People Are Telling All About That Time They Said, "*** This, I'm Out!"

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1. Red Robin Sewage System

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I worked at a small town red robin. We were a huge hit to the locals, we were always busy. There wasn't too much around our area either, so when this happened it was (obv) my final straw as it clearly showed management had zero care for the people. Most places can muster at least 10%. Not us.

The shift started around 3:00 pm, and the restaurant was in full swing. I was serving, so I didnt know what was wrong until after I got my first few tables and began to collect dishes.

If you dont know, getting even one table can take some time as 3 is usually a dead period, but all of us are setting up for the dinner rush that can syart any moment. Today, we were already busy. I took orders, got drinks, rolled silverware, got food out, then finally collected some dirty dishes and got to the back. There were mountains of unwashed dishes.

Our dishwasher was no where in sight. And so I went and told management, who said they'd handle it. I got out of the back and just looked perplexed before decideding it wasn't my problem right then. Maybe our dishwasher walked out, it's happened before.

At this point, I went and brought food to a table, and overheard the next table complain our bathrooms were shutdown for cleaning for the last half hour. This was weird, we didn't have particularly large bathrooms, and our locals kept them pretty clean for us. I checked it out when I could, cleaning signs were up, but nobody was inside cleaning. However, inside was a small pool of dirty water surrounding the drain of both bathrooms.

I left the bathroom, went to talk to the bartender about it, and found out they've been closed for a few hours now, but she wasn't sure why. I went and told management, they said they'd handle it, and I went back to the floor. I saw a few of my coworkers talking and went over to join them.

This is when I found out from one of the people working a double that morning shift reported a backed sewage line. Our water was backing up, and could be seen through drains in the kitchen and dish areas, as well as the bathrooms. The waitress talking was explaining how we were running out of glassware, and she wasn't sure how to get people their drinks.

Finally management stepped into action, we were all called off the floor and into the side of the kitchen (we often had pre-rush meets here) and were talked to for a half hour. Bussers were running food orders and refilling drinks while we were filled in.

The short explanation is that the city was on their way to fix the line, and in the mean time we were told that bussers would sanitize dishes with wipes, we would serve people with said dishes, and if anybody asked we would send them across the street to the gas station bathrooms because ours were "temporarily" out of order.

A lot of us were lived. Sanitizing is not cleaning. And the sewage was now backing up into the restaurant. The smell was getting worse, and we were starting to get customer complaints from those closest to either the kitchen, or the bathrooms. One waitress explained to me that we couldnt remain open without running water, it was actually illegal. I was 19 at the time, so I didnt really know about that.

The dishes were what broke me personally, however. I could stomach the smell at first,, and I could reason around people not being able to use our bathrooms for a short time (as awful as that is). But serving someone food on a dish that hasn't been properly cleaned, and was instead wiped down by a busboy with a sanitizer wipe, was unacceptable.

Plates were being sent out with old bits of food that were stuck to them, again customers started complaining. This caused health risks, especially for those with allergies who could go into shock if exposed. But we kept on serving, despite the smell getting worse and the customers starting to straight up leave.

We worked like this for up to when I left. We kept getting told the city would fix it soon, and we would have our water turned back on when it was. But it just kept going. I served 7 tables with clearly dirty dishes before I left, and to this day I hate my decision to even serve one when I find out what was really happening.

When I walked out, most of the customers were telling people waiting to be seated about what was going on, as they had clearly figured it out. Nothing was reported, and I wasn't going to because I didn't want to get in trouble , something I realize now couldn't happen.

No epic showdown, no telling off the boss, I just straight up left. People figured out I wasn't coming back, and I'm sure my tables got free meals (cuz fuck that restaurant) as that was policy if they were no longer getting service.

Username: The_guywonder
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2. Meat Juice

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Ok, one more. Fair warning this is GROSS. Be me early 20's in the 3rd world country that likes to build giant ass factories and plants.

I find a job at the meat plant, 5 square kilometers of meat processing nightmare. Cows get delivered by train, get on the kill line, the carcasses go up the belt, get cleaned, processed, sorted, etc. The machinery breaks a lot.

Carcasses get stuck on the belt and take a 10 meter dive to the production floor below. The plant designers knew their shit wont work well so the entire plant has a 3 meter wide "meat juice" trench set at the bottom of valley of sloping sides of the floor.

Of course no one volunteers to pickup or dispose of the carcasses that are laying around for days, draining the juice into the trench, producing mass amount of maggots.

About once a week a couple of workers get drunk enough and commandeer a large forklift and drive around stacking carcasses into a massive pile that finally gets pushed into the disposal pits.

THE SMELLS ARE UNBEARABLE. The meat trench winds around the production floors then exits the plant and joins a little creek that runs around the perimeter of the facility and dumps into a swampy marsh. But not before pooling up into a 10x10 "death pond" as it's lovingly named by the workers.

Be me, getting sent to re-shingle an enormous supply shed with a slow slanted roof that ends about 3 meters off the ground overhanging the point where the meat creek enters the death pond.

A bunch of us get drunk, start screwing around and decide to play some sort of a game of tag on the roof of this shed. As we drunkenly stagger around I watch this redheaded dude, slip on a bottle and take a nosedive down the side of the roof. He had his hands out, trying to stop his descent and ended up going face first down the fresh, wet shingles (we spilled a lot of liquor).

We all watched, the time stopped, he went slow-mo off the edge and into the pond. He hit the surface and made a sound like a giant bag of jello getting slapped.

The creek was very shallow, only about 40cm, and he had his hands out in front of him when he landed, so his face stopped about a nose length from dipping into the nasty surface. He smiled, we all cheered, he had this "WTF ! I cant believe my luck !" expression on his face.

Then his hands slipped to the sides on the slimy smegma of the creek's contents and he went face first, spread eagle into the abyss. Dark red, mixed with grey and yellow writhing in maggots.

(PUKE INTERMISSION)

He was gone for 10 seconds, slowly climbed out of the creek, went around the building and attempted to get onto the electric shuttle to go wash up.

He smelled so bad that people ran from him for 2 weeks straight. I quit a few days later as I couldnt get the picture of this poor dude swimming in things no human should know exist out of my head. The smell didnt help either.

Username: [deleted]
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3. It’s Just a Breast...

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I was thinking I didn't have a story for this; not that I didn't wish I'd walked out of a few jobs instead of sticking it out! But then I realized that I DO have some stories. They just aren't about jobs.

I had breast cancer. The way the process worked in the town I was in, you got diagnosed through a mammogram/sonogram/biopsy, and then you got a nice disheartening talk from the "Breast Nurse" about how screwed your life would be now, and they sent you on to a designated surgeon.

My surgeon was very enthusiastic despite the fact that I'd have to have a mastectomy due to the size of the tumors, he wanted to do an immediate reconstruction, which sounded better than some of the options I knew of.

However, it being serious and all, I decided I needed a second opinion, and went to another top breast surgeon, a woman. She decided that I had lymph node involvement, and she rather insistently "encouraged" me to have no reconstruction until after radiation, which she was sure I'd need.

Her bedside manner was curt and just the facts, and her recommendation took me by surprise, and it felt like I was losing the breast all over again, which is hard enough to take once, much less a second time so soon and so brutal. When she saw my reluctance, she said, "It's just a breast.

What else are you going to lose?" Whereas intellectually that is true, it's much different when it's YOUR breast, and there are certainly other things you lose, like estrogen, kind of a big deal. But I was too flabbergasted to retort. I just got out of there as soon as I could, but determined to see what my options were.

I talked with my plastic surgeon who'd be doing the reconstruction, and did some research. I learned that radiation carried some big risks, about 30% of patients had some side effect or another. Some of these side effects could indeed ruin the reconstruction, just as the female surgeon had said.

However. The risks were the same for my type of reconstruction whether I did it before or after radiation, and the side effects that were possible if you did the reconstruction first were ones that were possible to recover from, whereas, having radiation before surgery could mean that you could never have reconstruction at all.

So, I decided to go see a radiologist to see what they'd say, considering the research I'd done, although I knew they preferred to do the radiation before the reconstruction.

That proved to be very accurate; in fact, they were very determined to not let some upstart female with some facts influence how things had always been done there. The doctor had a resident with him. First, the doctor regaled me with reasons why I should do radiation first. I responded with my research. He backed off and let his resident have a go.

The resident told me that "a study showed that women who'd had radiation first and then reconstruction afterwards liked the results better than the women who had immediate reconstruction".

Well, having just asked my plastic surgeon about the outcome of each type of procedure, I knew that objectively, the immediate reconstruction looked better, with less scarring and a more natural shape.

Therefore, the women were reporting a subjective opinion...it was a psychological study. The thing with psychological studies is, you have to be very careful in how you frame the question, and in identifying the factors that may influence the answer.

Also, with pretty much any data, you can frame the study so it proves what you want it to prove, but the Resident clearly hadn't had the amount of psych and statistics I had had. So, what could make these women feel this way?

I looked him steadily in the eyes and said, "Or, they were so traumatized by having to go flat wall for a year and a half (the amount of time you have to wait because of the continuing damage radiation does), that anything was better than that?" He quickly retreated, looking like I'd poleaxed him.

The doctor moved back in. "I can tell, you are a woman who just values her appearance above any other considerations. That's okay, I can work with that." No, I did not hit him, tho the thought did occur. I got out of there as fast as I could and made sure I got a different doctor for my actual radiation!!

He apparently couldn't handle a patient coming in with facts that contradicted their SOP, and I couldn't handle a doctor who'd talk to me that way.

Username: dacynt
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4. Under the Brakes of An F-15

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I worked F-15's for the airforce as an avionics troop.

One day we needed the "Speed brake" (Basically a giant metal flyswatter on the top of the jet) raised to do some maintenance under it. Normally, you do this by simply slowly raising it with a few people, it's heavy but not locked down.

Well, there was a malfunction that meant it couldn't be raised by hand. So instead, we had to apply hydrolic power (All 3000PSI! of it) and send some poor soul under this death trap to put a brace in before they powered the system down.

Even after our safety officers, Quality assurance, and supervision all signed off that it was a legitimate solution and there were safety protocols to make sure the poor soul didn't die. Only one idiot was brave enough to do it.

