It was near Christmas, and the parking lot for the outdoor mall was very busy. The main draw was a grocery store. Space was very limited.

At that time, being a grade B lunatic, I drove a 1992 Miata with a supercharger. In Canada. In winter. I felt very fortunate to have found a space almost immediately, which I turned left directly into with absolutely no difficulty (since a Miata is more manoeuvrable than a gnat, and approximately the same size).

I got out of the car when I heard shouting. I looked over to see a furious man yelling at me from the cab of the massive black truck I had been following, which was sitting just behind a three-way stop, signalling left. To this day, I couldn’t tell you a single word that he said, but I am not exaggerating when I say that nobody in my life has ever been that visibly angry at me before or since, save for a couple who were responsible for my birth.

It took me about fifteen seconds to figure out that he had been signalling left, not to indicate that he was turning at the stop, but because he was trying to reverse into the space. He seemed to have decided that I had deliberately “stolen” his space out of pure greed (even though I couldn’t possibly have known that was what he was trying to do).

As I recall, he had actually gotten out of the truck, but this was quite some time ago, so that detail has become hazy. Certainly, there is a non-zero chance that this situation would have ended in violence had I not done so. In any case, I made the tactical decision that the path of least resistance was to just get back in the car and find another space.

To this day, I wonder if they were more angry that they lost the space, or at the “girls’ car” they lost it to.

CONTENT WARNING: Vomit

We got a new worker at the grocery store where I work. He was freshly sixteen, and during a break on his first day, he admitted his dad was pressuring him to get a job – ANY job – as soon as possible.

New Guy: “Like, I’m not gonna say no to having cash of my own instead of an allowance, but my dad is one of those macho a**holes who thinks a “real man” shouldn’t be scared or disgusted or disturbed by anything. The fact that I freak out when I discover a spider in my room the size of my palm apparently means I “need to get a job and grow up”.”

Coworker: “Well, then you picked the right place. A couple years working in retail, and I guarantee nothing will ever freak you out again.”

New Guy: “Come on, you make it sound like working in the trenches. A retail job can’t be that bad?”

Coworker: “You wanna bet? A couple years ago, we had some j***a** come in demanding a refund because he bought shrimp from us, ate it raw, and got sick.”

New Guy: “Huh? How does anyone expect to get a refund if they don’t bring the product back?”

Coworker: “Oh, he brought them back.”

I watched the new guy’s face slowly morph from confusion, to realization, to abject horror.

New Guy: *Into his hands.* “Oh my go- OH MY GOD!”

Coworker: “Yeah. I feel like the fact that it was still recognizable as shrimp suggests he was already sick when—”

New Guy: “OH MY GOD!” *Runs to the bathroom.*

I was kind of impressed when the new guy decided to stick around after a first-day warning like that.

I was even more impressed when, on his second day, he revealed he had managed to tell the same story to his dad, who had “reacted pretty much the way I did” and promptly gotten off his son’s back about becoming a “real man”.

The store I work at is huge, one of the largest in the province. The section I work in covers toys. Over the last few years, we’ve had an increasing number of collectors of small toy cars (known for having extra-warm wheels). Most of them are fairly polite, content to dig through our dump bin of cars. Recently, I met possibly the best – and worst – of the lot in one day.

On this day, I’m restocking the toy section and have just opened a box of toy cars. A gentleman comes up to me at this point. We’ll call him the Good Car Collector.

Good Car Collector: “Hey, I noticed you’re putting out new cars there. Mind if I have a peek?”

Me: “Well, actually, I need to get these all on the racks right now, but you’re welcome to look through them once I’m done.”

Good Car Collector: “Right, got ya. Um… say, how about I put them on the pegs for you?

Me: “What? Really?”

Good Car Collector: “Yeah, I’ll just grab what I need when I find them and put the rest away.

Me: “…okay.”

And much to my surprise, the Good Car Collector not only put away all the toy cars from that box, but he also put away four other boxes for me. Saved me a good half hour of work. In the end, the cars got put away, and he walked away with three new cars for his collection.

Later that same day, I’m now doing the clean-up and facing for my section. Another fellow comes up to me. Though I don’t know it yet, this is the polar opposite of Good Car Collector. This is the Bad Car Collector.

Bad Car Collector: “Hey man… can you help me for a sec?”

Me: “Sure, what do you need?”

Bad Car Collector: “See over here? I see you restocked the cars again, but not the deluxe cars here.”

Me: “Oh, well, we likely didn’t have any deluxe cars to put up.”

Bad Car Collector: “No, no, you do. I was here a few days ago, and the lady in charge scanned them and found out you have ten of them in the back. You were supposed to put them out today. Can you go back and get ’em for me?”

Remember when I said our store was really big? The backroom is huge and covers the entire back and one side of the store. It has three levels of shelves holding wrapped skids, with two different loading bays. The warehouse ships us our product, and half of it is organized well, with one skid being all toys, another being all glassware, etc. The other half are loose boxes just thrown together because they fit. Our scanning system also only tells whether we have a product in or not. It doesn’t tell us anything about where that product is.

The deluxe cars he wants could be high stacked down near the bakery, or buried under a bunch of unrelated products, or fallen behind a shelf. Finding one box of deluxe cars would be impossible to do without hours of picking things over, if I could find them at all.

