work stories

[Emu]

work stories time!!!

So I work at this hotel right. I notice on my arrivals sheet that on last night's reservations that there are six rooms reserved under one name, which means that a very large party is coming in. I brace myself early in the shift and pre-prep all the paperwork for when they came in. Naturally, as is the case when people register online, the bitch neglected to include her address (which we need to check her in) and instead put "N/A," which would've saved me and her a LOT of time. PORTENT! >:

So, whatever. I get all the paperwork out of the way and get everything bundled nice and neat and am prepared, like a good worker, for the onslaught sure to come.

I was expecting a group of college students coming into town for whatever football game we're having this weekend. But I'll get to that.

About 5 p.m., I notice two cars pulling in together. This isn't unusual. Another car follows. This is unusual. Then another.

And they begin to file out. An entire junior league baseball team, and their families. There are seriously at least 20 children. I could already tell it was going to be a hell of a night.

I'll skip the boring paperwork stuff. Needless to say it took upwards of half an hour to get them all checked in, the time pockmarked by Angry Dads coming into the office and asking what the hold-up is. YOU'RE CHECKING IN 55 PEOPLE AT ONCE SO IT'S GOING TO TAKE A WHILE FUCK YOU >: Thankfully my supervisor (who lives nearby) showed up and helped out, and I think we actually checked them in in near-record time considering that only one family paid cash.

Fast forward about two hours. All of the families have headed out to get some food, so aside from a few check-ins, it's been pretty quiet. I have my laptop with me and I entertain myself by watching some MST3K when all of a sudden I hear a strange banging sort of noise from the back of the building. I thought that they were shooting off fireworks across the river again because of the game, so I ignored it. Then I heard it again. I realized that it wasn't fireworks, but the sound of about 3-4 children running around outside.

Normally, I wouldn't give a shit. Kids can run around and be dipshits if they want. However, tonight I wasn't about to put up with it.

Firstly, they were running around on the rather narrow balcony in large groups. If one of them falls, then we're probably going to be held responsible.

Secondly, it's dark by this time. The area the hotel's in is a unique place, located smack in the middle between million-dollar homes just a few blocks away, and Cracktown just a few blocks the other direction. Rough types occasionally drift down from Cracktown and wander our property at night.

Third, these kids are making a FUCKTON of noise, and by the time it got bad enough that I felt I had to stop them, there was a group of 7-8 kids running around. The balcony makes a lot of noise from people just walking on it, so you can imagine what the group sounded like running. I had guests, regulars, sleeping downstairs, and one of them I had just put in a 2:45 AM wake-up call for. So, this is pissing me off.

Another family got back from dinner, and their kids immediately took off to the stairs. I grab my keys and head outside, and shout to them (they're upstairs already) that they need to stop the running. The father, apparently drunk, walks over to me and informs me that they "just got here, we've been out getting food" and asking me why I'm yelling at his kids. I tell him I can't have them running, that it's a safety hazard, and I have guests trying to sleep. Again, he explains that he "just got here" and waves his 18 oz beer can around. Again, I tell him I can't have it. Thankfully, the father of another family (who I liked the most out of all of them, and had given me no trouble) showed up and changed the subject when he saw his fellow dad getting irate. I headed back in the office.

About half an hour later, I grab my keys and head out to do my rounds of the property. I usually do them once every few hours, but tonight I wanted to catch the little shit kids so I was doing them every 45 minutes or so. I was walking around the balcony when I heard a group of them coming. Three of them rounded the corner and stopped when they saw me and signaled to the others around the corner (I have no idea how many, but at least two, because I heard their voices) to go the other way. So they all run the other way. I'm not about to go running after them, lest one of the drunken fathers assault me, so I begin walking briskly. One of the guests staying downstairs yelled at me that there were a bunch of kids running around. Fuck.

They finally stopped running when the group of drunken dads standing outside on the balcony saw me coming after the kids and yelled at them to stop. I went back to the office.

