Whether you work in a grocery store, shopping mall, department store, or fast food place, you are bound to interact with people you do and do not like. I happen to be an introvert, so people aren’t always my favorite part of my job. And yet, for some odd reason, I’ve picked jobs that all require me to interact with others. From these jobs, I’ve walked away with stories galore of all the people I have dealt with.

But I need to provide a few disclaimers; I do actually love my job. I work with some amazing people and love what I do. Additionally, I’ve been these types of customer and co-worker at one point or another; I’m sure we all have. I’m not posting this to complain about or bash these types of people, but rather to commiserate with the employees who’ve had days ruined or, in many cases, made by them.

The following list contains a narrative account of my experiences with the seven types of people I’ve run into while working in various customer service environments over the last 8 years.

1.The Space Invaders

Dishes were stacked on tables like a mountain range, and I was a novice, a 16-year-old mountaineering weakling. It was the Christmas party at the country club, and the guests were bombed out of their minds while I zipped between them collecting my own mountain of dishes in my arms.

One older man stopped me, his speech slurred. “Heeeyyy, where has this pretty girl been working all night?” I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, smiled, and turned to face my new enemy. He draped a heavy arm around my shoulder and leaned in to whisper in my ear. Unfortunately, he was so drunk that he ended up shouting.

“How much does it cost to have you follow me around for the rest of the night?” I’m baffled and terrified of this man, who is old enough to be my grandfather. He towered over me like a skyscraper, and reeked of brandy and stale mints.

“Sir, I can’t do that.”

“No, no, no, no, you can. You have to. When I saw those doe eyes, I KNEW you had to be my waitress. You’re not like the rest of them.”

I was taken aback and felt a little embarrassed of my eyes and my makeup. I didn’t realize that they stood out that much, and the comparison to a deer made me feel really dainty and fragile. This was a new kind of danger, but I really didn’t know what else to say or do, so I thanked him.

“Okay, sweetheart. Here’s what I need you to do,” he slurred, guiding me over to his group of friends by my shoulders. “Put those dishes down right here.” He gestured at a table, and I obeyed. I was really beginning to question whether or not being trained to never say no to a guest was appropriate. “Take this pitcher and have the bartender fill it up for me.”

“What would you like him to put in it?”

“A gin and tonic.”

I paused. “You want this whole thing filled with a gin and tonic?”

“That’s exactly what I want. You’ve got a great memory-smart and beautiful.”

I walked over to the bartender, eager to get away from the old man, and explained what he ordered.

“Which guest wants this?” he asked incredulously. I pointed him out, and saw that he was watching me. The second the man saw that the bartender was trying to find him, he hid.

“That guy?!” the bartender exclaimed. “Stay away from him. I’ll go talk to him for you.”

To this day, I have no idea why the bartender had me stay away from him or why the guy was hiding, but I was very grateful to be out of the man’s area. I continued clearing dishes in other areas, but he wasn’t the last overly forward customer I’ve ever worked with. They’re unfortunately common, especially if you’re close to 18 years old and female.

2.The Story Tellers

I was stacking corn on a dreary Tuesday afternoon, when this woman approached me, with a hazy-eyed missing tooth smile. I continued stacking and mentally prepared myself for yet another review of Eden’s corn season.

“Corn reminds me of my dead husband.”

I blinked a few times, unsure if I’d heard her correctly. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I respond.

She gazed off into the middle distance, opened her mouth in a pause, and I knew I was trapped here for the next ten minutes, at least. “He used to plant corn in our backyard for himself and tomato plants for me.” Suddenly, her connection made sense.

“Oh, that’s really sweet, and must have been really convenient.”

“It was. But sadly, he’s been gone for twelve years now.” She let out a loose cackle. “But that doesn’t mean I’m lonely either! I get hit on all the time!”

She proceeded to tell me the story of how she had to change her non-Catholic name when her mother took her in, how she never gives her real name out to men, and how she’s no longer Catholic because God has abandoned us.

