This story reminds me of last year. Not AS bad as that, but still… 

Last year in the Fall, it was raining. A LOT. For weeks. Literally rain for weeks on end. And the rivers were rising, the levels were too, and eventually, somewhere mid-September, flooding became an issue. The rivers were not able to carry away the waters; they went over their beds, and there were a lot of roads that were impassable. “Fortunately,” only outside of the local main town, which was located on a hill, but imagine a castle on a moat and you have a pretty good idea what it was like.

So, if you lived in the city, you were… well, not exactly fine, but you could get to stores in the city. If you lived outside, well, you were FUBAR.

Same for people working in the city, and the stores in the city, and living outside of it.

I am driving quickly to the store so I can get some groceries before it becomes impossible, driving next to a river that is already prepping to jump outside of its bed and onto the street, and I arrive at the store, which is, to my utter astonishment, still open for business.

Frankly, I didn’t expect it. I expected them to be closed and telling me, “f*** off, idiot, don’t you see that the river is about to come in here?” 

But they were open, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. Since it’s a small mom-n-pop store (but still a franchise of some large national chain), I would expect the owners to be around to keep up a token “needed things” sale going, with the owner and his wife trying to keep the local population stocked with important must-have goods like basic food and water for the days to come, when the flood sweeps away civilization… but no: It’s the normal store. Normal staff. Normal options. Everything available. No limits.

I walk up to the gourmet section, and I know that the person behind the counter is coming from a village nearby.

Me: “Er… You ARE aware that the bridge is already being flooded? Why don’t you get home?”

Employee: “We cannot. The store stays open until normal closing times.”

Me: “Are you nuts? It’s 4 PM now. Come 7 PM, there is NO way you can get out!”

Employee: “I know. Tell the idiots in the capital.”

No kidding. Whether they have to stay is determined in the HQ, which, of course, doesn’t even have the foggiest idea just WHAT kind of Armageddon is going down here.

On cue, the branch manager comes up.

Branch Manager: “Go home!”

Employee: “But, I…?”

Branch Manager: “No buts. I’ll take care of the rest. Go home! You can still make it if you go now. I called the town about the bridge, and if it’s drivable, it’s still good, but they don’t know for how long. Go. Now. I’ll man the section. Nobody is gonna complain, everyone’s already home trying to get their house prepped for the flooding. Anyone who isn’t, well, I don’t care about insane idiots. Go!”

Employee: “But, HQ said—”

Branch Manager: “—F*** these idiots. GO HOME!”

He then turns to me.

Branch Manager: “What can I get you, sir?”

Me: “Er… nothing, I guess… But how do you get out?”

Branch Manager: “I live a few houses from here; the flood doesn’t mean jack to me. Service might be slow since it’s just gonna be my wife and me, but we’ll do our best.”

Me: “Hey, no worries. I was already asking why your workers are still here.”

Branch Manager: *Nods.* “Thank you for understanding.”

I grabbed a few cans of food and dashed for the till where his wife was cashing. As I was leaving, so were most of the workers. I hope they made it home. I at least barely did it with dry feet.

Standing in line in the returns queue, there’s a heated argument going on in front.

Customer: “Why can’t you take it back?”

Clerk: “Because it has been opened, it has been used, it was not broken before use, and it is in no condition to be resold.”

Customer: “I’m NOT moving until you refund it.”

Clerk: “Very well, I get paid by the hour, and unless you plan to stand here longer than—” *Checks clock.* “—five hours, I don’t really mind. Actually, it would mean I have to stay here and can’t work somewhere else so… thank you?”

Customer: *Steaming.* “Then I’ll come back tomorrow right before seven!”

That’s when the store closes.

Clerk: “You may do that, sir, but you may want to know, since our management foresaw that some ass…piring and enterprising customers would try to pull that, our return counter closes at five.” *Smile.* “But I’ll be here ’til seven, so if you want to waste two hours of your time and none of mine…”

Customer: *Close to explosion.* “I’ll call corporate!”

Clerk: *Hands him a card.* “Here’s the number. Next, please!”

