This was a job I shouldn’t have taken, but I was desperate. It started showing red flags when I was told to come in and interview when the girl I was replacing was off so she wouldn’t know. Normally, I would just say no and move on, but the job I was currently at was absolutely toxic, so I was desperate.

This new job was with a small company that had about eight employees. After I had been there for about two months, I noticed that my paycheck was wrong. It turns out that the owner’s wife did the paychecks and she miscalculated. Thankfully, they got it fixed, but then I started seeing other problems.

They offered paid holidays, which sounds great, except for the fact that they were also closed around those holidays but wouldn’t pay you for them, so you had to use four of your five Paid Time Off days so you weren’t out so much money. And speaking of payday, they only paid us once a month, and the boss would conveniently “forget” to pay us — no direct deposit — until after five, so our check wouldn’t go in until the next day, or sometimes until Monday.

The boss’s wife would come in several times per week and tell me that I should be exceedingly grateful that they even thought of hiring me.

After I was there a year, the supervisor decided she was going to move back to Texas, and I thought that they were going to offer me her position. No. Instead, they expected me to do her job without any extra pay. I started looking for another job, right before 2020 became what 2020 did.

Then, in March of 2020, I was working seventy-plus hours a week, at least till the boss’s wife decided we shouldn’t be paid overtime. That is when I conveniently decided that I wasn’t going to work over my forty hours if they were going to pull that.

The boss’s son — who was a piece of work and treated me like I was stupid — was getting ready to take over the business but his dad wasn’t ready to let go. So, I would get told different things each time I spoke to one of them and then get yelled at for not doing what the other wanted first.

During this time, we hired a friend of the son’s to help out, and while I was trying to help train him, the boss’s son screamed at me for trying to take his position of training. The boss stood idly by and let him scream at me.

After they left for the day, I went into the bathroom and cried for forty-five minutes and decided I was getting out of this job. I also found out that day that the guy who had just been hired was making $2 more than I was an hour.

I ended up finding a much better job and I gave a short notice because they were notorious for not letting people work out their notices. They had me train the new guy for my last three days, but he kept telling me, “I already know this,” and didn’t look at so many of the training examples that I printed out and made special for him.

So, on my last day, after I tried to train him and he went back to his desk, I shredded all of that and all of the pertinent information that I had obtained during that time.

I’ve been at my current job for nine months, making almost triple what I was making there, and I just got a promotion. My former employers called me last week to see if I would be interested in coming back because the guy they hired just wasn’t working out. I took great pleasure in hanging up on them after telling them I was very happy in my current position.

I work for the local council. Due to the current health crisis, we have had to close the office and work from home. This means helping the contact centre. It’s not difficult as we did more or less the same job face to face. The only difference is we help with applications (Blue Badge for disabled residents, Bus Pass applications, Council Benefit applications, etc.).

After the second lockdown, we ran a limited service from the local library. This was to try and be as “normal” as possible. But to adhere to social distancing, we had to book appointments instead of a walk-in service. As soon as the third lockdown hit, the library closed. So that customers wouldn’t lose their appointments, we instead worked overtime and weekends to help customers with applications over the phone. That’s something we can’t normally do due to needing photographs, documents, etc., but we’re trying our best to provide the service even though it is much more limited.

I decide to do a bit of overtime to help with these appointments. My manager sends me three tasks to complete during my one-hour overtime: two that will take around fifteen minutes each and one that will take around half an hour. Therefore, I will finish at 6:00 pm. My manager sends me two of the tasks and keeps referring to the third. However, he has not sent it to me. I keep asking for it to be sent to me as I do not have it, but she keeps implying that I have deleted the email. At 5:00 pm, my manager is showing as “offline,” so any emails or messages I send will not be picked up straight away. I complete the two applications which take around forty-five minutes and then pick up some emails for the remaining time.

I log on the next morning and the first thing I see is an email from my manager containing the last task. 

Manager: “This was in my drafts.”

It was sent at 6:18 pm. No apology. I was also suffering from a flu — tested negative for the health crisis illness, thankfully — and had informed my manager of this. There was no sympathy at all. I decided not to do any more overtime.

I work four part-time jobs, usually about sixty to eighty hours a week, 5:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday, 5:00 am to 1:00 pm on Sundays, and 8:00 am to 12:00 pm on Saturdays.

My car needs service, but as I work during the hours of operation for most businesses and can’t leave my car overnight, my options are limited. Finally, I find a dealership near me with extended Saturday hours. I make an appointment and bring my car in.

Technician: “Hello, how can I help you?”

