I have an office coworker who does the absolute bare minimum to get by, but they do get by. They finish all their assigned work, to a standard considered adequate by the company guidelines, and they are out of the office the moment the clock hits five. They are never late, never below standard, and never in trouble. I admire him!

The world goes bananas for a few years, and we are all working from home. Our entire team is expected to be present for morning meetings over Zoom. We are all in attendance, but our aforementioned coworker is the only one with their camera off.

Our boss is a bit of a micromanager, a total misogynist, and a transphobic bigot, and has had it out for [Coworker] since day one. Our [Coworker]’s talent for always being 100% within the rules is also a cause of infuriation for our boss – another thing I admire!

Boss: “[Coworker], are you there?”

Coworker: “Present and accounted for!”

Boss: “Could you turn on your camera?”

Coworker: “Why?”

Boss: “Well, everyone else has theirs on. It’s easier to communicate if we can see you.”

Coworker: “Yeah, thing is… I’m naked.”

Boss: “What?! But you’re at work!”

Coworker: “I’m also at home, so… nakey-nakey.”

Boss: “You can’t be naked while you work!”

Coworker: “Why not?”

Boss: “Because… because it’s obscene!”

Coworker: “Yet you’re the one who is asking me to turn on my camera and expose myself?”

Boss: “I… I…”

Me: “Anyway, moving on to the meeting agenda!”

I got the meeting back on track and saved my boss from having a fit. Afterward, an email went out saying that all attendees for the morning Zoom call should have their cameras turned on and be wearing work-appropriate attire.

The next day.

Boss: “Thank you all for joining the call, I’d like to… [Coworker]… what are you wearing?”

Coworker: “It’s a dress.”

Boss: “You can’t wear a dress!”

Coworker: “[Female Coworker] is wearing a dress.”

Boss: “Yes, but, she’s a woman!”

Coworker: “You sure you want to pick that scab?”

Boss: “But…”

Coworker: “This is one of the dresses my wife wears to her office and it’s 100% work appropriate.”

I quickly take over the meeting again before our boss gets himself into an HR incident. I know my coworker was intentionally pushing buttons, but since he works so very hard to 100% be within the technical rules nothing could be done, and thank goodness for that, he keeps the meetings interesting!

Any requirements to have the camera turned on for Zoom meetings were rescinded by the end of the week after he started wearing make-up and eyelash extensions (again, never too extreme to be against company guidelines) and it was too much for our narrow-minded boss to handle.

This story is part of our Even-More-Highest-Voted-Stories-Of-2023-(so far!) roundup!

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When I was in elementary school, the school district decided to spend a little money sprucing up the schools. One thing they did at my school was painting an image of our mascot — a panther — above the doorway to our gym and cafeteria. What we got was a blue… something. It didn’t look cat-like or like any other mammal I’d ever seen.

A few years later, I was in junior high. I went to a track meet being held at a rival school across town. On the side of their gym was the SAME picture as my old school’s panther, just in their school color. Their mascot was a wolverine, but it looked no more like a wolverine than it did a panther.

A few years after that, I was in high school. We went to a band competition out of town, held at their high school. When we got to the stadium, their mascot (a warthog) was painted on the broadcaster’s booth. Yep, same picture, different color, supposedly now a warthog.

One of the local students saw me looking at it with a puzzled expression.

Local Student: “Do you have any questions about our ‘warthog’?” *Using air quotes*

Me: *Also using air quotes* “Well, in [Hometown], that would either be a ‘panther’ or a ‘wolverine’.”

Today a customer learned a series of very important lessons.

One: do not catcall women. Non-negotiable.

Two: absolutely do not catcall women while you’re sitting outside a pub you’ve never visited before.

Three: absolutely, really do not catcall outside a pub when the woman in question is the bartender’s wife, coming in to see him.

Four: absolutely, really, definitely do NOT catcall that woman when you’re surrounded by regulars, many of them off-duty bouncers and barbacks, all of whom love the bartender’s wife because she makes them cake.

I’m the woman in question. I walked past the pub’s outdoor seating, heard the start of a catcall, and looked around in shock – in time to see the dude responsible get whacked in the arm by two regulars at once, while several others stood up to yell at him.

I doubt he’s going to be in again. Such a shame.

(Honestly, he’s lucky the regulars got to him before I did. That would have been lesson five, and he would NOT have enjoyed it.)

We get a myriad of people who come in with pretty bad injuries, like badly broken bones, muscle tears, etc. The physicians see them and say:

Physician: “Okay, we’ll schedule surgery for next week.”

Or:

Physician: “We’ll put a cast on, and you’ll follow up in a few weeks.”

Some patients will say:

Patient: “Um… that’s it? I thought you were going to fix the problem.”

Physician: “Some things take time to heal; we can only facilitate the healing process and make sure it heals right.”

Patient: “But I want it fixed now!”

Physician: “Oh, I’m sorry. My magic wand is in the repair shop today, so I can’t fix it instantly and we’ll have to do this the regular way. Anything else you wanted?”

I have a story about Karmic justice for a coworker of mine, even though it was somewhat temporary. About seven years ago, [Coworker] was in her third year of college, using grants and student loans. She ended up having a complicated pregnancy and had to withdraw mid-semester. Since then, she has not gone back to college. Since she withdrew and did not complete her degree, she not only has to pay back the loans but the grants, as well.

[Coworker] says she wasn’t able to put her loans and grants into deferment because of this. She says she tries to pay back what she can when she can, but she is overdue to the tune of $10,000. But with a part-time retail job, it is slow going.

Last year, [Coworker] moved to a new house, and while she updated her address with our place of employment, for some reason, her W2s were sent to her old address. She was able to get a copy of her W2s, and she and her husband filed. They file jointly but with an “injured spouse.” This is not a physically injured spouse, but a financially injured spouse; basically, it means that the government can only take [Coworker]’s part of the tax return to pay for her student loans. It leaves her husband’s part of the tax return alone.

[Coworker]’s share of the tax return is usually about $1,000, and his share is about $4,000; he is a full-time worker. Well, a few weeks after they filed, they got a notice back from the IRS saying that her W2 had already been filed!

Yep, whoever now lived in [Coworker]’s old place got her W2 and decided to not only file it but file it jointly, hoping to steal my coworker’s tax return. Of course, they didn’t know about her loans, so they did not file with an “injured spouse.” As a result, not only did they not get a single dime, but the tax return went to pay my coworker’s over-due student loan to the tune of $6,000!

Now that’s poetic justice!

I wish I could have been there when the nasty fraudsters found out they weren’t getting back anything. What were they going to do? Admit they committed tax fraud to the IRS?

[Coworker] and I laughed ourselves silly before she admitted that, yes, she did get things sorted out properly in the end. As tempted as she was to let the fraudsters wallow in their own Karmic bed, she knew that not sorting it out on her end would get her in trouble, too. Still, the idea that tax fraudsters tried to steal and instead found themselves paying off someone else’s debt is a story that gives her the warm fuzzies.

And I’m sure the IRS has some pointed questions for the fraudsters, too!