(I work in an alternative book store at the end of a long strip mall. There’s actually another book store five doors down, but they are a Christian bookstore so we don’t have much to compete over. Occasionally we get customers from the other store walking in because they were not paying attention and get confused — or offended — by our products. The store is heavily decorated with draped fabric making it kind of dark inside. One day I see a car pull up front and drop off a cute little old lady, complete with short, curly, white hair and a pink pantsuit. The car immediately drives off as soon as she closes the door, and she wanders into our store while looking through her purse.)

Lady: *still looking in her purse* “Hello, dearie, can you help me return this book? It doesn’t have the right plants. My, it is dark in here! You should tell your manager to fix those lights; it’s not good for your eyes to be in the dark all the time!”

(She pulls out a book about “gardening with the Lord” and sets the book, with a receipt, on the counter. I can also see a gold cross on her necklace.)

Me: “I am sorry, ma’am, but I believe you are actually looking for [Christian Store] a few doors down.”

Lady: “Oh? Am I in the wrong store again?”

(She takes a moment to pull a pair of glasses out of her purse and puts them on before looking around.)

Lady: “Oh! You’re right; this isn’t [Christian Store]! No wonder it’s so dark in here; what an interesting place! What is this store?”

Me: “This is [Alternative Bookstore], ma’am. We specialize in books, supplies, and some knick-knacks, for a variety of religions and spiritualists.”

Lady: “Do you sell books on witchcraft?!”

(As she says this, she looks shocked and holds her hand up to her little gold cross. I brace for the usual shouting as I reply:)

Me: “Yes, ma’am. We do sell books about Wicca, along with books on a wide variety of religions, such as Buddhism and Asatru.”

(For a moment she just stares at me like I slapped her, and very slowly turns around again to look at the store. She is quiet for so long that I begin to worry about her health. Then she turns back to me, all smiles, as if nothing is wrong.)

Lady: “I’ve always wondered what people meant by those words. What is ‘Wicca’? Or that ‘bood-ish’ thing you said? Oh, can you show me any books on gardening?!”

(She was perfectly cheerful, and wandered all over the store asking a thousand questions about everything she could. Since we were slow, I was happy to talk with her and even helped her find a book on planting healing herbs. She kept looking at everything with an expression of amazement I usually only see on children. I checked her out once she decided she had had enough looking around, and we chatted for a few minutes. Apparently the car that had dropped her off belonged to her granddaughter, who dropped her off at the mall once a week, as she couldn’t drive herself, so that she could spend time in the Christian bookstore down the way. And, as her family was all very religious, she had no idea there were so many different beliefs out in the world. She left, happy, and has become my favorite regular, visiting the store every other week, and is still perfectly happy with her beliefs, but loves to talk with me about absolutely everything.)

(I am the customer in this story. The checkout lines are busy, and I remember I need to withdraw some cash with my purchase. The only self-scan checkout available has a perfectly legible sign on it:)

Sign: “CASH BACK NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS MACHINE.”

(I scan my items. At the conclusion, the checkout prompts me for whether I want cash back.)

Me: *presses YES*

(I wasn’t expecting to get a prompt and was momentarily forgetful of the sign. The machine comes to a dead stop. I contact the nearby cashier and explain what happened. He gets the manager. As the manager unlocks the machine and gives me my cash back:)

Me: “Without people like me, there wouldn’t be a need for people like you.”

(To his credit, the manager did not rub it in. Not while I was within earshot, anyway.)

(I work for a small tech company as an admin and HR assistant. My mom also works for the company, as the HR manager. Once a year, we hold yearly all-hands company meetings in a hotel in some nice location. This year’s meeting takes place in Las Vegas. We have a new employee, Olga, a woman in her mid-twenties who joined the company only a few weeks ago from a branch in Eastern Europe. All names are fake, fake, fake. The meeting goes well, Olga does her own short presentation very professionally, and everyone goes their own way in the evening. I have a quiet night in. The next morning, around nine am, I’m going to breakfast with my parents.)

Mom: “Did you hear what happened?”

Me: “No, what?”

Mom: “I got an email a couple of hours ago from [Another Employee], saying that Olga had an accident and had to be taken to a hospital.”

Me: “Oh, no! What happened?”