“There was this case I saw on the news,” she started, with her eyes misting at the corners, “where this baby was born with a brain outside of its head, and I started yelling at my television set, ‘WHERE ARE YOU GOD?!”

This woman that I have never met before was now shouting and sniffling about God, as I nodded along and told her that I understand how she feels. People are staring, and I’m not supposed to make political statements on the job, but for the sake of consoling this poor woman, I patted her on the back and said that I agreed with her.

She smiled and said to me that she feels less alone. I feel slightly accomplished, but can’t help but think to myself, I was stacking corn. How did this happen again?

Earlier that same week, I had another woman interrupt my salad stocking to declare her manifesto about factory farms, and how they are causing gang and drug-related violence in the inner city. “If we didn’t give all this money to factory farms and instead gave our business to local community members, maybe people would have more pride in their neighborhoods and think twice about shooting each other and themselves up!”

I had a harder time concealing my wide eyed surprise at her bold statements to me and my locally-grown romaine leaves.

This type of person seems to find me rather frequently, and I don’t know if it’s something about my face or if I smile too much, but each time never ceases to amaze me. Everyone has a story, and some are just more eager to share than others.

3.The Angelic Old

There are two types of old people, the angelic old and the satanic old. There is no in-between, and there is no differentiating which are which based on looks. Some of the women are overly perfumed, some of them wear the same shirt in three different colors each time you see them, and some are paired up in the golden years of their marriage. There’s no way of knowing how this interaction will end up until you’re about two seconds in.

For example, I worked at a restaurant seating people. One elderly man and his wife came in and had to wait for a table. They looked familiar to me, and so I asked if the gentleman’s name was Joe. His name was not Joe, and so I told him who I thought he was. Joe was the father of the owner of the car dealership I also worked at during that time. He laughed and said he wished he founded that car dealership like Joe did.

We spent his wait discussing the reliability of Chevrolet model vehicles and how wonderful I thought the various models were. I jokingly referred to him as Mr. Joe the rest of the time he was at the restaurant, including when I checked on his meal halfway through his visit. It wasn’t my job to check on them, but he had been so kind and friendly that it made my busy day that much more enjoyable.

As he left, he told me, “You have an amazing personality. Please never change!” It was one of the best compliments I have ever received and even two years later, I still remember Mr. Joe fondly.

4.The Satanic Old

She came in smiling, looking like my grandmother, but left the store ten minutes later with me in tears. I was a greeter at a car dealership, and we had a Memorial Day sale where we broke the United States sales record for Chevy sales in one weekend. No joke, no exaggeration. We had a waiting list for salesmen that went up to 14 individuals. There was a wait ranging up to an hour, and doing the math, most of those people waiting wouldn’t get to see a salesperson that day. But I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that, so onto the list they went.

Anyway, this woman walks into the dealership clutching the mailed flyer that everyone came in with. She handed it to me, and read from it that she had a meeting scheduled with the general manager of the store. I told her that he was currently busy at the moment (in truth, he was not at the store that day), but I’d get another manager to talk to her.

“No. I have an appointment with him for 3:30. I want to speak to him right now.”

“Ma’am, it’s 5 o’clock. He’s not here. Let me get another manager to help you.” Her eyebrows furrowed and I suddenly felt like a mouse in the eyes of an owl.

“No, I demand to speak with him! This is unacceptable!” I was out of options.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll bring him right over.”

I ran over to the manager desks.

“Hey, I have a woman over there demanding to speak to [manager’s name]. Can one of you go over and talk to her for me?” My second-in-command manager stared at me.

“We’re a little busy at the moment, in case you haven’t noticed. Handle it yourself, please.” I walked back over.

“Ma’am, I’m terribly sorry, but [manager’s name] isn’t here and the managers are busy at the moment. Can I get your name and information, and once a salesperson is available, I’ll have someone help you?”

