It’s 7 AM, and I’m at the restaurant, letting maintenance guys work on equipment in the kitchen. They have two trucks parked behind the restaurant. We don’t open for four more hours. We’re not a breakfast place, never have been. For eighteen years, we’ve opened for lunch daily at 11 AM.

In front of the restaurant is an empty, morning sun-lit parking lot.

Grandma comes to the door, pulls, pushes. She gives up. Defeated.

Twenty-something grandson pulls, pushes. Also defeated. Honestly, I’m not sure if he could’ve opened it even if it had been unlocked.

The hours of operation and the deadbolt are unforgiving.

Mom goes to open the door for poor Grandma. Yank. Yank, YANK HARDER! She, too, is defeated.

But then Pop swaggers up. His pointless shades at this early hour are perched on his chiseled face. His cargo shorts are full of magical and mystical Fatherhood tools. He’s been waiting for a worthy opponent. He knows his feeble mother and sissy son can’t be trusted.

His white socks are pulled up over his bulging calves, and they strain, even with his New Balance tactical tennis shoes, as he launches himself against the door.

Taken aback that his frontal assault isn’t successful, he grabs the door and, with the power of Odin, his forefather, pulls at the door as if he’s straining to lift Mjolnir to prove his worthiness. The door is still standing.

Finally, he resorts to his last hope. You might be thinking, “Look at the Hours on the door!”

But you’d be wrong. He calls the restaurant. I debate on whether to answer and decide that this should be a learning experience.

Mother and Grandma are peeking into a window, gazing at the chairs stacked on top of the tables. There are no lights on in the dining room.

Pops is standing near the door, cellphone in hand, tapping his bright white New Balance shoes in anticipation of the fight that will soon be happening. He WILL get his family French toast at this steakhouse at 7:05 AM!

Lanky son with his long curls hanging over his eyes looks up briefly. Pushes the hair away from his eyes as he stares at the Hours of Operation.

You can actually see the gears turning inside his head as he desperately tries to figure out what the clues are telling him.

Finally, he slowly lifts his entire arm and points at the sign.

The family slowly retreats to the safety of the shiny black Suburban. They’ll soon forget this defeat as they search for bacon and eggs. So, they’ll be back. Not realizing that we never open for breakfast. They’ll try again soon. Soon.

A while ago, my wife and I got engaged. My mother-in-law decided to gift us with an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris as an engagement gift. So, we found ourselves spending a week in Paris, enjoying the city. Also, we met an old friend. My friend was doing a post-graduate degree in Paris. We met up a couple of nights, and we scheduled to visit the Louvre together.

The next day, we met outside the Louvre. Along with [Friend] was his girlfriend. She was a History of Arts major (slightly important for later) from Norway. [Friend] was an Archaeology post-grad. He has, since his preteen years, had an obsession with ancient history (important for the story). Also relevant to the story, my wife likes to read a lot of history books.

We start our tour in the Louvre from the Roman section, with [Friend] taking the role of explaining what we were seeing. English is not any of our first languages, but we all speak English together as a common language.

We pass the Roman section, followed by the Greek, stopping on the Aphrodite of Milos. In that section, [Friend] really took off with his explanations, not only with Aphrodite but with the Muses as well (statues of them in the same section). Then up the stairs to take pics of Nike and onwards to the Renaissance section.

On the way towards the next section, we stopped in a room that had models of some of the wonders of the ancient world. One of them was a model of the temple of Zeus in Olympia and the giant statue of Zeus made from Ivory and Gold. [Friend] stops to explain this to his girlfriend, and my wife decides to chip in about cheating in the original Olympic Games, starting some light-hearted banter. They’re talking in our native language, and I’m trying to translate to [Friend’s Girlfriend].

And then it happened…

Stressed Mom: “Excuse me. What is the guide talking about?”

I turn around and see a woman in her thirties and two boys, the older around eight or nine years old, and the younger around six or seven years old. Everything about her screams tourist. She wears a sundress, has a small backpack (with supplies for the children, we found out later), a “Guide to the Louvre ” book, and a look of stress on her face (my wife and I have that look occasionally now; it’s common on parents).

Me: “They’re talking about cheating in the ancient Olympics.”

Amazed Child #1: “Wow! They used to cheat back then?”

The younger one is glued to the model.

Amazed Child #2: “Who’s that?” *He asked, pointing at the statue.*

That caught [Friend]’s attention.

Friend: “That’s Zeus, the leader of the Greek gods.”

Amazed Child #2: “Wow!”

Amazed Child #1: “Where is Mona Lisa?”

Friend: “Down this corridor. You can’t miss it.”

Amazed Child #1: “Cool! Can you tell us the story for that?”

