(I work at an organic fast food walk-up counter at the airport; we don’t really have time to waste with any single customer. Working at an organic restaurant that serves vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options, you have to learn all about what goes in the food, so I am pretty well-informed. A man walks up with his young daughter. We don’t have a kids’ menu, but we have some soups that people usually get for their kids.)

Me: “Thank you for coming to [Fast Food Place]! What can I do for you?”

Customer: “Hi. We had a question about the green chicken chili.”

Me: “Absolutely, what would you like to know?”

Customer: “What makes the green chicken chili green?”

Me: “The green chili peppers.”

Customer: *exasperated* “Okay, but what makes those green?”

Me: “Uh… pigment?”

(He looked kind of abashed, but they ended up getting the chili, nonetheless)

(I am the shift lead at an understaffed ice cream shop that opens at three pm every day. The back of our shop is against a golf course. One day, I come out to find our dumpster full of grass clippings. The golf course has emptied their mowers there. I mention it to the owner over the phone, as he never came in.)

Boss: “What? Go over and give them a talking to. Our contract with the garbage company says all trash has to be bagged, and forbids lawn clippings! They will fine us for this!”

Me: “Um, we are usually too understaffed for me to step out. Maybe you could come and talk to them?”

Boss: “Do it on your own time, then! I’m not going to pay someone overtime just to talk to them! This has to stop!”

(Instead, I call the golf course during my shift. I basically get laughed at. Two weeks later, our dumpster is full of grass clippings and broken paver stones. The garbage company fines the owner an additional $50, and he calls me, furious.)

Boss: “I’m not paying an additional $50! Why did you let this happen again?”

Me: “I tried calling them and—”

Boss: “I told you, go over there one morning! Calling them won’t work!”

Me: “I’m not willing to do that on my own time. Anyway, I have another solution. I talked to the garbage guy, and he says that for $5 more a month, we can switch to a dumpster with a lock.”

Boss: “Five dollars a month! That’s ridiculous!”

(The third time it happens, I come out the next day to find a guy sitting by the dumpster in a lawn chair.)

Me: “What are you doing?”

Dumpster Guard: “Hey, my uncle hired me to guard the dumpster every morning and make sure no one uses it.”

Me: “You’re… guarding the dumpster. How much is your uncle paying you?”

Dumpster Guard: “$10 an hour. Sweet summer job, right?”

(He was paid more than any employee in the understaffed shop! Unsurprisingly, the ice cream shop closed the next year.)

(I am seventeen, waitressing for a small-town restaurant run by a family. The only people that work there besides me are the two male owners and their four sons of various ages. I am the only girl. It’s a really small town, full of older people, so I often am requested just because I am female, or given winks and stuff from older gentlemen, which I normally just ignore.)

Male Customer: *in his late 50s* “Nice legs. When do they open?”

(I then “accidentally” spill hot coffee on his leg.)

Me: “Oh! I’m so sorry; let me get you a towel.”

(I run to the back while listening to the guy start cursing loudly in the dining room. Both owners and all the brothers come over and ask what happened. I explain, and they all drop what they are doing and go out to the dining room to the customer. They crowd around him and then tell him to get out. They tell him that they don’t care about what I did because he deserved it.)

My Next Table: “Wow. You must be the sister.”

Me: “Nope.”

(I love that family.)

(I’m chatting on the phone with a friend. I recently told her I was pregnant.)

Friend: “So, how far along are you now?”

Me: “Uh, about 26 weeks.”

Friend: *in a disgusted tone* “Ew, no. Don’t do that. Don’t go by weeks. Go by months. Gross.”

Me: “Developmentally, there’s a difference. My doctor and my tracker app say 26 weeks, so I’ve been going by that.”

Friend: “Ew. That’s just too much. Months. How many months are you?”

Me: *internally sighing* “Well, if you can’t do the math, six and a half months. “

Friend: “That’s better. So, when you have your baby, I was planning to take the next day or two off from work and come over and hang out, and stay the night. But I’m not changing any diapers or nothing. So don’t ask.”

Me: *looking for a polite way to tell her no* “Um, I’ll probably be in the hospital for a couple of days.”

Friend: “So? I can sleep in your hospital room.”

