A new employee comes into my office and huffs at me while I’m on the phone. I ask him to wait outside but he sits down and glares at me. I hang up.

Employee: “Finally! That is so disrespectful, talking to someone on the phone when there’s someone else right in front of you.”

Me: “Well, you did come into my office while I was on the phone and my door was closed. So, technically, you were being disrespectful to me.”

Employee: “Whatever. I need to make a complaint.”

Me: “What about?”

Employee: “[Supervisor].” 

Me: “And what’s the problem?”

Employee: “He keeps telling me what to do. It’s so disrespectful.”

Me: “That’s his job. He’s your supervisor. Without him, you wouldn’t have any instruction.”

Employee: “I’m perfectly capable of working on my own.”

Me: “I’m sure you are, but we have a chain of command here. I tell [Supervisor] what needs to be taken care of, and he delegates the tasks to whoever is most able or available.”

Employee: “But that’s so disrespectful. You have to listen to us.” 

Me: “Has he given you something you were incapable of doing?” 

Employee: “No.”

Me: “Do you believe it was unreasonable?” 

Employee: “No.” 

Me: “Did you have an issue with doing what he asked you?” 

Employee: “Duh!”

Me: “And what did he ask you to do?” 

Employee: “Move boxes from the delivery truck! He didn’t ask me; he told me!” 

Me: “But that’s his…” *Deep breath* “Why couldn’t you do it?” 

Employee: “I could do it.”

Me: “So, why did you have an issue?” 

Employee: “I didn’t want to do it! He should have asked me, not told me!”

Me: “Why didn’t you want to do it?”

Employee: “I just didn’t.”

Me: “Did you tell him?”

Employee: “No. I just came here.”

Me: “So, [Supervisor] told you to do something, and instead of telling him, you came here to make a complaint about not liking what he told you to do.”

Employee: “Yes.”

Me: “Maybe you should talk to him before running to me?”

He glared at me again before raising his hands in frustration and leaving, shouting that no one ever listened.

The other managers and I had a meeting the following week, and the above employee featured heavily in our conversations. He had gone to every manager throughout the week trying to make the same complaint. We all told him the same thing.

We called him and the supervisor in, and we learned that he had only been with the supervisor for the first day, before lying that one of the managers told him he was working elsewhere. When we asked him what he was actually doing, he said he just wandered around for eight hours every day.

As no issues cropped up during the week, he pretty much proved he wasn’t needed and was dismissed. He left a letter behind criticising us all for being “disrespectful.”

In my store, we have a few different choices when it comes to what we wear. Today, my coworker and I wore the exact same thing. My coworker has also dyed her hair to barely a shade darker blonde than me. 

I notice the team lead walk by a few times and every time he does, he does a double-take at us. On one of the passes, he stops.

Team Lead: “You guys are throwing me for a loop today. You’re both wearing the same thing and you’re both blonde.”

I felt bad for him the rest of the day, even worse knowing in a few weeks I was planning to dye my hair red which would then confuse him all over again.

My grandmother falls prey to an Internet scam that results in a recurring charge on her credit card every month for $100. After a few months, she asks my mother and me for help, so we call the credit card company.

Employee #1: “Okay, we have issues like this all the time. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to cancel this card and send you a new one, but I’ll put a security hold on your account so that your new information isn’t forwarded to the scammers. Then, I’ll start the paperwork to see if we can refund the fraudulent charges, and I’ll open an investigation into the scammers. Does that sound good?”

We thank him profusely for his help and even agree to pay extra to have my grandmother’s new card overnighted to her so we can put this mess behind us. But the next month, we see the fraudulent charges again. Because my grandmother has updater services — when she gets a new card, her company automatically sends the information to the companies that she has recurring charges with — we realize that the security block must have failed, so we call again.

Employee #2: “I’m looking at the account, and I see that a new card was issued, but there’s nothing in the file about a security block for these charges, no paperwork started at all about the fraud, and no open investigation.”

