Bookstore slavery
One miserable year I took a summer job in a large bookstore which shall remain nameless. (But if I were to name it, I'd call it "Barnes and Noble")

Working in the main store was purgatory.
"No sir, there is no possible way I can search 'book with bluish cover' do you remember what the title was, maybe?"

Actually, some of the worst customers were also the funniest. For example, the smelly homeless bum who would go up to the counter and demand we order 20 different yachting magazines. And when we filled out the order form for him, we had to write down his full 'name and title' which started with Lord Something-Or-Other and consisted of a 40 word long mishmash of random names and titles.
If we refused to do this, we got roundly sworn at--not like he ever paid for the magazines when they actually arrived. Oh yes, and by the way, this was in America, where the closest they get to nobility is Elvis.

And then there was the fellow who'd go stomping through the video section shouting "Where are all the adult films?" at the top of his voice.

Poor homeless nuts. They just camped out in the store because it was somewhere warm to go before the homeless shelters opened for the night.

Not that the cafe was any better. All the time people would reject the drinks they ordered, saying that they didn't expect the drink I had given them. Look, if you don't know what it is, DON'T ORDER IT. It's that simple. I ended up throwing away on average 15 drinks a day.

And then there were the people who ordered extremely specific custom drinks and threw an enormous fit if they weren't exactly perfect...but I could rant and rave all night like this.

Good riddance to that job!
(TheWonderfulWombat It came to me in a dream., Mon 8 Sep 2008, 4:02, Reply)