I work in a two-story office building with six units: two upstairs and four smaller units downstairs. Our office is a small two-office place with a conference room, a reception area, and a large open-concept room for floating desks. There are two entrances: one through the lobby into the reception area and one through the side door in the conference room. That door leads to the parking lot which is enclosed. To access that conference room door, you quite literally have to walk by the lobby to get to it. It also has our company logo prominently displayed on it.

As you know if you read this site, people do not read signs, so occasionally, we get random people trying to open and walk through that door. Oftentimes, they are people who work in the building and have worked in the building for years. As a result, I tend to keep that door locked at all times.

One day, one of my coworkers unlocks it to go to lunch. Since he is quick, I leave it unlocked. Unfortunately, it appears that he doesn’t lock it when he gets back because thirty minutes after he gets back from lunch, the door flies open and some filthy man with no mask is standing there surprised to see that people are using the conference room!

Man: “Uh. I am looking for [Some Moving Company I Have Never Heard Of]. Do you know where they are?”

Me: “Well, not in this office. That is for sure.”

I make a shooing motion for him to back up and stay outside as he takes a step forward. 

Man: “Well, I am looking for [Company]. I don’t know where they can be.”

Me: “Well, I don’t know, either.”

Man: “But I am looking for [Company]. Do you know where that is?”

I’m trying my darndest not to be condescending.

Me: “Did you try the lobby first? There is a placard with all the company names.”

Man: “Where’s that?”

I pointed in the direction he had come from. He looked between me and the lobby door like I was some wizard playing a trick on him before finally scuttling away to check the lobby and the massive directory that he had just walked by! I locked the door right away.

My former manager is a real peach. Pardon my Southern. Fortunately, she is not my manager any longer, nor is she actually allowed to ask me to do anything — not even if the building was on fire and she needed help lifting a smoldering piece of scaffolding from her leg to escape.

Truthfully, I would still help her if she acted like a grown-up and ASKED for my help. However, it is out of her wheelhouse. Like, I said, real peach.

On the bright side, after I was no longer under her, I was promoted rather rapidly into a managerial position! We are now equals, which frustrates her even more.

Her new method to get me to do something is to now passive-aggressively hint until I “volunteer” to do it myself, but I have to do it in such a way that isn’t indicative of her “giving” me a task.

This happens in a conference call.

Former Manager: “[My Name], do you know if [Contractor] has been tracking bugs in [Program]?”

I am not responsible for this contractor; she is. I have received no training on the program she’s asking about.

Me: “I don’t know. I haven’t really looked or kept track of others’ tasks outside of [Subordinate #1], [Subordinate #2], and [Subordinate #3].”

Former Manager: “Did you look?”

Me: “I can look, but there is no good way to search for it.”

Former Manager: “You are an administrator. You should be able to look.”

Me: “I don’t get notifications for people not under me, and the search feature only works for tasks. I don’t know what he is working on.”

Former Manager: “You should be able to.”

At this point, I realize she wants to use me to basically “scold” [Contractor] in her stead for something she never told him to do. She already knows he hasn’t been putting in his bug reports. Basically, think of her as that “fun aunt” who likes to think she is cool, relatable, and down-to-earth so she hypes her nieces and nephews up on sugar and then sends them home to their parents covered in mud, knowing Mom or Dad is not going to be happy they ruined their new sneakers.

Me: “Can you show me how?”

Former Manager: “You should be able to do it!”

Me: “Okay, while I am not sure how. Would you like me to email him and ask?”

Notice the phrasing. I am asking her if she wants me to do something.

Former Manager: “No! I want you to look to see if he has entered any tasks.”

Me: “Well, I can certainly look, but as I said, to my knowledge, there is no way to search for who is assigned which tasks. If you know how, I would love for you to enlighten me.”

At this point, I have actually figured out how to search for tasks by clicking on individual profiles, which also shows me he has not logged on in two weeks. None of this needs actual administrator privilege to access. But as she clearly KNOWS how to search and just wants me to be the bad guy for her (on something that is pretty minor), I decide to continue yanking her chain.

Former Manager: “So, he hasn’t reported or been assigned one bug?”

Me: “I mean, if you check the bug list, he has a couple open, so he knows how to use it.”

Former Manager: “Has he put anything else in?”

Me: “I cannot see if he has or hasn’t.”

Former Manager: “You should be able to.”

Me: “How?”

There is a noticeable silence and I can hear the wheels turning in her head as she tries to figure out how to get out of this trap. She can either admit she checked and knows how to check or she can continue this cycle. I throw her a bone.

Me: “Why don’t I email him for you and ask? That seems best, right? Then, if he has any questions, we can figure it out together.”

Former Manager: *Grumbling* “Well, you should know how.”

Me: “I don’t know what to tell you. I received no training on this software and haven’t had a chance to create a training document for it. I recommend just talking to him.”

Former Manager: *Quick to change topic* “So, you are going to email him, yes?”

Me: “Sure.”

I made sure to mention in the email that she was asking him.

We have a company open day. All our demonstration models are out and customers can come and go as they please rather than making appointments for us to visit them. An hour or so in, a woman enters, looks around, sees me in uniform, and strides over.

Woman: “Where is [My Name]?”

Me: “That would be me, actually. How can I help?”

Woman: “I’m here to tell you I’m seeing someone, so your flirty messages have to stop.”

Me: “Flirty messages?”

Woman: “The emails, ‘have a great weekend,’ the smiley faces… I’m flattered, but they have to stop.”

Me: “Uh, sure, not a problem, and… congratulations.”

