I work at a fast food place, and due to some staffing issues, we temporarily close the lobby and are only serving guests in the drive-thru. All of the front lights are off, and the doors are locked. I work up front, and I am wearing one of the drive-thru headsets to take orders.

The drive-thru customer says something garbled, but I make out “called ahead” and “chicken.”

Me: “Absolutely, ma’am. If you can just pull up to the window, we’ll get that taken care of.”

I assume it’s something the managers already know about, and even if that isn’t the case, they’ll cross that bridge when she gets to the window.

A couple of orders later, we get an order for the restaurant’s dessert menu, which is also part of my position, and the cold line is up by the registers. I turn around to make the order and suddenly see a little old lady standing in the lobby.

Me: *Dumbfounded* “Ma’am, I’m… sorry, but the lobby’s… uh… closed.”

Customer: *Very calm but resolute* “I called ahead about my chicken livers.”

At this point, a manager hears an unfamiliar voice and heads up from the back kitchen.

Manager: “What’s going on?”

Me: “She called ahead about her chicken livers?”

Manager: “Ma’am, we don’t serve those here.”

It’s worth noting at this point that we’re a burger joint. It says on the sign and in every iteration of the logo that we serve burgers.

Customer: *Insistent* “But I called ahead! I need twenty chicken livers!”

Manager: “Ma’am, did you mean to go to [Chicken Restaurant] next door?”

Customer: *Pauses* “Where am I?”

Manager: “[Burger Restaurant].”

Customer: “Well, that would explain it.”

She turned around and walked out. I checked the doors after her, and sure enough, every single one was locked. I hope she found her chicken livers somewhere out there.

I have a manager who I can only classify as evil. It doesn’t matter your skill level; she will try to get you fired on the sole basis of you being “too ugly” and/or being better off than her. Unfortunately, she is a high-school dropout and fifty-nine-year-old divorcee who lives way above her means, so even the college graduates straight out of college with a mountain of debt are viewed, in her eyes, as privileged children who had the world handed to them.

Back when I was young and naïve, [Manager] used to use me as a minion to target this one guy. He was a jerk who was bad at his job, but she mostly wanted him gone due to his chronic illness. Nevertheless, she got her way and pinned it on me, framing it that we needed to fire him if they wanted “me” to stay. I just wanted him better managed, man.

The health crisis happens, and since our former target is gone, [Manager] has no one to blame as a distraction for her being unable to do her work. Therefore, she turns her sights on me and begins gaslighting the h*** out of me. Because we are remote at this time, this evil woman is the only one I can talk to at work — by her own hand. She then moves to get me fired by calling me “catty” and “difficult” when I am actually confused and frustrated.

Luckily, that doesn’t happen, and another manager sees what she is doing. He insists that I start working under him, and a year later, I am thriving! I am also able to finally get help for my mental and physical health issues, where previously, [Manager] refused to let me take my sick days off. I even rise to be on the same level as her in a short amount of time.

Fast forward. My new manager leaves the company, and [Manager] tries to swoop in and be all “us against the world” again. She even tries to pit me against a new hire (who is wonderful in every way, but has male-pattern baldness so that is a no for her). I am older, wiser, and in a better mental state a year after the fact, so I manage to stave off her advances. She doesn’t like that very much. Her minion is gone!

Therefore, she fervently tries a new round of attempts to get me fired. But because everyone who worked with us pre-global health crisis already knows what she did to me due to a very public mental break, she has to throw suspicion off of her and make it look like it is OUR boss who is insisting that I be fired. She goes around telling everyone what a valuable member of the team I am to the point that it is beyond creepy.

Meanwhile, she also sets up situations trying to make it look like I am overstepping bounds by privately asking me for tasks for her subordinates, only to send a nasty, aggressive response in front of our boss when I (le gasp!) give her suggestions. Luckily, each time I am able to call her out on it in the sweetest and most apologetic manner (i.e. “I am so sorry. They don’t have to do these tasks. I only mentioned it because you asked, but no worries!”) so she is even nastier for no reason. 

Her whole aim is to make it look like I am needlessly attacking her and questioning her competency while acting like she is this sweet, innocent victim who has done nothing wrong and loves me so much that she sees me as a daughter! 

One day, though, we are sitting in an all-staff meeting when her boss asks me a question about why test cases aren’t matching up.

Me: “I am not sure, as I haven’t had a chance to look at the problem quite yet, but is it possible that it is [reason]?”

His eyes get all wide in surprise and he starts nodding approvingly.

Boss: “You know? I did not. See, [Manager]? I told you she was good! I didn’t even think about it!”

He crows and sings my praises as he fixes his issue for himself. Meanwhile, she is left stuttering with egg all over her face.

Manager: “I-I already knew she was good, [Boss].”

It definitely felt satisfying to know our boss has my back and sees the good I do, no matter how much [Manager] tries to tear me down.

I was driving cross-country after visiting some family. I’d been driving for several hours, and I’d foolishly skipped lunch, so by evening, I was starving.

I stopped at a local restaurant, got seated, and was looking over the menu. There were two different entrees that looked pretty good to me: a burger and a sandwich. Given how hungry I was, I decided to order both.

