A few months after I start my first ever job — basically data entry, filing, and answering the phones in an accounts office — the finance director decides that she doesn’t like my phone answering manner. Rather than explaining this to me, she hires someone to work alongside me who has far more experience in the role.

This achieves nothing. The new hire is a grumpy woman who refuses to answer the phone, as the company is short of cash and almost every call is a supplier screaming for payment. I end up covering pretty much the whole role until a new accountant is taken on to replace the previous one, who had been driven into a nervous breakdown by the finance director disagreeing with everything she did. He is far more involved in the day-to-day running of the office, has a backbone, and makes sure to divide the tasks up in a more even manner.

However, rather than completing her share of the tasks, my colleague does the bits she is assigned directly by the finance director and ignores pretty much anything else. As a result, a moderately strange set of direct debits end up not being posted for months. A car manufacturer was taking the net cost of each car sold to us on a single direct debit and the total of all the VAT on all invoices for one day as another one. So, every day, you had one more debit than invoices from exactly seven days earlier. That’s slightly weird but not impossible to track, unless you are my colleague.

Eventually, my boss gives up on getting the finance director’s pet to do her job and asks me to work with him to process all these ignored payments. We work on it continuously, tracking down missing invoices, and we eventually get almost everything completed. The fun starts when, after nearly two days of doing someone else’s job, I return to my own desk, next to my grumpy colleague. 

The moment I enter the main accounts office, she starts screaming at me.

Grumpy Colleague: “Where have you been for two days?! How dare you leave me to answer the phones all alone?!”

You know, the job she was hired for in the first place.

I turn around, walk back into my boss’s office next door, where he is sitting perhaps ten feet away from the screaming. The two rooms are connected by an open window through which my grumpy colleague has been able to see me working on her job beside her direct boss for the past two days.

Me: “I’m going home, or I’ll do something I’ll regret.”

Boss: *Laughs* “Go ahead and leave for the day.”

As I was heading out the door, I heard him loudly asking my colleague to come into his office for a quick word. She pretty much never spoke to me again, something that was definitely a benefit.

The company went into receivership a few months later; the family owning it was still spending the money faster than it could generate it. Guess who was the first person the receivers let go, and who was the only person on the accounts team to be kept on by any of the companies that bought parts of the old business? My old boss eventually joined me, and I worked with him for another decade after that.

Several members of my mum’s family are visiting our house for the day and my parents decide to get fish and chips. One of my aunts has celiac disease and, as such, my mum orders from one place that recently advertised having gluten-free items. My mum calls ahead, as well, to make sure they cook the gluten-free food in separate fryers. My parents go to pick up our relatives while I am sent to pay and pick up the food. I end up arriving a little early.

Me: “Hello, my mother placed an order under [Mother]. Sorry if I’m a little early.”

Server: “No problem. It’s just going to be a while for the gluten-free ones.”

I sit down and wait, playing on my phone. Eventually, he bags up all the other orders and places them under the heat lamp. I watch as he picks out a bag of chips and dumps them into the same fryer he got the other chips from.

Me: “Excuse me… Are those the gluten-free chips?”

Server: “Yes, they are, love.”

Me: “And isn’t that the same fryer as the one you got the other chips from?”

The serve talks slowly as if I’m dumb.

Server: “Don’t worry. I already took all the other chips out.”

Me: “But my mum said you told her over the phone that you use a separate fryer.”

Server: “This is separate. I took the other chips out.”

Me: “But it will still have residue from the regular chips and the oil will be the same!”

Server: *Chuckling* “So what? It’s not gonna do any harm.”

Me: “The person who it is for has celiac and she will get sick from it. So yes, it will cause harm!”

Server: “Look, love. It’s fine. Just don’t tell her. She won’t notice.”

Giving up arguing with him, I end up calling my mum. She just tells me we aren’t leaving my aunt out, so I should just leave. I hear the server yelling as I go. When I get home, my mum starts asking around to figure out what we are going to do about lunch instead. The phone rings and my mum picks it up. I only hear her side of the conversation.

