I have been with the same company for 14 months now. When I was first hired, I got a paper schedule, as we were still building the location and didn’t have the online system set for the new hires. They told all of us in orientation, and repeatedly afterwards, that schedules were made three weeks out. From the time our store opens in late May until present day, I have checked my schedule on Saturday or Sunday, because our work week starts Saturday…

…until today, when my boss calls me at ten, wanting to know where I am and if I’m seriously injured. I’m confused as to what he means, until he tells me his schedule shows me on at nine. Mine said 11:30. I leave for work immediately and am only an hour and a half late.

When I finally see him, at close to noon, he tells me that schedules aren’t finalized until Wednesday, only two and a half weeks before the new schedule. That’s not a big deal, except this is the first I’m hearing about it, and now I’ve lost an hour and a half of pay — which adds up quickly in just-above-minimum-wage retail — because my boss didn’t think to let me know in over a year that the schedule I’m getting isn’t necessarily right.

I volunteer at a nearby hospital. My position is mainly front-desk, which means when visitors come in to see a patient, they have to get a visitor badge from me or the other volunteer. The badges have to show the visitors’ names, destination, time they checked in with the front desk, picture, etc.

The pictures come out a lot darker than expected, almost as silhouettes. Every time someone makes a comment like, “Why is my picture so dark?” or, “How come it looks like this?” I tell them, “I don’t know why it makes everyone look like a locked video game character.”

After that, the visitors leave the front desk and go to see their patient while laughing and carrying a smile on their face.

I run a small landscape company. I get a call from a customer whose lawn has been destroyed by grubs.

I go over to her house, and we walk around discussing various issues with the property. Looking at the lawn, it is clearly destroyed, and I ask her who mows it. She tells me she has this guy who cuts a few lawns on the street. I ask why he did not tell her when the grubs first came out so that she could treat them. Her explanation is that he is “just a grass cutter, not a landscaper.”

I take some measurements, and after figuring it out, we sit down and tell her the job will need a good 50 cubic yards of soil, and that I will have to move it around then spread it out. After that, it needs to be york-raked, hand-raked, and hydro-seeded. The cost would be $5,000 plus tax.

She asks how much I will charge to cut the lawn, and I reply $40.

She says that was too much. I explain that if I had been mowing the lawn, I would have seen the grubs, notified her, and treated for them at a cost of under $100.

She says that she does not want to spend the extra $10 a week. I explain that she is not saving $10, as it is going to cost $5,000 to fix the lawn now, but if she had spent the extra $10, it would have taken seventeen years of weekly mowing before she spent the $5,000. All she keeps saying is that she is saving $10.

I finally give up, sign the contract, get the $5,000, and she is happy as she is still “saving” $10 a week.

Got to love stupid people: spend $5,000 to save $10.

Related:
This Is Why We’re In A Recession, Part 77
This Is Why We’re In A Recession, Part 76
This Is Why We’re In A Recession, Part 75

Due to some budget cuts, the university I attend has had to make some buildings multipurpose. That means that people with different majors have to share buildings in order to use the classrooms, labs, and halls we need.

I am studying music, and I’m about to go on stage for my final grade. Needless to say, I’m freaking out with nerves.

Earlier in the day, we were warned not to go to the top floors of the theater, as they were being used as workshops for experimental artists. While I’m pacing around, I hear a noise and look up. There’s a young woman in protective gear leaning on the railing and staring at me.

She gives me a thumbs-up.

My first reaction is to laugh at the hilarity of the situation. Here’s a six-foot-tall violinist in a rented tux wearing a hole on the floor, being cheered up by some girl with a gas mask and a dirty lab coat. She doesn’t laugh, but points at the backstage door as if saying, “Go out there and floor ’em, man!”

And so I do. Thank you, girl in the gas mask, for giving me the weird encouragement I needed.

I’m an assistant at a preschool. At the beginning of the school year we send a form home with all our families asking about the attending child’s favourite things — songs, foods, games, and so on — so we can make our classes more comfortable for the kids. These are phrased as, “My child’s favourite songs are…” “My child’s favourite games to play are…” and so on.

We received a form back that had every single, “My child,” crossed out, with the child’s name written over the top. The final question, “When my child is upset, they are comforted by…” was answered with, “By being RESPECTED as an INDIVIDUAL. She is not a ‘they,’ she is a ‘she,’ and she has a NAME. She is not ‘my child.’ She is not property. She is her own individual person.”

The child was withdrawn from the center after seven very long weeks of the parent showing up at random times to collect her, the parent coming in to drop off hot chocolate at lunch for her on several occasions, and a written complaint about how her daughter’s handprint “leaf” was positioned on the “class tree” display. (It was not on the top branch.)