In 2006, I started working for a large nationwide mortgage company. When I went to the interview, they gave the impression that it was an easygoing, fun place to work. That day happened to be “nerd” day. Many of the employees were dressed like stereotypical nerds. I had just come from a company with a similar atmosphere, so I thought this was the place for me.

We had eight weeks of training. My job was to help people who already had loans with the company by answering questions or sometimes taking loan payments over the phone. What I didn’t know was that we were also expected to get them to agree to a transfer to a sales agent so they could talk them into refinancing, getting a home equity loan, or even better, getting a whole new loan. We got a bonus if the person we transferred agreed to one of these.

After a few months, I realized that, despite their claims of high ethical standards, there was something sleazy going on. I was making more money than I ever had before, we had a party and/or theme day at least once a month, and we had every holiday off with pay. But still, something wasn’t right.

After nine months, I found another job at less pay but closer to home, and it had no sleazy feeling, so I quit. Within a few months, the mortgage company was in big trouble for their loan practices, the CEO went to prison, and the company was dissolved.

I was never happier that I had left a job with great pay. If you are wondering, the company was Countrywide Home Loans, a primary contributor to the housing price collapse in 2007.

I work as a housekeeper for a senior assisted living facility. Every month, we run a fire drill for both the main building and the memory care building. The procedure is to go to the nurses’ station because there’s a panel that tells us where the fire alarm is being set off. Then, we move the residents from the affected area to the other side of the two sets of fire doors, and we evacuate the entire building if need be.

Residents are not encouraged to try to find their own exits because we need to know where they are and who is accounted for.

Every so often, fire system maintenance comes out to test and maintain the fire system, including testing the fire alarms. One day in the main building, the alarms were going off and the fire doors were automatically closing in response to the alarms for about six hours. The staff and the residents who were aware of it were getting annoyed.

Finally, sometime in the afternoon, the company finished up and left, giving us some peace. It was short-lived, though; about half an hour or so afterward, the alarm went off for a split second and the lights started to flash.

Rolling my eyes, I headed down to the nurses’ station just to make sure it wasn’t the company doing one last test. No one else showed up. The nurses were looking at the fire alarm panel in confusion as it was showing them that a “Resting Room, West” had the triggered alarm, but we had no such room.

Admin came down from their office to see what was going on. As my boss, the head of the maintenance department, and the head of nursing tried to figure it out, I waited. As they ran back and forth between the panel and the various alarms in the different rooms, no one else showed up. It was just me and the nurses who were already at the station.

When they pinned down the alarm, it turned out that it was a real trigger; the baker had left something in the broiler for a bit too long and it got smoky.

Admin was furious and called everyone down to the nurses’ station to give them the butt-whooping they deserved. One of the dining people was brand new and started to cry because she was getting yelled at for something she hadn’t been taught yet — apparently, someone had told her to tell residents to go out the closest exit rather than the fire evacuation routes — and she had to be consoled by the head of dining away from the meeting.

The head of maintenance decided to run a fire drill again that day to drill into peoples’ heads what they were supposed to do. That was the fastest drill I have ever seen take place since I’ve been there.

About ten years ago, I worked for a small family firm in website design. One thing I could tell you about this family firm is that it did extremely well. The family was very well off, drove flashy cars, had big houses, etc. — you know the type of people. However, another thing I could tell you about them is that they were the most generous, kind, and downright loveliest people you would ever meet. They treated their employees extremely well. I’m talking quarterly bonuses, Christmas bonuses, gifts for promoting and successfully bringing in customers to the business, regular wage rises, etc.

In one particular instance: I had been working there for about four years, when out of the blue and without word of warning, my partner cleared out our joint account and savings account and left me. I was absolutely devastated. I had nothing and ended up having to take mental health leave due to extreme stress and depression.

When my bosses found out about this, they not only gave me a hefty wage rise, but they also paid me all my bonuses back plus more, which meant I had enough to pay for a house of my own. They also gave me a promotion. They were the kindest people I’ve ever met and worked for. And I will never forget what they did for me.

I no longer work there anymore, but there is a happier ending to the story: I am now married to one of those family members. And I couldn’t be happier.

While I was at University, I had a summer job at a shoe store in a kind of run-down mall that wasn’t very busy. Sometimes we were feeling lazy and didn’t feel like serving customers, and we had a surefire way to get them to leave.

When a customer walked in, if we ignored them, they would often take a look around and 80% of the time ask to try some shoes on. If we wanted them to leave, we would greet them as soon as they walked in and ask if we could help them with anything, which almost always led to them leaving immediately. It was also interesting that if we simply said, “Hi, how are you today?” the answer invariably was, “I’m just looking,” followed by a quick exit.

Nowadays, when I go into a store and someone asks me how I am, I make a point of saying, “Good, thanks. How are you?”

My dad used to do a lot of reenacting. At one battle, a group decided to hike to some historic site “not far” from their campsite. They had to walk through a long train tunnel to get to their goal. There was a human-sized passage beside the tunnel, but it was very muddy. Everyone except Dad decided to walk along the tracks since that was a dry path, and they’d only seen one train come through in two days. They felt safe to walk into the tunnel with no side space to jump to safety.

Dad walked faster than the others, so he exited the human tunnel when the rest of the group was still in the train tunnel. He could see the guys in the dark, within fifty yards or so of the exit.

Suddenly, a train whistle came from deep inside the tunnel behind ’em.

Those out-of-shape middle-aged men set some sprint records getting out of that tunnel before the train came barrelling through. They laughed off the close call, went to see the historic site, and headed back.

Half of the guys decided to follow Dad through the muddy human tunnel. The other half were convinced that there was no way another train would come along so soon after the first, so they headed into the train tunnel. They’d not gotten far when they heard a train whistle. Everyone ended up following Dad through the muddy human tunnel after that second train came barrelling down the tracks.

I’ve always wondered if those dumba**es gave the train workers heart attacks as they saw a group of idiots on the tracks ahead of ’em.