Mom: “I wasn’t given much detail, but the email said that she fell and hit her head early this morning. She was taken to an ER with a head injury, was admitted, and was there for hours. She seems to have amnesia.”

Me: “Oh, my God! How did that happen?”

Mom: “I’m not sure; they didn’t give any more detail than that.”

Me: *realizes something* “Wait a second. ‘Early this morning’? That sounds like she went to some bar last night, got completely drunk, and then fell because of that. ‘Early this morning’ probably means one or two am.”

Mom: “No! No way… Really? You think that’s what happened?”

Me: “Yeah, totally.”

Mom: “No. I mean, I’m sure they’d have said something if that was the case. Anyway, Olga seems like such a sensible girl; I’m sure she’s not the type to do that.”

Me: “Okay, sure. Whatever.”

(I really don’t like to make terrible assumptions about people, but I am just going by logic. If, at nine am, Mom got this email a couple hours ago, and it says that Olga’s already been in hospital for several hours at this point, and the accident happened “early this morning,” that means it was barely after midnight. And otherwise, in all likelihood, how could a young woman have “fallen” and gotten a head injury shortly after midnight, on a Friday night, in Las Vegas? Especially without anybody claiming they were mugged or anything like that. The odds of it being anything else but extreme drunkenness are just not high. Some time later:)

Mom: “Olga’s out of the hospital; thankfully the amnesia was only temporary and she seems fine now. The hospital bill was quite high, though, and since she’s a new employee and only recently came to the US, of course she had no insurance yet, so our company had to pay all of her medical bills. But everyone swore to me and [Company CEO] that the accident had absolutely nothing to do with alcohol. Poor Gary, though – he ended up having to accompany her to the hospital and sit there with her all night.”

(“Poor Gary” is one of our long-time and highest-salaried employees, a quite good-looking guy in his early to mid-thirties.)

Mom: “Yes, poor Gary; he’s so harassed. You know how Olga has managed to recently get herself transferred to our lucrative project in the Silicon Valley? Meanwhile, she’s living in San Francisco – where Gary also lives – and she’s making him teach her how to live there, drive her around, and help her with absolutely everything since there’s no one else from the company living there. Poor Gary’s already so busy with work, and Olga’s bothering him with all sorts of nonsense and making him essentially take care of her. I hope he’s not feeling too overburdened.”

(Then, at next year’s all-hands company meeting.)

Mom: “Do you know what I learned about Olga? They swore up and down to me last year that her injury had nothing to do with drinking, but I found out recently from other employees that they were lying their pants off! They went to some Vegas bar late at night, she got severely drunk, she was dancing, and she managed to fall and hit her head on some table or bar end! The company paid so much money for her hospital bills for that! Ugh! If I tell [Company CEO] about this he’ll be spitting mad! Can you believe this?”

Me: *barely managing to keep my face straight* “Really. I’m shocked.”

Mom: “Poor Gary, having to deal with her and all her nonsense…”

(Less than a year later, Poor Gary quit without notice, in the middle of managing an extremely important project for our company, to take a very lucrative management job with a huge Silicon Valley company. Less than a month after that, Olga also quit without notice, abandoning the project on which she was the lead programmer, to take a programmer job with a different Silicon Valley tech giant. This seriously messed up the projects for our company, and our CEO was absolutely furious that they abandoned ship in this way after being treated well, getting high salaries, having Olga’s medical bills paid with no question, and setting her up on a project where the client was paying for nearly all the cost of her food AND her San Francisco apartment’s rent, etc. Not too long after this, I did an Internet search on them out of curiosity, and one of the very first pages that popped up was Olga’s and Poor Gary’s upcoming wedding announcement site, gushing at length and in very saccharine terms about how happy and in love they were and had been ever since they met when Olga first moved to San Francisco. “Poor Gary,” indeed. Terribly harassed, I’m sure.)

(As a bakery owner, what I can sell unfortunately often comes down to cost, even if I personally like the item in question. So, if I can’t make money selling something, I won’t sell it. This is a summation of several of the same kind of conversations I have with potential customers on a regular basis when they find out I own a confectionery and bakery.)

Customer: “You should stock [item]! It would sell a lot!”

