The world's least qualified life coach. (allegedly)
MUSEUM OF REGRET / FREE ENTRY
Reader-submitted exhibits. Please do not touch. They have been through enough.
EXHIBIT 6428-C · WORST EXCUSE
I was late for a family lunch and said I was stuck on the phone with my bank's chatbot. My mum asked how long. I said 45 minutes. She asked what it was about. I hadn't prepared, so I said "fraud." Now my entire family thinks my identity was stolen. My uncle has sent me three articles and offered to…
— Anonymous
In fairness, someone did steal your Sunday. It was you. Now you've moved on to your uncle.
EXHIBIT 6391-B · WORST EXCUSE
I forgot a friend's birthday and panicked, so I asked a chatbot to write a heartfelt belated message. It was beautiful. Too beautiful. It mentioned "our countless adventures together" and "the way you light up every room." We've been out twice. She replied, "Who wrote this for you?" I said I did. She said, "You've never used a semicolon in…
— Josh, Cheltenham
Your excuse was so good it gave you away. The truth was four words long and you'd still have a friend.
EXHIBIT 6354-A · WORST JOB
I called in sick with a proper fever, and my manager replied, "No worries! Fun fact, I haven't had a sick day in ten years." So I logged on. By 11am I'd sent an email to the whole department with the subject line "jlkkkkkk" and a picture of my thermometer. I was sent home from my own home. My manager…
— Laura, Milton Keynes
Germs don't care about attendance records. Neither does the company. The germs, at least, went after management.
EXHIBIT 6317-Z · WORST JOB
My office swore there was no return-to-office mandate, then put a screen in reception showing who'd swiped in the most. I was ranked 88th out of 90. The next week I started coming in, swiping and going straight home. I climbed to 12th. I was congratulated in a team meeting for my "visible commitment to culture." I joined that meeting…
— Anonymous
You didn't game the system. You understood it perfectly, which is exactly why they patched you out.
EXHIBIT 6280-Y · WORST VACATION
Four of us recreated a holiday we'd taken in 2016: same town, same apartment, same matching T-shirts. The apartment had been renovated into somewhere nicer, which felt like a betrayal. The bar we loved was a phone shop. We tried the Mannequin Challenge on the beach and someone's dad, who was not with us, filmed us and asked if we…
— Anonymous
You can't go back. Partly because the bar's gone. Mostly because you've gone too, and this version of you needs a nap.
EXHIBIT 6243-X · WORST VACATION
I spent two years collecting points so I could fly anywhere for free. The free flight left at 5:40am, connected twice and landed in a city I'd chosen only because it cost the fewest points. The hotel, also on points, was next to a motorway. The fees and taxes came to more than a normal ticket. My colleague went to…
— Martin, Reading
Technically free. You paid with two years of your life. The airline thanks you for your loyalty, which is their word for not noticing.
EXHIBIT 6206-W · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
My idea was an app where you upload any argument and the public votes on who's wrong, for 99 cents a verdict. I tested it with my flatmate over whose turn it was to buy toilet roll. 3,400 strangers voted. I lost by a landslide, with comments. My flatmate now quotes the comments. I've deleted the app, but she screenshotted…
— Anonymous
The market spoke. The market said it was your turn. The market will be saying it for the rest of the lease.
EXHIBIT 6169-V · WORST BUSINESS IDEA
I noticed people were fed up with chatbots, so I launched a service called RealPerson, where you message and a genuine human answers. The human was me. I had 340 messages on day one. I'd answered four by lunchtime. By the evening, people were complaining that RealPerson was slow, made typos and once just replied "no idea, mate." Someone suggested…
— Owen, Cardiff
You invented customer service, then rediscovered why every company sacked it. Bold of you to be the staff.
EXHIBIT 6132-U · WORST PURCHASE
Everyone was doing 2016 throwbacks, so I bought a selfie stick, a pair of skinny jeans and a phone case with cat ears, to really commit. I went out on a Saturday to recreate an old photo at the same fountain. The jeans would not go above my knees. The fountain has been removed. Of the five people in the…
— Dan, Coventry
2016 wasn't the year you peaked. It was the year your jeans did, and they had the decency to stop there.
EXHIBIT 6095-T · WORST PURCHASE
It had been a rough week and I'd read one headline too many, so I bought a lamp that "simulates a Scandinavian sunrise" for $119. It arrived the next day. The sunrise is a sort of angry orange, it takes forty minutes, and the lamp hums the whole time. It doesn't calm me down. It does mean I wake up…
— Anonymous
Doom spending: the doom is real, the sunrise comes in a box, and the $119 isn't coming back either.
EXHIBIT 6058-S · WORST TEXT
I'd been using a chatbot all morning to help write a firm-but-polite email to my landlord. I was also messaging my sister. I meant to type "make this sound less desperate" into the chatbot. I typed it into my sister's chat instead, directly under a photo of her new boyfriend. She has not let it go. He has not let…
— Rachel, Norwich
The chatbot would have said it was a great photo. Your sister will be saying your line at the wedding, into a microphone.
EXHIBIT 6021-R · WORST TEXT
A guy I'd been seeing stopped replying in March. In September I got a message: "omg did you see the new series??" No hello. No explanation. Just a recommendation, as if we'd spoken yesterday. I replied "who's this?" even though his name was right there. He sent his name. I sent "sorry, still not sure." He sent a selfie. I…
— Sophie, Bristol
It's not a draw. He's playing nine games at once, and you're the only one who thought there was a scoreboard.
It will be reviewed by one tired man. He is already laughing.