I used to work at the front desk of a furniture store that was not the best. It was a single family-owned shop and not good for my mental health. In my defense, at the time of this interaction, I’d been working for like two and a half weeks straight without my days off because my manager, the owner’s wife, kept having random “emergencies” that would require me to be in since no one else in the history of the store could do anything. She’d usually show up eventually, but I’d still have to stay because she might decide to leave again.

Before anyone says anything about Washington State, while technically they weren’t required to give us two days off, they were required to pay overtime, give us meal breaks, etc., and the store did not. Honestly, if I’d been a little older and wiser, I could have had a lovely Labor & Industries settlement when I left, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, at the time of this particular interaction, my brain was about two steps away from completely fried which is the only reason I can think of for why this was so hard.

We were running a tax-free sale, and one of the salesmen brought his customer up to the counter.

Salesman: “Hey, [My Name], this is [Customer], and here’s his order.”

He walked the customer and me through the invoice again so that the customer could hear what they were ordering one more time.

Salesman: “And I know we’ve got the sale going, but I didn’t include any of that on here.”

Me: “No worries. I’ll get it taken care of. Thanks.”

I sat down and put the invoice in.

Me: “Okay, your total is [a lot lower than it should be]. Um, hang on.”

I tried to do the math again, and it was still coming up wrong. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t figure it out. I realized later that I was getting the tax and subtracting that from his total, so rather than just giving him his total without adding tax, the total was [Total] minus [Tax], which was not correct. But again, my brain was not firing, and I couldn’t figure it out.

I’d done the math about five times, and my manager had actually decided to grace us with her presence that day, so she came up to the counter.

Manager: “Can I help?”

Me: “I can’t get his total right.”

Manager: “Let me take a look.”

She put everything into the calculator and came up with the correct numbers. The customer had included delivery and a couple of other things, so his total was a little higher than the price of the furniture but still less than it would have been with tax.

Manager: “Here’s your total: [correct total].”

Customer: *Only half-joking* “Oh, man. I liked her math a lot better.”

Manager: “Yeah, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. With this tax-free sale, your total is [total].”

She ended up giving him an extra 5% discount because I “didn’t know what I was doing”, and then I got a lecture about how I needed to pay attention because she couldn’t be giving out discounts to customers all the time. Never mind the fact that I’d been there for more than a year at that point, and I’d never had an issue like that; it was still my fault that she’d decided to give that customer a discount.

I had to suffer another six months after that interaction, but I finally was able to break free and I never went back.

About ten years ago, I worked as a merchandiser for a national soda company. One of the biggest problems we had would occur every holiday when stores had serious sales on soda, like getting four twelve-packs for ten bucks.

The problem is that there simply wasn’t enough room in the backroom to store enough product on a really busy holiday like the Fourth of July. Our sales representatives would order way more stuff than we ever had room for, and then it was up to me to Tetris it all into the space for us in the back.

The way it SHOULD have been done would be sending multiple orders on days like that as space became available, but of course, that would mean sending drivers to stores multiple times, which costs time and gas.

I had one store that had a really strict backroom manager with a no-exceptions policy of pallets never being stacked more than three high.

On this particular Fourth of July, we literally had twice as much product as what would fit. I called my boss.

Me: “You need to send a driver to buy back some of the excess load.”

Boss: “Stack the pallets as high as the forklift will allow you to.”

Me: “I just want to remind you that, at this location, I’m only allowed to stack pallets three high.”

Boss: “Figure it out.”

Cue malicious compliance.

I KNOW that the backroom manager will get lava-level mad when he sees this, but it’s the boss’s orders, so I am up to four high when the manager sees it and goes banshee apes*** on me.

Me: *Shrugging* “It’s my boss’s orders.”

I finish stacking — leaving one tower at FIVE pallets high — and then start walking out as my shift is now done.

Backroom Manager: “If you leave it like that, you can kiss your account with our store goodbye!”

I shrug again and leave.

I get a call from my boss thirty minutes later, around 8:00 pm.

Boss: “There’s a driver on the way to do buy-back. You need to go back to [Store] ASAP.”

Me: “My shift is done for the day. I have already returned the company truck and am on my way home to see some fireworks.”

Boss: “Turn around and go get it sorted!”

