(I load my groceries on the conveyor belt, behind a ton of groceries from someone else who is nowhere to be found for some reason. The only ones checking out in front of me are two kids with some candy, and once they leave, the cashier turns to me and the groceries in front of mine, which are obviously not mine.)

Me: “Yeah, I don’t know who these belong to, but not me.”

Cashier: “Hmm, that’s weird. I didn’t see anyone, either.

(A shabby-looking woman approaches with her arms full of more groceries.)

Customer: “Those are mine! I’m sorry.”

(She slips past me with the fakest apologetic smile I’ve ever seen. The cashier rolls her eyes and starts checking her out. The woman doesn’t pack up her stuff; instead, she just pushes it to the very end of the packing area, and she has a lot of stuff. Finally, at the end of the transaction:)

Customer: “Oh, silly me! I didn’t bring any… Wait… I am sooooo sorry!”

(Her fake smile says she clearly isn’t. She fetches a shopping basket from the front of the store and packs all her items in there. She starts jabbering about how the holidays got her confused, being such a hectic time and all — it’s just past New Year’s — while taking her sweet time and continuing to “apologize” with a huge smile.)

Me: *with the most friendly sarcasm I can muster* “No worries; I’m not in a hurry.”

(The cashier and I exchange glances; her eyes are silently begging for patience. Finally, the woman is done and leaves.)

Me: “Well, at least I can apply common sense and got a cart with me!”

Cashier: *head-desks* “She does that every time! And all I can think to myself is, ‘Keep on smiling! Keep on smiling!’ Ugh!”

Me: “I know; retail is hard and customers make it even harder. Good luck! Hope the rest of your day is free of crazies.”

Cashier: *sour face* “Wouldn’t count on it…”

(I am somewhere between four and six years old. I recently got my sister’s old bike and I can pedal without the side-wheels. Proud of myself, I take it for a spin through the street. One of the street kids comes to me and asks if he can take it for a spin. Gullible me says yes, and the boy takes it down the street and back.)

Me: “I want it back now.”

Kid: “No.”

Me: “It is my bike!”

Kid: “Now it’s mine!”

(The kid takes it for another spin and I start crying. Unfortunately, there is no one to help me and eventually, I just step into the road and spread my arms to stop him. The kid doesn’t stop. He hits me, drives over me, and takes off. I go home crying and my mom hurries me to the doctor because I am bleeding out of my head. When we get home, my big sister has gone to the kid’s house to get my bike back. This is how it went, according to her.)

Sister: “[Kid] took my sister’s bike. I need it back.”

Kid’s Mother: “No, he didn’t.”

Sister: “Yes, he did. It’s that yellow bike over there. It used to be mine.”

Kid’s Mother: “That’s a boy’s bike.”

(It somewhat resembles a cross bike.)

Sister: “No, it isn’t. It’s used to be mine and now it’s my sister’s.”

Kid’s Mother: “Your sister gave it to my son. He told me she gave it to him.”

Sister: “That is not true. My sister is now at the doctor because she’s bleeding from her head. Give me back her bike or I’ll tell my mom when she gets back. And [Kid] should stay away from my sister, forever.”

(My sister got the bike back and the kid became the local bully, picking on me more than once. I could never comprehend how a mother could think her son was gifted a bike.)

(I am standing in line at the cash register. It’s about seven pm and it has been a hot day, but dark clouds indicate that we will soon have some heavy rain. The cashier is helping a woman who is talking on her phone. I am behind her, and behind me there is a guy who is obviously a construction worker, coming straight from his job. I hear another phone ringing and the construction worker answers.)

Construction Worker: “Hello. Keep it short; I’m in the supermarket.”

(A few seconds pass.)

Construction Worker: “So, the job’s off? Okay, see you tomorrow. Bye”

(Meanwhile, the cashier has finished ringing the lady up, but the woman obviously isn’t finished with her telephone call. The cashier tells the woman the amount, but she just puts her fingers on her lips to indicate that the cashier isn’t allowed to speak. The construction worker steps forward and takes the phone from the woman. She looks at him in shock.)

Construction Worker: “You can get your phone back after you’ve finished your groceries so we all can move on.”

Woman: “I know you! You’re one of the guys that’s renovating my house.”

Construction Worker: “I was one of the guys. You didn’t pay your bills, so my boss called the job off. Now, pay for your stuff and get out; there are people here with important things to do.”