20 minutes later, one of the dads comes down and introduces himself. I shake his hand, yaddayadda. He explains that the volume on his TV isn't working. I offer to transfer him to another room. He asks if I can just bring the TV from the other room into his room. I say no, because, firstly, I rather think that would be against policy, secondly, the TVs are bolted to the wall, and thirdly, they're rather large, and I can't carry them on my own. And I'd rather the drunken dads not handle them either. Again, I offer to transfer him to another room. He asks if he can see the other room, and I say yes and offer to take him up there. He insists on taking me to his room and showing me that his TV isn't working. So I go look, and naturally, I don't know why it's not working, so he asks if just his kids can move to the other room while he and his wife stay in this one. I say no, because that would be two rooms for the price of one. We go over this at least three times. He asks if I can give him a discount on the second room. I can give him 10%, because that's all I'm authorized to give. Alternatively, I can move him for free. The mother says that her boys saw a room downstairs with two king-size beds, a TV, a fridge and a microwave, and she wants to know why she didn't get that room. There is no such room. We have rooms with king-size beds, but only one bed, not two. We have rooms with fridges and microwaves, too, but I didn't have any more available (at least, that's what I told them. I wasn't about to move these assholes into a nice room, since they were paying the discounted price to begin with, and for all the trouble they'd given me I should be charging them MORE.) Another question: What were those little bastards doing looking into rooms that aren't theirs?

I explained that there is no such room, so she sighs, says fine, and goes to see the other room. I took her down, she says it's alright, and she sends her boys to get their things and begin moving. She proceeds to explain to me that her room was supposed to be free anyway, because she reserved the other 5 rooms. This very well may have been true, and in fact, probably was. Unfortunately, there's nothing I could do about it, since THIS IS THE KIND OF THING YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO MENTION AT CHECK-IN, BEFORE I CHARGE THE ROOM TO YOUR FUCKING CREDIT CARD FUCK

Her boys begin unhooking their Playstation from the broken TV. ...Wait, Playstation? Lo and be-fucking-hold, as soon as they disconnect it, the volume returns to normal and begins blaring since they had it on maximum.
FUCK

So they stay in their room. Whatever. I prepare to go back to the office when the group of drunken dads begins to harangue me, asking me why only one of their five rooms has a microwave and fridge. I explain that I do not assign their rooms. The A shift assigns the rooms for reservations long before I arrive. The drunken dad with the broken TV asked me if I took any etiquette or charm classes. I resisted the urge to flip him off. He explains to me that the customer is always right (which doesn't apply at hotels, by the way) and that it would "behoove" him if I could get him into a nicer room, explaining that good things would come to me if I did this favor for him. Fuck no. These assholes have kept me out of the office for at least 30 minutes, and I explain that I have to get back, and he literally stops me four or five more times as I'm trying to walk away, slurring as he attempts to persuade me that it would be the right thing to do to give him a microwave/fridge room. Then he offers me a beer. I just leave.

[Cedar]

I don't have a job because im lazy and spoiled

[Fathom Zero]

My boss bought us all pizza last week! :)

[ItalianStereotype]

I give steaks to mexicans all day. they always want a piece of shit sirloin "guell done" with at least four bottles of A-1 or "Al" sauce, as they call it.

god forbid you should try a filet, you uncultured piece of shit.

[Guitar Woman]

At Free Geek a guy brought his Dreamcast and set it up on the wall projector in the massive breakroom. Instead of working that day, we had a Soul Calibur tournament.

I got third.

[RaNkeri]

I worked as a merchant last summer, selling strawberies, mushrooms peas and all sort of stuff on a quite good location at the "city square". Work was ok, but my fellow vendors, not to mention one of my bosses, were quite a problem.

There was 4 other people who were also hired to do the vending. 3 out of the 4 were somewhat quiet. No matter how I tried to chat with 'em they wouldn't really want to talk. Now, I don't know 'bout you people, but I'm awfully uncomfortable when I have to spend an 8-hour day in a small stalt with a person not saying a word. But we can count that as my problem, my friends usually say that I talk too much. Anyway, the silence wasn't the only thing that bothered me with them. The fact was that I couldn't leave 'em alone for a second.

