(I am volunteering behind the bar at a beer festival, serving over 100 beers of many different styles. A woman approaches to order.)

Woman: “I’m looking for a girly beer. Something girls will like.”

Me: “What kind of beer do you normally drink? Light, dark, or something in the middle?”

Woman: “Something girly!”

Me: “None of our beer is sexist, madam, but let me see what I can find you.”

(She took it in good humour, and I recommended a light golden ale, which she enjoyed.)

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(I am handing out a prescription to a patient.)

Me: “That’ll be £8.40, please.”

(I see that she’s getting her card out, so I press “card payment” at the till. I am not paying that much attention and the payment goes through fine.)

Customer: “When do I put my PIN in?”

(I’m confused as the payment has already gone through.)

Me: “The payment has already gone through contactless, and here is the receipt.”

Customer: *getting visibility upset* “I do not have that! How can it go through when I haven’t put my PIN in? Let me have a look at that receipt now. There’s no way I could have paid for that; I haven’t put my PIN in.”

(I check the receipt and notice it’s been paid using a specific credit card, which is different from the card she has in hand. I show her the card and receipt number.)

Me: “You put your purse too close to the contactless machine.”

Customer: “But I didn’t put my PIN in; I did not authorise this transaction!”

Me: “This is a new thing in the banks are doing to make transactions a little bit quicker. It only covers payments under £30.”

Customer: “But I did not authorise this transaction! I did not want to pay with that card! I don’t want this ‘contact list’ nonsense!”

Me: “If you don’t want contactless, you have to speak to your bank.”

Customer: “I certainly will be. I do not want this ‘contact list’ nonsense. Anyone could steal my money.”

(As she is getting upset about something I can’t help her with, I try to end the conversation.)

Me: “Here’s your prescription that has been paid for. Good luck with the bank!”

(She said thank you for the prescription, but continued to rant about how she should have to use a PIN number, how contactless is stupid, and how the bank is making it easy to steal money.)

(I am working in the collections department for an energy supplier when I get a call from a woman regarding a letter she says she received. She says she has a question about it. She gives me a reference number and I pull up the account.)

Me: “I’ve got the account up. May I ask your name?

(The customer gives me her name, and it is the same as on the account. I then ask her to confirm address and DOB, both of which match what is on the account.)

Me: “Thank you for confirming those details. What was your query?”

Caller: “Yes, what is this letter all about?”

Me: “There is a balance on the account. It needs to be paid. You owe [amount].”

Caller: “No, I don’t.”

Me: “I’m not seeing any payments since [date].”

Caller: “No, you don’t understand. This isn’t my account.”

Me: “Your name is on the account and you confirmed the address.”

Caller: “No, no. This letter isn’t for me. This is my friend’s account. My name is [Different Name].”

Me: “I’m sorry, madam, I can no longer discuss the account with you without the customer’s permission. Is the customer there?”

Caller: “You just broke the data protection law. You disclosed my friend’s details.”

Me: “Actually, madam, you committed fraud.”

Caller: “No, I didn’t. I never said I was the customer. You broke the law; now you’re going to lose your job. I’m going to report you.”

Me: “Actually, madam, when I asked what your name was, you told me it was [Customer]. When I asked what your address was, you said it was [Customer’s address], and when I asked you to confirm your date of birth, you told me it was [Customer’s DOB]. You pretended to be your friend, which is fraud.”

Caller: “No, I didn’t. If you heard that, that’s your fault. I’m going to report you!”

Me: “You are welcome to report this to the data commissioner. I’ll get you the details, if you like. We are obligated to report this incident, as well, and will send the recording of this call to prove what was said.”

Caller: “How dare you say that to me?! Get me your manager!”

(I got my manager, who took over the call. My manager promised to listen to the call and arranged to call the woman back once she had done so. Later that day, my manager came and spoke to me. She listened to the call and confirmed that the customer definitely committed fraud — she clearly said her name, address, and DOB were the customer’s. My manager gave me an anti-fraud form to fill in so it could be passed onto the police. During the call, the woman gave me her full name, and she gave my manager several phone numbers when they arranged the call back, one of which was a work number. My manager also got the woman’s address because the customer wanted me to write her a formal apology for accusing her of committing fraud. All these details went on the form we sent to the police.)

My dad was a police officer back when local “bobbies”’ were given houses with outpost offices attached to them so they could technically work 24/7 and serve the community. This meant that the house was rent-free — just bills to pay — but if anything needed work it had to go through the police and their repair request system. When we discovered a leak in the upstairs toilet, it was reported, and they sent two plumbers over the course of a month to fix it.

Just before we were due to go away on a family holiday, we discovered a leak in the upstairs toilet that we thought had been fixed a week previously. Another plumber was sent, and as I was at home from college for the summer holiday, and I’m nosy, I got chatting with the plumber whilst he was working. I mentioned how many times this leak had happened and he replied that he was “the guy who gets sent out when everyone else has failed.” He sorted the issue, showed me there was no leak, and left. We were happy, no more leaks happened, and a week or so later we headed out for our holiday.

