I am an experienced videographer who has all the necessary gear. Someone tagged me in a Facebook post where a client was looking for someone that could do a “behind the scenes” video during their movie shoot. It was intended to take almost a week; they needed a person with their own equipment. Of course, it was unpaid, for exposure and experience, but, hey, they would provide food and the ability to capture really good scenes, and blah, blah, blah.

I skipped the post and did not reply, but they messaged me. They said they loved my portfolio and would love me to do this.

I did not want to waste my time, so I replied:

Me: “I am sorry, but I am booked for those days.”

Client: “Can you cancel those?”

Me: “You mean, cancel my good-paying jobs so I could work for free?”

Client: “Well, we promise good exposure and experience!”

Me: “You do realize that if I own expensive equipment and have lots of paying clients, I kind of don’t need exposure, right?”

They kept messaging me, so I decided to troll them.

Me: “Hey, I am looking at my calendar, and I see that I would be free from August 20th to the 27th [two months after their date]. Can you postpone your movie shoot until then?”

Client: “Are you insane? We have catering paid for, location paid for, and other staff also booked for that day. That date is simply not acceptable for us. We can’t simply cancel like that!”

Me: “Yes, that’s exactly my point.”

They never replied again.

I sing with a small band, and we were asked to perform some Christmas songs at the local Christmas market. All was going well until I started on “Let it Snow!”. My accidental spoonerism in the second verse caused some raised eyebrows and sniggers from the audience.

Me: “Man, it doesn’t show signs of stopping, and I brought me some porn for copping…”

Every time I sang the song afterward, I had to concentrate really hard on that section not to repeat the mistake.

This story reminded me of my own petty revenge years ago. I lived on the fourth floor of a tall apartment building in the middle of other similar apartment buildings. The lowest floor had shops, so there was a public parking lot just under our windows.

One evening after dark, when all the shops were closed and those people who were not yet in beds were moving toward them, a car pulled into the empty parking lot. Driver and passengers opened the doors and came out to stand around the car and talk, loudly enough to be able to hear each other over their car’s radio.

I found a small, soft, thoroughly rotten apple in my kitchen. (That can happen when you have relatives who share their harvest generously; you don’t catch the bad apples fast enough.) Going out onto our balcony quietly, I threw my fermented apple juice barely held together by a peel toward the car and pulled swiftly back into the apartment.

There were over a hundred windows facing the parking lot, and a third of them were still lit, so I don’t think that the noisemakers had a chance to know which apartment protested their unannounced late-evening concert. 

I had no idea if I had hit the noisy car or not — the distance was rather big — but before I could search for another soft apple, the car closed its doors and drove away. I found no trace of the apple in the parking lot when I checked it in the daylight.

I got hired by a European governmental agency to do graphics on a video for them. They insisted I invoiced them before the job even started, so I did, and they paid in full in a matter of days.

And that’s the last I ever heard of them. I literally got paid to do nothing.

My guess is they had to spend money before the end of their budget year to justify their next year’s budget, but whatever, I got paid!

We often get to read about people hating their work. I love mine, mostly. I work as a research assistant, so basically, I help people smarter than me (neuroscientists) to create more knowledge. I recruit participants, set up their appointments, run the tests, report bugs, and so on.

No one has ever been nasty as such. It’s just that I recruit from the available student population, most of whom are advanced in the path of becoming clinical psychologists.

One insisted that he cannot follow instructions because he’s got a doctor’s note saying he cannot concentrate, and it gets him extra time in exams. Okay, this is a concentration task, and you knew that, so why did you sign up?

Another tells me she cannot see without her glasses, and I’m discriminating by asking her to not wear them. Normally, we’re super-sensitive and a safer space, but it said in the ad that there would be electrodes near the eyes, and those do not permit glasses. Why did you sign up?

My favorite insisted that I should give her ten times the normal compensation because she has ESP (extra-sensory powers). Girl, if you do, you do not want my little test; you’ll be published in Nature magazine.

Another aggressively demanded that I explain to him what exactly constitutes human consciousness. If I knew, I would not be working as an electrode washer.

With yet another recruit, I started getting really weird data, so I went to check. The participant had stopped performing the task entirely and was messing with his phone — which messes up all the sensitive equipment — on the grounds that he “did not want to and I couldn’t make him”. Indeed I couldn’t, which is why it says on the contract, “Participation is fully voluntary; you may leave at any time.” No need to mess up my lab!

One of my colleagues had a hungover subject throw up on the equipment. (Again, you’re not there by force.)

Otherwise, there’s been nothing egregious, and I’m sure customers are way worse. But these people are your future degree-having clinical psychologists. If your therapist says you’re insane, get a second opinion. It may be them.