(The following exchange happens to my coworker, but I am less than ten feet away and have no customers of my own, so I hear everything firsthand.)

Coworker: “Good morning. Can I help you?”

Customer: “Yes, I want you to explain something to me.” *pulls out bank statement* “You charged me an overdraft fee on my checking account, and I want it reversed. I’ve never had a zero balance. I’ve been close, but it’s never been zero.”

Coworker: “Let me take a look at this.”

Customer: “See here?” *points* “You charged me a $12.47 overdraft fee. It shouldn’t have happened. You transferred $500 out of my account on [date], when it should have been $400. I’m trying to balance my account, and I’m $100 short. You took my money, and I need it back.”

Coworker: “Well, first of all, the overdraft fee is $29.00, not $12.47. What you’re seeing here is an overdraft transfer. You are signed up for overdraft protection, so when your balance gets to zero, it pulls from your savings account. This is just taking $12.47 from your savings and putting it into your checking. We didn’t take any money from you.”

Customer: “Well, it shouldn’t have happened in the first place! What about the $100? Where did that go?”

Coworker: “Again, we didn’t take any money. The $500 was transferred from your checking to your savings, so it was always in one of your accounts.”

Customer: “But it was supposed to be $400, not $500! One of you screwed up!”

Coworker: “I can just transfer $100 back if you want. And… wait a minute… Let me look at this for a sec… This says the transfer was done online.”

Customer: “No, one of you did it.”

Coworker: “Ma’am, it shows right here. The transfer was done online through home banking. We don’t have any access to your account online, so there is no way we could have done anything.”

Me: *cutting in* “You should have received an email confirming the transfer. I know I get one every time I do a transfer online. And you can check your transaction history online, too.”

Customer: *realizing she made a mistake* “Oh… Maybe I did do that… Okay, yes, please transfer the $100 back into the account. Thanks. Bye.” *leaves*

Me: “And this is why we can’t do telephone transfers anymore…”

(For context, I’m a young person and have fairly severe joint issues. This is overheard between two strangers while I am shopping in one of those buggy-type carts.)

Lady #1: “Ugh! I just hate when people pretend to be handicapped!”

Lady #2: “I don’t think she pretending; she’s skinny!”

(Uh, glad to know being a skeletal noodle validates my health issues?)

When I was in middle school, our district had a program meant to promote reading amongst students. Once you read a book you would take a short online quiz asking you about plot points and details from the book. If you scored a passing grade, you earned points based on the difficulty of the book. Near the end of the year, you could spend the points on prizes and the top students would sometimes get a field trip. These points were also sometimes used to evaluate teachers in the reading courses.

My class was reading the same book together, and every class period we would be given 20 to 30 minutes just for reading that book. I was the first to finish the book, so my teacher sent me to the classroom next door to take the online quiz. She told me to write down my questions and answers I received, as well. I missed only one question on the quiz, and following her instructions, I wrote down my answer, rather than the correct one.

I got back to class and explained this to my teacher. She scolded me for not giving her all right answers, and even let me know that she was “disappointed” in me. After that, whenever a student wanted to take the quiz, she gave them my answers so that everyone could use them to score well. The second student to take the quiz got the answer for the one I missed, so this means that everyone in the class got 100% other than me.

After she used me to cheat, and even chided me for doing it poorly, any trust I had for that teacher was ruined.

(I have been extremely sick with stomach issues for quite a long time, but have had zero luck finding a doctor who will take on a Medicaid patient. One day, the pain after trying to eat something becomes so severe that I ask my grandma to take me to the ER. We go to the main hospital downtown and wait. My mom eventually gets off work and comes to take grandma’s place waiting with me. Finally, after over eight hours, I’m called back. We sit with the doctor and talk about my symptoms: non-stop nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, exhaustion, unable to keep anything solid down, and so on, getting progressively worse over the course of more than a year. I’ve survived on an increasingly all-liquid diet all that time, so it’s clear something’s wrong.)

Doctor: “Well, you’re young, so I’m not too worried about it. I know you’re in school right now. Remember, your state of mind can really affect your body. Have you been depressed at all?”

