I witnessed this on TV over 30 years ago. It was the time where taxes on cigarettes in Quebec got very high. There were a lot of robberies of convenience stores, and they were stealing only cigarettes. Then, in the news, they showed a video of a robbery captured on security camera footage. A group of guys broke into a convenience store carrying a large trashcan, and while two of them grabbed all the cigarettes they could and put them in the trashcan, one, all smiling with a face saying, “D***! I’m so smart!” approached the camera with a pair of snippers and cut the video wire.

Apparently, Mr. Genius thought that cutting the wire would “erase” everything. Of course, they never took the videotape out. Police caught them a few days later.

During the same period, I was working as a service rep for a copier company. I got a call because there had been a break-in at a customer’s convenience store and the copier was damaged. It turned out that glass shards from the front door had fallen into the copier when the cigarette robbers broke in. Their location was slightly remote.

The police were still there when I arrived.

I asked the manager if he had them on a security camera.

He said, “Actually, it’s our third break-in. They figured out the schedule of the police rounds and hit when they were the farthest from here. The first two times, they managed to break into the office and grab the cassette. But not this time. We secured the VTR and jammed the cassette in. The police are looking at the footage as we speak. Smiling.”

I work as a bartender in a busy bar and restaurant. The bar is set up two-sided; one side has all the beer and lager taps with the liquors as well as fountain drinks. The other is strictly fountain drinks as it is meant as a quick station for servers to get refills for people.

I get an order from the restaurant for about ten people, all fountain drinks but different because two of the party are diabetic. I start on the drinks, getting glasses and filling them with ice, generally doing them two at a time and placing them on a tray.

I am the only one working on the bar itself.

Every time I get another glass, I notice that my drinks order has gone. One by one, every soda on the tray has vanished.

The man who has ordered has his back turned and is in conversation, but none of his party have their drinks.

I start the process again, and with each new glass, the same thing happens.

Frustrated, I move my tray, collect all the glasses, and do all the drinks at once.

As I am moving across the bar to deliver what seems to be the most difficult order I have ever filled, one of the new servers stops me and tries to pluck a soda from my tray.

I give her a “WTF” face and she brazenly states that it is my job to pour her drinks and that her table needs the sodas.

It turns out that she has been stealing my drinks orders whilst my back was turned, with no regard for preference — diet, zero-calorie, etc. — and giving them to her tables.

I finish serving my now angry customer, apologise, and then have to explain to the waitress that she actually has to tell me what her tables are drinking so I can pour them, not just steal drinks from other customers.

I show her the fountain station on the other side of the bar, even though I personally watched her being trained on this.

She is soon let go when she is found doing the same thing on other shifts, too lazy to get her own drinks for customers or to write orders down.

That evening, I filled 25 glasses for an original order of ten. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

My boyfriend and I make a quick trip to the grocery store. We go up to the self-checkout, where someone left a bag of cat food sitting on top of the drink cooler. I assume it was something someone decided not to buy at the last minute and left there. We use the register next to this bag of cat food.

As my boyfriend is ringing up the groceries, I hear someone storm up behind me and start slamming things down on top of the bag of cat food. I give a small glance behind me and notice a woman is standing super close, arms crossed and huffing loudly, as if she’s upset we are using the register. I should also note that the other self-checkout registers around us are empty: if she wants to use a self-checkout she can easily take her stuff and go to one of the other registers. Instead, she continues to stand behind me and huff loudly — which I assume to be her way of trying to tell us to hurry up. 

My boyfriend finishes ringing up the groceries. He goes to the attendant to get his ID checked for some beer and the lady behind me sighs even louder. Again. The other self-checkouts are open. She doesn’t have to wait on us to finish on this one. I decide to irritate her more. 

My boyfriend comes back and goes to pay, I wave my hand at him and start slowly putting coins into the machine. One by one. I drop one every now and then. Some on purpose, some on accident. He’s watching me in confusion while the woman behind me has finally had enough and starts making a scene of grabbing her groceries and cat food and asking the cashier at the register next to us if she is open. Said cashier has just walked to the register and put the light on. 

I let my boyfriend finish paying, and we walk away as soon as the woman has slammed her bag of cat food down on the belt of the newly-opened register. I glance back, see her glaring daggers at us, and give her a big smile as my boyfriend and I walk out of the store.

I work at a very popular fast food restaurant that’s known for its customer service. Whenever I am out in the drive-thru taking orders, I always say, “Hello, what can I get for you?” and every single time the customer says, “I’m good,” and then looks at me like I’m supposed to ask something else.

They never actually listen; they just assume I’m asking how they are.

I’m out with my friends eating sushi and all but one of us are done with our soup. We stack our empty bowls on top of one another, and a waitress comes to pick up our used dishes. As she’s picking up some of our other empty plates, the friend who didn’t finish her soup puts the almost-full bowl on top of the pile of five empty bowls. The waitress, not noticing the extra addition — likely because it wasn’t there before — picks up the pile and promptly tips soup all over the table. The spill avoids us, thankfully, but a few drops land on my friend’s purse.

We immediately apologized on her behalf, and the friend apologizes, as well, after turning a healthy shade of red. The waitress doesn’t react or say much, instead leaping to action to clean the mess. After she leaves, we think nothing of it and scold our friend for the mistake. Incident forgotten, we enjoy the rest of our meal.

At the end, a different waitress comes back with six free meal vouchers for us but doesn’t explain why. I turn the card over and see something written on the back, thinking it is just some promotion they are doing, but when I ask what it says, the new waitress says it is the manager’s signature.

I think what happened is that the waitress told the manager that she spilled the soup — even though it wasn’t her fault — or the manager saw, but either way we were likely given the free meal vouchers to “compensate” for what they thought was the waitress’ mistake so that we don’t complain. While nice of them, it’s completely unnecessary; mistakes happen! It made me realize that a different set of customers had likely gotten angry and complained over a similar situation, and that it happened enough that these vouchers became common practice.

Servers sure go through a lot!