I work in a small family-owned computer repair store in my hometown. A man walks into the shop with a PC.

Customer: “It doesn’t turn on.”

Our tech offers to do a diagnostic on the machine for a small fee, but the owner turns her down.

Customer: “I need it working so I can retrieve some pictures. Please do whatever you need to do to make that happen.”

After we clarify with the customer that we have his permission to start work with no parameters and have him sign the necessary documentation, he leaves and the PC goes to the back.

We are in a bit of a dead season for repairs, so the tech happily starts work on the computer immediately while I continue my duties of cleaning up the shop.

Tech #1: “Can you bring the air gun down? I think we’ll need it.”

Tech #2: “Mmmhmmm.”

Tech #1: “All right, he stated that it doesn’t turn on at all, so I’m going to start with the power supply.”

Tech #2: “All right.”

As soon as they removed the side panel of the computer, all I could hear was screaming, and that isn’t a normal thing from either of the technicians on duty. These are computer repair techs; they have seen some very strange and concerning things on people’s computers.

I immediately moved to the shop to find spiders, spiders everywhere, hundreds of spiders crawling out of this PC sitting on the work bench.

The lead tech grabbed a trash bag, enveloped the entire PC in it, spiders and all, tied it shut, and literally pitched the machine out the front door where it hit the ground with a loud DUNK! and slid into the bushes of the mall.

The technician then called the customer on the phone and explained what had happened and where he could find his PC if he wanted it back. She also offered a free hard drive recovery and backup should he bring the PC back minus its eight-legged tenants so he could have his photos.

Apparently, the pictures weren’t all that important because, after we retrieved the machine and set it nicely outside the shop for pickup, it sat there for several days before disappearing.

I am working the front counter at a sushi restaurant. It’s getting pretty late and we have a full house. At this particular location, the guests will come to the front register to pay for their meals.

A group that has been situated at one of our tables — three young men and a woman — approaches the counter. I smile at them as they arrive and the first one hands me their bill and card.

“How was everything?” I ask cheerily as I finish checking out one individual and move to the next.

Customer #1: “Great!”

Customer #2: “Good, thanks.”

Customer #3: “Good.”

Customer #4: “Does the carpet match the drapes?”

There is a silence as I stare in absolute shock at the man who spoke. His friend, a large local man, throws his billfold and credit card at me and wrangles his friend out of the restaurant by the back of his collar with repeated apologies.

Once they are gone, the three remaining customers ask if I’m okay, apologize to me numerous times, and pay out their tabs. They all cycle outside and have a group conversation beyond our windows as I stand there, still in relative confusion as to what happened.

Eventually, the large man comes back in to retrieve his card, which I have processed.

Customer #1: “I am so sorry about that.”

Me: “I, umm, it’s okay.”

Customer #1: “He works in construction, and apparently, someone on his jobsite told him that ‘Does the carpet match the drapes?’ is a response to someone asking how things were going.”

Me: “He’s never heard the term before?”

He shakes his head.

Customer #1: “Apparently not. He’s not the best wordsmith out of us; I genuinely believe that he would not have said that had he known the true implications of the phrase.”

Me: “I see. Well, no harm done.”

Customer #1: “He wants to come back in and apologize if you are cool with that.”

Me: “Sure.”

The man taps on the window of the shop, attracting the attention of his friends, and the young man that created the problem came back in.

Customer #4: “I am sooooooo sorry. I didn’t know.”

Me: “It’s all right. What did you think that meant?”

Customer #4: “When we do work, interiors are always last. I was told by someone I was working with that the phrase is the same thing as saying, ‘Everything went well,’ because the carpets and drapes are installed.”

Me: “I see.”

The larger boy shook his head, burying his face in his hands.

The group ended up leaving me a $37 tip and became regulars of the location.

I work the front desk for an office building in Hawaii. Our building uses RFID (radio frequency identification) badges for things like gates, parking, and most doors throughout our six floors. Today, one of the company higher-ups found that her keycard was not working, so I canceled it for her and transferred all of her authorized access to a new card which we handed to her. She came back only twenty seconds later.

