Afternoon Inquisition

AI: Flip Out, Slide Down, and Drive Off

I apologize up front if I seem irritated today. It’s been one of those days where nothing goes right. I have a million projects I’m trying to finish, I was on the phone with my Internet service provider’s tech support team for about 72 straight hours this morning, and there’s a plumber working next door to . . . I don’t know . . . roto-root Satan from the bowels of the Earth or something. Jeez! What do these people have Jimmy Hoffa stuck in their drain for chrissake? What the hell?

Anyway, thanks to all the distractions, I haven’t had a chance to come up with a good topic for today’s inquisition.

But (ex) JetBlue flight attendant, Steven Slater, has been all over the news lately for his classic storm off, and since I love a good storm off, and since I’m about a heartbeat away from going postal myself, I thought I’d open the floor to you guys to discuss the subject.

What’s your dream meltdown/storm off from a job? What awesome and possibly destructive things do you think you would do if you reached your breaking point? What’s the best you’ve ever seen? Are there things about your current job/occupation/classes/etc. that push you dangerously close to flipping out?

The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 3pm ET.

Sam Ogden

Sam Ogden is a writer, beach bum, and songwriter living in Houston, Texas, but he may be found scratching himself at many points across the globe. Follow him on Twitter @SamOgden

Related Articles

40 Comments

  1. My classic stormoff has been the same since I was in first grade, pissed off at my PE teacher for some reason I can’t remember:

    BOOM!

    Me: What the?

    BOOM!

    Class: What’s that?

    BOOM!

    Teacher: looks up at the ceiling

    **GODZILLA tears open the entire roof of the PE trailer, surveys the teacher with one giant eye before lunging forward and ripping off her head along with the man-haircut that came with it.

    Godzilla then winks at me, roars and smashes the rest of the building apart. Miraculously, all of the children are ok — except for the classmates I hate, they are huttled in the corner crying, but safe.

    That can totally happen, right?

  2. Never seen one. Never thought about doing it myself. I’m thinking this is fairly rare behavior in a white-collar environment.

  3. Well I can’t beat Godzilla, but here’s my screw your job fantasy:

    I quit. That’s it – I just walk out.

    Then I turn off my cellphone so I can’t hear:

    “Mike, we need to get a change deployed to production ASAP but no-one here knows how because we were so short-sighted we never let you train a backup.”

    or

    “Mike, Finance can’t get the numbers they need because the data we’re getting from the out-sourced admin system is f*cked up since we went with the cheapest bid.”

    or

    “Mike, Customer service needs a word changed on the customer letter template but they forgot how even though you told them a hundred times, wrote up a 3-step process and emailed everybody including the CEO.”

    and best of all

    “Mike, someone hacked into our customer database, stole all our customer information and then sold it to the highest bidder. Maybe we should have put better security on that like you suggested. Mike, are those seagulls I can hear?”

    But I’d never do that because I’m too nice. Plus I actually like my boss.

    Can’t say I’ve ever seen a really good job blowup.

  4. @davew: I agree but I think its probably fairly rare in any environment. Work environments are generally “cooperative” group environments. I think humans have a need to conform, and it takes a pretty large impetus to break that.

    That said – I always wanted to do some version of this week’s wipe board hoax. Find something “bad” on my hated boss, reveal it and walk out.

  5. My favorite walkout due to complete fed-up-ness was on one of my first jobs. The straw had just broke this camel’s back, so I put the first song on the Dead Kennedys album Bedtime for Democracy, Take This Job and Shove It!, onto the shop stereo and with that song blasting walked out of that slave pit! Fuck that felt good! Thank you Dead Kennedys for helping me regain some of my dignity!

