This is a multi-layer story, featuring both wonderful strangers and a customer not “processing” signs. (To be fair, this customer was ten.)

A long time ago, my parents took my two brothers and me to Paris because my father wanted to go to some professional fair. Before that, we tended to use an RV for holidays, but this time, probably both because of our ages and the fact it was in Paris (“the suburbs”), my parents decided to get a hotel.

We took to the road, and after six-ish hours, we got to the hotel a little on the late side of the day. (It was winter, so it was already nighttime.) And then, the ordeal started.

While the hotel itself was “open”, there was no one to greet us. We were able to go inside, searching for someone, without any results. It was a time before mobile phones when even beepers were restricted to emergency professionals. We tried to use a phone booth but without success. I don’t remember how long we waited and how panicked my parents must have been. 

We waited around and tried to find help for what I think was a few hours. I would guess that it was around 10:00 or 11:00 pm. The people from the house across from the hotel came to talk to my parents. After my parents explained the situation, the family proposed giving all of us a bed/couch for the night.

Even today, I still can’t believe it. They decided to let five complete strangers — including three kids — sleep in their house. 

The next morning, we finally get to the hotel for an explanation. The owner could not excuse himself harder. He explained to us that there was a family medical emergency, and he said he would upgrade us the next day for absolutely no charge at all, doing the grand gesture of ripping up our check. 

Yet, he tried to explain that there was a night caretaker we could have contacted. And then, I chimed in.

Me: “So, that’s what that sign meant that said, ‘In case of emergency, please contact Room 13’!”

Thirty years later, my parents still won’t let it go.

France has recently decided that, for ecological reasons, the receipt should only be printed at the customer’s request. I’m in a health food store at the checkout:

Cashier: “Do you want your receipt?”

Customer #1: “You’re not supposed to ask for it; it’s at the customer’s request.” 

Customer #2: “It’s the same thing.”

Customer #1: “No. Otherwise, there’d be no point. Most shopkeepers already ask for it before printing.” 

Customer #2: “Well, the government wanted 100% of stores to do it.”

Customer #1: “But it says on [Official Website], ‘…at the customer’s request’.” 

Customer #2: “In any case, if you don’t want the receipt, just say no.”

Me: “And in my opinion, they continue to ask for it because, otherwise, customers complain.” 

Customer #1: “It’s normal! At [Convenience Store], they never offer a receipt, so I ask for it because I don’t want them to try and rip me off!”

Me: “So, if you’re offered the receipt, it’s bad because it’s not what the government requires, and if it’s not offered, it’s bad because in your opinion it’s an attempt to rip you off?”

This story happened to my coworker early in his job at our company. He was recruited as a one-man team for a new posting as the company was growing fast. 

At his first yearly appraisal, his boss gave him this speech.

Boss: “I am beyond happy with you. You really went above and beyond, you saved us a lot of deals, and we would really be lost without you.”

And so on, with big (deserved) praises for five to ten minutes.

Boss: “So, I have decided to give you only half of your bonus to motivate you to go even further beyond!”

My coworker told me he considered giving his resignation letter there and then. The only thing that made him stay was that a big part of the job implied a lot of travels at great destinations, but he clearly slowed down a little.

When I was a teenager, I was working in a fast food restaurant during the school holidays. On December 23rd, two boys came in, and I was the one cashing their order.

Me: “And that’s all. Merry Christmas!”

One of the boys suddenly jumped and pretended to catch something in the air.

Boy: “I don’t celebrate Christmas, so I’m sending the wish back to you!”

Me: *Laughing* “But I don’t celebrate Christmas, either!”

The boy then turned around to wiggle his hands in the air.

Boy: “Go, wish! Make someone happy!”

The three of us pretended to follow the invisible wish trajectory before I finally gave them their order and they left.

Now, every time I read about someone getting offended by “Happy Holidays” or something like that, I remember that young children handled it better than most adults.

I studied abroad in Europe during college. After a group trip to Paris, we had a free week, and I chose to stay an extra day and explore the city some more. I booked a hostel based on positive reviews, and a few friends decided to stay in the same place before we went off on our individual travels.

I checked in and was given a bunk in a large, mixed-gender dorm room. Fair enough, it’s a hostel and that’s pretty standard. However, this was my first time sleeping in a larger dorm alone, and the other guests were mostly unfamiliar and older men. More of my friends showed up, and we had enough to book a private room together. 

The new room was just off the hostel’s main courtyard, where all the guests gathered outside the on-site bar. While the atmosphere in reviews had been described as fun and friendly, it was an older clientele than our group of young college kids and already very drunk and rowdy. We settled in but discovered that there was no way to lock the door from the inside; the mechanism on the interior was missing, and the bolt could only be turned using the outside keyhole.

A drunk guest we didn’t know jokingly offered to take our key, lock the door from the outside, and come unlock us in the morning. Shockingly, our group of nineteen-year-old girls declined that offer. 

We were bone tired and lying on our bunks, debating what to do about the door situation, when I noticed a shoelace threaded through the slats of the bunk over mine. We ended up using that shoelace to tie the latching pieces of the interior lock together, keeping the two halves of the swinging door shut. Since it opened inward, we piled our suitcases in front of the door, as well.

We eventually fell asleep while the party in the courtyard raged. Late, late at night, once things had finally quieted down, we heard the door start to swing inward. I was so exhausted that I barely lifted my head when I heard the door lightly thump to a stop. There were no more sounds, so I dropped my head back down and fell back to sleep.

The next morning, we discovered that the old, random shoelace was still tied through the lock but barely hanging by a single thread. One more push and the lace would have snapped, the suitcases pushed aside.

We all checked out with relief, after noting the graffiti in the bathroom stalls (toilets and sinks only, no showers) saying the writer would rather spend a night in the street than another night at that hostel. Where was that warning when I booked the hostel?!

My friends and I set off on our individual adventures. I was supposed to take an extremely budget flight to Ireland, but an air traffic strike meant that no flights would leave that day. I had another day to spend in Paris, all by myself, but I knew there was no way I’d go back to that hostel alone.

I ended up returning to the hotel our group had stayed in during the school excursion, paying six times the hostel rate for a room, locking the door, and taking an hour-long bubble bath to wash off the hostel.