During WWI, my great-grandparents were in the resistance and had to flee the country after being betrayed. They set up a home in France, so my grandmother lived there her early years. There was however a culture shock that now, a hundred years later is difficult to comprehend and my grandfather, had no problems expressing his opinion about his French neighbours and used some colourful French words and expressions to do so. He passed these on to his children.
It is important to know that at the time the official language in Belgium was French. Things have changed since then. As French was the official language and at some point (not sure as from which age/year), lessons were given in French, children at a young age were taught to speak French.
After the ware ended, the family returned to Belgium and the children send to school. The sisters knew that she spend time in France, so when teaching French, they often relied on my grandmother for answers.

Sister: (Grandmother), what is the French word for basket?
Grandmother: I don’t know
Sister: It is “un panier”
Grandmother: Oh yeah, I knew that.
Sister: Then why didn’t you say so when asked?
Grandmother: It is a word my father taught me…

Not sure how many times were needed for her to be cautious to use the words she learned from her father.

(I attend weekly conference calls with my store manager, district manager, and several other store managers in the district. For this call, my store manager is unable to attend due to a doctor’s appointment, and I am off work for the evening, so she pays me to take the call at home.

We have recently started using a lot of [brand] software that allows file sharing and editing among multiple people at the same time. I find it a lot easier than the previous ways we’ve done file sharing, and have no issues navigating and editing the documents. During this call, the district manager has emailed some links to shared documents and asks each manager to click on the links so he can teach them how to use the documents. He can see from his screen who currently has the document loaded and is doing what he asks. Worried that I might be in trouble for not being able to do the same, I speak up.)

Me: “Hey [District Manager], I am taking this call from home, so I’m not going to show up on your screen. I’m sorry.”

District Manager: “You know, [Name], you’re the one person that I’m not worried about working with this type of stuff, so you’re fine. You can just sit back and listen in for this part.”

(Not only was that a really proud moment for me, being recognized by my boss’s boss, but I also was asked by him for more tips and tricks, despite not being able to see any of the documents they were looking at.)

*When I graduated from college, a family friend managed to get me a job with the IT company that did IT for his job. His boss was friends with the owner of the IT company and knew they were looking for someone and because my friend was talking about it his boss put my name forward. I worked there for about 9 months as a Helpdesk Engineer before they fired me (told me they “wanted to take the position in a different direction”; by that point I was essentially acting as the owner’s secretary so I don’t know why they didn’t just move me into that role, but that’s not the point of this story). Of course, the day they fired me, I was supremely upset with myself over what had happened, but I was also upset because I was feeling like I let the friend down.

So I called him in tears as I was driving home and asked if he could stop by our house because I wanted to tell him and not have him hear it from the boss/IT company. I got home and shortly thereafter, he pulled into the driveway. In tears, I explained that they’d fired me. I knew he wouldn’t blow up or anything but I just didn’t want to have let him down. Instead, he hugged me.*

Friend: Hey, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’ll get fired from jobs every once in a while, it is what it is. You did your best at the job, and this was your first job out of college; you’re still learning

Me: Yeah, but you really pushed them to hire me.

Friend: Because I knew you could do it. If they don’t want you there, that’s their choice.

*He then took me to lunch and helped me calm down. I think my biggest problem was that I had been upset about letting him down. And timing being what it was, I was still living at home and we were actually in the middle of a move that was having to happen on a kind of condensed timeline so being without work allowed me to work on packing during the day so my parents had less stress involved in the whole thing.

I have since found a job (admittedly it took a few years and a couple of horrible jobs along with a couple of contracts that ended), one that I like and seems to like me and even worked with me to get the ability to work from home so that I could move to a different state.*

I work for a small startup company where one of our investors lets us rent out office space in one of his buildings at a steep discount. As a result, we have a tiny 4-room office down stairs and some office spcaes upstairs for the executives. No one upstairs, including our bosses, wear a mask during the global pandemic.

Someone has finally gotten sick upstairs and the VP apparently asks about protocal. I am also hearing this story second-hand.

VP: So what is protocal for someone getting sick?

Office Admin: I don’t know. I am kind of scared. He was at my desk working on my computer yesterday without a mask.

VP: Well you don’t wear a mask either half the time! I saw you in [Investor]’s office yesterday without one!

She was so proud she challenged the admin assisstant on her lack of mask-wearin I had to bite my tongue about reminding her yesterday to pull up her mask to talk to me. I am now getting tested regularly!

I’m grocery shopping during the global health crisis. My city has issue a mask mandate requiring masks in stores, and so far all of the customers and employees I’ve seen have masks on. I’m in the checkout line, and just as the cashier calls me forward, a man with no mask enters the checkout lane from the wrong direction. Before the cashier can object, he hands her the 3 bottles of wine he wants to purchase. The cashier gives me an apologetic look, and I nod at her to go ahead and check the guy out. I’m not in a hurry, and I figure it’s the fastest way to get the unmasked man out of there. The real fun starts when the cashier asks for his ID. Note: this guy is probably in his early to mid-20’s. He definitely doesn’t look old enough for the cashier to be confident he’s over 21 without seeing an ID.

Unmasked Man: I don’t have it.

Cashier: Is it outside?

Unmasked Man: No *pulls out his phone* I have a picture of it.

Cashier: Can you go get the actual ID?

*Unmasked Man continues scrolling through his pictures*

Cashier: Can I check this lady out while you look for it?

Unmasked Man: *still scrolling* I’ve got a picture of it.

*The cashier sighs and gives me another apologetic look.

The unmasked man finally found the picture of his ID, which showed him to be over 21. The cashier finished the transaction but warned the man that he needed to have his actual ID next time. The cashier apologized to me when I got up to the register, but I told her it wasn’t her fault.