At one point, I was appointed as a trainer for a nationwide banking company call center. It was my job to train new starters on the phones and ensure they were ready and capable of doing the job. I had known one of the other new trainers previously when I worked on the phones. We had always gotten along okay and never had an issue.

Upon starting the new role, however, her demeanor and attitude toward me completely changed! She seemed more hostile toward me than before. Frequently, she would criticize or contradict the advice or feedback I gave the new starters, even when it was 100% correct. She was frequently commenting that my approach to training was wrong and always appeared annoyed and frustrated with me. I tried speaking to her about it, but she just brushed me off or told me she was too busy to speak!

The lead trainer even noticed her attitude, and from what I can gather, he told her to dial back the attitude several times, but she wouldn’t advise him what the problem was. She left for another role within the company six months later, leaving me slightly relieved that she was gone and that there was far less hostility in the workplace.

It was only after she left that I found out the actual reason she was so negative toward me.

One day, I was chatting with some colleagues and we discussed [Trainer] leaving.

Me: “It was really strange working with her. When we both started as trainers, she suddenly hated me for no reason! I have no idea what the h*** happened; we always got along before.”

Colleague: *Sighs* “Yeah… That wasn’t your fault, though!”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Colleague: “Apparently, she was really pissed off at you because you started a week before she did!”

Me: “What? That’s it?!”

Colleague: “Yup. She felt she deserved to start first for some reason, and it pissed her off, and she took it really personally!”

Me: “You’ve got to be kidding me. All that attitude over that!”

Colleague: *Laughs* “Don’t worry. We told her it was a really stupid reason to be angry, but she held onto that grudge like the plague! Sorry, mate. She was petty as f*** at times!”

It baffled me how a person could be so rude and unprofessional over such a dumb thing. My training sessions went a lot smoother after she left.

I work at a pizza delivery restaurant in a high-end neighborhood. It’s a slammed Saturday night with a forty-five-minute delivery wait at least, and customers are informed that larger orders are taking ninety minutes. We also explain that takeout orders are done in twenty minutes if the delivery wait is too long.

I am getting a lot of angry calls from customers asking about their pizzas, and one customer in particular, who ordered four pizzas, keeps calling.

Caller: “Why haven’t they arrived?!”

Me: “As we explained, sir, we are exceedingly busy tonight, and—”

Caller: “We have company to entertain with no food! We live literally down the street; we can see you from our house, and you’re obviously not working fast enough!”

Me: “Uh… sorry about the wait, but we did mention that takeout was faster and you could still pick them up…?”

Caller: “No! We will wait, but this is just taking forever!” *Click*

I’m going to start this by saying I’ve tipped every single waitress, waiter, and bartender 20% by default with the exception of this one.

I went to a chain restaurant with a friend. We were going to a movie after dinner but didn’t want to spend the ridiculous amount of money on theater snacks. If we ate dinner right before, we wouldn’t need movie snacks. Since it was hot out, being the middle of summer, I was wearing a tanktop that exposed a tattoo of the number 13, which looks like one of the 13s commonly gotten by MS-13 gang members. I’ve gotten weird looks about it before.

We got seated at a table. The hostess had no reaction to this tattoo or my two others. The waitress came up, got our drink order, and walked away. As she did, she passed our table on my right and saw the tattoo. She clearly reacted to it.

Ten minutes later, she brought our drinks and left without immediately taking the food order. She came back fifteen minutes later for the food order. Our drinks were completely empty and didn’t get refilled a single time.

We eventually finished our plates and the plates remained on the table for about twenty minutes, around forty-five minutes since we’d last seen the waitress.

My dad was a bartender and/or a waiter for many years, and one of my siblings was also a waitress. I figured our waitress might be struggling to keep up with what I would consider a busy non-holiday dinner service.

Nope, not at all. I spent the entire time watching this girl while watching other diners finish their food, pay, and leave. The tables would quickly be reseated. I watched this waitress start walking into our section, look at our table, and then intentionally avoid serving our table. All of this over a tattoo. The only one gang-related on my entire body.

The manager got a very detailed complaint about how this girl was not only avoiding our table but about how I watched every other table in our section be turned over at least twice if not three times in the time we’d been there. Our meal was free. No tip was left for the waitress.

This restaurant was around six blocks from my friend’s home. According to her, whenever the manager spotted her after that day, she got the best service the restaurant could possibly offer. That waitress was also nowhere to be seen.

Customer: “You need to fix my Kindle! It’s not connected to the Internet!”

She hands me her Kindle, and I connect to the store’s Wi-Fi without issue.

Me: “It seems to be working fine, ma’am.”

Customer: “Yes, because you’re on the Internet in the store! But I want it to have the Internet when I leave.”

Me: “This is a Wi-Fi-only model, ma’am. You would need a cellular model to have that feature.”

Customer: “No! I don’t want to have to plug it in. I want to connect it once, download the Internet, and be able to carry it with me.”

Me: “You want the entire Internet inside your Kindle?”

Customer: “Yes, I want to be able to take it everywhere I go, but I don’t want the fuss of logging into it all the time.”

Me: “The Internet is too big to fit into your Kindle, ma’am.”

Customer: “Then sell me one that will fit! Honestly, you’re meant to provide solutions, but I’m doing all the work!”

I am the oldest of three kids; my brother and sister (twins) are no less than ten years younger than me. Naturally, as soon as I was old enough to be trusted in the house alone, I was expected to babysit my siblings whenever my parents were out of the house.

After a couple of years, I came to resent my parents for constantly announcing their nights out at the last minute, given that I was a teenage boy who had made friends, found a girl I liked, and could not safely plan to hang out with them because my parents might suddenly decide I was babysitting.

Fast-forward to a couple of years after I graduate. That girl I liked has become my girlfriend, proposed to me, and asked me to move home with her to Japan, to which I have replied with an emphatic yes. There are cheers and tears and snot from everyone we tell about this in the month between the rings and the wings. I am gradually meeting her extended family, getting used to life in Japan, and generally thinking I might want to live the rest of my life here.

My cell phone rings; it’s my father.

I stare at my phone for the whole ring cycle, distinctly remembering that I told everyone back in Canada to text me once I’m overseas. Have I missed a message? No, there’s nothing waiting.

Almost as soon as the ringtone stops, my phone rings again, and this time it’s my mother. I answer the phone, REALLY hoping this isn’t what I think it is.

Mother: “Hey, [My Name]. Why didn’t you answer your dad?”

Me: “Why the h*** are you two calling me?”

Mother: “We’re going out tonight. I need you to watch [Brother] and [Sister].”

Me: “I beg your… what?! I can’t babysit!”

Mother: “Well, why not?”

Me: “I’M IN JAPAN, YOU STUPID S***! I told you up and down for a month that [Fiancée] and I were moving to Japan! I can’t just come over to watch the kids on a whim anymore!”

Mother: “But we’ve got reservations for [Fancy Restaurant]!”

Me: “Then hire a babysitter! Or take them with you! Or cancel! Just make plans instead of expecting me to drop mine at the last minute because I physically can’t anymore!”

I hung up on her and turned to my fiancée to find her glaring at my phone with IMMENSE disapproval.

There were several months between that conversation and the wedding, during which time I was treated to several missed calls from my parents — because I stopped answering the phone when they tried to call me — and numerous texts demeaning me for “acting like your tourism is more important than taking care of your siblings”.

My parents were NOT invited to the wedding.

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