I am a low-level supervisor at a chain store. Last year, we added masks to our uniforms. One backroom associate has been quite vocal about his feelings on the matter. When his male coworkers or superiors tell him to wear his mask, he puts it on. But when I — a female superior — tell him to wear his mask, he argues or just ignores me.

[Associate] is sitting in the break room with two coworkers when I enter. He immediately gets up and leaves, not wearing his mask and not looking at me.

Me: “[Associate]?”

He walks faster.

Me: “Your mask, [Associate].”

Associate: “It is illegal to make me wear it.”

Me: *Eye-roll* “I’m not getting into this with you again. Mask up or go home.”

Associate: “I’m a war vet. I fought for your freedom.”

Me: “Thank you for your service. Mask up or go home.”

Associate: “My mask protects you. Your mask protects me. So—”

Me: “Does that mean you don’t want to protect others?”

Associate: “I don’t care.”

Me: “This is your last chance. Get your mask on or get in your car and go home.”

He stared at me, probably trying to think of something else to say. Instead, he walked out and left. I emailed up the chain of command, detailing our conversation. He was finally terminated for insubordination.

CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse

My husband and I have recently had our first child. I am struggling with major postpartum depression, and my mother-in-law offers to watch our daughter for a few hours so we can have a date night. I am at first reluctant, but she insists and everyone tells me it’ll probably be good for me.

When my daughter is about three months old, we accept my mother-in-law’s offer. When we drop my daughter off, we explain that since she is still so little and young, we don’t let her cry it out and ask them to not do so.

When we go to pick her up afterward, my daughter is near hyperventilating. After further questions, we find out that she had started getting fussy and my mother-in-law didn’t want to deal with it, so she let her cry it out until the point where she was inconsolable. The second my daughter sees me, she whimpers and reaches out for me. I am fuming. 

Me: “We asked you to not let her cry it out. Why didn’t you comfort her?”

Mother-In-Law: “You don’t get to complain about free babysitting. I can do whatever I want when I’m watching her.”  

She continued to make statements like, “Are you sure she’s not colicky?” and “It’s a good thing her crying doesn’t bother you; I would just shut her in a room with a vacuum on.” She never understood why we never took her up on her offers to watch our daughter again or why, for months after, whenever our daughter saw her, she would instantly burst into tears.

I’m at a fun dinner meeting for members of an international high school group that I’m a part of. It’s for students doing international transfers between America and Japan or America and South Korea.

We’re at a semi-fancy restaurant where Korean and Japanese food are cooked in front of you in a showy way. It isn’t busy at this hour and the woman who owns the place is lounging at the bar. We’ve come to know her during our meetings; she is a commanding woman who enjoys us hosting our meetings here.

Unfortunately, some members’ parents have decided their other kids should join us too even though they won’t be traveling with us and have done nothing but whine of boredom and distract us from our pre-dinner meeting. One of the little sisters is thirteen, so too old to be acting how she does.

Tempers are rising but are sated when food starts being served. The little sister gobbles her fried rice in less than one minute.

Little Sister: “So, where’s the rest?! I want more!”

Older Sister: “You have to wait until after they finish cooking your food.”

The little sister sees that other people haven’t eaten as fast and emits a shriek in my direction.

Little Sister: “GIMMIE YOURS!”

Me: “Uh, no. You eat yours. I eat mine. It’s not my responsibility to feed you.”

Little Sister: “THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Me: “Well, yeah, it is, actually. I paid for my food. Did you? No, your parents paid for yours. So since your parents didn’t pay for mine, I’ll eat all of mine.”

As though she thinks she’s being discreet, the little sister starts dramatically inching her hand across the table as soon as I set my bowl down for a moment. I pick up a fork and drive the tines into the tabletop as dramatically as I can in front of her hand.

Me: “Back. Off.”

The owner calls from across the dining room.

Owner: “CHILDREN! Please stop that nonsense!”

Me: *Grumpy but polite* “Yes, ma’am.” 

Little Sister: *Intentionally defiant* “My mom says I don’t have to listen to anyone but her!”

The owner starts texting on her phone, looking annoyed. Somehow, the older siblings keep the little sister in check until our main course is finished and plated. Surprisingly, our adult chaperone arrives a bit later to “keep an eye on us” even though this meeting was only supposed to be for the students.

The chaperone does nothing. Yet again, the little hellion girl eats her food too fast to taste it and starts showing her interest in everyone else’s plates. She also starts trying to steal others’ sodas. I get an idea; I turn to the older sister with a dollop of wasabi paste on my chopsticks.

Me: “Gosh, I just love the guacamole they include on these plates, don’t you?”

Older Sister: *Playing along* “Oh, right, so amazing.”

The little sister catches interest, seeing the two of us eating the green stuff.

Little Sister: “BUT I DIDN’T GET ANY! THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Me: *Dramatic eye roll* “Okay, you can have mine, but on one condition. You listening?”

Little Sister: “Yes! Gimmie!”

