I have just started working at a restaurant. An elderly man is seated at one of my tables, one of my very first customers.

Me: “Hi, my name is [My Name] and I’ll be your waitress. Do you know what you’d like to—”

Customer: “Spaghetti.”

Me: “Okay, the spaghetti and meatballs, and would you like soup or salad with that?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Oh, uh, it’s included with your meal—”

Customer: “NO!”

Me: “Okay, no soup or salad, just spaghetti and meatballs, is that right?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll go get that started for you.”

When his food is ready, I bring it out to him.

Customer: “What the h*** is this? Where’s my salad?”

Me: “Oh, uh, well, you said you didn’t want one—”

Customer: “You’re supposed to bring the salad first!”

Me: “Okay, uh, sorry, I’ll go get your salad. Did you want Caesar, or—”

Customer: “No! Regular salad!”

I go back into the kitchen and ask the person at the salad station to make me one. While I’m waiting, I mention to another waiter what happened.

Coworker: “Oh, yeah, he’s a regular. He always gets salad and spaghetti.”

Me: “He was pretty adamant about not wanting a soup or salad.”

Coworker: *Shrug* “Weird.” 

Once the salad’s ready, I bring it back out to him.

Customer: “You know, no one’s ever gotten this wrong before.”

He didn’t tip.

I work at an exotic meat store. We sell everything from Kobe to kangaroo. I have never had a request that we couldn’t fill, until this call:

Me: “[Store], how can I help you?”

Caller: “Hello, do you have rabbit testicles?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry. We do carry Rocky Mountain oysters, which are bull testicles.”

Caller: “How big are they?”

Me: “About the size of a tennis ball, I think. I can grab some if you’d like the know by the ounce—”

Caller: “No, that won’t do. I need something the size of a walnut.”

Me: “Ah, yeah, I’m sorry, we don’t have anything like that.”

Caller: “Well, where can I find some?”

Me: “I have no idea, sir. I’m sorry.”

Caller: “Why not?”

Me: “I don’t exactly have a list of competitors who sell different sizes of testicles.”

Caller: “But surely you know where they sell them?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I’ve never personally sought out different kinds of testicles to eat.”

The caller hung up.

I work at a small department store. Our company has a rewards program that has been around for years. This year, however, the company is pushing us hard to get people to sign up. As such, they have put out a new policy; all employees have to get a certain percentage of customers to sign up for the program or they risk disciplinary action or even potential termination. These quotas are set by the company, though store managers can make them higher if they want to.

Our store manager, unfortunately, is one of those people with ridiculously high standards. For a while, she sets the bar at 35%, already a good amount above the company standard, and most of us are just barely able to reach it. After a week, she decides to double the quota to 70%. Considering how negatively received the program is and the very low sign-up rate, this new quota seems absolutely asinine, but our store manager nevertheless enforces it. Four employees at our store get fired and many others get written up because they miss the absurdly high quota.

But it doesn’t stop there. After those firings, the store manager decides that even 70% isn’t enough. Nope. She now wants us to sign up every single customer we check out and tells us that there will be no more write-ups for missing the quota, only firings. The only problem? Many of our regulars either are already members or are just plain uninterested, making it literally impossible to fulfill a 100% signup rate. Even when we point this out to her, she just tells us to figure it out. Our assistant store manager walks out on her.

Predictably, nobody in the store is able to meet the goal of getting every customer to sign up. And how does the store manager respond? By firing the store’s entire staff for not meeting her literally impossible standard.

This attracts the attention of the regional manager, who is very curious about the store’s staff roster suddenly going from over twenty employees down to just the store manager. I don’t know what exactly transpires between the two of them in that meeting, but I do know that it ends with most of us being reinstated with all benefits –aside from the few who found different jobs — the quota-based policy being permanently scrapped in favor of a more intuitive, incentive-based policy, and our now ex-store manager out of a job.

Our pool has a small concession stand that serves very basic foods: nachos, hot dogs, hamburgers, soda, chips, and candy. Customers are allowed to bring their own food into the park for a $5 “cooler fee,” which many are understanding about. One day, a staff member comes to fetch me, as a customer has asked to speak to a supervisor.

Customer: “Your concession stand doesn’t have any food!”

Me: “I’m sorry if they’re not stocked on something you wanted. Were you after something specific?”

Customer: “All they have is hot dogs! I’m [Religion] and can not have pork!”

Me: “They also serve hamburgers, nachos, and a variety of chips and candy. We’re not a restaurant, so most people know that we don’t sell a large variety of hot foods.”

Customer: “Well, since you don’t have anything my kids and I can eat, I want to have a pizza delivered.”

Me: “That’s fine! It will be a $5 fee for outside food, though.”

The customer argues that because “we don’t have any food,” he shouldn’t have to pay a fee. He repeatedly mentions his religion and that we are “not respecting his religious right to not eat pork,” even though we have other food he could eat. Finally, because we are busy and I have a long list of tasks to get back to, I relent.

Me: “All right, sir. Since our concession stock has been a bit low the past couple of days, I can waive the fee this time. But in the future, please remember that we are not a restaurant and we do not guarantee the availability of any particular kinds of food, so you should plan ahead.”

Customer: “Hmph. You should learn to respect other people’s religions. Not everyone can eat pork!”

His pizza arrived about thirty minutes later. It was covered in pepperoni.

Related:
Someone Is Telling Porkies

Me: “Thank you for calling [Office]. How can I help you?”

Patient: “I need to make an appointment.”

Me: “Okay, sir, what’s your name?”

Patient: “John Miller.”

Me: “And your birthday?”

Patient: “John Miller.”

Me: “I apologise, sir, I mean what’s your date of birth?”

Patient: *Pauses* “John Miller.”

Me: “Yes, I got your name, sir, but I need your date of birth now, please.”

Patient: “I don’t feel comfortable giving that to you.”

Me: “Okay. What about your phone number?”

Patient: “Just look up John Miller. You can’t have that many of those in [Small Town].”

Me: “That may or may not be true, but our office is nationwide. Your name is going to bring up every John Miller in fifty states, and if I narrow it to Texas, it’ll still be too many. May I please ask for something to help me narrow down your information?”

Patient: “No.” *Hangs up*