No Sale

When I was training for my job at the library, I was told taking
fines for overdue materials would be a part of it. My boss
half-heartedly trained me and showed me  how to handle payment with a
debit card. We had to hit the ‘No Sale’ button to get the register to
open to put in our copy of the receipt. At the end of each day, we
printed out summary reports from the register and my boss would take
the register and the receipts and double check the reports that
printed up, just to make sure everything, money and receipts, were
accounted for.

Each report had the patron’s name and a receipt number printed next
to it. The ‘No Sale’ receipts had the next receipt number in sequence,
but had bold letters next to it saying “NOSALE”, clearly indicating
it was a debit transaction. Simple enough, right? Er, no.

So my boss called me near the end of a day, and she literally
screamed at me about how half of my receipts are missing, and how could I
be stupid enough to lose six receipts! That day, I’d had six
transactions with the debit machine, so I started to worry that my
receipts really were missing.

I go in and look at the report my boss is frantically pointing to,
and every single receipt number that was “missing” also had a
“NOSALE” printed next to it. When I pointed this out to my fuming
boss, she snapped at me with, “Well, how am I supposed to know what
no sale means!?”

I didn’t point out that she was the one who trained me.

What Can Brown Do For You?

I was working at a UPS Store at the time, ran by a single owner who
was very sexist. At the time, I was about 2 months pregnant and at
times, the only means of getting to work was to ride my bike. If it
was bad weather that day, and I didn’t have a ride to work, I simply
could not make it in.

Early in the morning, my husband had left with the car and I was
forced to take my chances at noon for my shift with 50% chance of
rain. Like usual, I called my boss to let him know that I may not
make it in due to weather and having to use my bike. He insisted I
call a friend to drop me off at work and not to ride my bike anymore,
so I obliged. Little did I know that this would be impossible.

I called everyone I knew, even from church, and either no one
answered, or they had other plans. An hour before my shift, I called
to check in with my boss and he told me, “find a ride, you still have
time. It’s okay if you are late.”

I continued calling with no luck. It was now nearly an hour after my
scheduled shift, so once again I called my boss to let him know.
“That’s fine,” he said, “just come in the morning and we’ll talk.”

The next morning I had my husband drop me off *super* early to work,
before my boss even got there, with my clothes pressed and shoes
shined up (to make it look like I was REALLY ready to work). About 30
minutes after the store was supposed to open, my boss finally arrived
and invited me in after he unlocked the doors.

“Call a ride,” he said. “I only let you come in to work to tell you
you’re fired.”

Captain Chaos

Due to budget cutbacks and layoffs, it became necessary for our
program manager (who’s been behind a desk for many years) to return
to the front lines and work directly with clients. Now, at my
particular branch we enjoy a very high success rate, and for years
the program manager has held us up as the gold standard and the group
who should be emulated. One would think that when he began working
with us, he would do things the way we do them. Instead, chaos moved
in. He immediately insisted that his client paperwork be separated
from everyone else’s, and refused to adhere to our ironclad
paperwork system. Instead, he just tucked papers and forms wherever
he felt like putting them at the time. Of course, this meant that he
was constantly looking for things. Anytime something wasn’t
immediately within his grasp—which was often—he asked me what *I*
had done with it, and expected me to instantly make it appear.

A few months ago, he came into my office to get some exit paperwork,
and saw that his clients were kept in a separate binder. “Oh,
that’s interesting. Why would you separate them like that?”

My response? “Because you told me to.”

Apparently a very small light bulb appeared. “Well, that was dumb.
You can put them back together now.” I say very small, because he
still wants the rest of his paperwork segregated.

Now if we could only teach him that “standardized assessment
administering” means you have to give the assessment exactly the
same way every time…

Sorry Old Chap

I work in a filling station/convenience store. My boss treats us
well, but sometimes he says some incredibly strange things. Once I
asked him what the strange, sudden odor of tropical fruit was; he
replied that he had just farted.

Another time, his boss was coming in to inspect the store, so he
wanted me to dust everything with a feather duster.
When he told me I would have to climb a stepladder and dust the
ceiling in front of customers, I asked if I should wear a frilly
apron, too.

His response? “I would love to see you in leather chaps.”