We are told that, if you're not confident, you should just "fake it til you make it."
This is great—in theory.
In practice, sometimes "faking it" can have extremely real and terrible consequences, which these people found out the hardest of hard ways.
Redditor SaithSiro asked:
"When did 'fake it until you make it' backfire?"
Here were some of those answers.
A rude awakening.
I faked being depressed to get pity when I was young. I kept thinking fake it till I make it but like, I didn't realize I was actually depressed...
Therapy starts Saturday, wish me luck.
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When It Becomes Offensive
At Nelson Mandela's funeral, people took note of the sign language interpreter that seemed to just be making random hand gestures instead of actual sign language. Turns out he had made quite a few appearances previously and nobody had caught on that he knew literally no sign language. To me, this dude is just the poster child for 'fake it till you make it'.
Whoops
My brother in law took out a loan without my sister knowing. He couldn't find a job of his liking so he would leave like he was going to work and come back like his day ended. He paid himself with the loan like it was a pay cheque. He even remortgaged the house and kept this up for THREE YEARS! No one knew and it all came to a head and they are now split and my sister is now laid off because of medical and no way of paying off this debt and now awful credit because of it.
He faked it but never made it.
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Catch me if you can.
Frank Abangale.
He was a literally infamous check forger in the 1970s. They made a movie out of his book, "Catch Me If You Can," but the book is way more entertaining than the movie IMHO.
In addition to his most famous impersonation (A Pan Am pilot,) at one point he impersonated a pediatrician. In a teaching hospital. He had residents and interns under him. His technique was, when faced with almost any case, he'd ask the resident, "What would you do in this situation?"
The resident would say, "Well, I'd blah blah blah," and Abangale would say, "So do that."
....until a resident ran up to him and said, "Doctor! We have a blue baby in room 102!"
And Abangale laughed and said that he'd attend to that right after the "green baby in 203!"
He didn't know that a blue baby meant an infant that was not breathing and thus cyanotic. He literally saw the look on everyone's face, ducked into a linen closet, and looked up 'blue baby' in the pocket medical dictionary he carried around. Then he burst out of the linen closet to "help" the residents run the code.
I'd say this qualifies.
Note: He also impersonated a DA in Alabama or some southern state. I'm telling you: The book is AMAZEBALLS.
Oof.
I would always fake my personality. At school I tried to act like a bubble cheerful person because my mom wanted me to be popular like she was in school but then it backfired when I had an extreme anxiety attack and started balling my eyes out.
A happy ending.
I had the opposite happen once. I had an internship with a company, and I impressed them. They had an opening for a job that I really wasn't qualified for, but they assumed I could work it.
I couldn't, and I transferred to a more fitting job months later. I still keep in touch with them, though. They fully admit I wasn't a good fit for the job, but they know I have other skills.
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Like them for who they really are.
I carefully finessed my online profiles until i was able to obtain the attention of the man I wanted. Turns out that being 110% charming, funny, confident, and attractive is a LOT more exhausting/impossible in person. I tried way too hard, got burnt out, didn't know who I was, and ultimately lost the guy anyway.
I did that twice in my early 20's. Never again.
My current boyfriend is the best of the bunch and "securing" him was a gloriously low-key experience.
Oh no.
I was working an XMAS job in college for a Jewellers; and made the mistake of selling a diamond brooch. I didn't realise such things had to be sold by a qualified professional and come with a authenticity certificate. But they couldn't actually punish me since I was ignorant to the fact.
Same place; also tried to replace a customers watch batteries with no idea of what I was doing. I thought 'how hard can this be?' and completely scratched it up, and then ran off and left it there, knowing it wouldn't be collected until tomorrow when I wasn't there.
The s**t you get away with as an 18 year old makes me laugh in retrospect.
