I work in a vape store. A lady comes in looking for a coil for a newer vape.

Customer: “I need a coil for this unit.”

Me: “Oh! We have those. I’ll just grab that.”

Customer: “That’s not right. Those ones don’t fit in this vape.”

Me: “Oh, strange, I know that they fit because I see multiple people every day with the same vape buying the same coils. Here, let me check the box on one of the units in store just to make sure your vape can take this coil.”

I grab a box of the EXACT model of her vape and go over all that’s included and which coils will actually work in her vape. Lo and behold, the coil I grabbed was one of the few INCLUDED in the box.

Me: “Says here that this exact coil actually comes with that vape when you buy it, so I don’t understand how it’s not fitting?”

Customer: “Oh. I was just going to see if I could use them and then try to get the money back if I said they didn’t work. I didn’t think a girl would be that smart working in a vape store.”

The lady quickly turned and walked out, leaving me a bit stunned at that interaction. I get a lot of flack for being a female in my industry, but I do know what I’m doing for my job.

My promotion still hadn’t gone through, and the last guy in my new position hadn’t officially left it yet, despite already working his new role. He couldn’t stop meddling with my new job, including agreeing to transfers into my team without telling me. 

I found out that [New Team Member] was transferring in, and while I was furious, he had gone behind my back and it was already official. There was nothing I could do until she had at least a few months to “prove herself”.

[New Team Member] appeared one morning with a big box of her stuff and began unpacking. It wasn’t long before the team started to chat with her and asked her why she had taken the transfer. 

New Team Member: “My last manager was a d**k, useless, and didn’t know what he was doing. He constantly picked on me. So, I had to move.”

Team Member: “Wow, I would have never realised he was that bad.”

Me: “Yes, that’s surprising.”

I had met him several times and his team all seemed really happy.

New Team Member: “His loss. I think he will struggle; I did most of his work for him, too!”

Team Member: “Wow, impressive. Welcome to the team.”

Me: “Yes, welcome! Great to have you with us. Someone said you worked in the warehouse, too?”

New Team Member: “Oh, yes. Completely sorted that place out. Shame I had to transfer from there. But the manager there was a perv and an idiot.”

This same pattern carried on; every manager she had was useless, and in every department, she apparently sorted out all their issues for them. Alarm bells were ringing; it didn’t seem true at all.

Me: “Okay, [New Team Member], can I show you what you will be doing with us?”

New Team Member: “I think I should wait for [Old Boss].”

Me: “He is away with a customer today and most of tomorrow. I can show you.”

New Team Member: “Well, he is my boss.”

Me: “For the time being, yes, but I can teach you.”

New Team Member: “I’m going to wait.”

Me: “So, what are you going to do for two days?”

New Team Member: *Shrugs* “I dunno. Not my problem.”

Any attempt to show her anything was useless; any intrusion or rationale was useless. When I did manage to get the old boss to try to instruct her, she moaned and complained, making snarky comments about how he should be more organised and how she didn’t want to be trained by us.

Eventually, I took over the role officially. Still, [New Team Member] complained and got things wrong but would complain that it must be us doing it wrong. She tried to change everything and said that “she knew what she was doing; she had done this in other departments.

I transferred her out and put all her “fixes” back to how they should have been. Good luck to the next guy.

I am a real estate attorney and I handle closings on home sales, estate sales — basically anything related to home sales. I have an acquaintance who also does the same thing, so we occasionally meet up at closings, etc. He related this story to me about ten years ago.

He is handling the estate of a man who passed away and left his house to his twenty-five-year-old son. After paying off the remaining mortgage, property, and estate taxes, the son is left with proceeds of about $40,000. My friend draws up a check and gives it to the son. The son is very polite during the whole process and thanks him for his assistance, which has taken several weeks to process. He leaves the office with the check. About a minute later, he comes back in.

Son: “Hey! I was just wondering, instead of this check, would you be able to do an electronic deposit of the proceeds to my checking account?”

Attorney: “Oh, sure, that’s no problem. Just fill out this form—” *pulls a form out of his drawer and hands it to the man* “—and fill out the banking information and all your details. After I enter it into my system, I can process the payment.”

Son: “Oh, great. How long will this take?”