(The woman gets red in the face and pays, and after having her phone back she scurries away, but not after yelling to the guy that he hasn’t heard the last of this. She is just outside the shop when it starts raining heavily.)

Construction Worker: *laughs* “She will have a surprise. The roofers were just finished removing her roof tiles when their boss called them to stop because she didn’t pay them, either. They nailed some tarp on the roof and left. We stripped the inside of the house, so she’ll be living in a dump until she finds some new crews, because we’re not going back to that b****.”

(I would love to have seen her when she got home.)

I work as a sysadmin in a lawyer’s firm. There’s a department for civil law and a department for handling business law. I don’t know a thing about law; all I need to do is make sure no one has access to documents they don’t need.

I have set up a scheme of permissions to various folders and the owner has tested and approved it. Anyone working in the Business Law department has no access to files in the Civil Law folder and vice versa.

The son of the department manager of civil laws is having an internship for his IT training and his father thinks I can help him. I don’t think that this is a good idea given the confidentiality of the data on the servers, but I am overruled because the owner is okay with it – or at least that’s what I am told.

So, stuck with an intern, I try to put him to work installing PCs and laptops, but the boy isn’t really interested in working. He sits and plays with his phone until it’s time to go home. After two days, I’ve had enough of it. The next morning, I call him into my office and tell him that if he doesn’t intend to do anything there’s no reason for him to stay here.

So, he leaves. Half an hour later, his father calls me to his office. There I find the son sitting at his dad’s computer browsing through confidential folders and files like it’s his daily job. The dad starts complaining about how I’m not taking care of my intern. I explain that it isn’t my intern but his son and that his son simply refused to do anything I ordered him.

According to the father, I shouldn’t have ordered the boy to some work; I should have asked him. I see the boy smirking in the background, still browsing on the server and reading confidential and sensitive information about our clients. It is my job to prevent unauthorized persons from viewing this information, so I must take action.

I walk over to the computer, shut it off, and take the wireless mouse and keyboard with me.

Next, I’m off to the owner’s office, informing him that an unauthorized person has been reading confidential documents on our server.

The dad comes in and starts berating me, but he’s silenced by the owner. I’m told to go back to my office and find out what files the boy has been tampering with. I find out that he deleted files and folders and has been changing several documents. He did this mostly by typing some vulgarity in the documents, and in some documents he has changed dates and replaced names with lots of four-letter words. I print the changed documents, recover the deleted documents, and decide to restore yesterday’s backup. But this means that everybody most close the documents they are working on and that, in some cases, everything they did today will be lost. Also, they can’t work during the time I’m restoring files.

The owner calls me, asking for a “damage report.” I bring him the printouts of the changed documents and tell him what I have to do. The owner agrees and tells me to go ahead.

Sometime later, everything is as it was before. I call the owner to tell him that everyone can start working again. The owner tells me that the intern won’t be coming anymore and that I have to disable the computer account and the mail account of the civil law department manager.

The next day, I find out the owner made a deal with the department manager that if he’d resign no one would ever know the real reason why he left the firm. The owner later told me that he didn’t even know about the internship and that he never would have allowed it.

(I’m helping a couple order new curtains. They are deaf and we communicate in hand gestures and writing. When we’ve finished the deal, I see it’s time to get the breaks started and I go to the till to replace the first cashier. The lovely deaf couple stands in line at my till. I help a couple of clients and end up clearing my line faster than my coworker. While doing so, I cheerfully greet the clients. One lady in the other line is side-eying my line with suspicion. Once the deaf clients reach me, I stop talking and start smiling and gesturing to the monitor, etc., to communicate with them. It’s a big order, so it takes some time and I don’t speak at any moment. They leave happily and we wave goodbye. The lady from the other line has already finished her shopping and happens to be watching me for the last moments. Suddenly, she starts screaming at me from just meters away. All customers and coworkers freeze and watch her.)

Customer: “What the h*** was that about? Do you not know how to treat customers? They spend a lot of money in your store and you don’t even have the decency to say even a word to them!”

Me: “But they a—”

Customer: “No, you don’t get to make excuses. That was horrible discriminative behavior! I want to talk to your manager!”

(I am not inclined to bother my manager with this ridiculous woman.)

Me: “That would be me.”

Customer: *with even more disgust on her face looks me up and down* “I am never shopping here again!” *storms off*

(I never saw her again, but the deaf couple comes around pretty often and we always wave at each other.)

Related:
Deaf To Reason, Part 8
Deaf To Reason, Part 7
Deaf To Reason, Part 6