Years ago, when I worked in IT support, we had a company director who was quite “demanding”. I ended up being the only person in the office who dealt with him, mainly because our boss got fed up with him and nobody else had the patience to deal with him without getting angry.

One morning, this director phoned me with a query.

Director: “Hello, [My Name]. I need a favour. I have a friend who runs a charity teaching computer skills to children with disabilities, and he’s looking for a couple of old laptops. Do you have anything we can give him? I’ve cleared it with [My Boss].”

Me: “I’m not sure, to be honest. I know a couple of weeks ago we had two or three old laptops that had been decommissioned, but I don’t know if they’re still there or even if they still work.”

Director: “That will be perfect! Thank you!”

Me: “Now, hold on, [Director], I first need to look for them and test them. I cannot personally guarantee that we will have anything.”

Director: “Okay, well, have a look and let me know when you find them. I’ll be onsite later this afternoon.”

I ended up really busy and wasn’t able to get looking for the old laptops until after lunch. I checked all three of our storage areas — nothing! I even asked our SysAdmin, who confirmed that he’d taken one laptop for parts and the other two had likely been disposed of.

Of course, I tried phoning [Director] to tell him but got no answer.

Later that day, [Director] turned up.

Director: “Right, [My Name], what about these laptops you have for me?”

Me: “Well, [Director], unfortunately, I don’t have anything for you. I had a look in our storerooms, and everything we did have has either been salvaged for parts or disposed of.”

[Director] was angry at this point but not actually raising his voice.

Director: “You promised me that you had three laptops for me. I’ve promised my friend he could have them today!”

Me: “I didn’t actually promise you anything. I said we might have old laptops but I needed to check.”

Director: “This is not very professional. You’ve made me look bad in front of my friend, who does very important charity work.”

Me: *Thinking* “Well, why the h*** did you promise something like that to your friend?”

Me: *Out loud* “Well, [Director], I’m sorry about that.”

[Director] repeated his complaint about me being unprofessional and walked out of the office. As he left, our intern piped up:

Intern: “Maybe he shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep?”

This was just one of the many things [Director] did that caused me endless frustration in the process. But when he retired about six months before I left the company, I went to the retirement party, and just after receiving his retirement gift, he came over to see me, shook my hand, and apologised for being so demanding. In spite of my “unprofessionalism,” I clearly managed to stay in his good books!

My restaurant offers table service, and staff takes orders on tablets. We choose the food but can type instructions to the chef, eg “fish & chips”, “no salt,” etc.

Customer: “What’s the soup of the day?”

Me: “Carrot and cumin.”

Customer: “No, I don’t like carrot or cumin, but I love the bread that comes with it. Can I just have the soup of the day, but only the scone, please?”

Me: “If you like. That will be out shortly.”

The soup of the day comes with a scone. However, I can’t find the scone separately on the tablet, so I enter it exactly as he asks. Our chef, from France, comes to me waving the docket that printed out.

Chef: “Hey, [My Name]? What is this h***? Is there something wrong with my English?”

He’s waving the docket from the kitchen.

Me: “Huh? Oh, you mean, ‘What the h*** is this?’ What’s the problem?”

Chef: “‘Soup of the day, no soup’? You wrote this? He wants an empty bowl?”

I speak a little French.

Me: “Nan… Ils veulent juste le pain qui reste après avoir emporté la soupe.” *Take away the soup, and they want the scone that is left.*

The chef is still confused but understanding.

Chef: “Okay, if that is what he wants.”

The boss has heard the commotion.

Manager: “What did you do this time, [My Name]?”

Me: “Guy at table seventeen just wants the scone from the soup dish. I entered it as a soup without any soup.”

Manager: “Let me check with him.”

Me: “I’m not kidding.”

To be fair to the boss, it’s exactly the sort of prank I would play if I knew the customer.

Manager: “I’m in charge, and if he doesn’t get what he asked for, I’ll have to deal with it!”

The boss comes back.

Manager: *To the chef* “All right, give him a scone.”

Chef: “‘Soup of the day, no soup.’ This is brilliant! I will keep this docket for my fridge at home.”

The customer got his scone. The bill got discounted, so he didn’t have to pay for a soup he didn’t order. Our tablets now list “scone” as a separate option.

Our shop sells large appliances. I am showing a fridge freezer to an elderly lady, going through all the shelves and compartments. She spies the egg holder on one of the shelves.

Customer: “What’s that?”

