Our office setup was very simple: one room for the tech people, one room for the administration/logistics people. At the end of the admin room, there was the boss’s room. Whenever we techs needed to talk to [Boss], we would go to the admin area.

One morning, I am going to ask a question to the boss and find him in the admin area, talking to one of the secretaries:

Secretary: “What should we do with [Customer]’s order?”

Boss: “Do [X, Y, Z].”

I see [Secretary] typing down the instructions, printing them, and handing them to [Boss], asking him to sign them if they were correct. I am fairly new to the company, and I cannot hide my surprise at seeing what [Secretary] is doing. [Secretary] notices and just gives me a quick glance, which clearly states, “I know what I am doing”.

[Boss] gives a sarcastic laugh upon seeing the printed-out instructions he just gave and says:

Boss: “What, you don’t trust me?”

Secretary: “Better safe than sorry.

She keeps holding the printed instructions. [Boss] signs them off and walks away, followed by me asking my question.

One week later, while I am again in the admin area, I hear [Boss] storming off from his office, screaming that he wanted to know who did [X, Y, Z] with a customer.

[Secretary], without breaking sight from their monitor and the work they were doing, handed [Boss] the printed instructions signed off by him himself.

[Boss] reads them and, clearly defeated but unwilling to admit it, walks away shouting:

Boss: “It’s not my fault if you cannot understand what I say!”

[Secretary] looked at me with a triumphant expression.

New Guy: “I just got back from a training session on the procurement software.”

Coworker: “How did it go?”

New Guy: “It was with a guy called Steve.”

Coworker: “…ah.”

New Guy: “Why do you say it like that?”

Coworker: “Procurement Steve? The one who has an error rate of 50% in our invoice generation? Who spends half the day staring at the screen with a gaze untainted by thought?”

New Guy: “Yeah, sounds like the guy I just spent my afternoon with.”

Coworker: “Yeah, there’s a reason you’re being trained to do what he does…”

One of our coworkers is about to start his paternity leave. He’s in the office this morning, handing over some important tasks while everyone is offering him congratulations.

Manager: “Enjoy these days when they’re babies. My kids are all older, and they don’t talk to me anymore. I just don’t understand.”

Coworker: “Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Manager: “Yeah, I was an amazing father! Now they’ve all gone no contact. It’s so strange! Anyway, sorry to blabber on. You have some amazing times ahead!”

Coworker: “Haha, well, with all the dirty nappies (diapers) to deal with, we’ll see!”

Manager: “Well, your wife will worry about all that.”

Coworker: “Well, I mean, it’s a joint effort.”

Manager: *Proudly.* “I never changed a nappy in my life! That’s women’s work.”

Hmm, I wonder why his kids won’t speak to him?

One of my coworkers is from West Africa. He’s an intelligent polyglot who is up for a promotion; however, one of the managers who makes the decision is a bigoted a**hole. It’s noticeable that he never promotes anyone who isn’t white, despite 70% of the workforce being people of color. 

That could just be a statistical anomaly, but it doesn’t excuse all his casually racist snipes at coworkers who have darker skin or thicker accents.

I’m in the factory office one afternoon running through some data entry numbers with an admin guy, when the racist manager comes storming out of the office in a rage. He curses, kicks a trash can, and storms out.

From out of the office comes the site manager, the big boss.

Me: “What was that all about?”

Site Manager: “After I said my choice for the promotion was [West African Employee], [Racist Manager] wanted to insist on a literacy test as part of the promotion process.”

Me: “Okay? And you disagreed?”

Site Manager: “Oh, no, I agreed. Whoever gets the position will be writing up reports, so proficiency in English is a requirement. We introduced the test a couple of weeks ago.”

Me: “Then… why is he so angry?”

Suddenly, from behind [Site Manager], comes the HR lady and [West African Coworker]. They were all in the meeting together.

Site Manager: “[West African Employee], do you mind if I tell them what you wrote down as your answer to question seven?”

West African Employee: “I don’t mind!”

Site Manager: “The test is quite simple, mind you, it’s just designed to gauge basic English skills. [Racist Manager] insisted that we should fail [West African Employee] for getting question seven wrong.”

Me: “What was question seven?”

Site Manager: “What is the shortest month?”

Me: “February?”

Site Manager: “[West African Employee], what was your answer?”

West African Employee: “October 1582.”

Me: “You’ve lost me.”

West African Employee: “In October 1582, the pope of the time, Gregory XIII, cut out ten days from the month to fix a discrepancy from the Julian calendar that caused the equinox to drift too far. It was a hard reset that introduced the Gregorian calendar, named after said Pope. October 5-14, 1582, don’t exist.”

Me: “Wow! I never knew that!”

Site Manager: “[Racist Manager] wanted to disqualify him on the basis that the answer should have been ‘February’ and I argued that if the point of the test is to evaluate proficiency in English… well…”

Me: *To HR Lady.* “Wait, are you okay with us all talking about this out in the open. What if [Racist Manager] complains?”

HR Lady: “You’d have a point if [Racist Manager] was a current employee. He quit about ten minutes ago…”

Everyone who heard the story kept scrolling back on the calendar apps on their phones to 1582 to see that it really WAS the shortest month! That was a good day, although I am sure [Racist Manager] wished that day was also one that didn’t exist!

That was about five years ago now, and in that time, [West African Employee] was promoted again to take over the role that [Racist Manager] had vacated.

Volunteering at a summer camp, I am helping put together “pillow treats”: little candies with a nice note on them for the campers to find on their pillows before bed. As I’m adding the notes to the candies, I realize we are going to run out of candy well before we run out of notes. I go to the volunteer in charge of the pillow treats.

Me: “Hey, are there any more candies for the pillow treats?”

Volunteer: “No, I bought two packs of sixty and printed a hundred and twenty notes, so that should be enough.”

Me: “Well, we’re out of candies and we’ve got about twenty notes left.”

Volunteer: “What?! I know I ordered enough!”

We dig through the trash and pull out the bags that the candies came in. She points to a big circle with numbers in it printed on the front of the bag.

Volunteer: “See?! Sixty!”

Me: “…calories per serving.”

She stares at the bag blankly for a second before closing her eyes and laughing at herself in chagrin. I manage to locate the actual number of candies in the bag (fifty, located on the nutritional info panel), and we are able to supplement with a different kind of candy to finish the pillow treats.