the avenging COO, the salary fix, and other stories of wrongs being righted

by Alison Green on October 7, 2024

Last week we talked about times you saw someone right someone else’s wrong. Here are 10 of my favorite stories you shared.

1. The COO

My first job out of college was working at a large corporation as an executive admin. There were five of us admins who sat in the open space, outside of the executives’ offices. Our VP of marketing was known for being a not-nice suck-up. Once a week she would come up with some sort of treat and make a big deal of handing them out to the execs, but not the admins. She would also raid the executive kitchen and help herself to any drinks, food, etc., even our own personal stuff that we poor admins brought from home. As admins, we didn’t really feel like we had a voice in the matter. The execs seemed to really like this woman, so what can you do?

One day, the marketing witch came around with cupcakes for the execs. This time, the COO was standing next to my desk and when she handed him a cupcake, he smiled, looked at me, then said to her, “What about the admins?” Marketing witch stammered a little, then stated that she must have run out.

He said, “If you don’t bring enough for everyone, then don’t bother bringing any. Also, the executive kitchen is for people on this floor only (she worked on another floor), you will need to stop taking stuff out of it and helping yourself.” It was all I could do not to laugh.

She stopped everything — she stopped bringing treats to the execs, stopped taking our stuff out of the kitchen, and stopped talking to us admins altogether unless absolutely necessary. I guess she thought one of us ratted her out. I checked with the other admins and apparently none of us had said anything. The COO was just incredibly kind and observant.

2. The salary

A former coworker recruited me to his current company. When he asked me about salary I told him $X. He said: “What I heard you ask for was $X+30k. Hold firm on $X+20k because the recruiter will try and talk you down and you won’t be happy in this role for a lower salary.”

He was extremely right and I’m very thankful for his guidance.

3. The rename

My mum was a Special Educational Needs Coordinator in a mainstream school (commonly abbreviated to SENCO, in the UK at least.) She was really bloody good at her job and ended up being made head of her department. Immediately on appointment, she informed her headmaster that she was renaming the department, and she wasn’t asking. They weren’t going to be “special needs” anymore because every kid knows what “special” means and it becomes a slur. They were going to be “learning support,” because everyone needs support now and again. They still focused 90% of their time and energy on kids who would traditionally be labelled SEN kids, but they also had the time and space for the kids who were struggling with the history homework this week and just needed a bit of occasional extra one-on-one time.

When she retired, the school library was named after her.

4. The Christmas save(s)

My husband was the VP of operations at a small tech company, second in command to the owner (who was not a good dude). The owner sucked at running a business and decided he needed to lay off all the staff except my husband, who would help him rebuild. He was too chicken to do the layoffs himself and made my husband do it. Husband successfully fought for notice and severance for these employees and called recruiters himself to help them get placements.

So husband lays off 14 people in individual meetings over two weeks, and on the second Friday can’t find the owner. Eventually the owner materializes at the end of the day and lays off my husband, effective that day. No severance. Husband also discovers that owner had backdated the last day of employment for a bunch of folks so that he would not have to pay their health insurance for December (one found out because the doctor’s office called to tell him his kids wouldn’t be covered the next week). Husband threatened to report the owner for small business tax fraud among other things and, after sending us a bunch of nasty letters from a disbarred lawyer, owner suddenly restored insurance.

And now husband is without a job or severance — in December, when no one is really hiring. But then! The mother of one of his former employees, who was an IT manager in a very large company in town, was so grateful for how husband treated her daughter that she created a new position for him on her team, called their recruiters and directed them to fast track him, and gave him a raise. This all happened within two weeks. Basically my husband saved Christmas for a handful of families, and then one of them saved it for us.

5. The salary, part 2

One of my colleagues (a man) was leaving the company, and I (a woman) was promoted to fill his role. He was worried they would underpay me. So before he left, he gave me his whole salary history. What they had paid him when he started, and how much of a raise he had gotten each year. It was amazing to have concrete salary data to use for negotiating.

6. The dick

I was a newly hired C-suite leader in a large nonprofit with some really problematic power dynamics, particularly with the super grouchy CFO; he was nasty, ignored anything that inconvenienced him, and everyone in the administrative office was terrified of him.

A few weeks into my time there, one of his sweet, bubbly and well-loved fiscal analyst employees was notified that her ex-husband, the father of her three kids, had unexpectedly passed away. While they were no longer close, she was super concerned about how her kids would react and desperately wanted to go home to be with them before they got the news from social media. Grouchy CFO wouldn’t let her. There was an upcoming deadline of hers for that evening only he could sign off on, and he was refusing to even look at it, saying, “I’ll get to that by the end of day, you can wait.” She tried to explain the situation, but he wouldn’t budge.

My office was across the hall from Super Grouchy CFO, so she drifted in, collapsed into a chair, and started crying. I felt awful for her. Our always-absent CEO wasn’t there to do anything. I knocked on CFO’s door, but he wouldn’t get up to respond to me. So I went and got the spare key and let myself into his office, asking him to finish the task they were working on so she could go home. He was belligerent and shouted at me that he would get to it when he would get to it, to mind my own business, and to get the &$#@ out of his office.

