I am the shift manager, and it has not been a good day. We are in a food court and the only other store selling burgers and fries is closed for some sort of construction, so we are unexpectedly busy. It’s a Tuesday, so we only have a couple of employees working. This would usually be no problem, but with the extra customers, we are struggling.

Lunch rush has just begun when the power everywhere noticeably flickers for a second — I would say because of the construction two shops down. The lights in the food court go off but all come back on quickly. Our equipment all restarts straight away, but the order screens in the kitchen all stay off. I run out the back and restart them, but instead of the orders, they are only showing our company logo. Without these screens, the order-taker has to yell out to the kitchen what burgers to make, so things are slower than normal. I am on the phone with the national IT helpdesk, following their instructions to fix the problem. If I don’t fix it, things will be very slow all day.

Out the front, there is one person taking orders at a register and making drinks and one person making fries and bagging and handing out orders. The workers out the front are apologising to each customer for the delays, as we are already busy with our competitor’s customers coming to us, and the line keeps growing. The customers have all seen the lights go off everywhere so should not be surprised that there are problems.

I am standing on a ladder in the kitchen shining a light on the back of a screen, unplugging and plugging cords in, and using tools to follow the steps to fix the order screens. I am clearly visible to all customers waiting. After two or three minutes, I notice burgers collecting where they wait to be bagged, so I climb down from the ladder and go out the front to clear some orders before I continue trying to get the kitchen systems working. I get out the front and see the girl who should be bagging the orders and handing them out standing there being screamed at by a customer.

There are over fifteen customers waiting, all watching. This angry customer is right in her face yelling that the wait is too long and to hurry up, telling the girl that she’s stupid and an idiot for working at this fast food place, and just being horrible. The poor girl is standing there sobbing. She’s holding an order, clearly trying to hand it out to a customer when this lady approached her. My employee’s shoulders are shaking, tears are running down her face, and she’s taking big noisy breaths. The angry lady just keeps screaming, berating her for crying and for being slow and stupid.

I am enraged.

I jump in, put my arm around the sobbing employee to silently comfort her, and turn to the customer.

Me: “HEY!”

I shout to be heard over her yelling.

Me: “HEY!”

She stops screaming at the girl and looks at me. I am quite loud because I want all the waiting customers to hear this, too.

Me: “I understand that you have waited longer than normal. We all can see that there are lots of you waiting and we are really very sorry. As you can see, [Neighbouring Competitor] is closed, and I know you saw the power just go off everywhere. We are doing our best. Screaming at the only person packing and handing out orders is not going to make your service any faster. In fact, you are slowing down the service for yourself and every other customer here. We could have had your order and these other people’s orders made and handed out, but instead, we are standing here doing this. I understand that you are frustrated. I am frustrated, too. This is clearly not a normal day. Now, if you do not stop yelling at us, I will call security. If I have to go and call security to come and help me, everybody is going to wait even longer. Are you going to let us do our jobs? Or are you going to continue yelling?”

Other customers waiting were glaring at this lady, realising that she was making the situation a whole lot worse and delaying their orders further.

The lady said nothing and stepped back to wait with all the other customers.

I took a bottle of water from the drink fridge and handed it to my sobbing employee. I sent her to go and to sit down and told her to come back when she felt ready. She ran out the back, still sniffling and crying.

Thanks to this lady, I was now missing one of my two service employees and had to rush around packing the orders myself. As you’d expect, things were even slower than they would have been if I’d had the crying girl to help me.

I get that it was slow. I was stressed and annoyed, too. But screaming at the only person who’s trying to pack your food is not going to make the situation any better. How is that not obvious?

I had dreadful labour with my first child four years ago: forty-six unsuccessful hours where nothing went smoothly and which eventuated in an emergency caesarean under a general anaesthetic, followed by permanent nerve pain from the failed attempts of spinals and epidurals.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I am in the hospital being prepped for a second (planned this time) caesarean.

Things are all a bit scary, due to last time being so… well, scary… and we’re in the middle of a health crisis, so I am quite tense. I am most nervous about the epidural, but if my nerves hold up, I’ll let them attempt once, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll take the general.

I’m being prepped in various ways, with bed socks, fifty questions, and various other things. There’s time to kill before I am called in, so the nurse is pretty chill and taking her time coming to and fro with whatever props she might need.

I need the restroom and I don’t know how much time I have before I go, so I steal a moment mid-prepping.

When I return, my husband is sitting where he was, on the far side of my bed. I sit and the nurse returns. She asks us to put our hairnets on. I look all over the bed, thinking I’ve lost mime, but I realise I’ve not been given one. Suddenly, my husband looks a bit flushed.

Husband: *Embarrassed* “They gave me two hairnets while you were in the restroom. I thought they were shoe covers.”

The nurse was sympathetic, though; she had a little chuckle, but I full-on cracked up. He turned beet red but laughed along with me. The nurse said they no longer need to wear them on their feet and gave us two fresh nets.

