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I worked in a pharmacy located in a rich town, and the people were horrible. So many of them had drug dependencies and would get mad if we couldn’t fill their prescriptions. Meanwhile, they are trying to get us to fill something that looks like it’s been written in crayon on loose-leaf paper, or narcotics that had expired over a year ago.
I had one man that threw a book at me because he was angry that we were filling a crying infants medicine ahead of his stool softener. We had people urinate on the floor in front of us, one lady even defecated on a stool in the waiting area. I know that when you sign up to work in retail, you should be aware that you will be dealing with people like this, but when I would tell people things that happend there they were flabbergasted.
Aside from the customers being horrible, the working conditions were insane. I would work 10-hour shifts and would not be allowed breaks (the girls were not allowed breaks). We had to eat standing up between customers, who, when they saw you to the side of the counter, would walk over to you instead of to the regular pick-up area and sneeze and cough all over your lunch. The guys were allowed out during their shifts to wax their cars & get haircuts, even if they were just hired. The manager that worked there always formed a tight bond with the teenage boys that worked there because he always had them driving him around to places because he got his license taken away after too many DWIs.
Anything we purchased we were instructed to not ring in to the register and to put the cash in an envelope the manager kept in the back. (wonder where that money wound up going?) His girlfriend would also come in and fill up bags with expensive toiletries and cigarettes and leave without paying. Meanwhile, when the owner came in, we were all scrutinized for stealing because there was always money missing.
The worst part was how the manager acted when I left. I was there for seven years. Mainly because I was able to make alright money there and I had a child I was supporting. I was seeking employment in the career field that I wanted during the last two years I was there, but since it is not an easy field to get into it took a while. For seven years, I did the ordering for the store, all the return processing, worked the cash register, helped fill prescriptions when they were busy (at least two hours a day and ALL day on the weekends I would fill prescriptions), I made sure I was there to open the store and would work until closing when they had a fill in Pharmacist working because I would be the only one with a key, and the manager wanted to take the weekends off.
I truly felt close to most of the people I worked with seeing as I spent so much of my time with them. I gave four weeks notice when I left instead of two so that they would have enough time to replace me. Everyone was generally happy for me except for the manager. Even the owner of the store was happy for me and wished me well and thanked me for all I had done. The manager got mad at me and threw things around and yelled, “That’s just great!” really sarcastically. He wouldn’t speak to me for four weeks, and made me clean the bathrooms!
Even now if I go in there, he won’t even look at me. I still don’t understand why he was so surprised that I grew up and got a real job. Nobody keeps their high school/college job forever.
The boss at My Very Worst Job had a habit of sharing too much information. I was at work one afternoon when the power when out. When it came back on, my boss returned and I was joking with him about how dark it is in the office when the lights are out. He laughed and said that he’d been in the bathroom when it went out and it’s really dark in there. We chuckled together and I thought that was the end of it.
“Yeah, it’s pretty funny,” he continued, like he was embarrassed but wanted to tell me something anyway. “I’ll tell you, because it’s just the two of us and I know you can keep a secret…
“So, I was in the bathroom and well, I’m of a certain age where doctors start checking for various illnesses and diseases by using stool samples. So, I was actually trying to collect my sample when the power went out. It was soooo dark! *chuckle chuckle* Anyway, I’ve got the collection stuff all ready and I don’t want to loose my opportunity…”
I lowered my face and covered my eyes. He charged on:
“Actually, you’ve probably never had to do this, but basically you collect the stool on a piece of cloth, then there’s this little scooper that you use to take the samples to send to the lab. Aaaanyway, I’m standing there, all of a sudden in the pitch black, all ready to collect my sample and I don’t know when I’ll get another chance, so I pull out my cell phone, open it up and set it on the counter, just for a little light. And when I’m right in the middle of things, someone calls and the ringer makes the phone vibrate right off the counter, because I’ve got my hands full and can’t answer it. Then, when it hits the floor, the battery pops off, so I’m in the pitch black again. But now, I’m crawling around with the scooper in one hand, trying to find my phone and the battery with the other. Hahaha! I’m glad the power came on when it did, because I might have been in there all day. I finally found the battery and it was clear over on the other side of the bathroom, under one of the urinals…”
At this point I was wishing the power would go off again so that I could escape under the cover of darkness.
