People Share The Moment They Got Payback After Being Condescendingly Disrespected

No one likes being profiled. Anf it’s even worse when you’re profiled incorrectly based on an assumption! People will be people, and they’ll size you up anyways – based on how you look, act speak – whichever way is easiest and fast! It’s no wonder we oftentimes make the wrong assumption when we are quick to “thin-slice” – a superficial way of trying to figure out a person without going deep, asking questions or trying to get to know them. It’s a flash judgment that can easily land you in hot water if you don’t watch out!

It’s these snap judgments that can make anyone feel disrespected if the person doing the “guessing” is wrong. That’s what it is after all – a guess. Isn’t it better to “know” thank to “think?” Rather than “thinking” someone may be poor based on how they look or “thinking” someone isn’t as accomplished based on how they are perceived it’s better to “know” by asking and getting the facts straight. You wouldn’t want to look foolish if you mistakingly disrespected someone, would you? Well, these people did and it makes for a pretty good story. Hopefully they learned a lesson!

24. Here, Take My Business Card, Suddenly, I’m The One Looking For An Assistant

“Once, after a long day at work, I decided to stop at Peet’s Coffee on my way home for a nice hot latte.

It was cold outside, and I wanted something to warm me up.

I was dressed in one of my all-time favorite work ensembles. It consisted of a white long-sleeved button-up blouse, a black pencil skirt, and my 3″ stiletto heel knee-high black patent leather boots. It was, for all intents and purposes, Krysta’s Power Outfit. Very flattering, and I loved to wear it.

(This is not me, but this was the outfit. The only thing missing is the black knee-high stiletto boots)

I entered Peet’s, placed my order, then moved to the “waiting area”.

While I was waiting, an older gentleman sitting with his friends tried to strike up a conversation with me.

This is how the conversation went:

Gentleman: “What do you do for a living?”

Me: “I work in insurance.”

Gentleman: “Oh really? My son works in insurance too!”

Me: “Wow, what does he do?”

Gentleman: “He runs a State Farm branch down the street.

He has a lot of girls like you working in the front office.”

Me: Trying to keep my cool, I jokingly said: “Girls like me, you say?”

Jerkface: “You know how to use Excel, right? If you’re looking for a new job, let me know and I’ll give you his number!” (He and his friends start snickering.)

Me: “Hmmm, well I’ll keep that in mind. I dabble in Excel from time to time, but it’s certainly not my forte. I’m an underwriter for corporate casualty insurance, and the smallest account I’m allowed to handle is $50,000 in premium. My boss gets very annoyed if I try to write anything below that.”

At this point in time, my coffee was ready. As I walked to pick it up from the barista, I pulled one of my business cards from my pocket.

Me: “If your son is looking to branch out from State Farm, I am looking for an assistant.”

I handed my card to the “gentleman”, held my head high, and made sure to strut my way outta there like a model stomping the catwalk.

That chauvinistic ******* probably didn’t know what hit him. I never did hear from him or his son.

To be honest, I was not actually looking for an assistant at the time. I was just so mad at that guy, and that was the first thing that came to mind as a reply. Unfortunately, from that day on I all but retired my “Power Outfit”. This incident happened around 10 years ago, and I was afraid that the outfit may have been projecting the wrong image.

I wish I could go back in time and tell myself not to stop wearing it. I looked fabulous and professional in it.” Krysta

23. You Think You Know? Well I Wrote The Book

“I buy and sell certain collectible items, and travel with some frequency, usually to buy inventory. I’ve built up a network of places to visit around the country, many of which are stores whose owners and employees know me from multiple past transactions.

Sometimes I’ll visit a new store and also, sometimes ownership of an establishment that I’ve visited in the past changes. That is when things can get “interesting.”

One such visit happened in the year 2000 at a store in Nevada. I had no idea until I walked in the door that “Moe,” the longtime owner of the place, had retired and sold out.

The good part of my visit was that there was plenty of nice, new inventory at enticing prices displayed in the store’s showcases. The bad part was that the new owner had no idea who I was, and was not interested in “wholesaling,” even at his marked retail prices.

I should add that I’m fairly well-known in my lines of business and that a phone call or two will almost always instantly produce a satisfactory reference. The new owner of this particular store had no interest in wasting his valuable time in making such phone calls, he told me. He was a busy man with a busy, new business!

I usually leave when treated this way. I don’t take it personally; you’re not going to hit it off with everybody.

But this guy had some serious inventory at prices I would have been happy to pay displayed, so I persisted.

I asked him, “Well, before I go, would you please tell me why you won’t even attempt to do business with me?” I didn’t expect much at this point, but it was a last-ditch effort to appeal to the guy’s ego. If he answered, maybe I could poke a hole in his defenses and convince him to sell me what he had for sale, at the prices he’d marked.

“Well, young man,” (I was 32 and probably looked 24; he, as it turned out, was 37), “if you’re going to go calling and trying to establish relationships, you should probably try to establish yourself in the business first so you’re known.

I have no idea who you are.” (Never mind that I’d asked him to call people that we both knew in the business to verify who I was). “And you should dress professionally. A suit or at least a tie would get more people to take you seriously.”

I let him keep talking. He was one of those people I see when I go to Office Depot, walking around the store, touching all kinds of things, just infatuated with the idea of “business” and the fancy briefcases, organizers, shipping supplies, furniture, etc. that it conjures up in their heads. I just go out and get business done. While they’re looking at hanging folders and leatherette portfolios, I’ve bought what I needed in quantity sufficient to not have to go back for more for a couple of years….

So he gets around to telling me what reference works I should buy if I’m serious about “getting into the business.” I see the book open on his large, new desk…and ask as innocently as I can, “Is that a good book, and what do you use it for?”

Now I’ve got him.

He proceeds to grab the book and open it to various pages, showing me how he uses it when he’s working on his new purchases. “This is my favorite book in my library; I use it all the time, and you should seriously consider a copy,” he said, adding that a good library would be indispensable if I expected to succeed someday in his line of work.

I’d heard enough. I had him. “Okay, so do you want one last, really good reason why you should try to do business with me today?” I asked. He’d paged right by the answer while showing me the book.

“I’m all ears,” he said, plainly aggravated by my interruption of his educational business treatise.

I asked to see his precious book and paged back to one of the first pages he’d gone by just a few minutes before, and pointed at a picture.

Of me. “Because I wrote this book.”

Talk about jaw-dropping. I got to look and whatever I wanted to see, and purchased some very nice inventory that day. We became friends, and ended up doing a lot of business for a long time!” Don

22. Just Because I Don’t Look Cleaned Up, Doesn’t Mean My Wallet Is Empty

“One day last January, I was bored as heck. It was too cold to do anything outside and I’d just cleaned the house a few days ago, so I decided to bum around the mall with some coffee, then do some errands I’d been skipping lately. Not a terrible way of entertaining myself on a gray, chilly Wednesday.

I tossed on sweatpants and hoodie, threw my hair into a messy bun, and got myself a big mocha latte.

I wandered around looking at shop windows, sitting on benches, people watching, talking to a couple of friends on Snapchat, stuff like that.

A little while on, I noticed this security guard was doing the “pretending to be occupied but really following you” thing-you know, when they think they’re being sly and sneaky. I’d stroll down a row of shops looking in the windows, and he’d be 20 feet away looking casual and painfully obvious.

I guess he saw I’d caught on, because a few minutes later he walked up to me and said something like, “Hi, nice day isn’t it?” I don’t remember what he said verbatim. It was one of those casual lead-ins intended to make you feel at ease but actually put you on edge because you know what’s coming next.

So I said something like, “It’s ok, I guess.”

He says, “So, are you here to do shopping, or just hanging around?”

I said, “I don’t know. I guess I’ll buy something if something catches my eye.”

He does that cop look, like, Uh-huh, sure you will pal. And he says, “You know, the mall is only for shopping, it isn’t for hanging out or anything else.”

So I go, “What about the old folks who come here every morning at 6 am just to walk around?”

He said, “They aren’t bothering anyone.”

I retorted, “Well, neither am I.”

He goes, “Are you here looking for a job?”

I kind of laughed, and I said, “Nope. Definitely not.”

He said, “You know, if you shaved and cut your hair, you could probably find something decent.

Act more your age, you know? Look more respectable.”

The funny thing is, this guy was probably ten years younger than me.

I was kind of shocked, like…what? So I said something like, “Oh…ok..? I’m not looking for a job, though.”

So he goes, “Look, man, I don’t want a problem. If you don’t have business here, then I think you’d better leave.”

Wow.

Well, I’m usually not the type to act like a ****, but I guess I was feeling saucy. So I pulled out my wallet and sifted through it, removing a large stack of 20s, 50s and 100s, and pretended to count through it.

See, old boy didn’t realize I’m a freelance copywriter who earns $80 per hour for my services, and business is brisk.

Or that several of my clients pay me in cash (for reasons that are none of my business). Or that I have a huge family, and they always give me cash for Christmas. Or that doing a bank deposit was one of the errands I’d been putting off.

So while I was doing that, I said, “Maybe I’ll buy myself a new watch, or maybe a 4k TV. Treat myself to a late Christmas gift, you know?”

And he said something like, “Uh…yeah…well, have a good day, then.”

He walked off looking like a slack-jawed fool. And even after that, he still stopped about 20 yards away and kept eyeing me.

