I am waiting in line at the pharmacy with about ten other people. At this pharmacy, you take a ticket as you come in and wait for your number to be called. If you call ahead, they will get your script ready for you, or you can hope their SMS service works for repeat medicine and you get an SMS when your medicine is ready. This lets you jump the queue to get your stuff quickly and leave.

My number is up next when in walks a customer who opts to jump the queue.

Customer: “I need medicine.”

Pharmacy Tech: “Did you get an SMS, sir?”

Customer: “No, I did not. I come in here every week for my medicine and you never have it ready for me.”

Pharmacy Tech: “You need to join the queue, sir. Collections are for collections only.”

Customer: “Look, just fill my d*** script already. You do this to me every time. Those d*** SMSs never work.”

Pharmacy Tech: “Okay, sir, I will help you now, but next time, you must join the queue.”

Customer: “I don’t f****** care about the f****** queue. I keep telling you that the SMSs don’t work and I should not have to queue.”

He gets his meds but that is not enough for him.

Pharmacy Tech: “Here you go, sir, and please remember to join the queue next time.”

Customer: “I am going to call corporate and complain. This is completely unacceptable. I should not have to queue every time I want my medicine or run out. I should just get it.”

Pharmacy Tech: “I have noted your complaint, sir, and I will pass it on to our IT department to sort out. Now please leave.”

Customer: “That is unacceptable. You need to sort this out now.”

Random people in the queue started yelling at the customer. It got ugly. The pharmacy tech helping me just rolled her eyes and kept her head down. Finally, the customer left with a stamp of his foot. Thankfully, the police did not have to get involved.

I’m waiting for my flight early on a Saturday morning at a small regional airport. I’m pretty early, and most of the early weekend flights are outbound, so I’ve found a seat in the nice quiet arrivals area and settled down to read. The area is pretty deserted except for me and two or three airport staff. I’m across from the Foreign Exchange counter, which has a bright yellow frontage and which, according to the sign, opens at 09:30.

It is 09:02 when the first inbound passengers arrive. It’s two middle-aged American men in jeans and bulky camouflage jackets, probably here to hunt.

Hunter #1: *Yelling to [Hunter #2].* “I need to exchange dollars.”

Hunter #2: *Also yelling.* “Is there a counter?”

They are standing in front of it. One of the nearby airport staff says:

Staff: “It’s right behind you, sir.”

Hunter #1: *Yelling to [Hunter #2].* “I don’t understand what she’s saying.”

He turns back to the staffer and half-yells:

Hunter #1: “I have to exchange dollars! Can I do that?”

Staff: “The counter opens at half-past nine and they will be able to help you.

It’s important to note the local accent doesn’t roll R’s or flatten vowels, so “counter” is “countah” and “past” has a long ‘a’, but her accent isn’t thick and she’s speaking slowly.

Hunter #2: *To [Hunter #1].* “What is she saying?”

Hunter #1: *Loudly and slowly.* “Can I exchange dollars? I… have… American… dollars… to… exchange!”

Staff: “Yes, sir, but the counter opens at half-past.”

Hunter #2: *Still yelling.* “Where is the exchange?”

Staff: “Over here, sir.”

Hunter #1: “I have to exchange American dollars. Can I do that? Does anyone here speak English? I want to exchange American dollars!”

Staff: *Who must have been developing a headache.* “Yes, sir, you can, but only at half-past nine, so you will have to wait until then.”

Hunter #1: *Bawling.* “I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

Hunter #2: *Steps in.* “He—” *Points to his friend.* “—wants to exchange American dollars, USD, and he wants to know where he can do that!”

The staffer hits the wall. She’s over it. Silently, she points to the ForEx counter that is two steps away. Then she turns away and goes back to what she was doing before they arrived.

Hunter #1: *Muttering to [Hunter #2].* “Service around here is terrible.”

A few years ago, we decided to bite the bullet and start paying a mortgage instead of someone else’s mortgage. We contacted a few reputable estate companies with a long list of our requirements. This would be our first time buying and we’d been planning what we wanted our dream house to look like.

One company’s agent requested we send her a text message and supplied her number, and then she told me I should resend our list of requirements as a WhatsApp message since it was so long.

The next communication I received from her was being added to a group with a few hundred other people, and she started spamming the group with several MLM pitches. She was involved with everything from Tupperware to Avon.

I was pissed off. I am very conscious of my privacy. I absolutely hate bulk emails where my email address was being shared with that person’s entire phonebook, as I know a lot of data mining happens and these details get sold off to spammers and less reputable companies.

I was considering simply leaving the group and blocking the estate agent, but the longer I thought about it, the more I thought about how it reflected badly on the company. She was creating the impression that being an estate agent for this company obviously didn’t pay enough to survive on, but she was also abusing the information given to her by people assumed to be financially secure enough to want to buy a house. I sent an email to head office explaining how she poisoned my perception of their company, but I didn’t expect a reply.

Instead, I received a call from the manager, not of that branch, but the top of the management chain, who apologised and said this wasn’t the image they wanted to create. The manager told me the estate agent would be reprimanded.

Soon after that, I was suddenly removed from the MLM shilling group and blocked by the agent. I received a lackluster not-even-an-apology email from her manager who just said they didn’t know how they could find us a home without any requirements.

I was done with this by then and just never responded.

This mother and a young kid come in and they purchase a copy of “Grand Theft Auto V”. I give the usual warning about beating hookers to death and stealing, but the mother brushes it off and buys the game

A week later, the kid comes in with his copy.

Kid: “Can I trade this in for something else?”

Me: “Oh, why? Didn’t you like it?”

Kid: “My friends said this was fun, but everyone’s really bad and rude, and I almost said a bad word to one of the black men, so I wanna play something else.”

Since GTA V is a really hot item in the store, and because his response made me skip a beat, he got a large amount of store credit which he used to happily buy some more age-appropriate games. I wish more people could have that level of introspective thinking.

Related:
Grand Theft Innocence, Part 15
Grand Theft Innocence, Part 14
Grand Theft Innocence, Part 13
Grand Theft Innocence, Part 12
Grand Theft Innocence, Part 11

I work as a customer service representative for a pet food manufacturer. If we have to replace a product, I will issue a voucher to the customer that is valid for a period of three years. The date at the top of the voucher will be today’s date (eg; 15 July 2021) while the expiry date will be at the bottom of the voucher (eg; 15 July 2025).

Luckily, in my few years of working here, I have only received this query a handful of times.

Me: “[My Name] speaking, how can I help you?”

Customer: “Hi, you sent me a voucher to replace the damaged product that I bought, but I’ve noticed a problem with it.”

Me: “Oh, I’m so sorry about that! What was wrong with it?”

Customer: “Well, you wrote the date on the voucher, but it expires on the same day that you issued it, so I already can’t use it! I don’t know why you would make it valid for only one day, especially as it takes a few days to be delivered to me!”

Me: “I see… Would you happen to have the voucher with you?”

Customer: “Yes, I’m looking right at it!”

Me: “Can you read me the full date at the bottom?”

Customer: “It says 15th July… Oh. 2025.” 

Me: “Yep.”

The customer will usually laugh it off, but I always wonder, who stops reading the date MIDWAY?! It’s not even a lot to read. How is it easier to find my number and have a five-minute chat, rather than finish reading a full date?