I receive a call from a user.

User: “My laptop isn’t working.”

Me: “Can you elaborate for me?”

User: “It just keeps going to a white screen every time I restart instead of to the login screen.”

Oh, no. I know exactly what’s happened, and it’s the first time this has happened at this job.

I go to the user’s location and take a look at their laptop. Sure enough, the laptop is sitting at the boot menu. The solid-state drive isn’t listed as a boot device, only a PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) boot. Well, no big deal; all of our users are set up to have shortcuts to shared folders over the network and are instructed that anything important should be saved there.

I inform [User] that the machine should be under warranty and that I’ll just go retrieve a new one for them. Before I go on my way to get a replacement baselined for them, they seem to start panicking.

User: “So, you’re saying all the data on the drive is gone?”

Me: “Yes, it seems like the solid state failed. This is not a common issue at all, but all of your documents saved to the shared folders are on a server, so you shouldn’t have lost anything.”

User: “…”

Me: “You were saving your work to your shared folders, weren’t you?”

User: “No, I wasn’t. It was taking forever to transfer documents onto it, so I just saved them to a folder on my desktop.”

Me: “That’s weird; it shouldn’t take that long to transfer documents onto the server. And you know that the IT disclosure form you filled out when you were hired said to save your work into the shared folders.”

User: “Well, it was taking forever because I was working from home over Wi-Fi! This is a huge problem! I just lost four months’ worth of work!”

Me: *Internally facepalming* “So, you were working from home for a while and didn’t think to save all your work upon getting back?”

User: “I got really busy and didn’t think about it! This is completely unacceptable. I have so much work to catch up on! Can’t you do anything?”

Me: “Like I said before, no. This is why those shared folders are set up. Sorry.”

At this point, I couldn’t tell if they were ready to blow a fuse or completely break down, and I didn’t care to stick around and find out.

I got back to the office and got their new machine ready to go for them pronto, and I finished setting up a service request on the old machine. I then made sure to send out a PSA to every user reminding them to back up any documents they have if they haven’t done so already. Then, I told my boss that we should start sending out similar PSAs every month to drill it into our users’ heads.

When I got back to [User], they accepted defeat and begrudgingly took the replacement laptop from me. I felt bad for them, gave them my condolences, and went on my way.

Please use your shared folders. It will save you heartbreak and it will save us headaches.

I used to work at a large bank in the UK as a junior support analyst. In the early days, I surprised my colleagues by picking up shell and SQL scripting really quickly, and I became the go-to for creating bespoke reporting for issues that needed monitoring — usually PDFs with a list of discrepancies — that would go to executives to take into meetings.

I handed in my notice for a better role elsewhere, so I needed to hand over this work to someone in my team — my manager. (We were a small team.)

The handover went well, and the first thing my manager did was to make the report look nicer, with better fonts and company logos, as the report was being distributed to a wider audience in the company.

At the same time, an adjacent team — the one that looked after all the expensive printers — was getting looked into by the IT security team for distributing adult material at work, something my manager and I laughed about.

It turns out, my manager, being lazy, just used the URL of the company logo instead of adding it into the script.

The image was hosted by a conspiracy website in Berlin. I can only imagine that this site was seeing a ping/image download every morning at 8:35, and an admin there did a reverse IP trace, only to discover it was owned by the bank that the logo was from.

This German genius replaced the image with — to keep it SFW — a picture of a very beautiful woman with her legs spread while balancing on something large. It had been at the bottom of every report for approximately five weeks — thousands of emails.

It was discovered by an executive while he was holding his freshly printed report. The image was on the back page facing everyone else in the meeting, full of other executives.

I’m pretty sure nothing came of it, and everyone involved thought it was hilarious, but my manager got very lucky!

I moved to the Big Apple from Los Angeles in April and signed a lease for an apartment sight unseen. It was the same price as my LA apartment, but while in LA, $1,350 gets you a master bedroom with a walk-in closet, a private bath, and three roommates, in NYC, for $1,350, they’ve turned my closet into the bathroom and I now weigh 135 pounds thanks to the seven flights of stairs that I had to walk up every day. Some days, I would raise my arms to put on deodorant and scrape my elbow on the ceiling. One of my five roommates was a registered nurse, though, so there was the upside. The only saving grace was that this apartment was pet-friendly and had an in-unit washer and dryer.

