I worked for a family-owned company for about nine years. I worked the warehouse, managed the showroom, and eventually managed the warehouse before I moved on. I thought the work was easy but required effort. Summer days it was hot in the warehouse, so you’d sweat. It was a warehouse job.

We, the warehouse guys, had gone a couple of years without any kind of raise and word got back to the owner that some of us were a bit irritated. He opted to do a little something for us, but it would be based on performance; the better we did, the more we’d see in return.

Not counting the warehouse manager, there were five warehouse employees. Every warehouse employee had four stores that we were in charge of pulling, packing, and shipping orders for each week. The owner said that for each order we pulled without having any mistakes on it, he would pay us an extra $10 per order. So, every week, every warehouse employee had the opportunity to earn an extra $40. In the end, if you pulled four perfect store orders every week for a full year, you could earn an extra $2,080; that comes out to a dollar raise.

The idea was great. The other guys and I were excited. Do your work, make a few extra bucks. What could go wrong?

Most store orders took around three or four hours of your day to pull, palletize, and make ready to ship. I could tear through these store lists and get my store pulled usually an hour or more before the others guys finished. I’d move on to other tasks — receiving, shipping parcels, and so on. The other guys started going slower and slower with their lists to make sure they were doing it 100% correctly to earn that extra $10. Going slower meant they weren’t helping out with other aspects of the job, such as cleaning, receiving, and helping with customers. Then, it would come down to the other warehouse guys trying to all help each other pull all the orders — some attempt to work together.

After a store order was pulled, staged, and shipped, when one of the satellite branches received the order, they would send us a mistake sheet of any inventory shipped incorrectly or missed. Any mistake on that sheet we’d double-check against our inventory to make sure the mistake was legit.

This whole extra-$10-deal lasted just shy of forty-four weeks. I kept all the correctly shipped store orders I had done. Each one was put in my desk drawer. Up until the day this all ended, I had 168 perfect pulled orders out of 175 that I did. That was an extra $1,680 I had earned that year.

The next closest warehouse guy to me had about 30 correctly pulled orders out of 175. This wasn’t really the problem, though. The problem was that these guys, since they helped each other pull each other’s orders, would spend hours a day arguing that someone else screwed up the order and it wasn’t their fault and they should still be given $10. This was a constant issue for months, along with them not helping with other aspects of the job, which means I was doing a lot of extra work without help. I went to the warehouse manager multiple times about how it was becoming irritating that I was not getting help with other tasks and the other guys were constantly fighting amongst themselves about why they should be paid an extra $10.

After nothing was done from my complaints, I walked into the warehouse manager’s supervisor’s office. I shut his door and explained the situation over the past few months. I told him I was done with the crying and lack of help and I wanted the $10 bonus canceled even though I was the one to lose out the most.

The supervisor agreed with me. We walked out to the warehouse, and he gathered everyone and told us all that the extra $10 bonus was done. The other warehouse guys were pissed. They started yelling at me and I just snapped right back that I was one that lost out the most in this situation because they couldn’t get their crap together and do their jobs correctly. I took my stack of 168 sheets I had from my perfectly pulled orders and threw them at the guys.

Me: “I had 168 perfectly pulled orders — that’s $1,680 — and here you guys are crying over the handful of perfect orders you managed to do. I’m pissed at you for screwing up something good because you can’t stop fighting with each other and can’t do your jobs correctly like you’re supposed to.”

Not one of the other warehouse guys said anything else after that. They knew I was pissed. I gave up something good, the bonus money, just so I could get more help from them as they always should have been doing.

I am a forklift driver at a warehouse. The duty manager is telling me what needs to be done next when a guy storms up to him.

Customer: “You have way too many handicapped spaces in your parking lot! There are six spaces and there is a car in only one of them. I demand that this be changed! I mean, if they are handicapped, how much can they carry?”

Duty Manager: “I’m sorry you feel that way, but the number of spaces is determined by law. Before we opened, the Fire Marshall measured the size of our sales floor and gave us a maximum occupancy number, and that is what determines how many spaces we, by law, must have.”

Customer: “Thank you. I did not know that. I am going to go home and write my congressman right now.”

He then turned and stomped out.

There’s a member of our team who doesn’t seem to be entirely present, [Coworker #1]. Airheaded is an understatement, but nearly everyone finds her funny, so she gets humoured, though I doubt she realises that. I’m one of the few who don’t have patience for her, so I just try to cut her a wide berth and interact with her as minimally as possible but at least politely.

I’m busy with [Coworker #2] when I realise [Coworker #1] is nearby behind me, constantly repeating the same word. However, I’m in the middle of something, so I opt to leave her to it. After a minute of this, I zone out of my conversation to try and figure out what she’s on about, so I can make her go away.

