Many moons ago, I was a recent college grad, and my first job was working the front desk at the Admissions Office at a local university. I could likely write a book about the various characters with whom I came across, but this was the one call that actually had me looking around, wondering if I was on Candid Camera.

Me: *Answering the phone.* “Undergrad Admissions.”

Caller: “Yes, I was wondering if you could tell me how to go about applying for school at [Local Community College]?”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry. You’ve contacted the wrong business. This is [University].”

Caller: “Oh, I know. But no one is answering over there, and I thought you could tell me all about it.”

Me: “…?”

I was on an eastbound train from Colorado two days before Christmas. There was some kind of incident in another car around 11:00 that night — a dude got wasted and started threatening other passengers — and we had to make a stop so the local police could come and collect him.

After the delay, the conductor came over the speakers and announced that if anyone was feeling upset or shaken by the incident, one of the passengers had offered to play his guitar in the snack car, and anyone who was awake was welcome to come down and join in for a singalong. I’m always down for weird train activities, so I decided to grab my harmonica from my bag and head down.

There were about fifteen of us in the car, ranging in age from sixteen to mid-seventies and from all over the country. We sang every song we could think of that even kind of referenced a train. We were somewhere in rural Nebraska at that point, and nobody had cell service to look up lyrics, so at times I was pretty sure that we were making up more of the words than we actually remembered. The conductor came through after a while and offered to play a few songs, so the guy with the guitar handed it off and pulled out a mandolin, and my harmonica got passed around the group while one guy drummed along on his backpack.

After a while, the conductor got up and left, and then he came back with a copy of The Polar Express. He read it out loud to our absolutely captivated group of mostly adult travelers while the snow flew all around us in the night, and I swear that for a few minutes, our trip felt every bit as magical as the visit to Santa Claus in the story.

Sometime well after the snack car was supposed to have been vacated for the night, we capped things off with the most ridiculously earnest rendition of Don’t Stop Believing that has ever been performed and went our separate ways. I never saw anyone from our little makeshift band again, but I’ll always remember that weird, wonderful late-night celebration of Journey and the magic of winter travel that came about because some guy was a jacka** on a train.

I used to work at a kitchen gadget store. It was a national chain, and some stores were very large, but our location was very small (smaller than an average-sized living room). I started out as a cashier but was eventually promoted to a key-holder position. We never had more than three people working in the store at the same time except around Christmas. Most of the time, it was just a manager or manager plus one cashier.

One day when I was scheduled off, I headed to our location to buy some gadget that I wanted. I arrived about ten minutes after opening time, tried to open the door, and found that it was locked. This store had a glass front, so I tried to peer in and see who was working, and I didn’t see anyone. I pulled out my key and opened the door. It was obvious that I was the only one there. I turned off the alarm and relocked the door.

I turned on one light so I could see the schedule to see who was supposed to be there; the assistant manager was scheduled that morning. I looked up her phone number and gave her a call. She answered and it was quite obvious that I had woken her up.

Me: “Hey, [Assistant Manager], this is [My Name]. I’m at the store, and there is no one working.”

Assistant Manager: “Well, who is supposed to be working, [My Name]?”

Me: “The schedule shows you are.”

Assistant Manager: “Oh, crap. I have to shower, get dressed, and drive over there. It will take me at least an hour.”

Me: “I’m not really dressed for work, but [Coworker] is scheduled in at 11:00. Do you want me to open up and take care of the register until she gets here? Then I can just stay in the back room until you get here if you want me to.”

Assistant Manager: “That’s great, [My Name]. You do that. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Fortunately, [Coworker] didn’t call out and showed up a few minutes early for work. I was glad to turn the register over to her. [Assistant Manager] took about an hour and a half total to get there.

And yes, of course, I did get paid for my unexpected work shift. I wasn’t full-time, so no overtime, but it was still a nice extra few dollars.

I hold a platinum membership (second-highest tier) with an international hotel brand. I came back from a trip to Branson, Missouri, and noticed that my points hadn’t been added to my account, so I contacted Member Services to get that adjusted. After doing so, I was told that, as a Platinum member, I could get 500 points if I listened to some information about a future trip.

Now naive, dopey me agreed to this as I get 500 points just for checking in, so I assumed I would hear some electronic spiel that I could say yes or no to and then go on with my day.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I ended up speaking to a sales representative who made a pitch about what would turn out to be a timeshare. (Conveniently, he never mentioned that, or the fact that if I took this trip, I would be required to sit in on a timeshare presentation. I later learned this from reading the fine print in an email.)

He mentioned a slew of cities, and I asked for some information about Las Vegas as a friend of mine and I go there enough that it might have been a worthwhile offer. It turned out I would have had to pay up front and then use the trip sometime in the next year. Without a firm date, I had little desire to hand over my hard-earned money, so I declined the offer and thanked the representative for his time.

He suddenly got deathly quiet. I knew he was there because he was still breathing. And then, this took place.

Me: “Again, I’ll keep the offer in mind, but it’s not for me right now, and I thank you for your time.”

Representative: *In the snottiest tone imaginable* “So, what? You’re not going to travel in the next year?”

Me: *Annoyed* “I likely will. But I don’t know when or where. Now if you don’t mind, I have a client coming into my office, and I have to get off the phone.”

Representative: “Yeah, sure.”

Me: “Excuse me? I don’t appreciate that.”

Representative: “Well, I don’t appreciate you saying that you go to Las Vegas and then don’t want to buy this trip.”

Me: *Voice cracking like a whip* “I want to speak to your supervisor!”

Representative: “I am the supervisor.”

Me: “I don’t care. Whoever is above you, I want to speak to them now.”

He reluctantly switched me to a more senior member, and I related this conversation and how ridiculous it was that I or anybody else should be treated like that just because a sales pitch was turned down. The senior staff member tried to placate me by saying they were in the sales business, but there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed. He said all the calls were recorded, and he’d do his due diligence to listen to the call and handle things, and then he disconnected.

I realized it was probably a bunch of blather and that I’d never hear a thing. Then, I discovered I had been cheated out of the points.

After I calmed down, I wrote a pointed, but polite, letter to the company restating the story and telling them I was neither going to hold the whole company responsible for one bad apple, nor would I ask for special favors due to a bad experience. However, I did ask for my 500 points as I did hold up my end of the bargain by listening to the pitch.

Then, good Karma started coming out of the situation.

Later that night, I received an email from the company which included a sincere apology. They were not only giving me the points but doubling them, so I got 1,000 points for my troubles.

But it didn’t stop there.

The next week, I found that they had actually double-pointed me for my Branson stay. Now that was an additional $400 worth of points, so I couldn’t keep them in good conscience, so I reported the error.

I got another message with yet another apology from the company, who told me they appreciated my honesty and were letting me keep the points, so I ended up earning a total of 15,000 points for my time and trouble.

So, Mr. Rude Sales Rep, thanks for earning a free room for me!

I’m scheduled to get a root canal. I’m in the endodontist’s waiting room, half-listening to the receptionist making reminder phone calls to patients for their appointments. She finishes up her call, chuckles, and relays the call to her coworker.

Receptionist: “Hi, [Patient]. This is [Receptionist] from [Office] Endodontics. I’m just calling to remind you of your appointment on [date] at [time].”

Patient: “Oh, I’m going to have to reschedule that. That’s when I’m having a root canal.”

Receptionist: “Ma’am, this is the root canal.”

The receptionist acknowledged that she may not have heard “endodontics” or may have misunderstood what the word meant, but it was still funny.