I work as a heavy equipment operator (I drive an excavator). One day, about twenty years ago, we were laying some pipes across a minor road, closing the road for a few hours. It was at most a minor inconvenience for the cars, as we had signs out marking the alternative route. We’re talking maybe 300 yards “lost” by going around.

Yet some f****** a**hat in a BMW ignores the signs, stops behind the excavator, and lays on his horn. 

I signalled to him that the road is closed and he has to go around. He kept on honking.

My workmate Johnny, who is the guy with the shovel (you always have a guy with a shovel ready to uncover cables and pipes), lost his s***. He walked up to the car and screamed at the guy:

Johnny: “I don’t care if you’re the f****** president of the USA, unless your car can fly, you’re going to go around. Now get the f****** f*** out of here!”

It obviously wasn’t the POTUS; it was just some very high-ranking Russian diplomat; the car had blue diplomat plates, and this happened very close to where the Russian ambassador in Sweden lived at the time.

The car did not fly but took the suggested route, and Johnny is yet to face the wrath of the Russian government…

We finish a garage build for a family, and throughout the entire project, the woman we deal with is a dream client. Warm, grateful, praising every little thing we do. She acts like the sort of person you feel like you’ve known for years. It helps that we all live in the same little village, so being neighbourly comes natural.

A week later, a card arrives in the post (a picture of Jesus on the front) with a handwritten note inside:

Card: “Thank you for the clean, efficient job. We’re so happy with the work. Could you send some business cards? I’d love to share your name with my friends at church.”

We return the thanks and send some business cards. Weeks pass. No payment. No panic, though; she’s that kind of kind, trustworthy client. After a month, I give her a call. She answers cheerfully, chats away like we’re old mates. After a few minutes, I finally mentioned:

Me: “Just giving a friendly reminder about the payment for the garage.”

Client: *Matter-of-factly.* “Oh! Yes. We’ve decided not to pay you.”

Me: “…sorry?”

Client: “Well, the job was completed too quickly.”

A few seconds of pure silence from me. She isn’t joking. She’s fully serious. 

I hang up and spend the next half hour staring at a wall, trying to process the fact that Jesus-on-a-card lady has just told me she’s refusing to pay because… we were efficient? 

Finally, I pick up the phone and call her back.

Me: “Right. I’ll be down at first light tomorrow to take the garage down.”

Twenty minutes later… thunk. Letterbox snaps shut. A cheque slides onto the floor, paid in full.

I still have the thank-you card.

I drove a truck for a for-hire construction company. We had very few customers of our own but were hired by larger companies for their jobs. We did mostly dump truck work, but also pulled some mix on-site trailers for one company.

I started out by just pulling their trailers, and they would send one of their employees to run the trailer at the job sites. As they got more business, they added more trailers, but not more employees.

Soon, they had six trailers, with two employees running around the city trying to keep up with us. They finally asked if we could run the trailers for an extra fee. It was worth our while, so we agreed.

Flash forward three years, and I was running our company crew at night, driving and dispatching our drivers to three different companies, and anywhere from one to six crews working for these companies. While I got along with most of these crews, a couple of their foreman couldn’t grasp the concept that I could only send drivers according to the schedule I was given and had very little flexibility for changing it if they had problems.

I had a few yell at me when I wasn’t able to keep machines on a job to wait for them, with the usual threats of getting me fired. I would just shrug, point to the ABC company name on the machine, and XYZ Inc. name on our trucks.

At one point, one of these foremen had the regional superintendent come out to yell at me. I did the usual pointing, the superintendent understood I was just doing my job as instructed, and reamed out the foreman for wasting his time.

After a while, the global corporation that owned the division that we were working for decided that a million-dollar profit wasn’t enough to keep that division open and announced it would finish existing projects and then shut the doors. This led to both the foremen who disliked me coming up to me for the following conversation:

Foreman #1: “Ha ha, a**hole, you’re finally losing your job.”

Foreman #2: “Don’t bother applying here, we’ll make sure you don’t get hired.”

Me: *Faking puzzlement:* “What do you mean, I’m losing my job?”

Foreman #1: “[ABC] is shutting its doors. You’re done.”

Me: *Laughing.* “l’ve been telling you two idiots for over two years, I don’t work for them. For the last time—” *Pointing at my truck door.* “—I work for them. And they already have a customer who wants my truck full-time.”

It was fun watching the two of them walk away, dejected that I was still gainfully employed.

I’m working on a construction site, currently building a large hotel downtown. I’m talking to one of my guys in what will one day be the lobby. Everyone is wearing hard hats and high vis jackets. Every surface is exposed concrete. Supplies are everywhere.

Some guy wanders into the space with some wheeled luggage. He pushes through the orange barriers and starts looking around.

Me: “What are you doing?!”

Guy: “I need a room for the night. Where’s the check-in desk?”

Me: “This is an active construction site! It’s not safe to be here without a hard hat! You need to leave right now!”

Guy: “But outside says this is a hotel.”

Me: “It also says it’s opening next year! Get out!”

Guy: “So there are no rooms available?”

Me: “The rooms don’t even have windows! Get ooooout!”

How can some people be THAT oblivious?!

I got a job in construction as a labourer when I was fresh out of college. My mum would pack me food to eat in the breakroom, which I stored in the fridge. Someone would steal it, and I’d be sad and hungry. When I caught the guy doing it, he laughed: “What are you going to do about it?”

The guy was a contractor while I worked direct. There wasn’t much I could do about it. My workmates told me to just ignore it; he’d be gone in a few weeks anyway, but I was fuming and a little hangry. I confronted the guy, but his workmates didn’t say anything. He laughed and ended things by saying, “Go make your food un-eatable then.”

This brought me down a rabbit hole that would consume the rest of my life.

I went straight to the shop and bought out the hottest hot sauce I could find on the shelves. I added it to everything I took to work. I ended up liking it so much I started using it at home too. The guy called me a prick for spiking my food, and it never disappeared from that site again.

I started using more and more hot sauce before realising I wanted more. I wanted hotter. I bought some hot sauces online. (Psycho juice if anyone is interested) I started by buying some 70% Red Savina. I moved on to 70% ghost pepper and eventually Carolina Reaper. I became obsessed with the high I would get from eating it.

I started buying everything hot I could find. Popcorn, pork scratchings, nuts, fudge, chocolate limes, spice rubs, and capsaicin extract. You name it, if a hot version exists, I’ve probably bought it. I added it to all of my food. I go to restaurants either with a jar of spice rub or a bottle of hot sauce. I added ghost pepper flakes to my cooking. Anything not chillied wasn’t edible for me. My friends and family thought I was insane.

Fast forward about ten years. I’m still into chilli. I’ve moved industries a few times and changed jobs many times. My food has disappeared one other time. All the people I work with know, a new guy came in and stole my food. They accused me of spiking my food and trapping them. I got a laugh out of listening to my friends laughing at him, saying, “Dude, he does that with all of his food.” The lads love it when I bring in some weird Carolina Reaper snack. I’ve had two people with tears streaming down their faces, chucking UHT milk warm from the cupboard.

I’ve just finished growing my first ghost pepper plant. I bought a bottle of blue dragon siracha, chopped two chillis up fine, and added that to the sauce, which is what prompted me to make this post. This all happened because someone stole food from an eighteen-year-old labourer.