I was covering an overnight shift, and just as I started, I got a call.

Caller: “How much for [suite]?”

Me: “Our price is $950 before taxes and fees.”

Caller: “That’s fine. We’ll be there shortly.”

Two families entered the hotel a little later; it was the people that had called. It was two couples; both their wives had sleeping babies in their arms; both the men had a bunch of luggage in their hands. The guys came up to me and said they were all tired and asked me if we could let them up into the room just to put their babies and bags down really quick. Normally, I’m very strict, but I decided to be nice and let them up.

They took their sweet time coming down and I eventually sent security up to tell them they had to come down and provide a card. Eventually, the men came down to talk to me.

Them: “Hey, so, the wives are going to kill us if we spend $950 before taxes. Since nobody else is going to use the room tonight, can I just book a regular room and you just upgrade us to this room?”

Me: “No, sir. I told you over the phone how much the price would be. A standard room is $350 before taxes, and we are sold out on them tonight. Either way, I can’t give you a $600 upgrade for free.”

Them: “How about I just book a cheaper suite and you just upgrade us to this one?”

Me: “Unfortunately not. If you want this room, it’ll be $950 before taxes.”

Them: “Then we can’t stay in that room. Do you have two regular rooms we can stay in, instead?”

I was frustrated that they had already dirtied the room.

Me: “We are sold out of regular rooms and only have suites. If you want two rooms, the price is going to be $550 a night before taxes for each room.”

Them: “So it ends up being even more. Okay, then we’ll just stay in this room, but the wives are going to kill us. Please, what can you do? Nobody is going to use the room. Just upgrade us.”

Me: *Still trying to be nice* “If you could get an upgrade just because you came late, then everybody would come late, sir; that isn’t how it works. But I’ll just lower it down to $850 before taxes, and that’s the most that I can do.”

Them: “All right, thank you. Let us just go upstairs and get our cards.”

Twenty minutes later:

Them: “We spoke to the wives. $850 before taxes is still not good enough; they’re gonna kill us. Can you make it $800 total, including taxes?”

Me: “No, I can’t do that. It’ll be $850 before taxes.”

Them: “Trust me, your manager would rather that you just give it to me for $800 total instead of having us leave. Nobody is going to use the room. You’d get in trouble for losing revenue.”

I gave him a call to double-check whether I could give that deal or not. After the call:

Me: “Okay, I spoke with the general manager, and he approved the $800 total.”

Them: “Oh, wow. This is disgusting. Our wives just sent us pictures from the room. The carpet has toe nail clippings on it, and [a few other dirty things in the room that were definitely placed by them]. This is absolutely nasty; our wives are shocked. You need to give us more of a discount. Call your manager back right now and tell him about this.”

Me: “We already gave you a huge discount on the room; there is nothing else we can do’”

Them: “What do you normally do when guests find things like this in their room? You don’t do anything for them?”

Me: “Guests normally don’t find things like this in their room, but if they did, we’d clean it up for them and then give them a discount or offer to move rooms.”

Them: “Then why can’t you do that for us?”

Me: “We already gave you a discount.”

Them: “Call your manager back and let him know what we found.”

The general manager will usually be fine with a discount, but as soon as someone tries to take advantage, he gets angry. I spoke with him again and then spoke with the guests.

Me: “I spoke with the general manager, and he has taken back his offer of $800 total. If you’d like the room, it’ll be $850 before taxes.”

Them: “What? I don’t understand why he’d do that. The room is dirty; we should be getting more of a discount.”

Me: “If you want to stay, it’s $850 before taxes. Those are his words, not mine.”

Them: “Well, we don’t want to stay in a dirty room. Can you ask him if he can give us a discount on the two rooms?”

Me: “Over the phone, he told me no more discounts on anything. If you want the two rooms, they’re each $550 before tax. If you want this room, it’s $850 before tax.”

Them: “This is highly unusual. Nothing against you, but what kind of manager takes back an offer for a discount? I’ve never been to a hotel that operated like this. You’d rather lose money than just upgrade us to the room?”

Me: “I don’t know, sir. You wanted me to talk to the manager, I did, and I was told not to give you any discounts.”

After a little more complaining, they split the charges, and then, I finally checked them in and they went to their room. I placed a warning for the morning shift to watch out for these guests and to not do anything for them if they tried to get a discount or a late checkout. They ended up checking out without causing any problems.

These four guys came into the restaurant and sat at one of the high-tops, and they seemed disappointed when I introduced myself.

Customer #1: “No cocktail waitresses working tonight?”

Great, a bunch of machismo jerks. I roll with every stripe of personality, so after they started making fun of their friend who ordered a lite beer, I won them over by dropping off a kid’s menu and asking if he wanted a bib. (Aren’t played out gender stereotypes dandy?)

They started ordering a bunch of top-shelf shots, and a general rule of thumb in service is the higher the shelf, the lower the tip percentage. These dudes racked up a pretty hefty bill.

They were there for over an hour — four rounds, big meals — and the total bill came to $240, and one guy handed me his card. I wasn’t expecting much, but I’ve been in the industry for so many years that I’m perpetually nonplussed. When I dropped off the guy’s card, he grabbed the pen and stared at me with a big grin.

Customer #1: “Hey, buddy, I’m gonna leave you fifty bucks. How does that sound?”

