Hospital Executive: “[Doctor] left me a note that I’m worried about. He said he, quote, ‘really likes all the misogyny in the director’s office’ and ‘wishes we could have more.’ Did something happen?”
I read the note.
Me: “Mr. [Executive], that word is ‘mahogany.’”
I am doing some shelving at a bookstore. A middle-aged man and woman walk in. I smile, say hello, and tell them to let me know if they need anything. I am wearing a knee-length dress with a high collar, leggings, legwarmers, and motorcycle boots with no heel. Unfortunately, this is relevant to the story.
The man walks up to me.
Me: “Can I help you?”
Customer: “I could say something inappropriate right now, but I won’t.”
Me: “Okay, then.”
Customer: *Leans in and whispers* “I was going to say that you look really hot in that outfit.”
Me: “That makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I don’t think it’s okay to say to someone at their workplace.”
He looks surprised and skulks away. They leave the store soon after. I tell my manager about the interaction. Later in the day, she gets a phone call.
Customer: “Can the girl in the brown dress tell people to leave the store?”
Manager: “Is there a problem?”
Customer: “I just told her that she looked nice, and she told me to get out.”
Manager: “That’s not the way I heard it.”
Customer: “Well, she told me to leave.”
Manager: “She didn’t, but I will. Feel free to come back when you’re not going to harass our booksellers.”
I didn’t see that man again, and [Manager] is the best boss I’ve ever had.
This was several years ago, back when I was around eight and very shy. I was at a local Mexican restaurant when I decided to fill my drink. I had gotten a water cup since I had a drink in the car. As I filled my drink — the station was right next to the ordering counter — all of a sudden, one of the workers yelled out to me loudly.
Worker: “Hey! You ordered a water cup.”
I panicked, having been lost in thought, still with my hand on the seltzer bar.
Me: “Uh… Yes.“
Worker: “No soda in the water cups!“
The seltzer bar was built into the Sprite compartment on the machine. I have no clue if these are still used, as where I live, I only really see the Coke Freestyle machines.
I completely forget the word for seltzer. In a moment of clarity, I realized the lever was labeled, so I blurted out what I read.
Me: “I know! I’m just getting soda!“
The worker then gave me a glare and repeated, “Water next!”
I’ve never lived this moment down. I wish I had shaken myself out of it and just told him what I had meant, but child me just ran back to my parents’ table and refused to tell them what had just happened. To the guy behind the counter, I swear I only got seltzer!
It took me six years to go back there, and I was very careful to get a soda cup!
I moved to the Big Apple from Los Angeles in April and signed a lease for an apartment sight unseen. It was the same price as my LA apartment, but while in LA, $1,350 gets you a master bedroom with a walk-in closet, a private bath, and three roommates, in NYC, for $1,350, they’ve turned my closet into the bathroom and I now weigh 135 pounds thanks to the seven flights of stairs that I had to walk up every day. Some days, I would raise my arms to put on deodorant and scrape my elbow on the ceiling. One of my five roommates was a registered nurse, though, so there was the upside. The only saving grace was that this apartment was pet-friendly and had an in-unit washer and dryer.
I hated living there, and after two months when my job said I could work remotely, I packed up and went to the Caribbean. While I was there, I won the NYC housing lottery. For the first time in my life, I could afford to live by myself in NYC of all places. I’d read in forums that landlords are usually pretty happy for tenants when they win and let you out of your lease with no problem.
In my optimism, I sent the management company an email letting them know that I had won the lottery and wanted to discuss terminating my lease early. They told me to speak to the brokerage to get my room filled. The brokerage told me that I would need to pay a broker’s fee of $1,350 and still pay rent until they filled the unit, or I could try and fill it myself.
I found a guy who was already applying with the broker for another unit, and he wanted my room! Then, management said they wanted the guy I found to pay $1,400. This was genuinely the worst apartment that I’d lived in; I didn’t feel right trying to get someone to pay $1,400 for this room.
I was in a bit of a time crunch as the new guy wanted to move in on August 1st, so I needed to hire movers to take my stuff to storage the next day, but if I didn’t get the approval from management that everything was good to go on their end, then there was no point. So, I needed management to agree to let this guy take over my lease for the price that was on my lease. I argued that a new price would be a new lease, and if they wanted to do that, they would have to release me from the lease and market the apartment at this new price point. They refused, saying that I should pay the broker’s fee or forfeit my deposit and continue to pay rent until they got my room rented.
I was upset because management basically wanted to make more money and assume no risk. I would end up paying until they rented out the awful room to someone. I told them this was unfair and made no sense.
Then, management told me there was no lease takeover in the lease. I was confused because I vaguely remembered reading something about a $500 fee for a lease takeover.
Management: “Read your lease! We were doing you a favor before, but now we’re only going by the lease!”
So, I found my lease because I remembered there being this $500 clause.
I never found the $500 clause because written on the first page of the lease was Clause 2: “Length of Lease: The term of this Lease is beginning on 2/1/2022 and ending on 8/31/2022.”
I was elated! My move-in date for my new place was 8/25/2022, so I no longer needed to rush. All because management told me to read my lease. I gave them a call back and asked whether I needed the email address to send my thirty-day notice of intent to vacate or if it should be mailed as it was not specified in the lease.
Management: “You can’t break the lease!”
Me: “I’m not; it ends next month.”
I sent them a photo of the first page of the lease.
Management: *Sputtering* “You know it’s a year-long lease! This is a typo. As you know, I just took over managing the building, and I inherited some bad leases.”
I didn’t know this, but I gleefully responded:
Me: “Well, I was doing you a favor before, but now I can only go by the lease. If the lease says my term ends next month, I have to honor that.”
He hung up, furious that this was happening. At this point, I was no longer concerned about hiring movers, so when he called me back at 8:00 pm, I was ready to tell him the cut-off for the movers was 4:00 pm and that I would move out according to the lease, but he started the conversation in a somber, defeated voice:
Management: “You can move out on the thirty-first. We just have to go according to the lease. We will do a final walk-through and give you back your deposit.”
As I am still in the Caribbean, my cousin will be subletting for August, and I will be moving into my new apartment when I get back. Everything worked out in the end, all because I read my lease.
I am the author of this story.
My office periodically gives employees free T-shirts, typically with the name of the office and the name of the non-profit that my company paid for the T-shirts that year on them.
This year, the company has decided to do something new: they’re going to have a day where everyone who has one wears one of the yearly T-shirts given to them by the office.
As you’ve probably figured out at this point, I’ve developed something of a reputation at work for subverting dress codes.
For weeks before the actual event, I have people coming up to me offering advice on ways to subvert the dress code.
They suggested things like, “Wear the T-shirt as a doo-rag,” “Wear it as a belt,” “Chop the arms off to make it into a wifebeater,” “Wear it over your regular shirt,” and so on.
For each coworker that approaches me, I advise them to try it out themselves, too.
The day of the event arrives. Half of the office is subverting the code in some way, shape, or form.
I just wear the T-shirt normally. Everyone who knows my reputation and sees me wearing the T-shirt normally does a doubletake. Several of them start laughing.
Frankly, I just find T-shirts comfy. But I’m glad I cheered up some of my coworkers and accidentally caused a large portion of the office to act in something resembling solidarity to reject unusual dress codes.
