I am assigned to the Christmas aisle one day; it is the end of November so the aisle constantly looks like a herd of wild animals tore through it and needs a lot of attention. I have a cart with me since, while I’m cleaning up, I also collect damaged products and returns — things people decide they don’t want anymore and set down wherever. I have my beat-up metal water bottle in the child seat.

I get called up to cash to help ring up the big flow of customers, and when it’s died down I go back to the aisle. I notice my water bottle’s gone a little later on, and, having horrendous short term memory, I convince myself that I set it down on a shelf or at the cash during my shift at some point. I scan the aisle top to bottom and I look all around cash and in the break-room with no sign of it. I have a brief thought that a customer moved or took it, but I quickly banish it because what weirdo would take an old metal water bottle with paint peeling off it from a cart full of broken Christmas ornaments and garbage? 

I have to get back to work, so I let my coworkers know to keep an eye out, hoping it will turn up, like most things I lose do, and get back to my duties.

The store closes, and after a half-hour of cleaning and putting returns back, it’s time for me to clock out. For some reason, I cross through the toy aisle, one aisle over from where I had been the whole day, and I see it.

My water bottle is sitting on a shelf, in this aisle that I have not stepped foot in the whole day, with less water in it and a missing lid. 

I obviously throw out since it is useless without the lid, and I tell the story to everyone. I still don’t understand what would possess a person to do that. Were they dying of thirst and didn’t think to either ask to use our bathroom tap or to purchase our 50 cent bottle of water?

I don’t know, man. I spent a good amount of that night convincing myself that I’d done something odd because people don’t take random water bottles they see. 

So, I guess what I’m learning as I come up to six months working in customer service is… don’t give people that much credit.

Some years back, I was ordering Christmas presents online. A few days later, the website informed me that my packages had been delivered, but I had nothing. I checked with apartment management. They were actually surprised that nothing at all had been delivered for two days — unusual for a large apartment complex.

I had a tracking number with USPS, so clearly the next stop was the post office. I showed the tracking number. They showed me that their computer said it had been delivered to me. I showed empty hands. I was frustrated and I’m sure they were thinking I was another crook wanting free stuff. They asked me again for the delivery address. I told the clerk and then her eyes widened and her demeanor changed. I was told that, during the Christmas rush, they sometimes hired independent contractors for deliveries. She suggested I try the neighboring apartment complexes.

Since I had no other choice at that point, I went to the one closest to me. I walked into their offices — which also housed their mini gym and lounge area — and was shocked to see the place looking like a warehouse. Boxes were stacked to eye level against every bit of open wall space. More were on tables and chairs.

I eventually found my packages. Apparently, the contractor wanted to make an easy score. He showed up at the first big apartment complex on the route with all the packages for three apartment complexes and about a square mile or more of residential neighborhoods and simply unloaded his truck into their offices. The lone secretary at the time was confused and overwhelmed. 

Ho! Ho! Ho! Thanks, dirty Santa.

Last Christmas, I was at my mom’s when we called my Nana. Mom started the call, then told her, “Okay, I’m handing the phone to [My Name] now,” and I talked to her until she was ready to hang up. Partway through the conversation, I realized that she’d forgotten that when she started reminiscing about “when you were giving birth to [My Name]…”

I felt a little sad she’d forgotten she was talking to me but decided to just let her keep her train of thought instead of interrupting to correct her. She’s 92 years old; she’s allowed to be forgetful. She talked about the day I was born, about fate, and about charity. At the end of the conversation, as she was saying goodbye, she said, “I love you.” I, of course, never had any doubt that she loved me, but I thought it was really sweet that she would say that to (who she thought was) the woman who divorced her son over twenty years ago.

