(A man walks up to my register with an iTunes gift card. It’s worth noting that when I started work in retail, gift cards had to be manually activated by the cashiers during purchase, but at the time of this story, this hasn’t been the case for years. Now gift cards activate automatically when purchased.)

Customer: “Make sure you activate the card for me.”

Me: “Don’t worry; they activate automatically.”

Customer: *suddenly looking very annoyed, and talking to me like I’m a five-year-old* “No, you have to activate them; otherwise, they don’t work.”

Me: “I assure you that it’ll activate automatically. It’ll be good to go once you’ve paid for it.”

Customer: “Look. I came in here the other week and bought one of these, and when I got home, it wouldn’t work. I came all the way back to the store, and the lady told me it was because whoever sold it to me had forgotten to activate it for me, so she did it for me, instead.”

Me: “We had to activate them manually once, but that was years ago.“

Customer: “Well, this was just the other week.”

Me: “I don’t know what to tell you, sir. I know for a fact that it’s automatic now. I’ve sold hundreds without complaint. I’ve even bought them for myself and never had an issue using them.”

Customer: “Okay, fine, sell it to me. Just tell me your name.”

Me: *pointing to my name badge* “I’m [My Name].”

Customer: “Okay, [My Name], here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to purchase this gift card. Then, I’m going to go all the way home and try using it. When it doesn’t work, I’m going to come all the way back and get someone else to activate it. I’m going to explain to them how, despite my constantly telling you otherwise, you refused to activate it. Then, I’m going to make sure you get fired for your incompetence, okay?”

Me: “Sounds good.”

Customer: “Well, okay. I’ll take it, then.”

(He pays for the gift card and it activates. It even prints off the second receipt that says as much, which I show to him.)

Customer: “Thank you. I’ll be back soon; don’t you worry about that.”

(I never saw that customer again, and years later, still have my job.)

I was a young adult dining with my parents at a small Classique French-style fine-dining restaurant. The restaurant seemed to have fallen out of favour. When we arrived, there were only two other tables, both well into their meals. By the time we had finished our mains, we were the only table in the restaurant. We discussed quietly if we should order dessert; we felt guilty keeping the staff there for longer.

Just then, our waiter, who could not have overheard our conversation but had presumably guessed at it, came over with the dessert menus and offered us a complimentary glass each of “noble rot” wine to accompany it if we ordered. There couldn’t have been a nicer way to say “we want you to stay for dessert and continue to enjoy your meal.” We, of course, accepted it, and took our leisurely time over it, as the wine offer implied. The meal was excellent, the service impeccable.

Sadly, fashion had moved on, and the restaurant closed a short while later. 

Salut to the hard-working front of house staff, and the chef and his underlings. I hope they went on to bigger and better things.

(I work at the supermarket deli, and there is a regular I always hated serving. She is a grouchy old fusspot who always seems to find a problem in something. She comes up to the counter and I’m readying myself for another miserable experience.)

Fusspot: “I want some of that meat, sliced.” *points to case*

Me: *trying to see where she is pointing* “The olive mortadella?”

Fusspot: “Yes.”

(In case you don’t know, mortadella is Italian sausage meat that tastes similar to bologna, but is fancier and made of higher-quality meat. The olive mortadella is stuffed with green olives, and the olives themselves are stuffed with tiny pieces of red capsicum, or bell pepper for my American readers. I pick up the opened chub of olive mortadella to bring it to the slicer, but she starts protesting.)

Fusspot: “No! I want the other one!” *points again*

Me: *putting a hand over the chub she’s pointing at* “This one?”

Fusspot: “Yes!”

Me: “Yes, that’s the olive mortadella. The one you’re pointing at is unopened; I have the opened one here.”

Fusspot: “No, they’re different!”

Me: “They’re the same, and I can’t open a new one until we use up the opened one.”

(The deli workers often make an exception upon request, if the chub is very close to the end, but this chub has barely been used; it’s only had maybe a quarter of it taken off, if that.)

Fusspot: “No, the one I’m pointing at has something else in it. It has that red thing in it.”

Me: “That’s the red capsicum stuffing in the olive. This one has the same stuffing, as well; once you slice through the olive you’ll see the red stuffing inside it.”

(After some back and forth, the fusspot stalks off to the customer service desk. She comes back shortly after with the customer service worker in tow, who is a lovely person but doesn’t know much about the deli. By this time, I’ve explained what transpired with my coworkers in the deli.)

Fusspot: *points to me* “This girl refused to serve me what I wanted.”

Coworker: “Which meat did you want?”

Fusspot: *points again* “That one.”

Coworker: “That’s the olive mortadella. This is the unopened one; it’s the same thing.”

(The fusspot starts arguing with my coworkers and me, and we reiterate our policy that we can’t open a new chub when there is so much left on the opened chub, and that we guarantee that the olives in both chubs are stuffed with the same red capsicum, but it almost always falls out when it hits the slicer. Initially, the customer service worker suggests we slice the opened one and discard the first slices until the stuffing appears, but as the stuffing ends up predictably falling out, it just results in a pile of wasted sliced meat. We try to show her this, but she won’t accept this explanation or that the same thing will happen when we open the new chub. Eventually, the customer service worker tells us to just open the new chub anyway and give her what she wants. My coworkers are fed up and comply. As the first slice comes off the slicer, lo and behold, the red stuffing that the fusspot had been coveting falls out, and the slice is identical to the ones we’ve already sliced. I have been teased before by my coworkers for always being “mellow” in the face of problem customers, but at this point, I am well and truly pissed off. I pick up the slice of mortadella from the new chub that she requested, and march over to the customer, displaying it to her in all its stuffing-less glory.)

