I’m chatting with a few friends about employment, and I decide to bring up my first “real job”.

Me: “It sounds so much more impressive than it actually was. My title was ‘USARC 94th CIV MDE’, and I was processing classified information in a security-restricted building.”

Friend: “Yeah, that does sound pretty impressive. What was the actual job, then?”

Me: “United States Army Reserve Corps, 94th Division, Civilian Manual Data Entry. I was just copying soldiers’ names and contact information from a stack of papers into a new database. The only reason I worked in a secure building is that was where most of the computers were for any job.”

It was, all in all, such a simple job that I almost always hit my quota before lunch and spent a good chunk of my post-quota time on Gaia Online and Neopets. But it’s still fun to “brag” about it since it sounds so serious.

A coworker of mine was miserable at work one day.

Me: “What’s wrong?”

Coworker: “It’s my anniversary, and I know my husband has forgotten.”

She had pre-teen girls who were at home during summer vacation, and I knew her home phone number (pre-cell phone era). I called her home phone, and one kid picked up.

Me: “Hi, [Kid]. I’m [My Name], and I work with your mom. You need to call your dad at work and remind him that it’s your mom and dad’s anniversary. And don’t tell Mom or Dad I called.”

The next day, [Coworker] was all smiles.

Coworker: “Gosh, he did remember! He brought home flowers and took me to dinner!”

Mission accomplished.

Not a word was ever said about this…

Until six years later, when [Coworker] left the company. At her farewell luncheon, she gave me a hug and whispered:

Coworker: “My kids ratted you out. Thank you.”

I’ve been a server going on seventeen years. It’s the middle of a rush, and I have to pee — bad. I tell the server with me on the patio, and she says it’s cool. I run to the bathroom, pee, and wash my hands.

I go to leave, and the door won’t open. (It’s an employee bathroom, not a stall.) I wiggle the handle. It won’t move. I’m standing there thinking, “Am I stupid?!” I try again. The door won’t budge.

I get out my phone — no service. I reset my phone as I’m knocking on the door saying, “Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? I’m locked in the bathroom!” Of course, no one can. The employee bathroom is way away from anything. The only reason you’d be right there is to use the restroom.

I look at my phone — still no service.

At this point, a solid ten minutes have gone by. So, I’m in this tiny-a** bathroom with my phone in the air hoping to get one bar, all while shouting:

Me: “[MY NAME] IS STUCK IN THE BATHROOM!”

I finally get one bar, and I send a mass text to every manager and server at work:

Me: “I’M STUCK IN THE BATHOOM! SEND HELP!”

My text keeps showing the loading symbol.

Now it’s been fifteen or so minutes, and I cannot get the door to budge. I’m wondering why my fellow server hasn’t come to my rescue!

Another two or three minutes go by, and someone tries to open the door.

Me: “I’M LOCKED IN HERE!”

Voice On The Other Side: “[My Name]…?”

She can’t get the door open. She goes and gets a manager. The two of them start pushing on the door while I pull it. It WILL NOT BUDGE!

Me: “Go check my tables! Close my section! Help!”

Then, another manager came with a busser, and they all tried to push while I tried to pull, and…

FINALLY! The door opened!

I was gone for almost thirty minutes. The server on the patio with me said she thought I was taking a long s*** and never thought to check on me. She watched my tables, and my manager cashed some people out who’d been waiting a while, etc.

A couple around my age asked where I’d been (I had dropped off their drinks, they’d said they needed a few minutes, and that’s when I’d gone to pee), so I had to tell them the story. They thought it was hilarious.

Related:
For Every Weird Thing At Your Workplace, There’s A Story Like This, Part 2
For Every Weird Thing At Your Workplace, There’s A Story Like This

A story I read somehow reminded me of when I was getting ready to go to the University of Applied Sciences. I figured I needed a new phone, a laptop, and some accessories. I checked what was available in my area, came up with a shopping list of some €1,100, went to withdraw the money, and then went to the store.

I knew exactly what I wanted and went to the counter with all the expensive stuff in locked cabinets and/or in the back so that people couldn’t run away with them, but the employees were both busy with a customer, so I picked up the small stuff first.

When I came back, the customer was gone and so were both employees. Figuring they had gone to the register with the other customer, I waited for them to return… and waited, and waited. I saw one of them come back and immediately go in the back. Then, the other guy also came back, and he also went straight in the back. Neither one came out for a long time.

There was no question that they were purposefully ignoring the teenager with a laptop backpack and a cheap mouse in his hands waiting for them. Had the laptop I was looking to buy been available anywhere else in town, I would have walked out, but alas, it wasn’t, so I didn’t.

Then, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

Classmate: “Hi, [My Name]. Are you being served already?”

Me: “Hi, [Classmate]. No, two guys went in the back some ten minutes ago and haven’t come out. So, you work here now?”

Classmate: “Yeah. What can I get you?”

Me: “A Nokia 5230 and [Laptop].”

Classmate: “One moment.”

He went to get the laptop from the back, took a Nokia 5230 box from the cabinet, and grabbed a screen protector for the phone, and we went to the register so that I could pay. He signed me up for the extended warranty (free of charge — it was a campaign from the manufacturer and all [Classmate] needed was my email address).

The two guys who had disappeared into the back magically reappeared within a couple of minutes, just fast enough to witness me counting the 200 and 100 Euro notes before handing them to [Classmate]. They didn’t look too happy to realize they had missed a not-insignificant sale.

That laptop served me for almost ten years before I finally had to replace it, easily the best €800 or so I have ever spent on a computer I didn’t build myself, even without the faces the Richards were making when I left the store.

Curiously, the manufacturer never spammed me with BS offers even though I confirmed the extended warranty registration when I started using the laptop.

(Cue “Pretty Woman” references in three… two… one…)

Related:
Big Mistake. Big. Huge! Part 2
Big Mistake! Big! Huge!

Two friends and I were taking market surveys over twenty years ago, back when they did them in person and you got cash in hand.

We were doing surveys on a perfume bottle shape, and the surveyor asked the next question on the list:

Surveyor: “Would you call this bottle a phallic shape?”

[Friend #1] and I started howling. Then, we had to explain to the innocent [Friend #2] what that meant.

Did I mention that my friends and I were all female and [Surveyor] was male?

I felt bad for [Surveyor]. I knew him fairly well — we’d chat when things were slow at our respective jobs in the mall — and he was a genuinely nice guy.

Incidentally, I did see that brand of perfume for sale eventually. The bottle was the same color but a different shape.