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People Reveal Why They Had A Hard Time Staying Professional At Work

People Reveal Why They Had A Hard Time Staying Professional At Work

When You Just Can't Take It Anymore

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They say customer service is a two way transaction. You, as the employee, should provide excellent service to the customer, who should be polite and thankful. Anyone that's eaten at an Applebee's on Sunday Night Football day know that customers aren't always completely cooperative.

It's not just people in the service industry, either, who have a tough time maintaining a civil, professional, non-laughing outlook. Plenty of other professions with enough pressure, can cause even the most solid individual to crack. Reddit user, u/AccomplishedStory, asked: When did you have the most difficult time "staying professional"?

The Sarcasm Is High

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About 6 months ago, I'm sitting in a meeting with high level Microsoft reps along with all of the management and directors of our IT department. Essentially, it was a meeting where Microsoft was trying to sing the praises of their InTune product. I had been demoing internally for three months and they wanted to get my feedback.

So I gave it to them.

They were expecting me to come out and announce my love for it, but I gave them my honest feedback with many reasons and examples about why it wasn't right for our organization. After about 10 minutes, the lead InTune guy stated talking over me and changing the subject.

The meeting ends and I start getting ready to leave when the InTune guy hands me his card and says something about looking forward to working together. I took his card and involuntarily said "Oh boy." In front of my boss...and my director...and all these Microsoft managers.

I didn't sleep that night. By far the most unprofessional moment of my career.

Animosis

Oh, I Think She Knows

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I was helping a man make a bear for his wife's birthday, and he wanted to record his voice to put inside of it. Let me preface this by saying this dude was like 6'7" black dude that was also a cop. This large man kneels down at the tiny ass 'sound station' and says into the mic in his deep ass voice "you know you the sexiest thang I ever seen in my life, right?". I tried my hardest not to lose it. I set up the sound to download, turned around, and held myself together as best I could. I lost it as soon as he left.

Edit: it was this bear

sfdbsd

What's The Opposite Of A Helicopter Parent?

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I had a student miss 68 days of my class in a 90 day semester. The reason she missed was because my class was "too early" in the morning. The school calls the house every day a kid is absent in any class, and sends letters. Grades are available online at any time, and letters are sent home saying when kids are in danger of failing.

The child, shockingly, did not pass my class. She ended up with about a 40 - passing grade is a 70.

The mom called me, after finals saying that I should pass the kid because she was "pretty close" to passing and that's pretty damn good for missing that many days. She said that if she had come every day she absolutely would have passed, so I needed to pass her because Mom wanted her to graduate on time. She would not stop arguing with me although there was no way in hell I was going to pass the kid.

I've never had to restrain myself so much from cursing at someone or just flat out hanging the phone up on her.

arcant12

He's Got His Preferences On His Sleeve

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I was working at an internet provider when someone came in to pay his bill. Now, I've seen a lot of ridiculous last names and I've kept a straight face, but this time I couldn't help it.

His last name was "Assmann." I broke up laughing in front of him and apologized profusely. He was pretty chill about it and was like, "It got me a lot of action in high school."

For the record, he pronounced it "AHHS-men."

BruceLee1255

They Probably Didn't Know?

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When a parent of one of my students said "tick tock, you don't have forever" referring to me having children... a week after I had a miscarriage.

gandalfdumblecat

When You Gotta Let It Go

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I used to work at a university and one day we had a staff Christmas party. The president acts all friendly and even rolls up his sleeves to serve ice cream to the peons.

Anyways he was up on stage giving an inspirational end of the year speech when he rips a massive fart. There was dead silence, but I couldn't handle it and just burst out laughing. Everybody else followed suit and for a good two minutes the entire room was dying from laughter.

I felt really bad because he recently had some king of stomach surgery and probably couldn't control it, but goddamn was it hilarious.

fasjdflaj

When It's Not Just You

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Oh jeez. A guy had an interview with my company and my coworkers and I were looking at his resume beforehand. We noticed that there were several spelling errors, including spelling 'project' as 'roject'.

So the guy comes in and I'm (along with a coworker) interviewing him, giving technical questions and whatnot (he wasn't doing that well). The guy's back is to the rest of my office and the wall is glass (so see through, obviously).

In the middle of the interview, a coworker on the outside looks at me and slowly raises a piece of paper from his desk, facing it towards me. On it is a single word in capital letters: "ROJECT".

I had to excuse myself to "get a drink of water" when in reality I needed to catch my breath to prevent myself from cracking up.

