(I’m a front-end supervisor at a high-volume store. I notice one day that my manager has scheduled me to close the front end and open the next day.)

Me: “Hey, I saw the schedule and I noticed that I only have eight hours between shifts. I know that it’s legal, but I live 45 minutes away and there is no way I can fall asleep right when I get home. Can this be changed?”

Boss: “Okay, so, here’s a secret that I learned. What you do is take a capsule of Zzzquil, then open a bottle of wine. Do not stop drinking the wine, and you will fall asleep.”

(I didn’t take that advice.)

(Twice a week the same young man shows up at my office dressed in a suit jacket and tries to drop off a resume. Each time, I refer him to the website. He comes back, having not checked the site, still trying to hand in a paper resume. Finally, I sit him down and ask why he keeps coming back.)

Man: “My grandfather says I have to show up in person and make a good impression. He says that going to a website doesn’t show initiative.”

Me: “That’s not true. Do you even have any design or programming experience?”

Man: “Uh… No. You train, right?”

Me: “No, that’s the basics of what we expect from an employee. You know we don’t have any posted job listings, right?”

Man: “No, I didn’t go to the website because my grandfather said… Heck, I’ve wasted a lot of time, haven’t I?”

(I send him back with a letter to his grandfather.)

Letter: “Dear Sir,

Your grandson has come to my office on five occasions now, following your advice. That same advice seems to be what is hampering his job search.

When I am looking for an employee, I am looking for someone with initiative, thoroughness, and follow through. In this case, I want someone who takes the initiative to visit the website and research the company. I want someone with the thoroughness to read and follow the instructions on how to properly submit their resume. Finally, I want someone who follows through with an application to any job that meets their qualifications.

I hire only competent employees, and following the very basic instructions of how to apply for a job shows this competence. By having your grandson ignore this and follow your outdated advice, he has shown himself unable to use the resources at hand, unable to follow basic rules, and requiring special treatment.

Furthermore, as you have sent him to ‘hit the pavement,’ he doesn’t know the first thing about this business! (For example, showing up in a suit to an office where we dress exceedingly casually shows he is a bad fit for our environment.)

I’ve wished your grandson well in his job search. Please stop hampering it with your bad advice. This is the new millennium.”

(The young man thanked me! A few weeks later, he emailed that he found employment in a business completely dissimilar to mine. I hope he learned his lesson about not listening to dated advice!)

(My long-term boyfriend and I are regulars at a comic book shop, and often talk with the staff while we browse. On this day, there’s a young man and a younger woman working.)

Young Man: “My girlfriend’s birthday is just a few days after Valentine’s Day. February is a real minefield for me.”

Me: “Sorry to hear that. I find it so much easier to not focus on arbitrary dates like that. Huh, baby?”

Boyfriend: “What’s that?”

Me: “We don’t worry about Valentine’s Day, do we?”

Boyfriend: “No, thank god.”

Young Woman: “You have to be careful about that.”

Me: “Pardon?”

Young Woman: “Well, I mean, I tell my boyfriend I don’t really care, but of course I do care.”

Me: “What? Then why tell him you don’t care?”

Young Woman: “Because he should know.”

Me: “You… expect him to read your mind? I really don’t get this.”

Young Woman: *impatiently* “I’m a girl! Of course I care!”

Me: “I’m a girl. I don’t care.”

Young Woman: “Well, you have to be careful about believing that! We all care!”

Me: “I am standing here saying that I don’t care. You’re not hearing it second hand from [Boyfriend]. I don’t care.”

Young Woman: “Yeah, right, you won’t dump him if he just skips Valentine’s Day.”

Me: “We have been together for five years. We’ve skipped every Valentine’s Day. I. Don’t. Care.”

Young Woman: “Well, you really have to be careful about that. I would dump my boyfriend if he skipped Valentine’s Day after I told him I didn’t care about it.”

Me: “Oh, my god! You’re the reason women are stereotyped as unreasonable! Thanks a lot for that! Is it really so frickin’ hard to just say what you mean?”

Young Woman: “He should know!”

Me: *to Boyfriend* “Don’t you dare get me anything this year.”

Boyfriend: “I was thinking of getting you a new tablet sometime this month. If you want to call that a Valentine’s gift, we can.”

Me: “No, let’s not call it anything. But that’s very very sweet; I do need a new one.”

Boyfriend: “Okay, want to go look at tablets?”

Me: “I love you.”

Young Woman: *as we’re leaving* “Don’t believe it! She wants jewelry!”

I work for a company that sometimes has to send candidates information, to fill out for jobs, to their email. I had the pleasure of re-sending a bunch of emails to various candidates over the course of several days, when we discovered they had all bounced back due to some glitch somewhere in the system.

Advice to candidates: if you are applying for a job, get a free email address and make it just for job hunting. Seeing email address like [email protected][site].com, [email protected][site].com, and [email protected][site].com will definitely make the employer wonder if they are choosing the right person.

(My friends and I, all women in our early twenties, decide to get together for a movie marathon and game night. As it gets later and later, the conversation turns to romantic relationships, and the fact that I have yet to have one is brought up. So, one of my friends talks us all into joining a popular dating app. We amuse ourselves by going through profiles on our phones for a while, until this happens.)

Friend #1: *in response to an excited look on my face* “[My Name], are you still on [Dating App]?”

Me: “No, I got bored with that one a while ago. I’m playing [Game] now.”

Friend #3: “You still play [Game]?!”

Friend #2: “Wait, I’ve never heard of [Game] before. What is it?”

Me: *shows her my phone* “It’s this cute game where you have to collect the different cats that come visit your yard . . .” *realizes I just literally chose cats over boys*  “This is probably a more accurate description of me than I would like.”