(I work in a theme park and we serve fresh-squeezed lemonade in the area where I work. I have just started to clean the lemon squeezer when this happens.)
Coworker: “You don’t need to clean that.”
Me: “Why?”
Coworker: “They’re going to use that tomorrow, anyway.”
Me: “Are you serious?”
Coworker: “Yeah…”
Me: “Then you shouldn’t wash your hands; you’re just going to use them later.”
(He didn’t talk for the rest of the day.)
(My husband and I are joint owners with another couple of a new restaurant/takeaway. I also work a day job at the local council tax office so I don’t work at the restaurant all the time. As the other owner’s wife doesn’t have another job, she will works at the restaurant while I do the background work. I only work at the restaurant when needed. We have hired a new delivery driver. While I’m working a restaurant shift one night, the driver keeps ringing the takeaway phone and complaining about what a s*** job I am doing. He keeps lying about addresses being wrong — even though I checked on Google Maps — and not being able to read my handwriting. I let this slide as he is a fast worker. The very next day, the driver comes into the council tax office with a friend. My colleague is the one who deals with him. All the while, he is b****ing about me to his friend. My colleague asks him where he works and he says he works at [Restaurant]. He then proceeds to tell my colleague what a s*** job the “new waitress” is doing. As our desks are divided to give customers privacy, I can’t see the customer from my desk.)
Colleague: “Hey, [My Name], don’t you own [Restaurant].”
Me: “Yes, why?”
Colleague: “This guy works for you.”
(I got up and leaned over to see who he was talking about. The colour drained from the driver’s face. I have never seen anyone move as fast as he did.)
(Back in 1996, I get a summer job in the media section of a department store. Downloading music or video games isn’t really a thing yet; CD burners are a bit expensive but not totally uncommon. My coworkers are all a lot older than me and not really tech-savvy. One day, I see a customer, about 16, return a huge pile of video games and music CDs. After he leaves, I walk up to my coworker and ask what that was about.)
Me: “He didn’t like his birthday presents, I guess.”
Coworker: “Oh, no, he is a regular. He always buys a lot of CDs and games but returns most of them within a week. Very picky, I guess.”
Me: “Like, how often does he do that?”
Coworker: “Once or twice a week. It kind of sucks but it’s store policy to get your money back if you return your items within a week.”
Me: “Ahh, have you considered that he might actually take them home, copy them, and then return them?”
Coworker: “Nah, you can’t really copy CDs at home. That’s why they switched from cassettes and floppy disks.”
Me: “Yes, you can. It’s called a CD burner. I read an article about them in my dad’s computer magazine. I can bring it tomorrow if you like.”
Coworker: “Well, maybe they have something like that in America or Japan, but not here in Austria.”
Me: “I think we should tell our manager. I am sure he is copying that stuff.”
Coworker: “Okay, knock yourself out, but I’m not gonna bother him with such a silly story.”
(The next day, I brought the magazine with me and went to our floor manager, who was much more interested in my hunch. He took me to the store manager, who was also quite interested. They changed the return policy the same day and after that, storage media had to be returned in their original sealing.)
(I’m talking with a coworker from a separate office location, who isn’t normally at the location I work at. I’m updating him on a recent company incident in which one of our bus drivers crashed a company vehicle.)
Coworker: “Wait, she ‘took a wrong turn’ at the airport and crashed into a partition? There’s no way you can miss those. Do you know what happened afterward?”
Me: “Well, let’s just say she’s no longer with us.”
(My coworker AND my nearby manager gasp loudly and look totally horrified. I quickly realize what I’ve said.)
Me: “No longer with the company! No longer with us — the company. She was fired. She’s not dead.”
(I overheard this story from my dad. He’s a manager at a construction site, and they are EXTREMELY sexist. There’s a lady engineer whom they all look down upon because she’s female. They always find small ways to ignore her and show their displeasure at having to “take orders from a girl.” They usually have to do inspections of the building at varying stages during construction, which entails a lot of climbing. At one point, there’s only a rickety plank, at least 30 stories above ground level. The building is still under construction, with scaffolding and only some supports and stuff — I don’t know the technical terms — and it’s pretty dangerous. Even the most macho, most sexist of the men have been known to be daunted. Now, I’m not sure if the lady engineer actually needed to be present at the inspection, but she made sure she turned up, anyway!)
Lady Engineer: “Okay, so, now we proceed to [other point].”
Construction Guy: “We will have to cross the plank.” *points to it in a silent challenge*
(The lady engineer proceeds to climb up in one easy movement, and walks quickly and unflinchingly across, in HEELS. The men are gawking, stunned out of their wits, in a cold sweat.)
Construction Guy: *quietly* “S***. Now we’ll have to do it, too.”
(The men took turns crossing with much swearing. They struggled not to flinch, either, but they were clumsier and not so good at it. The best part is, my dad later found out that there’s actually a less dangerous way of crossing, but they put the plank there to scare her off. Any one of them could have backed down and taken the easy way, but after seeing the lady seize the bull by the horns, not one of them dared to even suggest it!)