MetalGilSolid

Just Listen. Everyone Has A Story.

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I worked for the prosecuting attorney and we were wrapping up a murder case. It wasn't a particularly horrific, or even surprising, murder. One local drug dealer murdered another over a dispute of some kind. The deceased was ambushed outside his home and died in his driveway. Not a lot of people cared. As I said, he was a local drug dealer and what we called a frequent flyer in our courts.

Still, the murderer wanted a jury trial - as is his right. And part of my job was to take the victim impact statement of the victim's mother. She was a small, thin woman with dyed strawberry blonde hair and wrinkles in her face from age and a lot of time in the sun. She looked a good 10 years older than she was on her best day. This was not her best day.

She and her husband came to my office for help writing their statements to be read to the judge at sentencing. Her husband choked up almost immediately and had to leave the room. Mother was having a difficult time putting her words down so I told her to just talk and I would type what she said.

She sat in a chair behind me and talked about her dead son for a good ten minutes. He was a funny boy. He liked to play jokes. He loved his Momma and always greeted her with a big hug. As she spoke, she held her arms slightly crossed over her heart and rocked back and forth as if she were rocking a baby to sleep. I thought she must be remembering what it was like to hold her baby boy (he was the oldest) and she was trying again to cradle him in her arms where he was safe and loved.

I cried a lot in that job. But I didn't cry then. I kept my fingers on that keyboard and I wrote exactly what she said. My heart broke for her in a way that it rarely broke for another parent of a murdered child. But I kept my composure and let her speak.

Maxwyfe

How Do You Even Keep A Straight Face?

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We have meetings on accident prevention every time a major accident in our company happens. Every time.

Couple years ago a man straining too hard taking a poo passed out and fell forward leaving a large gash on his forehead and a concussion.

Imagine sitting around with 8 other people discussing how to prevent head injuries while on the toilet.

daveed2001

What...A...Human? Is That The Word?

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I'm a wedding planner. We had an unexpected death in the family. Our 6 month old nephew had passed away in his sleep. I knew the funeral was going to be the day my clients upcoming wedding. I gave her a call to explain the situation. She's clearly not paying attention to the call or the words I'm speaking because I hear her laughing with friends in the background. I get irritated and tell her I'll call her later. I call back that night and again tell her what has happened and that I'd be sending an assistant to cover for me so I can attend the funeral. She tells me that I need to send my assistant to the funeral and that I better be at her wedding. It took me a few seconds, but I calmly stated that I'd be sending her money back and that no one would be covering for me. Nicest way I've ever said piss off.

...I've been doing this for a while. I've seen a drunk grandma heil Hitler in a room full of Jewish guests. I've seen a bride kiss an ex boyfriend while the groom was in the bathroom. One attempted suicide. One very expensive and very short wedding. However, the majority of my clients are amazing. Still, sometimes there are just horrible people in this world. The good thing is I've gotten much better at spotting them before we get to far.

Imabigdiva

H/T: Reddit

The Absolute Weirdest Compliments People Have Ever Received

Reddit user callmejari asked: 'What's the weirdest compliment you have received?'

woman in black pants and red tank top
Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

Giving compliments is pretty easy, although most of us don't do it often enough.

Accepting compliments can be much harder.

Too many of us immediately shift into disclaimers to explain why we don't deserve the praise.

But we just need to say thank you—even if the compliment is a little odd.

Keep reading...Show less
Woman standing alone in the rain
Neal E. Johnson on Unsplash

We can all agree that, as fun as it's supposed to be, the dating scene can be really, really hard.

Here's the secret: as hard as the dating scene can be to navigate, some of the trouble lies with us. We may not to be able to find a long-term partner or a date at all because of something that we're doing.

But when a friend is in this situation, it can be really hard to tell them the brutal truth about their dating history.

Redditor teekzer asked:

"What is causing your friend to remain single that you don't have the heart to tell them?"

Chasing Deadends

"He keeps hanging on to the past and spending all his time hanging out with ex-girlfriends who are unavailable, or women who like him but he doesn’t romantically like."

- SqueakySnapdragon

Baby Talk

"I always wondered why she couldn't get a date because she is gorgeous until I saw her flirting with someone."

"The first night they met, flirted, and swapped numbers. Then, she was immediately clingy, talking in a baby voice to him, and making baby noises."

- robocop_robocop

Body Odor

"I can smell them. Everyone can smell them."

- not-read-gud

"You should find a way to tell them, it might hurt but they'll appreciate it."