Higher-Up: “This still doesn’t work! I need a working badge.”

Me: “Huh, odd, it’s brand new. Can I s—”

Higher-Up: “I need to get to my office so I can clock in! You are going to make me late!”

Me: “So sorry about that, but can I see—”

Higher-Up: “A company executive shouldn’t be having these kinds of issues! We paid good money for these systems and we expect everyone to know how to use them.”

Me: “Understandable, ma’am. Can I please see—”

Higher-Up: “Hurry up! I have to get upstairs.”

Me: “I understand, but I need to see—”

Higher-Up: “Can you issue me a temporary badge, then?”

Me: “No, I need—”

Higher-Up: “What do you mean, no?!”

A vendor had approached the desk and had been standing behind her for a moment at this point. The conversation had grown to where he had taken his headphones off to listen in.

Me: “I can’t issue temporary badges unt—”

Higher-Up: “This is unacc—”

Vendor: “Ho, Auntie, try shut up and listen to what she has for say to you!”

She was stunned into silence.

Me: “May I please see your badge?”

Vendor: “Unreal da attitude, so entitle you.”

While the exec started a conversation with the vendor, I turned the keycard over in my hands. She had placed it in a pink bedazzled sleeve of some sort and as I examined it I saw a marking that verified that my assumption of what the issue was was correct.

Me: “Ma’am this is an RFID-blocking sleeve.”

Higher-Up: “Excuse me?”

Me: “This thing, the case? This is an RFID-blocking sleeve. Your keycard and our readers use RFID to operate. You can’t use this case.”

The vendor rolled his eyes behind her.

Higher-Up: “Oh… I…”

Me: “Yeah, these are good for things like credit cards — they’ll prevent your information from being stolen — but not for your access key.”

I dropped the badge back onto our desk and she took it slowly, pulling it out of the sleeve before scurrying off without another word.

The vendor and I watched as she sheepishly went to the elevator, scanned successfully, swore softly, glanced back at us, and then entered the carriage.

Vendor: “Unreal, that kine.”

The company that I was working for at the time had very low pay for the work we were doing. I got a new car in the first year of my employment and there was no paid vacation. As a result, I didn’t take a vacation for seven years so I could maintain my car payments.

However, in 2019, a friend of mine paid to fly my wife and me from Hawaii to Missouri for a wedding, so I put my foot down with management and told them that I would be gone. I submitted notice of the trip in May of 2018, which was seventeen months ahead of the September 2019 fly-out date.  

By the time September rolled around, I had been working not only for seven years without taking a vacation but also, recently, seven-day weeks due to the company’s inability to hold a staff together. 

Making just under eighty hours a week, I was exhausted but I had maintained constant notice to the company that I would be gone, which they approved and accepted because they knew how hard I had been working. 

The day we were to fly out, I got two texts and a phone call from my direct boss, the person just above me on the ladder. I answered the call.

Boss: “Hey, [My Name], I need timesheets for your crew. Could you submit them today or tomorrow?”

Me: *Politely* “I cannot; I am currently awaiting departure at the Honolulu International Airport, which you have been informed about several times over the last year.”

Boss: “Well, could you take a moment to put the sheets together on your laptop and send them?

Me: “I can’t. I don’t have my laptop with me.”

Boss: *Angrily* “Why not?! It is your responsibility to get timesheets to me when needed!”

This was despite the fact that I was already up to date and the next set of sheets wasn’t due for another three days, a task I had left to my assistant.

Me: “I have no intention of doing any work this trip. This is my first vacation in seven years. You have had notice of my exact flight itinerary. You need to call [Coworker], who I left in charge of my people.”

This seemed to anger him even more, but I hung up the phone.

He proceeded to text me throughout the first four days of our trip, asking me for paperwork, and asking if he could borrow members of my crew to assist a short-staffed one. He asked about emails and equipment requests, and I ignored every single one of them. 