I marched right up to him as he sat on his computer (playing solitaire, no less) and said, “I have decided that this is my absolute top priority for the day, so I will stand right here and give you all the support you need, until you are able to finish this task and she can go home.” I then stood right next to him, silently, for about 10 minutes while he huffed and sputtered at me. He got so irritated that he grabbed the documents, signed them, and then shouted, “FINE, JUST GO AWAY.” The sweet analyst was so grateful and relieved, she rushed off to her car and sped home to her kids.

It’s been 15 years since then. She and I are still the best of friends.

7. The customer

I was working as a cashier and I had stepped away from my lane very briefly (I’d been asked to turn a four-hour shift into a 12-hour shift and had to flag for the front end manager that I’d need a lunch break) and a customer ended up in a different lane with one person in front of her as a result. This added no more than 90 seconds to her wait time, but she proceeded to spend the entire 90 seconds pointedly complaining to her daughter loudly enough that her intent was clearly for me to hear her talking about how I “didn’t know how to act” and she couldn’t believe I’d been so rude. It’s worth noting that I had scurried back to my register and the people who’d walked up to it after her offered to let her go first, but she ignored them (I guess she didn’t want to move her cart?).

I will never, ever forget how the person who I was ringing up said, just as pointedly and at the same volume, “Well, I think it’s rude to be a BITCH.” The complaining customer was sooooo mad but couldn’t say anything without acknowledging her own behavior. I’ve been riding that high for over a decade.

8. The course

The summer after my freshman year of college, I was enrolled in a public speaking course. It was required for graduation. After my first attempt at a speech for a class assignment, the instructor was devastatingly unkind in his public feedback, including telling me that I had failed. I did my best not to cry in front of everyone, but I’m sure that they noticed how upset I was.

At the next class, the professor publicly apologized to me for the way he had spoken to me.

I found out later that close to the entire class (it was summer, so a small group) banded together, went to his office, and scolded him.

9. The library

I work in a public library and we have to input lots of information for new library cards, including patron names. I noticed that our system had a space for preferred names and that if you used that slot, the preferred name would pop up on the screen instead of a person’s legal name. This is a HUGE benefit for trans and nonbinary folks and also for others for a whole host of reasons, so I changed our paper form to include the preferred name slot and trained my staff on how to navigate adding and using a preferred name for a patron.

The last time this came up, a teen patron was at the circulation desk with their parent, and my staff member did a fantastic job adding the teen’s preferred name. The parent looked at the teen and said, “See? I told you this was a safe place.”

10. The salary, part 3

I (a woman) started a new job. A man at my exact level started a few weeks later. About a month later, our entire group was out for drinks when we discovered the man was making $20,000 more than me for the exact same job. A senior woman in my group marched into the partner’s office first thing the next morning and read him the riot act. I immediately received a very sheepish apology, a $20,000 raise, and retro pay to my start date.

This is the value of talking about salaries with your colleagues – and of standing up for your colleagues in situations of injustice.

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{ 146 comments }

{ 146 comments… read them below or add one }

    5. Blue Spoon*

      That one hit me in the heart too. The library where I work has a similar setup, and I swear I can see a weight lift from peoples’ eyes when I ask that question. One of my favorites, though, was a young man wearing a he/him pin who came in with a friend. He asked me where to find a category of book (I don’t remember what exactly), and I indicated the location, ending my answer with “Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with, sir.”

      As the duo stepped away, I saw the guy and his friend exchange little celebratory gestures. I suspect that being called “sir” was still a novel experience for him.

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      3. Medium Sized Manager*

        Isn’t it funny how little acts of kindness can be so impactful? I love that you were able to be an affirming person in his life!

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    1. Beany*

      Seconded.

      I can’t comprehend the nastiness & pettiness on the part of the CFO here. I wonder whether he learned any long-term lesson from this?

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        2. Le Sigh*

          Having worked with a person like this, this is most likely the only lesson they took from it. Even firing didn’t do much to chasten him — he just send a long email ranting about every person he disliked and claimed we’d hear from his lawyer.

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      2. Happily Retired*

        Somehow the most awful part of the story is that he was playing solitaire on his computer and not working at all.

        What an a-hole.

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        1. Observer*

          Somehow the most awful part of the story is that he was playing solitaire on his computer and not working at all.

          That’s a key detail. Because it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was not about work load, stress, or possibly higher priority work. It was a deliberate flex to keep her from going to her kids.

          In short your description is probably kinder than he deserves. On the other hand, an more accurate description might violate the terms of this site ;) So there’s that.

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          1. Venus*

            My great uncle used to joke that the best thing in a survival kit is a deck of cards. Start playing solitaire, and soon enough somebody comes by to tell you what move you’ve missed!

            More seriously, I really loved 6 and 9.

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        3. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

          For serious. It would be a jerk move if he was doing other work. This is appalling and just him flexing his power.

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  3. A Simple Narwhal*

    Wow these are all amazing! I realllllly hate injustices so this whole list scratched a huge itch for me!