- iciclesnbdayclothes

The Nice Guy Mindset

"He really is not as nice of a person as he thinks he is."

- Rusti3dp

"The ones who claim this rarely are."

- SummerOfMayhem

Impossible Standards

"The people they like aren’t real. They are idealized, cartoonish caricatures. Now my friend himself has a lot to offer in my opinion, but he is looking for a person who doesn’t exist. Hard to find something that’s not there."

- Sufficient-Spell9935

"I have a friend who started dating his flatmate after being really into her for a while, and then after a week or two said something like, 'Dating you doesn't feel as good as I thought it would,' TO HER."

"He basically torpedoed his own potential relationship because of his own ideal fantasy, and to be honest, I don't know if he actually realized he'd created an unrealistic standard in his own head."

"He's been single for the last decade, his mental health has only got worse in the time I've known him despite therapy, and I think he's probably so detached from 'appropriate dating behavior' at this point that he could be single for the rest of his life."

- fish993

Questionable Humor

"Brother-in-law, not friend. But he makes the same jokes about poop and farts all the time. Like, constantly."

"Yes, some women like potty humor, but they usually also want it to be funny."

"He is also very negative; finds insult or something wrong with any situation."

- EatYourCheckers

Living in Fantasy Land

"He lies to himself about almost everything. He lives in fantasy land."

"He thinks he's in the gym five days a week, eats great, climbs mountains, goes camping, and makes loads of money."

"In reality, he's at the pub five days a week, over eats like s??t, went on one hike in January, can't hold a job, and lives paycheck to paycheck..."

"If you were to confront him with this reality, it wouldn't even get through to him."

- Fit_Yogurtcloset_291

Mismatched Attraction

"The type of guys she claims she likes isn't what she's actually attracted to."

"She keeps saying how much she loves shy introverted sensitive guys but when she finds one and dates him suddenly, she's like, 'He's not outgoing enough, doesn't speak his mind enough, and is too shy!'"

"I kind of think she has this 'I can fix him' syndrome and doesn't really acknowledge it. Like, she's attracted to the idea of a typical shy guy but thinks once they're in a relationship they'll suddenly be more open and turn into the guy she actually wants. That's not how it works!"

- Disig

Poor Self-Esteem

"She is so lovely. So kind, so generous, and so beautiful. But her crippling lack of self-esteem is so huge, it's visible from space, and her anxiety (and I'm 99% sure her undiagnosed ADHD) means that when she's at all nervous, she talks at 100 miles an hour in several directions at once."

"It's like being handed eight happy Labrador puppies to try and hold in your arms. I so badly want her to be happy and feel fulfilled but even I find it tiring sometimes."

- butwhatsmyname

The Negative Attitude

"I have two of these."

"One is the most talented, smartest, wonderful person I know and I wish I could pull the gremlins out of their brain so they could be happy."

"The other is self-fulfilling proficiency f**king up their life. He's not unlovable, or ugly, or uncared for, but walking through the world expecting rejection at all turns and living in a fog of negativity is what makes him unattractive to be around."

"So-and-so isn't hotter than you, that's not the reason they're getting more friends and lovers, but they are more positive and interested than you, and people are attracted to that company."

- cool_username_iguess

Just Pure Arrogance

"For my husband’s friend, it’s the selfish arrogance. I want what I want, and the subtext was that he never cared about what his girlfriend wanted."

"He would only go places he wanted to go, which never included her friends or family. He wanted to spend all his money on 'collectibles' related to sci-fi movies, DVDs, figurines etc."

"Engagement rings were a waste of money, investing, or buying a house ditto, no compromises were possible, he said NO, and no discussions were entertained."

"His opinion on every topic was the correct one, and he was not interested in your opinion, or listening to extra facts he did not know that might change his mind."

"He was once young and good-looking, and he thought he could find someone else when she walked when he was 32. They had dated for close to a decade. During the relationship, he had started to stack on the weight and losing his hair and he was not able to find a replacement."

"Now he is 49 and hasn’t had a girlfriend since. He still has not bought a house and they cost double what they did when they were dating, and his rent has tripled. He does have a copy of all his favorite movies in every format: VHS, DVD, AND BlueRay, a whole bedroom is dedicated to storing them, if you can get in there. His house is a hoarder's paradise."

"He says the reason no one wants him is because he is fat and bald, and it does not help, but it’s not the major turnoff."

"As for his ex, I don't really know what happened to her. She left all of us behind when they broke up. I did hear she got married, but no updates after that. She is a sweetheart, I wish all the good things for her."

