(This guest is one of those people who is extremely irritable when they don’t have their morning coffee. Free coffee is not technically one of our listed amenities, but we offer some anyway to be nice. This is really early in the morning before breakfast time, and the breakfast crew is busy getting things ready in the kitchen.)

Guest: *on phone* “Is the coffee ready yet?”

Me: “It’s brewing right now, so it’ll be about five minutes.”

Guest: “Fine!”

(She appears in the breakfast area one minute later, sees there’s no ready coffee, and storms up to me.)

Guest: “Where’s the coffee?! I just need a cup of coffee!”

Me: “I’m sorry. I’ll tell the breakfast crew to hurry up with it.”

(I go to tell them, and they say okay, and then I can hear pounding on the kitchen door and the guest yelling, “WHERE’S THE COFFEE?!” so loud that I’m surprised she doesn’t wake up the whole hotel.)

Me: “Please, ma’am, there are rooms nearby; you might wake them…”

Guest: “I don’t care about them. I only care about my coffee! Where is it?! Coffee, coffee, coffee! Is it so hard?! Is it?!”

(The coffee finally comes out, and by then, the guest is having a total meltdown in the lobby, stomping in circles, tearing at her hair, and yelling. Finally, she grabs a cup, pours some coffee, and runs out with it. Some coffee spills out onto her hand and onto the floor in her haste, but she is so furious, she doesn’t even pause… or say thank you.)

Breakfast Crew: *stares at each other in disbelief* “What the f***?”

(I don’t know how coffee shops can stand crazy coffee people!)

(I work as an administrative medical assistant, meaning I have medical experience but am handling more of the paperwork, scheduling, and phone calls that come in from our patients. It’s Monday morning and our only doctor in the office today has called off. This means we have to cancel the day’s schedule. On Friday, I scheduled a patient’s appointment for today, and she is very upset that we have to cancel. This is not typically an issue, but I have the rest of the week on hold due to a jury summons for the doctor. She is one of my more insistent patients, and after two hours she calls my line.)

Patient: “Why haven’t I been rescheduled? It’s been two hours!”

Me: “I’m sorry, [Patient]. It is Monday, and having had to cancel the day and call patients who called with high-health-risk issues from the weekend, I have not gotten to you just yet. I’ve been trying to find a place for you with this specific provider, as I know your preferences.”

Patient: “I want to be seen tomorrow by [Doctor].”

Me: “I understand, but we had opened today up because she is out for jury selection tomorrow, and we won’t know what the rest of her week looks like until tomorrow afternoon—”

Patient: *smugly* “The doctor needs to have one of the other doctors write her a note that she cannot sit for eight hours a day; then the doctor can come in tomorrow.”

Me: “…”

Patient: “I’m in desperate need of [treatment that is not a medically necessity and a long-standing issue], and I demand to see her.”

Me: “I understand you are frustrated by this reschedule, but I do not choose what the doctors do. If she wants to be part of a civic responsibility, that is her right as an American citizen. Also, what you just suggested is considered fraud, and is against our policies, and illegal.”

Patient: *goes silent for a moment* “That’s not what I said at all. But she needs to see me.”

Me: “I can give you a call tomorrow afternoon when we have heard back, and schedule you with her later in the week when I have openings.”

Patient: “Fine, that will have to do.”

(The next time she called, she complained to one of my supervisors for forty-five minutes that no one had called her by ten in the morning. She did get in with the doctor. There are just some people you cannot please.)

(A teenage boy of about fourteen or fifteen comes out of the bathroom and approaches me.)

Boy: “Um, ma’am, there’s a problem in the bathroom.”

Me: “Okay, let me take a look.”

(I am thinking I’ll just have to plunge or something. I walk in, and my eyes grow wide. The entire floor is covered in poo water. A HUGE ball of paper towels full of poo has clogged the entire toilet — not just the drain, the whole bowl — and some is hanging out of the toilet. Several more pieces of paper towel are strewn on the floor. The empty paper towel roll is laid on the counter. Yes, there is an ENTIRE ROLL OF PAPER TOWELS in the toilet.)

Me: “What happened?”

Boy: “Well, there wasn’t a lot of toilet paper left, so I tried to use the paper towels.”

Me: “You needed that many paper towels to take care of yourself?”

Boy: “No. I mean, I used the first bit, but then it wouldn’t flush down, so then I just kept shoving more in there thinking it would fix it. I’m really sorry; this is so nasty.”

(I look at him, and then, in silence, I walk out and fetch his mom. I bring her into the bathroom to take a look. She peeks in, and as she does, the boy says:)

Boy: “I’m so sorry, Mom. I didn’t know what to do.”

Mom: *with a blank face she responded* “Oh, honey, it’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed; this happens.”

