I stopped by a budget grocery store one evening on my way home from work. I didn’t have a quarter to unlock a shopping cart, but I was only getting a few things, so I didn’t think it would matter. I picked up a loaf of bread, a $20 tub of protein powder, and a packet of cream cheese.

Then, casually, I set the tub of protein powder down on a nearby shelf so I could take my phone out of my pocket and double-check my shopping list. Within seconds, another customer snatched it up and placed it in her cart.

Me: “Oh, actually, I was still going to—”

She turned and hastened away towards the registers. I stared after her for a moment, bewildered, then backtracked down the last aisle to get another tub.

As I approached the registers, I saw that the customer had already unloaded her cart and was arguing with the cashier, who had just scanned the stolen protein powder.

Customer: “—That’s supposed to be $4!”

Cashier: “I’m sorry, miss, that’s now how it’s ringing up.”

Customer: “The sign said $4!”

Cashier: “It’s ringing up as $20. To be honest, this kind of product almost never goes on sale, and I don’t think I’ve EVER seen us discount ANY product by 80%. I think you might be mistaken.”

Customer: “No, I saw the sign. If there’s a mistake, then it’s on your end, and you have to honor the sign.”

Cashier: “Another customer may have just put it back in the wrong place—”

Me: “—Yeah, I did.”

I reached the registers and got in line directly behind her. The cashier and the customer both turned to look at me, although the customer immediately looked away, like she was pretending she had never seen me in her life.

Me: I was going to buy that. I picked it up from the shelf, where the price label said $20 like it always does, and then I put it down on one of the discount shelves for like two seconds. She took it while I was checking my grocery list.

The cashier glanced at the customer, who turned red.

Customer: “Well, you shouldn’t let that happen!”

Cashier: “I… shouldn’t let people check their grocery lists?”

Customer: “You shouldn’t let people make a mess in your store and cause all this confusion.”

She crossed her arms, huffed, and then gestured at her groceries still on the belt.

Customer: “Well, are you going to scan the rest of my stuff or what?”

Cashier: “Do you still want the—?”

Customer: “—Obviously not, if it costs $20! That’s ridiculous!”

The rest of the transaction proceeded as normal. The other customer continued to ignore me and did not mention the protein powder again. The cashier saw that I had another identical tub and gestured to the original one.

Cashier: “Sorry about that… uh, did you want this one back?”

Me: “You know what, sure, why not. It’ll still be good by the time I finish the other one. And yours is 30% cheaper than the other brands I’ve tried in the past, that’s a really good deal!”

When I go grocery shopping, I usually keep a mental tally of the cost as I put items in my cart just so I don’t get sticker shock at the register. On a recent trip, I stopped my mental tally once I reached $52 with only the dairy section left to shop, because I knew I wanted to pay with a $50 bill, and my debit card could handle the price of eggs, yogurt, and milk.

At the register, I greeted the cashier but was slightly distracted packing my bags when she read out my total. It sounded right, but I didn’t make note of the exact number. I held out my $50.

Me: “Can I pay with this, and then put the remainder on my card?”

Cashier: “Of course.” *She typed in the number.* “That will be $40.65.”

I looked up, startled, because that was WAY higher than I expected. Had the price of eggs jumped up again? Had I gone into a yogurt-loving fugue state and grabbed more containers than usual? Was I so bad at math that my tally had been off by double-digits to begin with?

I noticed that the cashier was still prominently holding the cash above the countertop, a common tactic to thwart scammers who try to lie and convince cashiers that (for example) they had paid with a $50 instead of a $20. When I looked at the computer screen, I saw that it read TOTAL 60.65 and then a deduction of CASH 20.00.

Me: “Oh, I actually gave you a fifty.”

The cashier sighed.

Cashier: “I have it right—” *She holds up the bill in her hand.* “—Oh! You did! I’m so sorry. Your total will be $10.65.”

Me: “No worries! It’s good you still had it out. I was even starting to doubt myself.”

Cashier: “Yeah, we do that to prevent scams… and this time, the one pulling the scam would’ve been me!”

I got in line at the grocery store behind an elderly woman (who, throughout this story, only spoke Mandarin) and a middle-aged woman I presumed was her daughter. Right as I arrived, the daughter swiped a card to pay.

Cashier: “It didn’t go through.”

