(I’m at a big box store buying groceries, including pre-packaged bags of different kinds of dried fruit. The most expensive one is orange and white, and the least expensive one is yellow and white; the price difference is fairly significant. The cashier initially scans the cheaper one twice and realizes his mistake.)

Cashier: “Oops, I should probably do this individually. Not that it makes a difference, but just in case!”

(He voids one and correctly scans the second bag. It’s $6 more.)

Cashier: *pause* “I probably should have left it and saved you some money… Sorry!”

(Recently, I’ve been attending a series of presentations given by a coworker who happens to have a cube near mine. Today, I get an email from him that off-handedly mentions him giving a class this afternoon, which surprises me, so I stand up to talk to him over the cube wall.)

Me: “Hey, [Coworker #1], are you doing a training thing this afternoon? I don’t have an invite for it on my calendar.”

Coworker #1: “Huh, that’s weird; it should’ve sent one to you. I’ll send you a new one.”

(The coworker that sits on my other side, who was not involved in this brief exchange, speaks up in the most mocking, condescending voice possible:)

Coworker #2: “What, you can’t figure out where to go without a meeting invite? You need your calendar to tell you where to be?”

Me: “Well… yeah, I didn’t know we had a training session this afternoon. If I don’t have an invitation, I won’t know to be there.”

Coworker #2: “Yeah… well…” *grumbles under his breath*

(I have no idea why it was so offensive to him for me to want to have my schedule written down!)

I’m working at home. My wife and daughter are also in the house; my daughter is studying in her room, right next to the front door.

We have a wooden front door with a really loud brass door knocker. Although it’s a 100-year-old, three-floor house with thick walls and floors, the sound of the knocker easily carries everywhere.

For some reason, many delivery drivers choose to ignore the knocker and rap gently on the glass of the door, instead.

At lunch time, I wander out of the living room where I have been working to find a Missed Delivery card through the letterbox. Cue mental face-palm, as I have been sat within 20 feet of the front door since about 8:00 am.

When I visit the courier’s web site and enter the tracking details, I get a message that says, “Sorry we missed you; we’ll try again tomorrow,” complete with a photo of our front door, large brass knocker front-and-centre.

Nice to know they really tried to get my attention.

(This story takes place in the dark ages of dial-up before the modern ISPs take hold. My family has service via a local company.)

Tech: “Hello, thank you for calling [ISP]. How can I help you?”

Me: “Hi, our dial-up isn’t able to connect to anything. It’s been out for about a week now.”

Tech: “I’m sorry to hear that. Let me walk you through a few things to fix that.”

(What follows is about an hour of fiddling with the dial-up settings. In between these sessions, I have to hang up, test the dial-up, and then call the technician again to tell them it still isn’t working.)

Tech: “I honestly don’t know what to say; we’ve gone over everything. Why don’t you give me your password, and I can try it on my end and see if it’s a problem with the account, instead?”

Me: “All right, it’s [nine-letter foreign word]. Let me spell it out.”

Tech: *after I’m done* “Oh, I see what your problem is!”

Me: “You do?!”

Tech: “Yep, your password is too long!”

Me: “What? But… we’ve been using that password since we got your service.”

Tech: “Yeah, but we recently updated our system so we can only accept eight-letter passwords. Just drop the last letter off your password and you’re back online!”

(And she was right. I thanked her sincerely since she’d been very helpful and patient throughout this nonsensical adventure. About a year later, the ISP shut down. They informed their customers of this with an email which was sent out AFTER they’d shut down the service.)

(This story occurs when I live abroad and work at a restaurant with a VERY abrasive manager. It’s the night before I have a relatively easy shift, but I’ve been given some terribly sad news from back home. In between crying in the night, stressing out over how I can’t get home quickly as I’ve just paid a large sum of bills for the month, I’ve barely gotten much sleep. However, again I’m reminded that I have an easy shift ahead of me tomorrow. I fall asleep eventually at around 5:00 am but wake at 8:00 am. I’m exhausted, dreary, and still stressed out. My mobile phone rings about half an hour later after I wake up. It’s from my abrasive manager’s manager.)

