After the disappointing results from Copenhagen, it’s been hard to get too excited about the United Nations climate change talks in Cancun that are going on right now.
That means China’s talk about cutting the amount of carbon it emits per unit of GDP by 40 percent by 2020 (from 2005 levels) might have real teeth. In making this offer, China is trying to get developed nations to make stronger commitments to reduce their emissions when the current Kyoto protocol ends in 2012.
An analyst from the World Resources Institute is calling it a “game-changer.”
Many people have been a cashier at a business at some point in their lives. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are over three million cashiers working in the country today—and they all have stories. If you’ve ever worked behind the register, you might have some stories, too. Annoying stories about customers who irritated you, yelled at you, or were just jerks. Or positive stories like the time a customer bought you a coffee or offered a, “Have a nice day!” every time they showed up. Then, there’s the other category: the odd stories.
For every hundred stories of an angry customer who brought an expired coupon or a customer that kindly bought the groceries of the person in line behind them, there is one bizarre tale from the world behind the counter. It could be a case of an odd but happy happenstance, over-the-top bad customers, acts of heroism, or just plain weird interactions that aren’t typically a part of a cashier’s day-to-day experience.
“Worked in a small corner shop, after a longish wait in line, the guy had apparently become so bored that he’d decided to put all his loose change in his mouth. When it was his turn he looked really embarrassed and sheepish when he spit all of it out into his hand. I was disgusted on various levels. The only upside was that it was the exact amount.”
2. “Please do not give your cat a can of Red Bull for breakfast.”
“A woman comes in wanting to feed her cat raw food. I explain how you can buy X or Y brand, but you need to buy specific supplements because there isn’t any taurine in it (a needed nutrient for heart/eye health in cats). She pauses a moment before asking, ‘Like in Red Bull?’
‘Yeah, similar.’
‘So I can just like…open a can of Red Bull on it?’
‘…No. Please do not give your cat a can of Red Bull for breakfast.’”
“She left without buying anything because it would be ‘too hard.’”
If you have any crazy retail stories like this I’d love to hear them and know that we’re all in this crazy world together ? #retail#petstore#crazystory
“Not me, but my mom worked at a grocery store for a few years. There was this strange older man who would come in a few days a week. He would walk over, pick a book up off the shelf, and just stand there reading for countless hours, only to eventually leave before closing without purchasing a thing. He came in fairly often to read, and everyone thought it was odd, but they just ignored him as he wasn’t causing any harm.”
“Fast forward a year or two, my mom met my dad and they started dating. After they dated for a while, my mom finally went over to meet my dad’s parents, and as it turns out, that strange man that stood there reading for hours on end in the middle of the aisle? Well, he was soon to be my mom’s father in law, and is now my grandfather.”
4. A sticky situation at a phone shop
“A guy walked in and was very unhappy that he used up all of his mobile data while streaming movies tethered to his TV. This was back in 2014 or so, high data plans for this kind of thing were expensive and he had a contract with only a few gigs of data on there for about £15 per month or so with just a SIM plan… When he came in, he demanded more data or a cancellation of the contract and we had some policy for stores that meant cancellations could only go through the customer service line so we couldn’t help with that anyway. But he realized that we couldn’t just refresh his data or give him more for free so he literally pulled out a tube of super glue and poured it all over his hand and stuck it to the card machine.”
“He said, ‘As you can see, I am not leaving this store until this is resolved.’”
“We were amazed at the guy to be honest, so we unplugged the card machine and he walked out with it, still stuck to his hand with security.”
5. A literal nothing burger
“When I worked at a fast food restaurant, a girl came up and very smugly ordered a burger without the meat, bread, ketchup, mustard, or pickles. That’s right. She ordered a few pieces of lettuce and a couple slices of tomato. No matter the rationale, I hate her. She could have bought a head of lettuce and a tomato for the same price at a grocery store.”
