I’m the author of this story. This story takes place about three months later in the same upscale spa in a five-star hotel.

Management has recently decided to overload all therapists with more bookings than we are legally allowed to do, with almost no turnaround time between clients, while constantly running out of supplies. As such, every single therapist is racing to get rooms set up for long and complex treatments.

On this particular day, I begin with a thirty-minute facial and a two-hour package afterward consisting of a foot bath, body scrub, body massage, and facial. I’ve managed to set everything up in with seconds to spare and take a deep breath to steady myself after such frantic running back and forth.

My moment complete, I head out to find my client.

Me: “Hello, [Client]. My name is [My Name], and I’ll be your therapist today. Are you ready to come in with me?”

She shifts her designer sunglasses and literally looks down her nose at me.

Client: “What is wrong with your voice?”

Me: “…I’m sorry?”

Client: “Your voice. I don’t like it. You sound breathy. Do you actually want me here, or should I come back another time?”

Me: “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I absolutely did not mean to come across that way. I have everything ready for your treatment, however, so if you’d like to follow me—”

Client: *Interrupting* “No, I don’t want you. I don’t like your voice. It’s too breathy. You don’t sound right.”

She looks me up and down with obvious contempt and points.

Client: “I only want this spa at its best, and it’s clearly not today if someone like you is here.”

Me: *Forcing a smile* “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. If you’re not comfortable with me, then you are free to speak with my manager.”

The client hightails it to the front desk and starts demanding her appointment be changed this instant. The manager explains that this is not possible, as we tend to book out a month in advance, this will mean a two-hour slot will be wasted, and her not liking my voice isn’t a valid reason. After all, I simply need to ask some basic questions such as allergies, etc., and then we don’t have to talk. Therefore, changing her appointment is really quite difficult and unreasonable.

To say the client is affronted would be an understatement; she looks as though someone has suggested she go bathe in garbage water.

Client: “That is unacceptable. I want my appointment changed now! I only have spa treatments every two weeks, and it’s important that I only get the best! This therapist…” *points to me* “…is clearly not the best.”

Manager: “Ma’am, her voice is not a valid reason to change your appointment so suddenly.”

Client: “Are you refusing to do what I want?!”

Manager: “Not exactly, but I’m just saying that it’s not—”

Client: “I want to talk to the manager!”

Manager: “Well, that would be me.”

I should point out that my manager is Mexican. The client is white.

Client: *In a tone of absolute revulsion* “You? Someone like you actually owns this place?!”

Manager: “…No, I don’t own the business.”

The client marches over to a seat and parks herself.

Client: “Fine. I’ll just wait here while you escalate my case to your superior!”

While she waits, two more women come in screaming about the hotel sauna being closed for cleaning, even though that has nothing to do with the spa, and the delightful woman from before starts commiserating with the newcomers about how incompetent we are, etc.

They go on more about my manager’s accent and so forth, pretty much being exactly the kind of people you’d cross the street to avoid. While I’m standing there questioning every single thing that has led me up to this point, the two sauna clients leave amid more shouting, and the first woman is told that the owner has agreed to switch her appointment.

Client: “About time. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a complaint or anything!”

She is FINALLY gone, and the next thing I know, my manager is rounding on me.

Manager: “HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?!”

Me: “What are you saying?”

Manager: “You should have taken charge of that situation! You should have done more to reassure that woman! You should have done more to calm her down!”

At this point, I am barely holding back tears.

Me: “…she said my voice annoyed her. How was I supposed to calm her down when that was her issue? And she insulted me right to my face. I don’t want to deal with that kind of rudeness!”

Manager: “YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE MORE TO CALM HER DOWN! YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE LET HER GET THAT UPSET!”

Despite saying that she wouldn’t complain, the client called the head office to complain before she’d even left the building. As compensation for her unspeakable trauma, she received free products, free treatments, and free upgrades.

That was the beginning of the end for me. Thanks to this woman, all levels of management proceeded to chew me out throughout several meetings over multiple weeks over the incident, and they cut my hours as punishment for not “calming and communicating with the client”.

They were utterly shocked and furious when I left a few months later, and I have since left the beauty industry entirely thanks to that place.

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Meet The Mister Looking For His Miss-ogyny

My supermarket is not the sort of sprawling behemoth implied by the term “chain store”, but it does have several different locations. The particular location where I work has a mismatch between what our circulars say and what our computer system actually does.

For example: this week, there is a two-for-one sale on a certain brand of ice cream. What the circular says: buy one get one free, and you have to buy two. What our system actually does: each item rings up as half off, so you can buy only one and still get the sale.

