One of the women in my department is very “nice”. The type of overly fake, obviously performative “nice” that only works on people playing the same game, as well as the terminally oblivious. The type where being in the know and part of the “in group” is more important than anything, even if there’s no “in group” to be a part of. Let’s just say I wasn’t shocked when I learned that her prior job was as “brand coordinator” for a fashion magazine, and that her entire life and livelihood was making connections in a notoriously hoity-toity industry.

She constantly mangles and misuses industry and in-company terms, including peppering in phrases from her old job(s) which don’t apply here, leaving folks confused. She has a terrible habit of using the bathroom for fifteen to twenty minutes both before and after her lunch almost every single day, in addition to normal breaks. She’s never met a conversation she couldn’t insert herself into, regardless of how busy we are. She asks questions randomly into thin air and then makes up her own answers whether or not someone responds. On top of all of this, she has this extremely gaudy fake-wood-and-gold plaque in her cubicle which reads “Be Kind”. Her idea of “kindness” is mostly, “Don’t say or do anything that would get me in trouble, even if it’s 100% my fault.”

This morning, the Head of Operations had a meeting with us in the purchasing department. The number of mistakes, like wrong quantities being purchased or purchase orders being entered with the wrong pricing, has been rising rapidly. As head of the department, I know for a fact that 90% of the issues she’s talking about are directly due to Ms. Nice spending more time during the day schmoozing, gossiping, and turning away from her desk to just chat things up than putting any focus on her work. I didn’t publicly throw her under the bus, and I actively tried to avoid looking directly at her, but every time I caught sight of her, she was just sitting there with a blank, vacant stare like she shouldn’t even be there. I made a mental note to have a private conversation with her ASAP to make sure it all sank in.

About fifteen minutes later — well before I had the chance for that conversation — she had already made another mistake: we needed 250 of something and she’d ordered 25. A simple typo, yes, but this was exactly the sort of thing we’d had an hour-long meeting about, and on the FIRST task she handled afterward, she’d done the same thing. I sent an email to her, asking her to please double-check her tasks before completing or sending them and letting her know that I had already sent the correction through to our vendor.

Thirty seconds later — I guess she actually had her emails open for once — she came storming up to my desk and whisper-hissed at me.

Ms. Nice: “What was that?”

Me: “What was what?”

Ms. Nice: “That email you sent!”

Me: “Did you read it?”

Ms. Nice: “Of course I did!”

Me: “Then you should know what it was.”

Ms. Nice: *Tsks* “I mean, why would you send that in an email!? That wasn’t very kind, you know!”

Me: “[Ms. Nice,] I have talked with you privately three times in the last month, I’ve mentioned it to you on an individual basis dozens of times, and we had that entire, hour-long meeting this morning. We are having between four and twelve significant errors per day in our department, and over 90% of them come from you.”

Ms. Nice: “Oh, it’s not that bad! And when you send it through email, [Head Of Operations] sees it!”

Me: “Yes, it is, and yes, she does. That’s why she specifically said during the meeting that I should do that. So, I did it.”

Ms. Nice: “Well, it was just a little typo! We caught it and fixed it, no big deal!”

Me: “No, I caught it. You sent it off without double-checking it, and because that keeps happening, now I need to take time out of the rest of my duties to double-check everything the group does. Just last week, seven different purchase orders were entered, by you, with glaring and obvious errors, including you ordering 1,000 of something that we’re lucky to sell fifty of in a month, so there’s a full pallet back in the warehouse they have to try to find room for.”

Ms. Nice: “It’s still not very kind! It’s not your job to look over my shoulder all day or anything!”

Me: “I’ve tried being kind. You’ve been getting worse instead of better. And in case you forgot, I’m the purchasing manager; it is literally my job to make sure you and everyone in this department does their job correctly. That’s why my name was on your write-up the last time before this one.”

Ms. Nice: “Well, I would never do anything like that to you! I have too much respect to try and get someone I work with in trouble! I have too much respect to go sending off emails and dragging other people into it!”

Me: “But you don’t have enough respect to just follow directions, or to not take an hour and a half for your lunch break every, single, day?”

Ms. Nice: “I do not! I always punch in on time!”