“Anyway, pretty funny story, huh? Just don’t tell anyone. It’s way too embarrassing! Hahaha!”
Mercifully, the door opened and another employee entered. My boss accosted him in the doorway.
“Hey Keith! Want to hear a funny story? This happened just now when I was in the bathroom and the power went out. See, I was trying to collect a stool sample for…”
Yeah, it’s a pretty funny situation, just not one I want to share with my boss.
New in town with very little savings, I needed cash fast so I went to a temp agency. I was excited when they offered me a temp-to-hire position as a data entry clerk for a large mortgage company. I arrived for my first day at 7:45 a.m. at a sprawling corporate complex and got very confused as to exactly where I was supposed to be, as no one had told me there were multiple buildings. Finding my new supervisor at exactly 8 a.m., I was icily informed that “Eight a.m. means at your desk and working at 8am, not walking in the door at 8 a.m.” We were off to an excellent start.
My new boss brightened quickly however and began gushing about what a wonderful place this was to work, going on and on about the elaborate Christmas party the company held each year. It was early July, so I wasn’t sure why all the emphasis on Christmas, but whatever. We arrived at our area and I was shown a desk where a woman was already sitting. A second computer had been placed at the edge of the desk with a folding chair. I incorrectly assumed that this would be a temporary spot for me for training and/or until they found me a desk of my own, but oh no, I was to be permanently wedged into this tiny corner, on a chair that soon sent shooting pains through my lower back.
This was a mammoth mortgage company that did billions of dollars worth of business each year. My department’s job was to deal with one specific form that would be faxed over from brokers. We’d call up the loan number in the database and enter the information from the form. Simple enough, except there could not be any blanks. If there were blanks on the form, we had to call the broker to ask for the information. At least 80% of the forms had at least one question left blank, so there were a lot of phone calls to cranky brokers who tried to ask me questions I could not answer. When I said where I was calling from, it was very common to hear “Oh thank God! I’ve been on hold with your customer service people for an hour!” And then they’d ask a question I couldn’t possibly answer. It should be noted that not one single aspect of the mortgage industry was explained to me, so I didn’t actually understand what information I was asking for nor could I answer even the most basic question. Neither could I transfer calls to customer service as that was a separate phone number. The brokers I called got understandably very, very upset with me.
Then there was my desk mate: A loud, harried woman who wore heavy perfume and proffered the opinion that it was “disgraceful” that I was unmarried at my age (I was 25) and tried to fix me up with her 19-year-old son. I declined. This woman never, ever, ever shut up and had a loud, braying laugh like a donkey. When I asked if we could move our single telephone so it was between us so I wouldn’t have to stand and reach awkwardly over here to make those horrible phone calls, she barked “No!” and proceeded to complain about having to share her desk with me, as if it was my fault.
Then there were the breaks. Or rather, the lack of breaks. Several times a week we were given the “opportunity” to work through lunch and then get lunch for free. “Lunch” consisted of a single slice of plain cheese pizza, which was cold by the time it got to you. Technically, you could insist on taking your proper lunch break, which I did once, but I was the only one who did not take them up on their oh-so-generous cold pizza and they acted as if I had spat in the CEO’s face. Also, we had to get permission from our team leader to use the bathroom, which was humiliating and ridiculous.
All this was for a whopping $8 per hour–barely above minimum wage. Eventually I found a retail job offering $10 per hour and quit the evil mortgage company via voicemail without giving notice.
I’m currently a grad school student getting a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology. My school sends out a listing of all the jobs in the area that pertain to the counseling field, which is where I found an available job as a Counselor Assistant at a rehab. My interview went very well and I found out that the CEO was a graduate of my program. I got called the next day offering me the Saturday and Sunday 8pm to 8am shifts. I wasn’t too keen on that, because I was still trying to make friends and it would make it more difficult when two of my weekend nights were booked and I would also be prevented from going to church on Sunday. But I took it because I figured my shifts would change as I integrated.
My first day I worked Friday during the day. I found out that the role of Counselor Assistant wasn’t anything like I was expecting. I was told that my job was to be a “glorified babysitter” since the clients couldn’t be trusted. I was also told that the guy who would be training me for my weekend shifts was actually the one I was replacing, but not to tell him because he didn’t know he was being fired. That made me really uncomfortable, but I kept plucking away. While filling out my paperwork, I saw that the only note on my application from my interviewer was that I was young, but likable. The guy who I was replacing had an idea of what was going on and so he asked me straight up if I was his replacement. Not wanting to rock the boat that soon in my job, I told him I didn’t know. He was then fired.
