This happened to me when I was a field tech for a commercial restaurant repair company. The company charged $110 an hour, port to port, meaning from the time I left the shop until I returned. Being from the Southwest, I resemble much of the back-of-house staff, and working on ovens, I was usually dirty, as well.

On this particular day, the chef had called in a service call for a convection oven that wasn’t working, and I had just finished ordering the parts when some top brass from the front office came into the kitchen — to harass the staff, I suppose.

One dude in a pair of khakis and a button-up asked me why the ovens were as dirty as they were.

Me: “I’ve got no idea.”

Dude: “Well, you need to get them cleaned up!”

Usually, I would have told him to kiss my a** and walked out, but this particular day, I decided to help him out. I stayed a couple of hours and cleaned up his oven… at $110 an hour.

Of course, he disputed the invoice and threatened not to pay, but I had parts on order for another piece of equipment, and if you don’t pay, I don’t come back and put your s*** back together, so yeah, he paid.

I work in the IT department for a small manufacturing company. Yesterday, the maintenance person came to the IT office.

Maintenance: “Have you fixed the computer in [Office] yet?”

Me: “Sorry?”

Maintenance: “[Shop Manager] asked me to make sure you guys fix the computer in [Office].”

Me: “We were not aware there was an issue. Can you tell me more about it?”

Maintenance: “No, sorry, that’s all he said. He’s gone for the day or I’d ask.”

Me: “Okay, well, I suppose I can talk to the people who work in [Office].”

Maintenance: “No, they work earlier, so their day ended half an hour ago. There’s nobody in [Office].”

Me: “Okay. I’ll go take a look, but if there’s nothing immediately apparent, it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

I went over to [Office] and noticed that their barcode scanner was not working at all. I replaced it, opened a few programs, and restarted the computer for good measure, and everything looked fine.

This morning, our department got an email from [Shop Manager]. He was mad that the computer wasn’t fixed.

My dude. You said, “It’s broken,” to someone who doesn’t even work in IT and then left for the day. What did you expect us to do with that information?

Every year, my condo association sends people out to test that the units’ fire alarms are working. I had forgotten what day they were coming to my building, so I was startled when my door buzzer went off and poked my head out to see that it was the alarm people. At the same time, my lookalike ten-year-old daughter, who is quickly approaching my height, came out to see what was going on.

Service Man: *To me* “Are your parents home?”

At that moment, my brain shorted out, and I just blanked. While I do look young for my age, being mistaken for roughly thirty years younger than I am made me blue screen. After an awkwardly long time just mutely looking around, trying to think of a response, I finally sputtered out:

Me: “I’m… forty-seven years old…”

The service man went deer-in-headlights and apologized, and I just reassured him that it was fine. I wasn’t mad, just totally confused. I guess he just looked at my pre-teen daughter and assumed I was her sister rather than her mom.

My smoke detectors aced the tests.

I am painting a railing at the large office and commercial complex where I work on maintenance. I am just outside a large retail section where a passing customer grabs onto the rail after walking right past me.

She touches the railing just in front of the “wet paint” sign, and immediately jumps back in surprise, and, disgusted, looks for something to wipe the paint off on. 

She chooses to wipe it off on my pants leg.

Me: “Hey!”

Customer: “What! You’re painting it already’ you’re expected to get a little dirty!”

Me: “I am not a rag for you to wipe your dirty hands on!”

Customer: *Walking off.* “You’re the janitor, so… close enough!”

At the arts and crafts store where I used to work, the women’s bathroom was notorious for breaking down every other week. For reasons that still elude me, the store never contacted a plumber to handle this. The only thing we were told was that the pipes were old or something. It was already bad enough that they’d never hired another janitor after our previous one retired, so the assistant managers were left dealing with bathroom cleaning on top of their additional responsibilities.

On yet another instance of the bathroom breaking down (the floor was flooded), this time around there were three rows of tape set in front of the door; you had to duck under the tape to go in. That tape also held up a very obvious sign saying in big bold letters that the bathroom was closed and out of order. The men’s bathroom was available, and we just had to knock ahead of time. A sign was placed on the door to briefly explain why.

It was around 10:00 am that day, and the store was borderline empty, and with all of us doing our separate tasks, we didn’t notice a customer going into the bathroom.

What we did notice a short time later was her complaining to a coworker over how unsanitary the bathroom was and how she was going to sue.

Assistant Manager: “Ma’am, it was closed and taped off for a reason.”

Customer: *Bluntly* “It doesn’t matter.”

Assistant Manager: *Politely* “I wish you luck in finding a lawyer who will take your case.”

The customer never came back.