I have just purchased and moved into my first home. I’m working on unpacking boxes when there is a knock at the door. I am a young-looking female. Most people guess my age to be about five years younger than I actually am.

Salesman: “Good afternoon! Is your mother home?”

Me: “Probably not, but she lives in another state, so I’m not certain. Is there something I can help you with?”

Salesman: “Ah. Is the homeowner around?”

Me: “Yes, I am the homeowner. How can I help you?”

Salesman: “Oh! Uh… well, I’m a real estate agent, and I’ve got several wonderful homes on the market!” *Hands me a flyer* “If you want to stop renting, I can help you purchase a home!”

Me: “Actually, I just purchased this home. I’m not renting.”

I gesture to the stacks of boxes behind me, indicating that I have just moved in.

Salesman: “Oh! Wonderful! Er, congratulations! Well, do you have any friends in the area looking to buy a home?” 

Once again, I gesture to the boxes behind me.

Me: “I literally just moved in, sir. I don’t know anyone yet.”

Salesman: “Oh. Right. Well, if you meet anyone looking to buy a home, could you pass that flyer along?”

Me: “Er… sure… Have a good day, sir.”

I’d wager he went on a break after that. Hopefully, he stops making assumptions about people.

This takes place about twenty years ago. I’m in my early twenties and working a basic warehouse job — driving a forklift, shipping/receiving, packing orders, and so on. There’s nothing special about it.

The owner of the company is a decent guy. He’s always walking about, interacting with employees, and being generally light-hearted.

One of the lazier employees finds out that we have a warehouse opening, and he talks to the warehouse manager about hiring him to help in the warehouse. So, the manager sets up a meeting, conducts an interview, and then eventually hires the guy.

The new guy is decent. He seems to be hardworking and can follow instructions. The guy is diabetic; it runs in his family. This shouldn’t be a problem for anyone that is diabetic and they work on following proper guidelines to ensure they’re healthy. However, this guy wants zero to do with it. He doesn’t monitor his blood sugar; he just carries around candy in his pocket and eats it if he feels lightheaded. He loves to party and just doesn’t take care of himself.

After maybe six months of [New Guy] working, we’ve noticed he’s hard to find at times. We look for him outside (since he smokes) and we check all entrances, but we can’t find him. We check the bathrooms — sometimes he’ll sit in a stall for an extended period of time — but we don’t find him. We wander the warehouse, checking every corner, checking up in spots we store packing material to see if he’s found a place to nap — past employees have done this — but we don’t find him.

We double-check the parking lot to see if [New Guy]’s car is gone. Nope, his car is still in the parking log. We wander the warehouse again, yelling out his name, rechecking outside of the building and the bathrooms, but we cannot find him.

We’ve now spent forty-five minutes looking for [New Guy] and he’s nowhere to be found. The warehouse manager tells us to just get back to work, and if he shows up, he shows up. I continue to work on my tasks.

About half an hour later, one of the other warehouse guys tells me that [New Guy] was seen climbing down the racking from a pallet and that the warehouse manager caught him in the act. The manager took the pallet down from the top of the rack and found out that the new guy had hollowed out the inside of the pallet to sit inside of it and sleep. The pallet had forty-eight boxes on it; [New Guy] had taken out the boxes in the center except for one to act as a seat to sit on and built up the outer layer taller. He had then put the pallet on the top of the rack.

Aside from thinking that that’s pretty impressive, I also know the owner will be pissed about it because he was even out helping us look for [New Guy].

[New Guy]’s punishment is none of my concern. All I know is that the warehouse manager doesn’t fire him on the spot.

I go to lunch and I am sitting in the break room when in walks the owner. He gets his lunch out and starts making small talk with me.

Owner: “Did you ever find the new guy?”

Me: “Yes. Apparently, he hollowed out a pallet and was sleeping inside of it up on the top rack.”

Owner: “What? He was sleeping?”

Me: “That’s what I was told.”

His face turns bright red and he takes in a deep breath and yells.

Owner: “DID YOU FIRE THE F***ER?!”

Me: “Sorry, that’s not my call. You’d have to talk to your warehouse manager about that.”

The owner stood up and marched out to the warehouse.

Surprisingly, the new guy wasn’t fired, but I never asked why they kept him. But it wasn’t too far down the road that the guy ended up getting fired for not coming into work for three days straight without calling in.

I’m working as a barista. My coworker spots a woman outside who is making her way over to our doors. Before she comes in, my coworker whispers to me that this particular customer often complains about her drinks.

Me: “Welcome to [Coffee Shop]! What can I get started for you?”

Customer: “I’ll have a medium latte with extra foam.”

After ringing her up, I begin to make her coffee. The milk steams up beautifully and makes a nice layer of foam on her latte. I’m pleased with how well the drink came out. I hand the woman her order and go back to my station. I glance over at her and notice that she is staring at her drink without taking a sip.

Me: “Ma’am, is everything okay with your latte?”

