I work as a dispatcher in a 911 call center. People call for all sorts of things, like settling an argument over the rules of Monopoly or other board games, answers to crossword puzzles, complaints about the weather, etc.

My favorite over the years:

Caller: “The power’s out. Can you have the fire department come over and hook up a generator? I need to watch the ballgame.”

Me: “Sorry, sir. They only have one generator, and it’s hooked up here so we can watch the ballgame.”

Caller: “Are you serious?!“

Me: “Are you? Should I be reporting this number to the police for reporting a non-emergency?”

Caller: “But it is an emergency! I’m missing the game!” 

I sent the police over, instead.

Where I live, it takes twelve weeks of training to become a police officer and fourteen weeks of training to become a border officer. There is also an optional two-year college course for each to prepare you for the job, dive deeper into the criminal code, increase your fitness, and get your nonviolent crisis certificate. I am currently in the optional Border Services course, which shares a first year with the optional police course. I am required to wear a uniform (cargo pants and a button-up collared shirt with the program crest on the sleeves) three days a week.

The first day of classes was orientation, which meant we spent the day in one classroom and were introduced to the program and what it had to offer. I was fresh out of high school and was very nervous about my first day, so I packed everything I could imagine needing — a pencil case, a laptop, several notebooks, lined paper, and feminine hygiene products — and got ready for orientation. 

I sat at a table with five other girls who also looked my age and was surprised that they had all only brought their purses while I had packed a full backpack. At first, I was a bit embarrassed that I had misunderstood what was needed for the day.

Then, the orientation started. 

Professor: “All right, we are going to start by getting to know each other a bit, so I want you all to write your names on the cards in front of you so I know who I am calling on.” 

Nobody at my table had a single writing instrument, and they all needed to borrow a pen or pencil from me. 

Professor: “Next, I want you all to pull out your laptops. You are expected to have these; it was in the list of program requirements when you applied. I want you to open [Website]. I can’t show you the student version because I have a teacher’s account.”

She quickly realised that out of seventy students, only about twenty-five of us had brought our laptops. 

Professor: “Today, you can look this up on your phones, but in the future, you need to bring your laptops. I don’t want you pulling out your phones in class. This is the first day of college; you all need to be better prepared than this.”

We were then given an hour off and asked to meet in a different room for uniform fitting. I ate lunch and then found the room, arriving ten minutes early with about twenty classmates.

Uniform fitting ended up going by very slowly because they could only take three people at a time, but the email we had gotten the week before told us that we had two and a half hours blocked off for this, so I wasn’t concerned. After ten minutes of waiting past the time we were supposed to meet, people at the back of the line started loudly complaining, and several started to call the professor profanities behind her back for making them wait sooooo long. 

Things like this continued all semester. Our Sociology teacher started bringing a box of pencils to the tests because most of the class didn’t bring anything to write with for the test, or at least not a pencil for the scantron. Several people stopped showing up for Fitness because they thought the professor was a b**** for making us go for runs.

One girl got kicked out of Psychology because she screamed at the professor and called her several names when she was asked to put her phone away. (She was in her late twenties and angry that the “high schoolers” were taking up the back row so she couldn’t hide her phone as easily.)

Over twenty people asked for extensions the night before a major presentation was due because they hadn’t read the instructions and hadn’t started the project, thinking that we would be working on it in class that day.

Someone dropped out because she was concerned about how the homework was interfering with her bar-hopping with her fake ID. 

Thankfully, many of these people will not be returning next semester, but it still confuses me how many of these people somehow wanted to go into law enforcement without even being able to respect authority.

I always carry extra pens in case one dies. How do you show up for a final exam without even one?

I work in a tax accountant office. Around 10:00 am on Sunday, I had two clients come in to do their M1PR, a rebate of your rental fees through the state of Minnesota.

They were physically disabled and in power wheelchairs with oxygen apparently built in; they both had cannulas. One of them was legally blind, and the other was hard of hearing. They were a married couple. They were brought to my office in the mall by the paratransit buses. They weren’t very mentally present, but we did our best to accommodate them.

We asked if they had cell phones as part of the tax process, and they said they did not.

I did their M1PRs and sent them on their merry way. Supposedly, their pick-up was at noon. Their pick-up bus did not arrive. They puttered around the mall for a while waiting for pickup until 2:00 pm.

Around that time, we figured something was wrong, and after some discussion, we tried to call the paratransit organization. They were closed for the weekends and not taking any calls.

Next, we called mall security to let them know about the problem. Mall security sent someone to check up on the couple but said they couldn’t do anything except not throw them out when the mall closed at 5:00 pm.

