(My boss, colleague, and I are at a client’s office for a meeting. While waiting at the reception for the customer to escort us in, another man comes up to say hi. Note: My boss has a terrible memory for names and faces.)

Man: “Hi, [Boss]! Here for meeting, eh?”

Boss: “Hi. Hey, you look familiar. Do I know from somewhere?”

Man: *laughs* “Yes.”

(The man walks away, still laughing.)

Colleague: “Uh, [Boss], that guy is the Head of Department. [Client]’s boss.”

Boss: “Oh, is it? Oops.”

(A few minutes later, our client arrives. We are led to a meeting room. A couple of attendees from the client’s company are also there. One of them is Man.)

Man: *to my boss* “Now do you recognise me?”

(My boss never fails to entertain me with his embarrassing gaffes.)

(Back in the day, my boss calls me up at seven am on my day off to tell me that the drawer was short $80 from the night before when I closed, ruining my one day that week to sleep in.)

Boss: “So, the drawer is short $80. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Me: “I don’t know; is it stuck in the safe drop? The flap is loose in the drop slide.”

Boss: “No, I checked.”

Me: “Are there any discrepancies in the cash out? It looked balanced to me. Did I mess up?”

Boss: “Not that I could see. The drawer is balanced and the printout looks solid, so the only thing that’s off is the deposit safe.”

Me: “Then I have no idea. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Boss: “Ok, but just call me if there’s anything you want to tell me.”

(Twenty minutes later he calls again:)

Boss: “You know, I still can’t find that $80.”

Me: “Well, crap.”

Boss: “And I looked at the security footage, and I didn’t see anything suspicious, but it was only you and the trainee working last night, and you were the only person handling the cash register.”

Me: “Darn. Are you sure it’s not stuck in the loose panel in the safe drop?”

Boss: “No, it’s not.”

Me: “Okay, then. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Boss: “Well, listen, I know you’re tight on money lately, and I just think it’s funny that there’s $80 missing from the safe on a night you were working. I respect you, so if you took the money and you bring it back right now I won’t get mad, and I won’t fire you.”

Me: “Well, [Boss], I respect you, too, so I’m going to put it this way. I have on numerous occasions caught my coworkers stealing from you and immediately reported it to you and you handled the situation. Since I’ve started working for you you’ve repeatedly said that I’ve saved you money because of changes that I’ve made in ensuring certain policies are adhered to, and since you’ve hired me you’ve passed every corporate and health inspection with a margin of five percent. You know very well that I have integrity and that I have always acted in the best interest of your business.”

Boss: “Well–”

Me: “And when you hired me you trusted me to be your number two to watch out for all of your franchises, train all of your employees, and take care of all of your stores, and you gave me a lot of freedom and a lot of responsibility, and you trusted me. A lot. You gave me the master keys to all four of your stores, I have the alarm codes to all four stores, I have the safe codes to all four stores, I have the computer password and access to all of your files in the office that track your accounting, and I know the password to tell the alarm company that tells them not to send the police in case I accidentally set off the alarm anyway.  All this means that at any given day I could walk into all four of your restaurants and steal every penny you have in all four safes AND THEN I could go into the office, blip the security footage, and fudge the accounting so you wouldn’t know it was missing for weeks until you ran your quarterly paperwork — which would have given me plenty of time to skip out on you and cover my tracks even more. If I were going to rob you I would take a hell of a lot more than $80. It’s simply just easier to work a full week every week at minimum wage and get a paycheck every Friday. Robbing you would be too much of a hassle, no matter how easy you’ve made it for me. You keep telling me and everyone else that I’m so smart, so think about it. Am I dumb enough to get myself fired over a measly $80? Please stick your hand INTO the safe and feel UPWARD into the drop slide to see if the envelope is stuck in the loose panel.”

Boss: “…oh. Okay, I’ll look again.”

(A half hour later he calls me back.)

Boss: “Hey, so, I found the missing $80. The corner of the envelope got stuck in the loose panel of the drop safe and it was hanging out of the flap instead of falling into the safe.”

Me: *facepalm* “That’s great, [Boss]. See you tomorrow.”

