I am shopping in a higher-end food and clothes store looking for a bit of a treat. I pick up on a guy acting odd. He is looking around and filling a carrier bag with stuff from the shelf. I try not to judge. Besides, there is a worker right by him; he even looks over briefly in his direction. 

The guy heads toward me in a hurried walk and then runs at me. He turns to look behind him and he slams into me.

The way he hits me, he goes flying and I barely move. Before I can react, he grabs his stuff and ran out the door.

Worker: “Are you okay, sir?”

Me: “Err, yeah. Are you going to do anything about the shoplifter.?”

Worker: “The what?”

Me: “The guy who ran into me. He was clearly stealing from here. Didn’t you see?”

Worker: “Why do you think he was stealing?”

Me: “He filled his bag full of things from the shelf and ran out the door. Did you need me to leave my details or something?”

Worker: “Hmm, why would we want that?”

Me: “You know what? It doesn’t matter.”

Worker: “Okay, great. Please let me know if I can help further.”

I know some places tell staff not to intervene, but to be so clueless about what is going on around you?

I work at a popular London tourist attraction, on one of the entrances. I get approached by a visitor who is struggling to find the main part of our attraction: the Prime Meridian Line.

Visitor: “Excuse me, can I ask you a question? Where is the Meridian Line?”

I point to where it is.

Me: “You see where the different paving stones and metal tiles on the ground are? Where everyone is taking photos? That’s the Meridian Line.”

The visitor wanders over to a point closer to the line so he can see it better. I continue to deal with other visitor enquiries until he wanders back over, looking puzzled.

Me: “Hello again, sir, how can I help?”

Visitor: “I still can’t see the line. Could you come up and show me?”

I walk over to the better viewing point with him and begin explaining again.

Me: “You see the tree over there? It’s the metal line underneath the tree.”

Visitor: “Ah, so the Meridian Line is the tree?”

Me: “…”

Related:
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 15
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 14
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 13
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 12
No Fortitude For Longitude, Part 11

I pick up a couple of multipacks of ramen that seem to be massively reduced. I get to the checkout and notice that they ring up at full price.

Me: “Sorry, but those are supposed to be on offer.”

Cashier: “Oh, yeah, they were marked up wrong. They shouldn’t be on sale.”

Me: “Oh, okay. I don’t want them, then.”

Cashier: “You don’t want them?”

Me: “Yeah, they are really expensive at full price.”

Cashier: “I’ve already rung them through.”

Me: “Then can you take them off?”

She huffs and puffs before calling over a supervisor who removes the ramen. The supervisor apologises for the mistake and I pay. As I get my receipt:

Cashier: “This is so annoying; this keeps happening.”

Perhaps take down the massive sign that says ramen is 50% off, then?

I am moving departments and have to hand over my responsibilities to a new starter. I don’t have long and I’ve had it bite me in the a** before so I am super careful of how I do it.

After three attempts to arrange a meeting, the new starter shows up and tells me he already knows what the job entails. I give him a tour of the department; he barely acknowledges his surroundings. 

I set up another session in the office to go through the job in detail. I ask him if he needs training on any of the software. “No.” Showing how to make the monthly presentations. “No.” Anything he needs to know. “No.” He insists that he already knows what to do and rolls his eyes.

Fair enough. I wish him the best of luck and tell him that I will be contactable for the next three weeks.

A few months later, I bump into my old boss and ask how things are going,

Boss: “Your replacement is still finding his feet.”

Me: “Oh, really? Anything I can help with?”

Boss: “Well, could you show him how to create the monthly reports.”

Me: “I did try. He refused.”

Boss: “Oh, that’s not what he said.”

Me: “Yeah, tried several times. I’ve got it all on email and calendar invites. He refused everything: the presentation, the software, the reporting tools… I’ve not had any requests for help despite offering.”

Boss: “Do you have those emails still?”

Me: “Of course.”

I sent it all over to him. It turns out that anything the new guy got wrong or couldn’t do, he just blamed me. He just assumed that he could pick everything up and just change everything that he didn’t want to do his way. Some of the work I used to do was business-critical and HAD to be done that way for several other departments to do their job. He just stopped doing it. He didn’t last long and left a few months later.

There’s an employee in my office who has been there for years. No one knows what she does, but she’s always “very busy” or “at the other site.”

Her boss doesn’t like confrontation so never asks her what she is doing and she gets away with doing whatever she wants for years. She gets verbally aggressive if pushed for any details from anyone.

One day, I am asked to spend some time with [Employee] to understand her tasks on problem reports. I manage them for our site, and evidently, she must manage them for the other (much smaller) site.

With blessings from her boss and mine, I drive to the other site only to find that she isn’t there. I am informed that the meeting doesn’t start for a few hours, but where is she? When she does arrive, she is visibly shocked to see me.

Employee: “Oh, what are you doing here?”

Me: “I was asked to understand your tasks on the problem reports. I made a new system and it might work here, as well.”

Employee: “Oh, well, yes, you probably shouldn’t bother. I have everything in hand. Besides, good luck getting these guys to adopt change.”

Me: “Well, I’m here now. Just pretend I’m not here.”

The meeting starts and is a complete joke. The participants are working on their laptops in silence. Eventually, I have to ask:

Me: “Sorry, but what is this meeting for?”

Manager: “Oh, we discuss the weekly problem reports.”

Me: “So… why are we not doing it?”

Manager: “Oh, we haven’t had a problem report in ages. We’re told—” *motions to [Employee]* “—that it is policy to hold these sessions anyway. So most of us use it as a quiet session to get on with work.”

I didn’t mention that there isn’t a policy at all, or that I don’t even hold weekly meetings, let alone a full-day session. The next day, my boss pulled me aside and asked if I could take over managing both sites as “[Employee] would be busy on other tasks.” What I didn’t realise was that those tasks were looking for another job. She “decided” to leave the business that month.