CONTENT WARNING: Violence (Customer threatens/attempts to stab an employee)

I worked at a sandwich place located inside a mall, but not attached to any other stores. This is important, as there is another branch of the same chain located INSIDE of a store that is open later due to the store itself being open later.

I am counting down the drawer, thirty minutes past close, when I hear a tapping. I look at the door to find a lady smiling and waving at me.

I mouth through the door that we are closed and go back to counting. 

She bangs on the door more insistently, angry now. I go to the door, shout, “We are closed!”, and point to the hours.

She acts like she doesn’t hear, so I give her the benefit of the doubt and do what you should NEVER DO ESPECIALLY WHEN ALONE: I unlock the door to speak with her.

Customer: “Hi. I am so sorry, but I just called here and spoke to someone. You said you would be open until ten, so why are you closed?” 

Me: “Oh. You must have called elsewhere. We are never open past 8:30. I am just here counting the drawer.”

Customer: *Now irate* “No. I called here, and the man on the phone said you were open until ten!” 

Me: “I am going to stop you right there. We haven’t had a man working this restaurant at all today — just women — but also, we have never been open past 8:30 because the mall closes at eight.”

Customer: “So… who did I call, then?!“ 

I know I should have disengaged, but I am a helpful person, and this is my first management job, so I want to do the right thing.

Me: “I am sorry. You would know better than I would who you called. Perhaps call them back to find out their location so you can get your food?”

Customer: “No! They said they were open until ten, so you have to make my food for me!” 

Me: “No…? I cannot. Our systems are shut down, our food is put away, and everything is off. If it were, like, right at close, I could have helped you, but we’ve been closed for over forty-five minutes now.”

Customer: “You will make me my sandwiches because you should be open until ten like your other—”

I closed and locked the door at this and turned around.

The customer lost her s***, shaking and pounding the door. The customers leaving the chain store were concerned and tried to help the banshee, but she kept screaming.

I went to the back, locked myself in the office, and called security, getting worried that she might actually break the door down. On the cameras, I saw her leave finally, and I breathed a sigh of relief, letting security know. They still said they would send someone over to make sure it was safe for me to leave.

Security let themselves into the store mall side and let me know what had happened and that I could leave.

Apparently, the lady had a complete meltdown in the parking lot. She was hiding near the dumpster closest to the store, and she went to knife some poor cashier from one of the restaurants that were open later (a steak place), causing the cashier to lock all the customers inside for their safety and call security.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Apparently, before she got caught with the knife at the dumpster, the woman had slashed the tires of all the cars parked near the doorway, thinking one of them had to be mine.

The police arrested her and cleared the area for everyone to leave.

So never, ever open a door for someone past opening hours. You never know what could happen!

Related:
Not So Closed Minded, Part 38
Not So Closed Minded, Part 37
Not So Closed Minded, Part 36
Not So Closed Minded, Part 35
Not So Closed Minded, Part 34

The company I work for has tried to do various fun activities for the employees over the years. Some have worked better than others. Several years ago, they decided to do an Easter egg hunt in the parking lot. Our parking lot is a large rectangle with plenty of landscaping to hide eggs. The eggs could contain candy, one- or five-dollar bills, or gift cards to nearby stores.

They had us all in the middle of the parking lot. We were told there were no eggs on or under anyone’s cars so not to bother looking there. Then, they told us to go, and everyone took off, running and sometimes screaming in excitement. Not being particularly athletically inclined, I decided to simply stroll around and see what I could find without getting too worked up about it.

I headed toward one end of the parking lot and spotted a pink egg under a large bush with big pink flowers. Several people ran past me and past the bush, but none of them noticed it before I reached it. I was pleased that I’d found at least one. Looking around again, I spotted a green egg under a leafy, green bush. I walked over calmly and retrieved it, as well. Again, several people ran by me before I reached it and none of them noticed.

In the end, as I walked all the way around the lot, I ended up with four eggs and some people had none. The admin people were counting them all up and announced that they had all been found. Some people congratulated me, but a few people glared at me and muttered that there should be a limit to how many anyone was allowed to take. I just ignored them. If there was a limit, I would have obeyed it, but there wasn’t one. I ended up with a handful of candy, six dollars, and a gift card to a restaurant down the street.

The next year, they changed it. They hid eggs around the building in the non-work areas, but the signs said specifically to only take one per person as they wanted to make sure there were enough for all three shifts. Also, there was only candy in these eggs. I got my one egg and was perfectly fine, but I heard that some people never got theirs because people were ignoring the signs and taking more than one.

I’ve just been laid off from a job, and I need to ship some equipment back to the company. They sent a QR code and instructions to bring the items to a [Shipping Company] office location, where the staff will scan the code and take care of packaging up the items as well as actually shipping them.

I’ve never used a service like that, so when I get there, I open with this as I speak to the guy at the desk.