Attorney: “Not long at all! Once you complete the form, I just type in the information into the system and submit the funds transfer. Then it takes twenty-four to forty-eight hours for the deposit to hit your account. Since today is Wednesday, most likely you’ll have the money by tomorrow, but no later than Friday.”

Son: “Perfect, let’s do that!”

They complete the process, which takes about fifteen or twenty minutes. After they’re done, the son thanks the attorney and goes on his way.

Jump ahead a little over a week, and my attorney friend starts getting a bunch of calls from people he’s written checks with during the past week to ten days.

Caller: “Hey, [Attorney], that check you wrote me bounced!”

Attorney: “What?! Are you serious?”

Caller: “Yes, for certain.”

Attorney: “I can’t understand. There’s plenty of money in my account. It must be a problem at the bank. I’ll call them and let you know what’s going on.”

He got almost a dozen calls just like this.

After calling his bank, he found out what had happened. That man who left with the check for only about a minute used the mobile banking app on his phone and made the deposit that way. Then, he came back in, got the electronic transfer money, and ended up with $80,000 instead of $40,000. He then immediately closed his account as soon as he had the money, got a bank check for the balance, and left for somewhere in Europe the next day. This all but wiped out my friend’s checking account. He had almost a dozen check payments that he had to reissue, which took him several weeks to do.

My attorney friend tried for weeks to get the money back, but they were unable to trace where the guy — or his money — had gone, other than that he’d fled the country to Europe, and how they found that out, he didn’t know. He filed a claim with his bank that the check had been fraudulently deposited, but as of the last time I spoke to him a few years ago, he still hadn’t got his money back; it was still being worked on.

He did change his procedures, though. He tells all clients now what their options are for receiving their money, but once they choose one and leave the building, their choice can’t be changed.

Lesson learned, and by me, too! I’ve never encountered this issue, but I follow the same process and am insanely careful about financial procedures in my office.

A few days ago, I had a young couple checking into the hotel. As I was doing the check-in process, this was the exchange we had.

Guest: “Last time I stayed here, they upgraded us to a room with an ocean view. I told them it was our anniversary, so they just upgraded us. Do you think we can do that again?”

Me: “Yeah, of course! Just tell me the name of your last reservation and I’ll confirm we have it, and then I’ll put you in that ocean view room.”

Guest: “Oh, it was two years ago so I doubt you still have the reservation.”

Me: “No worries! Our system goes as far back as 2012.”

Guest: “Oh, back to 2012, huh? Uhh, okay, the name was [Name #1].”

Me: “Hmmm… I’m not seeing anything under that name.”

Guest: “Maybe I had it under [Name #2].”

Me: “Nope, nothing under that, either. Let me just bring up all the reservations I had on this day two years ago.”

Of course, I found nothing.

Me: “Sorry, sir, if it was here, I would definitely upgrade you back to the room you said you’d been upgraded to. But since it’s not here, I can’t. Do you maybe have the confirmation in your emails?”

Guest: “I do not. No worries.”

His demeanor after this exchange was very awkward; it was obvious he was embarrassed. His girlfriend also looked like she was going to make fun of him once they went to their room. In my head, I pictured them in the car on their way here with him betting her that he could easily get an upgrade.

The funny thing is, if he had just told me that it was his anniversary, I would have upgraded them. I just don’t like when people lie or say stories to imply what they want. If you want something, just ask. It’s even worse on his part because he wasn’t even paying for the reservation; it was his girlfriend. That’s fine, but if you’re going to lie for an upgrade, I’d expect you to be the one paying for the room. If he was the one paying and he lied, I probably would have called him out the way I did but still upgraded him just to be nice.

I was a delivery driver for a pizza chain, and I would help the front staff take calls and place orders.

Customer: “I only have $20. What can I get?”

My manager worked with me, removed the delivery fee, and got them as much food as possible with our coupon codes.

Me: “Your total will be $19.89, and it will be there in forty-five minutes or so.”

We were slow, so I delivered their food in about twenty-seven minutes. I knocked on the door.

Customer: “The person on the phone said it would be ready in thirty minutes or less, and now it’s free because you took so long!”

Me: *Smiling* “A, we stopped doing that promotion twenty years ago. B, I am the person you spoke to on the phone, and I never said that. And C, it only took twenty-seven minutes.”

I showed them the time stamp on the receipt. They grumbled and avoided eye contact as they held out their hand for their 11¢ in change. Some people!