Back in the day, my company announced a new holiday, MLK Day (MLK Day wasn’t new, but my company recognizing it as a paid holiday was!).

I work from home, and sometime mid-day (on MLK Day) popped in just to check my email. I noticed a WFH coworker was “green” in whatever we used for Teams back in the day (some long-forgotten instant messaging client). So, I messaged her.

Me: “Hey, you know today’s a holiday, right?”

Coworker: “Ha ha, very funny.”

Me: “No, seriously. It’s MLK Day. Here.”

I sent her a link to the company memo.

Coworker: “Son of a b****! I’ve been working all day! I was wondering why everything was so quiet!”

Fast forward one year, and I was WFH. I was so engrossed in completing a project that was so close to completion that it was almost a jump-scare when I got an IM from that same coworker.

Coworker: “You know it’s MLK day, right?”

Me: “Oh my God! You’re right! And I didn’t even notice why it was so quiet!”

She retired about ten years ago. Almost every year, on MLK Day, one of us will text the other:

Coworker: “Hey, you know today’s a holiday, right?”

I work in an office building with a large lobby but only one official entrance through a revolving door. During the morning rush, this door becomes a bottleneck, and there’s sometimes a line to get into the building.

There are actually three revolving doors into the lobby, with one reserved as exit only, and the other always locked up. They locked it up during the COVID lockdown, but never bothered to reopen it because the security guys don’t want to patrol both doors. They like sitting at the desk near the concierge and moving as little as possible.

As I’m an impatient guy, I will sometimes scan my office building ID on the emergency exit side door, which is automatic, and bypass the queue entirely. 

I’ve done this many times, as have many others, as it’s not a security risk (still gotta go through security no matter which door you use) and it helps relieve the bottleneck at the main door.

One time, I’m doing this, and a new security guard shouts at me.

Security: “Hey! You can’t do that! It’s a security risk!”

Me: “Regardless of coming through the revolving door or this door, we still need to pass the security scanners and scan our passes, right?”

Security: “Well, yeah, but that’s an emergency door.”

Me: “Okay, so I can’t use it because it’s not an emergency?”

Security: “Yes.”

Me: “But it’s not a security risk?”

Security: “Look, just don’t use that door unless it’s an emergency, okay?!”

Me: “Okay, fine.”

As it happens, the next day I’m walking into the building at the same time as the CEO of my company. We’re chatting, and we get to the entrance to the building, and the line is long.

The CEO starts to make his way to the side entrance, and I tell him about my encounter with security yesterday.

CEO: “Well, we have places to be, so…”

He taps his card and enters the lobby. I follow. The security guard from yesterday pounces on us:

Security: “You again! I told you yesterday not to use this door! I’m going to report you to building management!”

CEO: “Please do. Please tell them that I’m [Owner of company that rents 4 floors] of the tower and the current building entry process is not fit for purpose.”

Security: “I… uh… look, I just enforce the rules I’m told.”

CEO: “I’m sure. Please tell them that I’ll be complaining about security not doing what they can to allow easy access into the building, and I will take this into consideration when the time comes to extend the lease to the building at the end of the year.”

Security: “I’ll… uh…”

CEO: “…Report us to building management. Yes. As I said, please do.”

After that, my CEO and I go through security and continue our day.

The next morning, both revolving doors are open, an extra security guy has been stationed, and there’s no long line to get into the building. 

Amazing what happens when it’s the CEOs that get inconvenienced.

I work at the front desk. My shift ends at 6:00 PM. Another employee is scheduled to come in at 5:45 PM so we can do a handover. The problem is that whenever she arrives, she immediately disappears into the back to chat with the other staff. 

For weeks, I waited around for her. I soon figured out that she would only come up to the desk after I went to find her.

One afternoon, I decide I’m done.

6:00 PM arrives, and I clock out and leave. The phone is ringing as I am walking out, but screw it.

The next day, she corners me.

Coworker: “What was that yesterday?”

Me: “What was what?”

Coworker: “You left before giving me a handover.”

Me: “My shift ended at 6:00.”

Coworker: “Well, how was I supposed to know you were leaving?”

Me: “Because it was 6:00.”

Coworker: “You should have come and found me.”

Me: “Why?”

Coworker: “Because I was in the back!”

