(My friends and I go to a mall to celebrate my birthday. I decide to buy a lotion.)
Clerk: “Your total is $5.36.”
Me: *gives a five-dollar bill* “Here is a five, and I’ll get out some coins.” *gives a quarter* “Here you go.”
(The clerk just stares at me.)
Clerk: “Its $5.36, not $5.25.”
Me: *gives a dime* “Whoops! Sorry.”
(The clerk continues to stare at me more intensely.)
Me: “Oh! I need to give you a penny. I can’t math; it’s a Friday.”
(I have a somewhat short haircut that falls mostly to my left side, which has a tendency to cover my left eye, especially when my hands are full and I can’t fix it. I keep this particular style because my eye is a bit lazy and I like to cover it up.)
Customer: *seemingly rather annoyed and in a rude tone* “How can you stand your hair blocking your eye like that? It would drive me insane!”
Me: *taken aback by his tone* “Well… Um… I’m actually mostly blind in that eye, so I don’t really see much out of it, anyway.”
Customer: “Oh.” *obviously seeing the mistake in his assumption, quickly grabs his change and items and runs off*
(I am the customer in this story. The checkout lines are busy, and I remember I need to withdraw some cash with my purchase. The only self-scan checkout available has a perfectly legible sign on it:)
Sign: “CASH BACK NOT AVAILABLE AT THIS MACHINE.”
(I scan my items. At the conclusion, the checkout prompts me for whether I want cash back.)
Me: *presses YES*
(I wasn’t expecting to get a prompt and was momentarily forgetful of the sign. The machine comes to a dead stop. I contact the nearby cashier and explain what happened. He gets the manager. As the manager unlocks the machine and gives me my cash back:)
Me: “Without people like me, there wouldn’t be a need for people like you.”
(To his credit, the manager did not rub it in. Not while I was within earshot, anyway.)
(While our family is German, my sister’s fiancé is Greek and moved to Germany with his whole family due to the Greek economy crisis. They went back to their home in Greece for a month in summer and invited my sister to join them for her summer holiday. It’s also important to note that my sister’s fiancé is very white, blonde, and blue-eyed, and doesn’t look typically Greek at all but rather Scandinavian. The two of them are out shopping. My sister does not speak Greek, and relies on her fiancé to translate or just speaks English. They are currently in a small clothing store. My sister wants to try on some shoes while her fiancé has gone elsewhere.)
Sister: “Excuse me, do you have these in [size]?”
Employee: “I think we do! Give me a moment; I’ll check in the back.”
(She comes back with the shoes in the correct size and my sister tries them on, but they don’t fit very well.)
Sister: “I like how they look, but they’re too narrow at the front and loose in the back. Do you maybe have something similar in a wider cut?”
(The employee is very polite and professional, and proceeds to show her several similar pairs. However, all of them are lacking a specific detail that the other shoe had and my sister liked very much. She doesn’t know how to describe it in English, though. Just then, her fiancé shows up with a few shirts he wants to buy.)
Fiancé: *in German* “Hi, babe, how’s it going? Did you find anything?”
(He kisses her.)
Fiancé: *to employee* “Hi!”
Employee: *to fiancé* “Hello, sir. Did you find everything all right?”
Sister: *in German* “[Fiancé]! I’ve been looking for shoes with [detail], but I don’t know how to say it in English! Can you translate it for me?”
(She then explains in German what she couldn’t say in English. Her fiancé proceeds to translate it to Greek for the employee. When he starts speaking Greek, the employee’s eyes go wide and her whole demeanour changes.)
Employee: *speaks rapidly in Greek, gesticulating wildly*
Fiancé: *answers in Greek, brows furrowed*
Employee: *more gesticulating, bats her eyes at [Fiancé]*
Fiancé: *shoves his shirts into the employee’s arms, says something in Greek angrily, and puts his arm around [Sister]*
Fiancé: *in German* “Come on, honey. We’re leaving.”
(He then pulls her out of the store. The employee yells something in Greek after them. Now outside, my sister asks what happened in the store.)
Fiancé: “When the employee realized I was Greek and you couldn’t understand us, she offered to sell everything to me without tax and receipt. I refused. She then called it a ‘special discount’ and started hitting on me, right next to you. She also said some racist things about Germans being greedy and taking all our money, and that I’d be better off without you. I told her to go f*** herself and her ‘discount.’”
(He looks at my sister and laughs.)
Fiancé: “After all, I love you, and your father is a tax accountant!”
(I have just gotten over a bad cold and am working as cashier with a slight cough when I help cash an older woman out.)
Me: “Were you able to find everything all right, ma’am?”
Customer: “Yes, I found everything fine.”
Me: “That’s good!”
(I cough as I finish putting things in her bag. Mind you, all day, almost every time I’ve coughed I have broken into a small coughing fit from an itch in my throat; however, this one gets rather bad and I can’t stop coughing.)
Me: *coughing and trying to talk* “Would y-you like to donate to [Organization]?”
Customer: “No…”
Me: *eyes watering and still coughing while customer is paying*
Manager: *over headset* “Are you okay? Do you need water?”
(I’m coughing for the rest of the story, and for about three minutes after the customer leaves.)
Me: *crying* “I’m with a customer right now; I’ll be fine.”
Customer: “You’re sick; why are you here? It’s people like you who make people sick. You should be at home.”
Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. I have a tickle in my throat.” *hands customer her bag of items*
Customer: *glares at me with an evil look while taking bags and leaving*
