Many years back on social media, an acquaintance was referred to by another name by those in close contact with them, but only they were allowed to call them that. Let’s say their name was Alexander, and friends called them Lex.

Another person — I’ll call them Charlie — popped up out of the blue and immediately took to calling my acquaintance Lex. No matter how many times Alexander said that they didn’t like being called that by a stranger, Charlie persisted until blocked — and until that point, they used it increasingly frequently, up to multiple times per sentence.

It was pretty clear that Charlie thought that by using the friends-only name, Alexander would take Charlie in as a friend. When it didn’t work, the strategy was to try harder.

To this day, I have never been sure whether Charlie actually cared or not about the acquaintance. I just knew that Charlie’s parents didn’t raise them very well, in a “leave me alone” style, and basically just gave Charlie a social media account so they wouldn’t bother their parents so much.

I work at an online retailer that sells high-end children’s furniture. Even though it’s high-end we always offer the best prices and shipping options. Every year, without fail, two days before Christmas we are drowning in calls from these people:

Caller: “I ordered my kids Christmas present and it’s not here yet!”

Me: “I can see that you ordered an item that will take six days to be delivered, only three days before Christmas?”

Caller: *Upset.* “So you’re saying my kids won’t have their gift in time for Christmas?!”

Me: “Our website is clear in dozens of different places about our delivery times for all items.”

Caller: “You’ve ruined Christmas!”

As usual, we are in the wrong for their poor planning. We would joke with trainees that they weren’t really part of the team until they had ruined at least one Christmas.

Earlier this year, I discovered an aggregating service for single trading cards. Unlike [Other Popular Site], this one would let you make one large purchase, they would have the sellers send the cards you ordered to their warehouse, and then you paid for shipping at the time that you asked the cards to be sent to you. Part of what made me want to sign up with [Service] was that if you requested $25 or more worth of cards sold through their [Special Program] to be sent to you at the same time, you could get free shipping. Since they came from third-party sellers worldwide, it could take a while for the cards to arrive, so waiting until your stash built up was worthwhile.

After my first successful purchase and shipment, I reviewed [Service] on a review site, saying that potential customers shouldn’t be scared off by the reviewers who complained that they had to pay for shipping because you could get your shipping free if you followed instructions.

Excited as I was to continue using them, I put off making another order until my financial situation stabilized enough to spend the money — about six months or so. When I finally put together a second order, I noticed that there was no way to get free shipping. I contacted customer service via email.

Representative: “That was just a summer promotion to draw in customers from the USA. We had banners all over the site for months.”

I pointed out that it would’ve been nice to hear about the promotion coming to an end via email blast for those who hadn’t visited the site in a while, and I thanked the representative for explaining.

Before I placed my order, however, I went back to [Review Site] to update my experience:

Review Update: “I have no problem paying for shipping this time, but this will be my last order with [Service].”

Cue a barrage of emails from [Service] saying how unfair I was for “picking on [them] because [they] couldn’t keep a promotion going that made [them] lose money,” that they were just a “small Italian company” that couldn’t afford to offer free shipping long-term, and so forth. At no point did I deviate from my refrain of, “That’s okay. I understand. I’m perfectly willing to pay for the shipping,” but they kept pelting me with emails — several over the course of an hour or two — repeating their sob story.

Finally, I broke down and wrote back.

Me: “This is starting to feel like harassment. As far as I’m concerned, we’re down to one of two options: either leave me alone and I’ll pay for my shipping and we can end our business relationship there, or you can refund me [amount I paid for the cards I have waiting] and I’ll delete my account on your site. But I’m not changing my review.”

They stopped pestering me — which I’m grateful for — but they also didn’t tell me their choice. After they’d been quiet for a few days, I tried to log in to finally pay for my shipping and discovered that I’d been banned.

But at least I got my refund!

Caller: “I get my Internet from you, and it’s not working right!”

Me: *Looking at the caller’s details* “I’m not seeing an outage in your area. Could you—”

Caller: “No! It’s not an outage thing! But your stupid Internet won’t let me post my s***!”

Me: “Oh, are you having an issue with a particular website?”

Caller: “All of them! Facebook! Twitter! I keep posting, and then they keeping taking them down!”

Me: “Oh! I see. Well then, it sounds like your Internet service, which we are responsible for, is working just fine. We’re not responsible for the actions of Facebook and Twitter.”

Caller: “I pay you for Internet! I expect my Internet to do what I need it to do!”

Me: “I would recommend contacting Facebook and Twitter about your issues, ma’am.”

Caller: “I tried! They got no phone number like you do!”

Me: *Trying to be helpful* “Maybe it’s to do with the nature of what you’re posting? I know that Facebook and Twitter have policies that—”

Caller: “All I’m posting are the f****** facts! The facts! They keep coming at me with their f****** fact-checkers!”

Me: “I… see. Well, ma’am, I do know that sometimes, if what you post can be interpreted as misinformation, they can apply fact-checkers to… uh… make the message a bit clearer?”

Caller: “I don’t need their f****** fact-checker! The Bible is my fact checker!”

Oh, Lord…

Me: “I’m afraid there’s still nothing I can do, ma’am.”

Caller: “Useless libt*rd!” *Click*

Yeah… there was no saving that conversation.

I teach Japanese language classes online. In Japanese, many words sound very similar to each other, so beginner students frequently end up saying the most outlandish (and sometimes profane) things by accident.

In this particular class, [Student #1] was supposed to say, “I bought fish.” (Watashi wa sakana wo kaimashita.)

Student #1: “Watashi wa… sakana… ni… k… kikimashita.”

Me: “Okay, you started great, but then you ended up questioning the fish. How do you say ‘buy’?”

[Student #1] corrected herself.

Sometime later, I heard a notification go off on her device with a characteristic “blurb”.

Me: “Oh, what’s that bubbling sound?”

Student #2: “The fish must be back.”