Our store is across the street from a nursing home. Almost every day, we see an older couple come into the store to just look around. They go through the same routine every day, and they don’t really buy anything, but we don’t mind. 

The husband comes over to me one day after we make eye contact and I smile at him a little.

Husband: “I wanted to say thanks for letting us come in every day. It really means the world to us.”

Me: “Oh, it’s no bother at all. I’m sure there are nicer places to visit than this little old store, though!” 

Husband: “Well, it’s for my wife. She has trouble remembering these days, but we always used to come to this store together every Tuesday, and she’d work through her list, thinking up all the dinners she’d feed us all week until the next Tuesday. She doesn’t remember who I am most days, but every time we come in here, it’s suddenly Tuesday, and she gets all excited about the dinners she wants to make.”

Me: “Oh… I… I don’t know what to say.” 

Husband: “Nothing to say. I just wanted to say thank you.”

His wife walked past with a list in her hand, smiling and calling her husband over to help her choose a cereal.

Every day for the next year, we’d see them reliving her Tuesdays, happy with her list, until one day we didn’t see them for a while. He came back a few weeks later to tell us that his wife was grocery shopping in Heaven now, and he couldn’t wait to try some of the meals she was cooking up for him one day.

We all loved him for how much he loved her.

My manager and I are working the overnight shift at a twenty-four-seven fast food joint in a neighborhood that doesn’t have the best reputation.

A guy walks in and asks for the cheapest combo we have. I ask for the total, and he’s thirty-seven cents short. I explain this.

Customer: “C’mon, man! It’s the middle of the night. Just let it slide.”

Me: “Sorry, sir, I can’t offer any discounts.” 

Customer: “It’s only a few cents! No one will notice.”

Me: “I’ll be short at the end of my shift, and I’ll get written up.” 

Customer: “So, your write-up is more important than me going hungry?”

Me: “Look, I can get you some fries for [small amount], and I’ll throw in some extra for you, but I can’t sell you [combo] unless you have the full amount.”

My manager walks over as he’s noticed the customer getting agitated. He explains the same things that I have, and the customer gives us a big “F*** you!” and storms out.

Less than half an hour later, the next shift has arrived, and during the overlap, my manager and I get a break. We usually grab some food and go sit in his old car together, which has been parked to the side of the store for as long as I can remember. (He drives a newer and nicer car, but due to reasons too long and boring to list here, he’s been allowed to keep his old car in that parking spot for a few months.)

As we’re eating our dinner and talking, the customer from before spots us, storms over, and dramatically throws himself over the hood of the car.

Customer: “What the f***, man! You trying to kill me?!”

Manager: “What the h*** are you doing?! Go away!”

Customer: “I’m callin’ the police! You tried to kill me!”

Me: “Oh, my God! Is this all because you didn’t get a burger?!” 

The customer — who, at this point, we suspect is high on something — actually calls 911 and claims we tried to run him over. I’m getting a little worried, but my manager tells me to be patient and it’ll all be fine.

Two officers drive in about fifteen minutes later. (We’ve sat in the car finishing our food during this time.) The customer is quick to explain to them what happened. He’s even developed a little limp in the last fifteen minutes.

Then, the officers finally give my manager and me a chance to explain

Manager: “Officer, please, check the engine. I think you’ll find that it will prove that we didn’t hit the customer.”

Officer #1: “I’m not qualified to check an engine to confirm your testimony.” 

Manager: “Please, indulge me.”

My manager pops the hood, opens it, and lets the officer take a look. 

Officer #1: *To the customer* “Okay, sir, I think we’re done here.”

Customer: “What are you talking about?! Just because the engine isn’t running, it doesn’t mean—” 

Officer #1: “Take a look, sir.”

The customer steps forward… and sighs. 

There is no engine.

Manager: “It was taken out months ago to go to a more deserving car. This hunk of junk exists only as a place for me to take my breaks and listen to my music at full volume. We good here?” 

Officer #2: “We’re good. Feel free to go back inside, sir.”

Manager: “But first, I’d like to call the police about a customer who is causing a disturbance and has been known to lie to the police.”

Officer #2: “No need to make that call, sir. We can take it from here.” 

They escorted the customer off the premises. We never saw him again.

Several years ago, I interviewed at an office for a job. The interview started okay in the beginning, and then the office manager surprised me with these questions.

Office Manager: “Are you single, married, divorced, or widowed?”

Me: “Divorced.”

Office Manager: “Do you have any children? If so, what are their ages, what grades are they in, where do they go to school, and who takes care of them?”

Me: “May I ask how this is relevant to the job?”

Office Manager: “We don’t like to hire single mothers who have young children and no babysitters. If your child gets sick, we expect you to have a backup for them. We don’t want anyone missing any work for their kids. We don’t allow anyone to bring their kids to work. It would cause chaos, and no one would be able to get any work done. Also, we expect you to come in sick. If you need to go to the doctor, it will have to be done after work. No exceptions.”

Me: “Okay. I don’t wish to answer your questions as they are not relevant to how I can perform the job. I will end this interview now.”

I got up and walked out. A few weeks later, I got another job at a different office, and thankfully, they didn’t ask these questions or say those other things about getting sick. They said if you are sick, you should stay at home and don’t bring whatever you have into the office.

At the new office, I met a girl who told me she had previously worked for the first office where I’d interviewed, and it was horrible.

