I am a passenger in the first-class cabin — points spent for an upgrade! Woohoo! But unfortunately, my first time ever flying so fancy is being hampered a little by some strong turbulence. One of my fellow passengers has had enough.

Passenger: “This is ridiculous! I pay good money to fly first class, and I shouldn’t have to deal with all this shaking around!”

Cabin Crew: “I’m sorry, sir, but regardless of what cabin you fly in, there’s nothing we can do about the turbulence.”

Passenger: “Well, you should! I pay good—”

Cabin Crew: “—good money, yes, but I feel I must ask, what exactly should we do to prevent the turbulence, sir?”

Passenger: “Fly the plane in a way so that only those at the back feel it!”

Cabin Crew: “You want us to transfer all the turbulence to the back of the plane?”

Passenger: “Finally, she gets it. Why do they have someone like you working the first-class cabin when you can’t cater to first-class passengers? They should have you work at the back where the turbulence should be!”

We’ve recently introduced two drinks that for some reason our customers get confused about, even though one is cold and the other is hot. I’ve changed the names of the drinks so as not to make it obvious where I work, but they’re similar to what I’ve used below.

Customer: “I want a chocolate caramel frappe.”

Me: “So, that’s the chocolate and caramel Frappuccino, or the chocolate and caramel cream mocha?”

Customer: “Why are you asking me that?! I said what I said!”

Me: “Sorry, sir. I ask because it’s a relatively new drink, and we get a lot of customers ordering the cold frappe when they want the hot mocha.”

Customer: “Oh, wait. That drink is cold? Oh, I want that other one, then.”

Me: “The chocolate and caramel cream mocha?”

Customer: “Yeah… that one. It’s a good thing I double-checked!”

As a teacher myself, I am still somewhat flabbergasted about some events that took place when I was in high school. I previously wrote this story about some of it. That day with the surgery and the exam was actually even more infuriating as I had a run-in with the PE teacher who threatened to flunk me for missing class that morning, and only that morning.

The fact that I showed her papers from the surgery that proved that I was in the hospital didn’t matter; I had to participate in swim class the following month to be sure to not flunk. I showed her the papers stating that I was forbidden from swimming for two months following the surgery (inner ear), and she began hurling insults at me like I had PLANNED to have my eardrum collapse. In that case, I knew that she had zero grounds to flunk me as I had all the medical papers in order.

When I wasn’t on heavy medication, I did my best to get some training in, mostly biking to and from school. (I am spoiled enough to come from the town with the best bike lane coverage in my country.) My high school was in the neighbouring town, 15 km from home, so I biked 150 km per week.

My darling PE teacher accosted me whilst I was on my way to PE class. (I always biked in the PE clothes when we began the day with PE as it saved me a couple of minutes, and my regular clothes didn’t get sweaty that way.) She began berating me for being chubby and lazy and “never, ever do anything active”.

I was holding my bike, and I pointed out to her that I had biked from [Hometown] just like I did every day. Apparently, biking 150 km a week didn’t count. Huh. Who knew? I mean, cycling is an Olympic Sport and everything, but it wasn’t good enough for her.

In PE, we had some things we did in Year 1 that counted toward our final grade, and ditto for Year 2. Our classy PE teacher took all her notes about what we had achieved and had a bonfire, which made it almost impossible for us to get our final grades. In my case, it didn’t matter much as I have zero talent for PE, but it was quite nerve-wracking for my more athletically inclined classmates.

She was equally thrilled the following year when I was on antibiotics for eight months, constantly changing to stronger doses, and forbidden to participate in regular PE during my ailment. Instead, I was doing workouts. Again, I had orders from the doctor, but she was not happy.

She retired before our final year, and our next PE teacher was amazing.

Related:
If You Could Grade Teachers, An F Would Be More Than She Deserves

A client approved the final cut of a video, only to rescind his decision and state that he wanted more edits. After a lot of back and forth figuring out what those edits were, he put this at the end of his instructions:

Client: “It is imperative that we have all of this ready to roll by the time of my April Newsletter, which I wanted out by April 10th. So, please expedite this as much as you can.”

The email was sent to us on April 13th.

I use a particularly well-known dating app that allows you to swipe left or right on would-be suitors. I matched with a girl, and my first impression was that she was very attractive, had a nice complexion, and took care of herself, and based on her photos, she enjoyed the great outdoors. Being an outdoorsy guy myself, she ticked a lot of my boxes. We exchanged numbers and went out on our first date.

That’s when her red flags really began showing.

Throughout the entire date at a restaurant I chose, she was mainly on her phone, texting away. In between that, she asked me a lot of personal questions such as my wealth, how much money I made, etc. Out of politeness, I decided not to cut the date short because I also wanted to avoid any potential drama, even though my date was being incredibly rude and obnoxious with her glaringly evident materialistic lifestyle. After we concluded the date, I went home and deleted her number ASAP.

Months went by without any contact whatsoever. I had pretty much forgotten about her up until I got a text from a number that wasn’t saved in my phone.

Date: “I wanted you to know that I am seeing someone new now.”

Me: “I’m sorry, who is this?”

Date: “Wow. It’s [Date]. Don’t pretend like you haven’t been thinking about me.”

Me: “Not really. I mean, why do you think I haven’t texted you since?”

Date: “It’s okay to be mad. Really. But I just want you to know that you can still win me back by taking me here.”

She then sent me a link to a private island vacation in the Caribbean. The price? At least $30,000 per person. I was speechless for a moment.

Me: “Hahaha, tell me this is a joke, please. You seriously think I’m that desperate?”

Date: “If you’re poor, babe, just say so!”

Me: “It’s not a matter of whether I’m poor or not. I just don’t believe that you are worth spending that much money on.”

Date: “Typical broke-a** boy talk.”

For the record, I would not describe myself as poor. I am self-employed and make a very decent income.

Me: “Huh, let’s see for a second. I took you out to [Expensive Restaurant], drove you in my [Expensive Car] because you didn’t want to book a [Rideshare] from your apartment, and paid for everything on the bill that you wanted, which also happened to be the most or nearly the most expensive thing on the menu. Who sounds more poor, love?”

She didn’t respond after that. I sincerely hope that whoever she’s “seeing” now is either incredibly desperate or just as shallow as her. The whole experience put me off dating for such a long time.