I’ve been lucky to mostly work with great people through most of my jobs. Every now and then, however, a real piece of work slips in. This jolly fellow was actually quite pleasant to hang around with off the clock; ON the clock, however, it seemed like everything else on planet Earth was a priority besides what he was actually being paid to do.

It came to a head one day when our manager was out and, being most senior, I was technically in charge of the four resident goons despite not having an official title. It should be noted that we didn’t have individual stations; we had one desk that had the [Shipping Company #1] machine, another desk that had the [Shipping Company #2] machine, and two long benches where we stacked, scanned, and boxed orders.

Me: “Hey, [Coworker], are you gonna get those [Shipping Company #1] boxes done?”

Coworker: “Yeah, I’m on it. Don’t worry.”

Me: “Yeah, starting to worry. You’ve had those two things on the desk for fifteen minutes now. I’ve done literally twenty [Shipping Company #2] orders in that time.”

Coworker: “I’m getting to it!”

Me: “It should not have taken more than five minutes. What—”

At this point, I’d come around the desk. He had some joke-of-the-day site up, full-screened, a Word document with “script” in the title showing in the taskbar, and neither our software nor the [Shipping Company #1] software even open.

Me: “Dude, we’ve got work to do!”

Coworker: “It doesn’t matter. They’re not gonna be here for what, four hours? That’s plenty of time!”

Me: “Yeah, and in those four hours, we’re gonna get about a hundred other orders, with no way of knowing how many for each carrier. We can’t just put it off to the last minute expecting things to be slow all day.”

Coworker: “Whatever. I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll do it when I get back.”

And with that, he just walked off. I finished the [Shipping Company #1] he left behind, and the rest of us continued on. And on. And on.

Fully half an hour later, with all of us wondering what had happened, [Coworker] strolled back in.

Me: “Dude, where have you been?”

Coworker: “It don’t matter.”

Me: “Uh, it does matter when you’re on the clock.”

Coworker: “IT. DON’T. MATTER. Don’t you care about what I’m doing. It don’t matter if I’m in the kitchen making coffee or if I decide to go off to the bathroom and play with myself!”

The other two guys made assorted disgusting noises, and I locked eyes with him. My tone goes ice cold and staccato when I’m angry, which I’m told is accompanied by a “Kubrick Stare.”

Me: “First off, don’t ever say that, around any of us, again. Second, yes, it does matter. I am sick and tired of having to rush at the end of the day to finish the stuff you leave behind.”

Coworker: “Bull! When do you do that?”

Me: “EVERY. DAY.”

Coworker #2: “Pretty much.”

Coworker #3: “Yeah, we got a whole pile right now, man. Stop b****ing and get it worked down!”

Did he, in fact, start doing his job? NOPE. He “needed to cool down,” so he took a walk around the entire corporate center parking lot for ANOTHER half-hour, and when he got back, he was still almost physically shaking with anger and saying he was gonna have it out with the manager when he got back. I had already left a voicemail and email with said manager by that point, and yes, there were cameras to prove that he was gone from the warehouse for an hour straight. The manager “wasn’t allowed to tell me” that they docked him an hour’s pay for those stunts.

I’d give him the benefit of the doubt for being a fresh-faced kid with no life experience, but he was a decade older than me and ex-military! Not long afterward, he found another job and put in his two-week notice; they “let him” just leave.

Related:
And Nothing Of Value Was Lost

My very first job is at a fast food place in a mall food court. Working during the Christmas season is Hell on Earth, and we get a constant stream of some of the most irritable, irate, and unreasonable customers ever.

A mother with five out-of-control children comes up and orders a huge amount of food. I wish I could remember the exact order because it is massive. It’s crazily busy with lines of ten people or more at each of the five registers, all waiting for their food, and this mother and all five of her children are literally yelling, “Where’s my food?” and, “Helloooo?” the entire time they are waiting. Other customers are staring at them and wondering what their problem is.

Finally, they get their huge order, which amounts to two very large bags full of food, which is what was holding everything up to begin with. They head off to one of the tables in the food court to eat.

About ten minutes later, the woman comes back, with all five of her children by her side, holding her receipt and yelling.

Customer: “We didn’t get the food that we ordered!”

Me: “What do you think is missing from the order?”

Customer: “All of it! All you gave me was three bags of waffle fries and a package of chicken nuggets that were already chewed!”

That’s right; she said the nuggets were “already chewed.”

She throws a nugget box on the counter at me with what is definitely chewed-up chicken nuggets spat back into the container. First off, we obviously did not give her “already chewed” nuggets, and the entire kitchen staff has just madly scrambled to complete everything in her large order, and we handed her two huge bags of food with everything in it.

She starts making a gigantic scene.

Customer: “You ripped me off! Give me the food I ordered! Do it, or I’m calling the cops!”

There are gigantic lines of really angry people waiting behind her. At the point when she is threatening to call the cops, some random guy comes walking up and taps her on the shoulder to try and get her attention. She turns and he says:

Random Guy: “Miss, you left your bag of food under the table when you left.”

With that, he hands her a huge bag of food, the very food she is in the middle of accusing us of not giving her.

At this same time, one of her children yells:

Customer’s Child: “Those chicken nuggets tasted funny! I hate them!”

Customer: *Looking at the kid* “Shut up!”

