(I’m on a conference call and my side is settled in. Their side is just one person, and we’re waiting on the others. Small talk begins:)

Me: “So, what’s new with you?”

Client: “I was recently consulting for the last firm I worked for.”

Me: “How was that?”

Client: “Great! This time I could really tell them what I thought of things.”

(My associates laugh.)

Me: “I’m jealous.”

(I work in a popular pizza chain. When this customer’s order was done slightly wrong, we didn’t notice until it already had too much of the other ingredient on to take off. I call him up.)
Me: Hello, [Pizza Chain] here, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid we put pineapple on your pizza instead of chicken, so the order may take a while.
Customer: Yeah, fuck off.
(He hangs up. I try again, slightly miffed.)
Me: Hello, [Pizza Chain] here, could you please explain that?
Customer: I know it’s you, Jimmy, just stop being such a dick. You know it’s my night in with [fiancee] so don’t be such an ass or I’m coming over myself.
Me: Sir, this really is [Pizza Chain]…
Customer: Look, you’ve done this every day this week. It’s the pizza I ordered or the plumber I hired, just stop listening in on our calls.
(He makes a weird sound that sounds like a fart. He then slams the phone down. I tell my manager. In a few minutes, the customer comes in and the manager explains what happened. The customer went pink when my manager told him that.)
Customer: Sorry, the walls are paper-thin.
(He stills orders from us.)

(My roommate is the assistant manager for a grocery store that has a contract with a local floor-cleaning crew. So, every few days, a crew of one to three people comes in to sweep, mop, and buff the floors. I also come by at least once a week to bring my roommate dinner and hang out for an hour or so. These two just so happened to coincide. This usually isn’t an issue. The evenings are usually uneventful… until one night when there’s a different, single crew member that we’ve never seen before. My roommate says the guy has been standoffish. He’s got a relatively thick accent, so we just assume that it is due to English being a second language, and think nothing of it. He’s also going way more slowly than our normal crew. The floor guy does his sweep, and everything goes smoothly until he starts mopping. My roommate sees that there is a noticeable river of mop water that starts in the entrance of the store, winds through a few aisles, and ends in the back with the floor guy emptying his mop bucket.)

Roommate: “Hey, you left a stream of water out there; will you go clean it up?”

Floor Guy: *waves us off*

Roommate: “Seriously, man. It’s a hazard and someone could fall. Go take care of it.”

Floor Guy: *grunts and heads towards the front with a mop*

(A few minutes later, the water is still there, untouched, and [Floor Guy] is nowhere to be found. While trying to search for him, I slip on the water and my knee hits the tile floor. My roommate is super protective of me, so he does not take this well. He books it to find [Floor Guy] and happens to find him outside, taking a smoke break.)

Roommate: “Hey! Someone just slipped and fell because of that water. You need to get in there and take care of it, now.”

Floor Guy: “Man, you don’t have to talk to me like that.”

Roommate: “I wouldn’t be yelling at you if you had done your job.”

Floor Guy: “I don’t have to take this.” *gets in his poorly parked truck and leaves*

(My roommate called his boss and explained the situation, emphasizing that I fell. His boss gave him the phone number to the owner of the floor cleaning company. The owner is a generally nice guy and likes to give the benefit of the doubt, but he was LIVID. Rightfully so, in my opinion. He immediately apologized for the actions of his employee and deployed another crew to the store. While they were on the way, my roommate cleaned up the excess water and put out wet floor signs. The new crew arrived and has two very presentable, efficient, friendly people. They also apologized for the actions of the other guy and promptly got to work. They managed to sweep and mop the whole floor and were midway through buffering in the same amount of time as the other guy. These guys were rock stars. The owner called us back and made sure that everything was going smoothly now. He also told us that [Floor Guy] had been terminated, effective immediately, and that it was my roommate’s choice if he wanted to allow the guy back on the property. The guy did try to come back to get his things, but it turns out those things belonged to the company, so he got kicked out and the other crew took the equipment with them. I do feel somewhat sorry that a man lost his job, but at the same time, safety precautions exist for a reason, you know?)

I work at a call center for a major satellite TV provider, providing tech support for customers.  One day I get a call and the following exchange happens:

Me: Thank you for calling (company name) how may I help you?

Customer: Yeah, I got nothing on my tv.

(at this point, it seems to be an easy fix we get these calls all the time.)

Me: I’m sorry to hear that, but I’d be happy to help with that.  When you say “nothing” is it an error message?

Customer: No, what are you an idiot? It’s nothing a black screen.

Me: (Choosing to ignore the comment) Ok, we can fix that easily enough, some of these questions may seem basic but bear with me please.  Is the blue light on on your box?

Customer: No the blue light isn’t (expletive deleted) on, the box isn’t plugged in.

Me: Sir, if you could plug in the box I believe that will solve the problem.

Customer: What do you think I’m some kind of (expletive deleted) idiot?  Let me talk to your manager, maybe he can figure out what’s wrong with your (expletive deleted) box.

Naturally, I got him over to a supervisor.  While explaining the situation to the supervisor, we had a good chuckle over the customer’s seeming inability to grasp that electronics do, indeed, need electricity.

(A black man walks into our restaurant but keeps his distance from the cash registers. Most customers who behave this way are usually waiting for the rest of their party to arrive before ordering. With this assumption, I leave to the cash register to clean off tables.)

Customer: (Shouting) “So y’all don’t serve black people?”

(I turn around in time to see him leave. I asked my coworker, Mack, if I had heard him correctly.)

Mack: “That’s exactly what he said”

(I immediately walk outside to confront this guy. The customer saw me and got out of his truck.)

Customer: “Look, I heard you guys were real good, so I wanted to try…”

Me: (Cutting him off) “You realize that you order at the cash register don’t you? We didn’t say anything because it looked like you were waiting for others”

(The customer followed me back inside the restaurant where I pointed out two men (coincidentally white) ordering at the cash registers)

Me: “Do you see these two guys ordering food at the register? Do you notice the massive menu on the wall or the wooden sign under the registers that says ‘Order Here’?”

(The customer ordered his food to-go. Perhaps realizing how absurd it was to accuse us of discriminating against blacks, he apologized for his behavior. Of the six of us working at the restaurant, three of us are Asian, one of us is Hispanic, and the other two are White. The food service industry is absolutely the worst place to work.)