(I work maintenance at an apartment complex. My first call of the day is the unit of a married couple. The wife works from home. She answers the door and lets me in.)

Me: “You called for maintenance?”

Wife: “Yeah, the garbage disposal doesn’t work. Can you fix it?”

(She directs me to the kitchen, but keeps her head pointed away from the room. I ask a few troubleshooting questions. She answers them, but keeps her hand over her mouth and nose the whole time.)

Wife: “If you need me, I’ll be in my office down the hall. Don’t call me over here.”

(She heads off to her office and I start unpacking my tools. On the table I see a freshly baked pecan pie. A sizable note with large bold writing is propped up next to it.)

Note: “Do NOT even F****** touch! This is for your PARENTS’ anniversary! Don’t embarrass me like last year! Hugs and kisses, [Husband].”

(I fixed the disposal without much trouble. I don’t know if she was able to resist the allure of the pie, but I sure hope so. It smelled delicious.)

(I work the night-shift at a gated community for mentally and physically disabled adults. Each of the 24 residents have their own apartments and it’s my job to ensure those who need night time care receive it, as well as to finish up some night time duties for the day staff. It’s a solo job, but I don’t mind it. We have recently installed an alarm system to the place after a break-in in the staff’s office where some money was taken. One night, I accidently trigger the alarm to one of the buildings because I need to get some paper for the copy machine. After turning it off, I call the security system head office to inform them that everything is all right.)

Operator: “[Security Company].”

Me: “Hi, this is [My Name] from [Complex]. I’m just calling to let you all know that the alarm just now was a false one. I accidentally triggered it.”

Operator: “All right. We’ll inform the police not to send a car.”

(At that moment I’m surprised that she just accepted my answer so easily without any checking.)

Me: “Really? Wow… Can I ask you something? Do you have my name on some sort of approved list of people or something?”

Operator: “No, [My Name].”

Me: “Huh? Not for anything but how do you know I’m really who I say I am?”

Operator: “You called us. You have our number.”

Me: “Yeah, but only because it’s on the alarm itself. Shouldn’t there be a password or something for me to say to prove I work here?”

Operator: “You know… that’s not a bad idea.”

(I told her I’d let my boss know to set one up as I didn’t feel it was all right for me to make one up on the spot. Turned out I was the only person both at the security company and at my work who thought that was a good idea and a good thing, too. A month later some guy tried to pretend he was the night shift while he was trying to steal a computer from the office.)

(Two friends and I work in a restaurant, located at the ground floor of a large office building that has been empty except for our restaurant for years. The city decides to convert it into semi-permanent homes for refugees. This has caused some public discussion since most refugee homes are in old military buildings or further away from town, while this one is right in the middle of the city and in a somewhat expensive housing area. A lot of right-leaning people have complained about refugees ‘stealing good homes’ from locals. After they’ve finished renovating and furnishing the building, there is an open-door day where the Red Cross workers who’ll be working with the refugees give tours to anyone interested. My coworkers and I decide to go, and we get stuck on our tour with an old lady who is clearly not liking this whole idea. On top of that, our tour guide is the Turkish-German translator of the team, a young woman in a headscarf and very modest clothing, and a bit shy. The old lady questions everything the guide shows us, and complains non-stop. We try to help by rebuffing most of her comments and being very supportive of the info the guide gives us, but at the end of the tour we’ve had enough.)

Old Lady: “Hmpfh, well, I still don’t know. I don’t think ‘those’ people should be moving right into the middle of the city.”

Me: *clearly a bit too sarcastic* “You think we should treat them like lepers and banish them from town, then?”

Old Lady: “No! I just, I mean… If there’s families moving in, there’s nowhere for the kids to play.”

Friend #1: “Actually, there’s a park two streets away, and it’s only five minutes to the riverbank with lots of green spaces.”

Old Lady: “Uhm, well, there’s only very expensive supermarkets around. They won’t be able to afford that.”

Me: “There’s [Discounter #1] and [Discounter #2] just at the next block.”

Old Lady: “Then what about the noise? This is a very busy street, you know!”

Friend #2: “Yes, I’m sure the street is much more noisy than the war-torn place they’ve fled from, or the overstuffed refugee camps they’re all stuck in.”

Old Lady: “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I wonder what the poor people from the restaurant downstairs are saying, having these people move in right above them! They’ll constantly have to deal with them! I’m sure they aren’t happy.”

Me: *shows my name badge with the restaurant’s logo* “We’re actually pretty happy to help them.”

Friends #1 & #2: *show off their badges as well*

(The old lady just stuttered and left as quickly as she could, brushing past our guide, who couldn’t help but laugh a bit when she was gone. This was a few weeks ago. The refugees have happily moved in, and the Red Cross team have been regular customers at our restaurant.)

(I own a couple of rental properties in DC. One of them is available for rent and I set up showings for it. Valuing my time, I often set up several appointments around the same time, if possible, so that I don’t have to make numerous trips to the property to show it to just one person. On this (weekend) day, I have scheduled 8 back-to-back showings, and my last appointment of the day is late, without calling/texting/emailing to say he’s running behind. After waiting 30 minutes past his appointment time, I go to leave. Walking out of the building and finding a young man sitting on the front stairs, surfing the Internet on his phone.)

