One morning, I woke up to find snow had completely shrouded my (admittedly small) bedroom window. I make my way out to the (much larger) living room window and find snow coming down so hard I can’t see the road. Sure enough, my weather app has an alert telling me that there is a stay-home advisory in effect due to unsafe weather for driving. Fine by me; I crawl back into bed and try to get back to sleep. 

My phone rings within half an hour. It’s my manager.

Manager: “Hey, just want to let you know that you are still coming in today.”

I laugh into the line and hang up.

My manager calls again before the minute changes.

Manager: “Do you think I’m joking? You’re scheduled for today. You’re coming in to work.”

Me: “Do YOU think I’m stupid enough to get into a car and drive in this weather? Not happening.”

I hang up. My body has fully booted up and acknowledged an empty stomach, so falling asleep again is no longer an option. I’m on my way to the kitchen when my phone rings again.

Manager: “If you don’t come in today, you’re fired.”

Me: “Cool. I’ll come get my last paycheck when the weather clears up.”

I hang up yet again and make myself breakfast.

The next day, I got a call from my manager’s boss. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one he tried to demand come into work yesterday, and not everyone had the courage to say no like I did. Some of them had accidents on their way to work. (I later learned that none of them were more serious than “didn’t stay on the road, hit something that damaged my car more than my car damaged it,” but still.) I was assured that if I still wanted my job, I was not, in fact, fired for staying home during a stay-home advisory. 

I agreed to those terms and came into work a day later to find my manager was no longer employed there.

This story reminded me of one of my own.

It was about a week before Christmas. I’m used to snowfall, and am usually prepared for doing some shoveling and scraping to get my car free in the mornings. Except this morning, I had parked by the curb the night before because I was visiting my mom, who lived nearby.

This wouldn’t normally be a problem, even with the foot-and-a-half fall we’d had that night, except apparently the snowplow decided to come along the not-so-busy road rather early that day, and basically buried my poor car in at least three feet of very hard plow-packed snow.

I grabbed my shovel and went to work, but I knew it wasn’t going to be a fast or easy job, so I texted my manager that I would be a little late that morning, complete with a picture of the snow burial.

The combination of freezing temperatures and the plow pushing and packing the snow meant my tires were trapped in essentially ice blocks, and there were small icebergs on either end blocking me in.

I’d been struggling for about twenty minutes and had barely made a dent in the mess when another plow came by. This was not an official plow, but a personal pickup truck that someone had rigged a full-size plow onto for ease of winter driving. He pulled up close and shooed me away from the vehicle and then did some very careful maneuvering of his giant plow, getting as close to my car as possible on all sides.

Luckily, there was nobody in front of or behind me, so he had the room. He did several short little passes, each time coming closer to my car to try and get as much snow as possible. Then he got out and used the shovel to break up the chunks of ice left near my tires and push them aside as well.

Once he was sure I was free, he hopped back on his plow and continued on his merry way. Probably took him maybe ten minutes where it would have taken me at least about forty-five minutes or more to get out. My manager was pleasantly surprised I made it and just as pleased by the helpful stranger as I was.

Related:
Mister Plow Is Canadian?!

I work at a Dairy Queen. One wintry day, it is roughly -30°C (about -22°F) and the wind is absolutely howling; it’s the kind of weather that makes you regret having skin. But it’s not snowing, which means driving is quite safe, which means the city is as busy as ever – as much as many of us would rather stay home than even walk between a warm car and a warm building. As such, we’re getting quite a few customers.

Or, rather, we should be. 

I have one customer eating in; the rest are going through the drive-thru. They’re also LEAVING, without placing any orders, and because of the layout of this location, I am fully aware of the cause – my coworker, who is manning the drive-thru window. I try and stop it from happening, and am constantly insulted in return. It’s not long before the manager comes out of his office, looking equal parts upset and confused.

Manager: “Okay, what is going on? I keep seeing customers come up to the drive-thru and then speeding through so fast it’s a miracle they’re not crashing in this wind. Why isn’t anyone placing any orders?”

Me: “Because every time a customer comes here, to a business best-known for selling ice cream, and places an order that contains ice cream, this jacka**, who works for a business best-known for selling ice cream, insults them for ordering ice cream, and tells them to order something other than ice cream.”

Manager: “What the h***?! [Coworker], is this true?”

Coworker: “It’s f****** minus thirty! What sort of dumb s*** eats ice cream in the middle of winter?”

Manager: “People who like ice cream! Are you seriously telling me you are mistreating our customers and refusing to take people’s orders because you wouldn’t order the same thing?”

Coworker: “I’m not taking those orders because they’re f****** stupid!”

A brief shouting match ensued; [Manager] ended up firing [Coworker] on the spot and taking over the drive-thru for himself.

I work in a part of the states that’s used to heavy snow, but some customers never seem to figure it out. We get reports of a heavy snowstorm coming in, and every shopper panics.

We’re super busy, and the snow is already coming down, but still pretty manageable. A customer storms up to me near the entrance. They get my attention by clicking their fingers in my face, which immediately aggravates me.

Customer: “There are no carts!”

Me: “I apologize. We only have one guy out there to gather them, as everyone else is on registers at the moment.”

Customer: “That’s unacceptable! You need to have carts waiting for customers!”

He clicks his fingers in my face again, which breaks my customer service shell.

Me: “If customers returned the carts after using them, we wouldn’t need to spend so much time rounding them up.”

Customer: “Oh, so it’s the customers’ fault, is it?”

Me: “Yes, sir, it literally is. The cart guy’s job exists only because customers don’t return the carts.”

Customer: “Then he should be happy he has a job!”

Me: “He’s not complaining about the job, sir, but we’re very busy, and it’s snowing, so it’s taking a while.”

Customer: “He shouldn’t be using the snow as an excuse!”

Me: “Sir, I can see five carts in the lot right now. What’s stopping you from going out to get one?”

Customer: “Are you kidding? In this snow?!”

I’m on a call with a customer when we get the alarm to go to our tornado shelter (sadly, more and more common these days).

Me: “Ma’am, I need to end this call now as the tornado sirens are going off. I will call you back when I’m at my desk, and it is safe to do so.”

Caller: “No, you will deal with my issue now. I was on hold for over fifteen minutes!”

Me: “Ma’am, I said I will call you back, so there’s no need for you to call back and hold.”

Caller: “No, you will stay on the phone until my issue is resolved!”

Me: “Ma’am, as I said, there is a tornado warning in effect, so this is not up for debate. It is not safe for me to stay on the line, so I will be—”

Caller: “—I don’t give a f*** if the building collapses on you, you will deal with my issue and—”

I hang up and head to the tornado station. I already spent two sentences longer on that call than I was supposed to, and I certainly wasn’t going to stay any longer if she was going to say stuff like THAT!

When we got back to the phones, she was calling in again, on hold, and went straight to shouting and demanding to speak to a supervisor to complain about me.

Supervisor: “Sure thing, ma’am. Let me pull up a recording of the call so we can verify what our associate said, and also what you said.”

Caller: *Click.*

Supervisor: “Hello? Huh, she’s gone.”

It’s almost as if the recorded calls wouldn’t paint the callers in a good light!

Related:
A Storm Of Entitlement, Part 8
A Storm Of Entitlement, Part 7
A Storm Of Entitlement, Part 6
A Storm Of Entitlement, Part 5
A Storm Of Entitlement, Part 4