Me: “Can I have your rewards phone number?”

The customer bends down with her face almost touching the counter and whispers her phone number.

Me: “Could you please repeat it?”

Customer: *Yells* “What are you, deaf?!”

I look at her for a second and reach up to flip my hearing aid out from behind my ear.

Me: “Yes, I am.”

She just looked at me. I don’t think she was expecting that!

A Yeoman in the navy is a person that performs office duties, whether a man or a woman. During the 1980s, most offices used IBM Selectric type typewriters; they use a font ball to type letters, and if you want to change font, you change the font ball.

I am sitting in the ship’s office one day with a couple of others waiting to go over our annual evaluations with my division officer. There are two yeomen working in the office typing reports. One is male and the other female.

Male Yeoman: *To the other yeoman* “Do you have an OCR font ball?”

Female Yeoman: “No, I think we have just the two balls between us.”

I work at an aquarium taking photos. My section is situated at the end of the first section after going through one set of exhibits. A couple approaches me.

Guest: “Where is the entrance?”

I notice that they haven’t checked in as their tickets clearly haven’t been ripped.

Me: “The entrance is where you entered the building.”

Guest: “Where is the aquarium?”

Me: “You are in the aquarium; this whole building is the aquarium.”

Guest: “Where do we get our tickets checked?”

Me: “At the front desk, where you entered from.”

Guest: “Okay, thanks.”

They leave towards the entrance to get checked in.

I am left thinking, “How can you not notice all the tanks filled with dozens of fish and not think you are in the aquarium?”

I work as a concierge in a hotel. I’ve got a coworker who’s honestly what most people would consider a parasite. He works way less than everyone else and is perpetually finding ways to skive off. We call him Wizard.

Our boss absolutely loathes Wizard and is determined to find a way to fire him.

I don’t know the exact details, but she suddenly came in one day and said that the delivery company had accidentally sent our shipment of gift shop merchandise to the branch at the other end of the city and they couldn’t send it to us. Someone had to go in person to pick it up.

Wizard basically got volunteered. It was only later that we found out that he didn’t have a driver’s license, so he couldn’t take a van over there. Worse, our boss specified that we needed the merchandise by 4:00 pm. This meant that Wizard had to somehow cross the city twice in three hours, carrying with him several boxes of merchandise on the way back. It would be impossible, as we estimated the one-way journey by public transport alone would take two hours. Failure, he was told, would be punished by immediate dismissal.

Within fifteen minutes, the janitors were already planning his farewell party.

Imagine our surprise when Wizard turned up at 3:00 pm with all the merchandise, completely unaware that our boss had set him up to fail.

The boss was livid, furiously screaming at Wizard, who was honestly completely lost as to why she was pissed. He got the goods within the allotted time and without damage, so why was this lady screaming at him like he had failed?

This wasn’t the first, nor the last incident. Whenever we had a problem, we’d go up to Wizard, and he’d make them go away. Somehow. We never actually asked how he did it, but after you saw Wizard in action, you really didn’t care how he did it.

A list of his feats:

1) Salvaged a couple’s honeymoon after their original plan suffered several cancellations

2) Got rid of a waitress’ stalker for her. Twice. (Two different men.)

3) Can somehow speak no less than three Asian languages and act as translator for foreign guests from East Asia.

4) Has good enough alcohol tolerance to go drinking with a Russian guest. (Said guest half-demanded that someone take him to a cheap bar and drink with him. That was a weird request, but Wizard had fun.)

5) Knows where to find cosplay events and dress-up parties even in the most inane times of the year. (Another weird request. I immediately handed it off to Wizard.)

6) Figured out which guest was stealing stuff from another guest’s minibar.

7) Administered first aid to an old man that fainted.

8) Solved an issue where a regular kept pawing at a female janitor.

At some point, one of the janitors claimed that he was a wizard and that questioning his methods would lead to the magic being lost. Everyone decided to play along with that, leading to his nickname.

Even our regional manager was amused by Wizard, bringing up the idea of having dedicated problem-solvers in every branch. I don’t know how that panned out, but needless to say, our branch considers Wizard one of our key members… even if we basically have to do most of his paperwork for him.

This story is part of our Best Of October 2020 roundup!

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Read the Best Of October 2020 roundup!

Caller: “Hi. I wanted to check to see if you guys had the commander decks available today.”

Me: “Yes, did you pre-order?”

Caller: “No, what’s that?”

Me: “What is a pre-order?”

Caller: “Yeah, what does it do?”

Me: “Pre-ordering is reserving something before it releases so you can get it on the day it comes out.”

Caller: “Why would I do that?”

Me: “Because some items are limited in supply but high in demand, and you can only get them if you pre-order.”

Caller: “Okay, can I do that now?”

Me: “No, the commander decks have already been released and you can buy them now. Do you know which ones you want?”

Caller: “I need five of each.”

Me: “I’m sorry, we have a limited amount available after pre-orders and don’t have enough for that.”

Caller: “Well, then, why can’t I pre-order it now to get them?”

Me: *Agitated* “I already explained, pre-orders are done before a product comes out, not after.”

Caller: “Someone should have told me to pre-order. How are we supposed to get them now?”

Me: “We’ll have more sets in the future. If you’d like, we can contact you when we get more in stock.”

Caller: “No, I need them now.”

Me: “Then I can’t help you. You can try other stores; they may have more.”

Caller: “Listen, I’ll give you more than the retail price if you get me five sets.”

Me: “I can’t do that for you; we have orders to fill.”

Caller: “C’mon, man! Name your price!”

Me: “$1000 for one set, $7000 for five sets.”

Caller: “What the f***?! That’s not a deal; you’re trying to f****** rip me off!”

Me: “You said I could name my price. Now take it or leave it.”

Caller: “F*** you!” *Hangs up*