Growing up, I was always bullied at school, but it got especially bad when I started dating when I was fifteen. In less than a week, all kinds of rumours started circulating claiming we had been “caught” doing all kinds of inappropriate things all around the school, even though we didn’t even hold hands at school.

Science class was one of the few places I was safe. The teacher was the best I’d ever had. Not only did he make each lesson engaging and interesting and talk to the students rather than down to them, but he also had zero tolerance for bullying. However, he had a unique way of dealing with bullies.

One day, in science class, I was focusing on my work while in the background I could hear the usual bullies whispering about me and laughing. I ignored them. While the teacher was writing on the board, one of them sidled up to me.

Bully: “Hey, [My Name], is it true you’re going out with [Boyfriend]?”

I nodded uncertainly. This made the bully and his other friends start laughing. The bully suddenly gave a really creepy grin and he leaned in toward me.

Bully: “So… have you given him a blow job yet?”

His group of friends laughed louder. Everyone in the class started staring at me. I wanted nothing more than to be out of this conversation.

Teacher: “Um, [Bully], I think you’ll find that’s none of your business.”

The bully suddenly turned, unaware the teacher was right behind him.

Teacher: “That’s an extremely inappropriate question, and I don’t want to hear you say anything like that again.”

The bully rolled his eyes, turned back to his friends, and opened his mouth to make a comment. Before he could, the teacher grinned suddenly.

Teacher: “Besides, [Bully], if you’re looking for tips on how to give head, there are far better, more appropriate ways than asking your classmates. Try looking on the Internet instead — just not during class, okay?”

The bully’s friends suddenly burst out laughing and the bully shut his mouth, went red, and moved away from me. The teacher then carried on with the lesson as if nothing had happened. At the end of the lesson, I was the last one out, and the teacher asked me to stay behind. He told me that if anything like that happened again to come and speak to him and he would help me raise a sexual harassment complaint because things like that were not okay. Luckily, after his help, I never needed to, but it was nice to know I had help if I needed it.

Back in 2006, I worked as a taxi driver on nights for a small (two-car) minicab company in a small town in North East England.

One Sunday, at about midnight, I get a call to pick up a customer from a pizza place on the high street. I get there and a young woman gets in carrying a takeaway.

Customer: “Drop me off [less than a mile up the high street].”

This racks up a fare of about £2.30. No problem. She then pulls out a £20 note.

Customer: “Ehh, but I don’t have any change.”

This is before contactless payment is a thing. She has just come out of a shop where she could have gotten change. This is a pretty common scam on short-distance fares; some people think male drivers will just let them go if they look needy or just bat their eyelashes.

I manage to make change, but it clears my float and I have to go back to my boss’s house to get more change. He isn’t happy as this takes me off the road, and he blames me for not making passengers pay exact fare.

Roll on to the next week.

I have had a bad Sunday. All night, I have been getting exact fare without asking for it, all in very small-denomination coins. My float is very heavy.

At the same time of night, I get a call for the same pick-up: the same woman and same destination.

She gives the same offer of payment of a £20 note.

Me: “No problem. I have over £17 of small-denomination coins!”

It took me five minutes to count out a double handful of coins that she could only store in her pizza box. She had to put the pizza on top of the box.

I never saw her again.

One of my reports has to get his laptop reimaged because of a mistake in Central IT. That means basically getting his laptop rebuilt from the ground up — stressy and messy.

It takes nearly two weeks to get this done, because the procedures for reinstalling all the apps are not well defined, and there are always some missing. This is less than excusable because IT themselves specify what the standard build contains, but they themselves cannot update their recovery procedures to match this, so there is ALWAYS some back and forward.

My report finds he’s still missing the VPN that he needs to connect remotely, and he is due to fly out to a client’s site on Wednesday afternoon. Normally, he would be spending the morning at home, getting his stuff together, getting ready to go up to the airport, chilling, or whatever before the flight. But of course, because he hasn’t had the VPN pushed out to him, he has to come into the office that morning to get it achieved, despite the fact that the request to get this done was put in on Monday. It didn’t happen Tuesday because the bloke whose job it was took a day off for some reason we weren’t told about.

