MVWJ at an ice cream chain was a mixed bag; I liked most of the people I worked with, and on many nights we could have work efficiently together and leave confident that we’d done a good job. But If S (manager) or L (wannabe manager) came in the next morning, they would find something, even just a smudge on the glass, to blow out of proportion and claim we left a mess. Both of them fed on drama and would often complain about someone to a coworker only to turn around to the person they complained about and say they were doing great and complain about someone else. Every few weeks they would find someone else to target, and while I knew they were probably just blowing off steam, every time it came around to me it made me anxious.

We worked in a small area so it was common to touch someone gently on the shoulder so they’d know you were there and not back into you, but B would often wrap his hand around girls’ waists and hips as he moved past. He would come up behind me and “hug” me from behind, pressing into me and conveniently getting his hands right under my chest. Whenever I closed with him he would try to get me to lay down with him in the back of his car and talk about sex with our respective significant others. Talking was actually most of what he did, and he would often follow me around the store to brag about how awesome he was while I tried to get everything spotless so S and L wouldn’t freak out.

One girl, H, who always worked very hard and was my favorite person to work with, had a boyfriend that called and came in more and more often to make a scene and shout or throw things. Everyone complained about him, but none of us talked to her about it. One night, the guy tried to kill H and she was severely wounded. I felt awful for not speaking up about the warning signs. The next shift I worked, the prick I worked with had the balls to roll his eyes and go on for quite some time about how she “should’ve known better” and that she was stupid, though he had also never said anything to her about the crazy boyfriend.

I landed a very part time job that worked around my schedule at the store, but S found out and started complaining that I was being sneaky. Having had enough of the drama, I found an on-campus job to start in the fall and finished out the summer. On my last shift S smiled and told me to come back and visit, but I’ll never know whether she meant it or if she started badmouthing me the second I walked out the door.

Day 1 as a new hiree at a landscaping job, I excitedly head out the door. B, my new boss, calls literally just as I am headed out the door and cancels the workday.

Day 2: I drive the 30 min to work only to find today’s workday also to be cancelled.

Third try is a charm and I work 10 hour days 6 days straight. Upon return from the long weekend I find three new high school  hires, including a real-life Barbie. Shockingly, after 10 hours of work in the hot sun Barbie does not return for a second day of torture to her fake nails. The other two new hires are fired the next day for making honest mistakes made as a result of a lack of training. As the sole employee now, I am told I can work whichever schedule I desire. By the end of the day, however, B has managed to change the schedule a half dozen times before finally implementing a schedule whereby tomorrow – a previously scheduled day off (for which I had made plans that B was aware of) – is now a mandatory full day.  The following day at 8:23 AM, B calls to cancel the workday.

During the course of my employment, I am yelled at and treated in a demeaning manner, often enduring undeserved and irrelevant rants and of course an erratic schedule that seems to change as often as the weather in our area (hint: every five minutes). I am expected to work 10-hour days in the sweltering heat without break even for food or drink, and B strongly suggests I pee in a bottle, as he does, in the back of the trailer (I am a woman). He places said bottle in the cooler next to my Gatorade. Then came the day B ignorantly drove 1,000lbs+ of mulch-filled trailer over my foot without so much as an apology or offer to take me to a hospital. I tough out the remainder of the day without complaint, despite being unable to bear weight on said foot.

I work long and hard for B despite all the above because a) as a university student I am desperate for the work and b) I am a really hard and proud worker who does not give up easy.

The last straw though was when pay day rolled around and my cheque was missing hours. I worked for B for a month and was one of his longest-working employees. Later I discovered that he owed at least two former employees thousands of dollars in hours and equipment; those employees recounted similar stories to mine (down to the pee bottle stored next to their lunch and drinks).

