I was in a meeting where a new database was being discussed. We were talking about entering customers’ details into this database, and there was a bit of to and fro about how we’d get their permission to enter their details.

Coworker: “We wouldn’t necessarily need their permission.”

Manager: “Really? So… say you’re a customer. Could I enter you without permission?”

Coworker: “Uh…”

My little cousin is having a major tantrum during a visit to my grandpa’s place. She wasn’t being calmed down by her parents in the slightest.

Grandpa: *To my cousin.* “You wanna try calming down, dear?”

Cousin: “No! I’m p***ed off!”

That was the first time we’d ever heard her say anything like that. The rest of us (including her parents) are a little shocked. Grandpa, for his part, just shrugs.

Grandpa: “Well, it’s better to be p***ed off than p***ed on.”

The little shock from before leads to bigger shock – enough shock for my cousin’s parents to finally take her outside to calm down.

Thanks, Grandpa.

[Coworker] and I never got off to a good start, starting with her interview. I still remember walking into our very small stock room while she was being interviewed to get something for a customer, and [Coworker]’s chair was blocking the row. She was a bigger woman, and there really wasn’t a lot of room, but she didn’t even attempt to try to scoot her chair in to give me space to move, and I literally had to climb the racks over her twice just to get in and out of the row. This more or less sets the tone for our entire working relationship.

What was really the icing on the cake was that I got to train almost everyone on our processes for inventory, restock, shipment deliveries, etc., because I was the only one who knew it in and out (I’d been there about three or so years by this point). This included training [Coworker], who loved to interrupt. Anyone who knows me knows this is my greatest pet peeve, and yet here she was, cutting me off at every attempt to explain our ops with a:

Coworker: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, at my old store, we did it like this.”

Given that her old store was at another company entirely, I didn’t care. This eventually came to a head when I was cut off one time too many and snapped at her:

Me: “If you ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ me one more time, we’re going to have an issue.”

Yeah, we were off to a great start.

The mall is rammed with Christmas shoppers. The store is half destroyed at all times. We’re about halfway through the holiday blackout season, and we’re all overworked and underpaid and, on top of it all, we’re all dealing with [Coworker], who no one particularly likes. At one point, we both got stuck behind the register, breaking the lines out because I was the faster person on the register, and unfortunately, [Coworker] was right behind me.

And then in the middle of a particularly nasty day, at the end of ringing a customer up and reaching down for a bag to put his stuff in, [Coworker] decides to hip-check me out of the way. Literally. 

Now this woman was easily twice my size, and I almost fell on my face when she moved into my space behind the register I was using (despite seeming fine to be at her own register right next to me with HER OWN LINE OF CUSTOMERS) and said, “Next please!”

I had to have come up wild-eyed like a rabid animal when I whirled on her because she actually took a step back. I’m pretty sure my customer was debating whether or not to pull out his phone to record the smackdown he thought was coming, while I stared her down like that gif of old Samuel Jackson with his crazy eyes on. 

[Coworker] smartly shuffled meekly back over to her own register, and the second the lines busted down, I stormed up to my store manager and told him to keep her away from me. I’m pretty sure my exact words to him were:

Me: “If you don’t get her away from me, I swear to God I’m going to lose my f****** job today.”

She was moved back to the floor and, after explaining what went down, stayed there any time we were on shift together.

She was eventually fired when, after telling everyone how she was in the kink scene (none of us ever asked), she showed up to work wearing a leather collar with a D ring.

Me: “Take that off.”

Coworker: “No. Neckwear isn’t against the rules.”

We wore button-downs and slacks, so her collar stuck out like a sore thumb. I told the manager that either she takes it off or I’m going home. She refused to take it off, so the manager sent her home instead. Good riddance!

Related:
This Just Isn’t Coworking Out

I was in calculus class in high school, third hour, so by that time I was awake and ready to learn. Because it was my hardest class, I really had to concentrate and use all my brain power.

One morning, right before class started, as I was trying my best to explain to my friends how my brain tends to be more active in this class than any other, I said out loud in earshot of the teacher and everybody else in class:

Me: “I don’t know what it is, but when I come in this class, I’m immediately turned on! Like I’m just so on right now.”

That went over well…

CONTENT WARNING: Sexual content.

I’m a customer at a phone shop’s helpdesk. The guy at the desk is helping me troubleshoot my phone, and I see a sign on the wall behind him.

Sign: “We will not troubleshoot phones that have explicit/inappropriate wallpapers.”

Me: “How often does that happen for there to be a sign?”

Employee: *Thousand-yard stare.* “Too many.”

Me: “Ouch.”

Employee: “Last week, I had a couple who handed me an iPad. The wallpaper was the two of them… going at it… from all the angles.”

Me: “Oh my God!”

Employee: “Yeah, I told them to change it, and I pointed to the sign. They told me it doesn’t count as inappropriate as it’s them, not a p*rn star.”

Me: “As if that makes a difference.”

Employee: “Right? But then they told me the reason they were here was that they didn’t know how to change their wallpaper, so I told them they were f***ed… even more so than they were in the wallpaper.”

I laughed and commiserated with him, and was thankful that my wallpaper was a cute picture of my sleeping cat…