Mum: “Hello.” *Pause* “Yes, my daughter did.” *Pause* “No, I don’t have any plans to pay for it.” *Pause* “You told me that you used a separate fryer for the gluten-free chips.” *Pause* “No, that isn’t good enough. My sister could have gotten really sick if she had eaten them.” *Pause* “Kindly Google celiac disease.” *Pause* “I don’t care if you have to throw it all out. You lied to me about cooking them separately and it is just luckily my daughter noticed.”

After that point, the guy on the other end just descended into screaming loudly and my mum kept trying to cut in until, eventually, she hung up.

We found another chippy that actually did gluten-free properly. The lying chippy kept trying to call us with threats if we didn’t pay for the food I didn’t pick up. Eventually, they gave up as we kept ignoring them. The place is still open, although I noticed they very quickly stopped offering gluten-free options.

My husband and I were living temporarily with my parents when I had my third child by cesarean after a high-risk pregnancy. She was born a little premature (36.5 weeks) but healthy. I couldn’t say the same for me; I had acute bronchitis that led to severe coughing fits anytime I even considered laying down. 

Between the coughing and surgery, taking care of the newborn, and being unable to lie down to sleep, I was basically a complete zombie for the first month and lived on the couch so I could sleep sitting up. My husband did try to help with the older kids, but he had to work full time and couldn’t be there all day. My dad also worked, but my mom was retired and had nothing outside of the house to do, so she was there all the time to “help out”. In theory. But she has always treated everyone like their problems weren’t as important as her problems.

My one-week-old was asleep on my chest and I was trying to get some desperately needed sleep myself when my mom came loudly stomping into the room. I opened my eyes to see her pulling my five-year-old along with her.

Mom: “You need to go look at the mess your daughter just made! Her crayons are everywhere!” 

Me: “So? Just ask her to pick them up. [Daughter], can you please pick up your crayons?” 

[Daughter] nodded and skipped back to her room, and I tried to close my eyes again.

Mom: “No, you need to see this! She broke her crayons into pieces! On the carpet!”

I rolled my eyes and very carefully stood up from the couch, trying not to pull on my stitches or wake the baby. Then, I slowly followed my mom into the back room while she ranted about having to get crayon out of the carpet.

Mom: “See?! It’s everywhere!” 

There were a dozen or so crayons with the paper torn off and broken into pieces, most of which were on the notebook my daughter had been using, but yes, some of it was ground into the carpet. My mom then walked off — I assumed to get a trash bag — so I told my daughter it wasn’t nice to make messes and asked her to help Grandma pick up the pieces.

When my mom returned, she actually had a hot washrag and a bottle of carpet cleaner, which seemed reasonable, so I turned to head back to the living room. But before I could react, she put the cleaning supplies down on the floor, grabbed my sleeping newborn from my arms, and flounced back to the living room, shouting over her shoulder:

Mom: “She’s your daughter, so you get to clean it up!” 

I was too exhausted to fight it, so I just got down and cleaned. This, of course, caused a coughing fit, which pulled on my stitches, which made my eyes water from the pain, which caused my five-year-old to ask why I was crying. By the time I had finished, the baby was awake, so I didn’t get to nap, either. I ignored my mom for the rest of the day out of spite.

Later, when my dad and my husband each got home from work, my mom, of course, went on and on about the “horrible” mess that was made and how hard it is to get out of carpet, saying that I was being “extra grumpy for no reason,” conveniently glossing over the fact that she’d made me clean it up.

And she wonders why we moved three states away.

I do a lot of travelling for work. I finally get the company to agree to give me a company car. It isn’t much, but it’s better than using my own or the dirty pool cars that no one cleans or bothers to fill up.

Coworker: “Hey, can I borrow your car?”

Me: “Are none of the pool cars available?”

Coworker: “No, I don’t think so.”

I look out the window.

Me: “Yes, they are; there are two of them.”

