I’m being hired for a position at a supermarket. Interviews went well, conversations have been pleasant, and I’m all set to sign the employment contract, so I grab the document and sit back in the chair to read it. 

The manager who is hiring me gives me a look.

Manager: “What are you doing?”

Me: *Confused.* “I’m reading the contract.”

Manager: “Why would you do that?”

Me: *Concerned.* “…Because signing a contract is a legally-binding statement that I agree to the terms and conditions outlined in that contract.”

Manager: “So?”

Me: *Now thinking I don’t want to work here.* “…SO, I’m making myself aware of the terms and conditions before I agree to them.”

Manager: “That’s stupid. Why the f*** do you need to do that?”

Me: *Absolutely sure I don’t want to work here anymore.* “Because I’m not an idiot. If I don’t like the conditions, I’m not going to sign the contract.”

Manager: “Well, if you don’t sign the contract, then you’re not hired.”

Me: “Yes, that’s kind of what I was getting at. If I don’t like the conditions, I don’t want to be hired here.”

Manager: “You’re a f****** moron. Are you telling me you read the terms and conditions for every piece of computer hardware and software you own?”

Me: *Setting the contract aside.* “The fact that you seriously think the answer is “no” tells me everything I need to hear. Good day.”

I could not get out of that building fast enough.

Ever since I was little, my parents have liked to call me the “abominable snowgirl”. I am comfortable in low temperatures; I can go out in -10°C (14°F) in a T-shirt and shorts, take trash to the curb, come back inside, and not even be shivering. 15°C (59°F) is my sweet-spot for long-term relaxation in the comfort of my own home, and I won’t even bother to cover up. 

My parents, on the other hand, are quite comfortable in the heat. 25°C (77°F) is just fine and dandy for them; meanwhile, I will be swimming in my own sweat. In the winter, that was fine by me, because I could open my window and chill the enclosed environment of my bedroom, but the summers were unbearable. As I reached my teenage years, my frustrations boiled over, and I asked my parents to get me air conditioning – just a window-mounted unit for my bedroom, so I could at least have my room be a temperature I enjoy.

Dad: “Not happening. You don’t need air conditioning.”

Me: “Just because YOU don’t need air conditioning doesn’t mean I’M not gonna melt!”

Dad: ” [My Name], summer is SUPPOSED to be hot.”

Me: “Winter is supposed to be cold! Why do you always have the heat running?”

Credit where credit is due: Dad put his money where his mouth is. He did explain to me that pipes tend to burst if the water inside them freezes, and that you should NEVER turn your heat ALL the way off in cold weather. But that winter, he only kept the heat high enough to keep the water running.

I enjoyed myself. Mom and Dad were MISERABLE. They wore sweaters pretty much perpetually, from the first snowfall until things had thawed completely. They started having hot baths instead of showers and would frequently go straight into bed under a lot of blankets before they were even fully dry. We ate (and I was introduced to) a lot of dishes that needed to spend a long time in the oven, and the oven door would be left open after the oven was turned off to let the heat leak out into the kitchen.

The next summer, I had an AC unit in my bedroom window.

Many years ago, I worked in a bookstore in a mall, one of the entrances to which was facing a Dairy Queen across the street. One particularly blazing summer day, [Coworker #1] disappears from the premises for his lunch break and comes back with two empty Blizzard cups.

Me: “That hungry, huh?”

Coworker #1: “Hey, there’s nothing better for a hot day than ice cream.”

Coworker #2: *Literally looking down his nose from the next shelf over.* “Um, that’s NOT ice cream.”

Coworker #1: “So I’ve heard. But being as I am neither a regulation-enforcing agency nor a pretentious judgmental jack-a**, I don’t really see how I would gain anything from refusing to call it ice cream.”

I laughed. [Coworker #2] later tried to complain to our manager about us both. [Manager] laughed in his face.

Related:
Dairy Drama Queen

At the time of this story, I had recently gotten a new tattoo. I was told to keep it covered for about a week, so while my coworkers have known that I HAVE a tattoo, they haven’t been able to actually see it.

The day after I removed the wrappings, most of my coworkers were admiring it, but I did notice [Coworker] pointedly start avoiding me. I didn’t understand why until I took my lunch break, whereupon he confronted me.

Coworker: “You think you’re some kind of tough-a**, don’t you?”

Me: “Where did THAT come from?”

Coworker: “What, you think you’re cool for getting some fancy foreign words etched on your skin like a dumb s***?”

Me: “What are you TALKING about?”

Coworker: “I’m talking about that f****** tattoo! You don’t seriously think I’m gonna fawn over you asking what it means like everyone else, do you?”

Me: “…Dude, that’s my WIFE’S NAME.”

Coworker: “The f*** it is! It’s just a bunch of foreign gibberish!”

I just stared at him. He storms off.

I got back to my work, trying to push the encounter from my mind. [Coworker] had other ideas; I had the others telling me for the rest of the week that he had been trying to spread word about me having “some foreign words” as a tattoo, only to get rebuffed at every turn by the people who actually paid attention to what was written on me.

What baffles me about [Coworker]’s behaviour is that my tattoo of my wife’s name wasn’t written in any unfamiliar characters; it was literally just her name, written in the Latin alphabet, as the stem of a flower.

One morning, I woke up to find snow had completely shrouded my (admittedly small) bedroom window. I make my way out to the (much larger) living room window and find snow coming down so hard I can’t see the road. Sure enough, my weather app has an alert telling me that there is a stay-home advisory in effect due to unsafe weather for driving. Fine by me; I crawl back into bed and try to get back to sleep. 

My phone rings within half an hour. It’s my manager.

Manager: “Hey, just want to let you know that you are still coming in today.”

I laugh into the line and hang up.

My manager calls again before the minute changes.

Manager: “Do you think I’m joking? You’re scheduled for today. You’re coming in to work.”

Me: “Do YOU think I’m stupid enough to get into a car and drive in this weather? Not happening.”

I hang up. My body has fully booted up and acknowledged an empty stomach, so falling asleep again is no longer an option. I’m on my way to the kitchen when my phone rings again.

Manager: “If you don’t come in today, you’re fired.”

Me: “Cool. I’ll come get my last paycheck when the weather clears up.”

I hang up yet again and make myself breakfast.

The next day, I got a call from my manager’s boss. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one he tried to demand come into work yesterday, and not everyone had the courage to say no like I did. Some of them had accidents on their way to work. (I later learned that none of them were more serious than “didn’t stay on the road, hit something that damaged my car more than my car damaged it,” but still.) I was assured that if I still wanted my job, I was not, in fact, fired for staying home during a stay-home advisory. 

I agreed to those terms and came into work a day later to find my manager was no longer employed there.