(Yep, no tests or anything other than checking my blood sugar and doing a pregnancy and drug screening. I am discharged with basically the advice to try to relax and find a GP to discuss things with. Exactly one week later, I’m at home, and this time start vomiting blood pretty much nonstop rather than the usual intermittent basis. I call the nursing helpline for my Medicaid provider.)

Nurse: “You’re bleeding internally. You need to get to an ER immediately. Do you have someone who can drive you, or should I line up a ride for you?”

Me: “Well, I was literally just in the ER last week.”

Nurse: “Miss, you really need to go back. Is there someone who can take you?”

Me: “Yeah, I know my mom will take me if I tell her. Thank you.”

(Sure enough, my mom came to get me, and we headed for the one hospital in town not part of the network that ran the other one, as it was the local Catholic hospital. I was checked in and taken back within a few minutes, the doctor really listened, and they did tests, giving me meds to help with the nausea in the meantime. Turns out, my H. pylori numbers were practically astronomical, and the ultrasound revealed visible swelling where an ulcer was on the brink of eating through my stomach, in addition to the anemia and high white cell count. I effectively got there pretty much just in time. So, yeah, that’s my story of how most of the medical system wanted to effectively leave me to die just because I couldn’t make enough between my four jobs while going to school, and the one hospital that saved my life. Thanks to a scheduler in the local medical system, I have since found a GP and a GI specialist who are working on the underlying autoimmune issue we’ve since found, as well as getting the stomach issues under control that I was left with due to long-term lack of treatment.)

(It’s our policy at our pet store to clip the wings and nails of the birds that go home. We are advocates of keeping bird wings clipped, as we receive so many calls of people who lost their birds because they were fully-flighted and flew right out the door. I’m working by myself and have a store full of people first thing in the morning while I’m trying to clean the cages. One woman is here to pick up two birds she bought over the weekend when I was not working. She’s rather strange and seems to think I should know who she is and what she’s here for without telling me. When I finally gather from her which birds she’s here for, I start to get them ready to go home. The birds are nervous because of the chaos in the store, so I take them into the office to clip them. As I’m finishing, the woman opens the office door.)

Customer: “What are you doing?”

Me: “I’m clipping their wings and nails.”

Customer: “Oh, well, don’t clip too much.”

(I’ve already clipped them, but we never clip enough for the birds to plummet to the floor when they try to take off, just enough so that they don’t fly around the room and smash into window or mirrors. In the craziness, one of them snagged its nail. It bled very little, but the nail is loose and will probably fall off. My boss tells me over the phone that if it seems like the bird needs to be seen by a vet to bring him down to the vet next door.)

Me: “I just wanted to let you know that the bird snagged its nail a bit. It’s not bleeding, but the nail will probably fall off. It doesn’t look all that damaged, though, and I’m sure it’s going to grow back. However, if you’re worried about it, I can bring him down to the vet next door.”

Customer: “No, I’ve got birds; it’s not a problem. I can handle it.”

(Since the woman doesn’t seem fazed by it and says she can handle it, I send the birds home with her. Later that afternoon, my boss suggests that I call her to be sure the bird was all right when it got home.)

Me: *on the phone with the woman* “I just wanted to be sure the little bird’s toe was all right and it hadn’t started bleeding.”

Customer: “Yes, it’s fine, but I’m very upset about that whole fiasco while I was there. I intend to talk to [Owner] about it.”

Me: “What fiasco?”

Customer: “I am an experienced bird owner, and I did not want my birds’ wings clipped.”

(The birds’ wings were actually already clipped before she bought them, and I just trimmed the very ends of them. Mind you, the feathers grow back in a short period of time.)

Me: “I’m very sorry, but that’s our policy when we send birds home.”

Customer: “It should have been discussed with me beforehand.”

Me: “Again, I’m sorry, but that is our policy. The owner will sometimes make exceptions, but no one told me that you didn’t want it done.”

Customer: “I’ll be talking to [Owner] about it.”

Me: “Again, I’m sorry for the confusion. I’m happy that the little bird’s toe is all right, though.”

Customer: “Yes, it’s fine.”

(After that conversation, I called my boss to give her a heads-up. She said the woman was ridiculous and that it was our policy to clip. I know I had nothing to worry about, as the owner is very good about backing up her employees, but I like to let her know when she should be expecting a crazy customer to phone her.)