I’m working in a coffee shop. A customer is waiting in line to order, and she’s making comments about how much of a rush she’s in.

Customer: “Come on! Hurry up! I’m late for work!”

When it’s her turn to be served, she orders an obnoxiously complicated drink — nothing wrong with that, but odd considering she’s already “late for work” — and then proceeds to stand in the corner with her drink, doom-scrolling on her phone for a solid fifteen minutes before she rushes out.

The next day, she’s back, and we go through the same routine.

Customer: “I’m running late! Hurry up! I’m going to get in trouble with my boss because of you!”

Luckily, today, she’s being served by my manager, who has more leeway to speak their mind with the customers than the rest of us can.

Manager: “Ma’am, we are usually busy this time in the morning, so if you’re running late for work at this time, I would recommend coming in earlier to give yourself enough time to get to work.”

Customer: “You’re discriminating against me?!”

Manager: “How?”

Customer: “You’re not accommodating my ADHD!”

Manager: “Uh… no. I had no idea you had ADHD, but I am simply stating that it’s not productive to tell my staff to hurry up when they’re already going as fast as possible.”

Customer: “You should let me order faster because I have ADHD and I struggle with being on time. It’s not fair that you serve these other people first.”

Manager: “How do you know these other customers also don’t have ADHD?”

She doesn’t answer that one because — obviously — my manager has easily stumped her stupid logic.

She continues to come in over the next few weeks, and every time she’s in, she moans at us to hurry, ends up being distracted by her phone, and then rushes off after ten to fifteen minutes.

One day, she comes in around midday, which is unusual for her.

Customer: “You got me fired!”

Manager: “Excuse me?”

Customer: “My boss told me I was late too many times and fired me! I told them it’s all your fault because you always take too long to get my coffee!”

Manager: “Ma’am, I am sorry you lost your job, but it’s not our fault, and also your timekeeping is not our responsibility.”

Customer: “You’re all just as bad as my boss! You’re discriminating against people with ADHD who struggle with time!”

Manager: “Ma’am, if you struggle with time but you have to have coffee from our location every morning, then come earlier.”

Customer: “It’s sad that we live in a society that doesn’t accommodate people with a real condition like me. We should be looking for solutions!”

Manager: “They’re called alarm clocks. Next customer!”

She was ignored by the manager for the rest of her protests until she finally left. She hasn’t been back since. I also have ADHD, so I can understand the struggle to be on time. I also use multiple alarm clocks to ensure my issues don’t become anyone else’s issues so… no sympathy there.

A customer marches up to me, looking very upset.

Customer: “You opened at 8:59 this morning!”

Me: “Okay?”

Customer: “You’re supposed to open at 9:00! You opened a minute early, and a customer managed to get inside before me! What if they’d got the last macaroni?!”

Me: “Did you need macaroni?”

Customer: “No, you have some, but it’s the principle! I come here at 9:00 am and expect you to open at 9:00 am! If you open early again, I shall have to complain to corporate!”

The customer marches onward on their rampage. Another customer, who was standing behind them, now approaches.

Other Customer: “I was about to complain about something, but never mind! You’re good, honey! Jesus Christ, this is what you have to deal with? I need to rethink how I speak with you guys!”

Well, at least something good came out of it!

I can’t count the number of times my team, my department, and I have butted heads with upper management because they have no idea what the work entails, what it’s like to deal with customers, or even what we do.

One time, upper management’s bright idea for increasing productivity and getting the backlog cleared was not hiring more people — which we sorely needed — or anything else we told them would help. No, it was to decrease the time allowed for certain tasks.

Each time you did a task, it got logged. Tasks had a set amount of time assigned to them. Productivity was measured by the tasks logged versus how long you were there. So, say a task was normally assigned ten minutes; they wanted it done in five. You had to somehow get twice as many of those tasks in. They did not change anything about the process. They did not improve or streamline anything. They just decided they were giving us too much time to do the tasks and that’s what was causing the backlog.

When we protested, they told us:

Management: “We don’t want to hear, ‘It takes longer to do that task!’ That’s how long you’ve been given. Do it in that time.”

As you can imagine, this did not magically fix anything.

