We’re immigrants. My parents aren’t fluent in English so they still make some mistakes with words and grammar. My dad gets a new phone and it keeps calling me on its own.

Me: “Hello? Hello? Huh. I guess he pocket-dialed me.”

I hang up and send him a text.

Me: “Your phone called me again.”

Dad: *Texting back* “Sorry I booty-call you.”

Me: *Texting back* “OH, GOD, FATHER, NO! YOU DID NOT BOOTY-CALL YOUR OWN DAUGHTER! CALL IT POCKET-DIAL!”

He says bum-call now, which I consider a huge improvement. I also got him to reduce the number of pocket-dials by making him add an actual screen-lock so that his pocket can’t swipe his phone open.

We have not been home long when my wife realises that we left one of our daughter’s toys at the pub where we had lunch. I call the pub to ask if it has been handed in.

Manager: “Good afternoon, [Pub]. [Manager] speaking.”

Me: “Good afternoon, my name is [My Name]. We had lunch at your pub about half an hour ago and we think that we left a toy butterfly behind. We were sitting at table twenty. Is it still there?”

Manager: “A toy what?”

Me: “Butterfly.”

Manager: “I’ll just call the bar now.” *Into radio* “Can someone check table twenty and see if there’s a toy butterfly there?”

Bar: “One minute.”

I realise that I can hear their radio loud and clear. 

Bar: “There’s a load of [Fornicating Fecal Matter] here. I can’t see it.”

This rankles me, as I work in the pub trade and in general, this is highly unprofessional. I am also careful to clean up after myself, as I know what it’s like to deal with what seems like an insurmountable mountain of mess.

Manager: “Sorry, it hasn’t been handed in behind the bar.”

Me: “Thank you for looking. By the way, with regards to the [Fecal Matter], there was a family at the table beside us, as well.”

Manager: “Oh… Sorry about that.”

I disconnected the call. It seemed clear that the only reason they were sorry is that they got caught. Publicans, if your staff are prone to vulgarity on the job, at least have the courtesy to put the customer on hold. I don’t need to hear that Fecal Matter.

My dad moved out of the US after my parents’ divorce when I was young. He is not a fan of technology and does not have a cell phone, so I can’t call him via an app like WhatsApp or Facebook. I buy calling cards because they are cheaper than my cellphone’s long-distance plan.

A friend of mine, who also calls family long-distance, recommends an app that’s like a calling card on your phone that you preload money on. I decide to try it out and call Dad one day. 

Dad: “Hello?”

Me: “Hi, Dad. How are you?”

Dad: “[My Name]?! Is that you? I can’t hear you. Speak up!”

Me: *Louder* “Dad? How about now?”

Dad: “Honey, you sound far away. Your cell must have bad service. Walk around a bit.”

Me: *Doing as he suggests* “I’m in the backyard, Dad. Can you hear me?”

Dad: *Getting frustrated* “You sound really far away. Try calling again later. “

We say goodbye and hang up. I reach out to the app’s tech support and put in a ticket. I mention it to my friend who says she’s never had any issues. Tech support gets back to me that the issue should be resolved and to try the call again. I do and my stepmother answers.

Me: “Hi, [Stepmom].”

Stepmom: “Oh, hi, [My Name]! How are you?”

Me: “Can you hear me okay? Dad couldn’t hear me when I called a few days ago.”

Stepmom: “Yes, I can hear you.”

We chat a few minutes before Dad gets on the phone. 

Dad: “[My Name]?”

Me: “Hi, Dad.”

Dad: “You still sound far away.”

Me: “I don’t know what’s wrong. [Stepmom] heard me fine.”

Dad: *To my stepmother* “How come I can’t hear her but you can?”

My stepmother takes the phone, we exchange a few words, and she hands the phone back to Dad. This repeats again, as Dad still can’t hear me. Then, I hear my stepmother burst out laughing and, after some rustling, Dad comes back on.

Dad: “[My Name]?”

Me: “Yes?”

Dad: *Excited* “I can hear you now!”

Me: *Relieved* “Finally! What was wrong?”

Dad: *Long pause* “So, we used to have a phone with a cord and it broke, so [Stepmom] went and got a cordless phone.”

Me: “Uh-huh.”

Dad: “And you know I don’t know how these fancy things work…”

I know where this is going.

Me: “So, what was wrong?”

Dad: *Sheepishly* “I had the phone upside down.”

