I am a night auditor for a hotel. I come in tonight and for some reason, our general manager is here, long past his usual check-out time. He asks me to come talk to him in the office and has a whole little speech ready to go.

General Manager: “Hey there, [My Name]. I want you to know from the start how much I appreciate you. We’ve had so much trouble keeping people on the second shift and you’ve been really great with covering those hours. Everyone has appreciated you stepping up and understands it’s been really dragging on you. But there’s no excuse for drinking beer at the front desk. Thankfully none of the guests have seen you drinking, but it’s not a good road to start down. I’ve seen plenty of great night auditors like you end up in serious trouble and it all starts with a couple of beers during your shift. You’re better than that and we want you to be the best. So please get rid of the beer you have left in the fridge and clock in.”

Me: “Wait a second, what beers?”

General Manager: “The four beers left in the fridge. I want them dumped out and in the trash before you start work tonight.”

Me: “You mean my ginger beer?”

General Manager: “I don’t care what it’s made from, drinking on the job isn’t going to help anything.”

I go to the fridge, grab one of my ginger beers and hand it to my boss.

Me: “It’s ginger beer, not much different than root beer, but made with ginger. There’s no alcohol in it at all and I’ve been drinking it to help with my congestion.”

My boss examines the can, reading everything on it until he sees “NON-ALCHOLIC SODA” printed under the ingredients. He tosses me back the can and says nothing. I clock in and I’m doing the count like usual when he leaves. On his way out he apologizes and does his best to avoid eye contact.

I used to work part-time for my University running student events. Experience is the best teacher; I’d participated in these events as a student, assisted in these events under someone else as part of my scholarship, and as a staff member ran the events myself. We had a new college head who was much older — in her fifties or sixties — while everyone else was in their early twenties.

This woman was the most pigheaded, arrogant fool you could imagine, and despite being new, she wouldn’t sit back and observe how things worked or listen to those on our team who’d been there for years. No matter what we told her when she announced something that wouldn’t work or would cause problems, the answer was the same: “I’m older, so I know best!” It didn’t matter if it would take us longer to do it her way or, in one case, if it was technically illegal. (Of course, mistakes that we’d warned her would happen were always someone else’s fault and/or were swept under the carpet.)

During event planning, one look at the schedule told me she hadn’t allocated the team properly. We had this exchange via email.

Me: “Hmmm… It’s probably not a good idea to have the whole team in an hour before the event, most of them standing around doing nothing. It’s best to get five or so people in for setup, get most of the team in for running event, and hold back another three or four for cleanup.”

College Head: “No, I want everyone in helping out equally an hour before the event,”

Me: “They’re only meant to do two hours of work per event. If you have them an hour early for a two-hour event, that’s three hours. They’ll all leave before cleanup. The slackers will slack off, and the proactive ones will end up doing everything.”

College Head: “I’m older than you. I know best. Just do as you’re told.”

Cue malicious compliance.

Me: “Fine, but I’ve got some personal business to do directly after the event. I’ll handle procurement and setup but will need to leave right after the event is over.”

College Head: “That’s fine.”

And we went on to other business.

On the day of the event, the whole team showed up an hour before for setup. As expected, five or so did all the setup work while most of the team stood around on their phones. Some even got bored and wandered off. It was not the team members’ fault for standing around; only so many people can do meal prep and set up tables without getting in each other’s way.

Ten minutes before the event, [College Head] showed up. Everything was running smoothly, and the event was a lot of fun. Some of the team continued to wander off, some ran the events, and some participated. I was running around as a gopher letting [College Head] take credit for the event in front of everyone — not doing any work, mind, but taking credit for it. I made sure to remind her that I had to leave right at the end of the event for “personal business” in front of the other college heads several times.

To be extra spiteful, I neglected to stop several team members from wandering off who’d done no work other than stand around talking or eating, and I encouraged several people who’d definitely done two hours’ worth of work to call it a night and thanked them for their help. Forgetful me, I also didn’t tell team members standing around during events to start cleaning up as things were finishing.