She looked as if I had defecated on her mother’s grave. “How dare you.” I was shocked.

“Excuse me?”

“I told you I had a meeting with [manager], and you’re feeding me this load of garbage. I demand to speak to your manager, immediately! This is beyond unprofessional!” Others on the waiting list had started to watch this unfold. I jogged back up to the manager’s desk.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, but she’s demanding to meet with you. She’s starting to yell at me, and she’s getting really angry.” My third-in-command manager (yes, we had a lot of managers) got up, and followed me over to her.

“How can I help you, Ma’am?” he asked. He talked to her for under a minute, and told her the exact same thing I did. She seemed appeased and walked over to sign into the waiting list. After giving her information, she took a seat in one of the couches.

I thought everything had been settled, until five minutes later, when she got up and demanded to know how much longer I’d have her waiting there. I showed her the long waiting list and pointed out her name at the bottom. Apparently, this was also unacceptable.

“You are personally costing this business money. You are beyond unprofessional for making me wait here and I need someone to help me right now. I made an appointment and no one is upholding their promises at this establishment. I am complaining to your manager and I will never visit this place again. You are a terrible employee,” she repeated.

“Ma’am, I’m very sorry. If you wait for a moment, I will see if there is a salesperson available.” Just then, I saw a salesperson passing by me and beckoned him over to me. He took one look at the enraged woman shuffling towards the door, looked back at me, and shook his head in a strong “no.”

I begged the woman to wait just a second more, and she said, “You have singlehandedly lost a customer. Have a nice day.” I didn’t follow her out the door, as my feet felt glued to the spot. I’d never felt so terrible. It was stupid of me to get so upset over this one person, but I’d never had anyone talk to me like that before, especially when I was doing exactly as I was told.

The salesperson saw my frantic thought-filled expression, and walked over to me. “Hey, sorry about that. I am currently working with two people and can’t take on another one.” I felt my eyes welling up. I couldn’t even look at him.

“I just needed you to talk to her while I got the manager.” He paused, unsure what to say.

“Oh.” I turned away and sped off to the women’s restroom to clear up my face and let it out. It had been a long day.

About five minutes later, one of my older coworkers met up with me in there, and said that the salesperson had sent her in there to check on me. I assured her I was fine and went back to my desk.

An angelic old happened to see the interaction and approached me.

“Hey,” he said. “I work in customer service, and you handled that exactly as you should have. We see that type of person all the time. They go from place to place wearing out their welcome. Her time was up in this place. It’s not your fault.”

I smiled and thanked him. We chatted while he was waiting, and he singlehandedly took my day from one of the worst I’d had to one of the best.

5.The Gossips

This coworker is always involved in everyone else’s business, and seems to create drama wherever they go. I worked in a café making subs, fried chicken, and pizza with this woman my housemate’s mother lovingly called “The Toothless Wonder.” She was about 5 feet tall, had more attitude than she knew what to do with, and was generally mean-spirited. I worked with her for about two and a half months, and the entire time, I was very polite with her.

But shortly after being trained to work on the cash register, my manager pulled me aside.

“Hey, can you show me how you cash someone out? I just want to see that you’ve gotten the hang of everything.”

“Sure,” I responded, and proceeded to walk through the procedure step-by-step. When I finished, she seemed really disappointed.

“OK.” She turned away without another word, but I stopped her.

“Did I do something wrong?” She shook her head.

“No. To be honest, I didn’t think it was you, but we’ve been having someone steal from the register each night you’re working, and I heard whispers that it was you. I didn’t think it was you. It started one week before we trained you on register, but I thought I’d make sure you weren’t leaving yourself logged into the machine. And you weren’t.”

“Oh.” I was surprised. “Well, I hope you get everything figured out.”

She smiled at my sympathy. “Thanks. I hope so too. They took a hundred and thirty-seven dollars last Saturday... Do you remember who was working with you?”

I took a moment. It was the Toothless Wonder. I told my manager, but she seemed unsurprised.

