Reply #11: I have two; here's #1 [View All]

[fudge stripe cookays]

One: When I worked for a record store who shall remain nameless (ok...Sound Warehouse) in the 80s, I had gotten promoted from floor clerk to warehouse clerk. (That meant that instead of working til midnight whenever they wanted me to, to days with a normal schedule to open the shipments that came in)

Only problem was, they had me opening the stuff on the floor while working a register. When I had to leave at night, they'd make me keep the stuff there, but no matter how many signs I put on it, saying "Do NOT pull stuff out of here yet!" people would. They blamed it on me.

One day I came in, went to the stock room to clock in, saw the new schedule (I'm on nights the next week) and there's a new guy checking in merchandise. In a very "WTF??!" state, I asked SUSAN (the manager in question) what was going on.

"Oh that's Matt. He came down from Dallas w/a great recommendation. We're going to use him back here for awhile. GOD I was pissed. They even let him stay in the back; of COURSE he was going to get more done!

So I watched him closely. After a month or 2 of this, I began noticing that we'd have major pricing problems (example: 3 copies of Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" on cassette, and EVERY ONE had a different price on it!)

This guy was not even looking at the packing slips! He was just arbitrarily pricing stuff what he wanted to, and each shipment that came in he'd do differently!! Oh, I fucking hated that weasel. And Susan loved him.

I'd point out his mistakes, and she'd insist it was a simple mistake, and that I was overreacting.

FINALLY one day I came in, and 1 of the other managers came up and very sweetly asked if I'd like the warehouse back. I wondered what was up. "Where's Matt?" I asked. Turned out that Matt had been accused of the ole 5 finger discount back in the stockroom; he'd taken a polygraph but they hadn't really been able to prove anything.

It took me OVER a YEAR to get that place back on an even keel from so many messed up shipments being mispriced (some shipments were only received once a year, so we did not know what the current prices were supposed to be, if there'd been a catalog change). I busted my ass.

At the end of that time, I came up for a raise, and one of the nice managers recommended me for a 50 cent (I know...big bucks!) as opposed to the usual 25 cent raise.

Turned out, the district manager would not approve me since they had recently approved 3 of our other employees for 50 cents. I told Susan to call them and demand that I get my 50 cents raise, since I had worked so hard for it. She refused.

Several weeks later, she told me not to bother clocking in, that I was late, and I was fired (She kept altering the time they wanted me in by half an hour each day, and would change the schedule after I'd written it down at the beginning of the week, trying to trip me up).

"Fine!" I said.

I took a civil service test and got a nice cushy job with the government after that. The day I was hired, I went in to pick up my last check. When I had her alone in the back room, I ripped her a new one, with the B word used happily. I didn't care about the reference by then anyway, and if she ever tried to fuck up my reference, I had copies of all my evaluations saying what a great job I did, so no one would believe her.

I still have a natural aversion to all women named Susan.