I was working in an industrial glass shop and started at six am. My manager was supposed to start then, too, but he usually wandered in around 11:00 or so after sleeping in and golfing. If anybody called, we were to state that [Manager] was with a client, on a sales call, or had just stepped out and then call him on his cell.

After I was there about a month, I came in to find the regional manager in the parking lot with a lot of coffee and doughnuts for my coworker and me. He had me park his car on a side street, and he went into [Manager]’s office and closed the door. Around 11:45, [Manager] came in dressed in his golf clothes and went into his office.

Sadly, I had to go on a service call then. But the next day, [Manager] was in at six, wearing coveralls, and was put on the tools.

He lasted about three weeks before quitting.

There’s a guy who works at my place who is 50% in the office, 50% out in the factory — about the same split as me, give or take. When we’re in the office, we take turns to make everyone a coffee or tea (British, obviously). [Coworker] always goes to the kettle and makes himself a hot drink, nobody else. We get on well, but he can be a right b*****d. I started calling him out on never making tea for me when I always make him coffee. He brushed it aside every time.

Two weeks ago, I took an A5 piece of paper, pinned it to the board behind my desk, and put two columns on it, with [Coworker]’s name and mine at the top. Every time I make him a drink, I give myself a point, and every time he makes me one, I give him a point.

When [Coworker] came into the office and saw it, he was instantly annoyed. I was one point up on him (one to zero) before he even noticed I’d put it up, and he was not pleased.

Since then he’s constantly making me cups of tea and coffee and rubbing it in my face that he’s beating me on points. I’m pretending to care about losing whilst getting an endless stream of hot drinks made for me. It’s like having a secretary at work since I put this chart up.

I don’t think he has any idea that I’m the one winning here.

This story happened when I first joined my current company, and while I was not the one who actually had to deal with the problem, I was a bystander and heard the juicy parts from my mentor himself.

Exactly two days before a major festive celebration, we got a call from a user who was panicking because one of his equipment had failed and production had come to a screeching halt. Now, I work in a company that services critical process equipment in a country with a distinct west half and east half, separated by the sea (important as we are based in the western half). The client was a major refining plant for the petroleum industry.

As we normally do, we went through the usual troubleshooting steps — did you turn this on, is this connection active, etc. — but the only answer coming from [User] was, “Yes, yes, yes,” with nothing seemingly wrong. This went on for about half an hour.

Then, suddenly, our boss came in. The client’s head of production had just called him and was apparently livid. It turns out the machine hadn’t been working for more than an hour, and the production was severely interrupted until the problem was fixed.

Now, everyone was in a panic, as every hour the production was interrupted, the client was losing money in the tens of thousands of dollars, and the client had the right to sue us for any damages that occurred as a result of equipment downtime. [Head Of Production] was not happy that their internal team was not able to fix the problem, and [User] was not making any headway in fixing the problem via phone.

To resolve the issue, [Head Of Production] demanded that support be performed immediately onsite. Coming back to my earlier points: one, it’s the festive season, and two, they were across the sea, and traveling was a bit of a problem. But [Head Of Production] said money was not an issue and they would pay anything for immediate onsite support.

Cue my mentor, who was handed the unsavory task of handling the emergency. Immediately, he grabbed his tools and sped off to the airport to grab the next available flight. At the same time, his wife had to pack some clothes for him from home and rushed to pass them to him at the airport. Due to the festive season, [Mentor] didn’t have choices for flights, so in the end, he had to take a 1,000 USD business class flight. Normally, flights to where the client is located cost around 80 USD; we’re a developing country.

Upon arriving, [Mentor] was whisked from the airport with a driver, sent immediately to the refinery, and granted immediate security clearance to enter the plant. (Anyone working in petroleum knows how big a deal this is.) By this time, a good six hours or so had passed since we received the call, and it was well into the night. Greeting him in front of the equipment were [Head Of Production], [User], and various other senior management personnel, all anxious to see what the problem was.

[Mentor] is a guy with no chill, and he was also the one originally speaking to [User] on the phone. He recounted this part, so I’m paraphrasing him.

Head Of Production: “So, what is the problem?”

Mentor: “Wait, let me take a look.”

