I am a university tutor. I go to return a book at the uni library before my class. The library is on the other side of the substantial campus. It is 9:55 am, and there is a sign in front of the checkout counter that says the counter opens at 10:00 am.

Me: “Hey there, sorry to bother you. I did see the sign, but I have to be on the other side of campus in ten minutes. Can I return this book now?”

Librarian: “No, it’s not 10:00 am yet.”

Me: “Well, could I leave the book here and you return it at 10:00 am?”

Librarian: “No.”

Me: “Okay, then.”

I just stood there staring at her for several minutes until it was 10:00 am. Then, she accepted the book.

I did make it to class in time but was out of breath.

A friend referred me to an Events company he knew that needed some design work. I told him to give them my number. The client phoned me at 4:00 pm one day.

Client: “Hey, we’re thinking ten different designs over 100 menus so every table has different designs.”

Me: “Okay, cool, sounds good.”

Client: “There is one thing. We need to get these to the printers tomorrow morning.”

Me: “No.”

I used to work at a chain retailer. As I often worked the closing shifts, I got stuck with doing most of the returns and cleaning at the end of the day. The closing manager was ex-military and ran our minimum-wage a**es as if we had enlisted; he had no problem belittling us in front of customers and often demanded we stay as late as midnight fixing displays and making the store as nice as possible for the opening staff.

After a week of closing with [Manager] every night, I noticed that my paycheck was severely short. We used cards to clock in and out, so they should have reflected that I had stayed late, but it wasn’t adding up.

Me: “Hey, [Manager], I think there’s something wrong with the time clock.”

Manager: “Why?”

Me: “My paycheck is missing several hours.”

Manager: “No, you’re probably just bad at math. Weren’t you homeschooled?”

Me: “That has nothing to do with this. I have an app that tracks my hours to compare my pay. It’s definitely short at least ten hours.”

I showed him the app I use and my pay stub to compare the two.

Manager: “Just because your little app says you’re here, it doesn’t mean you are. Besides, you’re scheduled until 9:00; you get paid until 9:00.”

Me: “Then I’m not staying after closing.”

He stood up, towering over me by over a foot.

Manager: “You will do your job as it is outlined in your job offer.”

Me: “Which states that I get paid $7.50 per hour worked, not per hour scheduled.”

Manager: “Get out.”

I went to my coworkers and they all noticed the same thing. That night, when 9:00 rolled around, we all clocked out and went to dinner at a local diner, instead. [Manager] called repeatedly but none of us answered.

I was pretty shaken up, so I called off the next day and contacted Human Resources, outlining what had happened to my paycheck and what the manager had said. They opened an investigation and found that [Manager] had edited our punches so that it looked like everyone left at 9:00 and he cleaned the whole store by himself.

I did eventually get paid for the time I worked, as did everyone else he had shorted. He was terminated.

This happened about ten years ago back when I worked at my local hospital in the UK. I was one of the reception staff in a busy outpatients clinic.

A woman had just had a scan (I think it was either a CT or MRI), and she came in to book an appointment with her doctor for the results. The scan department had told her to book an appointment for about two weeks from then.

I looked up the clinic and offered her an appointment.

Me: “How about [date #1] at [time #1]?”

Woman: “I can’t make it then.”

Me: “Okay, how about [date #2] at [time #2]?”

Woman: “That’s not convenient for me, either.”

Me: “What about [date #3] at [time #3]?”

Woman: “That’s not good for me.”

I offered her appointments and she kept saying she was busy on that day — a holiday, something at her kid’s school, an appointment in another hospital, her cat was getting spayed, she would only see a consultant not a registrar, her car was getting waxed, her gerbil was getting married. Okay, that last one’s an exaggeration, but she had a reason to reject every single appointment.

By the time we reached an appointment that she could make, it was nearly eighteen weeks away!

She accepted the appointment and went on her merry way.

Not fifteen minutes later, an email came through from the hospital’s complaints department. The email was sent to me, my manager, the manager of the outpatient clinic, and a name I didn’t recognise. It turned out that as soon as the woman left the clinic, she went straight to the complaints department and complained that I had given her a clinic appointment in eighteen weeks’ time when she had specifically been told she needed an appointment in two weeks’ time.

She said that this was the one and only appointment I had offered her and that I had told her to take it or leave it. She insisted on being given an earlier appointment than the one she had been offered. The complaints department basically demanded that I explained why I had booked the woman’s appointment so far off.

I was like, “WTF?!” I figured that since Complaints wanted an explanation, I’d give them one.

I listed every single clinic appointment the woman had rejected and for what reason. There was a tally of the eighteen earlier appointments she had declined. I pointed out to Complaints that if the woman was able to clear her busy schedule on one of those days (perhaps spaying her cat could be rescheduled), then I would be more than happy to book her a clinic appointment in two weeks’ time like I had tried to not half an hour earlier.

Customer: “But why can’t I use this coupon?”

Manager: “Because it has expired, ma’am.”

Customer: “But why?”

Manager: “Because it’s expired, ma’am. The date on the coupon has already passed.”

Customer: “But why?”

Manager: “Because… time is linear?”

Customer: “But why?”

Manager: “I just manage a grocery store, ma’am. You’ll need to speak to a physicist for those bigger questions.”