MVWJ was not really a bad job at all. In fact, it was a really good a job in a field where I’d trained (journalism). But let it serve as a cautionary tale of how NOT to run a company or treat your employees. I had been job hunting for months. I interviewed for a writer job at an online news site. The future editor interviewed me over the phone from his remote office. I interviewed again at their local office with him (still on the phone at his office as he almost never came to the office in my city) and guy I would be replacing. The job had great benefits and salary. Most of the employees were young and fun to talk to. I would be writing stories for the news service and would be trained to produce programs for the website, usually panel discussions and interviews.

I  trained for a week with my predecessor. He was a bit of a geek, but funny and easy to get along with. The editor who hired me was another story. He had been pleasant and humorous on the phone, but from the day I started, I heard dire warnings about his ‘difficult’ nature and fights with management. “Watch out for Mr L!” “Oh, Mr L is your boss…good luck, you need it!” He was reputed to be even worse in person, but I only had to deal with him over the phone. So I was warned, but not worried. I’m not easily bothered by cranky editor types and not thin skinned about criticism of my work. It’s part of the job. However, the warnings began to make sense very quickly. The Editor was like one of those abusive men who acts really sweet until you get married. As soon as I was hired, he no longer felt the need for any social niceties. Even that isn’t necessarily a deal breaker in a high-stress environment, but he was really rude and insulting, way beyond what was necessary.

If I asked a question about the job, he would insult and berate me, then he’d tell me in the next second not to worry, that I would receive his support through the three month probation. It was rather disorienting. I knew I was a good journalist and got the hang of the routine, even the editor’s ‘difficult’ behaviour. To be fair, he did compliment work that was good, and I thought things were fine, no further problems. I took it all with a grain of salt because, as I said, he was mostly a voice on the phone like Charlie’s Angels. But I felt like my job was in peril every moment because I never knew if/when he’d call me up and berate me. I should point out he was like this with everyone, so I didn’t take it personally and after a few weeks, I didn’t have that feeling of peril.

However, some strange things did happen. Employees were fired from various departments after only working there for brief periods and everyone would be totally surprised and talk about it over lunch. One morning about six weeks after I started working, I was called into HR. The editor was on the speaker phone. He informed me that I was being let go because, as he said, I hadn’t gotten the hang of it. I was stunned, because there had not been any indication. No one had complained or talked to me, there had been no warning at all and it had only been a month. I told him that but he insisted I wasn’t doing a good job. He convinced that I wasn’t going to pull it off, despite the fact that he had not once stepped foot in the office since I’d been there and I’d never even met him. I reminded the editor that he had been impressed by my experience and the writing samples I had supplied with my resume. His response was that, “It just isn’t working out.” Everything he said contradicted everything he’d said in the interview: that I would be trained and that I would get three months probation. I pointed that out to him but his response was good bye and good luck.

I simply went to my office, got my stuff and left without even saying goodbye to anyone. I cried on the way home. I dreaded having to tell my boyfriend, who had been so proud when I got that job. They did save me the trouble. When I got home, he told me he already knew. He had called the office to say hello and the receptionist told that I’d been let go. I am highly critical of my own work and would have admitted if I did a shitty job or had any trouble ‘getting it’ as The Editor so eloquently put it. I tortured myself, wondering how I could have screwed up a great opportunity that I had needed so badly. About a year later, I was at a party and met some former employees. I learned from them that my experience was typical. The editor was notorious for firing people on the spur of the moment and they were surprised I’d even lasted a month. In fact, no one who worked there at the time was still employed only a year later (most were on contract, I should point out). They never hired anyone to replace me. The company ended up in financial trouble and nearly everyone was laid off. It was later bought by another company. The editor continued to work at the new company. Of course, I never got to meet him.

Talk about a Jekyll and Hyde situation. About a year ago I interviewed for a job at a vegetarian cafe on the theatre side of town. I’m an actress and this seemed like a good sign. Let me add that my job was to work the counter and take orders, and either E or R were acting as managers, baristas, and servers. This was the justification for not sharing tips with me (but we’ll get to that.)

