(It’s around 12 pm. I’m training a new girl on her third shift. She’s never been on register before, so I’m walking her through it before I teach her how to serve. Our register layout has changed that day, so every employee on shift is re-learning it. All of a sudden, a woman who has been standing in line for around two minutes walks straight up to the register. The register has a sign on it clearly stating that it is closed.)

Customer: “Excuse me, do you have to do that now?”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “It’s lunchtime, and you’re training! Do you have to do that now?”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is her training shift and—”

Customer: “I don’t care! I’ve been standing here for ten minutes! You have one girl serving and it’s extremely busy!”

(We have around five customers besides her, three of whom have ordered and paid.)

Me: “I’m sorry, I’ll get you my manager.”

Customer: “It’s lunchtime!”

Manager: “Hi, what seems to be the problem today?”

Customer: “This girl is being extremely rude to me and refusing to serve me!”

Manager: “I’m sorry, but as you can see, this register is closed. Our trainee is currently being trained. If you’ll just step into that line over there, we’ll take your order.”

Customer: “It’s lunchtime! Are you all stupid!?. Some of us are on our meal breaks!”

Manager: “I’m sorry about that, ma’am.”

Customer: “This line isn’t even moving!”

(The manager is needed in two other parts of the store at this point, so she instructs me to have the trainee serve the customer, and then get back to training her.)

Customer: “Finally. It’s lunchtime!”

(The customer then proceeds to rattle off a long and extremely complicated order. This is difficult for both the trainee and myself and takes around five minutes to put through her order. She begins screaming about slow service around halfway through. The trainee is nearly in tears by this point.)

Customer: “Oh, for God’s sake! You’re so f***ing slow! Don’t you know how to use a register?”

Me: *finally losing my patience* “No, she doesn’t. That’s what I was trying to teach her before.”

Customer: “I want to talk to your manager!”

Manager: “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You have been extremely rude to my staff, who are only doing as they have been instructed to do. Here is your food.”

Customer: “You can’t do this to me! I’m going to your owners, and I’m going to your head office! What’s your name? What’s her name?”

(The manager gives both of our names.)

Customer: “I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU BOTH FIRED!”

(The customer then proceeds to charge out of the store, still ranting about poor service.)

Manager: “Yeah, have fun with that.”

(I am training a new girl. One basic of our job involves 3rd-4th grade level math. We are both in our twenties.)

Me: “Okay. They are taking two, four times a day. How long will it last?”

New Girl: “Uh…”

Me: “What’s 2 times 4?”

New Girl: “…12?”

(At the warehouse where I work, we’re taking some new hires inside the huge walk-in freezer. Everyone has to put on freezer suits, but I notice one of the new hires is too small to wear our freezer suits.)

Me: “So, one of the new people can’t wear the freezer suit. We’ve gotta put her in a different section.”

Manager #1: “Just zip her into it she’ll be fine.”

Me: “No, the freezer suit is three times too big for her. She wouldn’t be able to safely move and carry things around.”

Manager #1: “Well, maybe she shouldn’t be so small, then!”

Me: “Um… I don’t really think that’s in her control. She’s kinda short.”

Manager #2: “What the h*** is going on?”

Me: “One of the new people is too physically small to safely move around in the freezer suits, so I want to have somebody take her over to another section of the warehouse.”

Manager #2: “Is that [new hire’s name]?”

Me: “Yeah, how’d you know?”

Manager #2: “[Coworker] is a friend of hers. He was joking yesterday that he knew she’d be too small to fit in the suits.” *to the Manager #1* “I left you a note to have her on the other side of the warehouse!”

Manager #1: “I thought that was just ’cause she was a girl!”

(We’ve just hired a lot of new people to help over the holidays. A few of our new hires are great, but one of our male new hires is rude, and lazy. This happens when I tell him to find one of our other newly hired people and tell him to work with her on putting back clothing from the fitting rooms. Note: the other new hire is fairly short, so if she’s between the dress racks the only way you’d see her is if you actually walked past the ends of the aisle.)

Male New Hire: “Hey, I can’t see that girl you told me to go find. You need to give me something else to do.”

Me: “I know there were dresses on the go-back rack, so she’s probably in one of those aisles.”

(The male new hire takes a few steps away and cranes his neck around.)

Male New Hire: “I still can’t see her.”

Me: “That’s because you can’t see DOWN those aisles from here. Go over there!”

Male New Hire: “Can’t you just give me something else to do? I could stand up by the register in case somebody needs checking out or has questions… except you have to give me a stool so I can sit down when no one’s there.”

Me: “Even if I did put you up there, you’d be organizing and taking care of things up there and not sitting down. But I already gave you a job to do, so you need to go do it.”

Male New Hire: *stomps off*

(About ten minutes later, the female new hire I sent him to go find brings the rack she was putting clothing away from back.)

Me: “Where’s [male new hire]?”

Female New Hire: “Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since he clocked in.”

Me: “Are you serious? I sent him over to help you put those clothes away!”

Female New Hire: “Well… I guess he got distracted. All he does is stand there and complain that he’s expected to actually do stuff, though so it probably went faster without him.”

(I went to check the break room, and sure enough he was sitting there talking on his phone.)

Me: “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Male New Hire: “Putting clothes away is for girls. You have no right to ask me to do girl work!”

(He was fired immediately.)

(Note: I am going out on maternity leave and am training my temp replacement on my job, which will involve light office admin work. The temp in question claims she has a lot of internet experience.)

Me: “Okay, they just sent us a link to this equipment and the boss approved it, so we need to buy it.”

Temp: “Okay, so what do I do?”

Me: “Um, you just click on the link in the email. That will take you directly to the exact item they want.”

Temp: “So, do I have to google it?”

Me: “Uh, no. Just click here.”

Temp: *clicks it* “Now what?”

Me: “Okay, he says they need four of these.”

Temp: “Okay, so what do I do?”

Me: *getting worried* “You enter ‘4’ in the quantity then click ‘Purchase’.”

Temp: “Where is ‘Purchase’?”

Me: “…It’s that big button that says ‘Purchase’.”

(The temp looks over the entire screen, completely missing the giant Purchase button. Instead, she clicks on a tiny little link at the bottom of the page that leads to the service agreement. The service agreement notification window opens. She stares at it for a minute and I assume she’s just being extra cautious or something and reading it over first.)

Temp: “Okay, so now what?”

Me: “What do you mean, now what? Close the box and click ‘Purchase’.”

Temp: “But it didn’t work.”

Me: “You didn’t click ‘Purchase’. You clicked on the service terms, so now you need to close that window and click ‘Purchase’.”

(She closes both the service window AND the website window, leaving just the email with the link up. I assumed it was a mis-click, but then…)

Temp: “So, now what do I do?”

Me: “What? Seriously? You shut down the page, so you have to open it again. Click on the link.”

Temp: “BUT IT DIDN’T WORK!”

Me: “Look, just trust me.” *I begin pointing* “Click here. Enter ‘4’ here. Click ‘Purchase’ here. Okay, now enter the credit card number. Okay, now click ‘Buy Now’.”

Temp: “You just click it like that?”

Me: “Yes. And see? There’s your receipt.”

Temp: “Oh, wow, that is scary!”

(If I wasn’t going to pop out a kid any second, I would have told her to leave, but we were out of time. Thankfully it was only for 8 weeks, and my coworkers were never happier to see me when I came back!)