I find a really nice kitchen knife set online for a great price. As I’m studying to be a chef, my own set of quality knives would be great to practise with.

I get chatting to the seller. We talk about the knives. Apparently, his son gave up on the same career path I am studying for. He seems glad to get rid of them and even offers to sharpen them for me before I pick them up.

I tell him not to worry — I have my own whetstone — but he insists and says he knows what he’s doing.

I go around to pick up the knives.

Seller: “Here they are. Do you want to take a look?”

Me: “Sure, I’m looking forward to getting to use—”

I stop mid-sentence. Not only has he done a pretty crap job of sharpening them — they are scratched and the edge is all over the place — but the points are missing.

Me: “Oh, did they not come with a sharp point?”

Seller: “Oh, that, yes. I thought it safer to round it off. Not sure why they don’t do that at the factory; it would save so much time.”

Me: “The curved point allows the knife to rock back and forth and the point allows for scoring, opening packets, and things.”

Seller: *Laughs* “You sound just like my son. So fifty, we agreed?”

Me: “No. I hate to tell you this, but you’ve ruined the knives. Maybe that’s okay for normal household use, but never do that to chefs’ knives!”

Seller: “Oh, this again! He said the same thing. It doesn’t matter; it’s still sharp! It still cuts, doesn’t it?!”

Me: “Good luck selling them. I’m no longer interested.”

I left. I could hear him moaning about “indecisive people ” as I got back to my car. The knives still showed for sale for months afterward, even after a price drop.

A guy brings a TV show box set up to the register just after we open. The other ones in the series are on offer because this one has just come out. But this box has the cheaper price ticket on it, slightly scraped in one corner.

Me: “Yeah, I can’t sell you this. It has the wrong price on it.”

Customer: “Well, that’s not my fault; it’s whoever stickered them or put them out.”

Me: “I stickered them and I put them out five minutes ago. But no problem. There’s a security camera right above that shelf; I can go check who swapped the sticker.”

Weirdly, he just left.

I work as a builders’ merchant and we know most of the customers very well as they are regulars. There is this one guy who regularly comes in who always claims that he has bought something before at a cheaper price. Our company policy is that we match previous prices for account customers, so if they really have had the item before at that price, we have to honour that price.

The thing is, though, this guy will argue until he’s blue in the face that he had that item at that specific price. He will even ask other coworkers to back him up when he says he has had that item at that price before. We always go into the system and the prices are never on there because he has never had it at that price. We sometimes argue with him and basically tell him to get lost, but most of the time, we just let him have it — unless we would make a huge loss on it.

I actually really enjoy my job. This is one customer out of hundreds. Everyone has a good laugh and everyone enjoys their job where I work, so don’t slate my employer for trying to make things less difficult.

At work, I’ve been given pamphlets and those tiny “Jesus will guide you!” papers and I’ve been told strangers will “pray my problems away”.

Once, I had a woman try to take off my mask because it was a rainbow mask.

Woman: “I’ll pray for your sinful gay ways to vanish overnight!”

Much to her surprise, the next day I came in wearing any gay/lesbian/asexual pride buttons, necklace, earrings, and mask I could find.

My store has an automatic sliding door just like a grocery store. At close, we power it off so it won’t open automatically, but we can’t lock the door until all the customers leave because that’s illegal in my state.

One night, I power off the door at close and go have the cashier that isn’t currently ringing up customers ring me up for some items. We hear knocking on the door. A customer is making the praying sign with his hands and begging to come in. Since it’s after close, I legally don’t have to let him in.

Me: *To the cashier* “I’m going to ignore him.”

This man then pries open the doors and walks in.

Man: “Please, please let me shop!”

If I wasn’t going to help you before, why would you breaking into the store after close make me want to help you more? I rush over to the man, pointing to the door.

Me: “Sir, you need to leave right now. We are closed, and you just pried open the doors that were powered off.”

He starts backing up out the door.

Man: “Please? Just make a special exception for me.”

He sees this as if I know him and think he’s special. The man is now outside the store, so I turn toward the edge of the door and slam it shut, only to hear the man exclaim:

Man: “You just slammed the door on my head!”

I look at the man, dumbfounded. His whole body is outside the door, but he is leaned forward so that his head is squished in the door. My first thought is to say, “Well, you shouldn’t have put your head there,” but I am too speechless at this customer’s stupidity. You would think that someone would keep their body out of the way of a door someone is closing.

Man: “Wow, you’re not even sorry!”

He pulled his head out and scurried off. I honestly don’t know what he was thinking.