I work in a hotel. It was still slow when I got this phone call in the afternoon, which gave me the time I needed to sufficiently bang my head on the desk until either this lady gained some sense or I lost my own.

Kidding. It did warrant a facepalm, though — and a recounting to all the housekeepers still there about how ridiculous this lady was.

I got a phone call and answered with the standard greeting. It was someone from Central Reservations (CRS). CRS is basically software that allows our rates and availability to be updated on all websites selling our rooms in real time. They can also take phone calls we miss — for a hefty fee, so we’re told to avoid it at all costs. I’d previously been on another call while someone else tried to call repeatedly — no more than three rings before they hung up and called again. And again. And again. They were finally routed to CRS, and CRS called me after they weren’t able to placate this lady in hysterics.

By that time, I was finally free to take that call.

CRS: “[Guest] is claiming to have a reservation with you, but we can’t find it no matter what we search for. Can I connect you with the guest?”

Me: “Sure.”

CRS: “Thank you so, so much, have a great day!” 

I was connected with this guest.

Me: “How can I help you, ma’am?”

Guest: “I have a reservation with your hotel and I want to confirm my booking.”

Me: “Okay, easy enough. Can I have your confirmation number?”

She recited it for me. It was most certainly not one of our confirmation numbers.

Me: “Ma’am, that doesn’t sound like one of our confirmation numbers. Is it possibly an itinerary or booking number? Third-party booking places sometimes generate those for reservations they make.”

Guest: “I don’t know what it is; it’s under a line that says, ‘Your booking has been confirmed.’”

Er, okay I guess. I searched for it as an itinerary number with no luck. Then, I searched it as a confirmation number just in case, but as I suspected, nothing showed up.

I asked for her name. Searched by her name. Nothing. I asked for her phone number, she said she didn’t give a phone number when she called us to book. Ugh, okay. I even asked which dates she had booked for and looked through all the arrivals on that day. Still nothing.

She was impatient and aggressive on the phone.

Me: “Ma’am, are you absolutely sure you booked a room for this hotel? The [Hotel] by [Brand] in [Town], Pennsylvania? This isn’t one of our confirmation numbers.”

She exploded.

Guest: “No, that is not where I booked it! I booked a room at [Different Hotel Chain] in Canada!”

Me: “Okay, uh, well, this is the [hotel] in Pennsylvania. You’d have to check with the hotel you booked with.”

Guest: “I don’t understand why you can’t just look up my reservation! Aren’t they all interconnected?!”

Me: “I, er… Interconnected?”

Guest: “Yes! All the hotels everywhere are interconnected in the computer. You should be able to see my reservation! I just want it confirmed, that’s all!”

Me: “No… No, that’s not… I can only see reservations that people make for this specific hotel in this specific location. You have to call the hotel you booked — in the location you booked it for — and ask them to find your reservation.”

Guest: “Are you kidding me? You’re being serious?!”

Me: “Uh, yes, that’s how the reservation systems work.”

Guest: “So, you’re telling me that I have to hang up and go find another number and call someone all over again and just hope they have my reservation? Is that what you’re saying?!”

Me: “You’ll have to call someone else, yes, but you can call the hotel you booked through an—”

And she hung up on me.

What a crackpot! “Aren’t all the hotels interconnected?” No, ma’am, they are not. If you want to check on your reservation in Canada, you should probably call them at that location. Y’ain’t even in the right country. People.

This is a story that my father is always fond of repeating, describing events that happened when he was a teen.

Living in Norway, especially back in the day, the winters are long, cold, and of course, filled with snow. This means that most schools and other clubs, activities, etc., that deal with kids and teens have very strict rules about what one is allowed to do or not do when it comes to said snow. Especially when it comes to snowballs, those rules tend to be very strict. There’s always a lot of gravel and such used to fight the buildup of ice, which can potentially make the snowballs quite dangerous projectiles, so the rules make sense. To some extent, at least.

My dad had become intimately familiar with those rules, as he had been caught red-handed throwing snowballs on several occasions. This caused him to receive an ultimatum: “No more breaking the rules, or you will be suspended!” To make sure that he knew what the rules were, he was told to study them carefully.

One summer in mid-June, there was a MASSIVE hailstorm — so big, in fact, that by the time it was over, the landscape looked like it was winter with piles of sloppy, icy snow everywhere. Going outside, the adults made sure to remind the kids about the snow rules. They made a point to stop my father at the door.

Teachers: “You know the rules. We will keep an eye on you and expect you to follow them to the letter!“

Cue malicious compliance.

You see, the rules were VERY specific. They specifically stated what you were and weren’t allowed to do with snow. In the winter.

Every single rule started with, “In the winter, you are not allowed to…”

As my father had been forced to study the rules extensively, he knew perfectly well what the rules stated, and he went outside, gathered up a piece of snow, and hurled it at one of his friends. This, of course, sparked a massive snowball fight, after which he was led up to the principal’s office.

Principal: “I assume you know why you’re here?”

