I work at a major sports arena. I once had a customer come up to me yelling about how the men’s washroom was out of toilet paper and how unacceptable it was for that to happen before the game had even started.

One: I’m female. Two: I’m a bartender.

After apologizing, I had to actually tell this man that it was out of my control and that with over four-thousand employees, I’m only responsible for pouring drinks. He still told me it was my fault and that I should do something about it.

It’s idiots like that that make an awesome job so very annoying.

I work at a football stadium as an usher, mainly giving directions to customers. Most of them are okay, but we get the odd one who gets aggressive and angry, especially if they’ve been drinking.

The toilets are placed around the first floor of the stadium, about 100 meters apart, with male and female toilets alternating. I am stationed outside the female toilet when a male customer asks for directions to the male toilet. I point to the left.

Me: “Just down that way.”

Customer: “How far is it?”

Me: “About a hundred meters.”

He starts yelling.

Customer: “What?! Why is it so far? How come the male toilet is so far away when the female toilet is right here?”

Me: “Every second toilet is a men’s toilet so—”

Customer: “It’s discrimination! I’m not going all the way down there!”

There is also another men’s toilet down the stairs opposite me, but I usually don’t suggest it first because most customers seem to hate using stairs. I realise that some people have genuine reasons for not wanting to or not being able to, but I doubt that is the case here.

Me: “Well, if you head down those stairs, just one flight down—”

Customer: “I’m not using stairs!”

Me: “…”

Customer: “Well?”

Me: “The men’s toilets are located down those stairs on the landing or a hundred meters to the left.”

He kept yelling and spluttering for a minute or two before, presumably, his bladder got the better of him and he headed off to the left. I don’t know how he expected me to move the toilets closer for him with my mind.

I work as an usher in a football stadium, mostly giving directions to customers. Sometimes they don’t believe me when I tell them where things are, so I have to wonder why they even asked me if they didn’t think I would know.

Customer: “Can you tell me where the [Popular Fast Food Chain] is?”

Me: *Pointing* “It’s down there to the right.”

Customer: “No, it’s not!”

Me: “I can assure you that it is. I can show you on the map if you like.”

Customer: “I’ve just been down there and it’s not there!”

Me: “Perhaps you didn’t walk far enough? It’s about 300 meters—”

Customer: “It’s not there!”

Me: “Um… Well, it was there this morning when I passed it on my way here from the break room.”

He called me some insulting names and stormed off in the wrong direction. The stadium is round, so if he walked far enough, he would eventually get to his destination that way; it would just take him quite a while.

I coach for a major youth sports club. The club sports scene is governed by a National Organization that hosts the National Championship Tournament every summer. There are a bunch of local regions all under the National Organization so that teams can compete locally ahead of the National Tournaments.

Our local region is known for being insanely cheap and cutting corners wherever possible to save themselves a penny. This tournament is being held three hours from my hometown, well off the beaten path, and there are no referees, so coaches for a team that isn’t playing have to ref. My team has just finished reffing when a tournament official approaches me.

Official: “Hi, I need you to do me a favor.”

Me: “What’s that?”

Official: “Your pool of teams has finished rather quickly. I’ve got two more matches still to be played in another pool, so I’m moving one of those matches over to this court, and you’ll be the officials. That way we get done quicker. So, you won’t have any time for lunch, but we’ll leave sooner.”

Me: “Wait a second. You want me to ref an extra match and skip lunch? How much am I getting paid for this?”

Official: “We don’t pay coaches to ref. You know that. You’re doing this as a favor to me.”

Me: “Uh, no. If you want me to skip lunch and do extra work I’m not required to do, I’m going to need to be paid. I’ll do it for $200.”

Official: “Again, we don’t pay coaches to ref. You’re doing it as a volunteer. Think of it as your good deed for the day.”

Me: “Sorry, but I’m not reffing out of the goodness of my heart. $200 or I’m not doing it.”

Official: “You can’t just demand $200 from us. We have a payment system. If you were working for us as an official, you’d get $20 per match. We don’t pay refs more than that, ever. $200 is practically a whole day’s worth of work. I’m only getting paid $150 for today, and I have to be here from 6:00 am until probably 9:00 or 10:00 pm, with no breaks.”

Me: “That really sucks. But I’m hungry, so I’m done here. Goodbye.”

I honestly felt a little bad that she was working a tough and thankless job for under minimum wage.

My amazing wife bought a pass that allows our family of five (sometimes seven) to go to many events on the cheap. Last night, we saw the Rattlers play against the IFL’s (Indoor Football League) newest team, the Frisco Fighters. It was a great game — one that a certain couple didn’t get to see, thanks to some (presumably)-malicious compliance on the part of the ticket scanner.

We were waiting in line, waiting for our tickets to scan, and noticed a couple in front of us getting very fidgety with their middle school twins, yelling at them to pull up the tickets on their phones. They made it a race as if everything was a competition for these girls. [Twin #2] won (I lost that bet with my wife) just in time to get scanned. All that, and the young man scanning didn’t take his magic wand and scan their phone; he just looked and nodded them through, about ready to move on to us.

But alas, it was not to be!

The mother started flipping out.

Mother: “But you didn’t scan us!”

Ticket Scanner: “Ma’am, you’re good to go.”

He then turned back to us to scan our tickets (which were also readied by our kid), saying as he made eye contact with us:

Ticket Scanner: “Hey, man, some people don’t get it; if I say you’re good to go, you are. Got no problem with me, you’re problem-free.”

He said it so rhythmically that nothing I could write could do justice to just how melodically he almost sang this utterance. It was like a catchphrase.

All of a sudden, the mother started whispering-shouting, probably because security was right there:

Mother: “This is America! For all of our safety, I demand that you scan each of our tickets!”

The young man told us, with his eyes more than anything, “Watch this…”

Ticket Scanner: *To the mother* “Are ya sure?”

Mother: “Positive! You know the—”

She was about to ramble on when the scanning machine suddenly made a weird noise — the noise of rejection.

Ticket Scanner: *In an overly-emphatic, sad voice* “Ma’am, I’m so sorry. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this ticket is for our next home game. See the date?”

Mother: “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

And she turned with her disappointed-looking family and disappeared into the crowd.

Ticket Scanner: *To us, smiling all the way* “I saw that date, saw that different helmet color… I tried to help them out, man. No one wants to listen. No one cooperates.” *Shrugs*