I work in a bakery. I’m packaging up some bread when a customer asks me to box her up a cake from the cold case. I tell her I’ll be right there and go to change my gloves.

As soon as I turn around to where the gloves are, she starts ordering. I’m too far away to hear her.

Me: “Oh, sorry, one more second. I just need new gloves.”

Customer: “Oh, you don’t have to do that for me.”

Me: “I have to comply with the standard food safety rules.”

Customer: “I’m not worried about all that [health crisis] stuff. Masks don’t work, so I don’t care about any of that.”

Me: “I need to change my gloves because of cross-contamination. If I’m bagging up bread, I can’t use the same gloves for your cake.”

She said something else because she just had to have the last word, but I stopped listening. Did she think food prep workers wearing gloves started because of a disease?

My friends and I are on voice chat while playing a game together. All of a sudden, a siren is blaring through one of the mics.

Friend #1: “That’s the fire alarm. I’ve got to go.”

He disconnects immediately and we wait to hear from him.

Friend #2: “So he’s, what, doing a Masters, then?”

Friend #3: “I guess so.”

Me: “He is? How’d you tell?”

Friend #4: “Well, he’s in halls, yeah?”

Friend #2: “Yeah, he had to leave for the alarm.”

Me: “But it’s a fire alarm. Wouldn’t you have to leave, anyway?”

Friend #2: “Nah. At home y’know it’s only set off if you’ve burnt your food like an idiot.”

Friend #3: “Pretty much.”

Friend #4: “Where do you live that you’d have to leave for it?”

Me: *Laughing nervously* “Where my dad will press the button to set it off and time how long it takes us to react.”

Friend #2: “Dear God.” *Laughs*

Friend #3: *Shocked* “Your dad makes you do fire drills?”

Me: “Yeah, it’s kinda annoying, every few months or so whenever he feels like it.”

Friend #2: “Even so, that’s crazy.”

Me: “Is that… Is that not normal?”

Friend #3: “Nope, not really.”

Friend #4: “My dad never did that with us.”

Friend #2: “Yeah, never heard of that before.”

[Friend #1] returned shortly after this conversation, and thankfully, it wasn’t anything serious. That said, I’m more than a little concerned about how relaxed everyone was about fire alarms.

For the record, I’d be less annoyed if our home “fire drills” were done properly. The fire alarm’s at the foot of the stairs, and my dad stands there until he’s seen us three kids have responded enough to be visible from where he’s stood, and then everyone goes back to what they were doing. Very annoying to have come down the stairs and wait for minutes while the alarm is blaring in my ears, not allowed to just go open my sisters’ bedroom door and yell at them to move already because Dad wants to let them “dig their own grave” and when they eventually arrive yell about how they’d have burned to death by now.

I manage a vape shop. Today, a customer casually revealed his mod battery and I noticed that it was half unwrapped. The top half still had plastic over it, but exactly half of the bottom part was peeled off so that it was just bare metal. For those who don’t know much about vaping, the whole “exploding” battery issue is due to poor battery safety, namely using batteries that aren’t properly wrapped. They don’t necessarily explode, but they vent, which is when they open up and the chemicals inside are released as a gas. The battery does get very, very hot, enough to burn you or catch anything touching it on fire.

If your battery isn’t properly wrapped and the revealed metal bumps into a metal surface while inside the mod, it will begin to arc and then vent. Even putting it on a charger or leaving it laying around like that is dangerous. I immediately pointed it out to the guy, assuring him that it was 100% not safe to continue to use that battery unless he got a new wrap for it. I explained what would happen if it touched metal inside the mod, but he absolutely did not care.

Customer: “Yeah, it’s been like that for a while, but I only use it if my other ones are dead.”

Me: “I get that, but it needs to be rewrapped or replaced because the second it touches metal, it’s going to vent and you can get seriously burned.”

Customer: “I’ll get a new one eventually, but this one still works fine, so I’ll just use it for now, thanks.”

We have little pamphlet things with battery safety instructions on them, so I grabbed one and told him to take it. He thanked me but proceeded to ball it up and shove it into his pocket.

Honestly, I wanted to hop over the counter and beat him with the Swiffer duster, but I had other customers waiting, and he obviously wasn’t going to listen because he was walking out the door. I really hope he doesn’t come back because I don’t want it happening in my store.

In the late 1990s, the store I was working at had a bomb threat called in. The manager got off the phone and called me and the other senior shift person into the office.

Manager: “We need to evacuate the store until it can be searched by the police, bomb squad, and such.”

[Manager], my coworker, and I went to the front and announced that everyone needed to leave the store for safety reasons and meet in the parking lot. We got everyone outside, most people left in their vehicles, and the employees were congregated in a small corner of the lot.

A customer approached us.

Customer: “I know there is a fire or bomb threat or something…but can one of you go in the store and get my jacket that I left?”

After we stared at them with open mouths for a bit, we told them they would have to come back later and get it… if the store was still standing.

While working the counter, I smell smoke. I check around and see that the chicken case has caught on fire. I yell for the guy I’m working with. He grabs a fire extinguisher and I start moving stuff in the case so we can get to the growing electrical fire.

A customer approaches. He sees this: I’m holding up a shelf so that my coworker can get the extinguisher close to the VISIBLE FLAMES.

Customer: “Do you guys have any more hams?”

Me: “Yeah. I’ll get them after we take care of this.”

Customer: *Agitated* “Is there anyone else that can help me?”

Me: “No, it’s just us. I’ll get them as soon as the fire is out.”

Customer: “Could you hurry?”