I work in a sports bar. It’s 2017, and it’s a Sunday night at around 7:00 pm. Everyone is incredibly busy. The phone rings and rings… and rings… and rings…

The hostess picks up the phone, and the caller asks for a manager. [Manager] takes the phone and introduces himself, covering his other ear because the place is loud as h***.

There is a pause. [Manager] rolls his eyes and sort of smiles.

Manager: “Um…”

There’s another short pause, and then [Manager] starts full-blown laughing directly into the phone.

Manager: “You’re calling a sports bar in Boston in the middle of the Patriots Super Bowl game to request a manager and ask if we’re hiring? No, dude, we are not hiring.”

Part of me feels bad for the guy for getting laughed off the phone, but bro… come on. I kind of wonder if the guy ever found a job.

In my eighth-grade year, I went out for football, much to my disliking. I only wanted to play basketball. During a practice, I threw a running, diving block, and the end result was that I had my spleen ripped apart and had to have emergency surgery to remove it.

Fast forward to my sophomore year. Our football coach started getting on me about going out for football the next year. I would simply tell him I wasn’t interested, and he would let it go for the time being.

His class and my class shared the same lunch period. For several days, he bugged me about playing football. I was 6’3″ and the second-fastest kid in school. I didn’t want to play. He started making snide remarks about my maleness, among other catty remarks.

Finally, I had had enough. He said something that set me off, and I pulled up my shirt right there in the lunch room and showed him my eleven-inch scar.

Me: “This is why I don’t want to play football.”

His jaw dropped, and he just stood there staring at my abdomen as I turned to walk out.

Later that day, my psych teacher told me what happened after I left. The coach sat back down with the other teachers still hanging out at a table and asked what that was all about. It was explained to him what happened to me in eighth-grade football and that I had been injured so badly that I’d had an hour and a half to live.

The coach never brought it up again. But, he also never spoke to me again for the rest of my high school years. Oh, well.

I am the author of this story.

The manager has decided that, on certain days of the month, we will be permitted to wear clothing featuring our favorite sports team.

I do not have a favorite sports team, and my only sports paraphernalia is a very soft blanket that I like a great deal, but I’ve never watched the team in question. So, on the first such day since the new policy, I do not wear any sports-related clothing.

My manager bothers me all day long, asking where my sports team clothing is. A couple of other coworkers bother me, too, but they each only ask once and accept it when I say I do not have any.

Annoyed, I do some research, and I find that the paraphernalia [Manager] is wearing is related to the team called “The Giants” and that they have a rival team called “The Eagles”.

I go to a thrift store and pick up as much Eagles stuff as I can. The next time a sports-paraphernalia day rolls around, I arrive at work in Eagles everything. I have an Eagles hat. I have an Eagles jacket. I have a shirt, a jersey, a pair of pants, a set of socks, and a set of sneakers. I’m even holding an Eagles coffee mug.

My manager watches me walking through the office door with all of this on, pinches the bridge of his nose, and asks me to go home to change.

I do so. My manager has never again bothered me about wearing sports stuff on the sports days.

I donated the clothing back to a thrift store afterward, but I kept the sneakers. They were comfy.

Related:
Worst. Prize. EVER.

My high school football coach was a great guy, but when he got excited or worked up, he had an interesting way with words. This happened at half-time when we were losing by only a few points.

Coach: “This is close, guys! We gotta get some energy going and get things turned around! Like a DJ, turn those tables 360 degrees!”

Player: “Wait… 360 degrees?”

Coach: “H*** yeah! All the way around!”

Player: “Coach, if we turn around 360 degrees, we’ll be going in the same direction. That means we’ll lose by even more.”

Coach: “Who cares about the numbers?! ALL THE WAY AROUND! Let’s go!”

Some colleagues and I go to a laser tag arena. You can play three games, fifteen minutes each, with a break of fifteen minutes in between.

We are outside having our break after the first game when we hear a customer going off on the (only) worker.

Customer: “We came here to play laser tag! How come we have to play with others?! This is s*** service! We are waiting to have the arena to us alone! [Other Arena] in [Other Town] lets you play with your friends alone!”

Others in that group start saying stuff like, “Let’s rate them badly on Google!”

We watch that for a bit, but then I have an idea. I ask my colleagues for permission to extend our break if needed, and then I go and intrude into this customer’s rant.

Me: “Excuse me? If it’s really that much of a problem for your group, my colleagues and I will gladly wait for one more game so you don’t have to force yourselves to play with us.”

Now her face goes pale. It suddenly isn’t “bad worker, you’re robbing our fun” but “we hate that other group”, making them look really bad in our group’s eyes. She does a full 180° and begins to stutter:

Customer: “No, no, no, no, it’s not a problem! Of course, we’ll play with you guys. We can start right now!”

The rest of the group spent their walk back in with us to the starting point assuring me and my colleagues that “we have nothing against you guys!”