I overheard this on a train, clickety-clacking along the rails one calm sunny afternoon. A boy, less than ten years old, turns to his dad.

Boy: “Dad, why does the train keep clicking?”

What followed was a piece of bullcrap so brilliant that I am tempted to renege on my promise to never lie to a kid.

Dad: “Well, what is a train? The locomotive and the cars. But the cars are only riding along, so only the locomotive is important. And what is the locomotive? Electric engines and wheels. But the engines are rotary, so these do not click. That leaves the wheels, and what is a wheel? A disc. A disc is pi times radius times radius. But pi is a constant; you do not need it. And what is radius times radius? Radius squared. And corners of that square are what clicks.”

I am visiting an old medieval castle on vacation. I have reached the torture chamber part of the tour. The room contains mock-ups of medieval torture devices, including a stretching rack.

An American father and his son (six years old at the oldest, based on the ticket he’s carrying) are looking at the rack.

Father: “Do you know what this is?”

The kid nods.

Father: “This is a stretching rack. They’d tie people to the chains and then stretch them using that pulley over there.”

Kid: “How did they stretch the chains?”

Father: “They didn’t stretch the chains. They stretched the body.”

Kid: “Oh…” *Eyes go wide in realization* “…oh!“

He then smiles mischievously in the way only six-year-old boys can.

Kid: “That’s so coooool!“

He furiously looks around the room and spots the super-spiky iron maiden.

Kid: “Dad! Daaaad! Tell me about this one!”

Every two years, everyone who works in the workshops has to be seen by our company doctor. Although my position is in the high manager category and I don’t do the manual work at the workshop, I spend a lot of time there, so this year, I have to see the doctor.

When I enter the examination room, she is looking at her computer and doesn’t look at me.

Me: “Good morning, I’m—”

Doctor: “Name.”

Me: “[My Name]. But I don’t—”

Doctor: “Position?”

Me: “Quality manager. I have—”

Doctor: “Hmpf… height?”

Me: *Sigh* “[Height]. I have—”

Doctor: “Weight.”

Me: “[Weight].”

Doctor: “Gee, lady, you are a quality manager and you can’t even live a quality life? Look at your BMI; you are way overweight. You should do something with it. How can you do quality work if you look like this?”

Me: “First, I don’t know how my BMI is connected with my work or with the quality of my life. Second, according to the BMI, I was overweight even when I was a competitive tap dancer because it doesn’t work with muscles. Third, if you would bother to turn around, you’d see that I’m seven months pregnant, so BMI is even more useless than usual.” 

She turns and stares at me.

Me: “So, I’d appreciated it if you’d be so nice as to take that stamp you have next to your keyboard and press it here on this nice paper, which confirms that I’m not blind or deaf, as you can see, and I’ll be on my way. Otherwise, I may start to question how you do other examinations.”

She tears the paper from my hand, stamps it, and throws it back at me.

Me: “Thank you, and have a nice day. Oh, and by the way, I’ll see you next week at the audit. In case you don’t recognize me, I’ll be the one with ‘Main Auditor’ on her name tag.”

Many years ago, I worked in a large international chain of building supply stores. Company culture was mostly okay. However, our higher-ups did not like to handle any problem that did not involve the police. We were left to our own devices, and most of the time, things worked themselves out.

Then, we had one floor manager who would be very familiar to any reader of Not Always Working. He was totally incompetent in everything, besides making everybody around him miserable. He used every shred of his power to make every situation worse, mess up our schedules, and cut our bonuses.

One day, my shift decided to retaliate. Our chain took much pride in a store-brand glue, used mainly for tiling, but capable of gluing almost any materials together. You might see where this is going.

On their lunch break, the guys took a forklift to the parking lot. Carefully, so as to not damage anything, they lifted [Floor Manager]’s car and glued all four wheels to the concrete with [Glue]. Four hours later, we all left for home… except for [Floor Manager], who, despite having a gigantic warehouse full of tools and supplies at hand, spent a good part of the evening dislodging his car from the parking lot.

Well, he cried up a storm. I do not know how [Floor Manager] managed it, but the country branch CEO, by far the biggest boss I ever met, came to our store to investigate. He called the whole shift into the conference room, greeted us very civilly, and first asked to hear everything from [Floor Manager]. [Floor Manager] told him everything.

Then, [CEO] turned to us.

CEO: “Gentlemen, is this all true?”

We said yes.

CEO: “You really used [Glue] to completely immobilize a car?”

We, being of a somewhat 47-Ronin mindset, again affirmed. CEO nodded and pulled out his phone.

CEO: “[Personal Assistant]? Send somebody from Public Relations to [Our Store]. Local guys just figured out a perfect plot for a [Glue] TV ad.”

This story is part of the Readers’-Favorite-Stories Of-2023 roundup!

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I’m in class complaining to a friend.

Me: “Ugh, I’m hungry. I didn’t have time to eat breakfast before class.”

A girl I’ve never spoken to speaks up.

Girl: “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but would you like my waffles?”

I was never so grateful to a stranger, and she was so nice about it. The two waffles gave me some energy for the three-hour practice of geodetic surveying in 5°C (41°F) weather that day.

To be honest, it might not be the kindest act I’ve experienced, but it was so unexpected and so sweet.