The cashier was immediately impatient. The daughter frowned and tried again.

Cashier: “It didn’t go through again. You have to pay with another card.”

Daughter: “But… it wasn’t declined, was it? It didn’t beep or anything. The machine didn’t seem to register it.”

Cashier: “I don’t know what to tell you. You have to pay with another card.”

Daughter: “I don’t have another card! This one was just activated yesterday, and we used it at the pharmacy this morning with no problem. Are you sure it isn’t a problem with your machine?”

They went through at least another round of this, with the daughter occasionally pausing to speak to her mother in between trying to swipe the card. She was a little frantic (as I would be, if I couldn’t buy my elderly mother groceries!) but never said anything I would categorize as rude.

Meanwhile, the cashier rolled her eyes, demanded another card, and refused to do any troubleshooting beyond pointing to her computer screen to show that it hadn’t registered the payment. The card reader never made that annoying error buzz, so it seemed pretty obvious to me that this was a tech issue, and I started looking around for a manager to help. (This was a small store, and I almost always saw the manager lingering near the customer service desk when I visited.)

After a few minutes, the card reader finally gave the “all clear” beep.

Daughter: *Relieved.* “There, did that go through?”

Cashier: “Yes.

Daughter: “Thank goodness.”

The cashier handed her receipt, and she began to push the cart away, with her mother following.

Cashier: *Sarcastically.* “Have a nice night.” *Pause.* “B****.”

I was shocked. The daughter was far enough away that she couldn’t overhear, but the mother was still nearby (although I’m not sure if she knew enough English to recognize the insult), and I had just stepped up within a foot of the register.

Me: “That was rude.”

Cashier: “Yeah, some people, right?”

Me: “No, I mean you insulting customers like that, especially since it obviously was just a technical glitch and not their fault.”

The cashier glared at me, shrugged, and finished the transaction in silence. The machine accepted my card without issue.

I still didn’t see a manager around on my way out of the store, but that evening, for the first time in my life, I called a company solely to file a complaint about an employee.

I had a job building industrial control panels. You’ve probably seen pictures of them: lights and dials and switches and buttons on the outside, lots of electrical stuff on the inside. They look like everything on the inside is bolted to the back of the box, but that’s not how it’s done because that would compromise the waterproof integrity of the box. Instead, everything is screwed or bolted onto a steel panel, which is bolted to studs that come welded to the back of the box.

One project had some big DC motor controllers. They were bigger than a case of copier paper, and about as heavy as if they were solid metal inside. They had mounting ears on them to bolt them to wherever they were to be installed.

There was some question as to whether they could be bolted to that back panel securely, so that Friday I bolted one of them to the back panel where it would go, and used one of my shop’s hoists to leave the whole assembly hanging over the weekend.

First thing Monday morning, I invited the sceptical engineers into my shop to see it. Obviously, it had worked: it had been hanging at a crazy angle all weekend, and in real life it would be vertical. But one of the engineers wasn’t satisfied:

Engineer: “Can you drill out those holes and use bigger bolts?”

I didn’t feel like doing it and knew it wasn’t necessary. More important is that with this kind of equipment, installing it in any way other than according to the manufacturer’s instructions voids the warranty. I wasn’t going to take the rap if anything went wrong with his modification.

Me: “Sure! But I’ll need a memo or a drawing for that.”

It was almost like watching gears turn in his head, and I never got that written instruction.

It’s mid-afternoon, I’m deep into uploading a huge quarterly report to the company server when the power suddenly cuts out.

The entire office freezes for a second in the dim emergency lighting. Most people start packing up to leave as there are no lights, no internet, and no working HVAC, but then our boss emerges from his glass office. 

Boss: “Alright, everyone, sit back down. Your laptops have batteries. Keep working.”

Coworker: “But there’s no internet.” 

Boss: “Tether to your phones. Make it work!”

I glance down at my phone: 12% battery left. My report upload, thanks to my phone’s spotty connection, says “two hours remaining.”

Me: “Boss, this upload won’t finish before my phone dies.” 

Boss: “Find a way to make it work!”

Me: “…Okay. Sure.”

I unplug my phone from my laptop, walk over to his desk, and drop the charging cable in front of him.

Me: “I’ll just plug my phone into your laptop while you’re working. That way, when your battery dies, we can both go home.”

The look on his face was worth every percentage point my battery lost.