Both of my bosses were actors as well, we’ll call them R and E. R was the best boss ever. She was laid back, funny, and genuinely seemed proud of her restaurant and loved her customers. E was a whole other story. The first day she seemed a little cool, but I chalked it up to personality. Then her true crazy shone through. She told me on the first day that I should feel free to bring a book, “since it can get a little slow here sometimes.” Then a week in, when the place is dead, she furiously snapped at me, “I know it’s quiet, but there’s always little things do to. I don’t want you just sitting there reading!”

One day I’d be in trouble for leaving the register to make drinks, the next day I’d be in trouble for not pitching in to help out (because she was too busy surfing Facebook or taking naps in her office) and I mean IN TROUBLE. She would scream at me in front of customers. And on the days where she was “working” in the office and I handled everything for hours at a time, do you think she shared tips? Nope. Also, I would catch her glaring at me out of the corner of my eye, like I had my hand in the register or my finger up my nose. I have no idea why she mistrusted me completely.

One day when an obviously difficult customer complained about an order that we “messed up” and I know for a fact I triple-checked, E hauled me into the kitchen to chew me out (which is rare, since she usually tore into me in front of the uncomfortable customers!) I told her that I was entirely in the right and E said,  ”Well, you’re not focused and I need you to pull it together. You went to acting school, right? Why don’t you do one of those focusing exercises they taught you, okay?” In the most condescending tone I’ve ever heard.

Sadly that wasn’t the final straw. The final straw was arriving to work to find the other cashier in tears. Apparently E had been taking a nap. This cashier had previously been in trouble for waking E up instead of taking a message. So today she had taken a message instead. When E woke up and found out she’d missed a call from a guy she’d been “waiting to hear from all day!” she screamed at this poor girl that she could “easily be replaced!”

I decided to quit before I could be replaced, and never looked back!

My Very Worst Job was in a department where I was a part-timer with a boss and another full-timer above me, who I’ll call M. The boss was pretty meek, the type who will avoid anything that might potentially cause a problem. M was, quite frankly, a bitch who had it out for me. My problems with her started when she would conveniently take off on days of major events — events she was responsible for — and have me run the show for her.  Then it moved into her taking projects I was working on and claiming them as her own. Finally, she started making up things about me to get me in trouble with the boss. I tried to offer proof that these things weren’t true but I still received “strikes” against me; meanwhile, she was caught falsifying her time card, with no repercussions.

The final straw came when my department received a grant and I volunteered to do the initial research that had to be completed before we could start spending money. I complied a long report with demographic and school district information and emailed to the boss and to M. The boss told me it was good work. M came in a few hours later and immediately sent out an email saying that my research was all wrong. My boss wrote the both of us back reiterating that it was fine. M sent out another email tearing my work to shreds. At that point I felt I couldn’t stay quiet and sent out an email. The first paragraph was carefully worded and I logically defended why my work wasn’t garbage. The second paragraph was one sentence: “However, if you feel that the time I put into this research wasn’t well spent, please feel free to do your own research.”

I hit send and a minute later, I hear her storm out of her office, say to the boss, “I need to speak to you” and slam his door shut. After talking with him she banged the door open and stomped out the front door. The boss then came to me and asked me to apologize to M. I refused – although my email was a little sarcastic, I hadn’t said anything truly offensive and I was trying to defend myself from what felt was an undue attack. I thought I was going to be fired the next day, since I had previous strikes against me. But a few days went by and nothing happened, so I thought I was in the clear. That Friday, the boss came and asked for a favor. We had a school group coming in on Monday and he wanted me to take charge. This was usually his and M’s responsibility, but M was “very religious” and insisted on taking that day off since it was the day after Easter. He, meanwhile, had tickets to our city’s opening day baseball game. I thought that doing this favor would get me back into his graces so I said yes.

Now normally when we have a school group we have volunteers so that one person doesn’t get overwhelmed by 50 urban schoolchildren. We looked at the department calendar but found no volunteers scheduled. The boss called M, who had forgotten to schedule any volunteers. So I showed up on Monday and spent 3 ½ hours by myself with 50 first graders. Then I showed up on Tuesday and got fired. During the speech I got from the boss, I figured out that they wanted to fire me earlier, but decided to wait until I could cover their asses on the day they both wanted off.

