I used to work in a McDonald’s kitchen. We were experiencing a large number of new starters due to high turnover, mostly because the store manager was awful. It was 7 AM, and it was our last hour before the store picked up traffic.

Two of my friends/coworkers are wrapping up the morning setup when a new girl walks in. She sheepishly stands at the back and washes her hands while the manager introduces her.

Eventually, she is told to put a hair net on. We don’t see her for a while.

Me: “Where’s the new girl?”

Coworker: “I thought she was putting on a hair net and then coming back?” 

We both peek around the corner (the kitchen was an ‘L’ shape), and we see the new girl, looking flustered, with about thirty hair nets on her head.

Coworker: “Uh… [New Girl], what are you doing?”

New Girl: “These things take forever to put on! How do you all do this?!”

Coworker: “Because we only wear one?”

New Girl: “Huh?”

The new girl, in her first-day nerves, saw the hair net pack and didn’t realize it was a pack of sixty. She thought it was just one ‘set’ and was trying to pull all of them over her head. She had long hair and thought it required some weird patchwork quilt of hair nets to hold it all in.

Me: “No, no, like this.”

I remove my single hair net, toss it in the trash, take a fresh single hair net, and pull it over my head, tucking in all my hair at the back.

Me: “See, just the one required.”

New Girl: “I knew I had to be doing something wrong!”

We all laughed, and then we showed her how to work her station, frying the hash browns.

Coworker: “Now these you CAN all fry at once. Don’t fry one at a time.”

New Girl: “D*** it, I’ve been here an hour, and I already have a ‘thing’.”

She later went on to be fairly good at her job!

I’m the new guy at a bar in a fancy hotel.

Boss: “Okay, we get customers who order all kinds of fancy wines with no idea what they’re ordering. Also, they don’t know how to pronounce them. Don’t correct them, just make sure you get them the right drink. Don’t make them feel stupid.”

Me: “Yeah, I got it. I’ve had so many customers pronounce the ‘t’ in Merlot and the ‘s’ in Chablis.”

Boss: “Yeah, but can you keep a straight face like I did when Châteauneuf-du-Pape became sh*t-on-the-roof-du-poop?”

A new hire is looking and feeling tired after a long shift on the checkouts. They had a slew of terrible customers one after the other:

Manager: “Remember [New Hire]. About 5% of the customers will be wonderful. But they will generally glide almost seamlessly through your day. About 5% are going to be idiotic jerks. There’s nothing you can do or say to fix an idiot, so basically smile, pat them on the head, and get them out of your life as quickly as possible.”

New Hire: “That’s actually pretty good advice.”

Another coworker, one checkout lane over, says:

Coworker: “I just keep repeating my personal affirmation: Illegitimi non carborundum.”

New Hire: “Oooh, what does that mean?”

Coworker: “Don’t let the b*stards wear you down!”

Okay, so it’s mock Latin, not real Latin, but it’s still effective!

It’s an election year in Sweden again. The library I work at shares a lobby with a space that will house an early voting station. A fellow librarian and I are meeting with a few election workers to look at the room we have available, discuss security concerns, how to get people to understand where they are supposed to go, etc.

Me: “You need to have enough people available to post someone outside in the lobby to direct people to the voting station; otherwise they’ll line up at our information desk, expecting us to help them cast their votes.”

Election Worker: “No, that won’t be necessary; we’ll just put up a sign.”

My coworker and I look at each other. At first, no one says anything. Then, I can’t help myself and start to giggle. A moment later, my co-worker also starts giggling, until we’re both breaking down in hysterical laughter. The election worker just stares at us.

Coworker: *Regains control of herself.* “I’m so sorry. You’re new at this, aren’t you? Let us explain to you how the general public works.”

The following happened a few years ago and has been condensed for storytelling purposes.

I work in an office for an international company. We have offices all over North America, Europe, and Asia. I’m based in New York. My boss wanders up at 8 AM and says to me:

Boss: “Remember we have [International Transfer] starting today. He’s here for two months to get [project] up and running.”

Me: “Didn’t I hear from HR that there was an issue with getting him here so early?”

Boss: “Yeah, his boss tried to delay it, but I went to [Big Scary Boss] and insisted he must start today.”

9 AM rolls around, and the new guy saunters into the office. His gait seems purposefully casual.

Boss: *Running up to him.* “Where have you been?! It’s nine!”

International Transfer: “Yes. We start the workday at 9 AM, do we not?”

Boss: “Only on paper. It’s strongly encouraged to come in at 8 AM to ensure that—”

International Transfer: “—Well then I strongly encourage you to put down on paper that my start time is 8 AM.”

Boss: “That’s not how it works.”

International Transfer: “If you say that is not how it works, then that is also not how I work. Anyway, I just came to introduce myself. I will see you in three weeks.”

Boss: “Wha… what do you mean?”

International Transfer: “I had my annual leave approved to start from today, for three weeks. Your boss told my boss that I had to come into the office today to introduce myself to you. So here I am, introducing myself to you today. But HR rules also stated that my three weeks of annual leave can’t be cancelled once approved, so I’m going to start it right now. I think I might go see The Met.”

Boss: “That’s not gonna fly. You’re here to start [project] today.”

International Transfer: “I did, by introducing myself. See you!”

Boss: “What makes you think you can just walk out and take three weeks of vacation just like that?!”

International Transfer: “I’m French. Au revoir!”

True to his word, the French Transfer just waltzed out. [Boss] was livid, and called his boss, who spoke to the European Boss, and after much shouting, it was established that European law was very strict and his vacation time (of which he gets six freaking weeks a year) was approved and couldn’t be taken away. This had been explained to our boss, but he had assumed that the vacation time could just be cancelled and didn’t look at the European HR rules. 

Because our boss had insisted on the French guy coming in today, the company had paid for the business-class flight from Paris to New York for him. That’s when he decided he’d be vacationing in New York for three weeks, with flight and fancy hotel paid for by the company, thanks to our boss’s insistence to get him in the office TODAY. 

He came back three weeks later and used his expertise to get the project completed on time and on budget (he was really REALLY good), but by golly, was our boss angry the entire time.