Some of the details of this story have disintegrated over the years, so I can’t do this in a dialogue format, but I wanted all of you to know about HUG AN INTROVERT DAY!

So this was a small logistics company here in Hawaii with maybe forty or fifty employees in a cramped two-floor building near the central business district of Honolulu, just modern enough to say that you worked in a real office building downtown like a young professional.

We’re only a few doors down from the thirty-one-floor monstrosity that is First Hawaiian Center (this will be important). The vibes were good in the building, everyone had a nice working relationship and work got done, but there were a few people that did not like to participate in employee or team building events just because they didn’t like crowds.

No one cared.

They worked well, put up little curtains as a privacy thing in their cubes, and they did good work. Well, as happens on every “oh no” TV show, one of the bosses brought their son in to start training in management. All he really had to do was sit on his hands and gather resume experience to scam some bigger company in the future, but, credit to him, he didn’t like that. He was the kind of person who wanted to work; he had moved out of his parents’ house into a one-bedroom apartment above a shop in a brownstone in Chinatown, and everything.

We really had no problems until he started walking past First Hawaiian Center every day. The company that occupies that building is very team-buildy, very energetic about the whole company doing community events and everyone being friends and “The Power of Yes!”

Not only would they advertise these events for employees, but every now and then, there would just be a mass of people in the same shirt queuing up outside to go to some kind of community event across the island.

Long story short he wanted us to be more like that, but he didn’t have the experience to do that. He was told to figure it out and he came up with “Hug an introvert day” announcing that he didn’t understand introverts and thought they just needed to be hugged and dragged to more social events.

Now, you would hope that our employees would be smart enough not to just take the excuse to jump random people in the office and hug them, right?

Most of them were, but the super extroverts were not.

By the end of the day, the super extroverts and our little management friend all learned that sometimes, when people don’t want to be and are not expecting to be touched, there are violent knee-jerk reactions that can include kicking, punching, headbutting, or blunt force trauma with flying staplers.

That last one also led to some property damage.

I believe we had to file seven employee injury reports that day as well as replace a window for the interior wall of the conference room. Hug an Introvert day was canceled indefinitely for health and safety reasons.

I’m a policeman on a bike. I’m on a stretch of freeway that’s enticing because it is wide, well-paved, straight, and remains a favorite of the department for catching speeders.

I’m sitting around for less than ten minutes before I lock onto a car speeding between lanes, reading at sixty-seven in a fifty-five. It was only twelve over, but I didn’t like his lane changes, so I went after him. He turned on his hazard lights when he realized I was after him and pulled off the freeway into a safe area by the Honolulu International Airport. I got off my bike and approached the window.

Me: “Can I get your license, registration, and proof of insurance, please?”

Driver: “Yeah, of course.”

He hands me an insurance card, a registration paper that looks like it was run over by a truck, and a vertical driver’s license, which indicates he is under the age of 21.

Me: “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

Driver: “Uh…”

He looks down at the gauges on his car, which draws my attention to them as well. The speedometer needle is spinning around wildly in a battle with the RPM gauge. 

Driver: “Uh… o-over fifty-five?”

Me: “Yes… Do you happen to have a valid safety check for this vehicle?”

The driver produces another paper, part of it is missing, but it isn’t an important part.

Me: “This is valid.”

Driver: “Yeah, I go to a guy that doesn’t actually look at anything, I just slide him one of my good friends… Michael Jackson.”

He slides a $20 bill onto his door.

Me: “Sir, that’s Andrew Jackson… not Michael Jackson.”

Driver: “Is it!?”

He unfolds the bill and looks at it closely.

Driver: “Well, I’ll be d***ed, what did I say?”

Me: “Sit tight, I have a tube for you to blow into.”

Surprisingly, he blew a 0.0 and passed the field sobriety check I asked him to do with flying colors. He was also happy to let me search the vehicle, which, despite its obvious electrical/mechanical fault, was immaculate and well cared for on the inside. I sat him back down in the car.

Me: “Okay, first of all, I can see that you’ve been a licensed driver since you had a provisional license at the age of fifteen and a half.”

