I work at the reception desk of a hypermarket. For a while, we were allowed to keep people’s bags at reception, but recently we’re no longer allowed to.

When I tell this to a customer who wants to leave their bag with us, they get annoyed.

Customer #1: “That’s ridiculous! I’ve already got deodorants in my bag; I’m not going to make the round trip in this heatwave, and if I keep the bag at the till they’ll accuse me of stealing them. I’m going to leave a bad Google review.”

Before I could say anything, another customer chimed in.

Customer #2: “You know, there’s no point; those are the shop’s rules.”

[Customer #1] looks at him as if to say, “What business is this of yours?”, but [Customer #2] carries on.

Customer #2: “If you leave a review, [Shop Name] might post a reply saying ‘yes, that’s not very nice’, but they’ll actually be praising the shop assistant behind the scenes.”

Up to that point, I thought [Customer #2] was nice, as he seemed to be standing up for me, but unfortunately, he carries on.

Customer #2: “You’ve got to lie and give it five stars, saying something like, “Despite the heatwave, the shop assistant agreed to fill my water bottle even though they sell water – she’s so kind.” Then you can be sure the shop will have a go at the shop assistant because they’ll lose money if she actually does that… And loads of people will come and ask her for water because she’s ‘already done it’.”

Customer #1: “Not a bad idea!”

I checked later; there were two comments like that, probably from these two customers, before I had time to warn the management. Luckily, nobody came to ask me for water for their flask. Unfortunately, I got a telling-off from the store manager because of the “trick”, because the store manager didn’t believe me.

It’s 2011. I’m travelling through a well-known Paris airport. I’ve had a long and tiresome week with not-so-great travel companions. Going through Arrivals, I notice I left my backpack behind on a bench after we had passed customs. I can see it where I left it through the separating window. I spot a service desk, and I go there to explain my predicament. The people there tell me they will send someone round to fetch my bag, and I have to go wait by a customs desk, as that is the only nearby way through the two spaces.

So, I approach Customs. The lady there looks at me like I’m about to commit a crime. Fair enough… this is in the peak of my goth days, and I’m wearing a long black coat and combat boots. So I smile wearily and explain in English to the lady there what I came to do. (I’m Dutch and hardly speak any French.)

Me: “Hi! I’m told to wait here, as someone will be along shortly with the lost backpack that I left on the other side…”

Customs Lady: “SHUT UP”

Me: “…what?”

Customs Lady: *In extremely broken English.* “Shut up! Nice try! Nice try! You try to pass illegal? Nice try! I don’t fall for!”

Me: “Lady, I’m not trying to even get past your desk. I’m just waiting here, like I’m told, for someone to return my backpack to me.” 

There is an empty leather satchel bag lying beyond her, apparently some other poor bugger’s lost item. She huffs, grabs the satchel, and slams it down in front of me.

Customs Lady: “There, you have bag! Now leave!”

Me: “Yeah, nice bag. That one’s not mine though. Mine’s a backpack. You know? Like this.”

I mimic hoisting on a backpack, as this woman clearly struggles with basic English.

She’s frantically pointing her finger to the bag, urging me to take it.

I shrug and have no idea what to do to make my intentions clear to her, as she is adamant about treating me like a criminal of some sort. I fruitlessly try to explain again that people from the service desk told me to wait here. She rolls her eyes and picks up a phone. I understand a tiny little bit of French… enough to know she said something along the lines of ”This b***ch I have here won’t co-operate.” I remain patient and smiling, however.

Eventually I see the lady from the service desk on my side of the separation, with my bag, looking around to find me.

Me: “Oh, over here! Merci! Merci beaucoup.”

Bag safely returned in my possession, I turn back to the customs lady.

Me: “See? Baaaackpaaack. Lost. Now found. No merci to you. Au revoir.”

I rejoin my travel companions, who ask me what the hold-up was. I explain, and they told me it’s no wonder because ”Well, you do look like a criminal.” The way they treated me over this trip is a whole other story, but certainly didn’t help this one.

This story reminds me of another story.

My cousin is small for her age. Whilst studying communications, my cousin did an internship at the SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français – the French state-owned rail operator) in the freight communications department. It was during a period of protesting (Nuit Debout).

One day, she received a call:

Caller: “Hello, there are protesters blocking the tracks.”

Cousin: “Yes, we’ve been informed. Are you concerned about a freight train?”

Caller: “No, I’m a passenger.”

Cousin: “In that case, you’ll need to call the SNCF passenger services department.”

