I have been working at a big pharmacy retail chain for a few months, and I’ve gotten used to some of the regulars that come in, especially those from the assisted living center for those aged fifty-five and up right next door.

Most of the elderly folks that came through are pretty decent. They like to chat a little and ask questions about deals in the weekly ad but nothing really out of the ordinary. However, there is always the exception. There is one older man, who appears to be in his late sixties, who is always trying to scam us somehow, some way.

One of the managers has grown wise to this old guy’s scams.

Every three to four weeks, this old guy comes in and asks for his brand of cigars. Since about two-thirds of the employees at the store are not yet eighteen, we have to call the store code for management to come up and approve any tobacco sales. As I’m working the register today, I just so happened to be the one that gets the brunt of this old guy’s poor attitude as he is trying to scam free cigars.

The old man approaches the register, and he’s carrying a white plastic bag with something inside it. He comes up to the register, sets the bag on the counter, and pulls out the last receipt he has from us, which is from a week ago.

Old Man: *Demanding* “You need to give me a new pack of cigars because all the cigars in the pack I purchased last week are stale.”

The cigars he purchases come in a pack of twenty, so he’s claiming that out of the last pack of twenty he purchased a week ago, all twenty are stale, and he wants us to swap a new package for his old one.

I can’t do returns or exchanges; they have to be handled by the manager. Plus, it has to do with tobacco and that also falls under the jurisdiction of the manager because I’m only sixteen. I page the manager for a return, and as we wait for a moment:

Old Man: “How can you just sell old, stale cigars. Don’t you people rotate stock? I don’t have time for this. I just want to exchange these and be on my way!”

Me: “Sorry, but the manager has to handle any returns or exchanges. It’ll just be a moment.”

The manager comes around the corner, and I can see the irritation in his eyes as he sees it’s the old man.

Manager: “Good afternoon! What can I assist you with today?”

Old Man: “These cigars I purchased last week: they’re all stale. I want to exchange them for another pack!”

Manager: “Sir. We’ve been over this before and I’m tired of going over it with you. We will not exchange the cigars for you. I’m sorry that sometimes you get a stale cigar in the pack you purchase, but you cannot keep all the stale ones you get from multiple packs you’ve purchased over the past five or six months and then expect us to simply give you twenty new cigars for all the stale ones you’ve sat on.”

Old Man: “I don’t do that! I told you last time when I had a stale pack, they were all stale, and you exchanged them for me. I want to exchange them again.”

Manager: “I told you last time that that was going to be the last time I did that for you. I am not exchanging this for you.”

Old Man: “Look at how stale these cigars are! All the tobacco is just falling out of them, and the paper is crumbling!”

He pulls out one of the cigars and starts tapping it all over the counter, causing tobacco to fall out of the cigar and the paper it’s wrapped in to break off in small pieces.

The old man has now made a big mess on the counter — old, dried tobacco all over as he continues to demonstrate how “stale” the cigars are.

Manager: “That’s it. You’re making a big mess, and I’ve already told you I wasn’t going to exchange any more cigars that you’re keeping and trying to scam a new pack from us. Take your bag of stale cigars and leave.”

Old Man: “You think I want these? They’re all old and stale! Exchange them for new ones!”

Manager: “I’m done. If you don’t leave now, I will contact the cops to escort you out, and on top of it, we will ban you from the property. Take your bag of cigars and go.”

The old man huffs, shoves the bag of cigars toward my manager causing the bag to fall to the floor and spill tobacco all over, and quickly leaves the building.

Manager: “God. I hate when he does this. Every five to six months. He keeps the one or two stale cigars from all the packs he buys, tries to repackage them into the plastic wrap they ship in, and claims the pack was all stale. I’m tired of the store taking a hit, and I’m tired of his crap.”

He takes a deep breath.

Manager: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off like that on him or for you guys here to see it. Let me go get the broom and dustpan so we can get this all cleaned up.”

I liked working with that manager. He always had our backs with the rude customers.

Several years ago, I was getting a lot of those “I’ve smuggled money from [Country] and need help moving it”-type emails. Spam filtering was not as good as it is now.

I finally got them to stop by replying with something like the following:

Me: “I am an official with [Country] government. We have set up email accounts to track down citizens who have illegally transferred funds and/or left the country. We are tracking the IP address of your email and agents will visit to return you and the funds. You will be sent to a re-education camp to ensure you will become a happy and productive member of our wonderful country.”

That was the end of annoying emails — for a while, anyway.