    No Gods, No Masters
    Cameron

  6. I consistently done it at most of my jobs, since most of my jobs have been crap. I’m no fool, I go ahead and line up the next job first. But if they need me to start Monday, and I’m at the old job on a Thursday, I’m taking a 3-day weekend. :)

    Hell, I even managed to do a fun sort of strut around my last job when I got laid off three years ago. It was a crap factory job with great benefits that I took because my wife had medical issues. She’d been promoted twice and was making more than double what she made when I’d first got hired, so I was on decent ground financially. Me and another guy knew layoffs were coming and had been bragging that we hoped we’d be first to save us the trouble of quitting. We expected it, since both of us had been through surgery that year and knew we’d cost the company money.

    My last day of work I had spent running a giant saw, and making a GIGANTIC mess of greasy metal shavings. Also, reading a book. :) About an hour before the shift, the manager comes out and tells me and the other guy that we need to go to the break room. We knew exactly what was happening, and we start high-fiving and skipping and all manner of nonsense. Get to the break room, get a really respectable severance package considering the work we were doing, and were told that we needed to turn in our hard hats and leave.

    As I’m handing my hard hat to the manager, I tell her how big of a mistake she’s made. She starts to blabber about how she didn’t have a say, whatever. I just started laughing. She stopped talking, and I told her “You should have fired me AFTER I cleaned up that enormous mess I made… you have fun with that!”

    Good times!

  7. Well mine was kind of classic.

    The head of software called all of us in for a meeting, and proceeded to tell us about all of the illegal stuff the head of the company was doing.
    Then she told us she had resigned and left.

    So I encrypted her computer and set it up so it would only show an animation I did of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo standing there while an A-Bomb drops on them. Boo-Boo yells “Yogi, look out!” but it’s too late. The bomb blows Yogi up–leaving a huge crater–and his hat flys off the screen. (and that loop would repeat forever)

    Then I set my machine up so it would encrypt everything on the drive if I hit a hot key, and left.

    Well, the next day I come to work and everyone is standing around outside the doors to the office. It turns out the Boss had all the locks changed overnight and no one could get in.

    Then he called me into his office, when he got there, and asked for all the [budget edutainment PC games] software I wrote.

    I told him he already had everything I wrote.

    Then he had his lawyer stand behind me while I showed him my machine. And I hit the hot key.

    Then I left, and filed for unemployment. The Boss never showed at the hearing, so I was able to collect unemployment for a quite a while even though I had job offers the whole time…

    That was a long time ago, but I still smile when
    I think of the look on the lawyers face when he realized that he would never get ANY data off
    my machine. EVER.

    Z

  8. The worst I’ve ever done was leave for lunch from a job I hated then decided not to go back. However, I had a friend that had quite a story. He as a shift leader at a McDonalds. The manager was a pretty lazy person, and over the years that my friend worked there, he took over more and more of the manager’s responsibilities, even though it wasn’t his job and he wasn’t getting any raises for doing the manager’s work. After getting sick of the job, he turned in his two weeks, but before he left, he placed the order for new inventory. He ordered 5 of everything. Five cases of burger patties might last a day if they are slow. Five cases of mustard packets is about a years worth. There were hundreds of items that he ordered 5 of each. The company called the store to see if the order was correct, and since he had taken over all the manager’s duties he said “Yes.”

    The truck came the week after he left.

  9. @Non Believer: Work environments are generally “cooperative” group environments. I think humans have a need to conform, and it takes a pretty large impetus to break that.

    Good point. Plus in my industry is very thoroughly networked. If you displayed overly volatile behavior for any reason word would get around and it would be difficult to get interviews in the future. Reputation far outweighs resume in the hiring process.

  10. Never dreamed of meltdowns. When I was “offered a severance package”, we all went to speak to our immediate superiors to be told whether we’d been declared superfluous or not. My boss told me I didn’t have to go back to my desk, they could have someone pick up my stuff so I could take the rest of the day to get to grips with the situation. I just grinned and said that wasn’t necessary, and that I had a couple of meetings to go to.
    Walking back to the office area for my department, co-workers asked me how it went, and when I told them I was out they were a bit shocked with how well I was taking it. Then I went to a couple of meetings for projects where I was representing out department and told them that considering I was on my way out they shouldn’t expect me to actually do any work for the few weeks before I left for real.
    I think I came to work to do fuck-all for about week before my boss told me I didn’t have to come in at all the last week before my employment officially ended.