This guy. Now for more detail, that 3000PSI will powderize bone like it's mashing potatoes, drops flat in about a second flat, and the speed brake is approximately 8ft tall by 4ft wide. And I needed to get deep under it to place this brace in and lock it down.

So I do it. With the guy in the seat who flipped the switch to raise the brake holding his hands out the cockpit so if anything happens he doesn't get charged with murder. After a hair raising experience, it's done. I'm out. Shortly after I go home, and cry in the shower.

The next day I come back to work on the job that had been put on hold by the whole process of raising this brake... The jet has been moved... into a hangar... they had to lower the brake to move it...

We'll have to raise it again and of course the crew who had been trying to solve the malfunction keeping it from being raised by hand were still at a loss...

So... we raise it again. Nearly shit myself again.... Work on my job, get it done. Go the fuck home.

Come in the next day, they've moved the jet again... lowered the fucking brake... *AGAIN!* Whatever, my job is done I don't need it raised. But the guys who are trying to fix the issue need it raised...

They look at me, the only SOB brave or stupid enough to do it. I was an E-4, (lower level) present was several E-5 and 6's and a few 7's. 7's are supervision level. They started to ask me and before they even finished I was literally screaming at them.

Guys who were effectively my bosses, guys who I could get in serious trouble for screaming at, I don't even remember exactly what I said, but I recall it ended with something along the lines of "The only way I'm going under that fuckong brake again is if I have the head of who ever made the call to fucking lower it!

Because they're a fucking moron!" (It was almost certainly one of the E7's present.) I then packed up and went back to my office and effectively took the day off without permission.

Never got any flak about it and they eventually found some newbie to do it. Word is he quit after 2 times too...

Username: xxkoloblicinxx
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5. Movie Night: CCTV Burglary

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I was robbed at gunpoint in this homeware store I used to work in, but that’s not why I noped out. I was a team leader so I started at 7am every morning (we didn’t open until 9) but was always there before the assistant manager that started with me because I liked to have a smoke beforehand.

There was a coffee shop being built in the retail park so there were often white work vans parked and this morning was no exception. There was a guy who worked for the retail park who picked up litter and put the shopping carts back to the store fronts etc.

I knew he was off that week though so when another dude was there picking up the litter in his place, I didn’t question it. It was a really cold morning so he had a scarf up around his face but he had a big bag and one of those litter picker things so I just said hi as he walked past.

The assistant manager met me at the door, I finished my smoke and she let us in, I walked in first and heard the noise of tires screeching. I turned around to see two men with masks on jump out of one of the white vans, one with a machete and one with a sawn-off shotgun.

They yell at us to get into the shop and turn the alarm off. They then led us into the office where the safe was. They got the assistant manager to open the safe, which she did - with a machete to her throat - meanwhile I’m slouched in the corner with the shotgun being pointed in my face.

Then I see the litter picker dude approach the doorway, with his bag of litter that he emptied on the floor for them to put the money in. So they finished putting all the cash in the bag, emptied the cash registers drawers (that were kept in the safe), took the big bags of change from the bank etc...all totalled about £15,500.

They cable tied our hands together and pushed us face down on the floor. They told us if we called the police, they knew where we lived. I was the warehouse team leader so I had a little narrow pocket on the side of my pants for my box cutter. I used it to cut us free and we called the police. An ambulance came, CSIs came, it was a whole thing. Turns out the assistant manager had actually literally shit herself too.

So after this, we get a visit from the bigwigs of the company, telling us how proud they were of us and how if there was anything they could do, to ask them, and they said we could have an “indefinite amount of time off work, paid. Take a month, take a couple months, whatever you need”.

I realised about 3 days after I was off that I have a little PTSD and anxiety around white vans, like properly shaken up by them. However after about a week, the store manager begins calling the two of us, asking when we’re coming back. After the 3rd week of being called every few days, I relent and go back.

This isn’t why I quit though. My girlfriend worked in the same store. She informs me that while I was off work, the main store manager started doing “showings” of the CCTV footage of the robbery. Not for training or anything but for entertainment.

She was bringing people into the office two at a time to watch us being robbed and was laughing about it. “This must have been when Lindsey shit herself hahahaha” and “these poor girls didn’t even know that guy WASN’T a litter picker hahaha” etc.

So when I returned to work a few weeks later, it was on the condition that I don’t start at 7am for the first month or so anyway, just to ease me back into it. Sure enough, from my second day back, I’m on the rota for 7am. Fine, I’ll suck it up and do it. Did that for a few weeks, then we have a visit from the area manager, so we have to get things prepped for him coming and before the store opens.

I’m doing what I need to do and my manager appears before me. She starts criticising my work (she has no clue what I do, she’s one of those that sits in the office and “delegates” from her chair), I explain that it’s what needed to be done and if the area manager did an audit and the stuff WASN’T done, we’d fail the audit. She screams at me. Tells me I’m stupid, tells me I’m incompetent...I yell back at her, she’s lazy and useless so if she feels that way, maybe I’m just following her example.

She squares up to me, trying to assert her authority and very loudly and gleefully calls me a cunt. I could feel my fist start to ball up...but I refrained (lord knows how). I simply said “you know what? YOU do it then” grabbed my coat from my office and walked out.

Got phone call after phone call, voicemail after voicemail begging me to come back. I never did.

(Side note: The next time I saw that bitch of a manager was watching her drive the wrong way through the drive thru of a McDonalds...don’t ask me how she thought that would work...)

Username: OnceMoreWithHeeling
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6. Minor Chemical Burns

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Worked for a disaster restoration company that did jobs like flooding, fire, mold, biohazard, and hording cleanup and repairs.

Owner is all excited about a new product we'd be using on mold jobs. Being that I have a background and education as a hazmat technician/incident commander, I checked it out. It took about 5 minutes to realize that this stuff was only compatible with the PPE we used in short term splash protection conditions.

The intended use case of this product was specifically crawlspaces and attics and it would be dispensed from pump sprayers. I attempted to explain this with sources from the manufacturers of the product and our PPE. I was ignored.

We get an appropriate job a few days later. Two guys spent 4 hours in a crawlspace, sliding around on their back/sides and spraying the product at the floor system above them. For 4 hours the product rained down on them and the vapor barrier they were sliding around on. They didnt make it back after lunch because they both had chemical burns.

One was more minor and covered his entire back from waist to shoulder blades. The other has light permanent scarring on one side of his ribcage and arm. I again approached owner/boss with a solution of simply a different variant of our PPE that was rated for these conditions.

Ignored again by the former accountant that ran three ice cream truck businesses into the ground in California before he moved here, to a state the he admitted he moved to "because running a business here would be easier because we're all dumb hillbillies"*(paraphrased)* - said that in the conference room to over half the employees one day.

The next day he sent a crew, including the guy with the less severe chemical burns, to the same job to use the same product with the same PPE. I never clocked in again.

Within a couple weeks or less, former coworkers were blowing up my phone because OSHA showed up and they thought I called them*(and also assumed I called the labor board about well documented payroll theft)*. I didnt call either agency but I'm perfectly happy if that's what anyone thinks, and I'm thrilled at the *possibility* of how that might/should have turned out.

These are the kind of bosses that exploit employees that are under their thumb. We've all seen it before, some poor ignorant desperate person barely surviving on shit wages can be pushed into damn near anything by a psychologically manipulative, gaslighting, verbal and wage threatening/stealing boss.

These are the kind of bosses who set COVID policies that if you get tested and positive - 10 days at home w/o pay, if negative - 20 days; with the specific intent of ensuring employees dont get tested, because if they dont get tested he cant have a quarantined workforce that would hurt his wallet. I didn't make that up, I've also seen the same policies in home healthcare companies for my grandfather except it's 10 and 14 days.

Same boss, prior to chemical burn timeframe, had me out of state working after a flooding disaster with him and another supervisor. Two weeks of 96 hours each.

He attempted payroll theft with me, tried to refuse the over time pay and lower my hourly rate at the same time, both after the fact and after he had made specific claims about making the trip/job lucrative for us - iirc he was intending to short me like $3,000. He didnt know my background and familiarity with navigating government regulations/codes/titles.

Before we left the city we were working in, I showed him a few web pages and PDFs that I pulled up on my phone and made sure he understood if I was a penny short he'd be dealing with the Labor Board and a lawyer instead of me.

To this day I dont know why he didnt fire me as he'd done to everyone else that ever challenged, or failed to cower to, him over the previous 3 years. It was morally/ethically difficult enough to watch other employees get regularly stolen from and treated like doormats, but when the health/safety issues of chemical burns hit - all of a sudden the line that I forced to be blurry for my own benefit($) ~~because~~became crystal clear, and it was way behind me as it had been crossed long ago.

Username: Effthegov
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7. Phone Calls at a Funeral

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I used to work for a major utility locating company in the US. I was one of the guys who would come out and mark your yard if you called "811" or whatever the number is in your area, so you'd know where the buried lines were.

It sounds like a cool job, I thought. We had a few weeks of training, where there were some red flags I ignored - basically, they expected you to forget all about any part of your personal life for this job. And they weren't kidding.

They "needed" everyone to be out working, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and if you were on call, you weren't getting to sleep that night before going in for another 12 hour day. After six months I started to completely lose my mind. I had no idea what day it was.

All I did was work. I barely saw my wife when she was awake, and I'm surprised she didn't leave. Friends drifted away. I got so desperate for sleep one night, that when a helicopter for the local police department kept circling low over my neighborhood, I seriously considered going outside to shoot it down so it would be quiet.

That wasn't OK, and probably wouldn't have ended up with me getting any sleep, but after almost a year of this nonsense, I wasn't thinking straight.

The management there would do the stupidest carrot and stick thing with overtime, too. "Hey guys, we're doing good this week, if we try a bit harder we might have this weekend off!" and if everyone was caught up in our area, inevitably we would hear "Well I'd like to give the weekend off, but West/South/North/Central/some group halfway across the fucking state is behind, so we are going to help them out" so you *never* got that weekend off. And they couldn't understand why nobody would work for them more than a year.

I got a call from a longtime friend one morning, telling me *another* long-time friend of ours had died. This friend was one of the greatest guys I'd ever known. We rode motorcycles, he talked me into buying my first gun, we did all sorts of stuff together. I'd not seen him, or any friends, in a year. And he died in his sleep.

