My daughter is working her first job in a local small company. I know she doesn’t enjoy it that much — mainly due to the idiot owner — but she recognises that the experience she is getting — partly because the idiot owner refuses to pay for experienced staff — will be so valuable in the future.

Then, the health crisis hits, and it eventually gets to the point that company can open under conditions. Of course, the owner doesn’t believe in the health crisis. No measures are in place and he refuses to make one exception.

Daughter: “Dad, I hate it there. I feel scared to go to work.”

Me: “Quit, then. We can support you while you look for work.”

Daughter: “But nowhere is hiring and I don’t want that on my CV.”

Me: “So, blow the whistle on him. He doesn’t care about his staff. Don’t care about him!”

So, we wrote a letter, one to the owner and one to the authorities, stating the reason why she would not be returning to work and listing what requirements he was ignoring. I figured the worse case was if she was fired and had to find a better job.

As it happened, the owner tried to call and then emailed demanding a meeting. But someone got to him first; the whole company was suddenly put on furlough and the owner was nowhere to be seen.

It wasn’t long until the company opened again and instead of the owner, his father was in charge. Apparently, he had let his son run this as his first big venture, and he quickly took back over putting things right.

My daughter stayed there a while longer. When she left, the owner’s father thanked her personally for writing the letter and said he would never have known how badly the company was doing.

I’m just about to go into the men’s room when a woman pushes in front of me.

Me: “Err, excuse me.”

Woman: “Oh, you don’t mind, do you?”

Me: “I do, actually. Use the ladies’.”

Woman: “It’s closed for cleaning, so I’ll use this one.”

Me: “You won’t. There’s another downstairs and another upstairs and one right down the hall.”

Woman: “What are you complaining about? If anything, I should be the one that doesn’t want to use the men’s bathroom. Don’t worry, I won’t sneak a peek.”

Me: “Okay, now you’re being creepy. Use the women’s bathroom.”

Woman: “I can’t believe you’re being so difficult! Fine. I’ll use the other one, if it’s so d*** important to you.”

She scuttled off angrily.

Later, when my manager tried to chew me out, I explained what had actually happened, thinking the woman had lied about it, but my manager backed her up. I had to talk to her boss, who agreed with me outright and brought my manager and the other woman into a disciplinary meeting.

There was a very clearly-worded email explaining that anyone trying to force their way into a bathroom they didn’t belong in would be fired.

Thankfully, it didn’t happen again.

This is my great aunt’s story, from before the age of computers. Her regular doctor retired and a new one took his place. On her first visit to him, he diagnosed her with an illness and referred her to a specialist that he knew. He had to hand-write the referral and left the room to do so, returning a short while later with it in a sealed envelope.

Doctor: “Give this only to [Specialist].”

[Great Aunt]’s old doctor always wrote referring letters in front of her, he never sealed the envelopes, and the letters were usually handed to the receptionist.

[Great Aunt] was suspicious, so she steamed the envelope open to read it as soon as she got home. The note basically said that she didn’t have the illness he had diagnosed and also stated why he referred her.

Note: “This old lady is loaded; milk her for all she’s worth.”

I’m working as a front desk agent in a nice hotel. A housekeeper tidying a room apparently finds evidence of bedbug activity. If you know anything about the hospitality industry, then you know that bedbugs are a fact of life no matter how nice the hotel is; the trick is whether or not you deal with them correctly. The one thing this housekeeper does right is flag the room as needing to be evaluated by pest control.

What they DO NOT do is inform literally anyone else that they have done this. This is especially a problem because the room is occupied, and flagging it in the system locks it down to everyone but management, so the front desk and the guests staying in the room don’t find out about this issue until the guests return and can’t get into the room, and the flag comes up when replacement keys are attempted to be issued.

Naturally, the guests are incredibly upset. We scramble to get them a new room, gather all of their belongings to deep clean for them, and tell them to go purchase whatever they need in the interim with the promise that we will reimburse them for the cost.

Here is where things go sideways. In the chaos, the manager doesn’t think to specify any limit on what these guests can buy, so they proceed to purchase ENTIRE NEW WARDROBES for themselves, which costs in excess of $5,000. They also state that they do not want any of their old belongings back, even if we do deep-clean them, and they leave the next day before any kind of check can be processed.

Still, we know the rules of CYA — Cover Your A** — so we do our due diligence. We try to contact them multiple times, via email, snail-mail, and phone, to send them a check for the clothing they purchased. It’s a lot more than we would normally pay in this situation, but since it was such a colossal mistake on our side, we’re biting the bullet.