  11. I work for a media group that operates six radio stations. My dream send-off would be to go into our audio library and replace each and every audio file (songs, commercials, entire shows, etc) with a recording of me saying “fuck”. No matter what they did, no matter what buttons they push, no matter what switch they flip… all that would go out over the air on the top six radio stations in town would be my voice saying the word “fuck”. They’d be able to stop it eventually, but honestly, the on-air people don’t exactly have the quickest reaction times or the deepest knowledge of the software. I’m confident that a few thousand fucks would blanket the airwaves of my town before anyone could stop it. The FCC fines would be… truly, truly staggering. NASA-like.

    But I love my job, so I wont do that :)

    I could though.

  12. As muchs as I have fantasized about the flip out/storm off many, many times, I don’t think I actually have it in me. As was already mentioned, work is usually a cooperative environment, and even if I had no remaining loyalty to my employer, and nothing but contempt for my customers, I would not feel good about leaving my coworkers in a crappy situation. I feel like the epic storm off is really a pretty immature tantrum.

    I work at a cafe, so the things that make me fantasize about flipping out are: refusal to make eye contact with me while you are ordering; talking on your cell phone while ordering; getting angry at me because the thing you ordered isn’t what you thought it was, and I am clearly at fault because I didn’t know that you actually wanted something completely different from what you told me you wanted (example: “Excuse me! This has chocolate in it,” “Yes, ma’am, it’s a mocha. Did you not want a mocha?” “Yes. I ordered a mocha. I didn’t want chocolate in it, though!” All of this in angry, accusatory tone.); and holding me accountable for things that clearly are not in my control, like the fact that you got a parking ticket for parking illegally because you didn’t want to pay for parking, or the fact that the public restroom on the corner is filthy (this actually happened. she brought pictures on her cell phone), or that I don’t know what time the Gap opens; and last but not least, literally throwing your money or credit card at me. Bastards.

  13. I get upset by safety violations and have almost walked out of several jobs because of them. Managers should not ever tell employees to act in a way the directly and grossly violates the company’s safety protocols. …especially when children are involved.

  14. @Garbledina:
    I very strongly agree with your first paragraph. When I’m on a job, I am more concerned with my co workers than with my boss. I think big dramatic gestures and melodramatic hissy fits are just making life difficult for the people that you have been sharing the load with, and now you are inconsiderately and suddenly dropping your part of the load on their shoulders. I’ve quit a few jobs, but I made sure I wasn’t fucking over some other poor bastard who is just trying to get through the day.
    My dream would be to win the lottery, and then just let my many employers know that I am unavailable from now on, and then change my cell phone number.
    I have to do quite a bit of flying in the next couple of days, and I’m already so tired of hearing about the disgruntled flight attendant as folk hero meme, I’m hoping it’s no longer news to people when I’m on the plane. Sounds like a big, overly dramatic gesture generated by our tiresome “reality” show culture. Grrrr. get off my lawn.

  15. Not in my office but there are days dealing with our IRB that I have total emergency slide fantasies. Most of them involve hooking everyone there up to one of those cranial bowls and injecting them with actual brain matter replacing the slushy goo they currently have residing up there.

  16. I did! I was in the middle of a meeting. Me, a senior geotech engineer, my boss (worlds biggest asshole), the HR chief and a couple of other people. The boss and I got into it. I had a stack of papers to fax to a client in my hand. I just got quiet, stood up, threw the papers across the room and said, “Fuck it!” and left. I went to my office, got my stuff and got in my car to go. The HR guy came running out trying to stop me. I told him to mail me my stuff. Hahahaha! Fuck them! I had a new job three weeks later and they hired two guys to replace me. Those guys actually had the nerve to call me wanting to know stuff about the job. I said sure for 50 bucks an hour I will be glad to discuss it.

