(It is a Saturday night, and really quiet. A lady comes in five minutes before closing time on her cell phone. My manager and I are the only ones in, and my manager is preparing for our nine o’clock sales calls to all the stores in the district, so I go up to the customer.)

Me: *a little quietly, since the lady is on her phone* “Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know we’re closing in five minutes.”

Lady: “Oh, I’ll just be a few minutes.”

(She walks around for several minutes before finally getting off her phone.)

Me: “Can I help you find what you’re looking for?”

Lady: “Yes. My dog is really small and low to the ground, and I need a jacket for her, but I don’t want it to get wet with the dew on the grass.”

Me: “Oh, I know the perfect jackets. You’ll want something with this–” *I hold up a rain-jacket-type material* “–kind of material, so it won’t absorb the dew.”

Lady: “Oh, well, what about this one?”

(Holds up a woolen jacket that would absorb any moisture from the grass.)

Me: “Well, that will keep your dog warm, but you said her belly brushes against the grass, so that jacket will pick up the moisture and could become cold.”

(After showing her several more jackets, she finally picks one. My manager is watching as she does the sales calls and points to her watch. I nod, knowing that it’s past closing.)

Lady: “How can I make sure that this will fit my dog?”

Me: *giving the normal spiel for this question* “You can always take it home and try it on, and if it doesn’t fit, you can bring it back with the receipt and exchange it. We normally recommend bringing your dog in so we can try it on, and you don’t have to deal with coming back in multiple times and having to do many exchanges. We are open at ten am tomorrow morning, if you wish to wait and bring your dog in.”

(The lady then proceeded to take twenty minutes looking at the jackets. Every time I got her to pick one, she saw another and asked about it. We only had two or three styles that wouldn’t pick up moisture, so I was constantly repeating what I said about the material. Finally, my manager saw that I was beginning to grow impatient and stepped in while I finished the sales calls. The lady ended up making us half an hour late for closing for a $5.99 sale.)

(Our shop is a small, family-run business that I’ve had the joy of working at for four years. So far it’s been a great day, with a few of my weekly regulars bringing in coffees for a chat and one bringing in their new pup for me to meet. I’m used to being friendly with the customers, and many of them have expressed how they love being called “Sweetheart” or “Love” as I do. A new customer, around sixty, walks into shop surrounded by four children. She proceeds to grab a bag of bird seed and sunflower hearts. I smile and till them up; the total shows up on the customer screen, as well.)

Me: “That’ll be £2.40, please. Would you like a bag?”

(The customer simply nods with a grunt, refusing to look at me as her children pick up and misplace everything not attached to a wall. She places £2.14 on the counter in change and tells me to “put the change in the box,” meaning one of our donation boxes. As it has been a good day so far, I decide not to ask the 5p for a carrier bag or the remaining change. I sort the change and close the till when she finally looks at me.)

Customer: “Are you pocketing the change?!”

(I falter and blush.)

Me: “I’m really sorry, sweetheart, but the total was actually £2.40; you gave me £2.14 so there was no change.”

(She turned red in the face and grabbed in her bag. She took out a handful of 2p coins and threw them at me, shouting, “DON’T CALL ME ‘SWEETHEART’!” before storming out, children in tow. Lesson learned: no good deed goes unpunished.)

I work for a very small, in-state pet store chain. All of us employees are major animal lovers and have pet experience of some kind or another; it’s pretty much a requirement if you want to get a job there. We offer, among other things, nail clippings. Most of the animals we see come in are obviously loved and well-cared for, especially if their owners are regulars. However, that’s not always the case.

A customer came in with a year-old male rabbit of an unidentified breed for a nail clipping. Rabbits don’t come in too often, but things seem fairly normal. Things started to get weird — in hindsight, anyway — when the customer asked us for any vets in the area that took rabbits. Apparently, the rabbit hadn’t been eating for three months — later corrected to three weeks — and she felt that something was wrong. Oh, boy, she had no idea.

According to my coworker who clipped the rabbit, he yawned during the clipping, revealing some very overgrown incisors. How overgrown, you may ask? So overgrown that the lower teeth were starting to poke into the poor bunny’s nostrils. Worse, he had matted fur on his butt, consistent with sitting in a cage for long periods of time. Even worse than that, the nails themselves turned out to be nearly an inch long. And considering he hadn’t been eating for so long, it was a wonder that he was still alive and not emaciated. The rabbit was also a total sweetheart, further adding to the heartbreak.