Me: “Well, it’s just that we all know how you feel about hospitals. I wouldn’t think you’d be very comfortable.”

Friend: “Huh. Good point. I can just stay at your apartment, then. You’ll have to send me your address, though. I don’t know how to get there. Ooh, and I’ll need a copy of your key. And I’ll make you a copy of mine, so we can hang out whenever, and since you’ll have a baby, you won’t have to get up to answer the door or let me in or whatever.”

Me: *not having the energy for this* “Well, we’re doing some renovations right now, so we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

(When I hang up, I make a mental note not to tell her when I go into labor. We meet up for a girl’s night at her place three weeks later. Unfortunately, I go into labor in the middle of the night, and end up slipping out during the wee hours of the morning to go to the hospital. She blows up my phone all day, wanting to know what’s happening, did I give birth yet, is it “real labor,” etc. I don’t respond until dinnertime, and when I do, it’s just to get her to stop calling and texting so I can rest. I simply text her:)

Me: “Yes, they were contractions. I need to rest.”

(She then tells me she’s at the hospital, in the parking lot, and starts bugging me for my room number, whining that she wants to see the baby. Out of patience, I respond:)

Me: “I was just in labor for twelve hours. My baby is in intensive care, covered in wires and lines. I am exhausted. I’m not feeling social, and I don’t want visitors. Nor is my baby having any visitors because she has little to no immune system. Go home. We’ll talk later.”

(She finally did, but that night, I saw she had posted about becoming an aunt, my child being born two months early — even though it was closer to three, but remember, she believes in months, not weeks, and as far as she cares, I was seven months — while tagging me in said post, along with an ultrasound picture. She did this even though my husband and I had never “announced” that we were expecting, nor had either of us said anything publicly about the birth or pregnancy. I immediately told her to take the post down, as my husband and I fully planned NOT to plaster our daughter all over social media. She removed the post without responding, and the next morning asked what the f*** I was talking about, as she had no recollection of posting anything of the sort. Over the course of the next couple weeks, I ended up ignoring her begging to see the baby, wanting me to send her pictures, etc. She also didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of an eleven-week premature baby in the NICU, and continually asked if she was still in NICU, and, “When the f*** is she going home?” This friendship may need to go on the back burner for a while. Is it really any wonder that I didn’t tell her I was even pregnant until I was already 21 weeks? Whoops, I mean five months.)

(I work in a small deli. One particularly busy Saturday, I am running the front of the store by myself, trying to keep up with the rush, while my coworker is busy baking our bread product in the back. About ten people all arrive at the same time, approximately half of whom order sandwiches that take the longest to make. I rush through everything, but I’m sure they still wait in line for close to ten minutes, plus another ten for their food. A customer and her husband both order breakfast sandwiches. I take their food out to them with a smile and while I am there, the wife — who, I happen to notice, is on a website putting up a review — asks me if I am a manager. I am not, I answer, but I tell them my manager’s name and when she’ll be in next. Fast forward a couple days later. I go into work, where my manager ambushes me as soon as I come in the door to tell me about this phone call she got yesterday, on my day off, from the very same customer:)

Customer: “Is this the manager?”

Manager: “Yes.”

Customer: “I want to make a complaint.”

Manager: “Okay.”

Customer: “I was in on Saturday, and it looked like you only had one employee here, and we had to wait for a long time!”

Manager: “So?”

Customer: *huffing* “Well, that’s just ridiculous! We had to wait in line, and then we had to wait for our food!”

Manager: “Was it busy?”

Customer: “Well, yes, but—”

Manager: “And what was my employee doing while it was busy? Was she outside having a smoke?”

Customer: “Well, no, she was helping other people, and making food.”

Manager: “So, what are you complaining about, then?”

Customer: “Well, I had to wait!”

Manager: “And?”

Customer: “You need to hire more people!”

Manager: “Maybe. But we’d rather have ten good ones than twenty mediocre ones. Was your food good?”

Customer: “Yes, but—”

Manager: “So, you have nothing to complain about. The food was good, and you got good service; you just had to wait. This isn’t a fast food place. If you want fast food, there’s a burger place down the street. Next time, go there, so you won’t have to worry about waiting. Now quit wasting my time. I have work to do.”

(And then she hung up. I only wish I’d been there to see it.)