[Friend #1] is half Turkish and fairly shy and quiet, and her name is somewhat unusual and has four syllables. We’ve got a new PE teacher who’s from Australia, going by her accent, and has a surname that’s quite typical in the UK but pronounced differently in Australia. She makes a point to highlight that it’s pronounced differently and there will be punishment if we get it wrong. She does the register, and [Friend #1] is near the start.

PE Teacher: “[Unknown Two-Syllable Name]?”

There’s no response.

PE Teacher: “Is she not here?”

Classmate #1: “Never heard of her before, Miss.”

PE Teacher: “[Unknown Two-Syllable Name] [Friend #1’s Surname]?”

Friend #1: *Quietly* “Oh, sorry. Here. My name is [Friend #1].”

The teacher doesn’t notice but continues on. She also butchers an Irish classmate’s name, which said classmate loudly corrects. The lesson starts, and every time she refers to [Friend #1], she calls out the two-syllable name instead. [Friend #1] corrects her quietly every time, but the teacher still doesn’t pay attention. It’s about halfway through and she’s gotten the name wrong about six times now.

PE Teacher: “[Two-Syllable Name].”

Me: *Snapping* “Her name is [Friend #1]! It’s not hard!”

PE Teacher: “Don’t talk to me like that!”

Me: “Don’t repeatedly get someone’s name wrong! She’s told you how her name is pronounced. Get it right!”

PE Teacher: “Well, I pronounce it like [Two-Syllable Name], as that’s the way Australia pronounces it!”

Friend #2: “And? She’s Turkish, not Australian, and we’re in the UK, not Australia. Even then, she pronounces it [Friend #1] and that’s all that matters!”

PE Teacher: “I will pronounce it [Two-Syllable Name] as that is the correct way!”

The class is silent.

PE Teacher: “Nobody correct me again, understand?”

Irish Classmate: “Yes, Miss [UK Pronunciation].”

PE Teacher: “My name is Miss [Australian Pronunciation]!”

Classmate #3: *Catching on quickly* “Yeah, but we pronounce it [UK pronunciation], and as we’re in the UK, I’d say that was the correct way.”

PE Teacher: “It’s not the correct way!”

Classmate #1: “It’s just as correct as you calling [Friend #1] by [Two-Syllable Name].”

Irish Classmate: “Sucks when people don’t bother to learn your name, doesn’t it?”

We all started to do it until the teacher stormed off. We continued doing PE with the guidance of [Classmate #1], who was also taking sport studies as an extracurricular, until another PE teacher — who’s Indian — came over as he saw we were missing a teacher. We were told not to worry about anything after we explained, and we ended up finishing the lesson with the other class since we couldn’t be left unsupervised. It turned out that she had been repeatedly pronouncing names how she wanted, stating it was the Australian way — including the Indian PE teacher’s name. She didn’t last long.

This story is part of our Best Of April 2021 roundup!

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I work at a small independent appliance store. All of us staff tend to do a bit of everything, sales, installs, etc.

An elderly lady phones and wants to replace her old cooker and kettle. I try to get the information regarding the size of the old one in order to find a suitable replacement, but she doesn’t really know. I take her details and it turns out we have another delivery near her that day. We agree to send a guy around to take a couple of simple measurements and take some brochures so that she can decide what she wants. The usual installers call me back later with the relevant sizes and specs that the lady would like and we agree on products, price, delivery date, etc. So far, so normal.

The day of the delivery comes, and the usual installation guys have been held up, so the boss says he’ll watch the shop while another colleague and I go to do a couple of deliveries. We get to the old lady’s house and go to take the old cooker out, and it is old — maybe forty or fifty years! And the kettle is the old type that boils on the hob, not a plug-in type.

We take the old stuff out and bring the new one in. All the while, the old lady is shadowing us, muttering under her breath.

As I am testing the new hotplates, the lady has filled up her new kettle behind me and goes to place it on the glowing hot stove. I quickly snatch it away before she melts it and possibly blows up her new stuff. I explain that this is not like her old one. I get the plug and base from the box and explain that it does not work the same as her old one.

Then, she wants to check that the cooker is working, so she proceeds to scurry over and try to place her hand directly on a glowing red stove! I again just manage to grab her arm in time and tell her she must be careful as this is very hot, and she will seriously injure herself.

I have to explain another few times that she must under no circumstances touch the cooker top while it’s on or place her old kettle onto it as it could blow up.

We finally get going to the next job after spending an additional half-hour with this woman, who we conclude must be senile. After about fifteen minutes, the boss phones us absolutely raging. He has a distraught old lady on the phone who has just nearly blown herself up after doing exactly what we just told her not to do, melting a full kettle and dumping two litres of water straight into the live electrics of the cooker!