6. The friendly thieving tourist
“I worked at a hotel in Oregon and some guy came in and got a room. He is staying for about a week so he asks about some sights around the city/little shops for souvenirs. We told him some and gave him some maps so he wouldn’t get lost. Over the course of the next few days he goes to these places and always reports back, which isn’t too strange because we gave him the recommendation so it was nice to hear he enjoyed it.”
“The day he is supposed to check out, I come into work to see the police and my manager talking. I come to find out that this guy has not only gone to each place, but robbed each place and has been using the hotel as a base of operations. Because I have had a good relationship with the guy, I was tasked with going up and knocking on his door for a ‘wellness check’ before he checked out. When he answered the door, the police pushed me out of the way and tackled the guy to the ground. He was stashing the money in the ceiling above the bathtub. He was cooperative with the officers and didn’t seem too upset about being caught, even thanked us for his stay as they were walking him out.”
7. “Act like you’re my mom, this lady is following me.”
As reported in Amplify Upworthy, a ten-year-old boy was being followed by a stranger. Afraid that he could be abducted, the boy ran into a local shop that he recognized. He walked up to the 17-year-old cashier and asked her to “Act like you’re my mom, [because] this lady is following me.”
The cashier, named Hannah, played along and got between the woman and the boy, and was able to shut and lock the door to the shop. This quick action kept the boy safe and scared off the stranger. Definitely not the typical work day for Hannah.
8. Which fabric is the best against wrinkles and death rays?
“Let’s just skim over the guy who bought about 10 yards of black fabric, all different kinds (cotton, felt, etc.), and when I (trying to make pleasant conversation while cutting) asked what he was doing with all that black fabric, he explained that the black fabric absorbed the death rays that THEY were aiming at him. He was experimenting with different kinds of fabric to see if one had better absorbency. Oookay.”
9. They didn’t appreciate “pyramid power”
“A guy comes in wearing a wire pyramid on his head and proceeds to lecture the cashier, the bagger, and other customers in line on pyramid power. He kept talking about how wearing the pyramid made him smarter, but apparently it didn’t make him smart enough to realize everyone thought it looked ridiculous and we were all trying our best not to laugh in his face.”
10. The day Dillons employees became duck chaperones
“I was a cashier at a Dillons grocery store in the Bible belt when I was a kid. One day a woman came up to my counter and, in a quiet voice, said, ‘Excuse me, you’ve got some ducks out in the parking lot. Um, they’re mating, and everyone can see it.’”
“I didn’t know what the f**k she was talking about, so I just kinda joked about it being that time of year or something, but she continued. ‘Everyone can see what those ducks are doing, you need to send someone out there right now.’ The lady was serious. She wanted an employee to go outside and c**kblock a duck so kids wouldn’t know what banging was. I rolled it to my supervisor, who sent a cartpusher to make the lady feel better and ruin some ducks’ big day.”
This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.
Whether it’s at work or at the dinner table, no one likes being interrupted. It’s an awkward situation in which you’re left to either let it pass to keep the peace or stand your ground at the risk of seeming aggressive. It can feel like a no-win scenario. However, a communication expert offers five methods that could help.
Vinh Giang is a public speaking coach who knows what it’s like to be interrupted and has found some great ways to help you maintain the floor and the flow of conversation. Better yet, these methods give you confidence and control without making you seem like a jerk.
The best way to stop interruptions is to prevent them ahead of time. Simply starting with, “Hey, let’s be mindful and allow everyone to complete their thought before weighing in,” can be enough. By setting ground rules at the start of a meeting, or even during a friendly conversation, everyone is reminded of basic manners.
Even if this doesn’t prevent interruptions, it can still help. These established boundaries give everyone the ability to say, “Excuse me, I’m not finished,” without looking like a bully.
2. Learn and use “bridging phrases”
Some folks get interrupted by accident because those around them mistake a pause for a sip of a drink or a breath for the end of a thought. Giang says a good way to work around this is to use “bridging phrases.”
Bridging phrases are quick sayings that indicate there’s more to come after a pause. Some examples include:
“Let me add to that…”
“Before I finish…”
“Continuing on…”
“In addition…”
“And another thing…”
Those are just a few examples, and there are many more to choose from. Using them can buy you time to collect your thoughts or take a sip of water while keeping everyone’s attention. It also helps to pause mid-gesture to signal nonverbally that you intend to continue.
