I was in an electronics store browsing through laptops when I noticed a young man standing near me. He looked to be somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, neatly dressed in a dress shirt and tie with polished shoes, hair slicked and gelled back, and he was wearing a name tag that said, “Steven”. (Name has been changed.)

Me: “Hi. Would you recommend the AMD or Intel processors for graphics design?”

Steven: “Is this for like a commercial setting? Home office?”

I explained exactly what it was I was looking to do. He launched into a very thorough and detailed explanation of what sort of computer hardware was appropriate for what. He brought me to a couple of display laptops and gave a well-formulated recommendation of what he’d personally go with. He ended it by taking out his phone and directing me to some tech websites that would further help. I was so impressed with his professionalism and courtesy that I decided to buy the laptop to make it worth his while.

Steven: *Smiling brightly* “Great! Let me know how it works out, or if you have any questions or whatever; here’s my Twitter and Facebook.” *Scribbling them down and handing the note to me* “Gotta run now, though. Take it easy!”

Thinking his shift was over and that he’d helped me more than enough, I smiled and thanked him.

I bought the laptop and later left a five-star review, specifically mentioning Steven and praising his excellent job. The store responded to the review.

Store: “Do you have the right business? We don’t have anyone named Steven who works here.”

Oh, it gets better. I checked out his Facebook… and discovered that he was only fourteen years old!

I work in a restaurant. One day, I serve a group of teenagers who look around sixteen or seventeen. They order around $120 worth of food and eat pretty fast. Overall, they’re an “eh” table and I don’t expect to get a decent tip from them.

When it is around time to pay the bill, all of them get up at the same time and basically run out the door. The hostess and other servers try to stop them, but they claim:

Teenager: “Our mom is in the bathroom, and she will be paying.”

I didn’t even see them leave; they waited until I was busy before they dipped.

Here’s the funny part: at our restaurant, we have an online order system and customers (or whoever gives the name for the order) are able to pick up orders. We realize that one of the kids signed for and picked up an order before they got seated. We have the email and phone number of the person they picked up for, so we call up the number, and sure enough, a lady picks up. We tell her that her online order is ready to be picked up.

Lady: “Oh, my son should’ve already picked it up.”

Uh-huh.

Me: “Ma’am, your son and his group of friends dined and dashed. We’ll be calling the police if they don’t come back and pay their [$120-something] bill.”

Lady: *Sounding nervous* “Oh, they will come back to pay!”

Maybe a half-hour later, these annoying kids showed up again. They were loud and tried to make jokes about the situation, even joking about coming to drink next time. Not one of them apologized when they all took turns paying their part of the bill. No tip, either. Unbelievable.

I’m working as a floor manager at a restaurant. A server comes up to me, saying her table of four teenage boys wants to send two businessmen a round… of milk.

Me: “Do they know them?”

Server: “No, they just said they look like they could use something to take the edge off.”

Me: *Laughs* “Okay, seems harmless enough. Sure, bring them a round.”

The boys get a round for themselves, and the server takes two tall glasses of frothy moo juice to the suits sitting by the door. Now a collection of servers has joined me watching the confusion on the suits’ faces. One of them raises the glass and looks at the boys, toasting them, and takes a sip. The other suit, extremely confused, doesn’t touch his glass.

The boys finish their meal (and milk). As they approach the suits, all of us are staring at the group, expecting some s*** to go down. One of the boys points at the full glass of milk.

Boy: “Are you gonna finish that?”

The guy shakes his head, and then the boy picks up the glass, chugs it, and walks out.

I rush over to apologize for the bizarre experience, and the milk-drinking suit just laughs.

Suit: “Kids. What are you gonna do?”

I used to work at a retail store well over a decade ago. One day, I had someone around sixteen or seventeen walk up to me with a sheet of paper in hand. The kid’s whole demeanor was begrudging, as if he would really rather not be there.

Teen: “Um, excuse me. I wanted a apply for a job and wanted to know if there was anyone I could give my resume to.”

Me: “Oh. Well, we are looking to hire, but we do that all electronically. You can apply online at our site or at our electronic kiosk over by the customer service desk.”

While I was saying this, the kid looked back distractedly, then sort of slid up closer, and then interrupted me, talking a little more quietly as if he didn’t want someone to hear.

Teen: “I know. I’ve already applied online, but my dad is old and refuses to believe in the Internet. He keeps insisting I need to do it in person or I won’t get the job, and he’s driving me insane. Could you maybe just take this and throw it out later just to make him happy, please?”

Now that I knew to look for it, I noticed an older man standing back in the direction the teen had glanced earlier, watching us, clearly intent on making sure his son applied for a job “correctly” in his eyes. I made sure to speak up a bit in hopes that the father would hear me.

Me: “Yes, I can do that. I’ll make sure your resume gets to where it needs to go, and hopefully, our manager will contact you shortly.”

Teen: “Thank you.”

I got a relieved smile from the teen as he handed me the paper and went back to his dad. The dad spoke to him for a second and then clapped him on the back as if in pride, and they walked off together.

I had to check out the young lad’s resume out of curiosity, and it was a pathetic little thing owing to the fact that the only thing he had to put on it was a single summer job from the previous year. I found the whole encounter amusing enough to share it, and the resume, with my manager, though.  

The kid eventually got a job with us shortly before I left the company. Whether that resulted from his online application or my manager laughing over the non-resume got him noticed, I honestly can’t say. I’ve always liked to pretend it was due to the resume, though; there’s just something amusingly ironic about the thought that the father might have ended up being correct about how to get a job but for all the wrong reasons.

I used to teach tenth-grade English. One day, I assigned a twenty-minute writing prompt on the students’ dream life.

In my seventh period, I had a couple who had been dating for about three months. The boy was completely head-over-heels in love with his girlfriend, but he had some “unique” ideas.

After the twenty minutes were up, I asked for volunteers to share what they had written and the boy stood up to read his paper.

Boy: “My dream is to live off the grid in either Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska. I want to live in a cabin that I built with my own hands. I am going to have a farm and grow my own food, an orchard where I grow my own fruit, and cattle, chickens, and pigs that I’ll raise myself for meat. I’ll be living hours away from any real towns or cities and just have a completely free life where I can do whatever I want and be totally self-sufficient. My wife will help me build our cabin, she’ll bear our children right in our cabin, and we will homeschool them and teach them to live off of the land.”

Girl: “Um, I will definitely not be having our children in a cabin! I will be having my children in a hospital.”

Boy: “Honey, we’ll probably be three or four hours away from any hospital. Maybe more if we choose Alaska.”

Girl: “I am not giving birth four hours away from any sort of medical care!”

Boy: “You won’t have a choice. I won’t be able to get you to a hospital! You’ll be fine, I promise! I’ll know how to deliver a baby because I’ll have to help our cows have their calves.”

Girl: “Yeah, I don’t think this is going to work out.”

Surprisingly enough, they were no longer a couple the next day. He was much more heartbroken about it than she was.