Just straight up died. I find out when the funeral is, I leave early one day to see him at the funeral home. They won't give me the day off for the funeral, and that's the magical moment when I'd had enough. I explained that I'd be leaving that day for the funeral, and they could get over it, since they weren't in a position, personnel-wise, to be firing anyone.

I came in and worked for a few hours, and then went to that friend's house with a suit, took a shower, changed, and went to the funeral. Huge church, and it was packed. He wasn't old when he died (34) so we're all in bad shape with this one. My work phone went off twice, and I just turned it off.

I went back to change into my work clothes, and I remembered the work phone... turned it back on, and had a few messages from my supervisor asking when I'd be back, and an angry message from the area director... and I just decided that no, I'm not going back in.

I'm a wreck, emotionally, and I'm going to miss some stupid cable or gas line. I explain this to my supervisor, who I feel was just as much a victim in this company as anyone else.

I went to a staffing agency once I'd calmed down. Got an interview at a metal fabrication shop that used cnc lasers to cut metal. I nailed the interview a few days later. Gave a notice, and started working eight hour days, and turning the phone off when I wasn't clocked in. Oh I'm on call for the second time this week?

Oh, this contractor is threatening to dig without marks because he called an hour ago and nobody has painted yet? That sounds like a YOU problem. Fire me. They couldn't. They begged me to stay. They said they'd increase my pay, (All this for $12.50 an hour) They said there would be days off. No.

The little fabrication shop was the first step on a journey that carried me to my current job as a drafter, which is a MUCH better job in every conceivable way.

Username: Idiot_Savant_Tinker
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8. M in Cuffs

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Was working in a halfway house. To be expected, the place wasn’t great. The staff had zero respect for supervisors in any capacity. If someone wasn’t given a post they wanted, they’d tell the lieutenant to go fuck themselves, walk out, and still have a job the next day.

As someone who’s got a pretty decent work ethic, this blew my mind. But, it was kind of deserved; some of the higher-ups didn’t give much of a shit either. To be completely honest, I’m amazed the place is still operating.

There were all sorts of issues: staff allowing ‘clients’ to escape at night then sneak back in, guys disappearing for hours at a time with no repercussions if/when they returned, cell phones rampant and no one doing anything about it, PREA reports mysteriously disappearing because it was filed on a favored staff member...these were just some of the major issues. But this night...this night took the cake.

I had this co-worker, we’ll call him M. M was straight from Africa, so there was a pretty big language barrier. M had zero respect for women. Like...whatsoever.

There were more than a few occasions where I or another co-worker would try and talk to him about something work related or ask him a question, and he wouldn’t even acknowledge you’d said anything to him.

Unfortunate because except for two guys on our shift, the rest of the staff in our department was entirely female, including Sargents, Lieutenants, and above. He gave no fucks; the only female he listened to was the chief, who worked day shift (we were nights).

M gave no fucks because it was impossible to fire him and he knew it. I don’t fucking know why, but it was. Often he’d just walk out and go wandering a while, or he’d steal the keys to an office and we’d find him sleeping hours later. He loved sleeping.

He once stole keys to a company vehicle, drove it to another parking lot, and we found him sleeping with the car still running. It was almost impressive how little fucks he gave.

One night, I (and the entirely female shift of the night) had enough. We found him on three separate occasions that night sleeping in different areas of the building.

We snapped some pictures, woke him up, and the lieutenant that night confronted him, saying we were going to the chief with the pictures because we were sick of his shit (even though she’d been told of these issues before).

M lost his goddamn mind. He started screaming, saying we didn’t have pictures of him and that we somehow faked it, he started throwing things and getting physically aggressive with the LT.

It got to the point where we had to have the ‘clients’ throw him out of the building and we locked all the doors so he couldn’t get back in. As he’s kicking at the front door, our LT decides to call the director of the facility to ask what he wants us to do.

She figures maybe he can talk M down so we wouldn’t have to call the police and possibly have him arrested for this episode. What was the directors answer when he finally answered the phone?

“Stop calling me in the middle of the night with stupid shit.” We called the cops, M was placed in cuffs, and after going through the schpiel with the cops, I walked the fuck out and never went back. Fuck that place. And fuck you, M.

Username: CheshireCharade
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9. Nissan vs. Truck

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Back in late 2013 me and my friends used to drive around in a shitty gray Nissan, as some of them got jobs during high school; anyways to say the least my friend was an EXTREMELY aggressive driver and an all around confrontational shit-head (you know the type), tail-gating, cutting people off, speeding up so that people can't make it onto on-ramps, you name it.

So we are messing around in the wrong part of town; no big deal until a truck starts tail gating us with his brights on, this- obviously pisses off my friend, as he slows down to 15 MPH (24 KPH), this truck tries cutting in front of us as he veers into oncoming traffic accelerating, and as the truck pulls ahead my friend floors it, matching the speed of the truck, forcing him to stay in oncoming traffic, at this point his girlfriend is now freaking out screaming at him to "calm down" (Yeah right.) as we come speeding to a stoplight, the truck now speeding behind us aggressively, he veers out of oncoming back to behind the Nissan, us now speeding to this red light intersection, it being a generally wet day (it just finished raining) my friend rips the E-Break, throwing us into the middle of this intersection horizontally, the front of the car facing into the stoplight meeting us 90 degrees, meaning we could have had a head on collision, by means I have no idea, my friend jacks the car onto a curb ripping off what I assume was his muffler, or heat shield, or something- goes speeding off into another intersection, this truck keep in mind is pissed and still speeding after us, after going roughly 50-60 MPH through residential for what felt like an eternity we finally make it to a park and pull in behind some pine trees, i've practically pissed myself, while he and his girlfriend start screaming their heads off at each other; before I see it, the fucking truck managed to find us after tearing down wet residential suburbs, this is the part of the story where I don't want to find out what happens next, as I throw open the rear passenger seat door and go sprinting off into some random neighborhoods park as I hear his girlfriend bawling her eyes out and my former friend screaming his head off at her.

As I turned around 100 or so feet away I see both the truck and the Nissan collide in the parking lot, tearing out one of his headlights and scraping across the trucks nudge bar as they both tear off back into the neighborhood. I manage to find a Subway and phone home from there, to say the least I don't hang out with them anymore, nor do I know what happened after I dipped.

Don't hang out with people souped up on a testosterone fueled superiority complex, it can go sour real quick.

Username: PapaGoon13
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10. Pay the Hooker

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Went out of town for training with some co-workers. One of them was kinda cool so we made plans to hit the town after the first day of training. We caught a cab to got to a bar. Without any shame, my co-worker ask the cab driver if he had connections with any hookers. Cab driver leaves him his personal number and drops us off at the bar.

After a few drinks at the bar the co-worker calls the cab driver back and, sure enough, the cab driver takes us to pick up a hooker. I had never, and haven't since, been a part of anything like this but it was kind of thrilling at first because I knew it was shady business.

We go back to the hotel. Co-worker says he has to pay the driver and for me and the hooker to go ahead into the hotel, which in hindsight was dumb of me. Anyway, all three of us end up swimming at the hotel pool. I touched a tit because she said it was okay.

I shouldn't have but it was just a tit. We go back to my co-workers room for more drinks and things start to get a little to sexual.

I remember thinking this is not who I am, I'm not drunk enough or brave enough to hook up with a prostitute, or have a threesome with my co-worker. I tell my co-worker I'm tired so I'm going to my room, which is directly across from his room. This is my "Fuck this, I'm out!" moment. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there.

I'm settled into my bed and 10 minutes later there's banging on my door. It's the hooker. Why the fuck I open the door is a question I still ask myself today. However, I did and she let herself into my room.

She proceeded to explain that someone owed her money and she wasn't leaving until she got her money. I think he got her out of his room by telling her I wanted some action too and that I was paying for it all. I really don't know.

Anyway, I wanted nothing to do with her. I called my co-workers room and the co-worker tells me he "nutted all in her face and he wasn't paying her a dime" (I think that is verbatim). I pass the word along to the hooker. I tell her I can't do anything for her at this point and she needs to leave. She leaves.

I get another knock on my door, maybe 20 minutes later. This time it's the police. Apparently the hooker called the police claiming she was owed money.

Co-worker tells the cops that he and I had been hanging out all night and he gave them my room number and name so I could corroborate his story.

I'm trying to make this all go away. I tell the cops we went to a bar and came back to the hotel and that was our night. Cops send everyone on their way because there's no evidence of any wrong doing and, well, she's a prostitute so it's better for everyone to just move on.

The next day my work calls me out of training. I'm not nervous until two of my superiors start asking questions about the night before. I told them I didn't know anything and they needed to talk to my co-worker if they wanted to get to the bottom of what happened.

They show me videos of me walking in with the prostitute, the pool scene where I touched her tit, and the scene where everyone was talking to the police. Turns out, my superiors already talked to my co-worker. The story he told them was it was all my idea and that he was trying to cover for me through the whole ordeal. We both got fired.

I was mad about it at the time but I understand it was a shit show and whatever level of participation I had was still very shady. I didn't say, "fuck this, I'm out" soon enough so it still ended bad for me. Crazy story though.

Username: youreapeon
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11. She Bit Me

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I had been with my girlfriend for 3 years. She spoke a lot about her psychological complexes regarding sex and femininity and I always tried to listen to, support, and even help and advice her, on some minor things.

Over these three years there had been some improvement. Our sex had gotten more relaxed and kinda fetish-like even. We were discovering ourselves and each other.

These talks were never easy. There is a heavy emotional burden to carry and a great sense of responsibility. I always felt cautious not to say something damaging that might add to her complexes.

Now, Christmas morning after breakfast she seemed low on general interest but regardless initiated a conversation on perfumes. This gradually turned to sex in advertising and products and how to recognise it.

I kept using examples from industries she cared little for as it was a safe place. She , however, kept asking for "more relateable" industries like fashion, make-up, and perfume.

I didn't want to talk about this. I knew it would hit too close to home with her but after cautiously treating for the past 3 year on this same topic, well, maybe my patience was running dry. Next to that, she seemed strong regarding the topic of conversation.

She was lucid and curiously investigative and that isn't how she generally would approach these convos. So I went there. Then she made it even more personal by asking about her own dresses. It didn't take long for her to snap.

