I took a job as a part-time sales associate for a well-known department store. I went in on my first official day and went back to the Human Resources lady’s office as I had been instructed to do.

Someone in the area came up to me and introduced herself.

Manager On Duty: “I’m the manager on duty. [HR Lady] isn’t in yet. If you have any training videos that you need to do, do them now, and come get me when you are done.”

I finished the training videos and looked around for [Manager On Duty]. I stopped at the customer service desk and asked the ladies working there if they knew where she was. They didn’t, so they paged her. A few minutes later, she came over.

Manager On Duty: “What do you need?”

Me: “I’m finished with the videos. What do you want me to do now?”

Manager On Duty: *Sighs* “Hang on. I have to find out which department you’re assigned to.”

Several minutes later, she came back.

Manager On Duty: “[Coworker] will come and get you.”

Fifteen minutes passed before [Coworker] came to get me. She was nice but seemed frazzled. She spent a few minutes showing me around the store and asked me to start putting out stock.

Easy enough. [Coworker] would disappear often and come back saying she had been called to help out on registers or around other areas of the store. She got back to training me on some different things. Then, she disappeared again. No worries as I was figuring everything out on my own.

It was getting close to lunchtime.

Coworker: “The manager on duty said I will be taking lunch at 12:00, and when I get back at 12:30, you can go.”

That sounded good to me. I continued with my duties, and I realized it had been a long time since [Coworker] had gone to lunch. I was not given a headset so I could communicate with others. I had no idea where they even kept them, so I looked around for a few minutes, and I saw [Coworker] on a cash register.

Finally, it was about 1:55 when she came back to me. She apologized for it taking so long as she had to relieve the cashier for lunch, and then she was asked to stay up there longer because of a lot of customers were waiting.

Coworker: “Can you do one quick thing? Make sure all the dressing rooms are cleaned out. We usually check them between 1:30 and 2:00. Then you can go eat.”

Me: “Sure.”

I quickly checked the dressing room and went back to [Coworker].

Me: “The dressing rooms are clean.”

Coworker: “Oh, I need to show you where the headsets are. You can get them after lunch.”

It was on the way to the break room. Suddenly, an announcement came over the store. I didn’t quite catch what it said, so I asked [Coworker].

Coworker: “That’s the 2:00 pm blitz.”

Me: “Oh, okay.”

I didn’t have any clue what that meant.

Me: “Okay, then I am headed to lunch.”

Coworker: “No, you can’t go to lunch now.”

Me: “Why?”

Coworker: “That announcement means that everyone is meeting in [Department].”

Me: “Is this a store meeting?”

Coworker: “No, it’s not. When they call that at 2:00 pm, it means no one can go to lunch, break, or anything else unless it’s the end of their shift.”

Me: “Okay, well, I am really starving right now. It’s been an hour and a half since I was supposed to go to lunch.”

Coworker: “Sorry.”

Me: “If I had gone before you asked me to check the fitting rooms, would I still have had to attend this?”

Coworker: “No, as long as you had clocked out prior to 2:00 pm. Sorry, I didn’t even think about it when I asked. Just go over to [Department], and [Manager On Duty] will explain what you will be doing. Let her know you were supposed to go to lunch at 12:30 but I was unable to relieve you because of the other things they had me doing.”

I went over to [Department], found [Manager On Duty], and let her know this.

Manager On Duty: “You should have gone at 12:30.”

Me: “Well, [Coworker] said I could go when she got back at 12:30, but I had to wait on her to get back. She didn’t get back until almost 2:00.”

Manager On Duty: “Well, you should have known that we do this blitz at 2:00 pm. No lunches after the announcement has been made. I guess I will have to let you go after we finish it. So it may be 3:30.”

I was thinking, “What the h*** is this?”

Me: “I don’t even know what a blitz is.”

Manager On Duty: “Your coworker should have explained all of that when you got here. 

We will be taking all of the hanging jeans, folding them, arranging them by size, wash, color, and length, and placing them on all of those shelves. I want the lightest jeans at the top and the darker jeans at the bottom. I want all of the smallest sizes at the top and larger sizes on the bottom, and they need to be categorized by petite, average, tall, and curvy.”

Wow. I saw that there were at least twelve other associates helping; I even saw [HR Lady] helping.

