(A popular Canadian coffee chain has started making their new iced coffee. I’m from Boston, so I basically live on iced coffee and know exactly what I like. My dad is driving me from Toronto to Buffalo, where I’ll catch a domestic flight home. We stop for coffee before leaving the city. I order an iced coffee with cream and sugar. It’s WAY too sweet, so I give it to my dad and go back inside. I order another one with cream and no sugar, and somehow it’s still too sweet. I decide to drink it anyway, but when we stop for gas I run in and try a third time.)

Me: “Hi, can I have an iced coffee, just black, with sugar?”

Cashier: “…I’m sorry?”

Me: *repeats order*

Cashier: “I don’t understand. You don’t want the cream?”

Me: “No, black is fine.”

Cashier: “But… we put the cream in before the coffee.”

Me: “Okay…” *moment of silence while we stare at each other*

Cashier: “So, you want cream and sugar?”

Me: “No, no cream. Just sugar.”

Cashier: “I already told you, we put the cream in before the coffee.”

Me: “Okay, well… can you… not?”

Cashier: “Um… I guess? I’ll have to ask my manager.”

(She went off and actually asked her manager if it was okay to NOT put cream in my coffee. The manager basically looked at her like she’s an idiot, and told her ‘of course.’ She made my coffee with cream anyway.)

(I am struggling with what will later be diagnosed as depression, causing me to randomly start to cry without any apparent reason. During one such crying bout, I decide to go for a walk to distract myself and hopefully calm down a bit. After a while, I pass by a bakery and go in to buy myself some small treat to cheer myself up. It’s in the afternoon, shortly before the bakery closes.)

Baker: “Hi, what can I get you?”

Me: “Hi. Could I have a chocolate pastry, please?”

Baker: “Sure thing.” *she takes out the pastry with her tongs but suddenly stops and adds* “You know what? It’s a bit on the small side. Why don’t I give you two of them? For the price of one, obviously.”

Me: “Uhm, okay? Thank you!”

Baker: *smiles at me and gives me the bag with the two pastries* “Have a lovely evening!”

(Once I had left, I looked at the bag and saw that the “small” pastry was the size of my hand, a perfectly normal size! So I realized what must have happened: She saw an obviously upset young woman (I had stopped crying when I went in there but you could still tell) and decided to do something nice for her, just because she could! Thank you so much, dear bakery lady, for this gesture – and the chocolate pastries were delicious!)

(I have come into work and immediately rushed into the manager’s office.)

Manager: “We had a discrepancy of £15 on the registers yesterday and we need to investigate. Do you have any reason why the register would be short?”

Me: “Me personally? No.”

Manager: “Did you see anything unusual?”

Me: “No?”

(The rest of the discussion followed a similar path of me answering “no” to practically everything. We reach the end.)

Manager: “Okay, if you can just sign the bottom? I must warn you that if this happens more in future, we will have to consider disciplinary action.”

Me: “Are you serious? I’m not signing that.”

Manager: “Then I will have to note that down as suspicious.”

Me: “[Manager], I wasn’t even working yesterday.”

(The manager blushes, shuffles the forms underneath the desk, and lets me go. Fast forward a few months and I have taken on a role in the back, managing weekend administration. A similar situation occurs where there is a discrepancy, and I complete the procedure as I have been taught. The same manager is on duty that day and is expected to do the investigation.)

Manager: “We need more forms.”

Me: “Those forms include everyone who had access to the register yesterday, including those who topped it up. Even [Store Manager] is in there.”

Manager: “We need more, though.”

Me: “Why? Literally everyone who had the ability to steal from the register is included.”

Manager: “Yes, but you have to do randoms, too, to keep everyone on their toes.”

Me: *shocked* “But they’re used as strikes against the workers’ files. You’re putting people at risk of unnecessary disciplinary action.”

Manager: *staring me down* “We need more.”

(She left with the forms and ordered me to make more. I did, but I didn’t name them, and waited for the store manager, who happened to be coming in that day. I have never seen anyone go pale so quickly as when I told her. She halted the investigation (sending the manager home), and she and I spent the rest of the weekend going through the personnel files and comparing them with the schedules and payroll records. I even found the £15 form I refused to sign, with a poor attempt at forging my signature on the bottom. Overall, the additional forms were responsible for approximately 10 disciplinary actions, some of which resulted termination. The store manager reported it and the manager was promptly fired. I have had to take on a full time role in the interim of finding a replacement. Discrepancies still crop up, but the personnel files aren’t filling up as quickly, and everyone feels a lot calmer now that she is gone.)

(I just interrupted the task I was working on to serve a customer. When I’m done with the customer, I don’t remember what I was just doing.)

Me: “Now… was I doing things, or was I doing stuff?”

Coworker: “You were doing stuff.”

Me: “Stuff it is!”

(When I was younger, my family used to do a lot of shopping at a particular store where you have to pay for a membership. I hadn’t been there for many years, but I was shopping for an event with someone who had a membership. I really enjoy bread pretzels, and they tend to be difficult to find in my city. I used to get them at this store, and I’m excited to have one.)

Me: “I don’t see pretzels on your menu, but you used to have them. Maybe I’m just not seeing them?”

Cashier: *in a very snotty tone of voice* “We’ve never sold pretzels! This is CANADA! We don’t serve pretzels here!”

(I must’ve missed the law banning the sale of pretzels in Canada! I was also apparently hallucinating the pretzels I ate in that store.)