(I’m working at a farm in rural Vermont in the dead of winter. Sugaring — making maple syrup — season is coming and my boss wants me to shovel the snowy doorways to his sugarhouse — building used to collect tree sap and boil it in to maple syrup — for an open house he is hosting. It’s not the type of stuff I was hired for but I’m broke and it’s paying so I do it. I shovel the doorways and my boss comes over with his tractor, scooping the biggest piles of snow away with the bucket. Together we make the sugarhouse look nice and neat. I finish the rest of my work and go home. The next day I get to work and he greets me.)

Boss: “How come you didn’t shovel out the doorways?” 

Me: “Huh?”

Boss: “It looks a mess.”

Me: “What are you talking about?” 

Boss: “When I ask you to do a job, I expect you to do it and to do it right. If you can’t do your job then what am I paying you for?” 

Me: “Why don’t you show me what I did wrong and I’ll fix it?” 

(We start walking toward the sugarhouse. I am confused since I did clean the doorways and he watched me, he was right there helping me too. His directions are confusing sometimes and often he will switch topics mid-sentence and not even know it so his directions sometimes get muddled.)

Boss: “I shouldn’t have to be doing this with you. I shouldn’t have to do your thinking for you. You’re a big girl now and you need to be thinking with your adult brain.”

(I knew him when I was a kid but I’m 25 at this point. I am blown away by his rudeness, but I know if I say anything it will devolve into an argument I’m not going to win, so I grin and bear it. We get to the sugarhouse and I see the problem. It snowed in the higher elevations the previous night and the added weight made all the snow from the roof drop into the previously clean doorway. It now looks as if it were never cleaned at all.)

Me: “I see the problem here. The snow fell off the roof. That’s what happened.” 

Boss: “Oh.” 

Me: “How’s that adult thinking for ya?” 

Boss: “Well, why didn’t you say anything?” 

Me: “You watched and helped me yesterday; I just assumed I’d done something wrong.” 

Boss: “Well, don’t do that.” 

(I didn’t stay long after that. I got a new job and found out that a coworker’s grandson was working for the same guy, my old boss, a few weeks later. He said his grandson was fired for “back talking” to my old boss. Apparently, the backtalk was, “You’re being really rude right now.” Funny thing is, my old boss wondered why he couldn’t keep help for his farm. He surmised that it was because “nobody wants to work anymore.” No, people don’t like being berated for doing their jobs in 10F degree weather all winter for minimum wage. But I’m just a dumb girl who can’t think, so what do I know?)

(My father tells me a story of a time he worked for my maternal grandfather in his video rental store which also offers repair services for VHS players. This is back at a time where said players, as well as the tapes, are quite expensive. While my dad is working, a customer comes in to pick up his repaired player, but is outraged when my dad says the price is $30.)

Customer: “I’ll have you know I’m a good friend of Richard—” *my grandfather* “—and I’ll have you fired!”

(This is a dead giveaway, as nobody who actually knows my grandfather calls him Richard; he is known as “Rip.” My grandfather hears the commotion and steps out of the office.)

Grandfather: “What is going on?”

Customer: *angry* “This a**hole is trying to charge me $30 for my repair!”

Grandfather: *calmly* “Oh, well, that a**hole is my future son-in-law. I’ll tell you what; he says $30, I say $50.”

(The customer angrily left the store without paying — or collecting his repaired VHS player — and vowed never to return. My grandfather ended up selling it as used, as according to store policy. The irony is by refusing to pay, the customer would have had to pay hundreds for a new player!)

I work in a pharmacy and we have the store divided into sections: Front Store and Pharmacy. When you give us a call, the prompts will tell you to press one number to talk to Pharmacy, and to press another number for general store questions.

I have just finished helping a customer find an item, and my coworker is on break, which means that I’m all alone up front, and that’s when I get a line of customers and the phone starts ringing.

I pick up the phone while one customer is paying and ask if it’s all right if I put them on hold for a moment. The customer yells, “No, you cannot! I’ve been waiting twenty minutes for my prescription and that is unacceptable!”

The woman tries to keep ranting at me, but I firmly interrupt her to tell her that she’s called the front part of the store and that I’ll have to transfer her to the Pharmacy.

Later, I catch one of the Pharmacy techs and apologize for sending the irate customer their way. The tech looks at me and laughs, and tells me that the woman on the phone wasn’t even in our system, and that her friend who dropped off her prescription dropped it off at another pharmacy altogether.

So, not only did that woman reach the wrong part of the store, but also she didn’t even get the right store!

(My husband tells me this story about a friend of his and her dad doing a painting job downtown, repainting the outside of a store front. As they are working, two women come walking down the street, hand in hand, without a stitch of clothing on.)

Friend: *to Dad* “Don’t. Say. Anything.”

(As they walk by, the dad says to the two women:)

Dad: “So, what’s the occasion?”

Ladies: *shrugging* “It’s Tuesday.”

(They continued on their way.)

(I work at a pretty popular bank in a small city. We’re really focused on good customer interactions, so I greet each and every customer with a smile. On this particular day a father and his three sons walk in and come up to my window.)

Me: “Hi! My name is [My Name]; how can I help you today?”

Man: “Hi! My son, [Son], found this 100-dollar bill on the ground! And I want you to look up who it belongs to.”

Me: “What?”

Man: “You know, the codes on the bills… I want to make sure it wasn’t stolen money or anything like that. Can’t have my kids handling dishonest money! So, yeah, just track it.”

Me: “Sir, I’m not able to track a bill. There is no way to find out where it was or who it belonged to.”

Man: “Oh, I see. So, it doesn’t belong to anyone else?”

Me: “Well, it…” *I think hard about whether or not I want to continue to deal with him* “No, it didn’t! It’s all yours!”

Man: “Great! See, [Son]? You have $100 now!”