Whislt she was throwing a tantrum, I tried to calm her but she began to wrestle me. When she realised the wrestling didn't achieve much she bit me in the right upper arm, on the backside. She grabbed on and flung her head left and right like a dog killing a rat. I just held onto her hands, waiting for her to release the bite.

She did and I released her hands and we both moved into different rooms. I shortly after had to go into the bedroom, where she was, to get my glasses.

She shouted something like "I don't want to talk to you!". I replied I was there only for my glasses and was waiting for an apology in the living room.

I laid on the couch all day drowning myself in hypnotising youtube content but she never came out of the bedroom.

We were supposed to have Christmas dinner with my family in a city near the sea. When I came into the bedroom to get dressed in front of the mirror I told her we had to leave soon.

She got up and started getting ready. I was looking at her in the mirror applying make-up and I felt nothing for her. I told her I wanted a break up and she casually agreed "o.k.". She went back into bed and I went off alone to the Christmas dinner.

We now still live in the same apartment and are working out how to proceed. Things are strange. I reject physical violence but if pushed I will defend myself. Since I didn't want to fight her back, and doing nothing wasn't an option anymore, I had to say "I'm out."

Username: Zero_protocol
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12. Made My Pregnant, Injured Wife Catch an Uber

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So I was working in fundraising, first role in major donor work. I vaguely knew my manager from my previous workplace and there was a significant pay bump for the role so I had taken it with a plan to learn and grow.

Boy, that was a mistake. Within a few weeks the toxic nature of the workplace had become clear. I won’t get into all of it, but needless to say I was quietly looking for a new role within the month.

The thing that absolutely pushed me to get moving was an event I was organising for some wealthy donors. I organised the guest list, and the CEO was coming down (small org, friendly guy) and I was meant to get some face time with him to make a good impression - to do this, I’d give him a ride from his hotel to the office quite a while away and chat.

My wife and I only had one car and she was pregnant. Unfortunately, she hurt herself on the weekend and the earliest she could see the doctor was the day after the event - when I was meant to be driving the CEO.

I sat down and explained the situation to my manager, saying I couldn’t make it and the CEO could grab a cab, which was standard practice. Her word for word quote about my wife was ‘can’t she catch an Uber?’ My manager pressured me to take the CEO and my wife organised a rental car; needless to say we were pissed.

On the day, I picked up the CEO and he barely talked to me. He was on the phone when I got to the hotel and he only got off once we pulled up to the office. Then, a few minutes later, I get a call from my wife, in tears. Her rental had fallen through, she’s in pain, and I felt so awful.

Two things happened in that moment. First, I decided to never do something like that again. I always try to put family first, and compromised here - it simply wasn’t worth it, and I knew that. Second, I knew I would never stay at a place that would allow this to happen.

Things spiralled from there, and the short version is me quitting on the spot during the busiest time of year with another job about to start, but being forced to do it early after a coworker ratted me out behind my back for looking for another job.

It was even worse than this in practice, but I still remember the feeling of empowerment I had when I told my boss that I was quitting as she tried to (illegally) dismiss me without notice. It was an awful situation but I grew a lot.

The best moment at the end was when I said my boss ‘I hope you know this was over the moment you told my wife to catch an Uber.’ I took the chance to let her know that it would never be good enough to treat someone like that, and I hope she remembers it as vividly as I do.

She scoffed at me saying that and we went back and forth before I suggested there was nothing more to say. She had been a micromanager, manipulative, undermining me constantly while causing me massive stress and anxiety. As we went to the meeting room door, I said to her ‘I hope you know you’re the worst manager I’ve ever had.’ Her reply: ‘You need to watch what you say.’

And it was my turn to laugh. ‘Why?’ was all I said. I could go on about the constant issues, but now I view it as a lesson in life where I learned a lot.

And at the end my boss, who had kept me in a vice-like grip for seven months could only flail about with empty threats and attempts to humiliate me in those final moments.

I’m so glad I got out. And it all started and ended with an Uber.

Username: ihlaking
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13. Read a ****ing Dictionary!

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Got a job out of college canvassing for a public health group. It lasted about two weeks tops. I was actually pretty excited at first because I had never worked any job that wasn’t customer service before and as an environmental studies major I was excited to actually work in something meant to help our environment and community.

Unfortunately the job itself was set up in a way that hurt the workers, especially women and people of color, and was the kind of job that people didn’t really like to do in the first place (going to door to door reading a script trying to get donations and signatures to support a specific issue).

A few things to note. One is that even though I asked in the interview and was assured we did not canvas alone, we knocked on doors all by ourselves, completely alone, until 9 at night. It was winter so it gets dark pretty early out. This is a scary situation to be put in.

Walking around empty neighborhoods knocking on doors alone was terrifying as a woman especially. You never know who’s door you’re knocking on. Also we get yelled at a lot. Which brings me to the second thing to note which is canvassing is NOT soliciting (at least in my state).

We were not allowed to avoid doors with no soliciting signs on them because A. A majority of houses have these and still donate and B. We are technically not soliciting since we are informing people of a public health issue.

Also I would never knock on doors with handwritten do not knock signs or anything that was a bit over the top about trying to get me to not knock on their door (I also dislike it when someone unexpectedly knocks on my door, I get it, but also I needed this job and I’m not a solicitor!).

Alright so after about a week and a half of canvassing, we get to my “fuck this shit” moment. I’ve definitely had some bad experiences at this point where people yelled at me but also some great moments where people were just super nice.

Well one dude ruined everything for me. I knocked on his door like everyone else. No one answers. I few seconds later I knock again just in case.

The front porch lights turn off. Note taken, so I put a brochure in the door and start to walk away to the next door since they obviously don’t want me here.

This isn’t a problem. Halfway down his long gravel driveway, a 50ish year old man opens the door in a fit of rage. I (22f and small) am already leaving at this point and turn around surprised with a “oh sorry sir, I didn’t think you were home!”

He just starts screaming at me that his door clearly says no soliciting which I politely reply that I’m not a solicitor and I’m here to spread awareness about a public health issue.

He screams that I need to read a fucking dictionary. To which I reply that I have for this specific reason and I’m not a solicitor but I’m happy to leave you alone. He screams some profanity and slams the door.

This would have been fine but about 20 seconds later while I’m still walking away he comes back outside and glares at me the entire time I am walking away. I’m fairly certain he grabbed a gun from inside because he had no other reason to come back outside after I already started leaving and he had closed his door.

I was so angry about it but I had also gotten my biggest donation ever that night so I think I was just distracted by that. The next day though I was on my way to work riding the bus and I couldn’t stop thinking about that whole situation and I couldn’t stop shaking or crying. It was just a flow of emotion and fear and so I called my boss and quit right then. At least I tried haha

Username: wallywoofdog
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14. Louisiana Middle School

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I was teaching in a failing Title One middle school in Louisiana. It was a place where our lessons were literally scripted, where cameras lined the halls, where heavily armed officers would pop in at every hint of a civil disturbance, and where students were expected to walk from class to class in lines with their arms crossed.

It was a place where our administrators would constantly be checking and chewing us out for not doodling on the lesson scripts for our classes enough to prove that we had read and intended to use it. (We had a two page long checklist of annotations to make for every script. And the process could take from 3-5 hours a subject. I taught 4 subjects.)

This was a school where I and other teachers would get cursed out by a student or a parent on an almost daily basis, and where we would be required to spend 4 hours a week going over student work samples in order to evaluate teacher performance.

This was a school where every one of those scripted lessons was on a recommended schedule, and we were told to rush through what our students didn't understand because the skill would be addressed in another lesson 2-3 months down the road.

We straight up weren't allowed to review or reteach the necessary skills that our kids were missing. We just had to keep plowing forward through those godawful scripts.

This was a school where a student threw a chair at me, and got away without any consequence. Administrators worked to make referral forms (the only way of *ensuring* that students received some form of intervention) scarce af, and without them, students would just skip class when they were sent to the office and rejoin their group during next hour.

Still, I was trying to stick out the year. I had lost 15 lbs since August, and I had made it to December. I'd get to Christmas break, endure the spring, and maybe survive, right?

I don't know what happened, to be honest. I had enough students that were openly aggressive with me, (there was even a bet the six graders had going to see who could make me cry first) but there was one in particular who just went out of his way to be an asshole. His parents were impossible to contact, and no consequence would stick to him.

There were days where he would come into my class and scream and stick his tongue out and straight up tell me that there was nothing I could do about his behavior, and no consequence that I could give him that he'd give a damn about. I tried everything I could think of, but he was right.

He'd come into my class and tell me that he hoped that I'd get fired because I wasn't doing a good job. (And even though I was doing the best that I could, I wasn't doing a good job. In an environment like this, being forced to stick to and forced to rush through lessons scripted and aimed at students who knew how to be students, how could anyone?)

He'd come in during hours that he wasn't even supposed to be in my class, and refuse to leave. I'd threaten to call the resource officer, and he would make sure to 'accidentally' push me to the wall with his shoulder and a murmed 'bitch' on the way out.

This kid wasn't the only one, and he wasn't even the worst, but every time I tried to report him and then he was sent back to class with a slap on the wrist, the rest of his class got the message that they could do anything that they wanted.

And really, they could. As Christmas break got closer, all I could think about was that I'd still have 5 more months in that hell. It broke me. I'd have days where I'd make it through the day, get home, and then just not be able to do anything but stress cry. I couldn't even eat a meal without my stomach locking up and causing me pain.

I just woke up one morning and decided that I had had enough. Whatever the consequences would be (student grants being converted into loans, not being able to afford city rent, having to find another job and place to live, etc.) I had to get the fuck out.

I'm packing up my apartment and looking for work again, and not really having any luck, (English degree.
What can ya do?) but at least I'm not there. I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's not going to be that.

Username: SecondhandSanity
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15. Surprise Armed Robbery

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I drove to a local 7-11 one morning to get myself a big gulp of Diet Coke (hangover cure). As I was at the fountain, filling my cup, I turned and saw a guy enter the store and the cashier raise his hands in the air. My hungover brain interpreted this action as a “hey not my fault” gesture.

So, what did I do? I walked right up to the register, and into the middle of an armed robbery. The guy robbing the store turned, pointed a gun at my face, and told me not to move.

