(I work at a gas station that has an air pump owned by a different company. It costs $1 in quarters for about four minutes. They basically rent the space from our corporate office.)

Customer: “You need to give me a receipt for the $1.50 I had to spend on air from your machine so I can get reimbursed from my boss!”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t own the machine. They rent the space from our corporate office.”

Customer: “But it’s on your property! You’re making a sale! And I need a receipt so I can get my money back from my boss!”

Me: “Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. I cannot give you a receipt, as it’s not ours to give.”

Customer: “So, you’re making a cash sale with no record?!”

Me: “We didn’t make a sale; the other company did.”

Customer: “Well, surely you can appreciate my situation? I need a receipt to give my boss so I can get my money back.”

Me: *sighs* “There’s a number on the machine you can call.”

Customer: “I guess I’ll have to do that!” *storms out*

(Yes, he was seriously flipping his s*** over getting reimbursed for $1.50!)

(I’m one of the few female patrons of my local comic shop, and while the staff is awesome, the other patrons can be less so. I’ve just paid for my comics when the guy ahead of me pipes up.)

Customer: “Arrow? That’s not a real comic book. You need someone to tell you about real comics.”

Me: “Who’s Zatanna?”

Customer: “Who?”

Me: “Zatanna Zatara. Who is she?”

Customer: “I don’t know—”

Me: “She’s a magician, an extremely powerful logomancer, arguably the most powerful person in the DCU, and my favorite comic character. Sadly, she’s only ever appeared in an episode of Batman TAS and a couple of minor spots in Justice League, so only serious comic geeks know about her. And you didn’t buy anything but Marvel tie-ins.”

When I left the military, I decided to go for a complete change of pace while deciding on the next direction I wanted to take my life. As a result, I ended up doing pizza delivery for a local franchise of a national brand.

The particular location I ended up working at served a fairly small area and had been losing money for a few years, so it was scheduled for closure in another year or so, which I didn’t know at the time.

The manager of the store was rather worthless and did the bare minimum, if that, often disappearing for hours at a time during the middle of his shift. Often he’d take pizzas coming out of the oven and just leave with them, leaving us to make new ones for the people that had actually ordered them.

One day, when I was primarily working in-store, I noticed him pocketing cash from an order after a customer left and cancelling out the order in the system so the drawer wouldn’t show a discrepancy. I saw it a second time a bit later. Given the manager’s personality, I didn’t say anything to him but resolved to tell the owner on his next visit, which happened later that day.

I told him what I saw and he was understandably upset but said that unfortunately there probably wasn’t anything he’d be able to do legally without some sort of proof. To which I, confused, asked why he didn’t just check the security footage.

It turned out that the cameras hadn’t been working right for a few years and the owner never got them fixed since this had never been a high-risk or high-income location. As he had come to the decision to close it, it made even less sense to spend the money on it.

Now, there was a TV hooked up to the recording deck so that the cameras could be watched live in the office, but it was turned off. I had assumed it was only turned off unless a manager was actively watching it, but now I knew it was because the cameras weren’t working. However, on my second day, while cleaning, I had been dusting and shifted the recording deck more than I’d meant to and knocked a cable loose (I thought). So, when I had finished cleaning, I shifted it back, plugged in the wire, briefly turned on the TV to make sure I hadn’t messed anything up, then turned it back off and went on my way.

When I told the owner that the cameras were working when I did that check, he ran into the office and literally pushed the store manager out of the way as he turned on the TV. I followed the owner to the office and saw the store manager’s face turn deathly white when he saw all the camera feeds were active on the screen.

The owner shooed me out of the office and locked it while he reviewed the recordings. Police showed up an hour or two later.

Later, I found out that the manager had unplugged the camera cable not long after he started working there and had been using the store as his own bank for paying bills or buying himself stuff. He was also giving out free food to all his friends and ignoring long-time customers, which is why the store was failing. Also, in the just over a week that the cameras had been able to watch him, he had pocketed close to $2000 within sight of them, so he was arrested — I think for grand theft.

