A couple of guests walk into our hotel in Venice after a day of sightseeing.

Woman: “Is… is this it?”

Me: “I’m not sure I understand, madam?”

Woman: “Venice? Is this all it is?”

Me: “Is there a particular part of Venice you’re having issues with, madam?”

Woman: “All the canals have been hyped up all my life! I finally get here, and they’re just… water streets!”

I really don’t know what she was expecting!

A crazy rush has just ended, and the floor of the place is dirty. I take a minute to catch my breath when the manager walks out of his office. He has not been seen since the rush started.

Manager: “[My Name], if you have time to lean, you have time to clean!”

Me: “If you have time to stare, you have time to spare.”

Manager: “…whatever.”

He goes back into his office. We work faster when he stays in there anyway.

Related:
If You’ve Got Time To Moan, Then Clean It On Your Own, Part 2
If You’ve Got Time To Moan, Then Clean It On Your Own

I work in a bed and breakfast on the southern English coast. We live close to lots of picturesque areas popular with tourists. It’s the beginning of the season, and remarkably, we still have one room left. A guest walks in without a booking.

Guest: “What’s the rate for one night?”

Me: “It’s [price].”

Guest: “How much?!”

Me: “It’s the beginning of the season, and it’s our last room.”

Guest: “For that price, the room had better come with a four-poster bed, a storm outside, and a handwritten letter warning me not to trust anyone in the house.”

Me: “We… do have complimentary biscuits.”

He took the room for the weekend. He didn’t come out much during his stay. Maybe he was working on his murder mystery novel?

Three months ago, my company had a two-hour-long seminar about e-mail phishing and how to prevent it. This seminar also included an update to our email software. Our software has a preview feature; if you hover over a link, it opens a preview of the link. 

I got an email from our “IT Director” saying I was in violation of their internet policy by using social media (a main part of my job), and I was stupid and opened it. It was a phishing test, and they made me do another two-hour-long seminar.

That week, I got the following email from our director:

SENT WITH HIGH IMPORTANCE
Subject: Phishing Email Test

Hello everyone,

This is a reminder to stay aware of phishing emails. Please review the PDF guide and take a short quiz (link) to test your skills by 5 PM.

Thank you,
[IT Directors Name].

Now, on this email attachment, one of the signs to report an email is if it is pressuring you to click a link. I feel like I should report this as phishing, so I did.

I get this email from the director one hour later:

Subject: Reporting Emails

Hello Everyone,

We have received numerous phishing reports about the phishing quiz. Please note that any email sent from: (insert IT director email here) is not phishing. We have included a new link for your convenience.

Thank you,
[IT Directors Name].

To me, this email looks even more suspicious than the last one, so I do the natural thing and report it to “stay vigilant”.  

I have been doing this over two months and everyone keeps getting an email saying that “This email is not phishing”. Please don’t make us sit through two-hour seminars.

Related:
Tell Them To Go Phish!

Our superstore has a photo lab. Back in the day, it was primarily One Hour Photo and developing, but these days it’s special prints, passport photos, and converting old film to digital.

An older lady asks me, handing me a photo album.

Customer: “These are pictures from my fortieth wedding anniversary. The film is inside the album sleeves.”

Me: “Did you want me to convert these to digital?”

Customer: “Yes, and also eliminate my sister.”

Me: “Sorry, what?”

Customer: “My sister is in a lot of the pictures. I don’t like her anymore. I want you to remove her from the pictures.”

Me: “Uh, we can’t do that, ma’am.”

Customer: “Sure, you can. I’ve seen it on the news. You have AI now. You can just tell it to take her out.”

All this talk of ‘eliminate’ and ‘take her out’ is getting a bit mafia for me.

Me: “Ma’am, I meant to say those are services we do not offer. I can only convert the images to digital as they are.”

Customer: “But it’s easy now! I saw it on the news. All you have to do is tell it to remove the cheating husband-stealing b****, and it’ll remove her like the waste of space she is.”

Me: “Uh… maybe that’s something you can try at home.”

Customer: “Oh, fine, I’ll just go for the regular service then.”

Me: “Of course, ma’am.”

Customer: “If you can’t remove my sister, you couldn’t ask it to replace my sister-f******-husband with Ryan Gosling, could you?”

Me: “…no, ma’am.”

Customer: “Ah, well. Worth a shot.”

You process a family’s photos, and they think you want to hear EVERYTHING that’s been happening.