(I’ve been working as a waiter at a bar for around a month. I know most drink names and how to do nearly everything a customer might ask, but I still need some help from time to time. It’s a very busy evening and I see a man at the bar who hasn’t been served.)

Me: “Hi there! What can I get you?”

Customer: “A paper booklet.”

(Because there’s so much noise, I can’t hear him properly.)

Me: “Excuse me. Could you repeat that? I’m not sure I follow.”

Customer: “I want a paper booklet!”

Me: “I’m sorry. I’m quite new here; I don’t really understand…” 

Customer: “Oh, I’ll just ask someone else!”

(He stomps away to ask a coworker. Another coworker comes to see what the trouble is. I tell her what happened.)

Coworker: “He was talking about smoking paper. You know, the paper you use to roll your own cigarettes?”

(I went to get it and apologised to him, an apology he reluctantly accepted. Then, my boss, who was around, asked me what it was all about. I told him what had gone down and he asked why I didn’t get him the tobacco rolling paper before; honestly, it had never crossed my mind! I told my boss that all I could really think about was a small book of papers, and that the only thing I could think of was getting the papers we use to write orders down, stapling some together and giving them to him! He laughed so hard he was nearly crying, and so did all my coworkers; it was all good in the end, and a fun way to end my shift.)

(I am a young team lead — 20 — that frequently runs the building alone on the weekends. We have a recent hire that’s a bit older than me — 32. We are trained that, for clients that are out of area, we have to charge them two dollars for every mile outside of the service area they are for the trip there and back. So, for example, our service area is 25 miles. If the client lives 30 miles away we charge them $2 x 5, so $10 total. I’m just finishing up an escalation report when I hear this new hire talking to her cube mate.)

New Hire: “Can I borrow your calculator? Mine is broken.”

Cube Mate: “Sure, here you go.”

(A minute later.)

New Hire: “I can’t believe it; yours is broken, too!”

Cube Mate: “Are you sure? I just used it for an extra-long trip and it worked fine.”

New Hire: “Yes, it’s giving the wrong answer!”

Cube Mate: “Here, let me see.”

(A few moments later.)

Cube Mate: “It’s working fine. What are you trying to figure out?”

New Hire: “Six times two.”

Cube Mate: *pause* “That’s twelve.”

New Hire: “No, it’s not!”

(Cue me leaning out and watching with interest.)

Cube Mate: “Yes. Yes, it is.”

New Hire: “No, that’s what they are saying, but I know it’s not true. It’s 13!”

(The cube mate looks at me and we both just stare for a moment before they motion, helpless, for me.)

Me: “No, [Cube Mate] is correct; six times two is twelve, not thirteen.”

New Hire: “No, it isn’t; I know math!”

(I am thinking, “Then why did you need the calculator?”)

Me: “Six and two are both even numbers; when you multiply them you can only get another even number, right?”

New Hire: *rolls her eyes* “Well, duh, everyone knows that. That’s why it’s thirteen, not twelve.”

Me: *open my mouth closes it and shakes my head* “Just put in the payment for $12, please.”

New Hire: *all but screaming* “You are both just trying to get me fired!”

Me: *internally sighing* “Put in the payment for $12 and say I approved it. Give me the job number and I’ll notate it myself so if anything comes of it I can take the full blame.”

(She finally entered the payment. Unsurprisingly, nothing ever came of that payment. Now, her, on the other hand… I could write a book on.)

This story is part of our Pi Day Math roundup!

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(A new colleague has just joined our company. For a 36-year-old, she is really weird and incredibly infantile; she does things like sticking out her tongue at us when she loses an argument, jumping out at the other staff, and once sneaking up on me and tickling me. For lunch, there’s a canteen nearby, and we usually call beforehand to place orders. They will pack it for us but we have to collect it in person. We take turns to collect the food for everyone. It happens to be my turn, and the newbie tags along to help me carry all the packets. [Newbie] almost goes up to grab a random food packet, thinking it’s hers. I tell her it’s still not ready. She sees the cook add some spring onions to the packet in front of her, and panics.)

Newbie: “I don’t want spring onions in mine!” 

Me: “Oh, let me tell the cook.”

Cook: “Sorry, it’s already packed.”

([Newbie] stops dead in the middle of the packed canteen and starts FAKE CRYING at the top of her voice. There’s no actual tears, just a loud, deafening wailing like a baby.)

Newbie: *wailing* “AH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH, I don’t want spring onions! I don’t want spring onions!”

(Her hands were on my shoulders and EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the immediate vicinity turned to gape at us. She had an enormous grin on her face, like she thought she was funny. It was clear she was not actually upset by the onions, just doing it for laughs. The cook gave us a weird look and pushed the packet to us to get rid of us quickly. I nearly died of embarrassment as she wailed all the way out of the canteen. A few weeks later, she started a petty fight with our supervisor, because the supervisor called her “Miss” and she deemed it insulting. She threatened to call the police for it, and the manager got tired of her squabbling and fired her for poor attitude.)

(I’m the supervisor of a little retail print shop, and the store manager has recently hired a new employee against my better judgement. Her only qualification is that she sometimes uses Photoshop at home. However, her cousin works in a different part of the store as a cashier and put in a good word for her, so the manager assumes it is worth a try. Unfortunately, she can barely function in the role she is given. Despite my many attempts to walk the employee through the basics, even leaving printed directions and the phone numbers of other stores in the chain so that on-duty associates can help her if she gets stuck, she never improves. My store manager even sets her up with some online training courses to complete, to no avail. One day, while I am trying to find a customer’s order form so I can quality check it…)

Me: “Okay, so, up next we have Mr. Mc[Customer]. Let’s pull up his order.”

(I head to the filing cabinet — yeah, this print shop is slightly behind the times — and look for the document under M. There’s no form. Then, I look for it under N and L just in case it was off by one letter on accident. Still no form.)

Me: “[Employee], you filled out a form for this customer’s order, right?”

Employee: “Yes. And I filed it under his name.”

Me: “Can you show me, please?”

(The employee walks over, opens the cabinet, and pulls the form from the C folder.)

Employee: “Under C for ‘Mc[CUSTOMER].’”

Me: “Okay. For future reference, if a customer’s last name starts with ‘Mc,’ ‘Mac,’ ‘O’,’ or similar, that first portion of the last name counts, too. So, you’d file a Mc[Customer] under M, and an O’Sullivan would be filed under O, and so on.”

Employee: “Ooohhhhhhh.”

(Unfortunately, my attempt to explain didn’t help. This sort of conversation was a regular occurrence. I always tried to be super polite when explaining these things to the employee, but there were times I really wanted to lose my temper. She was still working there by the time I quit because the store manager felt too guilty to fire his cashier’s cousin, even though she was still struggling to handle her four-hour shift duties after almost a year on the job.)

(I am a high school student, hired for a new fast food restaurant that is under construction. During training, I have to go to another franchise across town.)

Worker: “Hey, new guy. Before you leave tonight, you need to mop the freezer.”

(I run a bucket of hot mop water, but it takes only an instant for the mop to freeze to the floor. I try to keep it moving as quickly as possible, but there are icy mop-prints all over the floor. Before long, it’s mopped as well as I can get it. I empty the mop bucket and go home. The next day, I get a phone call.)

Manager: “Don’t bother coming in today. The health department shut us down for a couple of days. Some idiot went and mopped the freezer.”

Me: “Really? I wonder who that could have been?”

(As far as I know, they never pulled that trick on the new guys again.)