Many years ago, I was in band in high school. We were raising money for a trip to play at a festival at a famous theme park by selling chocolate bars.

I stopped by the house of a family friend, and the woman agreed to buy a few. Her young daughter, around three or four years old, happened to witness the transaction and, having found a dollar bill lying around the house somewhere, insisted on giving that to me, too. 

Nothing Mom or I could say would dissuade her from her newfound mission of handing the dollar bill to me. I didn’t want to put Mom on the hook for any more chocolate than she’d already agreed to buy.

Suddenly, inspiration struck!

I gave Mom a knowing look and accepted the money, thanking the girl. Then, I reached back into my pocket and pulled out a different dollar bill. “Here’s your change!” I told her, offering it to her. She took it happily and toddled back off into the house, presumably to wherever she’d found the money in the first place.

Back in the days of cable TV and satellite dishes (the early 1990s), I am a tech who is usually called to handle the more complicated issues. I get a call from a manager who works with my direct manager, who is retiring.

Manager: “We need you to do a hard reset on [Customer]. [Call Centre Manager] left a note on the account to specifically call you.”

I log in and see that it’s full of notes of the worst kind about this customer. Over the years, he has been abusive, racist, and sexist, but mostly homophobic. Every time he gets a male worker at the call centre, he calls them homophobic slurs of the vilest kind. How this customer’s account hasn’t been closed by now is beyond me.

Me: “Why? What happened here? His account is a mess.”

Manager: “It was [Call Centre Manager]. He seems to have… been creative on his last day before retirement last week.”

As I am friends with that old call centre manager, I call him and ask for an explanation.

Call Centre Manager: “I totally did not remote into a customer’s cable box with a generic tech support password, put in a parental lock, hide all channels except for a very nice adult entertainment channel, and then leave.”

Me: “I see. So, you absolutely did not leave this homophobic customer’s cable service locked into only, and absolutely only, the gay adult channel?”

Call Centre Manager: “I absolutely did not do that. No. See you at my retirement barbeque on Saturday?”

Me: “I’ll be there!”

I work in the lingerie department at a department store. This guy comes in.

Customer: “I’m looking for something sexy for my girlfriend.”

Me: “What size is she?”

He looks me up and down in the creepiest possible way.

Customer: “About your size.”

Whenever a guy is creepy, I do my usual thing where I get them to spend way too much on lingerie, which both drains their bank account — thus getting me a good commission — and makes sure that whoever the creep is dating at least gets something good out of the relationship.

A week later, the same guy comes in with a woman — who is definitely not my size — and his two small children. I glance at the woman’s finger and realize that she is not in fact his “girlfriend” but his wife. He sort of sheepishly stands behind her, not making eye contact with me, while she returns the lingerie he bought (I think it was probably for the person he is having an affair with) because it obviously doesn’t fit her.

I don’t want to be the one to break it to her. I mean, it isn’t completely inconceivable that he just “accidentally” called her his girlfriend and completely estimated the wrong size for her. So instead, I happily take back the lingerie and then make sure the guy spends hours waiting while I find his wife multiple more expensive items in her size to replace them with.

While I’m ringing her up, she thanks me.

Wife: “I don’t know how he got my size so wrong; he’s always gotten it right before.”

In response, I sort of shrugged, but I shot the guy a look of absolute disgust, which I think she caught. I overheard her start to interrogate him about my reaction on the way out.

I never knew what happened after, but I hope that woman ran for the hills from that a**hole.

My family members all live in different states. I live in Pennsylvania, my sister is in Kentucky, and my parents spend most of the year in Florida and come up to Pennsylvania in the summer. Most of our communication with my sister’s kids is over the phone.

My mom is having a very hard time bonding with my four-year-old niece. Since I’m currently my niece’s best friend and we spend hours each night talking on the phone or FaceTime, I decide to tell my mom what initially got [Niece] to warm up to me. (This is partly to get her to bond with my mom and also so I can get some of my evenings back.) 

Me: “Have you ever heard of Funko Pop?”

Mom: “Not really.”

Me: “They’re these stupid little collectible figurines for celebrities or characters from media. I had a few Disney ones just for particular favorite characters like Merida. One day, [Niece] wanted me to show her my apartment, and she saw it. She was really excited, so I got a few more, and now every time she calls, she wants to see my princesses.”

Mom: “And that’s why she started to want to call you?”

Me: “Yeah. I mean, no offense, but a boring adult with nothing that she’s interested in. Get a few, and she’ll like to see them.”

I decide to send my mom two “Encanto” figures, figuring it can be her starter pack, as [Niece] is obsessed with “Encanto”. My mom is beyond excited to try and bond with [Niece].

Tonight, I get my regular call from [Niece], and she asks to see my figures. 

Niece: “Pap showed me that he has princesses, too!”

Me: “Did Nana show you, too?”

Niece: “No!”

Interesting.

As soon as we hang up, I call my parents. 

Mom: “Hey, what’s up?”

Me: “Were you aware that [Niece] was already shown the Encanto figures?”

Mom: “That rat b*****d. He knew that was supposed to be my ticket in!”

She confronted my dad on the phone with me, and we thoroughly ganged up on him. I’m planning to send more Pops down with instructions to hide them so he can’t steal her thunder again as [Niece] already likes my dad.

I used to be a manager in billing. A caller was screaming at one of my agents to the point that she was crying. The conversation went like this before they got to me.

Caller: “My services went out for half an hour, and I demand a credit!”

Agent: “Yes, ma’am, I can offer $25 as a courtesy credit.”

Caller: “Are you joking? That’s nowhere near enough to compensate me for my inconvenience! I know they hire idiots at your company, but you have to be the lowest of the low to think of even offering a figure that low! Put me through to your manager as it’s obvious I am just going to be wasting my time with you!”

She put the caller through to her supervisor.

Supervisor: “My agent was correct and following procedure by offering a $25 courtesy credit, ma’am. Since you have expressed that this outage has severely inconvenienced you, I can offer you $50.”

Caller: “You idiots aren’t getting it, are you?! I have been severely inconvenienced, and you think a measly $50 is going to cut it? Your company makes billions! Put me through to the manager; this is a waste of my time!”

The call got to me and irritated me to the point that I was grinding my teeth.

Me: “Well, ma’am, I have listened to the gist of the calls, and all I have heard is you hurling abuse at my agents for following correct and proper procedure. Therefore, I will not be offering the $50 that you should have taken from the supervisor, and I will not even be allowing the original $25 that was offered by my agent.”

Caller: “No! You have to give me the $50! You agreed!”

Me: “And you rejected it, so that offer is gone. But I am a fair man, and I am aware that your service was genuinely out for half an hour. At your current bill, that comes to four cents prorated, but I’ll make it eight cents and round it up to an hour since I’m a nice guy. You’ll see that credited in your next bill. Is there anything else I can help you with, ma’am?”

Caller: “You f******—”

Me: “Thank you for calling, and have a great day!” *Click*