With that, she turned and left. I was speechless. Of course, I wish all our customers great weekends, good mornings, nice holidays, etc. I’m not prone to using emotes but might use one if they used one first.

I checked my emails just to be sure, and yes, I was just being pleasant and no more than with any other customer.

When I looked at the company she works for, she must have driven over an hour just to come to the office and tell me she wasn’t interested in me. Of all letdowns, that has to be the most dedicated and unexpected.

I work as a maintenance person at an office building and a while ago we had an incident involving a lot of flooding. The main road outside our building, our external parking lots, and our basement flooded.

Situated outside our building was a city project which required the redirection of traffic through the use of cones and upright mobile parking bollards similar to what we used in our own parking areas.

Prior to the flood, our building only had ten of these upright parking barriers and maybe twenty cones, but after it, we had more than thirty barriers and forty-five or so cones which had obviously washed in from the main road when our basement had consumed all of the water coming in. Of course, once we made this determination, I called the contractor responsible for the project outside.

Reception: “Hello? [Contract Company], how may I direct your call?”

Me: “Hi. I am looking for the person supervising the project over on [Roadway] and [Cross Street] about some company equipment that was pushed onto our property by the storms a few days ago.”

Reception: “Oh, no! We are so sorry about the inconvenience. Of course, we would like to retrieve anything that may have been sent your way. Let me connect you to [Foreman] so you can arrange that.”

There was a very clear line switch.

Foreman: “Hello?”

Me: “Hi. I am the facilities manager at [Business Center]. I just wanted to let you know that we have your cones and things that are missing.”

Foreman: “We aren’t missing any cones.”

Me: “Sorry, is this the project at [Roadway] and [Cross Street]?”

Foreman: “Yes.”

Me: “Then yes, we have your cones; they have your company name on them.”

Foreman: “We aren’t missing any cones.”

Me: “I… Maybe you haven’t noticed yet—”

Foreman: “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?”

Me: “Uhh… no?”

Foreman: “We aren’t missing any cones, and we aren’t going to take responsibility for your trash.”

Me: “No, these are… these are obviously yours.”

Foreman: “We aren’t missing any cones.”

Me: “But you are, though.”

Foreman: “No, we aren’t.”

Me: “But you are. You’re probably missing a lot of them; we have almos—”

Foreman: “We. Aren’t. Missing. Any. Cones.”

Me: “Yes. You. Are.”

Foreman: “If you want to file a complaint, then file a complaint, but we aren’t going to take the blame for garbage near our sites.”

Me: “What is even happening right now?”

Foreman: “Sounds like you have a problem you are too lazy to solve yourself, so you’re blaming us for your lack of organization.”

Me: “And what assembly of words that I have said during this conversation brought you to that conclusion?”

Foreman: “We aren’t miss—”

I hung up the phone at this point and called the main office back.

Reception: “Hello?”

I filled the receptionist in on the conversation I had had with her foreman, and she was just as confused as I was. She decides to contact their safety guy and send him to the site, and she informed me that he would be at our building within the hour.

A short time later, I was watching the roads from our building and having a cup of coffee when I suddenly saw five or six police cars pulling up to the worksite. They appeared to talk to a number of people on the site and then led a man away from the worksite in handcuffs. Once the police were gone, a man separated himself from the construction site and started walking down our driveway.

I put my coffee down and took the building stairs two at a time on my way down to the lobby where security had already let the individual in.

Safety Man: “Are you [My Name]?”

Me: “Yes.”

Safety Man: “We gotta thank you for your call, man. Some serious s*** could have gone down if they hadn’t sent me over today.”

Me: “I saw the police cars. What happened?”

Safety Man: “He was drunk! Blew three times the legal limit to drive. The guys tell me he drove in sloshed and drank even more on site. We found open containers in the company truck and everything.”

Me: “Oh.”

Safety Man: “He threatened the crew; he told them he would file false reports against them if they called anyone.”

Me: “Oh, there are all kinds of problems here, huh?”

Safety Man: “You’re telling me. Now, what was your original call about?”

Me: “Oh, right, we have all of your missing cones.”

Safety Man: “We aren’t missing any cones.”

I found out that the cones had been replaced under the radar by another employee who thought he would be held responsible for not securing them. He didn’t tell his foreman about it because he was new and didn’t want to get into trouble. He got into considerably more trouble than he would have initially.

I work as a security guard in an office building that is owned by a large local bank. Recently, the bank has been in the process of switching from their old computer software to a new one, which means that branch and facility employees have been converging on the site I work on for training on the new system.

Usually, these training classes only take place on weekdays, and the building is empty on weekends aside from the other guard, me, and some network people.

This week they decided to do training on Saturday. I knew this because I checked everyone in. But due to being tired, I totally forgot about it by the time 2:00 pm rolled around — hour eight of my twelve-hour shift.

Me: “Dude, I am crashing for some reason. I’m going to go get me a cup of coffee from the cafeteria.”

Partner: “All right.”

I moved to the cafeteria. More to keep myself awake than anything, I start talking to myself, starting a monologue with myself about beans, bean water, coffee bean water, haha bean water.

This conversation continued until I proudly kicked the swinging doors to the cafeteria open and yelled, “BEAN WATER!” and successfully violently startled the twelve employees that weren’t supposed to be there.

Me: “Oh, hi…”

Employees: “…”

Me: “Uhh, coffee is bean water. I came for coffee.”

Employees: “…”

Me: “I’m going to go do that.”

I slid my way over to the coffee brewer, poured my cup, and then slid back out again.

This is why training is supposed to be Monday through Friday.