When Non Je Parle
This reminds me of a TIFU post where OP moved to a new neighborhood for just a few months and decided to take some LSD to break it in. OP thought it was a good idea to go for a walk and when he went outside, his new neighbor greeted him. Being on LSD and a bit of an introvert, he avoided conversation by speaking French as he knew enough to get by and did not plan on staying there for an extended period of time. This went on for about eight months (longer than he expected to stay there) and eventually the neighbor had a friend of hers over who also spoke French and tried to start up a conversation with him. That's when he was like "yeahh... I don't speak French."
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Climbing the ladder.
Almost living it right now. I'm a decent engineer. I work at a small firm. I don't think I want to do this type of work much longer, and I sure don't want some major controlling interest in a firm. But I do this because it's something I can do well, and provides will for my family. I'm currently looking at other career options that can make use of my ability and still provide as well.
I was told I'm on track to replace the head engineer, who's second in command and had 49% ownership of the firm.
No surprise there.
My colleague was trying to impress a potential client. During a conversation, he was asked if he liked the Toronto Raptors and my colleague, who knows nothing about sports but wants to "fake it" says that he's a huge fan and loves baseball! And this was when we just won the chip.
Basically, he didn't end up signing the deal...
Yikes.
I faked I was 15 when I was 8, I'm 11 now. Anyway this was a game and a girl told me she was 15 so I told her I was 15. We chatted for 6 months (well it weren't really chatting it was mainly "hey." "Hey." "What are you up to?" "Nothing much, you?" "Same" ) then eventually she became my much older online girlfriend.
About another 6 month then I came clean and told her I was 9, she wasn't angry or disappointed, she didn't care, so that was the time I basically dated a pedophile for a year.
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Jeez.
I am a cop and I was on a murder case. The evidence lead me to a stadium during a baseball game and there were some strong leads suggesting one of the players on the field could be hiding a gun. I had to figure out how to mix in with the players and luckily I found out there was a guy who was supposed to sing the national anthem.
I visited him in his room while he was preparing for the show, knocked him out and took his place. All worked fine until I had to step out and actually sing the anthem.
When You're Looking Busy
Guy I used to work with told me about when he used to work as an electrician apprentice at a plant. When there was nothing to do, which apparently was most of the time, the lead guy and him would walk out to a random spot in the plant with a ladder a conduit bender and a bent piece of conduit. Then one of them would stand on top of the ladder and the other on the ground holding the conduit and they'd just chit chat all day. If any of the bosses wandered by they'd nod and pass the piece of conduit up to the guy on the ladder who would then make a show of trying to fit it in somewhere.
Said they both made it through 3 rounds of layoffs doing that, until they too got canned.
When You're Not Flexible Enough
I was 8 years old and I told my dance teacher I could do a backbend (I couldn't) so she moved me up a level in acro and put me in a special role for our recital. For the next week my mom tried to help me get a backbend but it wasn't happening and I had to come clean. Luckily she didn't get too mad. I had to move back down a level, but I still got to keep my special role!
LOL
I remember reading somewhere that some dude lied on his job application that he was a skilled piano player. To his surprise, his boss arranged for him to play at the yearly company party. So his friend bringing him there caught him Googling: "Most painless way to break your hand".
That story always cracks me up.
Taking it too far.
Some guy online liked me in a sexual way and kept wanting to roleplay with his weird kinks, so I started pretending to be a psychopath to drive him away, until it came to the point where I started making threats.
I lost control of myself then, and now that guy hates me to this day.
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Oops.
There was that one time when I boasted I was an ordained priest in Guam. It worked as a way to get discounts at the video game store, as the owner was very religious.
Unfortunately, I was boasting to a friend one day and a married couple later walks up to me and says they overheard me, and asked if I could officiate their wedding. I said sure and it worked out great. Got a girlfriend out of one of the bridesmaids and sang karaoke.
It wasn't until the fourth wedding I was asked to officiate was where I was exposed, where I gave a sermon out of the Bible, shocking the crowd. The couple and a lot of the crowd were Jewish.