  17. I remember during my MSc thesis fantasizing about throwing my computer terminal out the 4th floor window.

    Then when I shifted university for my PhD, the grad student terminal room had sitting in the corner for no apparant reason a metre long monkey wrench. (That isn’t an exageration. It was huge and very heavy.) I felt this was tempting fate, so I made a label for it:

    “Emergency Manual Hard Reset Device”.

  18. Yeah, I walked out on a programming career. I think Sartre said “Hell is other people”. So I quit the cubicle farm and joined the handyman circus. Occaisionly, high on ladder, I think back to the days of health insurance and the illusion of security. Life is short.

  19. I had a less-than-perfect day at work today, stopped at the grocery store on the way home. On a whim, I picked up a couple lottery tickets on my way out. Yeah, irrational and almost certainly futile but, hey, if it pans out, it’ll make a good story.

  20. Ok … this is a story about a colleague of mine, an Internist. But I LOVE it!!!

    Patients can be lovely. Most are simply appreciative, especially if treated well by staff and physiciam alike. Hopefully, we can deliver that consistantly. But an asshole is an asshole and no amount of kindness can change that.

    So, this asshole comes in to the doctors office complaining of chest pain. He’s a functional alcoholic, a belligerant soul, a non compliant patient , and an all around trouble maker in life.

    My colleague takes a detailed history, does a thorough exam, interprets the electrocardiogram and concludes that this is not caused by something cardiac or gastrointestinal or pulmonary ; more than likely this is musculoskeletal , perhaps tinged with a psychogenic amplification. Normal people are reassured and appreciative by an effort such as this or if they aren’t, a new respectful dialogue can ensue. By the way, he also presented to the office unannounced, refusing to go to the ER, where he probably should have been seen in the first place, prolonging the waiting time of the people with scheduled appointments.

    Upon leaving he was nasty, berating the office staff, refusing to pay because the doctor did not determine he had a heart attack. The office again was being aggressively disrupted.

    My colleague, an EXCELLENT , thorough and usually calm internist came out of his office and went up to the patient and said this:

    ” Do you want to know what you’re paying for? You’re paying for the four years of college, the four years of medical school, the three years of residency, and the many post graduate CME courses that I took all so I could accumulate the expertise to confidently tell YOU, that YOU are NOT having a heart attack. Now get the fuck out and don’t come back!!!”

    And he left.

    Now, maybe you have to be a doc to appreciate this vicarious pleasure. Maybe not. But I LOVE this story. Why? Because he’s right and 99.99% understand that any expert, regardless his/her field did the hard work to become an expert, and it is we who reap the benefits of their work, be they a doctor, a lawyer, a geologist, an IT expert, or a chef!

    P.S. Ok … so he didn’t say fuck, but everything else was accurate. It’s just a much better tale with the word fuck in it.

  21. After putting in for a promotion, interviewing, doing the job for months while it was vacant, and then being the “acting” managing director at our annual convention and show…they had the audacity to bring the person the board selected to hire to the show and then introduce her to the staff. I had not been told the position was going to someone else.

    A coworker tipped me off to the pending intro, so I made excuses that sounded ligit and left the building before the handshakes went round. She was gone when I returned 45 minutes later. My boss was very quiet. As it was, my husband had come the day before and was helping us tear down and pack up not long after the incident. He knew something was up, but waited until we were walking to our car to return to the hotel. I had politely skipped out of the staff dinner saying we wanted to have dinner alone. We went to the hotel, packed and drove home.

    About an hour into the drive, I was still getting calls regarding my “acting” responsibilities for things like shuttle bus service that was still going on, etc. I made a few decisions (basically told all the shuttles to go home) and then called my boss. I was calm, cool, and for once, didn’t cry because I was so fucking pissed off. I told him the shuttles were leaving and that you don’t treat a bad employee the way I was just treated, much less a good employee who had bailed them out for months while they jerked me around. Then I mentioned I was on my way home and that he had better come up with a good reason for me not to pack up my toys and go elsewhere to play.

