I’ve agreed on a price for my pushbike through an online marketplace. The buyer pays by bank transfer, and I leave the bike outside the front of the house but away from view until you get to the door.

I forget about it until the afternoon, when I get a message from the buyer complaining that it is nothing like the pictures, badly damaged, etc. His claims are so out there, it’s like he is talking about a completely different bike altogether. I go and check, and then I message him back.

Me: “That bike is not the one you bought. You took my wife’s bike by mistake.”

Buyer: “What are you talking about?”

Me: “The bike you bought is still here; you took the wrong one.”

I send a photo of the bike very much still here.

Buyer: “How was I supposed to know?”

Me: “With all due respect, one is a purple mountain bike, and you took a pink bike with a basket on the front.”

Buyer: “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Me: “You can return the bike and we can swap it.”

Buyer: “No, I shouldn’t have to! You should bring it to me!”

Me: “This is your mistake. Please return the bike so we can swap it.”

Buyer: “No, I want my money back.”

Me: “Look, you stole my property. Return it and we can swap, or I will just refund you.”

He refused to do anything to help, and in the end, he stopped responding altogether. Luckily, my wife’s bike was worth nothing, so he actually did me a favour. I sold my bike again; this time the right one got picked up!

My wife and I managed to both buy our daughter a new coat on the same day without each other knowing. I won an eBay auction and she picked one out on her lunch break.

We let our daughter choose and she picks the one my wife bought, so I Iist the other one for sale on a local selling group.

Despite it being new and half the recommended retail price, I get a LOT of time-wasters — people wanting it for next to nothing or to swap for things no one would rightly want.

Eventually, a woman contacts me, agrees on the asking price, and arranges a date for the following week.

The day before:

Woman: “Can we lower the price? I’m a little short on cash this week.”

Me: “Sorry, the price is firm; I explained that in the ad. I can hold it for you for another week, though.”

Woman: “Come on. I only agreed to the price to be nice. I can get it cheaper.”

Me: “Do it, then. The price is firm.”

She sends me a picture from eBay; it’s the same coat, but it’s not in such great condition and still has three days left.

Me: “And? My coat is new, and I guarantee that price will go up.”

She doesn’t respond for the rest of the week.

Woman: “Okay, I will have the coat, but at [slightly lower price].”

Me: “No, you won’t. The price is firm.”

Again, she goes quiet for two more days.

Woman: “Fine, I’ll have it, then. Not worth it, though.”

I do not respond.

Woman: “Hello? Answer me.”

Me: “Not for sale.”

She sent me half a dozen more messages before I blocked her. Fortunately for us, in the time she spent messing us around, the other coat fell apart at the seams. We got a full refund. Her squabbling and my refusing to lose £5 saved me around £40 in a new coat!

I come from a country that has weird expectations of women’s bodies. I have always been a chubby girl. I was taunted my entire childhood for that, and after pregnancy, I have gained some more weight. I have always been on various diets and exercises, and my weight fluctuates like the weather.

I have moved temporarily to London and am clothes shopping one day. It’s a beautiful high-end shop known for good collections of formal clothes. Every design that I like is not available in my size, and naturally, I am upset about it. A shop assistant comes up to help me.

Clothes shopping has never been fun for me at all, so I am apprehensive to ask for help. I am also worried that I may offend her by declining help.

Me: *Timidly* “Umm… I am not finding anything that fits me well.”

Employee: “What size are you looking at?”

Me: “I am not very familiar with the sizes here. Eight or ten seems too small and sixteen and above is a little too big. I am guessing twelve to fourteen may be my size but I am not sure. There aren’t many options in that size range.”

Employee: “Well, ma’am, that’s a popular size range in work attires. This is the middle of summer and peak shopping season; we usually run out of those sizes pretty soon, but I can check our system and let you know if we have any in stock in our store or any nearby stores. If you are sure, we can place them on hold, too. Do you want to do that?”

I was surprised that A) she did not judge me, B) she is happy to help, and C) if my size is popular, then there are many women like me, so I am not abnormally huge! With these thoughts in my head, I show her a few designs that I like and she gets a few of them for me to try on. When I am done making my choices and am leaving with my purchase, I summon the courage to thank her.

Me: “Thanks so much for your help! You have no idea how incredibly helpful you have been.”

Employee: “No problem at all, ma’am! I am glad you found something you liked.”

Me: “Well, that’s the point. I usually never find anything in my size. I have had people mock at me for not being slim. Clothes shopping for people like me is a nightmare. You’ve made it so much easier today.”

Employee: “I don’t know why anyone would make you think like that! Most women I have met are in this size range, but we really shouldn’t limit ourselves by our bodies.”

I got really emotional because of her words. We talked a bit about body shaming and such. I had never felt so empowered about my body.