Today, I have a customer who is buying two tubs of the ice cream that’s on sale. He also has a coupon for a free tub of ice cream, or $5.99, whichever amount is lower. His order is small — only one other item besides those tubs. I ring it all up and follow the usual procedure with this kind of coupon, which involves grabbing a pen to write down the amount it takes off. I read the price aloud to myself in preparation for writing it down.

That’s where the trouble starts.

Customer: “No. No, that’s not right. It’s supposed to be $5.99.”

Me: “Your ice creams rang up as $3.49. It’s giving you one of them for free.”

Customer: “It’s supposed to take off $5.99.”

Me: “Well, they’re $3—”

Customer: “No. The circular says, ‘Buy one, get one free.'”

Me: “That means they’re both half off.”

Customer: “Get me your manager.”

Way ahead of you, sir. Being yelled at freaks me out, so I am only too happy to pass him on to one of my direct supervisors, the bookkeepers. A bookkeeper comes down, rings up the coupon, sees that it took off $3.49, looks at the circular, and says exactly the same things I did.

Customer: “Get the store manager.”

The bookkeeper gets on the intercom and calls the store manager to my register. The bookkeepers all started as cashiers and occasionally come down to work a register if it’s busy. The store managers, as far as I know, have no such history, or if they do, it’s years in the past. When the store manager comes down, it takes him an extra long time just to figure out what is happening. He has to look at the circular, look at the coupon, discuss things with the bookkeeper, etc. He is confused because there is no sign that anything is wrong.

Customer: “It’s supposed to take off $5.99. See, right there.”

Manager: “Yeah, I see it. ‘Up to $5.99.’ Well, the ice cream is ringing up $3.49, and it’s taking off $3.49, so you’re getting one for free.”

Customer: “No. The circular says, ‘Buy one, get one free.'”

Bookkeeper: “That means they’re half off.”

Manager: “Two for $6.98, it says. That’s $3.49 each.”

Customer: “It says, ‘Buy one get one free.'”

Me: *To the manager, who still looks confused* “I think he was expecting one ice cream to ring up at its full price of $6.99, the second one to ring up free because of our sale, and then the coupon to take $5.99 off the first one, so he would get two tubs of ice cream for a dollar.”

The exchange goes on a little while longer. It’s just repetitions of the same. When it becomes clear that the manager is not going to alter our computer system on the spot, the angry guy demands that his entire order be canceled. We return his coupon, he leaves, and the bookkeeper returns the ice cream to the freezers. The manager begins to walk away from my register.

Me: “Hey, [Manager]? What’s up with the circulars? They’re not right. It says that the customers have to buy two, but they don’t. If I ring up a single one, it’s still half off.”

The manager gives the circular another glance.

Manager: “Yeah, the circulars are written for the new system we’re getting soon.”

This would be the new system we’ve been hearing about for six months. That’s approximately when the circulars started saying, “Must buy two,” which implies that at least one location has had this new system in place for months. Why is it taking so long to go around to ten or fewer stores to perform this upgrade?

More importantly, how many more customers like this guy am I going to see before it happens?

I work in a restaurant. I had a big group at work the other day with another coworker, and this table was absolutely insufferable. They were super impatient and condescending — the kind of people who think servers exist for only them and aren’t people. But that wasn’t the worst part.

The biggest b**** and ringleader of the whole table had a two-year-old kid who was just a tiny deviant. This kid kept grabbing me, trying to stick his hands under my shirt, and calling me Mommy, and his parents wouldn’t even bat an eye.

Me: *Gesturing to the toddler* “Please keep an eye on him. There’s hot food coming in and out, and I’m worried that he’ll get hurt.”

They just rolled their eyes and then started whispering amongst themselves.

I talked to a manager, and she didn’t do anything. She told me to tough it out and come get her if it escalated to the adults behaving like that.

What do I do in a situation like that? I can’t put my hands on the kid, but I don’t need to be groped by a toddler at work. Parents are the only ones who can control their kids, and they definitely had no desire to do so.

In the late 1980s, I was a waitress in a restaurant attached to a mall. Two women who worked in the mall came in for lunch.

Ladies: “We only have thirty minutes, so please hurry and bring us two orders of lasagne!”

Lasagne was the one thing on the menu that took the longest to make because it needed at least fifteen minutes in the oven. I ran into the kitchen and told the cook to make it quick, and I had their food out to them in about twelve minutes. Meanwhile, I gave them good, attentive service and made sure they were able to get back to work in the mall on time.