There were so many of us that we were running into each other, and it was becoming chaotic. [Manager On Duty] got upset with some of the guys who didn’t understand how women’s sizes and lengths run. She scolded them. She then scolded others who were confused about the light wash, dark wash, etc. Some of the washes did look similar.

She made us redo the tables three times.

My stomach was growling, and I was getting lightheaded, so I approached her and politely let her know I needed to eat. She told me to keep going and that she would let me go in a few minutes.

Around 3:20, she told me to go to lunch, and they still were not finished getting that display of jeans to exactly what she wanted. I went to eat, and I felt somewhat better.

When I walked back out of the break room, [Manager On Duty] saw me.

Manager On Duty: “We are still not finished. Come back and help.”

Me: “I only have ten more minutes left.”

Manager On Duty: “If you had gone to lunch earlier, we could’ve had this done. Tomorrow, you must go before 2:00. You need to stay and get this done.”

Me: “If I don’t have anyone to relieve me again, then what?”

Manager On Duty: “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

When she wasn’t looking, I snuck off to the bathroom, and at 4:00 pm, I clocked out for good.

I want to mention that every single person who worked on the sales floor was called to help out on this project, leaving no one on the floor to help customers. I heard the “Customer needs assistance in [Department]” signal go off several times. I have no idea who helped them — if anyone. There was only one cashier working and no other managers in the store.

This blitz thing that this store did was useless. Working in retail before, the sales associates of whatever department they worked in were responsible for displays and this kind of reset, not the whole store. There were too many associates trying to do this, and that’s one of the reasons it was so chaotic.

No, I didn’t go back.

I work with a guy who is not the brightest crayon in the box. The office just opened and I was sitting at my desk when he walked in the front door. Then, he stopped by my office — his office is two doors down from mine — and started talking to me. I was looking at him and realized something wasn’t right.

Me: “[Coworker], you are missing a lens out of your glasses.”

Coworker: “How do you know?”

Me: “Well, I can see that one side of your glasses has a lens and the other one doesn’t.”

He took off his glasses and set them on the desk, and I showed him the missing lens.

He freaked out and started looking around the desk for it. I picked up his glasses and handed them to him. He then looked on the desk where the glasses had been sitting for the missing lens.

Coworker: “What did you do with my lens?”

Me: “Nothing. I noticed it was missing when you walked into my office.”

Coworker: “Well, when you picked them up, it might have fallen out then.”

Me: “There was no lens in it when you set them down. I showed you that. When I picked them up, there was still no lens.”

[Coworker] frantically started looking around the floor of my office and on the desk again.

Me: “When you drove in today, did you have any trouble seeing?”

Coworker: “I don’t know.”

Me: “Retrace your steps.”

[Coworker] walked back down the hall and to the front door. 

Coworker: “It’s not here.”

Me: “Go look out in the parking lot and check your car.”

[Coworker] did so and then came back.

Coworker: “I didn’t find it.”

Me: “Did you stop anywhere on the way to work?”

Coworker: “No. I came straight in from home.”

Me: “Maybe the missing lens is somewhere in your home or in your driveway. You may need to check there.”

[Coworker] drove home and came back.

Coworker: “It wasn’t there, either.”

Me: “Okay. It’s not here or at home, so where else have you been?”

Coworker: “After work yesterday, I went to my mom’s house.”

Me: “Maybe it’s there, then.”

Coworker: *Getting angry* “No, I think I lost it when I came into your office.”

Me: “No, when you walked into my office, you were already missing the lens.”

Coworker: “No. I think that I lost it here. I think it fell out when you picked them up.”

Me: “There was no lens in them then, either.”

Coworker: “I think you lost it. Are you sure you didn’t lose it?”

I just shook my head. He walked out of my office mumbling that I had lost the lens.

He did eventually get a new pair, but what puzzled me was his thinking he lost them in my office. The fact that he thinks it’s my fault somehow is also mind-boggling.

I think [Coworker] most likely lost the lens the night before and he never noticed that he was missing a lens. Who knows? It seems he would’ve noticed that since he says his eyesight is not good, especially at night.

CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse

This happened when I was sixteen. My father had a habit of looking through other people’s shopping, including mine and my younger brother’s. This happened so often that we would give him our bags when we got in, and he would give them back when he had finished. He never explained this to us — only something about keeping an eye on prices.