There was this one guy, two years younger, who was every day as if stoned. He would start the day by saying something like "I'll take the peas" and after that, he would just stand next to the peas, stare into emptiness and wait for a customer like a zombie. On the first day I worked with him (I was supposed to "train him", since I had been around for 2 weeks already), I went to go get myself a cup of coffee from the pub near the stalt. When I came back I saw a group of people standing in line for strawberries. I hurried myself back and served the customers, while the kid was still standing next to the peas, utterly ignoring the crowd on his left demanding for strawberries.

Then there was this teen girl, god knows how old, who seemed to have huge problems with simple math. I had to keep an eye on a girl who was definitely over 15, and avoid her to give too much change, nor prevent her to bill for too much.

The last one of the three was your typical queen bee, who spent most of her time on a cellphone, talking to her boyfriend or chatting with her friends who came to see her "work her ass off" on location.

But luckily there was this one girl who was almost my age (she was 1 year younger I guess).She was also talkative person, and had similiar interests as I, so we ended up talking when ever there wasn't any customers. Luckily for me, I ended up to work with her almost every day, which made the work hours go by quickly. Only annoyance was that the local drunks usually tried to hit on her, coming up with smooth pick-up lines and so on, which sometimes resulted intoher asking me to drive them away.

Then there was the boss. Well, actually there were 2, and one of them was really cool and nice, but the other one was an old, grumpy chainsmoker who forbid us to sit while in work because "It wouldn't look tempting for the customers". Ironically whenever he was at work too, he would have a chair with him. Did I mention that he's a chainsmoker? I swear to god, he must've spent atleast 1½ pack's in a day. Sometimes he would also mysteriously disappear for hours without any good reason. He would also constantly try to pair me up with the girls, coming up with ideas such as "You should massage her shoulders" and when I'd reply with "I don't think so" he would proceed into doing it himself. He was also somewhat bitter towards the merchants of the rival stalt, with who I used to chat daily.

That's RaNkeri's summerjob 2007 in a nutshell for you :x

[Girl Drink Drunk]

I played soccer in the warehouse with one of my co-workers, using a ball of plastic wrap (the kind used for securing pallets of grocery items) once, during a shift. Also, I was moving his metal table, which resulted in this metalic screeching sound, so my boss turned the phone so it would be heard over the loudspeaker.

[Evil Robot]

I used to be a Mercruiser mechanic at a marina on the Hudson rivier. I had coke-head boss named Joe DeMarchis who was a complete monster, even by my standards. To put a long story short, the last straw was when after my brother drowned off the back of my sisters boat. My boss wanted me to work on the day of my brother's funeral. I told him this was not possible and after an argument he threatend to kill me, rather graphicaly. He then stole my motorcycle that night and demanded $200 in lost revenue for the day I took off to attend my brothers funeral. I called the police to get my only vehicle back and they pretty much told me that this was a matter for the civil court even though he admitted to doing everything I just described. I should mention that this is the town of Ossining New York and that none of the responding officers were wearing thier name tags or badges when they showed up, they told me to take it to "town court", yeah right, this is extortion and vehicle theft since I had no contract with him that says he can steal my shit out of my driveway. This is fucked up to think that a police department can do things like this in New York of all places.


I should also tell you that nobody pulls this kind of shit on me. I waited until the bosses son was gone and then I went in with two of my freinds and my surviving brother to confront a 72 year old man. Not being as stupid as his son he "happily" agreed to unlock the warehouse door and allowed me to get my motorcycle.

Then..... four months later... They fucked up my W-2 so it said they didn't pay anything into social security. When I confronted them about this his other son threatend to kill me. He withdrew a pair of bolt cutters from the rack and started walking towards me. I shouted to him "what the fuck are you going to tell your kids after you go to jail for assault? huh? are you going to pay the mortgage from county? what the fuck is wrong with you fucking iditiots, why do you do this to yourselves?.
As I was driving away from the guinie lunatic I could hear him screaming "I'll knock your block off". My "block"? apparently he is from the 1930's.

They are a bunch of italian retards from the fucking bronx who worship the sopranos and body odor, what could I possibly expect.

If any of you try to top this I will tell the story of when I was caught betweena 50' sailboat and the dock during a severe storm and a customer had to run over and help me even though my fucking dego wop boss was right there and it was his fucking fault I wound up in the river.