“Want to hear a joke? She’s the one who blamed you.” To say that I was filled with bubbling molten rage was an understatement.

I moved back to college at the end of those two and a half months, and this woman did nothing but start fires between employees that otherwise had been kind to each other.

Three months into my semester, I heard word from a co-worker that they finally caught her stealing and fired her. They don’t refuse her service when she comes in to shop, but all the sunglasses in the world could never shield her eyes from the shade being thrown her way.

6.The Clueless Ones

This is that one employee that is so completely clueless that you have no idea how they still have their job. Recently, one teenager worked in the produce department of the grocery store I work at, and he did the opposite of everything he was told. Some say it was because he was lazy, and sadly, I’m inclined to agree.

On my first day working with him in the department, I read a note my manager left.

“Please unbox bananas and unload the remainder of the delivery.”

I shrugged. The kid had worked there for a year and a half; he’d handle this and show me what to do without any problems.

It seemed I had made a drastically incorrect assumption.

He spent the first half of his shift wandering around the floor, typing on his phone. He claimed he was composing a list of short-supplied items he needed to stock. I’m in college to be a teacher right now, and we are trained really well to recognize lies. And that was a lie if I’d ever heard one.

On a busy day, he’d take three items out on his cart and take over an hour to stock them. I know that I’m a slow worker, but I was amazed that anyone could move so slowly. He was an upside-down turtle caught in super glue and no matter what he was doing, his phone was never more than five inches from his nose. Once I even heard a rumor that he spent half an hour (not on break) in the bathroom playing his Nintendo DS in one of the stalls. With the sound on.

With thirty minutes left in my shift, he hadn’t even touched the bananas or the delivery. It was a hot, sticky, humid day and if he didn’t unbox the bananas, they would be too ripe to sell by the next day. Additionally, the delivery consisted of refrigerated perishables that had been out all day. They needed to be taken care of the second he came in, rather than as an after-thought.

Using my newbie trainee-status as a crutch, I asked him to show me how to unbox bananas, so maybe I could take care of it before my shift ended. Secretly, I was hoping that if I volunteered to help, he’d show off how much he knows about the department and get them started. Again, I was wrong.

He took the lid of the box, placed it on the ground, and put the boxed bananas into the lid so the bananas were exposed to the open air.

“Ta da,” he exclaimed. “Now normally, I’d do the rest of these, but I’m feeling rather tired today. I don’t think I’ll have time. They’ll be fine by tomorrow. Besides, opening all of these would make my fingers hurt and I need to focus on closing the floor.”

I didn’t even try to hide the fact that my jaw dropped. I didn’t have much longer to go in my shift, so I untucked as many boxes as I could, but I hardly made a dent. He disappeared for the rest of my shift, and so I left without even so much as a goodbye.

The next day I came in, and my assistant manager was throwing away the perishables on the delivery. The closer had never even touched it.

“What happened?” I asked, watching the mountain of juices and dressings accumulate in the garbage can.

“He didn’t do anything our manager asked. Not one thing.” He looked at me. “I mean, did he touch anything while you were here?”

I bit my lip in pause. It was my fourth day and my manager was already mad. “He unboxed a couple bananas. I helped a little, but he said…” I stopped, remembering the Toothless Wonder’s habit of making people mad at each other.

“…but he said what?”

I sighed. “But he said that he wouldn’t have time, and that unboxing the bananas made his fingers hurt.”

My assistant manager climbed off the step ladder to look me in the face. “He said what.”

I repeated myself. He looked as if he was about to explode in rage, but instead, he began laughing. Hysterically laughing.

“Oh god, the manager’s got to hear this one. That’s gold. That is gold.”

Apparently, I missed the joke. “I’m sorry?”

“That kid is filled with the best excuses. This department’s shrink is ridiculous, and I just had to toss all of this product and six cases of bananas because of him. And he just put in his two weeks’ notice yesterday. What a parting gift. God, I hope we don’t schedule him for next week. We could use the freedom.”

