I’m employed by the housing service of a prestigious university, directing inbound students to the best options for their needs. One such student is a boy, who, due to not feeling confident in living entirely alone just yet, has decided to not live in a flat and instead to get a bed in the all-male dorms. I give him all the information needed to start the enrolment process and think nothing of it.

A few days later, I get a call.

Me: “Hallo, [University]’s Student Housing Services. How may I be of help?”

Boy: “Hello, it’s me, [Boy]. I called two weeks ago about getting a place in the dorm, but I’ve had a bit of a problem.”

Me: “What kind of problem? Anything serious?”

Boy: “Uh, yeah, the headmaster, or whatever he’s supposed to be, sat me down after the dorm tour and told me I wasn’t a very good fit for the dorm and that I should go look for a flat.”

Me: “That’s weird. Did he elaborate?”

Boy: “No, he didn’t say much else.”

Me: “Okay, then. Do you mind if I inform myself and then get in touch with you by the end of this week?”

Boy: “Sure.”

And so the call ends. I immediately call the dorm manager’s office, figuring that something REALLY major had come up to tell him he couldn’t get into the dorm. After getting transferred from the secretary, in a few minutes, I’m on the phone with him.

Dorm Manager: “Hallo, [Dorm]’s office, [Dorm Manager] speaking.”

Me: “Hallo, Mr. [Dorm Manager], I have been called by a student called [Boy] [Surname]. He says that, after touring the dorm’s facilities, he was told that he wasn’t allowed to take a room. He told me he has not been told the reason behind it. Is that true?”

Dorm Manager: “[Boy]? If she is what I think she is, that’s not her name.”

There’s a long beat, as I’m confused.

Me: “Come again?”

Dorm Manager: “She was not a boy but a girl. I don’t understand what she was trying to accomplish in trying to hide her breasts and pass herself as a boy to enter my dorm, but, regardless, she isn’t supposed to be here. She should go contact the girl student dorm.”

Me: “Huh? His voice sounded quite masculine to me.”

Dorm Manager: “The voice did, but I guarantee you she didn’t look like a boy in the slightest, neither in face nor in body. I am not going to let some kid’s girlfriend sneak in to live with them.”

Me: “I think I’m going to research this matter a little deeper. Something is not quite adding up here.”

And I hang up. While I’m not allowed to access any files that could be considered sensitive, I do notice that [Boy] sustained the admission exam to university under the name he gave me; if this was just somebody’s girl trying to get a free room with her boyfriend, she would have to be extremely committed.

A couple of days later, I decide to send an email to my boss about it and then call the boy back.

Me: “Hallo, [Boy], [University]’s Student Housing Services.”

Boy: “Hallo, any news?”

Me: “Yeah, I’ve called the dorm manager. He has told me you looked like a girl and rejected you on those grounds.”

Boy: “Uhhh… what? Can he even do that? Can’t I appeal that?”

Me: “I think you should give a call to my boss. I’m afraid I cannot help you with this directly.”

And I give him the number. A few hours later…

Boss: “Hallo, [My Name], do you remember [Boy]? [Surname], the one.”

Me: “Yes, I do. I gave him your office’s number.”

Boss: “I have seen his file and talked about it with him. He’s definitely a guy, no two ways about it. Strike out a spot from the dorm. I will deal with it myself.”

Me: “Okay, if you say so.”

And he hangs up. I receive no information about it for a long time until midway through the first semester of university when I receive a call from [Boy].

Boy: “Hello, it’s me, [Boy]. I’m sorry, and I know it’s quite a lot to ask, but would it be possible to find an apartment now?”

Me: “Hello, [Boy]. May I ask why you want to leave the dorm?”

Boy: “I… I don’t feel comfortable in there. The place is nice and all, but the dorm manager keeps calling me to his office and telling me I shouldn’t be here or that I don’t look like a guy or…”

At this point, silence falls.

Me: “Hello? Are you there?”

There’s a long beat, and then I hear some sniffling.

Boy: “Uh… yeah, I’m here. It just hurts to talk about. Can I get a place in another dorm or an apartment with other people, pretty please? I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Me: “I will see what I can do.”

I decide to get the other side of the story just in case.

Dorm Manager: “Hallo, [Dorm]’s office, [Dorm Manager] speaking.”

Me: “Hallo, Mr. [Dorm Manager]. A student has been complaining about your behaviour toward him. His name is [Boy] [Surname]. May I know what is going on exactly?”

Dorm Manager: “What is going on? She isn’t [Boy]. She literally is just some girl who decided to change her name and gender because she liked football. I don’t care how much she likes [Football Team] or how much she wants to lop off her breasts. She is not a man, and she will never be, and I am not going to keep a woman around my dorm just to please some dumb idiot who thinks he knows better than I do. She either gets out of my dorm on her own, or I will make her wish she had never bothered.”

It all finally clicks.

Me: “Oh, okay, I do finally understand. I will be sure to pass this around.”

Dorm Manager: “You’d better. Goodbye.”

Little does he know, I am not going to communicate that to the poor guy.

Me: “Hello, [Boss]. [Dorm Manager] is apparently harassing [Boy] [Surname].”

A deep sigh comes from the other side of the phone.

Boss: “Jesus Christ, [Dorm Manager] really is the dumb motherf***** I thought he was. You’d think he loves long talks with the rector. Fine, I’ll get to work once again.”

To make a long story short: my boss emailed the university’s rector, who in turn demanded that the dorm manager visit him, and apparently, he had quite the choice of words for him. They started arguing, and then the rector gave the dorm manager his walking papers, replacing him with his direct underling, who was much more diplomatic. The trans boy ultimately decided to stay in the dorm and has thanked me, though, really, he had to thank both the rector and my boss.