MVWJ was also my first job. No one wanted to hire someone with no experience. NO ONE. So what did I go through college for four years for? Well, I needed to earn money to pay off my student loan. So when I got instantly hired at a park, I was thrilled. The job was 70 miles away, but no one closer want to hire me.

I’m not bitter or anything.

Anyway, I applied in the food and beverage department. I was nervous, waiting in the waiting room with the snooty receptionist. Soon a balding guy in his mid-thirties came out. He grabbed my application, read it, and gave me the once-over. “Come in the back,” he said to me and nodded.

I went. He said, “So you just graduated, eh?” I said yes. “So you have no experience anywhere, right?” I said yes. He nodded thoughtfully, produced a piece of paper and gave it to me. “Read this,” he said.

As I did, he explained that they had an interviewer position available for college grads like me and he thought I was perfect for it. I was a little unsure, and I told him repeatedly that I would need training and had no experience whatsoever. He said that was fine and that I would be trained. I told him I had applied so many times and no one would hire me. He was sympathetic and friendly and I thought Sweet! My first job! Human Resources! Anyway, I preferred an office job to an outdoor one. I jumped on it.

(Heh.)

Well, after that, he said that my job was easy. All I had to do was ask the interviewee prepared questions, stuff like “Why do you want to work here?” etc. I thought it’d be a cinch since, now that I thought about it, I had plenty of experience in interviews, though always as the interviewee. Now I would be on the other side.

Well, a lady came in to fill an application, and my new boss said I would interview her and he would sit aside and watch me do it. I was VERY nervous. It’s one thing to do something you have never done, plus have your boss watching your every move. I was sure I would mess up and I hoped that he wouldn’t fire me.

He didn’t, even though I did stutter and when I held out the paper for her to take, my hand was shaking so bad, it was a wonder that she could grab it. I didn’t know who was more nervous, her or I!

Subsequently, he sat with me through one more interview, then all the sudden took me aside and said he thought my voice was too low and I sounded like a man. I’m a woman, and I though I knew my normal voice wasn’t angels’ harps, was shocked and a little offended by this. He said that I should pitch my voice up higher and made me try. I did my best, feeling like a fool, I talked in a little high squeaky voice. He said it was perfect and ushered me to do another interview. I thought, this is crazy, but did it anyway. So there I was, speaking like Mickey Mouse on helium, to the interviewee–a tough looking muscular guy who looked back at me like I was crazy. I didn’t blame him one little bit. Now I look back and think what I fool I was; I should have got the hell out of there, but I didn’t. I was young and naive and doing what I was told to.

Well, my boss told me later that I did a terrible job. “I was just doing what you told me!” I said and he shook his head in obvious disappointment and just walked away.

It got worse. Obviously, my boss now thought I was a weirdo, because he would take others’ side immediately. Once I was interviewing three girls at once in a group interview, (I had quit the Mickey act by now) which we were allowed to do when they came together. I didn’t see the point of this, but did it anyway. The problem was, as I immediately figured out, one girl would answer and the other two would agree with her.

Of course it was true. I would ask, “So what would you do if someone asks you a question you don’t know the answer to?” Girl #1 would say, “I would SO ask my manager.” Girl #2 said, “Yeah! My manager would, like, so know the answer!” Girl #3 said, “Yeah. What they said.”

The rest of the questions went similarly. I hired the first two girls, but not the third. Big mistake. Her mom called later, demanding to know why her precious daughter had not been hired when her two friends had and accused us of traumatizing and embarassing her. I thought that was ridiculous. My boss asked me what happened, and I said that the third girl just said, “Yeah. Uh huh. Yup.” Enthusiasm was a big part of getting hired, and he knew that. He stared at me like he didn’t believe me and overrode my rule and hired the girl anyway. I thought, fine whatever. He’s the manager. He gets the last word.

