I need to repair some nail holes in the wall of the apartment where I’ve lived for six years before moving to a house. I go to a home improvement store to get some spackle. 

Me: “I need some spackle and a spackle knife.”

Employee: “Okay. Is your husband coming?”

Me: “What husband?”

The employee turned bright red and apologized profusely. I decided to forgive him, as he admitted his mistake and apologized for it, and he led me to the drywall repair products where he showed me a kit that would do what I needed and gave me his employee discount.

I’m waiting in line at the gas station and have the pleasure of being behind a total jerk. He finishes his transaction and then asks:

Customer: “Can I trade in this twenty-dollar bill for two tens?”

Cashier: “No, I’m sorry, but we have limited change right now, and I’m not allowed to do that.”

Customer: “Are you serious?”

Cashier: “Yes, I’m sorry. it’s company policy when we are low on change.”

Customer: “This is so f****** stupid. It’s ridiculous.” *Turns in my direction* “It’s ridiculous, right?”

Me: “Well, since the sign on the outside says, ‘[Gas Station],’ and not, ‘Bank,’ I think it’s pretty reasonable.” 

He just stormed out of the store. There was a bank literally across the street from this gas station.

My son’s eleventh birthday is coming, and he just wants to have his grandparents over, nothing special. A few weeks before his birthday, my wife and son go to a nearby place to order a cake. We’ve had great success with their cakes in the past and everyone has really enjoyed them, so it was a done deal: use them for this birthday cake.

The day of the birthday, my wife stops at the store and picks up the cake. Things look good. Everything is spelled correctly, and the decoration on the cake looks very nice. Now we’re all set.

It’s about 8:00 pm, and the birthday is coming to an end, so we do cake. I set up the candles and light them, we all sing “Happy Birthday”, and so on. My wife starts cutting pieces of cake and plating them, and she pauses after placing the first piece of cake down.

Wife: “The filling doesn’t look right; it should be chocolate. That doesn’t look chocolate.”

I lean over and look at it. At first, it looks like the filling had some frosting bleed into it from the edges. So, she continues to cut a couple more pieces and plate them.

Wife: “It certainly doesn’t look like chocolate filling. We ordered chocolate filling… What is it?”

Me: “You know, you could just taste it to find out.”

I take a fork, scoop out a little of the filling, and try it.

Me: “I don’t know what it is, but it certainly isn’t just chocolate. It almost tastes like they mixed lemon with it…” *Makes a slight gagging sound* “This is awful. Who the h*** would want a lemon and chocolate mix for a filling in a cake? Lemon and chocolate don’t go together!”

I have a nasty lemon/chocolate flavor just stuck in my mouth for an hour. I can’t get rid of it. So gross. I love lemon-flavored stuff — candy, bars, bread, lemon poppy seed muffins, and the list goes on. I’ll even peel a lemon and eat it. But this, this was awful.

A few other people at the table try it and no one likes it. We’ve got about a quarter of the cake that we all throw out, and the other three-quarters I’m going to return to the store tomorrow morning when they open.

Morning comes, and my wife doesn’t want to accompany me to the store. She just kind of shrugs her shoulders and says it’s no big deal. What? Yes, it is! The cake cost $35. With current gas prices, that’s almost a full tank of gas for one of our cars. I’m not letting $35 go to waste.

I head to the store and speak with the two ladies behind the counter. They’re offended when I say the cake tastes like crap, and they call over the manager.

Me: “I don’t know what you guys did, but the filling for the cake my wife picked up yesterday is awful. Downright awful. It was some nasty lemon and chocolate filling, gross. They ordered chocolate filling.”

Manager: “Here’s the order form. As you can see, the filling section was circled as wanting lemon.”

Me: “My wife and son both asked for a chocolate filling and never once said the word ‘lemon’. The lady who filled out the form even wrote chocolate in the filling area, so I don’t know why they also circled lemon.”

Manager: “There’s nothing I can do about it; it was made correctly.”

Me: “I’ve got the cake with me; you can eat some and let me know how you feel about it. My son was upset the cake tasted like crap, and I don’t blame him.”

Manager: “Like I said, this is the form that was filled out.”

