(I run a face-painting booth at an annual fair for charity. Every year there seems to be a design that all the kids want; this year, it’s a certain spider-themed superhero. A mother has been waiting in line with her son, and it’s their turn.)

Mother: “He wants to be [Superhero].”

(She pushes him towards the chair. The kid sits down but looks quite unhappy, so I decide to check with him.)

Me: “Is that what you want?”

Kid: “Wannabegreen.”

Mother: *talking over him* “He wants to be [Superhero]!”

(He looks resigned, and I feel bad for him, so I ignore Mum and keep talking to him.)

Me: “Do you mean like [Famously Angry Green Superhero]?”

Kid: “No, I just wanna be green.”

Mother: “You can’t be green. He wants to be [Superhero], like the other kids. Tell her you want to be [Superhero].”

Me: “If he says he wants to be green, I’ll paint him green.”

Kid: “Green!”

Mother: *rolling her eyes* “Oh, fine, whatever!”

(She turned around and stalked off. I went with the kid’s request, and he was absolutely ecstatic… and very green.)

(I work in a supermarket that has self-service checkouts as well as regular kiosk and belt checkouts. We are encouraged to bring queuing customers through the self-service at busy times and offer assistance when the customer is unfamiliar with its workings. I take a lady through who immediately starts complaining. She has expressed a preference for me to put her items through for her, as she has never used a self-checkout before.)

Customer: “I hate these things; I think it’s awful that they exist.”

Me: “They aren’t so bad. They’re quite handy when you don’t have many items and the other tills are busy.”

Customer: “I just think it’s terrible that it’s putting people out of a job, everything being automatic!”

(I am still scanning and packing items for her.)

Me: “As you can see, you using this today for the first time has actually given me something to do for five minutes, and now you know how to work it, too.”

Customer: *realising what has just happened* “Oh, right, yes, I suppose it has! I take it back.” 

(She pays and thanks me for my help.)

Me: “Thank you and see you again soon!”

It’s a busy Saturday in store and there are lots of customers browsing and staff rushing around to help.
A father is with his daughter looking around at the front of the store and I’m busy helping customers with their queries when I overhear him talking to his daughter.
“If you don’t study hard you’ll end up working in place like this.”
I couldn’t help laughing out loud as I’d just finished my Masters degree earlier that year….

(A local shop has a rewards program so I sign up for it, and I am assigned the number 633331. One day, my wife and I go shopping and we’re at the register.)

Cashier: “Number, please.”

Me: “6, quadruple 3, 1.”

Cashier: “Uh?”

Me: “6, quadruple 3, 1.”

Cashier: “Uh?”

Me: “Okay, 6, four threes, 1.”

Cashier: “6431.”

Me: “No, 6,3,3,3,3,1.”

Cashier: “631 and?” 

Me: “6, double 3, double 3, 1.”

Cashier: “6, double 3, 1 and?”

Me: *getting annoyed* “6 double 3, double 3, 1.”

Cashier: “I already have 6, double 3, 1! Next?”

Me: “Please write what I tell you, EXACTLY!”

Wife: “[My Name], calm down.”

Me: “But she’s not writing what I tell her.”

Cashier: “Yes, I am!”

Me: “NO, you’re not! Write what I tell you to write, NOT what you think I want you to write! Now, start again. 6.”

Cashier: “6.”

Me: “Double 3.”

Cashier: “Double 3.”

Me: “Double 3.”

Cashier: “I’ve done that.”

Me: “Double 3!”

Cashier: “I’ve done that!”

Me: “DO IT AGAIN!”

Cashier: “Double 3.”

Me: “1.”

Cashier: “1… Oh!”

My supervisor appears at my desk one evening an hour before home time and announces he needs me to print, hole-punch, and sort into files three copies of an instruction manual by lunchtime on Friday — the next day — because he has an urgent request to get it to the dispatch team by then. Each manual has roughly a thousand pages, double-sided, throughout eight chapters, and he wants this done without me hogging the one printer in the office so that nobody else’s work is slowed down. Also the hole-punch is faulty, so I have to be careful with that.

So, I get to work. I spend the last hour of the day printing as much as I can in bursts and apologising frantically to anyone waiting at the printer. The next day, I come in early and crack straight on. One section of the manual is a 175-page document, so I have to do it in bits and end up almost upsetting several people queuing for their own printing. My supervisor has so far dropped in twice to remind me that he really needs this doing by lunchtime and it’s urgent. A friend in another department offers to print me one chapter on his printer to help me out, and I take him up on that with only three hours to go. Eventually, I have six ring binders full of printing, with all three copies complete, with only twenty minutes to spare. I haul them over to my supervisor’s desk and he looks at me in surprise.

“Oh! Well, just leave ’em on your desk; we’ll deal with it on Monday.”