I present a diagram I have designed for my client.

Client: “This looks a bit design-heavy.”

My Mind: “Is that a problem… or a compliment?”

Related:
What Does That Even MEAN?!

I do a lot of contract photography for a university. Despite their desperate need for new stock-type photos of current students, they only ever send me to painfully boring alumni events where I take shots of old people standing around eating in poorly lit rooms. It’s also worth noting that they don’t use anyone else for photography besides me.

Client: “Our new magazine is going to print-check in a week, so send me your best action shots of our students. We’re looking for dramatic angles of ethnically diverse groups who are dressed professionally and have confident expressions.”

Me: “Why would you think that I have anything like that just lying around?”

Client: “Oh, and our alumni event is tomorrow, too! Some of our oldest donors will be there. Maybe you’ll get some useful photos there!”

I was ringing out customers in my store’s outside garden center. There was a lull in activity, and a lady had stopped to ask me a few questions about plants. As I was chatting with her, a little old lady came up behind me and tapped my arm.

Me: “Yes?”

Old Lady: “Are all your ferns this expensive?”

Me: “The price is listed on the tag, but otherwise, yes.”

Old Lady: “None of them are on sale?”

Me: “Our stuff doesn’t go on sale until August.”

Old Lady: *Wringing her hands worriedly* “They’re so expensive! I could get them somewhere else cheaper.”

I assumed she was just making a statement.

Me: “Okay.”

I went back to the customer I had been helping before as we discussed the care of her plant. The old lady stood behind me, still staring with this same worried expression on her face like her cat had just run up a tree.

Lady: *Still wringing her hands* “They’re so expensive…”

Then, it clicked that she was probably looking for a deal.

Me: “Okay.”

She paced back and forth for a while after that in the garden area before going, I assume, to look at the prices of plants before eventually wandering back out.

I’m waiting for the day someone can give me a valid argument as to why, if they can buy something cheaper somewhere else, they don’t just get it there.

(I’m in a women-only group chat where we tend to talk about bodies in a very candid manner.)

Me: “Do you ever look at someone and wonder how their boobs are staying in their shirt? Like you’re not even judging, you’re just baffled because the laws of physics are being broken?”

Friend: “Whenever I look down, honey. Whenever I look down.”

Due to a new employer I have new eye insurance, and my preferred chain is not an option. I book an exam with a chain nearby.

After the exam I start looking at glasses. When the girl calls me I start over and she says go ahead and keep looking while she does the paperwork. I ask her to come over when she is done and she says just come back to her desk when I am ready. I find a couple of contenders and go sit where my chart is. Wait awhile, take some snaps of me in the glasses, look at them and go back and find two more choices. I wait at her desk filming myself trying on glasses. Finally she comes back and asks if I found a pair. I say I am so blind I need an outside opinion. By this I mean I want her help like they always did at favorite store. I want to try on the frames and her to tell me if they look good and then I want to discuss which of the ones we both agree look good will work best as bifocals. She says, ok why don’t you just pay for the exam and you can come back later with your friends to pick out a pair of glasses. She tells me it’s $50. I ask if she applied my insurance. She tries to tell me you can only use your insurance once a year, she thinks if you don’t buy your glasses at the same time you get the exam you can’t apply it to both. I tell her she is mistaken. She is insistent and seems to think I am not understanding her. I say it once per service and as I am annoyed I mention I have been buying glasses for 35+ years and I am pretty familiar with the process. She asks someone and they tell her of course you can use part today and part later, that’s why they have separate insurance codes. BTW she is training someone while this is going on.

So she asks me which insurance company and I say new co. She tells the trainee that she thinks it will come up under old co. I tell her it won’t, i used to have old co and it’s a different company. She takes all my info and tries to bring me up in the system. She says my old co insurance expired. I say I used to have old co and now I have new co. She tells the trainee she hates insurance sales and there is no way to figure out how to find it, you just have to know. I Google it and tell new eye insurance is managed by vision insurance services or vis. She says that doesn’t help.

So after she finds it in her computer under vis she asks me if I have ever been there before. I say no but she says I have. She is looking in the computer so I think maybe she is right so I say maybe but not in the trainees lifetime. He says he is 37 so I concede maybe it was, but say, it wasn’t this location, this was still a vacant lot then, but I think I visited a different location in maybe 1987. He says I was only about 3 then, and I add everything wasn’t computerized back then so it’s probably not in there. She is obviously a mix of embarrassed and annoyed because she is probably 22 and I have (intentionally) hit a few under 25 year old buttons by implying she is older than trainee and talking about things that happened before her parents hit puberty. She says, I will just put new customer

She then realizes my insurance is through my employer and ask who I work for. I tell her insurance co. She then defrosts a little and includes me in her conversation with trainee saying, oh if she works in insurance she knows insurance is complicated. Honestly I knew that decades before I worked my current job. She tells him again you just have to know what the code is for each company. He says, there’s no list we can check? she says no, that’s why I told you I need a full day to train you on insurance. I suggest to trainee that he make a list and distribute it. he says he plans to. Her eye kind of twitches. By this point I am over trying to act like I think she knows what she is doing and I am feeling sorry for trainee . When she asks for a $20 co-pay I make her wait while I check the insurance web site to see if it’s the correct amount. I hand her a wadded up 20 I found under my nightstand, so it’s kind of dusty, thank trainee, verify she gave me my prescription and go.