The 9-5 days were tedious, I only had two or three interviews, and the nothing to do for six hours. My boss gave me some envelopes to stick labels on. Great. I tried to ask for advice on how to do my job, since I still had NO idea, but my boss never had time for me. His door was open alright, so you could see him in it with his feet up talking to his wife or his friends. A VERY annoying habit of his was to frequently grab a soccer ball off his shelf, played wih it and bounce it at us while grinning and saying sorry. Then running around and doing it again 15 minutes later. I thought this attitude was VERY unprofessional and immature but said nothing. He’s the boss. You couldn’t walk down the hall with being afraid of getting hit on the butt with a bouncing ball. I also noticed only girls got hit. It was something else to see a middle-aged man acting like a spoiled three-year-old.

I was very lenient when interviewing, having gone through what they were going through to get a job. But soon a girl wearing old sweats, baggy holey shirt, and BED SLIPPERS came in to apply for job. I assumed she didn’t know we did interviews on the spot and asked her if she wanted to go and change and come back to be interviewed. She thought for a while, shrugged then said, “No, it’s all right. I don’t care.”

Dress appearance is a big factor in our hiring decision, it counts as one strike. Two strikes and you’re out, according to my boss. I said, “Okay….” and she answered a question wrong. Since it was two strikes, I didn’t hire her.

Later my boss asked me if her slippers were “really” that bad, and did I make a mistake? I told him exactly what she was wearing, and he frowned. Then he said, “Well, she comes from a really good school,” and I reminded him that I lived 70 miles away, how was I supposed to know which schools are good? He shrugged and later hired her, though tried to keep it a secret from me, but I found out.

I was shocked at what people would wear to be interviewed. It seemed that we got all the weirdos. Holes in their shirt, baggy jeans (a big no no) baseball caps, unwashed etc. I felt pity but also a need to do my job right.

One guy actually flashed me. His jeans were so baggy and heavy with thick chains out the enormous pockets that when he got up from the chair, his pants fell down on the floor. He quickly hitched them up again, but not before I saw he had no underwear. Eek!

The final blow came when we had a job fair and over fifty applicants came to apply, and yes, be interviewed. My past experience with group interviews was horrible, so I tried to see them one at a time to get a better feel of their personality. The result was that I wasn’t going to get through all of them. I was afraid I would be blamed, for, I don’t know, being too slow.

So I thought up an idea. I would interview them and do their paperwork tomorrow. I had a pretty good feel of who was a weirdo and who wasn’t, so I would write at the end of they passed or failed. I did it and got through all the interviewees quickly.

Next morning, I was all set to do the paperwork when I noticed it missing from my desk. Then my boss called me to his office and shut the door when I entered. Uh Oh. He threw the paperwork at me and said, “Care to explain this?” in an angry, tight voice, teeth clenched.

I said that I was going to do it today since I had plenty of time, it was perfect, I pointed out, since I had nothing to do all day. His jaw tightened as I explained, and threw another paper at me. Before I could read it, he said that he didn’t think it was working out and could I please resign by signing this?

I remember his cold eyes bored into mine almost hypnotically, like he was trying to get me to sign. I was in shock as all the blood drained from my body. I told him that I didn’t understand why he was firing me and he said that I was fired due to “my error of judgement.”  He said that would put my file into the rejection pile and flag it as “rejected forever” meaning that I was never allowed to work there again and he would probably burn it.

At this I pulled myself together and pushed the pen that he was pressing on me, and said with dignity it was all right if he didn’t want me to work there, I wouldn’t, since I don’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted. But I wasn’t signing anything and I did’t deserve this. As he sat stunned by my refusal, I rushed out of the office, grabbed my purse, and hopped on the interstate highway for home, upset.

I didn’t come back, and reading these stories, I realized that he was trying to cover his ass if I decided to collect unemployment. I didn’t, I didn’t even know about unemployment back then.

