Part of my job is recovering customers and auditing bodies to view and audit our facility. I arrange everything: the hotels, the certifications, the catering, etc. Over time, I’ve become the go-to guy to get the best rates and places to avoid, and I typically book catering for others.

The last few food deliveries have been pretty poor — reduced selection, sometimes late, and just not as good. I complain, but they brush me off, so I decide to use another supplier. As I’m the only person really booking food, they get no more business from the company. Their loss. It’s nothing personal, just business.

I get called into the purchasing manager’s office one afternoon. 

Purchasing Manager: “I keep getting calls and emails from the catering company. I keep telling them I have nothing to do with the orders, but they won’t have any of it.”

Me: “Yeah, I’ve changed suppliers.”

Purchasing Manager: “I know, and that’s fine. But they are going to call me in a minute. Can you join the call?”

Me: “Err, sure.”

The phone rings and the manager puts it on speaker.

Caterer: “Hi, this is [Caterer] from [Catering Company]. I wanted to talk to you about your lack of orders lately.”

Purchasing Manager: “Yes, well, as I mentioned, I don’t make the orders, but I have—”

Caterer: “We’ve been supplying [Company] for many years, and always to a very high level of quality and cost-effectiveness. I’m sure you, as purchasing manager, appreciate this, hmmm?”

Purchasing Manager: “That’s only part of it. I have [My Name] with me on the call; he organises—”

Caterer: “Well, I’m sure he has plenty to say, but let me ask you: are you still ordering food at the same frequency? Because we could work out a bit of a discount.”

Me: “We are, and we are very happy with the service we are receiving, thank you.”

Caterer: “if you don’t mind, I’m talking to the man in charge.”

Purchasing Manager: “And as I told you, he makes the decisions; I just sign it off. If he is happy with the catering decision, then that is fine with me.”

Caterer: “Can you take me off speaker for a moment?”

Purchasing Manager: “No, this affects [My Name] more than it affects anyone.”

Caterer: “All we want is a second chance.”

Me: “I gave you several chances, but you have been under-delivering for months. It’s very embarrassing.”

Caterer: “What are they quoting you? I bet we can beat it.”

Purchasing Manager: “This has never been about cost. This is about quality, and it’s clear you don’t have it. I think we’re done here?”

Me: “I was finished before we started.”

We kept on with the new company, who delivered as promised every time. The old company tried to contact the purchasing manager several times after that until he blocked their calls.

I regularly have to go to hospital for eye checks, and my husband usually comes with me. On one of the appointments, I had to fill in a standard diversity form. I went in for my appointment, and my husband stayed in the waiting room, where he overheard an old lady and her daughter discussing the form. The daughter was reading the form out to the old lady and filling it in depending on the old lady’s answers.

He told me afterward that one answer caught his attention.

Daughter: “What sexual orientation do you identify as, Mother?”

Old Lady: “Er… What are the options?”

Daughter: “You’re heterosexual, aren’t you?”

Old Lady: *Indignant* “No, I am not! I like MEN!”

Friend: “Can you look at my phone? It’s got a weird error.”

I don’t know much about phones, but I have an idea about computers. The two seem to be getting closer and closer together, anyway.

Me: “Sure. Oh, okay. Did you let your phone run out of battery?”

Friend: “Yeah, I always forget to charge it.”

Me: “Yeah, I’m guessing it’s like a PC. Your phone needs to shut down properly.”

Friend: “Can you fix it?”

Me: “I think so. Let me play with the menus.” 

I try a reboot; that doesn’t work. I let it load back up. Before I can try something else:

Friend: “Let me get my other charger. This isn’t working.”

Me: “A new charger isn’t going to change anything.”

Friend: “Well, I’m going to get it anyway.”

By the time they have messed about, I have shut down the phone and started it — this time to the normal screen.

Friend: “Oh, it’s working again?”

Me: “Yes, I would make sure that you don’t let it run out of battery if it’s giving you these issues.”

Friend: “Well, I’ll charge it with this charger, instead. That should help.”