I laughed so hard when he said that, even he joined in at the absurdity of the situation.

I lost my dad two weeks after this conversation, so to have such a happy memory of him in one of our last few conversations is something I will forever treasure.

We’re interviewing a job candidate by phone. As part of the interview process, the candidates log in to a mockup of our database system to demonstrate their technical skills. The current candidate has been doing well but is struggling with a particular task. When she gets an error, we see her circling a part of the error message with her cursor on the shared screen.

Interviewer #1: “Hey, we see you indicating part of the error message. Can you tell us what you make of that?”

Interviewer #2: *On mute* “It would be nice if she could because I don’t have a clue what that means…”

Candidate: “I’ve seen that before in [our kind of system]. Pretty sure someone didn’t set it up correctly, so it’s kind of a security vulnerability.”

Me: “I know we’re not interviewing you for a security role, but can you tell us a little more about what you see here?”

Candidate: *Typing* “Sure. If I were an unscrupulous user, I’d see this error, and… actually, I don’t want to break anything.”

Interviewer #1: “You’re in a test environment. If you break it, we’ll just reset. I’m curious now. Do your worst!”

Candidate: “Okay!”

We wait a few minutes while she types a very long command on the screen.

Interview #1: *On mute* “Who the heck flagged her as ‘less experienced’? I’ve never seen half these words in my life.”

Interviewer #2: “She only has three years of experience with [System]. The rest of the candidates had at least six.”

Candidate: “Aaaaaand… there we go. Okay, I think this is gonna work. Let’s see what happens when I do th—”

As all three of us lean forward to watch what’s about to happen, the computer running the test environment — and the phone call — shuts off. We jump back in surprise.

Interviewer #1: “She was in a virtual machine! How’d she do that?”

I start frantically hitting the ON button on the PC tower.

Me: “The machine won’t even start!”

Interviewer #2: “[Interviewer #1], why’d you have to use the phrase ‘do your worst’ here?”

I get the candidate on the phone, and she says something must have gone wrong and overwhelmed the test environment. When she hears the computer won’t even start, I can hear her start to panic.

Me: “Don’t worry; it’s an old desktop that we needed to replace anyway. If there’s an exploit that can actually break a computer, we needed to know.”

Candidate: “This is a longshot, but… when you were leaning in to look at the code, no one hit anything on the computer, did you?”

I look down. [Interviewer #1]’s elbow is firmly planted on the on/off switch of the powerstrip that the computer is plugged into. We all have a good laugh and everyone calms down, and we restart the computer and resume the call.

Interviewer #2: “By the way, we see you only have three years of experience with [System]. How’d you recognize an obscure error like that?”

Candidate: “Oh, those were three years at [Company that makes the system].”

This story is part of our Best Of August 2020 roundup!

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I am covering reception as our receptionist has the morning off. I get a call from a woman. Our company name has a man’s name in it, and my coworker’s name is a very obvious man’s name.

Me: “[Company], [My Name] speaking; how can I help you?”

Caller: “Hi, I’m looking for [Company Male Name]?”

Me: “Uh… yes, that’s part of the name of our company, but who are you looking to speak with?”

Caller: “Oh! Uh…”

I hear the sound of some papers being shuffled around.

Caller: “Let me see if I can just find that name… [Coworker]?”

Me: “Oh, yes, [Coworker]. Unfortunately, he has just stepped into a meeting and will only be out in the next hour; would you like to call him then? I can let him know you called, so he will be expecting to hear from you.”

Caller: “Is that a man or a woman?”

Me: “Um, [Coworker] is a man.”

Caller: “Oh, great, so can I speak with him?” 

Me: “As I said, he’s just stepped into a meeting; you can call him in the next hour when he is available.”

Caller: “It’s just that he sent us a query, and it got redirected to my branch, and we do [certain work], and I’m the person that can help with this query, so I’m calling him to give him feedback.”

Me: “Yes, that’s fine, but he’s in a meeting; he will only be available in the next hour.”

Caller: “But he sent me this query and I’m supposed to speak with him, sooooo…”

I am getting frustrated as my incoming calls are backing up, and coworkers are standing at my desk waiting to ask me for assistance.

Me: “He. Is. In. A. Meeting! He will only be available in an hour. He is unavailable right now. I am unable to put you through, as he is in a meeting.”

Caller: “Ohhhhh, is he in a meeting? All right, I’ll call him back; when will he be done?”

This was the first call of the day; I was already exhausted.