I don’t remember my son’s age when this happened; he was old enough to use the restroom without help but not quite old enough for me to be completely comfortable with him being alone in a public restroom. Also relevant: at this time, we had been teaching him how to greet people, including giving handshakes.

We were at a restaurant, and [Son] needed to go to the restroom. The restaurant was family-friendly and mostly empty, so I let him go by himself.

As he came back to the table:

Son: “Mama! Mama! Mama!”

Me: “Yes, that’s me! I’m Mama!” *Sticking out my hand* “Nice to meet you!”

Son: *In a whiny voice* “Nooo, I…”

Me: “We’re shaking hands, remember? C’mon, give me a handshake, and then tell me what you want.”

He gave in and shook my hand.

Me: “Perfect! Now what did you want to tell me?”

Son: “Mama, I can’t reach the sink!”

It should go without saying that, yes, both of us washed our hands after that!

A lady comes to the customer service desk and hands me a one-pound package of hamburger meat. It’s cold, but it’s gray in color.

Lady: “I want to return this. It’s bad.”

Me: “Ma’am… the sell-by date on this is March 15th. Today’s April 28th.”

Lady: “I noticed it changing color after about a week in the fridge, so I transferred it to the freezer.”

I explained why we could not issue a refund. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties and was confused when I explained the rate at which raw meat decomposes.

She didn’t get upset over the refund, and she seemed grateful to learn raw meat should be cooked or frozen within two to three days.

I work in a pizza place. We have a new general manager while the old one is on home rest after a motorcycle accident. (He is fine, just a broken leg. It could have been worse, as he said.)

The new general manager proceeds to chase away the old crew because she is a nasty person who gets complaints from crew and customers, but her stores run well, so management just shrugs.

I am one of three remaining old hats who knew a better life under the old general manager. My hours have been cut to roughly fifteen a week. I am making minimum wage — $7.25 at the time.

One night, I go to bed around 11:30 pm. I then wake up at 12:00 midnight to a “Blorp, Glub, Blorp” sound from my bathroom. I get up to look, and dirty water is coming up my toilet, which is beginning to overflow.

I begin to bail it into the bathroom sink. (I HATE getting my hands dirty, so keep in mind that I am bailing dirty water and screaming internally the whole time.)

I have to keep bailing, non-stop, from 12:00 midnight until my landlord wakes up at 5:00 am to hear my voicemail. He calls me back and says he’ll have a plumber over ASAP, but no businesses are open yet.

At 6:00 am, I call my work to tell [General Manager] I won’t be in… but she’s not in yet. I know she was scheduled for 6:00 am because I photograph the schedule.

By 7:00 am, she’s still not in.

By 8:00 am, still not in.

At 9:00 am, no [General Manager].

At 10:00 freaking am, an hour and a half before my shift, [General Manager] is FINALLY in! And this is our conversation.

Me: “I won’t be making it in. My toilet has literally been spewing dirty water since midnight. I have been bailing water since midnight.”

General Manager: “That’s no excuse.”

Me: “No, I’m pretty sure it’s an excuse.”

General Manager: “You need to give us three hours of advance notice to call in.”

Me: “You mean like how I left a message at 6:00 am?”

General Manager: “I never heard it.”

Me: “And how I called back at 7:00 am? And 8:00? And 9:00? And 10:00? AND YOU CAN HEAR MY TOILET IN THE BACKGROUND?!”

General Manager: “Well, I did not hear you at 6:00 am—”

Me: “Because you were four hours late! How is that my problem?!”

Keep in mind, I’m STILL bailing water while I have my cell phone on speaker.

General Manager: “Well, you did not give me three hours of warning. You need to come in, or you will be written up as a no-call, no-show.”

Me: *Sarcastic* “So, you want me to stop bailing water, let my apartment flood, and lose every bit of furniture on the left side of my apartment. For a minimum-wage, part-time job flinging pizza?”

General Manager: “It’s called being a responsible adult—”

Me: “Oh, like you ‘responsibly’ got to work four hours late?”

General Manager: “Either come in or face the consequences.”

Me: “’Kay!” *Hangs up*

Her “consequences” are cutting my hours to zero. I still spend the next two-ish months walking the 2.5 miles to work weekly to see that I have zero hours until she finally pulls me aside.

General Manager: “Stop checking. You are no longer on the schedule.”

Me: “So, I’m fired?”

General Manager: “Yes.”

Me: “There now. Was saying that so hard?”

For the record: a root from the tree out front had grown into the pipe and the two upstairs apartments were flushing things that did not biodegrade. These things got caught in the roots and caused a blockage.

My apartment, being the basement apartment, was the first stop for all the backed-up water.

And no, neither apartment was kind enough to stop using water while I waited for a plumber, even though the landlord called them both to let them know that water was backing up into my apartment. One of them even started their dishwasher. Sigh.

I’m the author of “Every Office Needs One“, in which my boss asked me to take care of a bug because I’m not bothered by “creepy crawlers”. The office building in both of these stories is odd for a variety of reasons, but the main one here is its location. We are stuck on the corner of a highway and a very busy street with a not-very-well-maintained empty lot/field to our other side and mostly swamp land behind us. This combination means that we find a LOT of small critters inside despite having a set schedule with an extermination company. For the most part, we just find a wide variety of bugs along with plenty of geckos and lizards. We also get the occasional mouse or rat, but this is, thankfully, few and far between.

During our monthly building-wide meeting, several people bring up how they’ve been finding what they suspect to be rodent droppings and report scratching in the walls.

It’s important to note here that our particular location is comprised of about 80% women, almost all of whom come from middle-class backgrounds (our CEO included). This means that most of our office is fairly easy to gross out. It’s also important to know that I love reptiles and know a decent amount of information about their biology.

Coworker: “Are we sure the droppings aren’t from the geckos? We’ve been getting a lot of them inside because of all the rain. I think I’ve seen [My Name] catch four of them this week alone.”

Me: “It’s not from the geckos since there haven’t been white ‘dots’ in the droppings we’ve found. I don’t know enough about rodents to know for sure that’s what they’re from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is rats or something.”

CEO: “How do you know geckos have a white… dot in their droppings?”

I pause, trying to figure out how to explain this.

Me: “Are you really sure you want any sort of explanation on how a reptile passes food? Because I can give you one if you want.”

Her eyes go wide as she digests that statement — pun intended.

CEO: “…You know what, [My Name]? I think I’m just going to trust you on this one.”

Several of my other coworkers quickly agree with her, while our health and safety officer — who came from an even more wild Cajun upbringing than I did — tries his best to hide his laughter at the exchange. 

CEO: “I’m just going to call [Extermination Company] and have them come out to look around.”

It was not, in fact, the geckos. We had the beginning stages of a rat infestation.

Related:
Every Office Needs One

I work in a cardiologist’s office, and I have to put Holter monitors on patients. The patient wears the monitor for twenty-four hours and it records everything the heart does. The patient is told to keep a diary of symptoms they are feeling (racing heart, palpitations, etc.) and exercise.

This patient kept track of everything she did throughout the day. Some of my favorite excerpts:

Excerpt: “2:00 pm: pee and poo and brush cat, too!”

Excerpt: “2:30 pm: gave cat treats while on toilet.”

Excerpt: “4:00 pm: more poo.”

Way too much information, but I couldn’t stop reading!