We have one middle manager colleague who is the epitome of a bad manager. She’s petty, loves to use her power to lord over others and punish them, and takes credit for other people’s work. She’s the most disliked person in the company. 

Our office is having a big outdoor event that involves a barbecue and family entertainment, so our spouses and children are encouraged to attend. My wife comes along and recognizes this specific middle manager by name when introductions are being made.

Wife: “Hello, there! I’ve heard all but good things about you!”

The middle manager smiled and didn’t even realise what she had just said. It was a bright highlight to an otherwise average day!

This story reminded me of a story about my old family dog back in the day.

When my sister and I were kids, we went through the wanting a puppy phase, and luckily for us, my parents themselves had also been wanting a dog. After some research on their end, my mom settled on a blue heeler, or Australian cattle dog. There turned out to be a breeder a few hours away, so one early December, we all packed into the car and headed off to ‘pick out’ a puppy.

The breeder specialized in the more Australian-leaning of the Australian cattle dog, specifically a lower to the ground, more barrel set dog than a more American-leaning blue heeler with long legs and leaner bodies. Her latest litter had a runt, a smaller-than-usual puppy with even shorter legs and stubbier body, so she’d decided that this puppy should be sold as a family dog rather than a show dog, because she “didn’t have the good genes for the gene pool”, or something like that (in my dad’s words anyhow!)

Her papers VERY specifically forbid any breeding, and that we had to have her fixed as soon as possible- I guess the breeder had been really insistent on that point. Fine for us; we didn’t care about the show dog part, just that we were getting a dog at all, and so we took her home, and she was truly the happiest, roundest, most barrel-y dog that would give us lots of happy memories as she grew up.

Well, a few years later, my dad decided to bring our now-grown heeler to a large dog show in the city (possibly even an AKC event) because her brother was being shown and he thought it would be neat to bring his littermate along. Off he goes, gets to the event, and finds the original breeder, who doesn’t recognize him.

Instead, she took one look at our dog and immediately asked if Dad had any interest in breeding her, because she had- Dad’s quote- some of the best looking characteristics for the breed she’d ever seen, and she’d be very interested if he was!

To which my dad burst into laughter and told her she was fixed, and on her specific contract! Finding out that our dog was one of her old puppies, and that the little stumpy runt she’d been so sure wouldn’t be worth it had grown up into a beautiful heeler, was apparently quite a shock, and Dad says she had an intense look of regret on her face for the rest of the show whenever she looked their way.

I didn’t know anything about breed standard as a kid, though (and still don’t know!,) but I do know that Paddy was the best dog and a beloved member of our family- whether she was a blue ribbon show dog or not. Miss you, Paddy puppy. ❤️

Our department attended a day-long team-building workshop organised by our manager. At the end of the event, we were all handed a pen, a sheet of paper, and an envelope with our name on the front.

Manager: “I want you to take one thing away from this workshop that you think you will find useful later. When we meet again in two weeks, you’ll get your envelope back.”

Everybody started writing on the paper and putting it into the envelopes, which were then collected.

Two weeks later, we met for the follow-on workshop. The manager called us up one at a time, handed us the envelopes. People were taking out the paper and reading back to the group the pieces of advice they had written down. When he got to my envelope, the manager looked puzzled.

Manager: “[My Name], there seems to be something in your envelope.”

I took the envelope and started to open it, whilst replying:

Me: “You told us to take away one thing from the workshop that we thought we’d find useful later on.”

Manager: “Yes, correct.”

Me: “Well, I took the pen.” *As I pull out a rather nice biro from the envelope.*

I am at a public informational meeting for a rural US highway project. The construction requires strips of land from some farm fields, and the farmers aren’t happy about it.

Farmer #1: “This is going to negatively affect production!”

Farmer #2: “The amount of food we’re going to be able to get is going to go down too much for us to handle!”

An attendee in the audience puts their hand up to ask a question.

Attendee: “Why don’t the farmers get their food from the grocery store like everyone else?”

You could have heard a pin drop with the stunned silence.

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And These People Vote…

I’m a freelance graphic designer, and I was commissioned to do a selection of designs, including a logo, a poster, a T-shirt, and a video trailer for this event promotion project. 

Client: “We want the T-shirt with the logo on it.”

Me: “Okay. Can you send me the full-resolution logo file?”

Client: “No, no, we’d like you to make the logo.”

Me: “That’s fine; I can add that to the quote.”

I send them off the estimation, and they ask me to cut the video as it’ll be too expensive for them. I remove it and send the estimation back with all the elements minus the video. 

Me: “Is this okay? If it is, I’ll draw up the contract.”

Client: “Yes, that’s fine!”

They sign the contract and pay the deposit, and I begin on the logo first as it’s going to be used throughout the other designs. 

Me: “For the logo design, it might be worth chatting with [Original Event Hosting Company] to see if they want to reuse it for other future events. If so, then it would cost a bit extra for an extended license, which they might be willing to put up some money for.”

Client: “Oh! We didn’t want a logo. We were just using that as an example.”

Having already spent several hours on the logo, I was pretty annoyed — especially since “Logo Design” was clearly marked on BOTH invoices and the contract they agreed to.

I added the wasted hours to the final invoice.