(My boyfriend and I love The Witcher. Books, games, and the new show. This occurs not long after we’ve binge watched every episode.)

Me: Babe, there’s a spider! Get it!

Him: *gets a cup and piece of paper and takes it outside*

Me: Thank you!

Him: Aren’t you going to pay me? *Singing* Toss a coin to your Witcher, o valley of pleeeentyyyy.

Me: oh my god shut up

*I work in the Call Centre for a large inner-city British College – our students are typically aged 16-19. My job is to answer the phone for enquiries, answer what I can, and forward people on to the relevant staff if I cannot help. Sometimes, this just isn’t enough for our callers.*

Caller: “Hello, my daughter made an application to your college but has changed her mind and is going to <rival college> instead. I don’t see anywhere on the email on how to tell you that though, is there’s a way I can contact you about that?”

Me: “…Yes, just call us on the ‘phone, like you have done. I can help you with that.”

Caller: “Is there some way I can use in order to tell you that we want to withdraw her application, so that she can go to a different college?”

Me: “Yes ma’am, you can do it over the ‘phone – I can help you right now.”

Caller: “I just feel it’s not very helpful, you know? If you want more people to come to your college, you really ought to include information on how to withdraw their application in the confirmation email that you sent us.”

*momentary pause*

Me: “If…. If we want more people to come to our college, we should give them more information on how to withdraw their applica-… you know what? Thank you for letting us know, I’ll pass that on to the Admissions department and just for today I’ll take a message for you…..”

*And, yes; the ‘phone number that she used to call me was on the bottom of the email that she was referring to, alongside the phrase ‘if you need to cancel or make any changes to your application….’ *

This happens in secondary 2 (grade 9). Our class’ form teacher is uptight, fussy and has low patience. When she explains math topics, she tends to assume that everyone has already read ahead, thus she never bothers to simplify concepts and rarely repeats herself.

This occurs after she got very exasperated at the fact that only 5% of the class actually understands her lecture.

Teacher: *Very exasperated* This is a very simple matter! Is it too hard to understand? It’s not like I’m speaking Greek!

Me: *Surprised voice* Wait, you’re telling me you’re speaking English?

Somehow, after that, the entire class found it easier to understand her math.

I’m a trainee teacher at a secondary school and as part of my training we do a weekly meeting / educational discussion. This weeks is on behaviour management, and different ways of approaching behaviour in the classroom. The meeting is going well, with the person in charge being very calm and collected, allowing for discussion and comments as needed.

We get quite close to the end of the hour and one of the other teachers there (who has been teaching for a while) makes the following point: “Well, we’re providing a service, so students are service users. As this is the case, we need to make sure that they know that the service has certain requirements and if they abuse the service it will no longer be provided.”

As a trainee, I was quite shocked by this attitude… And literally nobody in the room replied to her point. It was very odd.

I’m [Senior] from the story ‘Can’t Duel A Man Who Duals’. This is a conversation I have with my schoolmate during our flight from Singapore back to UK for our school. We’ve been discussing sports we play, and badminton comes up as one we both enjoy.

Schoolmate: So how about we play a few matches when we get back to college?

Me: Sure, but I will warn you that my play style is very… unique. I hope you don’t mind.

Schoolmate: Unique? As in what way?

(I give the same explanation about my weird badminton coach and the fact that I only noticed a few years ago that badminton was not meant to be dual-wielded.)

Schoolmate: WTF? Just… how? How did you not notice that until you were sixteen?!

Me: Well, I only took those lessons from eight to ten, so I didn’t really notice back then. I only picked up badminton again when I was fourteen in Sec 2 (Grade 9). And [Secondary School] was really undersupplied. Didn’t even have enough racquets for the whole class to play.

Schoolmate: *Putting the pieces together* So you assumed that that was why everyone was playing one-handed.

Me: *Nods head* Was only when I was in Sec 4 (Grade 11) that [Secondary School] got a donation of a buttload of racquets that I realised that nobody was dual-wielding.

Schoolmate: *giggling* Oof. That must have been an embarrassing revelation. How come nobody called you out on it?

Me: I was the class misfit. Everyone always gave me weird looks or tried to prank me. Plus, I had bigger issues on my mind, like O-Levels (GSCEs).

Schoolmate: I don’t suppose you tried to correct your play style?

Me: Nope. Why bother? I mean, given how crazy it already is, I might as well go all the way. That’s why I threw reverse-grip into the mix.

Schoolmate: Oh this I have to see. Play next Sunday?

Me: You’re on.