I am a web project manager in a good position, with really good working conditions, a very good team, and a very good salary. I am not looking for another job, but I also said to myself that I will always try not to miss good opportunities. I’ve had several job interviews, but none of them grabbed my attention. I’ve turned down a couple that were promising around ten percent bigger salary.

I am approached by one company; I was referred by some previous colleagues as a highly professional project manager. The company is a new one and I’ve never heard about them before, but I decide to follow my rule: never miss good opportunities.

We set up an interview and they tell me about the position and responsibilities. They always emphasize that they are only looking for an extremely skilled and professional person, as projects will be huge, and the person will need to manage big groups of people. They continue talking about work, and everything seems okay but too good to be true. I sense there is something wrong here.

Me: “Okay, it seems you are looking for a very skilled person. I know I fit this position, as you can see from my experience and references. Now, let’s talk about work conditions, salary, benefits — what you are offering.”

Interviewer: “Oh, about that. It’s a five- to six-hour job per day, and currently, this position is unpaid. We also cannot grant a personal car and laptop. Also—”

Me: “I am sorry, did I hear that right? This is an unpaid position?”

Interviewer: “Yes.”

Me: “You really expect to find someone so skilled, to work for free, like a charity? I really do not get why you do not look for students or interns.”

Interviewer: “What? They have no experience! We do not want such people!”

Me: “Of course they don’t. But what makes you think someone skilled will go for it? What makes you think I will quit my [salary] a year paying job just to work for free for you?”

Interviewer: “Well, if you really earn [salary] a year, you must have some savings.”

I started laughing. Then, I suggested we finish the interview and ironically wished them good luck in their search.

I ordered food from a restaurant using a popular delivery app. I kept the tracker open and saw that the car was coming down the cul de sac where I live. As I walked out the side door and rounded the corner, I saw the delivery driver taking a photo of the food at my front door and picking it up. He saw me and turned away, food still in hand.

Me: “Hi, that’s my order.”

Driver: *Spinning around* “Huh?”

Me: “That’s for [My Name], right?”

I showed him the tracking app.

Driver: “Oh. Yeah, I saw you coming out, so I was bringing it over.”

Me: “I came from over there…” *points behind me* “…but you were walking that way.” *Points toward his car*

Driver: “Yeah. Yeah, I was making sure no one took it.”

By taking a photo of the food and then picking it up?

Me: “Right. I’ll take my food, then.”

He put the bag on the ground and walked back to his car. I contacted the delivery service and told them I thought their driver might be stealing orders. They said they’d look into it, but I haven’t heard anything yet. I thought about revoking his tip, but I didn’t want to take his money if he wasn’t doing what I thought was happening.

I work in a chain retail store. We have this couple that routinely comes in empty-handed and either finds items missing our security tags or removes the tags themselves. They then come up to the line and claim they want to return all of these items without a receipt. The last time this happened, we had one of our secondary store managers in who blocked their IDs, which we use if someone doesn’t have their receipt.

I am working one night with one other girl. I am the only one working who does returns. The manager is on her lunch break and the store manager is somewhere in the back. The couple comes up with two carts full of items they want to “return”. I call my store manager over the walkie because I recognize them from last time.

I type the woman’s ID information in first, and it doesn’t go through.

Me: “You’ve reached the limit of returns without a receipt.”

I give her the little receipt with the phone number. The man has me try his ID, and it doesn’t go through, either.

Man: *Irritated* “Try it again!”

Somehow, it goes through. The man starts handing me items he wants to return. Once it hits $50-something, I call my store manager over again because the policy for returns without receipt is $50 only. It cannot go over $50, even by a penny. The manager explains this to the man. He starts to get even more pissed as I then have to hand back all items that will immediately reach over $50 and then repeatedly ask for his ID for each return I do after that.

In our store, items without the receipt tend to drop in price. I don’t know why it does it; I just know it pisses everyone off when they buy something for like $30 and try to return it and it comes out as $1.05. This happens to this couple a handful of times, and by the end of the return process, the guy is really pissed. He starts slamming down all the items he wants to purchase.

Once that is done, they go to leave… except a jacket they wanted to return but couldn’t has a security tag, so the second it goes through our sensors at our door, the alarm goes off. My store manager is still up front and takes the jacket out of the bag.

Manager: “Do you have the receipt for this?”

Of course, he doesn’t have it as he stole it. He starts yelling at my manager as she’s asking for his ID and where he bought it from so she can see if he did actually buy it. He eventually leaves without the jacket.

Man: “I’ll be back with the receipt!”

Surprise, surprise, he hasn’t come back. I’m pretty sure they are now blocked from returns at all of the stores in our chain.