(My store usually only has one or two cashiers at night because we have several self-checkout machines and if it gets too busy, someone from the departments comes up to ring. I am busy trying to clean up my department when a call for an additional cashier comes across the radio. I answer it and head up to the registers where I see one customer checking out with a few items and two elderly people behind them. Even though an additional isn’t really necessary, I sign on anyway, and the two elderly people come to my lane.)

Me: “Hi. Did you find everything you were looking for?”

Customer #1: “Yes, we did, thanks. We are just getting this one item. You know, back in the day, people weren’t incredibly rude and would let people with one item go ahead.”

Me: *silent*

Customer #2: “Yeah, we were praying that someone could come to help us and it looks like you answered our prayers.”

Me: “Okay… Your total is $2.”

Customer #1: “Thank you so much for helping, dear. You really were an answer to a prayer. Hopefully, next time, people will remember their manners.”

(They leave and I go to the cashier.)

Me: “Did you hear that s***?”

Cashier: “Kind of. I know they were being obnoxious. They were upset that the woman I was checking out wouldn’t let them go first, even though I had already begun scanning her items.”

Me: “And we had every single self-checkout open, too! They kept saying that they prayed for help and if I were them, I wouldn’t be wasting prayers on petty stuff like that.”

Cashier: “I could’ve helped them if they would’ve waited literally thirty seconds. Old people are the worst.”

I have been working in the food preparation area of our store for quite some time, and I am on an overnight shift. Besides me, there is a person on register, and a manager who is very friendly, but follows the rules. A couple comes in with their three younger children around midnight.

The father orders a foot-long sub for each person, and when I see the order, each sub has the same meat on it, but everything else — veggies, dressings, and cheese — is different. I already know what this is leading to, so I am very careful since the store is empty.

I do each sub separately, printing out the tickets ahead of time and taping the ticket to the corresponding sub when I’m done with it. Finally, all five subs are finished and I call the number. The father picks up the subs and the family leaves the store.

I immediately rush a second set of the same tickets back to the manager, and she nods when she sees the order.

The customer returns just as I am walking out of the back and asks the cashier to see the manager. Our manager comes out, and the father shows her the subs. I notice they have moved the tickets around, and the father claims they are all wrong.

My manager helps me make a second round of the exact same subs, and refunds the cost to the man: $30. He walks out with free subs, and we have to log everything on the subs as waste and throw them in the garbage.

I look at my manager after we’ve finished, saying that I hate some people.

She sighs, and says, “Me, too.”

I was sitting in the parking lot at my local superstore waiting for my friend when I felt the entire car rock. I looked over to see a man loading groceries into the car beside me. He had opened his door far enough and with enough force that he shook my car. I looked at him for a moment before shaking my head and returning to my phone.

Then, there was a knock on my passenger window. I looked up to see the man peering in at me. He grinned and gave me the middle finger before getting in his car.

I’m a small woman and as such I generally avoid confrontation, but I was angry. I got out of my car to inspect the damage and saw that, aside from a small scratch I couldn’t prove he’d made, the door was fine. The man saw me get out and quickly locked his door and put his keys in the ignition. 

Click click. He stared at his steering wheel, confused. Click click. Again. Click click. He pounded on the steering wheel. Click click. Click click. Click click.

I must have looked crazy, standing in that parking lot laughing as hard as I was. His battery was dead! He sat there for another half-hour in 85-degree weather before he got it started.

I would have helped him jump his car even after he hit mine, had he not acted like such an a** about it. In the end, I didn’t have to do anything; karma did my dirty work for me!

My three siblings and I all started work in the service industry as soon as we were old enough, and out of all our experiences, my favorite Crazy Work Story is my younger sister’s.

She works in a store in the mall that sells very fun but very expensive clothing and accessories and that actually has a policy allowing employees to confront shoplifters. One day, a young guy — college-age — comes in wearing a bulging, heavy coat. Everything about his demeanor and the way he tries to avoid the employees screams, “Shoplifter!” from the moment he enters. My sister tries to keep an eye on him until he asks to go in a fitting room.

Their fitting rooms aren’t groups of stalls separated by sex but actual closet-sized rooms behind regular doors in the wall. They can only be opened from the outside by employees with keys, but, of course, customers can open them from the inside without a key. My sister unlocks a room for him and continues to keep an eye on it after he goes inside. As soon as he leaves, his coat now bulging even more, she peeks inside and sees that the room is full of anti-theft tags.

She catches up with him and asks him what all those anti-theft tags are doing in the fitting room he was using. He silently shakes his head, holds up his arms, and shrugs. The motion causes two of her store’s hats to fall out of his coat. According to my sister, “It looked like he just gave birth to them!” I can’t picture the scene without hearing a sitcom laugh track.

Well, mall security is called, and an empty-your-pockets ritual is conducted in her store’s back room. He hands over thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff from multiple stores in the mall, completely covering the table, including several very expensive gadgets from a certain computer store. Charges are pressed, and my sister is tasked with returning all the failed-to-be-stolen goods back to where they came from. (I am livid that the computer store, which had stood to lose the most money had she not caught the guy, didn’t give her a gift card or something as a reward!)

I guess the moral of the story is, if you get away with stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff, quit while you’re ahead and don’t push your luck trying to steal a few hats.

(A customer that complained yesterday about there being tax on his soda purchase comes to the register with more soda.)

Customer: “I have to tell you something… Yesterday I bought a hot dog here. It got stuck in my throat and I couldn’t breathe! It happened once before and I got sick from it! I am not buying hot dogs here anymore!”

Me: “Okay…”

(He then angrily told me what else he wanted and glared at me the whole time… because it’s my fault he can’t chew his food?!)