When you're working a minimum wage job at a major corporation, you usually have very little power. But occasionally, when the bosses aren't looking, you might be able to break a rule or two to help a customer in need.
Well, a viral Reddit thread from user u/Edymnion once asked minimum wage workers of the internet, "What is something that is against the rules for customers to do, but you aren't paid enough to actually care?"
The thread quickly amassed thousands of responses, as people shared the little ways they bend the rules to help customers out. Here were some of the top-voted responses:
1. "Couple years ago I worked at a deli... Every three hours we had to mark rotisserie chickens and other foods on the hot plates down 50%. If people were kind or looked like they could use some help, I would mark them down almost any time. I couldn't tell you how many folks came in who I would give a few extra slices of cheese or ham to for free, and their faces would just light up. They definitely needed it more than [my store]."
—Anonymous
2. "My favorite old folks usually weren’t charged as much as they should have been. I’m not about to tack on $0.50 for extra peanut butter. If someone was awful to me, you bet your ass they paid the full price."
3. "People sleeping in their cars overnight — I consistently work night shifts and see it all the time. We're supposed to tap on the window and ask them to leave, but really if someone has to sleep in their car and we have a huge empty carpark, why kick someone while they're down?"
4. "I worked at an airline. The minimum change fee was $75.00. At the time, that amount of money would take me about ten hours to earn. Let me tell you how many ways I found to waive that fee: 'Oh, what a great conversation about weather, let me waive that fee for you,' 'Oh, your child is crying in the background, let me waive that fee for you.' I found any reason to waive that."
5. "People paying with expired coupons for anything that wasn't medication... I just scanned all the expired coupons anyway because it wasn't worth the trouble of having an argument with the customer and increasing the amount of time they were on the line. Obviously with those Rx coupons it was another story, as overriding that could be considered insurance fraud."
6. "I work in a pharmacy. It’s highly looked down upon by my bosses, but if I see that someone’s copay is insane and their insurance won’t pay any of it, or they have temporary loss of insurance, I find a coupon to put in as a replacement for insurance so that my patients can leave with the medication they need without putting themselves in debt."
7. "Using the bathroom if you aren't actually a customer. We are the only place open at 3 in the morning. I'm not gonna tell people to go find somewhere else."
8. "Years back I worked at a local chain restaurant that had a drive-thru. One of the owners would occasionally come through and reiterate that we were to only give one ketchup packet out per order of fries at the drive-thru. Our fry orders were huge, and one packet was nowhere near enough, so as soon as he was gone, we’d go back to throwing handfuls of ketchup packets into the bags."
9. "At my pizza place, we make large pies for slices. Cheese pies only get 14 ounces of shredded mozz on them, but that's not enough cheese to get decent coverage. Fuck that, I'm putting at least another three ounces of cheese on that motherfucker. Ain't nobody getting a shitty slice of cheese pizza on my watch."
10. "If the item doesn't have a price, I let the customer just name it if they're nice. We're supposed to have someone check the price, but that usually takes a long ass time as everyone's busy. I save that for assholes."
11. "I worked at an online diaper bag company, and if a bag was returned, I was supposed to find out if it was the customer's fault to decide how to issue a replacement. When a frantic, hormonal new mom would call me getting ready to rant and put her foot down, I would always interrupt their story and just ask for their address and what type of bag they wanted, and ship it for free... I don't care if they were carrying large bricks in the bag. Take a new one!"
12. "Having worked in multiple movie theaters, I can tell you that the ushers absolutely give zero fucks about you trying to sneak in food from outside. It’s a minimum wage job, they have no interest in hassling people or getting into a confrontation over the bag of peanut M&Ms in your purse. It’s a million times easier to just turn a blind eye."
13. "I'd carry coins on me when I worked at McDonald's, so if anyone came up less than a dollar short, I'd cover it for them. I'd feel especially bad declining them if they were with a girlfriend or family or something. I know what it's like to come up short at a fast food place."
14. "Free internet at the hotel I used to work at. They used to make you sign up for the loyalty club so they can track your data and all that bullshit. If someone couldn’t do it themselves, I just gave them a free WiFi slip."
15. "Hotel breakfast. I wasn't supposed to let the homeless eat there. I did."
16. "I worked at a pizza restaurant where the protocol was to give out only one ranch with each meal. If a customer wanted more we were supposed to charge them a dollar. I love ranch and totally understand that people want more than one tiny container, so I would always give them as much as they wanted."
17. "We do a 10% student discount at the shop I work at. We have to be shown a valid student card before we give the discount. I could be shown anything vaguely plastic and rectangular and I'm giving that discount."
18. "During college, I worked at a major theme park in Orlando. List of things I did not get paid enough to give a shit about: Express (skip the line) pass expired a little bit ago? Who cares. Come on through. Half inch too short to get on the ride? Meh, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Have fun. No photography or video taping allowed on this ride? Stupid rule. You waited an hour in line, video all you want."
And finally...
19. "I drive by a MASSIVE homeless community on my way to school, and at work we aren’t supposed to give leftover food to anyone who doesn’t work there because, 'if they get sick, they can sue us.' At the end of the night, we throw out anywhere between five and ten cubic feet of food: veggies, potatoes, tri-tip, ribs, tenderloin, fish, rice, pasta, fruit, cheese, bread, you name it — all cooked by a Michelin star chef. You bet your ass I take as many five gallon bags as I can and distribute that shit. I don’t tell them where it’s from, but if I know it’ll keep, I give it out."
You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.