I work in the advertisement industry. I send a client a briefing with an Excel template to fill out the needed text for a bi-lingual ad campaign.

Client: “We’ll send you the texts next Monday.”

Next Wednesday:

Me: “Still nothing. I should ask them about the texts.”

Campaign Manager: “They said they’d send the texts today.”

Me: “All right, cool.”

Thursday:

Client: “Here are the texts.”

The texts come in an unformatted word.doc file, incomplete, misleading, unorganised, and single-language, instead of the two they want.

Client: “We can still start the campaign next Monday, right?”

We shut the store at 4:59. Our official closing time is 5:00. A guy comes and starts banging at the door. We open it and politely tell him we’re closed for the day. He nods, starts to walk away, and then comes back and starts banging again. This time he’s waving his phone at us.

Man: *Shouting* “IT’S 4:59! TECHNICALLY, YOU’RE STILL OPEN! I NEED TO BUY SOMETHING!”

Me: “Our tills are already off for the day, so there’s nothing we can do.”

Man: “No, you have to let me in! I ran red lights and went past stop signs to get here in time!”

We have no red lights in our town; it’s very small.

Eventually, we sent someone to get the item he wanted and just had him give us the cash to put into the till the next day, just so we could get rid of him. The poor girl who had to get the item was shuffling around in the dark looking for it, and by the time we found it, it was five past closing time. The real kicker is that he was after twine. TWINE. It was $2.95 and could’ve been found at either of the two grocery stores in town, which were still open and literally just a block away. I was absolutely FUMING because I had somewhere I urgently needed to be at 6:00. I nearly ran late in the end.

It’s a Friday, nearing the end of the workday.

Manager: “[My Name], how long do you think you need for this [chore]?”

Me: “Oh, my guess is an hour.”

Manager: “Really? And how much is that in minutes?”

Me: *Pauses* “Sixty minutes?”

Manager: “Ah, I knew you could do it faster! Let me know when you are done!”

My manager left. I have no idea if he was serious or fooling with me.

Growing up, I was often subjected to violent backlash for not picking my words carefully or if an adult in my life did not understand what I was saying. It was rarely physical, and it wasn’t my parents or my maternal grandparents who abused me. It was just that my dad’s side of the family did not know how to talk to children, and very bright children at that. And I was extremely bright.

As a result, I learned to pick my words carefully. I also did not argue when they tried to blame me for what their spawn did. It didn’t do any good, anyway. Fools are very fortunate that I suffer them lightly.

I go to a doctor’s office whose staffing is a mess. It doesn’t matter when they schedule me, and it doesn’t matter how accomodating I am; they will call to reschedule and then blame me for picking “whatever time works best”.

The Friday before a Monday appointment, they call to reschedule. I miss the call because I am in a meeting but call them back immediately. I am sent to voicemail, so I tell them I am happy to change the time and to call me back.

Monday rolls in and I haven’t received a call, so I call back in the early morning… and later that morning… and in the afternoon. My appointment is at 4:30 pm, so I decide to show up and see what happens. I arrive at 3:15 pm, one of the suggested times.

Me: “Hi. My name is [Full Name]. My appointment was at 4:30 pm. I got a call Friday to reschedule. I tried multiple times to call back but I haven’t heard anything.”

Receptionist: *Nonchalantly* “Yeah, the recruiters aren’t in, and I have been here the entire time. In the future, if you want a 4:30 pm slot, you are going to have to schedule it for Wednesdays.”

I had to bite my tongue hard for once in my life. At least they took me.

A popular attraction based on a well-known series of sci-fi horror films travelled the UK and came to my hometown a few years ago. It was a bit like a cross between a theatre performance and an escape room. Actors dressed as marines from the franchise would rescue the audience and try to help them escape through several set-pieces as aliens attacked them.

I was very excited to go, having missed it every time it was in the city previously, so I arranged to go see it with folks from my office. There were multiple performances each night, and our tickets were booked for 20:00. When we bought them, we were told very firmly that we needed to be there at 19:50 sharp, so when the night came, we were there exactly at 19:50.

We checked in at the box office and then milled around in the bar area for a while until we were told to sit down and wait. We took our seats and waited and waited and waited…

When it was about half an hour after our show was due to start, I asked the person who checked us in when our show would start.

Employee: “Did you just get here?”

Me: “No, we’ve been here since 19:50!”

Employee: “Which group are you?”

I pointed.

Employee: “Well, the group next to you was here first, so we’re taking them in first. It’ll be about half an hour before you get seen.”

Me: “But our tickets were for 20:00, not 21:00.”

Employee: “That doesn’t matter.”

Unfortunately, I’d made plans to meet up with friends at 21:30 based on when the show was expected to end, so I told my colleagues that I couldn’t wait. We demanded the money back on our ticket, which was very reluctantly handed over.

However, as annoyed and disappointed as I was, I couldn’t help but laugh at the explanation we were given by the box office at that point: “Sorry, but one of the aliens called in sick.”