This past Christmas, my missus and I purchased one of our nine-year-old son’s Santa gifts from a certain UK sports retail company that also has many stores here in Ireland. It was a football rebounder — kind of like a trampoline that you kick the ball at and it bounces back to you. Anyway, we purchased it from their Irish website and thought nothing more of it.

A few days went by, and we got a notification from the courier company that there were customs charges due on something. As you can imagine, we’d bought many things for the kids, so we had to double-check what we’d ordered. We didn’t have anything left that was being imported, so we naturally assumed it was a scam. I told my wife to call the company and find out who shipped it, and it was a different courier company based in the UK. After a bit of digging and investigating, it turned out that it was our rebounder. They had shipped it from the UK via a local carrier to [Courier Company] to deliver to us.

My wife and I are both on disability. An additional charge of almost €50 when you’re both already on a fixed income is harsh, especially at Christmas, so I told her to pay it and I’d deal with the retailer.

The first day I called, I had to call three times, being stuck on hold for at least twenty minutes each time. I was patient and polite because I’ve worked in a call centre before, so I knew those people were only doing their job, but I asked to speak to a manager and was promised a call back each time that never happened.

The second day was quite similar.

On the third day, I was starting to get annoyed, so I called back, waiting even longer on hold, and finally wasn’t taking this s*** any longer. I told the representative that all I wanted was the €50 back because our consumer rights in Ireland dictate that a person must be informed of any additional charges on a purchase by the final checkout screen at the very latest, and in this case, there was nothing to show that. I could easily replicate that issue by putting the same item in my basket and going all the way to the checkout screen again, and there was nothing saying we’d have to pay import charges.

The representative was indifferent to the situation but tried to “help”, and what he said sent me over the edge. He offered me a measly €20 gift voucher to use on their website, but more importantly, he read a statement to me.

Representative: “We advise our customers that there may be DDU charges (Delivery Duty Unpaid, i.e. customs charges) on any item that gets shipped outside of the UK.”

Me: “Where does it state this information?”

He paused for a moment.

Representative: “I don’t actually know.”

Me: “Well, I know one thing: it doesn’t say it anywhere on this transaction because I’ve checked. And because this is a violation of my consumer rights, I’m going to give your company one last chance to make this right. Have your manager call me within the next sixty minutes, or I’m going to post this entire debacle on LinkedIn and link every senior officer in your company!”

Then, I hung up the phone and waited. Yet again, no call.

The next day, I went on LinkedIn and followed through on my promise. I created a post detailing what they had done by sticking us with hidden charges, mentioning that they were ignoring our requests for a manager, and everything they said and did. Then, I tagged EVERY senior officer at that company from the regional managers, through the European directors, all the way to the CEO, and I shamed them for how they operated their company. This, ladies and gentlemen, was now an act of war.

Shortly after I posted that, I noticed that they took down the item from their website in an attempt to hide this, but they must have thought I was a simpleton who doesn’t understand how the Internet works. They didn’t realise that when you searched for “rebounder” on their site, it showed the item in question, so I took a screenshot of that and then another of the item page that was now “missing”. Then, I did a Google cache search for the same page and found a version from two days prior happily showing the item.

I added a comment to my original post highlighting how they were trying to hide it, with the evidence, and trolling them for their heinous behaviour, ESPECIALLY at Christmas. Then, I tagged and shamed all the senior officers again.

At that point, it was really starting to get some attention, not only publicly, but three people in “incognito mode” had viewed my profile. I wonder who they could have been.

So, naturally, I took a screenshot of the three mysterious visitors listed on my profile and did the same thing: commented on my own post highlighting it and trolling them for their incompetence.

The next morning, I got a call from a senior executive at their head office in the UK practically licking my boots with apologies, asking what she could do to make this right.

Me: “I originally only wanted my €50 back as it wasn’t fair, nor even legal, that I had to pay it, but since I had to go to such lengths to get your attention, now I want my €50 back and a full refund on my entire purchase, and I want to keep the product. That is the only thing that will make this go away.”

Senior Executive: “Give me a couple of hours to fix it.”

Me: “Okay.”

About an hour later, I got another call from her again apologising. She asked for my PayPal address and sent the €50, then she refunded the whole purchase, and she let us keep the product. Obviously, I thanked her for her help because at that stage I was just happy it was over, but I’ll be f***ed if I’ll let anyone walk all over my family, even if they are a £58,000,000 annual company.

The moral of the story here is: don’t take bulls*** from anyone. I may be just one man, but my son’s view of Santa is FAR more valuable to me than the opinion of some retail chain that doesn’t care about its customers or how it operates ethically.

In Ireland, we do a thing called “Transition Year”, a year in school where fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds do work experience rather than study for tests. When I was sixteen, I did my work experience in a childcare facility for a couple of weeks, and everyone was super nice, apart from one mother.

I had a suspicion that [Mother] didn’t really like me that much, and I didn’t know why. She did small, passive-aggressive actions toward me, like refusing to talk to me unless absolutely necessary — and even then she was rude — and going out of her way to make work harder for me.

Then, one day, [Mother] was collecting her daughter. As she was just about to leave the nursery, her daughter asked:

Daughter: “Mammy, why does [My Name] have a hand like a crab?”

I am slightly disabled in my left hand. I was born with no fingers but got two toes stitched onto it. I usually don’t mind when kids ask this; they’re very curious, and I just tell them that I was born with it, but it doesn’t affect me in any way. I’m still me.

Anyway, after her daughter asked, [Mother] proudly and snarkily replied in a louder tone so I could hear it at the other end of the hallway.

Mother: “That’s because [My Name] spent too long on his iPad and never ate his veggies!”

