I do a lot of travelling for work. I finally get the company to agree to give me a company car. It isn’t much, but it’s better than using my own or the dirty pool cars that no one cleans or bothers to fill up.

Coworker: “Hey, can I borrow your car?”

Me: “Are none of the pool cars available?”

Coworker: “No, I don’t think so.”

I look out the window.

Me: “Yes, they are; there are two of them.”

Coworker: “But yours one is nicer, and I am going to the customer, so I need to make a good impression.”

The only time [Coworker] goes to the customer is to drop something off, and even then, their car park is far from the building, so no one would even see what car she was in.

Me: “The pool cars are for general use. Company cars are only for when there are no other options.”

Coworker: “You’re just being selfish.”

Me: “It’s my car; I have to pay tax on it and keep it clean. Use the pool cars!”

[Coworker] storms off, only to return a few hours later with her manager.

Coworker: “I need your car.”

Me: “We’ve had this discussion. I told you no. Use the pool cars.”

Coworker: “Well, they’re all taken now, so you have to let me use yours!”

Manager: “I’ve checked and they are all taken. Please could she use yours?”

Me: “So, you waited hours until all the cars were gone so you had to use mine?! Real mature, [Coworker]. Well, the joke’s on you because I already had a customer visit planned. So, again, the answer’s no.”

Manager: *To [Coworker]* “That delivery needs to be done today. Did you really wait all morning?”

Coworker: *Stammering* “Well, no, I was busy.”

Manager: “Well, what are you going to do about it? You’ve had weeks to book something and now, the morning it’s needed, you’re completely unprepared!”

Me: “The old work van is in the car park.”

It’s old, rusty, and damp. The radio doesn’t work and the windows rattle. It’s really only used to take rubbish away.

Coworker: “I’m not using that!”

Manager: “Well, I would suggest you come up with an alternative quickly!”

[Coworker] refused to use the van, even though it was safe and fine to use. What she did was way worse: she lied to another member of staff to get them to drive her there in their car. She wouldn’t be insured, and because it was business use, they wouldn’t have been, either. She didn’t tell anyone or get permission to take them.

She got a written warning and hasn’t asked to use my car since.

I’m helping out for the day at a convention. I know the organiser but we have only ever met once, very briefly. All of our other previous interactions have been online.

I’m busy organising the events in my area of the convention when the organiser pops by to see how everything is going. This is when my brain and common sense utterly abandon me. We are chatting for a moment about how the event is going when I realise her eye is severely swollen. Unthinking, I blurt out a question.

Me: “Oh, goodness, are you okay?! What happened?”

Organiser: “I’m sorry?”

Me: “Your eye! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Organiser: “Uh, no, I was born like this.”

There is an awkward pause.

Me: “Well, doesn’t my foot taste nice today! I was really worried you were hurt. I’m not usually this socially inept or unobservant, I promise.”

Ultimately, she was very nice about the whole thing, especially since my questions came from a place of honest concern, but I think it is probably still the most cringe-inducing thing I’ve ever done.

I am on-site replacing RAM for one of the finance guys at my workplace. Today, he and I just match outfits. We both have short brown hair, we’re relatively skinny and the same build, and we’re both wearing white shirts and black pants.

He leaves to let me replace his RAM. I go under the desk to start opening up the computer.

A sales lady walks in to talk to the finance guy, not realizing he has left and she’s actually talking to me under the desk.

Sales Lady: “What are you doing, you idiot?”

I have been called WAY worse on the job, so I just go along with it. It doesn’t bother me.

Me: *A little confused* “Replacing the RAM in this computer?”

Sales Lady: “Yeah, you ram that RAM in there!”

Her tone implies a sexual joke.

Me: *Smirking* “You don’t know who you’re talking to, do you?”

The lady sits down on the chair for customers and pulls out her phone.

Sales Lady: “I know who I’m talking to, you freaking weirdo.”

I pop my head up from behind the desk with a huge smile on my face. The sales lady gasps, her face looking like she just witnessed a murder.

Sales Lady: “OH, MY GOD! I’M SO SORRY I DIDN’T REALIZE… YOU AND HE ARE BOTH IN THE SAME OUTFIT! I’M SO, SO, SO SORRY!”

I just laughed my a** off. Then, it got better: the other guy walked in and looked SUPER confused. I lost it. I was on the ground, weak as h***.