I go to a long-running open mic night where one of the bar staff is intellectually challenged. His job is to collect glasses and keep the place tidy. He’s a lovely bloke, but people ridicule him a bit behind his back, which is a bit unfair, but there you go — that’s what people do.

Every week, he gets up to sing and utterly slaughters one of the standards; he really is not very good, can’t remember the words, and can’t even read them very well off the piece of paper he’s holding up to read them from. But no worries, it’s what he wants to do, and we don’t discriminate against anyone on grounds of talent or lack thereof.

Then, one day, he sits in front of the piano and starts playing random chords, just plonking his hands down wherever he wants to on the keyboard, and — get this — it actually sounds really good. It’s sort of bluesy and wistful and completely consonantally harmonic. He does this for a few minutes while beaming happily.

And he gets up and gets rapturous applause, high-fives, fist-bumps, the lot, as you’d expect.

His mum works with my wife, and I pick her up and take them both in to work in the morning. She’s going on about her useless son this, useless son that.

Me: “Actually, in the circles I move in, he’s highly respected.”

Mum: “How on earth?!”

Me: “Oh, yeah, he’s really good on the piano. Yeah, you know he’s friends with [Respected Rock Star who runs the club]?”

She went all silent, and now she looks upon him in a different light.

He happily admitted to me that he hasn’t a clue what he’s doing on that piano, and he’s just mucking about and having fun. It doesn’t matter to us; it sounds good enough that we have him back to play on it any time.

This story is part of our Feel Good roundup for April 2021!

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Read the Feel Good roundup for April 2021!

On Sundays, I work at the cigarette kiosk in my store, and due to panic buying, we have barely any stock. During the day I’ve been cussed out several times by angry customers, but this is by far the worst!

Customer #1: “Twenty [Brand] cigarettes, please.”

Me: “Sorry, we’re out of stock of those, I’m afraid.”

Customer #1: “Fine, twenty [Other Brand].”

Me: “Sorry again, but we don’t have those, either. We currently don’t have much of anything, because everyone seems to be stocking up because of the vi—”

The customer just suddenly snaps and slams his hand on the desk.

Customer #1: “Just give me my f****** fags, c**t! I know you b*****ds are keeping them aside for yourselves!”

I instantly lose my apologetic demeanour.

Me: “You know what, mate, just go away. I’m not serving you; of what little we have you get nothing. I was gonna offer you [Third Brand] because it’s similar to your second option, but not now. Goodbye!”

The customer lifts his hand off the desk, scrunches it into a fist, waves it slowly at me, and storms off without another word. I turn to the next customer, who has said nothing throughout.

Me: “Hey there, how can I help you?”

Customer #2: “Jeezo… I’ll just take that third one you mentioned.”

I’m working on the bar on a fairly busy night, serving a table of regulars.

Regular #1: “[Beers], please, [My Name]!”

Regular #2: “Actually, I’ll have a latte. Have you got any biscuits to go with it?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry, we don’t.”

Regular #2: “That’s fine—”

Regular #1: *Butting in* “That’s not good enough. We’ll be expecting a wedge of cake on the side for the inconvenience!”

They all laugh and I know they’re just joking around, but as a special treat, I decide to quickly run into our back storeroom and grab a mini muffin from our breakfast stock. I’m not really supposed to just give them away, but our company has a policy that focuses heavily on going the extra mile to make guests happy, so I figure this counts.

I pop it down beside [Regular #2]’s latte, but before anyone can say anything, [Regular #1] grabs the muffin off his buddy’s plate and gobbles it up in two seconds.

Regular #1: *With a mouth full of crumbs* “Aw, cheers, [My Name], you’re a real star!”

I don’t know how to react while staying professional, so I just kind of walk away to serve other people. While I am taking care of other customers, [Regular #1] keeps coming back up to the bar.

Regular #1: *For the third time* “Hey, [My Name], can we get more muffins?”

Me: “Sorry, buddy, I can’t do it. I wasn’t supposed to even give you that one.”

Regular #1: *Whining* “Oh, come onnn, [My Name], just two more for the other guys!”

I feel bad for [Regular #2] not getting his muffin, but my gut tells me his mate is just going to pull the same stunt and eat anything else I bring out.

Me: “It was supposed to be a one-off treat for [Regular #2]. I was trying to do something nice and you ruined it. That’s your own fault. It’s done. It’s over. You ruined it. You’re not getting any more.”

He huffed off back to his table. Months later, he still occasionally tries to get free muffins out of me, and he even dropped me in trouble with my manager by complaining to them that I “wouldn’t give [him] free stuff anymore.”