Father: “Not really, no. I don’t see how I did anything wrong.”

Principal: “I thought we made it very clear what would happen if you broke the rules one more time.”

The principal pulled out the book of rules and flipped to a page.

Principal: “Mind reading to me this rule?” *Pointing to the rule about snowballs*

Father: “‘During the winter, you are not allowed to throw snowballs… [a whole bunch of text specifying what you were not allowed to throw at, where you were not allowed to throw, etc.]'”

Principal: “So, now that you’ve had a refresher, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Father: “What time of year is it?”

Principal: “…”

My father got off without any further argument, even getting a commendation from his teacher for his “clever way to think outside of the box”. The rules were changed to be a lot less specific about the time of year a few weeks later, though it wasn’t very likely to ever happen again, as hailstorms during the summer are a very rare occurrence in this part of the country.

I work at a hospital that doubles as a research institution. Since I’m on the research side, I have to involve lots of other departments, and most people with whom I work are very chill and understand that I have to beseech them for things to do my job. I’m one of those “she can go a hundred hectares on a single tank of kerosene” type of people, and I’m very on top of things, for which my coworkers value me. However, the one place where that camaraderie breaks down is with (some of) the nurses who work in my specific clinic (focusing on one particular disease).

Honestly, I’ve done a good job of making most of the nurses like me. I bring them homemade treats sometimes, and I’m always extra friendly and approbative with them. Some of them have their days regardless, and I put up with them.

Right after I first started working in that specific clinic, unfortunately, one nurse in particular decided that I was on her blacklist. [Nurse #1] hates doing work. She’s like a kid playing Xbox when their parent asks them for help with groceries. She’ll moan and groan, and if she helps at all, it’s with an angsty indignation.

I needed a series of blood tubes drawn in the clinic for a patient one morning (instead of down in phlebotomy — protocol rules — more complicated and stupid than it’s worth getting into here), and [Nurse #1] was the only nurse available. She was extremely put off by my asking her to draw this protocol kit, despite my giving advance notice to the clinic that this needed to be done. She clearly did not want to leave her computer (which was not open to anything work-related), but she begrudgingly went and drew the tubes. I unnecessarily profusely thanked her… just for doing her d*** job.

I came back down later to get a prescription signed for another patient, and I talked to [Nurse #2].

Nurse #2: “What did you do to upset [Nurse #1]? She’s been going off about you to anyone who will listen.”

I explained what had happened.

Nurse #2: “Well, [Nurse #1] is pissed at you. She also feels that your outfit is too provocative.”

I was wearing a white medical coat, a modest blouse, work pants, and high heel boots. What? I just decided to let it go and try to avoid [Nurse #1] as much as possible.

This did not work. I kept running into situations where the other nurses were busy seeing patients. I was forced to walk back into the nurse triage room — which is off-limits to patients — and ask [Nurse #1] to draw two more of these blood kits in the next month. She was never happy to see me, and she was always wasting time on her work computer when I entered the room.

Maybe two or three days after that last kit draw, my supervisor called me into her office to discuss my “presentation”. Very nicely, and with pity in her voice, she told me she’d received a report about my dress habits in patient-facing spaces. She said she personally hadn’t noticed anything — no s*** — but was obligated to discuss this with me anyhow. I assured her that I had no idea what she was talking about.

I thought about confronting [Nurse #1] but decided not to because, you know, loose cannon and whatnot. After a brief reminder of the dress code, I figured that at least it was over.

It was not over.

Two weeks later — and I hadn’t even asked anyone to draw any kits in the interim — a formal report was filed against me for my conduct in the clinic. This went to the hospital and then to my supervisor who, even after reading the report, seemed totally clueless about what it could mean. I explained what had been happening with [Nurse #1].

Supervisor: “Actually, a second person has reported this, as well, on the same day as the first report from a coworker. This time, it was a patient, who reported that you were dressed improperly for a patient-facing environment.”

Woah, woah, woah, woah! I asserted that I wasn’t, but I was nonetheless put on probation, which meant that my supervisor, against her will, now had to come with me when I saw patients in the clinic for the foreseeable future, and a nurse manager would have to accompany both of us when she was free since I was “dressing provocatively” in patient-facing spaces and that was her domain.

But as you can likely guess from her browsing habits, [Nurse #1] was not the sort of person who needed MORE supervisors in her area.

Cue malicious compliance. Fine, you want to punish me and force me to work in the eyesight of the supervisors? All right, let’s get some supervisors down here as quickly as possible.

My next in-clinic patient came in two days, and it was one of those stupid timed-in-clinic protocol kit visits, which meant I was forced to ask one of the nurses to draw the patient’s blood. I informed my supervisor, and we set off for the clinic. The nurse manager was in that day, so she accompanied the two of us.

We all went back into the triage room so that I could ask for help with the blood draw. [Nurse #1] and one other nurse were there. What we saw upon entering was the other nurse entering vital signs for a patient into our health database, and [Nurse #1]… sitting at her desk with an online clothing retailer open on one monitor and Facebook on the other.