SO ALL OF YOU SHUT UP YOUR JOB IS NOT AS BAD AS I HAVENT EVEN TOLD YOU THE HALF OF IT. SHUT THE FUCK UP...

[Cfr5]

A few years ago, I was working as a dishwasher in a resteraunt. Sweeping under the shelves in the back room one day (Apparently, I was the only one who bothered cleaning there. Ever.), a shriveled up potato rolled out. It looked exactly like a scrotum, so I called it a scrotato.

A completely different time, sweeping behind a completely different shelf, there was another potato. This one wouldn't move though, so I slid the shelf out a little to reach it easier with the broom. It fucking melted when the bristles brushed it. And it was definitely a potato, atleast before I bothered it.

Also, in the scrotato room, I once found raw chicken in a floor drain. There were good sized maggots all over it that squirmed in bleach.

That place was a total shithole.

But one of the managers was wicked cool. He'd take lemons out the back door and throw them across the parking lot at another resteraunt. You can still see stains on the upper walls. We'd also have mushroom and bun fights, pelting each other and defending ourselves with cardboard or pans. It was fun if he was working there.

[Dr. Boogie]

I worked at a concessions for a few summers. I did the cash register because no one else could stand to deal with the customers (high temperatures + angry parents = trouble). Anyway, I went back to see how the guys working the grill were doing, and one of them accidentally dropped a bun on the floor. We knew we'd have to throw it away, but the guy on the grill did one better: he picked it up, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it up onto the top of the oven hood.

We all chuckled a little because we were a little heatstruck, but I pointed out that we shouldn't make a habit of doing that, so I grabbed the stepladder and went up to grab the bun. When I got up high enough to see where the bun was, I saw that it had landed next to an alarmingly large pile of food sitting in a corner next to the vent.

I was stunned, and so were they. Apparently, they had no idea there was so much food tossed up there. I climbed back down the ladder and told them that we should share this information with no one because then we would wind up having to clean it up ourselves. I don't know if anyone eventually cleaned it up or not.

Also, one time I was cleaning the grill and accidentally shot a gout of grill cleaning into the frier. Nobody got sick, though, so that was a freebie. I've got more stories, like the time I almost got in trouble for calling some woman's kid a retard, but they're just little stories that don't really stack up to some of the stuff in this thread.

[Seven Force]

Oh man, I wanna hear the retard story :lol

[Zbu Manowar]

I once worked at a 'respectable' metropolitan library as the computer guy. By 'computer guy,' I was the guy who sat in this lab and helped out people if they had issues or wanted to print something out. Sadly the people who ran this library were retarded to the point of madness, so I could easily pull 24 hours a week simply sitting on my ass and getting paid fairly good money.

But the most interesting thing about this job was that, despite the fancy branches the library would have and the aura of respectability that the whole joint tried to have, most of the people who went there were dirt poor and possibly mentally deranged. Most of them were definitely brain damaged and would expect me to teach them how to use 'the computer.' If you have ever been asked this by anybody, you can expect the situation to turn to shit since most people think 'the computer' is a singular item that you can type in and, much like Star Trek, get a solid answer back. On top of this, most people who went there were poor and horny which meant that occasionally you would have a conversation with an uptight soccer mom whose little shitling would go to grab their homework and come back with somebody's bad imaged black and white--we couldn't afford color--print of Craigslist porn. And it was always gay men. Always.

On top of that, I usually had to stop really stupid people from donating their weekly paycheck to the evangelist of the week. Since I really couldn't stop them, I had to help these people--who always smelled of piss and such--from wasting their money. I had a heart to some extent, and these people were just the worst. They probably should have spent their money on themselves.

But the best story I ever had from that joint was this white trash family who, like everybody else in the world, thought that you could go into the library and gain knowledge through osmosis. If you were in a lie-berry, you were doing some learnin' even if you were just sitting your fat ass in front of a computer for hours on end. Literally, hours on fucking end. This family was made up of a fatass mom who looked thirty-five, a daughter who dressed exactly like a Maury tramp who was aged fourteen, and the younger son who was easily ten. Since I was in the lab most of the time I would see the mom the most and the kids would vanish. One day I found out where they vanished to.

