I work in a hotel. One night, someone called out for the overnight shift, so my boss had to work it. Her oldest son was two, and she couldn’t find a babysitter, so she had to bring her son with her.

The hope was that said toddler would fall asleep at some point.

He did not.

And the next thing my boss knew, a bunch of cops stormed in with guns drawn asking what was wrong.

Apparently, her son pushed the panic button MULTIPLE times, and every available cop in the area was at her work with guns drawn.

One of my first jobs just out of high school is a retail position at a rather upscale place. All of my coworkers are relatively nice, but it’s the manager that bothers everyone, and he’s a real jerk. It’s about my first or second week in, and I am still learning. The manager comes in to explain that we’re going to work on Zoning for the new folks — aka me.

Zoning means there are one or two people standing and staying in certain places in the store, broken up by displays. Zone One is the display by the front door, Zone Two is the display behind it, Zone Three is the display behind Zone Two, etc. Oddly, Zone Four, behind Zone Three, is the cash wrap. Why the registers are in the middle/back of the store, who knows?

It’s a pretty slow day to start. I’m assigned to Zone Two, and I’m told to dust, clean, tidy, and make it look like I’m busy bustling around. I’m still nervous, so I do my best.

A customer finally walks in about an hour after open. I’ve done all I can to make my Zone neat and tidy, so I’m kind of standing around. I watch as my coworker in Zone One greets the customer and then goes back to their dusting.

The customer eventually asks where an item is, and my coworker gestures to me. I smile and help the customer get their item. It turns out my retail persona is better than I thought: the customer and I gab for a bit.

I decide (foolishly) that I’m going to help the customer a little bit more than necessary; I take them beyond my Zone Two into Zone Three, and then into Zone Four, and (gasp!) ring them up. The coworker at the register gives me a funny look but steps back once they see that I’m ringing the customer up by myself and even helps a little when I get stuck.

I hand the customer their bag and then walk them out of the store, holding the door for them. The customer is happy as they’re leaving, and I’ve just made the first sale of the day. Sure, it was for a spatula, but it was a good interaction, and the woman said she’d leave a good review. I’m beaming with pride.

Mind you, this takes no more than five minutes.

I go back to my Zone and begin to tidy up again (or at least look like it) when my manager comes bustling out of the back, red as a tomato.

Manager: “You left your Zone!”

Me: *Still smiling* “Um. Yes. Was I not supposed to? This customer—”

Manager: “NO! You can’t leave your Zone!”

Me: *My smile fading* “But—”

Manager: “What if someone else came into your Zone and stole the rest of these spatulas?!”

Me: *Now confused* “Um, but there’s another coworker up front—”

Manager: “That customer could have been a plant! They could have had someone else in to take these items! DO NOT LEAVE YOUR ZONE!”

Me: “But, that was the first sale of the day—”

Manager: “UNACCEPTABLE! YOU LEFT YOUR ZONE! What did I tell you? YOU DO NOT LEAVE YOUR ZONE. You do that again, you’re getting written up!”

He stomped away, and I was nearly in tears. I was in shock. What the heck had just happened? And I had another six hours of this? My coworker in Zone One hugged me and said that’s just the way [Manager] is, shrugged, and then went back to their Zone.

The customer did leave a very good review, which made my manager even more furious, but I didn’t last long in that job, and neither did many others. Last I heard, that manager was transferred to another store, the new manager was great, and Zoning was no longer a required task.

A few years back, I landed myself a cushy job as an Order-to-Cash Specialist, which, despite the somewhat pompous title, was basically about receiving orders by email and entering them into the systems. In many ways, it was a pointless job. The customer picks items in a catalogue, fills out an order form, sends it to us, and we (re-)enter it. Why not offer an online platform for the customers to begin with? But the pay was pretty decent for an entry-level gig, plus it was back office, meaning I didn’t have to actually talk to any customers.

I wasn’t hired as part of a group, but individually, so I was initially supposed to shadow my colleagues and learn the ropes that way. However, they were perpetually backlogged and thus had no time to train me, so I was pretty much left to my own devices. My team lead made no secret that I might as well go outdoors and enjoy the nice weather because there was absolutely nothing for me to do anyway.

Nice! I was getting paid roughly $8/€7.50 an hour after tax to fiddle and fart and lick sun. Plus, I enjoyed massive employee discounts in the food court of the nearby shopping mall. (And as my rent was $270/€250, I’d earned that amount in less than a week, so overall sweetness.)

After two or three weeks, my training actually began. I was given some training material, and with its help, I was to enter some dummy orders. Pretty straightforward stuff, except it turned out that the training material was hopelessly outdated, so I failed the first test — ironically because I did follow the instructions. “No biggie,” my team lead said. “We’ll just quickly update the material, and you can retake the test.” Sweet. And until then… yep, you nailed it: more fiddling and farting on company time.

The next week came, and it was time to retake the test. I did much better this time, but overall I still failed… because they had overlooked some sections of the material, so once again, I did it wrong because I did it “right”. Rinse and repeat; more updates, more fiddling and farting, and another week passed by.