She went on to tell me that the office manager fired people for anything. The girl told me she got fired for leaving work early when her toddler son fell and hit his head at daycare and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. The office manager said, “I hired you to work for me, not your son. If you need to see your son, you can do it after work.”

Another person was fired for getting into a car accident on the way to work and being taken to the hospital with a concussion. She was fired for not calling to report that she would not be in prior to 8:00 am.

Lastly, another person was fired for going to the post office to pick up the office’s post office box mail. The manager timed how long it took each person to make the trip, and it averaged twenty minutes. This person took like 28 minutes (due to a wreck) and was fired because the office manager decided that they must have stopped off somewhere for personal reasons.

The office with the terrible office manager is a law firm, and the office manager is the managing attorney’s wife.

The girl said that the office manager would bring her four-year-old grandson to work almost every day as her son (who worked for another company) was a single dad with no babysitter. The child spent all day being disruptive toward everyone, and the office manager didn’t do anything about it.

I’m so thankful I walked out of that interview.

I have heard that they closed a couple of years ago.

Last Wednesday, I went for some shopping. We needed groceries, and my mother needed a new heater. I (regretfully) decided to kill two birds with one stone and went to a big store that has both groceries and stuff for the house — heaters, TVs, barbecues, etc. I was in black sweatpants and a red blouse; the employees were wearing blue trousers and blue shirts with yellow letters on them.

I grabbed a cart and headed to the grocery section first, where I was asked three different times if I worked there; all were very respectful and just asking for help, which in two out of three cases I could provide. Finishing my groceries, I went to the part of the store that dealt with the other things I mentioned.

I was browsing the available heaters with my grocery ladder cart next to me when an older guy came to me with a pack of AA batteries.

Guy: “Do these work on a phone?” *Showing me the batteries*

Me: “Probably not. You’ll need rechargeable batteries for that.”

Guy: “Okay. Go get me some. I’ll be right here.”

Me: “Nope.”

Guy: *Annoyed* “Why?”

Me: “Because A, I don’t know where the batteries are, and B, even if I did, I wouldn’t fetch them for you.”

Guy: “That’s not a proper way to talk to a paying customer!”

Me: “Indeed.”

Guy: “And not knowing where is something on your store…”

Me: “My store?”

Guy: “…is preposterous! I will complain about it to management!”

Me: “Okay. You do you.”

And, grabbing my cart, I walked away.

For the next five minutes, he followed me around the store, red in the face and complaining about the “unruly employee”, until an actual employee stopped him and explained to him that I was a shopper and not an employee. That apparently did not compute in his brain, because the last time I saw him, he was confused as h***.

I’ve been at my current employer for more than ten years. For the first five years, I was the supervisor of our production area. After that, I switched to IT. Since then, I have new bosses (who are located in a different branch), but as my old boss is the manager for the branch where I am located, I still have to deal with her regularly.

Our company is a scanning service, so we have a lot of high-value documents on location: banking documents, deeds, employment documents, and all manner of correspondence. You name it, we got it. Obviously, security is a major concern as we would be liable for any damage or losses incurred. But both my former boss and the guy who now holds my former position care more about things being convenient, even if they go against regulations.

One repeat discussion I’ve had with them is about how they like to prop open doors to our production area for hours on end, often without anyone supervising the open doors. Obviously, this is a breach of data security, as anyone could just walk in, grab some documents, and walk out again. In addition, as these are fire doors, it is against German law to keep them propped open, as this endangers people in case of a fire.

The last time I noticed that door blocked, I decided to send a reminder email to people in our branch, pointing out the danger as well as the relevant part of criminal law. I honestly expected to be ignored as usual, but then [Former Boss] replied. The following is a chain of emails going back and forth.

Former Boss: “Do your own work! It’s not your job to play security. If the door is open, it is open for a reason. Also, these are not fire doors; inform yourself.”

Me: “If I note a violation of criminal law, let alone one endangering everyone in the building, it is absolutely my job to point that out. Also, it’s interesting that you would accuse me of not informing myself, as you don’t seem to have done that, either. Our doors are [full serial number of door brand]. You can find the technical specification under DIN 4102 (German standard for fire doors) under this link.”

Former Boss: *Sarcastically* “Props for having the time to busy yourself with that. We carried boxes into the production area; it wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Let this be my problem and keep out of it. Nothing was blocked.”

Me: “The door to the production area was held with a wedge. The door to the office area was held open using a fire extinguisher (which is somewhat ironic). So, saying nothing was blocked is provably false. However, it’s moot to keep discussing this; I did my duty and pointed out the problem. At least no one can claim they didn’t know if anything happens now.”

I had started to CC my bosses starting with the second email, as I wanted to raise awareness of the tone of these replies. Unbeknownst to me, one of them forwarded the whole exchange to the safety officer in our main branch. (My branch doesn’t have one.) I only knew when we got the following answer to my last email.

Safety Officer: “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?! EVERY EMPLOYEE HAS A DUTY TO POINT OUT DEFICIENCIES IN THE WORKPLACE!”

He then proceeded to point out the sections of employment law that obligate any employee to look out for their own health and security, as well as those that empower employees to make suggestions to their employer where health and security are concerned. He also pointed out all the problems with propping up a fire door; words like “gross negligence” and “life insurance” were used.

I later heard through the grapevine that [Former Boss] called [Safety Officer] and whined about how inconvenient it was not to be able to keep these doors open, but she didn’t get far.

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Safety Schmafety