So, what did I do? I immediately dropped to my knees to lay on the floor. Literally didn’t process anything the guy told me (I blame the mother f-ing gun pointed at my face).

The robber got antsy and shouted at me to go into the back room of the store. My brain finally caught up, and I got up and shuffled off to an employees only room. Once the door was closed, adrenaline took the wheels.

Glancing frantically around the room, I searched for any other means of escape. I was positive that my friend with the gun was going to finish with the registers, and then kill us all in that dirty assed 7-11 office.

My eyes landed on an exit sign on the far wall, along with a push bar door. Sweet salvation! I floored it to the door, barreling into and through to freedom.

I wish. Instead, the door slammed hard behind me, and I found myself in a pitch black hallway. The only light I could make out, was a small sliver located at the end of this cavern of darkness. The only way was forward, and I had the feeling that the ruckus of the door slamming attracted the robber.

So I started to sprint down the dark corridor, only to make it about 3 feet. That’s when I fell head first into a MOUNTAIN of trash bags. This nasty assed 7-11 kept their trash sitting in some emergency exit hallway, rather than take the bags to the outside dumpster. I managed to worm my way through the bags of garbage, stumbling toward the small sliver of light. I crashed through another push bar door and was blinded by bright sunshine. Free at last!

I wish. Instead, I was at the top of a frigging fire escape (this was a little strip mall area, where the stores are built on a hill). At this point I’m thinking... seriously God? I clambered down that escape like I was on American Ninja Warrior, and just kept going. I ran, and I ran, and I ran, all the way back to my house.

I burst through the door, frantically screaming at my partner (who was mid-shit) like a maniac. After I managed to communicate what had happened, he called 9-11 while I hyperventilated in a corner. Gazing down at my shaking hands, I made a discovery. Rattling away, clutched in my vice grip, was the Big Gulp. Somehow I had managed to perform a mother f-ing tough mudder, without spilling my drink.

After hanging up with the police, who had already arrived at the store, my partner drove me back to the 7-11. I walked in, shame and embarrassment on my face. Not only had I abandoned the poor clerks like George Constanza during a fire, I had stolen a Big Gulp.

The police wound up interviewing us all, and we learned that the guy who likely robbed us, had been hitting stores all over our county. They had named him the Khaki Pants Bandit, even though I swore he was wearing blue track pants. He continued to rob stores in the area, getting more and more aggressive each time. During one of his final robberies, he actually assaulted a woman and fired his gun into the ceiling. He was finally caught, after robbing 60 something stores.

I ultimately learned some lessons that day though. Do not walk into the middle of an armed robbery, if you have the choice. A gun pointed at your face changes all of the hypotheticals of “what would you do” that you have envisioned.

Witnesses are unbelievably unreliable. I gave a different description of this guy’s clothes than both cashiers. In reality, the only things I got right were his race and that he had a beard. If there ever is an Olympic triathlon that involves carrying a Big Gulp successfully through obstacles, sign me up!

Username: andyman686
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16. Self-Destruction at the Starting Line

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In highschool, doing a group project for engineering class; we were assigned the task of making, from a limited list of basic office supplies, a device that could fly a certain distance *using only energy stored in the device itself*, i.e. no launchers or throwing.

I don't remember exactly what the list was, but it was something along the lines of 3 rubber bands, one sheet of paper, a 1 foot section each of scotch tape and string, and some specific number of popsicle sticks, paperclips, brads, etc.

We didn't have to use everything on the list, but couldn't use anything off the list.

Most people's minds seemed to gravitate towards paper planes with some sort of propeller... Or attaching a rubber band to the front, so the "launcher" goes with the plane... But point is, everyone was stuck on planes. I was thinking missiles.

You know those toy stuffed monkeys they used to make with rubber tubing in the arms, so you could stretch them way back like a slingshot and just send the them flying?

I wanted to make one of those; just replace the money with the sheet of paper, foldled and wrapped into a tube around the rubber bands (tied together to make one long one), folded in half lengthwise. And then taped up, making a cylinder with a rounded tip.

I was on a team of 4, and the other 3 we're all flatly rejecting my input, and agreed on a design using popsicle sticks for a propeller... Flat, heavy, popsicle sticks, bound with a damned rubber band to a plane far too small and far too light to cary them.

After 30 minutes of arguing with them about it, I finally said "fuck this shit I'm out" and left the group. I talk to the teacher, and he let me be a group of 1, but said I would now have only a few minutes to come up with my design, I said no problem.

Got my materials, made my missile in about 2 minutes, then lined up at the starting line for my single allowed test launch. Stretched back the rubber bands as far as I felt I could without damaging them, let go, aaaand...

***THWACK.*** It hit the back wall of the classroom loud enough to turn pretty much everyone's heads. Keep in mind, this was the engineering department, so the "classroom" was more of a large workshop, and that wall was about 50 feet away.

The pass-mark was to get your little flying machine to cover at least 10 feet; most of the class managed around 20-30 feet...

We had to take mine out to the football field to get an accurate measurement. it traveled ~85 yards, with a slightly favorable cross-wind and a 45° launch angle.

My former group was the only one to fail, with their poorly conceived plane basically self destructing at the starting line.

Username: SansCitizen
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17. Pigmentation

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I had been working in TV broadcasting (for a major network) for years after finishing college. After being let go due to budgetary reasons, and after about 4 months of being unemployed I quickly needed a job to keep up with rent, car note, etc.

Friend of mine got me a job at Kinko's since he was leaving to start his own business. It was the smallest one in Houston, with the fewest customers, so you think the job would be chill. Nope.

From the moment I started my first day, the manager was an ass. Wouldn't train me for even the basic parts of the job, then would make petty comments to me in front of customers.

Had me working morning to close (including the weekends) alone, not knowing how to do anything. Thankfully, my coworkers helped me out and taught me the basics when he wouldn't.

Found out after almost 2 months from a fellow worker at a different store down the street this was all because the fucking dumbest of reasons.

I'm a black male and what you would call "light-skinned". The manager was also a black male, but darker, and apparently had a bias against my lighter pigmentation.

I was basically done after hearing this, and was already close to getting another job when the shit between me and the manager finally when down.

Flash forward to the next Month 3. There was a manager's conference in Las Vegas meaning he would be gone for the week.

Checked my schedule a noticed that for the first time ever that not only was I off consecutive days, but was off that weekend as well. Something felt very strange about that. Worked my schedule as normal.

Come in for my shift at the end of the week and suddenly he's back. Looked at the schedule and it had changed, meaning I was actually about to clock in on my day-off.

Get called into the office where he is and get accused of stealing from the safe in his office. The same safe he'd leave open all day that I didn't even know the electronic code to.

Then acts like he wants to fight me. Lots of yelling and cussing back and forth before I slammed open his door and stormed off before I threw a punch.

Guess he forgot I was scheduled to work that Saturday and Sunday, open to close, alone. Drove to work that Saturday morning, left my smock (with my name tag) on the door, and drove away.

Never opened the store and he ended up catching hell for it from the district manager, who just happened to be in town that week and had decided to stop by.

A year later from a coworker who was now at a different store he the manager had been fired for taking some of those lost credit cards in the safe after one of the customers start noticing charges on their bill, all centered around the area of the city he lived.

Username: Bishopragz
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18. Pharmacy Douche

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A little over a year ago when I worked at a different store within the same company I work for now, a nationwide pharmacy chain, I was scheduled for a shift during the middle of the day (10-6) on a Sunday. This particular store was open until midnight but we didn’t actually leave until around 12:30 AM so a closing shift was normally 4:30-12:30.

A few hours after I get there the closing manager calls in sick for the second day in a row. I was one of 5 managers that worked there so there was me, the manager that called out, the manager that opened the store that morning and had already left, the assistant manager who was out of town, and the store manager.

The store manager is a little different than the rest of us because they don’t really do any of the day-to-day stuff like handling the money, customer service, merchandising, etc. Long story short, they don’t open or close the store so there was no one available to work the closing manager’s shift.

The day before when the same manager called out a manager from another store had been nice enough to help us out and work the closing shift, but I wasn’t there so I didn’t know who it was. So as soon as I find out the manager called out for a second night I start trying to call and text the store manager to help me find someone to cover.

I called 2 or 3 times, no answer. Texted him telling him what was going on, asking for the info of the manager that covered last night, explaining that I have assignments due for school later tonight so I CAN’T WORK, no response.

I start calling around to other stores seeing if there is ANYONE available to cover, no stores have anyone. I text my store manager again telling him I called other stores and haven’t been able to find anyone, still haven’t heard back.

As I explained earlier, store managers normally don’t cover shifts; but in a situation like this where there’s no other option it’s supposed to be their responsibility to come in and run the store. Finally get a text back half an hour later saying “dont care about overtime” and nothing else.

Text him back immediately reiterating what I said in my earlier texts about there really being no one to work and that I am not able to. He never responded and I was stuck there for the rest of the night. If I had walked out, I would have been fired and I couldn’t afford to lose my job.

I wanted to contact our district manager (his boss), but conveniently enough he was the only one with her number. This was not the first issue I had with this store manager. To this day he is the worst manager I’ve ever had.

He was a complete asshole from day 1, left work early almost every day even though he didn’t have permission from his boss like he was supposed to, always passed the blame on the other managers if our DM had a problem with something in the store (one time he wrote up the manager on duty when the DM got on him for some merchandising issue, he claimed he had told the manager to correct it and they hadn’t, complete fucking lie).

So being stranded at the store from 10 in the morning to 12:30 at night was the last fucking straw. I missed submitting 2 assignments (11:59 deadline) for one of my college classes because of it. School was my first priority, but this shitty retail job. That same night I got a call from a friend from another store and started the process of transferring there.

THEN on top of everything else, once I told my store manager I was transferring (didn’t want to tell him in the first place, but had to) he did everything he could to talk me out of it saying things like they wouldn’t want to take me because of my availability (couldn’t work morning shifts during the week, not really a problem because almost all managers hate closing shifts), I would have to be demoted to transfer (pay stayed the same so I didn’t care), had to do all the work myself, blah blah blah.

When none of that worked, he started to say that I had “performance issues”. I had never had issues in the past, in fact a month or 3 earlier he had told me that I was the best manager he had working for him, he was grasping at straws to try to get me to stay.

