I am waitstaff in a fancy restaurant where the kitchen is uniquely placed in the middle of the dining area, open for all to see.

I am bringing out a steak to a customer, who starts complaining before I’ve even had a chance to put the food down, gesturing toward the kitchen.

Customer: “I’m appalled that someone covered with tattoos is handling my food. With the amount I am paying, you shouldn’t be hiring thugs. This will be reflected in the optional service charge!”

Me: “You’re referring to the fellow who cooked and seasoned your steak?”

Customer: “I am!”

Me: “You’re in luck! That’s the Chef De Cuisine, and he usually doesn’t do the steaks, so yours is extra special! He’s also the reason why our restaurant has a Michelin star. Shall I take the steak back?”

Customer: “No… I’ll… give it a go.”

He ate every bite. I also made sure he paid the service charge!

Our store is across the street from a nursing home. Almost every day, we see an older couple come into the store to just look around. They go through the same routine every day, and they don’t really buy anything, but we don’t mind. 

The husband comes over to me one day after we make eye contact and I smile at him a little.

Husband: “I wanted to say thanks for letting us come in every day. It really means the world to us.”

Me: “Oh, it’s no bother at all. I’m sure there are nicer places to visit than this little old store, though!” 

Husband: “Well, it’s for my wife. She has trouble remembering these days, but we always used to come to this store together every Tuesday, and she’d work through her list, thinking up all the dinners she’d feed us all week until the next Tuesday. She doesn’t remember who I am most days, but every time we come in here, it’s suddenly Tuesday, and she gets all excited about the dinners she wants to make.”

Me: “Oh… I… I don’t know what to say.” 

Husband: “Nothing to say. I just wanted to say thank you.”

His wife walked past with a list in her hand, smiling and calling her husband over to help her choose a cereal.

Every day for the next year, we’d see them reliving her Tuesdays, happy with her list, until one day we didn’t see them for a while. He came back a few weeks later to tell us that his wife was grocery shopping in Heaven now, and he couldn’t wait to try some of the meals she was cooking up for him one day.

We all loved him for how much he loved her.

My manager and I are working the overnight shift at a twenty-four-seven fast food joint in a neighborhood that doesn’t have the best reputation.

A guy walks in and asks for the cheapest combo we have. I ask for the total, and he’s thirty-seven cents short. I explain this.

Customer: “C’mon, man! It’s the middle of the night. Just let it slide.”

Me: “Sorry, sir, I can’t offer any discounts.” 

Customer: “It’s only a few cents! No one will notice.”

Me: “I’ll be short at the end of my shift, and I’ll get written up.” 

Customer: “So, your write-up is more important than me going hungry?”

Me: “Look, I can get you some fries for [small amount], and I’ll throw in some extra for you, but I can’t sell you [combo] unless you have the full amount.”

My manager walks over as he’s noticed the customer getting agitated. He explains the same things that I have, and the customer gives us a big “F*** you!” and storms out.

Less than half an hour later, the next shift has arrived, and during the overlap, my manager and I get a break. We usually grab some food and go sit in his old car together, which has been parked to the side of the store for as long as I can remember. (He drives a newer and nicer car, but due to reasons too long and boring to list here, he’s been allowed to keep his old car in that parking spot for a few months.)

As we’re eating our dinner and talking, the customer from before spots us, storms over, and dramatically throws himself over the hood of the car.

Customer: “What the f***, man! You trying to kill me?!”

Manager: “What the h*** are you doing?! Go away!”

Customer: “I’m callin’ the police! You tried to kill me!”

Me: “Oh, my God! Is this all because you didn’t get a burger?!” 

The customer — who, at this point, we suspect is high on something — actually calls 911 and claims we tried to run him over. I’m getting a little worried, but my manager tells me to be patient and it’ll all be fine.

Two officers drive in about fifteen minutes later. (We’ve sat in the car finishing our food during this time.) The customer is quick to explain to them what happened. He’s even developed a little limp in the last fifteen minutes.

Then, the officers finally give my manager and me a chance to explain

Manager: “Officer, please, check the engine. I think you’ll find that it will prove that we didn’t hit the customer.”

Officer #1: “I’m not qualified to check an engine to confirm your testimony.” 

Manager: “Please, indulge me.”

My manager pops the hood, opens it, and lets the officer take a look. 

Officer #1: *To the customer* “Okay, sir, I think we’re done here.”

Customer: “What are you talking about?! Just because the engine isn’t running, it doesn’t mean—” 

Officer #1: “Take a look, sir.”

The customer steps forward… and sighs. 

There is no engine.

Manager: “It was taken out months ago to go to a more deserving car. This hunk of junk exists only as a place for me to take my breaks and listen to my music at full volume. We good here?” 

Officer #2: “We’re good. Feel free to go back inside, sir.”

