Many years ago, I was working in IT Support for a major manufacturer. I needed to call someone who worked for a software company. I don’t remember why, but I only had an 800 number, not an address.

Employee: “Hello, this is [Employee] at [Software Company].”

Me: “May I speak to Mr. [Contact]?”

Employee: “He’s at lunch. He’ll be back at 1:00.”

Remember, I only had an 800 number, not a location.

Me: “What time zone are you in?”

Employee: “I don’t know what you mean.”

Me: “What time is it right now?”

Employee: “12:30. Mr. [Contact] will be back at 1:00.”

Me: “Thank you. For future reference, you’re in the Eastern Time Zone.”

The owner of the company at my last job was the absolute worst boss I ever had. He literally nearly ruined my life on at least two occasions.

As an immigrant to this country, I needed to have a job in order to stay on under a work permit. There were minimum standards to be met — salary level, insurance coverage requirements, and the like — in order for my permit to be renewed every two years.

Both times — both times! — this cheapskate ignored the requirements, which caused the national migration board to threaten me with deportation if the issues weren’t addressed. Both times, however, the issues were resolved (no thanks to him) and I was able to stay on.

In addition, while I was in the process of waiting for my work permit to be renewed — which he was well aware of — he tried to lay me off citing a lack of available work. This was ridiculous; I was one of the few staff members actually providing the service he advertised instead of a project manager who coordinated the work of in-house staff and freelancers. I had to get my union involved in the negotiations in order to get him to back off. I can only guess how things would have gone if he’d managed to let me go.

The long and the short of it is that I ended up tangling with the migration board and its processes for over ten years when the straightforward process would have gotten me permanent residency in five. Needless to say, the constant background of stress and worry over being allowed to build a life here took a toll on my mental health.

It was all I could do to not laugh in his and his wife’s faces when they tried to make a counteroffer the day I sat down with them to say I’d gotten and accepted an offer from my current job. A major boost in pay, proper insurance coverage, a ton of additional benefits — everything came together. I got permanent residency, then citizenship, and a professional accreditation I’d been trying for years to get.

Is it any wonder I never even thought about looking back the day I walked out that door?

I take my mom in for her knee replacement surgery. As she is expected to be discharged the same day, she needs a responsible adult to remain at the hospital while she is back having her procedure. The waiting area is essentially a wide hallway along the side of the pre-op center. It’s lined with windows and has nice comfy armchairs for us to sit in, so I settle in with my laptop and beverage to wait.

I’m sitting with my back against the windows when the person sitting opposite me suddenly exclaims that the sky is looking nasty. I turn around and look, and indeed, it looks like a storm is rolling in. Nasty thunderstorms are normal for the area, so I shrug and return to my work.

A few minutes later, everyone’s cell phones go off with emergency weather alerts. We are under a tornado warning and should seek shelter. I start packing my bag and looking around for a place to go that isn’t in the wide hallway filled with windows when a staff member rushes by and tells us all to seek shelter — but does not tell us where. So, we all (about twenty-five people) traipse up to the reception desk at the end of the hallway to ask where we are supposed to shelter. The staff there tells us to sit back down because we don’t shelter until security tells us to shelter.

We all huddle together as far from the windows as it is possible to get and start looking at the weather radar to see that there is a tornado in our general vicinity. About that time, a second alert comes through on our phones, and a siren starts going off on the roof where the medivac choppers are parked. Again, a staff member walking by quickly asks us why we aren’t sheltered, and we reply that no one will tell us where to go; all the visitor-accessible areas are along the outside window walls as far as we can see. She tells us to take shelter in the pre-op center, so we all get up and try to get in that door. Yet again, the reception staff tell us we can’t go in there until security says to shelter.

Finally, after the sky has started to lighten up, there is an overhead PA announcement about taking shelter. So, they herd us in, and we are cluttering up that area, trying as hard as we can to stay out of people’s way. Some of the staff back there are trying to rustle up chairs to put along the wall for some of the less ambulatory folks, and the rest of us are stuck standing. We look at the weather maps on our phones again and see that the storm has passed us and the warning has been lifted, but you guessed it, we can’t leave our “shelter” until security says so.

Finally, about fifteen minutes later, security gets the memo and announces the all-clear on the PA, and we are able to return to the comfy seats.

About twenty minutes after that, I get the call from Mom’s surgeon that her surgery is complete and they will be moving her to post-op shortly. The ORs are in the very center of the building, about as sheltered as they can be, so they didn’t even pause the surgery while we were all playing stand-up turn-around sit-down outside.