    A nice raise was helpful in convincing me, and the economy was totally sucky at the time, so I stayed. Oh, and no one else has received raises since because our salaries have been frozen. I was the only one to get one. While I feel bad for my coworkers who deserved raises too, I was at least able to feel smug in the fact that the boss-man had to go grovel to the board and tell them what he had done so the raise could be approved.

  22. True ticked off flight attendant folk-hero story:

    About 10 years ago, I was on a very full flight, siting 2 or 3 rows from the back. The last 4 or 5 rows were completely full and everyone was already sitting down and a flight attendant was standing in the aisle making sure the overheads were closed properly and checking seat belts and so forth.

    An entitled businessman type with an enormous carry-on was working his way back trying to find space for it in one of the overheads. The bag was clearly way bigger then theoretically allowed, but this was before 9/11 and the airlines didn’t enforce the carry-on regulations as rigorously as they do know. As he approached, obviously frustrated, the flight attendant told him all the remaining overheads were full, but she could try to find a place for it or the best thing would be for him to check it into the cargo hold, which she could do for him. He refused, and kept moaning and bitching and trying to force it into obviously full overheads and trying to convince people to put it under the seat in front of them, which of course no one was willing to do and I’m sure it wouldn’t have fit anyway. Finally, he asked the flight attendant if there was anywhere she could stick it. She muttered under her breath “I wish I could tell you where to stick it!” and got a standing (well, really sitting, but we would have stood if it was possible) ovation from everyone in earshot.

  23. @jogleby in 8: that’s absolutely beautiful.

    I’ve quit a couple of jobs in pretty satisfactory ways. A few years ago, I’d been talked into becoming an assistant manager at a pizza joint, mostly in the interests of my car (I made about twice as much money as a driver, but it *killed* my Neon). The store had a new general manager who’d never worked a foodservice job in her life, and had gotten the position by being married to the highest-grossing manager in the region. She made a passable attempt at training me for two entire shifts, then starting calling in the morning to have me clock her in and neglecting to show up. After a few weeks of this, she came wandering in at around 6 on a Friday evening and let me know that she couldn’t close, so I was just going to have to stay there until midnight. She then disappeared into her office to make out with one of the drivers.

    I stepped out back. I smoked a cigarette and composed a delicately worded note detailing how little I respected her and included a short list of the illegal things she was doing. I folded it in the classic grade-school pocket fold, stuck my store key inside, and slid it under the office door. I was home before my phone started ringing. The district manager caught her lying about whether, in fact, there had been a note, and what had eventually happened to it, and last I heard she was working for her daddy again.

    The other time wasn’t quite so dramatic, but was more satisfying. I got fed up with general idiocy and double standards in the application of the dress code specifically, so I showed up to work with my hair dyed forest green. I was told I couldn’t come back without “naturally” colored hair, and asked if a) that applied to everyone and b) if anybody could come up with a more natural color than forest green. I didn’t receive any real response to either question, but I rocked that hair for two weeks!

  24. I’ve always had fantasies where a teacher says something so outrageous that I just walk out of the class room. My favorite is when the science teacher says he/she is going to start teaching creationism in place of evolution and I say, “I won’t sit in a ‘science’ class and be taught fantasy,” and walk out. Fortunately yet unfortunately that has never happened. I long for an opportunity to show how strongly I believe what I believe.

    I also have fantasies about telling people what I really think about them. Sometimes it ends with them being infuriated yet speechless. Other times it ends with a passionate kiss. I tried the latter once, it didn’t work out. *sigh*

    @Stevie: I’ve never particularly minded my gym teachers. With exception to one I had last year. I thought swear words at him as hard as I could. I hoped that I was wrong about ESP and I could really cause physical damage with my thoughts. But I like your Godzilla thing a lot better. I just might use that some time ;).