If there was a lesson to be learned here, it was that my department tolerated lazy employees, but didn’t make them feel particularly welcomed to the team. Learning from this experience, I never let a delivery slide past me if it came down to it, even if it was stacked several feet taller than me. I have never felt more welcomed to a department, and feel sorry for the employee who left himself so outside of their welcoming embrace.

7. The Momagers

She entered the store with loud, rambunctious children screaming and crying, grubby fists hammed around her bootcut jeans. I knew immediately what she wanted as she approached me. “Yes, I’d like to speak to your manager.” It wasn’t a question. She had short, stylish hair, gaudy jewelry. and smiled with a condescending sneer, as if she was prepared to harvest my ripened soul off the name badge pinned to my chest.

“Sure, I’ll be right back with them,” I responded, mustering my best smile. I dialed the number.

“Hey, we’ve got another one.” I heard my manager sigh with a sense of impending doom.

“I’ll be right over.”

I watched with baited breath from a distance. I knew I wouldn’t be hearing about how great of an employee I am. I won’t hear about the glory of my department store. Instead, I listened to the squawk of her offspring, and the crow of her complaints. And sadly, I knew she wouldn’t be the last one I encountered today, let alone this week. Hell, she wasn’t even the first one today. It was a Sunday. Shopping day for the families.

She pointed to a display and her voice rose.

“If you think you can just replace the last one with a new one that will break in the next two days, you are mistaken! I will not be taken as a fool!”

Ma’am, I thought to myself. A nice version of that lamp costs upwards of two hundred dollars. You spent twenty-five. What do you think is going to happen when your toddlers knock it off a counter? But knowing my place, I said nothing and continued straightening up displays and my cashing lane.

A few minutes later, she came through my lane carrying a new lamp.

“Did you find everything alright today?” She scowled at me, as if I was purposely trying to offend her.

“No. But there’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t bother.” Her children, on the other hand, were finding everything the candy aisle had to offer just right. They held handfuls of Twix bars and the box of Snickers up to their mother. She shrieked as if they were accosting her.

“You put that down right away! You’re not getting anything from here! It’s bad enough we have to spend more money on a lamp we shouldn’t have to pay for!” She added looking at me, as if the transaction was my fault.

“Ma’am,” I started, knowing where this was going to end up. “This lamp comes with a store warrantee. If it breaks in the next year, we will replace it for free. The one-year subscription costs five ninety-nine, and the two-year costs ten. Are you interested?”

It was as if I spat in her face. “Are you kidding me?”

“No,” I said sincerely.

“I bought the insurance last time and you know what your manager told me?”

“No, ma’am.” But I did know. The whole store knew. This woman couldn’t be quiet, even if she was at church.

“That ‘negligence’ is not covered under the warrantee. So you can take that warrantee and stick it up where the sun don’t shine, because I’m not buying.”

As I clicked ‘no’ on the computer screen, she raised her voice to me again. “And I don’t like that you’re offering me a guarantee on my products, like you know they’re likely to break! It doesn’t sound like you have pride or confidence in what you’re selling me and it definitely doesn’t make me want to come back!”

I had nothing to say to this, so I said, “Your total is$28.95. Cash or credit?” I don’t think this woman smiled once the entire time she was in this store, and despite being as kind as possible, I doubt our interaction made any difference in her life whatsoever.

I suppose that’s the hardest part of working in retail and minimum wage jobs. The reward can be so minimal at times. You see people every day and their life is as in-depth and vibrant as your own, but we frequently fail to make an impact, especially if we’re doing our jobs correctly. But there are always those few that make work worthwhile. The angelic old. The storytellers. And eventually, if you’re lucky, you’ll find yourself working next to someone you really enjoy interacting with. You’ll crack jokes and share nightmare stories.

And that’s the eighth person you meet in retail. Your future best friend.