Me: “As long as it’s charged, it doesn’t matter what charger you use.”

Friend: “But this one is the proper one.”

I left it. If someone is going to ask for my help on something they know nothing about and then argue with me, I’m not helping them anymore. 

It was a full week before their phone stopped working again; again, they didn’t charge it. I told them to take it to a repair shop. They couldn’t understand why it kept happening; when they did charge it, they used the right charger!

I come home one Sunday to find that I have not got my key. A nearby relative has a spare, but I can’t get hold of them. A friend also has a spare but it turns out they are on holiday. I ring around and visit everywhere I’ve been all day, and I search the car and car parks — everywhere I parked or walked. Nothing.

Eventually, I call an emergency locksmith, and a few hundred pounds later, I’m inside and have a new lock.

A few days later, someone posts online that they found some keys — my keys. I reach out to them so I can collect the keys and we meet at a public place.

Me: “Thanks for this.”

Woman: “Oh, that’s okay. I know how annoying it is to lose keys.”

Me: “Where were they, by the way?”

Woman: “Oh, [Supermarket], just by the entrance.”

Why didn’t she just hand them in to the supermarket?! I left my number there and could have spared us both the trouble of meeting out of the way. But whatever, at least I have my other keys.

Me: “That makes sense; I was there when I lost them. Crazy, I swore I looked there just after I lost them. Maybe someone kicked them out of the way.”

Woman: “Oh, no. They were right in the doorway. I must have been there just before you came back.”

Wait. She had these for two days, didn’t hand them in, didn’t do anything until today, and cost me hundreds of pounds and worry?

Me: “Okay, well, thanks. Maybe next time, just hand them in to the shop?”

Woman: “Oh, no. I would rather sort it out myself. I like to see people happy collecting their lost things.”

My face was not a happy one. I tried to explain that she would have been better just leaving them there if she wasn’t going to do the right thing. She just called me ungrateful.

There is an operator at work who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. He drives without a licence, ignores instructions at work, and brags about not paying his TV licence or child support. [Operator] is a scumbag, he’s unpleasant to be around, and generally, we would all be better off without him on this planet.

The reason that he still works here is that our boss is struggling through cancer treatment. Of course, [Operator] doesn’t think that this is in any way his problem or that he should make any effort to make the boss’s life easier.

[Operator] is just as toxic and a strain on the business as ever. But only his boss can fire him for his work performance, and I don’t think he has the strength to go through what I bet would be weeks of [Operator] using technicalities to try and get out of it.

I don’t realise anything has changed until [Operator] comes charging out of the office.

Operator: “You can’t do that; you’re not my boss.”

Manager: “Please come back into the office and we can talk.”

Operator: “No, you’re trying to bend the rule and get rid of me based on stupid rules that don’t mean anything. I want to do this here in front of everyone.”

Manager: “Okay, based on the evidence and the lack of any evidence to the contrary, human resources will be terminating your position immediately.”

Operator: “You can’t do that; you’re not my boss! It says so in the company rules.”

Manager: “Your line manager can manage you through your performance. I manage the site and these issues are at site level.”

Operator: “That’s just a technicality, and I’m being fired for what? Bad parking?”

Manager: “Fifteen counts of blocking the disabled bay, despite being told that we have staff who depend on that space, two cases of damage to company property through striking it with your car, and one case of theft of company property.”

Operator: “I told you I was borrowing it.”

Manager: “If you borrow something, you have to have permission and bring it back.”

Operator: “And God, I told you I lost it.”

Manager: “This isn’t for discussion anymore. Please collect your things and leave. I’m told that you need not ask for a reference here.”

Operator: “You don’t know. People will stand against you once I leave; there will be a walkout. How is poor [Boss] going to manage without me?”

Manager: “That isn’t your concern anymore. Please leave.”

He left, knocking things over as he went. Apparently, he tried to stage a walkout by messaging a load of people at work. No one went for it. Even his “mates” were happy that he had left, and the whole environment is far better now. 

Our boss pulled through in the end; he stayed for a few more years and then took early retirement.