I’ve recently moved into a new area and decided to visit the bar around the corner. As soon as I walk in, I spot a large sign above the bar. It has yellow, black, and red alternating stripes along the border, and in big bold letters, it says:

Sign: “WARNING! Staff are under no obligation to respond kindly to unfriendly, hostile, or abusive behavior.”

I take a place at the bar.

Bartender: “Hi, what can I get ya?”

Me: “A pint of [beer] please. Nice sign by the way.”

Bartender: *Smiles broadly.* “The perks of being a family business.”

I have a feeling I’ll be in more often.

My GP (doctor) recommended I avoid all milk products for a few weeks. As a die-hard cheese lover, this was pretty tough, but I got used to it.

My office had laid out a buffet luncheon, and they had ordered several options that were safe for me to eat, but one box of food didn’t arrive, so there was less food to go around (they had ordered extra, but not like crazy amounts extra), and my choices were severely limited. One of my colleagues apparently had issues with this.

Colleague: “Is that all you’re having?”

Me: *With a decent-sized plate of veggies, sliced meats, and dry crackers.* “Yeah, they didn’t get much dairy-free delivered, but it’s okay, this is a pretty good lunch.”

Colleague: “But there are all those quiches and sandwiches…”

Me: “I can’t have them, they’ve got dairy in. I’m fine with this.”

Colleague: “Oh, well, you can at least have some cake after.”

Me: “No, all the cakes and cheesecakes have dairy. It’s fine.”

Colleague: “Well, I don’t think it’s very fair.”

She got up and wandered over to the buffet table, which had been pretty much picked clean, and I turned to talk to another colleague. I turned back to see Colleague just finish dumping a large spoonful of coleslaw on my plate.

Colleague: “That’s better!”

Me: “What the h***?”

Colleague: “It’s just veggies, it’s okay, it’s really nice!”

Me: “It has dairy in it!”

Colleague: “Oh, I’m sure it’s fine, it’s mostly veggies.”

I just stared at my plate of ruined food, then just glared at Colleague as I stood up and walked over to the rubbish bin, and kept eye contact as I silently dumped the entire plate. She sat there just shocked with her mouth open. My boss was at our table and had seen this whole thing unfold.

Me: “I can’t eat dairy; I can’t eat that coleslaw you just dumped on my plate, and now I can’t eat anything else because all the food is gone. [Boss], can I pop out and grab some lunch for myself?”

Boss: “Yeah, go ahead, take whatever time you need to get something decent. I’ll see you later. [Colleague], I’ll see you in my office after lunch. We need to have a chat.”

I don’t know exactly what was said, but when I got back to the office, Colleague was falling over herself apologising.

My replacement lunch, from a local vegan cafe, was delicious – and also reimbursed by my office, so it was free!

I work at a popular seafood place in my area, very well known for its crabs. You can smell seafood all throughout the restaurant.

A large family walks in on a Saturday night. We’re busy, so any bookings this large must have been made a couple of weeks ago at least.

Customer: “[Name], table for eight.”

Me: “Ah, I have you right here! Welcome to [Name] Crab Shack. Let me—”

Customer: “—You do other things instead of crab, right?”

Me: “We have shellfish, lobster—”

Customer: “No, I mean, I’m allergic to seafood.”

Me: “What kinds of seafood?”

Customer: “All of it. Fish, shellfish, the whole ocean.”

I shoot a glance at his family for evidence of any legs being pulled. None of that. I scan them again for any reaction from any of them that, perhaps, coming to a restaurant with crab in the name, with a GIANT CRAB ON THE SIGN outside, might not have been the best idea. None of that, either. It looks like I am the only human out in the vicinity that think this situation is odd.

Me: “We… uh… do some salads—”

Customer: “—Salad! Do I look like a f****** rabbit?! No chicken? No beef?”

Me: “The kids’ menu has… uh… chicken nuggets.”

Customer: “Do I look like a f****** child?!”

