(I am at a theme park attempting to get on a Disk’O ride. The ride restraints on this ride are automatic and come up from the bottom of the seat at the back and rest on the riders’ backs to fasten them into the motorcycle position. We are called off the ride after the restraints are pulled up and released, and I have the following conversation with a staff member:)

Me: “This is what happens when you have GLaDOS in control of the restraints.”

Worker: “GLaDOS? We’re not Aperture Science; our funding methods are much more dubious!”

(I am a volunteer at a local charity shop. We get a few odd customers in who try to get reductions for no reason, but this guy really sticks out in my mind.)

Customer: “Excuse me. How much is this statue?”

(I walk over to where he’s pointing. We sell stock which was donated, along with stock from manufacturers. This customer is interested in a cheetah statue. It is beautiful and rightly priced at £39.99.)

Me: “That is £39.99, sir.”

Customer: “Well, that’s ridiculous! Why is it that expensive? This is a charity shop!”

Me: “We do often stock expensive items, sir, along with our cheaper clothes and ornaments. In this case, this statue has come straight from the manufacturers. It is new, made especially for our charity stores, so the price reflects that.”

Customer: “Oh, right. Well, can I have it for free?”

Me: “Sorry?”

Customer: “My dog just died. It was to cheer me up. Can I get it for free?”

Me: “I’m sorry; I can’t do that.”

(A little later, at the end of my shift, I was talking to the manager and let her know what the guy said. She said she was going to go to Bentley to try the same thing to get a free car.)

(I’m teaching certain classes in my department to fund the final year of my PhD. I go to the department administrator to ask her how many students are in a class so I can fill in equipment request forms for a practical. When I get to her office, our admin is standing in the middle of it looking upset.)

Me: “[Admin], are you okay?”

Admin: “I’ve scratched my new watch.”

(She shows me a smartwatch, and since it was her birthday a week or so earlier I assume it was a gift.)

Admin: “I stood up, and I must have been a bit dizzy because I stumbled into the door and scratched it on the lock. It’s brand new, and I really don’t want to pay over £100 to get the screen fixed. I don’t know if it will be waterproof any more.”

Me: “If you get a screen protector–“

(Before I can say anything else, she shouts, “I have one!” and immediately starts picking at the screen of her watch. A few moments later, she’s picked the protector off to reveal an undamaged screen underneath. Before I can do or say anything, she throws herself at me and hugs me so hard I am knocked back a few steps, since she is a little taller than I am. Finally, she lets me go.)

Admin: “So what did you need?”

Me: “How many student are in [module]?”

(She sits down at her desk and opens the page she needs to tell me that.)

Admin: “You don’t mind hugs, do you?”

Me: “A bit late if I did.”

(I’m not actually fond of hugs from anyone except family and close friends, but she was so happy I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. She gave me the class size and I went to fill in my paperwork.)

This tale’s from a few years ago, and will need a little backstory. I have a multi-systemic collagen defect disorder called hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. To explain it in detail would take all night; suffice it to say that my joints dislocate very easily and, though I’ve learned to put them back by myself, there are some I just can’t fix unaided, the wrist of my dominant hand being one of these, for obvious reasons. Bear in mind, too, that dislocations — whether full or partial — hurt. A lot.

One evening, housesitting for a friend on the other side of my city, feeding her cats, I somehow managed to pop my right wrist half out of place. I knew it was out, and I was alone in the house, but — luckily, thought I — the nearest hospital was just over the road. I necked a dose of my usual liquid morphine, grabbed my walking stick left-handed, and headed over to Accident & Emergency.

It was quiet, so I was seen in about thirty minutes and sent for an x-ray, as per routine. When my x-ray was done, though, the doctor on duty left me to sit — on a hard, plastic chair in a cubicle, that was not helping my general chronic pain, while my morphine slowly wore off — for three hours.

After those long three hours, he finally bothered to come to me, and insisted, in the most supercilious, maddening way possible, that my wrist was fine, that the x-ray showed nothing, and that I should go home. I argued with him for a minute, but gave up. Words weren’t going to get through; that much was clear.

I sighed. Then, I asked him to humour me for a moment and get a firm grip of the hand on my injured arm. He did, not looking too pleased about it.

I yanked my arm back against his hold, hard. I could hear the crack as my wrist went back into its proper position, and so did he. The look on his face was an absolute picture.

I’ve never been back to that hospital since. And if I have my way about it, I never will!

I work in a sales office. One of my colleagues is “belligerent” at best and outright hostile at worst. However, he is good at his job, so it is tolerated, much to everyone else’s chagrin.

One day I answer a call from a customer who explains they have placed a large order by email but have yet to see a confirmation. Of course, they sent the email to the general sales email, which is forwarded to the five area supervisors, all of whom are on the phone, and all of whom may have passed it onto their own sales team, totaling approximately fifty people. I ask the customer to resend the order to my own email and explain that when my coworkers are off the phone I will track down who has handled the order and have them confirm it.

The order comes through, and instantly I can see there is nothing on the customer’s account to show the order has been entered onto the system. I ask around the area supervisors as they finish their calls, but none claim ownership of the order.

Finally, my belligerent coworker slams his phone down, shouts across the open plan office — where people are on calls — that he is dealing with the order, but he can’t put the order on the system because we are out of stock and he needs to find out when we can get more. He shouts at me that I should have known he would be handling the order, and accuses of me trying to “steal” his customer.

He then proceeds to ring the customer and shouts at them for being impatient when they should have — somehow — known the order was being handled. When the customer gets defensive, my coworker hangs up on them mid-sentence.

The customer then proceeds to cancel the £10,000 order. When my coworker tries to charge them a 10% cancellation fee, the customer points out that, without a confirmation, no contract has been formed and they are free to cancel without penalty. Cancellation fees have never been in our terms and conditions, anyway.

Several years later, the customer has a new buying manager who has gotten in touch with us, and we have been slowly earning their business back. My coworker is still with the company, despite repeating variations of the same performance at least twice; however, he now refuses to speak to the customer, who now asks for me by name.