So I strolled down a few shops to Starbucks and bought two $12 specialty fraps.

I took them, and I walked over and handed him one, and I said, “Have a good day too, bud! You look like you could use this,” with a big grin.

And he took it.

Now, I don’t advocate rubbing people’s nose in ****. We all have bad days. But judging people by appearance is one of my special pet peeves, and that day I just wasn’t in the mood for it. Sure, it’s security’s job to be watchful and to keep malls safe for patrons. But there’s no reason to bother people who aren’t bothering anyone.

Besides, you’d think by now mall security guards would be used to seeing scruffy guys with 5 days of stubble and Legend of Zelda hoodies, lol.” Source

21. Just Because I’m Female Doesn’t Mean I’m A Lady Of The Night

“I am a truck driver. A big rig, not a pickup truck.

Although there are a handful of women truck drivers its still mostly a man’s world when it comes to truck driving. Years ago when I first started out I hired on with a company hauling tomatoes. It was semi-local driving within my home state and I got home about every other day.

One day I was headed home with my empty trailers (pulling doubles) and I started getting really sleepy so I decided that at the next rest stop I would pull off and get me a ‘power nap’. The rest stop was full with no place to park inside so I ended up pulling off on the side of the freeway entrance ramp as you leave the rest stop. When I parked there were no other trucks around me.

However, an hour later when I awoke I noticed that more trucks had parked around me. This posed a problem because I was going to have to back up in order to get out. You can’t back up doubles. At least most drivers can’t… including myself. The only thing to do was to go ask the driver parked in front of me if he could pull up enough so I could get around him. I knocked on the driver’s door of his truck and waited. It took him a bit to answer and I could tell that I had woken him up. He rolled his window down about halfway and before I could say anything he barked at me rudely “I’m sleeping and I don’t want no date!” Rolled the window up and disappeared back into the sleeper.

I stood there for a couple of minutes trying to wrap my head around what I just heard him say to me.

Regardless I had to get him to move his truck so I knocked again. This time he was very angry and yells at me thru the window “I told you I don’t want anything you are selling. You ****** are bad enough at the truck stops and now you are taking over the rest stops too!” He thought I was a lot lizard… a truck stop prostitute. Now I was p*ssed off. I told him “Wait just a minute! I am no wh*re! I am the driver of that KW pulling the doubles and you got me pinned in. You need to move your **** truck or I will be here bugging you until you do.” He looked back at my truck and said “give me a minute” no apology.

But he did move so I could get out. I learned early on in my truck driving career to not let stuff like that bother me because like I said before I was a woman doing a man’s job in a mostly all-male profession. It’s not as bad as all that anymore but don’t think for a minute that the good ole boy network is a thing of the past. It isn’t.” Source

hours a week to 12 hours a week. I didn’t really care though I was leaving the halfway house in 6 more days anyway.” Source

20. I am NOT Catering Staff Just Because I Look Young

“Shortly after graduating with my master’s degree, I got a very good job at a small engineering firm.

I’d been working there about a year when a co-worker and I traveled to the nearby big city for a seminar on the changing seismic codes.

Since this was a seminar on the updated codes, all the other engineers taking the class were older engineers. Younger engineers already learned about the new codes in school. This was specifically a seminar for people who hadn’t been to school in a while and needed a refresher. So, I really didn’t need to attend that seminar, but my boss wanted to make sure I was fully trained, and since he was paying all my expenses at the fancy hotel where the seminar was held, I wasn’t going to complain.

It was an all-day seminar, and I got there early.

It was held in one of the hotel’s banquet halls, and they had a spread already laid out for the attendees. There was a continental breakfast, coffee dispensers, pastries, etc. I was just perusing the food selection when an older man approached.

“Excuse me,” he said. “There’s no more coffee.”

“Oh?” I said. “Well, thanks for letting me know.” I genuinely thought he was just warning me about the coffee. So, I went back to looking at the fruit selection.

“Miss,” he interrupted. “Did you not understand me? I said there’s no more coffee.”

“No, I understood.” Again, I thought he was kindly warning me. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning to drink any.”

“Well, I should hope not. Are you going to do anything about it?”

“I don’t see what I could…” Suddenly, I realized that he thought I worked here as catering staff.

I was slightly annoyed by the implication, but I figured it was no harm. After all, the seminar was mostly for older engineers, and he probably wouldn’t expect someone in their early twenties to attend. Besides, my professional attire didn’t look that far off from what a formal server might wear. “Look, I don’t work here,” I told him. “I’m here to attend the seminar.”

“Right, sure.” He obviously didn’t believe me. But just then some actual catering staff started replacing the coffee it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t with them. I thought he might apologize, since I obviously didn’t work for the catering company, but instead, he turned to me and said; “Look if you’re going to crash a banquet to try and score free food, don’t try crashing a place where you obviously don’t belong.”

My jaw dropped.

I knew I would be younger than the other engineers attending, but I didn’t think I would stand out that much. Just then, I swung around to look at the other attendees. Not only was I the only person in the room under 40, I was also very obviously the only person of the female persuasion. Apparently, this complete clod didn’t even think I could be an engineer.

Now, normally I would sit toward the back and keep my head down, especially since this was a seminar I didn’t really need. But not today.

I sat at the front of the hall. I made sure everyone could see me. And guess what? Since I had already covered this material in grad school, I knew every single answer to every single question.

So I sat there I raised my hand every single time the instructor asked anything, and he usually called on me, since most of the older gentlemen didn’t know the new codes yet. I got every single answer right.

It was probably silly, and I probably didn’t need to prove anything to that one idiot. But I just couldn’t help but feel I needed to make a point that I belonged.” Source

19. We’re Both In The Same Boat, But Your Decision-Making Process Makes No Sense

“I worked at Texas Roadhouse when I was in a halfway house called Transitions. Texas Roadhouse employed several other residents of the halfway house, I’m sure it was because of the tax breaks and incentives from employing convicted felons.

The General Manager was a convicted felon also. He was charged with vehicular homicide for killing a pedestrian while driving under the influence of alcohol. I was kind of glad to hear that. I wasn’t glad that he killed an individual, I just thought he would be more inclined to understand my situation.

I’m doing the interview with him and he asked: “What’s the crime that you are currently in the halfway house for?” I said, “Intent to Distribute”, “Trafficking in hard ***** over 8 ozs”, “Trafficking in addictive ***** over 15 gs.” This ******* moron then proceeded to ask me “How do I know you’re not going to start flooding my restaurant with that ****?” We were sitting 15 ft from a bar.

I was going to ask him “how does the family of the man you killed know you’re not going to drink at the bar and plow down someone else in their family?”

A guy that I befriended at the halfway house gave me a good reference and I didn’t want to do or say anything that could reflect badly on him. I just said, “I’m housed in a halfway house I’m seeking real employment.” He did eventually hire me about 3 weeks later. I think it was more because of needing someone really bad. He was giving a speech during orientation and he said his salary the past year with bonuses and everything was 75,000. I leaned over to my buddy from the halfway house that got hired too and said I’ve made that in three months before.

I was getting ready to start a job that paid 7.75 an hour though.

He never really treated me like he thought I was not as intelligent as him. He just never could comprehend that booze is an addictive substance too. I’ve never killed anyone under the influence. I served more time for my drug charges than he did on vehicular homicide. How f*cked up is that? I was in my 9th month of employment when I was working on the Fourth of July after everything was cleaned up he came walking back to the dish area with 4 huge mixed drinks. He told us all to take one.” I said I can’t because the halfway house administers a breath test every time we come in.

He said, “You will shoot **** in your veins but won’t drink booze?” I said, “they are both mind-altering substances that pretty much means they are the same thing”. He said, “boozes is legal though”. I said, “When some f*kstick under the influence wipes out some family while he’s drinking and driving do you really think the remaining family members give a **** if it’s an illegal illicit street drug or legally purchased booze”? I went from 36 hours a week to 12 hours a week. I didn’t really care though I was leaving the halfway house in 6 more days anyway.” Source

18. Give Us Crappy Service From The Start? You Better Start Apologizing

“Went on a work trip with my Significant Other (SO) which we extended for a mini-vacation and stayed at a nice hotel. Let’s call it “W” to not really obfuscate it.

SO was a very educated licensed professional who included “Dr.” as her honorific, and I’m just a guy who happened to have been the project manager for another of the hotel chain’s recent major projects, so I’d spent significant portions of the prior year on the phone with their corporate execs.

I’m excited to see another one of their properties and stay there vs work in the building. I’ve also worked in high-value security and in high fashion.

SO was a quite pretty woman in quite stylish but not gaudy clothes, me very functional, comfortable, and not inexpensive workwear- we weren’t in “designer brands” but were wearing a reasonable car down-payment between us. If you were fiscally profiling and good at it, you’d drool over us. If you’re good at fiscal profiling, well…

We enter the lobby and stand in front of the desk clerk. And wait, and wait. Someone else walks up and is helped, random guy in driving moccasins walks up and gets helped… gaudy lady in Tyvek wind suit walks past us and get service.

