(I am meeting a friend I haven’t seen in a long time for a brewery tour. I read the website to look up operating hours, product information, and anything else I might need or want to know. There are three men and three women besides us gathered for the tour. The following exchange occurs right before the tour takes off.)

Woman #1: “Babe, let’s go on the tour! It’s free!”

Employee: “Ooh, sorry, guys, but no open-toed shoes on the tour.”

Woman #2: “They’re only flip flops! I wear them all the time. Trust me, I’m not going to trip and fall.”

Employee: “We don’t allow sandals, flip flops, or any open-toed shoes on the tour because of the machinery, and it may be slippery.”

Woman #2: “How come she—” *pointing at me* “—can go, and we can’t?”

Employee: “Because she—” *pointing at me* “—is wearing sneakers.”

Woman #1: “If you didn’t want us wearing flip flops on the tour, you really should post it on your website so we’d know. It’s not fair.”

Employee: “It is on the website. We put in on there to prevent incidents like this from happening. Sorry, but the tour is leaving now.”

(The tour begins, and we walk through the door.)

Me: “I read it on the website, which is why I changed my shoes before I got here. I wanted to be prepared, so I read all about the tour times and such.”

Employee: “I know it’s on the website, but nobody bothers to check before they come. Oh, well.”

(My friend and I ended up having a private tour, since nobody else was allowed to come.)

(It is the middle of winter, and I am in line behind two other women at a small grocery store. It appears that the first customer has carefully calculated her purchases to stay within the amount of her EBT allowance, and the cashier has torn the top off of a box of tea so the customer can use the coupon printed on the inside. However…)

Cashier: *scanning order* “Um, so, this tea is scanning as a supplement, and EBT won’t cover it, so you’ll have to pay cash for that part.”

Woman #1: “But… but I don’t have any cash. All I have is my T pass and my EBT card.”

Cashier: “Well, but… I can’t put this back on the shelf, now that the top’s torn off. You’ll have to pay for it.”

Woman #1: “I can’t! I don’t have any cash!”

Woman #2: “You know what? Just add it to mine, no big deal. Hey, it even comes with a coupon, right?”

Cashier: “Are you sure? Do you have cash?”

Woman #2: “Yeah, it’s fine. Who am I to deny someone a hot cup of tea in this rotten weather?”

(The cashier scanned the first woman’s card and packed her groceries, then rang the tea and its coupon first on the second woman’s order before adding it to the first woman’s things. The first woman seemed so grateful, and I found myself agreeing with the second woman — on a day like that one, everyone who wants one should be able to have a nice hot cup of tea.)

(While sitting in the break room, I hear this conversation taking place surrounding the latest “Avengers” movie.)

Coworker #1: “Man, if I had the Infinity Gauntlet, I’d snap my fingers and have my aisle stocked instantly!”

Coworker #2: “Hold on. You’re telling me you’d use the power to do literally anything you wanted just for that? How short-sighted can you possibly be?!”

Coworker #1: *imitating* “The powers of the universe are at my command!” *snaps fingers* “My aisle is stocked; I’m going home to play video games. Can anybody give me a ride?”

(I’m a ticket-taker in a major metropolitan movie theatre. It’s the opening weekend of a big superhero movie and it is incredibly busy. Our escalator is currently broken, but we offer guests our elevator. A woman refuses this offer, as she claims she can walk up stairs. I rip her ticket and then I hear a loud alarm.)

Woman: “WHY WON’T THE ESCALATOR WORK?!”

(She proceeds to keep hitting the emergency stop button, setting off the buzzer alarm.)

Me: “Ma’am, the escalator is broken and cannot be turned on. If you would like, the elevator is just across the lobby.”

Woman: “I WILL NOT BE TREATED LIKE A CHILD! MAKE THE MOVING STAIRS WORK!”

(I tell her to calm down and that our elevator is across the lobby. She decides that flapping her arms like a bird will make the escalator work.)

Woman: “MAKE THEM WORK! MAKE THEM WORK!”

(Her flapping motion eventually causes another guest to get seriously hurt and we have to call security. She refuses to move, and the police need to be called.)

Me: *to another guest after the woman is removed* “I apologize, sir. I didn’t realize we were doing a live performance of The Birds tonight.”

Guest: “Oh, that’s fine. I couldn’t get tickets to [Superhero Movie], so it made my night!”

(I work in a busy pizza shop in a college town. On a Friday night, a young woman makes a carry-out order for seven pizzas. It is picked up without incident, but later we get a call from the customer’s friend.)

Customer: “Hi, my friend ordered an extra pizza by accident; we only meant to get six pizzas. We’d like a refund, please.”

Me: “Okay, if you bring it back to the store, we can give you your money back for the extra pizza.”

Customer: “What? No, you’re going to send someone here to pick it up.”

Me: “I’m afraid that since this was a carry-out order, we can’t send someone to take it from you. You’ll have to bring it back yourself.”

Customer: “That’s incredibly inconvenient for me. Why can’t you just send someone?”

Me: “Because the drivers are paid through the tips and the delivery fees they get from delivery orders. Since it was a carry-out order, we can’t send a driver to go pick it up because they wouldn’t be compensated for their time, and we need them here to deliver other orders.”

Customer: “Well, then, I’ll keep the pizza, but you’re going to give me a refund.”

Me: “I can’t give you a refund if you keep the pizza. That would just be giving away a free pizza; I would get in trouble.”

Customer: “Then you’re going to give me a free pizza next time I order for making me go out of my way.”

Me: *starting to get angry* “Ma’am, you accidentally ordered an extra pizza and we made it exactly the way you ordered it. If you want your money back, you have to give the food back to us; we’re not just going to give you a refund. And we certainly can’t give you a free pizza because you made a mistake in your order.”

Customer: “So, you made a mistake and you won’t even take responsibility?”

Me: “We didn’t make a mistake; you ordered the pizza and we made it exactly how you asked for it. You then picked it up and brought it home.”

Customer: “This is unbelievably inconvenient. I’m just going to send someone to give you guys the pizza, but you’ll never get an order from me again!”

(She never sent the pizza back.)