More than a decade ago, I am taking classes for my Master’s Degree. The graduate-level classes are all held on an urban campus of the university, while the undergraduate classes are held on the university’s main residential campus a few miles outside of the urban center.

One semester, I learn that a 7:15 pm class that I am taking will be meeting at the residential campus library three times that semester to use the archive there. I try to talk to the professor about it, because I have a class on the urban campus that ends at 7:00 pm, and it will take fifteen to twenty minutes with traffic just to get near the residential campus, not to mention find parking and walk to the library. When I explain this to the professor I am told:

Professor: “Well, try to get there as soon as you can.”

The evening of the first residential campus class session arrived. I got out of my first class at 7:00 pm, ran to the parking lot, got in my car, and hurriedly pulled out onto the street. As I approached the first traffic light, it turned yellow, but I had time to get through it, so I did not brake. An approaching car, thinking I was going to stop at the yellow light, turned in front of me to make their left, and I crashed into them, ripping off my bumper, setting off my airbags, and totaling my twelve-year-old car.

The next day, I was in pain from being hit by the airbag and had no transportation to get the thirty miles to campus. I emailed the professor whose class I was rushing to, explained that I had been in a car accident, and asked if there was any way to get notes from the session or make up the work somehow. I never received an answer.

My other professors whose classes I was missing while trying to quickly buy a new car were much more understanding, sending me class notes and worksheets to make up for missed attendance.

I was late to the rest of the residential campus meetings for that class, and I did not feel bad about it at all.

I used to work for a valet company that would contract its employees out to venues needing to host a large number of guests with a limited amount of parking.

We typically worked short-staffed because the company would always have more contracts to fill than valets available. This night was no different, with only three of us staffed for a party on a cold January night next to a lake.

We usually would only find out the details of the party when we arrived for the shift, so showing up early was always worth it to help with planning. Tonight seemed simple on the surface: a party of about 100 people. Since people tended to carpool more often than not, that translated to only about fifty to sixty vehicles we’d have to park. For the three of us, it was looking like an easy shift.

Unfortunately, the weather turned very quickly, and before any guests had even arrived, it began pouring down frozen rain with high winds blowing inland from the lake. This meant that we were having trouble with our key storage, and more importantly, our sign indicating where guests should pull in and expect valet. To make things worse, everyone decided to show up at exactly the same time, meaning that one of us had to stay up front to greet the guests in the driveway while the other two rushed as fast as possible to move their cars up to let the next group of cars into the driveway.

The traffic was terrible and there was about a fifteen-minute wait for people just to enter the driveway. This caused people to start becoming impatient, and the two lines of cars started to get out of control.

In the midst of all this, the wind had blown our sign over into the driveway, leaving the bolts that held the sign to the post sticking up. None of us had noticed this since we were too busy just trying to help people get to their party. That is until this one customer approached the valet stand in a particularly sour mood.

Customer: “Your sign punctured my tire, and it went flat while I tried to pull in!”

Me: *Surprised and confused* “How did the sign puncture your tire?”

Customer: “I ran it over cause you left it in the middle of the driveway! You’re buying me a new tire!”

I was still trying to get other guests in around his now-stricken truck as we spoke.

Me: “Why would you run it over, though?”

Another guest now chimed in.

Customer #2: “Yeah, we had to run it over, too; there was nowhere to go.”

Me: “Okay, well, I’m not sure what you want me to do. No one told you to run over the sign so if you want any help, you’ll have to wait until I’m finished helping the other guests.”

Customer: “This is unacceptable! Your sign popped my tire; you have to replace it and call me a tow truck!”

I had now had enough of this guy’s attitude and told him I’d call my manager for advice. Thankfully, my manager is amazing and doesn’t take anyone’s BS. After I explained the situation to him, he stopped me.

Manager: “Wait. So, he ran over the sign, which was his own decision, and thinks it’s our fault that he couldn’t drive around it?”

Me: “Yep.”

Manager: “So, that’s his own problem. Tell him tough luck, he should learn how to drive, and we’re not responsible for what he does before he even gets to you!”

I returned to the customer with this information and told him that in no way would my boss be reimbursing him for his mistake and that he could talk to the venue about it if he wanted to. He did, and my coworkers and I finished with the incoming guests. About twenty minutes later, the guy came out, defeated, mounted his own spare tire, and went home.

I’m still baffled by the choice of multiple people to just run over an object in the road and risk damage to their own cars.

Two young students are walking through the hallway outside the labs. There’s a Hispanic man on all fours scrubbing up a spill with some paper towels. As they pass, I hear [Undergrad #1] say something that ends with, “…just a janitor.”

Undergrad #2: “Just a janitor? Do you know what they do in this lab? This is where they keep the disease! I bet he studied longer than us before they let him clean here!”

They turn the corner. The man stares after them and then finally turns to face me. I see he’s holding a crumpled coffee cup, which he presumably dropped.

Man: “I mean… I’m a PhD student, so I guess he wasn’t that wrong?”

Customer: “I need this package sent to France, and I need it there tomorrow.”

Me: “Sir, it’s 5:00 pm on a Friday.”

Customer: “Well done, you know how to tell the time and the date. Why is that relevant to me?”

Me: “Sir, even if we send this package now, express, it won’t be in France until Monday at the earliest.”

Customer: “Unacceptable. I’ll pay whatever it takes, but you need to get it there on Saturday morning.”

Me: “That’s impossible, sir.”

Customer: “Manager, now.”

The manager is called over, and they argue for about five minutes, with the customer getting more and more flustered. I don’t hear everything as I am serving another customer, but everyone in the store hears the end of the conversation due to the customer getting a bit shouty.

Customer: “You’re all incompetent! A.I. is coming, and it will be doing all your jobs for you soon!”

Manager: “I welcome the day, sir. It means we don’t have to deal with insufferable a**holes like you.”

Customer: “That’s it! Give me your corporate number!”

The manager gives him a card with a number on it, and the customer struts out the exit, still holding his package.

Me: *To the manager* “Isn’t the number on those cards just an automated set of options?”

Manager: “If he wants A.I. to take over so badly, he can take his complaint up with a machine.”

No arguments from me there!

There are quite a few Tex-Mex takeout places run by Asians in my part of the world. I witness this exchange while waiting for my food.

Customer: “Can I get General Tso Chicken?”

Cashier: “Sir, we are not a Chinese food takeout. We sell Tex-Mex food.” 

Customer: “Can I get the chicken with broccoli instead, then?”

Cashier: “Sir, we only serve what’s on this menu.”

The customer takes a look at the menu for the first time, and then he looks at the Asian cashier.

Customer: “How comes y’all don’t have Chinese food here?”