I am a therapist working with children with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. I was having an intake interview with a new client, a nine-year-old girl with reading issues — she was a year and a half behind her peers — and her mother who accompanied her.

The girl told me that she hated reading, she thought it was boring, she didn’t like the stories, it was too difficult, et cetera. This is a typical answer I get from most kids with reading difficulties. When I asked her what shows she liked watching, she told me that she liked to watch exciting shows with lots of adventures. I also asked the girl and her mom whether or not they visited the local library. The mother told me that they didn’t because the girl doesn’t like reading, so the mom ended up buying her a few smaller books with large letters. She did this with the best of intentions, but it’s rare for this type of book to have exciting and adventurous stories.

When I told the girl about adventurous books for people with reading issues and the fact that she could borrow multiple books at the library for free, her eyes started to shine! She added that she liked funny pictures and special letters.

I told her that there were probably over a thousand books with exciting stories for children all over the world that she hadn’t read yet. I also pointed her toward a Dutch book series specifically made for children with dyslexia who want adventurous and exciting stories to read, as well as a book series “written” by an Italian mouse.

I swear that I haven’t seen any client get this excited over hearing about books in my entire career! It was genuinely heartwarming to see the glow in her eyes growing with every passing second. She immediately asked me to write some titles down and wanted to know when her local library was open. When she heard that the library was going to be closed before she had a chance to go, she was visibly disappointed. However, when I told her that the library was also open on the next day, a Saturday, she was ecstatic!

She went home with a massive smile on her face, and I can’t wait to see her again and hear about her first adventure in her local jungle of books!

I am working security at a popular EDM festival. Outside alcohol and canned drinks are not allowed in the event space (only water), and we’ve been trained to spot creative ways festivalgoers try to sneak them in.

I see a colleague checking someone’s bag that contains a suspiciously large amount of sun lotion, but also a few cans of cheap soda.

Colleague: “Soda is not allowed inside.”

Festivalgoer: *Smiling smugly to their friends* “Oh, of course! My mistake! Sorry!”

My colleague is about to dispose of the soda and let them through, but I step over. I pick up the sun lotion and start weighing the bottle in my hand. The festivalgoer suddenly loses the smug smile.

Me: “What are these?”

Festivalgoer: “Can’t you see? It’s just sun lotion, like it says on the packaging.”

Me: “Mind if I apply some? It’s a super-hot sunny day! I’ll let you keep your sodas if you do!”

Festivalgoer: “Uh… no, sorry. We need it all for ourselves.”

Me: “Really? Aww, too bad. Okay, then.”

I hand it back to them but “accidentally” flip open the lid, and a clear liquid starts pouring out. The smell of vodka can be smelt by everyone nearby. The festivalgoer looks terrified.

Me: “I don’t think that’s going to do a good job blocking the sun.”

All of their “lotions” were double-checked and confiscated (shockingly, one of them actually WAS sun lotion, which they kept) and they were allowed into the venue. I later told my staff to not be distracted by the obvious decoys (cheap disposable sodas) and to check for the fake lotion bottles. We found over twenty more by the end of the day, and interestingly enough, there were about half as many reports of drunk altercations within the festival grounds compared to the same day last year. Funny that…

I submitted this story some time ago. The following happened during the same internship.

When I was an intern at the hospital, I was in the revalidation department, where most of the patients are elderly.

Two days before the end of my internship, I heard a patient’s bell ring, so I went to her room.

Lady: “I dropped this.” *Points to a book* “Can you get it back for me?”

The thing is, the lady was in a wheelchair, and she could have gotten her book herself easily. I still got it for her. She took it and put her hand on my shoulder.

Lady: “Thanks. I know I could’ve done it, but you’re here for that, are you not?”

With this, she gave me a little tap on the cheek.

I was stunned. I still am. I didn’t say anything, neither to her nor to the other nurses, although I should have. She was always nice and never caused any problems, so I was shocked by the audacity.

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Other Than A Third Of The Letters, They’re Basically Identical

I am the author of this story. We often receive angry emails from people complaining that their unemployment benefits haven’t been paid yet, that we are too slow, that they pay an affiliation, and so on. The problem is generally that we are still waiting for a document to be filed.

I had barely started working for the union. Since I was still in training, my tasks were mostly to encode the national numbers, retrieve documents from our letterbox, and check emails for some tasks I could do.

One evening, when I was picking up the letters, I found some pieces of paper.

Paper Note #1: “I am still waiting for my money.”

Paper Note #2: “Four emails sent, and still nothing.”

Paper Note #3: “What are you even good at?”

Paper Note #4: “You are so useless!”

And so on, on different pieces of paper. There was no name, no phone number, and absolutely no way to find whoever had put this in our letterbox.

I showed this to my coworkers, who looked perplexed and annoyed. They told me to leave it be.

Still, it rang a bell. I remembered seeing an email that the morning from a guy complaining that he had sent four messages and still received nothing. I found the email, and the guy is in “no file”. I transferred it to a coworker and she called him.

In the end, after a short discussion, she found out that: one, the guy had never been affiliated with us, two, he had asked his mother to do it, and three, she had put her own information on the papers.

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The Only Benefit They’re Getting Is Of The Doubt

I work in customer service for a small theme park in Belgium. On Monday, I have a lady on the phone.

Caller: “This weekend, I booked tickets for your park, but when I arrived at the train station, I realised that there was no bus available to get to you! I had to go back home and I couldn’t come.”

Me: “Sorry about that. Would you like me to postpone your tickets to another day?”

Caller: “No, I want you to refund my tickets and my train tickets! It’s mentioned nowhere on your website that the train station was so far away!”

Me: “I’m sorry, madam, but our website indicates that we are twenty minutes away from the train station and that there are only taxis available. I’m afraid we can’t refund your train tickets.”

Caller: “Isn’t there any compensation at all?!”

Me: “We can postpone your ticket for the park to another day, but that’s all I can do, unfortunately.”

Caller: “Wow, really? That’s not very customer-friendly of you!”

Two days later, we received a complaint from the consumer advocacy association… Some people are nuts.