They don’t respond to mail or email, and on the few times that we manage to get them on the phone, they claim that the people we want to speak to aren’t home.

We keep their old clothes in Lost and Found, separately tagged and inventoried, just in case they come back.

After six months of this circus, we finally declare that we have acted in good faith and give up. Attempts to deliver the check are halted, and the clothing they left behind is “donated”. I get one of the hoodies!

Of course, only about a month after this decision, the guests try to sue us for the money they spent on their new wardrobe. Since we’ve documented every step of our attempts to pay them, you can imagine how well that fares.

Once that’s tossed, we think it’s finally over, but there is one parting shot to be had. This is relayed to me later, as I am not on shift at the time, but apparently, one of the guests shows up at the front desk asking after a specific hoodie, saying he “forgot” it in the hotel. My manager and one of my coworkers tell him they will look for it in the Lost and Found. Once they are in the back room, this is the conversation.

Coworker: “Doesn’t [My Name] have that hoodie?”

Manager: “Yep.”

Coworker: “Are we going to tell him that?”

Manager: “Nope.”

I still have that hoodie. I’m wearing it as I type this; it’s my favorite.

I’ve worked as a pizza delivery driver on and off for the past couple of years. I’m in my early twenties, so obviously, I’m still getting the hang of being in the workforce. But I’ve worked in this industry long enough to have at least a few campfire stories to share of the world’s pizza-ordering crazies. Here’s one of the worst.

It was a busy Friday night. It was only me and a couple of other drivers working. We had a few call out and one had just simply quit, so we were already running on a skeleton crew, and the deliveries just wouldn’t stop coming in. It was so busy that the managers had to clock us in and out on doubles and triples just to stop the “numbers from looking bad”. Even though we were all hauling a**, the orders were still arriving late; we were just that shorthanded that night. But we were doing our best.

I got a delivery to a suburb that is not that bad of a tipping spot; it has some of my town’s nicer residents in it. It’s even got a public park and a ballpark nearby. My town has less than 10,000 people in it, and it’s a southern town, so usually, people are pretty nice. I pulled up to the customer’s place and parked in their driveway. It was a credit card order with no tip. That’s fine by me; they usually leave cash or write one in if there’s no pre-tip.

I approached the door and it seemed they were having a party inside, based on all the vehicles lined around the block. I figured it would be a happy drunk tip or something. But the lady that came out had a different vibe from everyone else inside the house.

Customer: “TWO G**D*** HOURS I HAD TO WAIT FOR THIS FOOD! WHAT THE F*** IS WRONG WITH Y’ALL?”

She approached me, snatched the receipt off of my delivery bag, and demanded that I hand her the food immediately. Her drunken husband appeared, as well, and backed his wife up by asking if the food was free. He didn’t seem aggressive, but he was not happy, either. At this point, my mouth was completely zipped. I usually greet all the customers and ask about their day, but obviously, there was no point here.

As I was opening the bag, the lady grabbed the bag from me and yanked it open. She jerked all her food out and handed it to her husband, right before SHOVING ME OFF HER PORCH and screaming in my face.

Customer: “NEXT TIME, I’LL ORDER MY S*** FROM [RIVAL PIZZA RESTAURANT]! TAKE YOU’RE A*** OFF MY PROPERTY! THIS IS D*** RIDICULOUS!”

It took literally every bit of willpower in the universe not to physically retaliate against this woman. While my mother raised me to never even think of raising a finger to harm a woman, she never said I couldn’t defend myself. And had the lady continued on to actually physically harm me more, I would’ve done so. But it was just a light shove. And even though she was totally in the wrong, I took one for the team and just left. All without saying a word. At the time, I felt that was the right thing to do.

I got back to the store and laid out the entire story to my managers, and their response was to immediately call the police. Not a surprise. I didn’t think of doing it at the scene of the “crime” as I wasn’t actually hurt, but I feel like I could’ve done it if I’d wanted to. You shouldn’t assault people, period, let alone your delivery driver, just because your food was late.

The police said nothing would end up happening legal-wise, mostly because I left, and that I should’ve been the one to call, etc. I wasn’t too worried, though; I just wanted to be sure I didn’t ever have to deliver to that address again. Could you blame me? My manager made sure we blacklisted it and made it so they couldn’t even place a carryout order under the same name. Since then, we haven’t heard a thing. And ever since then, on busy nights, if I know an order is already late, I call the customer to inform them I’m coming. It takes a couple of extra minutes, but I’m sure it saves me from the potential assault.