I was serving a table on the patio, and a customer sat there and asked me:

Customer: “Are these bugs going to be out here the whole time?”

Me: “They are part of the outside, ma’am.”

Customer: “Don’t they have other places they could be?”

Me: “Well, I do believe they have tickets to the opera later.”

Customer: “I… I think you’re making that up.”

Customer’s Adult Son: “Oh my god, mom, ya think?! Of course he’s making that up! You’re the one who chose to sit outside, in the summer, in Florida. This is part of the experience!”

Customer: “Well, you don’t see all these bugs in Disney World!”

Customer’s Adult Son: “That’s because they’re too busy having fun on the rides.”

The customer looked at her son, and then back at me.

Customer: “I think you’re both making things up!”

Me: “No, ma’am, the bugs have nowhere else to be, sadly. We have fly paper and bug zappers, but as your son has pointed out, this is Florida in summer. There will always be more bugs.”

Customer: “Well… you should hire people to tell them to go away!”

One Sunday, I went to visit my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson to deliver some food my wife made (lasagna, baby!). When my wife makes lasagna, everybody gets some. [Daughter-In-Law] is in bed as she had hurt her back on Friday, and it was still giving her issues. Been there, done that; it sucks.

I’m playing with my grandson, and my son mentions he is gonna take him to the grocery store to pick up a few things so [Daughter-In-Law] doesn’t have to worry about going. [Grandson] is cutting molars and not in a very good mood. I offer to go with him to the store to expedite the process, as it is on my way home. 

We take separate cars and meet up, start shopping, and are knocking it out, with me grabbing things and my son entertaining little Mr. Cranky Pants. We stopped in the pet food/supplies aisle as he needed kitty litter. I grab it and leave, heading over to the dairy aisle. One more thing to get and we are outta there. 

This pet food aisle is set up as dog food/supplies on one end, a cooler with fresh pet food, bird food/hamster food, etc then cat food/supplies on the opposite end. While leaving the aisle, I did hear someone yelling “HEY!” but paid it no mind. 

While walking to the dairy aisle, I heard a faint ‘slapslapslapslapslapslap’ that is the unmistakable sound of… flip-flops. We live in Florida, and flip-flops are a way of life. 

I’m walking in the dairy aisle still hearing the ‘slapslapslapslapslapslap’.

I grab the butter and as we are turning the corner to head to the registers, ‘SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAP.’

Woman: *Visibly out of breath.* “HEY! STOP RUNNING FROM ME! I’VE BEEN CHASING YOU FOR AGES! I NEEEEEEED HELP! WHERE IS [ITEM]?!”

We both turn around, and right away she starts in about chasing us down, blah, blah, blah. You could tell she was confused, as we are not dressed anywhere close to what employees wear (green uniforms). She kept staring at our shirts. Me with a Steppenwolf t-shirt complete with a large wolf head, and my son was wearing a Donkey Kong t-shirt. Not ready to admit defeat yet, she tried to say something else and…

At this moment, my grandson sticks his arms straight out and starts waving his hands around, saying:

Grandson: “NOOOOO!”

Yup! We both lost it and started laughing. Just said “Don’t work here!”, turned around and continued to the registers without incident. 

She stood there, mouth gaping. She ran down to the other end of the pet aisle, passed three other aisles, then ran down the entire length of the dairy aisle in her flip-flops to chase down two men and a baby to ask about some random dog food.

SLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAPSLAP!

We switched to a new ticketing system a few months ago, and the rollout has been a wee bit bumpy, a big issue being that they trained us how to use the product over a year ago.

Then the training we did was for two versions ago, so even going back and re-doing the training doesn’t make any sense, as we are now in a cloud version instead of a desktop version.

They also shut down the previous ticketing program without porting open tickets to the new system; they told us we had to go back and re-create anything we are still waiting for.

Even with all those issues, the biggest one we are dealing with is each and every step of the ticket sends an email, so one ticket can generate over ten emails, with the email stating that something has updated but not showing what it is, so you have to click the link to find out what has changed. Somehow, in all of this, they programmed the wrong distribution list for emails to go to.

Example: Desktop Support tickets are being sent to the entire distribution list for the call center QA department. It’s not going to the group mailbox; it’s sending it to the thirty-plus people on the team in a department that has nothing to do with IT.

I opened a ticket to have it fixed, and it gets closed stating that emails should be going out.

I reopen the ticket stating that, yes, emails should go out, but to the correct department.

The ticket is closed again, stating that emails cannot be turned off.

I escalate to a manager, and they state that it’s difficult to update the distribution list and to delete the emails if they are not needed.

I forward the response to my entire team, telling them to mark each email that is being sent to us in error as Spam. As we can get over fifty emails a day, and having almost thirty people report them as Spam, it doesn’t take long before ALL emails stop, including the ones we should be getting for QA.

I see a new update on my closed ticket: the distribution list has been updated, and to stop reporting emails as Spam, as they received so many reports the system automatically added the email address to the blocked list, and each time they try to remove it, it gets re-added.

I heard another department is having the same issue, so I told them the above. They told me they updated the ticket that they will mark incorrect emails as Spam going forward. Their ticket was updated within five minutes, stating they have corrected the distribution list, so they won’t get the emails anymore.

We’re normally open 24/7, but we have signs up all day that we’re closing this afternoon due to a hurricane coming in. A customer has just paid for some gas and is buying some cigarettes from me.

Customer: “It’s voter suppression!”

Me: *Having heard it all before.* “Uh-huh.”

Customer: “You don’t believe me? They send hurricanes to stop people from going out to vote!”