So, first thing Wednesday, I’m on the phone with the IT team to get this expedited. 

IT Team: “It will be done today.” 

Me: “Please do it now. [My Report] is due to fly out. This has to be done while he is in the office, and he is not going to be in the office all day.”

IT Team: “Okay, we’ll do it now.”

I can detect attitude.

Me: *Politely* “Thank you. This is mission-critical, as can be seen in the job request.”

IT Team: “Everything you send us is job-critical. If everything is job-critical, then nothing is.”

The upshot of this conversation is me crafting an email that will go to higher management to explain what is going on because I am irritated by this, and I am starting to be concerned about whether it is actually going to get done.

An hour later, my report is still waiting on this software to be pushed out, so I get back onto IT, as they won’t listen to him and his complaints. And again, and again, until it is after midday and my report is in danger of missing his flight. The situation is explained in considerable depth and breadth, but the sulky and surly voice at the other end (I have not met this person, he is in another branch of the company, in a different location) again says, “If everything is mission-critical, then nothing is.” He ends with, “Do you know just how much we have to do here?” as though it’s my fault his team broke the laptop in the first place.

This continues through the afternoon, and by this time, my report has missed his flight and is still at his desk at 5:00 pm. He is now just sitting there at his desk, staring out of the window, motionless, completely out of “spoons”. He’s gone through the gamut of emotions during the course of the day.

Me: “Just go. Leave your laptop here, go home, and take the rest of the week off — paid. We will reschedule the meeting at the client’s location.”

Finally, the software is installed by 5:30, after most everyone has gone home, and I’m still there trying to get in touch with the IT team. And finally, I manage to talk to the person who has ACTUALLY installed the software — not the manager of the team that I’ve been speaking to.

His excuse for not doing it earlier?

Installer: “Why should we have to cater to someone who just wants to go home early? We have to be here all day, so I don’t see why you people can’t stay here all day, as well.”

I made sure that upper management was completely aware of this situation, and I recommended that heads roll because of this.

Fortunately, the client was accepting of our excuses and was prepared to reschedule the meeting for the following week, but it was a serious embarrassment to us and caused us considerable extra expense.

I work in a charity shop. We sell pretty much anything. It’s a well-established place and has been going for years. We sell furniture when good stuff comes in. We also offer delivery on a sliding scale depending on how far you need things taken. We pay a person with a van and their driver’s mate to work for us; they are self-employed subcontractors who have to pay all their own wages and bills.

We have a sofa on sale reduced to £40.

Customer: “How much is delivery?”

Me: “£20.”

Customer: “Can you do me a discount?”

Me: “It’s already discounted.”

Customer: “But I need free delivery.”

Me: “We have to pay our delivery people.”

Customer: “How can I get free delivery?”

Me: “Go up the high street to [Chain Superstore]. They do free delivery; you’re probably gonna pay a minimum of £400 for the sofa, but delivery will be free.”

My boss saw that. I thought I was finished at that shop. She said it was the funniest comeback she had seen.

Many moons ago, my mother used to own and work in a cafe. She had a waitress working for her who was an older lady — in her mid-sixties at the time, I believe — and an absolute sweetheart — quiet, polite, great with the customers, and just generally lovely.

Around the same time, my mother’s main cook left, and she took on a chap who was (once upon a time) a chef. He was a nice guy most of the time but had a drinking problem and was quick to lose his temper — think Gordon Ramsay, but a bit less fiery and much less sweary.

One day, he got very angry with the waitress over something trivial and stormed out the back of the cafe to calm down with a cigarette. The lovely waitress decided to make him a coffee to help chill him out and took it outside to him.

About five minutes later, my mother heard a scream followed by a crash and legged it out the back, fearing some sort of awful altercation between chef and waitress.

Instead of blood and carnage, she was met with the sight of chef and waitress both leaning against the wall in fits of laughter, with a broken mug and coffee all around their feet.

The waitress, this lovely old lady who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, had secretly taken her spare glass eye and popped it into the angry chef’s coffee cup as a little revenge prank. When he finally drank down that far, he saw this eye peering up at him from the bottom of the cup, screamed, and dropped the cup in his terror.

At least he forgot about whatever it was he’d been angry about!