(Today, my mom has stopped by my house and is watching while I tidy the kitchen. I work two jobs — one from home in the evenings — and have two preschool-aged children at home with me. My husband works long hours but his only daily household responsibility is to put the kids to bed and tidy up the kitchen after dinner.)

Me: “Sorry about the mess; [Husband] had an appointment yesterday evening and didn’t get anything done.”

Mom: “Well, why didn’t you do it?”

Me: “I was working like always.”

Mom: “You should still do it, instead.”

Me: “When?”

Mom: “I used to manage when you and your brother were little. Your dad would put you to bed and I would do the washing up and get the kitchen clean.”

Me: “Well, that’s fine for you, but I start work as soon as we finish dinner.”

Mom: “He deserves a break; you have time. I always did!”

(She didn’t work!)

Me: “What about me? Don’t I deserve a break? Should he put the kids to bed and sit and relax at 8:00, while I work until 9:30 and then get up and clean the kitchen?”

Mom: “You could do it during the day; you have time.”

Me: “What time do you think l have? I clean every other part of the house and look after my kids. I’m a mom, not a maid! It’s his only job in the house!”

(The kids distracted her at this point, but for someone who claims she believes in equality she certainly doesn’t think it applies to her own daughter.)

(I am selling a customer a podcast microphone, and I suggest it needs a pop shield.)

Customer: “What’s that for?”

Me: “It blocks out plosive sounds.”

Customer: “There won’t be any explosions, it’s an interview.”

Me: “No, ‘PIH’s and ‘BIH’s. PLOSIVE, is the word.”

Customer: “I think you mean ‘expletive.’”

(At this point I’d begun to wonder if I’d made up the word, plus it was a minute to closing, so I let it hang as we both looked bemused. Of course, now this guy’s off to do his interview, thinking I just tried to sell him some gizmo that stops him recording swear words and explosions. Also, I can’t pronounce ‘expletive’. DUHR…)

I am employed as a technical engineer which, in my company, means building components on the computer and sending the instructions to an automated machine in the next building and occasionally walking between the office and machine shop to check the progress and make adjustments as needed. I have 20 years’ experience and am basically at the top of the pay scale.

Due to the amount of automation my job now entails, I have gained downtime in the day. Not liking to be idle, I tend to fill the time; I will refill the coffee, top up printers with paper, and do general IT support, and I have started training a few of the apprentices. None of these are official responsibilities but it beats sitting on my hands.

My husband and I — both men — decide to take a long holiday. I book the time in advance, schedule some upcoming tasks on the machines to run without me, divert my emails to one of the other engineers, set my work phone to divert to the main switchboard, and set off on holiday.

It’s important to note that while my work has my personal phone number, I have explained that this will be turned off as we will be travelling across Norway and will be pretty much out of contact.

Just over a week into the holiday, we book into a hotel and are told by the receptionist that there have been multiple messages asking for me to turn on my mobile. This is strange, as I didn’t share our itinerary with anyone apart from my husband’s sister. I turn on my phone and it instantly starts lighting up with missed calls, texts, and voicemails. My boss is getting progressively angrier and more aggressive, asking me to call back, but never explaining the urgency.

Thinking there must be some emergency, I call my work. My boss explodes down the phone at me demanding that I return from holiday, accusing me of sabotaging the company, threatening legal action. I finally get him to calm down enough to work out the problem; the printer has stopped printing. A bit of troubleshooting later, and it turns out the printer has run out of paper. I talk him through refilling the machine and he is all happy again.

Fast forward a week, and I am called into a meeting with my boss. He lays out how completely unprofessional I am to cripple the company like that and I’m told that I am being fired effective immediately. I take him to tribunal for unfair dismissal, and at the mediation stage between his lawyers and the union lawyers, I come prepared.

As well as over 60 texts, 40 phone calls, and 30 voicemails, he had called every hotel in the towns he knew we would be visiting. The union lawyers are claiming harassment, stalking, and unfair dismissal based on sexuality. His lawyers are obviously a bit shocked by this, so I play them one of the voicemails where my former boss screams down the phone, “You will regret this! This is what I get for hiring you, you f****** [gay slur]! Just wait; you’re dead! Dead!“

His lawyers pale, and in the end, I walk away with a settlement for more than two years’ wages. I walk into a new job a month later after finishing a second holiday to some parts of Norway we wanted to see previously.

(I’m the person who submitted Having a Whine About the Wine, and for some reason I keep ending up with the mad stories at work. After a customer took a prepacked bag of cod fillets, I began clearing up for the night. Around half an hour later, a co-worker came up to the counter.)
Co-worker: Am I okay to put this back?
Me: *feeling the bag to check the fish is still cold* Yeah, you’re good. Stick it in that counter.
Co-worker: *putting the bag in the mobile counter* The customer decided she didn’t want it at the checkout.
Me: Oh. Well, that’s okay.
Co-worker: *heading back to the tills* She remembered she didn’t like fish!
(I was gaping and mouthing “how the hell can you forget that you don’t like fish?!” for at least fifteen minutes – before I realised I had actually served her: she’d taken two pieces of salmon as well!)

(My father owns a hardware store where I sometimes offer to man the phone during busy times.)

Me: *answering the phone* “[Hardware Store]. [My Name] speaking.”

Woman: “Hello, I need to be put through to [Father]. It’s his sister and it is an emergency!”

Me: “I should think so! You died twenty years ago giving birth to [Twin Cousins].”

Woman: “I’m very sorry for your loss… Is [Father] in? It’s an emergency.”

Me: “Given the means by which you tried to access him, I’m not inclined to pass you on. Whatever it is I’m sure I can help.”

Woman: “No, you won’t do. I need to speak directly to him.”

Me: “Tough. You have five seconds before I hang up.”

Woman: “What time do you close on Sundays?”

Me: *seriously?* “Five pm.”

Woman: “I would rather be told that by [Father].”

Me: *hangs up*

(She came over later that day and demanded I be fired for rudeness. My father then shouted so loud the entire store took notice, “CAROL, GET BACK IN YOUR COFFIN!” The woman blushed and scurried out. Obviously, I’d told him the second I hung up, and he was praying she would come by.)