Just after they left, I walked up to the table and saw that they had paid their entire check of around $15 with loose change. Not the end of the world since, being a waitress and all, I often paid for things with loose change.

However, when I counted it out, they had only left one nickel as a tip. I was immediately piping mad, so I ran out into the mall where I could see them a couple of hundred feet away, and I yelled at them:

Me: “Keep the change!”

I threw the nickel in their direction (but not AT them) and walked back into the restaurant.

The two of them, who were in such a hurry, found time to come back to the restaurant and report me to the manager. He called me to the front of the restaurant where the two women were waiting.

Manager: “Did you throw money at these ladies just now?”

Me: “Yes.”

Manager: “Why would you do something like that?”

Me: “Because I provided good service and gave them everything they asked for; they had no complaints. And they insulted me by making me count out their loose change only to find out they left me a nickel, which is worse than nothing. I would have rather they left me nothing.”

My manager looked at the ladies.

Manager: “Is that true?”

Ladies: “It doesn’t matter if it’s true. This waitress is rude, and you need to fire her!”

Manager: *Calmly* “The next time you need quick service and don’t have enough money to leave a tip, you should go to the food court.”

Their mouths just dropped (so did mine), and they turned and left with their noses in the air.

I smiled at my manager.

Me: “Thank you for sticking up for me!”

Manager: “Don’t ever do that again.”

Right out of college, I worked at a portrait studio at the mall. I only worked there from September to January, and for basically all of that time, we were absolutely slammed with families doing their Christmas photos. We were understaffed and overworked, and it was a complete chaotic mess. I had stress dreams about working there for about a year and a half after I quit, but one family, unfortunately, is burned into my memory. 

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and my last appointment for the night was a photoshoot with seven children between the ages of about six months and six years old. They were brought in by three moms who were sisters, I think, so basically, three related families. They wanted group shots of all the cousins together.

The kids were wild. I did the absolute best I could to wrangle all of these children into the same pictures, but they would not stay still. The moms tried to help, but honestly, the more adults in the room giving directions and picking up runaway children, the more confusing it became. I lost complete control of the shoot, but honestly, I don’t think I had much of a chance. 

The moms were a constant chorus of thank-yous and “I’m sorry about our kids”, and I did the best I could given the circumstances. I miraculously managed to get a few good photos of individual children, some sibling shots, and I think maybe one decent group photo, but everyone was completely frazzled.

It came time to show them the best photos and place their order. They were actually really happy with the photos, reprised the thank-yous, and started thinking through which prints to get. One mom only had one kid and decided she only wanted to order one photo of that kid. She pulled out the dreaded $7.99 coupon. 

This coupon was the bane of our existence. Normally, there was a studio fee, and prints were anywhere from $10 to $20, or you could order packages that allowed you to pick a variety of prints for a special deal

Oh, but the $7.99 coupon…

It waived the studio fee, and then for $7.99, you could choose one — and only one — photo and get it in a variety of sizes. No exceptions. One photo. Honestly, I don’t think our prices were very fair, but the coupon basically made us do a ton of work for nothing, and it was incredibly limiting for the customer. 

So, this mom took out her $7.99 coupon and chose one photo she liked. I was crestfallen. I looked at all three moms.

Me: “If she uses this coupon, this is all you can get.”

They said they understood, and I was very surprised. We’d done all that work and they only wanted one photo of one kid? I asked again, and they insisted that, yes, they wanted to use the coupon.

I sighed internally. I was burned out. This company recorded sales numbers, and there were penalties for not making good numbers. I was exhausted. I wanted to go home. 

I placed her order and rang her up for eight dollars and change with the tax. My manager gave me the okay to go home for the night, and I started to put on my coat. 

The moms were livid.

Moms: “Why are you leaving?! We haven’t placed our orders yet!”

They did not understand what I had tried to tell them about the coupon. I didn’t understand that they wanted to pay separately, and they did not understand that the coupon specifically prevented any more than one photo from being sold from a session.

Again, everyone’s brains were completely fried, so I’m sure the communication breakdown was on all of us, but alas! To them, it was completely my fault that they couldn’t get photos of their kids. 

The thank-you chorus turned to outrage and, “You’ve ruined our Thanksgiving!”

Well, ladies, you ruined mine, too.

There was nothing to be done. The sales system would not let me change their order, which was genuinely ridiculous, and honestly, I think the one mom kinda still wanted to use the coupon. Everyone left upset.

At that company, Christmas bonuses were contingent on making a certain target in sales for the quarter, and my branch missed it by one dollar. 

I quit and never looked back. I was delighted when I read that they went out of business a few years later.