He started to go through the normal troubleshooting checklists but stopped almost immediately.

Mentor: “[User], are you sure you checked everything I asked you to?”

User: “Yes! Everything, word for word!”

Mentor: “Are you absolutely sure?”

User: “Yes!”

Mentor: “Do you remember what the third thing was that I asked you to check over the phone?”

User: “Why does it matter? Just fix the g**d*** problem!”

Mentor: “The first thing we normally check is to make sure the PC is turned on.” *Points at the CPU LED indicator* “The second thing we check is to make sure the equipment is on.” *Points to the machine LED* “The third thing…”

He brought his hand to a gas control valve and rotated it, a loud hiss was heard as the gas line pressurized, and the equipment beeped.

Mentor: “…is to make sure the gas is on.”

User: “…”

Head Of Production: “…”

Everyone Else In The Room: “…”

Mentor: “I would like to go have dinner now.”

After more awkward silence, [Head Of Production] thanked [Mentor] for his effort and asked the driver to take [Mentor] somewhere for dinner.

You’d think the story ends here, but there’s more!

By the time [Mentor] had finished his dinner, it was well past midnight, so he checked himself into a hotel for the night. The next day, he went back to the airport and found out that all flights were completely sold out for the next four days due to the festive traveling. He called my boss to inform him that he was basically stranded, and my boss just coolly said:

Boss: “Well, [Mentor], consider this as having a free holiday paid for by [Client].”

So, [Mentor] checked into the most luxurious hotel in the area and spent the next four days basically on vacation before coming back to work.

In total, we billed the client for around 10,000 USD for the flights, hotel, emergency arrangements, allowances, etc., all for ten seconds to check LEDs and turn a valve. This didn’t include the losses from halting the production. It’s still one of our most memorable stories that we recount to new hires or clients in our industry. Sometimes we wonder what happened to [User], but he was transferred out of his role not too long after this incident.

For at least the last year — since I went back to this job, but likely before — everyone has been complaining and asking the manager about raises. Due to minimum wage increases, we’ve gone from making $3.25 above minimum wage to $0.25 in just three years. A few employees from a temp agency who were long past their trial period did finally get hired properly and got a small raise, bringing us to $0.75 above minimum wage, but it was still far below what the job was worth.

Then, one day in December, the manager started calling people to the office in small groups. Apparently, the company was selling branded clothing for us workers, and he was pitching them and taking orders. The cheapest thing on the list was a hat that would cost $18, and the next one up was a $44 sweater.

I quietly and politely listened to the entire spiel — I was on the clock after all — until he asked me if I was interested in ordering anything.

Me: “I don’t get paid enough to afford these.”

It’s 2009, and I am an engineer in a factory that is part of a UK-wide group. My boss asked me to spend a year or so at one of our sites, which was an hour’s drive away. My brief was to try and improve the dreadful performance and oversee improvements where possible. Otherwise, it was slated for closure.

It was clear from day one that the place had been badly mismanaged, and a lot of people had been let go, including most managers. However, the factory manager was still there and willing to fight for the plant to stay open.

The nature of the business (involving dangerous chemicals and processes) meant that our fire and safety procedures were vitally important and needed to be tested regularly. The target evacuation time was two minutes and thirty seconds, which should have been easily attainable.

However, due to the bad condition of the systems, many spurious alarms, and employee apathy, in my first test there, it took twelve minutes before we reached full evacuation and all personnel were accounted for. The procedure was to evacuate to the main gate security control room, where a headcount would take place. Whilst stationed in the control room, I answered countless phone calls asking, “Is this real or a drill?” I simply told the callers, “Follow the evacuation procedure.”

This happened each time we did a drill, so the factory manager and I decided to keep doing the drills at utterly random times, sometimes twice or three times a day. Once just before clocking-off time did not go down well. Each time, the calls came asking, “Is this real or a drill?”, and then my response, “Follow the evacuation procedure.”

It took about six weeks, but we eventually reached the target evacuation time, and we did so each subsequent time after. The employees slowly realised how important all this was, and we felt we were getting them to fight for their jobs rather than the previously mentioned apathy.

We managed to keep that site open for a further two years before the inevitable happened and I returned to my original position.

The site is now an upmarket housing estate.