I had a part-time job as a video editor, for a backwater college
production company. The boss was a master at handing off
jobs. He spends hours playing Bejeweled and Farmville and watching TV
in his back office.

His favorite dialogue line is a form of “Does that make sense?” Other
variations include “Do you understand that?” or “You get that?” or
“Get that concept?” One time, he was literally sitting next to me and
pointed at a pencil. “Can you hand that pencil to me?” he asked, and
added: “Got that concept?”

After a year and a half, I’d had enough. The final line was when I
was out of town and he sent me an urgent text about a recent project
that read: “COME SEE ME ASAP!” So I drove 30 minutes into town and
found him in his office playing Farmville. Then he turned around in
his chair and asked: “You finished that project, right? Everything
wrapped up? Get that idea?”

Of course it was. And of course I quit working there.

I used to work for a maternity clothing company as an assistant
manager. Needless to say I started looking for a new job on the day I
started working for the company.

My first day on the job, I found out I had been hired by the old
store manager (she quit the day I started) so that she wouldn’t have
to hire her boss’s inept niece. I had been hired full time, with them
knowing I was getting married 3 months later, and would need a week
off after the wedding. The day I started training the District
Manager spent the entire day telling us how she was trying to hide
the fact that she was over $60,000 in debt from her husband, and how
she had just gone out and spent another $1000 on buying shoes..
Really???

Since the store had no manager I was the only person in the store who
could do the bank drop, and since I didn’t have a car, I had to go in
early, fill out the deposit forms, then walk a mile and a half to the
bank to deposit the previous day’s sales then make it back in time to
open the store.

When the time came for me to get married, I was told that I was no
longer eligible to be be full time (I had just reached eligibility
for benefits), and that I would still work 40 hours a week, but they
would have to call me part time to be able to get the time off for my
honeymoon. I was ok with this, because my husband worked for a bank
and had really good benefits.

To top it off, when the DM sent the schedule in for the store, Not
only was I scheduled to work the day of my wedding, but the 3 days
following. I called her and told her that it was not possible, and
she would have to schedule an Assistant Manager from another store
until I returned.

When I got back, I got written up for not taking in the bank deposits
on days I didn’t even work. The other store’s AM had just filled out
the deposits, then left the money bags not in the safe, but under the
counter where anyone could have picked it up and walked out with
several thousand dollars worth of cash…

A month after this incident the DM said she had gotten a complaint
that I was unprofessional in the store, because I had told a customer
they couldn’t return an item for cash (company policy). This ended
with her admitting that I had followed the policy and was right.

After another 2 months we finally got a manager for the store. Things
got a little better, but the DM still was out for me, because she
wanted her niece to have my job.

3 months after this, we had an overnight inventory in the store. As
part of inventory, the DM and 3 managers had to be present as well as
the Assistant Manager (me) and the other girls who worked at the
store.

During the inventory the DM as a ‘Team Building’ exercise asked us
how we delt with fights with our spouses. Being young and not so
street smart I told of the one fight I had with my husband where I
had told him to f off.

The next day while the DM was with the owner of the company, a friend
of hers called and complained that she had shopped with me and I had
used the F*** word in the store. To look good the DM HAD to fire me.

In the exit interview the manager of the store wrote that the only
time she had ever heard the story come out of my mouth was when the
DM had specifically asked for stories of the such during inventory
the previous night, and that I never cussed.

I was able to qualify for unemployment due to the documented issues
with the DM the entire 9 months I worked for the company.

A few years ago I worked at a really small pizza shop. When I
got hired on, it was just the manager, one of his friends, that
friend’s wife, and myself. It was a pretty good place, and really
popular in my small town, so it was great to get a job there. (I
needed a summer job before starting college.) Well, my first indication
that something was wrong should have been when my boss told me that I
would get paid cash for the first month (the ‘trial’ period) and then
after that, move to payroll and get a small raise.

After working there for a short time, another employee was also
hired, a friend of the boss as well. I noticed as time went on that I
was the one busting my butt to get stuff made, make sure the store was
clean, prep for the day, etc. I definitely put in a fair amount of
work each time I went in. Oh, in addition to coming in multiple times
on my day off cause this other employee would call off for one reason
or another.

