My mother owns a couple of apartments that she rents as a complement of income and in preparation for retirement.

Some of them she manages fully directly, but one has her go through a society. There were several conflicts, including the people in charge of finding renters (mostly among students) trying to pressure my mother into reducing the rent amount (already a bit below market) to make finding customers easier, but in truth keeping the same price and pocketing the difference. So, my mother retook the responsibility of finding, choosing, and negotiating with potential and current renters without issue.

This story is part of why she wishes she could also get rid of [Society] in its role as the sole and irremovable building manager. Normally, they are chosen by a vote among the owners, but not in this case, as [Society] managed to also be the one voting in the name of the owners using the full breadth of their service, guaranteeing an easy and systematic majority.

One morning in late January, my mother received a rather aggressive letter telling her that she was late in paying the monthly charge for the service, due on the first. The letter said to contact a specific number to negotiate the late fees and payment.

She checked that the letter was genuine — it had indeed been sent from a [Society]-owned mailing address — that the number was not a trap, and also that she had paid on time. Then, she gathered the proof of having paid and then called.

After a bit of a wait, the person on the other end told her that despite his function, it was not him that dealt with this part and to contact the accountant, whose number she already had.

So, she did. The accountant was on vacation, and the assistant that answered told my mother that it was another service that handled the charges and gave her the number.

After a greater bit of wait for an answer, she got through to a woman who said that handling all the cheques — [Society] insist on payment by cheque — at the same time was hard, that there was a renewal in the service this trimester, and that she sent the letter to everybody just in case. But there had been a big internal courier arrival this morning, and if my mother’s payment was among those, they would waive the late fees.

There was no excuse for wasting time, no acknowledgment of this being their own mistake, no resolution, and no promise to correct the source of the mistake.

I used to work for a major ISP in the Enterprise accounts, handling fiber and advanced voice systems. We would occasionally get residential customers who would go digging to find our number and call us thinking we were corporate when they wanted to escalate things. This did them no good, as we did not have access to touch residential accounts.

I would occasionally work floor support, and I had one of these calls that went really off the rails. It was an older-sounding man.

Customer: “I need a technician to come out to my house now! My television is spying on me!”

Me: “What do you mean, ‘spying on you’?”

Customer: “I can go into another room, do something, and not vocalize what I’m doing, and the people on the TV will be describing what I’m doing! Sometimes they describe things going on outside of my house, too. Sometimes, my neighbors come on my TV and tell me I need to move. But I can’t move; I’m hiding from government agencies trying to find me.”

I was trying to think of what clarifying questions to ask next, but he continued without being asked.

Customer: “My neighbors talking to me couldn’t be from my window because I’ve boarded up all the windows on my house. It has to be through the TV!”

He continued on like this for over an hour with no pause until he heard someone in the background of the call center laugh at something. He assumed they were laughing at him, at which point he started getting belligerent and making threats. At that point, I disconnected the call and elevated it to my supervisor per policy.

During college, I rented a room in a small town about half an hour from campus. When I say “small”, I mean that it was the kind of town where a new stop sign makes headlines. My landlady’s son graduated from the local school — not high school, school — and his graduating class was him and a set of twins. It was a SMALL town.

The day I moved in, my landlady was going over the house rules and telling me about what was available in town: a general store/gas station and a really small restaurant.

Landlady: “Oh, if Mrs. [Woman] comes up to you, just play along and let me know what she said to you.”

Me: “Who’s Mrs. [Woman]?”

Landlady: “You shouldn’t run into her if you don’t spend a lot of time walking around town. Don’t worry; she’s harmless and really a sweetheart. She’s just confused is all.”

Fast forward a few weeks. One Saturday, I decided to check out the restaurant, and there was no reason to drive when I could just walk.

I had just passed the general store when I heard an older woman call out:

Woman: “[Not My Name]! So wonderful to see you again, darling. How have you been?”

The next thing I knew, a little old lady was giving me a quick hug while I stood like a deer in headlights.

Woman: “It really is wonderful to see you. Can you give me a hand with the groceries if it’s not too much trouble?”

She held out a single shopping bag. Being a Boy Scout, my first response was to take the bag and offer her my arm.

During the half-a-block walk from the general store to her home, Mrs. [Woman] continued to refer to me as [Not My Name]. She asked me about my mother and if she was doing well, she asked if “our James” had written recently from the war. She wanted to know if I had heard about how the [Family] girl had just had twins and what I thought of the names she had picked. She also said that if my little brother wasn’t otherwise employed this weekend, she would like to have her lawn mowed. We got to her door, I said I would ask him, and I bid her farewell.

That night, I told my landlady about our conversation.

Landlady: “Oh, the [Family] twins and the war… She’s in the 1970s again. That’s not bad. I’ll call the preacher after dinner.”

Me: “Okay, so who is she, and what exactly is going on?”

Landlady: “Mrs. [Woman] had a very tragic life. She lost just about everyone in her life — six siblings, her parents, and her husband — and had at least three stillbirths, all before she was twenty-five. That sort of broke the poor thing. She isn’t sure what year it is, and she knows everyone by name but never calls anybody by the same name twice. Her family used to own most of the town, so she was well-known before her break. In the beginning, I think they thought she might come back to her senses someday, but now we don’t have much hope for that.”

Me: “Why isn’t she in a care facility?”

Landlady: “Why should she be? She can take care of herself, and she’s in good health. If she needs something, she asks for it, like today with the lawn care. I’ll let the preacher know, and tomorrow, he’ll ask if anyone wants to go round her place with a mower. She has a cousin in the city managing her trust fund, so all her bills get paid on time. She’s ours. We can take care of her ourselves.”

I think about Mrs. [Woman] a lot now and wonder how she’s doing these days. I’m sure her town still takes care of her if she needs it.

This story is part of our Even-More-Highest-Voted-Stories-Of-2023-(so far!) roundup!

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I’m a valet at a fancy hotel that isn’t too far from a very famous theme park. A woman pulls up in a big SUV and gets out. She has two toddler-aged children in the car.

Guest: “I’m checking in, but I need to leave straight after. Watch the car and the kids for me.”

She’s about to march straight into the hotel when I have to stop her.

Me: “Ma’am, please bring your children with you when you check in. I can keep your car here by the side of the drive-up if you need to head straight back out, but you can’t leave your children with me.”

Guest: “Why not?”

Me: “I’m a complete stranger. What makes you think I can just watch your kids?”

Guest: “You work for the hotel! Plus, you look trustworthy!”

Me: “What makes me look trustworthy?”

Guest: “Well… you’re…” *whispers* “…white.”

Me: “So was every serial killer that Netflix has made a special about in the last ten years, but thanks for showing your racism, ma’am. I will not be watching your children for you; this is not a service the hotel valet provides. Please look after them yourself or find professional childcare facilities. Good day.”

I work at a doctor’s office. This is my first call ever out of training.

Patient: “I need someone to say that I’m taking [medication].”

Me: “We can definitely set you up for a medical consult, but it’s up to the doctor after that. We cannot guarantee that you’ll be given any medication.”

He starts yelling at me.

Patient: “I need to be on it for a polygraph!”

He screams at me a bit more.

Me: “Sir, we can’t do anything court-related, especially for medication, as this is telehealth; we cannot provide paperwork for court. Plus, the first visit is usually just a consultation. We can’t guarantee you’ll even be prescribed meds, and we for sure cannot backdate it.”

He said some really unpleasant things in a very typical angry customer way and disconnected the call. I internally praised every god ever.