My manager is legitimately one of the nicest and sweetest people I’ve ever met in my life. However, she has a habit of conflating “didn’t do correctly” with “didn’t do at all.” My biggest pet peeve is being accused of something I didn’t do. Put these two traits together and… Well…

I was brought into a side office because I had been making too many mistakes. They were mostly little mistakes, but business had been down and every little mistake that cost the company money — reshipping product, addressing correction fees, etc. — was being felt more. I understood and accepted that, and I earnestly asked for suggestions and help to fix this. My supervisor had some actually helpful advice, but [Manager] dropped this.

Manager: “You just need to read the notes.”

Me: “I do read the notes, and 98% of the time, I apply them correctly. It’s just the 2% that I accidentally apply them incorrectly.”

Manager: “Well, if you read the notes, you wouldn’t.”

Me: “Like I said, 98% of the time, I do. I make mistakes, though. Sometimes I get distracted, sometimes I just misread, or I’m overtired. It happens; I’m human. I’m going to try to minimize them.”

Manager: “Start reading the notes, and we won’t need to have these talks.”

Me: *Getting upset* “[Manager]! I just said multiple times that I do. Just this morning, I brought up to you and [Supervisor] three different things which I caught because I read everything. I’m sorry that 2% of the time I have slipped. I’m not excusing those. I’m saying I will fix them!”

Supervisor: “Just out of curiosity, why are you so fixated on this 98%, 2% angle?”

Me: “Because [Manager] said the others only make mistakes about 1% of the time, and I make twice as many as the rest. And a 2% error rate is a h*** of a lot less than the 100% rate she keeps saying.”

Manager: “I never said that!”

Me: “Your literal, exact words were, ‘You never read the notes,’ which means I screw up literally everything. I accept the mistakes I’ve made and will fix them, but I will not accept that.”

Eventually, the supervisor was able to verbally get between us enough to de-escalate, and the final resolution was basically what I was saying in the first place. [Manager] and I have since made up, though I may snarkily add in “because I was reading the notes” whenever something needs addressing.

On the receipts at our grocery store, an “F” is printed next to the prices of items that are eligible to be purchased with food stamps, and a “T” is printed next to the prices of items that are taxable. If an item is both eligible for food stamps and taxable, a “B” is printed instead. These letters also appear on the register screen next to the price.

Enter a customer who has picked up three cases of soda, which is a taxable item in this state.

Me: “Okay, it comes up to $15.99.”

Customer: “No, the sign back there said three for $15.”

Me: “Right, but there’s still sales tax to be paid.”

Customer: “But see how it has a ‘B’ there next to the price? That means it’s a tax on Black people only. I’m white; I don’t have to pay the tax.”

Me: “Ma’am, that’s not how this works.”

Customer: “Get me a manager.”

The manager told her the same thing I had told her and would later have her banned from the store for suggesting we change the letter from a “B” to an “N” to “more properly reflect who should have to pay the tax”.

Fifty years ago, I worked a summer job in a factory in New Jersey. We didn’t actually manufacture anything. The widgets were made in the UK and shipped to us so they could be labeled, “Packaged in the USA.” We sat on an assembly line and boxed blister packs of the widgets.

One day, the machine that formed the plastic started acting up and oozing out gases. We called over one of the managers who were known as engineers — although I tend to doubt they had degrees.

Coworker #1: “Something’s wrong. The machine is spreading gases that make our eyes hurt.”

[Engineer] nodded and turned to [Coworker #2].

Engineer: “Do your eyes hurt?”

Coworker #2: “Yes.”

[Engineer] nodded again and turned to [Coworker #3].

Engineer: “Do your eyes hurt?”

Coworker #3: “Yes.”

And so on. When he reached the end of the line, he went back to [Coworker #1].

Engineer: “See? Everyone’s eyes hurt.”

And he walked off.

After going grocery shopping, I get in my car, put it in reverse… and don’t move at all because there are other cars, including one that stops just behind me. And I do mean JUST — my backup camera display is almost entirely filled with this guy’s bumper and blinking light.

I sit and wait, and wait some more, and wait a bit extra. I realize with bemusement that this individual seems to be waiting for me to pull out, while simultaneously blocking me in, so I do the only thing I can in the situation: put my car in park and wait for things to clear out.

The fine gentleman who’s been sitting behind me for a minute does not appreciate this decision as he quickly gets out of his car and comes up to knock on my window. I choose NOT to open it, instead just talking loudly through the glass.

Me: “What’s up?”

Man: “MOVE.”

Me: “Can’t.”

Man: “MOVE YOUR D*** CAR.”

Me: “I was gonna, but there’s this dude blocking me in.”

Man: “I NEED THIS SPOT.”

Me: “As soon as there isn’t a car blocking me, it’s yours.”

Man: “GET F****** GOING!”

Me: “I’d love to! Stop blocking me in and I will!”

There were another thirty or so seconds of this repetition before traffic got too backed up and he had to move his car — of course, now yelling at the OTHER cars.

He finally moved. I pulled out and got some small satisfaction as somebody else pulled into my spot behind me before Mister Doesn’t-Understand-Physics looped back around.

I work in a Chinese restaurant delivering food. When I arrive at a customer’s house, I knock three times but they don’t answer. I end up calling the customer to let them know I am outside.

Forty-five minutes later, I get a call from them again.

Customer: “You guys forgot my iced tea.”

I am driving, with my phone connected to my car, and I am in the middle of doing a turn, so I quickly respond, probably harsher than I intended.

Me: “Call the store.”

Customer: *With an attitude* “Okay.”

Since I am only a couple of blocks away from the restaurant, I drive over and go inside to the front where our computers are. My coworkers and boss are talking amongst themselves, so I walk past them and check the customer’s order.

Me: *To my coworkers and boss* “This lady at [address] just called me a couple of minutes ago and said she was missing her iced tea. She didn’t even order an iced tea. Did she call?”

Coworker #1: “No, no one has called.”

Coworker #2: “I took her order. She didn’t say anything about a drink, and I even had to ask her to add something else because she didn’t meet our minimum.”

Me: “Guess she didn’t really want a drink, then.”

Pro-tip: don’t call the driver of the restaurant you ordered from to have your order corrected. We are driving; we can’t do anything about any mistakes that may have been made, and most of us don’t know how to work the computers in the store.