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Miracle Worker
A few years ago, I worked for a coffee shop. My boss/owner of the
shop was notoriously cheap and refused to install plumbing in the
shop where I worked. We had running water, but the two sinks drained
into five gallon buckets that had to be emptied by hand in a back
room about 50 feet away. That meant that several times a day, we had
to carry buckets weighing almost 50 pounds each that contained a mix
of soapy water, coffee, milk, and whipped cream to the back room to
empty into the drains.
The final straw was when I found out that my mother had been
diagnosed with an inoperable, terminal cancer. She wanted to die at
home and, being an only child, I needed be there to help her. I told
my boss what was happening, and warned him that I’d be leaving
probably within the next month to stay at home with my mother.
Inevitably, the time came when I needed to be at home with my mom. I
told my boss that the next Friday would be my last day.
He asked me what he could do to make me stay.
I said, in a gallows humor way, that I’d stay if he could make my
mother not die. He said that miracles happen every day.
After I picked my jaw off of the floor, I said that I was more
reality-based and that there was nothing he could do to make me stay.
He told me that it was going to be too difficult to find someone to
take my place, and that he’d have to come in and do my job.
The man tried to guilt me into staying because it was too onerous for
him to replace me.
10 Comments to Miracle Worker
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I think you’re moaning about absolutely nothing! Clearly this guy thought you were an asset to his company and believed it would be difficult to replace you. You’ll be very lucky if you find someone like this to work for again.
Ummm, the thing is the health department would not allow a shop to be run without proper plumbing.
They either thought he was an asset or didn’t want to go through with finding someone, interviewing, and training again.
There are several drive-thru coffee shops in the town I live in which don’t have running water. I don’t know how they dispose of drainage, but I have seen the owners delivering fresh water to them. This boss sounds like maybe he was trying to tell this person how valuable they were, words just weren’t his forte’.
@ Chris Thank God I do not live in your town. The health department comes down hard in my city. I can say I have never gotten food poisoning either. Good deal!
Probably a stinky Pakistani!
Putting in a drainpipe would have paid for itself many times over in the cost of the staff time taken up by carrying those buckets instead of sevring more customers.
@Sue
Wow, I would hate to work for someone like you.
What the boss said was just plain stupid.
um, can’t weigh close to 50, as water is the most dense liquid there, weighs 8 a gallon, which is 40lbs if filled to the brim, maybe close to 30, cause you would be spilling if otherwise. guy sounds like an ass though.
I’m not sure why the bosses comment about her mother is so shocking. Miracles do happen every day…