I used to manage a medium-sized convenience store. We open at 7 AM every day, and every Wednesday we start to get this customer who would wait outside from 6:55 AM, and then call the store number literally the second the clock turned to seven and say:

Customer: “Open the doors! You’re late!”

This would bug me no end, so one Wednesday I answered the call and said:

Me: “Oh, sorry. I was on my way to open the doors, but I’m the only one here right now, and I had to answer the phone.”

Next week:

Me: “Sorry, I was on my way to the door, but the phone keeps ringing…”

By week three, she had stopped calling and demoted herself to just standing outside the door, glaring angrily. I would open the door fifteen seconds past seven, and I would be rewarded with a huff and an eye roll.

Me: *Holding up a pack of wine coolers.* “You got your ID for the alcohol?”

Customer: “Yeah, but we’re not scanning it.”

Me: *Keying in the birth date while wondering where the “we” in this equation comes from.* “Sure, no problem.”

Customer: *To an older lady with him, as I’m calling for an override.* “I don’t let them scan my driver’s license because I keep getting their emails.”

The customer then proceeds to enter his store rewards card, which asks for an email when you sign up for it.

Sometimes I think I need hazard pay for all the tongue-biting I do around here.

I’ve been in my office job for a few months now. I’ve met most people, but I’m still getting to know a few. One guy is known as Caffeine Carl (name changed, but still begins with a ‘C’). I have never officially spoken to him, but today I need to check in on him for something.

Me: “Hey, Carl, you need to sign off on this and the deadline is today, so…”

Without looking away from his task, in fact, without moving at all save for his hands, he takes the document from my hands, signs exactly where he needs to (without looking) and wordlessly hands it back.

Me: “…thanks?”

He remains hyper-focused on his task, and I return the document to the manager.

Manager: “Get everyone’s sign off?”

Me: “Yeah… including Carl. Is he okay?”

Manager: “Caffeine Carl? Oh yeah, he’s fine.”

Me: “He seems, a bit…”

Manager: “He has more coffee in a day than I do in a week. Is it healthy? Nah. Has his left eye not blinked since April? Likely. Does he have the best productivity out of everyone in the entire office? Absolutely.”

Me: “Well… okay then? Does he ever talk?”

Manager: “Only if he really doesn’t like you.”

Phew!

I’m making small talk with a customer while I am applying a tattoo.

Me: “This is your fifth tattoo, yeah?”

Customer: “That’s right.”

Me: “So you don’t need me to explain the procedure of keeping the skin clean and how to avoid infection as the skin heals?”

Customer: “Yeah, you’re good. My skin heals super-fast anyway. Good genetics.”

Me: “That’s… cool. You must be descended from Wolverine!” *Laughs.*

Customer: “Oh, is that because if you go far back enough, we all came from wolves?”

Me: “Uh… that’s dogs. And I was talking about Wolverine, the character. The one who has super-fast healing?”

Customer: “Oh. I thought we all came from wolves. I hear that from my friends all the time.”

Me: “Maybe start fact-checking your friends…?”

Our store manager is one of the worst people I’ve ever met. A new cashier starts. She is seventeen, nervous, and three shifts into the job. She’s also just found out she’s pregnant and has horrible morning sickness.

Mid-shift, she’s in the bathroom next to the break room, loudly vomiting. The manager and I both hear it. 

She comes out pale and shaking.

Cashier: “I’m really sorry… can I please go home? I can’t keep anything down.”

The manager doesn’t even look sympathetic.

Manager: “If you’re not back here in thirty minutes with a doctor’s note, don’t bother coming back at all.”

The girl bursts into tears, runs out of the store, and, unsurprisingly, never comes back.

A few years later, after I was thankfully let go myself, I heard what finally happened to that manager:

She was escorted out of the store in handcuffs for financial fraud.

Some people get the ending they earn.

Related:
A Sickening Lack Of Empathy