Seriously, these people need to get a life! They found the weirdest things to start arguments over, and the results were a hot mess! It's not that these people need to get a thicker skin, they need to get a clue! Content has been edited for clarity.
I Can’t Say What To Her?
“This definitely made me shake my head in disbelief. For context, I am a white female. I have a coworker, who I’ll call ‘Peggy’, who is black. I have known Peggy for over twenty years now. Peggy takes great pride in her appearance and always has her hair and nails done. She does all sorts of different styles and textures with her hair, and it always looks amazing and quite flattering on her. So whenever Peggy has a new hairstyle, I always compliment her on it. She smiles and laughs and thanks me. I’ve been doing this with her for literally twenty years now.
I mentioned this to another co-worker ‘Liz’ in passing, and she said that I should ‘watch my step’. According to her, complementing Peggy on her hair could be ‘offensive’ because it was ‘racially based’, and I shouldn’t ‘single Peggy out because she’s black’. She said that she was only speaking up because she ‘didn’t want me to get in trouble with HR’. I just kind of looked at Liz in disbelief and changed the subject. I’m hoping that if Peggy was in any way offended by me complimenting her hair style, she would speak to me directly, or she would go to HR herself. In our twenty years together, that hasn’t happened. You gotta love it when someone gets offended on another person’s behalf, and that perceived offense is utterly absurd!”
Tomato Torment
“The worst thing someone got offended over was my serious food allergy. I am severely allergic to all peanuts, nuts, fish, and seafood. It totally sucks, but that’s my life. I have had plenty of people over the years get offended because I turned something down due to my allergy. All that I tell the person is, ‘Oh no, I can’t have any. Thank you for the offer! I have a food allergy, so I have to say no.’
Instantly, I receive the stink eye and judgemental comments about how supposedly rude I am. Um, sorry I cannot eat any food that would actually kill me?! This one time in high school, I went out to dinner with a huge group of my friends. They all ordered a seafood appetizer, despite me repeating multiple times that i was allergic. They went ahead anyway, which was pretty rude of them. One of the friends ordered a salad that came with tomatoes, but she didn’t like the tomatoes. I like tomatoes, so she took her fork that she ate the seafood with to give me the tomatoes. I had to tell her that I couldn’t eat the tomatoes because it touched her seafood. She became all offended as she put the tomatoes on a clean fork. But I still had to repeat that the food was contaminated, and I still could not eat it. She would have to throw them away or give them to someone else, which really ticked her off. She gave me a massive stink-eye for that and muttered a nasty comment to someone beside her. She made me feel like total garbage because I couldn’t eat her cross-contaminated tomatoes!”
How Dare You Accuse Him Of That!
“A close relative had multiple spine surgeries years ago and can walk fine, but he can’t bend over to pick anything up off the floor. He otherwise looks normal, young, and healthy. He has a service dog that helps him with retrieving things he’s dropped or can’t reach. This dog is the most quiet, calm, and well-behaved dog I have ever seen, and I grew up with lots of dogs. We were at a casual restaurant one night with the dog, when we finished our meal and were leaving. Some old guy sitting alone yelled loudly at us as we walked by his table, ‘You shouldn’t bring that filthy thing into a restaurant, it’s not allowed here!’
My relative calmly responded, ‘She’s a service dog, and I’m disabled, sir.’
The old guy responded, ‘You don’t look disabled! You’re a liar!’
I’m sorry, what is a disabled person supposed to look like, according to your rules? Yes, I realize a lot of people abuse the service dog thing, but you have no idea what someone’s disability can be sometimes. I knew someone who had a service dog who could detect when her blood sugar was dropping by her scent. She otherwise looked healthy. Other people need service dogs to detect oncoming seizures, and they warn their owners to sit or lay down so they don’t fall and get a head injury. I wish people would stop giving us dirty looks in public places because they assume we’re ‘lying’ about it. My relative is absolutely sick of people sometimes asking him, ‘Well what’s your disability?’ There is a reason its illegal for a place of business to ask that of a service dog owner. He doesn’t like talking about it because he’s already been made to feel guilty by ten other people before he got to you, and he doesn’t feel like having to explain his private medical history to a complete stranger.”
