I’m working in an airport. A man is traveling to Greece with his daughter, who must be twelve or thirteen years old. He comes rushing to the boarding gate.

Man: “Hey, we lost my daughter’s ID card. Can you make an announcement?”

Me: “Sir, this is an airport. We can’t randomly make announcements asking if anyone has seen your travel documents. That would be like making an announcement at the mall asking if anyone has found $200 on the floor.”

When he persists, I remind him that you cannot travel if you don’t have your documents with you.

Man: “Are you kidding me? She is a child!”

We politely explain again that we cannot do that and they should go look for the ID card while they still have time. We suggest that they contact Passport Control, as there are staff looking around, cleaning, and monitoring everything twenty-four-seven, and that if anything is found unattended, it immediately goes to the police.

The guy starts yelling and calling us ridiculous.

He leaves angrily, leaving the girl on her own, unattended at a gate full of strangers — probably assuming we will look after her WHILE WE WORK.

Ten minutes later, he comes back.

Man: *Demanding* “I need you to make an announcement about my daughter’s ID card!”

We explain AGAIN that this is not possible for security reasons.

At this point, boarding has started, so I have this jerk yelling at me for not helping him find his daughter’s ID card — which HE lost — while I am checking other people’s travel documents and trying to contact the aircraft via radio. We cannot listen to what the aircraft is asking for because this dude keeps asking us for something when we’ve already told him what he should do about it.

Eventually, the man goes to look for the ID card again. He OBVIOUSLY doesn’t go to Passport Control and just comes back at the end of the boarding. We tell him that without an ID card, the girl cannot travel; thus, we will escort them back to the public area to book a new ticket. The man’s daughter is crying and sobbing at this point.

Man: *To his daughter, yelling* “Why are you crying?! Let’s go!”

He grabs her hand and starts to storm away.

Me: “Sir, stop! You have to be escorted outside!”

His very mature response is something along the lines of:

Man: “F*** off before you piss me off, too.”

They go to Passport Control to try and get out themselves. They can’t because they need to be escorted. The girl’s ID card was there — surprise!

The man running comes back.

Man: “We found it!”

Me: *Passively* “The doors are closed; it’s too late to board now. Wait here for one of my colleagues to escort you outside.”

I left them there and walked away, as did my supervisor.

I love how this dad not only lost his kid’s travel document, yelled at her for it, demanded we take action for him, and refused to follow whatever we suggested to help — we couldn’t leave the area for security reasons — but then when we explained what he had to do, he took off, and then came back expecting us to just do him a service and help him.

Some people shouldn’t be parents. I felt so sorry for that girl.

I work as a dispatcher for an alarm company. Basically, if something sets your alarm off, I’m the one calling you to see if you’re okay and calling emergency services if you need them or we can’t verify that you’re okay. Procedures for different alarm types vary, but for all of them, we always try to contact you over the panel in your home or business first. This is the standard. You were informed of this when you first got your system.

I get a burglary alarm from your system. I speak with you over the panel. You immediately begin swearing at me. We establish that you’re fine but are having issues with your system. Also, why the f*** didn’t we ever call your phone?!

I’m dead inside, so I politely do the “So sorry to hear you’re having trouble with this; let me help” dance. I don’t give a s*** about the swearing. You’re about to be tech support’s problem, and so far, it just sounds like you’re mad at the equipment.

I tell you we can actually add super secret special instructions to your account to skip the panel and just call you if you’d like. It’ll be great. You’ll love it. It’ll be exactly like you seem to think it should be. The thing is that the verification to help with account issues and add those lovely special instructions is slightly different than the verification process for me to not send the cops. So, I ask you for a single additional piece of information.

You do not want to give me this information over the panel. You insist that this is stupid and unsafe. Why would I ask you to put your business out for the whole world to hear?!

[Customer], you are standing inside your own home. You are not in public. You just told me that you are home alone. I have no idea why this could possibly be an issue for you, but sure, I can call you on your phone instead. That line and conversation will be recorded just like this one, but whatever makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

I ask if I can call you at the number ending in [four digits]. You snap at me, “Well, that’s my number, isn’t it?!”

I don’t f****** know, [Customer]; that’s why I asked. You have five different numbers listed, all with your name as the contact name; please forgive my stupidity in trying to make sure I was calling the right one.

I confirm the full number. You verify that this is the correct number. Okay, [Customer], I will call that number — the one we agreed on — as soon as I disconnect from your panel, at which point, I will be so, so, so happy to help you. You inform me that your phone is in hand, you are waiting, and I had better hurry up.