They seemed to forgive me, as I read from the Old Testament the first time, and they were lenient about the botched Hebrew in a song the couple asked to sing. It wasn't until I said the wrong pronunciation in an oral passage that the crowd caught on, and I was not only stiffed of payment (though a friend of the groom gave me some cash for fooling them that long a couple of days later, possibly out of amusement), but I was chased out and threatened legal action.
When 你使用谷歌翻译
I hired a mandarin translator for a game I'm developing.
Ran her translations through google translate, to find they were a good match. TOO good a match.
Showed it to a friend of mine who's from China, told me the translator just google translated everything and that the end result was barely comprehensible.
Little white lie.
During a job interview I was once asked my age and for some reason I said several years higher than I really was (said 25 when I was 21). I didn't mean to lie but at that point I couldn't say "oh, I mean 21" because I would sound like an idiot. Plus they weren't supposed to ask that anyway. So I just went with it. He wrote it down on my resume next to my salary expectations.
I did get the job and I'm sure they realized pretty quickly, if not immediately, but never said anything.
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Not the smartest choice.
Not me but my aunt. She was offered a position to stage manage some performance in Quebec...in French.
When asked how well she knew French, she responded "Comme ci, comme ça," implying she knew it...at least barely conversationally.
She knew approximately zero French.
I forget the exact details but it didn't end smoothly.
Catching up.
Possibly this year.
I got my MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, but on the adult track, meaning I didn't learn anything about how to teach kids.
Fast forward a few years of tutoring adults around my city, I land a job (miraculously) at a local elementary school. I know zero standards, don't know any of the acronyms (aside from ESL ones), none of the buzzwords. The school didn't even check to see that I had my MA, just trusted my word because they needed another ESL teacher. I faked three years of knowing what I was doing at that school, but got shit pay because it was a disorganized mess.
This year, I got hired at a new school that has their shit together. They offered me over 10k more, and I'll be the sole ESL teacher for the entire school instead of one of six at a high ESL school like I had been. This means all eyes are on me.
I know a lot of the buzzwords now, and I have the acronyms down, but in the past I've always been able to field specific primary school questions to our head ESL teacher whom I will miss so very much. Now the spotlight is on me and I am terrified.
When Cousin Couldn't Keep It Up
Went to visit my older cousin in a big city (small town girl). Before going out, he told me that the friends we would be meeting are super snobby, and would probably make fun of me if I told them I was from SmallTown-A (today I would tell him to get better friends, but when I was 18 I just wanted to fit in). We agree I would tell them I'm from City-X.
So the blonde bombshell in the group (6 years older) starts talking to me while my cousin and his friend head off to buy shots. "Where are you from?"
'uuhm... City-X'
"OMG, me too!" She proceeds to ask me which school I went to, which coffee shop was my favorite and where my parents work - just making polite conversation. Of course, I do the adult thing and confess make up an entire fake life story.
My cousin gets back to the table with the shots and I have never been more grateful for the opportunity to put alcohol in my mouth and stop words from coming out. At seeing me knock back my shot like an animal, my cousin forgets our cover story and loudly proclaims "Good god! You don't have to drink like you do in SmallTown-A, just chill!"
I did not look at Bombshell for the rest of the night. I have seldom wanted the earth to swallow me as much as I did in that moment.
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Stay far away.
Basically all the times I faked nice to customers I didn't give a crap about as a cashier.
One customer was a middle aged man thought obligated polite conversation during transaction = he had a shot. He proceeded to invite me to his workplace for a free cup of coffee. Where did he work? The truck stop at the sketchy part of town.
Did faking nice lead to an invitation to be trafficked? F**k if I know. Man shows interest in me? My lesbian a** instinctively goes in the other direction. I will never be sorry for that.
That's how you learn.
I moved to the United States when I was about 11. At the time I had a very Indian accent and being in middle school it did not fare well for me as other kids started mocking the way I speak. I started faking an American accent just to avoid the mocking and eventually it just became the way I talk.
I have since moved to yet another country where my friends mock me as "the most white sounding Indian". I can't change my my accent even if I wanted to.
Gross.