- vicki153

Impossible to Move Forward

"Summarizing two types of my single friends:"

"Super successful, smart, funny, and good-looking. They also tend to go for folks who leave them on read for days. Their insecurities are their worst enemies and I think are the biggest factor of them chasing after partners who don’t want to be partners."

"Other friends don’t know how to commit to anything, including a job. It almost feels like a 'it’ll happen when it happens' type of ideology and so they don’t even try to make things happen? They act like things will happen on their own? So they’ll meet a person and then that’s it. Meet cute dead in the water."

- thunderkitty_

Too Desperate

"Desperation. From laughing way too hard at mediocre jokes to bringing up marriage on the first date, she reeks of it."

"We have all tried talking to her about it to no avail. The sad thing is that if she was just her regular funny, smart, relaxed self, then men would be falling over themselves trying to get her number."

- Julia_Sugarbaker123

A Want List

"Her standards are excessively too high. She brings nothing to a relationship. She's a walking contradiction, all of which is why she is single."

"I think it's great to have standards and high standards but hers is just a checklist of wants."

- Theunpolitical

Height Insecurities

"He’s convinced women won’t like him because he’s short. I keep telling him I know plenty of guys just as short as him in great relationships, I’ve dated guys as short as him in the past. He just refuses to believe it."

- MichaSound

"I dated a guy who was four feet, nine inches, and I'm five feet, four inches. He had such an amazing strong personality that you never noticed his height."

"I did find kissing standing up weird; the motions are so different when it's swapped."

"The relationship ended for other reasons than his height."

- lonelyronin1

Alternatively, Open to Feedback

"I had a friend who finally did just ask. He came up to the girls in our group and just let us have an open conversation. I'm sure it was awkward and uncomfortable for him, but we gently laid out some issues. He cut his hair, got some new clothes, and (the big one) started therapy."

"A couple of years later, guess who's got a wife and a wonderful child?"

- Stars-in-the-night

It's so disheartening to see the people we care about unable to have something that they would find so fulfilling like a long-term relationship.

But it's even worse when the reasons behind it are things they could work on, if we only had the guts to tell them or if they were open to hearing it.

Every now and again, we might experience something that makes us stop dead in our tracks or gives us the shivers.

More often than not, there is a logical explanation for what happened, often resulting in our laughing about it down the line.

An electrical power surge caused the lights to flicker, that haunting noise we heard was just a nearby car radio, or that unexplained cold blast of air was simply owing to our standing too close to the air conditioning vent.

But sometimes, we experience something we simply cannot explain, and still lie awake at night trying to figure it out.

Redditor GifGuyRob was curious to hear people's mystifying experiences to which they still can't offer an explanation, leading them to ask:

"What is the weirdest thing you have seen that you can’t really explain?"

Card Tricks... Without The Cards.

"I was hanging out on the sidewalk in front of a drugstore when some dude walked by, stopped, looked at me, and asked me to think of a card, any card."

"Then he said 'you’re picturing the five of clubs!'"

"I was amazed."

"That’s the card I was thinking of."

”'Holy sh*t, that’s right!' I said."

"The dude just winked and walked away."

"That’s the best magic trick I’ve ever seen, and it was some rando on the street that I never saw again."

"I have no clue how he did it, other than some form of subliminal planting of the image in my mind, but that’s unreliable."

"It was a card trick that involved no cards at all."

"That was the most inexplicable thing I’ve ever seen."- I_Framed_OJ

Cosmic Injustice...

"In a hospital, the nicer the patient, the worse the prognosis."

"If they work charities and are really polite, definitely aggressive cancer."

"If they are rude a**holes, they will live long no matter how sick they are."- Koorsboom

The Knocks Hospital GIF by feierSunGiphy

Paranormal Activity

"I once saw a clipboard fly off of the hook it hung on and land around 3 feet away."

"The room was totally still beforehand, no breeze or earthquake or anything."

"Just hanging up where it always was, then flung across the room for no reason at all."

"Most boring poltergeist ever."- Reiseoftheginger

Lucky Pennies...

"I was living in my last apartment back in the 90s."

"I walked down the hall, turned to go to the bathroom, and got hit in the back with a penny."

"Nobody else was in the apartment."- kmsc84

Wrong Floor...

"Family was on holiday at a resort in Vietnam."

"My sister and I took an elevator in the hotel and it stopped and opened up on the top floor, where nothing was built."

