I do office work and have recently conducted several audits to get our files prepared for the new year. I realized a lot of employees were missing many items in their files. This was not anyone’s fault because the company never had proper admin employees, so I was hired specifically to clean up files and ensure state and federal compliance.

This employee, we’ll call him Paul, works remotely and never answers his emails or phone. There was an audit I was working on, and I realized about sixty employees needed to sign a form, so fifty-nine of them signed it within the week, and Paul never answered me. I called and emailed him for about three months until he finally sent it back.

It’s unfortunate that I have to keep an audit open for this long because of him. He has done this multiple times, though, and also missed two mandatory online classes that I conducted, so I had to jump through hoops for him to take the class.

He’s ALWAYS the last one to complete anything that I ask of him, and it’s quite unfair that I have to spend many hours calling and emailing him, all for a task that takes a lousy five seconds for him to complete.

Anyway, we are ordering new shirts for the whole company because they met the sales goals. It’s just a gift and we understand that we cannot make everyone happy (maybe some don’t like the color or fabric, etc.) so the owner made it very clear that we will send 1 to every address and there will be no returns or exchanges for any reason (because it is custom made and quite expensive, and also because it’s a gift, and not like a company uniform or anything).

I spent many hours getting everyone’s sizes and entering it into a spreadsheet, but guess who never responded? Paul. Although I’ve never met Paul in person, I’ve seen a photo, and I would guess he’s about six feet three and around three hundred pounds.

So, guess who ordered him a size extra small?

It’s 10:15 AM. Most of us have been in since 8:30 AM. The daily stand-up ended half an hour ago. We’re halfway through wrangling a backlog of user tickets when [Lazy Coworker] finally strolls in, yawning and holding a smoothie.

Coworker: “Look who’s here. Thought maybe you got promoted to part-time.”

Lazy Coworker: “Not yet.”

He sits down, opens his laptop, types for about thirty seconds, and then reclines in his chair.

Suddenly, all ten open IT tickets in his queue change to “resolved.”

Me: *Blinking.* “Did you just—?”

Lazy Coworker: “Wrote a batch fix for the root issue last night. Scheduled it to auto-deploy at ten. I just came in to confirm it ran.”

We all stare at the screen. Clean. Quiet. Done.

Coworker: “…You solved everything before you even got here?”

Lazy Coworker: *Sipping smoothie.* “Time is a construct.”

I had to dress up fancy for the first time in a long time, after years of wearing nothing but jeans and t-shirts. I do own black dress pants, but I didn’t have a dress shirt or anything else to go with them.

Men’s dress shirts are usually measured by the neck size and the sleeve length, rather than a traditional Small/Medium/Large system or by the more common chest size measurement used for casual shirts. It had been so long since I needed to buy a dress shirt that I didn’t know my neck size, and like a lot of guys, I have a wider chest and stomach, so I didn’t know how well the neck measurement would match up with the rest of the shirt. 

To be safe, I decided to go to a nationwide chain of men’s clothing stores that offers full measuring and tailoring services instead of buying online and gambling on getting the right size.

I head to the location closest to home. There are two employees behind the counter, and no other customers in the store. One of the employees greets me, but seems more annoyed than friendly.

Employee: “Hi, welcome to [Store].”

Me: “Hello, I’m looking for dress shirts. I don’t know my measurements off the top of my head, so if I could get measured, that would help a lot.”

Employee: “What color are you looking for?”

Me: *Delayed a bit because I was expecting to talk about the measurement process.* “Uh… probably grey or a light blue.”

The employee does some looking on his computer.

Employee: “We’re probably not going to have one in your size, but we can order one that should fit. It’ll be delivered to you within 5 days, or you can have it delivered to the store with free shipping and pick it up.”

Me: “Um… can I get measured first just to be safe?”

Employee: “Dress shirts really aren’t that different than regular shirts. The neck size basically lines up with Small/Medium/Large systems once you know the numbers. If it’s too small you can return it and we’ll go up to the next size, or if it’s too big, we can tailor it to fit better.”

Me: “Okay. I still have a month or so until I need the shirt, so I guess that works.”

The employee types on his computer again, and then we go through the payment process.

Employee: “Alright, that should be delivered in about five to seven business days. Did you need anything else?”

Me: “Nope, that should be all.”

I walk out, still not feeling great about the way things went, but I have other stuff to do, so I’m not able to worry too much about it.

The shirt gets delivered, and the first thing I see is that it is pure white. Not grey or light blue like I asked for. I decided that, after the way my visit to the store went, I want to return the shirt and either look at a different store or look online. Since I’m going to a different city with a branch of the same chain for some other errands, I’ll bring the shirt with me and stop in before taking care of my other errands and heading home.

I get to the second location, and the employees are immediately more friendly than at the first location.

Employee #2: “Hi there, welcome to (store)! What can I help you with today?”

Me: “I’m looking to return this shirt.”

Employee #2: “I’m sorry to hear that. Is it the wrong size?”

Me: “Honestly, I never even tried it on. It’s the wrong color; it was supposed to be grey or light blue, but the employee up in (first city) ordered it online and must have entered it in wrong.”