The entire Dr. Death podcast series. He was the WORST surgeon and continued to maim and kill patients.
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Wow.
I forced myself to vomit everyday before school so I didn't have to go. I got diagnosed with appendicitis and had to go the hospital. There wasn't anything wrong with me (obviously) and I ruined my grades.
Ah, elementary school.
In 2nd grade, I had to give an oral book report on The Duck Who Thought He Was a Watchdog. I did not read it and was just making up everything. My teacher obviously knew I was lying, and kept asking me questions about it, and I kept making stuff up.
Eventually she had enough of it, and slammed the book down on the ground and yelled at me in front of everyone.
When You Need A Job
A few years ago I got a job interview after months of looking. I was desperate. I thought I was going to be working in the mail room for the City but when I arrived it turned out it was for delivering mail between City offices. Okay, no big deal, I can do that. Well, in my province we have G1 (Learners), G2 (Still have some restrictions about when/who you can drive with) and G (Full License).
Well, I needed my full G for the job but hadn't gotten around to doing the test. No big deal, I thought, I'll just go along and schedule a test ASAP, hopefully before any paperwork needs to be done. So I went through the interview and I think I'm home free, but no. They want to do a driver's test right then and there, and I need to present my license to the testing company.
Thinking quick, I tell them I don't have my license on me. Well, they need it and they were willing to find a City employee to drive me back out to my house (~30 mins away) and get it. Backed into a corner I finally have to admit that I don't have my G license. I blurted it out and basically ran out of the office and didn't look back.
Still one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
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Nice try.
John Spano was a fraud who almost bought the NY Islanders hockey team. He was only worth 5 million but he "bought" the team and their cable rights for 165 million.
He was found out once the payments were due and instead of sending 17 million he tried to pay 1,700 instead. He ended up getting arrested for wire fraud.
When You Don't Know What A Manhattan Is
Got a part time job as a bartender to help with bills. Told them I knew how to bartend. I can pour a whiskey coke and beer so just figured I'd pick up the rest as I went along. 1st week I was serving to get to know the menu and someone called in sick. Owner makes me bartend. So I'm doing fine, just beers and a few mixed drinks. Then a party of about 40 people coming from a wedding come in and starts asking for all these different shots, different specialty drinks, etc. Total Yikes.
When A Cat Screeching Is Your Theme Song
I took orchestra in elementary school and I eventually realized that I was just not going to understand violin. But I still wanted to be in orchestra because it had some perks. So, whenever we had lesson I put my fingers over the strings and moved my bow around like I meant it. When we had to play individually, I had to do it for real. I thought maybe, by some miracle, I'd get it and play normally.
I didn't.
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Good advice.
Faking your whole life by not living as yourself as you turn into someone else and fail to achieve happiness. You constantly distant yourself from your loved ones in search for money thinking that it would eventually solve your problems. But it doesnt end there and it gets worse and worse until you get crippling depression and are ready to hang yourself.
Be yourselves and be happy.
When It Could Have Backfired, But You Got Lucky
Okay, I guess it ultimately didn't backfire, but it's a pretty good story I was told in film school eons ago. Back in the 80/90s, a guy snagged an interview for a camera operating job at a TV production company that was way above his experience level. The interviewer gave him a camera, said "okay, take this apart and lay it all out for me. You have 20 minutes," and left him there. After panicking for a minute, he walked down the hall, found a technician working and asked him to take apart the camera for him, which he did. Interviewer comes back, says, "good work. Now put it back together," and goes off to put out some other fires. Our guy tracks down the tech, who obliges again, and he was hired. When I heard this story the guy had worked in the field 15 or so years so I guess things worked out.
Don't do that to yourself.
I had a new part-time job. First couple days there I felt terrible, stressed, anxious, and depressed. I pushed through it and starting feeling ok with the job with occasional feelings of stress.
Six weeks in I had a mental breakdown in front of some coworkers. I quit later that week out of shame and to help my mental health. I later weighed myself and found that I had lost around 20 lbs. over the time I worked there, weight I wasn't trying to lose.