Me: “That’s for your eggs.”

She looks at me as if I’d just admitted to mass genocide.

Customer: “Eggs? In the fridge?“

Me: “Yes, eggs can go in the fridge. I keep mine in the fridge.”

Customer: *Glares at me* “Oh, no. No, no, no. Young man, you never put eggs in the fridge.”

Then, she walked away without buying anything. That’s how I lost a sale because I told someone I keep eggs in the fridge.

I am a twenty-two-year-old woman who has always been unnaturally tall. I am currently 6’9” (2.05m), and when I was twelve I was 6’3” (1.95m)! Life is hard enough for a teenage girl, but in my case, it was worse because I was bullied for my height, and the teachers at my school (a middle-class all-girls grammar school) were generally never very good at dealing with issues like this.

As an example, when I was thirteen, my mother, unable to find shoes that fit me, had to buy boy’s shoes. Someone in my school found out about it and started calling me “Boyshoes”. This in turn led to the rumour that I was born male (I wasn’t), and of course, all the girls in my school had to see for themselves if this was true by touching my breasts (to “see if they were real”) and putting their hands up my skirt (to “see if I had a penis”). When my mother complained to the school, they said there was very little they could do. I guess they meant there was very little they were willing to do. My mother claimed that this was sexual harassment, but the school disagreed, saying it couldn’t be sexual harassment as it was an all-girls school and the perpetrators were girls. My mother went to a solicitor, who wrote to the school, and they finally did something.

On another occasion, my mother had been having trouble finding a uniform to fit me. I was tall, but I wasn’t skinny like some tall girls; I was curvy and heavyset, and buying a uniform sized for a girl my age was out of the question. She tried uniforms for seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds — I wasn’t even fourteen at this point — and although they did fit, the skirts were far too short.

The school’s uniform policy stated that the hem of the skirt should not come too far above the knee. This was measured by kneeling on the floor and measuring from hem to floor — the distance should not have been more than about two inches. In my case, it was closer to seven inches, and when I stood up, the skirt was well above my knee because my legs were so long! At this point, my mother gave up; the skirt fit, the jacket fit, and she’d found blouses that fit, so she was just going to send me to school, shorter skirt or not.

It wasn’t long before I got a detention for a “non-regulation uniform” and was told to come in the next day with a regulation-length skirt. The following day, I got another detention for “non-regulation uniform and failing to rectify this issue in a timely manner”. I also got a letter sent home with me, warning my mother that I would potentially be suspended if I turned up to school in non-regulation uniform again.

My mother was livid! She stormed up to the school and demanded to see the principal. She waved the letter in his face and demanded to know why the school was “picking on me”. The principal was uninterested and made some excuse about how “the school’s uniform policy is for everyone’s benefit”. My mother told the principal that the school’s official uniform supplier didn’t make uniforms for girls of my height and build, and that if I wasn’t left alone, she’d be taking further legal action.

The school never bothered me about my “non-regulation” uniform again.

Years ago, I worked for my country’s state-run transport company, which was formed as a result of a merger between three other companies — two bus and one rail.

One of the perks of employment in the company was free public transport. Employees could travel for free on trains by showing our staff ID to the conductor, or on buses by tapping our pass on the ticket machine, which would then issue a free ticket.

One of my colleagues told me that years before I started working for the company, there was an “incident” on one of the buses involving the newly-appointed chief executive. He boarded a bus and walked straight past the driver toward the seating, and then the driver called him back and asked him if he could see his ticket.

The chief executive rather arrogantly declared that he didn’t need a ticket, as he was the chief executive and therefore travelled for free. The driver, who apparently had never met the chief executive, politely apologised for the inconvenience and again insisted that the chief executive would need to tap his staff pass to get a free ticket.

The chief executive refused again and accused the driver of insubordination, threatening to report him to his depot manager or the head of bus operations. The driver, unfazed by the threat, politely explained that the chief executive would either need to show his staff pass, pay for a ticket, or get off the bus. Making threats about “having the bus driver’s job,” the chief executive very reluctantly showed his pass and got his free ticket.

He actually did speak to the depot manager and head of bus operations, both of whom sided with the driver. The chief executive was politely told: one, the driver would have been disciplined for not checking the staff pass; and two, managers and directors were not exempt from showing their passes, no matter how high up in the company they were. The chief executive ended up being brought down a notch or two.

When I heard this story, I thought it was great that managers would back up their employees like that!