Four weeks ago:

Mum: “I still don’t understand why you’re getting an induction cooktop. There’s nothing wrong with the one you have.”

Me: “I told you. They’re easier to work with, they cook faster, they use less power, they’re safer for kids, and most importantly, they’re so much easier to clean! I hate cleaning.”

Mum: “But the cooktop you have now is perfectly fine! Why don’t you just change it out when it breaks down?”

Me: “Well then, I’d have to wait years to get all these things that I want. I don’t want to wait. I want to have it now.”

Mum: “Such a shame.”

Me: “I can sell my cooktop on [Website] or something, it’s not a complete waste.”

Mum: “You won’t get much for it on [Website].”

Me: “I’ll get nothing for it if I wait until it breaks down to get rid of it.”

Three weeks ago:

Mum: “But will the new cooktop even fit in the same spot?”

Me: “Yes, of course. I measured everything; it’s gonna fit.”

Mum: “It’ll probably look ugly.”

Me: “It’ll look fine. What are you talking about? If anything, it’ll look better! It’s so sleek and modern and flat.”

Mum: “I think they’re overrated. You know, your uncle bought one, spent so much money on it, and he’s not happy with it.”

Me: “Okay, well, I’m not [Uncle]. I’ve been wanting one for years. Literally, ever since I found out what they were, I’ve wanted one. I’m getting one.”

Two weeks ago:

Mum: “You’re gonna have to change out all your cookware.”

Me: “Not all of it, but yes, I’ll probably have to get some new pans. I’m okay with that.”

Mum: “You know you won’t be able to cook with a wok anymore.”

Me: “…Okay, that’s true. But I don’t use the wok that much. I can get a flat-bottomed wok. Hey, eventually, I could even get an outdoor setup, and I can use a wok there.”

Mum: “…”

Me: “You know, a lot of Asians do that.”

Mum was unable to argue with this logic.

Last week:

Mum: “I just think it’s such a waste of a perfectly good cooktop…”

Me: “Again?! For God’s sake, Mum. I want an easy-to-clean cooktop; that’s important for me, and that’s it.”

Mum: “You know you’re gonna have to clean it after every time you use it.”

Me: “Duh.”

Mum: “You can’t leave spills on it overnight. A gas cooktop, you can be lazy and clean it in the morning. Your new induction one, you’ll damage it if you don’t clean it promptly.”

Me: “And I will.”

Mum: “I mean, is it really gonna be easier to clean if you have to clean it after every time—”

Me: “Oh, my God, Mum, it’s one wipe to clean it. I’m practically looking forward to it!”

Mum: “Well, it’s your house, I guess…”

Me: “Yes, it is!“

Mum: “Such a nice cooktop you’re getting rid of, though…”

Me: *Facepalm*

Today:

Mum: “I don’t know, our cooktop is so old. I really want a new one. I just don’t know where to start.”

Me: “Well, how about I give you my old cooktop? The one I’ll be replacing. Like you keep telling me, it’s perfectly good.”

Mum: “No, that won’t work at all. Yours is a five-burner; you have the kitchen space for it. Our kitchen is tiny. There’s no space to put such a big cooktop.”

Me: “What are you talking about? I thought you guys said you were going to be moving your cooktop over anyway, where the sink currently is.”

Mum: “Yeah, but there’s still no space! I’d lose countertop space if I put a five-burner there.”

Me: “…You’re talking about 30 cm of space.” (For the Americans reading, that’s less than a foot.) “And that’s space that’s right up against the wall. What would you be using that space for, anyway?”

Mum: “There’s no space!”

I go to the kitchen with the measuring tape.

Me: “You want the dishwasher here, right? And the cooktop here. Here’s where a four-burner cooktop would end, and here’s where my one would end.” *Emphasising the tiny foot gap that’s squished right next to the wall* “What would you even be doing with this space? You might as well use it up with cooktop space!”

We go back and forth for a little longer. Then, Dad walks in.

Dad: “The issue isn’t the space. The issue is that your mum wants an induction cooktop.”

Me: “…”

Dad: “Because they’re easier to clean.”

Mum goes quiet.

Me: “WOOOOOOW.”

Mum busies herself with tidying the pantry.

Me: *My voice rising a few octaves* “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!”