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That's dangerous.
We had a 'doctor' one time at the hospital going around giving orders and stuff for 2 whole weeks until another doctor called him out for doing something stupid and he disappeared.
Turns out he wasn't a doctor and apparently had been going state to state faking it. I don't know how he got access to our computer system and an ID badge but he did somehow
More background checks, please.
I worked with an absolute sociopath. After she got fired for stealing (of course) she applied to be a programmer at a huge business.
She didn't even own a computer or know how to turn one on.
I would give an arm and an eye to have been there her first day. She'd told me that she was "ballsy" and "ambitious" and would "figure it out" because she's so "intelligent."
I hope the hiring team got a workshop in background checks.
Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel....
This will get buried, but this is a semi relevant story to when I was in first grade.
Some back story here: Every Christmas we would go my Grandma's house and spend Christmas there. She had various toys around and a few in particular were spinners. They were basically plastic cones with a peg sticking out of the bottom. You would simply spin them on the point of the cone similar to like a bey-blade. The spinners were some of my favorite toys at Grandma's house.
So in First grade we're learning about different religions, cultures, etc. Up comes the topic of the Jewish religion. The teacher is explaining that around the Holidays, Jewish people would spin Dreidel's and celebrate Hanukkah. She then asks if anyone is Jewish so we can learn more about their culture.
I raise my stupid little hand thinking the little plastic spinners I was spinning at Grandma's house must make me a Jew.
She proceeds to ask me questions like if we celebrated Christmas, etc. A lot of other questions too which I probably answered like an idiot and confused the hell out of her, but the rest of the class was learning from this "experience".
It wasn't until a few months later that my mom comes home from Parent teacher conferences and is like.. Why did you tell your teacher you were Jewish?
I'm just like.. we're not?
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Smart choice.
I tried football in grade school. Didn't put in the time to memorize plays and stuck to defense. My last year, one of the coaches thought about putting me in offense, and I had to come clean.
Stopped playing after that year for many reasons, that being one of them.
Sorry Mom.
This is my friends "fake until you make it story":
So at our elementary school there was this book club that did competitions and had meetings every Friday. My friends mother told her to sign up for it and she forgot about it and missed the deadline to sign up. So, for 7 months straight she pretended to be in the group and had her mother buy the books the club was reading (the school was supply the club with the books).
It was all going perfectly her mother learned a big competition was coming up and she had to write an essay to try out for the team (it was mandatory). So, her mother went to the library and asked the lady for the essay prompt and date of competition. The library employee then told her that her daughter had never signed up and she had wasted money on books my friend would never read/need again.
It took a while for her to earn her mothers trust back.
Bad call.
I worked for a Savings and Loan which refused to give me a raise to the salary of the guy I replaced. This irked me because I was already doing his job in addition to my own, so I took a contract job and left for greener and frankly more lucrative pastures.
The guy they replaced me with was rejected by me in my interview with him: he didn't know 'C' programming, SunOS/Solaris, Sybase database syntax or anything else I did. I wore a lot of hats. Anyway this dude announced in the interview he was going to "optimize" the server to disk layout and really take care of things but couldn't explain how. But he was a friend of one of the System/36 guys and they both seemed to think "How hard can UNIX be? We know mainframes!" Whatever.
A few weeks later I got a call from my wife who still worked there: the servers were down because Mr. Optimize was hired and did exactly what he said. He apparently rearranged all the cables and when the servers didn't come up he declared I'd remotely hacked into the system and crashed everything. Sigh. I called my old boss and said "Look, believe whatever you want but I told you that guy doesn't know a root prompt from a hole in the ground. Call this dude at the local Sun office and he'll fix you right up."
Sure enough local Sun SE came out and figured out which disk controller was supposed to go to which disk and corrected all the mount points either by switching back the cables or changing the device names. Either way I was vindicated and Mr. Optimize The Server was fired.
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When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
Money Burn GIF by nog
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Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.