Friends

I used to work in an independently owned toy store in a very nice upper class town.

A few Halloweens ago a mom was trying to decide on a costume for her toddler. We had two options, both easy pull-overs (poncho style) with a hood and a pocket.

She holds them both up and asks me "What do you think? Is the dragon to boy-ish for her?"

Now, honestly, I loved the dragon costume. It had the cutest little wings. So I'm honest with her: "I don't think so, I would have wanted to be the dragon when I was little."

Her response: "Well, you're goth, so there's no surprise there."

*blink*

Ok, now, yes, I consider myself goth, and therefore wear a lot of black, but I was in my work clothes with were always nice jeans or dress pants and a colorful shirt. O.o

Dear Random Lady WalMart Shopper,

Whining at the nice man in the blue shirt like a toddler who is past her naptime isn't a nice thing to do. When he patiently explains to you that the coupon you are trying to use is no longer valid because the price on said item has come down yet again (it was some leftover Halloween thing) that is not your cue to start whining louder and harder at him about how it's unfair that they brought the price down AGAIN and now you cannot use your coupon. Like the man tried to tell you, it's actually cheaper now. Continuing to whine will not get you what you want.

After walking away from you as quickly as I could, I was dismayed to hear your voice again down in the food aisles. That woman that you cornered, demanding to know if she worked at WalMart? If you'd listened to her instead of once again whining, you would have heard her say that she is a shelf stocker for another company, but that she could probably help you find what you are looking for since she is there quite often and knows the lay of the land. When she told you that she didn't think they had any sugar free cereal bars, but she'd be happy to help you look, that was NOT your cue to start whining at her about how all the sugar free stuff should be in the same aisle. First of all, that's not how it works at most stores I've been in, and secondly, as this worker already told you SHE DOES NOT WORK FOR WALMART! She was nice enough to help you out, but she didn't have to! Whining and snapping at her was completely inappropriate.

No love,
another random lady WalMart shopper.

Dear RP Partner I've Been Trying My Damnedest to Ignore,

Stop making all your female characters so over-sexualized no matter how OOC it is for them. Please, I beg you. Not every woman you play has to be a sex symbol because more often than not, they are so very very far from it. People have tried to correct you both gently and not-so-gently but you refuse to listen to them and it makes me rage a good deal. So for the sake of my blood pressure, either kindly realize that not all women need to be over-sexed or stop playing female characters all-together.

I Regret Giving You My Phone Number Everyday,
Kat

No, really, where are all the black characters?

Hey guys, I'm a newbie to the community so just thought I'd throw in a story from past experiences working in a hospital, and make an addition to the group.

Recap: I used to work as a medical secretary in an emergency clinic in Wales. This is a pretty errr, usual story... just to warn you.


Was in the office one day getting on with my usual daily routine. The phone rings and the conversation goes something like this:

( Beware, possible strong stomach needed... )

Jedi who secretly dabble in the dark side of the force can be fun, but...the key word is secretly. Even if Lucas made the Council full of idiots who kept missing the glowing red flags of AAAAANGST from Anakin in the third prequel, that was likely just because Lucas has gone out of his damn mind.

( This is how you DON'T hide your Dark Side leanings from the Council. )

The customer complaints of late remind me of the old joke about bus drivers at an orgy...


Dear sir,

What the hell do you hope to accomplish by repetitively phoning in and screaming at my staff to cancel your contract?

We can barely extract even the tiniest morsel of information about what the site is, and it is herculean an effort to verify who the hell we are speaking to.

And, once we've verified who it is we are speaking to, you typically hang up before we've even had a chance to look at if we can do anything for you. According to the notes on the few times you have deigned to lower yourself to explain what's going on, we have a list of various complaints, all of which contradict.

Apparently we should be putting you with company A, B, C or D for your contract - which one depending on the tide and what you had for breakfast it seems, and are upset we aren't.

You're upset that we're not company A, B, C or D, but an independent company selling their service. You want to go directly with that company, which one it is that day depending on some random factor to do with the phase of the moon and what music I was listening to on the way into work that morning.

You're upset that you have to have a utility contract seems the only definite article in any of your complaints. That's a sure way to pay through the nose or have your wallet forcefully taken advantage of by greedy electricity suppliers who can (and will) charge you're ignorant rear-end an unlimited amount for your supply.

Please, just either quit calling us, wasting all our time, since we feel we're monopolising your abilities to be an ignorant arse, or else let us actually deal with your complaint and cancellation request, so we no longer have to keep having the same beginning of a conversation with you.

No love,

Me.

A while ago, I agreed to start an RP with a friend of mine. Her characters were fun to play with, but a little generic - you know how it is.

