I work for the billing department of a medical supply company. One day, my coworker and I return from lunch to find a voicemail on the answering service. [Coworker] has been with us just a few weeks at this time.

Message: “Hello, this is [Woman].” 

She coughs a few times. My coworker rolls her eyes.

Coworker: “This lady.”

Message: “I’m calling because, um, my oxygen concentrator seems to be malfunctioning.” *More coughing* “There’s a red light on and I don’t know what it means. My number is [phone number]. Please call me back as soon as possible. Thank you.”

Coworker: “Jesus.”

She deletes the message.

Me: “What are you doing? She needs help.”

Coworker: “It’s not our job to get that s*** worked out. She called yesterday, too, but I told her she has to call the supplies department, not billing.”

I stare at her, dumbfounded and angry.

Me: “Are you seriously telling me that a woman has called twice to say she needs help and you ignored her?”

Coworker: “She needs the supply department, not us.”

Me: “You— I— I— What the f***, [Coworker]? That’s not okay.”

Coworker: “Whatever.”

I immediately called the supply department and told them the woman’s name, though I couldn’t remember her number. Then, I called human resources — with [Coworker] right beside me — and told them what she had done. As soon as I hung up, she received a phone call, got up, and left the room. She did not come back.

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Years ago, just before the Internet explosion, I worked at a naval architecture firm. My fiancée worked at a local print shop.

My company had only had business cards created for our top staff — VP and department heads. They decided to get everyone at our office — about 100 people — business cards, since we quite often had direct dealings with customers. They also decided to use my fiancée’s shop as the producer of the cards. They ordered a single set to see the quality, which they liked.

Instead of ordering all 100 sets of cards, however, they ordered just four sets at a time. Doing so cost them about $22 a set, so $88 per order. My fiancée told me that if they’d ordered them all at once, the per-set cost would have been just $15.

I mentioned this to our admin secretary, and she said that the home office wouldn’t authorize purchase orders for cards for over $100, so they were just ordering as many as they could as long as the total stayed under $100. After they received a set, they would write another purchase order for another batch of four people’s business cards.

In the end, they spent $2,200 when they could’ve only spent $1,500. I wasn’t complaining, though; my fiancée’s shop had a profit-sharing plan. The more business they had, the bigger her monthly bonus was. So I basically profited more from my office’s strange purchase plan.

At my job, we recently had several changes in policy. I have been fielding constant phone calls about them, on top of writing documentation explaining how to change software and Internet settings to be in line with policy.

One of my coworkers decides he needs to write documentation, too. He asks me about it while I’m on the phone and I wave him off, pointing to the phone attached to my ear. We need documentation for his area, but it’s VERY low priority at the moment.

He hovers over my desk while I’m on the phone for ten minutes. Then, he thrusts the document in my face and demands that I proofread it. I take the document.

Me: “I’ll look at it when I have time.”

And I turn back to answer another phone call. 

After an entire morning of being glued to the phone, I’m hangry and my bladder is about to burst. I’m not in the mood to deal with anyone and just want to take my lunch break to eat and decompress. 

Then, the coworker glides by.

Coworker: *Glibly* “Busy morning, huh? Guess you didn’t have a chance to read my document.” 

I bit my tongue and left quickly. But d***, coworker, read the room!

A woman just joined the company, and she’s started coming out with these wild stories; many of them just don’t make sense. But if I try to clarify what she says, the other guys jump to her defence. Honestly, it is a little pathetic. She clearly likes the attention but doesn’t seem interested in anything more, and the guys all want to be the one that “got the girl.”

But it is doing no harm, so I tune them all out. I do notice that all the stories seem to be more about her being the victim — being followed home, weird phone calls, everywhere she goes she has these issues. Of course, the guys at work love this; they can be the big, chest-beating alphas, protecting the weak female.

Then, this worker starts to make comments about customers, ones that have never hinted at this behaviour before. Then, she makes a big mistake.

New Worker: “Ugh, that guy was such a perv.”

Me: “What? [Customer]?”

New Worker: “Eyeing me up, making all sorts of comments about what he would do to me.”

Me: “Are you sure? Really? [Customer]?”

Male Coworker: “Oh, man, that guy is going to get it. Don’t you worry; if he comes back here, I will sort him out.”

New Worker: “Oh, thanks, babe. He was well out of order.”

Me: “[Customer] is gay.”

Male Coworker: “What? But—”

Me: “You met his husband last month.”

Male Coworker: “Oh, yeah, the guy with the old Jag.”

There was the longest of pauses. We just looked at her and she silently walked away. She was on last chances after that. No more attention-grabbing stories, no more hanging around with the guys instead of working. She lasted three more months before moving on.

I have a manager who is a pathological liar; therefore, everyone else must be a pathological liar. Due to the health crisis, I spend a lot of the time in the office alone, but even prior to the crisis, my manager came in infrequently and only when she thought her boss would be there or when it would make her look good. It is worth noting that I don’t technically have to go into the office and can work from home, but I like how quiet it is with no one there.

On a day I know no one else is coming in, I take my car up the street to get its oil change. It is a five-minute walk so I drop it off before 8:00 am and go about my business.

Around 1:00 pm, my car is ready for pickup. No one else is in the parking lot at this time. I go to pick it up, and when I come back I see that my manager’s car is there, fifteen minutes later. Since she works upstairs while I work downstairs, I think nothing of it and go about my business.

Around 3:00 pm, my manager calls me.

Manager: “Are you in the office?”

Me: “Yes.”

Manager: “Oh. I’m not.”

The call lasts until 3:30 pm and she is gone by 3:45 pm when I go for an “air break.”

A few days later, my manager’s boss approaches me about this with my manager smirking in the background.

I reply calmly.

Me: “Oh, yeah. I went to [Car Shop] across the street to get my oil changed. That is why my car wasn’t there from 8:00 am to 1:30 pm. You can check the footage if you like?”

My manager’s face just dropped to the floor. I wish I could say that would teach her to stop trying to get others in trouble, but I doubt it.