I’m a primary school teacher teaching Primary 3 (ages 8 to 9). While the students are doing work, I usually walk around to observe and assist along the way.

I stop by a student’s desk as I’ve noticed they had misspelled a word.

Me while pointing at the word: There’s No ‘L’

The only Noel in the class pipes up: Did you call me sir?

This then led to a brief moment where I had to explain to the class that I was correcting someone’s spelling, and why the name Noel sounded like “No ‘L’” even though it has an ‘L’ in the name.

(There is a truly awful customer in the store, who has been yelling, insulting staff, and generally causing a scene for about half an hour at this point. We’ve decided to ignore her, and hope she’ll leave without us having to call the police.

There are only a few other people left in the store: a young couple who have been here since the nastiness started and are understandably shaken, and a regular who is a perfectly nice woman but known to be a bit… oblivious. The young couple ask me to help them with something upstairs – when we come back down, the rude woman is still trying to pick a fight.)

Young Customer: Is she still here?

Me: We’re just ignoring her, she wants us to argue with her and we’re done. So, how are you paying for-

Regular: Are you talking about me behind my back?!

Me: What? No, uh… that woman who has been shouting at us, not you.

Regular: Because I know you’re closing soon but I still have time to be here!

Me: (confused and really hoping this isn’t happening again) No, it’s-

Young Man: You haven’t heard that lady? She’s been screaming at them for ages and she’s still here.

Regular: Oh. Why is she upset?

Me: We won’t take a deposit for her.

Regular: Why not?

(At this point, I have been cursed out, called a liar and a cheat, had someone sneer and pointedly refuse to look at me whenever I spoke, and generally been abused for the crime of not reserving a sofa. I am done.)

Me: Because we don’t take deposits. People would pay half and never come back, leaving us with stock we can’t sell without risking massive problems when they finally remember they ‘own’ it. We don’t have space. We don’t have a systen set up to track it, so we would lose things. We do not take deposits.

Regular: Oh. (Pause) Did you explain that to her?

Me: She doesn’t care. She just wants to be right and for us to be wrong.

Regular: Shall I explain that to her?

(I gave her a blank look, unable to think of any reply, and the young woman suggested she not get involved, and pulled the conversation back to the purchase that had now been stalled for almost an hour by these crazy people. At least we could close right after that, and the first awful woman left when she saw we weren’t playing along anymore.)

I was taking a customer’s order over the headset, and after she finished telling me what she wanted:

Me: “Does everything on your screen look correct?”

Her *after about 20-30 seconds of silence*: “I don’t know what to do.”

Me: “You uh.. just look at the screen and see if your order looks correct.”

Her: “Oh! Okay, yeah it looks correct.”

Working a hoilday party at a banquet hall with tons of people around and I am cleaning off glasses from tables all the Customers are pretty drunk at this point and are speaking in relatively load tones

(I go to clear a couple glasses off a table when I hear a group of two people talking as I clear their table more people are at the table but they seem to be wallowing in their own drunkenness. The two customers seem to be husband and wife)

Customer A: So about that hooker I got.

Customer B: shh you said you wouldn’t say anything.

Customer A:It was fun right?

(Customer drunkenly looks around nervously patting Customer A)

Customer B: Just stop

(Me nervously picks up a glass and quickly returns to the kitchen)

I was shopping with a friend and looking through racks of clothes, incidentally wearing a dress from the store we were shopping in. While shopping, we found the dress I was wearing and had a little laugh about it, with my friend saying, “Hey, that looks familiar,” and me responding, “Really? I’ve never seen it before.” Another customer nearby looked up at us as we walked by and, noticing my dress, said, “Oh! I was looking at that dress earlier!” I responded, “Yeah, it’s a really pretty one!” She proceeded to say, “I wanted to buy it but the only ones left are extra small and extra large. Honey, what size are you?”

I was taken aback and didn’t know how to answer right away, but eventually said something like, “I don’t really go by size, I go by fit, sorry,” and shuffled away with my friend. When we were a few feet away, she looked at me and said, “Well, that was weird.” I responded, “I know, right? You think it would be common knowledge not to ask people their size in the middle of a crowded store- especially strangers!”