About two decades ago, in the mid-2000s, I acquired a young grey tabby tomcat named Max. He was about eight months old and infinitely curious. One thing he was especially curious about was the toilet.

I was young, bohemian, fresh out of college with a teaching degree, and had a beaded curtain as my bathroom door. I had no way to keep the cat out of the bathroom while I was trying to pee. The cat, for his part, thought it was fun getting in the way of my urine stream and forcing me to stop and start again.

Finally, I was fed up, and when the cat tried to get in my way, I didn’t stop peeing and just pissed all over the cat. He didn’t like that at all, and he ran off, splattering pee everywhere that I had to clean up later.

He never got in the way while I was peeing again.

Early the next morning, around 4 AM, two hours before my alarm to get ready for work (I taught math at a nearby grade school), I woke up to warm, wet fluid being sprayed all over my face. The cat, presumably in revenge, sprayed pee all over my face and my pillow.

I never peed on the cat again, either.

As the administrative assistant, it’s my job to keep office supplies well stocked and see to employees’ various ordering needs. This extends to everything but ergonomic furniture and computer mice, which need to be requested. If someone wants a miscellaneous item that makes work better, like purple pens, then I order it for them so long as the request is reasonable.

One of the supervisors is terrified of spiders. I didn’t realize to what extent until I told an anecdote about seeing someone on TV who put their clothes in plastic bags to keep spiders out, and [Supervisor] proclaimed that it was a brilliant idea! She already hung all her clothes so spiders couldn’t hide in the folds.

Eventually, I learned that her arachnophobia included the office when she asked me to help her shop for a footstool. She explained that she never put anything on the floor, and she even propped her feet up on a file box! Having been recently promoted, she decided that it was time to ask the company to spend a little money on a proper footstool.

Unfortunately, nothing on the supplies website was tall enough. The footstools they sold were designed for ergonomic sitting (the idea is that your feet are tilted up so you sit up straight), but even the most expensive ones were barely suspended off the floor. Unsure what to do and close to asking my boss for the company card so I could go buy [Supervisor] an ottoman, I did one final search. Instead of footstools, I looked for boxes.

To my surprise, there was a sturdy toolbox listed for cheaper than a desk footstool. It was exactly the height I’d been tasked to find. So, I told [Supervisor] what I’d found. She was elated! No need to find something conventional or tasteful. A toolbox that sat under her desk simply to keep her shoes free of spiders didn’t need to be pretty.

The toolbox arrived a week later, and I presented it to a delighted supervisor. I even wrote her name on the lid to keep Maintenance from accidentally walking off with it. My boss saw me unwrapping the toolbox, and we had a good chuckle over this amusing bit of problem-solving. We also made a note to be careful what decorations we put up during Halloween.

I think I interviewed for the exact same company as the author of this story.

They pulled EXACTLY the same trick with me, saying that there was both dental and health insurance available, EXACTLY the same 7% versus 5% 401k match, and even EXACTLY the same roughly two-thirds of my quoted salary.

But my Hiring Peon was at least willing to explain things to me instead of expecting me to treat him like he was in charge. The conversation went like this.

Me: “Hey, wait a minute. This isn’t the salary I agreed to. I agreed to [amount]. This is… about two-thirds of it?”

Hiring Peon: “You’re not an overtime-exempt employee, so the recruiter would have been giving you the expected salary including overtime, and this is the salary without overtime.”

Me: “I’m sorry, you’re telling me you expect me to work roughly fifty-five hours a week?”

The Hiring Peon replied as though this were an industry standard and not a strange and possibly illegal aberration:

Hiring Peon: “Yes.”

I just wanted to pack it in and leave at that point because, f***, I got kids and I want to see them occasionally, but there were two other issues that had not been explained yet, and I was curious.

Me: “Okay, but what about the dental and the 401k match? They don’t match up, either.”

Hiring Peon: “Only senior employees get dental and 401k match up to 7%. That’s the standard contract for new hires.”

Me: “I was under the understanding that, due to my years of experience in this position elsewhere, you’d be taking me on as a ‘senior’ employee.”

Hiring Peon: “No. You can qualify for dental after four years and vision after six, and the 401k match grows by a percent after the first year, and half a percent each subsequent year until it hits 7%.”

Me: “Thank you for explaining that to me. I don’t think this position is right for my needs.”

Hiring Peon: “May I ask why not?”

Me: “I’ve got kids and can’t work fifty-five hours a week, and braces are expensive, so I absolutely need dental. Also, I don’t like the bait-and-switch.”

Hiring Peon: “It wasn’t a bait-and-switch. That’s a legal term, and our hiring practices do not fall under that umbrella.”