Me: “The only way I am going back is if I get double time for the entire day, plus a 10% raise.”

My entire day is about fourteen hours at this point.

Boss: *Yelling* “That’s never going to happen!”

Me: “Then me returning to [Store] is never going to happen. If you change your mind, you can send me an email, agreeing to my terms in writing.”

I had other side gigs at the time and wasn’t concerned at all about this job.

I got an email thirty minutes later from my boss’s boss agreeing to those terms. It was immediately followed by a phone call from him apologizing, telling me that I was needed, and saying that I needed to go back to the store ASAP.

My boss’s boss ALSO sent my boss, who was already at home, to help sort the mess out. Hearing him apologize to the backroom manager was gold.

I am training a new worker at the checkouts. They’ve gone through the scripts in the training guide and have been putting them to use in the real world. A customer who is obviously blind is checking out and has purchased a bottle of wine.

New Hire: “Can I please see your driver’s license?”

Me: “[New Hire], he won’t have one.”

Customer: “I’m afraid he’s correct, my friend.”

New Hire: “Then I am afraid I have to refuse this sale, sir.”

Me: “No, [New Hire], you can ask for alternative forms of ID.”

New Hire: “But the guidebook said a driver’s license is best.”

Me: “Because it’s the most common, but not every customer is going to have a driver’s license.”

New Hire: “But the guidebook said—”

Me: “[New Hire], the customer is blind.”

The customer waves, smirking. He may be blind, but he can “see” exactly what’s going on here.

The new hire stops in their tracks for a moment to process this new information. The cogs sloooowly turn, and they gradually come out of their mental “blue screen”.

New Hire: “But the guidebook said—”

Me: “Here, sir, let me take over for you. Is that your passport I see there? Excellent!”

The new hire didn’t last much longer.

My workplace bought a ton of computers. If you do that, you get perhaps a 10-15% discount off the top. They also, as a perk to employees, cooperated with [Computer Company] to let employees order laptops with the same discount. This was a program [Computer Company] offered.

I bought a $3,000 [Computer Company] laptop through this program. My card was charged, the laptop arrived a week later, and all was good.

A month later, I got an email from [Computer Company] apologizing for the shipment delay and refunding the purchase. In a fit of honesty, I called the support for the employee purchase program and said:

Me: “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but I have the laptop on my desk.”

Employee: “Well, you’re going to have to call some other caseworker…”

And blah, blah, blah.

Me: “I’m not doing that. While I was prepared to be honest, I absolutely am not going to spend a ton of time on the phone attempting to straighten out your f***-up. You have a one-time offer, for the next ten minutes, to get this straightened out.”

My free laptop was awesome.

I used to be the single father of a beautiful little boy. His mother, my ex, had been declared unfit to be a parent due to mental instabilities. While it was definitely healthier for both of us, there was the significant problem of not having the best salary in the world. While rent wasn’t a problem (thanks, Mom and Dad), getting dangerously close to debt at the end of the month wasn’t all too uncommon. As such, I started to heavily coupon and generally shop thriftily.

One time, I was picking groceries up. Due to an expired coupon I had forgotten to discard, the total was coming far ahead of my budgeting, and I had to point this out to the cashier. After a desperate attempt to reduce my total, I just let it go.

However, the man behind me spoke up.

Customer: “Are you willing to let me pay for your groceries? You are clearly in a rough spot.”

I was about to accept, but the cashier interrupted me.

Cashier: *To the other customer* “Go away! Stop showing off and being a [homophobic insult] obese spendthrift.”

I was taken aback and tried to insist that, yes, I wanted this man to be generous to me, but the cashier refused.

Cashier: “Don’t rely on the charity of some ball of lard!”

The man moved to another cash register, but not before flipping the bird to the cashier. I tried to follow him, but the cashier insisted that, since half my shopping had already been scanned, I had to continue being in her lane. I was honestly unsure whether to cry in rage or flip my lid at the cashier.

In the end, I told her:

Me: “Honestly, after this treatment, I don’t want anything from this store.”

I left empty-handed to go shop somewhere else instead, only to discover that all of my other options had already closed for the day.

Even now that I don’t need to pay attention to budgeting as much, being denied free groceries because of one cashier’s behavior still hurts me deep in my soul. I hope that cashier received the same treatment when in need herself.