The third time’s a charm, right? Nope. They still had forgotten to update some product codes and procedure abbreviations, so I failed again. If it’d been a group of new hires all failing in the exact same spots, maybe management would’ve seen a pattern and reacted accordingly. But as a solo flyer, it was my word against theirs. And after the third fail, they unceremoniously wished me good luck in my future endeavours.

Usually, I would’ve fought the termination, but at the time, I knew several recruiters and Human Resources people in other companies, so I wasn’t too perturbed. I got two months’ salary for d**king around for almost eight weeks (and scored two months’ rent in just two of them), so I just considered the whole experience to be paid vacation.  

However, I still can’t fathom how that company would rather waste two months’ salary on one employee doing absolutely nothing, and then waste more money on a whole new recruitment process, instead of just pulling one person out of production for one half or full day and properly updating the material once and for all. Heck, I could’ve helped, because I now knew firsthand where the glitches and potholes were. But their loss, I suppose.

It takes me about half an hour to walk to work. One day, about forty minutes before my shift, that day’s shift manager calls me.

Manager: “Hi, [My Name]. Can you get to the store in [Other City] for your shift today? They’re short-staffed.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but no. I can make it in to [My City’s Location], but I really don’t have the time to go further than that.”

Manager: “We really need you in [Other City] today.”

Me: “I really have no way to get there, though. I need to set off in the next—” *checks the time* “—eight minutes to even get to [My City] on time.”

Manager: “Then why don’t you get the bus?”

I checked later. It’d take me ninety minutes to get to [Other City] by bus, and my shift starts in thirty-eight.

Me: “I don’t have a bus route planned out, it’d take some time to figure out where I’m going, and I doubt I’d be able to get there for [start time].”

I was right. I would have gotten there over an hour late.

Manager: “We need you in [Other City] at [start time].”

Me: “I am quite literally not capable of travelling there in that time period.”

Manager: “Look, [My Name], are you going to be at [Other City] at [start time]?”

Me: “I’ll certainly try, of course, but almost certainly not.”

Manager: “[Store Manager] needs you to be there for [start time].”

He says this as if invoking the store manager’s name will grant me the ability to teleport.

This pisses me off because the store manager is actually a pretty cool guy and I’m sure he didn’t sign off on this BS.

Me: “I still can’t make it there. It will take me several hours to walk there. Do you want me to do that?”

Manager: “We need you to be at [Other City] at [start time], [My Name].”

At this point, I’m walking out the door of my house.

Me: “Okay, [Manager]. I’m leaving my house now. I won’t be there on time, but I’ll get there eventually. Is that good enough?”

Manager: “Can you confirm that you’ll be there at [start time], [My Name]?”

Me: “No. I probably won’t be. Now can I hang up to use Google Maps on my phone to find my way there?”

Manager: “You need to be there at [start time].”

I hung up.

It took almost three hours of walking through a bright, hot day to get most of the way there, and I had to take a break, sit down, and have a drink when I finally arrived, starting the shift hours late.

Also, I was at no point prior to this informed that working at other stores was something I would possibly be required to do in my job role.

I honestly figured [Manager] had promised [Other City Location] a worker, realised he didn’t have one to send and his a** was on the line, and tried to shift the blame to me by getting me to say I’d be there even though I physically couldn’t be, thus dodging culpability himself.

I am a secretary for a medical facility that funds other medical institutions. I am also responsible for their travel to conventions and conferences. There is a very large, very highly attended conference held each year to which our medical professional staff members are invited as presenters.

One such presenter just has to be incredibly difficult as she feels she is above us dregs and never lets us forget it. As a presenter, they are given certain hotels that are reserved for them at a reduced rate. However, most are nowhere near the convention site and they end up paying a crapload of money for cabs. (This is in the days before rideshares.)

I set up the travel for at least ten folks when I realize that, by a loophole, I can book them into the hotel where the conference is held, so I do that instead of allowing the conference coordinators to book them in heaven know where at the last minute (which they are prone to doing).

[Presenter] comes up to me and demands that I only book her into the hotels listed by the conference coordinators, and if I don’t, she will have me written up. So that’s what I do.

The day before they all leave for the conference, which is clean across the country on the west coast, [Presenter] finds out she is not only the only one not booked in the conference hotel but that she is nine miles away near the airport. And no, there are no more rooms available at the conference hotel. She is hopping mad and storms to my desk screaming about my putting her in a faraway two-star hotel.

Me: *Calmly* “You are in one of the three hotels the conference coordinators reserved for you, and you distinctly instructed me to only select those hotels and nothing else.”

She ended up spending more than $70 in cab fare to and from the hotel to the venue while everyone else only had to go downstairs from their hotel rooms. She almost missed giving her presentation because she was late.

Since then, when I’ve booked everyone for a trip, [Presenter] no longer demands I give her “special treatment” and lets me use my judgment when booking hotels.