My uncle is extremely distractible and unobservant. I could tell a ton of stories about him either not noticing or immediately forgetting something obvious, but this is one of the most egregious examples.

I’m sitting at my computer when my uncle walks up behind me.

Uncle: “Hey, [My Name], how’s [Website we’re working on together] going? Can you show me what you’ve gotten done?”

Me: “Sure, let me bring it up.” 

I turn back to the computer for literally five seconds, just long enough to open my web browser.

Me: “So, I got the login… system…”

I turn back around while speaking, only to see an empty room.

Me: “…[Uncle]?”

I found him vacuuming a nearby room. Somehow in the — again, LITERALLY — five seconds I was facing away and not talking to him, he’d forgotten that he’d asked me a question and wandered off. I’d be worried that he had dementia or a brain tumor or something, except Mom swears he’s always been like this.

I’m the author of this story, about working for my uncle for a ridiculously low “salary”. One day while I was working for him, I and several coworkers at his nonprofit were called into a meeting with a “consultant” that my uncle had hired. She spent half an hour or so giving advice that seemed pretty meaningless and generic to me — lots of buzzwords and platitudes — but no worse than any other consultant.

Then, at the end of the meeting, this happened.

Consultant: “You need to focus on consolidating for a while and not start any new projects because Mercury is in retrograde.”

Me: “I’m sorry, what?”

Consultant: “Well, it just makes sense, right? That’s why [Coworker] got overwhelmed and had to go home early.”

Me: “She has the flu!”

Consultant: “No, the energy just isn’t right for new things because of Mercury.”

I’m making $100 a week, but it’s nice to know that at least the company can afford vital resources like an ASTROLOGER!

And to top it off, my uncle gave me a lecture that afternoon about how I needed to be more open-minded. I’m so glad to be out of there now.

Related:
There’s No Room For Error When Working With Family

I am working in a hardware store in 2020. A woman comes into the store wearing a homemade T-shirt that says, “WEAR A MASK; THE LIFE YOU SAVE MIGHT BE YOUR OWN”. She is also sporting safety goggles, a face shield, at least three masks, and gloves. She starts going around yelling at and swatting people who have their masks on backward, below their noses, or not at all.

Then, she approaches my manager.

Woman: “You should enforce a mask policy!”

Manager: “Ma’am, my employees already wear masks while on duty. Three of my cashiers even wear gloves, even though no one really asks them to.”

Woman: “You should enforce a mask policy on customers!”

Manager: *Getting annoyed* “Ma’am, what do you want me to do if a customer is not wearing a mask?”

Woman: “Kick them in the [expletive] teeth!”