Technically, I am employed by a temp agency, but I have worked for quite a while at the same office now, in service of a company which just has a very strict policy on taking on official employees, due to the amount of work fluctuating. My team leader, however, is very much in favour of me, and so is her boss. They have both found ways to make me more indispensable, which gives me a more stable income. Unfortunately, this does not always stop the higher management from taking my efforts for granted. Several times, my team leader has tried to convince them to give me an official contract with the company, which has been delayed again and again over time. Neither my team leader nor I have much faith in it happening soon. Since I need the job and have difficulty finding something better, I just swallow it and continue.

Around the holidays, I feel a bit angry because of this, especially since I know that Christmas bonuses are coming. Everyone at the company gets the same small package — usually something edible — but permanent employees get a gift card with that while temps do not. This might sound logical, since some temps only work a few months or weeks in their whole life at the company — while also getting a small present from the temp agency — but with me being at the office for over a year and a half, clearly making far more effort than the majority of the notoriously unmotivated permanent employees at our department, the feeling that management probably will “forget” me makes me quite cross.

On the day that the Christmas bonuses are handed out, my team leader is walking around the department giving packages to everyone, including gift cards to the permanent employees. When she gets to my desk she hands me my box, and then suddenly says in a low voice, “And this.”

She slips me a gift card, with the words, “Not from the company, but from [Her Boss]. You’ve earned it.”

It’s very good to know that your superiors know what you’re worth, especially if you did everything you could to become indispensable — which you will never be for real, of course. People who take your efforts for granted aren’t worth you working for them — people who show their gratitude are.

Christmas bonuses and the like are not about the material reward: it’s about showing that you genuinely care about the efforts of your employees. Many suits will never understand how to show that.

My parents live in a very rural area, with gravel roads and long distances between houses. The advent of online ordering has been a godsend for them as they get older, as having items delivered is much easier than making the trip all the way into town.

However, shortly before Christmas last year, their deliveries from a specific delivery company stopped arriving. They had three different packages which were all marked as delivered, but never actually arrived. They called around to the company, and they got assurance that the boxes had been left on their porch, and the suggestion was made that maybe someone walked off with them. Not helpful.

Then, the next day, a man drove up with a pickup truck and knocked on the door. He introduced himself as the son of the couple who used to live at the house at the end of the gravel road leading up to my parent’s place, and he had all three packages with him. 

It turns out, he had been stopping by their house to get it cleaned up to sell after his parents moved in with him, and he had found a massive pile of boxes stacked up on the porch of the house, several of them with damage from the snow that had fallen. They were for addresses all down the road, and so he was going down to drop them off.

My parents were more confused than angry, but they called into the delivery company to let them know what had happened. The person on the other end was very rude, accusing them of prank calling, as apparently, several other families had phoned in, as well. Dad got angry at that and got in his truck to drive to the location in the nearest city to give them a piece of his mind. In a frankly magical coincidence, he got to the end of the street right as a delivery driver from that company was walking up to the house at the end of the street, with an armful of packages. He quickly pulled over and got out of the truck, calling out to the driver.

The delivery driver looked over at him and ran forward, dropping a couple of boxes into the snow, before dumping the entire stack onto the porch. My dad hurried forward, but the delivery driver dodged around him, ran back to his truck, and pulled out down the main street. My dad was dumbfounded at that point and ended up heading into the city as he’d planned.

It turns out that a couple of the other neighbors had the same idea, as he ran into them in the lobby of the delivery company. The person behind the counter apparently looked pretty intimidated from all of them pressing for answers. Eventually, a manager was called, and then a higher manager, before they got the whole story.

It turns out, the delivery driver my dad had seen was new, and apparently was “nervous” about driving on gravel roads. Rather than getting a different job or requesting a different route, he decided to just dump all of the packages on the first house of each gravel road. When the higher manager called him to get his side of the story, his excuse was apparently that they’d all know each other anyway, so they could handle handing the packages out.

My parents and I assume he got fired after that, as package deliveries resumed normally after that, and they’ve never had a problem since then with packages being dumped at someone else’s house.