My art teacher in high school was a piece of work. He was a good artist, but he had a very narrow view of what constituted ‘art’ — anything even vaguely cartoon-ish didn’t count, for example. He also tended to play favorites. For a while I was one of the favorites, but something changed in my senior year and he started to get hyper-critical of my work.

That year I was in an AP art class, since I intended to go to college for illustration. Some of the assignments he gave us were insane, especially for a high school class, but the nadir of the class for me was an assignment where he wanted 12(!) finished pieces, all in different styles, in two weeks. That’s almost a piece a day, and insane when you consider we had all of our other classes to consider, too.

I worked my absolute hardest, and managed to come up with 10 pieces. Not all of them were very good, but what do you expect on that deadline? I got to the class to find that, in spite of my worries over being two pieces short, I actually had the most pieces out of everyone there. Most only had three or four, and a few only had one or two, though admittedly they were all higher quality than mine.

However, I did not get any kind of recognition from the teacher for all of my work. In fact, he continually picked up various pieces of mine and referred to them as ‘crap’ in comparison with my peers, and he didn’t even mention the 12-piece goal that I was the only person to come even close to hitting. By the end I was crying silently in the back of the critique group.

Thankfully, the whole spectacle was so ridiculous that my classmates — even the ones receiving positive feedback from him — stood up for me, and one of his ‘favorites’ spent most of the critique rubbing my back and telling me she was impressed that I managed to do as much as I had in so little time, and that the teacher was completely out of line for talking about my art the way he was. But I do attribute a lot of my anxiety with my art now to that class, and the way he moved the goalposts.

(My parents and I moved to London five years ago, but my much older sister still lives in our home country (USA). My eight-year-old niece is visiting at this point, and my mom and she and I decide to stop at a café for lunch while shopping in our local shopping centre. It is a chain café but we’ve eaten at different locations before and had a decent meal. Having gone in, nobody even looks at us for a few minutes.)

Mom: *signalling one of the servers* “Hi, could we get a table, please?”

Server #1: “Um… yeah… just go ahead and sit down anywhere…” *hurries off*

My Mom: “Ooookay, guess we’ll sit outside.”

(We pick a table outside, and are waiting for a few minutes before a different server approaches us:)

Server #2: “Hey, are you ready to order?”

Mom: *dumbfounded* “We haven’t even gotten menus yet…”

Server #2: “Oh! Um, I’ll get those for you.”

(Server #2 returns a minute later with menus, but before we can decide what we want, the server we initially spoke to comes over:)

Server #1: “Are you ready to order now?”

Mom: “We just got the menus less than a minute ago. Could we have a few more minutes to decide?”

Server #1: “Uh… sure…”

(We finally decide and Server #1 returns, and takes our order. Both my mom and I order dishes that involve two poached eggs, while my niece orders a blueberry muffin, as she is not very hungry and is not allowed to eat chocolate in public because she’s so messy.)

Server #1: *almost immediately after leaving with our orders, comes back* “Sorry… we don’t have any more blueberry muffins left…” *to my niece* “You can come inside with me and look at the other pastries in the display? How about a chocolate one instead?”

Me: “Oh, no, she’s not allowed chocolate.”

Server #1: *as if I have two heads* “Oh. Ooookay…? Well, I’ll take her inside and have her choose something else then.” *leaves with my niece, without my mom’s consent*

Mom: *quickly, to me* “Go with her. Make sure she doesn’t get anything she shouldn’t.”

(I go inside, and of course find Server #1 trying to convince my niece to get a huge chocolate muffin, dripping in chocolate. I intervene.)

Me: “Hey, [Niece], how about one of these fruit tarts? This one’s got apples on it. You like apples!”

(Thankfully my niece is not dead set on a muffin, and agrees to an apple tart. Server #1 shoots me a death glare for some reason.)

Server #1: “Fine. I’ll bring it out with the rest of your food.”

(I go back out to the table with my niece and wait for our food. It eventually comes, but neither my nor my mom’s eggs are runny in the centre. I don’t mind it too much but my mom is a picky eater and takes the plate inside, and tells them that the middle is solid and she wants a properly poached egg. She returns, and soon after her remade food is brought out. This time the eggs are VERY undercooked, almost raw.)

Mom: “Seriously? Come on, they can’t poach a freaking egg?”

(She sends it back again, this time cancelling her entire meal, as my niece and I are almost finished eating and we have a lot of errands to run. We eventually get the bill, and the meal she never ate was on it.)

Mom: *to me* “I knew they would try and charge me for this bulls**t.” *flags down Server #1* “Hi, yeah, I didn’t eat that. Take it off the bill.”

Server #1: “FINE.”

(Needless to say, we didn’t leave a tip.)

(I am alone at the insurance company.)

Agent: “We have a plan if you miss work due to accident or illness.” *gives details* “Would you like the plan for just yourself or for your wife, too?”

Me: “My wife would like the plan.”

Agent: “Okay. We need details on both your work. This is just for accident or illness.”

Me: “Your plan doesn’t cover my work so it’s just my wife.”

Agent: “You don’t work?”

Me: “Just babysitting for family, friends, and neighbors. You don’t cover that.”

Agent: “Yes, we don’t. So what job do you need covered?”

Me: “Junior architect at [Company].”

(Fast forward until the contract.)

Agent: “Your wife actually needs to sign the contract herself.”

Me: “Not a problem, she can come in later.”

Agent: “This one is yours, though. Check over it carefully and sign when ready.”

(A minute passes.)

Me: “Hey. Why is my wife’s work plan under my name?”

Agent: “You’re not the architect?”

Me: “No. My wife is the architect. I gave you all this information.”

Agent: “And she babysits, too?”

Me: “No. I babysit!”

(The agent was very confused but eventually adjusted the plans properly.)

Customer: “I’ll have the chicken club.”

Me: “I’m sorry; we only have ham and turkey club sandwiches.”

Customer: “No chicken?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Just ham or turkey?”

Me: “Yes.”

Customer: “What about a smoked meat club?”

Me: “No, sorry.”

Customer: “Chicken?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Ham or turkey?”

Me: “Yes.”

Customer: “No smoked meat?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “I can’t get a smoked meat club?”

Me: “Sorry. Only turkey or ham.”

Customer: “Chicken?”

Me: “No.”

Customer: “Smoked meat?”

Me: “No.”

(This continued for a solid three minutes while a coworker stood nearby laughing. The customer ended up ordering spaghetti and I died a little inside.)

(I work at a well-known fast food joint which specializes in fried chicken. We sell potato and gravy as a side to go with our popular bucket meals. On this particular day I arrive half-an-hour early for my shift, so I go and sit down and wait until it’s time to clock in. While I’m waiting I notice a customer, leaving the store with his young daughter, drop a tub of potato and gravy on the ground. The girl’s father panics and immediately goes and summons my manager.)

Customer: “I’m so sorry! My daughter has spilt potato and gravy everywhere.”

Manager: *cheerful and smiling* “That’s okay; don’t worry about it. It’s not a problem, really.”

Customer: “Thank you so much. Once again, I’m really sorry.”

(The customer then proceeds to exit the store with his young daughter. I then notice my manager making his way back to the office without even bothering to clean up the mess left behind by the customer’s daughter. As soon as I clock in, I go to clean up the mess, which has since been walked on by multiple customers over the half-an-hour period it had been left sitting there, getting smeared everywhere.)

Me: *sighs*