I have just taken over a register for my coworker and checked out a few customers in line. Everyone who shops here knows they can use their tax exemption and a military discount together, provided we have their information in our database. However, the only information we’re capable of completing in-store is updating or registering tax exemption permits. If a customer wants to register for a military discount they must do so online themselves. The next customer drops his items on the counter and turns to talk to his friend.

Me: “And do you have a military or tax exemption, sir?”

Customer: *Turns to me* “Did you say, ‘military’?”

Me: “Yes, sir.”

Thinking he didn’t hear me through the plexiglass or my mask, I move around and lift my mask off of my lips some, still covering my face, and repeat my question.

Customer: “Yes, I am military.”

Me: “Great! Can I have your number, please?”

Customer: *Instantly offended with a frown* “I don’t give out my phone number.”

Me: “Oh, but you are military?”

Customer: “I am.” *Shows me his military ID*

Me: “The only way I can add your discount is through your phone number, sir.”

He gives me a look, thinking about it, before shaking his head and muttering the number to me. Wouldn’t you know, it’s not showing up.

Me: “Are you registered with [Workplace], sir?”

Customer: “No, I’m not. Why would you need that, anyway? I have my ID right here!”

Me: “Oh, well, you need to be in our system to get the discount.”

Customer: “I couldn’t give a d*** if I’m in your system!”

Me: “Would you like to be?”

Customer: “No!”

I give him his total, without the discount, still remaining pleasant and courteous.

Customer: *Sneers* “Is that without the discount?” 

Me: “Yes, sir, it is.”

Customer: “I’m still a veteran!”

Me: “Yes, you are, sir, and I apologize.”

Customer: “Good! Thank you for acknowledging that!”

An off-duty employee from another department waiting in line comes up to him.

Coworker: “She’s only doing what she’s been trained to do, sir. She can’t do anything with your card. If you want your discount, you can go to our website and it will instruct you how to register. You don’t need to talk to her like that.”

Customer: “Thank you for that. Nah, we’re cool. She knows I was just messing!”

He swipes his card without further fuss. When receipts are printed with military discounts, we’re trained to thank them for their service. However, even though this one doesn’t, I thank him regardless, urge him to take the survey at the bottom, and wish him a good night

Customer: “Thank you.” *To [Coworker]* “Hey, thank you, boo! You have a good night!”

When [Coworker]’s turn comes, she grumbles as she places her items on the counter.

Coworker: “I served him back in Flooring earlier and he was nothing but courteous. I don’t know where that came from but he shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I hate being called ‘boo.’”

This was a job I shouldn’t have taken, but I was desperate. It started showing red flags when I was told to come in and interview when the girl I was replacing was off so she wouldn’t know. Normally, I would just say no and move on, but the job I was currently at was absolutely toxic, so I was desperate.

This new job was with a small company that had about eight employees. After I had been there for about two months, I noticed that my paycheck was wrong. It turns out that the owner’s wife did the paychecks and she miscalculated. Thankfully, they got it fixed, but then I started seeing other problems.

They offered paid holidays, which sounds great, except for the fact that they were also closed around those holidays but wouldn’t pay you for them, so you had to use four of your five Paid Time Off days so you weren’t out so much money. And speaking of payday, they only paid us once a month, and the boss would conveniently “forget” to pay us — no direct deposit — until after five, so our check wouldn’t go in until the next day, or sometimes until Monday.

The boss’s wife would come in several times per week and tell me that I should be exceedingly grateful that they even thought of hiring me.

After I was there a year, the supervisor decided she was going to move back to Texas, and I thought that they were going to offer me her position. No. Instead, they expected me to do her job without any extra pay. I started looking for another job, right before 2020 became what 2020 did.

Then, in March of 2020, I was working seventy-plus hours a week, at least till the boss’s wife decided we shouldn’t be paid overtime. That is when I conveniently decided that I wasn’t going to work over my forty hours if they were going to pull that.

The boss’s son — who was a piece of work and treated me like I was stupid — was getting ready to take over the business but his dad wasn’t ready to let go. So, I would get told different things each time I spoke to one of them and then get yelled at for not doing what the other wanted first.

During this time, we hired a friend of the son’s to help out, and while I was trying to help train him, the boss’s son screamed at me for trying to take his position of training. The boss stood idly by and let him scream at me.

After they left for the day, I went into the bathroom and cried for forty-five minutes and decided I was getting out of this job. I also found out that day that the guy who had just been hired was making $2 more than I was an hour.

I ended up finding a much better job and I gave a short notice because they were notorious for not letting people work out their notices. They had me train the new guy for my last three days, but he kept telling me, “I already know this,” and didn’t look at so many of the training examples that I printed out and made special for him.

So, on my last day, after I tried to train him and he went back to his desk, I shredded all of that and all of the pertinent information that I had obtained during that time.

I’ve been at my current job for nine months, making almost triple what I was making there, and I just got a promotion. My former employers called me last week to see if I would be interested in coming back because the guy they hired just wasn’t working out. I took great pleasure in hanging up on them after telling them I was very happy in my current position.

A few years ago, I was the assistant front desk manager at a hotel. This story is one of the reasons I left that position after a year and went back to a front desk agent.