Me: “Okay, if I did would you and your friends buy it at roughly [price #1]?”

Customer: “Well, my friends wouldn’t, but I would!”

Me: “Okay, how often would you buy it? And how much would you buy?”

Customer: “One, and once a week!”

Me: “Okay, so, you want me to stock an item all the time that only you would be guaranteed to buy, so that you can buy it, but only one, only once a week?”

Customer: “Yeah!”

Me: “Well, okay. How about this; why not just place a standing order for one once a week? It’ll be [price #2].”

Customer: “What?! Are you kidding me?! I can’t afford that! Why did the price go up? [Price #1] is much more than [price #2].”

Me: “Because you said you’re only willing to buy one [item], so I’d have to charge you for the price of only one. If I was able to sell them in volume, and thus make them in batches, I could sell them roughly at [price #1].”

Customer: “But that’s too high. I want [price #1]!”

Me: “Well, I told you I can’t make money selling one, once a week, at [price #1]. So, you want me to lose lots of money so that you can have your treat at the price you want? That doesn’t sound like a very good deal for me.”

Customer: “Well… But… but… but I want one.”

(I work at a sporting goods store that sells a variety of things: guns, athletic clothing, exercise equipment, etc. Our store’s biggest seller is shoes, and it happens to be both soccer and baseball season, so there’s been a barrage of parents coming in to find cleats for their kids. I’m standing by the main cashier stand talking to my manager when I answer a call:)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Store]. This is [My Name]; how can I help you?”

(A lady in her 50s or 60s answers.)

Caller: “Hello, [My Name]. I have a question.”

Me: “Of course, ma’am. I’ll try to answer it for you.”

Caller: “I’m trying to find some cleats for my grandson, but I live quite a ways outside of [Town]. If I gave you my credit card numbers over the phone, could you process a purchase for me?”

Me: “I’m afraid not. Corporate policy forbids us from authorizing any transactions over the phone.”

Caller: “I understand. Well, do you suppose you could at least try to find some cleats for me?”

Me: “Absolutely, ma’am. Do you need soccer, football, or baseball?”

Caller: “Baseball. I’m hoping you have [Brand #1] cleats in a size five and a half for kids.”

Me: “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go back and look. Give me just a moment.”

(I put the caller on hold and sift through the dozens of boxes of baseball cleats. After a few minutes of searching — even going into the back room to check through any excess stock — I’m unable to find anything that meets her standards. I pick up the phone in our stock room and continue the call.)

Me: “Ma’am? I’m sorry, but I don’t have any [Brand #1] cleats in a five and a half in stock. I do have [Brand #2] and [Brand #3] in that size, if you’d like.”

Caller: *sighs* “Oh, darn. He really wants the [Brand #1] cleats.”

Me: “I’m sorry. If you’d like, I can call another store and see if they might have any.”

Caller: “No, it’s all right. I suppose I could send my daughter-in-law down there and have her look at them.”

Me: “That’d be fine.”

Caller: “All right, I have another question. If I gave my daughter-in-law my credit card, could I send her down there so she could make the purchase?”

Me: “Unfortunately not. Our policy states that the cardholder must be present if we’re going to run a credit purchase.”

Caller: “Well, what if I filled out a check with all of my information, signed it, and made it out to [Company]? Could I give the check to her, and she could pay for it?”

(At this point, I’m slightly stunned. By now, most people would get the message that they need to physically be in the store if they want to do a credit or check purchase. But, for some reason, this lady just won’t quit trying to find ways around our policy.)

Me: “Um… I apologize, ma’am. I’m only a part-time employee, so I don’t have the authority to answer to that question. I’ll transfer you to a manager, and they can help you out with that.”

(I transfer her to one of my managers, and then head back up to the cashier’s stand. I get up there just as my head manager hangs up the phone.)

Head Manager: “Were you handling a call about a lady asking about a check payment?”

Me: “Yes!”

Other Manager: “Was that the same lady?! [My Name]’s been on the phone with her for the last ten minutes!”

(I relayed the entire conversation to my head manager, who just laughed and shook his head. The lady practically gave me three different options for how someone could steal her identity. If she was so determined to find cleats without leaving the house, why didn’t she just buy them online? Sometimes, I really worry about people.)