Driver: “Yes!”

Me: “In five years, you have never been contacted by the Honolulu Police Department.”

Driver: “Correct.”

Me: “So, I’m going to do you two favors. I’m going to give you a warning for the twelve over, and I’m going to forget that you tried to introduce me to… Michael Jackson.”

Driver: “You mean, Michael Jefferson.”

Me: “No.”

Driver: “F***!”

He pulls out the bill again and reads it.

Driver: “Thomas!”

Me: “However, I am attributing your speeding to the issue with your gauges, so I am giving you what we call a fix-it-ticket. You’ll need to fix your gauges within twenty-one days from today and provide proof that you fixed them.”

Driver: “Well, sounds like it’s time to get my tools and go to the salvage yard. I’m sure it’s an issue with the actual cluster.”

Me: “Whatever the case may be, here are your documents. Drive safe.”

The driver thanked me and drove away, leaving me with an interesting story to tell.

Three days later, I decided to look up the citation number for the fix-it ticket while I had some downtime. The notes indicated that the driver had attempted to provide proof of the correction later that same day, which caused an issue because the citation hadn’t been fully processed on our side yet.

The next note was for the following day, time-stamped to almost the minute the offices open, and it indicated that the faulty part had been replaced, the function was restored, and the ticket had been cleared.

CONTENT WARNING: Gross

One of the first jobs that I worked was in computer repair. The company has long since closed down, but reading a story here reminded me of my PC repair days. I thought of many happy memories and one customer story to share here later, but then… then I remembered the most horrible thing I have ever encountered.

When I was in high school, I worked at a small computer repair store in my hometown as a janitor, I have a few stories up on NAR from that time. When high school ended, I left the store in favor of college, but a couple of years later, I returned as a janitor under the promise that I would also learn computer repair. The store had shut down the old location it was at and moved to a built-out storage unit in an area we call the “Tech Park.”

The issue with this location was that it didn’t have a bathroom in it since it was a storage unit, and even though the storage facility had a bathroom open to us my boss was a rather large individual and he decided that the distance from the store to the main office was too far for him to walk.

So, he peed in cups, McDonald’s, Burger King, and any fast-food cup he could find lying around. When he couldn’t find a cup, he moved on to clear storage containers that we used normally for parts. The worst part is that he would then not remove them from the store when he did make the journey to the main office or left for the day. The p*** cups and p*** buckets were left to gather up under tables and on work surfaces outside of customer view. Occasionally, some of these buckets would be used for multiple p*** breaks. I didn’t touch them, even back then, I understood that I did not have the proper PPE to handle this task, but working around them was also difficult.

For some reason, I didn’t leave. Looking back, I don’t know why I stayed. Knowing what I know and being the person that I am now, if something like this were to happen again, I’d leave on the first day.

Then it came, the day I was expecting, I was told to help clean up all the p*** buckets.

I didn’t.

I didn’t say no, I didn’t argue, I just opted not to and silently continued my normal duties, cleaning the shop without knocking over a warm cup of week-old p*** and learning basic repair.

Finally, the owner’s daughter visited one day. She took one step into the back and blew up at her father, demanding to know if he had been forcing me to clean up the p*** buckets. She then put on… not enough PPE at all… and started pouring p*** containers into one large container. The smell was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced in my existence, and I was thankful that, when I offered to help, she not only refused because it was dangerous, but also kicked both of us out of the store.

I’m not sure what she did with what must have been eight gallons of p***, but when I got the text to come back, the store was clear. She and I worked together to clean the shop, and she added me on social media so I could keep her apprised of things before having a very serious talk with her father.

I left about two weeks later in pursuit of employment with another company and began work as a seasonal carnival employee. At the end of the carnival season, only a few months later, I drove back to the storage facility and found the store to be gone.

I loved working at the original store, and I will forever be thankful to the owner and his family for helping me enter the workforce while I was still a high school Junior, as well as for the mentorship and training I received under them… but… p*** buckets.

