A large grocery store in my hometown is undergoing some pretty major renovations. Management has kept the store open during the renovations, because it’s the only real grocery store around — yay, rural food deserts! — so if they close, people are forced to drive half an hour to a larger town for anything more than convenience store snacks. This means that, on top of having to figure out the ever-changing stock locations, shoppers also have to dodge ladders, shelving units, racks of stock, and other hazards associated with such renovations.

Being a small town, most customers take the inconvenience in stride, with only mild grumblings of complaint, but one woman sees an opportunity and takes it.

I’m shopping at the store when a middle-aged woman enters the same aisle. We are the only two people in the aisle, and there is a ladder in the middle of the aisle where an employee had been changing signs before getting called away to another task.

After carefully looking around — and apparently, somehow, not noticing me — the woman slowly lies down at the base of the ladder and then starts screaming and thrashing around as if she fell off the ladder and injured herself. Several employees and other customers rush to the scene, and the woman starts screaming about how she’s going to sue the store for her injuries.

The store manager immediately apologizes, and the woman gets a smug look, believing her plan to be working. I manage to quietly shuffle through the crowd — somehow, nobody in the store has realized that I have been standing there in the aisle the entire time — and am able to find another manager who happens to be a personal friend of mine. I suggest to my friend that the store manager should look at the store’s security camera footage before agreeing to any settlement with the woman. Then, I quietly head to the register to check out and get out of there.

Unfortunately, the woman still won her lawsuit against the store. Even with the video proof of her faking the entire incident, the judge ruled that the employee should have put the ladder away properly when they were called to another task instead of leaving it set up in the aisle. As a result, the store manager decided to close the store completely while they finished their renovations to avoid any similar incidents in the future.

Fortunately, everyone in town realized that the store only closed because of her. She was also permanently banned from the store, so she’ll always have that extra hour of driving time, round trip, to the next closest grocery store to remember her victory.

I am the sole scale operator for a waste facility in a small town. Some of my regulars can be… obnoxious. Every now and then, I’m able to call them on their crap.

Customer: *Ranting about politics*

Me: “Okay, you’re all set!”

Customer: “What, don’t you agree? Or are you just not allowed to discuss politics around here?” *Begins to rant about free speech*

Me: “It’s not that, it’s that this place is literally a dump. We deal with enough trash around here!”

The customer shut up and left, speechless.

I was loading up my groceries after my weekly shopping trip. I was in the space behind my car, loading them into my trunk, when another car suddenly pulled up to pull into the space, immediately slamming on her horn.

Now, this was unusual, because the parking lot was half-empty. In point of fact, the spots on both sides of my car and both sides of the space I was standing in were all empty. There were also at least a dozen spaces further down the row, closer to the store, that were also all empty. So, this lady ignored all of those empty spots, deliberately drove up to the spot I was in, and then honked her horn at me.

No, I’m not playing that game. After glancing up at her and seeing her waving her arms at me, I turned around and went right back to loading my things into my trunk. She laid on her horn again and then leaned out the window.

Woman: “Ya need to move!”

Me: *Firing back* “You need to f*** all the way off!”

She jerked back like I’d walked over and slapped her. After a few moments of her just sitting there, she pulled back and then sped off down the row, fishtailing a bit as she went, before sloppily pulling into one of the spaces further down the way. She climbed out of her car, hiked up her purse, and then turned as if to stomp over toward me.

However, she immediately spotted me pushing my cart toward her. In truth, I’d finished loading up and was pushing my cart over to the return stall, which just happened to be in the direction of her car. The moment she made eye contact with me and saw me approaching, she practically tripped over herself spinning around and scurrying toward the store.

I am working as a waitress one evening when a young man comes in and sits down. He politely asks for an Arnold Palmer. Since it’s slow, I take a little extra time to make it “pretty.” The restaurant has those generic plastic cups, mostly in red, but a couple in clear. I grab a clear one, add ice, pour half a glass of tea, and carefully top it off with the pink lemonade from the dispenser. The colors sit pretty nicely on top of each other.

I bring the young man his drink. He smiles and tells me his folks will be in shortly; he’s just saving a table before the dinner rush. No problem.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later, the restaurant is in full swing and what looks like Mom and Pop come in and sit with him. I rush over to greet them and get drink orders.

Pop: *Pointing at the young man’s drink* “What’s that?”

Me: “An Arnold Palmer: tea and lemonade mixed.”

Pop: “I want one of those.”

I leg it to the drink station. Lo and behold, no more clear cups. I grab a red one and make the drink. Same process, but because the cup is red, you can’t see the color separation as well and it looks kind of tan/murky but not unlike a normal drink in a semi-transparent cup. I take it back to the table.

Pop: *Eyeing it suspiciously* “What’s that?”

Me: “Oh, it’s an Arnold Palmer like you asked. I’m sorry we ran out of clear cups, but I can remake it in a glass beer mug if you’d like?”

Pop gives me a side-eye before finally sitting back.

Pop: *Grumpily* “I guess it’s fine.”

The entire rest of the meal, Pops glared at me like I was trying to pull something over on him.

I work as a receptionist for a healthcare company that often helps people get started with disability, Medicaid, SSI, etc. We have locations across the entire country, with thousands of employees. The phone rings about fifteen minutes to close.

Caller: “Hi, I received this letter that says someone by the name C. [Somewhat Uncommon Last Name] is handling my application. I need to talk to them.”

Me: “No problem, one moment.”

I search by the last name in my directory and find four matches, three of whom have a first name that starts with C. I transfer the caller to the [Customer Service] representative on my list. The other two are in IT and Accounting, so they’re unlikely candidates. Two minutes later, the phone rings again.

Caller: “Yeah, I just talked to you. No one answered; I just got a voicemail. Can you get that person on the phone? It’s C.—” *Spells the last name*

Me: “Ma’am, I have three C. [Last Name]s in my directory, I sent you to the one I believed to be the most likely person. Do you have any other information, such as the department they are from? Is this regarding a Medicaid or Disability appli—”

Caller: “Three?! But it’s an uncommon last name!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am, it is, but we have multiple people working for the company with that last name. We have offices across the country, so there are bound to be some similar names.”

Caller: “But it’s such an uncommon last name! It’s [Last Name]!”

She spells it out again.

Caller: “I got this suspicious letter, and I need to find out what’s going on with my application!”

Me: “Let me send you to our general resolution line, and anyone there can at least pull up your information in their system and see what’s going on.”

Caller: “You can’t do it? Or get C. [Last Name] on the phone?”

Me: “I’m a receptionist and don’t have access to any client information. Let me get you over to someone who can help you.”

I transferred her before she could argue. As I hung up the phone, a delivery person arrived, so I left my desk to unlock the door and let them in. When I returned to my desk, I saw a missed call from the same lady. She left a very similar voicemail that I then forwarded to the rep. Sorry that some people within a nationwide company might share a last name?