When I turned eighteen, I got a job at a distribution center of a big German shipping company, working a few hours after school. I was assigned to various stations, depending on where they needed help at the moment.

One day, I was assigned to a station I’d never been before. After a while, I noticed a wooden pallet with about a hundred of the same packages. For the most part, we handled only single packages, so this seemed odd to me at first.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], that pallet looks special. I haven’t seen something like that around before. What is this?”

Coworker: “Oh, those are just urns from the crematory. We ship those every couple of weeks.”

Me: “We ship urns with the ashes of dead people? Why?”

Coworker: “You see, in Germany, you’re not allowed to collect the ashes from the crematory yourself. Only the boss of a funeral home is allowed to do that. The other legal way to transport filled urns is shipping them with our company, because we used to be owned by the government.”

I was a little weirded out and decided I don’t want to be cremated in Germany, but I managed to handle those pallets without incident.

Fast forward a few years. As I’m shopping at a local supermarket, a woman approaches me.

Woman: “Sorry to bother you, but is your name [My Name], by a chance?

Me: “Yes, it is. Why?”

I do not recognise her, but I’m bad at remembering people.

She yells across the aisle:

Woman: “Hey, [Friend’s Brother], it is him. now you can say hello!” *To me* “He didn’t dare to ask you himself.” 

I recognise the man she yelled to as the little brother of a friend I’ve failed to stay in touch with over the years.

Me: “Oh, hi, [Friend’s Brother], good to see you. How are you? How is your sister?”

Blah, blah, blah. We catch up for a while. 

After a couple of minutes:

Me: “And what do you do now?”

Friend’s Brother: “Well, you met my girlfriend. I’m just finishing school, and I work a few hours at the distribution center on the side.”

Me: “Hey, I had that job. It was fun, most of the time. Do you still get those wooden pallets full of urns?”

Friend’s Brother: “Oh, yes, we do.”

Me: “Man, can you imagine how bad it would be to knock one of those over and break the urns? We used to joke about it all the time.”

He gets quiet and looks down.

Friend’s Brother: “Well… you see… I actually did that. I crashed it and it turned over. A lot of the urns broke. There was ash everywhere.”

Me: “Oh, no. Oh, s***. What did you do then?”

Friend’s Brother: “Well, we brushed the ash up and put it in a bucket. Then, we sent everything to the station for damaged packages. I never found out what they did with it.”

I sit next to a programmer who is complaining that his computer isn’t behaving right.

Coworker: “Screw it. Time to fall back to the age-old geek fix to all tech problems: turn it off and back on again.”

Me: “Ah, yes, there is no problem that solution can’t solve!”

Coworker: “Yep, I use it everywhere. I even tried it when dating once. I was really good at turning the girls off, but I never managed to turn them back on again afterward.”

I used to work in a superstore. One day, I watched one of my favourite staff members get taken out in handcuffs.

She had been taking price tags off of clearance items, putting them on normally priced items, and hiding the clearance items under low shelving. Management figured her out, but they let her keep going until it reached the point that they could charge her for it.

She was fired and charged with some level of larceny, and I never saw her again.

I am a twenty-seven-year-old engineer who works at an engineering consultation company. Basically, we work with large clients to help them solve their most complex engineering projects. Oftentimes, these are issues that a fleet of PhDs cannot even solve on their own, and we are giving these tasks to a single person —often with only a Bachelor’s degree to their name. This is a long way of saying that I work with a bunch of smart people.

I am one of two female engineers, surrounded by mostly men who are “older” than me and all have at least a Masters. (The oldest one is thirty-one years old.) This means I end up holding their hands quite a bit.

Coworker #1: “What is the password for the [Desktop]?”

Me: *Walks over* “Uh, no idea. Why do you need it?”

Coworker #2: “We are trying to connect to the VPN.”

Me: *Pauses* “Why?”

Coworker #2: “We are trying to access the shared folders and we need to connect to the VPN.”

Me: *Addressing [Coworker #1]* “First of all, the VPN is to access the Internet remotely. This guy is connected directly into the Internet via that Ethernet cable.”

He seems to get it.

Coworker #2: “But how does it connect to the Internet?”

Me: “See that green cord coming out of the computer and going into the wall right there?”

Coworker #1: “Oh, yeah!”

Me: “It is connected directly to the router.”

At this time, I get onto the URL that allows you to access data remotely on any web browser.

