A caller passes data protection.

Me: “Thank you and how can I help?”

Caller: “Why didn’t you take my last month’s bill?”

Me: “We don’t have direct debit details on file.”

Caller: “And why not?”

Me: “You haven’t given us your bank details to put on the account.”

Caller: “I’m not giving you my bank details. Why would I do that?”

Me: “If you don’t give us the bank details, how do you expect us to apply for the money from your account?”

Caller: “Oh, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Cue facepalm.

My friends like to make fun of me for always reading every piece of information our college sends out to us, no matter how unimportant. This is a story that has spanned my four years at college and I’m hoping has finished already!

The college I go to assigns every student a faculty advisor; when there is any trouble, this advisor becomes the student’s advocate to the school. They are also there to advise students on more mundane rules and regulations surrounding the school. Your advisor — or tutor, as we call them — is assigned your first year of college and stays with you until you graduate. It’s suggested that when you first start, you get in touch with your tutor to either meet them or just send off an email. However, most students don’t. Of everyone I know, I seem to be the only person who ever made the effort to get to know my tutor. It seems the college wanted to have fun with me for this fact.

My first year of college, I get assigned my tutor, [Tutor #1]. I send off an email introducing myself and asking for a time to meet. My tutor responds immediately and suggests a time he is free and in his office, and I agree to meet him then.

However, the day before, I get a notification that my tutor has changed. I email [Tutor #1] and apologize. I then email [Tutor #2]. She invites me to her office hours, and this time I am able to meet her with no problem. She is a wonderful woman in the history department.

Tutor #2: “Just check in with me periodically to let me know how you’re doing!”

My second year comes, and roughly a week before classes start, I get an email: my tutor has gone on a research break, so I’ve been reassigned. No problem; at this point, I feel I’m a pro at emailing my tutors. I send an email off to [Tutor #3], introducing myself as a second-year just put under his charge, and asking to meet. He readily agrees and we make a date.

What happens two hours before we have plans to meet? I get an email from the college, changing my tutor again. I email [Tutor #3] to cancel our plans and send off an email to [Tutor #4]. She tells me she is busy for the next two weeks — the first two weeks of term — meeting with the first-year students she advises, but after that, she would love to meet. I put it out of my mind for the two weeks and then plan to email her.

What happens the day I go to email her? At this point, they have to be screwing with me. I get an email telling me that now [Tutor #5] is my tutor. I email [Tutor #4] to explain and get in touch with [Tutor #5], planning a meetup. This time, thankfully, everything goes well. We meet for coffee in one of our student coffee shops on campus and have a lovely chat about the difference between STEM degrees and arts degrees. [Tutor #5] remains my tutor for the next year.

I had really hoped the second year was the end of this funny business. But lo and behold, somehow, it isn’t. I start my final year of college in a week’s time, and I just received an email from [Tutor #5].

Tutor #5: “Hi, everyone. Sorry this email is coming out so close to the beginning of the semester, but I wanted to let you all know due to the health crisis, I’ve chosen to take this year off to do research. As such, you will all be reassigned to my colleague, [Tutor #6]. She is available to answer any problems that arise for you all. Regards, [Tutor #5].”

Seriously, I seem to be one of the only people who made the effort to meet my tutor, and somehow, someone decided to screw with me and make me have to meet and change tutors six times! At this point, I’m just hoping I make it through my final year with [Tutor #6] and can move on from this whole ordeal.

My family and I had just flown from the US to Ireland for a ten-day vacation. We were spread out over two hotels across the street from each other. Our flight came in at around five or six in the morning, so we were exhausted and just wanted to curl up in a bed and sleep.

My aunt and I were sharing rooms for the trip, so we checked in, went up to the room, and started to explore the room. We were having trouble figuring out how to turn the lights on. There were no wall switches, but some of the lamps had knobs. We tried turning them over and over and over, but no luck. We searched all around the room for a switch but came up empty.

My aunt went down to the front desk to ask about how to turn on the lights, and they told her it was on the wall. I found some odd-looking contraption on the wall near the door with what looked like a button. When I pressed the button, the lights came on, but as soon as I took my finger off, they turned back off.

We could not figure out how to keep them on, so we went back down to the desk. They were never rude to us, but you could tell they thought we were idiots who didn’t know how to operate a simple light. They came back to the room with us, took our key card, slid it into the contraption, and walked off. We stood there, dumbfounded.

We had never come across this in our one or two hotel stays a year in the US. We told my other uncle about our troubles that night at dinner. He, being a more seasoned traveler than us, chuckled at us, remembering his first time. Apparently, these key card contraptions to activate lights are in the US, but they are definitely not frequent.

(I work at a restaurant. It’s close to closing time and the inside bar is closing. There are still some customers outside on the terrace finishing their drinks. I’m cleaning tables when a woman approaches me.)

Customer: “I think someone took my handbag; can you check if someone handed one into the bar?”

Me: “No problem. I’ll be right back.”

(The bartenders inside say nothing has been handed in so I go back and tell this to the woman. I continue cleaning when she approaches me again five minutes later.)

Customer: *irritated* “Ahem. I found my handbag.”

Me: “That’s great!”

Customer: *still irritated* “It was exactly where I had left it, where I had been sitting earlier.”

Me: “Erm, good.”

Customer: “You didn’t look very hard, did you?”

Me: “Erm, you asked me to ask at the bar for it; I presumed you would have checked the last place you were sitting.”

(The woman stares at me smugly for about ten seconds before swinging her bag over her shoulder dramatically.)

Customer: “You should have looked harder!”

Me: *speechless*

(I am working in a large grocery store packing shelves when a customer approaches me with two different brands of toilet paper in his hands.)

Customer: “Do you see these two packs of toilet roll?”

Me: “Yes?”

Customer: “Well, [Brand #1] costs 20p more than [Brand #2].”

Me: “I’m not sure of the exact prices, but I’ll take your word for it.”

Customer: “Here’s the thing. I was just over at the fruit and veg weighing scales and [Brand #2] weighs more than [Brand #1]. You get more for value for money if you buy [Brand #2]!”

(The customer is now clearly excited that he has somehow got one over on the evil corporation.)

Me: “Okay…”

Customer: *whispering* “Keep that to yourself; if the boys up above find out they’ll raise the price of [Brand #2] before you know it!”

Me: “Will do…”

This story is part of the Toilet Paper roundup! This is the last story in the roundup, but we have plenty of others you might enjoy!

10 Relatable Stories About Housework And How To Avoid It

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