I’m planning a birthday dinner for a friend. One of her good friends is chronically late. Not “five minutes, traffic was bad,” late, we’re talking “the cake is already gone” late. So when we planned the birthday dinner, someone suggested what we were all thinking.

Mutual Friend: “Just tell her it starts at six. Dinner’s is seven. That gives us some cushion for drama.”

Everyone agreed. Dinner time comes. We’re seated at 7:05 pm. Food’s arriving, drinks flowing. The birthday girl is beaming. For once, things are going smoothly.

At 7:32 PM, in struts [Chronic Late Friend] in full glam and zero remorse. She plops down and looks around like we owe her an apology.

Chronically Late Friend: *Realizing something is up.* “Y’all not eating yet?”

There’s some murmuring from her end of the table, and it’s made clear that she was told six while everyone else was told seven. She marches up to me.

Chronically Late Friend: “That’s manipulative. Honestly, I’m hurt.”

Now the whole table is quiet.

Me: “No. We told you six because you’ve been three steps behind your entire adult life, and we were tired of planning our lives around your inability to read a clock.”

Chronically Late Friend: “I have ADHD!” 

Me: “You’re not late because you have ADHD. You’re late because you don’t care. And we just stopped caring back.”

Chronically Late Friend: “You know what? Maybe I don’t need friends who lie to me.”

She grabbed her clutch and stood up like she was making a dramatic exit in a soap opera.

Me: “Great. Be late to the next friend group, too. It’s your thing.”

She left. No one stopped her, not even the birthday girl, who looked so done by that point. The table exhaled like a curse had been lifted. And dinner? Honestly, DELICIOUS.

I’m helping an elderly customer. It’s a Wednesday morning.

Customer: “I’ll take two tickets for [Movie] for your 5:00 pm showing.”

Me: “I apologize, sir, but [Movie] doesn’t officially come out until Friday, and our first showings aren’t until the 7 PM pre-screenings tomorrow night.”

Customer: *Immediately becoming irate.* “But it says you have it online! My wife saw it online!”

I cringe inside because, as any movie theater employee will tell you, any variation of “It says so online!” is usually the start of a particularly problematic customer encounter. There are way too many people who just Google vague terms like “movie times” and take the first thing they see as gospel. Or people who don’t bother verifying the dates or locations and will end up with the correct showtimes… but for the wrong theater or wrong day.

It’s why, after working at a theater for a few years, I’ve gotten in the habit of loading up our theater’s website and Fandango once I head into work and double-checking to make sure they all match, just to be able to head off these claims if someone gets particularly persnickety about it. And I know for a fact that this customer’s claim is false. But I don’t want to escalate the situation.

Me: “I apologize, sir, but the official release date is not until Friday. We simply don’t have a showtime today.”

Customer: “But it says so online!”

This continues back and forth a few times, and I eventually offer to show him the showtimes on our website on my phone, but he refuses and becomes increasingly irate. He eventually decides to call his wife, as though… that would accomplish something?

Customer: *Holding up his phone, practically screaming.* “Here, tell them what you told me!”

Customer’s Wife: *Static-y Over Phone.* “Oh, I thought it said you had [Movie] today?”

Me: “No, unfortunately, the first showings for [Movie] aren’t until tomorrow night. It’s possible you saw our showtimes for Friday.”

Customer’s Wife: *Static-y Over Phone; perfectly perky.* “…that makes sense, I guess. Oh, well. Thanks anyways! Have a nice day.”

The phone goes dead, and the customer stands there dumbfounded. He then lurched forward and slammed his hands down.

Customer: “Tell me what showtimes [Competing Theater Next Town Over] has for [Movie] for today, goddammit!”

Me: “Uh, I have no way of knowing that, sir. But if I had to guess, I’d say none because [Movie] doesn’t officially come out until Friday. They probably aren’t showing it until tomorrow night, just like us.”

Customer: “Tell me when [Competing Theater] is playing [Movie]! I demand it!”

Me: “Sir, this is not [Competing Theater]… I have literally zero way of accessing that information.”

Customer: “F****** useless, the lot of you!”

He finally storms out.

Back in vocational school – a school you attend alongside the more hands-on training while learning a trade job – I, alongside a small handful of other students from my class, were excused from certain lessons/classes due to having prior higher education. Whoever made my class’s new lesson plan obviously didn’t take this into account. I am also a few years older than most of my classmates and thus legally an adult with all the mental capabilities to make informed decisions of my own – something that this school is/was evidently not used to.

