It is the early 2010s, and after completing my PhD, I have started working for a small, family-run company in the field of renewable energies. The owner is a cheapskate, seeking any means (legal and less legal) to save money.

One of the legal ones is to use tax discounts. This is why [Owner] hired me: the local government was giving a tax benefit to the companies hiring PhDs. I needed the job to gain some experience, so it was a win-win.

One of the less legal means is to have us use pirated software. For the technical drawing we need in the company, 2D is more than sufficient, and we use the pirated Lite version of a common CAD software, [cheapCAD].

A couple of years into my job, the local government is now giving tax benefits for companies hiring freshly graduated master’s students, and all of a sudden, we have this intern showing up in our office for his thesis.

I know that the owner sees my seniority as a burden and would rather go after the tax benefit carried by hiring an intern, so it doesn’t surprise me when the owner starts praising him for anything he does.

For his thesis, the intern is working on a project involving our company and other partners, where we need to exchange blueprints with them. One of these partners uses a more complex CAD, normally used in aerospace, [SpaceCAD], allowing the collaboration of multiple suppliers on the same project, and asks us if we can provide them with files compatible with it.

Owner: “[My Name], [Company] is asking us for the blueprint in [SpaceCAD], can we do it?”

Me: “Not really, we don’t have that software, and we don’t know how to use it.”

Owner: “But [Intern] knows how to use it, we should switch to it. We are a modern company, after all.”

Me: “Sure, you are right. Just so you know, each license for [SpaceCAD] costs 5000 Euros, while [cheapCAD] we have now comes for free.”

The owner, with a deer-in-the-headlights face, never brought up the CAD topic again.

He still maneuvered to find a plausible excuse to let me go, but that day was a win for me.

I work in the art supply section of a large department store. A customer places a used brush on the counter.

Customer: “Hi. I need a refund for this paintbrush. It’s defective.”

Me: “Okay, what seems to be the issue with it?”

Customer: “I tried using it and the paint didn’t go on the canvas the way I expected. It left streaks.”

Me: “What kind of paint were you using?”

Customer: “Wall paint. The matte kind.”

Me: “This brush is for oil painting on canvas.”

Customer: “It’s still paint, isn’t it?”

Me: “Technically… but they’re very different tools for very different purposes.”

Customer: “Well, you people should label them better. It just said fine detail brush. I thought that meant it would paint clean edges near the trim.”

Me: “Right… detail brush for oil paint.”

Customer: “I want a refund. It didn’t do what I wanted.”

Me: “Unfortunately, we can’t accept returns on used art brushes, especially ones used with house paint.”

Customer: “That’s ridiculous. It’s false advertising.”

Me: “This brush is from this department, called Professional Art Supplies.”

Customer: “Then why don’t you sell wall paint brushes in the same aisle?”

Me: “Because we assume most of our customers don’t intend to oil-paint their living rooms.”

Customer: “Well, I still want a refund!”

I called a manager over, who explained to her that she would not be getting a refund.

Customer: “You should sell wall paint brushes in the same aisle as all the other brushes so that we can make informed decisions!”

Manager: “Ma’am, do you expect to find scissors in the same section as lawnmowers?”

Customer: “No? What does that have to do with anything?”

Manager: “Well, painting a wall with a fine art brush would be like mowing your lawn with a pair of scissors, so using your logic, they should each be stocked together…”

Customer: “Oh, you’re all useless!” *Storms off.*

That happened last year, and she hasn’t been back. She’s probably still painting that wall…

I work at a small, cozy paint-your-own pottery studio where families, couples, and hobbyists come in to paint their own ceramics and have them kiln-fired. A mom is with her two daughters, but doesn’t seem to like her pottery’s end result.

Customer: “This isn’t the color I picked. It was supposed to be baby pink! This is like… peachy salmon or something.”

Me: “Right, glazes often change during firing. The one you used starts light but deepens in the kiln. That’s why we have the tile samples next to each bottle, showing what it looks like after firing.”

Customer: “Well, then what’s the point of choosing if it just does whatever it wants?”

Me: “…As I said, we have the tile samples next to each bottle.”

Customer: “I don’t understand why it can’t stay the same after it’s dried out.”

Me: “The kiln fires them at nineteen-hundred degrees, ma’am. It’s not just ‘drying out’.”

Customer: “Well, I still don’t like it. I want the colors to stay the same!”

At this point, the customer’s young daughter, who has been quiet up until now, diligently coloring a coloring book, runs up to her mother excitedly and holds up the book.

Customer’s Daughter: “Mom, you wanna try my coloring books? My crayons stay the same color!”

For some reason, this exchange seems to snap the customer out of her anger, and she just takes her daughter by the hand and wafts away.

I had just graduated from college, and I was looking for my first freelance job. Someone from my school was kind enough to introduce me to a local business owner.

Client: “I need this done yesterday. I need a new logo and a business card, and I need them quick! I’m only gonna pay you $100 since you’re fresh out of school and I was told you’d get me a deal.”

I was annoyed, but I needed money. I agreed.

Client: “95% of my company produces gas tanks for bigrig trucks, and 5% of it is me selling vintage guitars. So, I want my logo to be a guitar. And for my business card, I’m going to give you my work number, but I don’t ever answer it. Instead, I’m going to give you my cell phone number, but I want it to be secretly hidden in the card so only special people will know what it really is.”

Terrible ideas, sure, but he wasn’t paying me enough to fight him. I banged out a guitar logo and sent him a screenshot to see if he liked it (without giving him a copy he could steal).

Two weeks later, I got a voicemail.

Client: “Hey, this is the guy you’re building the logo for. I received our email, and the logo is looking really good. But you didn’t give me your email, so I can’t get back to you. I’m not really sure how this whole ‘paying you’ thing is going to work out.”

He didn’t understand the concept of responding back to an email.

I erased the files and blocked his number. I don’t care how new I was in the field. It wasn’t worth it.

I was designing a new office for a client. I worked on the design for nearly four months; they wanted changes made almost every single day and changed the location thrice. After four months of that, as well as corresponding back and forth with various building contractors, my client called me at 12:00 midnight.

Client: “We need you to see how many more people we can fit into our current office.”

Me: “Sure, but why? We’re already halfway through the various approvals we require to start building.”

Client: “We won’t be moving into a new place until next year. We’re not renting that unit anymore.”

Me: “Um…”

Client: “We will need this by Monday.”