Me: “Hi, my name is [My Name], and I have an appointment for 1:30.”

Technician: “Okay, I found you here. Let’s get you checked in. What seems to be the problem?”

I explain the issue.

Me: “I probably should have come sooner, but I work a lot, and this was the only time I wasn’t working and you were open. I work Saturdays, too, so this was the earliest I could come in.”

Technician: “Yeah… I work Saturdays, too…”

I felt so stupid and ignorant, complaining about working on Saturdays to someone who was working on a Saturday. It’s like the people who go shopping on holidays and complain to the workers that they shouldn’t be working, but they can’t be closed if you’re going to shop there.

The rest of the transaction went fine, though, with no resentment — I hope!

My father works as a tech support in a hospital. He is sometimes “on call,” which basically means everyone in the hospital can call him at every, yes, EVERY hour of the day if there is a problem with a PC.

It is 3:00 am, and my mom and dad and I are sleeping in our rooms; mine is right next to theirs. We all suddenly wake as there’s a loud noise; it’s my father’s phone ringing and it’s someone from the hospital. It pisses us off but it happens less than once a month, and no one usually calls at night. It’s a nurse calling.

Dad: “Hello?”

Nurse: “Hello, is this [Dad’s Surname]?”

Dad: “Yes, what seems to be the issue?”

Nurse: “I am at the end of my night shift and I need to write a report down before I go home, but the office PC doesn’t start!”

Dad: “Okay, has it had problems in the past few days? The nurse before you said something about it not working well.”

Nurse: “No, nothing! What do I do?! I need to sleeeeep!”

Dad: “What does the monitor say?”

Nurse: “‘No signal. ‘What does it mean?”

Dad: “Okay.”

He tells her what “no signal” stands for and tries to solve the problem. This goes on for about fifteen minutes but the PC still won’t start. Suddenly, my dad has a realization.

Dad: “Wait, look under the desk.”

Nurse: “Okay, what now?”

Dad: “Is the charger in the power-point?”

Nurse: “No? Should it be?”

Dad: *Huffs* “Yes, or else the PC has no electricity to work!”

Nurse: “Eww, but it’s gross! There’s too much dust! Can’t you come here and put it in for me?”

Dad: “Are you kidding me? I am here to tell you what to do, not to do it for you! You are a d*** nurse; you should have some gloves! If you’re so picky, use them! BYE!” *Hangs up*

My dad was fuming, and he was super tired and went back to sleep.

The hospital is one hour’s drive from my house, so the nurse wanted my dad to get in the car in the middle of the night, drive an hour, put a d*** charger in, and come back home. Some people!

Related:
PEBCAK, Episode VII
PEBCAK, Episode VI
PEBCAK, Episode V
PEBCAK, Episode IV
PEBCAK, Episode III

I work at a rather expensive clothing store. My coworkers and I work on commission as well as a fixed salary, so making sales is not necessary to get a decent wage, but can enhance the salary quite nicely. Also, whenever business is slow, we get to leave an hour or even two early to save the store some money.

Since I wouldn’t get home until after 9:00 pm — after having been at work for ten hours — I am delighted when my manager tells me I get to leave early. However, ten minutes before I am allowed to leave, a customer approaches me and asks for help finding some clothes. I am not allowed to say no and I am not supposed to “hand him over” to a coworker when I get to leave early instead of my shift ending.

So, begrudgingly, I put on a customer-service smile and help him find the clothes. Many of the items he wants are either in the back or on a mannequin so I need to ask coworkers to help me locate them or undress the dolls; I have been working here for two weeks.

Some of the clothes I pull for the customer don’t fit, so the customer is happily trying on several items as I watch the minutes passing by, and I finally see that I won’t get to leave an hour early as I was planning to. When they are done, however, they smile and go, “I’ll take them all,” dumping about six items of — very expensive — clothing into my arms. They then go on to ask for several other items and, realising that they are actually going to buy clothes — a lot of people just come in, make us help them find a good size, and then go somewhere else to buy it cheaper there — my mood lightens dramatically.

I put the clothes on “my” table and go on to advise the customer for another half-hour, at the end of which the customer has selected clothes that come to a price of more than 500$. When they are done, I fold the clothes as quickly as possible to get them to the cashier and mark some as my sales, as well as putting down some as sales of the coworkers who helped me locate them.

My manager catches me with over fifteen items on my arm and asks me what I’m still doing in the store since I should’ve been gone for over an hour. When I point to the clothes and tell her that I have to get them to the cash registers ASAP for a customer, her jaw drops and she lets me get on my way.

That is the one and only time I was happy to stay later than planned.