Me: “Sorry, sir, we’ve put all the new products out for the day, and I need to work on facing right now.”

Bad Car Collector: “But you have them back there, the deluxe cars. They scanned it and said you had ten. Can you go get them?”

Me: “No, sir, our system doesn’t work in a way I could easily find them. I could spend hours looking and still not find them.”

Bad Car Collector: “But the system says you have ten of them back there.”

Me: “But not where they are. I’m sorry, sir. I’m sure they’ll be out eventually.”

Bad Car Collector kept asking me over and over to go back and bring them out, but I didn’t have time to go on a treasure hunt with no map. Eventually, I convinced him I wasn’t going to get them, and he left. About five minutes later, I got a call from our clothing department.

Clothing Department: “Hi! So, this may sound odd, but I have a guy here who’s trying to find something in your department.”

Me: “Oh, yes? What is it?”

Clothing Department: “It’s these deluxe toy cars. He says you have ten in the back waiting for him.”

Me: “Ah… I think I spoke with that guy. There’s no way I can find the cars he wants in the time I have. Tell him they’ll be on the shelves later in the week.”

About ten minutes go by, and then I get a call from self-checkout.

Self Checkout: “Hey, got this guy here who is looking for these deluxe toy cars. Apparently, there are ten of them waiting for him in the back.”

Me: “No… No, I spoke with him earlier, and I cannot get those cars out today. He’ll have to wait till later in the week.”

And then not five minutes later, customer service calls me.

Customer Service: “Yeah, we have a guy here who says you’re holding ten deluxe cars for him in back?”

Me: “Oh for… NO!”

For the record, I did not get him the deluxe cars. I can be quite nice to polite collectors, especially helpful ones. But this guy needed to learn to take no for an answer!

I was working at a call centre, in customer service, and sales for a TV service provider. Adult pay-per-views are listed on the bills as just “pay per view”, not the title, so people often call in to ask for more details. Saying the names with a straight face is a bit of a competition between me and my coworkers; it’s always fun to watch people try to remain professional.

So, when I get a call, listen for a moment and say, “Sure, I can look up those pay-per-view charges for you”, I can feel everyone around me shift to watch.

Me: “It looks like [Adult Movie #1] and [Adult Movie #2] were ordered on [date] around 3 PM. The first one was only watched for a few minutes, and then the second one was ordered.”

At this point, I’m smiling at my coworkers, mock-bowing as they laugh at the titles I read off. I think that will be the hard part.

Customer: “That’s not possible! The only one at home at that time was my cat! She wouldn’t order anything like that. She’s a lady.”

All she hears in response is silence, because I have quickly hit my mute button to stop her from hearing my laughter and am trying desperately to compose myself.

Customer: “Hello?”

Me: *Composed again.* “I’m sorry, I must have hit mute by mistake. I was saying that it would be very difficult for a cat to order pay-per-view. You have to navigate to the channel selection screen, select the one you want, agree to the terms, and then agree to pay multiple times.”

Customer: “Well, maybe not most cats, but my cat is very smart.”

I barely manage to stay composed this time. I don’t need to mute. My coworkers, who can only hear half of the conversation, now at least have some context and are listening in as much as they can between their own calls.

Me: “If you’d like, I could tell you how to put a password on the pay-per-views, so that this won’t happen again.”

Customer: “Oh, I’m no good with technology. Maybe I’ll ask my grandson to set it up when he comes to check on my cat tomorrow.”

Me: *Sensing a familiar trend.* “Would your grandson have checked on the cat on [date movies were ordered]?”

Customer: “Oh, yes, he’s such a good boy, he stops by after school every day so [Cat] doesn’t get lonely.”

Me: “Is it possible he was curious and ordered the movies?”

Customer: “Oh no, he’s a good boy!”

I ended up refunding the pay-per-views, but left some notes on her account and told her she wouldn’t get a refund if it happened again. She maintained that neither the cat nor the grandson would do such a thing, but didn’t seem at all concerned by the implication that if it wasn’t them, someone else had been in her house.

I work in a place that does kids’ parties, and they’ve decided to do karaoke. One of the songs comes from a mega-popular animated movie.

Coworker: “Where is this song from?”

Me: “Oh, a movie called K-Pop Demon Hunters, and—”

Coworker: “Demon? Like Devil? Our kids are singing to the Devil?!”

Me: *Waiting for her to reveal she’s joking, but realizing she’s 100% serious.* “…Uh …No …Far from it. It’s sung by the heroes, who are demon HUNTERS, as a rallying cry to gain strength to stop the demons.”

Coworker: “But, demons!”

Me: *Accidentally going into data-dumping mode.* “They could have used a different word, but it’s the best one. They’re closer to trapped spirits, tormented by past problems in life and who go after living humans wanting revenge. At least, that’s their cultural inspirations.”

Coworker: “What?”

Me: “It’s set in Korea. They’re called demons in English, but they’re based on Korean ghost or goblin stories. Spirits who cause mischief or are suffering from trauma.”

Coworker: “Oh! I know trauma! Okay, never mind! It’s like generational trauma!”

Me: “You’re on the nose with that one…”