It’s close to Christmas. I’m back in the office and a delivery is waiting at my desk, which is odd as I never get anything sent to me.

I open it and it’s a card and box of chocolates. The card reads, “Thank you for all your help this year. You mentioned that your young family loves chocolate. I hope they enjoy these. [Customer].”

It’s been a tough year, and to be fair, a lot of hard work and issues with [Customer], so this is a really nice touch. I also appear to be the only person with a package.

Coworker #1: “Ooh, who are they from?”

Me: “[Customer]. It’s so sweet! I think I must have mentioned my kids love these chocolate months ago.”

Coworker #1: “What brand are they? I’ve not seen them before?”

Me: “It’s German chocolate. I don’t think they have them in the UK. I brought some back when I visited [Customer] last; they didn’t last the day.”

Coworker #1: “Well, open them up, then! Everyone wants to try them.”

No one else apart from [Coworker #1] seems to care; she hasn’t taken her eyes off them since she heard the word “chocolate”.

Me: “As I said, they are for my kids.”

Coworker #1: “Oh, they won’t know if you don’t tell them.”

Me: “That’s… that’s not the point.”

Coworker #1: *Getting loud* “Oh, don’t be stupid. Open them up!”

Coworker #2: “What’s up?”

Coworker #1: “[My Name] won’t share his chocolates!”

Coworker #2: “So? That’s his choice.”

Coworker #1: “But, but… It was a work gift; he should be made to share them.”

Me: “It was a personal gift from a customer.”

Coworker #2: “I don’t see the problem here.”

Coworker #1: *Even louder* “But it’s not right!”

Manager: “Is there a problem?”

Coworker #1: “[My Name] got a work gift and is refusing to share them.”

Manager: “All work gifts go into the raffle. It’s only fair.”

Coworker #2: “I don’t think this was a work gift.”

Coworker #1: “It was received at work, so it’s a work gift.”

Me: “Here’s the card.”

Manager: “Oh, okay. No, this seems fine.” 

Coworker #1: *Almost screaming* “No! I want chocolate!”

Manager: “[Coworker #1], control yourself. This was clearly a personal gift.”

Coworker #1: “I will not ‘control myself’! You are all breaking the rules. And I won’t have it!”

Manager: “Why don’t we have a little chat in my office?”

[Coworker #1] keeps shouting; the whole office is now watching her.

Coworker #1: “No, I won’t!”

Manager: “I am going to have to insist.”

She sat in her chair, arms folded like a child throwing a tantrum. The manager disappeared to be replaced by one of the human resources team quietly asking her to step into the office.

[Coworker #1] did so. An hour later, she came back, muttered an apology, and refused to speak to anyone for the rest of the day!

We’re at a point in time when one can barely get out of the house without a certain document which can be obtained by getting vaccinated or recovering from a particular disease. We’re discussing the situation with a coworker who’s famously averse to getting jabs and has chosen the option of being swabbed every few days.

Coworker: “So, at this point, my best option is to catch the disease.”

Me: “Well then, what are you waiting for? Strip naked and do a streak run in the IC ward.”

Coworker: “Eh, but in the IC ward, there’s the nasty strain. I don’t want the nasty strain. I want a mild strain that makes me sick just a bit so I can make my antibodies and get the pass.”

Me: “Hmm, I know just a thing that would make you sick just a bit, kickstart your immune system, and get you a pass.”

Coworker: “Really? What?”

Me: “A vaccine shot.”

[Coworker] thinks he’s so clever. Every time his boss leaves the office, he sneaks to the bathroom stall, sometimes for hours on end. It wouldn’t be so bad, but he does it regardless of what else he should be doing. He isn’t around for so many meetings, reports needed, or just answers to questions.

A few of us have complained, but [Coworker] is an office junior, deemed “harmless” and (from his boss’s point of view) a “decent enough” worker, despite him annoying everyone else and giving them more work.

One day, our systems go down, so we have nothing to do. But still, [Coworker] is badgering his boss about if he will be off-site again this afternoon. He always does this before he hides away, but this time I have an idea.

I get a few people roped in and speak to the cleaning team, who are more than happy to get even. Like clockwork, [Coworker]’s boss disappears, and not five minutes later, [Coworker] grabs his phone and headphones and goes to the toilet.

Unfortunately, they just so happen to be being cleaned and closed, so he goes downstairs. 

But oh, no, all the cubicles are full, so he goes to the other toilets, but again, they’re being cleaned. How odd.

This is where he surprises all of us. He disappears and is last seen going into the building area next door and into their portaloo, much to the annoyance of the builders shouting at him.

A good hour later, I grab something from my car. A bunch of builders are all standing around facing the portaloo.

