I have a coworker who was recently transferred from our department (Safety and Compliance) to Logistics. She’s working “remotely” in logistics from her old desk. She is a manager overseeing driver trainers in the northeastern US. Her region includes all of New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and parts of eastern Ohio and the panhandle of West Virginia. 

She’s currently on the phone with one of her direct reports. I can only hear her part of the conversation. It’s relevant that she is a US citizen, born and raised in Connecticut.

Coworker: “Hey, Bob. What’s up?”

Pause.

Coworker: “Yes, I did schedule you for training at the new facility in New York for next week.

Pause.

Coworker: “Why can’t you do it?”

Pause.

Coworker: “Travel? This trip requires travel? Like a hotel?”

Bob evidently tries explaining geography to her.

Coworker: “That can’t be right. You go to Ohio every month. Why would New York be almost five hours of driving when Ohio is only thirty to thirty-five minutes? Hang on. I’m pulling up GPS. Oh! That’s travel. Okay, just book a hotel.”

Bob says something else.

Coworker: *To me.* “Can I ask you a question about safety?”

Me: “Um, sure.”

Coworker: “He’s telling me the new site is still a construction site. He says he has to be OSHA certified, have PPE, and he can’t get all that in time to leave on Saturday. Is that true?”

Me: “I’ve been working on the new site. It doesn’t get turned over to the company until the middle of next month. He absolutely needs that to be on site, but he’s not going to get it.”

Coworker: “Why not?”

Me: “Because the company isn’t going to approve that expenditure for a trainer to be there when you can easily send the trainee to the trainer’s site.”

Coworker: “He’s just being very difficult to work with. I don’t know if it’s like hazing the new manager or if he doesn’t like women or what.”

Me: “Where is this trainer based?”

Coworker: “He’s just outside Pittsburgh.”

Me: “And the new site is almost at Niagara Falls. You want him to drive ten hours a day and spend two hours a day training? He can only work twelve hours a day maximum. Plus, he would have to do it from somewhere other than the new site.”

Coworker: “I still think he just doesn’t like women managers.”

I’m in line behind one woman at a bakery. She’s been helped for several minutes for a relatively large order and is eyeing the pretty decorated cupcakes in the refrigerated case. It’s a refrigerated case. Remember that cakes kept cold are usually more solid than room temperature cakes!

Customer: “And let me see this vanilla cupcake here.”

The worker pulls it out of the case and places it in a plastic clamshell case. Before she has a chance to close it, the woman reaches out and sticks her finger in the frosting. The worker is completely shocked.

Customer: “No, I don’t want it.”

Worker: “Excuse me! You can’t just touch that and not buy it!”

Customer: “Fine, add it to my others.”

The worker puts the cupcake with the other items she’s already bagged and begins to ring everything into the register. Meanwhile, the woman opens the clamshell package and squeezes the cupcake.

Customer: “This is hard as a rock! How can you sell this?”

I see the worker die a little inside, and she grabs the manager from the back room and walks right past the woman without saying anything and comes over to help us.

While I’m ordering, I hear the woman arguing with the manager. She eventually leaves with an armful of items, including the cupcake, so apparently, he convinced her to take it. I’m hoping he reminded her that it needs to come up to room temperature to soften.

In my freshman year of college, I was randomly assigned a dorm roommate who was an… interesting person to say the least. She was one of the few freshmen who could get a parking spot on campus, which was very helpful. We were very different people – I was shy and bookish, and she was an outgoing party animal – but we got along well enough as roommates.

Two weeks into living together, I mentioned I needed something from a store that was about thirty minutes from campus, and she offered to drive. Her driving was a bit erratic, but she’s from a state known for bad driving, and it’s not inconceivable.

About ten minutes in, she asked me to reach into the glove box to hand her a pair of glasses. I did so, a bit concerned, and found the glasses. These glasses were quite thick. I usually wear glasses; my prescription is -6. These glasses looked a similar thickness.

I commented on it, and she jokingly said she knows she should wear them more, but honestly, she just forgets. She’s had glasses since she was fourteen, but never wore them for multiple hours at a time.

I had never seen her wear glasses before. Every time she mentioned failing a class, I told her she’d probably do better if she could see the board. By the end of the semester, she wore glasses every time she drove or in class, and by the end of the year, she only “went blind” at parties.

Still a bizarre girl.

I work security at a hospital. On this day, I was posted in one of the lobbies when an older woman came storming in angrily.

Lady: “Give me my keys!”

Me: “Ma’am, I don’t have your keys. What can I—”

Lady: “—Yes, you do! I gave them to you!”

Me: “I haven’t taken keys from anyone this morning. Please, let me try—”

Lady: “—Not today, Saturday! I was just released from Emergency!”

Me: “You came in on Saturday? What time did you—”

Lady: “—Six-thirty in the morning! I gave you my keys when I came in!”

Me: “Okay, ma’am, this lobby was closed on Saturday, and I was in a different spot—”

Lady: “—I gave them to someone!”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t help you if you won’t let me speak. The guys at the Emergency desks right now weren’t here Saturday, and I was at a different post. Valet is closed on the weekends.”

Lady: “Then who has my keys?!”

Me: “I don’t know who you gave your keys to. Have you asked the guards at the desks if they’re there?”

Lady: “They’re useless! I’m calling the police! My house and car keys were on there!”

Me: “Go for it. While you’re at it, explain to them that you gave your keys to a random person instead of asking Security to hold them or holding on to them yourself.”

She left to go back to Emergency to use the phone. About ten minutes later, I saw her get into a car and leave. I called one of the guards in Emergency, and he said they were in the Security safe in a bag labelled “found in triage on (date).” She should be glad that whatever random person she gave them to chose to turn them in instead of stealing her car and raiding her house.

More than twenty years ago, my sister had her third baby. (She had three children before twenty-five, which is, you know, another issue.)

My then-baby niece was born with a bruise below her chest (it’s something vascular, I believe, and, as far as I know, she still has it). Before the hospital sent my sister and her newborn home, they said that my niece should have an ultrasound.

The next day, my mother answers the phone. “Hello?” Then she says, “She’s two days old!”

Apparently, the scheduler had asked for my niece to come to the phone!