My one month ‘trial’ came and went, with no pay raise, and no move to
payroll. And then this incident happened: My boss called us all into
his office for a meeting. Apparently he had $20 on the bulletin board
that was supposed to be picked up by a former employee (from 2 months
previous), and the money had mysteriously gone missing overnight. He
told us all that he was friends with the local sheriff and he would
have him come to our job and dust for fingerprints and question us to
find out who stole the money. While he was addressing all of the
employees (his 3 friends and me), all eyes were on me like everyone
expected that I stole the money.

I most definitely did not do something as petty as steal $20 off of a
bulletin board. As much as I was growing to dislike my job, I wouldn’t
steal from it. Well, after our ‘meeting’, the employee who had been
hired after me was talking to me and was like, “I think that one of
us should just confess to it, so that the sheriff doesn’t come down
here.” This makes me think that he was the one who did it. I refused
because I’m not going to admit to something I didn’t do and go home for the
day. At home, my parents told me that what my boss is doing is
definitely not right and he can’t have the police question us without
evidence of fault. So I went back to work the next day and ignore the
incident. I never hear about it again.

I also never got my raise, even when I asked him about it.
When I went off to college, I never told my boss when I was leaving, nor
did I give indication that I would return. I considered my lengthy
absence a notice of my quitting.

When I returned from college that year, the pizza shop was closed
down. Figures.

They say the wealthy are different than you and me. That must mean
the very wealthy are nuts.

So I work for a very wealthy woman.

She pays me $15 to help her organize and manage her life. I thought I
would be making travel plans, keeping a calendar of events, handling
correspondence, etc. I should say, first, that she labels everything
with a labelmaker. So far I’ve helped her clean out her luxury car
(so she could give it to the dealer for a new one). In doing so, we
removed all the detritus that one accumulates in a car, things most
of us throw out. Not her. I put a single unwrapped toothpick into a
ziplock bag and then proceeded to label it “toothpick.” Because, you
know, it’s hard to recognize a toothpick through a clear ziplock bag.
From there, I sorted out her pantyhose, separating the ones that had
holes from the ones that don’t (while pulling the (dirty) underwear
from the entanglement. So I discard the ones with holes, right? Of
course not. They get folded neatly into a bag and what? Labelled
“Pantyhose with Holes.” (Found out later she calls the company and
demands new ones b/c these must be “defective”.)

Moving into the office, I needed to label the clear plastic box that
contained 350 pen caps belonging to 350 pens long since thrown away,
followed by labeling the clear plastic box containing 200 toothpaste
tube caps. You know, in case you lose the cap to your current tube.
Just a small sample of the very important tasks I do each day.

Now you might think she’s just a little off, right? She is as sane
and sharp as anyone you could meet. She is, simply put, a tightwad.
She will pay me $15 an hour to save a toothpick and torn pantyhose.

She’s lucky she has a 7,000 sq.ft. house because every cupboard,
closet, drawer and storage place is jammed with ancient newspapers,
magazines, broken this and used that. If she were poor, she would be
one of those people whose apartments had walkways through canyons of
stuff and she’d sleep, eat and live in a 4 foot area.

When I was 16, I wanted a job. I went and got my food handler’s
license and started applying for jobs at local fast food restaurants.
I was hired by a local Sonic. My first and last day on the job, the
manager showed me around. While giving me a tour of the different
work areas, he showed me where the frozen tater tots were and picked
one up. As he went to put it back on the shelf, he dropped it.
Instead of throwing it away, he actually put it back on the shelf.
After picking my jaw up off the floor, I grabbed it, and the ones
around it, threw them in the trash, pulled off my work shirt, and
walked out the door. I worked there all of 10 minutes. On my way
home, I got another job at a chicken restaurant. I worked there for 2
years.

On my first day of work at a truck rental place, I was handed a
check and told my first task that day would be to go downtown and
bail out my coworker, who was in jail for sexually assualting the
last female co-worker that worked with him.

My first day was my last.