(In my mind, I’m screaming, “NO, IT DOESN’T! THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. THIS IS NOT A THING PEOPLE DO. PEOPLE DO NOT SHOVE ENTIRE ROLLS OF PAPER TOWELS DOWN THE TOILET. THAT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT JUST ‘HAPPENS.’ WOULD YOU BE SAYING THAT TO HIM IF HE DID THIS AT HOME?!” But I keep my cool and I stay silent. The mom looks at me.)

Mom: “Okay, let’s go, Son. Or did you want to ask about that book?”

(I’m standing in a puddle of her son’s poo water, staring. The boy looks at me and says:)

Boy: “Oh, yeah. Do you have Bram Stoker’s Dracula?”

Me: *still staring* “No. No, I don’t have that one. Or any more paper towels.”

(The mom laughs. The boy laughs. I do not laugh.)

Mom: “Okay, have a nice afternoon!”

(The mom and boy walk out. I’m still standing in the middle of poo water in the bathroom. I stare at the mess around me, dumbfounded. I call my landlord and ask her to send a plumber over. I begin cleaning. The plumber arrives, and he gets to the bathroom, opens the toilet, and exclaims:)

Plumber: “OH, MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED?! THIS COULD CLOG A SEWER! THIS IS NOT TOILET PAPER!”

(Yes, yes, I know. $95 and two hours of cleaning later… Moral of the story: I now understand why there are signs in public restrooms stating, “Do not flush anything down the toilet that isn’t toilet paper.” We’ve removed all paper towels, napkins, and hand towels from the bathroom and put them outside.)

As maid of honor for my friend’s wedding, I agree to manage the RSVPs. It’s a smallish wedding, about 60 people, and they’ve decided not to invite any children. After the initial invitations go out, the groom’s father asks if he could give an invite to his cubicle-mate to try to improve their work camaraderie. The couple agrees. A few days later, I get the RSVP in the mail. It’s scribbled over, an angry note attached.

“Obviously, you have NO IDEA how to be polite for a wedding. FAMILIES are invited to weddings, INCLUDING CHILDREN. It’s rude to expect people to PAY a babysitter just for YOU. WE WILL ALL BE THERE. I hope your MARRIAGE is better than your INVITES.”

Attached were RSVPs for the couple, three children they had from various previous relationships, and two children they had as a couple. All were listed as wanting the prime rib, including the seven-month-old baby.

The couple and the groom’s family had a huge fight over this. The bride wanted to rescind the invite for the whole family, but the groom’s parents were worried about how it would affect the work conditions; after all, he had invited him to try to improve their relationship. In the end, the groom’s father agreed to pay for his coworker’s meals.

The day of the wedding, the groom’s father’s phone rings just before the ceremony. It’s his coworker, saying he will be late. The father quickly replies, then hangs up in time to see his son to the altar. The family ends up not showing to the ceremony, or the reception. It’s blatantly obvious as there are seven tables, with one completely empty.

When the father of the groom gets back to work, he confronts his coworker, who says he decided not to come because the father of the groom was “terse” on the phone. However, he does have a wedding gift. It’s a coffee maker, used and put back in the box, with old coffee grounds still in it.

Needless to say, the olive branch of the invite did not help the relationship between the father of the groom and his cubicle-mate.

(I book my movie ticket in advance. On the day of the movie my grandparents pay us a surprise visit, and Grandma wants to watch with me. We can’t sit together as a result, and she is stuck in a back corner while I am in the dead center. At the end of the movie, I try looking back, but I can’t see her, so I decide to wait until people clear out and just join her when she walks down. After half the theater has emptied, I figure I have missed her and follow everyone out. I look all around the large sidewalk and don’t see her, nor did she come out when the last person left. I frantically go around to the theater’s entrance, worried, because I’m not sure Grandma remembers how to walk home and she doesn’t have a mobile. Whew, there is Grandma sitting in the waiting area!)

Me: “Hey, I missed you in that crowd.”

Grandma: “Where were you?! I didn’t see you! I waited for a long time, and then I came and sat here.”

Me: “Where were you waiting? On the sidewalk?”

Grandma: “No, by the entrance!”

Me: “Entrance?”

Grandma: “Yes! The door we came in.”

Me: “You exited through the entrance! You were supposed to follow everyone out the front.”

Grandma: “It was too crowded, so I just sneaked out the entrance.”

(It turns out my grandparents usually get tickets near the back and sneak out through the entrances, and that they have managed to sneak into other movies several times without getting caught. After we got home and I mention this…)

Dad: “Mom! You’re still doing that?”

Me: “You knew?”

Dad: “Yes, always going out the back. They tried to sneak me into another movie once but I called them out for it!”

Grandpa: “It would have been a free movie!”

Me: “Dad, didn’t you think to warn me grandma might do that?”

Dad: “She’s a little old lady now?”

(At least I’m glad Grandma didn’t go into another movie this time, or I wouldn’t have found her…)