Me: *not making any attempt to mask the steel in my voice* “There’s the slice from the new chub that you wanted. As you can see, the stuffing has fallen out.”

Fusspot: *looks down meekly and mumbles something*

Me: *unwavering death glare for five seconds before I silently turn around and continue about my business*

(I know it sounds like a minor thing to get worked up over, and maybe it is, but I hate wasting perfectly good food, and I had reached the end of my rope with this crazy lady. To my pleasant surprise, however, the fusspot returned many times after this incident a reformed customer. She never gave me any problems after that. Somehow I must have scared her into being nice.)

(In high school, I catch a bus once from school to a friend’s house, a bus I have never taken before. The moment I get on the bus, a young man — who I recognise immediately has an intellectual disability — smiles at me.)

Man: *loudly* “Hello!” 

Me: *smiling back* “Hello!”

(I take my seat on the bus as the man turns to me.)

Man: “You’re very beautiful!”

Me: *breaking into a grin* “Aww, thank you!”

(I could tell the guy was harmless and just meant to put smiles on other people’s faces, and to that end, he was succeeding. But I worried that other people on the bus might get annoyed at him or worse, start bullying him for his disability. But it never happened. I watched as he loudly said, “Hello!” to everyone that got on the bus, and even to people who had been sitting on the bus for some time that he’d already greeted before, and everyone cheerfully said, “Hello!” back. He told many passengers they were beautiful; they all smiled and thanked him. He cracked “jokes” with punchlines that didn’t make sense, but everyone still laughed and cheered for him. Every time a new passenger got on the bus, I worried that this would be the person who would be intolerant or nasty, but everyone — schoolkids, young adults, the middle-aged, the elderly — EVERYONE seemed delighted with him. The entire half-hour trip to my friend’s house, I don’t think there was a single frown on that bus. When I got to my friend’s house, I asked her about him, and she confirmed that he was a regular on that route and everyone loves him. Sadly, I never got the chance to take that bus route again, but that memory remains as one of the sweetest moments between strangers that I was lucky enough to be a part of.)

(I’ve recently finished university and am looking for full-time employment in the field I have studied. In the meantime, I am eligible for payments from the government. To get my payments, I have to report my income from my part-time retail job. I was previously on a similar payment scheme while at university, so I’m very familiar with the online reporting process. However, when I go to report my income, I find that the website throws up an error message, so I go down to the organisation’s nearest office to get help. After a LONG wait, I’m finally called over to talk to someone.)

Me: “I’ve recently switched from student allowance to Newstart allowance, but for some reason, when I try to report my income online, I receive an error message.”

Employee #1: “No worries. I’ll look into that for you and let you know when it’s fixed. I’ll call you by the end of the week.”

(And with that, I’m sent home. I spend the week waiting for a call and never get one. I wait another week just to be sure. There’s still nothing, and all this time I still can’t report my income, so I’ve not been getting payments and have been living only off my fairly small income from my retail job. Finally, I go back in. After another long wait, I see a different employee.)

Me: “I was in here the other week. I’ve recently started on Newstart allowance, but the website won’t let me report my income. Last time I was in, they told me they’d fix it and give me a call by the end of the week. That was two weeks ago and I’ve heard nothing.”

Employee #2: “That’s strange. Let me look into that for you and I’ll give you a call when it’s fixed.”

Me: “Okay, but that’s literally what I was told last time and nothing happened.”

Employee #2: “I know, but there’s not much else we can do. Sorry. Tell you what, though; I’ll pass this on to my supervisor and she’ll make it a priority. You should hear back within the next day or two.”

(A week later, nothing. Even worse, I receive an email telling me that because I’ve failed to report my income in so long, my Newstart allowance has been cancelled and I will have to reapply to see if I am eligible to receive it again. Now at the end of my tether, I go in again. After the longest wait yet…)

Me: “I’ve recently started on Newstart allowance, but whenever I try and report my income, I get an error message. I’ve been in twice to try and resolve it and both times I was told they’d look into it and give me a call in the next few days. That never happened. Then, this morning, I got an email saying that my payments had been cancelled because I hadn’t reported my income in so long.”

Employee #3: “They said they’d look into it and give you a call? That’s strange. Hang on; give me a second.”

(She gets up and goes to talk with another employee. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I see them looking at something on a computer together. Five minutes later, she comes back.)

Employee #3: “Okay, it should be fixed now. I’ve also put you back onto Newstart so you don’t have to reapply. And while you’re here, you may as well report your income to me in person. Is there a reason you didn’t report it in person the last two times you were in?”

Me: “I wasn’t given the option.”

Employee #3: “You should have been. You would have kept getting payments.”

(I report my income to her and she enters it into the system.)

Employee #3: “Okay, you should receive all of your back-payments tomorrow morning. Before you go, just try accessing your account on one of our computers to double-check that the issue is resolved.”

(I did and it worked. The following morning, I got my back-payments and since then I’ve had no issues reporting my income. Thanks, [Employee #3]! I’m happy to know that there’s at least one government employee who knows what she’s doing.)