I work on a moving assembly line. It’s simple work, it’s boring, and the money isn’t great, but after working in so many companies that have fallen over, it gives me peace of mind to have security at work.

A job goes up on the board for more work but a bit more money. I talk with the manager and he lets me know that they are looking for people who want to “step up” and that this is a good way to show that.

I apply and get the job; I’m told no one else applied. I get on really well but get crap from some of the guys. One guy goes beyond banter and seems to have a real problem with me.

Me: “All right. You got your part tally sheets?”

Coworker: “What?”

Me: “The sheet you fill in to show how many parts you’ve done.”

Coworker: “I didn’t do it. If they want to know how many parts I make, they can come and count them.”

Me: “Err… okay.”

I mark “not done” on my sheet.

Coworker: “What? Are you going to run and tell them?”

Me: “Well, no, but I have to put something down or my numbers will be off.”

Coworker: “Little suck up, you’ve changed. You think yourself all high and mighty.”

Me: “I’m doing my job, mate. You don’t want to do yours? Fine. But I’m not getting crap because of it.”

He swears at me for a bit.

Coworker: “I could have done your job, but I’m not a suck-up, ratting people out.”

Me: “I thought it was because you could barely count without using your fingers.”

That wasn’t the smartest response but I felt good about it. I noticed he wasn’t in the rest of the week. Someone had heard him threatening me behind my back, so they called him into the office, where he threatened the manager, who sacked him.

I tried to go back to my old job, but they convinced me to stay. A year later, they said I had really shown extra effort and offered me another promotion. I never heard from [Coworker] again.

I’m working for a multinational company that employs tens of thousands of staff; our site alone has about 700 employees. One afternoon, as I am merrily doing some design work, I get an email from someone at the corporate office. It’s completely blank and has been sent to everyone. I figure that someone accidentally sent this to everyone, hit delete, and go to get back to my work.

Then, a little message pops up.

Message: “[Email Sender] has requested a read receipt when the email has been read. Do you wish to send? Yes/No.”

Oh, dear. I hit no, figuring the sender probably wouldn’t appreciate a reminder of what they did. I also wonder how many people have their settings to automatically send the receipt without prompting. I manage about twenty seconds more work when I get another email alert. It’s a reply to the original email.

Reply #1: “?”

Someone has decided that the best response to a blank email was responding with a single question mark. But the “best” way of doing this was to hit Reply To All. I hit delete.

Message: “[Reply Sender] has requested a read receipt when the email has been read. Do you wish to send? Yes/No.”

The reply had inherited the Read Receipt request. I imagine the IT departments across various sites not being very happy as the email server starts to fill. I imagine their collective moods worsening when the next message appears.

Reply #2: “??”

This is followed shortly by…

Reply #3: “???”

…and…

Reply #4: “????”

…as a few people decided that this is funny. I guess it is, to a point. I and a few of my nearby colleagues laugh at the stupidity of these people and how they are going to get some grief for clogging the mail servers. All of these want Read Receipts, too. I think we reach “????????” before the emails start to change.

Reply #5: “Please remove me from this email chain.”

This is sent to everyone, of course; there are a few of those.

Reply #6: “Please stop using Reply To All as you are making the problem worse!”

The odd thing is that it wasn’t one person who sends that message; there are several. And they aren’t doing it independently. Each email includes all the text from previous emails, and I can see the previous warnings there.

Reply #7: “You’ve just hit Reply To All to send the message; don’t do that!”

…and so on. I have no idea if those who are adding their warnings are trying to be funny or helpful or are just desperate to be the one who gets everyone to shut up by having the last word. In any case, the last word comes through a few minutes later with a site-wide email from our IT manager.

IT Manager Email: “Please stop responding to the email that was sent in error. These responses are clogging the servers. The email network will be down for a period while we remove these emails”

This email does not request a read receipt. 

A day or so later, I see one of the IT staff and ask him about the events of that afternoon. He visibly deflates as the memories come back.

IT Guy: “We had to disconnect our server from the global network to stop anything else getting through and then go through the servers and strip out every single one. It took hours!”

