I am working at a coffee shop in London, and I am serving a customer with a US accent.

Customer: “Can I have some half-and-half with that?”

Me: “We don’t have half-and-half over here, but I know what you’re asking for. In the UK, the half-and-half equivalent is two-thirds single cream and one-third milk; will that be okay?”

Customer: “No! I want half-and-half!”

Me: “That’s a product of the USA, not the UK, so I can’t—”

Customer: *Narrows her eyes and focuses on my accent* “Where are you from?”

Me: “Argentina, madam.”

Customer: “Then what would you know about what we have in America?“

Me: “Well, I know that you and I are both Americans.”

Customer: “No, I am the American!“

Me: “My country is in South America. It’s literally in the name. Canadians, Argentinians, Mexicans — we’re all Americans.”

Customer: “There’s only one America, and it’s where I am from!”

Our coffee shop luckily has a giant cork world map on the wall, where small bills of foreign currency are folded into little flags and placed on the countries they came from.

Me: “Madam, please tell me the names of the large continents you see here on the left of the map.”

The customer sees, clear as day, in all caps: “NORTH AMERICA” and “SOUTH AMERICA”.

Customer: “Well… only my America counts!”

Me: “At least I know the true definition of American, and that what you were trying to say was you’re from the United States Of America. Now, would you like me to pour you something that is almost indistinguishable from half-and-half?”

Customer: “I’m going to go find a place that knows how to serve an American!”

Me: “I’m an American offering you a solution.”

Customer: “You’re not a real American!”

I point to the southern tip of Argentina (just north of Antarctica on the scale of the world map) and then slide my finger all the way north to Alaska.

Me: “That’s 15,000 km — literally all of it America. Have a great day!”

Related:
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 19
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 18
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 17
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 16
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 15

It is 2010. A customer comes in looking pretty flustered.

Customer: “I need a video game for my husband. He lost his pre-order in another shop and he’s really upset.”

Me: “What’s it called?”

Customer: “Something weird and foreign. Like… Mila Kunis?”

Me: “Like… like the actress?”

Customer: “Maybe? Is she Japanese?”

Me: “Is it Ni No Kuni?”

Customer: “Yes! That’s the one! Nina Kunis! Do you have it?” 

We did. We hope the husband enjoyed playing Mila Kunis!

I am running for the bus and just miss it. As I’m cursing my bad timing, a car pulls up and I hear my name.

Driver: “Hey, [My Name]! Get in! I’ll get you to the next stop before the bus does!”

Amazing! I jump in and am buckling my seat belt when I look over to the driver, who is now looking at me with growing concern.

Driver: “You’re not [My Name].”

Me: “I am, but I don’t think I am your [My Name].”

And that’s how I just jumped into the car of a random stranger, who happened to look like my friend and drive the same make and colour of car, and how I looked like one of the driver’s friends, also called [My Name].

Next time, I will aim to be more aware when jumping into a car!

I worked for a small company that had an office in one of those co-working office spaces. We were in a corner space, with a neighbour on each side.

The product we sold was books — school yearbooks, in fact — and for each one we produced, we ordered ourselves a few copies to keep and use as examples when making sales visits.

To display our wares in the office, we bought a few bookcases from the Swedish flat pack furniture shop. It was the quiet season for my role (Sales & Account Management), so I, along with a Marketing intern, volunteered to put them together, which took place over a couple of working days as we worked around our other duties.

At no point during these two days did anyone — either co-working space staff or other tenants — say a single word to us.

So, we were a little surprised to find out a few days later that one of our neighbouring office tenants had lodged a complaint about us with the staff, saying that the bookcases we’d erected were blocking out too much of their natural light.

Since these bookcases had a thin panel that covered the back (and provided structural rigidity), this was a fair complaint, and we readily admitted this was a bit of a party foul and were keen to resolve the problem in a mutually agreeable manner.

We tried to locate the neighbour and suggest some options that would allow us to maintain a display without plunging them into darkness. Simple, right?

However, just finding a time when anyone from this business was in the office was impossible — begging the question of why they were so bothered about the light if they were never there.

We left notes on and under their door, stressing that we were not upset that they’d complained, but we wanted to chat and see what could be done about it.

After a couple of days of trying to make contact, we got another message that they were still upset about the bookcases and were planning to escalate their complaint if we didn’t do something about it soon.

We spoke to the office staff, asking if they could share some contact details or pass on a message. They agreed to do the latter, but we never heard back from them through this channel.

One day, glory be, we encountered them leaving their office! So, we tried to snatch a quick, two-minute chat. They didn’t just brush us off; they ran down the corridor to escape us.

Whether this was due to extreme social anxiety or just being terrified of confrontation, I’m not sure. But it was quite odd that someone who had made the effort to use official channels to voice their dissatisfaction so vociferously was so reluctant to play any part in resolving the issue.

Eventually, we had the building staff pass on the same message that we slid under their door:  that we would remove the reinforcing back panel and install some corner brackets to prevent the units from wobbling and collapsing.

Since none of our books were more than a third of the height of the shelves, this would let a decent amount of light through. We even painted the exposed, untreated wood to match the rest of the bookcases so that it didn’t look shabby from the back.

Was this acceptable? We can only speculate, as we didn’t hear another peep from them.

All in all, it was a really odd interaction that could probably have been avoided with a quick knock at our door and a few minutes of discussion.

I’m travelling with a friend on the underground, and I’m standing in the queue for the outermost ticket barrier to go through to the platforms. Suddenly, I feel myself being bowled over, but this is something I am used to as I’m a bit of a metalhead. I manage to stand my ground and look over to see what is going on.

It turns out a woman about my height — I’m female, too — but heavier than me just walked into me because she was chatting with her friend. (I bring up her size as it explains why I needed to use a bit of force to keep myself in place.) I’m about to brush it off when she turns to her friend.

Woman: “Oh, how rude!”

I turn to face her again.

Me: “Um, you walked into me.”

Woman: “Well, you didn’t need to push back so much!”

Me: “I was already standing here. Maybe you should look where you are going.”

Because obviously, to her, I should have fallen down or moved out the way when she walked into me and not stopped her for any reason.

I turned around, put my ticket into the barrier, and walked through, leaving the sound of outrage behind me. My friend and I had a good laugh about it on the escalator, and another friend we met later didn’t believe it had happened until the one there confirmed it.