Me: “Is he still in there?”

Builder: “You know that guy?”

Me: “Yeah, he would rather sit in the toilets than do actual work.”

Builder: “You need to get him out of there. Our guys have had to walk down the road.”

Me: “Well, you can use our toilets if you do me a favour.”

As asked, they placed their digger in front of the door. [Coworker] didn’t notice until five minutes before clocking-off time. He had to ring his boss, who then rang reception to let him out.

I don’t know if he got into any trouble, but he stopped hiding in the toilets after that.

[Coworker #1] has managed to lose eight stone (112 pounds) over a year with no fad diets and no expensive equipment. Honestly, I am so happy for him; he seems so much more confident and outgoing lately.

I’m hoping to lose some weight, so I ask him for some tips. He is going through the various tricks that worked for him. 

Out of nowhere, [Coworker #2] appears.

Coworker #2: “Oh, deary, you don’t need to listen to him.”

Me: “Sorry, what?”

Coworker #2: *Tuts* “Society forces young women like us to try to fit some stupid ideal.”

I’m a little shocked she paired us both as “young women” as I’m twenty years her junior, but I don’t react.

Me: “No, actually, I do want to lose weight.”

Coworker #2: “That’s just social brainwashing. You should be happy.”

Me: “[Coworker #2], I am happier when I am thinner. I feel better, I look better, and my health is better. For me, I am more myself thinner.”

Coworker #2: “Oh, my dear, they have gotten to you good. Haven’t they?! Do yourself a favour: go out tonight and get a big chocolate cake, eat it, and tell me tomorrow if being thin is being happy.”

She clearly isn’t going to listen to me, insisting that I shouldn’t be told what to do by society and instead be told what to do by her. Instead of buying that cake, I go for a run. I’m hot and it’s painful, but I feel amazing when I achieve it for the first time.

The next day:

Coworker #2: “Good morning, sunshine. How did that cake taste?”

Me: “[Coworker #2], listen. I’m happy that you are happy with yourself. But please don’t spread your agenda. We buried my uncle last year after a stroke; I won’t go the same way.”

Coworker #2: “Well, he could have died from any number of things. You can’t live your life in fear.”

Me: “He was forty-five and obese. Please, [Coworker #2]. Just drop it.”

As I stuck to it and slowly lost weight, I saw [Coworker #2] avoid me more and more, not that that’s a bad thing. Eventually, she turned her attention to a new starter — another woman who was slightly overweight. She would buy cakes and make disparaging remarks about the skinny b****es around the office.

I never figured out what hurt [Coworker #2] so much that she needed to hate on others so much, but I hope she learns to love herself not just by putting others down.

Many years ago, a popular mobile phone service provider noticed that a lot of their call centre’s time was being taken up with complex billing questions (and not-so-complex calls which took longer because customers wanted to complain about legitimate charges).

Up until this point, all of their contact centre agents were expected to deal with any and all types of customer queries including sales, first-line tech support, and other general queries. To address the perceived problem of billing queries taking up too much time, the business decided to create a dedicated “Billing” support team. I was hired with around twenty other agents to staff it. We were given comparatively intense and detailed training on the billing and payment systems but were not trained in any other areas.

Now, this would have been fine, but our team didn’t have a dedicated phone line, and customers being customers, callers would regularly ignore the system prompts and come through to us with unrelated questions which would then have to be transferred to other agents.

This would also be fine except that the other teams hadn’t been briefed on us and didn’t believe that we couldn’t handle questions that weren’t about billing issues. That all leads to this conversation I had with a coworker during an attempted transfer.

Me: “Hi. I have a customer on the line with a query about their upgrade. As I’m part of the billing team, I can’t answer their queries. Can I pass them through to you?”

Coworker: “No.”

Me: “Sorry? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

Coworker: “My manager says that there is no such thing as a billing team and that you need to stop transferring calls you don’t want to deal with.”

Me: “Ooookay. I don’t know what to tell you other than that we absolutely do exist and that we have had no training in anything other than billing. Can you please tell me your name again and give me your manager’s name so I can escalate this?”

Coworker: “I’m [Coworker], my manager is [Manager], and I’ve alerted them to this conversation and they are listening. Let me put you on hold and have a quick word with them.”

A few minutes later, during which I apologised to the customer for the delay:

Coworker: “Okay, my manager says to accept this call but to tell you that no other transfers will be accepted and that they will take it up with your manager.”

I spoke with my manager after the call. He rolled his eyes and told me that he couldn’t believe people were still complaining about this. However, a few weeks later, the company pulled the plug on our team and integrated us into the main pool of agents after a little further training.