We get ignored. I finally walk up and ask SnootyClerk (SC) in knock off designer clothes if we could check in…. and shortly after am referred to as “Dr. xxx” after saying SO’s name as a reservation. I explain no, that’s her, who you’ve been ignoring…

Litany of poor hotel management and poor service cut short: SO gets hit on by the shuttle driver, the pool is turned off for no reason, there is no potable water in the hotel (in theory provide bottled water, which we don’t get), the second day our room has a sodden wet carpet in the bedroom (as in standing water were it not a deep carpet), there were hairs on the counter of the room when we checked in, the couch faces a wall with no way to view the TV as you sit down.

Each of these elements we’d noted to the front desk and SC had pooh-poohed them. Those are highlights.

Finally, on our last night there, my SO said she liked the robes and wanted to take one home. I called the desk to inform them we’d be taking one and to include it on our bill, we were OK with the washed room one and didn’t need a new one. Each floor has a different color piping trim and SO happened to like that one. SC informed us that was impossible, and they’d send us a new one in white once we got home.

This hotel chain prides itself on “anytime anywhere anything” concierge service. We weren’t getting it. At all. So I called the flagship (another state) concierge’s number and asked if we could keep the robe, they said certainly, and I gave them our room number…. They realized that we weren’t in their building, we talked a little, they were very nice, I name-dropped corporate exec’s at their location a little and said they’d call local to confirm we were all set and be sure to say hi to X and Y for me tomorrow.

3 minutes later a very angry SC calls me back to say it’s impossible. I tell her I’d like to speak to the general manager and she says it’s impossible, they’re asleep, and I respond no, you will call them and I will speak to them immediately. She hangs up.

10 minutes later we have a knock on our door, and there is Snooty Clerk with 2 security guys the size of tanks in 3 piece suits. I welcome them into the room, and SC starts to tell me why she hadn’t called the manager. I tell her “Shut up, you’re the problem”, and I turn to their Head of Security, and very calmly state:

“Is it your local policy to send armed guards to a room when a clerk has refused customer service direction from corporate and a customer has requested actual management? – I’m going to piece by piece tell you how poor a job this woman has done, and what craptastic service we’ve received from your company, and then you’re going to apologize to me.”

Security backup guy fluffs up, I glare at him and he turns into a mouse (I still have a bit of command presence when needed).

Head of security is surprised but recognized that I was not a problem he wants to have – particularly if I wasn’t fazed by him being armed and had called him out on it is not necessary and that I might have a point.

Backup guy gauges the situation turns around and leaves without being asked, and Head of Security ***** his head at me with opened hands and asks me to explain.

I list off for 15 detailed minutes how SC had incorrectly fiscally profiled us, including a line-item cost for every person in the rooms clothes, and why her knockoffs weren’t even good ones (which left her jaw on the floor and her very embarrassed) and explained point by meticulous point how she and other hotel staff had delivered poor service over and over the entire stay.

I complimented him on his tailoring on his suit, recommending a slightly different cut so his primary and backup didn’t print as much, and finished up that the ONLY two redeeming things from the stay so far was his politely listening and me getting to see a particular designer lamp in the room I’d not previously seen in person.

SC starts to sheepishly talk and make excuses, and the Head of Security calmly tells her, “Leave.” He says that it’s not his place to apologize, but that we certainly have not received the level of service that the company expects to deliver and that he was personally disappointed and he’s sorry that we had to deal with that, and he’s sorry that he’d been called in, but hoped he could prevent any further disappointments.

He’ll be sending up a bottle of champagne, and he’ll make sure we get a brand new robe of that floor’s color, overnighted and he’ll follow up with everyone appropriately, including the night manager, general manager, and corporate offices (which I’d not mentioned to him other than I’d worked on another of their locations).

We fly home to find a handwritten letter of apology from SC on corporate stationery (same-day delivery, it beat us home) and the next day finds a package of (2) robes and a brand new version of the very nice lamp I’d mentioned with an apology note for its delay in shipping, along with 2 days of our 4 days stay charge refunded. I think the lamp was worth more than a week’s stay, but I’m sure they had some in storage for replacing damaged ones.” Source

17. Assume I Plagiarized? No Way, Bucko, I’m Actually THAT Good

“I grew up in a very small town.

We had a two-room schoolhouse with two teachers. One taught grades 1-4 and the other taught 5-8. Kids that left our school were stereotyped as under-educated, lacking the basic fundamentals of learning and were noncompetitive in sports. In reality, we all were pretty smart kids, just unaccepted among our peers that came out of the larger elementary schools.

When I got to high school, I was not the first person expected to make the National Honor Society. I, admittedly, was a bit of a class clown, a general wise guy, and a bit of a “cut-up.” School wasn’t my number one interest, baseball was! Having said that, I only placed enough interest in my required classes to maintain a grade high enough to keep me on the ball field.

One day, I realized that my English grade was in need of improvement. My teacher had assigned us an essay. We could pick the subject and it had to be at least 2,000 words. I decided to write about autumn in Vermont. Knowing that I had to do a good job on it, I rolled up my sleeves and poured my heart and soul into writing a good essay that I thought would do the trick.

The following week we got our essays back. To my surprise, MINE was given an “F” grade with the word “Plagiarized” on it with a big circle. I was shocked.

I decided to find out why I had been flunked by confronting my teacher after class. He and I had not had a warm relationship from the beginning but I never thought it was anything to worry about until now! When I finally asked the question he told me that he felt that I copied it.

His exact words were “Look! We BOTH know that you are incapable of writing anything that good. You have never shown any talent of that nature whatsoever. Did you think I would ever believe you wrote that?”

I was totally p*ssed. I demanded that I get a transfer from his class and I followed up with a visit to the guidance office. They granted the request and I got my transfer. For the next few weeks, I seethed with anger toward the former instructor who passed judgment on me. It wasn’t until I really got into the new class that I decided that I had something to prove. From that point on, I put my best foot forward. I wrote poetry, came up with short stories, sharpened my writing skills, and scored high on every assignment from that day until my graduation in 1973.

Before I graduated, my newest teacher took me aside and told me that if I ever chose another career outside of writing, I would have “missed my calling.” I felt really proud.

I never went on to be a professional writer but I still enjoy writing poetry and short story as a hobby. I no longer despise the old teacher who branded me as a loser. In fact, I owe him a bit of gratitude for lighting a candle under my a*s. Not only did I graduate with a straight “A” report card in my senior year, but I was also awarded an Award in English, which I proudly pointed at him as I left the graduation platform.

Take THAT, Mr. Brettis!” Source

16. Just Another Day In The Life Of A Female Engineer

“I’m kind of an idiot savant when it comes to computers and wide-area networks.

I see patterns in things where other people don’t even see things. This is only a learned skill in that I had to take some classes to understand how computers work and how to talk to them, but the rest of it is a mystery. The only way I can explain it is that they sing to me, and where the notes are flat is where we’re going to find a problem. It’s a great parlor trick, but basically useless in everyday life. Pays well, though.

As a field manager, I was responsible for assembling and deploying and managing teams of experts in various types of equipment and protocols to customer sites to fix “broken” networks.

Our customers would call in and open trouble tickets with descriptions like, “My network is broken but it worked fine yesterday” [Really? What did you change?] or “Sri Lanka is down” [Really? Wasn’t your server farm buried by a mudslide yesterday? After the tsunami?] or “All my nodes are red in Network Manager” [Really? Did somebody trip over the RJ-45 cable again?]

Most of the problems could be handled over the phone by talking them through some simple troubleshooting and occasionally logging in remotely to run some diagnostics, but we all dreaded the terrible Packet Storm calls, and for some reason, they always came in from military and/or financial networks with the guaranteed 2-hour response time.

Aside: For the uninitiated, computers communicate by sending little packets of data back and forth. If I am a computer and you are a computer, I send you a packet, you respond with “Hey, thanks! I got it!” and I respond with, “Hallelujah!” and send another packet. Back and forth, back and forth all day long. Millions upon millions of packets. Billions of packets.

But a packet storm happens when I send a packet, and I don’t get your response [Note to pedantic purists – Yes – yes – this is simplified] so I wait a bit and re-send the packet. I still don’t get your response, so I keep sending the same packet, and you keep sending the same response, and meanwhile, the router(s) at your end are desperately searching for a way to get your responses to me, and they find a route that they think will work, so they forward your response there, except there is me, so now I’m not only sending packets, I’m getting my own packets back.

Times billions of packets.

No one in the affected part of the network can communicate at all. Usually, they can’t even log in.

Visual: Imagine the Los Angeles Freeway system with thousands of on-ramps and no exits. That’s a packet storm.

Anyway, these Network Administrators would call in a packet storm, and we’d have to deploy people instantly to go to the site (once they were in the air, we’d met our contractually obligated 2-hour response because we were on our way), on the theory that if they could figure it out themselves, they would have.

So when this one military installation which must remain nameless had such a storm, we got a team of six expert engineers in the air and on-site in a few hours, and after a couple of hours of looking for a failed (or misconfigured) router among the hundreds of routers that were deployed at that site, they called and told me, “We can’t find it.

We need you.”

Long story short, when I arrived at the airport, I took a cab to the site and was greeted at Reception by a chubby cowboy type with a deep southern drawl. I told him that I was there to meet with the team from [X Company], and he looked me up and down, put a sweaty arm around my shoulders, and said, “Oh, Honey – those boys are really having a tough time back there. The last thing they need is a pretty little girl distracting them. Why don’t I buy you a cup of coffee, and you can wait right here until they’re done.”

As a “girl engineer” who dealt almost exclusively with military types, I was used to this, so I asked if he could at least alert “Paul” that I had arrived, which he was kind enough to do.