Me: *More relieved than excited* “Oh, cool.”

His friend leans in.

Customer #2: “Isn’t that your biggest tip of the night?”

Me: “Yeah.”

Granted, it was only mid-evening. They all kind of looked at each other.

Customer #2: “Aren’t you excited?”

It was getting kind of awkward now.

Me: “Yeah, great. I appreciate it. Thank you.”

And I turned around to go take care of other stuff.

I guess I wasn’t enthralled enough by their generosity because when I picked up the book, the guy had only written in $30. Whatever weird mind game power fantasy these guys were playing, I’m happy I had no part in it.

I work at a stationery store that also provides a printing service, and most of our customers have recharge cards that they can use for our self-serve printing machines. These recharge cards can also be used at the regular till to pay for their printing, but the transaction process will be a bit more complicated.

Me: “Okay, that’ll be $1.70.”

Customer: “Can I pay with my recharge card?”

Me: “Yeah, of course.”

While putting through the transaction, I forget how to do it halfway, so I refund the rest of her card balance into cash which I will then put back into her card.

Customer: “It’s no worry if it’s too complicated to use the card; I’ll just give you this $10 note.”

Me: “No, it’s fine. Thanks for being patient, though.”

The customer puts the note back into her wallet.

Me: “So, you’ve paid for your printing already, and I’ve refunded your remaining balance into cash, which I’ll just put back onto your card for you.”

I put the balance onto her card and close the cash drawer.

Customer: “So, where’s the $10 note I gave you?”

Me: “Ma’am, I didn’t end up taking it from you.”

Customer: “But I saw you put it back into the cash drawer.”

Me: “Yes, that was from the balance I placed back onto your card.”

Customer: “No, that’s the one I gave you.”

The customer then checks her wallet and sees her MISSING $10 note.

Customer: “Oh, haha, oops.”

Our shop has gotten new card readers for taking debit and credit card payments. Now we have more options for taking payments from customers. Because I am young and female, some customers believe technology is too complicated for my little girl brain to handle.

A customer comes in and tries to pay with his credit card by tapping it on the reader, which has been a popular feature. It declines.

Me: “Sorry, it didn’t go through. Some cards won’t work with that feature. Let me reset it and you can try again.”

The customer huffs while I reset the reader.

Me: “Okay, go ahead and insert it now.”

The customer does so, and it declines again.

Me: “Huh, okay, maybe it’s a weird bank card? Let me try and swipe it.”

The customer rolls his eyes dramatically and makes a big deal about handing over the card, all while a line of customers is beginning to form behind him. I swipe the card, and it’s declined again.

Me: “Sorry, it is still coming up as declined. Do you have another card we can try? Or cash, maybe?”

Customer: “Every time I come here, the card doesn’t work. Just type it in manually. Can you handle that?”

Me: “Sure, let me reset it and try again.”

I reset the machine and type it into the PIN pad in front of the customer so he can see I am entering the correct numbers. Sure enough, it comes up declined again.

Me: “Sir, it’s still declined. Do you have another form of payment?”

Customer: “No! Just… just… um… run it… um…”

Me: “Sir, there is no other way I can run this card through our system. We have tapped, inserted, swiped, and manually keyed it in. If you know another way to get a payment off this card, I am all ears.”

The customer stops, sighs, and reaches down the front of his pants, pulling out a wad of bills, and begins trying to separate them. I hold up my hands to stop him.

Me: “Sir, this store does not accept any bills that come out of your underwear or cleavage. I’m not touching those.”

The customer throws his hands up in the air, pulls out another credit card, and taps it. Ding, approved. I hand him his receipt and watch him slink away, the entire line glaring at him as he leaves.

Me: “Who can I help next?”

I make knives as a business. While I do make some more utilitarian items, most of what I make is very elaborate and decorative with special patterns in the steel and a lot of hand-carving work done on the handle. Consequently, these items are also very time-consuming and challenging to make and are priced accordingly. I have set up a booth to sell some of my inventory. A man approaches and seems interested in one of my bigger knives.

Customer: “How much for this one?”

Me: “That one would be about [price].”

Customer: “What the h*** is it made out of?! Gold?! That’s insane!”

Me: “It’s made out of two bars of steel, pattern-welded together.”

Customer: “How can you justify charging an arm and a leg for what’s probably only [lower price] worth of steel?”

Surprisingly, he’s actually pretty close to what the raw steel costs.

Me: “There are a whole lot of hours and hammer swings between a bar of steel and what’s on that table.”

Customer: “Yeah, sure. You got quite the racket buying steel and selling it to people who don’t know any better with that crazy mark-up. You’d better sell me this at [lower price] or I will let everyone know about your little scam here.”

Me: “You know what? Sure, that’ll be [lower price].”

With a look of pure smugness across his face, the man hands me the money. I reach below the table and pull out some of the raw steel I bought while I was in town and hand it to him.

Me: “Here you go.”

Customer: “What the h*** is this?! I wanted the knife!”

Me: “Same thing, right? If the time and effort don’t add anything to the price, then surely they don’t add any value to the knife, either.”

After ranting at me about my “scam” for a few more minutes, he finally got tired and wandered off with his flat bars of steel. I wonder if he was ever able to so much as put an edge on them.