This was back in '99 and I was working at a little grocery store. Some creep was hanging around the front of the store near closing time and it was just two of us, both girls. And we were feeling freaked out. So I called my (now)ex-husband to come in and stay while we closed up and give the other girl a ride home. Left a note to the boss explaining why the Ex was around.
Next day we came in and walked out with our last paychecks 5 minutes later. And the creep? He was caught a few months later for rape.
Oh urgh, I'm just glad the creep didn't get you. I had a near-miss with a rapist, too. I was dating a guy very briefly during a very lonely time in my life. One day, he just stopped coming around. I figured "Oh well, just another jerk who vanished without explanation" at the time. About six weeks later, I saw his mugshot in the paper. The article talked about how he'd committed several rapes, but each time had escaped justice on legal technicalities.
I was horrified, yet grateful he'd never attacked me, and glad he was out of my life. The bastard was finally put away in 2004; I'd dated him in late 2002.
Thank you for sharing! The community's kind of been dead the past couple of months. Guess the economy must be recovering after all.
#1 depends on what you call "stupid". For a lot of jobs, it matters more how you fit into the corporate culture than how well you do the job. (Or, especially for those of us at entry-level, how well you *think* you do the job.) A lot of employers figure that if the newb can't even get along with their co-workers, what's the point of keeping them around?
As far as #2 goes, you can't take it personally. When you work temp, remember that the employer doesn't contract with *you*: they contract with your agency, and the agency sends X number of warm bodies, one of which happens to be you. If an agency fails in its duties -- as this one clearly did, trying to fill its contracts with drunk people -- then of course that agency is going to be dismissed. I assume you've left that temp agency behind by now? :)
Yep, that was back in 1999. They weren't the best agency, that's for sure! I feel better about things now, I guess it bugged me to be painted with the same brush as Mr Drunk for so long.
I got along great with my co-workers, actually; it just never occurred to me that while on break or lunch that I might want to read my book or do some writing would make them think poorly of me.I called it dumb, but now I think what I thought was dumb, they saw as a culture mis-match. That was back in 2003. I guess also it was a sign that I should never have tried to work there when they constantly pushed the start date back for six weeks! But I was stubborn and determined to have that job.
I was fired for taking a final exam, in the middle of a blizzard that shut my region down for more than five days. I had gotten a job at a toy store doing gift wrapping and keeping the floor presentable, and the day I went in for my interview, I brought them a printed schedule of my classes and my final exams. After I dragged myself through the snow and taken my exam, I turned my phone back on and I had three passive-aggressive messages about why I wasn't there and how it made me a shitty person. The third said, "Don't bother coming in," so I didn't. No one would have been shopping that day or the days after, for Christ's sake, and I'd apprised them of my schedule before I was even hired. I was still in school and didn't super-need the job, so I bailed; being able to fulfill my scholastic obligations was far more important than sitting in an empty store for three days.
I was working as the Asst. Manager of a hair salon in a mall, and I turned away a few customers and closed half an hour early on a Sunday afternoon because we had some people come in with headlice (and didn't tell anyone until they were already being worked on). The mall blocked off our storefront to clean the couches outside where they'd been sitting, and we needed to clean the salon to ensure that no other clients got infected.
I was fired on my next day of work for telling the people I turned away WHY they were being turned away. Like telling three men that we had a lice infestation & that we were acting quickly to disinfect was worse for the company's reputation than those same dudes coming in for haircuts and GETTING LICE.
I got fired because my boss said I insulted him. I finally told him to get off my back as I had been working six days a week, doing all the work myself as the only other worker trained to do our job was out with emergency brain surgery. I had given up every day off, stayed late, taken work home, and done all of this with a minimum of complaining and no extra pay (he cut my other hours and did them himself, the easy hours when you just had to sit and wait for customers). He made no allowances for the fact that we had all been stuck together six days a week, at least 6 hours a day with no break, and we were hot, tired and overworked, my patience just wore out when instead of trying to help me fix a problem he just got in my face and yelled. And because I dared to throw a stapler down on the table and tell him I quit trying to reason with him because he wasn't listening, he fired me after almost five years.
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Next day we came in and walked out with our last paychecks 5 minutes later. And the creep? He was caught a few months later for rape.
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I was horrified, yet grateful he'd never attacked me, and glad he was out of my life. The bastard was finally put away in 2004; I'd dated him in late 2002.
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#1 depends on what you call "stupid". For a lot of jobs, it matters more how you fit into the corporate culture than how well you do the job. (Or, especially for those of us at entry-level, how well you *think* you do the job.) A lot of employers figure that if the newb can't even get along with their co-workers, what's the point of keeping them around?
As far as #2 goes, you can't take it personally. When you work temp, remember that the employer doesn't contract with *you*: they contract with your agency, and the agency sends X number of warm bodies, one of which happens to be you. If an agency fails in its duties -- as this one clearly did, trying to fill its contracts with drunk people -- then of course that agency is going to be dismissed. I assume you've left that temp agency behind by now? :)
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I got along great with my co-workers, actually; it just never occurred to me that while on break or lunch that I might want to read my book or do some writing would make them think poorly of me.I called it dumb, but now I think what I thought was dumb, they saw as a culture mis-match. That was back in 2003. I guess also it was a sign that I should never have tried to work there when they constantly pushed the start date back for six weeks! But I was stubborn and determined to have that job.
Thanks for your insights, they helped :)
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I was fired on my next day of work for telling the people I turned away WHY they were being turned away. Like telling three men that we had a lice infestation & that we were acting quickly to disinfect was worse for the company's reputation than those same dudes coming in for haircuts and GETTING LICE.
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