Our store used to price-match pretty much every other price out there — online retailers and third-party sellers not included. Then, corporate completely changed that practice, restricting our matching policy to stores within ten miles with proof of price such as a receipt, an ad, or the website.

Some customers — usually the elderly or those who don’t have smartphones — ask cashiers to look up prices, but corporate said that takes up too much time so they stopped that, as well.

Another associate asked if we could hang signs at the registers, but that idea was vetoed because it seemed “too aggressive.” To top it all off, when customers get upset, we can only tell them “it’s policy” and apologize for the inconvenience.

I’m on register, scanning away and making small talk with a woman, when one of her items comes up. She is already on her phone.

Customer: “Could you price-match that for me?”

I am thinking she has a price on her phone.

Me: “Sure, which store and how much?”

Customer: “Umm, you tell me.”

Me: “Ah. I’m sorry, it’s—”

Customer: *Suddenly angry* “You don’t price-match anymore?”

Me: “We do! It’s just that I can’t look them up for you anymore.”

Customer: “Why?”

Me: “Corporate policy change. We do apologize for the inconvenience during this time of transition.”

Customer: “This is ridiculous. You’re so lazy!”

Me: “I’m just doing my job, ma’am.”

Customer: “Let’s see if you still have a job after I talk to your manager.”

Me: “Ma’am, I—”

Customer: “Call her, you idiot!”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

I call the manager over the loudspeaker, who calls back on the register phone.

Manager: “I’m on the forklift. What’s up?”

Me: “I have a customer who would like to speak to you about the price-matching policy changes.”

Manager: *Sighs* “Just… just do it. Explain you’re making an exception this one time. I gotta go.” *Hangs up*

Customer: “Well? Where is she?”

Me: “She’s currently on a forklift. I have her permission to—”

Customer: “I want to talk to her, not you. Do you understand?”

Me: “I do but she’s tied up right now. She said I can make an exception this time and—”

Customer: “And do your job?”

Me: *Through my teeth* “—and look this up for you, but it’s technically not allowed anymore.”

Customer: *Sarcastic* “I didn’t realize you needed special permission to do your job. Gosh!”

Me: “Would you like me to look this up for you?”

Customer: “Forget it! You’re wasting my time!”

After all that fuss, the woman stormed out without buying a single thing. She did, however, call and email corporate several times over the next few days to express her disdain for my attitude and how lazy and disrespectful I was. She got a gift card for her troubles, and I got pulled into the office to discuss my customer service skills. I quit not long after.

My husband used to work as a maintenance man at a large university hospital before he took a better-paying job at a local military base. One of the most vexing parts of his job was dealing with the robots that the hospital uses to transport non-crucial items such as paperwork and supplies. The hospital policy was that the robots had priority use of the elevators over hourly service staff.

Once, my husband was trying to respond to an overflowing toilet in a hard to access part of the hospital and there were seven robots ahead of him for the elevator, thus rendering him unable to quickly reach the overflowing toilet. Apparently, the toilet had completely flooded the bathroom before my husband could reach the spill, which created a huge mess that took my husband and other maintenance team members half a day to clean up and put the bathroom back in service. My husband has had it out for the bots ever since.

It is worth noting that the bots are fairly stupid machines that are unable to easily move around objects in their path. My husband and the other maintenance workers love messing with the bots if they get a chance. They once placed a slalom path of cones set five feet apart to see if the bot would go around them. The bot stopped at the first cone and malfunctioned.

The following exchange happens when I have an appointment at the hospital and we decide to mess with one of the bots at the hospital.

Husband: *To me* “Jump in front of the bot and see what it does.”

I jump in front of the bot’s path and it stops dead in its tracks and starts beeping. My husband and I start laughing like hyenas at the bot as it recalibrates and moves on. As we are doing this, a nursing student walks by and starts yelling at us.

Nursing Student: “What did you do to the robot?! You are hindering hospital operations! I am going to call security and have you both arrested!”

