I am on a layover in Atlanta on my way home to Washington DC. 

My connecting flight won’t be boarding for another six hours. 

I look at the departures and see that another flight on the same airline has a flight in an hour to one of the other DC airports. I am flying solo and only have a carry-on, nothing checked.

I decide to go to the service desk to see if I can switch flights. I am willing to take “no” as a possible answer since I already have the other flight booked.

As I step up to the service desk queue, I hear a woman yelling at the attendant. Apparently, there was a delay on the woman’s previous flight and they missed the connecting flight. Because the delay was caused by an airport issue on the originating side, the delay wasn’t caused by that airline and the only thing they can do is reschedule the flight, which isn’t going to be until the next day mid-morning. The woman is going ballistic, but there is literally nothing the attendant can do other than reschedule.

After at least ten minutes of this, the women reschedules and leaves in a huff, along with the phone number of the airline’s customer service. 

I calmly walk up and greet the attendant with a friendly, “Hello,” and ask how she is doing. She looks a bit confused but says she has had better days. I ask about possibly switching the flight, and she says, “That flight is usually pretty filled since it is a commuter flight.” I tell her thanks for checking, and I hope she has a good rest of her shift.

As I am walking away, she says, “Hold on… Let me see your tickets.” I give them to her and she starts typing away. 

Two minutes later, I have a new boarding pass for the earlier flight, a seat by the wing with much more legroom because it is also the emergency row, and no one sitting next to me. 

It just proves that a polite smile and a show of true compassion will get you a long way.

I came into work today to hear my coworker, the office supervisor, in a high-volume discussion with a patient in another language. I don’t speak any other languages besides English, but I could tell the patient was agitated and my coworker was trying to neutralize it.

I let her handle that and helped other patients before my shift officially started. Later, she revealed the reason. Apparently, the patient was having an ultrasound with our chief sonographer. The patient was coughing on the sonographer, so they asked the patient to cover their mouth. The patient got offended by that and left the room in the middle of the scan. The patient commented things such as, “She shouldn’t be in the industry if she can’t take sick patients.”

My coworker tells me that in their culture coughing is open. They aren’t told to cover their mouths.

All three– the patient, sonographer, and coworker — are the same nationality.

I have an employee who has been told he is the smartest person in the room since birth. As a result, he doesn’t follow directions well because his way is always the right way and critiques or suggestions are met as personal attacks. He also feels the need to hide what he has been working on, making it difficult to gauge if he is actually as smart as he thinks he is. But boy, does he think he is smart! He is the kind of guy who thinks his work is flawless and can do no wrong but won’t look it over and promptly forgets what he did once it is not in front of his nose. 

I have begun to suspect him of plagiarizing his work to appear smart than he is. Compounded with him claiming credit for other people’s work and repeatedly throwing his coworkers under the bus for his mistakes, he is on thin ice. Long story short, I work with a liar, a cheater, and narcissist. 

I am reviewing his work one day and notice he has only completed half the requirements, despite claiming he finished it over a month ago and making comments in meetings that he has addressed any necessary changes. I shoot him an email, assuming he does have the work and it never got properly uploaded. Chaos ensues where he accuses me of bullying him and not being a team player. He makes up some excuse about how procedure should be open to interruption, before he leaves early on the grounds that I have created a toxic work environment. 

It’s safe to say the big bosses are not pleased with him, and they start the procedure to get him on an action plan, if not outright firing him. However, because my boss is going out of town, they decide to hold off on it until he gets back. I am given permission to retrain him and he is informed of it.

Fast forward to Monday morning; [Employee] apologizes to me in a vague manner. He acts like he is concerned for my mental health and tries to imply that I am overworked and being asked to do things outside of my job description. This is all false. I do not give him an inch and offer up some critique. He is visibly frustrated that I have not given into him but am staying polite. When I inform him he is still getting retrained, with [Big Boss #1] in the room, he almost throws a fit again. 

Friday, [Big Boss #1] comes back. Trying to get out of getting the training, [Employee] acts overtly friendly to me, even having his wife bring in a new kitten. We are busy with getting everything in order for a client so I hardly notice when [Employee] pulls [Big Boss #1] into my office. About thirty minutes later, [Employee] reemerges and starts derailing the entire office by apologizing and having many talks with anyone about what their issues with him are, how he can do better, etc. It turns out [Employee] was trying to get me in trouble again and claimed I was out to get him. [Big Boss #1] ended up yelling at him about causing drama. So, naturally, [Employee] causes drama.

Eventually, [Big Boss #1] gets fed up with him and insists that [Employee] speak to [Big Boss #2]. She decides she doesn’t want to talk to him that day as she needs time to process. At any rate, Monday rolls around and we are still trying to get things prepared for a big client so she doesn’t speak to him. Tuesday, she leaves to go on a trip so he is put on ice for the rest of the week.

Well, [Employee] being [Employee], he thinks that he can outsmart her, and sends her an email asking to talk. She replies with a polite email saying that she is on vacation, but with clear direction to do his work and nothing else. She also reassures him that she is looking over all the information provided. This doesn’t sit right with [Employee], so on the following Monday, he sends out a letter to [Big Boss #1] that he feels [Big Boss #2] is creating drama and he can’t do better if he doesn’t know where the discontent is. Of course, [Big Boss #1] is with a large client at that time and reminds [Employee] of this, who continues to try and bully his way into a conference to bully his way out of training. [Big Boss #1] finally gets fed up and replies, “STOP BEING ANNOYING. DO YOUR WORK!”

Of course, that isn’t enough for [Employee], who then continues his tirade via text about how he is feeling singled out and he only wants to talk to [Big Boss #2]. She intervenes and ends up calling him as we are both CC’d to the tantrum. She tells [Employee] to just focus on his work and stop harassing [Big Boss #1]. There is nothing else to talk about until the Action Plan is in place. But it doesn’t end there; [Employee] sends another email minutes later about how [Big Boss #2] refuses to talk to him. Again, [Big Boss #1] reminds him to stop creating drama and calls him annoying. 

At this time, [Employee] leaves for lunch. When he comes back he acts as if nothing happened and all is good. Off to start the next bit of drama, I suppose.

As to why he hasn’t been fired yet? Because we have to document the billion ways we have tried to train him, and he still needs to be retrained next week. It is only after the Action Plan is in place and he is retrained without signs of improvement that we can take the next steps. This goes to show you can’t always fire bad workers as easily as they claim.

I came out of work a week or so ago to find that someone had keyed my car. There were scratches all up and down one side of the car, and one of the mirrors had actually been broken off and was laying on the ground. I initially thought someone might have scraped against the car, but the scratches were in big circles that really couldn’t have occurred just from someone scraping across the side.

As I was examing the damages and trying to figure who would do this, I found a scrap of paper wedged underneath my windshield wiper. I pulled it out and found that it was a short note.

It read, “Sorry, needed to vent.”

That was it. Thanks to the fact that my work’s parking lot doesn’t have cameras, they got away clean, so I hope they enjoyed venting $800 worth of damages onto my car.

I was working at a children’s “fitness” gym, but it’s more like a play place with slides, a ball pit, and things to climb on. I was doing a camp, which is mostly free play for the kids. The camps are usually three hours long, but you can also pay for just an hour if you want.

A man walked in with his daughter and asked if she could play for an hour. The man didn’t say anything weird at all, but his shirt did read, “I Eat P**** Like A Fat Kid Eats Cake.”

He decided to sit there for the entire hour and watch his daughter play, when he could have left. I’m just super glad that no other parents showed up during that hour to see that shirt.