Boss: “[Coworker], why are you late?”

Coworker: “I had trouble with my car.”

Boss: “What was the trouble?”

Coworker: “I didn’t get in it early enough.”

I’m currently working at a department store that has a very generous return policy, and customers can return anything at any time. I’m going through some opening duties when the manager comes storming over to me:

Manager: “Why is corporate grilling me on customers complaining that they can’t buy anything in the store?! We’re losing sales!”

Me: “What do they mean by not buying anything?”

Manager: “They said there was no one to check out their items! That’s your department! What do you have to say for yourself?!”

Me: “Well, that’s one of my departments. You’re not hiring more people, so we’re always short-staffed.”

Manager: “Yes, but you’re not on your own, so if you organized yourself better then—”

Me: “—actually, I am. I open every morning, and the mid-shift person always comes in around 11 AM. I’m by myself for three hours, dealing with returns, checking out, opening fitting rooms, helping with sizes, and many other things.”

Manager: “Well, you should still be able to multitask and—”

Me: “—not to mention that many customers return bunches of stuff like forty items, and I have to stick with them for almost an hour. And you can bet that these are the customers with no proof of purchase, so I have to look for every single transaction on their account, as per store policy.”

Manager: “…Are you done?”

Me: “Are you?”

Manager: “…yes.”

Me: “Then I’m done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I still have fifteen tasks to complete before we open, and you’ve put me behind.”

My manager assigned two people to open after that. When corporate complained about the extra hours, he reminded them about the lost sales and customer complaints, so told them to pick the lesser of two evils. They’ll find another way to figure out how to get one minimum-wage person to do the jobs of three people soon, but for now, it’s a small victory.

This story is from a while back, when I was in college, which was situated in a rather large city, so rent was not very cheap, and landlords thought they could cut corners.

Unlike many of the buildings in the area, the room I rented was within a wooden house. When I toured the house, nothing stood out as unusual; the room was small but cosy, there were rather large common rooms, and the roommates seemed nice (one of whom was the landlord’s daughter). Another plus was that they were okay with me bringing my cat and not putting down an obnoxious deposit.

Cut to two weeks later, I’ve moved into the room, and everything seems fine, except my allergies begin to act up. I figured this was just due to allergy season being in full swing, despite not usually having allergies act up.

One month in, and my allergies are worse, and I start to notice small things around the house that seem to just be MacGyvered; for example, sink piping is duct taped, and the bathtub had a crack, which seemed to be glued(?) together.

At one and a half months, allergies are again worse, and my cat begins acting really weird; they start running into things, acting confused, and having what looks like muscle twitching. I took her to the vet and was told that they believe she’s ingested a large amount of mold. Dr. Google confirmed that this is a possibility given her symptoms and fully explained how I’ve been feeling. I end up asking my friend to watch my cat for a couple of days while I look for the source of mold in the house.

Remembering the weird handy jobs performed in the bathroom, I removed the little piece of wood that covered the area between the bathtub and ground (it was elevated on some plastic feet), only to find it covered in fuzzy black growth! I immediately replaced the wood (which had growth on the back side of it, too) and checked under the sink. It looked like there was old water damage on the bottom of the cabinet, but no mold; that is, until I shone a light into a small hole cut out in the back of the cabinet. Again, the entire area that I could see in that whole was covered in black fuzz. I don’t know if it was psychological, but I ended up getting watery eyes and sneezing a bunch while on the hunt for mold.

I immediately showed my roommate, who then called her dad about the mold. The dad essentially said it’s nothing serious and he’ll get to it when he has time.

One week later, and he’s done nothing about it. Wanting to bring my cat back, I called to ask him for an update, and he said that he consulted with a professional who said it didn’t sound like mold and that I should just keep it covered. I was p***ed, but this being my first rental, I had no idea how to handle it, and as nice as the landlord’s kid was, she really didn’t try to help persuade him.

After some research, I found that in my area, mold is a hazard that landlords are required to take care of it. While this wasn’t stated in my contract, it was a contractual obligation he had. I called the landlord with this information and told him that I’ll be withholding my rent until he sends someone to look at the issue. He flat-out laughed and said I can’t do that, and that he wouldn’t allow me to break my lease early. I was p***ed, and too nervous to bring my cat back into the house.

After reviewing some more local codes, I decided that instead of withholding rent, I would report the issue to the municipality in hopes of their taking action. Within seventy-two hours, they sent an inspector out to not only check the areas I mentioned finding mold in, but also to do a full inspection of the home. They spent at least two hours walking around the interior and exterior, looking under every appliance and into any accessible space.

