(I have been working at my new job for about a month. I am heading to the kitchen when I notice our elderly receptionist trying to replace the toner in a printer. I see she is struggling so I offer to help.)

Receptionist: “Oh, thank you. I always have trouble with these big ones.”

Me: “No worries.”

Receptionist: “You’re quite a strong woman, aren’t you?”

Me: “Well, I grew up with five brothers. It helps to build muscle mass.”

(She gently squeezes my arm.)

Receptionist: “Yes, nice and buff, like a man.”

(She smiles.)

Receptionist: “Are you one of those transsexuals?” 

Me: “Um, no.”

Receptionist: “Hmm, I think you are. You’re too strong to be a woman. My grandson dresses up like that Gaga woman, and he can barely lift my cat.”

(She smiled again and left.)

The office where I work deals with mail which is sent to other, bigger companies. One of them is a telecoms provider. Some of the letters sent to those are complaints, in some cases very poorly written or with very outdated or weird ideas. They are sometimes handwritten on stationery paper, implying they are sent by very old-fashioned people. One was very interesting.

The person who sent the letter complained — in poor spelling and grammar — about his television signal, “Somtimes words are much softer as if I em not alloud to hear it. What has gotten in to yong peopel dese days? Find the gilty party!’

Several weeks later, I saw another letter, about someone ending his contract with the telecom provider. I wondered if it was sent by the same person, since the letter said, “My t.v. signal was jammed by computer criminals.”

Whether both letters were from the same client or not, it is interesting to note that some people seem to think that cybercriminals jam your TV signal instead of, like, trying to steal your money.

This awkward story was told to me by my grandfather.

Back when he was still working, a coworker of his unexpectedly died. Eventually, the widow came in to collect his belongings. Two employees accompanied her to his locker: the dead man’s supervisor and my grandfather to serve as a witness. The company policy was that neither of them could touch anything in the locker, just open it and visually confirm she took everything so they couldn’t be accused of stealing something.

The supervisor opened the locker, and they both stepped back to let the widow remove the stuff inside. The first thing she picked up was a stack of old pay stubs. At first, she stared at them, looking confused. As she flipped through them, she looked more and more disturbed. Eventually, she grew enraged and screamed in fury, “THAT B*****D! All these years, he told me he never got a raise and kept giving me the same money to take care of the kids and the house, and he’s been holding out on me all this time!”

Neither my grandfather nor the supervisor knew what to say, so they said nothing, just let her rant. I really can’t think of what I would have said, either!

I still have my phone number from when I lived on the US east coast, but now I live on the west coast. That means I occasionally get wrong number calls at inappropriate hours; I simply ignore my phone unless I know who is calling. One day, the calls kept coming; I received over two dozen before I left for work. Most were hang-ups, and sometimes it was the same number several times. Finally, I picked up; it was some dopey recent college grad looking for a job at the flagship Apple store in the city in which I used to live. I told him he had the wrong number. I picked up the next one, too, and it was the same story. It seemed like the Apple store recruiting office had accidentally given out my number. I felt bad for those dopey kids, even the one who kept calling me after I told him he had the wrong number.

I called the Apple store itself, and they informed me that they were not recruiting, and they don’t use outside companies to fill positions. It turns out it was some sort of scam. Now I felt extra bad for those dopey kids.

It was not a busy day at work, so I did my best to inform the callers about what was going on. I even spoke with the kid who didn’t understand what a wrong number was. 

A few minutes later, I got a message from his mother, complaining that I was unhelpful. Then I feel even worse for that kid; it’s got to be difficult to go through life with a mom who was even dumber than he was.

At my job, I’m considered a lead, so if an employee brings in any paperwork that needs to go to human resources or needs their paycheck, I handle it.

An employee came up to me, handed me their doctor’s note, and asked if they could get their paycheck. I put the doctor’s note in the scanner, and then I handed them the paperwork for their paycheck along with a pen to sign with. After they signed, I signed.

I then copied the doctor’s note, and as I was handing them their copy, I saw the reason they had been out: “conjunctivitis” or pink eye. I looked at them with a “Really?” look. 

I went to my locker and got hand sanitizer. As I came back to the desk, the employee told me, “You might want to sanitize the pen; I’m still contagious.”

I waited until she left and then sanitized the door handles to our office and threw away the pen. I sat there wondering about what an idiot she was while the other employees laughed at me.