When the blackout of 2003 [the northeastern USA and southern Canada suffered the worst power blackout in history] occurred, I worked at a private social club for alumni and faculty of a prestigious college. It was right around the change of shift for the waitstaff.

Basically, employees had been able to leave, but replacements were not able to get in. Better stated, I don’t believe those who left realized the issue, and once they left, they didn’t come back. My network admin did that and left me to the servers, which I knew nothing about. Thankfully, they were hooked up to a UPS [Uninterruptible Power Supply] that shut down on their own.

A bunch of us helped out with serving the club members who had shown up as they could not get home. People were sleeping on the staircases, couches in different rooms of the club, etc. I honestly do not remember anyone giving us a hard time about whatever service we were able to provide. Also, not everyone helped. I get it. It was an interesting evening, to say the least.

Thankfully, no one thought about the couch that was in the women’s locker room, and I was able to get a snooze in there for a few hours. I left at 7:00 am after helping the hotel staff close and open the previous night’s stuff.

My father used to travel a lot for work. Years ago, he had a flight that made it back to his home airport in Houston, but by the time it landed, the weather there was so bad that all the freeways surrounding the airport were closed. My father (and many other stranded passengers) spent the night in the airport’s Presidents Club.

Enough stranded passengers ended up in the Presidents Club that they had to close and lock the doors when the club reached its maximum occupancy. There were still passengers who came up, saw the closed and locked door, and rattled or banged on the door in an effort to get inside. The employees would open the door just long enough to say, “See the sign that says we’re at maximum occupancy? We’re not joking,” and then they’d shut and lock the door again.

Unfortunately, the weather also meant that the club employees couldn’t leave when their shift was over, nor could their replacements come to take their places. At a certain point, a lot of the stranded passengers, including my father, told the staff, “You go rest. Just show us where things are, and we’ll make our own drinks and snacks.”

Then, of course, you had the passengers who were highly affronted that the paid staff should get to rest, and the stranded passengers should take care of themselves. “I’m a Presidents Club member! You’re supposed to take care of me, not the other way around!”

Most of the passengers were perfectly content to take care of themselves, and they ignored the passengers who whined.

I was a bouncer for more than thirty years. In 1998, I worked in a rough nightclub in Leeds. We had so many fights that we actually had to pay extra for West Yorkshire Police to deploy officers outside on Fridays and Saturdays, in the same way that football clubs and concerts had to pay for extra policing.

One night, a young male got into an argument on the dancefloor and smashed a beer bottle over another young man’s head, knocking him out. One of my colleagues saw it and called us on the radio for backup.

We got there, and this guy was threatening everyone with the jagged remnants of the bottle, and he had about seven or eight friends with him who looked like they were up for it. My colleagues and I were outnumbered, but we were good. There was a moment of tense stand-off because this was going to be bloody.

Suddenly, the guy dropped his bottle, raised his hands to his head, and screamed in pain. An older woman had come up behind him and was twisting his ear viciously. The song that was playing finished, and the DJ was so busy watching that he forgot to play the next track, so the whole club could hear what happened next.

Older Woman: “YOU YELLOW LITTLE B*****D! I DIDN’T BRING YOU UP TO USE WEAPONS! THAT’S NOT HOW WE FIGHT IN OUR FAMILY! JUST WAIT ‘TIL I GET YOU OUTSIDE!”

And she dragged him the whole way out of the club by his ear whilst he screamed:

Guy: “OW, MUM! OWWWW! LET GO, MUM!”

And yes, a lot of people clapped and cheered.

The lad who got bottled knew the guy who’d assaulted him and did not want to press charges, either because it was just a drunken argument between friends or he intended to deal with it himself.

I was working in a “cafe and beer hall by day, club by night” in a major European city a couple of years ago. This was one of the most notable quotes from a guest I have heard in my career.

The main character in this story — let’s call him “Jerry” — came in one day to unload and have a couple of beers (not in my section, thank the gods). At first glance, I was not sure if Jerry was a transient on the verge of being cut off or a backpacker who forgot what an “inside voice” should sound like. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed the latter, but out of caution, I made a mental note to watch for drama.

After about half a beer, Jerry struck up a conversation with another equally boisterous guest and joined him. The two had another round, then another… and then Jerry started to hit on another guest two tables over — as in, shouting at the poor stranger from six metres away. She was awkwardly amused. I was not.

At that point, I had the floor manager speak with the backpackers and tell them to mind themselves.

About fifteen minutes later, I had not heard anything else happen… until Jerry nonchalantly returned to the table and was approached by the floor manager, and I heard Jerry YELL loudly enough to be heard throughout the 200-seat establishment.

Jerry: “You’re telling me you are kicking me out for washing my d**k in the sink?!”

For context, our toilets were unisex stalls and a bank of urinals behind a row of sinks in public view. Jerry had come from the urinal and, according to another traumatized guest, had proceeded to give himself a quick “bird bath” next to other patrons exhibiting proper hygiene.

I had not been paying these guests any further attention until I heard — once more, for the people in the back — “YOU’RE telling ME you are KICKING ME OUT for washing my D**K in the SINK?!”

There was a short exchange between Jerry and the floor manager before Jerry left in a huff, leaving me with that phrase forever emblazoned in my head.

I work as a bartender at a nightclub in New York City. Two fellows with thick European accents come up to the bar, and one asks in all earnestness:

Customer: “Two lines of Coke, please.”

I just stare at him for a couple of seconds. Yup, he’s serious.

Me: “Coke… Uh… cola?”

Customer: “No, to sniff.”

He then does a little mime demonstration for me to really drive home what is by now abundantly clear.

Me: “Ah, I see; you’re an idiot. Go get arrested somewhere else.”