Employee #2: “[First City]… yeah, we’ve been hearing a lot about them lately.”

Me: “Yeah. I asked them if they could take my measurements too, since it’s been a long time, but the guy never even did that. He just told me they probably wouldn’t have anything my size, but they could order something online.”

Employee #2: “They just hired a bunch of new people in (first city), and they’ve already gotten in trouble a lot. We have the same regional manager, and he’s been up there a few times to chew them out because they’re getting so many complaints. Anyway… if you have time today, we can get you measured here and get you the right shirt.”

Me: “I have some other errands to run right now, but I’ll think about it if I have time after.”

Employee #2: “I get it. Just know that we’re DEFINITELY not like the guys up in (first city), so if you do come back, we actually will take care of you!”

I left to do my other errands, and eventually decided to give the second store a chance because I still don’t want to risk ordering something online. I headed back, and the employee immediately welcomed me and thanked me for giving them a chance. He took my measurements, we talked through the different styles, cuts, and fits, and after trying a few on, I ended up buying a grey shirt that looks really good on me. The employee also convinced me to look through some ties that were on sale, after I told him that I was looking at those online, and he took time to help me match colors with the shirt.

I walked into the second location, intent on just returning the shirt I “bought” from the first location and having nothing else to do with [Chain Store]. Thanks to the great employee, I walked out with a new shirt, two ties, and a pair of dress shoes, since I didn’t have those yet either.

Sometimes it’s not the name of the chain that matters. It’s the individual employees at the location.

In the early 2000s, my wife and I had moved into a new condo and were excited to try out the diner directly across the street from the building. On the Saturday morning after moving in, we were tired of unpacking and decided to go there for breakfast. The food was pretty good, the coffee was decent, and the server was fine. All in all, not the best dining experience, but you couldn’t beat it for convenience.

Everything was fine until it was time to pay. The server dropped off the check, then disappeared. We waited about five minutes before I flagged down another server who was walking by. I asked:

Me: “Do you know where our server went? She dropped the check and hasn’t been back.”

Other Server: “Oh, she’s out back, taking a smoke break.”

Okay, a little weird and unprofessional to drop the check and then leave.

Me: “Could you cash us out?”

Other Server: “I can’t, but you can go to the register where the manager will take care of it.”

We did so, leaving a decent tip, and talked to the manager for a couple minutes, letting him know we had just moved in across the street and would love to come back.

We left, walked across the street, and were reading a historical marker in front of an old church when we heard someone yelling:

Voice: “Hey! Heeeyyyy!”

Turning around, we could see it was our original server, standing in the doorway of the diner. When she saw we were looking at her, she screamed:

Server: “You didn’t pay! Come back or I’m calling the cops!”

My wife and I looked at each other, then started walking over to her. When we got back to the diner, she had her arms folded and was tapping her foot angrily, looking like we were kids she had caught with hands in the cookie jar.

Me: “You dropped off the check and disappeared. We paid at the register when you didn’t come back after five minutes.”

She looked confused for a moment, then doubled down like a toddler.

Server: “No, you didn’t!”

To counter that stellar argument, my wife opened her purse and pulled out the receipt, with the tip marked. The server looked at it, glared at us, then stomped back into the restaurant without an apology.

Despite the convenient location, that experience was bad enough that we never went back to the diner. It closed about eight months later, and a great Chinese restaurant opened in its place, which we went to many times until we moved four years later.

In my previous job, I was a mid-level manager, and I was assigned a small team to lead. This team was composed of four members; three of them were very hard workers who always finished their jobs and tried to learn as much as possible.

The fourth one… well, she had to be asked continuously to finish her job, often tried to make others do her job, was late more often than not, would spend hours talking to others, not doing her job, and disrupting others. I often asked my boss permission to fire her, but he pitied her because she’s a single mother.

She is, as in she’s not married nor dating her kid’s father, but the father and his parents live next to her and her parents, and are all very much involved in the kid’s life.

My boss also forbade me from ever reprimanding her.

Eventually, I was offered a better-paying job and left the company. After a few months, I was offered a promotion that required me to assemble a team to lead. I could either choose from the company or bring new people. 

I decided to contact the hard-working members of my old team and offer them the new job. It was a no-brainer for them: much better pay, much more benefits, better working conditions, and the possibility of WFH most days. They were happy about landing a better job together, and I was happy to have my old team back.

A couple of days later, the fourth member of my old team called me.

Former Coworker: “I can’t believe you didn’t offer me the job! You know that as a mother, I could use the benefits and working hours!”

Me: “No. Your work ethic and performance are terrible, and hiring you would be worse for me.”

There were so many more things I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. She called me some names and hung up.

Later that day, I received the weirdest and most stupid call of my career. The HR manager from my former company called me (this has to be the most incompetent HR manager I’ve met; I have so many stories of her incompetence).

HR Manager: “You upset her. That was unfair treatment. You need to either offer her a job in your new company or apologize.”

Me: *Laughing.* “No.”

I argued with her for a bit and then hung up.