I work at a bakery, and I have become the cake consultant for weddings and special events. I get a call from a woman.

Caller: “Do you make cakes?”

Me: “Yes, we do! When do you need your cakes by? I want to make sure we have availability to take your order.”

Caller: “I need them next weekend.”

I let her know the sizes we can accommodate with this amount of notice: three sizes of sheet cakes as well as some tiered cake sizes.

Caller: “That sounds good!”

Me: “What sounds good, ma’am? What are you looking to order?”

Caller: “A big, fancy cake! We are just excited to have a fancy cake for the party.”

Me: “Could you please be more specific about the size you need? How many people are you looking to feed?”

Caller: “I’m not really sure. We just need a big, fancy cake!”

Me: “Ma’am, the pricing will depend on the size you need as well as additional charges for premium cake or filling flavors. I need a bit more information to take your order.”

Caller: *Angry now* “I just want a big, fancy cake! This shouldn’t be so difficult! Put your manager on the phone!”

Me: “I am the manager.”

Caller: “Well, this isn’t so difficult! We just want a big, fancy cake!”

Me: “I have explained to you several times now that I need more specifics. If you would still like to place an order, please call back with that information, but now I’m disconnecting the call.” *Hangs up*

Since the call wasn’t going well, I had walked over to the owner of the bakery while on the phone to ensure she heard what was happening.

The phone rings again almost immediately, and the owner has me give her the phone. Sure enough, it’s the same caller. The owner listens for a moment and interrupts, speaking loudly as the customer will not stop speaking.

Owner: “Ma’am, I have been standing next to my manager for her entire call with you and what you’re saying is simply not true. If you had told her a number you needed to feed, she could have proceeded to assist you with your order.”

Caller: “Fine! I will order my big, fancy cake somewhere else!” *Hangs up*

Owner: *To me* “I kind of wish I knew what ‘big’ and ‘fancy’ meant to this woman. Is the cake for a birthday, a wedding? Oh, and she said you called her an idiot and cussed her out before hanging up on her.”

My boyfriend works as an animator, recreating specific scenes of accidents, injuries, and surgeries for use in legal cases. Unfortunately, he is at the mercy of the bosses and middlemen above him when it comes to being given the details of the cases involved. He’s dealt with many years of inconsistent information and frustrating inefficiency that affect his ability to do his job. Here is just the latest example.

Mind you, the people contracting my boyfriend’s company for this case have all of the actual information about the people involved, but does that information actually trickle down to the animator who has to recreate it?

First, he’s told he’s animating a car crash, but he won’t need to show the car, just the injury sustained by the person inside. Okay. He’s told they want a side view of a man in the driver’s seat, suffering a head-on whiplash collision. He is given no photos for reference and no records, just this description, so the plan is to use a basic male figure, almost like a crash-test dummy, to demonstrate the motion of the accident.

Then, the man needs to have brown hair, despite not being originally supposed to look like anyone in particular. 

Then, it’s not a front collision; it was from the side, so it’s a side-to-side whiplash now.

Then, naturally, a side view won’t show this well, so it’s changed to an animation viewed from above.

Then, suddenly, the man in the driver’s seat is, surprise, now an eleven-year-old boy, and he’s in the passenger seat.

Also, they’ve told my boyfriend he needs to show the car now.

These are all changes my boyfriend is given once work is already in progress, over the course of a week or so. He suspects he’s at the point of needing to start over entirely, and even though he plans to prod his boss into verifying these details for him before he continues further, he has no reason to think he won’t end up completing the whole animation, and then a week later be given photos of the injured person with instructions to make it look patient-specific. It’s just the way this place operates, and yes, he is looking for another job!

Our small theater has a self-serve butter and soda station that usually has straws stocked in it. However, over the last month and a half, we’ve had a serious problem with the annoying local college kids from across the road coming in and secretly stealing copious amounts of our straws to take back to their dorms. We’ve unfortunately had to make the call to start handing out straws at concessions and limiting the number we can give to each customer. It’s the only way to make sure the situation stops.

A twenty-something comes up to the concession stand and buys a medium popcorn. He goes over to the butter station and then immediately comes back.

Customer: “Where are the straws?”

Me: “Oh, we’re handing them out at the concession stand.”

Customer: *With a crap-eating grin* “Cool. Lemme get about twenty.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’m not giving you twenty straws.”

Customer: “Come on, man, I need them.”

Me: *Bluntly* “You don’t need twenty straws.”

Customer: “I wanna do the butter trick! And I need some straws for my dorm.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but that’s exactly the issue. The straws are for theater customers, not dorm rooms. I can give you one for butter if you absolutely insist, but that’s it.”

Customer: “Come on, man! This is bulls***! I need those straws!”

Me: “So do other customers. I’m not giving you twenty straws.”

He stormed away without his straw for butter. He then came back and tried to get a coworker to give him twenty straws. She didn’t give them to him, either.

My company only has locations in the USA. All of the employees are also based in the USA, even all of the customer service reps.

Me: “Hello, this is [My Name]; how can I—”

Caller: *Angrily* “How long have you people been sending our jobs overseas?”

Me: *Taken aback* “I’m sorry?”

Caller: “I have been doing business with you people for twenty-five years, because I was proud to support an American business! And today I come to find out you’re outsourcing your customer service like everyone else?! Or are you just hiring illegals now, too?”

Me: “Sir, please remain respectful, or I will terminate this call. And I’m afraid you’re mistaken; all of our employees are based in the United States.”

Caller: “Oh, yeah? Earlier today, I called you people and I got a [Latino slur] on the phone named [Coworker]. Thick [slur] accent! Couldn’t understand a g**d*** word she was saying!”

While we have a lot of customer service reps, I happen to know exactly the representative he’s talking about because she has a very unique first name that can either be Hispanic or Italian. She is, in fact, Italian from Italy, and she immigrated to the US when she was in her teens, so she retains some of her native accent. None of this affects her ability to do her job, of course.

Me: “Sir, I am terminating this call due to abusive language, but before I do, I wanted you to know that that representative is actually Italian and a proud US citizen, like the rest of our employees. We, however, will no longer be doing business with you. Goodbye.”

I passed along his information to higher management, who unceremoniously banned him from buying from us ever again.

I’m purchasing some wine at the grocery store. I always have my ID out when I’m purchasing alcohol in case it’s requested, which is more frequent when I’m wearing a mask. Sure enough, the cashier asks to see my ID.

As I take back my card:

Me: “Thank you for checking!”

The cashier stops mid-scan as if his brain has short-circuited.

Cashier: *Mouth agape* “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten that response before!”