(I still had that job for another two years after that — and no, he didn’t take any further precautions against theft, even after I told him all of the ways I could potentially screw him over. I guess that at the end of the day he really did trust me.)

Me: “Hi, thanks for calling [Restaurant]. This is [My Name] speaking. How can I help you?”

Customer: “Hi, when are tennis tryouts?”

Me: “I’m sorry; what was that?”

Customer: “Tennis tryouts. When are they?”

Me: “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about tennis tryouts.”

Customer: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, I’m sure.”

Customer: “This is the number to call about tryouts, right? It was on the flyer.”

Me: “No, sorry, this is a restaurant.”

Customer: “I see.” *hangs up*

Manager: “Wow, why won’t you let anyone tryout for the tennis team?”

Me: “I only want the best.”

(Two young girls approach me and ask to use our store phone to call their parents since their phone died. I let them dial but since they are calling long distance it doesn’t work. The only way to contact their parents is on their dead cell phones so I give the girls my phone charger and let them charge it behind the counter. They go on a few rides and come back, thanking me profoundly. A few days later my team lead approaches me.)

Team Lead: “Two girls left you a good reviews on Tuesday.”

Me: “Oh, really? Wow, I’ve never gotten that before.”

Team Lead: “Yes, but they say you let them charge their phone behind the counter?”

Me: “Oh, yes.” *explains situation*

Team Lead: “Okay, I see, but we’re still not allowed to do that. I’m going to have to write you up!”

Me: “But what about their compliments? No harm was done and I made their day!”

Team Lead: “It’s the rules, sorry.”

(So I was written up BUT I was also awarded by my supervisor two free tickets as a reward for the compliments. Way to confuse your workers.)

(I work in the deli department in a retail chain. For months now, our staffing has been slowly getting less and less, making each of our individual workloads heavier while management puts pressure on us to get even more done, even scolding us in front of customers. What few and far between new hires we do see are out the door very quickly due to the intense workload and lack of respect from management and all requests to transfer to other departments are ignored. Eventually, we’re down to just four people total per day in our department as the business picks up due to warmer weather. As a result, the morale of the department is pretty much non-existent. Finally, after months of everyone not getting everything management is asking done each day, two managers get behind the counter themselves to “show us how easy our department is.” This is the conversation that followed.)

Manager: “So, after working deli today, I absolutely hate it. Even we couldn’t get everything you need to do done with who we have. Honestly, I’d never work this job for what we’re paying you.”

Me: *feeling so relieved* “Thank you! So, you’ll put a higher priority on hiring and show more understanding for when we can’t get it all done, right?”

Manager: “Well, we’ll see what we can do about hiring, but the fact is, not many people are applying to be in deli, so you’ll just have to make do. As for getting it done, we get emails from corporate about our numbers and when that happens, we have to hold people accountable.”

Me: “Wait, what?! You and [Other Manager] just said you couldn’t figure out how to get it all done, and with you both there, that was with two more people that we’re used to having. If you two, whose job it is to ensure the place runs properly, cannot make it run properly yourselves, why are the employees being held accountable?”

Manager: “You gotta understand; when we walk over and see empty shelves because nobody stocked it, that’s sales we’re losing!”

Me: “Did you and [Other Manager] manage to stock all the shelves yesterday?”

Manager: “Well, no, but you just gotta communicate with your coworkers and figure it out. While we’re at it, everyone in the deli seems miserable!”

Me: “Because we all are. The work conditions you just dealt with are the conditions we’ve been dealing with every day for months! We all tried our best to stay hopeful, but we’ve been warning you about the decreasing conditions this whole time, you’ve done little to nothing about it and now, as human beings, we’ve just reached our limit!”

Manager: “Well, if you’re going to be here, you’re going to act happier. The customers can’t see you all so miserable. If you don’t like that, then nobody is being forced to keep the job. The door’s always open for you all to leave.”

(On that note, I realized I wasn’t getting through to her. After going home that night, I thought long and hard on it and decided to accept her generous offer to leave. I gave my two week’s notice very shortly after and am currently much happier and less stressed. Unfortunately, most of my coworkers did not follow me out the door.)