I have a big no soliciting sign on my door, when sales people knock anyway I make it a point to waste as much of their time as I can and not buy anything.
I have a big no soliciting sign on my door, when sales people knock anyway I make it a point to waste as much of their time as I can and not buy anything.
With the benefit of hindsight I actually really regret doing this, but at the time I was a shithead that only thought of themself.
One summer a friend, who was the assistant manager, got me a job working at Game Stop. It was the third worst job I’ve ever had and I hated working there. My friend was running a scam in the store where he would take all the games in the drawers that didn’t show up in inventory and exchange them for cash. Just the transactions I ran for him, he netted several hundred dollars.
What my friend did not realize though, was that there was a lag time between a game being traded in and it appearing in inventory so he actually had been turning in games that were in the system. The store manager became suspicious, ran inventory himself, and discovered several thousand dollars worth of missing games. During the course of his investigation he interviewed all of the employees and when it was my turn the only thing I said was that another employee that I didn’t like personally because he was a mouth breathing know-it-all was the only one who brought a backpack to work everyday, he was fired several days later. A month after that I quit after the store was robbed at gunpoint for the third time in the three months I worked there.
You had two jobs worse than this?
Yeah, actually.
The second worst was in-house marketing at an Oil & Gas services company where years long difficulty with the son of the owner, an extreme level or boredom and unfulfillment lead to a full on nervous breakdown at work that cost me my job and a good chunk of the life I had built for myself.
The worst was working on my father’s shrimp boat as a deckhand at 15. The job was from 5am to 9pm and the work was mostly sifting through literal tons of shrimp by hand to sort out all the non-shrimp while fighting with crabs and aggressive seagulls during sweltering Texas summers for no pay. The smell alone… I still won’t eat fish 30-ish years later. The first few days I was beaten for being too slow until he decided the improvised rope whip wasn’t working well enough. He let me finish the most recent drag (the net is dragged and pulled in 4-6 times per day) and then threw me overboard, tossed out a short rope, and kept going with me holding on for dear life until it was time to bring the net in again, which was about 45 minutes. The only money for the entire season was from soft shell crabs I collected on the side to sell at the fish market, but he took that money too once they started giving me a decent rate.
Goodness sake that’s a level of trauma fit for a book/movie/Oscar combo
When I was younger I tried to write that book because there was more than enough material, but set it aside halfway through. I didn’t want to be known for my most painful traumas. I’d rather get a bunch of rejection letters trying to sell weird fiction than a deal selling pain.
I’m a random on internet, but I’m sorry you had to live that. You are indeed quite strong willed.
If it’s the “being known for” the problem, you can always write it under a pseudonym.
Dude, pain and overcoming trauma is a powerful message, you should really consider writing it down. I’d definitely read it!
Thank you for sharing. You’re stronger than I.
Why do you regret this?
The guy I helped frame for my friend’s scam didn’t deserve getting fired. He loved working there and his only crime was being annoying.
Oh! I misinterpreted that the guy you framed and your friend were the same person. Thanks for clarifying.