I click the button to drop the call with your panel. I click the button to dial your phone. This takes one or perhaps two seconds. It does not ring. It goes straight to voicemail. I try again just in case, but no. It goes. Straight. To. Voicemail. I leave a message you will never get.

[Customer], you have our number blocked.

You have blocked the number of the people you pay to monitor your safety and are now angry that we never call you.

I cannot help you, you absolute f****** platypus. I send you the scripted email with our callback number and desperately hope I don’t get the incoming call whenever you figure out how phones work. May the universe help whatever poor soul has to take it; I just hope it’s not me.

I was an IT contractor for a major European defence contractor many many years ago — think room-sized mainframes, eighty-column punch cards, and green bar fanfold listings.

One week, after being vetted by the local security service, I was working late at night in the building where IT was housed. The vending machine in our building was out of order, and I was feeling peckish, so I went to look for a vending machine in another building where people worked on radar, radios, sonar, jammers, etc. — so, loads and loads of very expensive electronic gear.

I was amused and amazed by the idea that I was wandering around in a building, where I didn’t work and had no real business being in, at 02:00, yet nobody challenged me.

Every six months or so we had these briefings, complete with Super 8mm movies, by the local security service where we were told to clean out our desks at the end of the day, to lock our filing cabinets before leaving, and to be aware of friendly strangers with certain accents trying to strike up a conversation. Obsolete listings were to be shredded — the same listings we noticed our end users were recycling as scratch paper.

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Bring A Bucket And A Mop For This Weak A** Security

I recently read this story, and I’ve had this exact thing happen to me.

I went to the airport to pick someone up, and I pulled up to the designated pickup spot. I saw the person I was picking up walking toward me, and I got out to help them load their luggage.

Someone the airport had hired — not even an actual officer — came up to berate me.

Employee: “You cannot park here! This area is only for loading and unloading!”

Me: “I’m trying to load — if you would just get out of the way.”

She continued to stand blocking the passenger door so the person I was picking up couldn’t get in as I was loading her luggage in the trunk. Finally:

Me: “Ma’am, I would’ve already been gone if you just hadn’t said anything at all.”

I stepped up to order her away from my car, and she backed up a few paces. My passenger was able to get in as the parking jerk went to go find an actual officer, and we drove away.

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Glad He’s Doing This And Not Flying A Plane

I studied abroad in Europe during college. After a group trip to Paris, we had a free week, and I chose to stay an extra day and explore the city some more. I booked a hostel based on positive reviews, and a few friends decided to stay in the same place before we went off on our individual travels.

I checked in and was given a bunk in a large, mixed-gender dorm room. Fair enough, it’s a hostel and that’s pretty standard. However, this was my first time sleeping in a larger dorm alone, and the other guests were mostly unfamiliar and older men. More of my friends showed up, and we had enough to book a private room together. 

The new room was just off the hostel’s main courtyard, where all the guests gathered outside the on-site bar. While the atmosphere in reviews had been described as fun and friendly, it was an older clientele than our group of young college kids and already very drunk and rowdy. We settled in but discovered that there was no way to lock the door from the inside; the mechanism on the interior was missing, and the bolt could only be turned using the outside keyhole.

A drunk guest we didn’t know jokingly offered to take our key, lock the door from the outside, and come unlock us in the morning. Shockingly, our group of nineteen-year-old girls declined that offer. 

We were bone tired and lying on our bunks, debating what to do about the door situation, when I noticed a shoelace threaded through the slats of the bunk over mine. We ended up using that shoelace to tie the latching pieces of the interior lock together, keeping the two halves of the swinging door shut. Since it opened inward, we piled our suitcases in front of the door, as well.

We eventually fell asleep while the party in the courtyard raged. Late, late at night, once things had finally quieted down, we heard the door start to swing inward. I was so exhausted that I barely lifted my head when I heard the door lightly thump to a stop. There were no more sounds, so I dropped my head back down and fell back to sleep.

The next morning, we discovered that the old, random shoelace was still tied through the lock but barely hanging by a single thread. One more push and the lace would have snapped, the suitcases pushed aside.

We all checked out with relief, after noting the graffiti in the bathroom stalls (toilets and sinks only, no showers) saying the writer would rather spend a night in the street than another night at that hostel. Where was that warning when I booked the hostel?!

My friends and I set off on our individual adventures. I was supposed to take an extremely budget flight to Ireland, but an air traffic strike meant that no flights would leave that day. I had another day to spend in Paris, all by myself, but I knew there was no way I’d go back to that hostel alone.

I ended up returning to the hotel our group had stayed in during the school excursion, paying six times the hostel rate for a room, locking the door, and taking an hour-long bubble bath to wash off the hostel.