Rock The Boat

I am a cashier at Walmart. One day, when I didn’t have any customers
in my line, I told a customer in the next lane that I could help him
at my register, so he didn’t have to wait in line. He thanked me and
was out the door quickly.

I was surprised when I was called in for a “counseling” with my
supervisor that day. She told me that I had offended the other
cashier, and the cashier said I was implying that she couldn’t do her
job by pulling customers from her line. My supervisor also told me
that it was against Walmart policy. I told her that I had worked for
other large retailers in the past, and quick customer service was
always a priority. I was told not to “rock the boat”.

Thank God I start a new job next week.

Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’

So I had this job that allowed employees to rotate a Friday off each
month. There were 4 or 5 of us that worked this schedule. On my
Friday off I had booked a cruise, just a 3 day deal so I could be
back to work on Monday. On Tuesday of that week, my dick supervisor
who was part of the rotation told me “Im talking this Friday off.”
I replied, “Um no it’s my Friday off. See the calendar?”

We kept a calendar posted on the wall to avoid situations like this and sure enough there
was my name in the little box marked FRIDAY. He starts screaming at me
“I HAVE MY SON.” This prick just got divorced. Apparently he was as
shitty a husband as a supervisor and he felt that was all the reason
he needed to take the day from me. Well bottom line is I had to work,
I lost my cruise money and I was tagged as “difficult” because I went
to management to complain about this turd.

The Molden Rule

My first job was at Primark. If you are American, just think of a
Walmart that just sells clothes, and I absoloutly hated it. The boss
was horrible and the supervisors were as bad as her. They
would all argue amongst themselves over the pettiest of things and
forget about the rest of the employees. My training consisted of a
guided tour that lasted 5 minutes and then I was expected to just get
on with it. That, plus the pay being woeful and being overworked to
the point where you want to retire at 16, was what made it an awful
place to work.

All the ingredients were there to make a typical bad workplace cake,
but there is one story that will stay with me till I actually retire.

The shoe section was the worst part of the shop, because the shoes
were hung up on little hooks rather than put in boxes. This meant
that shoes weren constantly being knocked off their hooks and being
muddled amongst all their different colors and sizes all over the
floor. That is not the worst part. One day we got a shipment of “new”
shoes come in from our sweatshops in India. Along the way the boxes
had been soaked by rain. Once we opened the boxes we discovered that
the shoes had mold growing on them. I know, gross. After telling a
supervisor that the shoes can’t go on the shelves because they are
mouldy, we were simply told to wipe them off with receipt roll and
put them on the shelves.

Everytime I sold a pair of those shoes, a little bit of
my soul died.

No Need To Apologize

I was a receptionist at a nanotech firm a few years ago, and while
the job was not intellectually demanding, it was a job that paid
well, and I enjoyed learning about the nanotech materials produced
there. It was a fairly small company, so instead of a full HR
department, they had a highly paid consultant that came in two or
three times a week.

One Monday morning, the HR consultant came in the door, smiling, and
asked if I enjoyed my weekend and what I had done. At the time I was
married to a pilot, and we had gone to an air show, so I was excited
to tell him all about it. He asked what my favorite part of the show
was, and I replied that the aerobatic teams (aka stunt pilots) were
phenomenal. His eyes widened, and he started to chuckle.

“Aerobatic?? Oh, honey, that’s not a real word.”

“No, aerobatic is the term for the stunt pilots.”

“Um, there’s a word for that, but that definitely isn’t it,
sweetheart.”

After he wandered away to his office, still laughing, I decided to
send him a friendly little e-mail with the dictionary.com definition
of aerobatic, and politely reminded him of my name, in case he’d
forgotten. I received an e-mail reply about 10 minutes later saying
“Huh. learn something new every day.” No apology of any kind. After a
few more such instances, I left the company and never looked back. It
was a cool company doing great work, there were just some really big
jerks there.