(My best friend and I work at the same place. She calls while I’m on my way to work to remind me to check in with the secretary about our new time sheets, so I go to her office when I get to work.)

Me: “Hey, [Secretary], do we have a working version of the time sheets yet?”

Secretary: “Working on it. I just emailed one to [Friend] to test it.”

(She opens the email thread and immediately bursts out laughing, so of course I lean in to read over her shoulder.)

Friend: “It says I need a password to open it.”

Secretary: “Ballllllllllls…”

Friend: “Is that the password?”

(My boyfriend and I are staying at a hotel to visit my friend for his 22nd birthday. To celebrate, we have all gone down to the bar that is attached to the hotel and have ordered an alcoholic beverage of some sort.)

Waiter: “All right, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

(The waiter begins to walk away when my friend calls him back to the table.)

Friend: “Wait, don’t you want to see our IDs?”

Waiter: “Oh! Uh. Sure? Oh! Happy birthday!”

(Again, the waiter walks off, not even checking my ID or my boyfriend’s. He returns a few moments later with our drinks.)

Waiter: “All right, your drink is free for your birthday. I never remember to check people’s IDs.” *he laughs and walks away*

Me: “Did he really just admit that he doesn’t check ID? Isn’t that illegal?”

Friend: “Yeah. Yeah, it is…”

(To top it off, the next day I went to buy a lighter for my mom and the cashier panicked because she thought my boyfriend and I were sixteen!)

Cashier: “That’ll be 8.60.”

Me: *paying with a 20* “Here you go.”

(The cashier then starts sneezing violently into her right hand. She then proceeds to give me my change, with her right hand, without washing or wiping it first.)

Cashier: “—and here’s your change. Have a nice day!”

(I’m around 14. I’m entering my local game store for a “Pokémon Event;” basically a thing where you bring in your game, load it up, and you can download special creatures to add to your team, usually unavailable by any other method. I stand around for a while, trying to perform the download, with no luck. After five minutes of trying, I go up to the desk.)

Me: “Hey, has the Pokémon event ended? I can’t make it work.”

Cashier: *stares at me like I’m insane*

Me: “The thing where I put on my game and download the Pokémon? Keldeo? The watery horse thing?”

Cashier: “Oh, that. Yeah, you need to reserve the new game. Otherwise, we leave it off.”

(This is entirely new to me. The events have never been done like this before, and I was planning to wait until the reviews for the game came out, since the previous game hadn’t been up to the series’ usual standard. Still, I want my Pokémon, and I figure I can just not pick up the game.)

Me: “All right, put me down for a reservation.”

Cashier: “Do you have a membership card?”

Me: “No?”

Cashier: “You need to be a member before you can make reservations. You need to sign up.”

(A fairly long line is starting to form behind me, as only one other cashier is available. Customers are starting to glare at me holding up the line. Wanting to move as quickly as possible, I agree.)

Me: “Okay, fine, make me a member.”

(The painfully long process of giving this guy my name, address, email and phone number is dragging on and on. Finally, I think I’m going to get the event activated.)

Cashier: “Okay, that’ll be five pounds.”

Me: “For what?! You can’t be charging for events!”

Cashier: “Reservations are five pounds. I’m sure I told you.”

Me: “No, you didn’t! I haven’t got any money!”

Cashier: *condescendingly* “Why would you come into a game shop with no money? You just don’t want to pay!”

Me: “I have no money because events have ALWAYS been free! I don’t even WANT to order the new game!”

(I’m close to tears by this point, when my dad decides he’s had enough.)

Dad: “I’ll pay for the d*** thing. We’ve been here too long not to get the Pokémon.”

(Finally, the employee begrudgingly turns on the event, and I collect my new character. The next time I went in to pick up the reserved game, the other cashier was running the till, and informed me that the man I dealt with had since been fired for poor customer service and rudeness!)

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(I work in a hospital lab. Our carbon monoxide alarm is going off intermittently for a few minutes at a time. It’s probably a flaw in the alarm, but we call engineering just in case.)

Me: “Hi. This is [My Name] up in the lab. It’s probably a fluke, but our carbon monoxide alarm goes off for like a minute and a half every ten minutes.”

Maintenance Man: “Okay. It’s probably just something coming through the vent from the helicopter pad that gets to it every once in awhile. Call us back in two hours if it doesn’t stop.”

(I’m kind of shocked by this response, but figure he’s probably right and end the phone call. I explain to my coworkers what the maintenance guy said.)

Coworker: “Two hours?! What is he going to do if we’re all dead by then?”

Me: “Eh. Don’t worry. We’re medical lab scientists. We’re currently in a medical lab. If we all start getting headaches, one of us can be the sacrificial lamb who gets stabbed and we’ll test their carboxyhemoglobin levels.”

Coworker: “I don’t think you’re concerned enough about this.”

Me: “Maintenance is less concerned than I am, so…”