Annual stock-taking in our factory is a feared event. It includes everyone; no one quite understands the rules and procedures which, I have to say, vary from year to year.

Two days before the start, we gather, all two hundred employees, in the main hall around one of the managers, who explains the procedure for this year. How to fill in the cards, what to do with them, what to do with mistakes, etc.

[Manager] has a very soft, quiet voice. The hall is deeply silent, as everyone is trying to gather what he’s saying. You would literally hear a pin drop. As he finishes, and we disperse, I walk beside one of our elder colleagues, who sighs:

Colleague: “Had Adolf Hitler had [Manager]’s voice, Nazism would never have taken hold in Europe…”

I was lucky enough to go to a college that offered spring break ‘study trips’ to various places abroad. They were done through the school, and you were required to write a paper about your experience at the end. Other than that, they were really just normal sightseeing trips abroad.

There were a couple of different options, the cheapest of which was the Czech Republic. Being from a middle-class family, I chose them. I was then fortunate enough to get all of the scholarships available for the trip, as I was the only one who applied, but that’s a different story.

Before the trip, we filled out forms saying if we had allergies, needed assistance, that sort of stuff. I am lactose intolerant, so I noted it down and thought nothing of it. Nothing happened until the fourth day we were there.

The Czech Republic is known for its beer. They have many beer gardens and breweries throughout the country, some of which have been operating for hundreds of years.

So, naturally, we go to one of the oldest ones, the one operated by monks near the famous church. The tour is interesting, and we all sit down for dinner and to enjoy the beer.

The dinner is delicious! And then dessert comes around. They start handing out a pancake dish with some kind of cream poured on top of it. They then ask me if I’m the one with the allergy. Thinking back to my form, I tell them it’s not an allergy, just an intolerance, so I can probably have the pancake dish.

The waiter tells me no, they can’t give it to me. But they prepared a special dish for me!

He then sets in front of me a beautifully plated scoop of beer ice cream.

I recently had lunch with a few people from the company, including our HR guy. He mentioned:

HR Guy: “I’m going to have to have an unpleasant conversation with the new receptionist.”

Me: “Why?”

HR Guy: “We needed something from her, and we couldn’t find her at the reception desk. Or anywhere in the building. So, I called her, and she said she was working from home.”

Me: “Wait, how can a receptionist work from home?”

HR Guy: “Exactly!”

That receptionist no longer works for us.

Related:
Very Bad Reception, Part 24
Very Bad Reception, Part 23
Very Bad Reception, Part 22
Very Bad Reception, Part 21
Very Bad Reception, Part 20

This story happened in September 2022. I was woken up by something that sounded like an explosion. I looked at the clock; it was four o’clock in the morning. I was pondering about it for a while, then fell asleep again (I am definitely not a morning person).

Later, when I was at work, I asked my colleague, who lives nearby, about that strange night sound. He did not hear anything, but he is a sound sleeper. We talked about it, and our best guess was that some vandals put a petard into a recycle bin again, as they did some months ago.

We continued to talk about other things, and he finished with a story that happened to his wife yesterday. She was about to park when an “a**hole in a [Company] car” took her place so aggressively that she almost bumped his car. After venting this story, we continued to work.

In the afternoon, this colleague came to me with his phone in hand. He told me that he was browsing the web during lunch and found out what the strange sound last night was. He showed me an article from the local news, showing a picture of a firefighter truck and a burned car, in a place near his home. He knows this place well, because he or his wife routinely parks there.

I looked it up on my computer myself. Apparently, last night, a parked car caught fire, and a gas stove LPG cylinder exploded. Fortunately, the explosion was contained mostly within the van, so the outside damage was relatively small; only two cars parked next to the van were damaged.

There were photographs: the van aflame, firefighters putting out the fire, smoking remains of the burned van, and two soot-covered cars, with cracked windows and melted mirrors. One of them had a [Company] logo on its side…

I overheard this after a passenger bought a ticket from the conductor.

Passenger: “I envy you. I must pay for the ticket, but you ride for free!”

Conductor: “I hope not, madam.”

Passenger: “What?”

Conductor: “I expect that the railways will pay me for doing that.”