I heard later that he was somewhat surprised when “the boys” **** near knocked him flat in their rush to get me in there.

The “boys” (they hated that!) had already done much of the process-of-elimination work, so it took about 30 minutes to pin down the exact location of the faulty router and replace it. I never got an apology from Mr. Chubby Drawl. And I can’t even take any credit for it. It’s a gift.”  Source

15. I Don’t Want Your Half Sandwich, Thank You Very Much

“Most people in our office eat out for lunch every day and even pick up food from the cafe for breakfast each morning. When I first started people would ask me all the time if I wanted to go out to lunch with them or I wanted them to bring me something back.

Almost every time my answer would be no under both circumstances.

I have now been with the company and in the same dept for almost 4 years and at some point they stopped asking me. Instead, they took to spreading rumors about my finances. So I am not a sharp dresser and if I could away with wearing flip flops (not allowed in the office) I would, I just barely started wearing make up a year ago on a daily basis and wearing my hair down instead of it always being in a bun.

The people that I am referring to are the ones that wear expensive makeup, and dress really nice and are constantly talking about what party they went to over the weekend.

December 2017 our company announced that they would be giving Christmas bonuses for the first time, and we got it before Christmas that year. Well, the next year (2018) they decided they were not going to give it to us until after the holidays. 95% of the staff in my dept freaked out, depending on this money to get through the holidays. Which to me was crazy because it was never guaranteed that we would get it again or if we would get it before Christmas. People around here were in a panic and every day it was the only conversation flowing through the dept.

Well, one day after lunch, I went back to my desk after lunch and there was half of the sandwich on my desk.

I asked the person who I knew to put it there (because I saw her eating the other half) why she put it there and she said that she knows that I cannot afford to eat lunch and did not want me to keep going without lunch everyday and she knew that I could not afford to have lunch.

My first thought was *** and had to stop myself from saying it out loud in the office. I did my best to be respectful but to lay it all down for her. Again I had heard that people were under the impression that I was broke. I nicely told her that I appreciate the thoughtfulness that my finances are non of her business, that just because I don’t eat lunch does not mean I am too broke to afford it but 1.) I am never hungry during that time of day 2.) Don’t judge a book by its cover (I have lots of tattoos by the way) 3.

If she would like to compare bank account statements I would be glad to do so.

I really did not think I owed her any explanation but I felt to let her know I don’t spend my money frivolously and if at any time I wanted food I am in a position to get it I just chose not to. That I was one of a handful of people who were not concerned when the bonus money would be sent to us because it was not going to affect my holidays and what I was able to do for my family.

I let her know that I did not appreciate the petty rumors because they were starting to become to frequent that if she had a concern about my well being she should have asked me.

I think at some point I started to get annoyed by the audacity about all of it and started pointing out other stuff. How I like my 10-year-old paid-off car, and I don’t need to spend $50 on lipstick to feel complete blah blah blah. I told her I can teach her how to treat her savings account like another bill that allows me to put away $700 in savings each month. But by all means, I don’t live like a poor person, I just don’t spend my money on things that are necessary to me.” Source

14. Told You I Paid Rent On Time

“When I was going to university, I chose to live in apartments with friends rather than living on campus.

For various reasons, we moved around as nicer apartments became available and roommates graduated or dropped out or whatever. I’d moved up to Houston with one of my friends from high school, and we were long-time roommates during these years. I swear, for our third apartment, we had searched every listing, and they had all been either too crappy or too expensive. The very last place on our list was within walking distance of our first apartment, and they ended up having a split-level 2BR/2 living room – we had plenty of get-togethers, so we didn’t actually put a table in the dining room. We put another couch there, so it was really 3 living rooms. Needless to say, the last place on our list was our choice, and we leased the place on the spot.

My friend eventually stopped working and went off to trade school himself, leaving me alone for the first time in the big city. I chose to keep the big apartment for myself.  I was in my very early 20s, so I commuted back and forth from my hometown to Houston often. It was sometimes a pain to get the rent dropped off in time; this was before apartments accepted credit/debit cards (I don’t know if they do now, but something has to have changed).

I took a break from UH in the middle to spend some time doing what I wanted, and when I went back to my hometown, I never had a set schedule. I stayed there until I got tired of it and then went back to Houston, where I stayed as long as I wanted until I got tired of it and went back to see my other friends in my hometown.

I’d never been late on my rent. Now, my roommate may have been a couple of times. Usually, I would just spot him, but we didn’t see each other every day of the year, so it’s possible I dropped my half off and left, and he didn’t pay his half on time.

Scroll forward to when the place was all my own. One time, I chose to mail my check to the apartment complex; I had plenty of time. I didn’t want to go back to Houston just yet, so I just dropped the check in the mail and went back to my “smoking green” lifestyle.

I got back, for whatever reason, a few days after the first of whatever month that was when I got the proverbial cops knocking at the front door sound; opened the door, and there stood two apartment complex office gals with one of them accusing me of not paying the rent.

I told her that I had mailed the check-in, and I would go check my bank statement to see if the check had been cashed. This was back when we had DSL at best; it might still have just been dialup. Unsure.  It was going to take a bit.

This girl proceeded to raise her voice and speak to me as if I were scum. She said she had been walking around the apartment complex doing this for a while, and she knew when people were lying. She said I would be evicted if I didn’t pay the rent plus the late fee immediately.

I slammed the door in her face.

I went upstairs and printed off my bank statement, and then went to see the apartment manager.  I had a good relationship with this lady.

It wasn’t her job to be rude to tenants, and I mean – I understand – perhaps, from a collections standpoint, it was the collector girl’s job to be stern with non-paying lessees. Though, perhaps, she had been a bit overzealous.

I sat down at the manager’s desk, and she pulled up my account on her computer. I tried to look at what it showed and she admonished me, in a rather kind way, by saying, “No. This is for my eyes, not yours.”

Okay.

By that time, we/I had been renting the place for a couple of years, and I pointed out that I had never been late on my rent. That, basically, I lived in two places, and that this month I had chosen to mail in my rent check for the first time.

I had called to notify them that it would be in the mail and to make sure that this was an okay way to pay.  That had all been cleared.  However, she told me, they had not received the check.

I verified with her that I’d checked my bank account and the check had not been cashed.

It was then after 5 pm. I asked her, “What do I need to do to make this right?”

The manager told me that she had no reason to disbelieve me, but that tenants often had reasons for why their rent had not been paid on time, and beyond that, my late fee would just continue to increase if I waited for the mail to arrive.

I said I could walk across the street to Walmart and get the cash out of the ATM if she wanted, but that I was not happy with the treatment I had received by the girl who knocked on my door.

The banks were closed, so my only choice would be to go get a grand out of some out-of-network ATM machine. She said that would work.

So I went across and stood there at that machine, pulling out increments of the amount I needed because the ATM would not just spit out $1,000, or whatever it was, in one transaction. It wanted to do it in small increments so it could charge more fees, which my bank would then reciprocally charge against me, of course, because the machine was not in-network.

I brought the cashback over to her and paid her, and expressed, again, how upset I was over this treatment.  The late fee would not be waived.

About 15 minutes after I got back to my apartment, I heard another – this time, less noisy – rapping at my chamber door.

It was the girl who previously had been so rude to me. The manager had sent her back to my apartment because she’d found my rent check on her desk. She’d misplaced it; it had been received on time. I had done nothing wrong, and – of course – the manager was now embarrassed.

I went back to see the manager.

She immediately apologized for the mixup, and I stopped her. I handed her the current printout from the bank I had the checking account from which I had written the check and asked her to look at the bottom.

The bottom is where it listed the investment holdings, which showed a six-figure aggregate balance.

I told her that her office had just made me incur service charges, not to mention the waste of my time, related to pulling out cash from some funky Walmart ATM; that I currently kept an apartment in Houston because I enjoyed it.

That, I’m sure, I’d done bad things in my life, but one thing I had never been was a thief, or a liar.  I had called ahead to say that my rent check would be in the mail, and still, they lost it, in the office, and now I had some quasi-lost check, which I would have to pay $30 to stop payment on, and I’d paid a late fee when I wasn’t late.

I appreciated that she’d sent the same person to my door to hand me the check, but I expected to be reimbursed for the late fees, the ATM service fees, the stop payment charge; and, that in the future, if this happened again, I would consider it a breach of our lease agreement and they could find someone else to occupy their apartment.

She called the office assistant back in to apologize to me again.

I also walked away with a check for my true expenses, and for the made-up expenses, I claimed.

Because of my holdings with the bank, I didn’t have to pay for stop payments on checks. I didn’t have to pay the bank’s side of the out-of-network ATM fees.

These were the perks I had. However, you could print off, with ease, the fee schedule for the bank, and it showed $30 for stop payments and $2-$4, whatever it was, for each ATM transaction.

I walked out of there about $50 richer, which I considered ample compensation for what I was made to do.

I didn’t lie. I submitted an invoice for intangibles. – The manager paid without any questions.” Jared

13. When An Important Email Is Sent To Drafts And I’m Not CC’d, I Shouldn’t Get Blamed

“I’ve been working in Software Support for about five years.

I’m a pretty quick study and have developed strong relationships with Prod, R&D, and Infrastructure as well as Business Partners. I have moved into a management position where now I’m assisting in making more of a difference in how things move forward.

