When I was in my first year of law school in 2015, the library had two exam banks: one was physical copies of old exams you could borrow for in-library review, and the other was digital scans of old exams. My first-year contracts professor had never allowed any of his exams to be in the digital bank, but there were twenty years’ worth of physical copies. 

During the finals period, my study group checked out the last ten years of exams and took them to a study room. We quickly noticed that the professor only had three exams, and he rotated them in a pattern. We still studied all the tests to be on the safe side, but also made an appointment to meet with the professor the next day during office hours.

Another student and I went to the meeting, asked questions about things we didn’t understand, and then I carefully brought up the rotating exams.

Me: “Professor, we noticed that your old exams from certain years are… very similar to exams from other years.”

The professor sat back in his chair and smiled broadly.

Professor: “That’s why I’ve never allowed my old tests to be put into the digital exam bank; I want people willing to make the extra effort to do well. Most people don’t even bother checking out the physical exams, and even those who do usually only check out the last year or two, so they don’t notice the repeats. If I were you, I would study the tests from three, six, and nine years ago VERY carefully.”

We did exactly that, and it was my highest exam grade that semester.

I am a 7th grade history teacher. Our school year is split into four quarters, with two quarters making up one semester. After the first semester, students have midterm exams, which cover everything they’ve learned so far.

At my school, if students have maintained at least 90% in the first two quarters, they can be exempt from the midterm. I know that even students who are exempt will need a refresher, so I’m having all students take a short quiz that covers what we’ve learned since the start of the year.

The day before this, the whole class played a game to study for the quiz, and it contained all the topics we had learned about.

Me: “The quiz is officially tomorrow, but if you feel prepared and want to take it today, you may do so. Otherwise, please quietly study.”

[Student], who knows the material but is repeating the class for various reasons, including rushing through assignments and not reading directions thoroughly, raises his hand.

Student: “What is the material on?”

Me: “Everything we’ve covered so far.”

Student: “So does that include the Byzantine Empire?”

Me: “We’ve covered that, so yes.”

Two other students elect to start the quiz early, and before handing them out, I explain to the class at large that when I printed the quizzes, a spacing error made it so that two of the possible answers on a multiple-choice question got pushed onto the back page. A few quiet minutes pass, then [Student] raises his hand again.

Student: “Can you just tell me which topics are covered, and then I’ll decide if I want to take it?”

Me: “It is cumulative. It covers everything we have learned since the beginning of the year.”

Student: “Oh, okay.”

After thinking for a bit, he decides he’s ready to take the quiz. A few minutes later…

Student: “The question at the bottom of the page is cut off.”

Me: “As I explained less than ten minutes ago, the other answers are on the back of the page.”

[Student] turns the page over and gasps in realization. After he finished the quiz and was handing it in:

Student: “I bet I aced it.”

Me: “I’m sure you did! You know a lot about history.”

I just finished grading it. He got 60%. As I said, he’s incredibly bright and knows the subject well, but we’re still working on study skills and reading comprehension.

I was shopping for some work clothes for a new job. I found a couple of pieces on clearance at a local store. This store is known for having a lot of clothes and home decor, and whatnot. It also has several “sister” stores with different types of inventory. One of them focuses mainly on Goods for the Home. I work at one such sister store.

Me: *Sets my purchases down.* “Hello…”

Cashier: “Hi! Will you be using our store credit card today?”

Me: “No. And I’m not interested, thank you.”

Cashier: *Talks over me while scanning.* “Would you like to sign up today? You could save 5%—”

Me: “—No. Thank you.”

Cashier: “But if you sign up, you could get points for every purchase!”

Me: “No. Thank you.”

Cashier: “Well, if you’re ever interested…”

Me: *Interrupts, finally reaching my limit.* “No. I said no, and you’re being really pushy now. Please stop.”

Cashier: “Uh. Well, this is literally my job.”

Me: *Holds up my employee discount card.* “I. Know. But there’s a difference between doing your job and being obnoxiously pushy.”

She didn’t say a word for the rest of the transaction. Was I rude? Yeah. I’ll admit that. But I can’t stand pushy sales pitches. I shouldn’t have to say no to a credit card four times just to buy some pants.

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.

When my wife and I got married, she changed her last name to mine. Interestingly, she doesn’t have a middle name, and since her first name starts with ‘N’ and my last name starts with ‘O’, her initials are now NO. It never occurred to us that this might be an issue until we were buying a house.

We went to a title office to do the closing paperwork on the house and started signing and initialing in the hundred or so places that the title officer told us to. The title guy took the first page back after we initialed, looked at it, and immediately told us to stop.

Title Guy: “WHY ARE YOU SAYING NO TO EVERYTHING?!”

Wife: “I’m not saying no, I’m initialing like you told us to, those are my initials.”

Title Guy: “Your initials are N-O? What about your middle name?”

Wife: “I don’t have a middle name. You have my driver’s license right in front of you; look at it.” 

He picked up the license, looked at it for a few seconds, then said:

Title Guy: “Hang on, don’t sign anything else, I need to talk to someone.”

Then he left the room.

About five minutes later, the title guy came back, presumably having been told by someone in the office that it is not illegal for a home buyer’s initials to be NO, and we continued signing documents like nothing happened. Funny enough, that was the third house my wife and I had bought since being married and her initials were not an issue at the first two closings.

That issue has never come up again, probably because my wife now tells people before signing and initialing anything about her initials. We have also joked that if we ever want to void a contract, that will be our out: “You can clearly see that I rejected every provision of this contract, and you didn’t say anything at the time of signing.”