Me: “Maybe, but when you leave your desk at 12:30 and you don’t get back until almost 2:00, and you’re nowhere to be found in between, it doesn’t matter to me what time it says on the clock.”

Ms. Nice: “Oh, like you don’t take a little extra time in the bathroom sometimes! I’ve seen you!”

Me: “Sometimes. Not every day. And I’m not taking those breaks and also extending out my lunch.”

Ms. Nice: “Well, what if I had a medical condition that made me spend that long?!”

Me: *Raising an eyebrow* “DO you?”

Ms. Nice: “I might!”

Me: “Well then, bring in a note from your doctor and we’ll make accommodations. Of course, that wouldn’t excuse you from having to make sure your work is correct.”

Ms. Nice: “Oh, come on. Do you really think it’s that big a deal?”

Head Of Operations: “Actually, yes, I do!”

Ms. Nice jumped out of her skin; I did a simple if cartoonish head tilt, as I hadn’t seen her approach, either! My boss almost literally dragged Ms. Nice by the ear off to her office for yet another private chat; I’m really hoping this is the last straw of her finally getting her act together, or finally getting let go, a decision that is sadly above my pay grade.

I frequent a cafe where the owner goes all in for decorating whenever he has an excuse. However, as a straight man in his seventies, he’s not up to speed on the details of LGBTQ culture.

Owner: “I’ve just learned something! Did you know there’s more than one pride flag? I thought it was just the rainbow, but no, there are so many.”

Me: “[Owner], you ordered one of each, didn’t you?”

Owner: “Of course I did! Just you wait. Come back here in a week, and there will be more flags than you know what to do with.”

The next week, I’m back. I’m an early riser and usually one of the first customers, and as I arrive, [Owner] and one of his employees are still actively hanging flags.

Owner: “[My Name], come in! Look, they’ve all arrived. There’re so many!”

Me: “Wow, I don’t know what half of these flags are.”

Owner: “Aha, look what [Employee] made me.”

He pulls out a printout that shows each flag, its name, and what that label means.

Owner: “This one’s asexual — not sure why they’re stuck with such gloomy colors — and that’s bisexual. That one’s pansexual, which seems like it’s the same thing as bisexual but with nice colors.”

He opens a box.

Owner: “Let’s see who’s next. Well… who is this one?”

It’s got red bars at the top and bottom and a tree in the middle on a white bar.

Owner: “Let me see, it must be here somewhere… I can’t find it, but it’s when two women… I think it’s women…”‘

Me: “[Owner], I think that’s the Lebanese flag.”

Owner: “Lebanese, yes, thank you! That’s women who marry women, right?”

Employee: “[Owner], that’s lesbian. We talked about this, remember? Lebanese is like [Other Customer]. From Lebanon.”

Owner: “But when she said she was Lebanese, I thought…”

Employee: “You met her husband!”

Owner: “Well… I didn’t want to assume. Now, let’s pack that away until we work out when the Lebanese national holiday is, and we’ll pretend that we’re just showing solidarity with [Other Customer], shall we?”

In 1962, the bathroom in our apartment had a toilet with a wooden box above it; one pulled a chain attached to that box to flush it. The box began to leak, so I called the landlord, who sent over a plumber. The plumber walked in with a hat on and, without doing anything, proceeded to tell me the box didn’t leak.

Me: *Angrily* “Take off your hat, sit on the toilet, pull the chain, and tell me again that it doesn’t leak.”

He refused, so I closed and locked the door from the outside.

Me: “Let me know when you’ve done what I asked.”

I left for work. Later, I got a call from my roommate who said she had been awakened by pounding from the inside of the bathroom and had let the person out.

Then, my landlord called me.

Landlord: “[Plumber] refuses to come back, but he assured me that the box doesn’t leak.”

Me: “Do you really think I would waste your time and mine by calling if the box didn’t really leak?”

My landlord paused for a moment.

Landlord: “I’m sending over another plumber with a new box.”

Me: “Thank you!”

I am the maître-d at a busy Manhattan spot. On weekends we mainly seat reservations, but we take walk-ins, as well.

Customer: “Can I see a menu, please? I have a party of two, if we choose to stay.”