Grandmother: “So, what you’re telling me is that your coworker openly lied to me over the phone when he said he was taking care of all that?”

It turns out that was pretty much the case. The second employee was very helpful. She stayed on the line with us while she did each step and confirmed that she’d completed each one as she did. We spoke to her supervisor — who also confirmed that everything had been handled — and told him that she did a great job, but we lodged a very strong complaint about the first employee who’d helped us.

We have an all store meeting on a Sunday morning where they have multiple stations set up to have all employees working their opening and closing pitches to customers. It is some major push with corporate to better understand customers through pitching them products or some such nonsense.

As I work in the service department, it doesn’t apply to my direct coworkers or me, but we have to show up anyway. One of the stations, though, is actually with the customer service workers who are going over ways to avoid fraud. One of the store managers who is directly over customer service is there, too.

All the employees are put into groups. My group is the third group to go to this station, so two others have already gone. 

Representative #1: “We need to make sure that, on checks, the name on the check matches their driver’s ID as well as address. Standard operating procedure is to write the customer’s ID number on the check.”

Manager: “If the customer has stolen a debit card but has the PIN, there really isn’t much we can do since we never look at the debit card if they put in the PIN. With a credit card or a transaction going through as credit, though, we can stop fraud completely because we have to put in the CID number on the back of the card so we can match the card with the customer’s ID.”

Representative #2: “Honestly, it doesn’t matter if the name isn’t right because the whole thing would be between the person who had the card stolen and that person’s bank. So, we could technically stay out of it.”

Me: “So… when it comes to cards we don’t need to stop fraud or have no way of doing it?”

Manager: “With debits, not really, but with credit cards, you match the ID. Weren’t you listening?”

Me: “I was, but [Representative #2] just said that really the whole thing is between the person who lost the card and the bank. So, we can catch the fraud but honestly, there isn’t a point to if we still get paid and the person who lost the card isn’t technically on the hook for the charges applied to the card. Basically talking about cards at all is kind of useless.”

Manager: “Well… I mean, we can stop fraud by looking at the ID.”

Representative #2: *To me* “But it doesn’t matter since it’s between the bank and the person.”

Me: “Yep, we can stop fraud by looking at the ID of the person with the credit card, but if we were to skip that entirely and just take the card, the person who had the card stolen could call their bank and not be on the hook for those charges.”

Representative #1, Representative #2, and Manager: “Yes.”

Me: “We’re the third group through here, right?”

I work for a towing company that starts up in October 2016. This is exactly one day after it opens up, and all we offer right now is roadside assistance like jumpstarts and tire changes. We don’t have any tow trucks to drive quite yet, though we do have “Towing” in our company name. 

We’re also contracted with a large insurance company, and apparently this customer got a card from her insurance company that had our number on it for her roadside assistance program.

Me: “[Towing Company], how can I help you?”

Customer: “Hi. I’m calling ’cause I got into an accident. What do I do?”

Me: “Have you called your local police to report it?”

Customer: “Yes, but I need a tow.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but all we provide is roadside assistance services like jumpstarts and lockouts. We aren’t capable of providing towing service. When the police arrive on scene, they can call you a tow truck.”

Customer: “Isn’t this [Towing Company]?”

Me: “Yes, but we don’t offer towing services yet. We still don’t have the permits or trucks to do so.”

Customer: “But my insurance gave me your number. It’s on my card. Are you calling [Insurance Provider] liars?”

Me: “No, but that number is probably there for more minor roadside inconveniences. If you had a flat tire, I could help you, but all I can suggest is that you wait for the police to arrive or to call your insurance provider and have them call you a tow truck.”

Customer: “I’m going to report you to [Insurance Provider] and make sure they never use your towing service again!” *Hangs up*

Me: “But we don’t even do towing.”

Towing started up a month later. We’ve never had that person on our records since as far as I could tell.