(My husband, his sister, and I have stopped in a local bar for some food and drinks. The place is perhaps 1/3 full. We wait for about 10 minutes before the waitress swings by.)

Waitress: “Sorry about the wait. We’re really busy. What can I get you to drink?”

(My husband orders a beer, I order a cherry [Soda], and his sister orders a margarita.)

Waitress: “All right. I’ll be back with those shortly.”

(20 minutes pass, and the waitress still has not brought us our drinks. She’s been alternately floating between the other tables and leaning against the bar with a cigarette. Finally, she brings our drinks and vanishes again without a word.)

Sister-In-Law: “This isn’t what I ordered… I wanted a margarita, not a beer.”

Me: “And I’m pretty sure this is diet [Soda], not cherry.”

(We flag down the waitress.)

Sister-In-Law: “I wanted a margarita.”

Me: “And are you sure this is cherry [Soda]? It tastes like diet.”

Waitress: “I dunno what soda that is. I can’t remember what fountain I used.”

(This raises some brows at our table; I’d watched her pour the drink less than a minute ago. The waitress comes back with our drinks, correct this time.)

Husband: “Can we order? I think we’re all ready to eat—”

Waitress: “NO.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Waitress: “You can’t order now. I have, like, two tables in front of you. I’m really busy. You’ll have to wait.”

(She leaves without another word. I watch her walk to the table next to us and take their order… writing it down on the cardboard backside of her notepad instead of the order slips.)

Sister-In-Law: “I’m starving.”

Me: “Me, too. I can’t believe she wouldn’t take our order! Isn’t that what the notepad is for?”

(We spend the next 15 minutes trying to flag down the waitress, who eventually disappears into the back room. By this time, we are all so hungry that we’ve gotten irritable, and we’ve decided to go to the Mexican restaurant across the street. There’s only one other employee that I can see working behind the bar.)

Me: “Excuse me? I need—”

Bartender: *walks off*

(I stare in disbelief, and then wait another five minutes standing at the bar until she returns.)

Bartender: “What do you want?”

Me: “We’ve been waiting 45 minutes and haven’t even ordered yet. We’d like to pay our bill and leave.”

Bartender: “I can’t do that for you. You’ll need your waitress.”

Me: “Where is she?”

Bartender: “I dunno.”

Me: “Can you get her for me, please?”

(The bartender vanishes into the back room. As the door swings open, I catch a clear glimpse of our waitress, leaning against a wall with another cigarette in her hand. Five minutes pass, and suddenly I see our waitress walk briskly to my husband, mutter something, and walk off without another word.)

My Husband: “Let’s go.”

Me: “But the bill?”

Husband: “The waitress just said we don’t have to pay for our drinks.”

Sister-In-Law: “What?”

Husband: “She apparently doesn’t want to deal with it.”

(We went to the Mexican restaurant instead. We were seated and had dinner on our table within 15 minutes. We haven’t been back to that bar since!)

(My father is an attorney, and has hired a new legal secretary. One of the items she has typed up goes to several people at different offices at various addresses. That night my father brings home the envelope and shows it to my mother.)

Father: “What do you see wrong with this envelope?”

Mother: “The secretary put all the names and addresses on ONE envelope!”

Father: “When I questioned her about it, she actually thought the mailman would go to each person’s address and wait for an answer.”

(She didn’t last much beyond that day.)

(I have been asked to come in and work a shift as waitstaff due to another staff member’s illness, even though I usually just wash dishes. Things went pretty well and I got a lot of positive feedback from the other staff, despite a few minor hiccups due to inexperience, but at the end of the shift the manager pulls me aside and starts yelling.)

Manager: “I don’t know what the f*** you thought you were doing out there tonight but you were disgusting! If I ever have to bring you on to wait again I’ll just tell the customers to f*** off. They’ll be less insulted that way. You’re lucky I don’t just fire you after such a s***-show, you useless f***!”

(This goes on for a good five or so minutes before the head chef gently interrupts, asking the manager to come over to the kitchen to discuss ‘something important.’)

Chef: *speaking quietly* “Look [Manager], you know I won’t say anything to contest your authority in front of the staff. You’re the guy in charge here. Don’t worry. But if you talk to the waities like that again, especially my dishie, and I hear it, I’ll be carvin’ off your face and selling it as a steak. You hear?”

(Oddly enough, that manager treated the staff a lot nicer after that, even after he eventually managed to fire the chef!)

(I’ve been working in my store’s bakery for less than a year, so I’m not familiar with all our seasonal items. With Easter coming up, we’ve started making hot cross buns. They smell amazing, but I don’t like raisins so I check the ingredients label. A few minutes later, the store manager wanders by.)

Me: “Hey, [Manager].”