I realize the word she’s been repeating is a name that’s similar to mine but isn’t mine.

Oh. I think she’s been trying to get my attention. Just as I turn around, though, three others turn to her, and, all in the tone of an impatient adult dealing with a child…

Coworkers #3, #4, & #5: “[MYYY NAAME]!”

Coworker #1: “Who?”

I won’t lie, I had to bite my lip as I approached her so as not to laugh. It was a relief of sorts, to see that she gets on the nerves of others; it wasn’t just me.

I run a small but growing company. We are a tight-knit team and people really have to fit in, so when the father of one of our newest hires suggests his other son for a vacancy, I’m happy to interview him.

He gets the job and is a little slow to pick it up — nothing like his younger brother. I try putting him in the warehouse more, which seems to work, but he needs constant supervision or he does his own thing.

One afternoon, my warehouse manager needs to run an errand, so I decide to check on our new hire and make sure he is okay. I find him inside the warehouse, sat on a bale of cardboard, smoking a joint. 

I send him home. I’m furious… but not as furious as his dad when he calls me up later.

Lad’s Father: “Why did you send him home? I was at work!”

Me: *Flatly* “He was smoking drugs while at work and causing a fire risk.”

Lad’s Father: “He would never do such a thing! How dare you?! Right now, he isn’t coming back. Both of them quit.”

Me: “Your eldest isn’t welcome back; he’s lazy and clearly a liability. And if [Younger Brother] wants to leave, he will have to resign himself. However, I have already spoken to him and he wants to stay.”

Lad’s Father: “Well, that will change. Send him home!”

Me: “He finishes at four; he will leave then.”

He screamed and shouted down the phone until I hung up on him. I talked to [Younger Brother] again, again reassuring him that I wanted him to stay and that legally, as an adult, it was his choice, not his father’s.

He quit eventually — no doubt his dad’s work. But six months later, I got a phone call from a familiar voice. [Younger Brother] had moved in with his mother and wanted to know if there was any work. I hired him straight away.

While I was in college, I came home for summer vacation and got a summer job working at a warehouse. During the lunch break, I was speaking to someone who had worked there for much longer than I had.

Coworker: “This job is what pays the bills, but during the weekend, I work as a bouncer. That job’s as much for fun as to make money, though. I could take you there sometime if you want.”

Me: “Oh, no, thanks. I don’t drink, and I spent enough time around a bar as a kid to last me my whole life, thanks.”

Coworker: “Okay, suit yourself. But if you ever change your mind and want to come down to the [Bar] on a weekend, come look me up.

Me: “Wait, you work at [Bar]? Really?”

Coworker: “Yeah, you know it?”

Me: “That is the only bar in this state I do know, and way too well. My dad used to own it when I was a kid. How’s it doing nowadays?”

Coworker: “What? You’re [Owner]’s son?”

Me: “No, no, my dad sold it to him a few years ago, and he was renting it from us for years before that. Actually, the sale is working out really well for us; he’s paying us 13% interest and barely pays enough each month to cover the interest so it’s just like free money each month.”

Coworker: “There is no way your dad owned the [Bar].”

Me: “Umm, I’m pretty sure he did. My sister even had one of her birthday parties in the restaurant half one year.”

Coworker: “If your dad is rich enough to own a bar, why are you working here?”

Me: “He isn’t as rich as you seem to think. When he owned it the bar barely made a profit and all that went into fixing it up. If it weren’t for those rental properties in the back parking lot, I’m pretty sure it would have lost money; turns out the real money is in being a slum lord! It really didn’t pay him enough to be worth the effort he put in until he started renting it to [Current Owner] and just kept the rental properties.”

Coworker: “No way you would be working here if your dad owns a bar.”

Me: “My parents expect me to pay my own way through college; they think I’ll appreciate it more if I earn it myself. They put a bit into our college fund every Christmas, but my sister and I still have to cover the rest.”

Coworker: “Fine, what’s your dad’s name?”

Me: “It’s [Dad], why?”

He grins at me a little smugly

Coworker: “I’ll just ask [Current Owner] if your dad really used to own the [Bar].”

Me: “Umm, okay, you can do that.”

A week later, my father comes back from running some errands.

Dad: “So, what’s this about you bragging that you use to own the [Bar]?”

That coworker avoided me for a week or two after that, apparently embarrassed once it was confirmed that my dad did own the bar just as I had said.

The funny thing is that I wasn’t trying to brag; it hardly seemed worth bragging about to me. I was so sick of that bar after being forced to hang out in the restaurant half for hours on end as a kid while my father dealt with the latest crises. I was more than happy to be rid of the place when my father started renting it out.