It’s a new month, and I know that stores only have a limited amount of change at their disposal, so when I withdrew money at the ATM, I punched in to give me a bunch of 20s and 10s instead of the usual 100s. 100s would be fewer bills, but at the same time harder to break for the stores, because most people aren’t that sensible.

I go and do my monthly shopping, which amounts to a bit over a hundred. I usually pay with five 20s and some smaller bills to hit the total. Clerks are usually pretty happy about it because most people pay with 100s on amounts that wouldn’t even warrant spending ten.

Cue an entitled jerk, with exactly this.

Clerk: That’s €8.”

Jerk: *Puts down a €100 bill.*

Clerk: “Sorry, sir, I don’t have the change anymore to break that one, a bunch of others came in with 100s and my change ran dry; maybe you got a tenner or so?”

Jerk: “Hmph! Why is that my problem? Here’s the €100 bill, and you hand me €92 back, how is this hard?”

Clerk: “Well, mostly because I don’t have €92 in my register.”

Me: “Sorry, but if you let me go ahead, I have groceries for a bit over €100 here, and I pay with 20s and 10s, that should make the clerk able to break your hundred?”

Jerk: “Hmph! Why should I let you go ahead of me with that huge pile of stuff in your cart?”

Me: “Maybe because even if that clerk gets to ring all that up, it’s faster than us now waiting for someone who can magically conjure change for the clerk’s till?”

Jerk: “That’s their problem. Not mine.”

Me: *Pointing over my shoulder at the line.* “Actually, it’s the problem of ALL the people in the line because you’re the [expletive] keeping us all from going ahead.”

Jerk: “What did you call me?”

Me: *Helpful and still insanely saccharine friendly, only a hint louder that everyone in earshot can hear it.* “[Expletive].”

I see in his face that he wants to punch me, but even he knows better. First, we’re standing here with at least half a dozen, closer to a dozen, witnesses, and second, I’m more than a head taller than him and have at least twenty kilos on him. My head is shaved bald; I have quite the beard, and I enjoy wearing leather (hey Metal forever!). Sure, I’m a big softy and haven’t been in a SINGLE fight my entire life… but he doesn’t know that, and I sure as all h*** am not going to inform him right now.

But if looks could kill, I’d drop dead here and now.

Jerk: “Anyway. They have to figure out a way. I’m not moving.”

Me: “Fine. Clerk, mind opening that till over there?”

The clerk looks at me, looks at the second till, then nods, and I step over before the jerk can do anything. He’s steaming visibly as I put my groceries on the conveyor, the clerk scans them, I pay.

Jerk: “Well, NOW you have the money!”

Clerk: *Now with that same saccharine smirk.* “Sorry, sir, I’m serving this line here now. I’ll be right with you as soon as these people have been served. I’m unfortunately the only person on duty right now.”

The jerk loses it and leaves without his goods.

I call that a win.

We got a new manager. The general sentiment in the team was “it could only get better.”

The old one was 100% incompetent. We do the “agile” and “empowered” bulls*** in our company, which essentially means everyone’s a manager and has to manage their own projects fully while doing the technical stuff that we are supposed to do as well. That old manager was actually 200% incompetent: He was a dud at both.

What he was great at was kissing up to his bosses and throwing us under the bus while not doing anything. To make a long story short, he was eventually fired for embezzling money and tried to pin it on us.

Did I mention it could only get better?

The new guy comes, and his first question:

Manager: “Well, what do you do here?”

Us: “Technical security and security audits.”

Manager: *Pause.* “What exactly is that?”

Great, we thought. Drove out the Devil with Beelzebub.

Turns out, though, that while he had zero (and I mean zero) clue what we do here, he is a social guy who knows at least half the corporation on a first-name base and the other half knows him and tries to get on his good side because nobody wants to get the stink eye from someone who casually chats with the CEO while riding in the elevator. Perfect organizer and actually stands up for his team.

He’s now organizing the client meetings and doing the whole “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” part of our work, essentially being a mix of our finance guy, lawyer, secretary, logistics, and a few other things that we techies certainly have ZERO affinity for that always somehow ended up as an afterthought.

And more often than not, a train wreck. 

Plus, he knows how to talk with clients who have very… special demands. After yet another meeting where the client tried to get outrageous stuff from us for free:

Manager: “The f****** audacity! Why the h*** would they even DARE to demand that?!”