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  4. Lady Danbury*

    #4 had my eyes watering at my desk. What a beautiful example of how the good you do in the world can come back to you, almost immediately in this case!

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  5. WellRed*

    No 1 was thoroughly satisfying even if it had stopped at cupcakes. That the exec was on to her petty thievery was the icing on top. Mad props to 6 & 7 as well.

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    1. Ama*

      I suspect he noticed she never gave the admins treats and then started watching her more closely (because if you treat admins poorly in one respect you’ll probably do it in other ways).

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  7. mkopinsky*

    I think this is the first time an AAM post has brought me to tears.

    The absolute gall of #6 – I can only hope I’d have the guts to stand up to BS like that.

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    1. Cedrus Libani*

      I once showed up in someone’s office, after having been shooed off repeatedly via email/phone, with a sleeping bag in hand and a pointed “I’ll wait”…the sleeping bag wasn’t actually intended as a threat, I was heading out on a trip, but it did get their attention (and my paperwork issue was dealt with immediately). No regrets.

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    2. LBD*

      I believe that seeing something modelled can make it easier for us to do the same, as we have a script and a pattern. Sort of the way a fire drill helps us evacuate quickly if needed. If we don’t have to stop and think about our next move, we can respond more effectively in the moment.
      So double win: we stand up for justice in the moment, and make it easier for others to stand up when their opportunity comes.

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  8. Deanna*

    #6 I like to think you were stone faced and cross armed the entire time. That’s good boss behaviour right there!

    #7 I used to work in retail and there is never anything more great than a customer calling out someone else’s bad behaviour

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    2. Which sister*

      I worked retail a lifetime ago and I was a very young (22) manager for a department store, running the Juniors department. One Sunday morning, only one person showed up in the shoe department and it was a sale weekend. I went over there and there were easily a dozen people holding shoes looking for sizes and getting ready to riot. I told them who I was, and that I would help them, but to please be patient with me because not only did I not work this department but the shoe stockroom was three levels high. Thank goodness, the shoe stocker was there and he and I were friendly. I would yell out the shoe and he would yell back what floor, aisle and bin. (they claimed there was a system to the stock room organization but I have no idea what it was and didn’t have the time to figure it out.) I would reappear to my crowd every 15 minutes or so with stacks of boxes, to get more shoes and sizes. I was running my a$$ off. The memory is so vivid, I even remember what I was wearing.
      On one of my trips back down the stairs toward the crowd, I heard someone complain about how slow I was. About 10 people turned on her telling her to shut up, leave me alone, it wasn’t even my department and I was doing the best I could. 30 years later it still gives me faith in other humans.

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    3. Killer Queen*

      My sister and I worked at the same job in high school and I was watching an exchange with her and a really rude woman. I guess she picked up the same order every week and it was wrong this week and my sister had never filled her order so she didn’t know. The woman was just berating her about “This isn’t what I ordered. I TOLD you it was quarts, not half gallons. I come here every week and get the same thing, this shouldn’t be hard.” So my sister went into the back to try to get the correct order and this big military-type man behind the woman said, “Hey, you need to be nicer, she is trying her best.” And it just made me smile and she also smiled when I told her later how he had stood up for her.

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  9. SPB*

    My very first job just out of high school was replacing my mom’s assistant over summer break (she was a college student and wanted to travel over the summer). Which means I was a 18 but the CEO, my mom’s direct boss, had known me for a few years at that point.
    One day, I was leaving the office at the same time as the CEO and her 13 year old son. I got to the door first, so I held it for both of them. CEO walks past, saying nothing. Her son stops, says thank you, and then scolds his mother for not thanking me for holding the door. I’ll always wonder where he got his good manners, because it definitely wasn’t from either of his parents.

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    2. Unsure about that*

      @fhqwhgads, I agree completely.

      You can learn from everyone what to do and what NOT to do.

      I find that I use that phrasing to a lot of people.

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  10. Juliet O'Hara*

    This weekend, I was in line at the pharmacy, and the older man in line started being very rude about how long things were taking, none of which was the fault of the pharmacy tech. The teenage girl in front of me raised her hands to her mouth, made an extremely loud farting noise, and accused the rude customer of “ripping a huge one.” When he turned around to say something to her, she did it again while making full eye contact with him. He had no idea how to respond and it gave the tech time to finish his stuff up and send him on his way. 10/10, no notes.

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      1. Carol the happy*

        How did she hold her hands to achieve this momentous sound? This is an important skill, and I need to learn it.
        I also have 2 third-grader grandsons and this would add to my “Coolest Grammy Ever” mystique.

        I will google it at once!

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        1. Le Sigh*

          My tried-and-true method — press your open palm up against your lips and then blow a raspberry. You can move your hand around to get the right palm-to-lips ratio, depending on what kind of fart noise you want to make — a squeaker, a quick toot, etc. If you really want to go big hold both palms up to your mouth, wrists touching, and just blow.

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          1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

            Precisely!
            Did I just do this at my desk (at home) to make sure I’ve still got it? Yes. Yes, I did.

