Customer: “Where are your utensils?”

Me: “They’re right in front of you, ma’am.”

Customer: “I mean your real utensils?”

Me: “What do you mean, ma’am?”

Customer: *Suddenly angry* “I will not use a spork! The spork is ‘the devil’s utensil’ because it is the amalgamation of the masculine fork and the feminine spoon and is trying to blur gender lines in society.”

Me: “We have… uh… non-gender-fluid utensils right there, ma’am.”

I point to the good ol’ plastic knife and fork dispensers to the left of her.

Customer: *Suddenly happy and all smiles* “Ah! Much better! Much more godly!”

And off she went with her salad and godly utensils…

Our coffee place, like literally every other place in the nation, is undergoing the pumpkin spice crazy that inflicts us every October. It is also getting closer to Halloween.

Being in the Bible Belt, my religious coworker is trying to, in her words “bring it back to Jesus” for customers ordering the pumpkin-themed drinks.

Coworker: “Here is your pumpkin spice latte, and a happy All Hallows’ Eve!”

Customer: “What?! Don’t give me any of that Satanic s***!”

Coworker: “No, ma’am! I didn’t say Halloween, I said All Hallow’s Eve. It’s the day before All Saints’ Day, which is a Christian holiday.”

Customer: “Now you’re trying to bring Christ into it? Not today, Satan!”

Coworker: “Ma’am, I am a devout Christian!”

Too late: the customer is already storming off, and my coworker is approaching me and my manager, looking confused.

Coworker: “I… don’t understand what just happened.” 

Manager: “Remember when ‘happy holidays’ successfully triggered an entire demographic? That. That happened.”

When I first started to work the third shift, I was still going to church. At the time, I was working Saturday nights, which meant getting home on Sunday mornings. Obviously, I didn’t want to go to church (on the other side of town) after being on my feet for eight-plus hours. So, I requested to have Sundays off for church; I specifically asked for them to go to morning church services.

I got Sunday nights off, instead.

I texted the general manager who was in charge of schedules.

Me: “Why did you give me Sunday nights off when I requested the mornings off for church?”

General Manager: “It’ll be fine for you to go to church!”

Sadly, I didn’t press it, and I stopped going to church for another reason anyway.

It is late October in our large retail store. One of my coworkers at the checkout is a Muslim woman, and she wears a headscarf as part of her religion. She is a white woman, or very white-passing. She is serving another white woman customer.

Customer: “Is this some kind of Halloween thing?”

Coworker: “Is what, ma’am?”

Customer: “The head thing? You dressing up as a terrorist for Halloween?”

Coworker: “This is part of my religion, ma’am.”

Customer: “But you’re white!”

My coworker has pressed the silent button to call over a manager, who has just arrived. Our manager is a dark-skinned woman.

Manager: “Is everything okay over here?”

Customer: “I guess you’re a Muslim, too?”

Manager: “I’m under no obligation to tell you that, ma’am, but I am happy to tell you that I am an atheist.”

Customer: “Well… I guess no God is better than a false God.”

Manager: *Putting two and two together* “Ma’am, please leave.”

Customer: “What?! Why?”

Manager: “Our staff are offered a hate-free environment when they work for [Store], and that includes freedom to practise their religion. Please take your bigoted views elsewhere.” 

Customer: “What?! I can’t be a bigot! I’m a Christian!”

This one sticks in my memory, even over fifteen years later!

My coworker and I got along okay for years until the day I returned to work after having my tubes tied. I was thirty and had never wanted kids, nor had my husband, and I was delighted to have finally gotten the procedure done.

That morning, [Coworker] came up to me snarling, a look on her face like I’d just taken a dump in her handbag. Pure unbridled disgust radiated off her. She started by slapping a hand down on my desk.

Coworker: “How dare you?! You go off, mutilate yourself, betray your marriage, and never once stop to think about others!”

Befuddled, I asked what on earth she meant. It turned out that she and her husband were struggling with infertility. Her religion held that marriage was only for the production of children, so by removing that option, I was, one, not married anymore, and two, revolting because I’d given away a fertility she desperately wanted.

Me: “My marriage and my body are none of your business.”

She stormed out of the office.

Later, I found out that she’d gone to Human Resources and said she could no longer work with me; she didn’t feel safe because I wasn’t part of her religion and I was boasting (!) about giving away “the best part of being a woman”.

[Coworker] avoided me for the rest of my time at that firm. I don’t know what HR said to her, but that was the most WTF moment I ever encountered in over twenty-five years in IT.

Related:
Not Your Body, Not Your Business, Part 2
Not Your Body, Not Your Business