At this point, it was about 4:00 pm, an hour before the mall closed. The two customer’s wheelchairs were making distressing “low battery” beeping noises. We called 911 on their behalf. The police didn’t show up until 5:00. The police officer was very upset about the inability to get in touch with the paratransit people and said she was going to send someone over to the paratransit headquarters to physically speak with dispatch.

The medical personnel came next but said that they were not permitted to transport the clients in the ambulance unless they were taking the clients to a medical facility, so the only thing they could do was remain on site and make sure that the clients didn’t choke to death by checking on the oxygen tanks. 

They said they could take the clients to the hospital if something went wrong with the oxygen tanks, of course.

At 6:00 pm, the wheelchairs fully ran out of power. Some investigation revealed that they needed proprietary charging devices which were back at the clients’ house. The clients no longer had any mobility at all. I stayed late with the police officer, the mall security officer, and the medical personnel to keep an eye on the situation. At this point, the clients were waiting in our office instead of in the mall proper.

At 7:00 pm, the police officer told us that a paratransit vehicle was on the way and that the company would be fined for forgetting about the client.

At 8:00 pm, the paratransit vehicle arrived, but the driver of the vehicle didn’t bring the equipment to load unpowered wheelchairs and refused to load the wheelchairs without power. The police officer really laid into the driver, and she and the security guy offered to help carry the wheelchairs into the vehicle, but the paratransit guy refused to touch the wheelchairs until they were charged. 

The police officer made a run to the client’s apartment to bring back the charger andd told the paratransit driver not to go anywhere.

At 8:15 pm, five minutes after the police officer left, the paratransit driver went somewhere.

At 9:00 pm, the police officer returned with the chargers, and we started charging the client’s wheelchairs. The police officer radioed headquarters and told dispatch to send another officer to the paratransit headquarters.

At 11:00 pm, the paratransit driver arrived on site again and got into a shouting match with the police officer.

At 11:30 pm, the clients were loaded onto the vehicle to go home.

At 12:00 am, midnight, I finished the closing procedure, clocked out, and went home.

When this happened, I was completely furious about this whole situation. But now, looking back on it, all I can think of is how blatantly dumb and ignorant some people are.

I’m a woman, and I wear a headscarf for religious reasons. At the time of this story, I was seventeen, and I had just gotten into the habit of wearing a headscarf every day. For the first few weeks, people who didn’t know me personally actually couldn’t recognize me with it on.

I’d gone over to play video games with one of my friends after school, and since she lived nearby and I didn’t have a car, I would usually just walk to her house if the weather permitted it. It was a nice spring afternoon, so I did just that.

As I entered my friend’s neighborhood, I suddenly heard the slam of someone’s front door. Coming barreling out of this house was a woman in her sixties, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and flip-flops. At first, I didn’t think it had anything to do with me, so I just glanced briefly in her direction and kept walking by until she shouted.

Woman: “Who do you think you are?!”

I stopped and turned. There was nobody else on the street or walking on the sidewalk that she could be referring to.

Me: “Sorry? Did you mean me?”

Her face turned red with rage.

Woman: “What do you think you’re doing here?!”

Again, I was still really confused as to what was going on, and I had no idea why this random person was just yelling at me for a reason I couldn’t discern.

Me: “What?”

Woman: “You don’t belong here!”

Me: “What do you mean? I’m just on my way to meet up with my friend at her house.”

Woman: “Your people don’t belong in this nation! This is America!”

This is kind of where it clicked for me.

Me: “You’re right. This is America. That means I have the right to practice whatever religion I believe in. That includes Islam.”

Woman: “Go back to whatever country you came from!”

This was the part that just made me mad. I’d dealt with Islamophobia before, but I’m not an immigrant, and I’d never been told to “go back to my country” for being Muslim before.

Me: “Lady, I was born here, my parents were born here, and their parents were born here. This is my country.”

She then started screaming, “PROVE IT!” at the top of her lungs over and over again. I had no idea what on earth to do. It wasn’t like I just had my birth certificate on me or anything, and besides, I didn’t want to have to prove anything to this lady. I just started walking away.

Then, she grabbed onto my hijab and tried to pull it off. She yelled, “PROVE IT!” again but, luckily, my hijab didn’t come off completely and just slid back. I had an undercap on anyway, so my hair was still covered. Instinctively, I pushed her away from me just enough that she let go of my hijab, and I took off running.