To make matters worse, the customer left the store for nearly an hour. We practically ceased all operations looking for her and figuring out what to do with the rabbit, since, as time ticked by, we gave up hope of her ever coming back for it. Thankfully, the customer did come back; it turned out she just stopped by the dollar store nearby. Once we told her the condition of her rabbit, she was genuinely shocked, especially when we showed her his teeth. It turns out that not only was she not getting his teeth trimmed, but she only gave him paper towel tubes to chew on, because, “That’s what Google said,” hence the overgrown lower incisors. And yet she wondered why he wasn’t eating!

We finally managed to give her the address of the nearest 24-hour emergency vet clinic to get the rabbit some fluids and grind down his teeth. We also gave her tips on how to get rid of the mats safely and recommended getting the rabbit out of the cage more often. She thanked us deeply, paid for the clipping, and left with the rabbit in tow, hopefully to the vet. I sincerely hope the owner learned from this experience and will start taking better care of the sweet little thing, but at the same time just thinking about it still pisses me off. No matter how understanding the lady was, I will never get over how much she neglected that poor little rabbit.

Moral of the story? Some people really should not own pets, and those who do should do their research before getting it.

(A woman who frequents my store has a habit of buying something on sale, usually with additional coupons and price matching– or complaining until we make up a discount for her — then “forgetting” her receipt upon return. Without a receipt, an item must be returned for the price that day. Many of us are aware of what she is doing, but we cannot call her on it or refuse the return because we “think” she’s scamming us. On this day, I am on register. I see her walking toward the store from the parking lot and notify my manager. She comes to the front and tells me to go straighten up a nearby shelf. The woman enters with an aquarium filtration system in her cart. Today, this system is $200.)

Customer: “I want my money back.”

Manager: “Welcome to [Store]. Do you have your receipt?”

Customer: “Just give me my money.”

Manager: “Could I get your phone number or membership card?”

Customer: *rattles off phone number* “Why?”

Manager: “Without your receipt, I can only give you store credit. Do you remember how you paid?”

Customer: “My bank card! Are you going to give my money back or do I have to call corporate again?”

Manager: “I apologize for your wait, ma’am. I was just researching your receipt history.”

Customer: “That’s an invasion of privacy! The manager always gives me cash.”

Manager: “Which manager is that?”

Customer: “Oh, uh, some guy.”

Manager: “Right. Okay, I see that you purchased this filter a little over a week ago.”

Customer: “Well—”

Manager: “And after the membership discount and what appears to be a price match, you paid $90. That’s a great deal!”

Customer: “But—”

Manager: “Your money will be credited to the account linked to the card ending in [numbers].”

Customer: “I want the full $200! This is ridiculous!”

Manager: “Just following policy, ma’am. Your money will be credited to your account in three to five business days, depending on your bank. Have a nice day!”

(My manager then took the cart from the woman and walked to the back of the store without another word.)

(I work in a pet shop. The days I work, I’m usually alone. I’m one of the only ones who can clip birds’ nails and wings, so people usually call on the days I work. In the morning, I clean all of the bird cages, and around 4:30 pm, I clean the babies’ cages again before we close. Because of this schedule, we usually ask customers to come in sometime between 12:00 pm and 4:30 pm to have their birds clipped, and also to call first so we have a heads up.)

Customer: *on the phone* “Can I bring my bird in to be clipped today?”

Me: “What kind of bird is it?”

(I ask this because larger birds like macaws are hard for me to do alone.)

Customer: “A Quaker.” *a small bird*

Me: “Sure. If you could come in sometime after noon, but before 4:30, that’d be great.”

Customer: “Uh, noon? I need an appointment?”

Me: “I’m the only one here, and I’m cleaning the birds’ cages right now, and I won’t have everything done until probably noon. At 4:30, I start cleaning the babies’ cages again, so it would be best if you could come in before then.”

Customer: “Uh…” *seems really confused* “Come in after 4:30?”

Me: “No, before 4:30. I have to take care of the babies at 4:30, so it’s better if you come in before that.”

Customer: “So, come in before 12:00?”

Me: “No, after. If you could come in sometime between 12:00 and 4:30 that would be best.”

Customer: “So, 4:30…”

Me: “How about 2:00? Why don’t you come in at 2:00?”

Customer: “Yeah, 2:00 would be better for me.”

(I hate talking on the phone.)