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            1. Silver Robin*

              I had the same impulse but I am in a waiting room and masked so had to stop myself. will almost certainly try when I get home XD

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            2. Le Sigh*

              As far as I can tell, the fastest way to a kid’s heart is being able to fake burp and make fake fart noises.

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      2. Observer*

        This is the first time I have ever heard of any practical use for flatulence ventriloquism.

        Perfect example of “For everything there is a time, and a season for each item”.

        Totally unexpected, though! :)

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    5. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      One piece of advice I’ve given – which I found out by accident – is that if you can confuse someone, they’ll leave you alone. They don’t know what the heck you’re going to do next. This is the perfect example.

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      1. Nosy*

        I am autistic so sometimes my reactions to things make total sense to me but confuse others. I have used this to my advantage.

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      2. just some guy*

        Yes!

        One time I was on PT when another passenger began abusing a group of Indian guys for talking to one another (quietly and politely) in a non-English language. I didn’t want to stand by and do nothing but I felt like if I said “that’s racist, stop it” he’d just have some BS excuse for why it’s not racism, English is this country’s language, blah blah blah. And I’d just be giving him more opportunity to trash these poor guys who just wanted to be left alone.

        So instead I ripped into him for swearing, focussed on how he was being offensive to the other passengers. It was amazingly effective, put him on the defensive, and he shut up and fucked off pretty quickly. I get the impression he was really thrown by being challenged on his own language instead of his message.

        I still have mixed feelings about the righteousness of focussing on tone policing the way he expressed his bigotry, rather than directly condemning the bigotry itself. Maybe somebody more charismatic than me could’ve taken the direct route and won a more honest victory. But I’m not great at thinking on my feet, and everybody else in the train carriage was already giving “do nothing” a red-hot go.

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        1. Observer*

          I still have mixed feelings about the righteousness of focussing on tone policing the way he expressed his bigotry, rather than directly condemning the bigotry itself.

          Eh, you made it clear that people are not going to be on board with his behavior and that’s a win. I also would not call it “tone policing”. If he actually was swearing, etc. that’s a perfectly legitimate thing to call out anyway.

          Beyond which, I think it was pretty obvious to him, even though I am sure he would never admit it, that you were not ok with *what* he was saying, not just how he was saying. Because otherwise he would have swing right back at you about all the “speshul snowflakes” who can’t stand a bit of “real” language and are SO worried about not using offensive language even when an “important” thing is being said.

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        2. Mango Freak*

          Per the internet, “Tone policing is a tactic to dismiss the ideas being communicated and is aimed at the tone of a disagreement, instead of looking at the facts or logic of the content.”

          That’s not inherently bad or immoral. We talk about tone policing in a negative sense because it’s commonly used to derail the valid objections of marginalized people. But some ideas (like bigotry) deserve to be dismissed. There are no facts or logic in the words of someone spewing racism on a bus.

          So basically: you did great! You had a good, thoughtful reason for approaching it the way you did.

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      3. Snudence Prooter*

        A great way to do this is to tell people you don’t speak English, in a Midwestern accent. Bonus if you pause the conversation you were already having in English.

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    7. Seawren*

      My offspring works at Well Known Coffee Chain. Yesterday, someone complained that the frappucino they ordered wasn’t “cute enough”, and that the barista (who had 20 more orders queued up) should have know it was for a child and made it special. Someone from the back of the line yelled out “Get over yourself!”, much to the delight of the entire staff.

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  11. Leave Hummus Alone*

    I needed this today. Thank you, Alison, for the questions and posting, and thank you, commentariat, for your stories!

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    1. ZSD*

      Also, it occurs to me that there have been several AAM letters that have shown that many people simply have no sympathy when someone has someone important in their life die.

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      1. Jam on Toast*

        Or think that there’s some magic, implacable formula for deciding who we grieve for and how much. If X relationship = this sad, if Y relationship = only this sad.

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        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          I remember when a coworker’s former step-grandfather passed away. She said something about it being silly to be so affected. I told her that it completely made sense to be sad about someone who has been an important part of her life, even if they had not been in it much more recently.

          Nobody else gets to decide how we feel about losing someone.

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  13. Jam on Toast*

    I know first hand how offering kindness – real, authentic, genuine kindness, without strings or caveats – makes such a huge difference. In my life, I’ve been the recipient of this kind of unstinting generosity at some of my lowest, saddest, hardest moments and I remember EVERY SINGLE PERSON and I will always be grateful to them for making the hard things just a little bit easier to bear. It didn’t make the situations magically better, but even now, when I think back to those moments, it is my gratitude and not my grief, that I remember most.

    Be kind. Do good. Help when you can. Mottos to live by.

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    2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      I still think kindly of the person who gave me change for the bus, decades ago, when I was a teenager going home from another city. It was one bus from downtown, then another one from a suburban bus loop to the ferry, which went about every 30 minutes. I mis-timed it and my bus transfer expired like 3 minutes before the second bus turned up. I had some cash, but not quite enough change. A very kind person gave me what I needed, when the driver wouldn’t let me on. I hope, wherever they are, they’re doing well.