She reaches for my plate, which I hold back.

Me: “You cannot speak again until you are back in your parent’s car because we have been trying to finish the meeting and you’re distracting.”

Little Sister: *Obviously not listening* “OKAY! GIMMIE!”

I scoop the rest of the “guacamole” into a spoon and give it to her, nodding to the others. Everyone grabs their soda and tea for dear life as the greedy little gremlin deep-throats her spoon covered in wasabi. Of course, she immediately starts sobbing and turning red, grabbing at our drinks. She fails to get something to quench the fire. The owner comes over with her hands on her hips. 

Owner: *Loud, commanding Mom voice* “Well! Are you all proud of yourselves now?!”

I presume she is talking to me since I initiated the prank.

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s just that I couldn’t—”

Owner: “Hush, you!” [Chaperone], who is the littlest one and why is she like this?!”

Chaperone: *Startled* “Well, I couldn’t tell her parents that only some of their children could be here…”

Owner: “I don’t care for your excuses. Next time, only the [international student group] members can come to [international student group] meetings. I’m not a daycare! Either you do it my way or no more events can happen here, okay? I love these mature children, so that hurts me, too!”

Chaperone: *Awkward* “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll do better.”

Thankfully, we were able to make up for lost time in another meeting before the trip, and I never had to trick another child into eating a whole spoonful of wasabi again. The trip was amazing!

Related:
Holy Guacamole! Part 2
Holy Guacamole!

When I was a teenager, I went to a boarding school for “troubled teen girls” for a short period of time. I was physically ill after finally being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and my missing school was leading my grades to drop to the point where I was on the verge of being kicked out, so they enrolled me for a few trimesters as a way for me to catch up. A lot of the girls were suffering from severe behavioral issues and returning from wilderness camps, so it was a pretty intense group of kids.

Most Internet use was forbidden except in connection with schoolwork, and all of our computers in the computer lab faced inward so the teacher who was running the computer lab could see our screens. There were also very strict blocks that blocked almost everything except for educational websites. They’d never had any issues, until me.

I was annoyed at these restrictions and wanted to talk to my friends via email and post on forums. It was nothing malicious at all; besides my health issues, I was a pretty good kid. Unfortunately for the school, I was the first student that happened to know about using proxy servers to get around these restrictions.

I was constantly alt+tabbing, using tiny windows, and being on the lookout for when the lab monitor looked my way. This went on for months before a couple of students found out and asked me about it. I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to cause trouble, and I knew that everyone suddenly having access would be impossible to hide. Of course, that meant that they went and told the principal about it.

They had no idea how I managed to do it. Even the so-called IT people for the school had no explanation! Frustrated, the principal forbade me from entering the computer lab again until I told them how I managed to get around the restrictions.

Unfortunately for them, I was leaving the school soon after anyway, so it didn’t make a difference. Amusingly, they wound up calling my parents because of the “trouble” I was making and complained that I was being uncooperative.

I don’t remember if anyone else managed to figure out what I was doing, and years later, my mom admitted that she was so proud to find out that the “trouble” I was making was being the first person to outsmart the school just so I could check my email and post on some gaming forums.

I work in a twenty-four-hour gas station. I should note that we’re only “technically” twenty-four hours. We have to close for fifteen minutes between 3:35 am and 4:00 am in order to for the system to calculate daily totals and reset for a new day, so I guess we’re a twenty-three-hours-and-forty-five-minutes store.

One night, while we’re closed and I’m doing paperwork, waiting for the system to reset, I see headlights out of the corner of my eye. I make no move to the door since I’m not allowed to open for anyone but the newspaper vendor. I half-watch the guy as his car weaves into a parking space, parks diagonally across it , and stumbles his way to the door.

He completely ignores the closed sign that is eye-level with him and starts pulling on the locked door. He pulls harder each time it doesn’t open. When this fails, he presses his face to the glass and starts banging on the door. 

I finally go to it with a piece of paper I’ve written.

Note: “Sorry! We’re closed for just a few minutes!”

I press it to the glass so he can read it, maintaining my customer service smile.

As soon as he reads it, he absolutely Hulks out. He slams hard on the glass with the side of his fist over and over, screaming.

Customer: “F****** BULLS***, YOU’RE CLOSED! YOU’RE TWENTY-FOUR-F******-HOURS! LET ME THE F*** IN RIGHT THE F*** NOW! YOU UGLY, FAT C***! I NEED SOME F****** SMOKES NOW!”

Where I live, there’s a plethora of drunks and addicts. I’m used to this type of behavior. Completely deadpan, I walk back around the counter and take down his license plate number off the camera before I grab the phone and go back to the door. He’s still screaming and banging, threatening me with things I won’t repeat here. 

I make a massive show of dialing 9-1… He takes off before I can even finish, doing a massive burnout at the entrance before peeling out down the street with his car threatening to spin out the whole way. 

I still called the non-emergency number to report his car make, model, and plate number for a DUI. Hope he got what he deserves.