(Our warehouse is in the process of closing permanently. Despite this, management refuses to send anyone home unless employees are willing to not get paid. That has led to some… creativity in entertaining ourselves.)

Office Worker: “What are you guys doing in the back today?”

Me: “Playing Apples to Apples.”

Office Worker: “Aren’t you going to get in trouble if [Supervisor] comes back there?”

Me: “She’s playing Yahtzee up front today, so I don’t really think she cares.”

(The German parcel service has “shipping stations,” automated PO boxes for sending and receiving parcels. I have a return label from an online retailer to send some of what I ordered back and get a refund, but I’m unsure if those labels work with shipping stations, so I enter a post office and post the parcel manually. This exchange happens after handing in the parcel.)

Me: “Excuse me. I was wondering if shipping stations can be used for returns?”

Employee: *pause* “Shipping stations.”

Me: “Yes?”

Employee: *pause* “For returns.”

Me: “Yes?”

Employee: “Think about that for a minute. Should be fairly obvious.”

Me: “Sorry, that might be a stupid question, but if I could figure it out by myself, I wouldn’t have to ask.”

Employee: *in a rather condescending tone* “Of course you can’t use shipping stations for returns. Those are for receiving shipments, not posting them.”

Me: “Oh? Okay. Thank you.”

(Unsure of whether I merely had had about twenty very vivid dreams of posting parcels at shipping stations, I checked online. Not only do shipping stations allow the posting of parcels, but they do allow returns. I don’t mind underpaid employees getting things wrong, but please don’t try making me look like an idiot just because you don’t know what services you provide.)

My husband and I went out to eat at a wings restaurant. We had a great meal, paid, and left. My husband has a tendency to forget things, so I always go through the same spiel anytime we go anywhere. Do you have your phone? Keys? Wallet? Sure enough, he had left his wallet at the restaurant.

We went back and they brought it out to us from lost and found. My husband looked inside to see if everything was there, and there was a $100 bill missing. The week prior was his birthday, and his coworker/mentor gave him $100 as a gift. My husband had been saving it to buy a nice jacket, which we were going shopping for later that day, so I know for sure the money was in the wallet.

When we realized that the money was gone, we asked for a manager. We pointed out the waitress, who denied taking it. We asked to see the cameras, but the manager said in order for us to watch them we had to file a police report, but he himself watched the video and said he saw no one open the wallet. I don’t know if he really watched the video, though, because he didn’t seem to be gone long enough. At this point, we were at a loss of what to do, and the manager was acting as if we were lying and asked us to leave.

We did call the police, but it was going to be a lot of red tape to get them involved, and my husband was so angry he just said forget it. I think the waitress took the wallet away from the cameras, anyway, to take the money.

The very next morning, I got a call from our bank asking if we had tried to purchase a really expensive gaming system online. The charge had occurred the night before and was declined. No, it was not us; neither of us plays video games. We had to cancel our card and get a new one issued, and I am positive that the waitress must have written down the card info from my husband’s wallet. After reading stories on NotAlwaysRight, I can totally see how the manager thought we were trying to scam them. But sometimes, the customers aren’t lying.

(I am in a “Social Cafe,” a cafe that hires people with disabilities. They are full-fledged employees, but they do get guidance. All employees at this location have mental disabilities, like learning issues. The cafe also has an open kitchen. For the record, it’s a great cafe and the food is delicious.)

Chef: “[Employee], can you put these pickles into the salad?”

Employee: “Yes, Chef!” *pause* “Do I need to drain the pickles first?”

Chef: “Yes, please drain them.”

(The employee gets a sieve and opens the jar. He then empties the jar into the sieve… above the salad bowl! Afterward, he tosses the pickles into the salad, as well. The employee then stops.)

Employee: “Chef, what if some of the water got into the salad?”

Chef: “Don’t worry about that; it’ll be fine! How about you toss in a second jar and I’ll taste it?”

Employee: “Yes, chef!”

(I stayed away from the salad.)

Related:
Putting Themselves Into A Bit Of A Pickle

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Our company decided, for some odd reason, to have a training conference. Part of the conference was a session where they were trying to get us to “think outside the box.”

The exercise we were given was to drop an egg from a six-foot height without breaking it, using only a small number of straws, some tape, and a few other pointless and useless things.

I asked for very specific instructions on what constituted success and was told that we had to drop the egg without having it splatter.

The first group tried dropping the egg into a net of straws and failed. The second group wrapped the egg in tape, with a tape loop sticking out, stuck taped-together straws through the egg’s loop, and successfully slid the egg down the straws. The third group simply taped the straws together with the egg at the bottom, held the egg over six feet of the ground — with the top of the taped-together straws over twelve feet of the ground — and successfully managed to catch the top of the straws before the egg splattered.

Our group dropped the egg into a nest of straws… and it didn’t break, because we had gone into the bathroom, poked a couple of tiny holes in it, and blew the insides out.

We were disqualified. The lesson we learned? [Company] wants you to think outside the box, but only in a proper, company-approved fashion.