Me: “Arrested for what? A practical joke that did no harm? My husband used to be a maintenance man for [Hospital] and those bots hindered the operations of his job all the time!”

The nursing student sees a member of security, literally grabs him by the arm, and pulls him over to us.

Nursing Student: “These people—” *pointing at us* “—are hindering hospital operations by messing with the robot! You need to arrest them and ban them from the hospital!”

My husband actually knows this security guard very well.

Security Guard: “Hi, [Husband]! How is the new job? What is this young lady mad at you for?”

We explain that we were just messing with the bot. The security guard relates that the bots frustrate him and all of the other blue-collar workers at the hospital due to the fact that the hospital values the bots more than their service workers.

Security Guard: *To the nursing student* “Miss, I can’t arrest these people for annoying the bot. They didn’t vandalize the bot or hinder operations. The bot took a minute to recalibrate and it moved on; the bot is fine! Leave these people alone!”

The nursing student starts sputtering and accusing the security guard of being in collusion with us.

Nursing Student: “But the robots are more important than you low-level workers! The robots cost more than your measly salaries!”

The security guard is obviously annoyed.

Security Guard: “Leave now or I will have you arrested for breach of peace!”

The nursing student begrudgingly moved on and the security guard asked my husband if there were any job openings for security at the military base that my husband works at. My husband contacted HR at the base and put in a good word for him, and within a month, our security guard friend has a much better job working as a security guard at the military base. Why [Hospital] thought that robots were more important than actual human workers is beyond me!

When I am little, about seven, my mom takes me to a bank that is very quiet. I guess they don’t have many customers. I am bored and start climbing on the ropes that they have to divide the lines.

Mom: “Stop, leave those alone.”

I don’t listen and step on one of the poles; it flips up and hits me in the crotch area. I’m a girl, but it really hurts, nonetheless! My mom and the other customers look.

Mom: “Seeee? I told you not to play with those, and now your pee is hurty!”

I am embarrassed and in pain, and I stop. A few minutes later, a huge fart rips out of me and it sounds really loud in the quiet bank! It turns even quieter.

Me: “Moooooom! Excuse you!”

Mom hurried me out and took me home, and she put me in timeout for lying, which I deserved. To this day, my family still tells this story at reunions… which I also deserve.

This customer — a man in his late forties — is notoriously difficult, always fighting about prices, complaining about being the second person in line, and constantly reminding the powerless cashiers that he spends so much money with us, sometimes even going so far as to claim he deserves the most expensive part of his purchase for free because he is a veteran. The manager gives him a hefty discount just to make him leave. Wash, rinse, repeat.

One day, he comes in to sign up for a series of programs. I’m in charge of running the program and I dread having sessions with him, but they are nonrefundable after half the sessions are completed, so I cross my fingers and hope he will behave… or drop out.

Shortly before the lessons begin, he comes in to say he has a scheduling conflict and wants to switch to the other lesson on another day. This puts him in another associate’s class, which I tell him, and he says it’s fine. I write down the information, and he leaves, but not before tossing the paper in the trash.

Still, the day my program begins, he shows up and claims he never switched. As usual, he is an a**hole every class. He shows up late, gets on his phone during exercises, interrupts me, and even leaves early because he’s bored.

At the end, I ask participants to fill out an anonymous questionnaire to see how much they have learned and ask for feedback on how I can improve for the next group. I know exactly which one is his as soon as I see it. Several of the questions are left blank or have childish responses. For example, when asked, “Name one part of these lessons that you would change and how,” my star student drew a man flipping the bird and a woman with a dumb expression and the words, “blah blah blah,” all around her head.

I was later told that he demanded a refund because I wasted his time and he learned nothing. When the manager told him the sessions were nonrefundable at that point, he threatened to sue me, the store, and the corporation. Of course, he was issued a refund.

In my department, we have unflattering nicknames for all the recurring customers who piss us off. This encounter concerns a character we refer to as “Smug Christian Lady.” We call her that because she’s always very careful to hold her expensive-looking, leather-bound Bible up, with the title facing out, where everyone can see it while she shops. It’s so important to her that everyone sees her Bible that she always shops with a handbasket so she can use the other hand to hold the Bible up, even if that means making multiple trips to the store on the same day instead of just using a cart.