Me: “Hi! Do you live in the building? I don’t think we’ve met yet.”

Young Man: “No, I’m waiting for this b**** of a landlord to come out and meet me. I’ve been sitting here for five minutes!”

Me: “Oh, well, only a couple of the units are rentals, and I have most everyone’s phone number. Maybe she’s not picking up your call because she got distracted. If you tell me who it is, I’ll try her, or can go in and knock on the door.”

Young Man: “I didn’t CALL her; she should know I’m waiting for her! She should have been sitting out here to greet me! She must not want to rent her property that badly!”

Me: “Well, it’s a little cool and it’s been raining off and on today, so she’s probably inside waiting. Maybe you should try calling her, or tell me who she is and I’ll call her.”

Young Man: “Ugh, fine, it’s [My Name] in [my unit number]. Tell her to get down here fast or I’m leaving.”

Me: “Well, hello, [Young Man], I’m [My Name], owner of [My Unit]. I’ve been sitting upstairs waiting for the last half hour for you to call, text, or email me that you’re here for your appointment, as I instructed you to do when you got to the front door. Seeing as you admitted you’ve been waiting for only five minutes, it’s lucky I caught you before I left. Would you still like to see the unit?”

Young Man: “I suppose, but you should have come down and checked to see if I was here. My phone could have died or something.”

Me: “I did, twice. Since you only showed up five minutes ago, you weren’t here when I did check. Right this way to the unit.”

(I show him in and he makes a big show of sniffing every time he walks into a room or looks at an appliance/fixture. After looking around for about ten minutes, he comes back into the living room where I’m waiting to “talk business.”)

Young Man: “Well, I guess this will do as a temporary space. It’s extremely run down and I figure everything will break in six months from what I’ve seen. Because of that, I want to negotiate the rent, starting at [$400/month less than my asking price] and get the utilities included due to the inefficient appliances. I also won’t sign a lease longer than six months.”

Me: “I’m sorry you feel that way. All of the appliances in this unit are energy star and less than five years old, and the basics like the furnace, air conditioner, and water heater are all less than ten years old and were fully serviced in the last six months and given a clean bill of health, with a few minor repairs which I gladly paid to have completed. If you had bothered to ask before assuming, I would have told you that. Since you feel my terms are unreasonable, I guess this isn’t the apartment for you. Thank you for your time looking at it. I’ll show you out.”

Young Man: “WAIT! Don’t you want to rent this place? No one would pay what you want for this s***! I’m the only chance you have of getting a tenant. You should negotiate with me so that you don’t lose money!”

(I take the five completed applications from the other prospects who have viewed the apartment that day, with application fee checks clipped to them, out of my bag and plop them on the table.)

Me: “I don’t need to negotiate with you. I have five people who have applied for this apartment TODAY, plus nearly the same number from yesterday. For the record, I’ve been renting this place to a friend, at the same rent I’m asking now, for the last three years and he’s ONLY moving out because he’s finally buying his own place… He LOVES this apartment. I don’t know where you came from, but this is what you get for the rent I’m asking here, and, honestly, you usually get a little less because I take good care of this place, including being fully, legally licensed to rent.” *gestures to the rental license mounted on the wall* “Most rentals at this price point are illegal death traps. So, again, I’m sorry that you feel I’m trying to rip you off, but I’ll show you out now and I wish you good luck in your home search.”

Young Man: “Oh, crap… Um… sorry. I thought I could play hardball and get a better deal. Will you still take my application? I mean, I still think utilities should be included, but I can pay the rent you want – or, at least close to it. Please?”

Me: “You showed up almost a half hour late to your appointment, complained because you didn’t follow my instructions to get in while giving me a sorry excuse for why you ‘might’ not have been able to do so, and then insulted me and my property. I really don’t think this will work out. Sorry, but let me show you out.”

(He started screaming to the point that the downstairs neighbors — two big dudes I am friends with because I also live in the neighborhood and see them around — came running upstairs to see what is wrong. I gratefully threw the door open when they started pounding on it and saying “this is Neighbors #1 and #2; is everything okay?”. I told them what was going on, and they physically tossed the dude out of the building. Unfortunate as it was, I now make sure that someone else is with me while conducting tours/open houses at my properties, and only give ten minutes grace for late appointments unless they contact me to tell me they’ll be later than that.)

(The staff accommodation I live in has started to come to our flats and look for illegal substances after finding drugs in one tenant’s room, which is not only against the law, but punishable by death here. They come to my room and they have sent one of the female supervisors. They start opening closets and drawers and she finds my husband’s 5kg box of vanilla protein powder he uses for the gym.)

Supervisor: “What is this? Is this drugs?”

Me: “Yeah, cocaine now comes in 5kg boxes.”

(She was let go shortly after that and other similar episodes.)