I am slowly on the path to accepting myself for who I am rather than by what society wants me to be. I maintain a healthy lifestyle and am still no skinny person, but I have stopped worrying about my weight when I occasionally decide to indulge. It’s a long journey of self-acceptance, but thanks to that kind lady who gave me the much-needed confidence. I can never forget her!

I work as an improvements engineer. I spent ten years working on various projects, saving hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost time and waste.

When my company went under, I started at a much smaller company that was desperate for someone to come in and save them some money.

On my first day, I watched a guy weld some parts. He would weld two parts together, walk across the shop to place them, walk back to the other side of the shop to pick up his next parts, and then walk back to his welding bay.

Me: “Perhaps you should move the welding operation closer to the racks?”

Worker: *Very smugly* “We can’t because ventilation is only in one place.”

Me: “Okay fine, but what about moving the operations around? The unwelded parts and the welded parts could be done next to each other.”

Worker: *Scoffs* “You don’t understand manufacturing.”

He refused to listen to me anymore.

But I’d dealt with people like this before. Over the weekend, I got one of the guys to fix wheels to the rack. Once the rack was filled with parts — it didn’t take long to do — he could wheel the rack to his welding bay, fill the rack back up with finished parts, and deposit the full rack at the next op. No more walking back and forth.

The following Monday, I saw [Worker] do his full day’s work in four hours, freeing him up to do one of many other overdue tasks.

I got a pat on the back from my boss, but a few days later, I was asked to go down again, as “my fix hadn’t worked.”

I went down to find that the wheels had been welded shut — I wonder who did that? — so they went back to the old way.

When asked, [Worker] admitted it and told them that he didn’t like being told what to do. The welder was a temporary worker, costing the company a large amount of money, and was shocked when they sacked him.

We later employed a young guy and trained him up. It still took him all day, but he was half the cost. It wasn’t long before he was up to speed.

I used to work doing customer service for one of the biggest UK banks. Despite presenting themselves as an equal-opportunity bank where there were promotion opportunities aplenty, favouritism was rampant. Even though I had been there for over three years, I was still stuck on the phones in one of the lowest positions. I kept seeing people with way less experience getting new jobs or promotions because they were friends or drinking buddies with the right people.

My manager was particularly bad. Any time I would have a secondment or a new opportunity, she would inevitably get it cancelled or find a way to get me back on the phones because we needed “all hands on deck.” I kept getting a spiel about how vital I was to the team and what a great employee I was. In other words, she wanted me to be her lackey with no pay raise.

At this point, I was seriously thinking of leaving. One day, I noticed my pay was massively lower than usual with a HUGE amount of tax taken out, so I immediately called our payroll department.

Advisor: “Hello, payroll, [Advisor] speaking. How may I help?”

Me: “Oh, hi. I think there’s been an error with my paycheque this month. Can you take a look, please?”

Advisor: “Can I take your employee ID, please?”

Me: “It’s [employee number].”

Advisor: “Oh, yes.” *Laughs* “I remember this one. We put you on the wrong tax code and we had to change it, so now you are taxed more each paycheque.”

Me: “Sorry… What? That’s not possible. I gave you all the correct information when I started!”

Advisor: “Well, we accidentally put you on a code where you earn very little tax, but now we’ve changed it back. Just to advise, as well… you might have a little tax bill coming, too!”

Me: “WHAT?! HOW THE H*** DID THIS HAPPEN? THIS WAS YOUR MISTAKE! WHY I AM BEING PUNISHED FOR THIS?!”

Advisor: “Look, I’m sorry, but you paid too little tax. You should have paid attention to your pay each month. I’m sorry, but this one isn’t our fault! You’ll need to speak to the Inland Revenue!”

Me: “You just told me you ‘accidentally’ put me on the wrong code! So, doesn’t that mean this is your department’s fault?”

There was a long silence and the guy seemed to realize he’d put his foot in it! 

Advisor: “There’s nothing more we can do here. Call the tax people. Goodbye!”

He hurriedly put the phone down and ended the call. I called the tax people to find out that I owed over 700 POUNDS! I had just moved into a new apartment and needed the money, so this was immensely stressful and meant that I would have almost zero money to spend for months! Naturally, I was furious, but when I spoke to my manager and asked how to file a complaint about this, she just brushed it off and said, “Tough luck,” and that I “should’ve paid more attention.”

This was the last straw. I stepped up my job search and thankfully was able to find a new position soon after. My manager was very disappointed that I was leaving because she realized that she had lost her servant and now she’d have to actually do her own work. In my exit interview, I was quick to point out the issue I had and that there might be other employees that payroll had done the same thing to. The Human Resources person didn’t look amused to hear this and said they would keep an eye out. 

Thankfully, now, I have found a better career where I am appreciated. However, I did have tax issues for several months afterward which took numerous phone calls to solve!