(It is around midnight. The housekeepers have left for the day and I’m the only one there. I have one more arrival, asking for a rollaway bed. Since the guests’ requests are the housekeepers’ job, I assume the rollaway bed is in there already. The guest says that it is not. Luckily, I find one and bring it to their room.)

Guest: “Thanks a lot! Do you have sheets, too?”

Guest’s Wife: “I can’t believe there are no sheets for this rollaway! This is outrageous!”

Me: “Hold on, I’ll bring some.”

(I go and get the sheets and bring them to the couple.)

Guest’s Wife: “I can’t believe this hotel; first, it doesn’t have our rollaway that we requested, and then, when it comes, it doesn’t have sheets and we have to ask for them!” *continues ranting*

Me: “Sorry about that; it’s usually the housekeeper’s job to fulfill the guest requests.”

Guest’s Wife: “No, it’s your job! You work here, don’t you?!”

(She continues to rant and call me nasty names, and right away her husband cuts her off.)

Guest: “Now, honey, we got it, so there’s no problem.” *to me* “Thank you very much. Here’s a tip for bringing these things to us.”

Me: *shocked* “You’re welcome!”

(He closed the door and I could hear the wife still nagging about how outrageous the hotel was for not having things ready. That was the first time, in the five years I’ve been working here, that a man had spoken up against his wife! Made my day!)

I work as a stagehand in a theater that tends to have high turnover. A few months after getting hired, the technical director — my boss — leaves, and a new one is brought in. We get on right away, and as I am new to the industry he quickly becomes a mentor figure for me.

On one of our first shifts together, we have to stay late after a show to put up the orchestra shell. This is basically two side walls that we have to assemble piece by piece. To put it together, we need to screw the top layer together, hook it to the motors, lift it in the air, assemble the next row down, screw that to the top row, lift it in the air, and so on. I’ve only done it twice before, but the new technical director hasn’t done it at all, so he trusts my judgement on it.

There are two other guys he brought with him from his last theater. They’re not technically employed with us yet, but no one else can work tonight. These two men decide that my method is inadequate, despite never having done it themselves; they would rather lay all the pieces of the shell on the floor, screw them together, then attach the motors to the top of the shell and lift it up like a drawbridge. I have my doubts about this method, but they’re insistent, so we leave them to do their method while the technical director and I put our section together properly.

Lo and behold, we finish faster than the other guys, and the wall is safely constructed and secured. When the two men finish screwing the pieces together, they find that the motors don’t reach far enough to get to the top of the shell — which is lying flat on the stage — so we have to shove the assembled shell close enough to get the motors hooked up. Once they start to raise the shell, it looks at first like it will work… and then we hear the cracking. They don’t stop, though, and by the time the wall is up, there are significant cracks in the wood — thankfully not visible from the audience.

My boss commends me for sticking to my guns and doing things the right way, but it still bothers me that he allowed those men to do something he knew wouldn’t work and which ended up permanently damaging the shell. A few months later, one of the men leaves to go on tour and the other is fired for stealing equipment. The boss is fired less than a year after he starts for inappropriate use of budget funds, which severely sets the theater back financially after he leaves.

I grew up in Massachusetts, and as a kid, we would get snow days where we would have the day off from school due to the large amount of snow we would get in the winter. 

One day, I overheard my parents talking about putting salt on the ground to melt the ice. We went out later that evening to shovel. I took the salt shaker off the kitchen table and shook the salt to try to melt the snow.

I was that kid that took things very literally.

(My mother-in-law sends us a gift card for Christmas to a large department store. I seldom shop at that store because it is always a pain in the, er, neck. But, with the card being only good there, I have to suck it up. We pick out something for the whole family that would ring up to about the limit of the card and head to the register.)

Cashier: “That will be $101.62.”

Me: “Okay, I have this card for $100 of it, and I’ll pay cash for the last bit.”

Cashier: “We don’t take that card.”

Me: “It’s a gift card for this store. This is the only place it can be used.”

Cashier: “We don’t take it.”

Me: “You don’t take cards with this store’s name on it, purchased at a store with this store’s name on it?”

Cashier: “No.”

Me: “Well, you do. Run the card for $100, and I’ll pay cash for the rest or you can run $1.62 in cash and then run the card.”

Cashier: “We. Don’t. Take. That. Card.”

Me: “You. Do. Get. Your. Manager.”

(She rolls her eyes and calls a manager. It takes quite a while, and the whole time she stands staring at me and I just stare back. Finally, the manager arrives.)

Cashier: “She wants to use a card we don’t take.”

Manager: “You can’t use it.”

Me: “Would you like to see the card?”

Manager: “Okay.”

(I show the card with the store’s name clearly on the front.)

Manager: “We don’t take it.”

Me: “Try running it and see what happens.”

(The manager says nothing and half-heartedly swipes the card. The total drops to $1.62 on the screen.)

Manager: “See? It didn’t cover the sale.”

(Being completely fed up with this, I dropped the exact change in coins on the counter.)

Me: “Do you take cash?”

Manager: “The total was, what was the total? The total was over $100.”

Me: “Yes, and you ran the card for $100; the register clearly shows that. Here you have the rest. Now I need my receipt.”

Manager: “You have to pay first.” *actually getting pissy*

Me: “I have. Type in $1.62 and hit the cash button and see what happens.”

(She actually does, and the drawer pops open and a receipt spits out. The manager looks at the register, looks at me, looks at the cashier, looks at the receipt, and looks back at me with eyes a bit wide. I reach out, snatch the receipt, pick up the item, and walk out the door saying quite loudly:)

Me: “This is why I don’t shop here.”

(That chain has finally gone under. I shopped there one other time in the next decade. It just wasn’t worth the hassle.)

One year for Christmas, my grandmother gives me a “Christmas break survival box” to get me through the weeks I’ll be stuck in the house with my three younger brothers. It’s a creative idea, and I’m excited as I pull out a knit blanket, a few books, and a CD.

Then, I come across a red and white bottle. It looks like a pill bottle and I’m very confused. I read the brown paper label, which identifies the contents as “Brother-B-Gone. Temporary. Take four and crunch loudly so you can’t hear brothers. May also be used as a bribe to make them go away.”

I open the bottle and find it full of M&Ms. I’m relieved to find that I have not, in fact, been given a bottle of pills.

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