The irony of my MVWJ was that it was supposed to be my very best job ever. I had been working full time hours at part time status for the past three years and this job was a promotion, with full benefits. The only downside (or so I thought), was the 45 minute commute. The first two weeks at the job went well, it was a different atmosphere than the other location I worked at, but I figured I would adjust eventually. However, after I returned back from a vacation I realized that I had made a terrible mistake in taking the promotion at this location. Luckily, while I was on vacation the same exact position had opened up at my old location and I applied for it, thinking I could keep my promotional status and nix my icky commute. Well, turns out that apparently this was the trigger switch to turn my boss into a backstabbing life sucker. When she found out I was trying to transfer out of the store she unleashed hellfire upon me. After her screaming at me in the office for 20 minutes, citing a ton of policies I was violating, I came back at her with my own policies I had memorized, stating that she couldn’t stop me from any of it. From that day forward my life became a living hell.

She would yell at me every shift I worked with her for the most ridiculous things. In the past three years I’d worked for the company I had never had disciplinary action. In the three weeks following me applying for a transfer I was on a “final disciplinary warning,” which in essence, bars you from transferring. Great. Mission accomplished. I was trapped at the location, literally being abused for two months. More work was shoveled on me and when I couldn’t finish it all, I’d be written up. This pattern continued until I just gave up, stopped trying, came to work miserable and left miserable. One day she and another manager cornered me in the office yelling at me, telling me how much I sucked and overall just verbally abused me to the point of tears. They gave me an ultimatum: I could turn it all around, completely change my leading style (basically, act like the tyrannical bitch she was) and I had 30 days to do so or I could step down to my old position, old location, everything. I came back with the answer that I was not going to change who I was just so she could fire me anyway and that I’d leave. She agreed to transfer me back, I agreed to lose my benefits, my pay raise and my title in exchange for what I thought would be peace of mind.

Well, when the week came for me to transfer, I called in asking for my schedule and my old store had no knowledge of my “transfer.” The best part? My boss was on her honeymoon and unavailable to be contacted. Turns out she had transferred out of the store herself, turned my life into a steaming garbage pile and left me to clean up the mess. As it currently sits, I’m unemployed because of her actions.

This was in 2002, and I had recently completed a degree in Theatre and Performance (yes, a VERY useful qualification). I had no idea how unprepared this would make me for the working world. I was panicking a bit in the months after graduation, so I leapt at the chance to work for a theatre company that was run by a friend of mine’s dad. I had met this friend at Drama School, and his dad was very well known, so I knew it was a legitimate company, not just some fly by night enterprise.

I went for an interview with Mr E, who told me that this job would involve managing the theatre, doing publicity, stage managing the shows (and doing the lights and sound) as well as handling the theatre dinner bookings. And all he could pay me was R2,000 a month (To put this into perspective: R2,000 is just under $200) but I was promised the glory of commission if I filled the theatre every night. I was filled with compassion for his heart wrenching speech about the realities of being an artist, and seduced by his lies of it being physically possible to fill the theatre EVERY night of the week when it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. His idea was I put on my own shows….with what budget? Anyway.

I would drive the 40 km to work, be there at 8 a.m. and do all the dogsbody work in the office (I had to sort out the recycling for them on one memorable occasion), leave for the theatre at about 5pm, put up the show, handle the front of house, sweep the stage and leave when everything was over at about 11pm. R2,000 a month for a 15 hour day?

Not only that, I was also asked if my cell phone could be used as the booking line for the theatre. Naively I said ‘sure’, not realizing that I had to be available at ALL times for the theatre, from being called at 6am on a Sunday morning, to having dinners, movies and all kinds of social engagements interrupted by theatre goers. And if I wasn’t available I would get called in with a kindly, “Darling, don’t you love the idea of theatre? Please always be there for us…” from Mr E, the emotional blackmailing bastard. I lasted for four months. And now I lecture in the Drama Department of my Alma Mater!

I was 15 and worked nights at a fried chicken take-out store after school. My bosses were a husband and wife with enormous chips on their shoulders (as you often encounter in the food service business). They would alternate nights.