I hated living there, and after two months when my job said I could work remotely, I packed up and went to the Caribbean. While I was there, I won the NYC housing lottery. For the first time in my life, I could afford to live by myself in NYC of all places. I’d read in forums that landlords are usually pretty happy for tenants when they win and let you out of your lease with no problem.

In my optimism, I sent the management company an email letting them know that I had won the lottery and wanted to discuss terminating my lease early. They told me to speak to the brokerage to get my room filled. The brokerage told me that I would need to pay a broker’s fee of $1,350 and still pay rent until they filled the unit, or I could try and fill it myself.

I found a guy who was already applying with the broker for another unit, and he wanted my room! Then, management said they wanted the guy I found to pay $1,400. This was genuinely the worst apartment that I’d lived in; I didn’t feel right trying to get someone to pay $1,400 for this room.

I was in a bit of a time crunch as the new guy wanted to move in on August 1st, so I needed to hire movers to take my stuff to storage the next day, but if I didn’t get the approval from management that everything was good to go on their end, then there was no point. So, I needed management to agree to let this guy take over my lease for the price that was on my lease. I argued that a new price would be a new lease, and if they wanted to do that, they would have to release me from the lease and market the apartment at this new price point. They refused, saying that I should pay the broker’s fee or forfeit my deposit and continue to pay rent until they got my room rented.

I was upset because management basically wanted to make more money and assume no risk. I would end up paying until they rented out the awful room to someone. I told them this was unfair and made no sense.

Then, management told me there was no lease takeover in the lease. I was confused because I vaguely remembered reading something about a $500 fee for a lease takeover.

Management: “Read your lease! We were doing you a favor before, but now we’re only going by the lease!”

So, I found my lease because I remembered there being this $500 clause.

I never found the $500 clause because written on the first page of the lease was Clause 2: “Length of Lease: The term of this Lease is beginning on 2/1/2022 and ending on 8/31/2022.”

I was elated! My move-in date for my new place was 8/25/2022, so I no longer needed to rush. All because management told me to read my lease. I gave them a call back and asked whether I needed the email address to send my thirty-day notice of intent to vacate or if it should be mailed as it was not specified in the lease.

Management: “You can’t break the lease!”

Me: “I’m not; it ends next month.”

I sent them a photo of the first page of the lease.

Management: *Sputtering* “You know it’s a year-long lease! This is a typo. As you know, I just took over managing the building, and I inherited some bad leases.”

I didn’t know this, but I gleefully responded:

Me: “Well, I was doing you a favor before, but now I can only go by the lease. If the lease says my term ends next month, I have to honor that.”

He hung up, furious that this was happening. At this point, I was no longer concerned about hiring movers, so when he called me back at 8:00 pm, I was ready to tell him the cut-off for the movers was 4:00 pm and that I would move out according to the lease, but he started the conversation in a somber, defeated voice:

Management: “You can move out on the thirty-first. We just have to go according to the lease. We will do a final walk-through and give you back your deposit.”

As I am still in the Caribbean, my cousin will be subletting for August, and I will be moving into my new apartment when I get back. Everything worked out in the end, all because I read my lease.

My boyfriend had a little accident at work today and needed some stitches. While we were waiting in the emergency room, a car stopped right at the entrance. We assumed they had someone disabled in the car and just wanted to load them out real quick and then find parking. 

It turned out to be a woman alone. She got out and walked inside.

A nurse filling out paperwork with us shouted at her:

Nurse: “You cannot park there! That is for ambulances bringing in emergencies!”

Woman: “I will just be a minute. I just have a few questions.”

While she said that, she kept walking.

Nurse: “Be that as it may, this is for ambulances only. Seriously, you need to move your car away!”

The woman just waved her hands like swatting away an annoying fly and started to walk faster,

Then, the nurse suddenly talked in a very hushed voice so that only we could hear her but the woman could not.

Nurse: “We have our own tow car that can be here in two or three minutes. Move away now, or your car is gone by the time you return.”

If a car is blocking an emergency entrance or exit this can cost lives, so they are not messing around, even when most of the time they only tow people parking in the disabled spaces for no reason.