No More Fun!
“I am a teacher, and there were some kids in my class who were totally alone during lockdown. Their parents were essential workers, or they were just not available to them during the day. The kids were ten to twelve year olds, and most of them hated lockdown. I knew they were worried, lonely, and missing school, so I would end my lessons before lunch with an invitation to stay on the call and join me for lunch. Anyone could call off or stay on the line. We would chat for about forty minutes to an hour, at least until their next classes. We talked about our crazy COVID dreams, made up backstories for the people from the math questions, and showed out lunches. This one girl at cheese and apples every day, but both were cut up into weird shapes, so we would always check out the shapes for that day. We would also check in on each other’s pets, unbox mail, do tricks on trampolines, and genreally laugh while having a good time. This parent complained that my classes would run overtime, and these calls were not about curriculum content. She claimed that it was all unrelated and completely damaging to her son. Unfortunately, I had to let my students know that I could no longer do those virtual lunchtime hangouts. It was beyond heartbreaking.”
The Worst Possible Break-Up
“I told a guy I didn’t think we would work out because I just couldn’t match his activity level. When I reminded him I sometimes use a wheelchair, he got SUPER offended and actually called me such nasty names. I’m just glad he showed his true colors from the beginning, so I didn’t waste more than a couple weeks on him. So I told him before I gave him my phone number that I have a condition similar to MS, and I sometimes needed to use my wheelchair. I even explained what specific situations I would need it for. He loves long walks on hot days as well as hikes, both of which are quite a challenge for me. At one point I made it clear that I couldn’t keep up, and he got all irritable when my legs started to shake during a walk that was taking too long. That conversation was when he decided to acted completely shocked, despite the fact that he was warned ahead of time of my limitations. He had his faults, as do I, but when someone brings up that they need a char to keep up, and you get all bent out of shape over the idea of a wheelchair, you’re a monster. He rudely asked me how long it would be until I could do another long walk. I tried to answer him, bur nothing that I said was good enough. He was getting way too frustrated to even interact with. That was when I tried to end things, because I could tell my disability wasn’t going to be a good fit with his lifestyle. That was when he somehow got mad at me for supposedly faking my disability. Excuse me, how the heck was I doing that?! I think the shock of being rejected was really getting to him, but that doesn’t justify any sort of name calling or weird claims! I was mildly hurt for a day before I realized that I should be the offended one and just thanked my stars I ended things when I did. Not everyone can handle a powerful woman with wheels. Too bad we get prime parking and you never need to hold our bags. Also, we can wear the craziest shoes without complaining because we aren’t walking in them. My disability isn’t something that should offend anyone.”
A Most Bizarre Request
“People can be so weird about my hearing aids. They will often get offended that I can’t hear them clearly, even when they know I have hearing loss. But nevertheless, it has yielded some pretty wild stories. Some weirdos will have this concept that I need to be cured of my hearing loss, and that it is something that can be cured. This comes from both religious and non-religious people. But I’m not a broken person because I have some hearing loss. One day, I was minding my own business in line at a Walmart to get my tires swapped on my car. This lady comes up to me and asks if she can put her hands over my head and pray for me. I was beyond confused. My grandpa is a priest, so I was imagining she would do a palms up, hands above me sort of thing. I would have tolerated that, I am not particularly good at saying no, so I try to just play along until the person leaves. Why not, I’ll humor this bizarre woman. She sticks her hands on my head, cupping them over the hearing aids. She is intensely praying to Jesus to work miracles and cure my hearing loss. When she is finally done, she actually asks me if I am cured and can hear again. She was totally putting me on the spot! I was so baffled that I just told her that I could. I turned to the guy at the coutner with a panicked look on my face. The guy got my cue to check me in so I could leave sooner. For the record, no audiologist I have seen has any proof that my hearing has improved. No idea what happened to that mysterious messiah.”