I am sitting in my room when he comes in without saying a word and calmly opens a cupboard door. I watch as he takes out and throws a suitcase at me.

Dad: *Calmly* “Get out.”

Me: “Dad? What are you doing?”

Dad: “Get out of my house!”

I am stunned. I have no idea what I might have done to provoke him, but he seems furious. I stand up, and he pushes me out of the room.

Dad: “I never want to see you again! You are disgusting!”

I start to cry because not only am I confused, but he has never behaved like this before to anyone I know of.

Me: “P-Please… tell—”

Dad: *Pointing his index finger at me* “YOU! ARE! A! SLUT! You are no longer my daughter! Get out of this house!”

I am unable to move, both scared of him and scared that my brother might hear. I am also frightened that Dad might hit me, even though he never has before. I run downstairs and to our next-door neighbor’s place, as it is the only thing I can think of to do. They ask what I am doing, and through gulps of breath and tears, I say that Dad seems to have lost it.

When Mom comes by three hours later after returning from work, her cheeks are pink. She sits me down and explains what happened when she got home and talked to Dad.

Mom: “Why were you shouting on the phone?”

Dad: “[My Name] is no longer allowed in this house! I saw what was in her groceries. [Mom], did you know she was having sex?”

Mom: “Just calm down and let me see what she bought.”

Mom thought that maybe I had bought condoms, but she was far from the truth. Dad emptied the contents of the bag onto the table. Mom blinked and picked up a packet of tampons, thinking that Dad had mistaken them for condoms.

Mom: “[Dad], these are tampons.”

Dad: “YOU CAN’T HAVE TAMPONS IF YOU’RE A VIRGIN!”

Mom: “You can. [Mom’s Friend] brought some for [Friend’s Twelve-Year-Old Daughter, who is disabled]. Hang on. Did you throw [My Name] out before asking her?”

This was one of the reasons why they ended up divorcing.

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I am pretty tall and thin. I also have a large afro that I like to fluff up when I am going out. Because of this, a bouncer at a club I go to has taken to calling me “Lowercase”. In his words, “With those skin-tight outfits and big hair, you look just like a lowercase I!”

We are on friendly terms and talk a lot when I’m there. I call him “Shag” because of his mop of unkempt silver hair.

On this particular night, Shag was with a new bouncer I hadn’t seen before. I waved hi to him, as well. 

Shag: “Hey, Lowercase! Hey, Newbie, this is Lowercase. She comes here a lot. If you’re nice, she’ll bake you something.”

Newbie: “Why do you call her ‘Lowercase’?”

Shag: “Oh, it’s because I think she looks kind of like a lowercase I with that big hair.”

Me: *Laughing* “It’s been a joke between us for a while. I don’t mind.” 

Newbie: “Oh, well, it’s nice that you’re willing to joke about that. Most girls get pissy when you point out they don’t have t*ts.”

I got super uncomfortable at that point. Shag has never made any comments about my body, and it was always clear that our nicknames were in good fun. Shag immediately looked livid.

Shag: “Boy, what the h*** is wrong with you?”

Newbie: “I thought that’s why she had the nickname, right? No curves, all hair?”

Shag gave me a smile and ushered me inside. I caught the beginnings of him chewing the absolute f*** out of the new guy.

Later on in the night, Shag came in, bought me a drink, and apologized. He insisted that I’m gorgeous, but I’m the same age as his daughters, so his only intention is to make sure I’m safe and happy when I’m at that club. 

I still go there a lot, and I bake a lot more things for him when I can. Love you, Shag!

I’m functioning on two hours of sleep and have just put in a full day at the office. I’ve stopped by my local supermarket for necessities before going home to collapse. One of these items is a four-pack of paper towels.

I’m in the deli contemplating grab-and-go items when, out of nowhere, this old man starts talking to me.

Old Man: “You about to do the big one?”

Me: “What?”

Old Man: “I guess you’re about to do the big one.”

Me: “Um… okay…”

Old Man: “A pack of toilet paper like that is more valuable than water!”

I briefly contemplated beating him with the four-pack of paper towels. I thought better of it, choosing to avert eye contact and sidestep away from him. The old man merrily strutted off, apparently thinking what he’d just said was perfectly normal.