I was selling some household items and agreed to do a public meet-up with someone outside a grocery store at 3:00 pm. I also needed groceries, so I did my shopping and was back in my car by 2:50. I messaged the buyer to describe my car and tell her where I was parked. She didn’t answer.

3:15 came and still no reply. I had eggs in the car and didn’t want to keep waiting and using my gas to keep the car cool.

Me: “Hey, if you’re not meeting up today, that’s fine. I just need to know. I have groceries in my car that need to get to the fridge.” 

3:30 came and went. I saw that she had opened the message but hadn’t said anything.

Me: “We’re going to have to reschedule this. I need to go. Let me know when you will be available.” 

I drove home — another fifteen-minute drive — and got my groceries put away.

At 5:45 that night, my phone went off.

Flaky Buyer: “Where are you?”

Me: “At home. We agreed to meet almost three hours ago, and you never showed up or reached out.” 

Flaky Buyer: “Okay, I got busy. Life goes on. I’m going to [Location an hour from my house] right now. Meet me there.”

I may have considered this generous response if she hadn’t opened the messages hours earlier. It could be that she had a small child or someone else was using her phone, but the delay and the eventual reply were not helpful.

Me: “Sorry, I’m not available anymore today. We can meet up this Saturday.”

Flaky Buyer: “This is f****** bulls***!”

She marked my post as spam and blocked me. I reported her as a no-call, no-show and listed the items again. They sold within an hour, and the person actually showed up the next day to get them!

I’ve been a store manager at this store for a year. It’s a small town. I was a cashier at this store for four years during university before being promoted/hired as the store manager, so I know a lot of the faces and what they’re like. One customer has always been rude to employees, especially if they “don’t seem to know what they’re doing”.

One day, I get called over the radio to come to cash for a customer complaint. The cashier who called is still in her training phase. There are only four cashes in the store, so the other cashiers are close by if she needs help.

As I’m walking up, I notice that it’s the customer I previously mentioned, and he already looks quite unimpressed. He’s purchasing an item that requires a special ID. He has done this plenty of times as he is the one in town who does the training for this special ID, and we are one of only two businesses that sell this product. Both the employee who gets the item out of the locked showcase and the cashier check the ID.

Me: “Good afternoon. Someone needed a manager?” 

Customer: “Yes, all your employees are useless. She didn’t know I needed my ID checked again and had to ask another cashier how to do that.”

Me: “Ah, yes, I’m sorry to hear that. She is still training and asks a more senior cashier if she isn’t sure.”

Customer: “Why do you always have new people training? Why can’t I ever get someone who knows what they’re doing?”

Me: “Well, it’s hard to find people who are willing to deal with customers like you who stress them out so much over something so trivial. Most don’t last after learning that you aren’t going away.”

When I became a store manager, I made sure that my staff wasn’t treated the same way I was when I was a cashier. At that, I walked away from him while he tried to figure out a response.

He demanded the senior cashier give him the number for corporate. Corporate called me a few hours later asking for my side of the story. Once they got it all, they asked me if I wanted to ban the customer. I told them to scare him a bit by saying I had the ability to, but I’m not that heartless since there aren’t many choices in our small town. The next time he came in, he was much more appreciative of the staff.

Federal law requires wheelchair access for a certain percentage of bathroom facilities, which in turn mandates a certain amount of space around the toilet.

We opened a store in a city that had its own requirements. One, a store of our size had to have public restrooms available — if not necessarily in the store. Two, the women’s restroom had to have the same number of stalls as the men’s. Since the men’s room had a toilet and a urinal (which was probably also required, since urinals use a lot less water), the women’s restroom had to have two toilets.

But the women’s restroom was smaller than the men’s, so the end result was two toilets, facing each other, with about three feet between them — you could nearly touch the other toilet while sitting on one — with no stalls.

It was as ridiculous as it sounds.

The store manager got so many comments that he finally put up a sign on the door that said (and this is an exact quote): “We know how stupid this is. The city made us do it.”

So, it turned out that there was a local TV station with a “consumer advocate” show whose host lived to point out the stupidity of the city government. One day, the number two person in the city’s code enforcement office came into the store to shop and saw the sign. After a brief conversation with the manager about it, she panicked at the thought of someone telling the gadfly about it and went into overdrive.

The next day, there were code enforcement people out there with tape measures (stretched taut, because it was a close call) determining that a park across the street had public restrooms close enough to count (though we never considered closing ours to the public), and we got some sort of (not small) discount on the next year’s permit fees to compensate us for the cost of removing the second toilet.

And we all lived happily ever after.

Client: “I’m running this great offer that I want you to promote for me.”

Me: “Great. Just send me the details, and I can send out an email campaign and push it on social.”

Client: “The offer is [details], but I’d rather you not send out any emails or put it on social. We don’t want our competitors to know we are running an offer. Can you promote it under the radar?”

Me: “You want me to promote an offer but not advertise the fact that there is an offer…”

Client: “Exactly!”

I work in a store with twelve employees total. Seven have been here for at least two years, and the rest are high turnover. At this point, there’s no one over thirty-five, and for some odd reason, an overwhelming three of us — who happen to be among the seven — have a name that used to be popular but dropped off the charts by the time any of us were born. Let’s say the name is Gertrude.

The only person in charge of hiring is the owner, but we’re often handed resumes, which is expected.

One day, during a slow day with just a coworker and me working, my coworker is off helping an elderly woman around the corner and I hear a squeal.

Coworker: “Oh, my God!”

I hurry toward them to find [Coworker] with a sheet of paper and the elderly woman actually looking rather pleased with a somewhat cheeky smile on her face.

Me: “What’s going on?”

[Coworker] hands me the paper, which turns out to be a resume, trying to stifle a giggle.

Coworker: “She also wants a job.”

Me: “Oh? Well, we’ll leave it for [Owner].” *To the woman* “I’ll be sure the owner gets a look. I’m not sure what’s going… on.”

That is when I notice the woman’s name: Gertrude. Oh. Now I see what the big deal was. I look at the woman, who is grinning like crazy now. My coworker also notices her look.

Me: “Ah.”

Coworker: “Wait, did she know…?”

Woman: “I heard you had all the Gertrudes here. I’m retired, but I just have to work here now.”

So, now we have thirteen employees and four Gertrudes. She’s the only one who came on purpose — and is actually of the age you’d think someone named that would be. She’s eighty-one.