I asked for [Nurse #1]’s help drawing the kit, and she sighed heavily and spun around… to see two higher-ups looking on with disdain at her work computer. In embarrassment, she swiveled back and closed those two tabs, which revealed — you can’t make this stuff up — a website for MARITAL AIDS that had been open in another tab, about which [Nurse #1] had clearly forgotten until now. I just smiled and handed her the bag like nothing had happened.

In the hall, my supervisor and the nurse manager were talking about [Nurse #1]’s display just now. Apparently, she had been previously been warned about goofing off at work. The nurse manager told the supervisor that she was going to check all of [Nurse #1]’s work computer activity, which I actually didn’t know any supervisor could readily access.

What followed was so incredibly beautiful that I hope it made the ending of this long, long story worth waiting for.

According to [Nurse #2], [Nurse #1]’s activity was searched. She was revealed to have been spending hours upon hours every day browsing the web, shopping, and using social media. Since she had been previously warned about this behavior, she was given a formal write-up.

But this was just the beginning. The day after the three of us went down to the clinic, my supervisor called me into her office again. She told me that [Nurse #1] had FABRICATED the patient’s complaint about me and posted it from her work computer. (How did they learn this? Oh, that’d be because she saved a draft of the message that reported me to the hospital, and she’d accessed the patient complaint/comment webpage the same day.) My supervisor sincerely apologized for the hassle and told me I was no longer on probation.

As for [Nurse #1]: apparently fearing the worst, she put her two weeks’ notice on the same day after getting wind that she was in some far more serious trouble. For reasons I will never understand as long as I live, the hospital chose to let her quit after two weeks instead of firing her on the spot. Maybe they knew what a nightmare she was and were comfortable letting her quit on her own accord. It’s not as though she was due to glean any glowing references from this experience. Maybe they just wanted some extra work; our clinic was VERY short-staffed for nurses at the time. In any case, they chose not to fire her and let her quit on her own.

I take my career and food safety very seriously. Even if I was livid over a customer, I would never do anything gross, dirty, harmful, etc., to their food, and I would shut down anyone who tried to. I prefer my revenge to be petty but noticed.

The restaurant I work in is located in an upscale area. As a result, our customer base is full of entitled, elitist, insufferable people most days. If you have a problem with your food, that’s fine. But if you’re an a**hole or being petty, you’ll get served by Chef Petty — the king of petty.

This regular always comes in and orders her burger with an obnoxious amount of onions. Normally, we do two rings. She always initially asks for about thirty. No bulls***. Then, she proceeds to send the server back three or four more times for a small plate of about fifteen more. It’s disgusting.

One day, we were busier than usual when she tried to pull this. Rather than have to keep stopping to accommodate her, I took the biggest red onion we had, pushed it through the slicer, and put the entire onion on her plate without separating the rings.

The server laughed her a** off when the lady left because she didn’t touch any of the onion.

Apparently, she took great joy in making the server run back and forth, and that was a buzzkill for her.

Original Source

Back when I first started in my industry, a friend of mine from uni landed a job at my company, too. The place was four levels with an atrium in the middle. I was on the third floor, and [Friend] was on the first floor, but I could see him from my desk. He didn’t know this yet, and he didn’t know where I was seated.

I let him get settled in for the morning, and then I anonymously messaged him through our internal messaging system.

Me: “[Friend], meet me at my office immediately.”

I watched as he looked around the office, slightly panicked.

Friend: “Sorry, who is this? And can I ask where your office is?”

Me: “Now, [Friend], I don’t have time for this.”

He started to look really panicked. Then, he got up and walked into the atrium and stood turning round in circles, looking at the offices. I felt bad about it then and waved down to him.

Me: “Now, [Friend]!”

Being the good-hearted guy he was, he laughed and mouthed, “C**t,” and I went back to work giggling.

A few days later, I started hearing a very occasional and very high-pitched “eeee”-like beep in the office I shared with two others. It was VERY subtle — almost out of our hearing spectrum, to the point where I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it.

But once I did accept that I really was hearing it, it became more and more noticeable with each beep, and more and more irritating. The timing was unpredictable — sometimes ten minutes between beeps, thirty minutes between, two minutes, an hour, etc. — so I let it go for quite a while before I started to accept that I might be going mad and asked the others if they heard it. They both looked almost relieved and said they did, and it was driving them mad, too.

So, we started looking around the office, pulling shelves apart, emptying drawers, and pulling pictures down. I even sat outside the office for a few hours to make sure it wasn’t coming from outside. (It wasn’t.)

We also timed the beeps all day to see if we could find a pattern. There was no pattern; it seemed completely random.

The following day, we got serious and started pulling apart our PCs one at a time. We were all looking a bit wild-eyed by this point.

Eventually, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, [Friend] arrived at the office, laughed at us sitting on the floor with our PCs in pieces, and told us he’d taped this small evil noise device under a shelf. He said he would have left it longer, but our boss thought it had gone on long enough.

Touché, [Friend].