Orange Juice Outrage
“I was once written up at a hotel I used to work for while I was working in room service there. That day was a madhouse, just crazy busy. I’m running back and forth getting things set and shoving things into the elevator for my direct supervisor to take to the rooms. We worked out this system because I was faster at setup and there was so much going on. I went through jugs of orange juice. After finishing up a jug, I would run it to the trash can, throw it in, and run back to my station. The chef was down in the breakfast kitchen with the breakfast line cooks, because they were cooking for both me and the full restaurant. The chef had me written up for ‘aggressively throwing things in the trash can’. My direct supervisor, who was with me that day, even attested on my behalf that there was no anger or aggression going on, but that chef wouldn’t back down. I was just doing things as fast as possible. We were busy, but everything was going smoothly, so we weren’t frustrated or out of control, just moving quickly.
Nope. Apparently, that was aggressive and a display of anger from me, so it went on my permanent work record. This chef was such a coward about it that he didn’t do the write-up himself. He had my restaurant general manager do it and kept the supervisor that was on duty with me out of it entirely. None of his own cooks on that day backed him up either. I absolutely refused to sign the write-up. The restaurant general manager tried to tell me that I couldn’t refuse to sign it. Wrong. Not signed. As you can tell, I still get a bit worked up just remembering that ridiculousness.”
Petrified With Fear
“When I was a kid, I used to love playing the computer game Lemmings on my mom’s work Macintosh. She was a teacher and would occasionally take me to her school after my school day finished, and I would play Lemmings while she marked her test papers. Sometimes she would even borrow the computer overnight and bring it home, then I could get to play for an hour or two in the evening. Mom suggested that I should ask my teacher to see if they had it at my school, because apparently it came standard on every Mac around that time. Keep in mind, this was mid to late nineties. Maybe I could play it during my lunch break! So the next day at school, we had a lesson in the computer lab. My teacher went through her explanation of what we would be doing for that lesson, but the whole time I was just dying for that perfect moment to ask if these computers had Lemmings on them. She gets to the end of her explanation and finally asks if any of us have any questions. This was my moment. I shot up my hand. She asked me what my question was. I said, ‘I was just wondering, do you know if you have a game called Lemmings on these computers?’
She just gave me the most disgusted look I had ever seen and yelled at me at the top of her lungs, ‘Excuse me!’
She then just stared at me in dead silence for a good ten to fifteen seconds as the entire class looked on. I was so embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. To this day, I still don’t know why what I said warranted that kind of reaction. I would’ve been maybe six or seven years old. Was it an appropriate time to ask a question like that? Probably not, but she could’ve just said, ‘Sorry, but we need to focus on the work, you can ask me again after class.’ That reaction seemed a bit extreme to say the least. So I thought about it and wondered why she reacted that way. Maybe she misheard me and thought I was asking about something else? What sounds similar to Lemmings? Did she think I asked to ‘play with her big lemons’ or something like that? Because I honestly don’t know what could have warranted such an extreme reaction from that teacher.”
No Way To Win
“So I held the door open for this lady once, and she just absolutely lost it on me. To be clear, it wasn’t like I opened the door and held it out for her for an awkward amount of time. I simply went through first, and this woman was only a few steps behind me. I held it open out of habit more so than anything else really. I would have done the same exact thing for anyone really. This woman stopped short of walking through the doorway, and she screamed at me how she was perfectly capable of opening the door herself. She had no need for me to do it for her. I tell her that’s okay, and I let go of the door and turn to leave. The door closes right in her face, so then she violently pushed it back open with both hands. She screamed at me for slamming it in her face! I just shook my head and walked away, but this woman felt compelled somehow to follow and continue to berate me. I took her words in for about a minute before I finally told her to get lost. I just could not win with this woman! I get in trouble for opening the door, and I get in trouble for closing it! I feel so sorry for whatever poor guy she was going home to!”
He Never Noticed A Thing
“I got yelled at for telling someone, ‘Thanks, have a great day!’ while working at a fast food place. Some insufferable moron would get so upset if you didn’t offer some version of ‘Merry Christmas!’, even if you were just trying to be polite to the customer. This dumpy little troll man walked into our dining room after going through our drive-thru. Apparently, he was here to raise a huge kerfuffle over our restaurant having holiday decorations, but the person who handled his order didn’t specifically tell him to have a merry christmas. There was a particular silver lining to this encounter though. This human disease was a regular customer, and he drove the most obnoxiously loud Ford each time, so we the staff would always know when he was coming. We would mess up his order every single time. That guy really got what was coming to him. We would purposefully mess up his order for the three straight years he ordered from us. Seriously, he was too dumb to ever realize it, but it was beyond satisfying to carry out!”