The assistant manager was promoted to manager, I became his #1 aid — not assistant manager, though, as I still didn’t plan on sticking around long-term — and together we went on a massive campaign to turn the store around. Within four months, it was the highest-grossing store in that franchise, we had a solid crew, and we had arrangements with a number of hotels and local businesses that were helping us with driving in business.

I still left at the end of a year, but I had a great time being part of that effort. And it all came about because of a bit of dusting.

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(The store I work at is a one-register, one-person store. We count down our drawers and do shift change a half-hour or so before the next person gets there, so when they do, they can just clock in, and we can immediately clock out and go. We have recently switched over to new registers and a new system. One of the changes is that instead of logging in as “First Shift, Register 1,” etc., each employee has their own individual number with their name attached to it. We try for a while doing it the old way, counting the drawer before the next person gets there, but the boss is noticing some discrepancies on the shifts of those following a certain individual, [Coworker #1]. He makes the new rule that you must wait until the next person gets there to count down your drawer. Now, [Coworker #1] has gotten into the habit of starting to count the drawer when she sees my car enter the parking lot, so by the time I actually enter the building, take off my coat, and clock in, she’s already done counting and logged back in under MY number. This robs me of the ability to watch her count it down and/or recount the drawer myself if needed. This morning, upon entering the store, she is part way through counting the drawer.)

Me: “Please don’t log me in when you’re done. I prefer to do that myself.”

Coworker #1: “Um… Okay.”

Me: *as I’m clocking in* “So, just curious, why don’t you wait for me clock in before you start counting the drawer… like we’re supposed to?”

Coworker #1: “Because [Coworker #2] always makes me wait for ten minutes.”

(A customer enters the store and asks for a can of chew.)

Coworker #1: “It’ll be just a minute, sir.”

Me: “Well, I’m consistently five minutes early. And the whole point of waiting until the next person gets here is so there’s two sets of eyes on the money as it’s being counted.”

Coworker #1: “Um… Okay.”

(She finishes counting and logs out, grabs the can of chew the customer asked for and sets it on the counter.)

Me: “Good morning, sir. One moment, please.”

(I log in and quickly recount the drawer. Only off by less than a dollar, which is not a big deal.)

Me: “Thank you for your patience, sir. You caught us right at the ‘changing of the guard.’”

Customer: “No problem.”

(Meanwhile, [Coworker #1] quickly clocked out and scurried out the door, mumbling about how tired she was. I can appreciate wanting to get the hell out of dodge… but I don’t think she realized that she was the reason for the new rule in the first place.)

(I work at a small yarn shop. For returns, we generally only give store credit. It’s easier, and less time-consuming. There are a lot of steps we have to complete if they want their money back, and it takes five to ten minutes to process it all.)

Customer: “Hi, I’d like to return this yarn. I decided that it wasn’t the right color for my project.”

Me: “I’m sorry about that. Would you like to exchange it for a different color?”

Customer: “No, I just want to return it.”

Me: “All right! We only give store credit; would that be okay?”

Customer: “No, I really just want my money back.”

Me: “I can do that, but if you paid with credit, it can be a lengthy process. It will probably take five to ten minutes for me to do, if that’s okay.”

Customer: *becoming angry* “I really don’t have time for that! Can you just give me cash?”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t. But I can give you store credit, if you’re in a hurry.”

Customer: “No! I just want my money back!”

Me: “Okay! I’ll start processing it right now for you.”

(I have to call the owner to have her walk through the steps with me, since I’ve only ever done it once before. The customer starts walking around the shop while grumbling under her breath about how she doesn’t have time for this. Just as I’m about to finish the last step, she comes up with eight skeins of yarn.)

Customer: “After you’re done with that, I need to buy these, too.”

(Her total ended up being more than twice the amount of the return.)