I am about to embark on my first flight. Not only am I a little nervous, but it is also a ten-hour flight, so my sweet and helpful brothers have loaded some movies to watch to keep me distracted. The movies?
I later joked with my brothers that The Landing On The Hudson hadn’t been released yet or it would have made the list. My brother said that it would not have, due to there being “not enough casualties.”
Fairly recently, I moved to a new house. I went through the hassle of getting utilities set up. Electric, phone, propane, water, and sewer had no issues. But setting up Internet and cable was ridiculous. I nicknamed them “OneFinger” because that is what they wave at customers with.
I called and set up an appointment. No one showed up, and I heard nothing for a week. I called them back, and they said that the tech had been there and service was unavailable. Strange, as the houses on both sides are connected. They made another appointment. Same result, again with me having to call them, again with the tech saying service was not possible. Again, I mentioned that the houses next to mine had service. They made another appointment, and I was ready for round three.
I took the day off work and waited on the street in my car from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm; my wife gave me a couple of breaks. My road is a dead-end, and I am two miles from the only entrance, so if a cable truck had come to my house, I absolutely would have seen it. No show again. No call again. The tech specifically still claimed there is no way to get service to my house.
I went to their office in person the next day and explained what I had done. Apparently, the service trucks are equipped with a GPS tracking feature, and they called up the history of the tech’s truck. Interestingly, it seems that the guy couldn’t find my house at all, but he knew exactly where the local bar was. I’m not saying he spent the time he was supposed to be getting me cable drinking, but I know he didn’t park there and walk, either.
He was called back to the office and fired. And this story was sent with the cable service that suddenly was available after all.
I was asked by the boss lady to keep an eye on the filing. Human nature being what it is, most colleagues were prone to putting the documents in the correct folder at best or correct box at worst, but not the correct place. I did what was requested, keeping an eye and confronting my colleagues and asking politely but firmly that they put the documents in the correct order.
Fast forward about two months. I was told not to bother anymore. There were too many complaints about me being too strict about the filing.
Fast forward another month or so. I was asked to find a document that had been wrongly filed since I was asked to step down and could not be traced. I politely declined since I was no longer in charge of filing.
And, yes, the document remained lost and no, I was not asked to take the filing back under my wing.
A friend of my girlfriend was graduating and I came along. The weather was pretty hot, especially for that time of year, and the ceremony was held in an auditorium that could barely hold all the people who were attending.
The students would come on stage in groups of three to five and a teacher would give a little highlight like, “These students won the math championship,” or, “These students came together and convinced the cafeteria to serve more healthy food,” etc.
The teacher for ancient Greek, though, would instead read for Every Individual Student several pages from the Iliad or some other classical work. While some of his students understood why he picked those passages, with a few even giving a knowing a smile, others just sat there pondering how it related to them. But for at least 99% of the audience, he might have as well droned random words, and sitting in the stifling heat with oxygen levels dropping, people were getting annoyed.
After several rounds of this, before the next batch of students came forward, another teacher grabbed the mic and said, “I’ll keep it brief…” There was immediate thunderous applause from the audience!
After a little break to catch fresh air — that was the announcement — the teacher got the hint and while his congratulations were still longer than most other teachers they were reduced to a reasonable duration.
I’m an American living and working in Japan. One day, I get severely ill, so I call an ambulance and am taken to the hospital. It turns out to be an easily treated condition, but they keep me in for observation overnight.
During checkout the next day, they keep warning me and apologizing that payment will be expensive, even with my insurance. “I’m so sorry but it will be pricey,” is something I hear from several people.
At that point, I’m a little worried about the cost, but checkout is almost done and they present me with the bill — about ¥30,000, a little under $300 US.
I surprise them when I start laughing, then horrify them when I say that an ambulance ride, hospital stay, and followup medication in the US would easily add up to at least ten times that price!
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