Finally, someone in his family realizes the impossibility of this situation and speaks up. The matriarch of the family, the stern-looking grandma figure, steps up.

Customer’s Mother: “No, but you sure are acting like one! This is not how you were raised, [Customer’s Name]. Now, you promised your father and me a pleasant evening, and that’s what we’re going to have! You booked this place, so if you can’t eat any of it, then that’s on you!”

The customer’s mother turns to me.

Customer’s Mother: “Please take us to our table now, dear. And bring three kids’ menus for the two children and the remaining man-baby. Thank you.”

I wordlessly take them to their table. I alert their server that the guy is likely going to be an issue. I was told later he tried to be, but his mother kept shushing him and said that the other children at the table were eating their chicken nuggets without complaint, so why can’t he do the same?

Why would someone allergic to seafood book at a famous seafood restaurant weeks ahead?! That’s like going to a pizza place, being allergic to cheese and tomato!

My employer was a medium-sized business (approx. fifty employees at the time), and I happened to live about 3/4 mile from our office.

Shortly after I started working there, they asked me if I would mind being listed as a contact for the burglar alarm since all of the facilities/admin people lived pretty far away. They said that any time the burglar alarm goes off, someone has to drive over to meet the police. Don’t ask me why, I don’t really understand the policy. At the time, I was a young, naive recent college grad and figured I would try to be helpful, and told them I didn’t mind.

Our internal company policy was that if you accidentally set the alarm off, you immediately call the people on the alarm company’s list, in order, so they know it’s a false alarm and they can tell the alarm company to ignore it.

At the outset, this worked pretty well. I’d get a few false alarm calls a year, but I’d always get an apologetic call from the employee who set the alarm off, so I would just tell the alarm company to ignore it.

Then the company started growing, and we started having more and more false alarms as we had new employees who would forget about the alarm, and then we started having employees who would ignore the policy and would just leave after setting the alarm off without notifying anybody.

After I got wise to this, I started telling the alarm company to ignore everything, even if I didn’t get a call, because we started getting charged false alarm fees, and I figured there was a 99% chance it was a false alarm. I figured we shouldn’t waste the time of the police or waste the company’s money paying false alarm fees.

I brought this up in a meeting with our COO, and they s*** a brick and insisted that we couldn’t ignore alarm events because what if someone really did break in and somebody was working late? They could be at risk.

So, I said, okay, staff need refresher training because they aren’t following the policy to notify me of false alarms, so we’re going to have a ton of police dispatches for false alarm events. COO minimizes the issue and insists the current policy is fine and no retraining is necessary.

Anytime I got an alarm call without someone notifying me of a false alarm, I followed the policy and had them send the police.

There were two or three false alarm calls where the police showed up, found nothing, and sent us a bill.

The very next call, I sent the police as the policy said, and right as they were pulling up, they saw a vehicle pulling out of the parking lot and chased it. The employee who got chased? Yeah, it was the CEO. In addition to getting chased, he ended up getting cited for speeding as well.

The next day, the COO tries to pin this on me like it’s somehow my fault, to which I reply, “I just followed the policy you gave me”. The next day, the entire company went through refresher training on alarm procedures, and I was taken off the alarm call list. I count it as a win.

A woman walks up to me as soon as she walks into the store.

Customer: “My son needs a game.”

Me: “Okay, do you know what kind?”

Customer: “A kind he can play on his box.”

Me: “Oh, okay, he has the Xbox then. What kind of games does he like?”

Customer: “I don’t know. Why would I know?”

Me: “Okay, how old is he?”

Customer: “Ten.”

I find some age-appropriate game options for a ten-year-old from multiple genres, and she just goes with the cheapest.

She’s back an hour later, with a ten-year-old boy in tow, asking for a refund.

Customer’s Son: *To his mom.* “Why did you think I had an Xbox? It’s a Switch!”

Customer: “They’re all just boxes! You never told me there was a difference!”