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      1. Observer*

        So nice.

        If you’ve heard of “My Unsung Hero” that’s actually a nice story that I think many of us who remember the days of needing *exact change* on buses (and it couldn’t even be bills in NYC!) would really resonate with.

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  14. Pam Beasley*

    I was working in a grad student program a few years ago and one of the students I’d been working with for years was finishing her dissertation. A lot of students didn’t get paid while they were finalizing their dissertations but I managed her advisor’s funds and knew he could easily afford to pay her. I went to his office and said “I assumed you’d want to pay Student this term while she’s finishing up so I went ahead and put the paperwork together for you. I just need you to sign it.” He looked a little surprised but went ahead and signed. The student was able to finish her work without having to take out an extra loan.

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    2. Observer*

      I don’t know if I am more infuriated by the advisor or delighted by your action.

      Kudos to you to getting it done! You sound like the kind of person I’d love to have on my team.

      And what the **** on that adviser for not doing it on his own! It’s one thing if he really didn’t have the funds – or even thought that he didn’t. But it’s clear that he knew he had the funds to do it, but just couldn’t be bothered. That’s gross!

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        1. Observer*

          I hear you. That makes it even worse!

          Thank you for taking action of behalf of someone who couldn’t do it for herself.

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  15. Stuart Foote*

    Regarding #3…I truly admire the intent, but as someone with a family member with severe special needs I have seen many, many euphemisms come in and out of fashion over the last 30 years. Originally, the word “moron” was coined as a clinical term for intellectually disabled people. Obviously it rapidly became an insult and “retarded” took over, which quickly became an insult, so “special needs” took over and that rapidly became an insult, and now I guess the preferred nomenclature is to say “experiencing intellectual disabilities” which is clunky enough that it hasn’t become an insult yet, but I’m sure it’s coming. It really doesn’t matter what you call it; being disabled, especially as regards intelligence, is not a desirable condition and people can and will be extremely cruel about it.

    I have noticed that how kind people are to people with disabilities is a good proxy for the kind of person they are in general.

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    1. KGD*

      I’m a teacher in Special Education, and for me the powerful part of that story was that she turned the department into something for all students – everyone needs “learning support” sometimes. It was less about the words they used and more about the idea that needing help is universal and nothing to be embarrassed about.

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      1. MigraineMonth*

        Yes, I think you really put your finger on the most important part. It’s seeing all the kids as needing support, and the department as serving all the kids as and when they need it.

        I’ve heard many stories from people who needed support in school but were underserved or badly served by the Special Education system because it was rigidly set up to only serve people who were exactly *this* type of disabled. Everything from a child who needed behavioral support not being allowed to do academic work at their grade level, to someone with social skill deficits being put in a class for those had been suspended for bullying or violence, to not being allowed to switch tracks or change accommodations as their needs changed.

        I had a friend who had to fight with the school district to stop them from putting her child in all remedial classes because they had a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and only those with the specific diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome were allowed more advanced academic work. This despite the fact that Asperger’s Syndrome isn’t even a valid diagnosis anymore.

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        1. Cedrus Libani*

          This is why terms like “doubly exceptional” make me twitch. I was that kid too; it’s not actually rare. In my case, I had the motor skills of a drunk toddler – so people assumed I was stupid, which I ferociously resented, also I did get kicked out of mainstream kindergarten for a short time – and then I was sent back, because I was plainly capable of grade-level work, and I’d probably figure out how to write eventually. They were correct, but…not ideal.

          (Through years of hard work, including occupational therapy that my parents were both willing and able to pay for, I now function at the level of a sober eight-year-old.)

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    2. Arrietty*

      In the UK, “special” has definitely become a slur (I think some shitty “comedian” used it that way in the 90s, but I try to avoid knowing much about those). Learning disability isn’t a slur, but it’s also not the only reason someone might need a SENCO’s support. They do a lot of work with mental health and emotional needs.

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    3. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      That is an unfortunate effect of ableism, that every term that comes into use also eventually gets misused/used as an insult. I don’t think the answer to that is to keep using terminology that is insulting, though, but to keep changing the terminology.

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      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        And to work towards a world where students are just “students,” and we know that they all have different needs/abilities. (And by accommodating one need, we often accommodate people we weren’t even realizing needed support.)

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      2. MigraineMonth*

        Yup. The solution to this “euphemism treadmill” is to decrease the ableism in our society and thereby the negative connotations attached to disability. I leave it to the community to choose what language is respectful and which terms to reclaim.

        I will note that “clinical” or “scientific” doesn’t mean the language was neutral or respectful. Unfortunately, a great deal of “clinical” terms were based on ableist, racist and eugenic conceptions about whether or not someone was considered fully human and deserving of rights.

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    4. Charlotte Lucas*

      I work with programs that help kids with various disabilities and serious medical needs. Aside from naming the specific disability, how to describe the kids in our programs (as a group) is always a question. Even asking families doesn’t lead to great options.

      And I do think people who use current and past terminology as a slur are some of the lowest of the low.