If you want to stop being interrupted when you pause, the key is to be “mid-gesture” when you pause. Most people when they talk, they look and sound “done”. So when people interrupt you, it’s not because they’re being mean, they actually think you finished your sentence and that they can start talking. So the key to fixing this is to be gesturing mid-sentence or when you pause so you signal to people that you’re still going!
Giang says many people are easy to interrupt because they don’t assert themselves physically or vocally in a conversation. Speaking softly, meekly, or mumbling can make it difficult for others to maintain attention. Speaking upright, clearly, and with open hand gestures, on the other hand, makes your presence known and harder to interrupt.
If you have trouble speaking confidently, there are classes, videos, and articles that can help you improve your public speaking.
4. Acknowledge the interruption and keep the floor
If the previous preventative measures don’t work and you’re interrupted, you can still keep your speaking time. Giang and other professionals say it’s best to acknowledge the interruption. If you let it go, you risk ceding the floor and might not get it back.
It doesn’t have to be aggressive. It can be enough to say, “I would like to finish my thought, and then I’d love to hear your opinion. Is that okay?” This acknowledges the interruption while letting the other person know their opinion is still valued. Everyone can move forward.
5. If the interrupter’s point is valid, integrate their thoughts into your own
While interruptions may be rude, there are times when a good point is made. It’s a case of “good point, bad timing.” In these situations, that interruption can actually strengthen your ideas.
When this happens, Giang recommends taking the interrupter’s point and incorporating it into your response when you regain the floor. Say something like, “I hear that, and it’s a big part of the rest of my point…” or “I’m confident the rest of my thought will address that question.” This allows you to acknowledge the interruption without disrupting your flow.
Hopefully, these tips can help you feel heard and reduce interruptions while keeping the peace.
California’s Department of Housing and Community Development established this pilot program in 2019. Its goals were straightforward: to make homeless shelters more accommodating to people with pets – mostly dogs – so that people living on the streets don’t have to choose between staying in shelters or abandoning their pets.
The program disbursed US$15.75 million between 2020 and 2024 to 37 organizations across the state. The funding allowed shelters to build kennels or other pet-friendly spaces, provide pet food and supplies, and offer basic veterinary care. It also covered the costs of staffing and maintaining insurance required to operate pet-friendly shelters.
We found that the program helped 4,407 people experiencing homelessness keep their pets while getting support. Many were able to enter shelters, and their animals received needed veterinary care. A total of 886 people ultimately moved into permanent housing with their pets – a higher success rate than the statewide average for homeless people in California.
Theoretically, this funding should have reduced the number of pet owners living on the streets. Yet since 2019, the year the program began, the number of homeless people in Los Angeles with dogs and other pets has increased.
Since 2017, I’ve led the USC research team that produces the annual homeless count estimates for Los Angeles. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires this exercise for any city seeking federal funding for homelessness services.
Before the pandemic, we generally found that roughly 1 in 8 people did. We also found that nearly half of homeless pet owners had been turned away from a homeless shelter because it couldn’t accommodate their animal.
Despite programs like California’s Pet Assistance and Support program, my research team has found that the share of people living on the streets of Los Angeles who say they have a pet increased to roughly 1 in 5 by 2025.
Need for more pet-friendly programs
We still don’t know why the share of homeless people with pets has gotten so much larger.
The Weingart Tower, where some of Los Angeles’ formerly homeless people reside and receive social services, has a small dog park. Grace Hie Yoon/Anadolu via Getty Images
The number of homeless people in Los Angeles has fallen by more than 4% since 2023 to just over 72,000 people in 2025. But based on my research findings, I would expect the number of people living on the city’s streets – with and without pets – to rise over time unless more affordable housing becomes available.
And growth in the homeless population may be hard to avoid without more efforts like California’s Pet Assistance and Support Program – on a larger scale than the pilot we studied.