She also always wears a huge, gold, gem-studded cross necklace and literally can’t go sixty seconds without saying “the Lord” this or “my church” that.

SCL: “Hello, young man. It certainly is a marvelous day the Lord has blessed us with, isn’t it?”

I notice all the other employees have hidden in the back of the department where she can’t see them. I am resisting the urge to grind my teeth.

Me: “It certainly is, ma’am. What can I get you?”

SCL: “I’m organizing a luncheon for the gals at my church and need cold cuts for about twenty people.”

Me: “Uh-huh. So, what will you be needing?”

SCL: “Let’s start with some provolone cheese. I’ll take three pounds, sliced half an inch thick and then cut into cubes a half-inch on each side, and package each pound separately. And I don’t want them in bags. I want them in those nice-looking aluminum party trays, with some of those toothpicks with the different-colored plastic stuff at the ends.”

Me: “All righty. That will just take me a few minutes. Do you want the [Premium Brand] provolone or the store brand?”

SCL: “Oh, [premium brand], no question. It’s for my church. They count on me a lot there—”

She then gives a telling glance and an almost predatory smile.

SCL: “—and inferior things must never be allowed into my church.”

Me: “Right. You know, I have a nephew named Matthew. He’s six.”

She puts her basket down and holds up her Bible and pretends to read it in order to ignore me. Her eyes aren’t even moving.

SCL: “That’s lovely, dear.”

Me: “I want to get him a birthday present, but I don’t know what Matthew seeks.”

She doesn’t take the bait. The fryer alarm goes off, indicating the chicken is ready, but none of my coworkers emerge to deal with it. They’re still hiding from Smug Christian Lady. Finally, I step away from the cold cuts and shut the noise off, only to find her giving me a dirty look.

SCL: “You know, it’s very rude not to devote your all to serving the customer. Is your manager here?”

Yes, he’s hiding in the back with everyone else, but if I out him and make him deal with SCL, he’ll write me up.

Me: “No, he isn’t.”

SCL: “I’ll be sure to let him know he needs to put the fear of the Lord in his employees the next time I’m here.”

Me: “That will be fine.”

I finish preparing the cheese the way she wants it and weigh it up on the scale on top of the counter. When she puts her Bible down to check the price, she notices a typo in our computer on the digital readout.

SCL: “Excuse me, young man. You misspelled the word ‘provolone.’ It’s P-R-O-V-O, not P-R-O-V-A.”

Me: “I know. It’s a mistake in the computer. Whoever programmed the software must have done it.”

SCL: *Actually wagging her finger* “No, no, no. That won’t do at all. You do realize it’s a sin to lie, don’t you?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

SCL: “I know you spelled it wrong. You need to beg the Lord’s forgiveness for the two wrongs you have now just committed.”

Me: “As I just told you, ma’am, we don’t type the products into the computer. It’s all pre-written in the menu software.”

She responds in the nastiest, fake-sweet-sounding voice I’ve ever heard.

SCL: “Honey, you’re already predestined for Hell. Don’t make it harder on yourself.”

I’ve had enough of her s*** and my brain snaps. I grab the scale and rotate it 180 degrees so she can see the side I use and tap my finger to the misspelled cheese entry. Smug Christian Lady’s face turns bright red. She leans over the counter and gets right in my face.

SCL: “Now, you listen to me, you low-born degenerate untouchable! You do not contradict your superiors! This is your punishment for all the sex and drugs and hanging out with criminal vermin you did instead of finishing high school!”

I speak quietly, through gritted teeth.

Me: “I may have to serve customers, but I don’t have to stand here and be insulted.”

I walked out the back door of the department and left her standing there screaming and sputtering. Later, my manager told me he’d have to write me up for doing that, but he also refused Smug Christian Lady service for insulting our employees. She never came to our store again.