After a few weeks, I was given the Friday night 4pm to midnight shift, so there went my entire weekend. Something I noticed pretty quickly was that regardless of what I did, even following the rules, I was criticized, but not given an alternative. The clients, who were there for drug, alcohol and gambling addictions, don’t want to listen to anyone, but I was always being fussed at for not being able to make them listen. As time passed, there was a lot of turnover. After a staff meeting, the weekend supervisor told me that the guy who hired me (who was actually just the maintenance guy…WTF?!) told her that he didn’t want to hire me, but only did because the CEO knew my advisor and that they didn’t think I could do the job because of my age and the fact that I look younger. I used that as motivation to prove everyone wrong.
Not too long after that, there was a regime change where the CEO and my weekday supervisor were fired and things seemed like they were looking up. Then my partner (who I had grown quite close to) couldn’t make it so the old weekend supervisor stayed later. I had found where a co-worker hadn’t properly documented something with a client so I did. Then I got in trouble for writing about it because it would get my co-worker in trouble. She also told me that the mental health field might not be the best fit for me and that the clients thought I was a joke (which I knew was not true). The next night she got mad because two clients had been complaining to me about being sick and wanted to go to the hospital. Turns out they both had bronchitis and my supervisor was just mad because she had to stay later while I was with them at the E.R. This was then brought up at an administrative staff meeting (which my friend told me about) where I was turned into a scapegoat for not following a procedure that doesn’t exist — I checked the handbook.
I was going to turn in my notice but had a change of heart and decided that if they wanted me gone they would have to do it themselves. After hearing that this new guy had told my partner that my overnight shifts were now his I went ahead and typed up my two-weeks notice, but before I could print it out, I got the call. I was so relieved to be away from such a toxic environment (in the three months I worked there 14 people quit or were fired), but irritated that I let myself get fired because I had been so close so many times to quitting.
MVWJ was working at a certain buffet “steakhouse.” I took the job because I heard through the grapevine that some of the servers got really good tips. It was not the cleanest of places and everyone seemed kinda trashy to be honest. On the very first day, I learned that one of the managers was sleeping with a fellow waitress and that was why his wife was always coming by and staring us down. I couldn’t believe how much food would go to waste. People would pile on food just to leave it untouched. I just kept telling myself that I would make awesome tips. Yeah, those awesome tips were about $15 to $30 after eight hours.
There was a sink right next to the dish washing area where you were supposed to be able to wash your hands after dealing with filthy plates. For three weeks it had no soap or paper towels. Yet, we were not allowed to use the restaurants public restroom an we’d get written up if we did. So, one day at work, I got feverish. I remember having what I thought was a mosquito bite on my thigh. Well, I became delirious from the fever and was rushed to the ER where it turned out that I had a staph infection that they had to lance. My mom wound up buying me tons of hand sanitizers to keep on me at all times.
When I got back to work I just kept getting the crappiest customers. One table was filled with a bunch of punks who kept demanding refills even though they had plenty of drinks. They would laugh and thought they were so hilarious and cool. Another time there were four redneck guys with their sons. They were busy teaching them to call us crude names, telling us we had nice butts and tits. My final straw was during Father’s Day. We were extremely busy and I had one table that I thought maybe I’d get a decent tip from. After bringing the guy his steak, his wife wanted something specially made so I went to bring in her order. I had just cleaned off a table, washed my hands and was exiting the dish washing room, rubbing my neck. The guy comes up to me and asked if I cooked the food.
Me: “No, sir. I’m just the server. Is there anything you need?”
Him: “I’m just going to tell you something that you need to know. You should never touch your face or body while cooking food! It’s disgusting.”
Me: “I was rubbing my neck and I do not cook the food.” At this point I pull out my trusty hand sanitizer, “And I use this before and after I touch dirty plates or glasses. For my own health.”
Him: “Well I’m just telling you that it’s disgusting.”
Me: “Uh huh. Thanks.”
Naturally, I received no tip. I was more than happy when I quit.
