Our fast food restaurant has two floors. The second floor is favored the most by customers, especially during the summer months, because it has a spectacular view of the nearby city and the air conditioning up there is much cooler. For some odd reason, the franchise owners have never made any expenditures to fix the AC on the lower floor.

I’m part of the closing shift, and it’s my responsibility to do a good deep clean of the second floor every night. Two hours before closing, I put a large sign at the bottom of the stairwell that says:

Sign: “Upper section closed. Please do not enter.”

At the top entrance of the stairway, I block the entrance with a row of chairs.

I can’t tell you how many times in the four years I’ve been there I’ve come around and found someone eating at one of the tables after I’ve closed the floor off, meaning they just walked directly past the “no entry” sign that was smack in the middle of the entrance, stepped over the chairs at the top entrance, walked over a freshly mopped floor tracking dirt everywhere, taken a chair off the table, and sat down!

The responses I get after letting them know the area is closed (while looking daggers at them) will always be almost laughable.

Customer #1: “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know it was closed.”

Customer #2: “I have a health condition and I get dehydrated with heatstroke easily.

Then take the meal to go?

Customer #3: “Who the h*** do you think you are? You aren’t the manager!

Sir, you do NOT want me to go get him; he’s been here for fourteen hours.

Customer #4: “I asked the manager already. He said we could sit up here if we’re quiet.”

The best one is yet to come. We were due for an inspection by the corporate office the following morning and obviously, the shift leader told me that she wanted that entire level clean enough for a hospital to have a surgical procedure in it. I wasn’t playing around this time: besides the sign at the bottom of the stairway, I dumped a pile of chairs in a turning corner that was halfway up the stairway and then placed three large bussing trolleys at the top entrance of the stairwell. I couldn’t have made it more obvious that that section was closed.

I was stripping and waxing the floors — anyone who has had to strip and wax a floor knows how ultra slippery it gets; anti-slip shoes are an absolute must — when I heard someone scream, “WOOOOOOAHH!” followed by a loud thud. I looked to see a dazed woman sprawled out on the floor with food items scattered every which way. Too pissed to see if she was injured, I stood staring at her with a “told-you-so” look on my face and pointed toward the stairwell entrance.

That actually wasn’t the best part. The best part was that this idiot had the gall to sue the restaurant for slip and fall because I didn’t put a “wet floor” sign out. It was tossed.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Company]. How may I direct your call?”

Silence.

Me: “Hello? This is [My Company].”

Caller: “Hello? Who is this? Is this [Medical Billing Company]?”

Me: “No, sir. This is [My Company]. We are one number off from [Medical Billing Company]. Do you need their number?”

Nine times out of ten, the next response is, “Oh, yes, please.” Not this time.

Caller: “I received this bill. It says, ‘[Medical Billing Company] Billing Statement.’ I’ve paid it off, but you guys keep sending it to me. What’s going on?”

Me: “We are not affiliated with [Medical Billing Company]. [My Company] does not send out bills. You will need to call [Medical Billing Company]. Do you need their number?”

Caller: *Aggressively* “Well, it should be on the letter here, don’t you think? I’ve got it. That’s what I called.”

Me: “You have reached [My Company]. You want [Medical Billing Company]. Their number is [number]. We cannot help you with your bill; we are not affiliated with them.”

Caller: “That’s the same number I’ve got! I’m in the right place! Why are you guys still billing me?”

Me: “Sir, you have reached [My Company’s number, emphasis on incorrect digit]. You want [correct number, emphasis on correct digit]. That is [Medical Billing Company]. You will need to call [correct number]. I cannot help you.”

Click.

My family — mom, dad, and boyfriend — and I have been traveling and have just arrived in the smallish city we’re visiting. We’re hungry, but the plane was late and it’s nearly midnight, so the only options are fast food drive-thrus. We figure we’ll make the best of it and pull into a famous burger joint.

The line is pretty slow for as few cars as there are, but we figure that at this time of night, they’re short-staffed, and we wait as patiently as we can. Finally, [Worker #1] comes over the intercom to take our order. Her tone is a bit short, but again, we brush it off as the late hour and dealing with crappy entitled people all day. We pull around for our food — four sandwich meals, as we are four adults — and wait, and wait, and wait. Finally, the window opens to reveal a very tired-looking young man, [Worker #2].

Worker #2: *Slowly* “Uhh… did y’all order a [Children’s Meal]?”

Dad: “No, we—”

[Worker #1] appears at the window, glares at [Worker #2], and slams the window shut. She comes back a few minutes later with our order, practically shoving it out the window at us.

Dad: “Thanks, could we get some ketchup—”

[Worker #1] slams the window shut.

Boyfriend: “Okay… I guess not.”

The food is passed around, and we start to drive away.

Mom: “There are no fries with any of these orders!”

