Client: “I am not happy with your work. I turned down another quote to work with you, so I want more out of you.”

Me: “What did the other people quote you?”

Client: “I’ll email it to you.”

Within a minute, the forwarded email arrives in my inbox.

Me: “They quoted you twice my rate for half my work.”

Client: “Which is unacceptable! We need to revisit your output.”

Me: “And my quote.”

Client: “Exactly!”

The client didn’t exactly understand what I meant by that until he saw my quote rise with his heightened output expectations.

I work in an office building owned by a moderately sized tech company. In our employee café, we have two vending machines that have some operational issues. The machine doesn’t seem capable of doing math properly and will commonly say you have “Insufficient Credits” after buying a single $1.00 drink, even though you are pre-authorized for $5 when you swipe your card. This makes it rather hard to get more than one drink if you are trying to get something for yourself and your coworkers.

One day, I walk in just in time to witness [Employee #1] at the vending machine.

Employee #1: “NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON!”

She slams her forehead into the machine, I assume not knowing how thick the glass is. This causes her to fall backward. She ends up hitting a low bench and falling backward over it, taking out the bench, several potted plants, a rather large Christmas decoration, and one of the table-and-chair sets. She sighs, lying in the results of the chaos, and I walk up. 

Me: “Are you using the machine?”

Employee #1: “Oh, no. Please, go ahead.”

Me: “Do you need help?”

Employee #1: “I’m good down here.”

Me: “Do you need… mental help?”

Employee #1: “Don’t we all?”

Me: “What did the machine do to you?”

Employee #1: “I swiped for $5 and got one bottle of water. Then, it said I had insufficient credits to get another one. Then, I swiped again, and it went into cash-only mode, so I put a dollar in it, but apparently, when you use cash, there’s a fifty-cent upcharge. And then, it wouldn’t give me my dollar back.”

Me: “Ah.”

Employee #1: “Yeah.”

Me: “How has the rest of your day been? Been okay?”

Employee #1: “Absolute bulls***.”

She proceeds to tell me about her day, project deadlines, a manager who needs a foot up his a**, bad clients, and unhelpful IT representatives, as we clean up the mess she made and I evaluate her for injuries. 

Apparently, her manager has been overloading her. Every time someone can’t finish something or he doesn’t trust them to do it, he forces it on her with no extension of deadlines and no increase in compensation. As a result, her work quality and speed have obviously dropped, and that same manager is now threatening to demote her, fire her, or cut her pay.

She says she demanded that everyone take back their work and that the load be redistributed, but the manager replied, “That’s not within the goals of the department,” and, “Your coworkers are comfortable where they are; it would be unfair to increase their workloads.” She says it’s possible that he is playing favorites, and when she called him out on it, he threatened to fire her again. 

Somewhere around the end of her story, another employee comes in and goes to the vending machine. 

Employee #2: “Hey! Free dollar!”

He takes a dollar out of the bill accepter. We have no idea when it was dispensed. 

Me: “Oh, that’s hers!” *Gesturing to [Employee #1]*

Employee #2: “Finders keepers!” *Laughs*

Employee #1: “Is that what [Secretary] said when she stole you from your wife?”

There is dead silence in the room. [Employee #2] is very much still happily married. He silently returns the dollar to [Employee #1] and leaves the room without even buying his drink. 

Me: “Who the h*** was that?”

Employee #1: “That was my manager.”

Me: “Oh. Oh, no.”

Employee #1: “God, that felt good. I’m going to go up there and quit. F*** this place.”

I have no idea what happened when [Employee #1] went upstairs, but she didn’t quit. Rumor has it that she went up to her office, decided, “F*** it,” and phoned the owner of the company. He was shocked to learn about her gripes.

The owner then went to [Employee #1]’s manager’s manager, and they looked into everything together. Whatever they found triggered an investigation that spread throughout the company and led to a restructuring.

[Employee #1] is now in her previous manager’s position, and ever since her promotion, the second-floor employees have all been much happier. The owner of the company is now also around more, switching from a nearly pure work-from-home schedule to being in the building four out of his five working days. 

The vending machines are still there, though. 

