I’m a teller at a bank. It’s near closing, and I’m working with one coworker, who I don’t like because she’s an aggressive flirt, and one manager is in his office seeing to paperwork. I see a customer come in and my coworker sneers at him and walks off.

When he gets up to my counter, the customer tells me he hasn’t been able to access his account. I look it up and see that his account was recently locked on one of the days I wasn’t working and is now pending closure, with a note that it was for being aggressive and threatening to shoot the teller — the other coworker — which got him removed from the premises.

I inform him of this fact and tell him to leave before he sets off again or decides to act on his threat and I have to hit the panic button, only for him to react in shock and panic and actually start crying. He has no idea what I am talking about and seems terrified of being arrested for something he seems to not remember doing. I’m not sure what to do at this point, so I tell him gently to leave and I’ll review the case.

After he obliges and departs, I ping my manager to come up and my coworker walks back up to the counters.

Coworker: “Is he gone? Did you threaten to call the cops on him?”

Me: “I was about to, but he seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. The poor guy walked off crying and terrified.”

Coworker: *Smugly* “Good. That’s what he gets for snubbing me.”

Me: “What?”

The manager walks up just in time to hear that sentence and looks at my coworker. Something about that comment seems off to him, too, so he goes to his office to review the video footage of the day and time the note said he made the threat.

An hour later, he calls my coworker into the office with him and she pales. She leaves about half an hour later in tears.

Me: “What’s going on?”

With very visible annoyance, he grabs [Coworker]’s nameplate off the desk and chucks it into the garbage.

Manager: “[Coworker] tried flirting with [Customer], but he’s married so he turned her down. Apparently, she was so offended by this that she fabricated this story to ruin his life by getting his finances locked out! The police weren’t even called, and it all happened silently! [Manager #2] was working with her so I need to do some looking into this. You got things covered?”

I nodded and went back to work until closing. Over the next couple of days, I got to watch a domino effect; [Manager #2] was having “after-hours involvement” with my now-ex-coworker, so he corroborated her fake story and allowed her to make the note because she had him wrapped around her little finger.

When my manager called to set things straight with the customer, he was, rightfully, less than generous because his rent situation was uncertain and we could have gotten him and his family kicked out onto the street, and it resulted in us being sued for wrongful termination of a contract, among other charges of financial and emotional damage. Naturally, he also zeroed out his account with us and went to find another bank.

I do have to give credit where it’s due, though; when word of all of this reached the bank owner, he fired [Manager #2] on the spot, gave a huge payout to the customer as an apology for his hardships when he was approached by his lawyers — more than his lawsuit was asking for in damages, even — and set out to see if there was any legal retribution he could advise the customer to take on my ex-coworker and ex-manager for their petty revenge scheme.

At the time of writing this, that hasn’t borne any fruit just yet.

“All babies are beautiful to their mothers,” so the saying goes.

I have a work friend who always tells the truth, no matter how harsh it is. She has a good heart and is a sweet, if gruff, person. She will tell you up front, “Don’t ask my opinion because I don’t waste time being polite. I will be honest.”

One day a coworker was showing off pictures of her truly gorgeous grandbaby. This baby was 1,000% adorable, beautiful, a delight! Everyone was ooh-ing and ahh-ing, including my outspoken friend! She said, “Yes, that baby is gorgeous.”

Then, another coworker wanted to show a picture of her own grandbaby. Most people were, umm, far less enthusiastic, but still polite. The outspoken coworker gave fair warning, as usual: “Don’t ask my opinion because I will be honest.” People backed up because they knew what was coming. The photo was shown. A moment passed. My outspoken coworker said, “That is one ugly baby. You’d better hope they were born with a lot of brains because they will get nowhere on their looks alone.”

Did she say what many people were thinking? Yes.

Did the grandmother of the “ugly” baby get offended? Yes.

Was she warned? YES. 

Ha!

My husband is the go-to tech-savvy guy of his office. It’s important to know that his coworkers are all developers, testers, coders. To be short: it’s a digital world out there.

My husband receives an email.

