(The founder of my taekwondo club has two children, both of whom are also taekwondo practitioners. The oldest daughter, who is ten, is polite and well-behaved, but the youngest son, who is six, is one of the worst spoiled brats I’ve ever met. He is always acting like he owns the place, doing whatever he pleases, and, when he was younger, throwing huge tantrums whenever he didn’t get his way. I’ve always disliked him because of this, but felt bad about it on account of his young age. I haven’t talked about it with others because nobody else seems bothered by him and might consider a talking-to interfering with parenting. This evening, I and one of the other taekwondo teachers are instructing the more experienced kids, and the son is among them.)

Teacher: *brings out a rope ladder* “Okay, time for warm-ups! To start with, run across this ladder as fast as you can and take two steps in every gap!”

Son: “No! One step!”

Teacher: “[Son], please just do as I say.”

Son: “NO! I only wanna do one step!”

Teacher: “[Son], just listen to me and do these warm-ups.”

(The son tries to protest a bit more, but eventually gives up. The rest of the warm-ups go off without a hitch, and real training session can begin. The kids are divided into pairs, we hand out the focus mitts to them, and they start practicing. Once the groups are done, they sit down onto the floor. The son, however, sits on his pair of mitts, which we aren’t allowed to do as they break faster.)

Teacher: “[Son], get off those mitts. You can’t sit on them.”

Son: “NO! I want to sit on them!”

Teacher: *getting fed up* “[Son], get off those mitts right now, or do 10 pushups!”

Son: *smugly* “You can’t tell me what to do, because [Founder] is the best one here. I can do whatever I want here, and you can’t stop me.”

(The other teacher reacts to this by essentially throwing his arms up in the air and checking on the other students. Overhearing this, I actually get pretty angry, so I walk up to the son.)

Me: “[Son], if you sit on the mitts, they break! And when they break, you won’t have anything left to kick on, and that’s not much fun, is it?!”

Son: *pouts* “Fiiiine!”

(He didn’t sit on the mitts for the rest of the evening, but I felt a little less bad about disliking him since. I’ve realized that this has reached a point where we actually have to talk to his parents, as I shudder to think of what’ll happen once he actually starts school…)

(I’m helping my friend pick out some new earrings and everything has been pretty normal up until this point.)

Cashier: “Hey, do any of you want to pierce your nose?”

Me: *laughing* “No, I don’t think my parents would like that.”

Cashier: “But you’ve already got a few!”

Me: “Huh? No…”

Cashier: “You’ve got one right there!” *points at a fairly large mole on my upper lip*

Me: “That’s a mole.”

Cashier: “Oh, okay.” *goes back to tidying a case like nothing happened*

(It’s kind of scary to think that a guy like him does piercings for a living.)

This story is part of our Mole Day roundup!

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(A customer calls in, requesting tips for how to get rid of the ants in his garden. I give him several tips but he is very patronizing throughout the call and rather rude.)

Me: “…or, if neither of those things work, come winter, you can try and freeze the ant-hill from within.”

Customer: “How do I do that?”

Me: “You take an iron rod and stick it as far into the ground as possible, and leave it there over winter, and—”

Customer: “So, how far down do I need to stick it?”

Me: “Well, as far as you can, to make sure you get it through their entire colony. One meter is usually recommended.”

Customer: *in a very condescending tone* “Hah, you obviously don’t know what you are talking about! Let me tell you, I live on the WEST COAST. The soil here is no deeper than half a meter at most! There is no possible way I can stick an iron rod a whole meter down into the ground. I would obviously hit the bedrock way before that. So there is no way your stupid suggestion would work to get rid of the ants. I could never penetrate their entire colony.”

Me: “…but, if there is bedrock half a meter down, the ants cannot live further down either.”

Customer: “Oh. I never thought about that. I guess you are right. Do you have any more suggestions?”

(He was very polite and grateful after that!)

(I am an optometrist, selling glasses and contact lenses. A customer calls me up to ask about some contact lenses I sent to him in the mail.)

Customer: “Hi, I’m just calling to ask you which of the lenses is for which eye!”

Me: “I’m sorry! I am usually so careful about these things. I can’t believe I forgot to mark them.”

Customer: “Yeah, it says, ‘Right,’ on one of the boxes, but what about the other one?”

Me: “Uh, then the other one would be for your left eye.”

Customer: “Great, thanks!” *hangs up*

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(I work for a well-known anti-virus company. A customer calls in to ask about the difference in her product and the other ones we carry.)

Caller: “So, what about the cheapest one?”

Me: “It’s got the anti-virus protection, but it doesn’t protect you from net phishing.”

Caller: “I see. So, what about the one that I’m using right now?”

Me: “Basically you’ve got both the anti-virus components and also a firewall, which is the recommended one for an average user.”

Caller: “Oh, I see. So the firewall will protect the computer from catching on fire?”

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