I work for a university, hospital, and medical school. I’m a sysadmin, and I do very little in the way of customer support, but I’ve done it plenty in the past.

In April, I had a medical emergency and had surgery. I spent ten days as an inpatient, with strong pain meds and so on.

Every interaction between a patient and anyone on staff is logged into the EMR (electronic medical records) system. It was physically painful watching people navigate between boxes in the EMR system with the mouse when logging an interaction. It wasn’t long at all before I absolutely had to start teaching everyone about the super-simple universal tab-to-jump to the next box.

The nurses began coming in to talk to me, to see if I had any other tips for them. One nurse estimated that the simple tab trick would save them five to ten minutes per day each, which adds up to hours per year.

I am in no way involved in training non-IT hospital staff, but now I want to work up some simple tips-and-tricks tutorials for nurses.

And it all happened on the good drugs. I have no idea how many nurses I taught that one trick to.

It is the early 2000s, and I work in tech support for a company that has colleges as its clients. One of the professors we work with calls us.

Professor: “I want to get in on this Internet thing.”

Me: “Okay, well, I believe your office should have a phone line, so—”

Professor: “Oh, I already bought one of them… mode… ems?”

Me: “A modem! Oh, great! Then all you’d need to do is—”

Professor: “But it’s not working.”

Me: “Let’s check which connection you’re using on your computer.”

Professor: “Computer? I don’t have a computer.”

Me: “…”

Professor: “I hooked it up to my radio.”

Me: “I… have so many questions. But first, how?!”

Professor: “I… don’t know.”

Thank goodness he wasn’t teaching IT.

I work at an IT helpdesk at a large college campus. My job is pretty simple for most of the time. All I have to do is take note of any computer-related problems that professors may call in and send them off to the higher-level techs to take care of. I also help students recover their college-affiliated email accounts and access a large college database.

Client: “Excuse me. Can you help me?”

Me: “I will if I can! What seems to be the problem?”

Client: “I need help writing a letter to my lawyer.”

Me: “Oh… I’m sorry, miss, but we don’t help with writing letters here. We specifically help people with their email or database accounts.”

Client: “I need to write a letter to my lawyer, and you are the helpdesk, so you help me write this letter.”

Me: “I’m not allowed to help with anything like that. There’s an issue with liability. I am terribly sorry.”

Client: “You people never help me with anything! You are the helpdesk, but you are not helpful at all! I am going to write a letter to the president of the college that you helpdesk people don’t help me with anything!”

Me: “Miss, it’s not that we don’t want to help you; we just don’t have the proficiency to help clients with anything other than technology-related issues. That’s why we are called the IT Helpdesk.”

She pouts and storms off while my coworker comes over to check on me.

Coworker: “Oh, her! Don’t worry about her, I honestly don’t think she knows what we do. The other day she asked for help with choosing which place to go on vacation to.”

I’m non-binary. My pronouns are they/them. It is surprisingly difficult to get people to use these pronouns and other forms of address correctly, even though I wear a pin stating them every single day. Even my boss, whom I’ve worked for and been out to for years, still gets it wrong regularly.

I’m in class with a lecturer who is not exactly known for being the most conscious about queer issues. I raise my hand to answer a question.

Lecturer: “Yes, Mx. [My Name]?”

Me: “Yes, I— Uh, what? Huh?!”

Lecturer: *Flustered* “Wasn’t that right?”

Me: “No! It was completely correct! That’s what took me by surprise! Thank you!”

Classmate: *Laughing good-naturedly* “OMG, someone respects my pronouns!”

Me: “Gosh, but you’d be surprised! Anyway…”

The rest of the class passed without incident.

It probably doesn’t look like much to many of the gentle readers of this website, but I cannot stress enough how much this meant to me. I’ve been more or less resigned to having to correct everyone I interact with, even those who claim to be (and are) much more “on it” with queer things. This lecturer was BY FAR the last person I expected to address me correctly and casually!

I’m in a college communications class of fifty people, not including our teacher. For our midterm, we are to “become the US Senate”. The class will vote on several classroom measures, the goal being to “communicate professionally whilst demonstrating competent debate strategies.”

My teacher often sticks to his word, and we really do make a cool little senate, complete with dress codes, a candy desk, a gavel, and a flag. This is important to note because the teacher wants our senate to be as accurate as possible.

We debate three measures, all created by us, the students, in advance.

• Hats should only be allowed in the classroom if they are cowboy hats. (Passed, 39 to 11.)

• We should be able to wear pajamas to class. (Passed, 48 to 2.)

And finally:

• Fidget/stim toys should not be allowed in the classroom. (You’ll find out how that went.)

I use fidget toys because I have ADHD. They’re all pretty silent, and the person who wrote this “bill” has it out for me because I get accommodations — like extra time and earphones — that no one else does. Since we are allowed to talk as long as we desire about any measure, I get comfortable in my seat (since we are all remote) and begin to talk about what my ADHD accommodations are, why I need them, the fidgets I use, my favorite books, and what majors I’m thinking about.

Five minutes pass. Then ten. Then twenty. And then my professor interrupts.

Professor: “[My Name], you’ve talked too long. Give someone else a turn.”

I look him dead in the eye.

Me: “No.”

The LOOK on his FACE!

Me: *Politely* “Since this is a senate, I am allowed to filibuster.”

That is, to delay a vote simply by talking us out of time.

The other classmates looked at [Professor]. He turned red and spluttered but allowed me to proceed.

Grades are based on individual performance, so I knew I wasn’t harming anyone but myself; everyone else had already spoken enough. So, my ADHD a**, the one always scolded for talking too much, successfully filibustered the remaining hour and thirty-six minutes of our four-hour midterm. As for the fallout, my classmate’s bill died on delivery and I got a B+.