You Scumsucker!

Many moons ago, I worked briefly for a very small company. There was
one phone line, an extension in front [where I was], and an extension
in the boss’s office. There was also a small shop floor w/o an
extension. I was the only employee in the front that day, and my boss
was in his office.

The company had been dealing with a very angry and abusive customer
named “Reggie”, who was constantly calling to snipe about stuff that
was supposedly wrong with the product. 98% of the time, the thing
that was wrong was not our product but “Reggie”, and the boss was
getting very tired of his constant baseless complaints and torrents
of unwarrented verbal abuse.

The phone rings. I pick it up at the same exact moment the boss does.
Before I can even ask who it is, my boss starts yelling. “Reggie, you
fucking loser! You’re a cheap, lying scumsucker! You’re a fucking
asshole, and if you ever call here with a baseless complaint again,
I’ll call the police on you, you sack of shit!”

It turns out the caller was someone who had been referred to us by a
*real* customer and was interested in placing an order. They say,
“Who the fuck is Reggie?!”

[The boss apologized, the customer placed the order, and last I
heard, the boss's business was doing OK. I only stayed a couple more
months before landing a different job that was the same pay but a
significantly shorter commute.]

Engaged & Underage

When I was 16 I found a job at a very small, privately owned, country
styled restaurant. The owner was a man who was 32 years old. I worked
very hard waitressing, stocking supplies and cooking. Besides the
owner, there were only three employees and we would often talk about
our families and personal lives. One Saturday afternoon, the owner
showed me and a co-worker the engagement ring he had planned to give
his girlfriend in the near future. Later that day while I was
stocking supplies in the back room, the owner came in and started
talking to me about his girlfriend and said he wasn’t completely
sure he should propose to her. I just listened while continuing to
put supplies away. He asked me to stop because he wanted to tell me
something. I did and turned around to face him and he grabbed me and
kissed me. I promptly slapped him in the face, walked out of the
supply room and called my parents to come pick me up. When my parents
arrived, I told them what happened and my father went in to the
restaurant to confront the owner and he denied his actions. My father
and I left and went to the police to file a report. I called the owner
the next day and told him I would not be returning to work and that I
would come by with my parents at the end of the week to collect my
pay check. When I picked the check up on Friday, it was short by 10
hours and he refused to make the correction. We took the check to the
bank on which it was drawn and were told there were insufficient funds
in the account. We filed a second police report, but it was a futile
effort because the owner closed the restaurant two days later. When
we called the phone number listed on a note on the front door, the
owner’s mother told us he had enlisted in the Army.

Pen 15 Club

I’m a college student, so of course I’m poor as all can be. I used to
work at this small office and I stuck with it because the money was
pretty decent. The manager, however, was not. He would constantly be
stealing things from other employees’ desks and explain it by
saying something like “I have a right to this because I’m the
manager.”

Now, being a college student, I got one of those cool smart pens for
Christmas. You know, the ones that record audio as well as what you
write down. And they’re pretty expensive, upwards of about $100. One
day at work, my normal pen ran out of ink and I had to write
something down quickly so I took out my smart pen. Not a minute
later, this manager comes strolling by my desk and snatches the pen
from my hands and says “this is mine now.”

I go to his office and explain to him that it’s not a normal pen,
it’s for my schooling and that I need it for class. He insisted that
I let him keep it or I will be fired. Well, that was the last straw.
I stormed around his desk, grabbed it back and told him to try it.

Of course, he did try it. On the grounds that I was being subordinate
and not complying to management. What he didn’t know was that I
alerted the owner of this incident right after it happened and
instead of me being fired, he was.

The Faker

I worked at a nice local restaurant with about 30 employees for two
years after graduating from high school. I was the regular lunchtime
hostess, so I worked each day from 10 to 4. The managers often told
me I was one of the best employees because I always got there on time
and never called out, I covered other people’s shifts frequently, and
had a great work ethic.

One night I woke up about 2 am with a stomach bug. I called my boss
at 7:30 and told him I was sick throwing up. This was the first time
I’d ever called out. He said not to worry about it and that he’d get
the shift covered.

The next day when I went in, the boss had posted the schedule for the
next week, and I had no shifts. When I asked why, he said that he
didn’t believe I was sick. I was furious! I’d been very dedicated to
that place and couldn’t believe that was the thanks I got. I started
applying for other jobs that same day.