One of the employees was a deliveryman named Amos: sweet, fat, jovial guy with six kids and meager income. After work one night, Amos returned to order a combination dinner for his family (the combination was 12 chicken pieces, two sides and two dinner rolls). The rolls came in sheets of six, each no bigger than a wallet-sized photograph.

Amos’s order was at the height of dinner rush. Wife boss was on. I was in charge of preparing the sides and packing. Knowing that Amos had a large family and was a colleague, instead of the usual two dinner rolls, I decided to pack six. I gave him a smile and packed the next order.

Next thing I knew, wife boss sharply turned her head to meet my eyes and hissed, “I saw what you did. Go home now!”

Frightened and unsure if the extra rolls meant my job, I removed my apron and walked home, her words still ringing in my ears, the look on her face etched in my mind.

The next afternoon, however, I received a call from wife boss asking me to cover another employee who called out. Although it was Saturday, I happily complied, figuring that she had come to her senses about this pettiness and all was forgiven.

When I walked in, Amos was standing there, tail between his legs. Amos didn’t work Saturdays.

Before I added it all up, husband boss raged in from the back, “You stole from me!”

He was talking to both of us!

“All you had to do was ask! I’d give you anything!” he shouted and threw a wad of money he had prepared for this speech on the floor and it scattered all over the place (nice touch).

My adolescent 15-year-old mind was too timid to react.

“You steal from me again, I’ll put a bullet in your fucking head and throw you through the fucking window!”

Scared and in disbelief, my lower jaw and chin snapped back and tightened,  I thought that I was going to cry. I knew that if I spoke just one word, tears would have burst forth. I slowly pulled my apron off over my head, and began to walk out.

“You’re leaving?!” husband boss asked incredulously.

I still couldn’t talk. Amos stayed. He had to.

“This is what separates the men from the boys!” husband boss yelled ineffectually to the back of my head.

I was free.

My Very Worst Job has to be when I worked for a steak house at 17.

In the state in which I was working it was illegal for me to bring alcohol to a table. I was the only server there under the age of 19 (the legal serving age) so the other servers were not too happy to have to “do my job for me” as they put it. The assistant manager was a haggard old bitch who marched around the place like she owned it, and reprimanded me for every little thing she thought might be a mistake. She would stand at the window in the back while food was coming out and take things off customer’s plates and eat it, which was disgusting. She also suggested to me that I should just bring out the alcohol to the tables myself although I refused. I told my parents what was going on, and they told me I should quit if I was unhappy, but the customers were all really nice, and I was making good tips so I thought I could stick it out until I left for college at the end of the school year. Boy was I wrong.

I knew there was a lot of racism in the city where I lived. I am half Puerto Rican, but have blue eyes and lighter skin. The customers just assumed I was white, but the staff knew I was not as my last name was very Hispanic sounding. The day the shit hit the proverbial fan, the assistant manager was working, it was a Friday night and very busy. I had a huge section as some of the servers had called in due to a big snow storm (in the area in which I lived, snow storms are generally no big deal unless you lived far out of the city). The tables were full and I was running in and out of the back with food, and drinks for each of my tables as quickly as I could.

I had just picked up a huge tray full of coffee and various drinks for one of my tables and headed out the door to the dining room, when the assistant manager stepped right in front of me. I stopped but the drinks kept going. All over the nearest customer’s coat and shirt. I had actually tipped the tray in a way that the coffee spilled on me and not them, so in a way that was good. I was so embarrassed. I immediately apologized and got towels to clean up the mess, not realizing at the time how badly my arm was scalded. The assistant manager actually grabbed me by the arm (right on my burn) and dragged me to the back to reprimand me for “getting in her way” and “costing the restaurant money.” She then proceeded to call me a “stupid spick” and told me they should never have hired me, knowing I was inevitably going to run all their business out by hiring someone “who obviously didn’t know how to treat white people with the proper respect.” I was horrified, and I’d had enough. I told her to she could take her racist ass right to hell, and walked out of the place never to return.

I actually talked with a lawyer about what had happened, but not long after I left, they went out of business and never reopened.