell him yes, since we are only forbidden from specifically saying what city we’re in. He’s on the East Coast, and he offers to put me up if I ever go out there. He proposes going out for lobster and having me call him Daddy or Papa. Then, he decides that I sound like I’m his son’s age, instead, and offers to hook me up with him.

The whole time he’s doing this, I’m trying to reach out to management or the lead operators — experienced agents who take supervisor calls — to see if I can hang up on the guy, because he won’t shut up and he creeps me out. All I’m getting are responses like, “That sucks,” or, “Tell him you have other callers.” This is a caller who won’t let me get a word in edgewise, as he’s offering to buy me a schoolgirl outfit, etc.

Finally, he hangs up his own accord. The call has taken almost an hour. I get a notice from our monitoring team about taking so long on a call when the main site is down… and a very belated comment from management about, “Oh, yeah. You can totally hang up on guys like that. You don’t even have to warn them before you do. Just let us know that’s what you’re planning to do, in case they complain. Sorry you didn’t get told that in training.”

Yeah, would’ve been nice to know before I got propositioned by a creepy older guy.

(My husband and I decide to try a new independent coffee shop that everyone keeps talking about. It is a hot summer day, and I usually don’t order blended coffee drinks, but the shop has a large selection that sound good and a sign advertising them as a great way to cool down in the heat and humidity. It is around one in the afternoon, so it’s not right after opening and not anywhere near closing, and the shop isn’t busy.)

Barista: “Hi, welcome to [Coffee Shop]. What can I get started for you? Our blended drinks are great for this weather.”

Me: “Yes, they sound perfect. I’ll try the [Blended Drink].”

Barista: “Oh, well, I’ll have to get the blender out.”

(The barista stares at me. I stare at her. After several more seconds of uncomfortable staring…)

Me: “Well, I guess I’ll just have an iced latte.”

Barista: “Great! I’ll get that started. Next time, you really should try one of our blended drinks!”

Me: “…”

(I need a new dress for my high school graduation ceremony. My mother will pay for it, but since she does not have much free time, it is decided that my older sister and I will go to our favourite fancy clothing store, look through their collection, put a reservation on our favourite dresses, and return the next day with our mother. I am 18, and my sister is 20. When we reach the store shortly after opening on a weekday, we enter the floor that has what we are looking for, only to find it completely empty of other customers or employees. There are, however, signs everywhere stating that you are not allowed to try on dresses without an employee present, so we go and search for one. On the far end of the floor, we find two women in their 50s behind some registers.)

Sister: “Hi, we are looking for a graduation dress!”

Employee: *stops talking to her colleague, looking rather annoyed* “Sure, come with me.”

(She leads us back out onto the floor. While walking, my sister tells her what we have in mind:)

Sister: “We need a graduation dress for my sister. The ceremony is at [date], and since it will be warm, we need something that has a fabric that is not too heavy. We thought about something with [sleeve style], maybe combined with [skirt style].”

(While my sister is in the middle of describing what we are looking for, the woman stops in the middle if the floor, next to one of the signs, and points to a connecting room.)

Employee: “Cocktail dresses are over there.” *walks away*

Me: “But wait!”

Sister: “Well, we tried! Come on. Let’s check out these dresses.”

(We spend the next hour in the room trying on dresses. The woman does not check on us or offer to help even once. With our two favourite dresses, we return to the registers. The woman is again chatting with her coworker and throws us a nasty look when she sees us. When we ask her to reserve the dresses for us, she complies but throws a look at her coworker that clearly says, “Who are those annoying brats trying to fool?” At home, we tell our mother about the woman’s behaviour. It’s clear to us that she did not deem us worthy of her time, thinking we would not buy anything. Since we are young adults looking for a dress for a specific occasion only a few weeks away, with clear ideas what we are looking for, we do not understand where she would get that idea from. When the three of us return the next day, the same woman is at the register again. We point her out to our mother.)

Mom: “Hello. My daughters reserved some dresses. I would like to see them.”

(The woman recognizes us, but quickly covers her shocked expression with a big smile.)

Woman: “But of course! Your lovely daughters were here yesterday! We looked at so many dresses, and they picked out some really nice ones!”

(She brings the dresses and keeps blabbering to my mother about us and the dresses, acting as if she had been helping us the whole time yesterday. She actually turns out to be really helpful when my mother wants to see some other dresses, finding one that was exactly what we have been looking for and looks perfect on me. We did not find it the day before because it was in a completely different room! My mother buys the dress, but does not leave a tip as would be usual in a store like this. The woman’s face drops when she sees that. Later, in the car:)

Mom: “Well, can you believe this woman? Does she think you do not talk to me? I would have given her a big tip for her help, but not when she treated you that way yesterday!”

(I hope that woman learned her lesson: even if you do not think someone is going to buy something, do the job you’re getting paid for!)

(I am what they call a “floater” — basically a substitute — at a local day-care. This means I might work with different age groups each shift I am called in to work. Today, I am working in the one-year-old room. We have a schedule for when we change the children’s diapers, but they are also periodically checked throughout the day. A coworker and I have our group playing outside in the fenced-in area. A mom comes up to the fence to pick up her baby after signing her child out of the office. I hand the child over the fence to the mother, then go in to get her child’s things. She takes her child and the things to the car just a few feet away, so I think nothing more of it. A minute later the mother comes back to me, holding her child out in front of her as if she is disgusted by her.)

Mother: “She needs to be changed.”

(I wordlessly stare at the mother for a few seconds before it registers to me that, yes, this is actually happening. Not wanting to cause a scene or fuss with the mother, I take the child back in, change her, bring her back out to the mother, and hand her back over the fence.)

Coworker: “Did she really just bring her child back to us just so we could change her?”

Me: “Yep.”

(Both of us stared at the mother as she drove away, wondering how in the world some people ever became parents.)