I’ve gone to a high-end department store with my wife. I like going there because it has a central atrium with a piano that customers can play while they’re waiting for their shopping partners to finish (at least that’s what I use it for).

Having been classically trained since childhood, I enjoy going through some famous pieces, Mozart, Beethoven, what have you. It suits the sophisticated air of the place, and it helps keep me in practice. 

An older woman approaches me with a look about her that she’s about to make a request. She’s wearing an expensive coat and scarf combo and looks like she has caviar for breakfast.

Woman: “Excuse me, are you doing requests?”

Me: “If I know it, I’ll play it.”

Woman: “Can you do Shake It Off, by Taylor Swift?”

I blink a couple of times.

Me: “I have two daughters aged nine and thirteen. I could do that with my eyes closed.”

And so I put that Steinway & Sons through its paces to the G major melody of Taylor Swift’s 2014 classic, ‘Shake It Off’, while this old lady bopped along in her designer outfit. Other requests from other shoppers quickly followed. 

By the time my wife came to ‘pick me up,’ I’d also put that piano through its paces to Despacito, K-Pop Demon Hunters, and the Pokémon theme song.

I went to a local bar to watch the College World Series final. There’s no sound on the TV.

Bartender: “We can’t play the sound for the game because more patrons want to play the jukebox than watch the game.”

There are about twelve people in the bar total, including my party of four. This seems silly, seeing as how it’s a sports bar and there aren’t any other major sporting events occurring at the same time as this game.

I decide that since the patrons want the jukebox, the jukebox is what they’ll get. 

I cue up the “Cotton Eyed Joe” by Rednex, six times in a row, and pay the extra to bump it to the front of the queue.

After the first play-through, the jukebox skips to a different song. I call the manager over.

Me: “You need to refund our jukebox money since you won’t play our song.”

Manager: “I’d rather listen to Cotton Eyed Joe six times than refund the money.”

He comes back a few minutes later, hands us $13 cash to cover the songs, and turns on the sound for the baseball game. Turns out his patrons didn’t want to listen to the jukebox that badly after all.

I work at a Home Depot, we have a preset range of music stations to listen to – it’s commonly left on the 80s or 80s/90s mix station, but one of our managers loves country music, but most of the staff either hate the genre with a passion, and the ones who like country hate that station in particular due to the very short playlist and most of the songs being awful.

Every time someone complains about the station being switched to country, said manager tries to figure out how to make us beg to get back to country by trying to find a music station even more disagreeable to us.

First time (before I was hired), he switched to the Spanish station; most of the staff didn’t mind, but they got so many virulent racist comments from customers that they switched.

Second time, he switched to 2000s-2010s music, aside from that one earworm song, nobody minded, then he switched to the 70s station.

The 70s were basically the favorite due to their very large playlist and variety (soft rock, disco, folk, GOOD country music, and pop), which frustrated him even more, as apparently, he hates disco as much as we hated the country station.

Then I came in, and was confused by a warbling aria… apparently, we have an opera station?

We had a channel for opera music. I’m not sure who was more confused, the customers or us. I actually like opera, and even my coworkers who didn’t care for opera tolerated it because at this point we all knew what was going on and decided to wear him out.

Eventually, he gave up and left the music on the 80s channel.

I get a call on the customer service line.

Caller: “I need to book tickets to see [Famous DJ], and they’re $300. I want to refund [item] so I can get the money back and buy the tickets.”

Me: “Sure thing, just bring the item in with the receipt, and we can get that sorted for you.”

Caller: “You don’t understand, the tickets go on sale in ten minutes. I need that money in my account in nine.”

Me: “We… we can’t do that, ma’am.”

Caller: “Yes, you can, I paid for it, and I have the receipt, and it’s inside your return window!”

Me: “Ma’am, refunds take a few days to process, but also, and do forgive me if this sounds like I’m stating the obvious, but you’d need to go into the store to return the physical item first.”

Caller: “Just process the refund now so I can book my tickets, and I’ll come and bring it into the store tomorrow… maybe.”

Me: “It doesn’t work like that, you need to bring in the item first, and then the refund process starts.”

Caller: “But the tickets go on sale in… nine minutes!”

Me: “I can’t do anything to help you in nine minutes, ma’am.”

Caller: “Ugh, you’re just like all the other stores!” *Click.*

Many, many years ago, when I was but a lad of sixteen years old, I was working as a telemarketer (I know, I know, I’m sorry, I feel the crushing burden on my soul to this day) at a center located in California that commissioned with various different companies. 

One day I might be soliciting donations for political or environmental causes, the next I would be calling season ticket holders for zoos, orchestras, event halls, and the like for renewals, you get the picture.

We almost never called for businesses based out of California. Probably to make sure anybody whose dinner had been interrupted one too many times would have to really work for the bloody vengeance they swore upon our eternal souls, but I digress.

If there was an upside to that cheese-grater-to-the-gums job, it’s that we didn’t do cold calling; everybody we called had a previous transactional relationship with the company we were calling on behalf of.

This interaction came when I was calling season ticket holders for the Houston, Texas Symphony Orchestra, to see if they wanted to renew for the next season. And it gave me a new appreciation for the Mike Judge Magnum Opus, King of the Hill.

Bear in mind, I’m sixteen years old and Californian born and raised, and I had a few preconceived notions about rural southerners, which I would find utterly shattered over the next four delightful minutes… 

The call connects:

Customer: “Yea?”

Me: “Hello, Mr. [Customer’s Name]! This is [My Name] calling on behalf of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. I see you’ve been a season ticket holder for [number] years now, and we’re so grateful to you for your patronage! We wanted to see if you were interested in renewing your tickets for next year. How does that sound?”

Dear reader, I swear to you upon the soul of my non-existent firstborn son, this gentleman sounded EXACTLY like the King of the Hill character Boomhauer in his response…

Customer: “Wha? Dang ol’ Symphnee Orkstra man, dang ol’—” *Goes on for thirty seconds while I’m holding my breath and biting my tongue to refrain from laughing.* “—an’ my dang ol’ season tickets man.”

Me: *Practically choking.* “So… Um… Did you want to renew?”

Customer: “H*** YEAH I wan’ renew my dang ol’ season tickets man, dang ol’ wife wouldn’t—” *more Southern drawl my uncultured Californian ears can’t quite make out.* “—an’ my dang ol’ Mastercard ain’t changed man.”

Me: *Barely choking back my laughter.* “Uh, great! Thanks so much! I hope you have a great day!”

Customer: “Thanks, God bless man!”

I ended the call, and my supervisor came out of her office cackling like a madwoman, which broke the dam for me; we laughed for thirty seconds solid, at least. She gave me an early break, and we both walked to the break area to catch our breath. Sure taught me a thing or two about stereotypes!