I’m working at a call centre. Our company is taken over and our upper-level management leaves, replaced by medium-level managers from the new parent company.

Our terms and conditions of employment are very good, not just for a call centre but in general. The new company’s terms are… less so. Thanks to European Union employment law, they can’t make our jobs redundant because they’d need to hire people to do those jobs and the only people they’d be allowed to hire would be us, on the same terms and conditions.

My boss’s boss has a way around this, however. She just makes all of us very, very miserable. Impossible targets are set. Mistakes as small as typos are treated as gross misconduct. She very publicly conducts interviews for people to replace us, down to introducing the candidates to us and saying that they’ll be taking our jobs because we’re useless.

[Boss’s Boss] introduces a new rule: for staff flexibility, so she can alter our hours of work at will, we must all have our own transport — we cannot use the local buses and trains. I come in by bus every day, but I go out and buy a stinker of a secondhand car to come to work in.

Eventually, one by one, the staff from the old company leave, either on their own in disgust or by being fired for gross misconduct like making typos in the non-public notes fields in the computer system.

I eventually walk out, the last of the old staff, when I’m dressed down in front of everybody for being two minutes late during a snowstorm when I was asked to come in on my day off to cover others who couldn’t come in due to a snowstorm.

Cut to a year later. I’m happy in a new and better job, but I still have my terrible old car. It has developed yet another fault: on starting, it runs for a minute or so and then loses power, requiring the engine to be gunned for a minute to get it working again. I only use the car for trips to the supermarket, having gone back to using the bus for my new job, but I book it in to have it repaired.

While it’s with the mechanic, I get a knock at the door. It’s the police.

Police: “Do you drive a [Car]?”

Me: “Yes. It’s in with [Local Mechanic]. Is there a problem?”

Police: “Were you at [Supermarket] last week?

Me: “Yes, on Tuesday, I think. After work, probably about 6:00 pm.”

Police: “Did you see a woman in the car park?”

Me: “Not that I remember. Nobody specific, anyway.”

Police: “We’ve had reports that you stopped in front of a specific woman and threatened to run her over. She was terrified.”

Me: “Blimey! It wasn’t me, but poor thing. Why?”

Police: “Do you have a former boss that you hate? Someone you’d like to run over?”

Me: “Not that I know of! I’ve had my fair share of terrible bosses, but nobody I’d threaten.”

Police: “Is one of those bosses called [Boss’s Boss]?”

Me: “Umm, possibly. I did have a terrible boss called [Boss’s Boss] about a year or so ago. Well, she was my boss’s boss. Awful person. [Boss’s Boss] Green? [Boss’s Boss] Brown? [Boss’s Boss] Gold? It was something like that.”

Police: “So, you do know the complainant?”

Me: “Oh, it was her? Yeah, but she lives in [City thirty miles away] I think, so… I’m confused now.”

Police: “You saw her and revved your engine at her and tried to run her down?”

Me: “In [City thirty miles away]? No. And also, no, not at all.”

Police: “Well, she lives here now and says you did. Wait. Why is your car in the shop again?”

Me: “It’s got a weird power failure; the engine needs gunning to get it to work, so I’m having it repair— Oh.”

Police: “Oh.”

Me: “So, err, [Boss’s Boss] lives here now, does she? I thought my old company went bankrupt?”

Police: “Yes, after she bought a house here. She’s unemployed and convinced that her old staff is out to get her.”

Me: “Poor thing! She was a terrible boss, but she was only terrible because of the circumstances we were all in. And she thinks that I was trying to run her down?”

Police: “Well, she was in the entrance to the supermarket, saw you revving your engine, and assumed that you were doing it at her and would run her down later as you know where she lives.”

Me: “Oh, bless her. She was a terrible manager, but I’ve not even thought about her once in a year or so. I’m sorry I scared her, if I did.”

Police: “I don’t think you did. I think she was perhaps a bit… Well, anyway, we’ve got other people to see that have been harassing her. We won’t take up any more of your time.”

Part of me feels sorry for her. Part of me hopes she was charged with wasting police time.

I’m doing a study for which I need to interview residents of a few towns and villages who identify as [Nationality] and can speak [Language]. For that, I usually try to contact the local priest, since he usually knows best where to look for interviewees — and, since I’m of the same faith as them, it’s an additional icebreaker with the [Nationality]’s community if I meet them at church. 

I’m in [Town] and have been told that [Town Priest] will be at the church today. As I approach the church, I see a priest walking to his car and hurry toward him.

Me: “I’m so sorry. Are you the priest?”

Priest: *Flabbergasted* “Yes.”

I begin to explain about my research.

Priest: “I’m not [Town Priest]. I’m [Village Priest] from [Village].”

Just… my… luck…

With lots of awkward mumbling from me, the situation was cleared up, and he agreed when I asked him if I could visit [Village], too; it’s got many [Language] speakers, as well. Then, I finally went to the church and met with [Town Priest], too, who was there already. 

Only later did I realize how it must have looked like to [Village Priest]. With me running toward him in such a hurry and asking if he was a priest, he probably thought someone was in dire need of last rites!

I used to work in a small coffee shop, part of a chain owned by a bakery. This was a family business, and our immediate boss was [Family Member #1], who used to work in our shop two days a week to keep an eye on the operations.

Our coffee shop had maybe ten seats, and we had a lot of takeout customers. We made most of the pastries from frozen dough, which means we had to give them time to thaw and rise, and then we filled and baked them and finally applied frosting. They were super delicious, made with lots of butter and sugar! We also served coffee and other drinks. There weren’t any single-use cups or plates. Everything had to be washed — by hand — so there was plenty to do, in addition to customer service and cleaning tables.