Once she explained the situation that had just ensued and we all had a good laugh, I finished ramming the RAM in there and went on my way once he was booted up and good to go. It was just so perfect. It made my day.

I’m good at my job. I never make mistakes, I’m never late or sick, and I get on well with everyone including my manager, who has been coaching me to move up in the company. So, when I get passed over for promotion, which instead went to [Coworker], who has been here for a shorter time than I have and appears to do no work, I am annoyed. But when she tries to force me to do work that she is supposed to be doing now, I am angry.

I refuse all the extra work and stop all the extra jobs I am doing around my own job. She tries to discipline me, but I am doing all my actual work, I am never late, I keep a clean record, etc. It doesn’t work.

Now she has to do all her own work and has nowhere to hide. Things start to fall apart a little; mistakes are being made and things keep getting missed. She keeps making excuses and blaming everyone apart from herself.

It isn’t long before she goes off “sick,” and I am asked if I can “fill in”. I decline at first but am convinced into it. I run things well for a month before she comes back.

Coworker: “What’s this?”

Me: “Monthly report, something that was put in place while you were off. I can show you how to fill it in, if you like?”

Coworker: “Well, seeing as you already know how to do it, you may as well keep it.”

She tried to do this for everything I tried to show her, basically how to do her own job! She again tried to get me in trouble, and yet again she was told that she had to do her own work. Cue another bout of “sickness,” at which point she was told that she could step down from the role at any point. She refused and told them that it was my fault! I had messed everything up while she was off and it was such a mess she couldn’t cope.

Of course, no one believed her. Eventually, when she came back to work, they sacked her for her performance. As I was pretty much already doing the job, I was offered the promotion.

One of my earliest jobs was working the checkout and floor in a branch of a popular DIY and homewares store in the UK. We had a pretty lax policy on returns: if the customer had a receipt, then they could return any goods for any reason within thirty days provided that they were in resellable condition. If customers were outside of that window or didn’t have their receipt, they could exchange the goods for a store credit for the lowest price within the last thirty days at the time of the return.

Some “customers” were notorious for scamming us on this policy. One family in particular would regularly wait for the shop to get busy, take an expensive item off the shelf when nobody was looking, and then “return it” at the customer service desk for a store credit. Everybody knew they did this, so I never did understand why they were allowed to get away with it.

I had given the shop my notice and was on one of my last days when I saw the scammers enter the shop empty-handed. I thought, “Screw it,” turned off my checkout, and followed them through the store at a discreet distance.

After watching them take a large boxed item from a shelf and then join the queue for the customer service desk, I swiftly moved over and had a hushed conversation with my colleague running it.

Me: “[Coworker], you have that family who keeps scamming us in the queue. I watched them take that box off the shelf; do not return it for them.”

Coworker: *Looking a bit worried* “Oh, okay. Can you go let the manager know that we need them, please?”

I quickly walked off and found the manager in their office and brought them up to speed on what was happening.

Manager: “Okay, thanks, [My Name]. I’m going to review the cameras for the last twenty minutes and confirm what you said.”

Me: “Okay, do you want me to tell [Coworker] to ask them to wait, or will you call them?”

Manager: “No, do nothing. I want to check the footage first.”

Me: “There were only two people ahead of them in the queue when I left. They might already be getting served now! I told you, I literally followed them. I am a witness to them stealing and I am happy to tell the police that. Can’t you check the footage afterward?”

Manager: “No, I need to do it now. Also, it’s getting busy; you should be on a checkout. Go back and start serving customers again.”

Me: “Well, okay, I’ll leave it with you.”

I left the office and started serving customers again as instructed. After about twenty minutes, it was the end of my shift, so I got ready to go and stopped by the customer service desk to find out what happened.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], did we finally get those scammers, then?”

Coworker: “No, I processed their return.”

Me: “What?! Why?!”

Coworker: “Well, I never heard back from the manager until a few minutes ago. You were right; they didn’t come in with that box. But what else could I do? They were right in front of me asking for the return! I couldn’t say no without evidence!”

Me: “Yes, you could have! I was the evidence. I told you and [Manager] that I literally watched them take it off a shelf. How was that not enough?!”

As [Coworker] was getting upset I just said my goodbyes and left for the night. During my next and final shift, my manager told me that they watched the footage and I was right; they definitely had scammed us. Imagine my shock.