Me: “The customer doesn’t even fill out the form. The employees do as we talk to them.”

The manager just stares at me like I’m stupid.

Me: “So, you’re telling me that no one ever makes a mistake? Who the h*** would want a lemon/chocolate filling? It tastes awful. I love lemon food, candy, bars, and bread, and I’ll even peel lemons and eat them, but this was just disgusting.”

The manager looked over the order form again and noticed that chocolate whipped topping was marked to be in the cake and should have been in the cake, but there was none. After a bit more back and forth, he finally agreed that mistakes can happen and he’d be willing to refund at least half the cost of the cake back to us, but he said that was the best he could do.

In the end, I told him they could keep the other three-quarters of the cake we didn’t touch because it tasted awful, and he refunded me $20 out of the $35 we’d spent on it. I don’t know if they ever tried the cake or not, but I hope they did just so they could be punished for the screw-up.

In the end, it wasn’t a complete loss, but it wasn’t a complete win, either.

It’s Monday. I am calling customer service for my benefits card to get help paying off a balance due so the cards can be reactivated for use. I have been trying — with increasing frustration — to get this taken care of for a very long time.

Representative: “Thank you for calling [Card Help Line]. This is [Representative]. How may I help you today?”

Me: “Hello, this is [My Name], and I have a balance I need to pay to get my cards unlocked. I’m using the app, and every time I select the link that says, ‘Click here to view or pay your balance online,’ it gives me a 404 error; it’s a bad link. I have also logged into my account online but cannot find any place to make a payment there. Please help!”

Representative: “Let’s see what we can figure out. Are you on the app right now?

Me: “Yes.”

Representative: “Do you see the button that says ‘PAY NOW’?”

Me: *Realization dawning on me* “You mean the big blue button in the middle of the screen that says, ‘PAY NOW’?”

Representative: “That’s the one!”

Me: *Pauses and sighs* “Yeah. It’s Monday.”

I select the big blue “PAY NOW” button.

Me: “Yep. That’s where I needed to go.”

Representative: “Wonderful!”

Me: “I’m sorry. Thank you for putting up with me. Have a good rest of your day.”

Representative: “Thank you! And I hope your Monday gets better!”

I am manning the shipping department by myself; my supervisor is out on a week-long vacation, and I am extremely busy. Work is busier during the summer since a lot of business we get is based on construction and with it being summer here in Minnesota, everyone and their cousin is busy with construction projects.

I’m in and out of the shipping office, making sure things are being handled appropriately as we ship out millions of dollars of inventory a month and it’s no fun screwing up a shipment and having the owners come around to talk to you about it. 

I have to step out of the office for about ten minutes to handle a couple of tasks out on the shipping dock. Upon my return, the phone is ringing on my desk. The phone readout shows it’s the receptionist. She probably has a call to pass along to me, so I answer it.

Me: “Hello?”

Receptionist: *Yelling* “You need to stop sitting at your desk and ignoring my calls! When I call your phone, you need to answer!”

She then hangs up on me.

I’m not sure what brought this on. I’ve answered any call she’s passed my way when I’m in the office. All I know is that I am pissed and seeing red. The fact that the receptionist resides in our other building about a mile away means I can’t just walk over to her and talk. (Most likely it would have been me sternly talking to her… maybe yelling. Okay, most likely me yelling at her.) So, I pick up the phone and dial her extension. 

Receptionist: “Yes?”

Me: “I don’t know who the f*** you think you are coming off the way you did and telling me what I need to do. I’m not ignoring your calls. I’m busy, in and out of the office. If I don’t answer, then you need to do your job and take a message and pass it along. Don’t ever call me and speak to me like that again.”

Then, I hang up on her.

I email my supervisor about what just transpired and go about my day. A few hours later, my phone rings and it’s the receptionist.

Receptionist: “I just wanted to apologize for how I spoke to you earlier. I thought you were just avoiding my calls. I didn’t know your tasks took you away from your desk at times.”

Me: “Thank you.”

She hung up, and after that, she no longer snapped at people if they didn’t answer. She wasn’t a very good message taker, but at least she wasn’t getting mad at other employees if they didn’t answer their phones when she called.