The Strangest Cyberbullying
“Got in an augment with someone on social media over wether or not a boycott over the new Call of Duty video game would be effective. I argued against the boycott, saying that it wouldn’t work and that I didn’t care about the issues with the game anyway. This dude is going all out against me for saying this, even going as far as to say that if I buy this game, not only would I be responsible for the death of Call of Duty, but that I would also be responsible for the death of gaming in general. I eventually got tired of arguing, so I tried to end it on an agreement. I believe my comment went something like this. ‘Look, if you don’t like the game, then by all means don’t buy it, but I do like it and I’m going to buy it, and nothing you or anyone else on Reddit says will change my mind.’
Now, I would imagine that most people would read this as ‘do what you want’, but this guy took it as me trying to control him. Suddenly he gets mad and tells me to, ‘Not tell him what to do,’ and that, ‘He will buy the game if he wants.’ In fact, as it turns out, he was buying the game after all, so why did he get so mad at me for it? I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t telling him not to buy the game, but he wasn’t having it. He was adamant that I told him not to buy the game. Finally, he just stopped responding. Ironically, his last comment was, ‘You did tell me what to do, and I’ll keep saying it as long as it takes.’ I thought it was over. Wrong. About a month or two later, he randomly drops back into the thread to tell me that I did, in fact, tell him what to do. Then he did it again a few months later. He would probably still do it if not for the fact that threads auto lock after a certain amount of time. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised I haven’t had any direct messages yet. I still don’t understand why he thought that I, after spending half an hour trying to convince people not to boycott the game, would try and make him boycott it.”
Get Out Of There Girl!
“I have seriously had the worst luck when it comes to the people I keep around me. Years ago, my friend asked me out. I turned him down. Two weeks later, he asked me again, and I also said no. He got upset at me and asked if I kept turning him down because he was black. I genuinely wasn’t aware of his race, and I tried my best to explain that to him. I turned him down specifically because of him, not his skin color! I also dated a guy with a prosthetic leg years ago. He was always thanked for his service, even though he lost it when he was nine and had never served in the military, One time he corrected this guy in a bar, and the guy claimed my boyfriend was stealing someone’s valor away! It was beyond wild. Finally, my old roommate was making dinner one night when a mutual friend cam over to visit. He declined to eat dinner with us. My roommate just kept staring at this friend angrily. He kept trying to apologize, but she just kept staring at him until he finally left! He just happened to already be full at that time, but for a while afterwards he didn’t really want to come over to our place and hang out. I can’t say that I blame him, that roommate of mine was ridiculous!”
Dealing With Delusional Folks Every Day
“I asked a customer what they were paying with. Now some of you may say that is not my business, but yes it is, especially when I’m the one working the register. In case their payment method isn’t working, then I can recommend some other options. Somehow, the customer in front of me thought that by asking, ‘What are you paying with?’ I was really asking, ‘Do you have enough?’ She demanded to speak to the manager and accused me of racially profiling her. This is something I say to literally every single customer, but okay, I’m sure the manager would take this one opportunity to take things seriously. People wonder why I act like I’m walking on eggshells when I’m dealing with customers, and it’s because I get accused of awful things at least five times a week.
Heck, I got called prejudiced twice yesterday for telling someone that they couldn’t use a coupon because it would take off more of the price than was allowed. It was a buy one get one free coupon, the products were on sale for $2.75, and the customer was trying to take off $5.50 with the coupon. She was the one trying to scam us and blatantly break the law, but I am somehow prejudiced because I didn’t let her get free items through coupon fraud. Another customer once claimed that I was prejudiced because I wouldn’t let her receive cash on a return without a store receipt. I even showed her the official store policy that backed me up on this! Apparently doing my job was enough for someone to actually take offense!”