Aching For A Paycheck
My Very Worst Job was at an orthopedic shoe store. My boss was a moron. She had a nasty habit of bouncing almost every paycheck. Actually, not just paychecks. Bill collectors would call us on a daily basis asking for her payments. Every time I asked her why my check bounced, she would just tell me I had to wait until after the weekend. She would bring in smelly food and leave it in our fridge and her husband came in all the time. He usually made sexist jokes and bossed us around. The real kicker was that she constantly complained about the way we sold shoes, but whenever she made a sale, it always ended up being returned by the customer.
Now let me elaborate on the customers. We had a woman go in our bathroom (which we weren’t supposed to let customers use) and when she left, my coworkers and I discovered that she had a bad case of explosive diarrhea. It was all over the wall and the toilet. And we had to clean it up. There were people whose feet smelled like death, and even people who didn’t bother to take a pumice stone to their feet (It’s a bit discomforting when you look into a shoe and see flakes of skin sitting in the heel). I especially loathed the older women who came in and insisted that their shoe size was a 6.5 U.S., but when measured, turned out to be more like an 8. They were usually upset at me for saying that their feet were “huge” and would refuse to try on their actual size. I forgot to mention that these women usually had bunions that had to be accomodated with wider shoes, and that further pissed them off.
One day, our boss called a staff meeting and brought donuts for us. She sat down and cried and told us that she had to close the store. Why she brought the donuts? I don’t know. Maybe to soften the blow. None of us were surprised but were more annoyed that she spent six months being behind in payments and managed to buy herself a brand new Mercedes. She told us that she would write us letters of recommendation but never did, and even promised to take us out to lunch “next week or so.” I haven’t seen her in a year. She didn’t even leave us a number for any potential employers of ours to contact her.
Your boss and her husband suck at life. I’m just wondering how long you worked there under the threat of never actually being paid.
The explosive diarrhea is beyond nasty, but unless you have cleaning staff working during business hours, cleaning nasty stuff up usually falls to lower-rung employees. It’s the same a lot of other places.
You were working with feet. Running across nasty ones just comes with the territory. The older women being pissy about their foot size sucks, but isn’t surprising. People can get really weird about the size of their various body parts.
Bringing donuts to that final business meeting is just… strange. And maybe now you know where all those payments were going to?
Your boss sounds a little unstable, which makes for an entertaining story but must have been horrendous for you. Hopefully you managed to make everything you were supposed to.
Thanks for sharing this story, Mr. Bundy. How’s the old Dodge doing nowadays?
I once worked in a shoe store– it was THE WORST! Women are bat-shit CRAZY when it comes to their shoe size!
Customer:”It’s too tight.”
Me:”I see, shall I get you the next size larger— an 8?”
Customer: “NO. I ‘m NOT an 8. I’m a 7 1/2. Get me THAT one, instead, in a 7 1/2…”
Me: “Here’s the 7 1/2.”
Customer:” It’s too tight.”
This job sounds crappy, but a size 8 is not huge. You should know better than to call any body part (on a woman especially) huge. I hope you were able to cash your paychecks eventually!
I didn’t say their feet were huge. That’s what those women were saying…I was being sarcastic. Do you really think I’d tell people that?
I know this comment is late, but I was looking through archives and had to say something…
I’m assuming 95% of clients at an orthopedic shoe store are going to be old and usually aren’t able to pumice their feet, and probably aren’t able to clip or clean under their toenails. The few who still can are those who are more active, but they still may not have enough flexibility, and if they did they probably wouldn’t need orthopedics as much.
The job still sounds crappy and it’s still gross to deal with other people’s nasty feet, but I’ve worked with older adults who are usually extremely self-conscious about not being able to clean their feet properly.