(My coworker and I are giving our boss grief about being spacey and not paying attention. This begins as she’s walking out to the sales floor from the stock room we’re all in. Note: We wear all-black uniforms.)

Me: *loud enough for boss to hear* “I bet I could take one of these right from under her nose and she’d never notice.”

Boss: *from sales floor* “No, you couldn’t!”

(My coworker throws me an iPhone box, and I stick it into my belt. It’s pretty hard to miss, with the white box sticking straight out of my pants, silhouetted against my all-black uniform. I make no move to hide it. A few moments later, my boss walks into the stock room.)

Boss: *repeating what she said* “No, you couldn’t.”

(At this point, she walks around me from one side to the other.)

Boss: *points two fingers in a “V” at her eyes, and leans in close* “I’ve got my eyes on you!”

(I’m having a hard time suppressing a smile. My coworker is in open-mouthed shock. Our boss looks back and forth between him and I several times, asking ‘What?’ repeatedly. Finally, she looks down and sees the glaring beacon of white.)

Boss: *laughing to the point of tearing up* “OH MY GOD!”

(From that point on, it became a running story. We told everyone at our store, and even other locations. The last thing I did on my last day working for the company was to tell this story to the new guy. The boss’ reaction? “I’m never gonna live that down!”)

(I am shopping for shoes and am being “helped” by the salesman. Note that there is no language barrier.)

Me: “Um, I don’t think this pair is going to do it.”

Salesman: “What’s the matter with them?”

Me: “They don’t fit.”

Salesman: “But what’s wrong with them?”

Me: “They hurt here…” *pointing* “…and here…” *pointing* “…and they are squashing my toes.

Salesman: *gets agitated* “But what’s wrong with them?!”

Me: “I think the toes may be too pointy. I guess I have rather square feet.”

Salesman: “But you don’t like them?!”

Me: “No, I think my toes are too—”

Salesman: “I can’t help it if you have stupid feet!”

(My manager is adding in the nutritional information for macaroni and cheese into the scale printer.)

Manager: “Wow, I didn’t know that there was so much salt in this mac and cheese! In a medium-sized container, there is 50% of your daily sodium.”

Coworker: “What? HALF that container is salt?!”

Manager: “No. I mean a medium-sized container of mac and cheese has 50% of your daily salt intake.”

Coworker: “So… half of that mac and cheese is salt?”

Manager: “No, I mean that there is a lot of salt in this mac and cheese. If one was to eat a medium-sized container, they would have 50% of their salt.”

Coworker: “Oh, I get it. Half of that is salt!”

(My boyfriend and I have both worked in the service industry for years, so we know it can be rough. We had just bought a couch from a furniture company and it arrived without legs. We have been waiting for hours on hold and speaking with various employees.)

Me: “Hi, my couch just got delivered but it doesn’t have any legs.”

Employee: “Okay…?”

Me: “So, can you have someone come and drop them off?”

Employee: “Hmm… well, you know you can buy legs for a sofa from pretty much any hardware store, right?”

Me: “Yes, but I already bought them from you.”

Employee: “I don’t understand.”

Me: “Okay. Well, if you bought a car from a dealership and they gave it to you but it didn’t have wheels, would you ask them where the wheels you already paid for are, or go buy a new set of tires from someone else?”

Employee: “I still don’t really get it.”

Me: “…is there someone else I can talk to?”

(I’m an Network Admin and a few of my coworkers are less than computer-savvy.)

Coworker: “Hey [My Name], could you come here and look at my computer?”

Me: “Yeah, what’s up?”

Coworker: “The browser is going real slowly… I think I ran out of internet.”

Me: “What?”

Coworker: “Yeah, I think I’ve run out of internet.”

Me: “Okay, let me go back to the server room for a moment.”

(I renew his IP address. Sure enough, the computer works fine again.)

Coworker: “Oh, hey! It works!”

Me: “Yeah, I rerouted a little more internet to your computer. Just be a little more careful using this ’cause we don’t get more until next month.”

Coworker: “Okay, thanks!”