A tractor-trailer broke down on the road. I was already driving the road on patrol, so I called a heavy-duty wrecker to get there. Since it was blocking traffic and was such a huge vehicle, I decided to direct traffic around it to avoid a cluster-f*** while waiting.

A few days later, at the station, my super tells me:

Supervisor: “Someone filed a formal complaint against you.”

Me: “Me?! What did I do?”

Supervisor: *Trying not to smile.* “You were… uh… directing traffic too aggressively.”

Then I remembered this driver from that day. I had to wave my arms up and down at her a bit dramatically to get her attention from the far end of the tractor because she was screwing around on her phone instead of watching me. 

My lucky super had to watch the nearly two-hour video of me directing traffic to make sure I didn’t violate any policies, all because a woman felt embarrassed that I called her out.

In 2020, I worked in a care home, looking after elderly folks, some of whom were bedbound. I was not trained to give medication or dress wounds.

The home was based over three floors, where carers were moved between on a weekly rota. Each floor had a nurse whose job was to medicate and dress patient wounds.

The nurses were all foreign and spoke poor English, and to be honest, they were bad at their job. This resulted in the non-trained staff dressing wounds and giving meds out.

At this point, I should say that the home manager was a complete waste of space. She spent most of her shift sitting in the office; the only thing she did was prepare medication to be given to the residents. These were put into trays with resident names on.

The trays were supposed to be taken to the residents’ rooms and the meds given to them. Because the nurses spoke poor English, it was often the case that the care staff would give the meds out.

Care staff started to notice that some of the residents weren’t reacting to the meds as usual. This started to get worse, and the care staff made the manager aware of this. Her reaction? The care staff weren’t trained to make such observations and should leave it to the nurses.

Most of us carers feared losing our jobs if we pushed it. But one carer, whom I’ll call Jill, was close to retiring. She decided to give one of the patient’s doctors a call, informing him of her concerns.

He came out to check on the patient. He was there when the meds were to be given and noticed that they were wrong. The carer who had called him said they were the same meds given every day.

The doctor asked one of the nurses to take him to the meds locker to check them out. The next thing we knew, a police car pulled into the home car park along with another doctor.

What was discovered? None of the special pain relief meds were what they should have been. Instead, they had been replaced with over-the-counter generic pain meds.

As would be expected, there was an investigation as to what was happening.

It was discovered that the manager was replacing the meds and selling them. She was sacked, and the residents dispersed to other homes. Most of the staff left the company. The last thing I heard the manager was convicted and spent time in prison.

The care company was closed three months later.

A customer I can only describe as shady entered our liquor store and spent ten minutes browsing. I stayed at the checkout and watched him on the CCTV.

He ended up shoving two bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue down his pants and walked out. I called the police and told them what happened.

Police: “Did you confront him?”

Me: “Store policy is not to confront shoplifters; that’s what insurance is for.”

Police: “Perfect answer. Do you have footage of him?”

Me: “I’m burning the footage onto a DVD for you guys to collect as we speak.”

Police: “Good, good. We’ll be by later to pick it up. In the meantime, you might wanna think about putting the good and expensive stuff behind locked glass cabinets.”

Me: “Normally, we do. The Johnnie Walker Blue must have been overlooked, but it’s behind a locked door now.”

We wrap up the call, and I put the DVD aside for them.

About an hour later, the same guy returns with the actual f****** bottles!

Shoplifter: “I want a refund on these.” 

I admit I take a moment to compose myself due to the sheer audacity of the guy. You already got two free bottles of high-end liquor, my dude. Why be greedy?

Me: “Uh, why are you asking for a refund?”

Shoplifter: “I got the wrong type.”

Just as I was telling him I can’t do a refund without a receipt, the police walked in.

Officer: “We’re here to collect a DVD that’s got footage of a shoplifter?”

I use both hands to point at both things at the same time.

Me: “That’s the DVD, and that’s the shoplifter.”

He left with them in handcuffs.

I’m calling the police to report a suspicious encounter I had.

Me: “So some guy accosted me in front of my house. He claimed that he’d lived in the house years ago when he was a kid, and he was wondering if he could check it out for, and I quote, “memories and old time’s sake”.”

Police: “Okay, and? Why do you think that was suspicious?”

Me: “He was scoping the place out to rob. I got camera footage of the guy from my doorbell camera, so you can see for yourself.”

Police: “How do you know he was scoping the place to rob? Maybe he really did use to live there?”

Me: “I built this house.”

Pause.

Police: “So, you have camera footage, you say?”

Every so often, people at my university used to chalk up the concourse to advertise upcoming events. Since this is against the university code to write on the concourse, everyone does it late at night. The city police normally run a couple of bike cops, who tend to be douches, through campus to make sure everything is kept neat and tidy.

A friend of mine was writing on the concourse one night and got caught by a couple of bike cops.

They stopped him, and one of them asked him:

Officer: “What are you doing out here with sidewalk chalk? Does mommy not trust you with paint?”

Friend: “What are you doing on bikes? Does your chief not trust you with a car?”

Was that a wise thing to say? No. Does my friend regret it years later? Also no.