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    5. Observer*

      truly admire the intent, but as someone with a family member with severe special needs I have seen many, many euphemisms come in and out of fashion over the last 30 years

      Yup. That’s why it is so important that she didn’t just change the name but the function. By adding help for kids who don’t fall under SEN, it helped to de-stigmatize the use of the service. And that’s huge. I’ve seen it be a game changer.

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    6. Becky S*

      Cetin & imbecile were also medical terms. Monstrosity was used (19th century?) to describe physical disabilities.

      Reply ↓
      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        The etymology of “cretin” is so sadly ironic. It’s based on a Swiss dialect term for Christian, as the idea was everyone was deserving of respect as a fellow human in a time and place where everyone practiced the same religion. (Lack of iodine in parts of Switzerland at one time led to high rates of thyroid issues that caused medical and developmental disorders.) So a term with a kind meaning became extremely unkind.

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    7. Silver Robin*

      I think I have heard this referred to as the linguistic treadmill: a word comes up to describe something neutrally but then becomes a slur/offensive as people use it as an insult (because changing the language does not change the underlying discrimination). We come up with a new word, and it starts again. Another example is “fat” and all the euphemisms we have around it because people used a neutral descriptor as an insult.

      I do agree, as others already said, that the fact the department shifted to support *all* students to the extent necessary does help mitigate the above issue.

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    8. Artemesia*

      I have lived through these changes in terminology too and am always surprised that people think it is the words that are the problem. No matter what the words are, they will become insults because people fear and disdain intellectual disability. The same is true of many ethnic references that are not outright slurs e.g. ‘Colored’ was the polite term — spending a lot of time changing the language didn’t change the world.

      That effort ought to be directed at changing opportunity and encouraging kindness and making sure people are treated equally legally and socially. For intellectual disabilities the new words will always become slurs; for ethnic discrimination the effort IMHO needs to be on changing the discrimination not worrying about nomenclature.

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    9. Cakes*

      I think part of the reason (apart from stigma) that “special needs” grates is because everyone has the same needs–all kids need support from adults to get an education. Having needs, and needing accommodations or extra support for some things, is just part of the human experience. It’s ableist societial structures that make it feel like a problem.

      Reply ↓
    10. Mango Freak*

      But #3’s mother didn’t use a term to describe people at all. The term she implemented described the service provided, rather than trying to label the people using that service.

      Reply ↓
  18. MissGirl*

    I didn’t have time to comment on the original post but I’m still grateful to my one coworker. I worked in high school at a hardware store. You can imagine that the men coming in didn’t think me a teenage girl could help them with parts-related questions, even basic ones. They’d ignore me and ask my middle-aged male coworker their question. He’d say, I don’t know. She’s the expert on plumbing parts, ask her. He knew, but he didn’t like me being sidelined. I actually went on to work in plumbing supply for four years to put myself through college.

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  19. Emily*

    These were all great! #1 was soooo satisfying!!! I also love that the COO noticed on their own and no one needed to tell them.

    Reply ↓
      1. MarsJenkar*

        OP claimed in the story that none of the admins had said anything, so your claim would require someone having lied.

        Reply ↓
        1. New Jack Karyn*

          I don’t think it’s impossible for one of the admins to decide they don’t want the reputation of being an information pipeline to the bosses–even if it worked out this one time.

          Reply ↓
  20. Unkempt Flatware*

    I’m absolutely not advocating for violence but the act of the boss in #4 was a risky one. When someone is at the end of their rope and you do something like that to them, I would expect to be knocked out.

    Reply ↓
      1. New Jack Karyn*

        I think UF is saying that the awful boss in #4 screwed over his employees so bad, one of them *might* have punched him out. Nothing to do with the hero of the story, OP4’s husband.

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  21. Observer*

    #3 – I love that it was not just a rename, but that it actually was a change.

    Name changes generally don’t work all that well because everyone knows what is really going on. But when it is also accompanied by actual change? That helps the kids who just need a little bit of a boost as well as taking away the stigma for all the rest.

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  22. Bananapants Circus with Dysfunctional Monkeys*

    I missed sharing this when the post was up originally but here:

    I worked retail at a speciality clothing store as a teenager. One slammed Saturday our manager had to throw out a customer for reducing me and my colleague to tears over nothing.

    It gets better. Our district manager was our former store manager, so when store manager called to give her a heads up that she’d had to refer a customer to her and why, DM was *fuming* – she’d hired and trained both of us before being promoted and was very protective of the younger staff.

    As expected, customer called DM to complain and lied through her teeth. DM fake fawns over customer and asks for her name and address to “make it right”.

    Making it right was serving her a banning order for all the stores in her district.

    Customer tried to take it higher, with more elaborate lies.

    Guess who got banned not just from the chain, but their sister stores too?

    Don’t make the Saturday Girls (affectionate) cry.

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    1. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      As a former retail employee, I absolutely love this and wish any of my managers were half as awesome as this.

      Reply ↓
      1. Bananapants Circus with Dysfunctional Monkeys*

        There was also the manager of a sister store who apparently went at it with one of the concessions managers for telling off her part timer ON THE SHOP FLOOR. Dragged her into the back and let her have it about that behaviour not flying in her store.