Several of her neighbors were emerging from their homes to get a look at what all the yelling was about, and I rounded the corner of the street my friend’s house was on. She was standing on the front porch with her mom behind her, presumably also drawn out by the woman’s noise, when I ran up the steps and promptly hid behind them. I quickly explained to them what had happened, and my friend’s mom ushered both of us inside while she called the police.

The police arrived, and the woman was arrested on charges of harassment of a minor after the entire street testified to what she had done.

My family and I feel that she was undercharged, but there’s not much that can be done about it now. The woman was apparently a very well-known and wealthy person, and since I shoved her away when she grabbed my hijab and the altercation took place near her driveway/lawn (since I was walking on the sidewalk), she claimed that I had assaulted HER and that I had been trespassing on her property.

She did end up in court for her actions, but my parents did not want me in court as a minor because they believed it would be too upsetting for me at the time, especially since she was trying to use intimidation tactics and was threatening to sue my family, and the police agreed/advised that I shouldn’t appear in court. Instead, one of her neighbors who had witnessed the whole thing was willing to testify.

The woman ended up weaseling her way out of assault changes, but she was charged with harassment of a minor and was given community service and a court order for psychological counseling. She had to pay my family heavy compensation, and she is never allowed to have contact with me, my family, or my friend and her mom ever again.

I don’t think she was ever convicted of a hate crime, but I’d have to ask my parents; I’m not 100% certain. I live in North Dakota, which is still a very conservative catholic Christian area, so I’ve dealt with rude comments about my hijab and being Muslim before. However, the following summer, the woman was arrested a second time and given jail time after one of her neighbors called the cops on her (for what, I’m not sure) and when the cops searched her home, they found crack and evidence that she was selling it.

This happened during the spring and summer of 2021, and as of the spring of 2022, she’s still in jail on possession charges. I’m not sure how long she’ll serve in jail, but I heard her family sold her house to a nice couple, and her neighborhood is glad to be rid of her.

We have a construction crew staying with us occupying most of the hotel. A lady walks into the lobby. She is in her late sixties or early seventies, she’s short and skinny, and she just has this mean look in her eye.

She walks up to one of the front desk staff, cuts everyone in line, and says:

Guest: “Key card, now.”

I am hanging around at the desk as I usually do during peak check-in time, so I step in and pull her to the side.

Me: “Ma’am, we can check you in. You just need to wait in line.”

At first, I am trying to be nice, and I think maybe she has never checked into a hotel. I am wrong.

Guest: “I don’t give a f***! Give me my key card! My son paid.”

Me: “I will need to wait until a computer is open.”

Guest: “You’re a [gay slur that begins with F], aren’t you?”

I should have tossed her out right then and there.

She comes back at 6:00 pm. She goes through the process without saying a word, gets her keys, and is gone. I get complaints that night that someone is standing in the hallway calling the construction workers gay slurs as they walk by. Then, I hear that an old lady walked into one of their rooms because the door was cracked open and said, “Is this where you [gay slurs] f*** each other?”

At this point, I’m done. I call her.

Me: “If I hear one more word about this, I will declare you a persona non-grata, call the police, get you trespassed, and throw you out.”

The next day at 2:00 pm, she comes up to the desk. Again, there is a line, and again, she cuts everyone. I again step in, call her to the side, and ask her to chill.

Guest: “A used condom was slid under my door, and the room needs to be comped.”

Me: “I will investigate.”

Guest: “My word isn’t good enough, [gay slur]!”

She yells this in the middle of the lobby in front of many people who go dead silent and stare. A Black guest comes to my defense.

Nice Guest: “Hey, you don’t treat people like that!”

Guest: “Go f*** yourself, [N-word]!”

I come around the desk, which is a tactic I only use rarely, and get two feet from her.

Me: “I am giving you five minutes to pack your things and leave, or I will call the police.”

She storms off. Ten minutes go by, and she is still in her room and not answering her phone. I go to her room — alone, like an idiot — and knock. She does not answer.

I open the door, and she is just standing there. She stares at me and then tries to slam the door. I take a step in to stop it, and she slaps me across the face.

Thank God; now, I can just call the cops!

I call the police. We have all the witness statements from the lobby folks and my own account, but for whatever reason, we get a new cop.

Cop: “Since nobody saw her hit you, I cannot do anything about evicting her or charging her.”

But remember how she treated those construction workers? Well, one is standing close by and hears the cop say that.

Construction Worker: “I saw her hit him clear as day.”

That’s it. That gets her kicked out. He never actually saw her hit me, as he tells me afterward:

Construction Worker: “I was just tired of being called a [gay slur] every time I walked to my room.”