We get customers who ask if we have items in the store; we often check our computer for inventory amounts. We are in the middle of a huge sale and management has asked for several high-priced items to be removed from the shop floor, as selling them during the sale means a loss. We tell all of our staff that they aren’t to be sold but the young ones never listen.  

Customer: “I want [item].”

Coworker: “[My Name], can you get [item] for me? There’s none on the floor.”

Me: “We don’t have stocks available right now.”

Coworker: *Loudly* “But the computer says we have seven.“

I dramatically hold my finger to my lips behind the customer’s back before I speak to the customer.

Me: “I’m sorry. We are expecting them back in the store, but they haven’t arrived yet.”

Coworker: *Later, to me* “I don’t understand. The computer said we have seven and that means they are in the store.”

Me: “I know, but remember us telling you that we aren’t allowed to sell them? And that if we do, we have to have a very good excuse for doing so or we will get a written warning?”

Coworker: “Oh, I forgot that.”

I suppose that having to remember something for the ten minutes between her being told and the customer wanting the item is a very long time for some people.

I work at a place where customers can try coffee without purchasing. We also have a lot of customers bring in their coffee machines and some who ask for assistance. We also get a lot of tourists in as we are located in the Central Business District.

A customer approaches, speaking in a thick American accent.

Customer: “Oh, I have a question for you about the milk-frother machine.”

Me: “Yes, what can I help you with?”

Customer: “It doesn’t work.”

Me: “What seems to be the issue? Is there a burn mark on it? Do the lights flash when you use it—”

Customer: “No, it just doesn’t heat the milk. Like, it will froth it, but it won’t heat the milk.”

Me: “Is the machine doing anything differently? Does the light flash when you press the button?”

Customer: “No, it works. I mean, like, the blue light means hot right?”

Me: *Deadpan* “No. That means cold; the red light means hot. Here, I’ll show you.”

I proceed to walk her through the heating and cooling and how red means hot, blue means cold. I also do a machine demonstration so the customer can see.

Customer: “Yeah, but blue means hot, right?”

Me: “No, blue means cold. The red light means hot. When you get in the shower, you know how the taps have a red ring and a blue one so you can tell hot from cold?”

Customer: “Yeah.”

Me: “Well, it’s the same thing here.”

Customer: “Oh, this is just so confusing. I just don’t use it. I mean, my husband does; he’s like a coffee expert so he’ll have to use it. The lights are confusing. This is just too hard! I won’t use it. Thank you, though.”

I wonder how some people survive their stupidity.

A coworker is always late in the morning; her excuse is the distance. We live along the same train line but her station is 25 minutes further away from mine; it takes me an hour to get to work on a train that takes me directly to the town we work in.  

One day, my coworker asks me which train I catch as I am always at work on time.

Me: “I get [Train]; it’s pretty quick as it only stops at [Major Stations] before it gets to the city.”

Coworker: “Oh, that one leaves my station too early for me and I don’t like stopping at all of the stations because it makes the trip so much longer for me.”

Me: “But isn’t that the last train that will get you to work on time?”

Coworker: “Yeah, but I hate all those stops, so I wait for [Express Train] which gets me into the city without stopping; it only takes 45 minutes and I am there not long after your train goes through.”

Me: “But that still makes you late, doesn’t it?”

Her train terminates at the station, so she has to get through crowds to change platforms and then wait for the next train to take her to our station which is four stations past the city.

Coworker: “[Manager] understands because I live so far away; he always lets me go home ten minutes earlier, too. Anyway, I am moving soon and will be closer.”

She moved a couple of weeks later and was still arriving twenty minutes late every day. This went on for six months until she forgets some keys. I was working reception when her manager let me know that they would be out of the office for two to three hours because he needed to drive her home to get the keys which were vital to his work.

Less than fifteen minutes later, they were back, and her manager looked even more pissed than he’d been when they left. It appeared that she’d neglected to tell him that she had moved to a place just ten minutes’ walk from work. She thought it was funny that she had been able to get away with it for so long.

She didn’t stay with us much longer, quitting because her unreasonable manager would insist on picking her up each morning half an hour before starting time, and she did not like getting out of bed that early.

([Coworker #1] and I have an ongoing game where we ask each other “would you rather” questions. Usually, we ask a question in passing and no one else is around. It starts off with “Would you rather live in the shirt pocket of a sweaty giant or in his shower drain?” and “Would you rather be a parasitic tick or a bloodsucking leech?”

It has progressed to weirder and weirder questions. Today we are sitting in the lunch room together and I don’t realise that [Coworker #2] has just walked into the room.)

Coworker #1: “Would you rather eat someone else’s eyes from their head or have your eyes gouged out with forks?”

Me: *answers* “Would you rather be shoved up someone else’s a** or have someone shoved up yours?”

Coworker #2: “Nope. No lunch for me today.” *walks out*

My husband and I are both Australian. I am white; he is brown and was born in Sri Lanka. My husband’s country of birth is unremarkable to most people we meet, but occasionally, we come across people who seem to find it interesting and want to express how “cool” they are about a biracial couple or about brown people by finding some sort of common ground. Usually, it’s just something as innocent as “Oh, my wife works with a Sri Lankan” or something equally banal, but this one is new.

We have a tradesman doing some work at our home.

Tradesman: “Oh, so, what’s your husband’s nationality?”

Me: “He’s Australian but he was born in Sri Lanka and came here when he was a baby.”

Tradesman: “Oh. So, where’s Sri Lanka?”

Me: “It’s a little island just below India.”

Tradesman: “Oh, right.” *Pause* “Nicole Kidman was really good in that movie Lion, wasn’t she?”