Customer: “Where are the checkouts?”

Me: “You walked past them as you came in.”

Customer: “Oh, thanks.”

The customer walks away, comes back.

Customer: “Where did I come in?”

I worked the returns desk. A customer comes in with a range exhaust hood.

Me: “What’s the reason for the return?”

Customer: “It’s blue! It was supposed to be stainless steel, but it’s blue!”

Me: “Hmm, this looks like a special order. Let me call the kitchens department to see what’s going on.”

I call them and tell them what’s going on.

Kitchen’s Department: “We don’t even sell it in blue! What the customer says they have doesn’t exist.”

Confused, I come back to the customer and decide to open the box and have a look for myself. That’s when it all makes sense.

Me: “Sir, this is blue peel, to protect it during delivery and installation.”

I show him how to peel off the blue on the very corner.

Customer: *Angry.* ” What?! This is the second time we’ve returned it for the same reason! Why wasn’t this caught the first time?!”

Me: *Looking at the instruction booklet.* “Because we expect customers to be able to do the first step in the instruction manual.”

This person calls to inquire about a room.

Caller: “I would like to request an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) room.”

Me: “Our ADA rooms are two beds, and the rate is [rate].”

Caller: “[Online Travel Agent] has it for less than $100 on their website!”

Not a problem; we can price match, and we’ll both be on our merry way. But there’s a hiccup, the rate we see is for a king room, not the very clearly noted “handicap-accessible room” on the travel agent’s listing.

I informed her about that, and her response:

Caller: “Can’t you just give it to me for that rate?”

Me: “Uhm, no, because we don’t have a king room that’s ADA accessible.”

Caller: “So you’re discriminating by charging me more for an ADA room!”

Me: “No. I don’t have an accessible king room. I’m telling you the rate of our accessible room, which has two beds. This rate is the same as our other two beds, which are not accessible.”

I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt because she sounded tired and was driving, but come on, let’s not pull the discrimination card thaaaaat quickly, okay?

This story reminded me of something that happened during my university time.

We had an old professor who was a bit weird. Grey beard, long hair, looked a bit like an aged hippie who had a bit too much of various “herbal remedies” in his youth, and likely that wasn’t that far from the truth. If you know the look of Richard Stallman, you have a pretty good idea what he looked like. And he had the demeanour to match it. Nice, laid back, never said an unkind word.

He was absolutely brilliant and had an insanely sharp wit, so don’t let that old hippie look deceive you; he could get quite blunt if he noticed you trying to pull a fast one on him or weaseling out of something. He knew how to make you look like the total fool that you were for trying. But overall, a fun guy, great entertainer during his lectures, still getting his point across perfectly, with a wealth of knowledge, and still a curious mind that wanted to see more. 

And that professor is behind me in the queue at the supermarket next to our university. In front of me, a guy not unlike that pr*ck in the story mentioned above.

Customer: “That’s DOCTOR [Name]!”

Clerk: “Sorry, doctor [Name], here is—”

Customer: “It says so clearly on the card.

Clerk: “Yes, sir. My apologies for not noticing it. Here is—”

Customer: “—I wish you would pay attention to the details.

Clerk: “I will try my best, sir, if you would now—”

Customer: “—I didn’t spend years to achieve what you never shall just to be insulted like that.

Professor: “So we now gotta spend years hearing about it? Get over yourself; it’s just a doctorate.”

Customer: *Now turning on the professor.* “Yeah? Like you could ever achieve one. The way you look, you live in the gutter!”

The otherwise quite mellow professor took a look at the customer and took maybe a breath or two before replying with a near endless stream of achievements, titles, honorary and real doctorates from a few VERY well known universities, a list of patents, research along with the associated papers, and the works.

I have to admit, I barely remember even the more important parts because not only was the delivery quite fast, it was a LOT. After a moment or two, he cracked a small smile and asked:

Professor: “Your turn, my esteemed colleague.

There was no reply.

Later, I told him I didn’t even know all that, that I’m really impressed with it all, and asked why he never talked about it. I mean, there were things like tenure in Cambridge and a few research credits with some important people in the field, where I really would have wanted to know what he did there and what came out of it; that guy had a VERY interesting life! He just shrugged, and he said something I certainly took to heart:

Professor: “Look, that’s all in the past. Sure, it was nice, and I love to remember it all. But talking about it, that’s like parading old slides from past vacations in front of your relatives. Nobody wants to see them but yourself. So I don’t pull that out, unless some little prick like that needs a d**k-measuring contest. What really matters is where you’re here and now, and what’s in your future. So I should envy you, you got a lot more of that than me.”

Our store is having a remodel. As a result, they close the men’s restroom and remove the sign on the ladies’ restroom to make it co-ed.

The remodelling crew boards up the men’s room with plywood and then heads home for the night. The store is open until ten, so we still have customers coming in and out.

At some point this night, a male customer came in, tore the plywood off the door, and entered the restroom. Upon seeing that the restroom was unusable, did he leave and attempt usage of the co-ed restroom, or even use one of the two disabled restrooms we have?

No. This guy unboxes a brand-new toilet, places it against the wall, and proceeds to use it with no plumbing attached… or seat for that matter.

He must have really needed to go, based on how the remodelling crew overused the phrase “sprayed the wall” the next day.