We have a regular customer who is well known at my last place of employment for always complaining about inconsequential stuff. He comes into my current store tonight. He makes a point of bringing a box of raspberries to me.

Customer: “You might want to pass this onto your higher-ups. The sign on these raspberries and the sign on the organic ones say they are the same price. It’s confusing to customers.”

Me: “We don’t have any control over the prices. May I ask what is confusing about it?”

Customer: “The competitors always have the organic items at a higher price than the conventional.”

Me: “While that is generally true, there are often exceptions, and in this case, I would buy the organic berries since it’s a good price. I don’t see any confusion.”

Customer: “Well, I’m confused! I’m the customer.”

I honestly don’t know how I could have helped him. Was I supposed to raise the price to fit his worldview? Also, not a single customer was confused about it besides him. Not one.

I get migraines an average of two weeks a month. My manager has never experienced a migraine and thinks of them as simple headaches; she frequently talks down to me as though they are nothing. Our store has glaring white light that is arguably brighter than the outside sun, which does not help at all.

My manager recently came down with a certain contagious illness and became very sick; she was gone for about two months. Upon her return, she was now getting chronic migraines much like mine.

Before long, my manager posted a public apology on social media and sent me a personal one for talking like migraines are nothing. I’m sorry she is getting them now as they are torture, but I’m glad she now understands and won’t make the “it’s nothing” argument again to anyone out there who gets them.

I work internal IT support for a big retail company. A decent portion of my job is phone support. When I’m asking a user to go somewhere on their computer, I’ll give them directions and then spell it out phonetically, i.e., “Type name, N as in ‘November,’ A as in ‘Apple,’ etc.”

A user calls me for an issue with his Outlook and I end up needing to remote in to further troubleshoot because I can’t quite understand where the issue is.

Me: “Okay, I’m going to need your workstation so I can remote in and take a look. Can you go to your start menu and type the word ‘name’?”

User: “Type ‘mane’?”

Me: “No, ‘name.’ N as in ‘November,’ A as in ‘appl—’”

User: “I know how to spell ‘name’! I have a bachelor’s degree in engineering!”

Yet you’re the one who doesn’t know how to use Outlook.

It takes him another few minutes to find the name because he keeps trying to look at video card info. I finally get connected to his workstation.

Me: “Okay, can you show me what the issue is?”

User: “I’m getting bounce-back messages when I try and email this employee even though they’re an active user.”

It took me about twenty seconds to see that he was emailing the wrong address and another five minutes to explain it to him because he kept trying to tell me he wasn’t doing anything wrong. “I have a bachelor’s degree!”

Me: “Thank you for calling the service desk. This is [My Name].”

User: “Finally! Do you know how long we’ve been waiting?”

Me: “Seven minutes, fifty-three seconds.”

User: “No, it’s been an hour!”

Admittedly, depending on which helpline they called first, they could have been pushing buttons and gotten into a loop, but it’s less likely. The other main hotline users have access to is an HR line and they have about three options that will reroute to us due to password resets.

Me: “Which number did you call?”

User: “We’ve been waiting for an hour!”

My toddler and I are at a park with a good friend of mine and her toddler. We’ve been friends for almost twenty years at this point. We both want another child, and a couple of weeks ago we lamented to each other how we hadn’t had any success getting pregnant. Just yesterday, though, I took a pregnancy test and it came out positive. I know my friend will be happy for me but disappointed for herself, so for the hour we’ve been at the park, I’ve been trying to find a good way to tell her.

Then, out of the blue, as we’re pushing our toddlers on the swings, she says:

Friend: “So… I have some news. I’m pregnant.” 

She’d been having the same dilemma I had and was trying to figure out how to be sensitive to me! It turned out we were due two days apart and had both been pregnant but hadn’t known yet when we were talking about wanting second children. Our babies were born within a week of each other, and she’s my second child’s godmother. All our kids get along well, and we take family camping trips with them nearly every summer. I’m very lucky to have such a good friend in my life.

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