He pulled me into the office one day to tell me that “my performance was slipping” and that he had already told the store manager of the store I was transferring to about it. Really? Before even MENTIONING it to me? Still irks me to this day.

On a more positive note, I was able to transfer after a few months of that and love the store that I’m at now. The store manager is the best boss I’ve ever had, the people are great and the store is in a safer area.

Username: egs7769
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19. ARE YOU A CHILD OR SOMETHING?!

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I worked at a garden center once. Don't be fooled by all the pretty flowers and stuff, being a summer temp in this garden center was horrendous. I was overworked, working long shifts and barely making a dime for my efforts. It was during the summer too, and a some days were 95 degrees.

I hated it. I tried to like it, but I hated it. My boss was a very old-timey boss. From day 1, if he caught ANYONE "dilly-dallying" for even five seconds, he'd be right on your ass in no time. He was ALWAYS in a bad mood and ranting about something. Lanky 5'5" guys also aren't really built to carry 80-pound objects either.

But "if there was stuff I couldn't lift, I'm working in the wrong place" I was always told. So I had to just bite my lip when a customer asked for five 80-pound sacks of topsoil that needed carrying across a large parking lot. Taking five after a job like that, and boss would be on my ass.

Vacuuming the place would be my first job of the day each day. Almost every day I was told it "should be a 10-minute job", even though it was NOT. When it came to putting the price tags, I was barked at for going "too slow". Even though I was going as fast as I could and pricing 15 of those sons of bitches a minute. So I tried to go faster and busted the fucking price gun. Almost lost my head for that.

I'd come home each day achy, overheated and overworked. I'd get all of four hours to myself in the evening before I'd need to go to bed and start at 7 the next day.

On my 17th day working there, I was ready to blow. I was tasked with picking up some fallen apples. It was about 9am, so only an hour into the day. I was taken to the place where the apples had fallen and I could actually not see the grass.

There were THOUSANDS of fallen apples. It would take ten wheelbarrows to clear this mess up, and all I was given was one wheelbarrow and a rake. The boss came to check on me 15 minutes later and was FURIOUS that the grass area wasn't apple-free, but rather there were still apples everywhere.

"THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A FIVE-MINUTE JOB!!!" he bellowed. "AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR GOD-DAMN ASS ON THE FLOOR, ARE YOU A CHILD OR SOMETHING?" the boss was really upset that I was sitting cross-legged on the floor rather than kneeling.

As the boss was yelling at me for being too slow and sitting like a child, his face went bright red. He then told me that he was really not happy with me, but at least the job was done. He grumbled "when you've filled the wheelbarrows throw the apples over the fence".

There were 2 fences. He did not specify which fence. Naturally, I threw them over the wrong fence.

This brought on wave 2 of the shitstorm. Customers looked on and blushed and tried to look away and not look too embarrassed as I was almost publicly executed. He finished with a look of burning contempt, and an equally contempt-loaded "You shouldn't be working here".

"No I shouldn't", I thought. "I HATE it here. If you're going to fire me over a few apples, fucking do it so I can get out of this shithole forever."

I was 19 and did not have the balls to actually say any of this. Instead I sadly nodded and got back to my work, still with another eight hours left of the day. Throughout the rest of the day, the boss targeted me and was using the fucking CCTV cameras to monitor me. The slightest TOE out of line and I was in for it.

I came into work the next day, and after that they never saw me again. Everyone I've spoken to who had a summer job at a garden center says they had a similar experience.

Overworked, horrible boss, harsh conditions, you name it. No matter what I did, how hard I worked, I was always made to feel I was doing a shit job. I don't know why the bosses of these places target summer temps in this way, but they often do.

Username: FeelThePower999
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20. Who Throws Mugs?

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i have a lot of pet peeves most of which ive learned to deal with one that is my biggest and hardest for me to deal with is being interrupted.

i was out on the porch talking to a friend in a different lower level house run by the same ppl who run the house i was in at the time and this girl (my roommate at the time she got kicked out after she threw the mug) kept interrupting me. i had already sensed in the few weeks she was there that she was a ticking time bomb.

i let it slide the first few times cause i didnt want to start anything, but eventually i couldnt and i snapped and i yelled something to the effect of "can you please let me finish my damn sentence." she gets mad and starts saying she didnt interrupt me and i interrupted her.

i start to fight and argue back and my friend from the other house is trying to calm me down he says its not worth it and shit. well eventually she gets so pissed she walks into the house.

i stay on the porch and bitch to my friend who when she was out there was refusing to take sides, but when she went inside he said that she was interrupting me. after a minute or two i can hear her yelling from inside about the whole thing and i start to yell back and my friend again tells me this isnt worth it so i quit yelling.

i go inside go to the other living room and start listening to music, the next thing i hear is her yelling and bitching about the arguement again, i practice enough self control to not go off and cuss her out like i want to. couple hours later its time for me to take my meds but staff is letting me eat first i go into the kitchen with the only working microwave where shes cooking something.

the minute i walk in she starts banging cupboards and shit. i put my food in the microwave and go to the staff office shut every door leading to it and start bitching at the lowest volume i can manage.

i eventually go back to get my food and eat it, when im done i go to the bathroom before i take my meds. i come out looking for hand soap and the next thing i hear is her yelling about how someone touched her stuff and stole it.

for some context i have hoarding tendencies and the joke among ppl in housing who have known me for a bit is that im a hoarder, my parents get me anything i need that i cant afford, i have no reason to steal anything is my point.

to continue when she comes downstairs she starts accusing me of stealing her shit because shes still pissed at me even tho i havent responded the last couple of times to her and i stopped myself the first two times which is actually progress for me.

i then completely snap and start yelling and cussing her out and insulting her and shit. basically letting loose everything i had been holding back for the entire night. i am not a fighter at all, she however is, and starts trying to fight me.

at this point staff is trying to separate us and trying to block her from the kitchen im in she makes it in there and manages to grab a mug before staff herd her out well staff is shorter than her and she manages to throw the mug over his head at me i see it coming and drop to the floor so i luckily didnt get hit.

well after that i was like "fuck this shit im out i dont care that im breaking the covid lockdown rules im going to my boyfriends house" and i did, but not before she accused me of stealing her phone cause we had similar phones and i had picked mine up to bring with me so i could call ppl for support,

but i manage to escape, they moved her to the crisis house before i come back the next morning (they had me spend the night at a different house for my safety) and she never came back except to get her stuff.

Username: KittyKate10778
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21. Made for McDonalds Fries

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Worked in a McDonalds for three years (I am loyal to a fault). Was frequently told that I was getting complaints about not being nice enough, but they wouldn't tell me exactly what the complaints were or what I had done that wasn't nice, then complained to me again when I couldn't seem to fix the problem. Meanwhile, trying to be nicer led to me being borderline creepy because I was already trying to be as nice and helpful as humanly possible.

They would also frequently schedule me for only one or two days a week, then ask me to fill in for other people on multiple days off to the point of me frequently making plans and then cancelling them, and when I asked them to schedule me for more hours and stop calling me in so much, they gave me even less hours and stopped calling me in almost entirely.

I once asked my boss if I could skip work on account of having a really bad cold and house sitting for my grandparents with my only transportation being a pedal bike, and they said I had to work anyway (though they sent me home early once I very nearly passed out from nausea,

that was one of the worst colds I have ever had in my life and it came at the worst possible time because it lasted the entire time I was house sitting their beautiful home and I had to miss a date too).

I was never doing my job just right either. They frequently made me cook fries because it's "what I did best" and then continuously said I was too fast (wasting fries) or too slow (not enough fries).

I eventually got so fed up I had to actually take a break and cry for a while because the job was pissing me off to the point of nearly cussing out a friend just for saying hello (which is VERY out of character for me), and I politely asked them not to make me cook fries for a while. The very next day, they asked me to do just that.

I quit on the spot, and as much as I hated no longer having a source of income, I realized I felt intensely happy to not have to go back.

Did I mention the uniform was all black, hat included, and working fries for hours meant multiple hours of adrenaline in front of hot oil vats in a cramped space because that store was not built to handle the traffic it had, and they took issue with me frequently taking 15-second trips to the walk-in freezer in the back to cool the fuck off while the next batch of fries cooked for two minutes?

Granted, I was a bit of a shitlord back then. I could have done more to be a better worker. I still hated working there though, and as much as I would love to try again and see if I could do a better job than before, I would also hate to go behind that counter again, especially since I would probably only be earning half as much as I do now in my current far-less-stressful job.

Edit: Just remembered another problem I had there. The next weekend's schedule wasn't always ready on time, and so I would frequently call in to get my schedule. After a while, the same manager, a guy I almost never worked under, would pick up and give me my schedule.

He was wrong every single time even after I confirmed the details of who I was and what schedule to read with him, and that nearly got me fired for multiple no-shows.

I had to waste time and sometimes my parents gas money to go view my schedule in person every week because this guy couldn't friggin' read, apparently.

Username: TheWinterPrince52
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22. Gas Station

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I was an assistant manager at a gas station and usually worked graveyard shifts which tend to be filled with more degens than anything else.

I had gotten transfered to a different location in a more, unsavory, side of my town. One night I stopped a beer run attempted by two college kids

I've stopped beer runs before at my old store, it was nothing new for me, but this time the situation called for a bit of excessive force. I managed to cut off the kid and tackled him as he was trying to run out, he hit his hit on the door and I pushed him out as he tried getting up.

With a pile of beer cans behind me, the thieves and I were at a stand off and I taunted them by yelling "CMON LETS FUCKING DO THIS THEN", I was ready for a 2 on 1 fight with these dudes.

One of them looked beyond intimidated, but the guy I tackled had a smirk on his face. A type of smirk that said "oh youll get whats coming to you, just wait." And I immediately knew that meant trouble was coming my way.

They ran off and I told my older brother about what happened, he scolded me saying how I shouldn't be playing hero around those parts. He's familiar with the area and warned me that behind the gas station is gang territory.

So I took his warning seriously and kept my head on a swivel for an entire week at work. Cautious of anyone who came in.

Sure enough. The day I decide to relax and put my guard down was the day they sent someone after me.

