I am an admin on a construction site. I have been on several sites over the last few years, and while some things change, the OSHA training requirement does not. One of the project managers is new to the company. He is not American, and I don’t think he has previous experience in construction based on how much he complains about standard requirements and procedures. 

We were in our very first weekly meeting for the project, about two months before construction even started.

Project Manager: “Okay, I hear we have to do this OSHA thing? It seems like a waste of time, to be quite honest. I will talk to my line manager to see if this is necessary. If it’s not I… yeah, I just will not do it.”

Mechanical Lead: “It is a [Company] requirement.”

Project Manager: “I will talk to my line manager.”

The next meeting:

Project Manager: “This OSHA thing again. I don’t like it. I think it is a waste of time.”

Mechanical Lead: “It is still a requirement.”

Project Manager: “But the ten hours? Really? That is so much time to get a little piece of paper that says, “Yeah, I know not to lick a live wire.” *Laughs.*

Me: “Actually, you need the OSHA 30 as a manager.”

Project Manager: “Admin, please make sure you understand what you are talking about before you speak.

Yes, he called me “Admin,” not my name, like his male colleagues.

Electrical Lead: “She’s right. Managers and leads who are on-site need the OSHA 30.”

Project Manager: “I don’t have time to do this! I will for sure bring this up with my line manager again. This is ridiculous.”

We have similar conversations for the next several weekly meetings. I assume that his line manager did not give him an answer he liked, because eventually he sent out a mass email saying he had completed the OSHA 30, but still thought it was ridiculous. I don’t know how someone can speak so freely about refusing to do a safety requirement, repeatedly try to get out of it, and still be trusted to run a job.

I worked for a bank where I would remotely assist customers at an interactive ATM (technically ITMs, or Interactive Teller Machines, but no one calls them that). I was pretty much in the basement of the bank with a bunch of computers, and my face would appear on the screen and help them make whatever transaction they needed.

Once I helped a customer who was a first-time user. The machine itself is a tiny ATM located in the middle of nowhere. I was halfway through the transaction when she said:

Customer: “Wow, it must be cramped in there.”

Me: *Confused.* “What do you mean, ma’am?”

Customer: “Inside the ATM. Must get cramped.”

Me: “Ma’am, I’m communicating with you remotely. I’m not… I’m not physically inside the ATM.”

Customer: *Flipping out.* “What?! So you’re lying to me?!”

Me: “No, ma’am. Interactive ATMs mean we can interact with you from another location.”

Customer: “Cancel! Cancel the transaction! I don’t know if you’re a man or a machine, but you’ve been lying to me, and I don’t trust you!”

I had to cancel the transaction. I was told she called the next day to complain that “the little man inside the ATM lied to her” and I had to be contacted to provide context to the very strange complaint.

I’m out for the day with my twin brother and his eldest daughter (who’s three at the time). We go into a coffee shop to pick up some lunch, and since I’m visiting my niece, I decide to pay. As I go to the counter, the lady behind it says:

Counter Lady: “Well, no need to ask about your relationship; you’re clearly his dad.”

Awkward. I gently correct her.

Me: “No, actually, I’m his brother.”

After all, there can be wide gaps between siblings. My brother adds, cheerfully:

Brother: “His twin brother.”

Hopefully, she took it in good humour.

A customer approaches me at my counter. We’re on the top floor of the department store.

Customer: “How do I get back down?”

I thought she was asking this because our escalators are under maintenance at the moment. I pointed to the elevator.

Me: “You can take that elevator.”

Customer: “That’s the one I came up in! Where’s the one that goes down!?”

This middle-aged woman has spent her entire life thinking all elevators are monodirectional, apparently. Does she just take an elevator up and think that it stays up there forever?

The customer ahead of me is paying with a credit card. The cashier looks at it and then asks:

Cashier: “Can I see some ID?”

Customer: “Why?”

Cashier: “Your card is asking me to.”

Customer: “What are you talking about?”

Cashier: “The back says ‘see ID’.”

Customer: “No, it says my name, Saeed.”

The cashier looks at the card again, squints, and then pulls down some reading glasses resting on her head.

Cashier: “So it does. Along with some… uh…”

Customer: “…My name in Arabic. I put my name in both English and Arabic on the card to make it easier. Backfired, I guess…”