Fresh Hires Meet Fresh Horrors
CONTENT WARNING: Vomit
We got a new worker at the grocery store where I work. He was freshly sixteen, and during a break on his first day, he admitted his dad was pressuring him to get a job – ANY job – as soon as possible.
New Guy: “Like, I’m not gonna say no to having cash of my own instead of an allowance, but my dad is one of those macho a**holes who thinks a “real man” shouldn’t be scared or disgusted or disturbed by anything. The fact that I freak out when I discover a spider in my room the size of my palm apparently means I “need to get a job and grow up”.”
Coworker: “Well, then you picked the right place. A couple years working in retail, and I guarantee nothing will ever freak you out again.”
New Guy: “Come on, you make it sound like working in the trenches. A retail job can’t be that bad?”
Coworker: “You wanna bet? A couple years ago, we had some j***a** come in demanding a refund because he bought shrimp from us, ate it raw, and got sick.”
New Guy: “Huh? How does anyone expect to get a refund if they don’t bring the product back?”
Coworker: “Oh, he brought them back.”
I watched the new guy’s face slowly morph from confusion, to realization, to abject horror.
New Guy: *Into his hands.* “Oh my go- OH MY GOD!”
Coworker: “Yeah. I feel like the fact that it was still recognizable as shrimp suggests he was already sick when—”
New Guy: “OH MY GOD!” *Runs to the bathroom.*
I was kind of impressed when the new guy decided to stick around after a first-day warning like that.
I was even more impressed when, on his second day, he revealed he had managed to tell the same story to his dad, who had “reacted pretty much the way I did” and promptly gotten off his son’s back about becoming a “real man”.