In the branch I ran, there was a bathroom in which the door could lock. This was the handicapped stall so people who were disabled could use it with some privacy that the other bathrooms did not afford. What was revealed is that this white trash family's daughter was fucking a group of ghetto kids from public housing a few blocks away and she was using that bathroom for her business. She was finally caught when the current branch director caught them heading into the bathroom one after another and walked into possibly the grossest orgy ever.

The best part was that one of the ghetto kids just happened to have his grandmother reading in the library as he was paying the white trash girl $5 to get it on. That's right. He was getting laid in a bathroom of a library while his grandmother was reading a book and maintaining the other 'cousins's' she was raising from Detroit. And this loser had the honor of being escorted from the library while his grandmother turned this into the best scene ever. The lines 'waz u in that girls cootchie, wuz u, wuz u??' echoing throughout the building is when I lost my shit and I had to take a break.

But the coup de grace came not two hours later at close when I saw the white trash family head out of the library. The girl was flushed but defiant in her embarrassment (which was foreshadowing for her later life, I would imagine) and her brother was giving her hell. They were playing the dozens for nobody's amusement but their own and when they were walking out, this exchange scarred me for life:

SISTER: You're a retarded butthead.

BROTHER: Whatever, crotchcheese.

SISTER: At least I don't have a half-circumsized dick!

BROTHER: At least I don't have crabs!

SISTER: I DON'T HAVE CRABS ANYMORE!!

The mother looked at me, shugged, said 'Kids!' and walked out the door as proud as ignorance can make one. And I stared over at the desk she was sitting at, left a note for janitorial, and left without saying another fucking word.

[Fathom Zero]

I didn't do anything at work Sunday besides watch the Eagles/Cowboys and Green Bay/St. Louis games and play Sudoku. For five hours. I love my job.

[Zomboid]

zbu, that was fucking great.

[Creepy-critters]

Like I've said before, I work at a Value Village, "The Thrift Department Store". If you've been in one, you've been in all of them. They're all pretty much laid out the same.

On the side of the building is a little shed thing, with orange cones. That's the drive up donation, and that's where I work. We take in bags and boxes of peoples crap, stack them on carts, and put them in back for our production people to price and stuff. One cart for clothes, one cart for everything else (excluding furniture and books). These carts, when full, easily weight 900 - 1200 pounds each.

While I do do Drive Through, I also help in the back, and may be getting transferred there soon. Back there I price furniture, and throw out crap furniture. My stories are going to rotate between the two.

1:

Stacking is the name of the game. If you don't stack a cart with donations properly, it'll

(1) Look like shit

and

(2) Potentially collapse and hurt someone (these things are at least 6, 7 feet tall)

When you have a full cart of boxes filled with dishes and pots and pans, you don't want it falling on you. My cart was almost full one day when someone donated a box of glasses. Cheap glasses mind you, but still glasses. So, I put them up on the cart, but a box behind the one I put up pops out a bit, and drops it on my head. Glass fragments shower over me, and send me to the ground with a few cuts on my face and hands. The person who donated it starts bitching at me, saying "I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU HANDLE MY THINGS, HOW WOULD YOUR MANAGER FEEL ABOUT THAT?" Politely, I said I made a mistake and I REALLY FUCKING HURT MYSELF. They went in to talk to my manager, and apparently got told off by them, saying that employee safety was priority number 1. They gave me a snarky kind of look when they got back in their shitbucket of bolts, and prattled away

2:

When we get furniture donated, we take it into the back room and price it. If it's a piece of shit, we throw it out into this MASSIVE dumpster we have out back called the Roll Off. Anyways, there was this table with metal legs that I deemed to be craptacular, and unsuitable for sale. The general rule is, when throwing something out, breaking it into the smallest pieces possible so you can fit more in the dumpster. So, I turn up the table so it's legs are in the air (hehe) and pick up the medium handle length sledhammer (we have like, 8). My friend is sitting on a ratty couch watching all this. I give one leg a good whack with the sledge sideways, and it pops right out. Cool. Same happens with the other two. With the last one however, I whacked it, and it stayed stuck. Stubborn bitch. I give it another good whack, and a nut or something flies off of it, shoots right by my friends head, and cements itself in the wall. We were both a little bit antsy for a few seconds, but then we burst into total immature kiddy mode and started shouting about how awesome that was.

