Nearly every time I go into [Store] in my work clothes — black work pants, a company-branded (not [Store]!) T-shirt and usually a company-branded hi-viz vest — I get stopped by some lady asking me where something is.

One day, I’m in the store and I’m minding my own business walking around with a shopping trolley buying some bits. I hear this lady shouting, “Excuse me!” at me from behind, but I ignore her because I have a feeling that she is under the impression I work there, and I don’t want to deal with that.

After a couple of times of her calling for me, I turn around to find a furious-looking woman.

Woman: “You don’t have any frozen peas.”

I give her a confused look.

Me: “Yes, I know.”

This seemed to enrage her further.

Woman: “WELL, WHY NOT?!”

Me: “Ehh, because I don’t work here?”

Instead of apologizing, she muttered what I believe was, “For f***’s sake,” and walked over to her husband.

Woman: *Angrily, to her husband* “He doesn’t have any frozen peas and he doesn’t even work.”

I feel for anyone who has to deal with the general public on a day-to-day basis, but I’m so glad I don’t have to anymore.

Earlier this year, I was in a pharmacy that was having a sale on makeup, with all the sale items together on one table. I had an armful of products and was searching through the rest for particular colours, moving things around, putting some things back when I found something I liked better, etc.

A woman who was part of a middle-aged couple came into my aisle and stood a few displays away behind me, complaining to her partner about the pharmacy and how she couldn’t find something.

I was focused on what I was doing so I wasn’t really listening to their conversation; my brain just registered some kind of sarcastic white noise that was getting increasingly louder and more passive-aggressive.

Her partner was quietly trying to hush her as she continued to exaggeratedly sigh and moan to him.

Woman: “This pharmacy’s employees are terrible. Gah, I need helllp!”

From the time she’d walked into the aisle, she had just stood there and never attempted to go find an employee or whatever it was she was after.

Finally, she very loudly and exasperatedly bellowed:

Woman: “Does she even work here?!”

I was startled by the outburst and turned around to look at her, finding her looking shocked and turning red because that was the exact moment when she realised that, no, I didn’t work there and wasn’t some employee ignoring her, and also the moment when I realised that the whole two minutes or so of sighing and nasty comments were actually aimed at me.

Flustered, she grabbed her partner’s arm and marched past me without making eye contact, still complaining about the pharmacy and its “terrible service,” though now in the erratic tone of someone trying to convince themselves they hadn’t just done something embarrassing.

I was dressed in all black (not anything like the employee uniform, but not out of the realm of possibility that I could work there) and I can understand how she might have thought I was restocking or sorting the sale table, but what a way to go about it instead of just asking, “Excuse me, do you work here?”

My dad used to work for a heating and gas company. The company had twenty-four-seven after-hours emergency service. My dad’s area of coverage was about a two-hour drive in any direction.

One day, my dad got an emergency call on the weekend for a town roughly two hours away. As he got to that town, a blizzard rolled in — not a terrible one, but enough that you’d definitely have to drive slower when on the roads.

As he was at the site, he got another emergency call from a woman in another town two hours the other way, closer to where he lived. He called the customer, and she said she smelled gas. My dad went through the usual questions. He had a few theories about why she might be smelling gas.

Dad: “Can you please check [gauge] on your propane tank?”

Woman: “No, I won’t do that! I’m not qualified to look.”

Dad: “Do you have another source of heat you can use?”

Woman: “I do.”

Dad: “Okay. Turn off the gas to your house and use the backup heat source, and I’ll be there in a few hours.”

Woman: “That’s unacceptable! I need you here right now!”

Dad: “Unfortunately, that isn’t possible. I’m in [Town] several hours away.”

Woman: “No! I need you to be here now!”

Dad: *Bluntly* “Listen. You wanting me there now doesn’t change anything. I’m in another town two hours away. There is a blizzard going on, so that will slow me down. I can’t fly to where you live, and I’m not rushing and risking my life just to get to your place sooner. So, I can be there in a few hours, or you can wait until the week starts, when all the technicians are back to work, and you can have someone help you then.”

The woman backs down.

Woman: “A few hours will be fine.”

My dad got there after a few hours of driving, and almost right away, he saw the issue. Apparently, she was running out of propane, and smelling gas is some sort of warning sign a tank is getting low. If she had looked at the gauge like he’d asked, it would have saved the drive, plus the bill for him coming out to check, and she could have called the proper people to fill her tank.

Because it was an emergency call, she had to pay a bill that was triple what a typical weekday call was, in addition to the cost of having a truck come out to fill her tank.

I work as a tourism counselor in a small town in Canada situated near a national park. We share a building with Parks Canada so that they can provide information about the park, and we can give information about the town.

National Parks have an admission fee, and if you don’t pay the admission fee, you receive a reminder that you need to pay. If you do not pay, then the reminder turns into a ticket and gets sent off to a collection agency, and you have to pay a larger fine.

I am able to deal with these tickets at my desk, in case of it getting too busy at the Parks desk. This does not mean I have anything to do with these tickets.

It is five minutes before closing and I’m getting ready to shut down when a clearly distraught man comes storming up to the door holding a ticket in his hand. He gets to the door and realizes he does not have a mask (still required in Canada at the time). He goes back to his truck to get a mask and doesn’t even put it on when he enters.

My desk and the Parks Canada desk are situated across the room from each other, and Parks Canada’s desk is closest to the door, so typically, people will go to the Parks desk first, but of course, this gentleman comes storming right up to my desk yelling about his ticket.

When he gets to my desk, he throws his ticket at my face which ends up being a critical hit and leaves me at low Health Points.

Man: “I was going to throw this ticket out, but my girlfriend convinced me to pay the fee.”

This fee is only $10. I ask him the required questions so I can charge him the correct amount and he starts yelling.

Man: “I’ve been coming to this park for fifteen years and I’ve never had to pay an admission fee! This is bulls***! How long have you been charging people to enter national parks?!”

I lean over so I can see the person at the Parks desk, who should be dealing with this lunatic, and ask her how long.

Parks Desk Employee: “Since 1984.”

This nice gentleman decided that the woman working at the Parks desk and I were lying about this and got fed up. After yelling at me a little while longer about how stupid I was and how I shouldn’t be working this job, he threw a $10 bill at my face, draining the last bit of Health Points I had, and stormed off.

The woman working at the Parks desk proceeded to thank me profusely for dealing with him as she should have been the one dealing with him.

I used to work in the produce department at a grocery store. It was summertime, and we had seedless watermelons on sale. The signs posted on all of the cardboard bins read, “Seedless Watermelon — One Each — $4.98”.

A customer approached me with a confused look on her face.

Customer: “Excuse me, sir? I have a question. Does each watermelon have only one seed? The sign says one each.”

I didn’t answer right away because I was waiting for her to smile, laugh, and tell me she was just joking. No, she was serious!

Me: *Politely* “Every watermelon is $4.98 each, and they have no seeds.”

Customer: “Oh, okay. That makes a lot more sense. I was thinking you couldn’t call them seedless if each watermelon only had one seed. Thanks for clearing that up for me!”

If I had to rank all of the dumb questions I got asked at that job, this would probably take the number-one spot.