I had been watching a particular date on our forecast calendar nervously for a while; we were incredibly oversold. We had 200 rooms in the hotel, and on this day we had 250 rooms booked. Our sales team had booked in several groups on the same day, which was what caused the oversell. It was clearly a massive problem, but whenever I brought it up I was told not to worry about it and it would work out.

Well. It did not.

The day arrived, and while we had had a few cancellations, we were still oversold by somewhere around 20%. It was not going to be a fun day.

The logical thing to do would be to pick a group consisting of approximately the size we were oversold by, apologize profusely, and relocate them all to another hotel. The problem with that was that no one in sales was willing to authorize the front desk to relocate their group. They kept telling us to walk the transient guests — guests not connected to any group and arriving individually — and could not comprehend us when we told them that there were no transient guests because they had sold out the hotel so thoroughly and so far ahead of time that no transient bookings had been made.

As check-in time loomed, I finally put my foot down and told the sales lead that there were two options, and we had to pick one of them now.

Option A: We walk [Group #1]. They were regular business for us, but because they were regular business, they were also predictable. I knew they were laid back and really it didn’t matter to the actual guests that much precisely where they were staying, as they were factory workers there for training. They really just wanted a place to sleep, and since they all arrived together, it would only take one phone call and their coordinator would be able to redirect them all at once. They were also, coincidentally, nearly the exact number of reservations we were oversold by.

Option B: We walk [Group #2] and [Group #3]. While this option would get us the number of rooms we needed, it would be extremely inconvenient for the guests. Both groups were here for a conference in our hotel, so they would have to shuttle back and forth from wherever we moved them. They also were a disparate group all arriving separately, so we would have to call each and every guest, hope they picked up, and explain the issue to each one of them individually.

Obviously, I was campaigning hard for Option A. But the problem was… [Group #1] was the sales lead’s group. She told me, point-blank, that we were not going to walk her group and flounced out of my office. So, I got down to the very, very unpleasant task of relocating [Group #2] and [Group #3]. It sucked. I got screamed at, called every name in the book, told I was going to be personally sued, the whole shebang. Oh, and of course sales refused to call their group contacts, so those two phone calls were extra fun.

I got the whole mess taken care of. It took hours. I hated my entire life.

Then, well after check-in time had passed, the sales lead flounced back in and told me that, well, if we had to, she guessed we could walk [Group #1]. I am still shocked to this day that I didn’t strangle her.

I wish I had a satisfying close to this story, but not only did sales not face any repercussions for this, but when they heard from their groups that the front desk had told them that it was their department’s fault we were oversold, the sales lead called my manager to scream at him for having her contacts angry at her.

And the hotel was oversold in the exact same way a month later.

I’m working at a Korean-style cafe. We have a pretty big dining room with about 25% taken up by studying students when, around 9:30 pm, a group of about eight comes in wearing matching shirts sporting the logo of a well-known religious organization.

Group #1: “All of us will be on one tab. There are actually about twenty-five people in our group; we’re just waiting on the rest.”

We like to have people call ahead for groups bigger than ten so that we can prepare and make tables big enough to fit them. Twenty-five is a lot of people, but it’s doable, so my coworker starts taking their orders and I start making drinks. About halfway through the first eight orders, more people wearing matching shirts with the same logo but a different color come in. We figure it’s the rest of the group. 

Group #2: “We’re all going to be on one tab. There’re about twenty in our group.”

Me: “Oh, the rest of your group already told us! You don’t have to explain.”

I gesture to the first group.

Group #2: “Oh, we aren’t part of that group.”

Now we are expecting about forty-five people to be in the store, which is way more than average, and that’s usually after people order in scattered order and sit for a few hours, not all at once about an hour and half before close. We would usually start closing things down around now, anyway, because the owners like to make sure we aren’t staying too late after we close to clean.

We know s*** is getting real; it’s the biggest rush I’ve ever been in. But it gets bigger.

We end up with another three groups of people in the same shirts, each group a different color, ranging from ten to twenty-five people in each group. We have at the very least seventy-five people come in and order drinks and some desserts within a thirty-minute period.

I stop to talk to one of the customers.

Me: “What’s going on? You’re all in matching shirts.”

Customer: “We’re having a district meeting for the staff of [Organization]. It’s just a coincidence that we all showed up at the same cafe!”

I got all the drinks done thirty minutes before we closed, and for the first and only time in my time here, I had to make a last call for drinks because we would have been there all night otherwise. We made over $250 in thirty minutes. Many of our regulars left because there wasn’t any walking room. My coworker had to go outside and come back in another entrance just to serve people their drinks because they were blocking all walkways in the store.

When they were leaving, two of the group leaders came up to my coworker and me — both of us sweating, panting, and looking all kinds of tired — and handed us a business card for their organization and said we should join them sometime. None of the groups or individual people tipped at all.

I’m working at an airport café.

Me: “We have Swiss, American, and pepper jack cheese. Which would you like?”

Customers: “Oh, just regular.”

Me: “All right, and how would you like your eggs?”

Customers: “Just regular eggs is fine.”

Me: “All right, and that comes with toast. Would you like wheat or white?”

Customer: “What’s wheat or white? Just regular toast is fine.”