My friend and I are at the drive-thru to a Mexican fast food place.

Friend: “Hi, we called in an order ahead.”

Employee: “Order number and name?”

Friend: “Order 239, [Friend’s Last Name].”

Employee: “I don’t have that order.”

The employee just stands there, as if we’d just go, “Okay!” and drive off without our food.

Friend: “Well, I have the confirmation here on my phone, my dude!”

Employee: “I don’t have that order.”

Ouch. The moment they get stuck in that loop, you know you gotta be that type of customer.

Friend: “Can I see the manager?”

The employee just sighs and slooooowly fetches a manager. Cars are building up behind us.

Manager: “So, you guys are trying to get free food?”

Friend: “What? No! We have a paid order to pick up. Here, look at my phone.”

Manager: *Barely glancing at it* “We don’t have that order on our system.”

Friend: “So, can you make it based on what I have on my phone, and we can pull over and pick it up?”

Manager: “I’m not making you free food.”

Friend: “It’s not free food! We paid for it. If it’s not on your system, then you have a technical issue, but from where I am sitting, I have paid my money for food that you’re not giving me.”

Manager: *Sighs* “Put the order through again, and I will keep an eye on the printer.”

Friend: “But then I will have to pay again.”

Manager: *Sighs louder* “You’re blocking the drive-thru.”

Friend: “Yes, as this is the only way I am getting you all to listen to my problem.”

Manager: “Okay, just pull into the lot and put the order in again, and we will make the food. You can call Corporate to get a refund on the first order.”

My friend is very annoyed, but he doesn’t want to be a jerk to other customers in line, so he pulls into the parking lot and we go inside. He’s putting in the online order again when he smiles at me and hits send.

We are lucky enough to see the printer behind the counter that prints the online orders. An order comes in that just kinda… keeps… going. My friend notices that I have noticed this.

Friend: “I noticed they don’t have a maximum character limit on their ‘Special Instructions’ box on their online order form.”

Me: “What did you do?”

Friend: “I pasted the entire script to the Cats movie into the ‘Special Instructions’.”

I look back at the printer. Yup… still going.

Friend: “Ten times.”

The look on the manager’s face when he saw the print order was worth it, as was the extra long wait to get our food. My friend did eventually get his refund from corporate, and their online order form very quickly added a character limit to their “Special Instructions” box.

My dad worked in pest control. He only had partial custody of me. One day, when I was around ten and he had a custody day with me, he brought me with him to a restaurant.

It was already fairly late at night. We ate together, he got me a sweet treat from the dessert menu, and then… we waited. The rest of the guests gradually cleared out.

Me: “Hey, Dad, aren’t we keeping these poor servers here late?”

Dad: “No. It’s fine.”

They started vacuuming around us and shutting off lights. Dad got me another round of soda and helped me with my homework, but I was too stressed out by the fact that we weren’t leaving. I didn’t understand.

Finally, the servers left, and the manager approached my dad and handed him the keys.

Dad: *To the manager* “Remember not to come in tomorrow. It won’t be safe until the day after.”

It was a work site. Dad had been contracted to spray it for rats and roaches. According to Dad, they had a severe problem and were paying him for advanced mitigation. He had me help him get his gear out of the truck and put it in the correct locations. 

He gave me a hundred dollar bill for helping him, but he never did understand why I was upset that we’d eaten at a place that had such a bad problem.

While working at a thrift store, we would have all kinds of customers, from the usual normal plain John/Jane to the truly bizarre. This is one of the latter.

I was on registers and the day was about as usual when, all of a sudden, the flow of customers completely stopped like someone had turned off the faucet. Normally, I have enough awareness to see the next customer’s cart to determine if another register would need to be opened, but one of my faster coworkers was already open, so I was hyper-focused on the items themselves. Once the customer was finished, I saw the next customer.

This customer was about six feet tall (maybe taller) so they had a fairly intimidating presence, they were wearing a sundress, and behind their hair, which was covering their face, they were wearing what I could best describe as a mask that was a combination of Mankind and Kane (wrestlers). Every movement was like Jason/Michael Myers in that it was slow, yet methodical.

I let out a small “Oh” and got ready. I asked how they were doing and got no response. Okay, so the silent customer. I sped through the purchase and announced the total. Still without a word, the customer slowly paid for their purchase, slowly grabbed their bags, and slowly left.

Customers started to fill my line after the customer left, and they were all talking about the customer like it was a horror movie.

My only thought was, “Another wonderful day at [Store].”

I worked at a company that managed healthcare facilities. We got a new supervisor who didn’t like me for no specific reason. He gave me all of the s*** assignments in addition to my regular work.

I was a department of one in charge of a specific program. Since I was the only one working the program, I was the only one who had the password to the files.

I got a really great job with another company and put in my two weeks’ notice. I had been with my company for over ten years, and I felt like I was leaving in good standing, so I asked the supervisor for a letter of reference. He agreed.

Two days before I left, I still hadn’t received the letter, so I reminded him.

Supervisor: “I haven’t had time. Give me your personal email address so I can send it there.”

A few days into my new job, he called me.

Supervisor: “Can you give me the password for the files?”

Me: “You know, I still haven’t received the letter you agreed to write for me.”

Supervisor: “I’ll write it once you give me the password.”

I didn’t trust him at all, so I gave him the wrong password. He called me several times over the next week and left messages saying that the password was wrong. I still hadn’t received the letter.

After a week, I finally answered his call. He was livid.

Supervisor: “We need the correct password!”

Me: “I still haven’t received the letter you agreed to send me. I will give you the password after I receive the letter.”

The letter was in my inbox an hour later. It was very generic. I responded to his email with the correct password.

I’ve never used the letter as a reference.

This happened back in the late 1970s. I was working in a music store that also catered to the schools with instrument rentals and personal teaching.

On Saturday mornings, I taught beginning drum lessons. I generally enjoyed it, except for this one young man who was about nine years old. He was very quiet, and by the third lesson, I could tell he hadn’t practiced anything. He just sat there as I went over the previous lesson again.

Then, suddenly, these big tears started rolling down his cheeks.

I stopped the lesson right there.

Me: “Hey, guy, what’s wrong? You don’t want to be here, do you? That’s all right. I’m not upset with you. It’s okay. Tell me what’s up.”

He kept quiet until I convinced him that I didn’t care if he didn’t want to play drums — it’s not for everybody — and asked what he really wanted to do.

He got up the courage to tell me he really wanted to play baseball.

Me: “I played Little League when I was your age, but I really sucked at it. That’s why I became a drummer.”

That got him to smile, and I told him a couple of stories about how bad I was at it, but I assured him he’d likely be better than me. I got him to smile and almost laugh.

When the lesson ended, I told him to go outside and I’d talk to his mom about it. When she came in, I handed her check back to her.

Me: “Ma’am, I want you to take this check across the street to [Store] and buy the boy a bat, a ball, and a glove, and I never want to see him in this store again.”

Mother: “But I want him to be a musician!”

Me: “You might have the next [insert Famous Baseball Player] on your hands; you don’t know. But I do know that if you force him to play music, he’ll hate it forever.”

I found out a couple of days later that drums were the third instrument his mom had forced him into. That’s one of the reasons I gave up teaching.