I was looking at my email one day and noticed that my drafts folder had something in it. Our company was using MS Outlook at the time, Drafts is not in your Inbox it’s near to the deleted folder. I looked at the email and noted that my name wasn’t one of the addressees. Being a natural tester, I asked a friend of mine to email something to a group and BCC me because I wanted to see if I’d been privately copied on that particular thread that I had no recollection of reading much less attempting to respond to.

The BCC looked different from the email that was showing up in my drafts and was, frankly, none of my business, though not necessarily a security risk, so I forwarded it to our internal information security for review and let them know the testing I’d performed, hadn’t even read the email and they should look deeper into it because next time, I or someone else may find something in their Drafts folder that shouldn’t be there.

30 minutes later, I receive a response from them that emails get into the drafts folder when you hit reply, in this case, I just must have hit reply all and I must have been BCC’d.

Since they hadn’t bothered to read any of the information that I’d provided and I did my due diligence on it, I let it go.

Fast forward 2 months, all of a sudden a bunch of people are missing entire email threads. I logged a help desk ticket when it happened to me and I included a LOT of detail, I provided steps for how I found a lost email thread that I had not hard deleted and recovered it as well as dates and times of emails that I still couldn’t find using those steps. I got a request from one of the help desk guys to share my screen and have a visit so I talked him through my steps and showed him what I’d recovered and forwarded that to him so he could get the metadata etc. He used my input to provide as a workaround for other people hit by this.

He was all too happy for the abundance of information that I provided to him, by the way, this is how I handle any and all support cases so it’s not new to me but Help Desk usually receives tickets that say something like, “I lost an email” with no detail or time or anything. I get it, I’ve been working in software support for five years.

But it was so unusual that I mentioned to him the email that had landed in my drafts folder that I knew I hadn’t read. He too thought that I’d read the email and accidentally dragged it over to my drafts folder. After all that I’d shown him. It hurt man. But he did humor me since I had proven to him that I know a thing or five.

Anyway, I forwarded that email to him, attached the less than stellar response from the help desk, and told him to hav*e at it*.

It turned* out to be a* big ****** deal. I was never a recipient on that email thread, it wasn’t until they saw, that they realized how wide open for secure information this was proven as and they had to take immediate steps to correct it.

What boggles my mind in all of this is the amount of effort I went through just to prove to myself that there was something wrong and when I had proven that, I provided my well-written documentation and they didn’t even glance at it.” Source

12. I Actually Do Know Exactly What I’m Doing, You Just Don’t Know Better

“Where I live, in rural Portugal, I’m known as being the wife of the local doctor (GP/ physician).

Some people know that I teach English, and often assume that my only qualification is being English, or that I have a first (undergraduate) degree in English.

At one point, I was taking care of the condominium accounts, after the company who was supposed to be managing it had stopped doing the accounts and paying the bills, complaining that inhabitants of the condo never paid. So I took over, (despite being in the middle of my Ph.D. at the time and working). I paid the bills, got the electricity re-connected, persuaded people to pay their fees, and sorted out the accounts. I discovered that the management company had been doing a very bad job of keeping track of people’s payments and organizing the accounts.

The first thing that happened was the management company phoned me up and said that the condominium still owed them money, and would I go over? So I did. I faced this tall, arrogant man waving his finger at me and shouting about how much money we owed.

“Let’s just go through the accounts, shall we?” I said and systematically went through the debits and the credits.

In Portugal, there are is a widespread lack of levels of skills and qualifications, so it didn’t surprise me when the arrogant man got confused. I patiently explained it to him, and as I did so, he deflated like a balloon, shrinking into his seat as he sat hunched over the papers trying to understand it.

“So, in the end, you owe us money, not the other way round” I finished. And with a pop, his ego was gone. As I left him staring at the paper, I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

Then we had a meeting of the condominium inhabitants.

There was one particularly obnoxious man, a police sergeant, always half-drunk at that time of day, red-faced and oily haired, who was always aggressively critical of anything any condominium management did, with the main objective of not paying his fees.

As I went through the accounts, he sneered, “You don’t know anything about how to do accounts.”

“Well, really, what do you think is wrong?” I asked, refusing to be riled.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, you know nothing about this type of thing”

“Erm, actually, did you know that I have a degree in Economics? And I’ve worked in accountancy too? Your problem is not my ignorance, but yours, and that you just don’t want to pay.”

For once he had nothing left to say.” Source

11. Don’t Recognize Me All Cleaned Up Even Though We Work Together All The Time?

“During my landscaping days, while I was the designer I also worked alongside the crew to make sure the artistry got into the installation.

I got filthy alongside the men, I rolled down muddy banks, got soaking wet during irrigation installation, and bought all parts and materials from various vendors. I had a set of well-known vendors where I could get all of our favorite parts and I had been doing this for many years. During one of our rare “down times” I decided I had better go round “my” vendors and hand out some business cards to see if I could drum up some business. I got dressed up all pretty, did my hair nicely, and put makeup on. I went to our most favorite plumbing suppliers and asked the manager who I had known for years if he would hand out some of my cards and did he mind if I put one of them on his notice board.

He said, “No, you can’t! After you have done business here for a couple of years and we know your work, then we will hand out your business cards, come back in a couple of years with some projects under your belt!” And he walked away! I was devastated, I went back to my friend’s car and I was silent and almost crying. She was very sympathetic and as we drove on told me not to be hurt, that these things happen when you are in business for yourself. I got out of the car at a store and when my friend watched me walk back to the car she said, “I know what went wrong in the plumber’s suppliers” I looked at her incredulously, “What?”, said I.

“HE DIDN’T RECOGNISE YOU ALL CLEAN AND DRESSED UP! She said. That was it! Oh geez a weight lifted off my mind and I was no longer depressed, of course, he had never seen me cleaned up, he had only seen me soaking wet and muddy. When I went back to the store a couple of weeks later, all was patched up and business as usual.” Source

10. Never Judge A Person By Their Shoes

“Over the years, I have occasionally gone to an investment event at the Yale Club in Manhattan. At any time, there will be tens of billions of dollars of capital in the crowd – in the form of 250 or so people. It costs thousands to get in and network.

Being the black sheep that I am, even though it is a mostly black-tie event, I usually wear a jacket that stands out from the crowd… This particular year, I was also wearing black basketball pants and a purple polo, with orange track shoes, and my plaid, gold, blue, and white suit jacket. I really didn’t have time to go to this one, as I was just passing through town.

While I was standing in line to check-in, a much older, obviously more sophisticated dude in front of me turned around, looked me up and down, scoffed, and leaned in towards the gentleman next to him and said, “I thought this was supposed to be a private event. I guess they let anyone in now.” He then looked at my shoes, and scoffed again.

We took our seats, got on with the event, and we would catch eyes here and there over the next few hours.

Towards the end of the event, the baller dude that puts the event together had his son go up and talk about the nonprofit he was working on. His son then thanked, ME, and had me stand up – for helping him build his brand, and all 250 – 300 people in the room started clapping while searching for who just stood.

The guy started clapping before he realized who he was clapping for.
Once everyone finished clapping, he made his way out of the event. After realizing I had a relationship with the family in charge, I am sure he wanted to save himself the embarrassment of anyone ever finding out what he said, and then answering for it.” Source

9. We Got Invited To The Worst Reception EVER And Then Got Propositioned For A Terrible Job

“We were invited to a wedding reception for a ‘kindergarten through mid-school’ friend of my husband and his new wife at the restaurant owned by the friend.

I had never met either of them.

The party was in the undecorated dining area, with the tables and chairs and booths as usual. The lighting was very dim, and I never saw anything bridal at all, including the bride!

When we walked in, we were each handed a glass of water, the only refreshment of the evening. A family member accepted the monetary gift envelope and then disappeared. We had to find a seat anywhere we could.

We were there at the time specified (dinner time), but it seemed as though the food was not going to be offered (It wasn’t).

We were confused. This is NOT the Thai way when it comes to parties. Food and drink are in abundance, and loud music and chatter are the norm.

The bridegroom appeared out of the darkness and greeted my husband warmly. We asked if we were late or…? and were told we were on time.

Then he led us to an area off the main room, saying he had wanted to talk to us.

He got to it with no polite conversation. He was going to open a language school and had decided I would be the teacher. He spoke to my husband, barely glancing at me as he detailed his wonderful plans. It was impossible to interrupt him.

At the time of this conversation, I was working full-time as a teacher supervisor at a large language school and part-time in the Business English communications unit of the top-rated Thai business university.

He knew none of this, nor did he ask.

Then, to seal the deal in his mind, he announced quite proudly TO MY HUSBAND that he would kindly (oh, yes, he DID say that!) pay me 1,000 baht ($40) A DAY (for a 10-hour day).

He was called away for a moment. Husband was well-aware of how I was feeling. We had a short discussion.

Mr. Bridegroom reappeared with a look of smugness? Conceit? sure that no one had ever offered me so much money.

He, again, looks to my husband for a response but was surprised when hubby said it was my decision.

The man FINALLY looks directly at me, still sure of himself.

“So, you would like me to work 10 hours a day? Are you expecting me to manage the school?”

“Of course not.

That is my job or maybe someone else I choose.” (Stupid question, Woman!)

“And you will pay me 1,000 baht A DAY just to teach?” (A look of annoyance crosses his face as he nods.)