Me: “Well… so far they got it.”

Yes, we’re not great at negotiating. And we know what we can actually do, so the demand didn’t seem too outrageous to us at face value. On the technical side, it was doable, so… yeah, we did it. Looking back… in hindsight, we gave away a lot for free that we should have charged for. Or we should have simply refused to do it altogether because it took way too long for way too little money. 

But hey, that’s what you get when you force timid techies into a management and sales role!

Therefore, our numbers went UP. What also went up with an increase in contracts were overtime hours, because we’re chronically understaffed.

And every October, the end of which overtime was “cut” back to a stock of a few hours that you can “keep” while the rest gets paid out, there was always a lot of lamenting and threats from the former manager to get our hours down to the cutoff point, threatening that HR or top brass is looking at the overtime hours and if it’s too much, people who dare to bill too many hours get axed. So, we went and simply didn’t write hours we worked because, hey, better losing a few hours (or a few days) of work served without pay than losing a job.

Cue beginning October and, well, my overtime hours are pushing WAY past the limit, so in anticipation of the usual annual rant, I inform my new boss that I’ll try to cut back.

Me: “Boss? It’s October, I know, and I’m sure you’ve seen I’m almost sixty hours above, but I’ll get that down before the end, no worries. I’ll just have to, you know, fudge the hours I write.”

Manager: “What do you mean?”

Me: *Cringing that I have to say it, because that’s actually VERY illegal.* “Well, I won’t write some of the hours I work so my overtime bleeds off.”

Manager: “The h*** you do! You write what you work!”

Me: “Well, then even if I try to cut down, I’ll have like forty hours overtime by the end of the month, and they would have to be paid.”

Manager: “So? Yeah, it sucks because you pay tax through the nose for them, but sorry, we are understaffed and … you know. Sorry ’bout that, but you can’t just go on comp time for half a month.”

Me: “No, that’s not the reason… won’t they fire everyone who has too many hours to pay?”

Manager: “Fire you? F***, I have ten people and need twenty-six to fill the orders, who the h*** would fire you?!”

Me: “But… that was what … we are told… HR and top management will fire us, no matter what you say.”

Manager: “Your overtime hours come out of my budget; nobody further up the totem pole gives a s*** about that. Yeah, I’ll go over a bit, no biggie, all that means is my bonus is a few bucks lower. Plus, I have a reason to demand more budget next year. Like, I give a f*** about a few hundred bucks in my bonus, with a reason for a higher budget, I could probably get them to hire at least one or two new guys because it’s cheaper than your overtime. You write your hours; I need them as an argument for more people!”

That sniveling little piece of poop we had before was threatening us and throwing us under the bus, making us work countless unpaid hours so he could get a few hundred bucks more bonus! And worse, he kept the department small deliberately and put us under unworkable stress just to make his budget numbers look neat. Probably just for more bonus money for himself, too!

That new guy is a keeper! Even though he still has no clue what his department is actually doing. He doesn’t need to know. We know that stuff for him. He’s a great organizer, and he’s having our back. That’s all I really need from a manager.

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I’m at the restaurant with the big arches where food comes in little boxes, and I wait in line behind a guy who orders a few menus and then…

Guy: “Oh, and two mac ‘n cheese.”

My mind grinds to a halt. Mac and Cheese isn’t exactly very common around here in the first place, but … well, this is a BURGER place, and they don’t have any mac’n’cheese… at least as far as I know. But the guy behind the counter nods like it’s the most sensible order possible, pushes some buttons, and asks: “Anything else?”

No, and after a while, he gets his grub, leaves, and it’s my turn.

Me: “You have mac’n’cheese now?”

Clerk: “Nope. But we have cheeseburgers.”

Me: “Ah, you know that guy, and that’s how he always orders his cheeseburger.”

Clerk: “Nope. But when you work here, asking is the wrong answer. You just guess. If you ask, you get yelled at. If you guess wrong, you get yelled at. But if you guess right, they just take their crap and leave. So, if you guess, at least you have a chance.”

Me: “No idea what they pay you, but it ain’t enough.”

Clerk: *Nods.*