Me: “Excuse me, Mrs. [teacher], our lesson plan shows that after your class ends on Monday, we have an hour of lunch, then four hours of [class I am excused from] and then one hour of [class that is mandatory (but completely pointless) for everyone with a teacher that is known for always arriving at least 15min late] as the very last class of the day. That can’t be right.”

Teacher: *Checking the lesson plan.* “Oh, well, I guess it is. It’s okay, though, you can just sit in the cafeteria during your free time.”

Me: “With all due respect, I am not going to be twiddling my thumbs in the cafeteria for five hours every Monday. I have better things to do with my time. And I’m sure so do [other students that are excused from the Monday afternoon classes].”

Teacher: “Well, [last class] is mandatory, so you’ll have to figure something out.”

Me: “…Alright then. May I step outside real quick to make a call to my workplace?”

Teacher: “Yes, yes, but be quick.”

So figure something out I did – by calling my really chill boss/trainer at work, explaining the situation to him, and getting his permission to skip class on Monday afternoon since I had straight A’s anyway. His exact words were “The f*** do they expect you to get done in that one lesson anyway?”

Two weeks of skipping Monday afternoon class later, my teacher calls me to her office.

Teacher: “So [other teacher] told me you’ve been skipping his class on Monday afternoon. I know you’re by far our best student, but that doesn’t mean you can just not follow the rules. I will have to call your workplace about this to let them know.”

Me: “Sure, go right ahead. I’ll wait.”

The teacher makes the call, looking noticeably unhappy upon being told that they gave me their okay to skip class and to not interrupt my boss’ work for ‘something so trivial.’

Me: “So, was there anything else you needed me for?”

Teacher: “…No, you may leave. But I will still have to give you in-school detention for missing three hours of mandatory class so far!”

Me: “You mean like all the detention [notoriously late classmate] has noticeably never gotten so far, even though he has missed at least half of every single lesson we have had first thing in the morning for… how many months now? That must add up to a lot more than my three hours. I’m sure you’ll want to stay after class to make up all that lost time with him too, considering his grades, if you’re so adamant about me skipping three pointless lessons of a class I’m acing.”

Teacher: “That’s enough. Get out.”

Me: “Gladly.”

I never got that detention, nor did the notoriously late classmate I mentioned. And that one late Monday afternoon class was cancelled altogether, another three weeks later.

Turns out I wasn’t even the only one who had skipped it, just the only one who had gotten permission by their boss beforehand, and yet the only one who had gotten a talking to like this.

It took a few more similar scenarios to this before my teachers stopped bothering me and just let me do my thing. I was still acing every class and finished school as the top student, of all classes of all years.

I work in a standard neighborhood bar. We offer cocktails, but we’re not a cocktail bar. That being said, we will try to make something off the menu if the customer knows the recipe.

Customer: “Y’all know how to make a Ramon Gin Fizz?”

Me: *Heart sinks.* “That the one with the gin, cream, egg whites, and lemon and lime?”

Customer: “And simple syrup! And a dash of orange flower water! Add the club soda, chilled, to top.”

I’m from New Orleans originally, so I do know this drink. My heart sinks because to make it properly, it requires a lot of shaking.

Me: “Normally we wouldn’t be able to make that, but it’s quiet, so I’ll do you a solid. We don’t have the orange flower water, but I can substitute.”

Customer: “…fine.”

Gee, grateful much? I start putting it all together, and as I’m thirty seconds into shaking:

Customer: “Hey. That guy down there got his drink faster than me!”

Me: “He ordered a beer. You asked for a complicated cocktail.”

Customer: “Yeah, but I was here first.”

Me: “And he’s drinking something that can be poured in seconds.”

Customer: “Yeah… but I was… here first!”

Me: “Sir, with all due respect, his drink had one step. Yours is a chemistry experiment with choreography.”

He sneers, and I get him his drink less than a minute later. Last time I go off-menu for a customer!

I’m at an archaeology conference and, naturally, the session I’m at is running late. The convener introduces the next speaker, and then, just before they begin, says:

Convener: “[Speaker], I’ll let you know when you have five minutes remaining. You have five minutes remaining.”

Fortunately, he was joking, and the session managed to naturally return to something closer to the schedule!