I worked in the office at a major department store. The customer service area was divided into two sections. There was a counter where customers could pay their bills, etc., and behind them was an area where people sat at desks answering service calls. These departments were not related; they just appeared to share their space.

My department was separated from that area by a half-wall, so I was not involved but had a ringside seat.

This was before computers, so everything had to be done by hand. I was in awe of this one employee who sat at her desk holding two phone receivers, one at each ear. She would put one caller on hold to talk to another.

One day, a man came in to be helped at the counter. The lady who was helping him had to get a file or something. She was taking too long because he started actually shouting at the lady with the two phones. How dare she forget about him?! The phone lady, to her credit, just stared at him. We all just stared at him.

Finally, the lady who was actually helping him came back and set him straight.

This happens in 2018. My husband and I own a company that works with companies to provide doctors and nurses for factories and construction OSHA training, First Aid training, and some other things. One of our major accounts is a power company. We not only provide on-site personnel, but we also train them in First Aid. This particular company is very strict on its Health and Safety protocols, and they have shelled a decent amount of money to equip each of their sites, including their offices, with two AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators).

We are also required to provide adjusted training for their staff and crews. Because of the nature of the job, we train them on a schedule of two days, three hours each. One day is theory — because in a factory environment, instead of ABC, you EABC — with a written test at the end, and the next day is a practical exam.

(EABC stands for Environment, Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. It’s a useful acronym to remember what to do in a First Aid situation in a factory or plant. You may also see it with D instead of E, meaning Danger — to the victim or yourself.)

We are scheduled for a two-day training with this company. We are told it will be a small class, around forty people, so I book myself and our senior trainer. We arrive for the training, set up, and start the roll call.

As I said, this company is very hardcore on their Health and Safety. Except for the crews, they require every person that has even the slightest chance of visiting a power plant to have a current First Aid certificate. This means we train a lot of suits. As the room is filling up, I notice [Senior Trainer] talking with a woman I don’t know. The conversation is heated and I approach to see what’s happening.

Me: “Is everything okay?”

Employee: “No, it’s not. As I was saying to this man, I don’t need to take the class. I did First Aid in my previous company and I have very important work to do!”

Senior Trainer: “As I explained, madam, we follow the company policies about training.”

Employee: “But I already know everything!”

Me: “Madam, your manager booked you for the class. He probably thinks it’s more important than anything else.”

Employee: “No. I’m very high in the company. If you don’t release me immediately, you may lose your contract!”

At that point, she looks at us with crossed arms and a smug face. [Senior Trainer], a no-nonsense former trainer for the Army’s Medic Corps, is ready to explode.

Cue malicious compliance.

There is a rule for the training, set by the company, that any personnel that can provide an up-to-date certificate can sign a waiver for the in-person training BUT they have to take the test.

I quickly provide this as an option to [Employee]. She isn’t completely happy, but she takes it. I explain that there are two tests: one in writing and one practical.

Employee: “Fine. Tell me when it’s time to take the tests.”

So, two and a half hours later, she is sitting to take the written test. Immediately, I can see she is struggling since most of the questions are tailored for an industrial setting. The test ends, and we collect the papers. At a quick glance, I know that [Employee] has, at best, passed with a very low grade.

Despite her struggling in theory, she just comes for the test the next day. In this case, I know she is going to fail. Along with their normal CPR, we have added AED training (per company rules) and, despite being a fairly easy and straightforward machine to use, [Employee] has serious trouble.

We pack up and go back to base. We rate the tests and, as expected, [Employee] is the only one who has failed both tests spectacularly. Out of forty people, only one has failed the written test. We send the results and certificates to the company.

On Monday morning, just after we open, I get a call from the company’s Chief Operating Officer. He is one of our major contacts because training is part of his responsibilities.

COO: “Good morning, [My Name]. I’m calling about the results of the training.”

Me: “Good morning, [COO]. I had a feeling you would call.”

COO: “Can you tell me why my Assistant COO failed?”

Me: “Is [Employee] your assistant?”

COO: “Yes.”

Me: “Well, she said she had very important work to do and already had a certificate, and she signed the waiver.”

COO: “Of course she did.”

I can hear the frustration in his voice.

COO: “Can we arrange a quick training for today? I want you to do it.”

Me: “Let me check. It has to be a late one; otherwise, tomorrow at 10:00.”

[COO] thinks for a moment.

COO: “Tomorrow, then. See you at the office.”

The next day rolls up, and at 10:00 sharp, I’m at the offices. I’m led to a conference room and told to wait. A few minutes later, [COO] and [Employee] step into the room. [Employee] looks chastised. She sits across from me while [COO] stands. [COO] asks me for the waiver, which I hand to him. He takes a look at it and gives it back.

COO: “As I explained when you were hired, you had to pass this training. The expiration of the certificate you gave us was coming up, and you came from a different field. Now, do the training properly and pass it. It is one of the prerequisites for the job.”

[Employee] took the training properly this time and passed. Since then, she has never complained about First Aid training again.

My wife is bisexual and has been in low contact with her religious bigot of a mother ever since she started dating me (a woman). The primary reason she’s not completely no-contact is that the city where we currently live is the only large city within reasonable driving distance of her mother’s hometown, so she comes into the city regularly, which means random encounters that usually go poorly.

One day, [Wife] comes home with a selection of newly-bought adult toys that she proceeds to pack into a gift.

Me: “Who’s this for?”

Wife: “My mother. Her birthday’s coming up.”

Me: *Pauses* “Why are you getting her a birthday gift?”

Wife: “Because every time I tell her to go f*** herself, she says, ‘I don’t have the parts for that.’ So, I figured I’d give her what she needed.”

I spent something like five minutes laughing before I could see straight enough to sign the card.

I’ve been a professional computer programmer since 1978. I did programs for the first IBM PCs when they came out.

Around 1986, my wife got a job as a Gal Friday for a chiropractor. He was quite proud of his office computer for managing his practice. Since he knew I was a computer professional, he asked for my help with something.

When I sat at the computer to help, I noticed that there was a numbered menu on the screen and a standard DOS prompt to enter a command. I realized immediately that his “fantastic” office management program was just a collection of hastily-written little batch files, each of which would do its thing and then clear the screen and show a new list of numbered commands to use.

I typed “DIR” to see what was on his computer first. The doctor suddenly freaked out.

Doctor: “What did you do?! It’s all messed up now! You’d better get that back to normal.”

I patiently ran the initial batch file and the screen cleared up.

Doctor: *Suddenly quiet* “Oh.”

Me: “Just let me do my job, okay?”

I take my daughter to the doctor for her seven-year-old check-up. A nurse takes her vitals, and while he’s entering them on her chart, my daughter starts to get bored and wiggly. She needs a distraction. She’s wearing knee socks with pandas on them, as well as a shirt and a hat with pandas. You get three guesses about what her favorite animal is, and the first two don’t count.

Me: “Can you count how many pandas are on one of your socks?”

She twists her leg around to get an accurate count.

Daughter: “One, two…” *a bit later* “…sixteen, seventeen!

Me: “So many pandas are on both socks? What’s seventeen plus seventeen?”

We have a bit of back and forth as she figures out that she needs to carry the one, finally resulting in the correct answer of thirty-four rather than her initial answer of twenty-four.

Me: “Now add the ones on your shirt and hat.”

Daughter: “Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven!”

Me: “Wow, thirty-seven! pandas!”

She then looks at me, very serious, and speaks in somber tones.

Daughter: “But Mom. There are more. There are millions of pandas in my heart.”