Coworker: “But yours one is nicer, and I am going to the customer, so I need to make a good impression.”

The only time [Coworker] goes to the customer is to drop something off, and even then, their car park is far from the building, so no one would even see what car she was in.

Me: “The pool cars are for general use. Company cars are only for when there are no other options.”

Coworker: “You’re just being selfish.”

Me: “It’s my car; I have to pay tax on it and keep it clean. Use the pool cars!”

[Coworker] storms off, only to return a few hours later with her manager.

Coworker: “I need your car.”

Me: “We’ve had this discussion. I told you no. Use the pool cars.”

Coworker: “Well, they’re all taken now, so you have to let me use yours!”

Manager: “I’ve checked and they are all taken. Please could she use yours?”

Me: “So, you waited hours until all the cars were gone so you had to use mine?! Real mature, [Coworker]. Well, the joke’s on you because I already had a customer visit planned. So, again, the answer’s no.”

Manager: *To [Coworker]* “That delivery needs to be done today. Did you really wait all morning?”

Coworker: *Stammering* “Well, no, I was busy.”

Manager: “Well, what are you going to do about it? You’ve had weeks to book something and now, the morning it’s needed, you’re completely unprepared!”

Me: “The old work van is in the car park.”

It’s old, rusty, and damp. The radio doesn’t work and the windows rattle. It’s really only used to take rubbish away.

Coworker: “I’m not using that!”

Manager: “Well, I would suggest you come up with an alternative quickly!”

[Coworker] refused to use the van, even though it was safe and fine to use. What she did was way worse: she lied to another member of staff to get them to drive her there in their car. She wouldn’t be insured, and because it was business use, they wouldn’t have been, either. She didn’t tell anyone or get permission to take them.

She got a written warning and hasn’t asked to use my car since.

My uncle got sick — really sick. Rather than let his company shut down, as I was the only family member with any experience, I was asked to do “what I could” to help the business stay open.

At first, many of the guys tried to take liberties, lie about working hours, etc. But most of that was written down so I could catch them out. 

One employee was particularly bad. Not only would he lie, sneak off, and do very little actual work, but he would also refuse to do anything he saw as not his job, even when it meant missing a major delivery. The guy was toxic. Unfortunately, he knew his contract and the company rule book inside and out — probably the only reason he hadn’t been sacked until now.

I gave the guy several chances, but he kept pushing more and more. He clearly didn’t respect me and didn’t see me as his boss.

When he started to not show up to work, I’d had enough. I started the disciplinary process. But [Employee] thought he could use the rules in his favour, becauses if you were sick and couldn’t make the disciplinary meeting, it had to be rescheduled. 

So, we began months of cat and mouse. Eventually, I caught him out; he ran out of sick days and had to have a meeting or his pay would stop. That’s when I got him in a disciplinary meeting.

Me: “Do you know why you are here?”

Employee: “No.”

Me: “Hmm, okay. Here is a list of times you were late, here is a list of times you didn’t show without authorisation, and here is a list of times you left early.”

Employee: “So?”

Me: “So, this exceeds the company’s acceptable absence policy. I’m afraid we are going to have to terminate your contract here.”

Employee: *With a smug look on his face* “You have to give me three warnings to allow me to change the pattern of behaviour.”

Me: “You’re quoting the company policy on absence; I know it well. But it states that the warning can be verbal or written. You have seventeen warnings on your absences.”

Employee: “I haven’t received anything.”

Me: “Really? Have you checked your pigeon hole?”

Employee: “What pigeon hole?”

Me: “For internal mail, remember? I asked you repeatedly to clear it out.”

Employee: “But no one checks them!”

Me: “That’s immaterial. I will be passing your termination papers to Human Resources this afternoon.”

Employee: “But you’re not my boss!”

Me: “No, but I spoke to him about this, and he was delighted to hear that you were being fired.”

He left, but not before knocking over everything he could. I sent all the letters from his pigeon hole to his home address — a little forget-me-not.