At the moment of writing this, I’m more amused than I am annoyed. She’s not gonna live this one down.

The blueberries in my garden are early this year, so today I went out to pick them. The woman across the street decided to come out and lecture me.

Woman: “I don’t like how that netting looks!”

Me: “If I don’t put up the nets, then the birds eat all of the berries.”

Woman: “Oh! You must be one of those crazy environmentalists! They’re so stupid!”

I ignored her. She kept lecturing. When I was done, an hour later, I walked away from her without saying anything.

Woman: “Hey, aren’t you going to give me any? You gave [Neighbor] some yesterday.”

Me: “[Neighbor] asked nicely and didn’t lecture me for an hour about being stupid. Besides, how could you want something that is a product of techniques you despise?”

She gave me a disgusted look and stomped back into her house.

I work as a concierge in a very tall hotel. Our hotel lobby is actually on the top floor and access to all the rooms and hotel facilities is below us. An older guest approaches me.

Guest: “I need directions to [Restaurant].”

I take out my work phone to get directions to the restaurant when the guest sneers at it.

Guest: “Ugh, I hate technology. Your generation is far too reliant on it.”

Me: *Ignoring the comment* “Okay, to get to the restaurant, you’re going to need to take a left when you exit the building and—”

Guest: “What? Just print out the directions for me, idiot!”

Me: “I will happily use our technology to print that out for you, ma’am. Also, please note that our elevator technology to your left might not be to your liking, but we have technology-free stairs to your right you might like to use.”

She glared at me as I handed her the printout. 

She complained and I got a write-up, but it was worth it.

An older man comes into the store.

Customer: “I need to buy my ten-year-old grandson a video game. What do ten-year-olds like?”

Me: “Well, there are a lot of options! Do you know what games he’s enjoyed before?”

Customer: “To be honest, I haven’t a f****** clue about any of this stuff! But his mother wants me to get him a game, and it needs to be godly!”

Me: “Godly? As in…”

Customer: “Something appropriate! Nothing ungodly!”

Me: “Okay, well, we have lots of family-friendly games available.”

I figure out that he has a PlayStation (that is a story in its own right) and start going through some options.

Me: “Ratchet & Clank is a fun platformer that—”

Customer: “No, he’s holding a gun. That’s too violent.”

Me: “Well, Gran Turismo is a racing game that—”

Customer: “No! Luxury cars are a sign of greed! One of the deadly sins!”

Me: “Well, we have this soccer game that—”

Customer: “So he can start to copy the hedonistic lifestyles of those soccer players with all their drugs and prostitutes?! No, thank you!”

Me: “Sir… I don’t think I can help you. Maybe if you came here with your grandson you would have more luck.”

Customer: “You’re supposed to help me! F****** useless! Wait, what about this one?”

He picks up a copy of “God Of War”.

Me: “That’s a pretty violent game, sir, and I wouldn’t recommend it for a ten-year-old.”

Customer: “It’s got God in the title, ain’t it? I’ll take this one.”

I’m just happy to be at the end of this conversation.

Me: “Okay… but I’ll include a gift receipt just in case.” 

The cover of the game has a man wielding a giant axe, but hey, at least it wasn’t a cartoony ray gun!

One of the women in my department is very “nice”. The type of overly fake, obviously performative “nice” that only works on people playing the same game, as well as the terminally oblivious. The type where being in the know and part of the “in group” is more important than anything, even if there’s no “in group” to be a part of. Let’s just say I wasn’t shocked when I learned that her prior job was as “brand coordinator” for a fashion magazine, and that her entire life and livelihood was making connections in a notoriously hoity-toity industry.

She constantly mangles and misuses industry and in-company terms, including peppering in phrases from her old job(s) which don’t apply here, leaving folks confused. She has a terrible habit of using the bathroom for fifteen to twenty minutes both before and after her lunch almost every single day, in addition to normal breaks. She’s never met a conversation she couldn’t insert herself into, regardless of how busy we are. She asks questions randomly into thin air and then makes up her own answers whether or not someone responds. On top of all of this, she has this extremely gaudy fake-wood-and-gold plaque in her cubicle which reads “Be Kind”. Her idea of “kindness” is mostly, “Don’t say or do anything that would get me in trouble, even if it’s 100% my fault.”

