(I work in one of the gift shops at a popular UK theme park. One day I notice a little girl, probably no older than eight, wandering around our shop unattended quite late in the day.)

Me: “Hi sweetie, are you all right there?”

(The girl just bursts into tears.)

Girl: “I’ve lost my mummy and daddy!”

Me: “Okay, okay. Well, don’t worry; I’ll help you look for them.”

(I take her over to a stool we’ve been using to stock up and get her sat down. I let my coworker know to inform security so they can issue a park announcement and come take over the situation.)

Me: “Now, here’s some tissues, and some water. Do you like sweets?”

Girl: “Yeah. Coke bottles are my favourite.”

Me: “Me, too! Tell you what: you clear up those tears, and we’ll fill up a pick’n’mix bucket for you, okay?”

(She smiles a bit and nods, and starts blowing her nose. About 10 minutes pass, and the girl has calmed a little bit. I’m told that security are all of a few minutes away, when a couple come into the shop.)

Mother: “[Girl], there you are! How DARE you run away from us!”

Girl: “I got stuck behind some people—”

Father: “Don’t you interrupt your mother, you little cow!”

Me: “Ah, excuse me? I take it you’re this little girl’s parents?”

(They both look at me with a mix of disgust and shock.)

Mother: “What’s it to you?”

Me: “Well, I’m not a parent, but if I’d lost my daughter I wouldn’t be insulting and yelling at her, especially since she’s literally just stopped crying.”

Father: “You rude little s***! Who do you think you are?!”

(The father gets a tap on the shoulder by the security team that has just arrived.)

Security Guy #1: “Well at a guess, I’d say this is the staff member who found your daughter and has been looking after her.”

(The girl holds up her bucket of cola bottles, squashed down as far as we can get them.)

Girl: “He let me have all of these sweets!”

Mother: “We better not have to pay for them!”

(I just about hold my tongue, but the security guys say what I am thinking.)

Security Guy #2: “Are you for real? You lose your kid and you’re worried about paying for a bunch of cola bottles?!”

Security Guy #1: “Tell you what: any complaints or questions you have we’ll sort out at the security office with all the other paper work, and let these guys get back to their jobs.”

(Just as they left, the girl gave me a hug and said ‘thank you.’ I don’t know what happened to her, but I hope the parents eventually saw sense as to what’s important in life.)

(I work at an outdoor/clothing store over the summer sale period, and my uniform consists of a bright red, high neck sale top. Note: I am a female, and am fairly large-breasted. I am at the counter, scanning a customer’s order through. The customer is a middle-aged leering man, and is with a friend. He is nodding at me and laughing with his friend, motioning with his hands in pretend breasts. I decide to ignore this, as I have dealt with this before and I don’t really care too much. The customer continues laughing and staring.)

Customer: “God, I bet you’re a dirty s***.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Customer: “Yeah you heard. Look at you, with your big boobs; you must be. You’re such a s*** with your tight uniform. I hate people like you.”

(I am slightly fuming at this stage, and shocked.)

Me: “Let me put this to you straight: the only person who is going to lose anything from this is you; do you know why?”

(The customer starts to argue, but I cut in.)

Me: “Yes, my uniform is tight, but it is a t-shirt in my normal size. If you look around at my other employees, you will see that they too wear the same uniform as me. I don’t choose what I wear here. It may look different on my body compared to another’s; it’s called body shape. You think having big breasts is a choice I made? I had no control over the growth of them, just as you have no control over your receding hairline. Finally, I have the right to not serve you at all. Being rude to staff by offending their lifestyle, which you know nothing about, or over how they look doesn’t make me want to serve you. If you want, I can void this order and return everything to the shelves.”

(The customer looks shocked, and is bright red. He says nothing.)

Me: “Do you have any points of an argument as to why you felt the need to discriminate me by my body shape? If so, I would love to hear them…”

(The customer stills says nothing.)

Me: “Would you like me to continue to scan your items? At the moment, for me, it’s still a no.”

Customer: “Yes, please. I’m sorry.”

Me: “Well, I suppose that will have to do. I hope you learn some god-d*** respect.”

(I finish scanning his items, and he leaves with his friend. My manager, who is serving next to me, looks at me and laughs.)

Manager: “I was going to say something to him, but you got there first. I couldn’t have said anything better than you just did.”

(I am waiting in line at the check out. The customer ahead of me has just bagged their groceries.)

Cashier: “Your total is $66.14, sir.”

Customer: “I want to pay with this $100 bill, but instead of giving me change, can you put the rest on a gift card?”

Cashier: “Sure, I can do that.”

(The cashier stares at the register for a moment.)

Cashier: “Um… do you know how much that’s going to be on the gift card? I can’t find out how much your change is until you pay, and I still have to add your gift card.”

Customer: “I don’t know; just whatever is left out of $100.”

Cashier: “Let me see if there’s a calculator around…”

Me: “It’s $33.86.”

(The cashier and customer look at me uncertainly.)

Cashier: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, just put it in; you’ll see.”

Cashier: “…okay.”

(The cashier puts it in hesitantly.)

Cashier: “…hey, you were right! How’d you do that?”

Me: “I’m a teacher. I subtract from 100 every time I grade papers.”

Customer: “But you did that in your head without a calculator or anything.”

Me: “Yeah, I actually teach math, so I have to be able to do math.”

Cashier: “Wow you must have to be really smart to teach math like that!”

Me: “Um…”

(I have an excellent memory. I work at a tool store and have memorized every model number. When customers walk up to the counter, I type in the numbers and give them the total before they put the items down. )

Me: “That’ll be [total].”

Customer: “How did you do that? You didn’t scan anything.”

Coworker: “He’s ‘Rain Man.’ He has everything in this store memorized.”

(The customer grabs a random saw blade from a nearby stack.)

Customer: “What about this?”

(I rattle off the price, UPC, and price with tax.)

Customer: “Ha! That isn’t the model number.”

Coworker: “Look at the barcode.”

(The customer reads the 12-digit number, and is dumbfounded.)

Me: “To be fair those things never scan. It’s one of the UPCs I have memorized.”

Customer: “So… want to go Vegas?”

(I’m now a network engineer and shock my coworkers constantly with how I have the entire network’s IP and subnets memorized. I earned the nickname ‘Rain Man’ again.)

(I work at a large retail store. A customer is just about to approach my register, when my counter phone rings. It is security.)

Security: “For this customer, just allow the return, then step away from my counter.”

(That is all they tell me. The customer then approaches.)

Me: “How can I help you today, ma’am?”

(The customer hands me an expensive bedding set.)

Customer: “Yes, I would like to return this, please.”

(I look at the receipt, and notice it was paid by cash.)

Me: “Okay, one moment, ma’am.”

(I process the return, give her the cash, and step away from my register as if to tidy shelves nearby. The customer walks away, and two minutes later my coworker from another department runs over and grabs me by the arm.)

Coworker: “What in the world just happened? Are you all right!?”

Me: “I’m fine. What’s going on?”

Coworker: “Security and the police just tackled your customer into the lingerie displays!”

(It turns out the customer was a scammer that would come in with just a receipt, pick up the item from the shelf that matched the receipt while a worker was busy, and then return the ‘bought’ item for cash. The customer had done this to 12 other stores before us. She was tackled when trying to run, after being confronted by the police.)