An awkward pause from everyone.

Stressed Mom: *A bit embarrassed.* “You’re not a tour guide, are you?”

Friend: “No, madam, I’m not.”

A sigh came out of [Stressed Mother]. She grabbed her book tighter.

Stressed Mom: “I’m sorry. You were speaking with such authority, and the book is so unhelpful, we kinda thought… you know…”

Friend: “It’s alright. I hope I helped. In fact, we were going to visit the next section, if you want to follow. But I won’t do the talking. [Friend’s Girlfriend] is more adept in this period than I.”

[Friend’s Girlfriend] waved, smiling.

Amazed Child #1: “Can we go with them mom? Please?”

She looked to each of us, trying to decide.

Stressed Mom: “If it’s not too much trouble…”

Friend & Friend’s Girlfriend: “No trouble at all.”

Amazed Child #1 & #2: “Yeeeeah!”

Stressed Mom: “But, you have to be quiet and listen to the nice people.”

Amazed Child #1 & #2: “Yes, mom!”

They followed us for the rest of the day in the Louvre, with either [Friend] or [Friend’s Girlfriend] answering the kid’s questions. It was lovely to see the look of amazement on their faces as we walked through the museum.

The mother told us her husband was invited to a weeklong convention in Paris by his company and brought them along for the vacation. She insisted on buying us lunch, which we politely declined. We settled for a coffee in one of the small cafes outside the Louvre. Her husband joined us later on. The kids asked a million questions about the exhibits during our coffee. But their true delight was that they discovered that [Friend’s Girlfriend] was from a country that had Vikings!

All in all, a nice stroll in the Louvre.

My line of call centre work deals mainly with businesses. So you’d think they’d be more… on the ball if you know what I mean?

This caller gave me his order number.

Me: “No orders are showing up on my system. Can I have your account number?”

He gave me his account number and every other account number for his company’s branches throughout the UK. That’s a lot of account numbers and orders.

Still nothing.

Me: “How did you make the order?”

Caller: “Email.”

Me: “Can I have the email address used for the order?”

I go digging for this particular email. I read the email, and it literally says:

Email: “This order hasn’t been placed due to an issue with your account.”

It says that along with providing the next steps.

Me: “Can you read the email back to me?”

I ask this to make sure he has the same email up as me, and also to be a bit of a d***.

He had me on a call for one hour, with the email in front of him. He had me digging through thousands of branches for his company, thousands of orders… Dude was waiting two months for this order too…

I used to work in a really nice Indian restaurant, and I would ask people:

Me: “Would you like your curry mild, medium, or hot?”

Sometimes people would get angry at me even for asking, and would say:

Customer: “Make it VERY VERY MILD!”

I’m not judging, I have mine mild too, whatever.

One guy comes in, stinking of booze, and I take his order and ask him the question.

Boozy Customer: “No spice.”

So, I get him a mild one. A few minutes after serving him, my manager pulls me aside.

Manager: “The guy complained about you. He said you got his order wrong.”

Me: *Confused.* “He said he wanted no spice, so it’s not spicy.”

Manager: “No, he wants, like, literally no spice whatsoever in his curry. Not even non-chilli spices.”

I just stare at my manager, who’s actually from India, and ask:

Me: “Uhm, does that exist?”

Manager: “No.”

Me: “So, did you tell him?”

Manager: “Nope!”

The owner had to actually come out and explain to the customer how curry works.

I had been working as a technician for this small company when I was asked to do a normal, usual, nothing-special job.

During the course of this job, I was asked by my boss to send a picture of my work (our relationship was already very strained by this point). In this picture, I included my work and the ladder I was working on because I wasn’t going to move it just for a picture for my boss.

As I arrive back at the office, my boss calls me into his office, with a paper to sign, saying I performed an unsafe work act (his goal was to try to give me three strikes so he could fire me without severance). The act in question: I used a customer’s ladder, something that we as a company had done for the four years that I had been there, including this very same boss.

He talks to me about ladder grades, how I shouldn’t have used the ladder since I didn’t know its grade, and how much weight it can support. And then he sent me home early and told me not to come in the next day as a suspension.

I was angry. Luckily, I know union reps from other companies that handle safety regulations. So, I get a hold of the official government booklet and begin my day of study.

The very first day back, my boss again asked me to take the company ladder and go do a job. I look at every company ladder and identify that they are all classified as Grade 3 household ladders. None are within grade to support my weight of 250lbs, let alone my tools.

I break the news to my boss. It turns out none of the jobs he wanted me to do that day could be done, since he needed to instead provide ladder training that he failed to provide when I joined the company, and find a few very expensive A1-grade ladders.