        Seriously idk what was in the management training but all the ones I encountered were gold back then.

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  23. David*

    About 4 decades ago I worked the front counter for the cable company. A customer was yelling at me and constantly interrupting me so I could barely help her. We were very busy. After a few minutes of this, a customer called out, “ Why don’t you shut the f*** up so he can help you and we can all get out of here!” It worked.

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  24. Wine not Whine*

    All excellent stories!

    During my most recent job hunt, the firm’s recruiter asked in my first interview what salary I was looking for. I named a number within their advertised range with which I would have been comfortable.
    The recruiter answered, “I’m adding $5K to that number. Women historically ask for at least $5K too little.”
    Reader, I was offered – and accepted – the position at a salary just slightly above even that adjusted figure.
    Would I have received an offer at that level, had the recruiter not changed my initial response? Who knows! But I continue pass along that bit of advice to any woman I know who’s job-hunting.

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  25. Blue Mina*

    As a trans woman, the OP from #9 is my hero. IT was such a little thing but it can make so much difference for a very vulnerable group.

    Reply ↓
  28. Happily Retired*

    #8 (the class confronting the professor) warmed my heart. I’m back in college at a ripe old age, and my university has canceled classes for a month (Hurricane Helene.) The out-of-town students have scattered to the winds, but they’re all texting and emailing one another, checking in and offering help.

    They would absolutely confront a jerk professor, except that my department (Environmental Science) has uniformly wonderful faculty and staff, so the opportunity would never arise!

    Reply ↓
    1. MigraineMonth*

      I was impressed by the organization! It’s easy to know that something’s wrong, but someone wrangled everyone into a group and got them to confront the professor together. There’s power in a group!

      Reply ↓
  29. Chickadee*

    My all time favorite internship was working for L, who’d interned at the same location before getting hired. She went out of her way to ensure we had the best housing, plenty of professional development opportunities, and checked in with us multiple times to ensure all the staff (including other departments!) were on their best behavior and treating us well.

    Whenever I mentor interns, I strive to follow her example.

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  31. Tammy*

    I used to manage a technical team that was customer-facing: We did specialized projects for some of our customers, so we were engineers but we were in the Customer Service organization.

    One day I noticed one of my coordinators was on the phone and looking agitated and upset. I motioned to her to put the call on hold and asked her what was going on. She told me the customer she was speaking with had been very angry/upset and had been yelling at her and calling her names on the phone. I said to her, “I’d like you to transfer the customer to me, and then I’d like you to get one of the Starbucks gift cards from my top desk drawer and go get yourself a tasty drink.”

    She transferred the customer to me, and was there to hear me tell him, “I understand that you’re upset, and I’m happy to help solve the problem. But I cannot allow you to speak to my people like that, and if it happens again your project will be over at that point.”

    I’m no longer in a directly-customer-facing role, and it continues to infuriate me how many companies are willing to allow their front-line customer service people to be mistreated. There’s no excuse for that.

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  32. Zombeyonce*

    #10 makes me jealous! I’ve tried to get my teammates to share salaries so we can make sure everyone is paid fairly (at least half the team is made up of people from marginalized groups, so even more important), but no one will. I even said I’d go first, but they say they’re worried it’ll cause resentment among us if there’s a disparity. No amount of explaining that the resentment should flow upward to our bosses (and be actionable) will get them to budge.

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  33. Anonofcourse*

    Relevant to #9. I don’t use my legal name. Everywhere I can, I fill in the preferred name option. I am the treasurer for a charity. The bank our charity uses made me jump through all sorts of hoops to get access to the bank account – waaay more than anyone else. I provided documentation with my legal name, and made a declaration about my preferred name. More hoops. Now, they refuse to use my preferred name! On any documents and on their online system. We get regular calls or contacts about who is this person depositing money into my account? because of course, they have no idea that this is me and not some random person.

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    1. BigLawEx*

      So odd that anyone would make this a ‘thing.’ I was just at the eye doctor and came home to download my prescription. I don’t have a preferred name, but that’s on the front of the prescription in huge 14 point font. At the top, in teeny, tiny font is ‘Legal Name.’

      Nearly everywhere I go these days (in Los Angeles) has this format.

      I love these kinds of inclusive forms even though I don’t need it.

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      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        Same! (And it’s one of those “Curb cut effects” – I know a lot of people who go by their middle name or exclusively by a nickname, and they also benefit from these policies.)

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      1. Anonofcourse*

        I’m not in the US, so no. But it infuriates me everytime I open the programme and it says “Welcome [legal name]” – no, no, you are not welcoming me. If you were, you would use my actual name.

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    3. Strive to Excel*

      Bank software systems are generally creaky antiques propped up by duct tape and popsicle sticks and populated by IT staff worried about doing anything to change them. They worry because any change might introduce a bug that might result in people defrauded and/or not being able to access their money, and the regulatory standards they are required to operate under are deeply strict. Sometimes they have notes functions, sometimes not. Any sort of preferred name system got introduced well after most modern bank software. Best case scenario is some sort of notes system.

