I am waiting in line at the local post office. The customer ahead of me is with his teen daughter. He has a handful of small metal parts and he’s talking to the clerk.

Customer: “Do you have any boxes or envelopes for sale so I can package these parts for shipping?”

Clerk: “There are padded envelopes on the bottom shelf.”

He indicates the display just behind us, with a four-foot-wide desktop for taping and writing, and two shelves beneath, stocked with flat boxes and a variety of envelopes.

The customer steps over to the display and looks at the desk where the pens are, and then at the top shelf, and then back at the clerk, confused.

Clerk: “Padded envelopes are on the bottom shelf, on the left.”

The man AGAIN looks at the top shelf, starting on the right, flipping through all of the boxes and envelopes until his teen daughter speaks up.

Customer’s Daughter: “DAD! On the BOTTOM LEFT! Jeeeeeeeeeez!”

He finally listened and saw the envelopes he needed.

It is the summer of 2008 and I am working at a sports bar/pool hall as a cocktail server. I could write volumes about my time there, particularly the constant sexual harassment. This is long before #MeToo and I’m ashamed to say that in favor of a chill, one-of-the-guys reputation, I just play along. Soon, I’ve heard it all and it is nearly impossible to offend me. Until this one jerk. 

We are in the suburbs of Virginia, about a forty-minute drive from DC. A lot of our Happy Hour crowd consists of government employees and military folk from Quantico. 

At the very end of the bar, right next to my station, there’s a very inebriated man being loud and obnoxious. I am running the pool balls through a machine that cleans and polishes them. 

The fact that I am “polishing balls” is enough to set off the obnoxious jerk. He makes several poor attempts at ball jokes, slurring badly and gesturing sloppily. It isn’t anything I haven’t heard a million times so I roll my eyes and ignore him.

He does NOT like that. He starts ranting very loudly.

Customer: “I hate b****es who don’t like sex, like my whore ex-wife!”

He tries to involve the man next to him, who is staring intently at his drink, very clearly trying to not engage with him. I quickly make myself busy elsewhere.

Eventually, I have to go back. When he notices me, he gets excited and leans as close to me as he can without leaving his stool, and asks:

Customer: “What about you, little girl? Do you like sex?” 

I cannot describe how lecherous and disgusting his tone is, even while slurring. The way he says, “little girl,” makes my skin crawl.

Me: “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

Customer: *Scoffs* “I knew it! These hot young p***ies all hate sex, but they love to tease!”

The bartender beats me to the punch and tells him:

Bartender: “You talk to her like that again, you’ll be kicked out.”

The perv waves him off and starts talking to his unfortunate “new friend” next to him. However, as soon as the bartender is out of earshot, the perv leans back towards me.

Customer: “Ya know, I could teach you all about sex, little girl. I could make you like it. I know what to do.”

I am beyond horrified and frozen in shock. Good thing he is too drunk to control the volume of his voice, as the bartender storms over.

Bartender: “That’s it, buddy, you’re out!”

He slams down the guy’s tab, which he wisely had already printed out, just in case. Everyone at the bar, including several large regulars, are staring at him menacingly — except the guy next to him, who is doing something on his phone. He wises up and pays begrudgingly, grumbling and cursing the whole time. Then, he stumbles out of the bar.

The shock has subsided, but I am still shaking with helpless fury that I didn’t speak up for myself. I am so disgusted by what he said, I want to go scrub off three layers of skin in a long, hot shower.

Just when I think I am doomed to a ten-hour shift of furious repulsion, the quiet guy who has been barstool neighbors with the perv becomes my hero. After paying, he approaches me with a big smile.

Barstool Neighbor: “Don’t worry, I got him for you. I work for the DEA.”

He shows me his badge.

Barstool Neighbor: “That idiot actually asked me if I wanted to buy some Percocet! I’m off the clock, so I told him my ‘buddy’ was interested and asked for his phone number. He’s about to go sell some drugs to an agent who will nail his a**!”

As he leaves, I look at the bartender, who heard everything, in amazement. With a look of dawning realization, he says:

Bartender: “Oh, he was on pain pills! I wondered how he got so trashed on two drinks…”

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I work as a personal care provider for individuals with mental disabilities. Unfortunately, I have a severe anxiety disorder which can make the constant noise of the job difficult, as all food for four people has to be blended in an industrial blender in a tiny, echoey kitchen, and one of the individuals moans constantly. One day, I need a quick break, and as I walk out the door:

Me: *Jokingly* “I need some weed.” 