Times were based on the average amount of time it took to do that task — including things out of our control like how long it took the system to process things or move to different systems to process different parts of the tasks.

The most seasoned high-performing veterans could shave some time off, but not as much as the new targets. There was no hope for the average of even new workers.

I worked for a water company for twenty-five years and was one of their most productive repair crews — that is until the new manager started.

We had a monthly rota where you were on call for one week out of every four for emergency repairs out of hours.

On the day in question, I started work at 7:30 am on a Friday and finished work at 3:15 am on Saturday, so it was a pretty long shift. I got to work Tuesday morning, and [New Manager] called me into the office.

New Manager: “According to your vehicle tracker, you left the yard at 3:12 am but logged it as 3:15 am. That is an attempt to defraud the company!”

As you can imagine, I was absolutely fuming at this level of bulls***.

Me: “At the time, I was covered in mud and sweat, and I just wanted to get home after completing a monster shift for the company. Are you genuinely making a s***storm over three minutes?”

New Manager: “I’m making you aware that you could be fired for it.”

Cue malicious compliance.

Me: “If we’re going to be this petty, you can take me off the emergency contact list for extra coverage. And I won’t be starting twenty minutes early each day, either; I’ll now be clocking in at exactly 7:30 am, and I shall be heading out at exactly 5:30 pm, no deviation whatsoever. And you can explain to your bosses why productivity is down and you are struggling to get coverage for emergencies. We’ll then see how important your three minutes are when they are costing the company money.”

Little did I realise at the time that the guy’s job was bonus-related and linked to our productivity, which tanked after that because most of the other gangs followed my lead.

Three weeks went by with an absolute s***-show of customer service complaints about their work not being carried out in a timely manner. My productivity dropped from seven jobs per day down to four.

[New Manager] was called in by his bosses to try and explain what the f*** was going on. He tried to spin some BS story that I’d turned all the guys against him for no reason and that this was the result.

Little did he know that I’d actually trained his boss when he first started with the company fifteen years before. He’d wanted to come out and find out what we did and experience how hard the job was, and he’d surprised me by working a full month on the repair crews before going back to the office.

Anyhow, the boss called me in to find out what was really going on, so I explained how [New Manager] had used the tracker to monitor what time I’d left the yard and that I’d guesstimated my finish time and overestimated by three minutes because I was absolutely knackered after working a shift from Hell on call.

[New Manager] was let go for misuse of the tracking system as it was only supposed to be used for emergencies and not monitoring. We also had our on-call system reviewed to cut the hours we had to work.

I’m a nineteen-year-old manager of a local deli. This place is neat because the original owner was a loveable d**k who didn’t take s*** from the customers. This translates into how we treat people to this day. Anyone who has worked in the hood will understand you can’t show weakness as a business.

One night, I get a call ten minutes before we close. A lady tells me how much she loves our food and explains that she’s on her way to the airport. She has a huge order. I figure she wants to stock up for her house out of state.

Me: “Where are you coming from?”

Lady: “I’m in [Town thirty minutes away].”

Me: “We have a location next to the airport that’s open until 10:00, but our location closes in ten minutes.”

Lady: “Please wait for me and do my order anyway! Please! My food must come from the original location!”

Yep, I was rude. I said, “Nope,” hung up, and continued to close.

She arrived just as I was counting the money. She banged on the glass, and I just gave her a “We are closed” motion with my hand waving under my chin. Then, I ignored her.

She eventually left, presumably to catch her flight. 

I wouldn’t open that door if someone’s life depended on it when money’s out and it’s dark and I’m alone.

The woman later wrote a phenomenal complaint; she even accused me of being racist and the whole nine yards. She’d been eating there for sixty years, blah, blah, blah.

The owner set up a meeting with me, and I explained my side. We agreed that I was right since my main job is getting everyone clocked out by 8:30. But the way I’d handled it was not great. I agreed with that, too. 

They demoted me to server, so I quit. I started a new job in fine dining an hour later and celebrated with lunch at the place where I’d just quit. 

I ate there a few times a year over the years and was never charged.

That lady did me a favor, but getting a kid fired cause you couldn’t take my simple solution off the bat and don’t understand the word “no”?