We glanced back at the drive-thru, decided we’d cut our losses as we were too tired to wait more and deal with Miss Priss at the window again, and drove to our hotel. It turned out there were fries in our order, or rather, a single fry… at the bottom of Mom’s drink cup.

One of the biggest sellers of our store is bags of salt for water softeners. We sell so much of it that we keep several pallets of the stuff right by the exit and always ask customers checking out if they need some. They sell like hotcakes.

One day, I find that we’re almost out of one of our types of salts. I call plumbing so they can bring up another pallet for us, but it turns out that all three of them back there are way too busy to do that. I figure they’ll get to it when they have time, but half an hour and an empty pallet later, I have customers asking for salt and not buying any when told that it’s all the way back in plumbing. My boss starts getting on my case over that, and I figure the only option I have is to go back there with a pallet jack and bring one up myself. Sounds easy, right?

It is not easy.

I push on it with all my might and slowly creep toward the registers at a sloth’s pace, a feat only made possible by the flat, smooth, polished concrete floor. As I’m making my way up toward the registers, I do some mental math for fun, adding up the weights of these bags of salt, and realize that I am pushing just over a literal ton of salt, as in a whole 2,000 pounds.

As I’m kicking myself for not trying to find someone else who’s forklift certified, I turn into the main aisle: a very wide aisle, four pallets wide in fact, that’s a straight shot to the front. I creep down my final stretch and along enters our “wonderful” customer: a lady that walks down the aisle directly toward me. She apparently doesn’t notice the literal ton of salt in front of her, and she stops about three feet in front of me and my burden.

Now, the obvious solution to this conundrum is to quickly side-step and go around me, right?

Ah, but ’tis far too great a task for our “valued customer”, and she instead resolves to stare directly into my eyes with a look that very clearly says, “You’re in my way.” I return a look that clearly says, “Try me, b****.”

We hold eye contact for what seems like forever but really is probably a minute and a half until she finally relents and slithers away with a scowl. In this entire interaction, neither of us ever said a word to one another, at least not out loud. I make my way up to the front with my quarry without further issue, and though I expect to get a complaint later, I never do.

I was asked by a lesbian couple to donate sperm for them so they could have a child. I was personally quite honored that they had chosen me and agreed to help with the promise I could visit their kids on occasion and play with them after the birth but with the understanding that I would not try to play the role of a “father” since the child would already have two parents. They didn’t want to go through the expense of a doctor visit, so we were doing artificial insemination at home without a doctor present.

The second or third month of trying, I came to visit them as usual for the donation. I did my regular playtime with their son for a while before finally heading into the bathroom to “do my part.” Usually, once I finish, I hand off my donation and immediately leave so my friend can go do her part immediately without worrying about wasting time on awkward pleasantries. I’ve already said my goodbyes to everyone ahead of time so I can make a quick exit.

This time, just as I came out and handed off the little container with my donation, there was a knock on the door. It turned out that my friend’s father had decided on a surprise visit. After stashing the donation in her room so he wouldn’t see it, my friend answered the door, and eventually, she introduced us.

Friend: “This is my father. Dad, this is our friend, [My Name].”

Father: “Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s really nice to finally meet you.”

I had honestly never thought to ask how much detail my friend had given her father about trying to conceive. I didn’t know whether her father was aware of the fact that I was donating sperm or if it was just the general stuff you would hear about a friend.

To make matters worse, the father then held out his hand to shake with me. I should point out that there are conflicting claims online that sperm being exposed to air for too long will harm the donation. I honestly think this isn’t an issue for the length of time it takes to hand it off, but just to be safe, I try to rush the donation to my friend after producing it, and amongst other things, that means I put off washing my hands after producing it until I get to my car and can use my hand sanitizer there. While I admit I’ve never been taught what the proper social etiquette is for meeting the father of the lesbian you’re trying to impregnate, I’m pretty sure that, given what I had just been doing in the bathroom, shaking his hand is not recommended.

Me: “Oh, sorry, I’d prefer not to shake hands right now, but it’s really nice to meet you, too.”

Father: “Oh, ’cause of [health crisis]? No problem.”

We were all vaccinated at this point. Considering I’d just been manhandling their son, roughhousing, tickling, throwing him on a couch, and dangling him by his toes, etc., I could hardly claim to have been the most cautious about the crisis; I thought our vaccination was sufficient protection. Still, this seemed as good an excuse as any for not shaking his hand, so I settled for a non-committal sound before my friend came to my rescue.

Friend: “[My Name] was just leaving, actually.”

Me: “Yeah, sorry to run so fast, but I really have to go to get home on time. It was really nice to meet you, though!”

With that, I fled like a coward, mentally wishing my friend good luck with figuring out how to handle her father’s visit while on a deadline to use the donation.