Manager: “Hey, [My Name].”

Me: “Hey, do you know if there’s like… someone who gets paid to make our ingredients labels? And if so can I have their job?”

Manager: “Um. Why?”

Me: “Because I don’t think ‘enzumes‘ and ‘atruficial flavors‘ are a thing.”

(I am moving out of my apartment. I am 24 years old. There is a maintenance worker at the complex who is going to come in and do a quick inspection before I leave. I’m a fairly disorganized guy, but I am able to spend the entire day, from eight am to four pm, cleaning up the apartment and getting it in a good condition before I leave. It isn’t perfect, but it is definitely in a good condition and doesn’t need any major repairs. Finally, at about four pm, the maintenance guy comes in. He walks in clearly already in a huffy, nasty mood, and looks around the apartment with a nasty scowl on his face the entire time. After he is finished, he calls me into the kitchen.)

Me: “How’s the place? It’s not perfect, but I don’t see anything too wrong with it.”

Maintenance Worker: “This place is filthy! Don’t you kids know how to clean? This is pitiful.”

(I look around. Not to toot my own horn, but it was pretty darned clean. Easily the cleanest I’ve ever seen an apartment that was lived in by a single male in his mid 20s.)

Me: “Uh… it looks okay to me.”

Maintenance Worker: “You clearly didn’t clean at all! I don’t think your security deposit will even begin to cover everything that needs to be done!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but what EXACTLY is wrong with it? I spent eight hours straight cleaning, and even had a friend over earlier helping me out.”

(He doesn’t respond for several moments. He is clearly straining to think of something to say.)

Maintenance Worker: “Well, uh… there’s a stain on the carpet! That’s going to eat up your entire security deposit alone!”

(I look. There is an ever-so-slight stain on the carpet that is so faint, I hadn’t even noticed it.)

Me: “I can’t tell if it is a stain, or if it is just a damp-spot because I cleaned the carpet earlier.”

Maintenance Worker: *becoming huffy* “I also saw [Breakfast Cereal] on the floor of the kitchen here! You didn’t sweep! THERE IS [Breakfast Cereal] EVERYWHERE!”

(I look around, because I had indeed swept and the floor was spotless. There is no Breakfast Cereal on the floor. I sigh, realizing that he is having a bad day and is just trying to come up with an excuse to not give me back my deposit.)

Maintenance Worker: “Do you KNOW how much it costs us to clean up [Breakfast Cereal] off the floor?!”

Me: “Yeah… it doesn’t cost anything.”

(He huffs and puffs and continues to come up with completely fabricated examples of how ‘filthy’ the apartment is. He also tries to blame me for plumbing problems with the complex that clearly aren’t my fault, since they existed before I moved in and I had even complained about them previously. He finally leaves without so much as a good-bye, muttering to himself about how I was a ‘sloppy little kid.’ Frustrated, I go to the office to return my key, because I want to get out as soon as possible, and don’t want to deal with him any more. The secretary glares at me as I return my key.)

Secretary: “Why are you giving me the key? You’re supposed to be here over the weekend.”

Me: “What?”

Secretary: “The maintenance guy told me you agreed to come in Saturday and Sunday to clean out your apartment more, because he said it was filthy. Of course, this means that you’re going to have to pay us for the extra time you’re here, since you’ll technically have to rent out the apartment an extra few days. So you’re going to need to bring us a check for $25 to cover the weekend.”

Me: “I NEVER agreed to come in over the weekend, and my apartment is not ‘filthy.’ You won’t be getting any more money because I’m returning the key today. My lease is up today, and I am leaving today.”

Secretary: “Why would you lie to the maintenance worker? He said you told him you’d come in to clean the apartment, and even shook hands over it.”

Me: “I most certainly did not. He was being absolutely mean when he did my inspection, over-exaggerated everything, and blamed me for problems that didn’t exist.”

Secretary: “He wouldn’t lie to me. I know you told him you’d come in this weekend!”

Me: *throwing the key on the desk in front of her* “If this is how you’re going to treat someone who always paid rent on time, and went out of my way to be friendly, then I want nothing to do with this complex. And you better not keep my security deposit, because there’s nothing wrong with the apartment!”

Secretary: “How will you get into your apartment tomorrow to clean then? And remember, we need a check for $25!”

Me: “No, I’m moving out today. You won’t be getting a check! And I won’t be in tomorrow to clean! I can’t make this any clearer! I’m gone today!”

Secretary: “Fine! But if your place is filthy, expect to be contacted by a lawyer, because we’ll expect you to cover the cost of cleaning if your security deposit doesn’t cover the cost entirely!”

(I left. About a month later, I got my security deposit back, almost completely in full, because- surprise, surprise -there wasn’t much of anything wrong with the apartment.)