A little later, my husband had to wait outside while they were attempting to give me an epidural. My obstetrician was in front of me, understanding my intense fear of the epidural, when I suddenly remembered the hairnets.

I chuckled to myself and my obstetrician looked confused. I had to tell her what my husband had done, and she laughed, too.

And just like that, the epidural was a success.

To this day, I don’t think what he did was that funny, but I don’t think that’s the point. The point is the fact that it was exactly what I needed at that moment, and so it still makes me laugh.

I work in a pathology collection centre where we collect blood and other delightful bodily fluids and emissions. Sometimes the doctor requests that a patient fast in preparation for their blood test for a variety of reasons, and company procedure has certain requirements for the patient to be “correctly” fasting. For example, the patient must fast for more than X hours but not more than X hours, and they can only have water and nothing else. As always, I don’t make the rules; I only enforce them.

This elderly patient presents late in the afternoon with his referral from his general practitioner, and he wants to have the blood test collected. I inquire about whether he had fasted and he hasn’t, so I explain to him that he has to fast, for how long, the consequences of not doing it “correctly”, etc. He isn’t happy but seems to accept that it has to be that way as that’s what the doctor wants.

He seems to have a little trouble understanding me, so I explain it to him a few times, write it down in bullet-point format, and give him the little handouts we have with slightly more detailed patient instructions, as well. He leaves, and I’m satisfied that he understands as I’ve explained it about five times. All in all, I’ve worked with him for about fifteen to twenty minutes.

The patient comes in the next morning around mid-morning and I ask him what time he last had anything to eat or drink other than water. The answer he gives me means that he has exceeded the maximum fasting time.

Me: “You’ve gone too long now and your results could be affected. Are you sure you want to go ahead? I wrote this all down for you. Didn’t you look at what I wrote?”

Patient #1: “No, I didn’t bother. Just do it.”

Me: *Facepalm*

In addition to this exchange, we often have this conversation with our fasting patients.

Me: “What time last night did you have something to eat or drink other than water?”

Patient #2: “Oh, yes, last night.”

Me: “What time?”

Patient #2: “Dinner time.”

Me: “What time was dinner?”

Patient #2: “Oh, around six.”

Me: “Do you think you could give me the time to the closest half hour?”

The patient rolls their eyes, exasperated. 

Patient #2: “No, I didn’t look at the clock! Just make it six o’clock!”

Me: “You haven’t had anything since then?”

Patient #2: “Oh, I had dessert at about ten o’clock.”

Or:

Patient #2: “I just had a cup of tea/coffee this morning.”

Another fun one:

Patient #3: “I’m usually difficult to get blood from.”

Me: “Oh, okay. Have you had much water today?”

Patient #3: “No, I don’t drink water.”

I have to admit though, my favourite response to the last one was, “No, I don’t drink water because fish f*** in it!”

Stick a fork in me, folks, because I am so done.

When I was fifteen, I (very regrettably) fell on the “Twilight” bandwagon when it was first released. My parents were asking about this book I was suddenly obsessed with.

Dad: “So, [My Name], tell me about this new book.”

Me: “It’s about a vampire that falls in love with a human.”

Dad: “Doesn’t he want to eat her?”

Me: “Yes, that’s what it’s about. He loves her so much that he doesn’t eat her even though he really wants to.”

Dad: “So, it’s like me falling in love with a roast dinner.”

I’m an adult still living at home. I recently adopted a young Children’s python, a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl. My parents were hesitant at first, but soon, they all came around when they realized how small and docile he was. One sticking point, however, is his food. Like most snakes, he requires whole prey items, namely mice. Mum didn’t want to see whole mice in her freezer, so I got an opaque tupperware container to store them in.

I’ve just bought a packet and am in the process of transferring a few “hopper” or immature mice from the clear shop bag into the container when my mum decides to come make a cuppa. She’s managed to avoid seeing his food for months until now.

Mum: “Oh, no, look at them! They’re all just little babies, aren’t they?”

These “hopper” mice are basically babies almost ready to be weaned. They have fur, big dark eyes, and big oversized ears. If they weren’t frozen and vacuum-packed, they’d be cute, but they’re dead.

Me: “I thought the only good mouse was a dead mouse?”

Mum: “That’s rats! Mice are different.”

Me: “How?”

Mum: “Well, they’re just babies, aren’t they? They never had a chance to do anything!”

Me: “My noodle’s just a baby! You didn’t cry over our tea last night.”

Mum: “They’re just little babies!”

Me: “Mum, we had lamb shanks! Not sheep. Not mutton. Lamb! What’s the difference?”

Mum: “They’re just babies!”

Me: “You’re being a baby! He’s gotta eat something!”

She huffed, took her tea, and was off. I know snakes aren’t for everyone, but I honestly don’t see what makes his food so confronting for people. I guess it’s easy to forget that all of the meat we eat once had a cute little face when we buy it all precut and shrink-wrapped!