She dragged her children away with her food. No one clapped, but plenty of them laughed!

I was working at a mall-based bookstore as an assistant manager. About a year and a half into my time there, my manager decided to quit. We all could see it coming, and there were no hard feelings. We wished her well and anticipated her replacement, who was coming to us from another store in the chain.

He was easy enough to get along with but seemed a little aloof. Regardless, he seemed to know his stuff, and we continued along with no disruptions.

At this point, Amazon was a long way off, and the larger chain bookstores weren’t as prevalent, so we maintained a pretty brisk business all year round, and it got hectic over the holidays.

As we got closer to the holidays, our manager started coming in later each day, changing the schedule last minute, and just not keeping up with any of the standards of the store. I tried my best to pick up the slack, but there were certain things that had to be done by him. And he was still aloof and just didn’t want to explain what was going on, even when I confronted him about how this is affecting everyone.

Then, one December day, he just didn’t show up.

Nobody could reach him at all. I called our district manager to advise him, and he wasn’t able to find the manager, either. So, we muddled through the holidays as best as we could. Other assistant managers came over to help with closing and opening, I put in extra hours, and we managed to get through it.

After everything had calmed down, I did find out from some of the manager’s old coworkers what had happened to him. His changing of the schedule and coming in late were all part of him trying to live a lifestyle on the down-low. And the day he didn’t show up was right after he came out to his wife as gay and she kicked him out.

Not that there’s a great time to come out for anyone, but that sure was the worst time for our store.

My former manager never raised his voice. No matter what happened, he faced everyone with a serene smile and soft tone. On Christmas Eve, at around 5:00 pm, we had all fifteen available associates ringing people out as fast as they could. Still, the lines were five deep. As the manager circled by my register, the woman I was ringing out reached for his shirt sleeve.

Manager: “Yes?”

Customer: “What makes you so special that you get to wander around?”

Manager: “I am the manager, ma’am. I have to be available for assistance.”

Customer: “Then someone else needs to open another register. Lazy f****** piece of s***. I bet I’d be ten times better at your job!”

Manager: “If you’d like to apply, there is a hiring kiosk at customer service.”

The woman stared at him for a moment, processing what he had just said. He smiled, dipped his head politely, and walked away to help someone else.

Customer: “Is he f****** serious?”

Me: “Here is your receipt. The kiosk is right—”

Customer: “B****!”

She snatched her receipt from my hand and stormed off.

Me: “Merry Christmas!”

I started a new job as a lorry driver and had perhaps the worst possible thing happen on delivery. I lowered my tail lift to the ground, and the back door man took the delivery off and reloaded my tail lift with waste and returns. Our tail lifts have ramps that lock upright to restrain the load on the tail lift. It is impossible for me to see from the trailer, and the back door guy must ensure that it is safely locked before I move the tail lift. He gave me the all-clear and I lifted away. I pulled a cage off the tail lift into the trailer and I heard the worst possible noises: crashes and the screaming of a child.

I lept out of the trailer and noticed that the contents of the tail lift had fallen off the unlocked ramp and landed on a small girl who was passing by with her school group. She seemed mostly unhurt but obviously upset. She had two teachers looking after her, so I ran to the back door guy to ask what had happened. He hadn’t stowed the tail lift and was having a cigarette when he should have been supervising.

I reported the incident to my office, and then I followed their advice and reported the incident via the store’s incident report line. The back door guy lied and said that nothing had hit the girl, just landed near her and scared her. When I got back to the yard, I went straight to the office and wrote a statement admitting to any errors I think I made, as well as the fact that it was witnessed and I took details.

Fast forward a month. I’m dragged into a meeting and suspended pending investigation and likely sacking. The manager attempts to steamroll me, but I manage to speak up.

Me: “I will not sign anything here or agree to anything without a Union representative present.”

Reluctantly, the manager calls in a rep, who talks me through everything. He has me accept the suspension and explains that it’s a formality and that the main investigation will be where I can make my case. He somehow gets the investigation arranged for the next day. During the investigation, he lets me speak but adds context or helps me to explain things better. At the end of the meeting, he makes his own statement, which calls out the main three reasons that I was suspended.

Rep: “‘Number one: the incident wasn’t reported properly.’ [My Name] followed the direct advice of management and then further wrote a statement without being prompted. ‘Number two: the tail lift ramp was not secured.’ It was impossible for [My Name] to see if the ramp was secure, and he relied on the back door guy to clear it. He can’t be held accountable for the ramp since he wouldn’t have been able to secure it even if he did see it. ‘Number three: [My Name] did not immediately check on the person who had been injured.’ Firstly, had the ramp been stowed, this would not have happened. Second, the girl was being attended to by her teachers, and [My Name] wouldn’t have been able to help much more. He did offer to call an ambulance and offered to share details when asked. All in all, whilst this is a horrible, unfortunate incident, [My Name] was incredibly unlucky to get caught up and did everything right from his end. I don’t see why it took a month for this to be investigated since [My Name] did report it.”

The end result was that I was completely cleared of fault. The back door guy was sacked for not doing his job properly and not reporting the incident. The store manager was sacked because he did not ensure that his staff knew the correct back door procedures, and the third back door guy (who should have assisted with the delivery in the first place) was put on final warning for not doing his assigned duties. (He was actually clocked out on break during the incident.)