My brother books a massage at home for 9:00 pm. He waits until 9:10 and tries calling them several times to no avail. He decides to quickly run to the nearby grocery to pick up water.

The therapist shows up at 9:37, and I ask him to wait a few minutes as my brother is coming back. After waiting three minutes, he says he needs to leave because he has another appointment.

Me: “Sir, you’ve come late, and already you wish to leave. I’m confused. If you had another appointment, why wouldn’t you just cancel and refund the money?”

The therapist calls the company and hands me the phone.

Therapist: “Ma’am, please raise a complaint with the company, and I’ll do the same. I’ll let them know the client was unavailable.”

Me: “Umm, the client was here. You got here thirty-seven minutes late.”

The person on the phone replies.

Employee: “No, ma’am, I dropped the therapist off at 9:30. The appointment says the ETA is between 9:00 and 9:30 pm.”

Me: “Okay, but he got here at 9:37.”

Employee: “That’s not possible. I dropped him outside your house within the time bracket.”

Me: “Right, I’m not denying that. However, he walked into our house at 9:37, and at 9:45, he declared that he had another appointment to get to. So you should tell your company to refund the payment.”

Employee: “The therapist was not late. The client is unavailable. What proof do you have that the therapist came late?”

Me: “I have cameras at the front door with a time and date stamp.”

Silence…

Employee: “Ma’am, please reschedule, and I’ll raise the complaint for the refund.”

I’m a thirty-year-old female with tattoos, and I’ve been in management since I was eighteen.

My whole admin team hit one of their big goals a couple of months ago, so I took them to the spa as a reward. Making small talk with the person taking care of the event, I explained why we were there.

Spa Manager: “Oh, how is the manager handling everything without the whole office there? He must work you ladies hard!”

Me: “Well, I run the place, and I’m handling things just fine, but thanks for the concern.”

He was super embarrassed and tried to apologize a dozen times, but it amused me more than anything, so we ended up laughing it off. Oddly enough, he was a manager, too, and pretty young, so he’d been in similar situations.

There’s no point in shaming someone for a mistake like that, especially if there’s no ill intent. The best I try to do is lightly acknowledge it and move on.

On a rare free Sunday afternoon, I decide to treat myself to not one, but two rare excursions: a movie in a theater, and a massage at [Chain Spa]. It’s a beautiful, sunny summer day as I enter the theater, get my ticket and refreshments, and enjoy the latest installment of [Adventure Hero Series].

When I exit the theater, however, I wonder why everyone is standing around the lobby instead of heading to their cars. To my dismay, I look through the glass doors to see that the sky has opened up and is unleashing a torrential downpour on the parking lot.

Of course, I have neither umbrella nor coat. I would wait it out, but my massage appointment is in less than twenty minutes, and the spa is about ten minutes away on a good day (and if you’re very late, they cancel your appointment and bill you anyway). So, I shrug, hand off my freshly-refilled bucket of popcorn to a surprised family, and dash off to my car.

Being an overweight, middle-aged woman with arthritis in both knees, however, my “dashing” is more like trudging, and by the time I get into my car, I’m drenched through. It’s still pouring when I arrive at the spa, and I walk in looking like a huge drowned rat, but at least I’m on time.

The staff take one look at me and rush off to get some towels. I disrobe and, after drying myself off, I lie down on the nice, warm table and let the masseuse help me forget my soggy ordeal for a while.

An hour later, I go to get dressed, and find that the staff has taken all of my clothes — including my sneakers — and tossed them in their dryer during my massage. By the time my massage is done, all my clothes are toasty warm and dry (and, of course, it has stopped raining).

I tipped them so hard.

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I work in a massage clinic. I have one client I refer to as “annoying but harmless”. He’s an older man, showing signs of dementia, fairly deaf, and friendly in his own way.

The first time I met him, [Client] spent almost forty-five minutes (my entire break!) talking at me about various things, wandering from subject to subject. This was just a visit to fill out the paperwork! I finally got away when my next client came in.

After that, we learned that: 1) he doesn’t carry a phone, 2) he doesn’t believe in texting, and 3) he has a lousy memory.

This has led [Client] to show up an entire hour and a half before his appointment and expect us to either take him then or let him sit in our waiting room, where he will quietly talk to himself. (I can still hear him through the walls.)

[Client] has very strong opinions about any number of things and will say he “doesn’t judge” and “everyone is different”, but he has made it clear that anyone who doesn’t live his lifestyle of hard work and exercise is just lazy.

The other day, as [Client] was talking to me during the massage (I’ve tried responding, but he’s too deaf to hold a conversation with) he came up with this gem:

Client: “My wife tells me she wants to get a divorce. I don’t know why. She’s hard to get along with, and there’s nothing wrong with me!”

I’m just glad he couldn’t hear my eye-roll.

As a massage therapist, sometimes I wonder if I’m trapped in a conversation with my clients, or if they’re trapped in one with me. One such example happened recently. I’m giving a massage to an older male, probably in his sixties.

Client: “…and did you hear that ladies all over Europe are doing [random fashion trend]?! I can’t believe it. I think it looks awful. I don’t know why they’re doing it.”

Me: *Kind of playfully* “Well, they’re probably not doing it for your attention.”

Client: “Well, whose attention are they doing it for, then?!”

Wow, sir. Maybe for one of the other billions of people in the world?!

I then treated him to a half-hour-long discussion/lecture about societal expectations, body shaming, ladies’ fashion over the years, social media, mainstream media, etc. 

That was probably one of the instances where they were trapped in a conversation with me.

To his credit, he took it fairly well, and he booked another appointment with me later!