I was interning at a company in the marketing sector. One of the big tasks I had was to build and manage a website for that company.

One day, I was finishing some pages and, suddenly, I noticed that there were some pages with different fonts. My boss told me hours ago that he liked the font family that the home page had, Poppins, so I decided to spend more than thirty minutes editing every single text box on every single page from that website.

When there were five minutes left to go, my boss came in to see my work.

I was excited to show my work and proud of it. After all, I did what he told me to do. But when I showed him my work on changing the font family to the font that he supposedly liked, he made a weird expression.

Boss: “What’s the font family you used for this page?”

Me: “Poppins, size fifteen.”

Boss: “Let me see the home page.”

I showed him.

Me: “It has the same font family as the previous page you saw.”

Boss: “That’s impossible; they’re different! Let me see the first page again.”

I showed him the first page again.

Me: “It has the same font family: Poppins, size fifteen.”

Boss: “No, it’s not the same. Let me see the [editing program].”

I showed him that.

Me: “Here’s the font I used: Poppins, size fifteen!”

Boss: “There has to be a mistake! That’s not right!”

Me: “I guarantee you, sir, that this website has Poppins as the font family, with size fifteen.”

Boss: “No, it can’t be. You’re wrong. Let me take a picture!”

Fortunately, the five minutes passed and it was time to leave. I told him that tomorrow we could see what was “wrong”. He looked at me really seriously and then let me go home.

Luckily, I’m not working there anymore. Now, I’m enjoying myself and living more peaceful days.

I’m one of three Disrupted Operations Supervisors (DOS) for my airline, which means when something goes wrong with a flight at my airport, I’m the final authority. For some stupid reason, headquarters (HQ) decided that at my airport, there has to be a supervisor on duty twenty-four hours a day, even when it’s closed. (I tried to find the logic in this but I gave up.)

I was picked for the night shift — 20:00 to 6:00 — despite my functions, due to scheduling isues.

One day, an executive at HQ summons us DOS to an emergency meeting there on the day of a major holiday, requiring two of us to fly there from our respective bases.

I’m supposed to end my shift and go on vacation that day, so I try to convince HQ to let me video conference in order to save them money and time on my part — both via phone and email with cost estimates. I’m told no way: be there or be fired.

Since the earliest flight leaves one hour after I clock off, I don’t have to actually clock off. I catch the flight — ninety minutes — arrive there, and wait for three hours to have a thirty-minute meeting with a young executive, who tells us he’s our new boss and that we have to run everything by him now. After that, I go to the airport, wait another two hours, catch my flight back home, clock off, and go on vacation.

The cost of this little power trip to the company, you ask?

Total number of my hours: nine hours and thirty minutes paid at twice the usual rate due to the holiday, multiplied by three due to vacation interruption, and multiplied by one and a half for out-of-base work. It came to 2565€.

Travel expenses, including meals: 450€.

So, just because a moron had to have a little moment of dominance over three women, I got an extra 3015€.

Back in the day, Portuguese nightclubs had an age limit of sixteen. However, I had seen my friends go out since we were all thirteen, so I assumed this one nightclub let younger people in.

This is my first time ever on a night out to a club. I am a very young-looking fifteen-year-old, to the point where people often think I’m actually a year or two younger. I am also gawky, nerdy, and extremely innocent and naive about most aspects of social life, including nightclub protocol.

I am at the end of the queue behind all but one of my friends. As they step up to the bouncer, each of them lies about their age, adding a year. For once, my brain is too slow on the uptake, though, and when my turn comes, I blurt out my real age. Predictably, I get turned away. This is where the fun starts.

Me: “Um… it’s actually my birthday today!”

Lady Bouncer: “Oh, yeah? Let me see your ID.”

Knowing the ID would show nothing of the sort, I relent and turn away, dejected. As I am Charlie-Brown-walking out of there, the only member of our party who was behind me — incidentally, also the only one actually old enough to legally go in — leans over with a suggestion.

Friend: “Wait until their back is turned and run in before they can see you.”

I mulled this over and decided it was worth a shot. I waited until neither bouncer was looking, got a running start, dashed in, glimpsed the inside of the club for one glorious second…

…and then was unceremoniously dumped back outside by the bouncers, who of course DID see me trying to sneak past.

Anyway, at that point, I had no choice but to go home in humiliation. And of course, the whole school heard about it the following day.

I ended up going back to that club about a year later, once I was of legal age, only to find I’m not really a clubbing type of person anyway.

When I am in high school, I take the public bus to school every morning as it is about a ten- or fifteen-minute ride in a straight line, and it stops very near the school.

One day, I’ve left home and am walking to the bus stop as usual when I notice two shady-looking guys my own age walking behind me, looking a little suspect. 

Realizing their intent, I walk the rest of the way to the stop as fast as I can. Fortunately, a bus has just pulled up, and a queue of people is waiting to board. Seizing my chance, I jump in front of the queue and into the safety of the bus, leaving my would-be muggers disappointed.

This, however, sparks the ire of the people in line, many of whom are elderly. They start loudly complaining about young people cutting lines and how I have no respect — all the usual stuff. Being mature for my age, and having recovered from the stressful situation, I turn to them and politely explain.

Me: “I’m very sorry for cutting the line, but those two guys over there were following me and were going to mug me.”

I pointed at the two guys as I said this, and the message got relayed down the line. Cue an instant change in demeanour from everyone waiting to board, as they went from berating me to wanting to know if I was okay and telling me I had made the right decision cutting in front of all of them!

My boyfriend had some heart issues while we were abroad and he had to be hospitalised. Afterward, they told us he needed to see a specialist for a check-up in four weeks.

We found a small clinic with English-speaking staff and made an appointment. On the day of the appointment, this happened.

Me: “We’re here to see [Doctor]; we’ve got an appointment for 9:00.”

Receptionist: “No, you don’t.”

Me: “Excuse me? Did we get the day wrong? I’m sure we had an appointment for today.”

Receptionist: “Yes, I know. We talked on the phone. The doctor is away on holiday; he will not be in this week. Why did you show up?”

Me: “I wasn’t aware. Did you call us to reschedule?”

Receptionist: “No, of course not.”

Because this check-up was important, we rescheduled for a few days later, even though we were pretty annoyed. 

We were a few minutes early for the next appointment, and when we walked in, the place was pretty full. There was a screen near the entrance with Portuguese information and some people gestured that we should use that. Since we didn’t understand what it said, I approached the receptionist again.

Me: “Hi! My boyfriend, [Boyfriend], has an appointment with [Doctor] at 11:00. Do we need to use the screen to pull a number or anything like that?”

Receptionist: “Hello, welcome back! [Doctor] is here today. Please press the B-button and sit down and wait.”

We did as we were told and time passed. Half an hour after our appointment should have started, a doctor entered and we heard him mention my boyfriend’s last name. We got up and approached him, and he saw the numbered ticket in our hands.

Doctor: “Oh, you don’t have to pull a number if you have an appointment! The receptionist informs me when you are here! I thought you didn’t show up!”

Related:
A Most Unreceptive Receptionist, Part 16
A Most Unreceptive Receptionist, Part 15
A Most Unreceptive Receptionist, Part 14
A Most Unreceptive Receptionist, Part 13
A Most Unreceptive Receptionist, Part 12