Manager: “But first, I’d like to call the police about a customer who is causing a disturbance and has been known to lie to the police.”

Officer #2: “No need to make that call, sir. We can take it from here.” 

They escorted the customer off the premises. We never saw him again.

CONTENT WARNING: Sexual Assault Of Minor (Prior to events of story)

I used to work at a thrift store, and we got a new employee, [Creeper]. He was hired to be a truck driver to go around doing furniture pick-ups.

[Creeper] seemed to be a good-natured kind of guy. He tried to be friendly. The problem was that he was a little too aggressive about it — too friendly and too eager to make friends, particularly toward the younger female employees.

[Gay Employee] rode with [Creeper] once and made it absolutely clear that he would never get in the truck with [Creeper] ever again. Apparently, [Creeper] had views that were not LGBTQ-friendly, and [Gay Employee] didn’t feel comfortable or safe listening to the Bible-quote-laced diatribes [Creeper] would go on.

[Tough-Looking Employee] ended up with that job, and even he utterly loathed [Creeper] within a single trip. According to [Tough-Looking Employee], [Creeper] would talk with customers for upwards of twenty minutes at a time, aggressively pushing an invitation for them to join [Creeper]’s Bible study group. [Creeper] would then completely empty the truck, rearrange furniture, then go to the next house, Bible study invite, empty the truck, rearrange the entire truck for the newest furniture, and move on. [Tough-Looking Employee] said it was a study in pure frustration to try to get [Creeper] to knock that off, to no avail.

Finally, [Creeper] and [New Guy] left for a pick-up. They only had three houses to go to, so due to our need for coverage, both were scheduled to do a Donation Door shift in the afternoon. This was under the belief that an hour per pick-up was perfectly reasonable, plus some travel buffer time, seeing as how each pick-up was within the city limits. They turned three houses into a seven-hour trip for a few couches, chairs, and/or tables per house. 

They missed their door shifts completely, and [Assistant Manager] was forced to beg a couple of staff members to do an extra door shift to cover. Now, for [Assistant Manager], most staff would grab a pickaxe, give it a twirl, and ask which mountain she would like moved and to where. While a second door shift wasn’t something any of us liked, we would gladly do it for her. However, the point was that she never should have had to ask to cover [Creeper]’s lollygagging. ([New Guy] was clear; he wasn’t the driver, and short of bashing [Creeper] over the head and taking command of a large vehicle that he was unfamiliar with, he couldn’t do a whole lot to kick [Creeper] into gear.)

They both showed up near the end of the day, and [Supervisor #1] got into it a bit with [Creeper], basically calling him out on taking seven hours to hit three houses for a small load of stuff. He went into a moaning fit full of excuses. [Supervisor #1] told him that his goofing off was completely unacceptable before coming upstairs. She was almost to the top when both she and I (my area of sorting was near the stairwell) heard a very loud crash. [Creeper] had thrown something or knocked something over in a fit of pique. [Supervisor #1] did not go back down to investigate.

[Supervisor #1] went to [Supervisor #2] and talked to her about [Creeper]’s temper, as [Creeper] left yet again for a late lunch. On a lark, [Supervisor #1] and [Supervisor #2] went to public records and did some snooping to see if [Creeper] had any prior arrests.

Answer: Yes. He had been convicted of the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl and spent ten years in prison. He had gotten out of jail three months before his hiring.

[Supervisor #1] and [Supervisor #2] printed the information they found. [Supervisor #1] compiled the papers as evidence to give to [Store Manager] the next day. [Supervisor #2] grabbed me and told me what they had found, and I obligingly wiped the browser’s search history for them — literally minutes before [Creeper] came back from his break.

All was played cool as [Creeper] finished out his day and left. Staff were called and interviewed, and we learned all about what [Creeper] had done to make female employees uncomfortable.

He hit on me but claimed to be “a nice guy” in an incel way — describing how he was a follower of Christ and God had decreed that he deserved a good woman to be his devoted wife. (I was in my mid-thirties, but I have a baby face that makes me look like I’m in my twenties. [Creeper] was in his fifties.) I wasn’t afraid of him even before the horrible revelation, but I was sarcastically, cynically, uninterested. Unconsciously defensive behavior, I guess?

He hit on a female employee who had turned old enough to drink alcohol only a few months before. She was all kinds of “nope” about hanging out with him, too.

He even hit on one of our youngest newbies who had literally walked the stage out of high school two weeks before. She was also all kinds of “nope”.

Even the older women were very uncomfortable around him.

Anyway, the story has not yet come to an end. We’re still on the same day of the revelation that he was a convicted pedophile. We kept asking one another why [Store Manager] hadn’t done a background check!

[Creeper]’s shift ended at 4:30.

[Supervisor #2] left at 5:30.

