In the first half of the eighties, my first job was working for a newsagent at a local train station.

After every shift, we counted the money and checks we’d received during our watch. These were put in special paper pouches, which were then placed in our strongbox. A couple of times per week, the strong box would be emptied by our boss, and the pouches were taken by one of us to the deposit box outside our local bank. One summer, the bank reported that an entire pouch was missing from the last deposit. That pouch had contained roughly 10,000 kroner.

Everything was, of course, searched, and our second-in-command, a very nice woman in her fifties, who had taken the money to the bank on that day, was blamed. Nothing could be proven, but we could tell that the suspicion really got to her.

Over the winter, everybody working in the newsagent somehow learned that our boss had a mistress at the other end of the country. Then, we noticed that money was never taken to the bank until at least two days after we put it in the strong box. We worked out that our boss took part of a day’s earnings and used it to pay for some of the earnings from the day before. This went on for quite a while. None of us doubted that something similar had happened the year before and that one day, our boss just got tired of doing this every day. He then just let one pouch go missing.

One day, I knew for certain that my pouch from the day before was missing from what I was asked to take to the bank. After my shift, I called the district manager and told him what we thought was happening. I didn’t want to end up being blamed for money going missing just because my boss needed his extramarital affairs financed.

The district manager showed up within the hour, went through everything, and sure enough, close to 10,000 kroner was missing. My boss was fired on the spot.

I have worked in customer service for over six years, and what I’ve never lost is my sense of humor. You deal with the most outspoken people in life. More than most I’ll dare to protest because they really get their panties in a twist when something doesn’t go right. But humor saves me every time; even if the customer doesn’t laugh, it was still great for me. 

One time, an older gentleman gave me a quarter for a tip. I’m not saying you HAVE to tip generously, but anything under $2 is still a slap to the face. It really makes you feel so low as a person and makes you question everything you did. It sucks, to say the least.

Gentleman: “Now don’t go spending it all in one place!”

His wife looks horrified at her husband’s remark. I’m a cocky kid with no feelings to care about, so I snap back.

Me: “Oh, yes, that gumball machine looks real great!”

I ended with a wink and walked away with a “Have a great day.”

I came back to the table later, and there were five dollars and a quarter left on it. I’ve always assumed it was the wife that left it, but it could have very well been the man. I’ll never know.

Me: “That will be [total].”

The customer tries to give me photocopies of actual money!

Me: “We cannot take photocopies of money.”

Customer: “Not even one-dollar bills?”

Me: “No, not even one-dollar bills.”

I work at [Coffee Chain] as a part-timer while attending college. One day, during the summer, a young woman walks in with her friends.

Each friend orders and pays for a really specific drink. When the main girl comes up to the counter, it is clear this is her first time at one of our locations, so I talk her through everything and take her through what each item is.

She nods and orders something that she thinks she might like.

When all the drinks come out, she tries it, looks disgusted, and puts it down before coming back to the counter. I ask her if something was wrong, but she politely says no, explaining that this was one of her first run-ins with coffee and that she had expected the drink to “taste like thick Christmas,” which I do not understand, especially being that it is summer so all of our minty drinks have cycled out.

She orders another drink, once again opting for the largest size, and when it comes out, this process repeats.

She orders drink after drink after drink, going down our menu and politely declining my recommendation to get smaller sizes. Her friends go from finding this hilarious to finding it concerning as their small table starts to pile with drinks.

Eventually, she has gone through about fifteen menu items like this, one of her friends is literally running back and forth between the table and finding random people on the street to give these drinks to. (She is telling them they have been sampled, but this is pre-[health crisis] so not a lot of them care.)

On about her twentieth order, I stop her as I have been keeping a running tab of the charges on my calculator.

Me: “Ma’am, you’re about to run into $80.”

Friend: “[Customer], if you don’t like coffee, that’s fine. You don’t need… We don’t care. You’re buying so much.”

The young woman waves us both off.

Customer: “Don’t worry; it’s Dad’s card. He won’t mind.”

She continued to order until she triggered the card security, and the bank shut the card off.

She called her father to get it turned on again and that conversation did not go well; I could hear him yelling clearly on my side.

When she put down the phone, she cleared her throat, timidly approached the counter, and asked me if we were hiring.

Two weeks later, she began training.

She found out that she likes our teas.

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I’m visiting my parents, and my mom makes a joke about a piece of furniture she’ll inherit, saying it’ll be solely hers. Dad is a lawyer who specializes in wills and estate planning, so it’s normal for us to joke about that sort of thing. Also relevant: my parents are in their sixties and expect to live quite a while longer.

Me: “But Mom, don’t you two have a community property agreement? It’s both of yours, then.”

A community property agreement is basically a legal form stating that spouses agree they share all their possessions, including things that would normally not be considered shared in the eyes of our state laws, like inheritances given to one individual or assets gained before the marriage.

Dad: “Actually, we’re dissolving that.” 

Me: “Why?”

Mom: “It leaves more for you and your siblings to inherit when we die.”

Dad: “If your mom would ever get around to it.”

There’s an awkward pause.

Me: “Wait, Dad… when you say, ‘get around to it,’ do you mean Mom signing the paperwork, or do you mean Mom dying?”

Dad: “No, signing it! I asked her to sign it a few weeks ago and she hasn’t yet.”

For the record, Mom agrees that dissolving their community property agreement is for the best — hence her talking about the inheritance being only hers — and Dad wants her to stick around for a while.