  25. When I was in college, I worked at a grocery store one town over from the school. I needed to catch the 3:15 bus every day to make it to a particular class on time. That had been negotiated with the manager when I took the job.

    On a day that I had a final exam, the assistant manager, who tried to turn everything into a pissing contest, announced at 3:00 that “one of you” would have to work late, as another checker had been delayed. He pointed to me. I told him that I could not, as I had an exam that day. He responded dismissively and started to walk away. I reiterated, a bit loudly, that I couldn’t stay – to which he responded “Tough”.

    So…I threw my change drawer at him, tore off my smock and stomped out. As it turns out, rage is a great concentrator of the mind: I got a perfect score on the exam.

  26. @Lyra Lynx: I walked out of an undergrad class when the TA announced that Rod Stewart was the greatest living poet. There are some things that cannot be tolerated.

  27. @DominEditrix: For some reason, the title of this AI keeps making me think of Joe Jackson’s “Do the Instant Mash”. (I worked in a grocery store too.)

  28. I’m a litigator in California. Our state court judges rarely read the papers in front of them, instead relying on summaries prepared by their clerks.

    My dream is to get in front of a particularly bad judge, argue my heart out, and wait. If the judge rules against me, I’ll pull out my State Bar ID Card flip it at the judge, and declare, “Fuck this shit. I’m out.”

  29. Never seen one or had the urge myself…
    I am however very, very concerned when Starbucks staff look terribly down-trodden and miserable…I’m sure they’d flip easily, and most the things they serve are already brown.

  30. Well, in a previous job, I called my boss a retarded, fat ape, told him he was pissing himself to keep warm and then, well, stormed off.

  31. Flip Out, Slide Down, and Drive Off. You missed one. Get arrested.

    As fun as it can be to fantasize, even if he gets out of his legal troubles, he will not likely ever get hired by another airline. For that matter, the incident will hamper his ability to get a job for a very long time in any industry. That is a big trade off for 5 minutes of satisfaction and 15 minute of fame. Unless you are independently wealthy, burning bridges is vastly stupid. Even on a smaller scale, you never know when it will come back to bite you.

  32. Ugh. My dream flip-out at the library would definitely be at customers. Just yesterday I mused that I wished for telekinetic powers so I could pull a fire alarm.

    In my case, it is repetition of ignorance that tends to get on my nerves. We’ve done up a number of signs telling you how to do any number of things. Log into the computers. Put money on your card for printing. Printing. And yet we keep getting asked the same inane questions over and over again. Or statements like “The computer doesn’t work” when they mean “I can’t get on the internet”, “my mouse is acting funny” or “I went to a computer I was not assigned to, and it won’t let me in.” “The computer doesn’t work” is a horribly unhelpful piece of information, especially when you don’t even bother to tell me which computer isn’t working (there’s a pink sign with black type above all but one of the computers, giving their number. It is hard to miss.)

    It’s gotten to the point where I inform kids about our “free hits” policy. With most children’s and young adults books, I can tell you EXACTLY where they will be… down to half a row, if not a specific bookshelf. So, when they come up and tell me “I can’t find it”, I get up to look for it… and inform them that, if I find it in less than a minute, and it’s where I said it would be, I get free hits. So they need to be thinking about whether they want it in the head or the gut.

    I also tend to start the morning with a rant, telling children that I am not putting up with their misbehaviors, and will send them home immediately.

    I want school to start. I want it desperately, so these children will be somewhere other than our library.

  33. I had a pizza delivery job, sadly, just out of college(actually, that’s a lie – it was fun and I made just as good money as I do now). One day I got an order and made the delivery. When I got there only the kids were home. When I gave them “the bill,” they looked confused and called their dad. After talking to him for a bit, they handed the phone to me.

    It turns out that this order happened to have been placed by the owner of the store, who proceed to scream and cuss at me. Thing is, I had never met the guy and the ticket just said “Bob.” How was I supposed to know? Anyway, I sternly cut him off, informed him that, even though I was his employee, I still demanded that he treat me with respect. When he kept cursing, I snapped my phone shut, gave the kids the pizza, drove back and clocked out for good.