Oddly enough, I feel funny as I say it. I have my hand on the door as I turn around to say I was joking, only to shrug and go back out to my car; surely, my coworker will take it as a joke. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve just sealed my fate as the last day on the job. 

While I do live in a state where recreational marijuana is legal, it’s illegal to smoke pot on the job, especially THIS type of job. Really, all I do is walk to my car — parked two feet from the front windows — grab an energy drink from my front seat, and walk right back inside to get some ice. Total time out of sight: maybe thirty seconds if I dawdled.

My coworker decides that I couldn’t have been joking. I have my hair dyed bright red and I admittedly do smoke when I’m safely at home, so clearly, I am a heathen. (Really, I think she is pissed that I am being unwillingly groomed for the soon-to-be-empty manager’s job.)

So, two days later, on my day off, I get called on my cell.

Boss: “Effective immediately, you are under investigation for consuming drugs illicitly on the property. You will not be receiving any type of compensation or allowed to work again until the charges are cleared. The investigation may take two to four weeks to conclude.”

Mind you, this call comes two days before Christmas, and I am the sole employee scheduled to work twelve-hour day shifts on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. Not only am I losing my double-time pay for covering the holidays, but they are losing the one person who doesn’t already have plans on those shifts. 

After receiving that phone call, I sit there for a minute and decide that that job isn’t worth the additional stress — I’ve been doing the manager’s work for her for a third of the pay for six months at this point — and I am done. So, I type a short letter of resignation, drive to work on my day off, and slam it down on my boss’s desk. I tell all of the managers present:

Me: “If you are going to throw me through the wringer based on a single comment and not a shred of evidence, I’m not coming back.”

After that day, I took a week off for the holidays and then started applying to job after job in my tiny town. Nothing came my way, so eventually, I turned to an employment website. When that came up blank, I decided to try building a writing portfolio on a couple of freelancing sites, as I’d always wanted to be a published novelist.

One year later, I’m now published in “Forbes” as a financial analyst for several major investing and consulting firms. I work from home, choose my own hours, and get paid top-dollar — despite my lack of a college degree — for doing what I’ve always loved.

All because I made a dumb, offhand comment to my coworker on her first day on the job.

Me: “Thank you for calling [Company]! How can I help you?”

Customer: “I would like to make a payment on my [service].”

Me: “Okay. Can I get your name and phone number?”

She gives me her information, and I cannot find her information in our system.

Customer: “Well, I did change my number sometime back.”

Me: “Okay, I can search for your old number.”

Customer: “I don’t remember it.”

We search by every method I can think of: her name, her city and state, the phone number she says she usually calls to pay for her [service], etc. I cannot find anything in our system. She mentions that someone else usually manages this service for her, but I cannot find anything under that person’s information, either.

Customer: “Well, I guess I’ll call the person who manages it for me and I’ll call back another day.”

I later searched for the phone number she had given me and found that she had given me the number for her hairdresser. This situation is far from unique. Please, keep your info written down somewhere!

We are about eight months into the global health crisis and everyone is still on edge. I’m a teacher who recently returned to work and my fiancé works retail.

One morning, I wake up feeling a little off so I go to the doctor. Everything checks out, so they send me home. 

A few hours later, I start shaking uncontrollably and know I have a fever. 

My fiancé is at work, so I tell him to come home because I have a fever and his job has protocols when symptoms of the health crisis are present. 

He comes home four hours later. I am in bed sweating and shaking. He picks up a thermometer and we find out that my temperature is 104°F.

Fiancé: “We need to be tested. One of my coworkers lives with his mom who just tested positive. And he continued to come to work after the results came back.”

I am scared and upset and it is already 10:00 pm. We go to an urgent care clinic and get tested for the flu and the other issue. The flu comes back positive and the other test comes back negative. 

A few days later, I still have a bad fever, and I’m sleeping when my fiancé gets a call from work. After some time, he comes into the room angry.

Fiancé: “My coworker lied about his mom. She died a few years ago!”

I went into a rage and started yelling about how inconsiderate this is and threatened to call his corporate office. 

I didn’t need to call corporate. Thankfully, he got fired. 

Moral of the story: don’t lie, especially about the current health crisis.