I give her a menu. She takes it outside and proceeds to sit at one of the tables, which is reserved. I can’t have her sitting there as it is for parties of four, and I have one coming in soon.

Me: “Ma’am, can I offer you this table over here that’s meant for two?”

Customer: “No, I want to keep this table.”

Me: “I have reservations coming in that need the tables for four.”

Customer: “Put them at that other table you offered me.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t comfortably put a four-top reservation at a two-top table. And it wouldn’t be fair to do that to people who booked in advance.”

She finally takes the two-top after LOTS of arguing.

Then, her friend comes, and things get worse. She comes up to the front.

Customer: “Can you please move us? My friend is allergic to the sun and she can’t sit there.”

Me: “I’m glad to move you to an indoor table.”

Customer: “We don’t want an indoor table. We want that one!”

She points to another four-top.

Me: “Ma’am, what you see is what you get. The table I have you at is the only outdoor one I can give you. Would you like to speak to the manager?”

Customer: “Please.”

The manager, who is also my boyfriend, takes a look at my iPad and tells her what I told her.

Manager: “We can’t offer you any of these four-tops. You can sit where we seated you.”

She puts up another fight but then goes back to her two-top.

The host, who works beside me, walks by them not even five minutes later to seat someone else. They flag her down and tell her I’m awful and difficult. I go out there again to see if she’s still causing problems for staff and see that she and her friend have moved themselves to a larger table. I walk over and she goes on her whole “my friend is allergic to the sun” spiel. Her friend is pulling an Oscar-worthy performance, acting as if she’s ill. Meanwhile, it’s raining and there’s not a spot of sun out.

Me: “Once again, I am happy to move you inside to accommodate the sun allergy.”

Customer: “No, we can’t do that! We want this table!”

That’s it. I get the manager and he goes to tell them they have to move as we have a party of five coming for that table in ten minutes. They look at each other.

Customer: *To her friend* “Just ignore him and keep eating.”

They made conversation over him as he was trying to talk to them.

My boyfriend is an extremely chill guy. Not much gets to him, but I could tell that this was pushing him to the edge. He ended up calling the owner and the cops. He told them that these women were disrespecting his staff and he wanted to put a stop to it. He told the women he was going to call them beforehand, but this didn’t deter them, and they stayed put at the table.

The cops showed up and offered to escort them out, but the manager said no because at that point they were already basically done. (I would’ve just let them escort the women out because they were already there). The cops said they were happy to do things like this especially, when it comes to entitled customers, so that was nice, but they ended up leaving without talking to them.

I set up the five-top around them as they were eating, adding chairs and place settings. They ended their experience by telling the server he was wonderful and that he wouldn’t believe what “they had to go through”. Please.

(I’m working at a coffee shop in Manhattan. Today is September 11, 2001, and it is about 20 minutes before the first reports of a plane hitting World Trade Center 1.)

Customer: “Can you hurry up? What is taking so d*** long to make my coffees?”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir. Usually, we have a large staff to take big orders but today most of the staff are out.”

Customer: *irritated* “Well, how is this my fault? You should be ready to take any orders that I give you! I have a big meeting at 9:00 at the World Trade Center! That makes me important and I should be the top priority!”

(I ignore him and continue making his drinks.)

Me: “Here you go, sir, your order of [ten different coffees] ready to go. Your total is [total].”

Customer: “About f****** time!”

(He rushes out, and then ten minutes later, the news stations start talking about that first plane. The whole ordeal of 9/11 happens. Then, about a week later, the same customer comes in with presumably his wife and daughter.)

Me: “Hello, sir, what is your order today?”

Customer: “Yeah, I’m not actually ordering anything, I just wanted to thank you.”

Me: “For what, sir?”

Customer: “I’m the jerk from last week yelling about his important meeting in Tower 1. The time it took for you to make my coffee made me just late enough that I was walking up to the building when the plane hit it.”

Me: *tearing up* “Oh, my God!”

Customer: “But that’s not important. You saved me from that horrible attack and I am still here for my wife and daughter.”

Customer’s Wife: *starts sobbing on her husband’s shoulder*

Customer’s Daughter: “Can I give you a hug?”

(I happily gave her a hug through my tears. Still to this day, knowing that I was able to save one family from those terrible attacks warms my heart.)

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