I am sitting with a good friend over lattes and pastries. She’s telling me about her recent decision to largely give up eating meat, becoming a pescatarian. She’s doing it for ethical and personal reasons. Then, she complains about a friend of hers.

Friend #1: “When I told [Friend #2], her first reaction was to complain that she wouldn’t have anyone to share a burger with! She is so selfish. She doesn’t understand that this is something I have to do. Everything is always about her! Anyway, I told her I would still eat veggie burgers, so it doesn’t have to change anything. Then she starts arguing that the diet is unhealthy. I don’t think she believes that; she just doesn’t want anything to change.”

Me: “Yes, well, she can be quite selfish at times, and with dairy, eggs, and fish, I don’t think you will suffer any problems.”

A couple of months later, I also decide to change my diet. I would not tell her, but as we often meet in the morning, she’s going to notice.

Me: “So, I have decided to try intermittent fasting. I won’t be eating anything until late in the day, at least for the next month.”

Friend #1: “But who am I going to have coffee with?”

Me: “Me! I will still have coffee, but it will be black and obviously no patisserie.”

Friend #1: “Why are you doing this?”

Me: “For my health. My BMI puts me just into the obese category, and my waist is larger than it’s been all my life. Also, I see that my blood sugar is gradually increasing; I want to turn things around before I am diagnosed as prediabetic. I’ve lost and then regained weight before. I need to do something different.”

[Friend #1] has a similar figure to mine.

Friend #1: “Your weight is normal! You’re fine. And everyone’s blood sugar rises as they age. Eating like this is going to destroy your metabolism.”

I just rolled my eyes internally.

Many years ago, I was working as a chef and de-facto kitchen manager at a nice French-Italian restaurant in London. I was a part of the interview process for our restaurant’s front of house, as well as the kitchen. One morning, we’re wrapping up the interview of a young waitress.

Me: “Okay, this all looks good, and your references check out, so we’ll see you Monday morning at six.”

Waitress: “Huh?”

Me: “Didn’t [Front Of House Manager] explain our policy on cross-training?”

Waitress: “Oh, that. But I don’t want to cook food, just serve it.”

Me: “That’s fine, if you don’t want to work in the kitchen you don’t have to.”

She gets all smiley again.

Me: “But all front of house staff do their first week in the kitchens, and all members of kitchen staff do a week out front. This helps us all to understand what folk are dealing with.”

Her face fell.

She never came in for her first (or any other) shift. Over the years, I enforced that policy (despite wailing from all departments at first). It remained the smoothest and least resentful relationship between front of house and back that I can recall in any restaurant.

When I am a young and penniless student, I attend summer language courses in Oxford, and on the weekends, we are driven to London and let loose in the city. I use these trips to take advantage of the huge discounts at the so-called “mad barking sale”, spending my yearly tape budget there.

It’s our last London weekend, our plane leaves tomorrow, and I’m at the desk with my new purchases, a return, and a defective case. As a theft prevention measure, the store only has empty cases on the shelves and cashiers fill them with the cassettes at the desk.

Me: “Hello. I’m buying these tapes…” *puts the empty cases on desk* “…and I’d like to return this one, as I bought two by mistake…” *puts a full case on desk* “…and I’d also like to have this case exchanged, as it has a hairline crack, if possible.

I put an empty case on the desk, as the cassette is in my Walkman, being played.

Cashier: “Sure, we can do that.”

We exchange some small talk as the cashier quickly goes through the operations of filling and changing cases and presents me with my purchases already in a bag and the total. I pay and thank her.

Me: “Hope to see you again next year!”

Cashier: “You, too. Have a safe journey!”

Once at home, I got a look at the bill and realised that the cashier had both deducted the price of the returned tape AND put it in the bag with the rest of my purchases, changed the cracked case and put a new cassette in it, and discounted a few items that weren’t on sale at that. Now I surely hoped to see that cashier again

The extra cassettes made two of my friends very happy, but when I went back to the music store the following year, the cashier did not work there anymore. Bummer.

In sixth form, I volunteered to be a classroom assistant for the lower years during some of my free periods. One of the lessons I assisted with was for year-sevens (eleven- and twelve-year-olds) who needed some additional support with maths. In one lesson, we were covering probability, and the teacher finished up with some revision.

Teacher: “What is the chance that a tossed coin will fall showing heads?”

Students: *Chorusing* “One in two!”

Teacher: “What is the chance of a dice rolling a four?”

Students: “One in six!”

The questions continued like this for a little while longer, until…

Teacher: “What’s the chance that [Other Teacher] will run into the classroom right now in a sarong and a rainbow wig?”

Students: *Giggling and uncertain* “Zero?!”

Right on cue, the other teacher burst into the classroom in the described outfit and chaos descended. I’m not sure if they ever did that again, but it definitely made probabilities memorable!

Several years ago, I worked in a hotel with a colleague who saw himself as the next manager. From the get-go, his attitude was that of bossing around anyone who didn’t stand up to him. Many of the junior and temp staff quit because of him. I, however, stuck it out with him and made it plainly obvious to him that he was NOT the manager, and even if he were, I would not work for him.

When I was offered a promotion that he believed was going to him, he wasn’t best pleased. He decided to launch a campaign of undermining my authority at every turn. At the start, it was pretty pathetic behavior, but over time, his jealousy began to affect his work. I remember one night, at our most important function of the year, he messed up BIG TIME. By this stage, I’d had enough of his BS. We were both in the manager’s office, discussing what had happened with our boss.

Me: “I’m just saying, it’s a simple ten-top, and somehow, you managed to bring the wrong food out for half the table? I don’t understand how you can achieve that.”

Colleague: “Maybe if you took your job seriously and trained me properly, you wouldn’t have this issue. Would you?”

Me: “Actually, we are all trained to do this. Every month, we’re shown proper waiter etiquette, and it was requested that we all turn up for the last two times — which, by the way, [Boss], [Colleague] hasn’t done.”

Boss: “Was he aware of the training?”

Me: “Of course! He’s in the staff group chat; he gets the notifications, but him reading them is on him.”

Boss: “What have you done, though, to ensure that he knows what to do?”

I look to [Colleague] and see that he’s wearing the biggest smirk. I realize at that moment that, for whatever reason, [Boss] is defending him even though he is poison to the team. I decide to stand up for myself the only way I know how.

Me: “Okay. Obviously, we are having differing opinions here, so let’s make this simple. I am going to go have a coffee. In the meantime, [Boss], decide who you are willing to lose: me or [Colleague]. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

I know people might say that this was REALLY petty, but at this stage, I did not care in the slightest. [Colleague] had been a huge pain for half a year, and I simply could not be bothered anymore to pander to his childish delusions. I had my coffee and returned, and when [Boss] made it obvious that he wasn’t going to be making a decision that night, I decided it’d be best to leave.

The next day, I went to three separate hotels and nailed an interview for a night manager position at one. From what I hear in rumor, my previous job started losing a LOT of waitstaff because of [Colleague] after I left.