This morning, the Head of Operations had a meeting with us in the purchasing department. The number of mistakes, like wrong quantities being purchased or purchase orders being entered with the wrong pricing, has been rising rapidly. As head of the department, I know for a fact that 90% of the issues she’s talking about are directly due to Ms. Nice spending more time during the day schmoozing, gossiping, and turning away from her desk to just chat things up than putting any focus on her work. I didn’t publicly throw her under the bus, and I actively tried to avoid looking directly at her, but every time I caught sight of her, she was just sitting there with a blank, vacant stare like she shouldn’t even be there. I made a mental note to have a private conversation with her ASAP to make sure it all sank in.

About fifteen minutes later — well before I had the chance for that conversation — she had already made another mistake: we needed 250 of something and she’d ordered 25. A simple typo, yes, but this was exactly the sort of thing we’d had an hour-long meeting about, and on the FIRST task she handled afterward, she’d done the same thing. I sent an email to her, asking her to please double-check her tasks before completing or sending them and letting her know that I had already sent the correction through to our vendor.

Thirty seconds later — I guess she actually had her emails open for once — she came storming up to my desk and whisper-hissed at me.

Ms. Nice: “What was that?”

Me: “What was what?”

Ms. Nice: “That email you sent!”

Me: “Did you read it?”

Ms. Nice: “Of course I did!”

Me: “Then you should know what it was.”

Ms. Nice: *Tsks* “I mean, why would you send that in an email!? That wasn’t very kind, you know!”

Me: “[Ms. Nice,] I have talked with you privately three times in the last month, I’ve mentioned it to you on an individual basis dozens of times, and we had that entire, hour-long meeting this morning. We are having between four and twelve significant errors per day in our department, and over 90% of them come from you.”

Ms. Nice: “Oh, it’s not that bad! And when you send it through email, [Head Of Operations] sees it!”

Me: “Yes, it is, and yes, she does. That’s why she specifically said during the meeting that I should do that. So, I did it.”

Ms. Nice: “Well, it was just a little typo! We caught it and fixed it, no big deal!”

Me: “No, I caught it. You sent it off without double-checking it, and because that keeps happening, now I need to take time out of the rest of my duties to double-check everything the group does. Just last week, seven different purchase orders were entered, by you, with glaring and obvious errors, including you ordering 1,000 of something that we’re lucky to sell fifty of in a month, so there’s a full pallet back in the warehouse they have to try to find room for.”

Ms. Nice: “It’s still not very kind! It’s not your job to look over my shoulder all day or anything!”

Me: “I’ve tried being kind. You’ve been getting worse instead of better. And in case you forgot, I’m the purchasing manager; it is literally my job to make sure you and everyone in this department does their job correctly. That’s why my name was on your write-up the last time before this one.”

Ms. Nice: “Well, I would never do anything like that to you! I have too much respect to try and get someone I work with in trouble! I have too much respect to go sending off emails and dragging other people into it!”

Me: “But you don’t have enough respect to just follow directions, or to not take an hour and a half for your lunch break every, single, day?”

Ms. Nice: “I do not! I always punch in on time!”

Me: “Maybe, but when you leave your desk at 12:30 and you don’t get back until almost 2:00, and you’re nowhere to be found in between, it doesn’t matter to me what time it says on the clock.”

Ms. Nice: “Oh, like you don’t take a little extra time in the bathroom sometimes! I’ve seen you!”

Me: “Sometimes. Not every day. And I’m not taking those breaks and also extending out my lunch.”

Ms. Nice: “Well, what if I had a medical condition that made me spend that long?!”

Me: *Raising an eyebrow* “DO you?”

Ms. Nice: “I might!”

Me: “Well then, bring in a note from your doctor and we’ll make accommodations. Of course, that wouldn’t excuse you from having to make sure your work is correct.”

Ms. Nice: “Oh, come on. Do you really think it’s that big a deal?”

Head Of Operations: “Actually, yes, I do!”

Ms. Nice jumped out of her skin; I did a simple if cartoonish head tilt, as I hadn’t seen her approach, either! My boss almost literally dragged Ms. Nice by the ear off to her office for yet another private chat; I’m really hoping this is the last straw of her finally getting her act together, or finally getting let go, a decision that is sadly above my pay grade.