“Well, it was so kind of you to think of me, but I make 1,200 baht AN HOUR where I part-time teach.” (I said this gently.)

He was stunned and then angry, as if the conversation and his embarrassment was my fault.

He left without a word.

Note: None of this was normal Thai behavior, except perhaps the under-estimating of pay. However, none of the business people I know would have been so far off.” Source

8. Doctor Doesn’t Always Know Best

“Well, I’m going to make this short and sweet.

About 10 years ago, I was living with a.. fiancee, who had an 18 mo old boy, and a 5-year-old girl.

I had been doing electrical maintenance work and had been in a few nasty places, recently.

A “pimple”, where I had scratched my arm became infected. In a matter of days, I began losing the function of my hand.

I went to an Urgent Care center for treatment, one located near dahn-tahn Pittsburgh, where those less fortunate often seek medical attention.

That very day, there was a visiting GP, and I was lucky enough not to have to continue on to an ER.

She examined me, pronounced it to be an undetermined strain of staph.

She drained my, now, two infections, and prescribed sulfamethoxazole- kind of our last defense, as bacteria are becoming very –cillin resistant.

She was curt, as she worked, and obviously did not believe in the niceties of the “bed-side” manner.

This didn’t bother me, as she perfunctorily, and efficiently attended to what needed to be done.

When she had finished, she went and washed up before returning.

As I was now treated, and with a fresh script in hand, I began to turn, but, niggling, was a concern about my fiancee’s children.

I was terrified, that one of them might get the infection from my draining, but bandaged wounds.

I asked her: “How should I protect the children?”

She shot back: “They’re fine.”

I said: “But..”

“They’re FINE!”

“Aaaaah..”

“Mr.Miller, when you take the first pill, staph is effectively sterile. It can no longer reproduce”

It was said in that disparaging tone that your “betters” use when admonishing a miscreant.

It was condescending, to say the least.

Now, I am an autodidact.

I finished my mother’s Biology 101 book at the age of 9 yrs old.

I am not a proud man.

However, the rage seethed up inside me.

As it turns out, it was a “free-clinic day, and there were cardiologists, GP’s, Surgeons, radiologists, and a whole slew of highly trained visiting medical professionals.

I stood, for a moment, boiling over, and finally, loudly and clearly, said, for the whole waiting room (I hadn’t noticed the gaggle of Surgeons that had just emerged from the exam room):

Her full name and credentials, and then the full lie, that she had just uttered.

Not that one must have in-depth medical training to uncover this particular lie- a little logic is enough.

As I turned, I saw her mouth dropping open.

The gaggle of surgeons stopped mid-stride.

Their mouths dropped open.

I saw the horror dawning, as she looked at them, not me.

As my gaze traversed them, I saw their expressions change from consternation at me, to looking at “my” Dr. in disgust.

I pushed the door open and left her to explain.

I’ll bet that was fun.

I took the double dose to start the run, and quickly elevate the medicine’s concentration in the bloodstream, as directed.

Neither wound was open, exposed, or oozing, until being lanced and drained.

The scratch itself was disinfected immediately, and bandaged- it was never exposed.

Both were packed with antibiotic infused gauze.

Both were disinfected and bandaged.

I returned home to disinfect- which I did thoroughly, every night, after my shower, and again before bed- everything.

2-4 hrs per night.

My bandages were changed with every precaution, and the area was disinfected.

Her infection occurred near the end of my antibiotic run.

My second antibiotic run. The first run was 14 days.

I realized on the 12th day of the first run, that the infection was still creating a LOT of pus.

I returned to that Dr. to request that she address the issue- that was the first disrespect.

I was dumb if I thought that it was still creating pus.

I had to return one more time- this time saying nothing- two days after finishing the sulfa drug. She immediately prescribed another 21 day run.

So, you see, my fiancee could only have been(reasonably) infected by a “sterile” bacteria, according to some, and my “Dr.”.

Lol…

In other news- What is this magic, single staph-sterilizing pill?

Why does staph exist at all, since sulfa ***** were invented in ’35 by German scientists?” Source

7. I’m The One Who Is Working And You’re Telling Me You Make More Money?

“This was a few years ago, and I was working for a small “courtesy patrol” company in Washington State.

The company was small enough that we drove our own personal vehicles (with fuel and maintenance costs reimbursed by the company). At the time, I was driving a 2002 minivan, complete with strobing amber lights in all the windows. It was a perfect undercover vehicle for the job – as the windows were tinted (so you couldn’t see the lights if they were turned off at night) and no one expects the patrol officer to pull up in a minivan.

Anyway, I was patrolling the property and found a younger male sleeping on the porch of one of the buildings. Our instructions for this property (as with most of the properties we had) were to keep the homeless people off the property.

Being the decent guy that I am, I always treated everyone I dealt with with the same respect that I would want to be treated with. I woke this kid up and politely informed him that he could not stay where he was.

He started running his mouth at me about how he had to get up for work the next morning, and that he “probably made more in an hour than I did.”

My next patrol through, the kid was still there (although on a different part of the property). I didn’t even bother trying to wake him up. I just called the police and had him trespassed (which is what that particular property management wanted us to do anyway). Had he not been so mouthy the first time, I probably wouldn’t have trespassed him the second time.

I will say though, that for someone who “probably makes more money” … it’s funny that they were sleeping on some random porch, while the person who they supposedly made more money than flat out owned two vehicles and had a decent place to call home.

For those who might be wondering, I didn’t enjoy dealing with homeless people. Not because they were unusually rude or troublesome – they usually weren’t – but because I knew they already had it hard enough without us having to make them move. There were a few times where I have told someone “Hey, if you just move to that side of the fence, then I cannot bother you.” I generally had more problems with residents and their guests than I did the homeless.” James

6. It’s Not Supposed To Matter What You Look Like At The Bank, Or Does It?

“I had gone to play cricket and was looking all shabby and disheveled.

My wife had taken half-day off for bank work. After finishing the game, I picked her up on my bike. She was reluctant to come with me as I was in that condition, she complained about my attire but came with me nonetheless.

I was trying to make her understand, looks and clothes wouldn’t matter in the bank as long as you speak well and have enough money in a bank account. We took a coupon from the machine (teller) and sat down. There were a few people before us. A bank employee came with a book in his hand, earphones plugged in, tie loosely hung, and giving sales talk to someone on phone.

He spoke to everyone in English when my turn came, he spoke to me in Hindi.

I replied in Hindi. My answer pricked his ego and he turned to English, I too reverted to English. I could sense he was being rude because of my clothes. My wife was already upset with me because of it and that idiot proved it to her that her point was valid. He asked me to come out of the waiting area. I asked my wife to sit and went out. He raised his voice and asked me to talk properly. I told him in clear terms, I was behaving myself, if I had not been then I would have had slapped him for talking that rudely (It was insulting).

He stepped forward, I stepped forward, we were looking at each other eye to eye.

He was shorter than me but spoke much louder. A couple of bank employees came and intervened. Even though it was not our turn one bank employee took our query. He too looked at us in an irritated manner. We gave our documents, no sooner did he feed the account number in the system, than the whole scenario changed. He immediately asked for a beverage preference. Apologized on that staff member’s behalf, called him in and read the riot act in front of everyone. Staff apologized to me too but what he knew the damage had already been done. I had to revisit that incident every few days when I didn’t listen to my better half.” Ramesh

5. The Most Condescending Way To Pick Up A Woman

“Out at a club one night, many moons ago, having a drink with a friend while standing at the bar.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see an older guy, early 30s, (I was early 20s), inching his way over so he could hear our conversation. The friend I was with was from Queens, NY & had a city attitude. Here we are in the burbs & with her cockiness (not in a bad way ) & tattoos, she stood out in the club. Very beautiful girl both inside & out but she was used to protecting herself, she accomplished this by not acting like a tourist.

So this guy finally gets close enough to talk & he looks at me with a very serious face and starts telling me I am doing myself a disservice by associating with, as his finger points to my friend.

Really? I say sweetly, why??

He answered with a question….have you ever heard of the tattoo to teeth ratio? No, I reply as I feel myself get hot from anger). Him: “Don’t you want a good job so you can meet a man to take care of you? If you work at McDonald’s you will not meet a man like me. (So now I gag silently) but if you are a secretary at IBM you can meet the right type of man. Get married, have children, and stay home to raise them. Isn’t that what you really want?”

I have a career, my own place, a nice car, good friends! That is what makes me happy right now! When I meet the right man it won’t be because I picked him out at a large company & devote myself to “Catching him” .. Lastly, you are a prejudiced bigot, Bye.

When he was out of earshot I said, “That is the worst pickup line I ever heard.” Robyn

4. A Charismatic Uncle On The Outside, But Not So Much On The Inside

“I was alone in a small town with no friends or close family, working 7 days a week (Christmas included). My fellow colleagues were the closest I had as friends. The same colleagues who would drop you like a hot potato for their own gain if the chance arrived. I made do and tried making the best out of the situation I was in. Luckily I have this amazing uncle who was trying to mold me into the best version of myself, so all these hardships had to have a meaning behind it, no?

My favorite part of the day would be just after closing time because I got to stand outside with the security guard.

Believe it or not, but spending time with this security guard was the closest thing that reminded me of my people back home, the conversations we had, our sense of humor so every day I honestly looked forward to that.

