I’m not sure what’s relevant or not to this story, but in case it’s relevant, I am a big guy; I am about 6’6″ and rather muscular. I work outside all day, so while I am white, I’m pretty darkly tanned, so sometimes people mistake me for different ethnicities. 

My wife and I recently moved into a new apartment. One Saturday morning, she leaves to go run some errands for a few hours, so I am home alone doing some odds-and-ends chores. I leave my apartment to go downstairs and collect our mail only to find it hasn’t been delivered yet, and when I return, I realize I have locked myself out. I guess the coffee hasn’t kicked in because I didn’t grab my keys, and because I was just going to the mailbox, I have no wallet, phone, or anything else.

I decide to sit down in the hallway and wait for my wife to come back. While I’m sitting there, after about fifteen minutes, the apartment manager from the new management company comes by. I have never met him before. 

Manager: “Hey, uh, can I help you?” 

Me: “Not really. I locked myself out, so I’m just waiting for my wife to get back.”

Manager: “Well, you sitting in the hallway is making some people uncomfortable.”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not bothering anyone, and I don’t have any way to contact my wife to meet somewhere, so I’m just waiting here quietly.” 

Manager: “Look. We’ve gotten a number of complaints, and I really need you out of the hallway. How about this?” 

He goes to unlock the apartment door. 

Me: “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Are you going to unlock the apartment?” 

Manager: “Well, yeah. You said you were locked out. This way, you get out of the hallway, and people stop complaining.”

Me: “I haven’t shown you any ID or any records of any kind. Heck, I don’t even have a piece of mail with the address on it. Would you really let anyone into the apartment just because they said they lived there?”

Manager: “…”

After that, he just left. Once my wife got home, she let me in, and between the overly-trusting apartment manager and the under-trusting neighbors, I think we will be starting the apartment hunt again.

I once had to drive to the airport to pick up my housemate. I had circled through the pick-up area a couple of times already and was making a third circuit when I had to stop because there was a crosswalk in front of me and pedestrians were using it.

One of the officers who controlled traffic there immediately started blowing their whistle and yelling at me.

Officer: “Keep moving! There’s no stopping unless you’re actively picking someone up.”

There were pedestrians literally DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF MY CAR. And it’s not like I was driving some behemoth of a vehicle that was blocking his view; at the time, I drove a 1993 Volvo 940 turbo station wagon. He could clearly see the people in the crosswalk. I guess he just really wanted me to run them over.

For the record, I chose to wait until I WOULDN’T risk committing vehicular manslaughter before driving out of the pick-up area, going to the parking structure, and texting my housemate that I’d meet her on foot to help her carry her luggage to the car.

One of my most frustrating clients owns a security company. I was designing ID badges for him, and we were having a back-and-forth on the final touches.

Client: “It looks great, but can we increase the green in the eagle logo by 3%?”

Me: “But the eagle is gray. All of this is in grayscale.”

Client: “So? Just increase the amount of green.”

Not sure how to respond, I sent the same version under a different name.

Client: “See what I mean? Much better! Print ‘em!”

I used to work at a small furniture store (family-owned, single store). I hated that job with a fiery passion, but I got several stories out of it. We used to have two computers at the front counter for the manager and me to use to assist customers. There was also one in the middle of the floor for salespeople to look up product information and get into the invoice system if needed.

One day, after I’d been there for a couple of months, I came in and one of the salesmen flagged me down.

Salesman: “Have you seen this error before?”

I’d recently graduated college with the intent of going into IT/tech, so I was frequently tasked with being tech support, as well. I went to look at the computer, and it was an error that I hadn’t seen before (With the knowledge that I have now, the computer had fallen off the domain. At the time, I didn’t know what it meant.)

Me: “No. Did you call [Owner’s Husband]?”

Salesman: “Yeah, he says he’s on his way.”

The owner’s husband supposedly had his own IT business, but I have doubts about how much he actually knew. He came in and went to the computer, poked around for a minute, and then called me over.

Owner’s Husband: “Do you know what this error means?”

Me: “Uh, no. That’s why I had [Salesman] call you.”

Owner’s Husband: “Oh. Well, no one can sign in.”

Me: “Right, that’s the problem. We need to fix that.”

Owner’s Husband: “Don’t worry about it. Just give them your password so they can sign onto your computer when you’re not here. [Salesman] and the delivery guys usually get here before you and need to get the schedules.”

I stared at him because, even with my limited knowledge and experience at that point, I knew that was stupid.

Me: “Um, no, I don’t want to do that; that’s a potential security issue.”

Owner’s Husband: “It’s fine. Just write it down, and that way they can get on the computer when you’re not here.”

He then got up and left. They never fixed it in all the time I was there, and I was forced to deal with that store for another year and change. And yes, I finally threw up my hands and wrote down my password because I didn’t give a f***. I actually got to a point where I was tempted to do something that may or may not have been not-quite-malicious and then claim ignorance because since I’d been forced to write down my password, who’s to say if it really had been me or one of the other staff?

But then, a camera got put in to supposedly “watch the store”. Between the fact that it was a crappy camera with limited range and that it was set up on a shelf literally pointing at me, I called BS. And the camera was only set up because [Owner’s Husband] wanted to watch how much work I was doing because I kept asking for them to give me the raises they’d promised me, and he wanted to say I didn’t deserve them.

I really should have reported them to Labor & Industries, but when I got a new job, I was so relieved that I ran out of there like my a** was on fire.

I just read this story and thought I’d share my own experience.

In the early 2000s, my wife and I went on holiday to Spain with my wife’s family. This was not long after the World Trade Centre attack, and airport security was a little bit crazy.

As we were going through security in the UK, I got stopped. There was a screwdriver in my bag: a small one, about two inches long, for repairing my glasses. It was in a case WITH my glasses. (I also wore contact lenses.) The security guard insisted that it had to be dumped into their sharps bin. I argued that it was for my glasses; no, it still had to be dumped.

Me: *In exasperation* “Look, I’m not going to do anything with that. I could do more damage to someone with a fistful of my housekeys. Are you going to confiscate them?“

Well, that got me a warning and the threat of being barred from the flight, so I complied. And, in case anyone is reading this and thinking racism, no; I have Celtic ancestry, so I’m as pasty white as they come (and I was ginger in those days).

So, I surrendered my tiny screwdriver, and we passed through security into the departure lounge.

In the departure lounge, there was a gift shop. One of the things it sold, for about £5, was a combination corkscrew/bottle opener — with a two-inch, foldout knife blade — which I could have bought and carried on to the plane without anyone to stop me.

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White Privilege Is Screwed Up