Waiter #1: “And what can I get for you?”

Me: “I’d like to get the [burger] and the [sandwich].”

Waiter #1: “Which one?”

I held up and pointed to the menu.

Me: “The [burger] here, and the [sandwich].”

Waiter #1: “But which one are you ordering?”

Me: *Now thoroughly confused* “Both?”

Waiter #1: *Sighing* “You have to pick one or the other.”

Me: “Why?”

Waiter #1: “One person, one meal.”

Me: “It will be just one meal. I’m starving, and these are what I’d like to order, please.”

I guess my voice might have gotten too loud, as another waiter came up.

Waiter #2: “Everything okay here?”

Before the first waiter could speak, I did.

Me: “No. Apparently, I’m not allowed to order both a burger and a sandwich at the same time.”

Waiter #2: “What?”

Waiter #1: “It’s too much. Meals are designed for one person; he’s going to be wasting food.”

Waiter #2: “Look, I… [Waiter #1], I’ll take over here.”

They made eye contact for a bit, and then the first waiter stalked off. The second waiter took my order with no problem and brought out the food. Both the burger and sandwich were delicious, and it took me practically no time at all to polish them both off, leaving two completely empty plates.

I went up to the front to pay, and as I was waiting on my receipt to print, I saw the first waiter stalk over to my table and start poking around, going as far as to look under the table. I’m guessing he was trying to prove himself right about me wasting food, and he couldn’t believe that I’d honestly emptied both plates.

I left a big tip for [Waiter #2] and filled out a comment card for [Waiter #1]’s behavior.

I work at a bakery, and I have become the cake consultant for weddings and special events. I get a call from a woman.

Caller: “Do you make cakes?”

Me: “Yes, we do! When do you need your cakes by? I want to make sure we have availability to take your order.”

Caller: “I need them next weekend.”

I let her know the sizes we can accommodate with this amount of notice: three sizes of sheet cakes as well as some tiered cake sizes.

Caller: “That sounds good!”

Me: “What sounds good, ma’am? What are you looking to order?”

Caller: “A big, fancy cake! We are just excited to have a fancy cake for the party.”

Me: “Could you please be more specific about the size you need? How many people are you looking to feed?”

Caller: “I’m not really sure. We just need a big, fancy cake!”

Me: “Ma’am, the pricing will depend on the size you need as well as additional charges for premium cake or filling flavors. I need a bit more information to take your order.”

Caller: *Angry now* “I just want a big, fancy cake! This shouldn’t be so difficult! Put your manager on the phone!”

Me: “I am the manager.”

Caller: “Well, this isn’t so difficult! We just want a big, fancy cake!”

Me: “I have explained to you several times now that I need more specifics. If you would still like to place an order, please call back with that information, but now I’m disconnecting the call.” *Hangs up*

Since the call wasn’t going well, I had walked over to the owner of the bakery while on the phone to ensure she heard what was happening.

The phone rings again almost immediately, and the owner has me give her the phone. Sure enough, it’s the same caller. The owner listens for a moment and interrupts, speaking loudly as the customer will not stop speaking.

Owner: “Ma’am, I have been standing next to my manager for her entire call with you and what you’re saying is simply not true. If you had told her a number you needed to feed, she could have proceeded to assist you with your order.”

Caller: “Fine! I will order my big, fancy cake somewhere else!” *Hangs up*

Owner: *To me* “I kind of wish I knew what ‘big’ and ‘fancy’ meant to this woman. Is the cake for a birthday, a wedding? Oh, and she said you called her an idiot and cussed her out before hanging up on her.”

My boyfriend works as an animator, recreating specific scenes of accidents, injuries, and surgeries for use in legal cases. Unfortunately, he is at the mercy of the bosses and middlemen above him when it comes to being given the details of the cases involved. He’s dealt with many years of inconsistent information and frustrating inefficiency that affect his ability to do his job. Here is just the latest example.

Mind you, the people contracting my boyfriend’s company for this case have all of the actual information about the people involved, but does that information actually trickle down to the animator who has to recreate it?

First, he’s told he’s animating a car crash, but he won’t need to show the car, just the injury sustained by the person inside. Okay. He’s told they want a side view of a man in the driver’s seat, suffering a head-on whiplash collision. He is given no photos for reference and no records, just this description, so the plan is to use a basic male figure, almost like a crash-test dummy, to demonstrate the motion of the accident.

Then, the man needs to have brown hair, despite not being originally supposed to look like anyone in particular. 

Then, it’s not a front collision; it was from the side, so it’s a side-to-side whiplash now.

Then, naturally, a side view won’t show this well, so it’s changed to an animation viewed from above.

Then, suddenly, the man in the driver’s seat is, surprise, now an eleven-year-old boy, and he’s in the passenger seat.

Also, they’ve told my boyfriend he needs to show the car now.

These are all changes my boyfriend is given once work is already in progress, over the course of a week or so. He suspects he’s at the point of needing to start over entirely, and even though he plans to prod his boss into verifying these details for him before he continues further, he has no reason to think he won’t end up completing the whole animation, and then a week later be given photos of the injured person with instructions to make it look patient-specific. It’s just the way this place operates, and yes, he is looking for another job!