Sundays were often busy. Normally, there were at least two of us working, often more. However, one Sunday, several people got sick and I was the only one available. [Family Member #1] called me in the morning and told me to just do my best. She said that [Family Member #2] would drop in later and give me a hand.

I worked so hard! And I did well! [Family Member #2] came in the afternoon, took a coffee and a pastry, and sat down at one of the tables. I had not had time to clean all the tables, so I was relieved and thought that she would help me with that. So, I decided to focus on baking and customer service instead of cleaning tables around her. She sat there for a long time, and then she took some of the cups and dishes from her own table, brought them in to me… and left!

I was disappointed but kept going. The day ended. I was exhausted but very proud of myself.

The next day, [Family Member #1] called me. I was expecting that she would thank me, but instead, she said:

Family Member #1: “[Family Member #2] was disappointed that you had not cleaned the tables better.”

Me: “I was doing the work of two or three people by myself. All day.”

Family Member #1: “That’s no excuse.”

The lesson I learned: don’t work too hard; you will not be thanked for it anyway. Also, time to find a new job.

The lesson she should have learned but never did: it is not easy to replace hard-working people! When your staff is going above and beyond to keep your business running, the least you should do is say thank you. That might be the difference between keeping them or losing them.

My father was the head manager for a small European company, operating on the periphery of a large but declining industry. I’m being circumspect because there’s a non-disclosure agreement I should not even know about.

My father ran all the day-to-day affairs, with the board of directors giving only overall strategic direction. He had been at the company for many years and was quite well paid. However, he was intending to retire and was on the point of submitting his notice in time for Christmas, though he had not yet told the company.

At the same time, it seems that the company itself wanted him to leave because they thought he was too expensive and revenue across the industry was declining, but because of employment law and my father’s contract, it would have been very costly to simply give him severance along with his company pension.

So, the directors made up a fake “gross misconduct” allegation and fired him with immediate effect, obviously to avoid the costly severance. 

My father had been in the industry for decades, working his way up. Originally, he had worked for one of the main employers as a low-grade worker, but he rose through management, migrating to well-paid jobs with smaller companies in the wider industry.

Companies on the periphery are often anti-union, and the board of directors no doubt assumed my father was not a union member as he was a senior manager. However, he had retained union membership all this time. Also, he had evidence that the gross misconduct accusation was false.

He asked his union for help, and they went in big-time with specialist employment lawyers. The company was presumably advised by their own lawyers that they would lose, so a few months later, they gave my father a huge severance payment, a full pension, and a non-disclosure agreement.

My father bought a large second home in the country where the family has spent many happy holidays. He would still have only his small city home if the company had just let him retire.

My boyfriend and I offer sailing holidays. People book a berth in a cabin and live and sail with us for one week. This, of course, means that we actually live with our customers and spend A LOT of time with them in very limited space.

We had a good crew this time. Everyone was getting along fine and the weather was good. There was a married couple among the crew, and they had a very… special… dynamic between the two of them. The wife was very, very dominant and bossy, sometimes even demeaning, to her husband. To everyone else, she was friendly and polite, but she was definitely in charge of their marriage. No big deal; he didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

[Husband] seemed happy, and they gave the impression that they were really in love. [Husband] was in no way dependent on [Wife], and it never came off as abusive. [Wife] was just bossy and the decision maker, and sometimes she was a bit rude about it.

[Husband] did stand his ground on important issues, but he didn’t seem to care about the everyday nagging, and we had the impression that he found it convenient that [Wife] made all the decisions and he could tag along.

[Wife] was, supposedly, the one who liked sailing and she claimed to be pretty experienced. [Husband] tagged along; he’d never been on a boat before but liked the idea. [Wife] didn’t show any interest in partaking in the sailing when we were out. She was relaxing in a corner and enjoying the sun. This is not unusual, but we were surprised because of how she had claimed to love sailing and told us all about her previous trips. Still, it was her holiday and no one is forced to help if they don’t want to.

One day, at the end of the week, the weather was lovely and we were sailing downwind. At some point, we decided to sail wing-on-wing. This point of sail is a bit tricky; you don’t have a lot of leeway and the one at the helm has to concentrate. Of course, it was a bit wavey, making it even more difficult.

Still, the wind wasn’t that strong, and we trimmed the sail so our crew could practise and make mistakes without it becoming dangerous. You can only learn through practice, practice, practice, and this was a great opportunity. The crew all tried, made mistakes, learned, and had fun. [Husband] steered, too. He wasn’t better or worse than anyone else. All in all, he did a pretty good job. [Wife], who had been quiet when the others steered, started commenting and correcting [Husband] all the time with a pretty mean voice.

[Husband] reacted well enough to it; he sort of smirked it away and he really didn’t seem to be bothered by it. My boyfriend, however, decided that enough was enough.

Boyfriend: “[Wife], why don’t you take the helm?”

Wife: “No, I’m here to relax. I can’t be bothered.”

I don’t remember how, but we managed to convince her to try.

It took her thirty seconds to make the exact same mistakes that she had so naggingly commented on when [Husband] made them. We were all quiet, thinking our part… except for [Husband]. When the sails started to flap and wobble:

Husband: *Calmly and coolly* “HA-HA!”

He said it much like Nelson from “The Simpsons”.

You could’ve heard a pin drop. Then, everyone — except [Wife] — burst out laughing. After a week of listening to her boss him around and tell him how to do this and that, this was his small, subtle revenge.