I never got to ask [Employee #1] why she shouted, “Neil deGrasse Tyson!” before headbutting the machine, but I have a meeting with her soon, so maybe it will come up.

As the admin at my company, it’s my job to do the monthly expense reporting. A coworker stops in my office one morning to talk about a trip they’re taking. 

Coworker: “Okay, this is weird. I have two options for this flight back home from [City]. Option one: a direct flight from [City] to [Home] is about $600. Option two: a direct flight from [City] with a layover in [Home] and then going to [Other City] is about $450.”

Me: “…what?”

Coworker: “Yeah, I have no idea, either. Take the cheaper one?”

Me: “Uh, are you checking any bags or anything?”

Coworker: “Nope, just taking a backpack.”

Me: “Are the planes different?”

Coworker: “Nope, same plane.”

Me: *Pauses* “Take the cheaper option, then. Just… oops, you’re not going to [Other City], and you’re saving the company money?”

Coworker: “That’s what I figured. Thanks! I’ll send you the receipt as soon as I get it.”

If you’re wondering, the trip went fine.

I used to have a coworker who was a nice lady but a little naïve and sometimes slow on the uptake. One morning, I came into work yawning.

Me: “I didn’t sleep well last night. [Husband] was snoring, and it kept me awake.”

Coworker: “Was he lying on his back? That often causes snoring.”

Me: “Yes.”

Coworker: “Then there’s a simple solution to that. Just attach something to the back of his pyjamas, like a tennis ball. That way, when he tries to flip onto his back, it’ll be uncomfortable.”

Me: “Uh… thanks, [Coworker].”

She noticed my hesitation and got a little defensive.

Coworker: “Seriously! My mum did that to my dad. Problem solved! Why don’t you want to try it?”

Me: “It won’t work for my husband.”

Coworker: “Why not?”

I was thinking, “Why did I start this conversation?”

Me: “He, um, doesn’t wear pyjamas.”

Coworker: “Huh? Everyone wears pyjamas!”

Me: “He doesn’t.”

Neither do I, but I wasn’t about to say that.

Coworker: *Uncomprehending* “I don’t understand. If he doesn’t wear pyjamas to bed, what does he wear?”

Me: “…”

Comprehension finally dawned. She went beet-red and changed the subject.

One week later:

Coworker: “You seem tired today.”

Me: “Yeah, my husband was snoring again.”

Coworker: “I bet he was sleeping on his back. You know what you should do? Attach something to the back of his pyjamas, like a tennis ball!”

Me: *Sighs*

A year or two ago, I was doing a complicated organisation job to get some remote locations serviced to make sure their networks stayed online. I got the numbers for the locations from the company providing the network, but we were purely the actual, physical servicers. (Think power company versus the electrician.) Many names had two or more numbers listed, so my policy was to call them all, text them all, and let them know I was reaching out regarding some servicing.

BUT — and this is where I’m crucially grateful I was vaguely paranoid of something like this — it was literally just, “Hi, I’m [My Name]. I’m from [Service Company], looking for [Person]. I’m calling in regards to setting up a service and trying to reach you. You can contact me at this number or [email address] to follow up.” It still could have gone badly, but there was no mention of the location or anything, so I think the three or so people who had inherited numbers and weren’t the people I was looking for were like, “This makes no sense to me. Eff off.”

This one guy, though… When I got a hold of him, I mentioned I’d tried to reach him on “the other number, as well,” and he freaked out. It turned out that “the other number” was a number that was supposed to have been purged from the providers’ database because of to whom it was connected. I felt awful for even coming anywhere near what might have happened.

As far as I was concerned, though, I told him exactly what I’d left as messages, which reassured him. I also made sure to give him every detail about the guy who would be doing the service, and I asked if there was anything else I could do to make him feel safer. He was pretty upset, which I reassured him was both correct and understandable, and I apologised for it, even though I had no reason to know.

I deleted it from everything I’d been given, and I gave the team I was working with on the providers’ side the information they needed to know about the incident (for logging, and hopefully, to FIX THE DURN ISSUE) to protect the guy.

I’m still super mad that the number was still listed on whatever database we were given.