I work in a big box store where you don’t need to be the best and the brightest to hold most of the jobs. Some of my coworkers have said a lot of… uninformed things around me and asked me a few questions that make me question their ability to think logically. A nineteen-year-old coworker approaches me as I walk in to sit down in the break room.

Coworker: “Can I ask you a question?”

Me: “Yeah, sure!”

Coworker: “Is this water processed?”

She’s holding up a sealed bottle of watermelon-flavored water.

Me: “Yep.”

Coworker: *Looking at it* “Are you sure? I really like the taste of it but I can really only drink processed water.”

Me: “Yes, it’s very safe to say that. Any unnaturally-flavored water in a sealed plastic bottle has been processed.”

Coworker: “Okay!”

I was not the only one in the room but when I looked around no one even looked up from their phones in wonder like I would have. I’ve only been here for a month and, God help me, I hope I find a better job soon or I’ll go mad.

I work at a popular international burger restaurant. I am working nights, and there are only two of us for the shift: me on the till and another guy on the grill. One of the guys I work with is great, always on the ball. The other guy… not so much.

One of our duties as night shift is to filter and refill the fryer oil. This involves flipping a few switches to make the oil drain into the filter area, waiting for it to go through the filter area, flipping more switches for it to be sent back into the fryer, and topping it up with fresh oil. There are five different fryers that have to be done separately.

I have done it many times and know the process quite well, but tonight it is my coworker’s responsibility. I am walking around cleaning while he works on the fryers. He drains one, and a while later I see him flip the switch to drain the next one… but the first one is still empty.

Me: “WAIT! NO!”

I flip the switch back up.

Coworker: “It’s fine, it’s fine. I know what I’m doing!”

He flipped the switch back down. Seconds later, the filter area overflowed and flooded half the kitchen with oil, which we spent the entire rest of the shift cleaning up.

A few weeks later, we had run out of the wrapper for [Burger #1] — two patties and one piece of cheese — so we were using the wrapper for [Burger #2] — two patties and two pieces of cheese. I looked over, and since he was using the wrapper for [Burger #2], I think he went autopilot and put two pieces of cheese on it.

I thought about correcting him but realized that I would most likely have to correct him for every single one he made. I decided this was one battle I did not want to pick, and everyone who ordered [Burger #1] that night got a free bonus piece of cheese.

At work, we’re having a huge meeting that includes both people in a large meeting room and people calling in from other locations. As usually happens with this sort of thing, the speakerphone unit in the meeting room picks up different speakers with varying levels of volume and clarity.

At one point, the current speaker is rather far from the phone, and somebody decides they need to discuss a previous point with a whispered side-conversation directly over the speakerphone!

I break in to say, “Sorry to interrupt, but when you’re having a side-conversation near the phone, we can’t hear anything the speaker is saying.”

A few of the people on the call-in lines agree with my comment, and the whisperers apologize — and then proceed to have their whispered conversation anyway, solving the problem by putting the speakerphone on mute while they’re whispering!

I’m an American working as an English teacher in China. I’m a somewhat small man of only 5’5″ and 155 pounds… Wow, that’s a lot of fives. Anyway, I am a tiny, tiny man and one of my coworkers is a very large Romanian man who is a big fitness buff. He is strong enough to lift me up with one arm without any difficulty.

I decide to joke around with him in the office one day. I put my left elbow down on the desk.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], let’s arm wrestle.”

He looks at my poised left arm.

Coworker: “I’m not left-handed.”

Me: “Oh, good! Then I have the advantage!”

It’s Wednesday, around 1:30 or 2:00 pm. I’ve just gotten off the register after helping several customers in a row. We’re waiting on our governor to have another press conference related to the global health situation at 2:00 pm.

My assistant manager is heading toward the same part of the store I am after also doing something up front.

Me: “Is it terrible that I want to say ‘Happy Quarantine’ to every customer I help today?”

Assistant Manager: “Oh, my gosh. Do it, [My Name]! That would be great.”

Me: “Or, like, ‘Happy Lockdown’? I don’t know which is worse.”

Assistant Manager: *Sing-song-ish* “Say it with a smile on your face!”

My co-manager is walking past to go to lunch.

Co-Manager: “Who’s smiling?”

Me: “Me! As usual.”

I laugh as I walk away. Within an hour, our co-manager comes back from his lunch break, giddy that the governor has issued further stay-at-home orders, and our store will be closed starting after business hours Friday. A bit later in the day:

Coworker: “Did you see [Co-Manager]?”

Me: “Not recently, but I heard him singing earlier.”

Coworker: “He was dancing.” *Laughs*

Me: “Sounds right. Oh, [Co-Manager].”

He often sings when he’s bored or excited, but I’ve rarely or never seen him dance. I wish I had! He’s so excited for a break, and I can’t say I blame him.