I worked at a paper company, and the crew I ran produced 20% over the required production on any given work order on any given day.

The handbook said that crews were to take two ten-minute breaks and one thirty-minute lunch.

My crew took two fifteens, and a lunch would average between thirty-five to forty minutes.

Our boss came up to me one day:

Boss: “Your team’s break times are too long.”

Me: “But we’re getting the work done, aren’t we?”

Boss: “Yeah, but you need to go by what the handbook says.”

Me: “That’s fine, and since we’re expected to go by company regulations, my crew will now only produce the prescribed amount of material from now on.”

Boss: “That’s not necessary. You’re not to slow the machine down.”

Me: “Okay, then I’ll shut the machine down when we’ve hit the prescribed daily amount of material, and for the last hour of the day, we can relax.”

Boss: “That’s not very productive.”

Me: “The handbook doesn’t say we can’t. The handbook just says we’re to produce a prescribed daily amount of material, which we will do. So, we either go by the book, as you have suggested, or we just keep doing what we’re doing.”

She never complained about the length of our breaks again.

I’m renewing my UK passport after getting married in Brazil, and so I need to update my name. It’s slightly complicated, as I was born with three names, but my mother added her maiden name to mine as a child, and never updated the documents, so I officially had three but considered myself to have four.

Think like Rachel Ann Jones, turned Rachel Ann Smith Jones (not my real name).

First name, two middle names, and one surname.

I then got married and added my husband’s name.

Think like Rachel Ann Smith Jones Silva.

As a dual citizen, the British passport office requires that my Brazilian passport have the updated name. This is where the problem begins, as Brazil doesn’t have a concept of middle names; your name is just your name. They only split it into given and surnames on passports, as it is a foreign system.

This wouldn’t be a problem, but the law states that if the name is a surname of your parents, it has to be part of your surname.

Therefore, they put my surname as being Smith Jones Silva, whereas I was used to calling myself Jones Silva.

As such, I made a mistake with the British passport application and put Smith as a given name rather than the surname on my Brazilian passport.

This leads to an email from the British passport office stating:

British passport office: “The name on your application is different from the name on other documents you have sent us.
The name on your application is Rachel Ann Smith Jones Silva.
The name on the Brazil passport is Rachel Ann Smith Jones Silva.”

Oh, bureaucratic idiots.

I’m browsing my phone in the breakroom, and coming across an interesting fact makes me say:

Me: “Huh.”

Coworker: “What?”

Me: “Did you know that the easternmost point of Brazil is closer to Africa than to its westernmost point?”

Coworker: “That can’t be right!”

Me: “Yeah, the easternmost point of Brazil is 2,900 kilometers from Africa, but because Brazil is so wide, the westernmost point is over 4,300 kilometers away.”

Coworker: “Wow!”

Another coworker is walking by.

Other Coworker: “Did you know Brazil is in Africa now?”

Me: “Wait, no—”

Other Coworker: “—Wow! When did they move?”

This would have been more forgivable if I didn’t work for an airline and the other two coworkers weren’t pilots. Sadly, I seem to be in the minority, as I got home and told my mom this exact same story, and she said:

Mom: “Oh, I thought Brazil was always in Africa…”

I used to work as a delivery driver at a regional pizza chain. About an hour before the end of my shift, my manager asked me if I’d be willing to help with deliveries at another location in our district (about 30 minutes away), as they had a call-out and were getting slammed. I agreed and made the drive over there. 

At around 7:30 PM, the manager of that location approached the cashier and me on shift.

Manager: “Alright, we’ve died down now, and I don’t really have the hours to keep you both around, so I’ve gotta send one of you home.”

Cashier: *Literally bouncing up and down.* “Ooh, me! Send me! I wanna go home!”

Me: “I’ve been working since 11 AM. It’s nearly three hours after my shift was originally supposed to end. I’m in a store I don’t normally work at, in an area I’m not familiar with.” *To the cashier.* “You were scheduled to work, here at this location, from 5 ’til 8 PM. Yeah, no, I’m going home…”

I remember back when I was in Army Basic (1985), on the first day:

Drill Sergeant: “I want to offer a smoke break right now, for anyone who wants it.”

One of my friends smiles at this.

Friend: *To me, whispering.* “Free break? I’m taking it!”

He didn’t smoke, but was always looking for ways to slack off, so he raised his hands along with many others who wanted smoke breaks.

The Drill Sergeants took names down the first time. After the break:

Drill Sergeant: “All the smokers whose names I have on this list, you all just volunteered for “butt patrol”! Time for you to walk around the base, picking up cigarette butts!”

After that, with the list of names, anytime a butt patrol or trash detail was needed, the list was pulled out, and “volunteers” were selected. The non-smokers made out pretty well. My friend looked miserable every time he had to do it, and his protestations of “I don’t even smoke!” got him absolutely nowhere.