Coworker: “Hello, [Husband]. Can you please resize the attachment to a smaller format? It’s too big right now.”

Husband: “Hello, [Coworker]. I want to help, but there is no attachment in this email?”

Coworker: “Yes, I know. It was too big to be sent along.”

My husband once received a sign as a joke with the text, “If an error appears, hit your keyboard with your head until it disappears.” That’s how he felt at that moment.

I work at a retail outlet. It’s been a few weeks since the recent health crisis started, and our store now has a new temporary policy: customers must wait in a line to be admitted to the store by security, and no more than 200 customers are allowed in our store at any point. Employees who are scheduled to work do not have to wait in line, and do not count toward the limit.

This happens a few days after the policy is put in place. It’s 10:55 am, and I’m about to walk into the building for my 11:00 am shift. A fairly new coworker is regulating the line. As I enter the door, he stops me.

Door Attendant: “Excuse me, you have to wait in line.”

Me: “I work here.”

Door Attendant: “Doesn’t matter. You have to wait like everyone else.”

Me: “I’ll be late if I have to wait!”

Door Attendant: “Not my problem. Go to the back of the line.”

Me: “No. I have to get in.”

Door Attendant: *Physically blocking me* “You can’t just go in! You have to wait! Get in line!”

Knowing I won’t be able to get past him, I just go to the end of the line, which is VERY long and stretches around the side of the store. At about 11:05, my cell rings.

Boss: “Hey, what’s happening? You’re running late. Is something wrong? Car trouble? Traffic?”

Me: “No, I’m here, but I’m in line to get in the store.”

Boss: “What? Why are you in line? You don’t have to wait in line!”

Me: “Well, according to [Door Attendant], I have to.”

Boss: “Wait, did you say, ‘[Door Attendant]’?”

Me: “Yup.”

Boss: *Sighs* “For Pete’s sake… Just come in. Don’t listen to what he says. I’ll let you clock in late and stay late to make up the time you lost.”

I get out of line and head back to the entrance. My coworker is waiting there.

Door Attendant: “Hey! HEY! I said you can’t come in here without waiting in line!”

Me: “I work here, and I’m already late for my shift.”

Door Attendant: “NO! You do not have permission to go past this point!”

Me: “Yes, I do! I have [Boss]’s permission!”

Door Attendant: *Screaming* “I don’t care if you have [Boss]’s permission; you do not have my permission! NOW GET BACK IN LINE!”

Just then, my boss comes to the door with one of my other coworkers behind him.

Boss: “First and foremost, [Door Attendant], you don’t ever yell at anyone in this store. Second, she doesn’t need your permission, or anyone’s permission, for that matter. She works here, and because of you, she is now late for her shift! Go to my office and wait for me there. [My Name], come on in. [Coworker], you take over for [Door Attendant].”

The attendant was written up and sent home on his last chance; apparently, it wasn’t the first time he’d made employees wait in line when they didn’t have to, nor was it the first time he’d screamed at someone. He wasted little time throwing that last chance out the following day when he tried to pull the same stunt on the district manager, and he was fired.

I’m heading to a coffee break and one of my coworkers is wrestling with the laser printer, which has been out of order since yesterday. It has to be noted that the display has been showing a message, “Replace Drum,” for months before the printer finally stopped working altogether.

Coworker: “Hey, since you’re good with this stuff, would you give me a hand? Put this in the printer and take out the old one.”

She hands me the spare part still in factory wrapping and the instructions leaflet. I don’t find anything especially difficult with it. I replace the part as per the instructions and restart the printer, which immediately displays the “Replace Drum” message.

Coworker: “Why isn’t it working yet?”

Me: “Because the drum still needs to be replaced. The part you gave me is the toner collection tray, and I replaced that. What you hoped to accomplish with that is beyond me.”

Coworker: “But this is the spare part that was ordered weeks ago!”

Me: “And yet it is not the part which the printer instructed you to order.”

When I went to get my coffee, my coworker was standing still and staring at the printer, perhaps trying to subdue it into working again through sheer willpower. In case you chalk it up to “women and technology,” I’m a female, too.