Two weeks later, we arrived home around ten or eleven pm. My parents were tired as they had been driving for almost twelve hours at that point — we had driven back from a very rural part of France — and my sister and I were tired as we hadn’t been able to sleep properly in the car, which is why none of us could believe that we were hearing a weird noise coming from the house. My dad opened the door and water spilled out!

The entire ground floor was flooded, our post was bobbing around the place like ducks on a pond, there were tide marks on the wall over one foot high, there was a massive hole in the kitchen ceiling — below our bathroom, in case you hadn’t guessed where this was going — and a half-decent waterfall was pouring through it.

After much swearing and freaking out, my mum found a way to shut the water off and Dad phoned the police residential management people on their emergency number and after clarifying that no, this was not a joke, they sent someone out. That someone was some guy that suggested seeing if we could find a way to turn the power on so we could “at least have a cup of tea”!

Eventually, it was agreed that we couldn’t stay there, so we had to find a hotel, and by this time it is almost midnight on a Thursday. My dad later explained that before we found our holy grail of a hotel, the four others we went to first claimed there was no room at the inn and they had conferences. There weren’t conferences, just to clarify; I think they just didn’t want to deal with my tired, upset, and irked dad that late at night.

The next day a plumber came out to sort the toilet. My dad is a chatty guy, and so naturally got talking to the plumber, expressing his amazement that this had happened. Before he even looked at the toilet he tried to blame us by saying it was because we had used one of those bleach blocks you could clip onto the toilet bowl. My dad had to show him that we didn’t have any of those before he’d let it go.

The plumber then got to work and explained that, in a nutshell, whoever was there last dropped a part down the toilet — he eventually fished it out and showed my dad — and that they either didn’t realise or didn’t tell anyone. This caused a blockage, which in turn caused the pipe to burst.

At that point, I came out of my room, stopped by to see what they’re talking about, saw the guy, and grabbed my dad. I recognised him as the plumber who had come out in the first place! I quietly told my dad who the man was, and what he had said to me previously. Dad let the guy fix the issue and leave before calling the company up to check that he was the same person who had been sent out last — he was — and then went to town on them. I’m pretty sure the guy got sacked.

In the end, it took three months to make the house liveable again. In that time, my sister and I had to live with our nan some seventy miles away for the remainder of the school holidays, with our parents visiting us on the weekend. The hotel my parents had been paid to stay in was too far away from any travel links and our friends, and my parents didn’t think it was fair to make us stay in a hotel all day on our own whilst they worked. I ended up losing my part-time job because they didn’t understand why I couldn’t take a train to work — even when I explained it would have cost about £60 when I made minimum wage.

When school started back up, my dad had to argue and fight to get somewhere that was close to my college and my sister’s school because the area was quite expensive and the police didn’t want to pay for it.

Despite how stressful the whole situation ended up being — I could write a book on what happened! — my parents never let it show, which amazes me to this day.

I’ll never get over how we had to go through it at all just because one plumber got butterfingers.

(I am the OP of this story. When the teacher who so poorly handled the “cyberbullying” incident returns from his suspension, he seems to have finally gotten his head on straight. [Problem Girl] is still making up her usual attention-seeking stories, but what happened between us seems to have finally caused the majority of the staff to catch on and stop babying her. A couple of weeks after the teacher returns, things begin to go missing from the changing rooms. They are never things you’d expect to have stolen; money and electronics are always left untouched. It is never anything valuable, but generally pretty stupid things like a singular shoe, an empty pencil case, etc. Heck, one time it’s a school bag — just the school bag. Everything inside it is dumped onto the floor. Almost immediately, people jump onto the idea that [Problem Girl] is the thief as she often leaves conveniently in the middle of PE to go to the toilet. However, that theory is quickly shot down as items keep going missing on days where she isn’t even in. Eventually, it becomes constant enough that everyone becomes sick of it. We turn to one of our PE teachers for help, who immediately stations guards in the changing rooms. These “guards” are just students who aren’t able to participate in the lesson for whatever reason. Instead of coming outside and acting as referee, they are allowed to sit inside and revise whilst making sure nothing gets stolen. The thefts stop… until a few months later when our PE teacher goes on maternity leave. The other teachers quickly scrap the little system and the thefts start up again like clockwork. Seeing no way out of it, a small group of us head up to the office to report the situation. We walk in, finally hoping that the thief will be stopped for good, only to see the one teacher none of us wanted to talk to: [Problem Teacher].)

Student #1: “I know they’re just little things going missing, but none of us can afford to keep replacing them each week. I’ve had my pencil case stolen twice in a month, and [My Name] has had to get food off of us every day for a week because they take the majority of what she’s packed!”

(The school uses something called a FOB for students to pay for lunches in the canteen — it’s like a school credit card. It was introduced after people kept having their lunch money stolen. My mum never put money on mine as I preferred packed lunches, and I eventually lost it, so I couldn’t buy food when my lunch got taken.)

