“I Took My £4.80 In Change And Retreated To Eat My Now-Cold Big Mac” – 12 Times People Came Across Complete Jobsworths
by Benjamin Dzialdowski · BuzzFeedRecently, u/Vegannually asked r/AskUK, "What was your last interaction with an absolute jobsworth?" So we thought we'd shares some of the top responses.
It must be said that a lot of 'jobsworths' may just be doing there job and the ridiculous rules they have to enforce to may be the real issue.
1. "This was many years ago, before everyone paid for almost everything by card."
"I went to McDonald's, and whatever I ordered came to something like £5.20. I handed the cashier £10 and then said, ‘I'll give you the 20p as well to make the change easier.’ He looked at me quizzically and then said, ‘Sorry, we can't accept more than the required amount.’ Unsure whether he had understood what I meant, I told him that I was already giving him more than the required amount by giving him £10. The 20p was, in fact, intended to make his job easier and my wallet less full of coins. At this point, he said he needed to check with his supervisor, who confirmed that £10.20 was an ‘overpayment’ and that ‘£10 was all they could accept’.
Rather than pursue this fruitless endeavour any further, I took my £4.80 in change and retreated to eat my now-cold Big Mac."
2. "I had a delivery at work yesterday, and the guy handed me his phone to sign. I just did a squiggle of my initials."
"He looked at it and said, ‘No, no, that’s not a signature,’ and rolled his eyes. He deleted it, handed it back to me and said, ‘It needs to be your actual signature.’
I took his phone and did a version of my actual signature, which is my first two initials followed by my surname, all squiggly.
He rolled his eyes and deleted it again, then said, ‘You cannot get your package if you do not sign it correctly,’ and handed it back.
I took it and wrote my name in big block capitals instead. He looked at it, sighed and said, ‘It’ll do.’ It was for a delivery of paper coffee cups."
3. "A bus driver asking my daughter her age. Didn't believe her. A child fare is £3. An adult fare is £3. Tit of a human."
4. “I asked a stranger if I could borrow their Nectar card at Sainsbury’s self-service. I had forgotten mine. I was going to save £3. I was refused service, told I was committing ‘fraud’ and asked to leave the shop.”
5. “I was buying a trolley load of shopping in Big Tesco’s, around £140 with Clubcard or £200 without."
“I was buying a trolley load of shopping in Big Tesco’s, around £140 with Clubcard or £200 without. I forgot my Clubcard key fob, so pulled up a screenshot I took of it. Apparently, this is unacceptable. The cashier suggested I just pay the full amount, then submit for a refund when I got home. I refused and said I no longer wanted to complete the transaction.
Seemed petty, and I know it was probably company policy, but, for contrast, when I forgot my Clubcard once at Tesco Express, the guy on the counter said, ‘Not to worry,’ and scanned his smartwatch so I could get the Clubcard savings.
Stupid Clubcard bollocks.”
6. “Las Vegas. I had to prove I was over 21 to get into a concert we’d bought tickets for. I had to get a taxi back to the hotel to get my passport. I was 45 at the time.”
7. “After a terrible night’s sleep due to various personal issues at the time, I overslept on my train into London for work. I missed one stop, and the total difference in ticket price was about £2. I reached the terminus rather than my intended station."
"My ticket wasn’t valid for the gate, so I had to explain my situation to the guard, who said I either had to pay a £50 penalty fare or get the next train back to my stop, which added about 30 minutes to my already lengthy commute.
I would have happily paid the difference, but that option wasn’t presented to me. It would have made no difference to that fella’s day to just let me through. It wasn’t an intentional jibbing, and I’d already paid about £35 for my ticket, but instead, he chose to really ruin my day during a difficult period of my life.
I often think back to that: a total lack of empathy.”
“This was years ago, but it really, really sticks in my head.
I was on my way home on the train having been on holiday, and my parents rang to say they could pick me up from a different station, which would cut my journey by an hour. So I got off at the earlier station, and my ticket didn’t open the gate.
A staff member at the gates started lecturing me that if I was going to get off at an earlier station, I should have bought a new ticket, and now I had to pay a fine for not having a ticket. It was before the days of smartphones, so it wasn’t the easiest thing to rebuy a ticket when you were on the train.
Eventually, another staff member rolled up and told the guy to stop being ridiculous and unlocked the gate for me.”
8. “Parked in a disabled bay at Asda. Got out to get the kids out of the car, and as I moved round to the other side of the car (where the Blue Badge is kept), a jobsworth asked me, with a distinct intonation that he was going to give me a telling-off, if I had a Blue Badge, as it was a disabled bay. I got the kids out, put the badge in the window, got his attention and pointed to it as we walked into the shop.”
9. “Went to Cineworld to see the double bill of Kill Bill. Like four hours of movie."
"Accidentally showed up for 8 pm instead of 7 pm. Big dumb. With the half-hour of ads, that means we’ve missed like 30 minutes. It is what it is.
Dude cringes and says, ‘Ah... That means it started over 20 minutes ago.’
‘Oh jeez. Okay, cool. We’d better get moving then.’
‘That means I can’t let you in.’
‘What do you mean you can’t let us in? That isn’t a rule on your website.’
‘It’s a local rule for this cinema. It’d be disruptive to the other cinemagoers.’
‘Someone getting up to go to the toilet and back would be twice as disruptive! You don’t stop them doing that.’
‘I wish there was something I could do.’
‘There is... We’ve got like £30 of popcorn and drinks here. You gonna refund that then?’
This went round for a little bit until we got the supervisor, who also fought us. Then we insisted on the manager, who they couldn’t get hold of, and they eventually just gave up when we brought up the terms of service for Cineworld, which explicitly states that the ticket gives you the right to enter for the duration of the screening.
Bruh, why the fuck do you care? We’ve paid our tickets. If I want to show up just to see the last 10 minutes, that’s my fucking business.
When I worked these sorts of jobs, I did all my work quickly and to a good standard, but when some little thing came up like this, I didn’t think twice about just being chill with the customer because it’s a shit job with stupid rules. Can’t stand these people...”
10. “The lady at the Post Office refused to let me pay in five bags of coins, as any more than four is money laundering. I tried explaining that nobody is laundering money in 5p and 10p coins. But simply rejoining the queue was OK.”
11. “Went for a job interview at a very large production site. This was back in the early 2000s."
"Sat in the reception building watching the site safety video, which was along the lines of, ‘Once you go through reception, your phone must be off.’ There was a sign saying the same above the door leading onto the site. I wasn’t on site at this point; I was sat in reception looking at this sign.
My phone rang, at which point the receptionist went off on me about still having my phone on! I tried to explain that I understood the message and would switch off my phone when I was collected and about to go on site, but that just made her more annoyed.
Got the job, and what followed was eight years of that receptionist taking every opportunity to single me out. The absolute highlight was the fob we needed to get the van on and off site, which was constantly being lost by other members of the team. She waved all of them through without it, but I always got a lecture about it. She also complained to my manager about my attitude when I dared to explain that the paperwork for a replacement fob had been submitted weeks ago, so there was nothing I could do.”