Just before the wedding started, I blacklisted my boss’s cellphone number and office extension on my phone to stop the calls and prevent any interruptions during the ceremony.

Fast forward two weeks. I had been back for a week now. My boss called me on the company phone and he was pissed. 

I had never taken the blocks off of his phone numbers.

Boss: “Why have you been ignoring my calls and text messages?!”

These are specifically in my off time because he has still been contacting me on the work phone during my work hours daily.

Me: “I blocked you.”

Of course, this didn’t sit well with him.

Boss: “Remove the restriction so that I can contact you when I need to!”

Me: “No. My phone is my personal phone, I pay the bill, and I decide what the usage for it is. There is nothing in my contract that states that I need to be contactable twenty-four-seven and nothing stating that a personal number is required. You having my number has been a privilege, not a requirement. You have abused that privilege and subsequently lost it.”

He started to yell, but I had been prepared for this since my return since I deliberately left his number blocked. I picked up a copy of my work contract from my desk where it had been sitting since my first day back. I thumbed through it.

Me: “Do you want to read it yourself? I can scan it and send it through. From now on, you can contact me while I am at work and I have the company phone on me.” 

He was livid, mostly because I had cut him off, and apparently, he went to file a complaint with Human Resources. 

I got a phone call from the HR department only forty-five minutes later, but it wasn’t what I expected. 

HR was calling to ask if I wanted to file a complaint against him! Allegedly, he had filed a complaint for insubordination and explained the situation to them. They had told him in no uncertain terms that I had every right to block him on my personal phone and then turned around and dinged him for contacting me while I was on vacation in the first place. 

At the time, my boss and I were normally on okay terms. I was happy enough that HR had backed me up and knocked him down a few pegs, so I declined to file a complaint. 

It took a while, but eventually, things fell back into place and we started working together as we always had… kind of, sort of okay-ish.

We work for a security team that remotely monitors the locations of a large local business. Since it is 2022, this monitoring is done through DVRs and NVRs that link to the computers in our office. Today, we got this call from someone regarding one of our store locations.

Caller: “Hello? Is this [Company] security?”

Me: “Hello? Yes, how can I help you?”

Caller: “I am calling from [Store Location]. I was wondering what the process was for changing the tapes in our security system.”

Me: “The… changing… I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t follow. Are you talking about the site’s security cameras?”

Caller: “Yes, I can’t figure out how to change out the tapes.”

Me: “The… tapes…”

Caller: “Yes, the VHS tapes.”

Me: “Are… can you verify the address for [location] for me, please?”

She verified the address.

Me: “And you are referring to the cameras that we monitor here at [Building]? The main cameras?”

She said yes and listed off the cameras by their on-screen ID numbers which were also visible on my side.

Me: “Ma’am, the system is digital. It doesn’t use any type of media storage.”

Caller: “I know. That’s why I’m not sure where the tapes are.”

Me: “No, ma’am, there are no tapes. The footage is stored on devices called SSDs.”

Caller: “So, the tapes are in the SSDs? How do I access that?”

Me: “No, there are no tapes.”

Caller: “What do you mean, there are no tapes? It’s a security camera.”

Me: “Ma’am, what is your position in [Company]?”

Caller: “Never you mind that.”

Me: “Can I please speak to [Manager]?”

Caller: “Who is that?”

Me: “What do you… Who is this?”

Caller: “Does he have the tapes?”

Me: “What?”

Caller: “Who has the tapes?”

I hung up the phone at this point and called the direct number for the manager. 

Manager: “Hi, [My Name].”

Me: “Hi, do you know anything about someone trying to change the tapes in the security camera system?”

Manager: “Tapes? The thing hasn’t used tapes since 2000.”

Me: “I am aware, but a woman called and—”

Manager: “I told her to change the tape, not the tapes, as in the tape we use for packing, for God’s sa—”

The call dropped. I could only assume he hung up on me to get his employee before she decided to start touching the DVR system. 

It was a strange thing to happen not more than a minute and a half into my shift.