I was preparing the coffee for the morning crowd when I got a gut feeling to check the front of the store. As I turned the corner I was met by some guy crouching right in front of me. His face was covered and I noticed he had something in his hand.

We stared at each other for a good 3 seconds, I guess he was as shocked as I was. Then he lunged at me with whatever he had in his hand. I put my arm out and blocked the hit and he then began pushing me back, probably trying to get me to loose my balance so he can strike me, we have a scuffle for about 6 seconds that lasted forever, i kept blocking his arms from hitting me until I reached out and pulled his mask off.

After being exposed he immediately turned around and ran. I tried chasing after him, but in movie fashion, he toppled the chip stand over and managed to escape. Of course he ran the same direction as the guys from the beer run.

I was enraged and wanted to chase him down. But I knew I was done for if I was dumb enough to follow him. As I went back into the store. I saw his weapon was a folded car jack and his mask was a friggen Chris Jericho kids t-shirt

I called the cops and when they arrived, they insisted it was attempted robbery, but this guy never went to the register nor did he steal anything. He was literally sent to mess me up. If I hadn't turned around when I did. I wouldve gotten sent to the hospital, or worse. All I know is whoever sent him wanted me to be found in a pool of my own blood.

Of course that morning I told my boss what happened. Told her I'd be an idiot to stay another night. I had a feeling they were gonna send more goons after me. Or worse. Someone with a knife or gun. So I told her I won't be coming in ever again

Needless to say I took the long way home, i worried I was gonna be followed and I didn't want to put my family in danger.

Username: King-Ira
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23. Sliced Sausage

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Posting with an alt.. So, I was married in 2001. Had 3 kids by 4th anniversary in 2005. Things were ok, we talked, went on dates, and enjoyed spending time together.

I turned over the bill paying to her after 8 years of marriage (2009-ish), as she has degrees in business management, business administration, etc. and I never went to college.

Started putting 90% of my direct deposit into her checking account (for some reason, we never had a true "joint account", as I had added her to the one I had since 1987, but she never added me to her account).

Well, from that point on, she didn't have to talk to me about bills, so our interaction dwindled. I was always the primary parent taking the kids to school functions, scouts, church, friends (theirs, or mine), etc.

Communication stopped, except for her corrected my speaking (usually to one of the kids, or my friends), and the occasional update about her family.

Since communication was rare, at best, physical intimacy was non-existent. Not just sex, but hugs and kisses (morning, or night), when I left, or got home, hand holding was met with a look of "What the hell do you think you're doing?", the bump against each other with a toe in the middle of the night sparked her to jump (literally) out of bed, and leave the room.

So, one Saturday, she said she was going to cook dinner that night, after her routine nap after lunch. She ate her lunch, laid down for her nap around 12:30 PM, ostensibly to get up about 3:30 in the afternoon.

She got up at 5:30, and asked me to cook dinner. She told me what to cook (pasta, red sauce, and use the sausage we got from Don's Meats in Scott, LA).

Ok, fine. I thawed the sausage links out, and proceeded to heat up a little olive oil, got the noodles out, and rummaged for some vegetables while she went to the front porch to smoke, drink coffee, and read/play games on her phone.

I found some cauliflower from the night before in the fridge, and decided that could be her's (neither the kids, nor I like it). Got a can of spinach out, some green beans, and carrots (a little something for everyone). Sliced up two of the 5 links into slices (like you'd see in a BBQ joint), and put them in the pan.

She came in for a refill of her coffee, and remarked "Huh, I didn't know that's what you meant by sliced sausage". I just stood there quizzically for a few seconds, and asked "What do you mean? How else would you slice sausage?".

Her reply, "You know, just kind of cut it once, in half". I was stunned - literally. Like, what? That's not sliced sausage, that's literally half a link. So, ok, I've got three more links, I'll cut two of them that way, and the rest the way I was doing it.

She said sure, go ahead, and went back out to the porch.

I just leaned back against the counter, and realized that if after 15 years we cannot agree on the simple term "sliced sausage" - that the communication barrier is not going to get better, it's only getting worse.

That was the moment, as little and petty as it sounds, that I said "Nope, fuck it, I'm out". I moved out of the house a few weeks later, and while that was over TWO years ago, we're still going through the divorce process.

Username: Justanotheralt59
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24. Three Bucks an Hour

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This one might now be as good as a lot of the others. I've recently was hired and quit near the next day at Pizza Hut. I was hired as a delivery driver and shift leader. I did not apply to this particular store, they called me up.

It was in a town 40 minutes from where I live. I took the job because we did need the money and no one else seemed to want to hire me. Plus I live in a small town so its a bit harder to find work. Thinking I had no other options, I took it.

I wish I hadn't. For roughly ten hours all they had me do was watch videos, do quizzes, and play the hour-long pizza hut video game. That was the first two days. That time let me see several red flags.

Such as these lessons for Shift Leader clearly were meant for someone already working at Pizza Hut, not for someone just walking in.

On the board behind me was a list of employee positions they needed. Such as 5 CSRs, 4 Shift Leaders, 8 Drivers, and an actual manager. There were more, but I cannot remember.

As far as I could tell, there were only two shift leaders, and one had only worked for three days.

The training manager never trained me. She always tried to get others to train me, yet the others had no idea how to train or what to do.

By the third day it was to be my first day working. I was to do ride along with delivery drivers to get in the swing of things. The first guy, let's say his name is Will, forgot he had to train me. Explained nothing despite my questions, and spent most of his route on the phone with his mother. He was about fifty.

After two runs, the training manager throws me some pizzas and told me to deliver. The videos and the driver never explained the dispatch machine, nor could I get the three people working there to explain it to me.

For the next eleven hours I delivered pizza. I fucked up the dispatch machine nearly every time. I didn't know any of the neighborhoods. I busted ass on dishes between runs because literally no one does them. I got called by my training manager midrun to berate me for not using the machine right.

Ran around in the rain, minimal tips due to shitty delivery times, got beat up by screen doors. One got me so bad it busted the skin on the back of my arm. At the end of my shift I was stuck with two hours worth of dishes. I was to go home at 8. It was 11 before I left.

Got five dollars in gas money and twenty bucks on tips on a driver's salary. Which is roughly three dollars an hour.

Takes me 40 minutes to get home. Gave me a lot of time to think on it. About how the money wouldn't cover shit. About how much damage doing this would do to my already worn car. About how the training manager never actually trained. Before I walk through the door, training managers calls to make sure I won't quit on her.

I did quit. Maybe I am lazy. I never thought of myself that way since usually I work well in restaurants and delis. But no way in hell was I going back there. It wasn't worth the drive or the time, and they certainly didn't seem to think I was worth training to actually do the work. I'll find something a little less bullshit then that. Fuck pizza hut.

Username: JashlinPike
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25. $300 Of Concrete

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I worked at a Home Depot pulling orders for deliveries and in store pick up. The department had 3 total employees and it was almost impossible to pull all of the orders because they did not show up in our system to pull until two days before they were scheduled and for really large orders that often is not enough time especially when most things require two people to carry safely and the schedule only had one of us working at a time.

One day I had a lot of orders to pull but kept getting called away to load things for customers with the forklift, which only a few people had a license for. I went to the manager on duty and said "Is there anyone else who can load things with the forklift?

I keep getting called away and I have serious concerns about deliveries for tomorrow. There are a lot of orders that need to go out tomorrow and I haven't been able to pull them because of the amount of times I have been called away to load things with the forklift.

This will really negatively effect the deliveries and customers tomorrow. I would really appreciate some help because orders are supposed to be my main priority since that is my department."

He said "no. worry about the customer now and worry about the orders tomorrow," even though this is completely backwards because the truck driver can and will leave without the order if it is not ready when the truck gets there.

Manager (who walked around doing nothing all day) unsurprisingly ignored my very serious concern and went back to walking around doing nothing in lieu of helping me because all managers had forklift licenses.

So he could have taken care of the customers and just didn't. Keep in mind, the deliveries are usually packages of several palettes of building materials, often over $2-5000, that are scheduled for a certain day because that is the day the homeowner hired contractors to work. Arguably, they are way more important than $2-300 worth of concrete.

So I stay late (store closes at 10, normally scheduled until 11, I stayed until 12) because there is no way to get all of these orders out on time tomorrow. I also happened to be the opener for my department the next day so I got in at 5 am for our open at 6. The truck driver, depending on their schedule, gets there at 6 usually but sometimes it gets pushed back if they have stops before us.

I somehow manage to pull all of the orders by the time the truck driver calls to let me know he is 15 minutes away. I only finished because instead of being there at 6 like this driver normally is, he had other stops and got there at 11.

Then the manager from the night before, who refused to help me, came up to me and said, "when will the truck be here?"

I said, "They called 10 minutes ago and said they were 15 out. So any minute now." He then says, "Great, can you pull this order to go on that truck?"

I look at the order and it is 30, 12 foot long pressure treated 6"x6" lumber. They weigh between 100-144 lbs each (I googled it to verify but it definitely feels like it). I said, "Yep I can do that."

He handed me the paper and walked away. I set it down on the counter, took off my apron, and walked out the front door. I texted my department supervisor and said I was not going to be coming back.

I texted the one coworker I liked and said that I was sorry for how much this would effect him but I couldn't do it anymore and he understood and we are still friends.

Fuck that place and fuck that manager. I will do anything for you if you have my back. I'll stay late, I'll come in early, I'll cover shifts, I'll come in if there's an emergency. But he didn't have my back and no other manager there did either.

Username: [deleted]
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26. First Come First Serve

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I worked part time at a large retail store in Brooklyn. I enjoyed the job, but didn’t necessarily need it to pay my bills as I worked freelance in another field.

There was an assistant manager who disliked me. We had several run ins over the two years I worked there. The main manager really liked me and promoted me several times towards more merchandising type work, ie whole weeks where I didn’t work the floor because I had special assignments.

The assistant manager (let’s call her Jackie) that hated me would often wait till he was gone then pull me off the special assignments to do things like work the register.

She would also try to demean me in front of other employees for not having as many sales or credit card apps... again- not one of my assigned goals.

With upper managements permission, I implemented some protocols to track sales and credit applications which really impressed the large parent company who owned our store. This didn’t sit well with Jackie. Our store had somewhere around 60 employees. 10 were Jackie’s cadre of lazy folk who she would push to make my life a misery.