Out comes my uncle one day with the rest of his minions (staff), looks and points at me standing next to the security guard and says loudly, “Look at Riyaad, look at the type of people he associates himself with, he speaks longer to his friend over there than with any of you, that is his limit, that is as far as he will go in life. You are only as good as the people you surround yourself with” and then proceeded to laugh with the rest of his as* lickers.

Now, while there is lots of truth in what he said about you being a reflection of who and what you surround yourself with, I don’t think that has anything to do with what people do for a means of living. It has to do with their personalities, their sincerity in doing things and them being more of a motivation for you to succeed in your goals than unmotivating you.

The fact that he could stand there and mock us in front of everyone including the security guard himself, speak mountains of the man my uncle truly is and also how blinded everyone is to his ‘charismatic’ ways.

Things only went downhill from there, being the rebel I am, I started becoming disrespectful in my own ways (which was perhaps not the right way to go about it) and I spent my last month in that small town before I headed back home.

What scares and hurts me the most, I’ve seen many people that act almighty and degrade others, and these people almost always have a huge following.

The security guard’s name is Joseph and my uncle is no saint. He is an ******.” Riyaad

3. Tell Me I Can’t Do What I Know Is Legal? Not Today, Buddy

“After Hurricane Katrina, I had a newborn son. Because I lost everything, I was insured through Medicaid. When I went in for his 9-month visit, the medical assistant said, “You are lucky I didn’t call child services on you.”

I said, “For what?”

They told me I was late on his immunizations. I told them they were mistaken. The woman argued with me and I asked for them to run a report and show me my son’s records.

They refused. I explained all they have to do was go into their state database called LACES and print out my son’s records. They refused.

I said I wanted to sign a waiver and get copies of his medical records. They refused. I asked to speak with the head doctor. He was busy. I asked for the office manager. They were unavailable. I asked them to produce a copy of my son’s medical records, stating that if they were going to threaten to call child services, I had a right to see the accusations. By now there were 3 medical assistants arguing with me.

One of the least bright said “We can’t release the records. If you were intelligent you would know that we have to follow OSHA rules.”

I snapped.

I said, “First, it’s Dr. Moseley.”

“Second, OSHA has to do with clinical compliance. I am talking about HIPAA. THAT covers confidentiality. Legally I have a right to my son’s records right here right now. And you are refusing to provide them, yet threaten child services.

“Third, go to the state database and print the page. I know you can do it – I’m one of the persons who evaluated the system before it went on-line. I helped design the database for the state.”

“And fourth, I know all this because I was the Medical Administrator over New Orleans Parish Prison with oversight of 12 clinics, a step-down ER, 2 psych units, an intake center and the youth facility. I was responsible on a daily basis for 7,000 cities, state and federal inmates, and 250 medical staff.”

“So give me a copy of my son’s records – NOW.”

All they could say was, “You never told us you were a doctor.”

I said, “Why, because you would have treated me better? You should treat EVERYONE with respect.

If you knew I was a doctor, you never would have threatened child services nor treated me as white trash and just ‘another one of those living off the system.”

I left. But before leaving one of the medical assistants did print out my son’s immunizations record. I was in full compliance.

Given the thin walls of the waiting area on a cement floor and all-metal chairs facing forward and a TV mounted high on the wall, as if we might steal it. When I walked into the lobby I got a standing ovation and a bunch of hugs. I guess I yelled that loud. I rarely use my doctor’s title, but in that case, it was warranted.” Kera

2. He Tried To Make His Daughter-In-Law’s Friends Look Bad

“So, my friend got married a year back.

I couldn’t attend her wedding but went to visit her in her ‘Sasural’- the in law’s house. (Here, in India, most of the married people live together with their husband’s parents and it is called a sasural.) So my married friend, another friend and I are talking to her father in law. This guy is around 65 years old, worked in the central Government for years.
He: ‘Beta, what did you study?’
Me: ‘I did an Mtech in nanotechnology.’
He: ‘Oh, where?’
Me: ‘Ranchi, along with (my friend’s name).’
He: ‘Oh! Did you come that far to study from Kerala to Ranchi? Why you didn’t get any schools in Kerala?’
Me: ‘No, uncle. I passed the entrance and it was a Government university. I also got a good scholarship.’
He: ‘Still, (random college’s name) was much better.’
I go silent.

My friends are embarrassed too.
Next question.
He: ‘What do you do now?’
Me: ‘I am a researcher. In the UAE.’
He: ‘Oh, you didn’t get any job in India, that’s why you went to UAE.’
Me: ‘No, I wanted to explore and all. Plus UAE pays much better.’
He: ‘Still, if you got a good job in India, they will pay you well, you just couldn’t get a good job.’
(Keep in mind, I am at least 30 years younger than this guy, still earns 2 or 3 times more than what he earns monthly.)
I again go silent. Next question.
He: ‘So, you have any siblings? What does she do?’
Me: ‘Yes, she is doing her bachelor’s in Delhi University (A premier institute in India).’
He: ‘Oh nice, ss soon as she finishes, she will get a good job in India and she will earn much more than you’

He still doesn’t have any idea what I earn or what my profile is.

I had a lot of comebacks for all of these jabs, but since I wanted to be respectful and I was caring about my friend’s standing with this family, I didn’t say anything. Later, I realized he was doing this to all of my friend’s friends who were going to meet her at her Sasural. I think this was just an attempt from him to make his daughter-in-law look inferior. He probably didn’t want to accept the fact that she is well educated and from a reputable university, but because of his lack of knowledge, he is making her sit at home as a housewife. It was also probably his trial at justifying his action.” Liya

1. He Didn’t Know He Was Talking To One Of THE Guys On The Construction Site

“I was working in the oilfield and had been there for about 3 years at the time.

I had worked both shore bases and oil platforms themselves with the platforms being the harder of the two based on physical limitations for logistics. I had just returned from one job, had literally just tossed my bags into the car for the ride home from the dock when my boss’s boss called me which was very unusual. Turns out, one of my co-workers was not able to work a contract due to a family emergency and they needed me to go back out. I would stay out as long as I was able to, then they should have more people available to send out to replace me. If I wanted it, I could have one night onshore and could catch a supply boat delivering the crew and equipment in the morning.

Didn’t want to, but the company had been good to me so I said I’d head back out. So, the car took me to a hotel, a restaurant, and a bar in that order before returning to the hotel for some shut-eye. I managed to make it to the dock 20 minutes before departure looking even worse than normal. I knew the boat and crew and I had a chat with them before heading down to passenger area to claim a seat as well as 2-3 in either direction so I had room to spread out as the passenger area was set up theater style with the ability to watch a movie on the big screen tv.

I must have been looking really rough that morning as I think the only thing I actually paid attention to that morning was making sure my boots were tied upright and that I had brushed my teeth before getting to the dock that morning (with 3 egg McMuffins, 2 hashbrowns, and a couple of coffees a few minutes later, my usual breakfast at that age.) A much bigger, and better-built man (I’m a semi-short fireplug) was cutting it up a few rows behind me.

The guy looked like he was actually modeling offshore work attire. New boots brand new pants, a new shirt, and he had on a shiny new hard hat that didn’t have a spec of dirt, grease, or oil anywhere on them. Shrugged my shoulders and got comfy to try to catch up on sleep on the multi-hour boat ride out to the platform (had to be 6 hours or less as I refused to ride a boat for that long unless it was a derrick barge or jack up the boat.)

Next thing I know, I had a shadow over me and the smell of a very bad smelling cologne (you know the type, it smells sweeter than perfume and lingers worse than a rotting corpse.) Opened my eyes and the guy was standing over me with a couple of his buddies.

Don’t remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of “Look at this sad piece of ***.” And the conversation went downhill from there. Basically settled down, and let him keep on ranting about how many oil platforms he worked (he had been working offshore for about a year,) how many dangerous jobs he had been on, and how a raggedy POS like me must be desperate looking for work as it sure didn’t look like I was hired to fill a roustabout position due to my manner of dress. Then he claimed that I must be a “Worm,” which is almost an insult in the field as it meant that I was only worth being fish bait.

But I held firm, didn’t react, and basically allowed myself to go back to sleep. He proceeded to amuse himself by sitting a row or two back and regaling the people he was with multiple stories on how the real oilfield worked and I fell deep asleep with the sound of his “exploits.”

We got out to the oil platform finally and the boat crew got us moving in the usual way by coming down and yelling that we were there and to be up on the back deck in 5 minutes to start getting lifted onto the platform. As I had my bags around me, I was one of the first on-deck. By the time the braggart got aboard, I was nowhere to be seen.

The construction crew, as they came aboard, were assigned bunks in the temporary quarters based on section and shift. They were hot bunking it on assigned bunks as there was not enough room for temporary quarters buildings for everyone. The housekeeping crew changed the linens and flipped the foam rubber mattresses between shifts. As another boatload of the crew was brought out the day before, the quarters and eating areas were already set up. Those on day shift (which the braggart was one) were put to work immediately after the platform safety boss gave them a briefing and had them sign the work permits already in use. Those on the night shift had to quietly enter the bunk areas with their gear and try to catch a few hours of sleep before the night time work safety brief and their full 12-hour shift began.

The braggart must have thought that I was assigned to the night shift because I was not seen for the rest of the day.