Caller: “I’ve tried, but there are too many people calling; you need to come and clear them away.”

Cousin: “I can’t come myself, but I’m sure the SNCF has called security.”

Caller: “They’re there, there are even the CRS (our riot police officers), but they’re not leaving; you really need to come.”

Cousin: “The CRS are trained and at least armed, even if only with non-lethal weapons. I’m 157 centimetres tall (just under 5’2″), skinny, and completely unarmed. If the CRS can’t get them to leave, I don’t know what else I can do on my own.”

In the end, the track blockaders were cleared away without my cousin having to intervene. Unfortunately, there were train delays, but they were taken to court for obstructing train traffic. However, my cousin had already finished her work placement and doesn’t know the outcome of the trial.

I work at a hospital, and the charting can be a bit tedious, but fortunately, we are provided with Dictaphones that plug into the computer and save a ton of time.

Problem: there isn’t enough for all the residents, and so one day, after yet another morning of finding mine vanished, I finally decide to cross the hospital to the IT lair and ask for an additional one.

On the way from the elevator to their door (about twenty metres), I am greeted by FOUR printed signs listing their opening hours in big, bold, red letters, tactically placed where everyone HAS to see them, including at the right of the door, at the left of the door, and ON the door.

I’m let inside and greeted by a dude who seems to wish to be anywhere but here, and while he fetches my query (while commenting on how he may not have any left, then after finding one that it’s far from new), I take a look around.

The space between the door and the counter is tiny, like, not even two by two metres, and yet I count FIVE signs explaining that to open the door you need to press the button right next to it.

That already is wild enough to make me raise an eyebrow, but then I turn and see two signs with big red arrows pointing at the switch and yet another sign explaining what to do.

When the guy finally comes back, I jokingly ask if they get a lot of people who can’t open the door, and his face lights with a genuine smile (and relief, I think) as he explains to me that yes, every day they get people trying to pull and pull on the door, not noticing the switch with “open the door” printed on it.

And apparently even with all these signs they still get some regularly.

I was half-tempted to ‘forget’ to press the switch on my way out.

In France, students can have different attendance statuses. Some are regular day students, while others are “free day students,” meaning they’re allowed to leave campus whenever the teacher in charge of the last period of the day or half-day is absent instead of staying at school.

One Thursday morning, the notice board announced that our math teacher, who was supposed to teach from 11:00 a.m. to noon, was absent. We had been scheduled to take a test, but when a teacher was absent, tests were usually postponed. As free day students, we were happy because it meant we could leave school at 11:00 am and only come back for our afternoon classes at 2:00 p.m.

However, around 10:00 a.m., one of the school supervisors ran into our classmate, Adrian. He told him that our math teacher had decided to keep the test after all. The supervisor himself would supervise it in Room 103, and Adrian was supposed to let the rest of us know.

Adrian never told anyone.

When the test was supposed to begin, Adrian was the only student in the classroom. Meanwhile, all the students who had to stay on campus—such as those eating lunch at school or those who weren’t allowed to leave during free periods—had gone to the supervised study hall, which is where students normally go when a teacher is absent.

At first, they were annoyed with Adrian for not telling anyone. However, the supervisor said, “That’s not like Adrian.”

Until then, Adrian had been a fairly well-behaved student. He wasn’t an outstanding student academically—he was much better at literature than science—but he’d never been in serious trouble. The worst he’d gotten were a few notes home for talking too much in class.

The students who had stayed at school eventually stopped complaining. After all, the test had gone ahead as planned, and they’d already studied for it.

The problem was that all of us free day students, me included, had already gone home.

When we returned that afternoon, we finally found out what had happened. We went straight to the middle school Dean of Students, who said we’d have to discuss it with the math teacher. She also admitted that the situation was surprising because, in her words, “It doesn’t sound like something Adrian would do.”

When our math teacher came back the following Monday, he refused to believe our version of events. Every free day student—including me—received a zero on the test and two hours of detention for skipping class.

The Dean of Students later told us there was nothing she could do. There was no proof that Adrian hadn’t warned us, and Adrian continued insisting that he had.

To make matters worse, some teachers criticized us for becoming more distant from Adrian afterward. But he wasn’t ostracized at all. The students who had stayed on campus kept talking to him as usual, with only two or three exceptions who sided with us.

After that incident, Adrian went back to being the same quiet, well-behaved student he’d always been.

To this day, none of us knows why he acted the way he did that day.