At 6:00 pm, [Supervisor #2] called back. I picked up the phone, and [Supervisor #2] was highly anxious. She said that she had seen what looked like [Creeper], who should have left already, still in the parking lot. He was just sitting in his car for hours, staring at the building. She was deeply concerned for [Supervisor #1] and me, as we were closing the store together. Note: she did not approach [Creeper] in any way; she just left like she wasn’t paying attention and then drove home to call us and give us the heads-up. She had already called [Tough-Looking Employee]’s cell phone and asked him to stay with us all until we left the premises. His shift ended a bit before ours, but he willingly agreed to stay with us to keep us safe. ([Tough-Looking Employee] was the real MVP right there.)

At 6:15, I asked [Tough-Looking Employee] if he would go out and “look for carts” in the parking lot and just have a look-see to see if [Creeper] was still out there. [Tough-Looking Employee] caught on immediately and went outside. He came back five minutes later to state that, yes, there was a vehicle with someone in it who looked a lot like [Creeper] just loitering in the parking lot. [Tough-Looking Employee] told me that he looked at the person with the kind of “I see you, I’m aware of you, points-to-eyes-points-to-other-person” look before coming back inside.

At 6:30, [Tough-Looking Employee] went back outside to check again for “carts” and reported that the vehicle with person-who-looks-like-[Creeper] had moved on and we were in the clear.

The store shut down as usual. [Tough-Looking Employee] went out the back door first, looked around, and reported that we were still clear. We all headed for our vehicles, climbed in, locked doors, and waited for each other to pull out of the parking spots. Nobody left until we were in a conga line heading for the exit to separate.

The next day, more details came out. Apparently, [Store Manager] did interviews, but it was [Regional Manager]’s task to do background checks as the final step before hiring, which they didn’t see fit to do. 

[Store Manager] lost her s*** at [Regional Manager]; due to their negligence, this was a storm of truly epic lawsuit-and-PR-Nightmare-Fuel-worthy proportions, and the wheels were promptly turned to getting [Creeper] outta dodge. Not only was he creeping on female staff, but he was representing the company while pushing “Bible Study” on customers, going into their houses, and interacting with their families. Oh, yeah, and he was a convicted pedophile.

Thankfully, [Creeper] was let go as “Not A Good Fit For The Company”, using his tiff with [Supervisor #1] as one reason and his lollygagging on pick-ups as the second reason. We were very alert after hours for a while. Thankfully, he never appeared again after being let go.

We didn’t know or think of it then, but in all honesty, we should have called the police while he was sitting in the parking lot. His behaviors were deeply concerning, and the fact that he had been recently released from prison and was now lurking outside our workplace long after hours should have garnered a lot of attention. 

Live and learn.

Several years ago, I interviewed at an office for a job. The interview started okay in the beginning, and then the office manager surprised me with these questions.

Office Manager: “Are you single, married, divorced, or widowed?”

Me: “Divorced.”

Office Manager: “Do you have any children? If so, what are their ages, what grades are they in, where do they go to school, and who takes care of them?”

Me: “May I ask how this is relevant to the job?”

Office Manager: “We don’t like to hire single mothers who have young children and no babysitters. If your child gets sick, we expect you to have a backup for them. We don’t want anyone missing any work for their kids. We don’t allow anyone to bring their kids to work. It would cause chaos, and no one would be able to get any work done. Also, we expect you to come in sick. If you need to go to the doctor, it will have to be done after work. No exceptions.”

Me: “Okay. I don’t wish to answer your questions as they are not relevant to how I can perform the job. I will end this interview now.”

I got up and walked out. A few weeks later, I got another job at a different office, and thankfully, they didn’t ask these questions or say those other things about getting sick. They said if you are sick, you should stay at home and don’t bring whatever you have into the office.

At the new office, I met a girl who told me she had previously worked for the first office where I’d interviewed, and it was horrible.

She went on to tell me that the office manager fired people for anything. The girl told me she got fired for leaving work early when her toddler son fell and hit his head at daycare and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. The office manager said, “I hired you to work for me, not your son. If you need to see your son, you can do it after work.”

Another person was fired for getting into a car accident on the way to work and being taken to the hospital with a concussion. She was fired for not calling to report that she would not be in prior to 8:00 am.

Lastly, another person was fired for going to the post office to pick up the office’s post office box mail. The manager timed how long it took each person to make the trip, and it averaged twenty minutes. This person took like 28 minutes (due to a wreck) and was fired because the office manager decided that they must have stopped off somewhere for personal reasons.

The office with the terrible office manager is a law firm, and the office manager is the managing attorney’s wife.

The girl said that the office manager would bring her four-year-old grandson to work almost every day as her son (who worked for another company) was a single dad with no babysitter. The child spent all day being disruptive toward everyone, and the office manager didn’t do anything about it.

I’m so thankful I walked out of that interview.

I have heard that they closed a couple of years ago.