Between eight and ten years ago, I received an email welcoming me to Netflix. That was a bit concerning since I hadn’t signed up, so I contacted the company. They told me someone must have accidentally used my email when they created an account. Our last names were the same, and our first initial. I said “oh no problem, you must have additional contact information for them besides my email, could you please remove my email from the account and let them know so they can fix?”

Well, immediately that was a big problem for Netflix, and well, no, they couldn’t remove the email because it was the only one they had for the account, and how did they even know that it was mine? I said Give me your email address and start talking, I will email you the words as they come out of your mouth. That wasn’t good enough for proof somehow. More likely, I was in the other person’s Gmail account asking not to have Netflix?

What they finally ended up doing was changing the account password so that when the customer went to log back in, they wouldn’t be able to and would need to do a password reset by calling Netflix, and then they would confirm the email address.

I kept getting Netflix emails, so that didn’t work.

I called again; same again, didn’t work.

I changed the password several times myself because I could use the forgot password function and get an email to reset it; that didn’t work. I don’t know how they kept getting the new password without updating an email address, and I didn’t really care at this point.

For the last eight to ten years, I have had Netflix on everything I own. I have signed in on hotel televisions, used it on my phone, my Xboxes; My kid uses it. I only ever signed in under “Family” and told him to do the same. The entire history in “Family” is ours. The other logins, “Fred”, “Softee”, and “Lylla,” accumulated history. I would occasionally look because, curious. Never did a single new show appear in the “Family” watch history that wasn’t because of me.

Well, I woke up this morning to an email from Netflix telling me that this email address was no longer associated with that account and that if I had any questions, etc.

Thank you, “Softee”! It has been an amazing run, and I am not sure why you gave me free Netflix for the last decade, but I think you are amazing!

I remember working at a public broadcasting station back in the 1980s. I take a phone call since I’m the closest person to the phone.

Me: “[Station Name], how can I—”

Caller: “—I wanna speak to the news desk.”

Me: “I work the news desk, how can I—”

Caller: “—No, no, listen, honey. I wanna speak to one of the journalists, not one of their secretaries.”

Me: “I’m one of the journalists—”

Caller: “—Sure thing, honey. I want to speak to a man.”

I sigh and look around.

Me: “There’s only one other guy in the newsroom right now.”

Caller: “Then hand me over to him.”

So, I hand him over to the janitor. I get on with my work while the janitor winks at me and starts talking at length about the effectiveness of different brands of bleach before the guy hangs up.

I used to work for Netflix customer support, back when it was common (and even encouraged) to share passwords.

Caller: “My Netflix isn’t working!”

Me: “Are you getting an error code when you try to stream?”

Caller: “It says I need to update my payment method! What the h*** does that mean?!”

Me: “It means the way you pay for your Netflix is out of date and needs to be updated.”

Caller: “I don’t pay for Netflix!”

Me: “Uh… who in your household pays for the Netflix account?”

Caller: “No one does! No one pays for Netflix!”

Me: “Sir, I assure you, every Netflix account holder pays for their services. Someone you know is paying for the Netflix that you’ve been using. You need to check with them.”

Caller: “My Netflix was set up by my ex.”

Me: “Then… you’d need to talk to your ex. It’s likely they’re paying for the Netflix and—”

Caller: “—F*** that, I’m not talking to that b****! I’ll just watch regular TV.” *Click.*

I was one of two broadcast engineers working on a TV mobile broadcasting a Los Angeles Dodger baseball game. One of the videotape recorders (yeah, this was a looooong time ago) was acting up. I noticed that the other tech was already working on it.

The producer was raging in front of the mobile broadcast unit (basically the television production truck), and I went up to the front. He started yelling at me:

Producer: “This is such a s***ty mobile! Nothing ever works! You’re all running a total s*** show here all the god-d*** time!”

There were about ten other production people there also, quietly sinking into their chairs, trying to do their jobs in the middle of this production.

After about five long minutes of his tirade, he stops and asks me:

Producer: “Well?! Are you going to just stand there or are you going to do something about this?!”

Me: “Sorry, I was waiting for you to finish. My mama always said the best way to deal with a tantrum is to let them cry it all out. Anyway, the other tech fixed the problem about three minutes ago.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

It was Christmas Eve of 1994. [Retail Pharmacy Chain], where I worked, was the only place open in the area that night, so customers gathered like moths to a flame.

At about 9:30, a local TV crew arrived. We were to be a fluff piece on the ten o’clock news. It was just a cameraman and a reporter with good hair. The reporter was an a**hole. He barked out orders to us as if we wanted to be on TV.

I didn’t want to be seen by anyone I knew, let alone by the whole news-watching Christmas Eve public. The reporter had a brilliant idea: he would stand in between the lines of customers that funneled to the registers, with the cameraman behind the registers standing on top of the back of the registers. This would put my bald spot in the bottom corner of the frame. Yay.

Minutes before they were supposed to go live, the cameraman and reporter set up. The customers vanished into the aisles, mainly the seasonal aisle. The reporter intended to have a backdrop of dozens of late-night shoppers, shopping at the last possible minute. Instead, he got two badly dressed [Chain] employees with their backs to the camera.

It went live anyway.

The reporter then had the cameraman follow him around a corner to where the customers were hiding. This meant the cameraman had to jump down from the counter midshot. He managed it without disaster, but the image as he hopped down three feet must have been jarring on TV. The two disappeared around the corner while the reporter continued talking. Customers scattered like cockroaches with the lights on finding out that they were now on live television fighting over boxes of Christmas crap.

I got a brilliant idea. I picked up the phone and hit the intercom button. I knew I only had a few minutes until the reporter was done, and although I needed the money, this was a bad job, so I had to risk it. I hit the “page all” button and announced:

Me: “Price check on size extra-large [Brand #1] condoms.”

This meant that a manager who was not extremely occupied must drop everything, check the price, and bring it to the register so that the lines could continue. Before I even let the night manager react, I started in again.

Me: “Price check for [Brand #2] disposable enema. That’s the disposable enema bottle in the green box.”

Next were adult diapers and personal lubricant. The drugstore had the most embarrassing personal items. My manager came around the corner with a panicked look. He had been hiding from the cameras, as well, and now he had to run the gauntlet.

The reporter wrapped up and stormed out. He gave me the stink eye as he passed me out the door. The cameraman was grinning ear to ear and high-fived me on his way past. As the automatic door closed behind the reporter, the cameraman told me that the reporter had frozen every time I’d made an announcement. It went live and could be heard clearly. My girlfriend at the time said that on TV, the desk reporters were laughing at the field reporter.