Me: “That’s not really my business.”

Coworker: “What?”

Me: “Your shift starts at 5:45. You know my shift ends at 6:00. It’s not my responsibility to keep track of where you are in the building.”

She complains to our boss, who, in turn, asks me what happened.

Me: “I left when my shift ended. If she wants a handover, she should probably be at the desk when her shift starts.”

The next day, at 5:45 PM, she’s already sitting at the front desk waiting for me, grumpy as h***.

I don’t like tomato, so I always get my pasta with cream and cheese sauces, pesto, or just olive oil, whatever, just no tomatoes.

Me: “Can I get the carbonara, please?”

Waiter: “We’re doing a special on the Amatriciana tonight. That’s basically like a carbonara but more of a marinara.”

Me: “No, thank you, I’m not into tomatoes.”

Waiter: “It’s not tomatoes, it’s marinara.”

Me: “Uh, yeah. There’s… tomato in marinara.”

Waiter: “There’s no such thing as a marinara tomato.”

Me: “Yes, but tomato is a major ingredient inside a marinara.”

Waiter: “No, it isn’t.”

Me: “Look, I just don’t like red foods. Can you respect that?”

Waiter: “Oh! You’re autistic! Why didn’t you just say so!”

A waiter in an Italian restaurant who didn’t know basic Italian cooking? Good thing I didn’t have any allergies! Suffice it to say, I did not eat there again…

I’m one of the supervisors at a firm with a lot of employees all tucked into one big room. There are two supervisors and a shift leader in each shift (morning, afternoon, night). These shifts get rotated on occasion, but we supervisors mostly rotate with them. 

Normally, with my typical co-supervisor, we share the responsibility of dealing with all the work-related emails. There’s a lot more than one would expect, so it does sometimes take up to even a few hours of each day. 

One week, one of the shift leaders derped and put me together with a different supervisor, and we were basically stuck for that month.

Now, she’s absolutely lazy. Like, ridiculously so. Won’t even get off her a** during lunch and go eat at the cafeteria. Instead, she makes a mess at her work desk (which would later be used by the supervisor of the next shift). I used to be the schmuck getting the desk from her, and it was always a crumby mess. 

Because of this, she does none of the actual supervising, and never has.

During our third day that week, she asked me:

Supervisor: “Why are you sitting at the desk for so long? Do you have any intention of actually doing your job?”

Me: “I’m doing the emails.”

Supervisor: *Getting super p***ed.* “That’s my assigned duty!”

This is how she and her usual supervisor split their load.

Supervisor: “Get out of the office and go watch the workers!”

She pretty much screamed it, turning red in the face and all, throwing all sorts of insults at me about how my generation never does s***, so I told her:

Me: “Fine, I’m never touching the emails again.”

We even signed unofficial workplace contracts, distributing our duties evenly, and she got the emails. 

Now, though we are technically all the same, I am the supervisor most likely to be promoted, so the shift leaders and the director generally talk to me, and have me relay some info to the others, so I’m a lot closer to all of them than the other supes are.

Because of this, I was the first to learn that we’d need to master Excel, and hopped to it immediately. It wasn’t yet officially announced, but when it was, the lazy bum I was stuck with first refused to learn it, saying

Supervisor: “It wasn’t a skill listed as needed when I applied.”

Knowledge about Microsoft programs was listed when we applied. She kept postponing learning it until we officially got some work to do with Excel.

I started doing it right away. Also, this isn’t the kind of work you can just do for another person. So, during our third week together, I do the usual routine of checking on the workers, then working with Excel until I meet my quota.

Because Ms. Lazy Bum never used Excel, she got an official warning for not meeting the quota and ended up only barely learning some basic stuff about Excel. She was still super slow and couldn’t even meet the quota, let alone make up for the lost time.

Now, during this, the emails, as you may have guessed, remained untouched, because Excel took her the full eight hours. During our last week together, the director came and asked us:

Director: “What’s going on? Why is your shift always the one getting clogged with the emails?”

Ms. Lazy Bum immediately tried to pin the blame on me, but bippity boppity boo, I had the contract she insisted on us signing. Since she’d already been given a warning for not learning Excel and had a previous complaint about the way she spoke to some of the other employees, she was fired.