All of the staff was quite polite the whole time and tried to act professionally, but it was still quite alarming that at least two different sets of conflicting emergency procedures were in play at the same time.

The first time I bought a brand-new car, I brought my parents with me — mostly because I was hoping I’d potentially be able to walk off the lot with the new one but didn’t think I’d be able to trade in my old one. Plus, I wanted their opinions on a couple of options I was considering. Before we went to the dealership, I called my credit union and went through them for the car loan (because they got me a much better deal than the dealership and so that I’d have a better idea of my budget). I already knew what model I wanted but was mostly waffling on color and some of the extras.

The entire time, I did almost all of the talking, although my dad did add things a couple of times when he was giving opinions on the options. But again, I was doing the talking. This was for my car. For me. Going to my house. Paid for with my money/loan. We got things decided on which car I wanted, and the salesman brought us inside so we could go over the paperwork.

Salesman: *Glancing at my dad* “Okay, we’re going to need her to fill out this paperwork here, and we’ll go talk with our finance guys and see what kind of deal we can work.”

My dad just kind of gave the salesman a look.

Dad: “It’s her car; talk to her.”

Me: “And we don’t need to talk to the finance guy. I’ve already got approval from [Credit Union] for [amount]. You can call them at [number] on this card.” *Puts the information on his desk* “Please don’t run my credit, because I’ve already run it through them and know that I’m approved to get this car. Can we just get the paperwork figured out?”

[Salesman] again glanced at my dad, although to his (minute) credit, he seemed to catch himself and then looked at me.

Salesman: “Okay, so we’ll still need to check with the finance guys on this.”

Me: “Why? I’m already approved for [amount about $3,000 more than the price of the car], so you know that it’s covered. We don’t need to run credit or talk to them, unless you were going to take my old car as a trade?”

[Salesman] did go back and talk to finance. I had to remind him again not to bother checking my credit because I wasn’t financing through them and was already approved. He came back and told me they could do $500 immediately on trade-in and I took it. (That was probably a little less than its value, but I was just happy to get rid of it.)

We finally got the paperwork filled out, and [Salesman] said that he’d take care of the loan side and I would get a notice and be able to pick up the car on Wednesday. (This happened on Sunday.)

Wednesday came around and I hadn’t heard from him, so I called him.

Salesman: “Thank you for calling [Dealership]; this is [Salesman].”

Me: “Hi, [Salesman], this is [My Name]. I came in on Sunday and worked with you about the Crosstrek?”

Salesman: “Hi! How can I help?”

Me: “Well, it’s Wednesday, and I haven’t received anything that said I could come to get my car.”

Salesman: “Oh, yeah, about that. Because you’re not financing through us, you’ll need to send in [specific documents] from your credit union.”

Me: “But you said you were going to reach out to them for that. You have all the information.”

Salesman: “I’m sorry, you’ll need to call them.”

We ended the call. I called my credit union and got all the paperwork sent over to the dealership. It took me about twenty minutes, and half of that was spent on hold just because they were busy. I did finally get my car, and I love it. I probably won’t go back to that dealership any time soon, though.

Back in 1997, I was invited to interview for a tech position with a company in Kentucky. My wife and I drove for fourteen hours from two states away so I could be there for a Monday morning interview.

I arrived about twenty minutes early so I could get a feel for the place, and after a little bit, I was told that my interviewer was golfing. Instead, they set me up with the tech lead and then later the branch manager. The interviews went well, and they asked me to come back the next day to speak to the technical manager.

I came back in on Tuesday, this time with my wife, so she could meet the people who interviewed me, and we were directed to the tech manager’s office. We talked with him for about fifteen minutes before he received a phone call. At this point, he had a couple of options. He could have asked us to step out while he took the call. He could have taken the call in another office. He could’ve asked someone to take a message and call them back later.

Instead, he took the call with us in the office with him, and he proceeded to berate one of his own techs to a customer. I remember him saying, “I can’t believe we have that level of incompetence working for us!”

At that point, I didn’t know what to do. I had already committed substantial resources to driving for the interview, spending a couple of nights, and then having to drive home again. They were offering me 50% more than I was making in a field where I had no professional experience, and they were willing to train me.

I took the job, and thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with the tech manager very often.

A year and a half later, I was on contract with one of our larger accounts and had been working at their corporate headquarters for about ten months. As I was walking down the hall one day, I happened to pass my tech manager interviewing with several executives. I stuck my head in my corporate contact’s office and asked to speak with him for a few minutes. I related the story above and told him that, obviously, they could do whatever they chose, but I thought it would be a mistake to have somebody with such poor character representing their company. I don’t know what became of that situation, but I’m hoping they took my advice.