Me: “Yeah, whatever you call it, it felt deceptive to me—”

Hiring Peon: *Interrupting* “There was no deception.”

Me: “Regardless of whether there was or wasn’t deception, it felt deceptive to me, and that’s important to me in a working environment.”

Hiring Peon: “Could I ask you to consider it for a bit longer?”

Me: “No. I’m still working my other job, which already pays more than your offer if you break it down by hour, even if it doesn’t pay more than your offer if you break it down by year, and they’re giving me 6% 401k match, even if they’re also not giving me dental either. I will continue to look for a place that gives immediate dental, but I am not particularly interested in dental in four years.”

Hiring Peon: “You could think of it as a long-term investment. Guaranteed dental in four years.”

Me: “At the cost of hardly seeing my children. Absolutely not. Forty hours is my limit.”

Hiring Peon: “Well, if you ever change your mind, please come back to us.”

Me: “I won’t.”

And with that, I left.

Related:
Over Before It Began

I was brought in to work in a fairly specialized position at a company. I’ve been doing this for a while, and I like to think I’m pretty good at it. The salary they offered me was generous and the benefits even more generous.

The day I came in to sign my hiring documents, however, something looked wrong. The numbers did not match what I had seen during the recruitment process.

Me: “There appears to be some mistake. I was promised [pay amount], and this is just barely two-thirds of that. Also, I was told you had dental as well as health insurance, that you had a pension as well as a 401k, and that your 401k matched up to 7%, not up to 5%.”

Human Resources: “No error. This is our standard hiring document. This is what we’ve got for you. Take it or leave it.”

Me: *Standing up* “Leave it.”

The HR guy seemed shocked.

Human Resources: “Um… I’m not getting the sense that you’re a good team player here.”

Me: “Well, I don’t see how that’s important.”

I stepped out the door. The HR guy called after me as I started to walk out.

Human Resources: “Wait. Wait! Can we talk about this?”

Me: “Can I have the terms I was originally promised?”

Human Resources: “No.”

Me: “Then there’s nothing to talk about. Goodbye.”

And I left.

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CONTENT WARNING: Death (Stranger found dead, removed by paramedics)
 

The temperature is in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 C), very high even for the summer. The humidity is over 90%, and my car’s air conditioner is broken. This is the sort of weather people die in. I’m on my way to work. (I work the evening shift.)

I’m driving on a two-lane divided boulevard. It’s very narrow, there’s only one lane going in my direction, and I’m hedged in by high curbs and some nice bushes.

The van in front of me stops at the stoplight. I stop behind it. I wait. The light turns green. The van in front of me doesn’t move. The light turns red again. I wait. The light turns green. I start honking. The van in front of me doesn’t move. The light turns red again.

I physically cannot turn around on this road and find another route. I call the police. They arrive, and shortly thereafter, paramedics arrive.

They tell me that the person in the van is “unresponsive”, and I see the paramedics getting him out of the van. He’s a very large guy, and they’re being very slow about it. I notice them getting out a black bag for the stretcher. I suspect he’s dead.

I’m starting to feel very thirsty. My lips are dry, my eyes are dry, I’m having a headache, and I’m barely able to sweat despite the humidity and temperature. I suddenly start feeling quite bad.

Me: *To an officer* “When do you expect a tow truck to arrive to move the van?”

Officer: “It’s going to be a couple of hours; the tow company is backed up.”

Me: “Could I have a bottle of water, please? I don’t have any in my car.”

Officer: “We don’t have any, either.”

Me: “Okay. Then would it be okay if I leave my car here and go find a fast food place to wait and get some water?”

Officer: “No, that’s not okay. You need to remain with your vehicle so you can move it as soon as that van is towed. Otherwise, we’ll write you a citation.”

Me: “Then can I please sit in the back of one of your cars since my air conditioner doesn’t work? I’m feeling lightheaded and dizzy, and I’m on the edge of panic.”

No, that’s against their policy, too.

At this point, I’m having a panic attack. I bend over and throw up in my panic. The vomit has very little fluid in it — about the texture of corned beef hash.

This attracts the attention of the paramedics.

Paramedic: “How are you doing?”

I pathetically asked for some water, and they got me a bottle. Then, they called another ambulance for me.

I wound up in the emergency hooked up to saline drips for dehydration and heat sickness, and I missed work that day. The cops had my car towed, too, and I was charged a $345 tow fee. But at least I didn’t die.

After that, I started stocking bottled water in my car, and I stopped treating the AC as an optional component. Work, at least, was understanding since I brought a letter from the doctor when I next went in.