Anyway, I was using what I like to call one of my "fandom ambiguous" characters - she does come from a specific fandom, but I don't limit her to RPs from that fandom, if you get me. For now, let's call her "Character A". She was also blonde - and why this is important, I'll tell you later.

My friend was using her new OC, a tall, dark-haired male. He dressed in back, but, thankfully, was not emo - he just disliked bright colours. .. a lot. Let's call him "Character B".

( Click to see what went wrong.. )

This is a story from ages and ages ago, but time does nothing to diminish the suck.

I was playing in a play-by-e-mail Evangelion roleplay back in the height of the popularity of the original series. This game had a very interesting structure which I have never seen elsewhere, before or since, where each player had their own character, but were free to write any character, within reason, in order to expedite scenes. There was the large and necessary proviso that the actual player of any character had veto rights, and could immediately and without question or recourse delete or amend any post using their character without their imput. It was a really great system for the most part, though it required a lot of trust between the various players.
The one big downside of this game was that there were certain players who were there PURELY for the sexing. This puzzled me; this was a game about giant cyborg fighting machines and alien terrors, and the most interesting thing you can come up with is PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS? Seriously?

My character - and I should specify for fans of the anime that this was VERY AU; it used the same concepts and locations, but replaced every character with original characters - was one of the head scientists for the organization around which the game revolved. I always wrote him as a man utterly married to his work, and while most of the other players were roleplaying dates and whatnot, I'd always be advancing some sinister and macabre plot in the background. Finally, annoyed by the tenor of the game as a whole, I decided to give my character a romantic sub-plot.

I had him encounter an adult female NPC who was mostly attached to one of the pilot player characters, and wrote a number of scenes with them gradually getting to know one another and growing fond of one another. My plan was, eventually, I would hav her ask my character out for dinner, at which point my character would utterly shut her down, and never, ever speak to her again; it was one thing to be friendly with someone, but he had no time at all for romantic entanglements when he was working to save the world!

I was planning this in part because it entertained me, and in part as an object demonstration that not every subplot needed to end with PENIS PENIS PENIS PENIS. But sadly, it got a little derailed when one of the other players, advancing one of her own subplots, used mine as an NPC (which was totally kosher), but also had him ruminating about going and asking out this NPC girl. This last irritated me mightily, as in having that part redacted, I kind of had to blow the big surprise denial that I had in mind for the end of that subplot. It could be persuasively argued that this is one of the vulnerabilities of this style of roleplay, but it's something which wouldn't have come up if the atmosphere of the game hadn't become so sexualized that this was the automatic assumption.

It just really bugs me when games which are about things which are more interesting than sex end up being little more than vehicles for sex. It's not that I have anything against sexual content in roleplay, it's just that it's often - usually, even - a waste of potential.

So, I was job-hunting today and of course, searching for a new job reminded me of some good ol' stories that I would now like to share with you!

( And now, for a walk down memory lane... )

Edit because I hit update way too fast

For those of you who remember the Hedgehog of DOOM

I unfortunately am here to report that the Player is BACK but not with that character.

( Meet... Usagi Uriko... and then regret it )

I weep. I just... fuckin' weep. What makes it even funnier is this man asks for open input on the character and I am warned to NOT RISE TO THE BAIT by my friend (who I raged on about this privately because I have to be Miss Nice Lady). I almost wish we had an approval process... but 'open forum' means... tragedy happens.

Look, I know you are enthusiastic about joining my roleplay, and that makes me really glad that you are...

but when I ask you not to make profile until I am finished with my own, I don't mean for you to go ahead and start working on yours behind my back. There is a reason I am having the players who have already reserved spots wait - it's because my profiles are going to have key details that pertain to yours. Since all of our characters are starting out as a "team," there is definitely already going to be some history between them, and I want to make sure we are on the same page.

And just to let you know..."reserved" does not mean that you have been "accepted" into the roleplay. That means that you have gotten passed the roleplay samples and have moved on to making the profile stage. I can still deny your entry. Normally I don't after I have accepted your roleplay samples, but in your case I might make an exception. You have already proved to me that you can't follow rules and not only that, but from what I can see in your profile so far...it is completely God-moddish and Mary-Sue. And I really can't have that.

Also...just to add to that...

I asked you not to make your profile yet and you started...not only that but you haven't even been accepted yet and you have ALREADY written an introduction post to the roleplay?! You have no idea what the setting is [since I haven't had time to write it yet] or know ANY details whatsoever and you are already jumping right in! WTF?!

In short...you're definitely not getting in now. Sorry. [Well...I'm not really sorry.]

This is a witnessed suck earlier this afternoon while I was at the library.

