At my job, I have two managers: [Smart Manager] and [Jerk Manager]. [Smart Manager] is above [Jerk Manager] and can overrule his decisions at any time, thank all the gods of retail.

I got really sick at work — sick to the point of spending more time kneeling in front of the porcelain throne than actually working.

[Jerk Manager] happened to be the manager on duty. 

Jerk Manager: “No. You can’t leave. We need you to do your job.”

I struggled on for another half-hour. I’ll admit, I’d considered vomiting on [Jerk Manager]’s shoes to help change his mind, but at the time, I was still (perhaps foolishly) holding onto a thread of being a nice person.

[Smart Manager], by pure chance, happened to walk in, even though he was not on duty. He saw the condition I was in.

Smart Manager: “[My Name], go home, and don’t come back until you’ve stopped puking.”

Jerk Manager: “No, we need him to stay and work.”

Smart Manager: “You’re an idiot. He’s completely nonproductive in this state. He needs to get healthy.” *To me* “Now get the h*** out of here before I call you an ambulance. And if dummy here tries to write you up, I’ll write him up instead.”

Jerk Manager: “But—”

Smart Manager: “But nothing! HE… IS… TOO… SICK… TO… WORK.”

I managed to stop vomiting by the next morning.

[Smart Manager] called me that same afternoon to inform me that he had told his boss about [Jerk Manager]’s behavior. Apparently, the big boss man laid into [Jerk Manager] about not letting sick workers go home until they recover. The brunt of the big boss’s argument was that he didn’t want me getting all my coworkers sick because then we’d be REALLY up a creek.

So, no compassion for me, just concerns over being a vector for illness. Sigh. I love working in retail.

CONTENT WARNING: Needles

I am not a tricky stick. I started donating plasma when I was seventeen and continued twice a year until I got pregnant, so I’m not afraid of needles, either. 

When I am pregnant, they have to draw my blood for the gestational diabetes test. When I get there, there are two people. The woman tells me the young man is a nurse doing his residency and asks if I’m okay with him doing my blood draw. I say sure. Again, I’m not afraid of needles and not a tricky stick.

It goes terribly. He misses my vein on the left arm twice. I’m still calm, but now he’s freaking out a little and misses again.

Older Nurse: “Are you okay, Mrs. [My Name]?”

Me: “I’m doing fine.”

Older Nurse: “Do you want me to draw your blood, instead?”

Me: “No, I’m good. He can keep trying. Better on me than on someone who needs a needle urgently in the future.”

The young nurse tries again and misses again. Now he looks close to tears and way more emotional than me. The older nurse pulls him aside and talks him through a few deep breaths. They come back, and he tries to stick me again and misses twice.

Me: “Would you like to try my other arm?”

Older Nurse: “That’s probably a good idea.”

After five failed tries in my left arm, he preps my right.

Me: “Don’t worry. You’re doing great. You’ll get it this time.”

Older Nurse: “Keep calm and focus. The more emotional you are, the harder it will be.”

After three tries, he finally got the needle into my right arm and could draw blood. I left looking like an addict with holes in both arms. Hopefully, he didn’t get discouraged and is working as a nurse today with a steady hand.

To make a long sob story short, I’ve lived most of my life in abusive environments. As a child, I grew up expecting to get hit if anyone moved in my direction, and then I ended up trapped in a relationship that was just more of the same.

Luckily, I managed to get out of my situation. I’m in therapy, I have my own apartment, and I have a job that I like very much. My boss and my coworkers are aware of my background and my PTSD diagnosis and they try to help me out by making sure I don’t have to deal directly with the worst customers.

One day, I’m on the floor folding clothes when a customer walks up to me. I don’t notice him at first, so when I turn around and a large man is standing right behind me, I instinctively jump a little.

Customer: “Haha, made you flinch! There’s no need to be scared of me, kiddo. I’m the nicest guy you’ll ever meet.”

Me: “Sorry, I just didn’t see you there. How can I help you?”

He needs help finding a shirt in the color he wants, and I show him the shirt rack. The entire time I’m helping him, he keeps standing right behind me, making wide gestures close to my face, trying to catch me unaware again. He manages to make me flinch again at least twice and I’m starting to feel the beginning of a panic attack coming on.

He doesn’t seem like the type who’ll get violent for real, but he keeps laughing about how he’s such a nice guy and how funny it is that I’m afraid of him. It doesn’t help that I’m clearly uncomfortable; it just seems to make him enjoy himself more.

My other coworker on the floor this day is my “work-mom”, an older woman who’s taken me under her wing and who I’ve become very close with. When I walk the customer up to the till, I try to get eye contact with her and telepathically yell, “Help me!” Thankfully, she immediately understands the issue and reaches the till ahead of me.

Coworker: “Good day, sir, so glad to see that my associate was able to help you find what you were looking for. I’ll ring you up over here. [My Name], can you go put these away?”

Customer: “Yeah, just run away from me. I’m so scary! Haha!”

He’s still grinning like this is the funniest thing that ever happened to him.

It’s not a big store, so I can still see and hear them, but at least I’m not in his immediate vicinity anymore, so I go to put away some clothes and take a moment to breathe and calm down. When I get back to the till, my coworker is just finishing up the transaction, and the customer turns to me.

Customer: “Hey, just some friendly advice. You really should find another job if you can’t even handle a normal social interaction. Either that or learn to take a joke. Have a good day now!”

He leaves, still with a wide satisfied smile on his face, and I turn to my coworker.

Me: “I know my frame of reference is pretty messed up, but what was normal about that interaction?”

Coworker: “Honey, there was absolutely nothing normal about that interaction.”

A customer was talking with me at my counter. Suddenly, as she was speaking, she violently spat out a tooth in front of me! She hurriedly grabbed it and put it back in her mouth.

My colleague was dying and I had to maintain a straight face!

My friend is a bit of a moron. He’s not a bad person, and he’s not an anti-vaxxer, but he legitimately didn’t seem to think that getting vaccinated was important until all his coworkers started getting sick with the latest variant of a particular contagious illness.

As soon as the third coworker where he works caught [illness], [Coworker] scheduled an appointment to get vaccinated, but he could only find one three and a half weeks out.

Sadly, he tested positive himself four days before the appointment. This absolute moron of a man decided to go and get vaccinated while currently sick with the illness, despite my efforts to convince him to wait, because, and I quote:

Friend: “I ain’t waiting another three and a half weeks. I’m ready to do it now, and I’m gonna get ‘er done.”

He was in the emergency room the next day; the vaccine had made his symptoms worse. He spent two weeks in the hospital.

About two weeks after that, he tested negative for the illness. He’d been testing every two or three days. He told me:

Friend: “Oh, good thing. I got my second dose of the vaccine yesterday.”