"Just bricks laying about, a wheelbarrow, no fence or wall around the edge of the building, and there was a single small tree growing out of the ground in front of the elevator doors a few feet out."

"There was also this impenetrable fog that was floating around, obscuring the sight of what would be the rest of the resort below and it was quite windy."

"We both agreed it was weird and looked dangerous to be up here - we clearly weren't meant to have access to the top floor since it wasn't fully constructed."

"We went back down to the ground floor and noticed that it was actually a sunny and clear day all round."

"We wondered where that fog and wind went to."

"So we decided to go back to the unfinished rooftop level to check again, but when we did it was perfectly fine and fully built."

"We couldn't explain it and couldn't find that half-built top floor again afterwards."- lifesnotperfect

Going Up 13Th Floor GIF by Taylor SwiftGiphy

Not-So-Little Piggy

"My friends and I flashed a powerful light across a river and saw what appeared to be an absolutely massive boar."

"It then stood up on its hind legs and it simply did not compute."

"Immediate fear everyone ran."

"I was a kid but I have a very good memory and several friends that are positive they saw it as well."

"Idk."- 444jxrdan444

Unexplained Exit

"I went from driving on one highway to another highway in pouring rain."

"Still headed in the right direction, and about 10 miles in total displacement."

"But I consciously chose one and was on it until I saw road signs telling me I was one the other."

"I just went numb."

"No loss of time or any other abnormality."

"If I didn’t have to actually make a distinct effort to choose the route I wanted, I can see how it might have been a simple mistake."

"But I was on the road I chose (geography etc) until I wasn’t."

"Like something picked me up and put me down instantaneously and I didn’t notice until how long?"- Stayvein

Creature Of The Night

"Actually, one that was recently solved thanks to the internet!"

"We used to have parakeets in an outside aviary."

"One night I was woken up by the budgies screaming and there was... some odd animal attacking it."

"It had a pointed, cone shaped head, no visible ears and a long tail that was not foxlike."

"But it wasn't a possum."

"It was thin and moved like a cat -- it jumped and moved lithely."

"I tapped on the sliding glass door and it stopped, cocked its head, and came over to look at me."

"We were looking eye-to-eye and for the life of me I still couldn't figure out a face."

"Now I was really into nature in my area, really into reading books and sh*t because I wanted to be a forest ranger, and I still couldn't identify this animal."

"Everyone who I told said it was a bad dream but it was real."

"Anyway, years later it was still the weirdest thing that happened to me."

"The internet had come along and I finally had my answer: I saw a Fisher!"

"It's a super rare animal in my area -- like 500 left, max."

"Kind of like a weasel, but heavier."

"They do have ears, btw."

"I assume it was hidden by fur."- Z0ooool

Cabin In The Woods

"When I was about 13 or 14 years old myself and two friends found a house in the middle of the woods that just didn't make sense."

"We were all neighbors, and along all three of our houses was a very large wooded area."

"It runs a few miles back and becomes a state forest."

"We had run around these woods plenty of times and even had areas we'd recognize as we went."

"This particular day we followed this ravine that was sometimes a stream, but was dry at this time."

"That part is important, because we followed that same ravine several times after that and never could find the house again."

"When I say the house didn't make sense, I mean it. It was a white trailer."

"I'd say a double-wide."

"There was white underpinning along the bottom."

"It was a poor country area, so that's not uncommon."

"But it was unusually clean."

"Like, brand new, perfectly white."

"But that's still not the weird part."

"It didn't have doors."

"Or windows."

"Or a driveway."

"We were in the middle of the woods."

"The entire walk through the woods is full of bushes, thorns, spiderwebs, bugs, vines, logs."

"Woods stuff."

"But this was a clearing of flat grass like someone mowed this area."

"We weren't afraid or anything while we were there."

"There really wasn't anything remarkable about it, and that's honestly what makes it so weird to think about to this day."

"We just walked around it for a bit, said it was kinda weird, and we went back on our adventure."

"Eventually we all just went home."

"I'm still friends with both of the other kids."

"We're in our 30s and I'm even going to a wedding for one of them this weekend."

"We've talked about it since, and the story still just doesn't add up."

"My parents still live in that house, and we spent years after that day exploring the woods all the time."

"Never found it again."- Lemonbeeee

Horror Home GIF by Knock At The CabinGiphy

Sometimes our eyes might be playing tricks on us.

Other times, we know for certain what we're seeing is real, but simply can't explain what we're seeing.

Either way, there is little more disconcerting in this world than uncertainty.