Me: “Hi! I’ve got this QR code to scan, and I’m told you provide the packaging service as well as the shipping. Does that sound right?”

Guy: “No.”

Me: “Oh, no?”

Guy: “We only do the shipping. You have to package it.”

Me: “Oh. Let me double-check the email.”

Guy: “Well, let me scan the code. Each company does it differently.”

He scans the code, types into the computer for about a minute and a half, scans the code again, and then gets a tape measure and begins measuring the items.

Me: “So… you are handling the packaging?”

Guy: “Yup.”

Me: “Why did you say no?”

Guy: *Coldly* “I told you, every company’s setup is different.”

Me: “Then perhaps ‘maybe’ would have been a better answer?”

Guy: “Mmmm… No, I like the word I used.”

Me: “Oh. Uh… I don’t.”

Guy: “Okay.”

He finishes with the items and gives me my receipt. I notice that it says, “Number of pieces: 1.”

Me: “Sorry, is ‘number of pieces’ the number of packages or the number of items in the packages?”

Guy: “Number of items.”

Me: “Okay, I just noticed that it says one piece on the receipt, but there were two.”

Guy: “There’s only one package.”

Me: “…Have a great day.”

I work in a bookstore that has a large educational and textbook section. A woman walks up to the helpdesk, looks at me, looks around, sees no one else available to help, sighs, and then approaches me.

Customer: “My son is starting high school after summer, and I want him to get ahead in his math.”

Me: “That’s great! We have a huge selection of guides to mathematics, both general and specific. Is there any area in particular you’d like him to focus on?”

Customer: “Algebra.”

I bring her over to the relevant section. As we head over, we’re joined by her son. He identifies a specific book before I can even recommend it.

Me: “Good choice! This is the book I actually used when—”

Customer: “Look, I’m sure you’re a nice boy and all that, but my son is going to be going places. I’m sure working in a bookstore in America is a great achievement for someone from… your part of the world, but if my son is going to be Ivy League, I need him to be using something more advanced than what you used to get into a job at a bookstore.”

I am silent for a moment, not because I am angry — this happens to me a lot as I am of Moroccan descent — but because her son looks like he is about to explode.

Customer’s Son: “Mom! You can’t be serious!”

Customer: “What? I’m not being mean; I’m just calling it how I see it.”

Me: “I’m an American, ma’am, same as you.”

Customer: *Scoffs* “You are not the same as me! I’m a full-blooded American who can trace her lineage back to the fifth president of the United States!”

Me: “Unless you’re Native American, then I’m as full-blooded as you are. My relatives are from Morocco, and yours are from Europe.”

Customer: “Look, I just need you to get your manager or someone else more qualified to recommend a book for my son.”

Customer’s Son: “Mom, his relatives invented Algebra. Ours invented gerrymandering. I’m going to be just fine with his recommendations, thanks.”

And with that, he chose my book recommendation and walked back to the checkouts with his (mercifully silenced) mother glaring at me as they left.

I work in a tax office. In early January, before most people even get their W2s, a client came in with a 1099-NEC and some random bank statements that were not annotated. I asked her if she was still working her W2 job from prior years, and she said she was. I entered the 1099-NEC into the system, put everything in a folder, and told her to bring her missing W2 and we’d finish it then.

Over the course of the month, she kept scheduling appointments with us and not showing up for them. This was frustrating because it took up a time slot that a client could actually use. Every time we tried to call her phone, we got an answering service.

After four of these, I left a message letting her know that she was not a client of ours anymore and asking her to please pick up her documents. Any future appointments would be canceled.

About two weeks later, the client came in and complained that it “took too long” for us to do her taxes and she wanted to do them elsewhere. She wanted her W2 back. 

We didn’t have her W2. We’d never had her W2. 

She took home the rest of her documents. (I wasn’t present for this; this is what we learned in the after-event inquest.)

A week after that, the client came in again demanding her documents. Now, her documents were not present. Flummoxed, we turned over the whole office looking for them. Finally, we told her that they were missing, presumed shredded. (I still wasn’t present for this; this was also learned in the post-event inquest.)

She flipped out, saying it was “illegal” to shred her documents and that she was going to call the police on us. That should have gotten her barred and instructed to only talk to our legal department, but somehow, she was given an appointment with me, and even though I canceled it because she’s not supposed to have appointments with me, she knew I was working at that time, came in, and was allowed into the back to approach me and yell at me. A lot. She wambling about the police and “it’s illegal!” and stuff.

I’m autistic, I don’t deal with loud noises well, and this left me overstimulated and curled up in a ball sobbing.

Then, we had a whole inquest to figure out how a disabled employee (me) wound up in that state, where the failures had happened, and how to fix them in the future. It was determined that the return of the client’s documents should have been noted in her file, that she should not have been permitted to make an appointment with me after she was already agitated, and that the notes saying she had never given us her W2 should have been ACTUALLY READ.

I wish I trusted that my coworkers would actually follow the recommendations of the inquest.