I was at the checkout desk, helping one of my students get a library card. A thin, older guy is sitting on the edge of the desk, waiting for his daughter to get her library card from another librarian.

Librarian: (to me) So, we're closed tomorrow for Veteran's Day.
Man: *jumping into our conversation* What?! You're closed?!
Librarian: Yessir. To commemorate our veterans.
Man: You know what it is? Y'all are just LAZY.
Librarian: It's a national holiday.
Man: No, y'all just don't wanna work. Americans are so damn lazy! Taking so many damn holidays! They don't do it anywhere else in the world, especially Europe!
Librarian: *exchanging glances with me*  Erm, in France they're entitled to six paid weeks of vacation per year, sir.
Man: ... ... They should do it like in Japan! They have the best work ethic--double shifts, go in early every day, leave work late everyday, they never see their families!


...considering that Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, I don't know if that's a resounding endorsement.

And, considering that I'd seen this man earlier with his daughter (who looked to be about 9), haranguing her for forgetting what her address zip code was, and going on at her about stupid the library was for requiring a parental ID to get a card with unlimited borrowing privileges,  I....feel very sorry for the daughter.


(I don't think the librarian was doing a zorro? because she was really very polite throughout the entire thing and was just attempting to get back to our business.)

I work in a grocery store doing price change, which is anything related to the prices of things or the labels on the shelf.
On Halloween my boss decided to put all the candy on for half off. I changed all the prices and printed out new labels.
The labels had the item description and the original price on top, and on the big yellow dangly part of the label it had the new price in big numbers. If you squinted, just above the new price it said 'Manager's Special'.
As I was hanging the new labels a very concerned looking customer approached me.

"Excuse me," she said, pointing to the small bit of text. "Is this price only for your managers?"

Why yes, miss. Our new advertising strategy is to show the general public all the amazing perks of being a grocery store manager. The candy sells much faster when it's cheaper for people other than our customers.

Long-time lurker, third-time poster.

This actually happened to me quite a few years ago, but I was having a conversation with someone today and was reminded of this absurd incident.

( Video store suck )

tl;dr - Woman cannot figure out the alphabet, does not compute unavailability of the the movie "Sounder," hates corporate America and ME personally, and apparently has early onset Alzheimer's or something affecting her memory.

I work at an east coast grocery store. It's name deals with a large type of bird. This happened a while ago, and I just thought about it now.


I was working on express, when this old lady comes into my line.

I ring up her items, and then I get to a Tupperware container of scallops which our seafood section puts scallops into. As I go to put it into the bag, she asks me if I can open it for her because it is hard for her to open as she has arthritis. I open it, and it put the lid back on loosely for her. I ask her if that is ok, and she says just to hand it to her. I hand it to her and she goes to open it, and takes a scallop and eats it. These scallops aren't cooked so I was kinda just like..... what??? She was like "Lol, I'm going to die from doing this hahaha." I was lolol uhhhh.... ?? I just keep ringing her up, and she tries to talk to me about good seafood restaurants around here. She then goes on her way, and me and my co worker are just like LOL wut. o_0

I don't think I've ever posted about this story. I was just reminded of it while talking to a coworker about crazy people.

It's around 6 o'clock, when I used to host down under. I seat a couple in the dining room and go back to my hostess stand. Literally a minute later the couple STORMS out the door, growling to themselves. They were so outraged, but we were like "WTF??? O__o" Server S comes up to the stand, in complete shock. "S, what's up with them?? :O"

"They left because their server was black."
"......................... whut?"

They came back twenty minutes later to sit in the bar area but they had a short meal. Since 4 of 5 workers were black. :/ It was really hard to not kick these people.

Okay, I get it. You don't like the pairing X and Y were playing. That's fine; no one is expected to like everything. You don't like it because it's icky slash and breaking up a canon pairing even though the one character's canon love interest isn't in the game and he's taken from a point in canon before the pairing even happened? Okay, that's your opinion, and like I said, you don't have to like the pairing.

But for the love of God, can you stop being a coward and complaining anon-ly about it? No one is forcing you to read their threads. It would be one thing if they were OOC (they're not), playing solely for the sake of sex (they've never even done a sex thread), or if they were rubbing the pairing in everyone's faces (again, they're not). What's even more amazing is the fact that you're still complaining even after one of the players dropped. Are you really that butthurt?

Look, I hate horribly OOC slash pairings as much as the next person, but this was not a case of that. X and Y spent months building up to it and put a lot of work into the development and it showed. I don't like seeing you badmouthing their efforts just because the pairing wasn't your cup of tea.

If I knew who you were, you wouldn't be getting any more tags from me, because that kind of petty, judgmental behavior leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Go focus your rage on people who actually are butchering characters for buttsex, not two good players.