When my elder brother was barely two years old, he already had a reputation for being even more rambunctious than the average little boy. It got to the point that my parents needed to get a fence installed between the back porch and the backyard to keep him from escaping into the yard without supervision and sneaking out into the street from there.

When they contracted someone to build the fence, the work order explicitly said that it needed to be suitable to prevent a child from climbing over it. The work order got signed off, the fence got built, and then Mother got called over to inspect and sign the work off.

Mother took one look at the fence and declared that it was not fit for purpose. It was not childproof. The workmen tried to argue with her that she was mistaken. The foreman swore up and down that the fence would work.

Mother: “[Brother], come here, please!”

My big brother barrelled out of the house, did not even pause for one second to scale the fence in its entirety, and was right at Mom’s feet before a few seconds had gone by.

Brother: “Yes, Mommy?”

The fence was removed.

Related:
Oh, Brother! – Part 8
Oh, Brother! – Part 7
Oh, Brother! – Part 6
Oh, Brother!, Part 5
Oh, Brother! – Part 4

This was many years ago, in the early days when MP3 players were available and still a new and exciting thing. My older sister had a part-time job while in high school and had saved up money to buy one, and as her birthday was approaching, my parents agreed to help make up the difference as her birthday present.

My whole family tagged along to buy it. It was a very exciting thing, and as jealous as I was of my sister for getting an MP3 player, she said I could have her old Walkman, and I was very grateful.

We went to an electronics store, and we were greeted by an older lady who worked there.

Now, I have nothing against older people working with electronics, but I could see from my parents’ faces that they didn’t want to be served by her when she started talking about how technology is moving too fast… And she worked in an electronics store and was meant to sell these things.

My sister started asking about the types of players available and pointed out some she had seen in the catalogue which were in her price range.

Sister: “I saw this one, which is in our price range and can hold 150 songs!”

The sales lady rolled her eyes and looked fed up.

Sales Lady: “Oh, that’s no good! You don’t need 150 songs! All you actually need is five or six songs, and you can just swap them around every now and then!”

I think she probably had a heart attack when Spotify was released.

My workplace has its normal pay scales for each position publicly released. You can just go online and find that information, and the organisation has worked this way for many, many years. Most staff work under these pay scales, but you can try to negotiate separately. It’s just uncommon and usually only to attract or retain staff for fairly unique roles that would be hard to come by.

I am one such person in a unique role, so I have an individual agreement for a varied pay scale on top of the standard corporate agreement. 

I worked happily at this workplace for several years before a new director came to my area. In an effort to cut costs immediately, this director decided that he was going to cancel all the individual agreements, forcing me and others to revert to the lower payscale of the corporate agreement.

When the director informed me of his decision regarding my individual agreement, I asked him to reconsider. I warned him that this was going to be more costly for him in the long run. I asked him if he had read my agreement in full and spoken to my manager about why the agreement was put in place.

He did not listen.

Upon his cancelling my individual agreement, the cancellation clause I’d requested to be added kicked in: all the flextime I had earned while in the individual agreement that I had not yet spent was to be cashed out, at the higher rate.

I had more than 2,000 hours of flextime built up from the last eighteen months alone, to say nothing of what I’d earned during the height of responding to the global health crisis. 

I had a new job within a month. I understand the director had much more difficulty finding new work.

My coworker’s mother passed away, but instead of taking time off, the coworker kept working her normal four- to five-hour shifts. She would then rush off to complete whatever was required for her mother’s final preparations. 

Today, [Coworker] has her bag in hand and about is to step through the door to leave when a customer steps into her way. The woman steps in front of [Coworker] again as she tries to avoid her.

Customer: “Stop.”

Coworker: “Sorry, I have finished for the day and have to leave.”

Customer: “No, I want you to help me pick out curtains for my house.”

Coworker: “Sorry, I can’t do that. Please go to [service counter]; they will help you there. I‘ve finished for the day.”

Customer: “The queue is too long; you can help me. You’ve now got plenty of time to help me.”

Coworker: “No, I don’t. I have finished for the day.”

The woman won’t budge. There’s nothing I can do because I am with my own difficult customer in a different department but can still overhear the conversation. [Coworker] has been very polite until this point, as she always is.

Customer: “No, you’re not leaving until after you serve me. I am in a hurry, and you don’t have anything more important to do than serving me.”

Coworker: *Glares at a customer before angrily hissing* “Nothing more important? My mother died, b****. Now get out of my d*** way and go and wait for your turn in the freaking queue.”

She stepped around the now stunned woman and left.

[Coworker] was expecting to come back to work to find that a complaint had been made against her, but nothing was ever brought up.

I am visiting a touristy place in the rainforest of northeast Australia. Popular access is via a series of gondolas or a scenic train. There’s lots of shopping from local artisans, you can hold a koala, etc. I’m on my way to the train station to return to Cairns when a barefoot young man walks up to me.

Barefoot Guy: “Hey, do you know where I can find nature?”

Me: “Um, anywhere?”

I kept going, and he presumably found some nature. Did I mention that we were in the middle of the rainforest?