I work in a supermarket that has recently employed the trick of pumping the smell of freshly baked bread onto the high street to lure customers in. It’s a cheap trick, but hey, I just work here; I don’t make the decisions. 

One day I see a woman walk in with the largest dog I have ever seen, a big boy Mastiff.

Me: “Sorry, miss, you can’t bring dogs in here.”

Customer: “This boy weighs 90kg and he can smell croissants. You want to stop him? Because I can’t.”

It’s then apparent that she’s not walking the dog; the dog is walking her. I’m not really sure what to do, so I call the manager. He comes over and tells her the same thing.

Customer: “Once he realises there’s no fresh bread, he’ll get bored and leave. I can’t physically do anything until then.”

Manager: “Madam, maybe you should take a dog for a walk that you’re unable to physically manage.”

Customer: “And maybe you shouldn’t pump fake baking smells into the street to confuse dogs that walk in perfectly straight lines until then.”

I laughed a little because she had us there.

The woman refused to change her walking route. The Mastiff would always come and investigate the smell as he walked past. The manager told head office, and they eventually allowed us to stop pumping the smell out onto the street.

I heard that it didn’t damage or improve sales one bit.

I worked the IT helpdesk at my office complex. I had a ticket assigned to me where I had to phone the user and check if the problem was fixed. I called him to ask.

User: “Oh, I’m driving at the moment.”

Me: “Ha, I guess that means you can’t check your computer. Can I schedule a call with you for when you’re back in your office later?”

We scheduled it for that afternoon. After I ended the call, a bunch of managers jumped on my call notes.

Manager #1: “It’s unacceptable that the ticket is still active.”

Manager #2: “It looks bad for our metrics.”

Me: “He was driving!”

Manager #1: “Then you should have cancelled the ticket because the client was ‘refusing assistance’. This really doesn’t look good for your numbers.”

Me: “Is my job to fix people’s computers? Or is it to make the stats look good?”

Both managers had to think about that for a minute, which was worrying in itself.

I’m a stickler for grammar, but I’m not the grammar police, and I don’t correct anyone’s grammar unless asked or I am reviewing their work. A coworker (and friend) knows this and likes to give me an eye twitch by using the wrong words on purpose on the company’s instant messaging app.

It should also be noted that he’s a massive dinosaur fanboy and has lots of models on his desk, all sorted by the order in which they all lived on the historical record, oldest to youngest, left to right.

I’m messaging him one morning:

Me: “So those reports are going to be delayed, so we’ve been given an extension until Friday to review them for any issues.”

Coworker: “Werd.”

Me: “Why do you hate me?”

Coworker: “Wot argh yew torque-ing aye bout?”

Me: “You’re trying to trigger me.”

Coworker: “Eye don’t no wot yiu mien.”

Me: “I’m not going to let it bother me.”

Coworker: “Eats just werds.”

Me: “You’re going to go to lunch and come back to find all your model dinosaurs out of historical order. Would be a shame if a Triassic Era creature came after a Cretaceous one.”

Coworker: “You monster.”

Me: “Eats just die know sores.”

Coworker: “Fine… truce.”

I work in careers and employment support, not tech support. I’ve been running training sessions on Zoom and have been getting a lot of emails from clients that are struggling. The below is paraphrased slightly from memory and to be anonymous.

Client: “Hi, I can’t access Zoom, please assist.”

Me: “No problem, what exactly is the issue?”

Client: “I can’t get Zoom to open.”

Me: “Okay, so when you click the ‘start Zoom’ button on our training platform, do you get an error message of some kind, or does the screen change at all?”

Client: “It just won’t open.”

Me: “Okay, if you can provide specific details, that really helps. Are you clicking the ‘start Zoom’ button?”

Client: “There is no ‘start Zoom’ button.”

Me: “Are you on page X of the learning platform?”

Client: “No, I’m on page Y.”

Me: “Okay, so that’s the problem: if you go to page X and click ‘start Zoom’, it will open the meeting for you. If you open the instruction document you were sent, it includes some screenshots of exactly what page you need to be on and what you need to click. I hope that helps.”

Client: “I don’t have the instruction document.”

Me: “I’ll reattach it for you now. Please let me know if you have any more problems.”

A few hours later…

Client: “Hi, I missed the training as I couldn’t get into Zoom. Can you book another one in for me? Also, I need help getting into Zoom next time.”

Me: “Sure, no problem.” 🤦‍♀️

Returning to my work floor, I got on an elevator along with several coworkers.

Me: “Third floor, please.”

The coworker next to me, standing closest to the buttons, proceeded to look waaaaay up to the ceiling. She stood on her tippy toes and tried to push the third-floor number that was on top of the elevator doors, showing what floor you were on. 

Everyone tried not to be rude, holding in their laughter. Well, they tried. 

After the second time she tried to reach for the number on top, another coworker of mine shook her head.

Other Coworker: “No, no, honey… bless your heart.”

[Other Coworker] proceeded to push the right button on the elevator.

Coworker: “Oh, you can push those buttons too?! I didn’t know!”

Me: “Yeah, those are much easier. Are you new here?”

Coworker: “No, I’ve been here a year. Why?”