CONTENT WARNING: Gross

During the Black Friday rush, I was helping a customer and his girlfriend. During the transaction, I noticed his girlfriend looking more and more ill, and she soon sat on the ground.

The customer noticed something and quickly asked me for a bag, which I readily handed over. Of course, things couldn’t be simple as the girlfriend said, “No,” and promptly vomited on the floor. Great.

Now, I did hope she felt better, but I had a problem now. No one in my department was trained for biohazards, and vomit was in that category, so I called for a manager to clean it up because only team leads and higher could do that. The only team lead at the time said:

Team Lead: “Hey, can you just clean that up?”

Me: “No, I cannot. I am not trained in that.”

And of course, said team lead refused to come clean it up. So here I was, trying to help customers while my teammate kept an eye on the… spill… and kept other customers away from it. Someone helpfully donated their cart to put over it after they had finished, but it took a good hour for another team lead to take pity and help clean it up. And that was with us doing calls for assistance for it every five minutes or so. Because who wants to step in vomit?

Related:
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 34
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 33
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 32
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 31
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 30

My spouse and I have decided we need to get rid of some stuff. Since the stuff is of good quality, we decide to have a little yard sale.

We make a cute sign out of cardboard folded into a triangular prism with a glass bottle taped inside to give it a little weight. My spouse goes all out decorating it.

Our first customer looks over all of our stuff:

Customer: “I like that sign — the one that says, ‘Yard Sale here’. How much do you want for it?”

Me: “Uh… Five dollars?”

Customer: “Sold.”

So, we had to make a new sign.

This actually happened three times.

My spouse is now considering going into business making custom signs for people.

Normally, the problem is customers ignoring the signs, like in these 12 Stories That Prove Customers Never Ever Read Signs!

Back in the 1990s, I was working for a pizza franchise.

I was a Senior Manager Trainee, with a few months of training left to go to become a full-time store manager.

During every weekday, I was the opener, prepper, cleaner, in-store cook, manager, etc. I did my best to make sure everything was ready for our very busy evenings.

I worked a full two shifts one weekend and then worked a full opening shift on Monday morning. On Monday night, I was called to come in as the junior manager trainee was sick, and no one could get ahold of the store manager (as usual).

I offered to come in, but since I had to open the next day, I didn’t have the energy to do a full closing shift, and I had already worked a full opening shift.

So, I went in, took care of all the existing customers, made sure all the orders were taken care of, made sure deliveries went through, and made sure everything was done 100% correctly.

Then, I told the customers we would be closing early because I was not able to get ahold of a manager to help out or to take my morning shift.

I started getting calls from the regional manager to stay and do the full closing shift. I said I was not able to because I was very tired from both the weekend and morning shifts, and I had to open the next morning, as well.

I asked if any of the four or five other corporate stores had an extra person to come in and close so that I could get enough sleep to work my opening shift the next day. I had called all the different stores, and they had refused to help.

Then, the regional manager started to insult me as if I were trying to destroy the store. 

I also tried to call the store manager and got no result, and I had no other choice available to me. 

I had been worked to the bone.

So, around 10:00 pm, I completed all orders, took care of all driver’s money, cleaned the store, and closed it.

When the next morning started, I arrived to do my regular morning shift. I found out through the internal management network that I had been demoted to driver.

No one had been willing to help me, but I was supposed to sacrifice my health.

At that point, I decided to quit because of how abusive that situation was. Poor management by others does not mean I have to abide by it.

I quit immediately and called my store manager, locked the door, and left to never return.

There were plenty of stores that had extra people, and they would rather demand unreasonable effort from me than give me or my store help.

That lack of good management up and down still irks me to this day.

Our financial advisor’s office is in a mall. We do not have an exterior door to the mall. We are right next to a mall entrance, at an intersection in the mall’s hallways, and we are across from two stores: one directly across from us, [Discount Store], and one to our right, [Bookstore]. The entrance to the mall is not our entrance. It leads into the mall.

A lady calls into our office.

Customer: “Where are you?”

Me: “We’re across from the [Bookstore] and the [Discount Store].”

Customer: “Do you have an exterior door?”

Me: “No. You can go in through the exterior door to the [Bookstore] and walk out from there, or you can go into the mall entrance near the [Discount Store].”

She arrives in one piece and proceeds to start complaining to me that I sent her on a walk across the entire mall.

Customer: “You said you don’t have any exterior doors! What’s that?”

She points at the door between us and [Discount Store].

Me: “That is the mall’s exterior door. We do not own that door, and it does not open into our store.”

Customer: “Well, I meant an exterior door near you!”

Me: “Then ask that. I did inform you about there being a door close to us by [Discount Store]. Did you want anything, or did you just want to complain that we were hard to find?”

According to her financial advisor, she spent most of her appointment with them complaining about me. I guess she just wanted to complain that we were hard to find.

It’s the final day of tax season. To cover a shortfall, I’m working at two offices in one day. Due to a client going over and a huge traffic jam, I am late to arrive at the second office — by five minutes. I’m scheduled to be there at 3:00, and I park the car at 3:06.

Upon opening the door, I’m confronted by a big guy. I’m a short woman, not very big.

He has a large briefcase full of documents. I apologize for being late, and he starts complaining about it and chewing me out. He keeps escalating; at first, it’s in a normal tone of voice, but it keeps getting louder and louder. At first, I’m apologetic, but as he goes on and on, I ask him:

Me: “Do you want to get your taxes done or would you prefer to complain about my timeliness?”

He calls me a “worthless b****” and starts getting downright nasty. It’s now 3:20, and our appointments are only an hour long, anyway.

Me: “Get out.”

He demands my card so he can complain about me to corporate. I take my cards, put them in my desk, and lock it.

Me: “No. I refuse to tell you my name. You have treated me with nothing but disrespect since I arrived. And with how long you’ve gone on to complain about my being late, we are now even later. Even if we started doing your taxes right this second, they would not be done before the next appointment.”

He practically turns bright purple in anger. Now he’s yelling loudly enough that he’s probably hurting his throat. I’m learning all sorts of new swear words. But that’s okay; I’m done with him. I just smile and wait for him to leave.

My coworker, a large man, comes tearing into the office and shouts at him to leave now. When the man demands that [Coworker] give him my card to complain to corporate, [Coworker] hands the man HIS card.

Coworker: “Complain about me. Now get the f*** out the door before we call the cops. You are officially trespassing.”

The man took a step back… and [Coworker] took a step forward. The man kept yelling, and [Coworker] yelled back, and each time the man took a step back from the force of [Coworker]’s shouts, [Coworker] took a step forward until he’d herded the man to the door. [Coworker] pointedly opened the door, practically shoved the man out, closed the door, and locked it.

Corporate did call us about the chain of events later, but when we explained what happened, they just shrugged and said, “Couldn’t be helped. We don’t condone that behavior, but it was probably necessary,” and we didn’t get written up.