It’s my bridal shower, and my mom, my aunts, my best friend, my younger sister, and I have spent all morning getting it ready, snacking and taste-testing as we go. By the time guests have arrived and we’re ready to serve lunch, I’m already pretty full, and since I’m trying not to gain weight before the wedding, I opt for a mimosa and a plate of fruit. I spend the time chatting with my friends, several of whom I haven’t seen for years. I’m on the point of pouring myself a mimosa when I hear my fiancé’s aunt, in a just-slightly-too-loud voice, comment.

Fiancé’s Aunt: “Oh, I see the bride is drinking her lunch. Typical.”

Needless to say, I’m hurt, but I go hang out with my friends and try to pretend that nothing’s bothering me. I am not expecting that five minutes later, my sister would march the aunt, looking sullen, over to my table.

Fiancé’s Aunt: “…”

Sister: “You say it or you leave.”

Fiancé’s Aunt: “I’m sorry I was rude.”

Sister: “And?“

Fiancé’s Aunt: “That was uncalled for. I know you spent all morning getting ready. I’m sorry for being rude when you wanted a break. I’ll be polite.”

Sister: “Good. You’ll be polite or you won’t come to the wedding.”

I was deeply touched. My sister is almost a decade younger than me, and between sharing a room and having very different views, we fought far more often than we got along. When I left for college, we didn’t talk for almost two years, and I was not at all expecting her to come to my aid in this. I made it a point to sincerely thank her later, and we wound up talking sincerely for the first time in years. Five years into the marriage, we’re closer than we ever were growing up. I’m not sure what prompted her to be my knight in shining armor that day, but I’m now glad to call her my friend as well as my sister!

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I’m temporarily filling in as night auditor. After our security guard has left for the night, about 2:00 am, I get a call from a guest that complains of a party going on near his room at the far end of the hotel.

Guest #1: “They’re in [list of rooms], and they have the metal locks flipped so the doors don’t shut and they are allowing the doors to slam against them repeatedly.”

I call down to the rooms.

Me: “Can you please quiet down? We’re receiving complaints.”

Guest #2: “We promise we will be quiet.” *Hangs up*

Shortly, after the first guest calls back.

Guest #1: “Nothing has changed! They’re still being loud and slamming the doors.”

I call back down to the rooms.

Me: “You need to quiet down; I have received more complaints. I will need to bill any discounts I need to give out to your rooms.”

Guest #2: “I’m sorry. We’ll quiet down.”

About twenty minutes later, the first guest shows up at the front desk.

Guest: “The party down the hall has continued at full volume, and my kids and I are totally unable to sleep.”

As he is talking, two men walk into the lobby and wait to check in. The guest finishes talking, and from behind him, one of the men that just entered yells:

Guest #3: “WHO’S BEING LOUD?!”

This startles both [Guest #1] and me, and I notice the two men for the first time. They are both enormous, extremely muscular men, who I find out are CAGE FIGHTERS that just came from an event at a local arena.

[Guest #1] and I explain the situation briefly, and the man who shouted turns on his heels and heads for the back of the hotel. I go running after them down the hall and arrive just as they reach the rooms. The doors are still propped open, and the CAGE FIGHTER lays into the people for disturbing the nearby guests and causing me trouble.

Guest #3: “My room is nearby, as well, and I had better not hear any more noise.”

The rest of the night was perfectly quiet.

I work at a big store that contains a lot of self-checkouts. I’m handling a group, or bullpen, of seven checkouts, four of which are in “card-only” mode because of our penny shortage at the store. To try and get customers to understand “card-only,” there are five locations on the machine that tell a customer the mode it’s in: the bar above the machine, a sign covering the cash insert slot, a sign above the scanner, a huge red square around the touch screen with “Cards Only” written all over, and a prompt that makes customers acknowledge that the machine is card only.

It’s been about thirty minutes into the day and I’ve already had three out of seven customers try to use cash in the card-only machines. A customer walks in with a moderate cart of groceries. 

Me: “Hello, do you need help with anything?”

The customer shakes her head.

Me: “If you need anything, let me know.”

I walk off and tend to the pay station as there are only two customers, including her, in the bullpen. I watch her scan her item and look at the prompt. She seems to read it for a good two minutes before hitting “yes.” The customer proceeds to scan the rest of her items before getting out her wallet. She then proceeds to pull out bills and look for a place to insert them. She even goes as far as removing the sign on the cash insert slot and tries to put it in there. I walk over.

Me: “Ma’am, this is a card-only machine. It won’t accept cash.”

Customer: “Well, I didn’t know that! You should’ve said something!”

I’m already irritated by the past three customers not paying attention.

Me: “How is that possible? I watched you hit ‘yes’ to the prompt that was on the screen explaining that this machine was card-only.”

Customer: “That’s just one thing! I wasn’t paying attention!”

I sigh softly and then point to the other four signs that indicate that the machine is card-only. She realizes that it was her fault she wasn’t paying attention, thankfully.

Customer: “Well… can you save my transaction?” 

Me: “I wish I could help, but unfortunately, because I don’t have money in my till, you will have to rescan everything at another machine that can take cash.”

Surprisingly, she just nodded, gathered her stuff, and went to another machine.

The rest of the day was better, but that didn’t stop people from not paying attention to the five different signs that were shoved in their faces.

While working in a hotel, I receive a call at about 1:00 am.

Guest: “My husband is locked in the bathroom!”

Me: “What?! How did this happen?”

Guest: “The doorknob just spins around all the way and it does not control the latch.”

I run down there to investigate and, sure enough, the doorknob just spins around all the way, not allowing the door to open.

I take out my knife and cut up the keycard that I used to get through the security door into an L shape and try to pop the latch open to free the guest.

The gentleman in the bathroom is slowly getting more and more agitated. He begins to swear and yell.

Guest’s Husband: “You don’t know what you’re doing! Just call a locksmith!”

Guest: *Encouragingly* “Oh, he’ll be fine. You’re doing great.”

After a bit of effort, I managed to pop the door open, and the gentleman immediately wrapped me in a huge bear hug.

They all thanked me profusely. I duct-taped the door latch to prevent the incident from happening again, and the man’s son tipped me $20, which I tried repeatedly to refuse.

I am a manager at a video game store. In my off time at home, I often play PC games with my wife. In particular, we both like RuneScape, a medieval-themed MMORPG. One of my coworkers is also into RuneScape; he often talks and brags about his achievements to customers, much to their — and my — irritation. He has also had a habit of showing up late from time to time, and in some cases not showing up at all. This story takes place on my day off. My wife and I are playing a minigame on RuneScape when an announcement appears in chat.

Announcement: “News: [Coworker’s Username] has just achieved level 99 in all skills!”

Wife: “Wow, he finally maxed!”

Me: “Indeed. Shame he felt it necessary to skip out the morning shift to get it though, am I right?”

Wife: “I guess.”

Me: “Ah, well. I’ll congratulate him tomorrow. Maxing is a big achievement, after all.”

When he came in to work the following day, I congratulated him on maxing his account… and then fired him for excessive lateness because he was already on his last chance. Ironically, his RuneScape account would get banned a month later for using an unauthorized third-party bot program.