When I was about 17, I was treated for an ingrown toenail. After several tries, the doctor decided to remove part of the nail and the root of the nail so that it wouldn’t grow back.

The doctor prescribed the strongest pain medication he could. A stronger medication would have counted as narcotic. I went home, an hour passed and the local anesthetic wore off. I took the pain medication as the pain got stronger.

Due to brain damage I suffered as a child, my pain reception doesn’t work that well. So, I soon reckoned that something was off, since the pain continued to increase. I double-checked the medication, took some more, and waited. The pain still increased. I was going up the walls.

Now it was too late to revisit the doctor, so my dad drove me to the hospital. Luckily, the emergency room was quite empty. I told the doctor there what was up and he wanted to take a look. As soon as he cut the bandage from my toe, the pain was gone. He reapplied a bandage, put the old one in a bag, and told me to bring it to my doctor the next day.

So, the next day, I was back at my surgeon. He was a cheery guy normally. But as he took the bandage from the bag, he grew silent. His head whole head went red as he calmly excused himself. He went on the floor and bellowed through the whole office for the nurse, who had applied the bandage the day before. He was so loud, I expected windows to shatter. As soon as he saw her, he chewed her out. He was fuming.

Afterward, he explained the problem: the nurse had fixed the bandage with a knot, which was a normal procedure, but in the process, she had placed this knot right on the incision in the nailbed. The pressure applied this way was the source for the pain. No amount of pain medication could have helped against this.

(I’m on my way home and just got off the train. I stop at a bench on the platform to take my headphones out of my backpack to listen to some music. When I turn around to leave, there’s a girl in her early twenties standing in front of me, looking a bit pale but otherwise fairly well off.)

Girl: *unintelligible due to the music*

Me: *taking off headphones* “Pardon?”

Girl: *smiling brightly, holding out her hand* “Hello, could you give me some money?”

Me: *smiling just as brightly* “Definitely not!”

(I then start walking towards the stairs. Apparently, that makes her snap.)

Girl: “Hellooooo? I’M HUNGRY!”

Me: *over the shoulder* “So am I.”

Girl: “I’m hungry and you’re not showing mercy! You owe me mercy! YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME MONEY! I’M HUNGRY SO YOU OWE ME MONEY! HEARTLESS CRUEL C***!”

(She then threw a handful of coins at me that she’d probably begged off other people. I was already about 20m away by that point, so none of them hit me, but they rained all over the platform and the tracks. Seems like she didn’t need them that urgently.)

(I am staying at a large — several hundred rooms — four-star hotel in central Berlin, co-organising a congress for over 800 people. Our crew, including technicians, artists, and the like, could very well be sixty-something people. We almost take over the entire hotel for four days because we have rented all of the conference rooms, and our boss has requested that we get breakfast served earlier than usual — 5:30 — so that we can get to work early preparing everything. Needless to say, we are known. I am twenty-five at the time. I’m my boss’s second-in-command, a translator and interpreter in a foreign country working for a crew that does not know the local language. Through this, I get to know almost all of the hotel staff and I am very much known, too, because whenever something needs doing or taking care of, I am the one to contact anybody else in the hotel, and vice-versa; whenever anyone from the hotel wants anything from us, they come to me. This is the last day, it’s three or four am, the congress is almost over, and the people are just dancing in the main congress hall. I see my boss asleep at the sound mixing table, so I figured I’m permitted to hit the sack myself. I take the long elevator ride and walk up to my room, only to find that my key card is not working. I find my way down to the reception. Mind you, it’s been a very long few days.)

Me: *very tired* “Hello. My card seems to not be working anymore. Could you recode it for me?”

Clerk: *definitely older than my father* “Certainly. What is your room number?”

Me: “Room [number].”

Clerk: “Here you go. Can I get you anything?”

(I pause. At first, I don’t say anything; I don’t move because I am so very tired. The clerk is very, very polite with me. I notice a shelf with memorabilia from Berlin. As is the usual case with hotels, they are all VERY pricey. I notice a small teddy bear costing 32 Euros, which is a small fortune for me at the time, but I want to bring home something nice.)

Me: “Yes. Could I see that little bear, please?”

Clerk: *hands me the bear* “Here you are.”

Me: *looking at the bear, then slowly* “I will take it. Please sell it to me. I will pay cash.”

(The clerk takes the teddy bear from my hands, looks at it, and looks at me, and I don’t know why, but he says:)

Clerk: “I’m giving it to you as a gift.”

Me: *almost too tired to be surprised* “Really? Thank you very much, sir. Have a good night.”

(I walked off, very much stunned. The staff at this hotel were always very, very helpful. I felt the clerk took pity on me because I was so beat up, and he really didn’t have to make that gesture, but he did.)

(I work for a well-known fast food chain. Due to the general law, smoking is prohibited in our restaurant. I catch a customer lighting a cigarette inside the building.)

Me: “Excuse me, sir. Would you please extinguish your cigarette?”

Customer: “Why? I can smoke if I want! What’s the problem?”

Me: “Due to general law, it’s prohibited to smoke inside restaurants.”

Customer: *pulls out his wallet and hands me a fifty-euro bill* “Take this and you saw nothing.”

Me: “Sir, are you asking me to ignore federal law?”

Customer: *puts the bill back in the wallet* “If you don’t want… Just make an offer.”

Me: *getting a bit angry* “Sir, your offer was illegal — just as illegal as it is to smoke within restaurants. Please extinguish your cigarette now!”

(Other customers are turning their faces towards us. The customer walks over to me and leans forward on the register desk, holding the cigarette directly in front of my face. I have to take a step backward to avoid getting burned.)

Customer: *with an angry voice* ”You don’t have to say anything. You’re not the cops!”

(He flipped his cigarette directly into our fryer and stomped out. The hot fat caught fire immediately, so we had to evacuate the building and call the fire department. They arrived quickly. We made a report about this man, and a few days later he was caught. He had to pay the complete damage he caused and went to jail for one year due to endangering people and willful damage.)

(As an occupational therapist, it’s my responsibility to coordinate appointments with my patients, both in the office or in their home. Sometimes I have to shuffle them around to fit them all in, minding their work schedules and such. I’m trying to find an appointment with a patient:)

Patient: “You can’t come before 11:00 am; I like to sleep late. But 1:00 pm on Wednesday would be fine.”

Me: “I’m afraid that’s not possible, as I have already scheduled another patient at that time. How about Thursday, 2:00 pm?”

Patient: “I don’t know. [TV Show] is running at that time. Can you come later on Wednesday?”

Me: “Not really. The whole Wednesday is full; I have patients coming in from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm. I’m not even sure I will get to take a break in between. So, Wednesday isn’t going to work.”

Patient: “Well, I don’t mind you coming in after 6:00 pm. In fact, that would be perfect. But don’t come after 7:00 pm, because it would be too late.”

(I love my job. But I’m not going to work that much overtime, after a ten-hour day, to accommodate your naps and TV shows!)