Then, she winked at us.

Nurse: “You both heard me warning her, right?”

Me: “Yes, loud and clear; you warned her that she would get towed.”

The nurse called security on her radio, and within two minutes, they were there hooking the woman’s car up.

We were still waiting when I suddenly heard a screech.

Woman: “YOU B****! WHERE IS MY CAR?! I HAVE PLACES TO BE!”

Nurse: “Security is on their way; they will explain to you where it is.”

Woman: “They’d better bring my car, or I will call the police for theft!”

The nurse looked up and could see that security was already almost behind the woman.

Nurse: “I was calling after you telling you that you cannot park there. This is for emergency vehicles. But you ignored me even when I shouted after you that you will be towed and that this will be an expensive mistake.”

The woman lost it and tried lunging at the nurse, but the nurse just stepped back and security grabbed her, so she hit the security guard instead. They tackled her and called the police.

To make a long story short, the police came, and we told them the nurse shouted after the woman that this was for emergency vehicles only and that she would be towed several times, but the woman did not listen.

The woman got arrested for assault and a whole bunch of other stuff. The nurse later brought us to the examining room and told us the assault was probably her biggest mistake. She only wanted to teach the woman a lesson by making her pay for the towing, but since they had to call the cops, she will also get a ticket for blocking the entrance to an emergency room, and the fine for that is a lot higher than just the towing. Plus all the charges.

My boyfriend got his stitches and is just fine now.

CONTENT WARNING: Drugging, Sexual Assault

A few years ago, I was working in a hotel as the front desk manager, covering the audit (overnight) shift due to a callout. A young lady who was wearing a very short skirt and a low-cut top and looked worse for wear came into the front lobby shortly after midnight. She walked to the center of the carpeted room and proceeded to squat down and pull her panties aside to relieve herself.

Me: “Hi, how’s it going?”

Lady: *Continuing to urinate* “Fine. How’s your night going?”

Me: “Well, it just got really interesting. Um… do you need a restroom?”

Lady: “No, I’ll be all right where I am.”

Unfortunately, I had to contact the police, and they arrived pretty quickly. The lady was extremely intoxicated, and my only option apparently was to have her arrested for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct. I work in Maryland, and that arrest would mean that she would be placed on the Sex Offender Registry in our state because that’s how the law works.

Me: *To the officer* “Could I decline to press charges now, get her identification, and have her return in a day or two to pay for the carpet cleaning?

She didn’t have money at the moment. He said I could do that because none of us wanted to destroy this woman’s life because she peed on the carpet while clearly not realizing what she was doing.

So, that’s the route we took. I photocopied her ID and gave her a note to hang on to remind her what she had done and that she needed to bring money to the hotel by a certain date or, unfortunately, the charges would get filed.

A few days later, I was on my normal shift when an extremely beautiful woman walked in inquiring about how to handle the incident that occurred the other night.

Me: “The young lady needs to come back and handle it as agreed upon.”

Lady: *Very embarrassed* “I am the young lady.”

I was blown away. What a difference a shower and makeup that wasn’t running everywhere made for her! She was very embarrassed as I recounted the story for her, and she actually started to tear up as she got money from her purse. She gave me $100 for the carpet cleaning.

Lady: “Not that it matters, I know, but I brought this to prove to you that I am not that kind of person, and I am really sorry.”

She proceeded to hand me a note from the local hospital with attached lab work that showed she had tested positive for Rohypnol (roofies). Apparently, she and two of her friends were dosed at a bar in town. One friend was sexually assaulted, while the other friend wound up in the drunk tank, and we all know where this young lady ended up.

I immediately apologized for having had her come back with money and explained that I wouldn’t be taking any money from her at all. I was so upset to find out that these three young women came to our town to have a good time and it turned out so awful. I ended up giving her and her friends a discounted rate for a few days since they had to stay for the investigation into the assault. I did my best to redeem our town by giving them anything they needed going forward.

Long story short, what I thought were just drunken shenanigans turned out to be someone’s worst night. Calling the police was a godsend because they were able to identify that she had also been dosed.

She and I still communicate to this day, and I see her when she comes into town. (She has ever since and still does use the regular restroom when she visits!)

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