Me: “No one will be voting for anything tonight or tomorrow, so I don’t know what they’re trying to suppress.”

Customer: “It’s a test run.”

Me: “A test run for controlling the weather? Sorry, dude, no one can do that.”

Customer: “Tell me why hurricanes only come after red states? Huh? Explain that?!”

A small line has formed, so the next customer says:

Next Customer: “Could you hurry it up, please? We all have places to be before the storm hits.”

Customer: “You think I sound crazy, but one day the truth will come out.”

Next Customer: “The only thing you sound is unvaccinated. Go away.”

Related:
We Can’t Weather Any More Of These Crazies

In November 2017, our company eliminated a department because the volume of the product they handled had drastically decreased, and natural attrition wasn’t decreasing enough, as we had very low turnover. The powers that be decided we no longer needed the department in a high-cost-of-living location and were moving it to Middle America, where we already had a small version of the same department and wouldn’t need to hire that many to make up for our department’s shutdown.

As such, everyone in the department was given the opportunity to interview for other positions in our company or to take paid time off to interview at other companies. Our company also hired a consultant to assist with updating resumes, give mock interviews, and even provide referrals. The date for the “layoff” was 4/1/2018, which gave everyone five months to move on. People who were unable to find another position or chose to retire were given one week’s salary for every year they were here, with a minimum of two weeks. They would also pay for COBRA during that same amount of time. (Note: You had to stay until the last day to qualify for this; if you left before, you were not eligible for the payout. Yes, some people double-dipped having a position that started after that date, but not many.)

Now to back up, this department is a call center. These are phone agents. I’m not saying that they are at the bottom of the totem pole and should be treated differently, but these are no-experience-needed positions as long as you can read/write and use basic PC skills. So, for the company to take such care while we were in an “at-will” state was far beyond what is normal.

Enter Bob. Bob had been with the company as a front-line phone agent for fifteen years. They had zero desire to move up or move to another position in the company. Which is fine; he was in his 60s and wanted an easy job that never changed, which, for the most part, this position was.

Every week, I would check in with everyone on my team to make sure they were doing okay, and if I could help them get time off to interview, etc. Every week, Bob said he was good and didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Our team meetings, which took place monthly during this time, focused mainly on how everyone was doing and whether they had gotten another job; for those who had, we would congratulate them.

On the Friday before the closure, I made sure to say bye to Bob as he worked Monday – Friday and would not be there on the last day, which was a Saturday. I told him that he was one of my favorite employees and always reminded me of the grandpa in Up, as he looked so tough but was really very sweet. I sent him over to HR so they could give him his final paperwork and sign anything if needed.

Of the hundred agents on the last day, only fifteen remained. Everyone thought they would be on the phones that last Saturday, but the company threw a small party with catered food, gave out some gift cards, and let the agents take home their PC Monitors if they wanted them, since they were all going to be recycled.

I happened to get another position in the company, as I was in the same boat as everyone else. During all of this, I didn’t clean out my supervisor’s “Cube” because I was trying to help everyone else. I get in early on Monday so I can take everything down and pack what I was going to take to my new office (with real walls!).

As I’m packing up my stuff, I hear someone nearby, which is odd as the entire room should be silent. I get up and try to find out who is here with me, and I see Bob sitting at his desk and taking calls. I waited for the call to end, logged him out, and asked what he was doing here. He said that he was working and asked what I wanted. Confused, I stated that I said good-bye to him Friday and asked what happened when he went to HR.

He said that he didn’t go. I asked him why, and he said he didn’t understand the joke, so he didn’t participate like everyone else. Even more confused, I asked him what he was talking about. He said the April Fools’ joke.

I’m dumbfounded at this point and asked if he could elaborate. He said the joke about the call center shutting down on April 1st. That it was all a joke, and that people will be so upset when they figure it out. Still not fully understanding, I said that the call center is shut down. That everyone has moved on to other positions or took the payout, as he did. He repeated that he still doesn’t understand the joke, but he needed to get back on the phones as there were calls in the queue.

Now, this is where the company made a mistake. For some reason, his access wasn’t turned off on Friday, and they still had access to everything, including calls routing to him, as we still had calls, but those were now being answered by the forty people in our other call center.

Not wanting to cause further issues, I went back to my desk, called HR, and let them know what was going on. HR made me repeat everything to them as they didn’t understand what was going on. During all of this, I saw the CEO enter the room with several other C-Suite executives, who were going to gut it and turn it into a showroom for clients. I decided to go over to the CEO and let them know what was going on with Bob and that HR was on their way.

The CEO asked how long Bob had been here, and I told him fifteen years. This was the only position he had ever held in the company. They were a retired postal worker and liked having an easy job to come into each day. The CEO and I went over to Bob and had him log out after his call. The CEO shook his hand and introduced him to the other executives. While he’s doing this, I spoke with IT to disable all of their access.

The CEO includes Bob in the tour and shows them the mock-ups for how the room is going to be transformed. By the time I’m done packing up my desk, the CEO has walked Bob out to his car, accompanied by HR, who had him sign the final paperwork. The CEO comes back over to me and laughs at the “April Fools” joke they have been doing for the last five months. He says he felt bad for Bob but thinks he will be okay, as his wife wanted him to retire years ago, and he has nine grandchildren that he doesn’t get to see much.

A memo went out to everyone in management shortly after all of this stating that, going forward, no employee will be let go on April 1st. In addition, we were instructed to hold off on terminations on other dates, including two weeks before Christmas and Thanksgiving week. Since then, every April 1st, the CEO and I exchange memes of people thinking an actual event is a joke.