In January, I was tasked with picking up some alcohol for an event, so I walked into a local store and grabbed a couple of handles. When I went to check out, I realized I had forgotten my wallet at home, and while I could pay with my phone, that left the issue of having no ID.

Cashier: “Is this it?”

Me: “Yes, ma’am.”

Cashier: “ID?”

Me: “I forgot to bring it.”

Cashier: “…” 

Me: “Yeah, sorry. I mean, I’m… obviously an adult.”

Cashier: “What year were you born?”

Me: “Ninet—”

Cashier: “You’re good.”

Me: “What?”

Cashier: “Kids trying to buy booze never claim to be from nineteen anything; they all say 2000 or 2002. They can’t pull off the nineties; people from the nineties are too old for them to pretend.”

Me: “Oh…”

Cashier: “I guess I should double-check, though…”

Me: “Okay?”

Cashier: “I have an annuity and I need cash now.”

Me: “Call JG Wentworth, 877-Cash-Now.”

Cashier: “Sunsetter?”

Me: “Retractable awning?”

Cashier: “You’re good.”

Me: “What just happened?”

Cashier: “Drive safe!”

Me: “Okay…”

A few months later, I went back to the same store, and there was a young girl in the shop. She looked like she could be in her twenties, but it was hard to tell. I got in line behind her as she put several bottles on the counter.

Cashier: “Is this everything?”

Girl: “Yes.”

Cashier: “ID?”

Girl: “I forgot it.”

Cashier: “What’s your date of birth?”

I felt like I could literally see this girl’s heart beating through her shirt. She was also sweating, and her brain lost traction as this verifying question was asked.

Girl: “Nineteen… uh… eighty-seven!”

The cashier gave the girl a flat look and then looked up at me, but I was covering my lower face with a newspaper to prevent myself from laughing.

Cashier: “You seem a bit young—”

Girl: “I’M ASIAN!”

Cashier: “…”

I turned away from the counter to laugh.

Cashier: “No.”

The cashier took the bottles and stored them behind the counter. 

Girl: “F***. I promise! I’m older than I look!”

Cashier: “What AM radio station belongs to KSSK?”

Girl: “KSSK is on iHeart Radio!”

Me: “AM590.”

The girl turned back to me and then looked at the cashier.

Girl: “What the h*** does that even mean?!”

Cashier: “That means no.”

Girl: “F***!”

She stormed out of the store, and I took her place. 

Me: “What if she had known KSSK was AM590?”

Cashier: “The answer still would have been no, but I would have given her a free candy bar.”

Me: “Fair.”

Cashier: “What about you?”

Me: “ID.” *Holds it up*

Cashier: “Very good.”

It is 1999, New Year’s Eve, and we’re an hour or so away from midnight. Working in the hotel means I am focusing on the guests and making sure all the parties are running smoothly.

One of the guests is frantically trying to use the lobby phones (this was before cell phones and internet calling was ubiquitous). They then run over to me.

Guest: “Has it started?! Is it happening?”

Me: “Are you talking about New Year?”

Guest: “No! Y2K! The collapse! It’s already 2000 on the mainland! Has it started?!”

Me: “Y2K? Wait, do you mean The Millennium Bug?”

I had seen something about it on the news and that was how it was referred.

Guest: “Yes! I flew my family and me here because this is the last place that holds on to 1999! We should have time to prepare!”

Me: “Well you can see the news on some of the TVs being played in the bar over there, and they seem to mostly be talking about celebrations around the world. No one seems to be reporting any issues.”

Guest: “I’ve been trying to call family back home and I can’t get through! Are you sure it’s not because of the collapse?”

Me: “Where are you trying to call?”

Guest: “New York.”

Me: “Are you sure it’s not because it’s 4 AM over there?”

Guest: “That might be an outside possibility…”

Me: “I think it might be more likely rather than the collapse of society, sir. I tell you what, if by tomorrow all world order has collapsed because of a computer issue I’ll make sure you can get a free cocktail at the bar.”

Guest: “…fine, but it better have an extra one of those little umbrellas!”

While a few drunken guests did collapse that night, society did not…