(I work at a take-away restaurant. It is a quiet evening, so I stand in the kitchen, washing the dishes, while my boss is taking orders at the register. I can hear her serving a customer, and then she comes into the kitchen and tells me that she’ll be at the warehouse for a while. I continue with my work until I hear an angry voice from outside, so I get out to check what’s up. A woman is standing at the register with a bowl of soup. When she sees me, she starts to shout even louder.)

Customer: “HELLO?! HELLO?! How long do I have to wait here until you come?”

Me: “Good evening. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you sooner. How may I help you?”

Customer: “Your coworker just made me this soup, and I can’t eat it!“

Me: “I am sorry, ma’am. What’s wrong with it?”

(The woman grabs a spoon and starts to stir aggressively in her soup.)

Customer: “You see this? This soup is too liquid! I can’t eat this!”

Me: “Uh… If you want, I can add more vegetables and chicken in your soup—”

Customer: “I DON’T WANT THIS F****** SOUP ANYMORE! THIS SOUP IS S***!”

Me: “Ma’am, I am terribly sorry that the soup is not to your tastes, but—”

Customer: “HOW DARE YOU SELL ME THIS SH**TY SOUP?! IT’S TOO LIQUID! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!”

Me: “All right, but you’ll have to wait until my boss comes back, because I am not authorized to do this.”

(She then continues to scream insults at me, getting more and more aggressive to the point that I think she will throw the soup at me, and going on about how the soup is too liquid for her tastes, until I’ve had enough.)

Me: “Would you please shut your mouth?! I’ve already apologized several times to you, and that’s all I can do for now. What… do… you… want from me?!”

Customer: “THE SOUP IS TOO LIQUID!”

Me: “That’s because it is soup; it’s meant to be liquid! Maybe you should’ve gotten a sandwich instead!”

(At this moment my boss returns. Without saying a word, she goes straight to the register and hands the woman her money back.)

Customer: “This place is awful! I’m never coming again!”

Boss: “We’re more than happy to hear that; now please get out of here.”

(I’m sitting in a diner next to a large family, and I don’t think they really understand what organic means, because suddenly I hear this.)

Woman #1: *presumably to the children* “Well, it’s organic milk. The reason it tastes sweet is because it’s from one cow.”

Woman #2: “And non-organic comes from multiple cows.”

Woman #1: “Exactly!”

(You can’t imagine the amount of restraint it took to keep my mouth shut.)

Customer: “Hello. Your board says that your curry is vegan; is that right?”

Me: “Yes, that’s right: our vegetable curry is vegan.”

Customer: “But it also says that you can buy it with chicken, right?”

Me: “Yes.”

Customer: “But then it’s not vegan anymore!”

Me: *confused* “Yes. If you order it with chicken, the curry’s not vegan anymore. If you order it without it, it is.”

Customer: “You’re confusing the customers! How are the vegans supposed to know that it’s not vegan anymore after you put chicken inside the curry?!”

Me: *whispers to myself* “Well, I don’t know. Common sense, maybe?”

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(My boyfriend and I are having a ride on a steam train. There is a group of other passengers at the other end of the carriage, talking quite loudly so we can hear what they are saying, but otherwise not being disruptive. One young lady from the group, in her early twenties, goes to use the toilet and a few minutes later comes back to her seat.)

Young Lady: “Oh, my God. I, like, just realised something! I always thought ‘vacant’ meant ‘engaged,’ but when I went into the toilet, I noticed it said, ‘vacant,’ and I could, like, walk in!”

(My boyfriend and I just raised eyebrows at each other as we tried not to laugh!)

(We sell, and provide service for, wristwatches. A man who appears to be in his mid-thirties comes in to our shop with a wristwatch which he has not bought here, but is in all respects a perfectly normal, conventional wristwatch — that is to say the crown is pulled out one click to adjust the date, and one click more to adjust the time.)

Customer: “There’s something wrong with this watch!”

Me: “Okay, let’s take a look at it. What’s the problem?”

Customer: “The date changes in the middle of the day instead of overnight.”

Me: “Right. Sounds like if we advance it twelve hours, we should have sorted it out.”

Customer: “I don’t know how to do that; it’s too complicated. You’re the expert; I don’t understand these things.”

Me: “It’s quite simple. If you pull the crown out all the way, like this—” *showing him* “—then we just wind it on twelve hours.”

Customer: “I don’t understand. This is too technical.”

Me: “Well, the hour hand passes the twelve twice a day — at midday and midnight — but the date only changes once a day. If it changes at midday, it means that it has just got twelve hours out of sync. There’s nothing actually wrong with the watch.”

Customer: “This is all too complicated. You’re the watchmaker; you understand these things.”

Me: “It’s okay. I’ve set it right now. It shouldn’t give you any more trouble.”

Customer: “Have you set the right time? Because it has been running an hour slow these last few weeks.”

(I hadn’t actually looked at the watch too closely, but it suddenly dawned on me that he probably hadn’t advanced it an hour after the clocks went forward a couple of months ago. I didn’t mention this to him, however, as it would probably also have been too complicated.)