Problem Teacher: *not looking up from what he was typing* “Stop bringing packed lunches in, then. Problem solved.”

Student #1: “But what about the rest of us?”

Problem Teacher: “Have they stolen money or anything valuable?”

Student #2: “No, but—“

Problem Teacher: “Then what’s the issue? Come back when something of value goes missing.”

Student #2: *angrily* “Are you kidding me?! They threw the contents of my backpack across the changing room and stole the bag! Just the bag! Those are expensive! They’ve stolen [Student #1]’s left shoe twice, and she had to put up with shoes two sizes too small all day because there weren’t any spares in her size! How is this not an issue?!”

Problem Teacher: *glances up and glares at [Student #2]* “Stop making such a fuss over nothing. Raise your voice at me again, and I’ll give all three of you detention. Now, get out and go bother someone else.”

(Seeing we won’t get anywhere with this guy, we turn and leave the office, ranting about it to each other as we leave. Things continue to get stolen, each theft getting more and more irritating, until finally…)

Student #3: *rummaging through her bag* “Hey… Has anyone seen my purse? I can’t find it.”

Student #1: “Do you think it was stolen? What does it look like?”

Student #3: “It’s blue, shaped like a cat, and has my name written on the ear.” *starts looking around on the floor*

(The majority of us join in the search and come up with nothing. Since the disappearance of the purse means that [Student #3]’s bus pass, fob, and about £10 in cash have gone missing, as well, we finally have what we need to force the teachers to do something. We go back to [Problem Teacher] and confront him with the new issue.)

Problem Teacher: *with an irritated sigh* “All right, ladies, calm yourselves. You think it was definitely stolen; you didn’t misplace it anywhere?”

Student #3: *upset and near tears* “[Student #4] and [Student #1] helped me search my bag, [My Name] went and asked all my teachers if I had left it in a classroom, and the others searched the changing rooms. We couldn’t find it. I can’t get home without it!”

Problem Teacher: “Did everyone join in the search?”

Me: “No, [Student In A Wheelchair] and [Problem Girl] didn’t.”

Problem Teacher: *nods and waves us out of the office* “I’ll talk to your class about it later, then. Now shoo. I have things to do.”

(We leave, now hopeful that things will stop vanishing. School ends and I’m about to leave, when [Student In A Wheelchair] comes up to me in tears.)

Student In A Wheelchair: “[My Name], have you seen [Student #3]?”

Me: *concerned about how distraught she looks* “Not since we went to [Problem Teacher]. Why? What’s wrong? Has someone been picking on you again?”

Student In A Wheelchair: “N-no. [Problem Teacher] pulled me out of French to accuse me of stealing from [Student #3]. He said that I must be a thief because I didn’t help search for the purse and wouldn’t let me explain why I didn’t look! He said he was going to get the police involved if I didn’t give it back!”

Me: *surprised* “But you can’t fit your wheelchair between the benches! Besides, [Problem Girl] didn’t search, either! Did he at least accuse her, too?”

Student In A Wheelchair: *shakes her head* “He said he knew she wouldn’t have done such a thing, so it had to have been me.”

Me: *furious* “Is he kidding me?! [Problem Girl] is just as capable of doing this as we are! He should know that by now!”

(After calming down, she went to meet her parents in the car-park and I headed home where I told my mother everything. She was furious that [Problem Teacher] was still blatantly defending [Problem Girl] and sent me to call my grandmother, again, who decided she was going to step in this time. She took me into school the next morning, in her uniform, where we bumped into [Student #3] and [Student In A Wheelchair] heading to the office with [Student In A Wheelchair]’s parents. [Student In A Wheelchair] took one look at my grandmother and started crying again. My grandmother quickly realised why she was crying and assured her that she wasn’t there to arrest her. [Student #3] and I ended up missing what happened during the confrontation, as the bell rang before we reached the office, but we later learned what happened from [Student In A Wheelchair]. When [Problem Teacher] saw my grandmother in her uniform, he assumed that [Student #3] had called her down over the missing purse and proceeded to loudly and smugly tell [Student In A Wheelchair] that she should have just admitted that she was “a dirty little thief” sooner so all of this could have been avoided. Upon hearing this, her parents lost it and the head teacher was eventually dragged down to get involved. After hearing the full story, [Problem Teacher] was finally fired and a full investigation into all of the stolen items was launched. [Student In A Wheelchair] got a full apology from the head teacher, as did her parents, and my grandmother was thanked for attempting to defuse the situation before [Problem Teacher] really did call the police. And for all of those wondering, the thief was eventually caught. It wasn’t [Problem Girl], as some people had still suspected, but another girl who no one ever really spoke to. She would sneak back to the changing rooms while everyone was outside and take random items for the fun of it. She never sold anything, just took them home and hid them in her room, so we got back the majority of what was stolen after she was caught.)