(I’m the crazy customer in this one. I’m visiting a much larger city which has a lot more choice on offer than in my hometown. I also don’t drink cow’s milk, only plant-based milks.)

Barista: “What can I get you?”

Me: “Ooh. Ooh! You do oat milk! Can I get a soy latte with oat milk, please?”

Barista: *puzzled look* “Umm… Do you want a soy latte?”

Me: “No, a soy latte with oat milk!” *understanding then dawns* “Oh. I’m so sorry. I’m so used to saying ‘soy latte’ to mean non-dairy. I’m not from the big city, you know. Can I have a latte made with oat milk, please?”

(It is my last call of a shift on a Sunday.)

Me: “Hi, my name is [My Name]. How can I help?”

Customer: “I have been given a weird telephone number.”

Me: “I see. Weird how?”

Customer: “It’s [area code].”

Me: “Yup, that’s the area code for [the area both the customer and I live in and where we have his address registered].”

Customer: “It should be [area code for the other end of the country].”

Me: “Odd. Can I just confirm your address?”

(It turns out the sales agent who processed the order processed it for the wrong address and postcode.)

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but it seems to be that the order has been placed for the incorrect address.”

Customer: “Well, I’m going to find [Person who placed my order], put my 9mm to his head, and blow his f****** brains out, and that’s a kindness!” *laughs*

Me: *silently typing for several minutes* “Okay, well, sir, that is your order cancelled. I apologise, as I will not carry on with this conversation any further.”

Customer: “I DIDN’T WANT TO CANCEL!”

Me: “I understand, but threats of any kind to members of staff will not be tolerated, even if you meant it in jest. I am very uncomfortable continuing this conversation with you any further.”

Customer: “WELL, I DIDN’T F****** WANT YOUR SERVICE, ANYWAY, YOU THIEVING BUNCH OF B*****DS!”

Me: “Okay, then. Goodbye.”

(Our high-level complaints team contacted the customer, who blamed his actions on having had too much to drink. Nevertheless, he is never getting our services again.)

I have Asperger’s and take instructions very literally.

My infants’ school had its own swimming pool, so we had mandatory swimming lessons as part of PE. In one of the first lessons, we had to do an exercise where we were told to hold on to one edge of the pool, and then push off from it and glide across to the other side. The teacher repeatedly emphasised that we were not allowed to paddle or kick. We had to keep our arms and legs completely still and just glide across from the initial push.

I made it about halfway across before I started to sink, but I did exactly what I was told and kept my arms and legs completely still even when I was almost at the bottom of the pool. A fully-clothed teaching assistant had to jump in and rescue me.

Funnily enough, the school never thought to tell my parents about this. They only found out years later — when I was no longer at that school — when something reminded me of it and I told them the amusing story of that time I nearly drowned.

I am employed as a technical engineer which, in my company, means building components on the computer and sending the instructions to an automated machine in the next building and occasionally walking between the office and machine shop to check the progress and make adjustments as needed. I have 20 years’ experience and am basically at the top of the pay scale.

Due to the amount of automation my job now entails, I have gained downtime in the day. Not liking to be idle, I tend to fill the time; I will refill the coffee, top up printers with paper, and do general IT support, and I have started training a few of the apprentices. None of these are official responsibilities but it beats sitting on my hands.

My husband and I — both men — decide to take a long holiday. I book the time in advance, schedule some upcoming tasks on the machines to run without me, divert my emails to one of the other engineers, set my work phone to divert to the main switchboard, and set off on holiday.

It’s important to note that while my work has my personal phone number, I have explained that this will be turned off as we will be travelling across Norway and will be pretty much out of contact.

Just over a week into the holiday, we book into a hotel and are told by the receptionist that there have been multiple messages asking for me to turn on my mobile. This is strange, as I didn’t share our itinerary with anyone apart from my husband’s sister. I turn on my phone and it instantly starts lighting up with missed calls, texts, and voicemails. My boss is getting progressively angrier and more aggressive, asking me to call back, but never explaining the urgency.

Thinking there must be some emergency, I call my work. My boss explodes down the phone at me demanding that I return from holiday, accusing me of sabotaging the company, threatening legal action. I finally get him to calm down enough to work out the problem; the printer has stopped printing. A bit of troubleshooting later, and it turns out the printer has run out of paper. I talk him through refilling the machine and he is all happy again.

Fast forward a week, and I am called into a meeting with my boss. He lays out how completely unprofessional I am to cripple the company like that and I’m told that I am being fired effective immediately. I take him to tribunal for unfair dismissal, and at the mediation stage between his lawyers and the union lawyers, I come prepared.

As well as over 60 texts, 40 phone calls, and 30 voicemails, he had called every hotel in the towns he knew we would be visiting. The union lawyers are claiming harassment, stalking, and unfair dismissal based on sexuality. His lawyers are obviously a bit shocked by this, so I play them one of the voicemails where my former boss screams down the phone, “You will regret this! This is what I get for hiring you, you f****** [gay slur]! Just wait; you’re dead! Dead!“

His lawyers pale, and in the end, I walk away with a settlement for more than two years’ wages. I walk into a new job a month later after finishing a second holiday to some parts of Norway we wanted to see previously.

My oldest brother’s first wife was smart about some things and fairly daft about others. She also always managed to find a way to blame anyone but herself when things went wrong. And no matter what you knew about a topic, even if you were the master of the subject, she always knew more and waved away any suggestions you might have.

So, after a class in college about British history, she says that she wants to go to England to see some of the sites she’s been reading about. And she wants to go at a particular time, which is also a window of time that my brother’s job requires him to be at work.  

So, knowing I went to England when I was in college — eons ago — she asks me to go. Happily for me, I have used up most of my vacation time and “regretfully” tell her I cannot go. (I would sooner have gotten into a ring with an angry bull than go anywhere with this woman.)

She asks her dear friend to go with her, instead. A lot of face-palming goes on among the family because we have all met her friend and not only is she a major lush, she is also another “I know everything about this subject which I have only just heard of” person.  

My sister-in-law calls to ask how I got around England when I was there. I remind her I was on a two-week guided tour. No, they don’t want a guided tour. They want to be their own guided tour. How much were cars to rent? I tell her it’s not a good idea to rent or drive a car since the traffic is reversed. I tell her about the railway passes and the underground/tube and how public transportation is so wonderful that you never need to drive at all. I beg her not to drive. The travel agent begs her not to drive.

Nope, they want to drive all over the country on their own. It won’t be fun, otherwise. (These are two women in their mid-forties.) So, the tickets are bought, the plane and hotels are booked, and off they go.  

We figure we won’t hear from them for two weeks.

They call the first night to let everyone know they arrived safely.

She calls the next day to tell my brother that her friend dented the rental car by turning the wrong way out of the hotel parking lot and now they don’t have a car. She calls that night because she can’t find her friend. My brother asks her exactly what he is supposed to do from East Coast, USA. She calls an hour later to report she found her friend in the bar drinking with a bunch of men.

She calls the next morning to say she and her friend cannot stand each other and she wants to come home and get a refund on the trip. My brother calls the travel agent and has to pay all kinds of cash to end the trip, change flights, and make sure she and her friend are on different flights.  

She complains for weeks about the trip and how she can never go back because the country was completely ruined for her. My brother reminds her that she took a person she knew to be a loquacious alcoholic on a trip and let her drive a car in traffic that she wasn’t used to.  

Somehow it is all his fault, my fault, her parents’ fault, and the travel agent’s fault that she hadn’t listened to any of us.  

I’m happy to say that when they divorced, we had a nice little celebration.