The next day, bright and early (wake up at 5 am, breakfast, then a safety brief at 6 am,) the braggart was with whatever buddies he had left that worked his shift. I entered in, grabbed a plate of breakfast, and sat down to eat. The first words out of his mouth were that I must have been slacking off the night before because I had not been seen working during the remains of the day shift before. Either that or I had screwed up so bad on the night shift that they sent me today shift as they had more people.

I just kept eating and ignoring him as responding would have revealed that I am an extremely grouchy person in the morning unless I had my full pot of coffee first. And due to circumstance, I was already worn out by the previous job with no real recovery time. But he didn’t know that part… He just assumed I was a worm.

Let me explain some of the hierarchy of an oil platform construction job. I’ll make it simple as I won’t include other contractors such as an x-ray crew, divers and support, scaffolding crews, painters, etc. Basically all will fall into the lower level of hierarchy as they will have foremen in charge of their groups/teams.

First-order- the platform boss. You don’t want to p*ss him off because he is God on the platform.

If he doesn’t like the fact that you used apple jelly on your toast instead of *****- you’re gone on the next boat or helicopter out.

Next is the platform crew. If you p*ss them off, they’ll go to the platform boss and you’re still gone. So, you walk on eggshells around them as they can be clannish and touchy.

Next in line is the field manager or a project supervisor (depends on how high or low profile the job is.) He is the representative of the company that owns or runs the platform. He is a demi-god as he has power, but he’s usually not on that platform too often. He acts as the liaison between the construction crew and the platform boss.

He’s really important as many of the platforms having work done were life and producing. He helps coordinate shutdowns and startups of pipes and equipment to make sure it is done efficiently with as little downtime as possible.

Then, the Inspector. He is in charge of the job. Basically a project manager. But his power lies over the construction crews as he’s the one that basically hires and fires them. He is the pivot point that is responsible that the job is done right, on or under budget (as his bonus is based on it,) and safely (his bonus depends on that as well.) He coordinates the construction foremen but can make up specialized teams under his direct control just by giving the word.

So, the main crew may be working at installing and tying in a production skid but he may pull off a welder and welders helper to replace rusted out handrails that were part of the project scope.

Next up is the construction foremen. They work for the construction companies the crew work for and you do not want to irritate them as they’re like Drill Sgt.’s. They want the job done, they want it done right, and they don’t care if you have to move heaven and earth to do it because, in the foremen mindset, you shouldn’t be out there if you can’t.

2nd to last, you have the construction clerk. And in the hierarchy, he is basically powerless and has to rely on how well the Inspector and foremen like him/her.

But, he handles all logistics, manages the paperwork so that individuals get paid, gets the construction crew their construction material from onshore, handles any personal business for the construction crew ranging from arranging phone time so they can call home or getting them new clothes or personal items they want or need to be brought up to the platform. A construction clerk (basically called a logistics clerk, personnel clerk, or a logistics/personnel clerk depending on how big the job is as you can have multiple clerks assigned for bigger jobs) is basically powerless if you p*ss him off as he doesn’t work directly for the construction company, for the foremen, or the platform boss… He is contracted to work for the inspector to handle the drudge work and free him up to keep the project going.

He doesn’t have direct power, but he has a major influence and he controls access.

Finally, you have the construction crew out to do the work and you can have fitters, welders, welders helpers, riggers, roustabouts, plus other specialty jobs.

The platform boss and the inspector came into the dining area as that was where we held our daily safety briefs as well as laid out the work area permits for individuals to sign. The platform boss welcomed all the members of the construction crew that had arrived in the morning and set the ground rules for the platform. Then he turned it over to the Inspector. Inspector briefed the crew on safety hazards on the platform, laid out the scope of the job, and which areas of the platform were being worked on, additional safety measures in place, as well as setting a lunch schedule and reminding people to put their gear in their lockers when on shift due to the tight space (been about 10 years, but I remember the briefings as I heard them way too many times and there was little variance.) The Inspector then opened up his folder under his arm and laid out the work permits and informed everyone to sign off on them.

Everyone but me got up and stood in line to sign the permits. I sat there drinking my coffee and wishing the cook hadn’t salted my eggs so much while cooking them.

The braggart must have been one of the first to sign all the permits because he came up to me telling me to get up and sign the paperwork. I told him I didn’t have to. Then he started laughing and told one or two of his buddies that I must have screwed up royally because I must have been kicked off the job site already and was waiting for the boat to be unloaded to get aboard for the ride to shore. At that point, I was getting verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry irritated.

I have a temper, but I’ve learned to control it over the years as people who have smaller tempers get offended when I show them what a temper really is like. The braggart sat down next to me, along with all his buddies by them as they had signed the paperwork, and kept making snide remarks.

The field manager walked into the hallway leading from the platform crew quarters and looked at me in surprise. “George, why the heck are you out here… Didn’t you just get off the (can’t remember the platform job) rebuild?” Answered yes quite forcefully as I was still trying to control my temper due to the braggart and his crew’s actions. “How the heck are you out here, you’re not supposed to be out this quick due to safety rules on being out on long term jobs.” And he was right.

At the time, construction crews working on his companies platforms could only work 3 weeks in a row before heading to shore for a crew break. Inspectors, foremen, and clerks could stay out for up to 6 but waivers can be granted for longer if needed. I informed him that I had spent an overnight period onshore between jobs and I had a waiver on file with the inspector from the oil company to be out there until a replacement could be sent out. I always carried around a couple that I could fax to the oil company to get signed and faxed back to me.

“**** George, you must be banking on a retirement… I heard you worked for 7 weeks after I left.” I informed him that I had 9 total weeks on the job plus about 4 days doing cleanup paperwork and government safety and certification inspections.

“Well George, if you got time, head up to my office. I see you already have today’s paperwork already done and I want to hear about what happened after I left the other platform. Besides, I want you to meet ‘Jeff’ (can’t remember the platform bosses name after all this time) as we’re just rehashing what we did on that platform for this one. He’ll want your observations on the improvements and how well they worked. Bring your notebook, there may be things he’ll ask on what can be improved.”

He got up and left. And Braggart knew then that he may have p*ssed off the wrong guy. As a personnel/logistics clerk, I had duties that pertained to his well being. Such as getting paid right.

And if he wanted to call home, I had to arrange it as the platform wasn’t set up for separate phone lines for the construction crew to use. If he wanted as much as a pack of cigarettes from shore, I’m the one that could order them (or if his company sent them to the dock, I controlled the manifests of what was shipped out or not.) I was also involved in every construction meeting the Inspector was involved in as his note-taker and aide. And I had a major influence on the inspectors and foreman. And I worked directly with the people that ran the office for the construction crew he worked for. I may not have direct power, but I had access to those that did.

Braggart started to say something but I ignored him and took my dishes and handed them to the kitchen staff. I then walked out into the production quarters hallway, went into my private room (I had the room next to the Inspector’s which acted like my sleeping quarters plus my office.) Then called my company and got with the night supervisor (it was still early morning and the morning staff wasn’t in yet) to arrange for cigarettes, a box of beef jerky (I never worked on a platform that carried them as part of their mid-shift snack bar so I’d order a big box full of individual packs,) and some replacement clothes for stuff I wore out on the previous job.

And did I take revenge? Actually no… I didn’t have time for petty *** as the construction crews were working 12 hours, but the Inspector and I were working 14+ to cover the needs of both shifts. That meant wakeups at 4 am. Get together with the night foremen to cover what happened on their shifts, do the paperwork for the day crew, and close the paperwork for the night crew. Get a tally of hours worked (it never changed onset for 12-hour shifts but it was to be turned in and logged daily.) Do the morning safety briefs. Then meetings, I finally start getting to do what I needed to get done after the meetings. Finally, prepare the paperwork for the night shift and closeout day shift.

And this was daily. In between shift changes, I was on the phone with the dock doing manifests, doing the paperwork with customs, coast guard, and MMS (name at the time) to fax in with signatures and can’t continue till they review and fax back, getting dropped onto the supply boat doing inventories and checking the manifests before it can be brought aboard, working with the cooks and hospitality to order their food/water/supply deliveries and get delivered to the docks and manifested to come out, etc… And maybe, I would get a chance to sneak out to the smoke area for a quick puff before someone asked me if I set up phone time or order them more cigs or a new pair of boots.

But, every-time he came in to ask me a favor, he acted like I was going to turn him down in revenge…. Truth be told, not doing anything is the best revenge because they expect you to seek it and therefore are wary of you. And the longer you don’t take revenge, the more they expect you to seek it at the worst moment. I just take satisfaction when he finally saw my hard hat when I had to visit one of the worksites to modify and get everyone to sign off on the new work permit. While his hard hat had started out new, bright, and shiny; it was dull and scratched by that time. My hard hat, on the other hand, was a bragging helmet.

It was old, dull, and the white plastic was a dingy grey; but unlike his- it was covered with stickers for projects I worked, companies I worked for, large “honor” stickers for high profile jobs he may have heard of, and a circular band of marks put there with a permanent marker with each mark representing a week offshore. And I had started it on the right side of the sun brim of the helmet (covering the eyes) and was almost all the way to the left side covering over 70 weeks offshore in 3~ years. He may have talked the talk, but I had walked it far longer then he had and in higher profile jobs.” Source

See? If only people waited a few minutes to get the full story instead of jumping to conclusions! Wouldn’t we all save a little bit of time and energy?