Fast forward to one of our quarterly full store meetings. We’d always have them on Sundays because we closed early. I was on the closing shift and the store was a wreck because it was a sales weekend. Her cadre would arrive before closing to clock in and then hide out till the meeting so they didn’t have to help us clean and stock the store.... which they were being paid to do.

For the meeting, we had about 20 chairs That I was setting up for people to sit in. Now, we had 3 senior citizens who’d been working all day, so I put a note on 3 of the chairs to reserve them because we didn’t have nearly enough chairs for everyone, but common decency would be to let our 60+ year old employees have first dibs. I then went back to cleaning and restocking.

About 5 minutes before the meeting was starting, I walk back to the chairs to see Jackie’s cadre of bitches sitting in the seats I had reserved for our elderly employees, my note crumpled on the floor.

I politely asked them to move and let people that had been on their feet all day working shifts sit in the seats. They refused while Jackie was all “first come first serve” with a smirk on her face.

I just went to the other manager and asked to be let out of the store. He was pleading with me to stay, but I told him no and explained that Jackie and her group were making the job a misery. He said he understood and I left.

Fast forward a few weeks- I never get my last paycheck. I’m told it was mailed, but I never received it. It was printed and had been at the store, but somehow it just disappeared. Jackie denied involvement, but she also wouldn’t pass any of my messages on to the payroll department for the store.

After a few months, I went to the store and put $400 (my estimate of the pay I was owed) on my store credit card.

Then i shredded the card and never paid it off. I got maybe 4 collection calls over the years and I answered each one with “I’ll happily pay off the amount I owe if you can get the store to give me my last paycheck.”

Fast forward 15 years to today- I never paid them and they never paid me. It’s not on my credit report.

Username: bettyraetangerine
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27. Playing Games With Nature

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One summet my father and I went on a pack trip into the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area. He wanted to check out the high finger lakes between the Lochsa and the Selway rivers.

We went up Warm Springs creek, off the Lochsa river with a string of 2 horses and 3 mules. It was an amazing trip, full of gorgeous, unbelievable scenery and interesting features - hot springs with naked hippies, a grove of ancient cedars, catching pan-sized trout morning and night for food, a spectacular waterfall, and:

3 days into our trip we were quite high into the mountains, and deep in the old-growth forest. We came to a section of the trail where 250-foot-tall trees had fallen across the trail.

Even on horseback you couldn't see over the trees - they were big. You'd follow the trail around the end of the tree, then follow it back to the trail, only to find another fallen tree just around the next bend. It made for a long trip - probably doubling the distance.

At the end of that section the forest opened into a huge alpine meadow - maybe a mile across. The creek ran through it, of course, and we could see where the trail continued on the other side of the creek.

We'd crossed the creek many times during the trip, and it had always been in wide spots where the water was shallow and fairly still. The creek here was narrow, with banks, filled with many rocks, and foaming with rushing water.

There was a small, maybe 6" tree stuck against the bank on the far side. My father had me hold all the mules, while he rode his horse into the stream and over to the log so he could see if it could be freed.

He ended up pulling out his axe and chopping through the log, while standing on a rock with his horse's reins looped around a branch.

Well, the log broke free, and the blocking portion floated off downstream, but the branch dad's horse was tied to snapped back and startled the horse - who bucked, lost his footing, and went upside down into the creek.

Dad ended up slipping off the rock, losing the axe completely, and taking some time to calm his horse down, calm down himself, and get back in the saddle and climb back out of the creek.

It was a perilous moment, and while it turned out ok, it could have easily gone very, very badly. If either dad or the horse had broken a leg... It would have been on me to carry on and get back down the mountain - days away from people, much less emergency help.

My father and I sat on a nearby warm rock, munching on some apples, cheese, thuringer, and "Space Food Sticks".

Dad turned to me and said: "I think this is a good spot to turn around and go home." I'm sure he meant "Fuck this shit, I'm outta here."

Username: Plethorian
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28. Split Lip and Black Eye

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I used to work at a pizza place in San Francisco during college. I was one of 4 people that ever worked there, boss included.

Our big draws were that we were right across the street from a pretty major music venue and we stayed open until 3AM to catch the last call crowd. My boss was a nice guy, but not without his flaws:

* He was late for almost every shift. I don't remember ever being too upset about it since it's money out of his own pocket, but it was weird knowing you'd be getting off any time between 5 and 8PM.

* Despite having a gorgeous wife and two very young children, he was clearly cheating on her. I constantly got calls from someone who wasn't his wife asking for him, and never leaving a message. Also his wife would call expecting him to be at the shop when he definitely wasn't.

* The business was cash only. It was great since I was paid in cash, but what wasn't so great was when he'd call from his cell phone, ask me to put $200 in a paper bag and bring it outside.

A car would then pull up with him in the passenger seat and I'd give it to him trying not to make eye contact with anyone else in the car.

The worst day was when I opened the store at 11AM on a Friday when there was a big concert across the street. I was set to be relieved at 5 by bossman and another guy, RJ.

RJ calls at 5 and tells me he quits. Boss obviously isn't there yet so I tell RJ to call his cellphone. I call the boss like a half hour later to make sure he knows RJ isn't coming in and to see that he is, boss says he'll be there soon.

Long story short, on one of the busiest nights ever, the boss never shows up and I work the whole night alone, rolling my ankle and getting about $50 worth of tips stolen. I stay until 5AM since we need dough for the next day.

I'd like to say I quit after that night, or the next day when he called and asked why I put in for 22 hours worth of work instead of 16 and I had to explain to him about overtime. What finally made me quit was when he came back to the store after a "bag run" and he showed up with a split lip and a black eye.

Epilogue: The shop closed about a month after I quit and was shuttered for several months. I was dreading going back there, but I had to because I'd left my computer speakers there as the shop's sound system.

Still having a key, I unlock the gate and enter the shop, all the lights are off, and suddenly someone shouts from the back of the store.

Bossman was back there with all the lights off doing god knows what. I told him why I was there, grabbed my speakers, gave him the shop keys, and noped out of there as fast as my little legs could carry me.

Username: gl00mybear
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29. Never Work for Family

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I let my uncle sucker me into joining his startup. I wouldn't get paid, because nobody involved was getting paid, but I'd get room and board and a small allowance, job experience, and a spot on the board if the company ever took off.

Fast forward two years, and nothing has changed. We're still not making any money, and I'm still working - as a web developer - for room, board and $100 a week.

Then he asked if I'd like to switch to a piecework pay structure, where he'd write jobs and assign a price to each one.

He said he'd write at least one detailed assignment each day which would pay $25, so I'd make $125 a week if I continued taking weekends off.

I explicitly asked him if he was sure he'd be able to give me an assignment each day, because I knew he was busy, but I also really wanted more direction so that was an even bigger selling point than the additional money. He assured me that it would be no problem.

After two weeks, during which I'd made a grand total of $125 because on five days he didn't bother to give me any work, he told me he wanted ME to come up with tasks and "sell them to me".

I pointed out that no part of this was what I'd agreed to and said I wanted to go back to our original arrangement.

He said that my options were to do it this way or quit, that he just didn't have time to think of things for me to do anymore, and that he'd changed how I got paid because he couldn't afford the $100 a week he'd originally paid me.

So to sum up, he'd sold me on this idea on the grounds that it a) it was my choice, b) it would be more money for me and c) he'd do more of the work, and he was now saying that a) he would fire me if I said no, and b) he'd known all along that he was planning to cut my pay and make me do what he was committing to.

When I called him on that, he said, "Well, I just said that because I knew it was what you wanted to hear."

Not apologizing, not even PRETENDING that he'd ever thought he'd actually do what he said. He honestly thought that "telling me what I wanted to hear" made it OK.

I will put up with a LOT of shit when it comes to family, which is why I was there for two years in the first place, but I will not put up with being lied to.

Packed my shit, grabbed my cat and went home two weeks later. Now I have a real job that pays actual money (there's a whole other story about my so-called pay that doesn't belong here because I didn't quit then, even though I probably should have).

Never work for family, never work for a startup and NEVER WORK FOR A RELATIVE'S STARTUP. Also, never lie to me about my job if you want me to keep doing it.

Username: Cat_Lady42
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30. Clean Freak

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I gave my boss two weeks notice. (Grocery Store) Where i was mainly stocking shelves and mopping floors.

The fucking guy was an awful person to work for.. I was maybe 17 at the time.. The owner and his wife would come to work at the same time... in the morning, in the same car...

Then ask one of the small group of staff to drive them home.. in their car, so the other could drive home in the same car.

One time I drove the husband home.. he had me drive right into his garage... he got out and swept the garage as I was leaving. So next time I stopped in the driveway... Figuring.. less mess to sweep up car tracks vs shoe tracks.. nope drive into the garage.... Ok Fine.

A few months go by I start to realize these idiots are ocd level clean freaks.

I was suddenly the senior grocery guy.. So I closed the store most nights... with the wife most of the time or occasionally the husband.

So we had to go do the bank drop. Together, of course. Again in their car... (the store was maybe a 25 min walk from my house) and the wife would insist that I drive my self and her to my (parents) home.

One time there was a bit of a snowbank at the end of the driveway, I was at school all day, got home got rid of enough of it so my dad could drive into the driveway... but it wasn't perfect.. next day was Saturday... me and my dad would be clearing properly then.

The Wife fucking made me drive into the driveway that I told her was not cleared right.. Then gave me shit in front of staff (that liked me more than her) and customers (that liked me more than her) on my Sunday shift.

Then during the spring... I was called to the cash register to help a customer out with their order.. the customer slightly ripped the bag of charcoal ... a tiny little bit spilled on the floor.... the wife of the owner said.. clean that up right away!

I just looked at her, like I am helping this 90+ year old woman out with her groceries... should i drop the 60+ pounds of them on the floor to grab a broom.. she said.. well after your done helping mrs what so ever.

Then I put my two weeks notice after i got a new job at double the pay rate.. next schedule came out a day or two later... While i was in the middle of my shift.. I had 0 hours..

After I was told that the schedule was out.. I went to look at it.. when back to my mopping the back room.. DECIDED FUCK IT... dropped the mop. my uniform and walked out.

Username: [deleted]
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