When we were first married, my husband worked the night shift, so he would get home while I was asleep. One night, I happened to be dreaming as he climbed into bed. For some reason, I dreamed that he was rubbing melted ice cream and dryer lint on his face.

From my perspective, I was watching him do something very strange and told him to clean his face.

From his perspective, he climbed into bed after a long shift at work, next to his loving wife, who sleepily turned to him and said:

Me: “I hate your face. It’s covered in garbage.”

I work at a regional fast food joint as a cashier-slash-maker of shakes and other cold treats. We have a customer come up and demand our manager. When he comes over, she gives her complaint.

Customer: “I want another burger and a refund; I found a hair in my [Signature Burger]!”

She holds up a strand of blond hair from the burger.

The manager makes a slow, deliberate glance at me with my solidly dark red hair and the other cashier with frizzy black hair. Then, he steps aside so the customer can see the grill where our two cooks with their shaved heads are working on an order as he runs his hand over his close-clipped brown hair.

Manager: “Ma’am, do you notice anything about our employees?”

Customer: “What are you talking about? I want a refund and another burger!”

Manager: *Tersely* “Ma’am, the only blonde here is you. That hair belongs to none of our employees. I am not giving you a refund or a replacement.”

She looked like she was going to argue but apparently thought better of it, as she grabbed what was left of her meal and left in a hurry.

Related:
Hair Apparent, Part 2
Hair Apparent

A few years ago, I started a job for a third-party IT company. My role was onsite support for one of our clients. There were three or four of us who supported the various locations for said client. This job should have been a red flag from the beginning — I literally face-planted on the sidewalk on my way into the interview — but I’d had to take the first thing I could because of bills.

I’ve been in this job for about a month when I am told that there’s some regional meeting coming up, and I’m supposed to go up to one of the locations to support the meeting. (They host several of them just because they have offices all over western Washington and just use Teams so everyone can be involved.)

I have never been to this location, but I manage to find it and stumble my way into the meeting room where literally nothing is working. In a panic, I pull up our internal chat system and message my senior tech.

Me: “I’m at [Location], and I’m pretty sure I’m in the conference room, but I can’t get the screen to come down, the projector won’t turn on, and the laptop that seems to be designated for this has no cables.”

Senior Tech: “Extra cables are in the cabinet in the corner.”

I glance around and find what I think is the cabinet she’s referring to. It’s holding craft supplies. There are no other cabinets in this room.

Me: “There’s nothing electronic in there. It’s all craft supplies and stuff for the store.”

Senior Tech: “It’s really easy. Just find the cables and plug everything in.”

Me: “There are literally no cables here.”

Senior Tech: “I don’t have time for this. I’m getting [Her Location] set up for the meeting. Just plug in the cables and it’ll be fine.”

She ends the chat. I start to panic because we’re supposed to have people coming in like five minutes. One woman finally comes in, and I apologize profusely and tell her I’m trying to get stuff going. When the time for the meeting comes up, no one else has come into the room.

Woman: “Oh, well, I guess the others decided to join from their desks. I can just use my laptop. Can you make sure I’m good to go?”

I checked that she was fully connected and got the meeting pulled up. Then, I sat just across the table from her and worked on tickets through this meeting, feeling very embarrassed about this not working. Then, things got worse at the end of the meeting when she introduced herself and I realized she was the CEO!

Like I said at the beginning, this job was a nightmare disguised as an opportunity. When I called my senior tech on the fact that they’d sent me there unprepared — DESPITE my asking for either a walk-through at some point or someone who knew what they were doing to be there with me — I was just told that it was fine since it only ended up being the CEO in the room.

I started looking for a new job right after that. It took me nine months, but I did find one that’s much better.

I overhear this exchange at the dentist’s office this morning.

Receptionist: “Okay, how does 10:30 on Tuesday, December eighth sound?”

Patient: “What?”

Receptionist: “How does 10:30 on Tuesday, December eighth sound?”

Patient: “Yeah, that should work. Is that a Monday?”

Receptionist: “No, it’s a Thursday.”

I didn’t buy my first car until after I graduated college in the mid-2010s. I was in a situation where I had the cash to buy a decent used one. I’d done some research online and found a local small dealership that had a car I thought was decent — a 2001 Dodge Intrepid — and asked my dad to come along because I’m no car expert.

When we arrived at the dealership, the owner started talking about the car and showing it to us, and then he allowed us to take a test drive. I got in, put the key in the ignition, and started it up. Immediately, my dad and I both heard something off.

Dad: *Glancing at the owner* “That doesn’t sound good. It sounds like there’s an issue with the timing belt or chain.”

Neither of us knew for sure if it was a timing belt or chain on this specific model, and it was in a spot that you basically had to take the engine apart to see, so we couldn’t verify even after opening the hood.

Owner: “Oh, we just got it. The woman who we got it from assured us that the timing belt was just replaced. It’s fine.”

Both my dad and I were wary, but we took it on a test drive and everything went fine. We negotiated with the guy, and I wrote him a check and drove the car home. I liked it a lot; for my first car, it wasn’t bad even for its age, and it suited my needs at the time. 

Exactly a month after I bought it, I was dropping my mom off at work before I went to work one morning and the car just died. No alerts, warnings, or lights, just flat dead. I’d just barely started the turn into the parking lot where she works, so I popped it into neutral and managed to get it into guest parking.

I called my dad, who drove me to work and helped arrange things with a tow truck so that we could get the car back to the dealer. The dealership also had a small shop, and when I bought the car, part of the deal was that if anything happened, the owner wouldn’t charge me for labor.

It took a couple of days and he reached out to me.

Owner: “It looks like your timing chain essentially disintegrated. I can try and fix it, but since I’m not charging you, this could take a while.”

Me: “What kind of time frame, and what are you thinking is going to be the process to fix it?”

Owner: “I’m going to have to see if I can find a new chain and get that on there.”

I went to a friend who happened to own a mechanic shop and asked their opinion on the situation.

Friend: “It’s not going to be cheap, but your best bet is going to be a new engine. Honestly, on a car that old, I’d see what you can get for it and just wash your hands of it. Unfortunately, you’re going to end up putting more into it than you paid, and with the way he brushed off your questions initially, I’d be worried about what else could potentially be wrong that they either didn’t verify or didn’t bother to fix.”

I ended up reaching out to a junk place and sold them the car for like $150. In the interim of getting that handled, I went to an actual car dealership and got a different used car. When I showed up to transfer stuff to the junk people, the dealership owner then tried to convince me to buy another car from him. I just told him I’d gotten my car situation handled and left.