Coworker #2: “So, it is already connected?”

Me: “Yeah. Second of all, the login that you use for this computer isn’t connected to the network. It is a basic guest login. So, knowing the password to it to get onto the VPN wouldn’t have done any good.”

Coworker #3: “What do you mean by that?”

Me: “My login credentials allow me to log on to any company computer, right? Well, there is nothing like that set up for [Desktop]. I mean, you can log onto it using your credentials, but not to [Username]. That is a local account to store our network licenses on.”

Coworker #1: “I see. So the password wouldn’t have worked to connecting onto the VPN.”

Me: “Correct.”

I motion toward the website and show him me logging in.

Me: “We can also remote into the Shared Folders using our login credentials. As you see, there are the Shared Folders.”

Coworker #2: “But we are having issues with the share folders.”

Me: “Yeah, well, you can still access it using the method I just showed you.”

I log out so [Coworker #1] can try.

Coworker #2: “So, is this an [IT] issue or what? Because we cannot access the Shared Folders on this computer.”

Me: “Well, normally, you can put in your credentials and access the Shared Folders remotely from the desktop, but I am guessing this is a you-did-something issue. Restarting the computer can help.”

Coworker #3: “So, we should restart the computer?”

Me: “If you want to kick everyone off the network licenses, sure. Or you could just use the URL I provided to download files. It doesn’t affect me, but your other coworkers might be mad.”

Coworker #1: “I only have a couple of files anyway.”

Me: “Sounds good to me.” *Walks away*

This is the fourth or fifth time I have had this conversation with these three. Their heads are just so full of complex problems that the basic solutions elude them. Documentation doesn’t help. I’ve tried. 

So, any time you are feeling down about yourself, remember the time a PhD, a PhD candidate, and a man with his Master’s in computer engineering all tried to connect a desktop to the VPN. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

Our location is closing in a few days. There are only three of us currently working: me, a coworker, and the manager. This particular coworker and manager have known each other for years, so she is the favorite. She is complaining about our location closing. I’m sorting old paperwork for shredding.

Coworker: “I should just walk out.”

Me: “Uh-huh.”

Coworker: “I’m serious. I’ll quit today!”

She’s been threatening this ever since they told us we were closing. The only way to get her to stop is to acknowledge her every so often until she runs out of steam.

Me: “Mhm.”

Coworker: “Everyone is telling me to stick it out. What if I want to walk out, huh? No one can stop me.”

Me: “That’s true.”

Coworker: “Thank you! It’s nice to have some support.”

I give her a thumbs-up and return to my shred pile.

Boss: *From across the lobby* “[Coworker]! Cut it out.”

Coworker: “Why? It’s true. I should leave and never come back.”

Boss: “THEN DO IT!”

Coworker: “What?!”

Boss: “You’ve been saying the same thing for weeks. If you’re not gonna leave, then shut your mouth!”

Coworker: “I’ll do it. Watch me.”

Boss: “Good! Then [My Name] and I can get our work done in peace!”

Me: “Do I need to separate you two?”

Coworker & Boss: “NO!”

Me: “As long as you don’t mind having an audience.”

We have a small popcorn machine for customers, and I’ve just popped a fresh batch. I head over to it, scoop myself a bag, and return to my paperwork pile while snacking on my popcorn. They are still shouting at each other.

Coworker: “Well, [Boss], if you feel that way about it, I QUIT!”

Boss: “YOU SAY THAT ALL THE TIME! It doesn’t count unless you leave right now!”

Coworker: “That’s just what you want, isn’t it?!”

Boss: “I want to get this closing done in peace! If that means you walk out a few days early, THEN GO!”

Coworker: “You WANT to be short-handed?! You’ll be stuck with [My Name]!”

Me: “Hey, that’s rude!”

Boss: “AT LEAST SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE’S DOING!”

My coworker lets out a scream and stomps into the back. My boss goes into her office and slams the door. I’m trying really hard not to laugh. A regular walks in about thirty seconds later. She approaches me with an expectant look on her face.

Customer: “Hey, [My Name]. What’s happening in here? Everything okay?”

Me: “Everything’s great!”

Customer: “I thought I heard yelling when I was in the parking lot.”

Me: “I can tell you that it wasn’t me.”

My customer snorted. I gave her a “shhh” signal and she snickered. I got her taken care of and she exited. [Coworker] did not quit. However, the next few days were a lot quieter!