Last week, around Friday, I was so burnt out from my remote work that I went to the living room to cool off. Normally, my cat mostly sleeps at these hours (I work early night shifts); it was around two in the morning. He just woke up and leaped down from the couch. He meowed a lot, rubbed my legs, and even followed me to my room, meowing and meowing.

When I went back to the living room and sat down on the couch, he put his paws on my thigh, indicating he wanted to be on my lap. I put him on my lap and then petted him. He sat down, with his purrs comforting me. Then, he rubbed his head on my chest and stared at me with those cutesy eyes, blinking. He kept changing positions and made me pet different parts of his body.

I felt lighter somehow, and I became calm. After that, he leaped off my lap.

When I was about to go back to work, he wouldn’t stop meowing. He gestured toward his food container and then “asked” for food.

Me: “Wow, you want payment, huh?”

I fed him. When he finished eating, he groomed himself and then went back to sleep.

Please note that his feeding schedule is at 5:30 am, not 3:32 am. That blasted cat. I never asked him to comfort me in the first place. But, well, it was worth it.

He then ate another meal at his designated time that day.

I am in college studying IT, and I am a student worker at the help desk. Like most universities, we have a lot of online students. This semester, we rolled out two-factor authentication. It’s been causing some issues, but for the most part, they can be resolved in two minutes.

A lady calls and says she needs a bypass code. When they get to this bypass code screen, that means they didn’t activate their account on their phone in time and we need to activate it for them. If they didn’t enroll with their phone number, we can just add it with their username — but they need to know their username.

Lady: “I’m trying to get into my account and I’m getting a screen asking for a bypass code.”

Me: “Okay. Can I have your username, please?”

Lady: “I don’t remember it.”

Mind you, she JUST logged in if she is seeing this screen.

Me: “All right, can I get your phone number, then?”

She gives it to me, but it doesn’t pop up in the system.

Me: “Did you change your number recently?”

Lady: “No.”

Me: “Is there any way you can remember your username? That’s the only way I can activate your account without your phone number listed.”

Lady: “F*** that s***! I’ve been dealing with this s*** for two months now! I’m just going to transfer to [Other School] because you guys are f****** useless.”

She couldn’t get in for two months? Why is she just now calling? Was she missing classes for two months and didn’t think to contact anyone? Plus, the refund period has passed and midterms are next week. I don’t think she’s getting her money back.

The good news is that I probably won’t have to deal with her again.

I teach Japanese language classes online. In Japanese, many words sound very similar to each other, so beginner students frequently end up saying the most outlandish (and sometimes profane) things by accident.

In this particular class, [Student #1] was supposed to say, “I bought fish.” (Watashi wa sakana wo kaimashita.)

Student #1: “Watashi wa… sakana… ni… k… kikimashita.”

Me: “Okay, you started great, but then you ended up questioning the fish. How do you say ‘buy’?”

[Student #1] corrected herself.

Sometime later, I heard a notification go off on her device with a characteristic “blurb”.

Me: “Oh, what’s that bubbling sound?”

Student #2: “The fish must be back.”

It’s the early 2000s. I work from home taking calls for a major home shopping network.

Me: “We are also recommending the beautiful necklace that complements the bracelet you just ordered.”

Client: “I didn’t see it. Can you show it to me?”

Me: “Um, do you have Internet access?”

Client: “I’m in bed. Just show it to me!”

Me: “I can’t do that. They will show the necklace again in a bit, however.”

Client: “I’m about to go to sleep! Yell over to the host and tell her to hold it up for me!”

Me: “They’re live on the air; I can’t do that. They will be showing it again shortly. Should we just get the bracelet for you now?

Client: “I don’t know what the bracelet looks like!”

Me: “You just told me you’d like to order it, though.”

Client: “Listen, just go over, pick up the bracelet and the necklace, and show them to me!”

In March 2020, due to the health crisis, our company instituted a work-from-home policy for all of its employees. Most of us had laptops to work on; anyone who didn’t was issued one.

The WFH situation dragged on, and on. It went from “We’ll be back by summer 2020” to “Maybe not until October 2020” to “God only knows”.  

Sometime in early 2021, I found out that a longtime employee, Chris, had been laid off. I was saddened but not surprised. My somewhat ditzy coworker Bonny, however, could NOT understand why it had happened.

Bonny: “Why would they let Chris go? He’s been with the company for years!”

Me: “It sucks, definitely, but Chris’s role was Desktop Support, so…”

Bonny: “So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

Me: “With no one working at the office, there were no desktops to support. They were essentially paying Chris to do nothing for almost a year.”

Bonny: “I still don’t get why they’d lay him off. So unfair.”

Me: “He was literally doing nothing. That’s not his fault, but I see their side of it.”

Bonny: “But we’ll go back to the office eventually, and they’ll need him then!”

I gave up at that point. As it turned out, in mid-2021, the company announced that anyone who wanted to keep working from home could do so indefinitely. Therefore, Chris STILL wouldn’t have had much to do if they’d kept him on.