      I think one reason so many people prefer small banks/credit unions is that the tellers/account managers have few enough people to work with that they can remember the names of all their clients. Then your person you are working with will remember your name. At Huge McBank an account is just assigned to a pool of people and an investment advisor might deal with several hundred different people over a month.

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      1. Observer*

        Bank software systems are generally creaky antiques propped up by duct tape and popsicle sticks and populated by IT staff worried about doing anything to change them.

        Except that bank software still changes a lot, all of the time. Because laws, regulations, implementation of regulations, bank policies, and customer offerings change all the time.

        DBA’s are not a new thing that banks are just now beginning to deal with, so I also don’t completely buy that the bank *really* cannot do anything about it at all. On the other hand this does actually present a security issue and a possible liability for the bank, as well as a significant customer service issue. Because if they are creating a situation where people are confused about who is accessing their account, and find it hard to really know what / who is legitimate and who is not, that’s likely to bite them. On the one hand, most customers who have this problem are not going to care *why* the bank is doing this. People are increasingly unwilling to accept “this is how the system works”, even when that’s actually reasonable. On the other hand, when something goes wrong and a customer responds to a question about why no one realized that someone who shouldn’t have access, did actually access the account with “well, it’s happened before that someone accessed the account, but the bank had them in under a different name, so we thought it was the same situation” the bank’s lawyers are probably going to tell them to get out the checkbook.

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  34. hiptobesquare*

    I forgot that something similar to #8 happened to me. I was in a class for my major that was in my subset of the world (think if I was studying teapot design and I wanted to focus on just spouts and this was a spout design class).

    The professor teased me for being a spout nerd (I think the professor had only made a spout once or twice). Anyway, he was really hard on me and made me cry in class more than once.

    A week or two later, the department head pulled me aside. Apparently half the class had been in to report how mean to me this guy was.

    He really got it together after that and we had no further issues.

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  35. Panda (she/her)*

    Of all the themed call outs you’ve done, Alison…I think this is my favourite. Warmed my heart and sets such a great example!

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  38. canary*

    #7 reminded me of when I was a barista at a busy coffeeshop. A customer ordered a very complicated drink during a peak time and REFUSED to accept it with a lid on. My fellow barista is trying to explain that it’s literally against the law for us to hand over a to-go cup without a lid and she is more than welcome to remove the lid once the drink is in her hands, but this woman is just losing her mind because the lid will “squish the whipped cream.” Finally the barista just leaves the drink on the counter and moves on with the other drinks that are piling up. I go to take the next customer’s order, a teenager who’s a regular. He loudly does a perfect imitation of this woman’s shrill attitude, orders a totally over the top drink, and finishes with “But I DO NOT want it in a CUP.” The crowd of other customers starts laughing and Lid Lady grabs her drink and leaves in a huff. (I gave the teenager his normal drink for free.)

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  39. GatorCountry*

    I wasn’t able to reply to the original, but one summer I worked as an assistant director on several productions in a theatre where the directors were absolutely AWFUL to the technical personnel; they expected them to read their minds and magically have exactly what was in their heads already planned for them when they got to the meeting theoretically intended to hash out what those elements should look like. After the first meeting when a designer barely escaped leaving in tears, every single designer and technician *did* magically read the directors’ minds and have what they wanted…because I spent the summer running around behind the directors’ backs and having pre-meetings with everyone to share the vision.

    That same summer one of the stage managers on their first professional job was so stressed out they were having panic attacks and were terrified they’d have one during the show, mess up cues, and be fired, so I spent every show quietly hanging out in the booth in case I needed to step in and run the show for them.

    I didn’t have the capital to push back against the directors but by gosh could I run interference!

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  40. Square*

    #3 As a mother of a child with a disability and learning difficulties, I am so grateful for people like your mum. I can imagine her act of renaming was one of the countless thoughtful contributions she made. Thank you for sharing this lovely story.

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  41. MigraineMonth*

    During the pandemic, my union (well-paid professionals) coordinated with several of the other unions at my workplace. They came together to ask management to switch from a 3% salary increase (which would help the highest-paid the most) to an equivalent-cost $2/hr wage increase for every worker (which would benefit the lowest-paid the most).

    In the end, management gave everyone either a 3% or $2/hr raise, whichever was higher.

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  42. Timothy*

    These are wonderful, wonderful stories. I think #9 is my favourite — it’s such a small thing, but means a lot to the people involved. Also, I <3 libraries.

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  43. IHaveKittens*

    #3 made me cry. #4 made me cry. Now I’m just a sniffling mess, but these made me so happy to read. It’s been a crazy day and I am stressed to the max. This is just what I needed to see. Thank you to all who posted.

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  46. Jen*

    #1 The COO probably didn’t notice on his own. One of the admins probably told him and then didn’t admit it.

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  47. Soon to be ex spouse*

    I am in the middle of a divorce now and I bet that grouchy CFO was also a grouchy ex-partner and also a grouchy partner and definitely a grouchy partner-in-breaking-up-mode and “grouchy” is a much much kinder term than I would use

    Reply ↓

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