    The next one was even more fun. I was a supervisor at a care facility for mentally handicapped individuals – individuals who range from nearly catatonic to those who would normally just be called stupid, but had severe anger problems. That year they were understaffed, and had me working 64 hour weeks taking care of those 63 individuals that were continually trying to kill themselves or others. Anyway, after two months of this I was a little tired.

    Anyway, the individuals are required to attend classes to help them learn life skills, and when they don’t want to we had a protocol that eventually ends up with us physically escorting them to class and then restraining them if they become violent. Anyway, one of the highest-functioning fellows didn’t want to go, so I started the protocol. When I informed him that he would be physically escorted if he didn’t comply, he muttered that “He’d like to see [me] try, faggot.”

    I promptly informed him that “This faggot could kick [his] ass.”

    Anyway, turns out you’re not supposed to threaten mentally handicapped people – even when they know full well what they’re doing. I got the other workers there to escort him to class, called my supervisor, filled out my incident report(about myself), and went home to take the rest of the summer off.

  34. I used to work at a national video chain that really treated it’s employees horibly. Most notably we were always understaffed. The company had issued a policy that 5 positions had to maned at all times. A greeter at the door, 2 people walking the floor helping “guests” find the movies they liked, and two people on registers. so it shouldn’t be any surprise that they assigned hours that only supported 3 employees.

    One day a gentleman from the corporate office came in for a surprise inspection, and surprise, surprise, the 5 positions were not maned: We were all 3 on resgisters, and really slammed.

    He threw a fit and started trying to man all five positions with the three of us: “You, close your register and greet people at the door, you close your register and go help people on the floor.”

    “Why isn’t anybody checking people out? You, open your register.”

    “Why isn’t anybody greeting at the door? You, close your register and greet people at the door.”

    I couldn’t quit, I was laughing too hard. It took him more than 20 minutes to figure out he couldn’t man 5 spots with 3 people, and of course the customers were all pissed off.

  35. Same national video chain: At the end of my shift one day I was, as usual, running my ass off at the front desk, trying to help 4 people at the same time. This was made a little more difficult by the paper ribbon that had been stretched back and forth across the counter for some seasonal decoration. The two managers were talking nearby and completely ignoring my requests for help. (They were actually very hard working most of the time, and I still love them both dearly).

    So when I finally got a chance to leave, I grabbed one end of the ribbon, put a lamination sleave on it, stuck it in the lamination machine, and walked away.

    I understand it made quite a mess.

  36. I am the destructive personality type that has actually done some collasally bad decision-making (thanks mum for teaching me how to NOT manage my temper!!). I had a melt-down at the stupid manager at one of my student retail jobs. She was one of those micro-managers, and couldn’t stand the fact that this was her career, whereas I was only there part-time and going to university. Anyway, I was trying to set something up, and she just wouldn’t STOP nagging. I ended up slamming whatever it was down, tellling her to go fuck herself, and storming out of there. Luckily, the store manager was also having his own melt-down around that time, and didn’t really like the my direct manager, so I didn’t lose my job, but things were never the same after that…

    I also lost it with a teacher twice at school, and ended up in the principles office. The first instance was me being a brat, the second was the teacher bad-mouthing a friend of mine, and when I confronted him about it, he was an utter jerkwad.

    It’s something I need to work on. I don’t always need to speak what is on my mind. Luckily, so far, it hasn’t been detrimental, but I’m cognizant that it’s only a matter of time before I do something really stupid.

  37. Walk in to my job in a trenchcoat. Under it, is caches of tasers. Walk through the building pulling out a taser, shooting someone with it, tossing it aside, and pulling out another one-hardcore action movie style

    This way, I can get all the fun and excitement of doing something REALLY distructive, but no one gets seriously injured. /crazy

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button