Customer: “Well… it’s just that when [Owner] makes my latte, there are usually more bubbles in the foam.”

Me: “I’m sorry, would you like me to remake it for you? I can make your latte with even more foam if you would like!”

Customer: “No, the foam is fine, but when [Owner] makes it there are more bubbles.”

Me: “Are you sure you don’t want your drink remade? [Owner] isn’t here today, but [Coworker] or I can happily make the latte to your liking.”

Customer: “No, no…” *Sadly takes a sip of her latte*

Unsure of what to do, I tell her that if she changes her mind to please let us know. She eventually finishes her drink and starts to leave.

Me: “Have a good day!”

Customer: *Sighs* “It’s just that [Owner] always makes it with more bubbles…”

Why complain if you won’t let us try to fix it for you? Later, when I spoke to [Owner] about her, he said she always picks something arbitrary to complain about!

I go to a university that focuses on art, including fields like visual effects/special effects, game design, concept design, and animation. Two of my roommates are also game design majors and thus attended a forty-eight-hour game jam at my school, which basically means they and a group of however-many-people they wanted had to make a game following a theme within forty-eight hours. 

Usually, for the game jam they participated in, all concepts, characters, and everything from modeling to coding to even a video trailer that is used as “grading” criteria is done within said forty-eight hours after the announcement of the theme. 

However, this year, due to makeup classes that fell during the game jam, the school delayed it by a week but still announced the theme. This meant that all teams had up to a week to at least think of a concept that fit the theme; as long as no assets were previously made, it technically wasn’t against the rules.

My two roommates were in a team of fourteen people and had already grouped up together and taken over a classroom when a different group asked to use some computers in the classroom at the back. They reluctantly agreed, mostly since there were still free computers.

Along came this girl who started asking nosy questions. When they questioned her, she claimed that she was a game jam official and was thus looking around at the games. This was later proven a lie, as she was mostly looking at the concepts and trying to pick and choose a group to participate in the game jam with. This was very short notice, as my roommate, the overall team leader, had compiled the fourteen-person group at least a few weeks in advance.

The nosy girl made her first mistake by trying to kiss up to a guy that she thought was the lead, ignoring my roommate who kept answering her questions as the actual team lead. 

By the time she figured it out, my roommate had already rejected her, as they already had a solid team and my roommate also could not figure out what in tarnation her major was; her answers fluctuated from animator to a user-interface designer. Later, we found out her major was special effects — bearing a passing resemblance to animation but nothing like user interface.

Eventually, this girl (who managed to bother almost everyone else participating in the game jam) joined the group that was in the same room as my roommates, which turned out to be a fairly obnoxious group, as they would do loud cartoon voices without caring about the other people who were working. 

Even worse, at one point, when a professor walked through, they blatantly lied that my roommates’ group had had “weeks of preparation”. (One week. They had one week, with no models done beforehand or even more than the concept discussed and finalized.) The professor attempted to be a diplomat by telling them that while my roommate’s group had better gameplay, but the obnoxious team had better art.

Eventually, the final day rolled around, and the girl walked up to my roommate’s group and commented on how similar their game was to another group’s and how she sometimes forgot it was a different game. 

Not only were the games not similar except for both having the same word in their title and having animals as protagonists, but this was incredibly rude to do, considering she essentially insinuated that their hours of work didn’t matter due to the games “being similar”.

Nobody reacted. This tactful, diplomatic, and absolutely not at all petty girl proceeded to say it louder, and then had the audacity to go, “Oh, oops, I shouldn’t have said that.” Sure.

Eventually, the game jam finished, and all of the groups were tallied up. Not only did the obnoxious group’s game not fit the theme at all, but my roommate’s team won Best Art. (What was that about their art being better, professor?)

What got me about this whole situation was how extremely quickly this girl burned several possible future professional bridges in less than a single weekend. My roommates are pretty well-connected, and a lot of their friends who also participated in the jam complained about this girl. Even I preemptively blocked this girl without participating in the jam or having met her.

My friend is a bit of a moron. He’s not a bad person, and he’s not an anti-vaxxer, but he legitimately didn’t seem to think that getting vaccinated was important until all his coworkers started getting sick with the latest variant of a particular contagious illness.

As soon as the third coworker where he works caught [illness], [Coworker] scheduled an appointment to get vaccinated, but he could only find one three and a half weeks out.

Sadly, he tested positive himself four days before the appointment. This absolute moron of a man decided to go and get vaccinated while currently sick with the illness, despite my efforts to convince him to wait, because, and I quote:

Friend: “I ain’t waiting another three and a half weeks. I’m ready to do it now, and I’m gonna get ‘er done.”

He was in the emergency room the next day; the vaccine had made his symptoms worse. He spent two weeks in the hospital.

About two weeks after that, he tested negative for the illness. He’d been testing every two or three days. He told me:

Friend: “Oh, good thing. I got my second dose of the vaccine yesterday.”