(I do some acting lessons and groups at a company as a teen. The backstage area is pretty dirty and has a lot of spider webs as a result.)

Me: “There are two spiders right there and they are kind of big!”

Friend #1: “Ahh, really?”

Me: “What should we do? I don’t want to go near them, because I have a little arachnophobia.”

Friend #1 & Friend #2: “Me, too!”

Friend #2: “But tarantulas are pretty cute.”

Friend #1: “Yeah, they are, so furry!”

Friend #2: “Aww, and their adorable eyes!”

(They continued to talk about their love of tarantulas as I stared up at the spiders, wondering how they could say they were afraid of spiders when they found tarantulas to be cute.)

(We’ve just finished a long day of rehearsal and the coordinator is giving us some final reminders for the next day.)

Coordinator: “Make sure you remember to bring… Wait, is that a phone I hear?”

(Sure enough, we can hear a phone ringing and vibrating. An actor raises his hand, slightly embarrassed.)

Actor: “Um, yes, sorry, it’s mine. Should I hang up?”

(The coordinator thinks he’s joking and laughs.)

Coordinator: *sarcastically* “Oh, no, don’t worry. Answer it; we’ll wait for you.”

Actor: “Oh, all right!” *answers his phone and starts talking*

(The coordinator is left with a wild look on her face and some crew members start chuckling. The actor, however, keeps talking on the phone, completely oblivious. When we realize this, the laughter stops.)

Actor: “Yeah, I know… Uh… Hey, I think I’ll call you later; everyone’s staring at me.”

(I work at a place where we seat people according to coloured cards that they receive, which also have table numbers on them. The number of times I have had this exchange:)

Me: “What colour is your card?”

Customer: “Uh… fourteen?”

I work as a stagehand in a theater that tends to have high turnover. A few months after getting hired, the technical director — my boss — leaves, and a new one is brought in. We get on right away, and as I am new to the industry he quickly becomes a mentor figure for me.

On one of our first shifts together, we have to stay late after a show to put up the orchestra shell. This is basically two side walls that we have to assemble piece by piece. To put it together, we need to screw the top layer together, hook it to the motors, lift it in the air, assemble the next row down, screw that to the top row, lift it in the air, and so on. I’ve only done it twice before, but the new technical director hasn’t done it at all, so he trusts my judgement on it.

There are two other guys he brought with him from his last theater. They’re not technically employed with us yet, but no one else can work tonight. These two men decide that my method is inadequate, despite never having done it themselves; they would rather lay all the pieces of the shell on the floor, screw them together, then attach the motors to the top of the shell and lift it up like a drawbridge. I have my doubts about this method, but they’re insistent, so we leave them to do their method while the technical director and I put our section together properly.

Lo and behold, we finish faster than the other guys, and the wall is safely constructed and secured. When the two men finish screwing the pieces together, they find that the motors don’t reach far enough to get to the top of the shell — which is lying flat on the stage — so we have to shove the assembled shell close enough to get the motors hooked up. Once they start to raise the shell, it looks at first like it will work… and then we hear the cracking. They don’t stop, though, and by the time the wall is up, there are significant cracks in the wood — thankfully not visible from the audience.

My boss commends me for sticking to my guns and doing things the right way, but it still bothers me that he allowed those men to do something he knew wouldn’t work and which ended up permanently damaging the shell. A few months later, one of the men leaves to go on tour and the other is fired for stealing equipment. The boss is fired less than a year after he starts for inappropriate use of budget funds, which severely sets the theater back financially after he leaves.

(I am a young woman in my early twenties. The theatre company I’m a part of builds its stage every year for its productions, and everyone is expected to help out. Some cast and crew members even bring their families to help. I’ve helped with all sorts of renovations and builds throughout my whole life, and a few stage builds, so I’m not green to this sort of labour. However, there still remains the stigma that pretty girls who can sing and dance don’t or shouldn’t know a lick about construction. I pick up a drill and the father to one of our younger actors comes up to me, smiling smugly.)

Smug Man: “Miss, do you even know how to use that thing?”

Me: “I can show you where I can put it.”

(That seemed to scare him off for a while. Later, I am helping an older relative to one of our company members disassemble some older pieces from years prior. He is holding the pieces in place while I use my drill to take out the screws. One screw is particularly stripped, but before I can suggest some methods I know to taking out stripped screws, guess who strolls up?)

Smug Man: “See, you have no idea what you’re even doing.”

Me: “Fine. Good luck a**hole.”

(Sick of him, I shove the drill into his hands before stomping off. About an hour later, the nice man who I was helping comes up to me.)

Nice Man: “I have to talk with you about something.”

(The theatre company has a strict policy on cursing, so I think it’s about the comment I gave earlier.)

Me: “If it’s about that other guy, I was just sick of him and–“

Nice Man: “Yeah, me, too. You shouldn’t have left. He stripped the rest of them bald. He makes a terrible foreman, and even worse of a worker. We need more gals like you helping out.”

(His kind comments helped me get through the rest of the day. Though the jerks are rare, all the kind people — men and women — who support and work with each other make it worth it.)