I’m a table games dealer. One of the sillier games is “The Big Six”. It’s a wheel with a bunch of numbers with pay-outs on the wheel, and whichever it lands on will pay out. E.g., if it lands on the “5 to 1”, whoever bet that gets five times their bet but all other bets lose. There are two “45 to 1” playouts, but it only pays out on the “45 to 1” that you bet.

My coworker is at the wheel when a player walks up and puts $10 on one of the “45 to 1” bets.

Coworker: “Sir, we have two poss—”

Player: “Shut up and spin the wheel!”

My coworker spins the wheel, and lo and behold, it lands on the other “45 to 1” bet. The guy starts cheering until my coworker takes his losing bet.

Player: “What?! I won! Pay me!”

Coworker: “As I was trying to say, we have two ‘45 to 1’ bets. I was going to recommend that you split your bet to play both; however, the other ‘45 to 1’ bet won.”

A friend of mine calls me in a panic. She has been let down by an agency that was supposed to supply someone to help at her stall, handing out samples, taking names, answering questions, etc. I’ve done this sort of thing before and am not keen to do it again, but she needs the help.

Five hours of traveling and setting up the stand later, I get dressed up and start dutifully handing out samples.

These events are to help companies get their names out there, find interested customers, and grow their brand. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people just looking for a free meal who will take whatever they can, often taking time away from people that could help my friend’s company grow.

Me: “Can I interest you in a sample?”

Attendee: “What is it?”

Me: “It’s a new type of rice cake, very light with subtle flavours of—”

I don’t get a chance to finish my speech as the guy nearly knocks my platter from my hands, trying to grab a handful.

Attendee: “Ugh, I don’t like this.”

He tries to put a load of food back on the platter.

Me: “There is a bin behind you.”

Attendee: “Can’t you just take it?”

Me: “There is a bin behind you.”

It is seriously closer to him than me.

Attendee: “What else you got?”

Me: “This company specialises in rice cakes; I would imagine you won’t like the rest.”

Attendee: “Oh, okay. Got any freebies?”

Me: “No, sorry.”

Well, not for you, anyway!

He walked to the next stand, grabbed a handful, and then moved onto the next. He worked his way down the row, and much of what he took seemed to go back on the plates or in the bin. Unfortunately, I had many more like him, and that’s one of the reasons small companies struggle.

We all have that god-awful coworker who no one wants to work with, right? Mine takes on too much responsibility and then expects me to do it. Because she is bad at communicating, she just assumes I will do it and know everything. She decided she wanted to take over interns from me. Fine, great. Less work for me. I gave her a budget in March with a list of tasks and sent her on her merry way.

However, because she is really bad at communicating, she did not convey anything to the interns at all. It is now May, a full two months after, and one of them contacts me the day before he is scheduled to start. I am not sure why he would contact me as we haven’t interacted before, but he is friendly with past interns who were under me. I direct him to my coworker who is in charge of him, copying her on the email.

The intern also emails her asking about his schedule. She sends some superfluous email out where she tries to lay the blame on me for everything not being set up. He doesn’t have a computer. We don’t have a game plan. The works. I helpfully tell her I have a spare computer that I am placing on her desk for her. I also forward her the proposal that is already approved by our manager — the same proposal I sent her two months prior and she told me on three separate occasions she had read. Our manager is copied on this.

My coworker then tries to call me about “interns things.” I ignore her because, well, it isn’t my job, and I don’t know what she told him. I also know there is a real chance she will yell at ME for the audacity of the intern emailing me, despite, you know, never having a conversation with him before right that second. 

Nevertheless, I do contact our manager to let him know what happened. He tells me to shoot the intern an email to come in anyway and I go home peacefully knowing that it is not my problem.

This exchange happens the next day.

Coworker: “Did you see the email I sent you in regards to [Intern]?”

Me: “Yes, and [Manager] was supposed to call you about it. Did he not?”

Coworker: “So, you didn’t see my email?”

Me: “I saw it. [Manager] said he would call you about it so I didn’t feel the need to respond.”

Coworker: “You know, you really need to be a better communicator. We are a team. We are all in this together. We need to support each other.”

Me: *Pause* “Yes, and I just told you that [Manager] should’ve called you about it.”

Coworker: “About what? You need to tell me about what. You cannot say, ‘it.’”

Me: *Internally rolling my eyes* “The email that you sent about the intern.”

Coworker: “Oh. Well, you need to be better at communicating.”

Me: *Thinking* “And you need to be better at listening.”

This woman really just approached me to pick a fight so she could blame me for her not being prepared with two months of planning. Later, she tried to insist I was in charge of interns, but luckily, the manager shut that down real quick.

My first job is as a busboy when I’m in high school. It’s a small mom-and-pop bar/restaurant that’s sort of the dedicated hangout spot for all the suburbanites of the area.

One notable regular we have is a banker who routinely comes in during the later hours to get completely wasted. He’s sort of the condescending, know-it-all type that assumes he’s smarter than everyone else when he’s drunk, but he never gets too belligerent and he’s a great tipper, so most of the staff leaves him be.

On this particular evening, he’s going into a long-winded speech about how people in the service industry, teenagers especially, are uneducated; when I’m making a run through the dining area with a few empty plates, he beckons me over.

Banker: “Hey, what’s the last book you ever read?”

I respond without so much as missing a beat.

Me: “The Count of Monte Cristo.”

Apparently, that completely takes him off guard as he sputters for a few moments while trying to come up with a proper retort, the bartender near him wearing a smirk.

Banker: “Well, what about before that?”

Me: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.”

The banker frowned and returned to his drink, apparently admitting defeat as the bartender tried to suppress a laugh. Out of all the people he had to come at with that question, he managed to pick the only bookworm in the entire place.

My coworker is the kind of person who cannot be at fault. Ever.

Coworker: “How many licenses do we need?”

Me: “According to the proposal I wrote and you said you had open, three network licenses.”

Coworker: “We need to talk about license types. Do they need to be network or static? They might be working from home.”

I start to say that with the VPN it will not matter, when our boss interjects. As a side note, one of his tics is to say your name three times when he wants to say something important.

Boss: “[Coworker]! [Coworker]!”

Me: “Well— Oop. Sorry.”

Boss: “[Coworker]! May I say something?”

Coworker: *In the voice of a kindergartener tattling* “That wasn’t me! It was [My Name] who was talking. [My Name] was the one who was talking!”

Me: “…”

Would you believe me if I said she was sixty?