After the review was done, they told me that the mold damage was far more extensive than I thought. Essentially, the entire house had become infested due to moist conditions and poor ventilation. He said that this would require extensive work and that I would not be able to stay in my room during this time. But that’s not all, the inspector also found over a dozen code and permit violations, each of which would have to be remedied, or else a huge fine would be levied.

The inspector sent a letter detailing his findings to the landlord, and I got an angry call with him screaming about how I shouldn’t have gotten them involved and how he was actually planning on coming out that weekend.

I was too timid to boast about this win, but I did state that, per the inspector’s findings, I will be moving out, as I am legally allowed to break the lease if conditions are unlivable; he said I’m not allowed to, and I told him to take me to court in that case.

I moved all my stuff out that day with some help from friends and crashed with the friend watching my cat during this ordeal. I was able to get a room in a much nicer house rather quickly and kept in contact with one of the other roommates from the previous home.

Apparently, the landlord tried to rent out my room again and didn’t take the inspector’s letter seriously, even the part that stated that they have, I believe, one month to take care of all code/permit violations before they would be fined daily per violation, some amounting to over $1000 per day.

Things got real for him after about five weeks, when he got multiple letters from the municipality detailing all of his fines and how the rates would go up if he continued to ignore them.

Last I heard, he scrambled to respond to correct all of the violations, but not before his fines amounted to $50k and he was forced to have all tenants move out. I noticed the house for sale a few months later.

Our company is downsizing, so some of us have been encouraged to look for other jobs before inevitable layoffs happen. Some coworkers are looking through recruitment ads.

Coworker: “Ugh, they’re all using the same useless corporate speak that means other things!”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Coworker: “‘Fast-paced work environment!’ That means, ‘We are always short-staffed and you will have to do the work of multiple people’.”

Me: “Oh yeah! I’m seeing that all over. Some of the worst ones are ‘Must be flexible’ meaning ‘Your schedule will change hourly and we will text you at 9 PM asking you to open tomorrow’.”

Coworker: “Ha! Or ‘working under pressure’ meaning ‘everything is on fire all the time’.”

We laugh and look over at our other coworker friend sitting with us, and then realize something.

Me: “Oh s***, you’re [Company]’s recruiter, aren’t you?”

Recruiter: “…yeah.”

Coworker: “Are we on to something?”

Recruiter: “…well, yeah. Kinda. I was told I had to put those phrases in the ads, whether it was true or not. I always told the boss that intelligent people could see through that bull s***.”

Me: “What did he say?”

Recruiter: “He said we didn’t want to hire intelligent people.”

Coworker: “Ouch.”

Me: “I’m glad we were hired before you got here!”

Reading this story reminded me of one of our most unsafe coworkers. He has his own ideas about wearing PPEs, and no one – the foremen, the managers, the safety officer, yours truly – has ever managed to make any headway with him.

I have reported him a few times, as have others, to no visible avail. As the saying goes, “It’s easier to shove something up his butt than into his head.” 

One thing with him is that he does not wear fire-retardant clothing, which is mandatory in certain places. Of course, if a fire were to break out for any reason, he’d go out like the Wicker Man, but the prospect does not impress him. Foremen pretend not to notice, and managers too, for the reasons mentioned above.

Enter the new manager, fresh from training as a safety assistant: pretty soon, the two are on the same project. The team arrives on site and meets the manager first thing in the morning…

Manager: “[Worker], what are you wearing?”

Worker: “Working clothes.”

Manager: “That’s not how you’re supposed to dress here. Where are your multinorm clothes?”

Worker: *Long, chatty explanation of how, not his fault, because he’s always careful, but somehow because of reasons, his multinorm clothes were left in a duffel bag at the company… some hundred miles away.*

Manager: “And when did you realize that you didn’t have them?”

Worker: *Long, chatty explanation that boils down to: this morning.*

Manager: “[Foreman], haven’t you noticed one of your team was about to enter the site without the proper gear?”

Foreman: *Stares at his steel-toe boots.*

Manager: “Any of you guys can get him a spare set of clothes, so he does not have to stay at the hotel?”

Team: *Stare at their steel-toe boots.*

Long story short, [Worker] totalled zero hours and received no pay on the project, was suspended without pay for another two days upon returning, and he is now wearing fire-retardant clothes, at last. Someone finally managed to shove it into his head… by passing through his wallet first.

Related:
The PPE-ople’s Champion