Manager #2: “Hey, [My Name], can you start earlier today? Like, within the hour?”

(I’ve always had respect for [Manager #2] as she sees people’s emotions, unlike my manager. But, despite her asking me to work essentially a double shift after last night’s news, I decide to decline.)

Me: “I’m sorry, [Manager #2]. I can’t today.”

Manager #2: “Oh… all right, thank you.” *click*

(I go to make myself a coffee and to try at least calm myself down a bit. For what it’s worth, I told my abrasive manager the evening before about what had happened. And of course, true to his form, he rolled out the usual “don’t forget you’re working tomorrow” spiel, as if I needed to be reminded. Not five minutes later, the phone rings again. This time it’s from my manager.)

Me: “Hello?”

Manager #1: “Buddy. You have to work earlier today.”

Me: “Sorry, [Manager #1]. I’ve already told [Manager #2]—”

Manager #1: “I do not f****** care what you told [Manager #2]. You come to work, buddy. Everyone has problems in this world; you’re just going to have to deal with it, understand?

(My patience with this manager has already grown exceptionally thin up to this point. This is normally the conversation that occurs with any of his staff if they try to put up any resistance to working more hours just because he said so. Under any normal circumstance, I would fold and just accept; hey, it’s more money. But because this time he’s shown no regard whatsoever for how much stress, anguish, and emotion I have right now, I decide to put my foot down for good.)

Me: “No.”

Manager #1: “What?! No, you come into work.”

Me: “No. Law states that an employer cannot force their employees—”

Manager #1: “I do not f****** care—”

(Tired of being cut off whenever I try to make my point, I just continue to explain to my manager that he cannot force me to work longer hours if it’s not already been agreed to on the rota, which it hasn’t. I also suggest to the manager that what he is doing is illegal, but I’m still met with the same response. But most importantly, I do NOT back down. Eventually, he goes silent.)

Manager #1: “Buddy. You listen to me now. You can either come in within the next hour and work all day, or you leave [Restaurant] for good. You have five minutes to decide.” *click*

(My stress, anguish, and emotions are all swapped out with seething anger at this point. Knowing my manager will do whatever it takes to force me into work earlier, I decide to cover my tracks as best as possible. I screen grab the rota as it appears on our restaurant’s website, I use an app on my phone that records the previous telephone conversation just in case I need to prove that he did, in fact, suggest I’d be fired if I didn’t come in early, and I also get in touch with a union rep whilst I wait for the manager to call back. Ten minutes on the dot later, he does.)

Manager #1: “So, when are you coming today, buddy?”

Me: “I’m not.”

Manager #1: “Excuse me?”

Me: “If firing me means you get your own way and I get the day off to deal with my very serious personal issues properly, then be my guest.”

Manager #1: “So, then, you have to work thirty days and then you go.”

Me: “Actually, you made no reference to that in the previous conversation.”

Manager #1: “Do you think I f****** care? Listen, you will—”

Me: “Sorry, I don’t think you fully understand what I’m trying to explain to you. I will not be coming in today. You know that I have a very serious personal matter that needs to be addressed but still, you decided the best course of action was to give me an ultimatum to either work longer or be fired. No referral at all to the 30-days notice period there. Oh, and I should also let you know a few things. First, that phone conversation has been recorded and this one will be, too. Second, I have time-stamped and screen-grabbed the rota for today’s shift just in case you want to change it. Finally, all this evidence will be submitted to my union rep once we are done here.”

Manager #1: “You are not allowed to record me. It’s illegal.”

Me: “Law states that as long as one person in a phone call is aware of the recording taking place then it is, in fact, legal. Good day, [Manager].” *click*

(I didn’t actually follow through with threatening union involvement. As much of a pig he was, my manager had a family who depended on his paycheck to get by. This still didn’t stop him from calling me all day that week, telling me to come in. I was even asked by [Manager #2] what I wanted from them in order to make the issue go away. But I refused to give in; the damage was already done with those phone calls and to return to working there would have essentially been an admittance of defeat for me.)