When I was in Uni, I took a job answering pay queries for the UK armed forces and veterans as part of a supported launch for a self-service admin tool. The call centre was the first point of contact for all queries, but there were specialist “back office” teams that dealt with complex queries.

After a couple of months, I was made part of a review team to figure out why a high number of queries were getting bounced from the back offices. One of the most common requests was for a tax form you are meant to receive when you leave the armed forces but which tends to get lost quite a lot.

I found that a particular member of the back office team had written a boilerplate script which basically amounted to “go find it yourself.” That was bad enough, but when I found one particular email, my blood started to boil.

A fairly young vet had emailed a very detailed account of his efforts to track down this form (which, honestly, was everything in his power). He then literally begged us to help because, if he couldn’t provide this form to the local benefits office by the end of the week, he and his family — including a young baby — were in danger of losing their housing.

What did my colleague do? That’s right, he just sent his standard reply and bounced it back to us. I wrote my manager a formal complaint and escalated this to everyone I could find until it was passed on to someone else in the back office team, who reopened the case. I don’t know if the first guy ever got spoken to, but I’d have had a few words if I’d found him.

I live in a shared house. My housemate buys a four-pack of chocolate doughnuts and puts them in the war zone we call a fridge… and just leaves them there indefinitely.

Obviously, the things eventually expire — still in their box, uneaten — but still, they sit there, untouched. A month elapses, and they are still there, and while they look essentially the same, I take it upon myself to throw them away, as I figure they’ll be spoiled for sure, and no one is going to want six-week-old donuts anymore, anyway.

Well, the joke is on me, apparently, as later that night, the housemate who bought them approaches me.

Housemate: “Why did you throw my donuts away?”

Me: “They’ve been in there for over a month. They’ve expired.”

Housemate: “I don’t care. I want you to put them back.”

So I grab them — FROM THE BIN — and do just that. Good thing I hadn’t taken them out of the box, or indeed taken the bin out!

I have no idea whether or not they were ever eaten, as I stopped using the fridge — and the kitchen altogether — shortly thereafter.

I’m putting an elderly woman’s shopping through.

Me: “Is that everything for you today?”

Customer: “You’re such a sweet young thing. Such good manners! When were you born, sweetheart?”

Me: “’02.”

Customer: “YOU WERE BORN IN 1902?!”

Me: “No, sorry. 2002.”

Customer: “Oh…” *Suddenly nasty* “You’re all stupid little s***s. F****** millennium babies! You should all be drowned!”

She then tried to hit me with her handbag. I can only guess that she realised how stupid she was thinking I was over a hundred years old and decided that insulting me was the best way out of it.

I work on the deli counter of a large supermarket chain. When people ask for four ounces or “a quarter” of an item, we usually ask, “Just under or over?” as sliced items don’t always weigh exactly four ounces. A mother and teenage son are shopping together, and he has an attitude.

Mother: “A quarter of ham, please.”

I lift a few slices onto the scale and show her that four slices is “just under” and five slices is “just over.”

Mother: *Smiles* “Just over, please.”

The son mutters and glares at me.

Son: “We asked for four ounces.”

He folds his arms and continues to glare angrily at me, while his mother moves onto cheese, of which we cut off a large block.

Mother: “Four ounces of the cheddar, please.”

I’ve been doing this long enough to cut accurately to weight, but he thought I was about to do it “wrong” again. I looked him dead in the eye as I cut the cheese and placed it on the scale for it to weigh exactly four ounces. It was very satisfying for him to register what had happened, blush, and storm off. His mother just gave me a knowing smile.

I work in a factory that makes parts for performance high-end cars with a very famous name and very expensive price tag. Of course, everything has to be supplied to very exacting standards. What people don’t know is that even small parts can also have high safety implications.

Me: “I’ve been reading [Customer]’s requirements. Did you realise we are supposed to be destroying the bad parts?”

Director: “We throw them in the skip; I’m sure that’s destroyed enough.”

Me: “There is a massive clause about this. I don’t think this is something we should overlook. There seem to be some pretty serious concerns here.”

Director: “Well, if you are concerned, speak to [Manager].”

I know the manager won’t care, doesn’t care, and doesn’t respect me or my job, so I try something new when I head downstairs

Me: “Are we destroying the defective parts for [Customer]?”

Manager: “Don’t see the point. They’re bad anyway.”

Me: “Oh, it’s just that [Director] wanted to know.”

Manager: “Oh, okay, then. I will make sure!”

He goes off and gets one of the guys to snap all the parts in half before throwing them away. He calls me over.

Manager: “There you go, ‘destroyed.’”

Me: “That’s great. Saved us a potential court case.”

Manager: “Court case?! What are you on about?”

Me: “Oh, someone got caught stealing sun visors from the bins at another company and was selling them online. The problem is that not only was it stealing from the company but also the sun visors weren’t crash-tested, which would be deadly. Not only a court case but massive bad PR. [Customer] sued and closed the factory.”

Manager: “Oh, I, err…”

Me: “So, is this all the scrap? This doesn’t look enough.”

Manager: “Oh. I, err… Yes, I am sure it is. I am, yes.”

Me: “Great! Then there isn’t a problem.”

I had no idea if that looked like all the scrap, but given how nervous he was, I suspected things were probably going missing.

Rumour had it that an employee was caught stealing our parts from the bin and was fired, but who let him and how he knew when the cameras were shut off is a mystery.