My employer, as many do, allows employees to self-identify based on race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc. I would consider myself asexual, but I have no interest in being shoehorned into anyone’s diversity box, so I have left my employee profile on its default settings. 

While doing the annual check of my profile to be sure that my emergency contact info is up to date, I notice something amusing. The choices in the sexual orientation category on our profiles are: “Yes, I am part of a minority group and this is what it is,” “Yes, I am part of a minority group but I don’t want to name it or you don’t have it defined,” or, “No, I am not part of a minority group.”

Since I have not altered the setting, this line on my profile reads, “Sexual orientation: No.”

I’m now considering the possibilities of defining myself as a nothankyousexual.

When I smile, my eyes tend to scrunch up more than the average person’s, to the point that if the rest of my face is completely covered, you can tell I’m smiling just by the scrunched eyes. I quite like this feature of mine, but as a child, it made getting family photos a nightmare. Why would something as simple as a smile turn a photo session into torture, you ask? Well, this conversation happened every time we tried to get photos for holiday cards, vacations, portraits, or anything else.

Mom: “Remember to smile!”

I smile a bright, genuine smile.

Mom: “Don’t close your eyes so much! We want to see them!”

I try to maintain the smile while widening my eyes.

Mom: “A real smile, not a fake smile!”

Every. Single. Time. It made me dread getting pictures taken or being on camera in general. The first photo session I ever truly enjoyed was for my high school senior photos, when my mother was forbidden from coming anywhere near me or the photographer, who happened to be my aunt. She didn’t say a word about it and I used my natural smile in those photos instead of trying to deliberately arrange my features into my mother’s ideal. The photos were fantastic.

I manage security for an aeronautic electronics plant. My position is at the front visitor’s desk and main phone line.

Caller: “Put me through to the plant manager.”

Me: “I will put you through to the admin assistant.”

Caller: “No. You will put me through to the manager, now!”

Me: *Click*

Caller: *Calls back* “Give me your supervisor, immediately!”

Me: “No.” *Click*

Caller: *Calls back* “Listen. Give me corporate’s number, now, and you will put me through to the plant manager!”

Me: “Fat chance.” *Click*

Caller: *Calls back, sounding very defeated* “Listen. I need to speak to the plant manager. It is very important. Why are you being so belligerent?”

Me: “Because, one, if it or you were important, you would already have his extension number and name, and two, even if you had misplaced them, you would have no problem taking an extra step and two minutes to go through the proper channels by going through the admin assistant. Now, would you like the admin assistant?”

Caller: *Completely broken* “Yes, please.”

Related:
Death Of A Sale(sman)

I work in a library. I’m going through our craft supplies to find items I need to make a fall craft. However, when I pull one box off of the shelf, I notice MAGGOTS inside the box. I throw it in the trash and notice they’ve spread to the shelf, too. I’m working with [Coworker #1], who is known to be very squeamish and hates bugs, and [Coworker #2], who has a very strong stomach.

I approach [Coworker #2] and whisper to her.

Me: “I found maggots in the craft supplies. Can you help me clean it up and find out where they came from?”

Coworker #1: “What’re you whispering about?”

Me: “You don’t want to know.”

[Coworker #2] and I return to our supply room. We determine that the maggots were inside a bag of acorns and make sure to seal that off. We then take everything out, clean it down, and disinfect everything.

When we return:

Coworker #1: *To [Coworker #2]* “What’s going on?”

Coworker #2: “Really, you do not want to know.”

We’re both very polite but adamant about it. However, [Coworker #1] won’t drop the issue. She keeps asking what we found. Finally, [Coworker #2] gives in and whispers to her:

Coworker #2: “Maggots.”

[Coworker #1] starts screeching.

Coworker #1: “Maggots! Gross! I hate maggots! That’s disgusting! I wish you hadn’t told me!” 

She was loud, but she didn’t go on any longer than that.

Two days later, we all got called into my boss’s office. Apparently, one patron had overheard the outburst and complained. And that’s how three librarians got in trouble for making too much noise in the library.

My first supervisory job was over a team of ten people providing technical support for a large business unit of my corporation. My direct boss was a five-hour drive away so I had a lot of authority and independence.

One of my reports was a man who had actually helped train me when I joined the company, and I thought we had a good working relationship. Within six months, I supported a decision to move him to a salaried position with a 10% raise to make up for no overtime. So far, so good.

But about a year into the job, I began to notice problems. [Employee] began pushing his starting and ending hours; although I had been quite easygoing with everyone, he was taking advantage. One of his extra jobs was to correlate and submit time data for the group, and after I stopped checking his work, he stopped doing it, so I had to waste time to ensure it was done. There were lots of other little incidents, none of which were big enough for severe disciplinary action, but the total was wearing me down. 

When confronted, [Employee] acted innocent and promised to do better but never changed his passive-aggressive ways. I’m not a psychologist, but it seemed to me that he’d deliberately push my buttons and then use my response to justify more bad behavior. With four months left before I was moved back to the main office, I decided to let him be someone else’s problem; everyone else in the group was happy with me, as were our clients.

Then, our company announced a 360-degree feedback program wherein employees would anonymously evaluate their bosses. I knew my rating from [Employee] would be terrible, so I took preemptive action.

The forms were in a booklet and were given out along with a large manilla envelope to seal them for anonymity upon their return to me. When I gave [Employee] his packet, somehow his envelope had acquired a minuscule pencil mark along a fold in the back.

I’m not proud of the fact that I identified and opened [Employee]’s form. He had lived down to my expectations, absolutely trashing me. On a scale of zero to ten, ten being good, the highest rating he’d given me was a two. I decided his bias was unrealistic so I consigned it to the trash and sent in the nine other completed forms.

My results were better than I’d hoped. My average score in all categories was over eight and my lowest rating from the other nine employees was a seven. Part of the process was to present my results to the team for feedback on what I could do to improve. In a group session, I went over my weak points, promised to work on them, and thanked everyone for taking the time to do it. I could see that [Employee] was upset as he looked at the summary showing lowest scores much higher than anything he’d given me, but there was nothing he could do about it. To be sure he got the message, I made a comment near the end that there were only nine forms reported, so one had to have been “lost,” looking at [Employee] briefly as I said it.

I never did find out why [Employee] was so hostile, but he left the company about a year later.