All the free food was gone, all the games were over, both students and team members were wandering off into the night, and all of a sudden…

College Head: “Wait. Where are you going? There is so much mess, and we’ve got to put away all the tables and tidy up all the different games, but everyone has left.”

Me: “Hmmm, yes, we probably should have saved up a few team members to do cleanup, but they’ve all already done their two hours. Anyway, like I told you earlier, I’ve got some personal business to attend to directly after the event, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

College Head: “What personal business is it?! It will take over an hour to do all this on my own!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I said ‘personal business’ because I wasn’t comfortable discussing with you or the team what it was, as it really is quite personal, and I’m going to be late.”

I wandered off home for my “personal business” of closing all my curtains and playing Xbox in my underwear, chuckling at the thought of that arrogant woman having to do all that work by herself.

The formal complaint she put in for me leaving didn’t really go anywhere as I just forwarded the email exchange to management. Sadly, pig-headed people are pig-headed because they don’t learn no matter what. I eventually quit, and a few months later, I was introduced to my replacement’s replacement who was also ready to quit.

I once had a customer that was upset there weren’t any assorted muffin packages available. Therefore, she decided to take it upon herself to open up six packages of muffins and make her own assorted package by herself with bare hands.

I was mad and confronted her.

Me: “Ma’am, now I have to throw out all these opened muffin packages because of your actions.”

I suggested better options that she could have taken, but of course, they were all very inconvenient and unsuitable. I suggested calling ahead to ask about the muffins or asking for help. All were met with rude and dismissive replies.

I ended up getting hauled up to the office by my boss with a written first-strike warning over the situation.

Boss: “What do you feel you did wrong here?”

And all I could come up with was:

Me: “…I suppose I embarrassed her?”

And that was exactly the reason why I was getting my first strike. We were a small-town business, and it turned out that the customer was my boss’s neighbour. He chose to believe her lies over my words.

Even though we are talking about an incident that happened twenty years ago, I’m still bitter today over the whole incident.

After getting a new batch of employees for our convenience store/gas station kitchen a few months ago, the Food Service Manager started putting up signs for the new hires — things like “Make sure the warming cabinet is empty at the end of the night.” Among these signs:

Sign: “If you s*** in the mop station, you get to clean it up.”

I did not ask about that.

At the age of fourteen, I worked weekends at a fast food restaurant. We were given one thick polo shirt with the company logo on it as part of our uniform. However, for $10 a shirt, we could purchase a lightweight T-shirt version to wear instead.

Shortly after I bought mine, of course, enough people were complaining about wearing a thick shirt in the kitchen that the shirts started to be handed out as part of the initial uniform. I tried to get my money back, but [Manager] told me I had chosen to buy it so that was that.

At nineteen, I went off to college, so I handed in my two-week notice.

Manager: *Upset* “Okay, you’re quitting?”

Me: “Yes, I am going to college out of state. I could work holidays if you need, but—”

Manager: “No, no! I wouldn’t want to get in the way of whatever you think you need to do out there. Just hand in your shirts and name tag at the end.”

I didn’t realize he said “SHIRTS”.

Me: “Okay.”

On my last day, I wore my T-shirt and brought the polo along. I folded the shirt and put it on [Manager]’s desk with the name tag on top.

Manager: “When are you bringing the other one?”

Me: “Other one?”

Manager: *Pointing* “The shirt you’re wearing. That’s [Company] property.”

Me: “No, I bought this.”

Manager: “No, those are part of the handout uniform.”

Me: “Yes, they became part of the handout, but only after I bought it. Do you remember me asking for my money back and you saying no?”

Manager: “I will not release your final paycheck until we have the entire uniform back.”

Me: “You do have it. I bought this with my own money.”

Manager: “It is part of the uniform. You return it, you get your paycheck.”

I left, not willing to argue with him. Instead, I went to our corporate contact and told them that I had paid for the shirt and [Manager] was withholding my check. I attached the receipt showing that I had ordered and paid for the shirt myself and asked for someone to speak to [Manager] on my behalf.

A week later, my check was in my mailbox with a sticky note saying, “Enjoy the free shirt.” I went by the restaurant over my first holiday break and [Manager] was no longer there.