(I’m looking for new tiles to fill the wall in my new kitchen. I have no idea what I want yet, so I go to a store that specialises in tiles. The clerk is a middle-aged woman, trying to sound cheerful.)

Clerk: “Can I help you?”

Me: “Oh, I’m just browsing for inspiration.”

Clerk: “If you need inspiration, you should go to Pinterest! They have a lot of lovely things on there, and you won’t need to leave the house!”

Me: “Eh, sure… but sometimes a person just wants to browse. If I went to Pinterest, I wouldn’t have seen these lovely tiles here.” *points at the tiles I actually like a lot*

Clerk: “All right, then, have it your way.”

(After that, the clerk went to a table, picked up a newspaper, and started reading it. She didn’t look up any more. Needless to say, I didn’t buy my tiles there. And I’m still looking.)

(I’m 27, but get an average age guess of 17. I’m currently stocking the front of the store. It’s about 10 am. A man walks in and immediately makes a beeline for me.)

Customer: “You need to be in school right now!”

(I turn around to tell him that I am 27, and notice that his lanyard has an ID declaring him a teacher for a local high school. School isn’t out for summer yet.)

Me: “So do you.”

Customer: *looks down at ID* “Huh. I guess I deserved that.” *walks into store*

(I go in to a major retailer to buy a USB flash drive. I pick up the cheapest one and go to checkout. It’s only while the purchase is being rung up that I realize it’s a 16-gigabyte flash drive. I’m 30 years old, and the cashier who’s ringing me up looks to be about 18-ish.)

Me: “Woah, that’s weird.”

Cashier #1: “What?”

Me: “A 16-gig flash drive for seven bucks. I vividly remember when a 512-meg one was like, 30.”

Cashier #1: “I don’t remember that, but I remember when a 2-gig was $7.”

Me: “That was d*** near yesterday!”

Cashier #2: *next to us, who’s my age* “Or when floppy drives were the s***.”

Me: “When I was in elementary school, I was asked to bring in a floppy drive for computer science days. Heck, I remember when you had to put in one floppy to boot the computer up, then pull that out and put in the one for the program you actually wanted to use.”

Cashier #1: “I’ve worked with those! We were doing a ‘history of computers’ unit in school!”

Me: *whimpers a little bit internally* “DOS commands?”

Cashier #1: “Yep, learned those… What?”

Me: *whimpers a little bit externally*

(My fiancé’s reaction when I got home and told him this story? “Yep. Face it, honey: you’re old now.” He’s 29.)

(I have noticed that our store, which previously didn’t open on Boxing Day, has decided to open that day this year. My manager has scheduled me to work all day. She always does this for other public holidays and takes the day off herself. I don’t usually work on the day of the week that it happens to fall on.)

Me: “I’ve already made plans for Boxing Day, seeing as we normally don’t open and the fact that it’s not my normal rostered day.”

Manager: “It’s already been submitted.”

Me: “You do realise it’s not legal to force someone to work on Boxing Day?”

Manager: “Think of the money you’ll be getting.”

(My normal hourly rate more than doubles on public holidays. The next day I check the roster, and find that I’ve been removed from working that day.)

Me: “You’ve changed the roster.”

Manager: *not very happy* “Yeah, I had to; [National Manager] is forcing all managers to work to cut costs.”

(They are on fixed-wage. It didn’t help much, as sales only took in an extra $40 after covering wages for the day.)

This story is part of the Boxing Day roundup!

Read the next Boxing Day roundup story!

Read the Boxing Day roundup!

(My mom works at a party store, and usually has some sort of story to tell when she gets home from work. This particular instance occurred during graduation season. A woman from a private middle school in the area called in an order of white and burgundy balloons to be picked up the next day, but when her order was brought out to her…)

Woman: *gasps in horror* “That’s not burgundy!”

Mom: “Yes, it is.”

Woman: “No, it’s not! Those balloons are red!”

Mom: *grabs a nearby red balloon* “No, ma’am, this is red. I can assure you those are burgundy.”

Woman: *distraught* “Oh, I’ve got to call someone about this.”

(She proceeds to pull out her cell phone while still in line at the balloon counter and call someone, saying things like “I don’t know; the woman says they’re burgundy, but they look too red!” and “They just look red to me! It’ll be a disaster!” Whoever she called eventually convinced her to pay for the balloons and go, after about five minutes, and as she walks away with them, my mom hears her say:)

Woman: “Well… maybe they don’t look as bad as I thought after all.”

(My mom and the other balloon counter clerk just glanced at each other, sighed, and continued working.)