And she shut the door of the facility.

Unfortunately, it was my last day working, so I couldn’t do much, but I did tell the manager the whole story. (She already knew [Mother] didn’t like me.) I don’t know what happened to [Mother] or if she got kicked out of the nursery. Hopefully, she did, though.

CONTENT WARNING: Child Neglect/Emotional Abuse, Nightmare Fuel

People seemed to believe this story I wrote was true, which is good because it is, so I think I can dredge up another story or two about my insane parents from those memories I try not to think about anymore. 

I’ll start with a cautionary tale about what NOT to say to young children. 

When I was three, I had that most common of afflictions for children: believing in monsters that hid in the dark — under the bed, in the wardrobe, peering in the window, or out in the hallway peeking in the door. At the time, I spent the days with a childminder who was a better mom to me than my mother ever was, as both my parents were working full-time, and her family treated me like their own.

Every so often, events conspired so that I’d stay the night with them, on weekends when my parents had to travel to go to some big meeting or wanted to go drinking. They had been working on getting me to sleep in the dark by providing me with a hot water bottle that was also a plush toy, sleeping in the same room as me with the lights off, or using a dim red bulb in the bedside lamp to acclimate me to it. That glorious woman did a lot more for me than that, and I credit her for my love of helping and comforting others, but this isn’t a story about good things happening. 

My father was a military man. He had left the army not too long before this and had carried a number of bad lessons from it. Discipline is all well and good, but you can’t expect a child to sit quietly through a six-hour car journey with nothing but classical music to listen to. Stoic self-reliance is commendable, but you can’t tell a child they’re too big to cry when they wander through a patch of nettles. And you absolutely cannot ever do this. 

I was crying in bed, begging him not to turn the lights off, begging him not to leave me alone in the dark, begging him to at least close the curtains, and begging for something to keep me safe so the monsters wouldn’t get me.

His response?

Father: “You’d better go to sleep quick; the monsters can’t get you while you’re sleeping.”

Then, he closed the door, turned off the hallway lights, and walked away, step, step, step against the wooden floorboards echoing up through the darkness, accompanied by his chuckling, celebrating a good practical joke. 

I didn’t sleep that Friday night. Nor the night that followed. Or the night that followed that.

That Monday, I spent all day asleep on a couch, listening to my childminder pottering about her kitchen, finally feeling something close to safe. I concluded that the only way I could sleep was if I had something to fight the monsters. 

And that is how I spent sixteen years sneaking kitchen knives into bed so I could sleep with a weapon under my pillow. I only recently shook off the rest of that trauma. I spent two and a half decades with my imagination running wild, seeing pale faces and long clawed fingers peering in or reaching around windows and doors, and having repeated pain-filled nightmares about being ripped to shreds by circling teeth as I fell through a pitch-black pit. 

Next time, if there is one, I should probably go into how I ended up paralyzed for three days because my parents were convinced that my illness wasn’t that bad or how they hid eighteen years of loving gifts and letters that my biological mother sent in a locked filing cabinet. Maybe those are a bit too much, though.

Related:
When The Tree Provides The Apple With The Resources To GET AWAY

A customer walks into the repair store and drops off his phone for repair of a cracked screen. He leaves his friend’s phone number to call when it’s ready, signs the work order, and leaves.

About an hour later, the tech calls the phone number provided and leaves a voicemail that the repair is ready for pick-up. At this point, it appears to be a regular transaction.

The customer walks back in after three hours, drunk and mad as h***.

Customer: “Why wasn’t I called on my phone?!”

Tech: *Calm as anything* “We left a message on your friend’s phone because you left your phone for repair.”

The customer looks through his missed messages now that the screen works and declares:

Customer: “Someone has been texting my girlfriend!”

Tech: “We have strict policies against that.”

Then, it gets bizarre. The customer slams his phone down on the counter, smashing the screen, and then rips the phone in two, all the while speaking Russian. This phone is glass, plastic, and metal — pretty tough to break into two pieces.

Customer: “There’s going to be an investigation.”

Our tech pulls a total boss move. He calmly says:

Tech: “You still have to pay for that, and we can have our own investigation.”

He points to the security cameras. Our tech is not a big guy but has nerves of steel. The customer pulls out a credit card, and he processes the transaction. The customer is holding both halves of the phone in one hand.

After the customer leaves, this very nice lady who is waiting for her repair and is trembling asks:

Other Customer: “Should we call the police?”

Tech: “What for? He paid for his repair.”

I worked in a toy shop. As you can imagine, things were crazy at Christmas, with queues for up to half an hour despite all our tills running and dedicated baggers, as well. I was the bagger when this woman appeared. She had no stock with her.

Customer: “Finally! I can’t believe it takes this long!”

Insert several minutes of complaining despite our best efforts.

Cashier: “Ma’am! How can we help you today?”

Customer: “I need [toy from several sections away].”

Me: “There was a whole shelf earlier and I haven’t seen many come through. Were there none there? I can check the overstock.”

The customer gave me a blank look.

Cashier: “Ma’am, did you… look for it?”

Customer: “How am I supposed to know where it is? That’s your job! And I’m not impressed that I had to queue for so long to ask, either!”

Please note that we had a dozen or more workers on the floor, all in our distinctive uniform, any of whom she could have asked.

To make a long story short, this woman had a list of nine things she made us go look for, and she refused to tell us more than one at a time because “You won’t remember them!” On about the fourth item, I found a manager who at least made her step out of the queue, but I still had to go back and forth for her — leaving my cashier without a bagger and slowing us down immensely — and when she had all her things, she tried to barge back in at the head of the queue and looked surprised when another customer dared to tell her no.

Christmas in toy shops, folks!