This story takes place around 2004, in a pretty big town not far from the regional capital city. At that time, if you were a very good customer, you had quite a personal relationship with the bank director, so I called him one day to let him know I would drop by the next day in the early morning to discuss the state of my business.

The next morning, I pushed open the door to take a seat in the waiting area right in front of the director’s office. From there, I could cant my head and see through the glass door that the director wasn’t in yet, so I just relaxed and started playing with my phone.

I am definitely not the most patient person in the world, so when the door finally opened, I was relieved, but it was not the director, nor was it any bank clerk. It was someone from the cleaning crew.

Cleaner: “Please get out immediately! The bank is closed!”

Me: “It’s not closed. I just pushed the door open.”

The guy looked quite uncomfortable for a moment, and then he confessed that he had forgotten to lock the door after mopping the floors! And he asked me to get out and not say a word about it.

I complied, and when the director arrived a bit later and made a good show of pulling out the keys to open the door, I told him I was glad he was there because I had forgotten my phone on the chair five minutes earlier.

The look on his face was priceless.

I work in a very small three-star hotel. This means a small kitchen, very strict dining hours, and not a lot of different options.

I got the pleasure of serving an English-speaking guest (A Lord or some nonsense) since all my other colleagues can barely put two words in English together. He comes late on the first day but we were warned beforehand and so I had the kitchen leave something for him.

In he comes, almost an hour after closing time, with his two lackeys. Then the complaining starts:

After half an hour of complaining, we get to the desserts. The pantry where we store our desserts is closed up and requires a key to open which I do not have, but they REQUIRED dessert, so off I go trying to find someone to get the d*** thing open.

I finally get a gentle soul on the reception desk that has access to all the hotel’s keys, and I finally get to the desserts. I explain to them we have ice cream and maybe some leftover cake. Both lackeys say they want cake, and the Lord asks for ice cream with nuts and put it into the microwave for a minute. I prepare the most bizarre dessert ever, give it to them and start getting ready to clean, and finally leave.

So of course, they f****** HATE it. They start complaining they just WANTED to know about the cakes, not actually have them, the ice cream did not have enough different flavours (remember, we have very few options), not enough toppings, not enough ANYTHING.

By that time, I have had enough, I just leave them there and go home.

The Lord stayed for a week, requesting out-of-season fruits every morning to be cut up and brought to his room, complaining we did not have a juicer and everything under the sun.

We actually celebrated when they left…

I am a tourist at an art museum in Rome. I am admiring paintings that are hundreds of years old and most containing Christian themes. As I go around the room and look at the paintings, I notice a woman behind me, huffing and tutting, camera in hand.

I notice that she is trying to take pictures of all the paintings containing Jesus, and as I admire the paintings slowly, I keep getting in her way. This keeps happening, and eventually, a security guard notices.

Guard: “Madam, no photos allowed.”

Tourist: *Scowling at me* “I wouldn’t have been so obvious if he hadn’t been hogging all the Jesus!”

To make ends meet while getting my degree, I used to work at a pawn shop as a sort of cashier. Due to how laws used to work, there was a six-month time limit for keeping items, and once those were up, you had three options: pay off both the loaned money and the interest matured on it; pay stocking fees and interests; or let it be auctioned off.

More often than not, people were understanding of this and paid off their payment, or at least didn’t complain about their things being auctioned off.

Most.

One slow day, I was at the till. An older woman approached me with a piece of paper and unfolded it in front of me.

Woman: “Good day. I’m here to pick back up my [item].”

Me: “Sure thing. Can you please give me your ID card and storage ticket?”

The woman started rummaging in her purse until she first produced her driver’s license and then her ID, and then pointed at the folded sheet.

Woman: “Here we go. The first ticket got waterlogged, but thankfully, I got it photocopied the first time.”

I was a bit hesitant, but I decided that it was going to be good enough. I looked at the ticket: the name matched the ID… but the pawn had been done eight months prior.

Me: “Hang on. I’m going to check in the back.”

The woman’s face immediately soured, scoffing.

Woman: “All right, go check in the back if you have to.”

I did go back to the back, where the storage room was, and went looking for the storage guy.

Me: “Hey, [Storage Guy], do we still have [item number]?”

Storage Guy: “Pretty sure we auctioned them a few days ago, but let me check on the logs.”

The logs confirmed his suspicions. I sighed as I went back.

Me: “Ma’am, we sold it some days ago.”

She frowned deeply and then looked at me in a strange way.

Woman: “What do you mean?”

Me: “You haven’t paid off the pawn loan, and you didn’t renew it, either. Sorry, you should’ve gotten the notice about that in the mail a few months ago.”

Woman: *Shouting* “I haven’t gotten any letters! I demand my [item] back!

Me: “Calm down, ma’am.”

Woman: “Calm down?! You’ve just stolen from me because I didn’t get some f****** piece of paper in my mail saying I was supposed to pay some extortion payment!”

Me: “It’s the law, ma’am.”

The woman slammed her fist on the counter, making me back off and the register teeter on the edge.

Woman: “I have never heard of such a law! I want my [item] back!”

Me: “W-we can’t do that, we really can’t. I’m sorry, but your item has been auctioned off. We can check if—”

Woman: “I’ll call the tax police, and you will give me my things back! You can’t steal from me!”

At that point, I knew there was no winning this, and I was more than a little scared.

Me: “I’m going to get the manager; you can talk with him.”

Woman: “You’d better! I’m not going to leave until I get it all back!”

I called my manager, and he told me to go help out in the back. Ultimately, the lady didn’t get what she wanted and left only when it was closing time. The resulting visit from the tax police a few days later didn’t change matters at all. I don’t know if the lady got in trouble for wasting the police’s time!

Related:
Don’t Be A Pawn In Her Game