In your first customer service gig, you will be shocked at how readily people manipulate and bend the truth in their favor while recounting events with what seems like complete and absolute sincerity. The first time you encounter one of these sad sob stories, your first instinct will be to do everything in your power to help them out. But the first time one of these stories starts to not quite add up, unraveling before your very eyes, you're going to end up with trust issues and not take anythi…

Traveling can take its toll on the senses. After twelve hours cramped into a flying tube net to a snoring odorant stranger, you arrive at your hotel only to discover that you've been booked into a room next to a family of unruly children whose shouting and banging on the shared wall threatens to sever your last thread of sanity. To make matters worse, you're right across the hall from the ice and vending machines, and each time either is dispensed, it's as if each cube of ice, each soda, is dro…

Visiting an old workplace is a weird experience. Seeing old friends and coworkers still bound by the same toxic policies and stresses that once held you stirs rippling memories like a stone skipping across a pond's still surface before coming to rest in waters that were better left undisturbed. While you attempt to make small talk and reconnect, you can't help but detect feelings of resentment from the old comrades you left behind; while once you suffered together, now you're free from this par…

Businesses and their owners take on more of the risk and, in return, take more of the reward, paying workers a small portion of the value of their production and taking the rest for providing the means. This is the basis of a capitalist system and the argument used by your boss for why he's not giving you a raise, despite the fact that he himself just bought another new Porsche and vacations in Monaco every summer. It's true; when you're working for a business instead of starting your own, ther…

What would you do to get your preferred parking space? Some might say that towing seven cars is a little extreme—whether or not those cars are technically supposed to be parked there. This is especially the case when you're just a guest staying at a hotel and in no way have a stake in said hotel. This Karen took issue with the fact that there were a bunch of non-electric cars parked in the electric car parking spaces, but parking at the location was extremely limited, so it was essential that a…

There are glorious times in customer service when doing what the customer has asked necessitates doing technically nothing. It's a rare occurrence but oh-so-good when it happens to chance upon you. When this worker promised to give an angry Karen a refund, they did so by promising to refund the amount that it would cost them to park on the street: Nothing. This left the Karen happy to go merrily on their way, and with the problem now out of sight and out of mind, she was never the wiser. It's g…

Once in a while, you come across someone who you decided to mess with and who you absolutely should not have messed with. Notable entries to this list who come to mind would be John Wick (seriously, leave the guy's dog alone), Master Chief (Grunts don't call him “The Demon” for nothing), Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (who inspired the intro quote), and Granny (park in her space at your own peril). These individuals all have the common trait of displaying a laid-back outward demeanor that doesn'…