Servers are trained to serve a drink a certain way, but more often than not will listen to you if you want it differently. 

I just got reminded of this particular server. He was a mixologist who had come from a cocktail bar and was now working in a typical pub. Our interaction led me to believe this made him think highly of his own opinions.

I ordered a neat rum, one that’s quite popular, so I’ve had many times and with different things, but to me it tastes better by itself. 

He serves it with lime, and so it starts:

Me: “Sorry, I asked for this neat.”

Server: “It should be served with lime; it tastes better.”

Me: “I’ve tried it that way, and I prefer it neat. Can you do me another one?”

Server: “Just take the lime out if you don’t want it.”

Me: “You’ve rimmed the glass with it; it will still taste like lime.”

Server: “I can’t do you another one, they measure wastage, and they’ll dock me.”

Me: “Well, this isn’t the drink I ordered, so either way I’m not paying for it and the count is down.”

Server: “…”

Me: “Next time, if you think you know better, offer. Don’t just make it your way and force it on people.”

Yes, I did get another drink.

Back in the late nineties, my then-boyfriend and I were spending a tourist weekend in the Bay Area, and ended up in Carmel around dinner time. We found a cute Italian restaurant that obviously had a wait. Having spent two years in Italy, I went up to the desk and asked:

Me: “Quanto sarebbe l’aspeta per due, per favore?” *How long would the wait be for two, please?*

We were seated at a window table immediately.

My boss is on the phone with an ex-coworker who had been fired a few days earlier:

Boss: “No, I’m not going to reverse my decision.”

Pause.

Boss: “Because I can’t trust you.”

Pause.

Boss: “Dude, you told a mystery shopper that you could give her the order for a quarter of the price if she paid cash and didn’t need a receipt.”

This was a copy job, so just raw paper. Tracking sheets of paper in vs sold would be a fool’s errand since there was a big (5-10%) burn rate on jobs that failed. The ‘order’ never would have gone through the register. He would have taken $300 cash on a $1200 order and just deleted the order from the system.

I’m at a local chain home improvement store. I needed lawn chairs and asked an employee where they were in the store. He looked at me dumbfounded.

Employee #1: “Lawn… chairs?”

Me: “Yeah… they fold up. Portable. Not like patio furniture.”

Employee #1: “…and they’re portable, you say?” 

I would have thought it was just an off occurrence, but he called over two more employees for help.

Employee #2: “Chairs… for lawns?”

Employee #3: “And… portable?”

Employee #2: “And they fold up, you say?”

Me: “Am… I in a Monty Python sketch?”

None of them knew what I was talking about. I had to go to a different store entirely.

I worked at the stock exchange in a high-security environment, being exposed to high-confidence news that could directly affect the prices of shares.

Coworker: “Did you see all the police that came in last night?”

Me: “No, I left early. What happened?”

Coworker: “They came in and cuffed [Manager] right after the markets closed. He was doing insider trading.”

Me: “Wasn’t [Manager] the one who was always telling us that all of our private transactions and even our bank accounts are monitored 24/7 while working here?”

Coworker: “Yeah, he made the classic mistake of not being elected to Congress first.”