I’m called in to help support a meeting with an angry employee taking out his frustrations on Human Resources. I get there a little early to see what the issue is. It turns out that [Employee] has been demanding a meeting because he claims that he hasn’t been paid overtime. He has already been sent away twice because of his aggressive attitude, so they’ve asked me to sit in to ensure things don’t get out of hand.

[Employee] turns up, slams the door shut, and sits down.

HR Representative: “This is [My Name]; he works with me and knows more about the wages and the clocking-in system.”

Employee: “Oh! Ganging up on me?!”

Me: “Nothing like that. We want to ensure that you get your issue sorted, and I think I might be able to help.”

Employee: “Whatever, I just want my money!”

Me: “Okay, so how much do you think you are owed?”

Employee: “I don’t think! I know! I haven’t been paid for fifty hours this year!”

[Employee] is paid hourly. I’m not sure how he has accumulated fifty hours of extra pay, especially when overtime is being cracked down on massively.

Me: “Okay, wow. Sure, I can see why you are annoyed. Do you have the hours when you haven’t been paid?”

Employee: “Well, it’s all on my time card. You can check there!”

Me: *Sigh* “Help us out, [Employee]. You must have gotten the number of hours from somewhere.”

Employee: “For f***’s sake, I’m doing your job for you again!”

I bite my tongue and let him storm out. It’s several more days before the next meeting. He arrives again, this time with a stack of papers.

Employee: “I did it — did your job! See, every page.”

Me: “[Employee], it isn’t the role of HR to review your pay. It’s finance, okay? We are here to help.”

Employee: “Fat lot of help so far.”

Me: “Let’s just go through your papers.”

Every page has a week of his hours. He has highlighted every day he was early one, two, or five minutes. Adding these up throughout the year, I can see how he has amassed fifty hours.

Me: “Okay, [Employee], I’m not going through all of them. Can you tell me how you apply for overtime?”

Employee: “I fill out the form and put it in at the end of the week.”

Me: “Did you do it for any of these times?”

Employee: “Well, no, but—”

Me: *Interrupting* “And did anyone ask you to come in early?”

Employee: “Well, no, but I was working! I should get paid!”

I told him that we don’t pay just because someone decides to come in early when they haven’t been asked to do. He stormed off, threatening to quit, along with a long list of expletives.

When I told his boss this, he was shocked; [Employee] had more warnings than anyone for being late at his station. He must have been rushing to clock in and then going straight to the break room until someone told him to start work.

[Employee] didn’t get into any trouble then, but he was fired over some other issue not long after.

I am checking out a woman at my register. This is a few years before the health crisis.

Customer: “I don’t like how dirty the conveyor belt of your register is!”

It’s not dirtier than any others.

Customer: “You need to close your register immediately and clean it! And do it while I watch!”

Me: “Ma’am, we are very busy today so I can’t do that right this second.”

Like, hello, there is a line!

Customer: *Yelling.* “Get me a manager!”

The manager comes over and has me close and clean the belt to appease her. I have to go to the back to calm down as I am on the verge of a panic attack from being berated like that.

As I am leaving, I hear her berate the manager about something else:

Customer: “I came in right at opening time on Christmas Eve and there were still some employees finishing setting things up in the produce department! You need to make people come in earlier because I wanted to shop in a perfectly set up store!”

We opened at 7 am, and as if Christmas eve isn’t already our busiest day of the year!

Manager: “Employees were in as early as 5 am on Christmas Eve.”

Customer: “Clearly that wasn’t enough! You all needed to come in earlier than that!”

And with that, she finally leaves.

I run an art gallery which is located in a repurposed shopping mall. One reason why so many galleries advertise their hours as “by appointment” is because most of us can’t get all of our responsibilities done in the day AND keep a front desk open for every yahoo who wants to come in to gawk at the art and complain about how expensive it is. The other reason is this:

Client: “I’d like to make an appointment to see your gallery.”

Me: “That’s not a problem. When would you like to come by?”

Client: “Well, I’m driving through at about 3 am, so I’d like to come by then.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible. Among other things, the mall in which the gallery is located is locked until 10 am, and it’s not open to the public until then.”

Client: “Fine. What about your hotel?”

Me: “Well, there are several hotels in the immediate area where you could stay until we could open. Do you need a list?”

Client: “No, which hotel are you going to put me in until the mall opens?”

Me: “…um, we don’t offer complimentary hotel rooms.”

Client: “Well, you should.” *Click.*

A customer comes in shortly before we close.

Customer: “I need you to bathe my dog.”

Me: “Sorry, ma’am, but one of our coworkers called in sick and so we can’t handle as many clients as we usually would. We can’t take any more dogs today.”

Customer: *Beyond pissed.* “I can’t believe that someone would call in sick! You need to bathe my dog!”

She causes such a scene that I have to stay nearly two hours after my shift ended to bathe her dog.

I look at her customer profile and see that not only has she gotten mad about us not having openings before, but once claimed she was going to show up and not leave until we bathed her dog despite us being fully booked, and has complained multiple times that her normal groomer won’t come in before her scheduled shifts to do her dog.

As far as we can tell, she’s now going somewhere else for grooming and only brings the dog to us for maintenance baths. Dunno why she even bothers with us anymore if we’re so horrible?

I work in the interior home industry.

Colleague: “Hey, can you produce this custom artwork for my own personal home?”

Me: “Not really. This isn’t customer-paying work and I can’t do private jobs during working hours. We’re also super busy with paying jobs at the moment and already have weeks of overtime ahead of us. If you like, though, you’re welcome to contact me outside of work and I can send you a quote.”

The colleague emails details over, doesn’t like the very modest quote provided, and decides not to proceed. No worries.

The next day in the office…

Colleague: “Great news! I went direct to our CEO, who’s agreed to let you do this on company time! I only have to pay them half what you quoted me this way! Amazing, right?”

Me: *Internally* “Yeah, amazing… You’ve done this knowing full well you’re adding to my overtime. Plus, our work hourly rate means I won’t be compensated properly for the personal time I need to spend on this. So happy for you.”

Fortunately, I was able to speak to the CEO and got this job canceled due to an already over-stretched workload. I have no idea why this colleague thought I would be happy about being paid less for the same work.