Me: “What started it all?”

IT Guy: “One of the accountants at corporate was trying to test something and accidentally managed to send a blank message to everyone. You know the rest.”

Me: “What about all those who responded? I noticed that there were a couple of senior directors from this site who joined in the, uh… fun.”

IT Guy: “They were all spoken to. They were told in great detail about server space, exacerbating problems, and exponential growth!”

CONTENT WARNING: This story contains content of a medical nature. It is not intended as medical advice.

A few years ago, my wife experimented with a certain brand of mycoprotein-based products. The first time we ate some, I became ill with vomiting and stomach cramps. I foolishly assumed that these were caused by something else, but the second time we ate some, it happened again and we very quickly realised I was sensitive to mycoprotein-based products, a phenomenon which is pretty well documented.

About nine months ago, I saw a Facebook advert for this particular brand and commented, saying that while I thought this product was a great idea, regrettably, I was sensitive to mycoprotein-based products so would have to avoid eating them.

Then, I got THIS reply from a random Facebook user I don’t even know.

Stranger: “Well, you’re clearly an idiot, then. You can’t get ill from [product]. It’s natural. NATURAL PRODUCTS DON’T MAKE YOU ILL!”

I didn’t have the heart to point out to her that latex, peanuts, kiwi fruit, and eggs are all-natural and can ALL trigger serious allergic reactions.

Like I say, this phenomenon is pretty well documented, and in some cases, people have eaten mycoprotein and ended up in ICU! I’m not really sure what this woman on Facebook was thinking.

It is a quiet day in the motor claims department of a major British insurance company. A telephone call comes through from a customer.

Customer #1: *Clearly agitated* “Hello, I’ve run into a lamp-post on [Road] in Glasgow, and the lamp-post has fallen over.”

Me: “Thank you, sir. And were any other vehicles involved?”

Customer #1: “No, just mine.”

Me: “Thank you, we’ll just take a few details.”

I proceed to take the normal details for the customer, and the call ends normally. Seconds later, the phone rings again. It’s another customer, of course.

Customer #2: “Hello, I’m on [Road] in Glasgow and some d*** fool has run into a lamp-post and knocked it over on my car and three other cars!”

And this is why you don’t lie to your insurance company.

A few years ago, I worked in a call centre for a major mobile phone provider in the UK in the incoming upgrades department. [Coworker] was an all right person for all of a month while working there. She asked me to cover her shift so she could “hold her father’s hand as he lay dying in hospital” and I agreed so I didn’t end up looking and feeling like a d**k. The day came where I covered her shift, and on my way to work, I got a text from her with her phone login details.

Each employee had a unique eight-number code to log in to the phones and computers to take calls and input customer data. I thought it was weird that she texted it to me but ignored it. I had a fantastic day that day for upgrades. I managed to sell sixteen upgrades, two accessories, and three new lines, which made me eligible for that month’s bonus. I was made up.

[Coworker] returned to work and asked me how the Sunday shift went — she never thanked me — so I told her I’d had a top day and gotten that month’s bonus in one day. She was extremely excited for me, or so I thought. The day that pay slips were released, [Coworker] came to my computer to ask why the bonus wasn’t showing up on her pay slip.

I told her it was on my pay slip because I was the one who earned it, and she said, “Oh, I thought you were using my phone because it was my shift. That’s all right. I’ll just take half. Do you want my bank details and you can transfer it?”

Wow, just wow. No, [Coworker], I’m not giving you s***.

She turned on me something awful, calling me a horrible b**** and cursing my family for keeping her money from her, so I took it to my team leader, and [Coworker] apologised.

And then, the next day, she asked for a quarter of the bonus for letting me cover her shift and have that great day. She got a firm no but decided that must mean I’d accept buying her dinner for a fortnight because it was the least I could do and the least she deserved — her words, not mine. She let me know this when she added s***loads of food to her order and got five drinks and told the lady that I’d pay. She even tried walking off with her tray. She got shouted back by at least five people, and I finally told her to f*** off or I’d go to Human Resources.