3:

You'd be suprised how many people dig through the dumpsters at value village. But, considering the crap we throw out, I can't blame em. I've thrown out a few really good tv's before because there was just no room for them on the floor. Anyways, it was a few weeks ago when I threw a broken desk into the roll off when I heard something shift. I thought it was just from me throwing something in, but then it happened again. Looking in, there was an old homeless guy digging through broken shit. "Why you guys gon break evything, eh?" he shouts to me. I point out it's illegal for him to be doing that, and he goes off on a tirade, saying stuff like "Does it make you feel good to tell a homeless man what to do?". I say no, but it's the law. We even have a big sign posted next to the dumpsters to that effect. I say that if he leaves now, I won't make a big deal out of it (I wouldn't anyways). He begrudgingly leaves, and I throw some more crap out. Not even a week later, it starts becoming a nightly occurance to have people doing this. So now we have to PADLOCK all our dumpsters at the end of the night

3:

Last but not least, some of the fun stuff I've done

- Put a golfclub through the screen of a tv
- Put a sledgehammer that was on the edge of the rolloff through the screen of a tv, dragging me up a few feet with it when it went in
- Busted apart a whole couch with a sledgehammer within 15 minutes (harder than it sounds)
-Put a 100 dollar price tag on at BEST a 50 dollar tv, and watched it sell the very next day
-Took christmas stock down from the top shelf that was covered with dust, threw it down, and watched the literal snowstorm of dust that resulted (And fell on my coworker)
-Had a cigarette on shift right next to my supervisor (He doesn't really care)

bout it

[Zbu Manowar]

zbu, that was fucking great.

Thanks. I'll drop one right now that'll make that look sane.

Years ago I worked at a Toys R Us that underwent revamping into a brand new store. One of our regulars, a fairly corpulent guy whom I'll refer to as Doofus, didn't care for our new store. One reason was that he was in the range of 600-700 pounds and was about five foot two. He was a swell guy but with a horrible weight problem. He didn't walk as much as he waddled and despite the new air conditioning he would sweat like a slug. One of the jokes we had was that if he ever collapsed we wouldn't have to lift him as he would probably slide down any incline with the amount of sweat he put out.

Still, a nice guy.

One day when I was working as a cashier I saw him waddle in faster than usual. I thought it was because we got a new shipment of Spawns in (to be fair, it was probably more Star Wars figures as this was circa 1999) but I saw him disappear into the new bathroom. Since I was working a four hour shift, I didn't think any more about it until closing, when I was checking out the last few people. I then saw Doofus do a double-time waddle out the doors, faster than I ever saw him move.

Not two seconds after that? The floor manager, this hulking mound of sarcasm I didn't care for, ran after him at full speed. Doofus started hauling more ass and got into his car and nearly blew the shocks as he literally roared out of the parking lot, the floor manager still on his tail until he fell down in the parking lot, out of breath.

I'd been in retail for a few years and I knew that usually meant that the person being chased had stolen something. Yet I knew Doofus and he wasn't that type. He was so straight-laced that when he knew stuff was in like many of the other collectors, he wouldn't even bribe me or attempt to. He would simply wait. Anyway, I went back to helping out the customers and finally the store closed. And that's when I saw the floor manager over by the customer service desk, talking in terms with hand gestures that I knew meant 'big.'

Curious as all hell, I went over to see what was going on. The floor manager was pissed as hell and muttering 'it's not my concern, I'll fucking quit before I do that shit' and walked off in a huff. So I started asking what happened. The floor guys--really cool guys as well--basically told me the story:

Doofus ran into the bathroom at around 5pm. At 7pm one of the managers was alerted by a customer that someone in the handicapped stall in the men's room was 'having trouble.' Concerned, the manager asked if anything was wrong and Doofus responded with a 'no.' But apparently the groaning and grunting betrayed that fact. The manager took him at his word and let Doofus to his peace.

At 8:30pm, the manager was notified of another incident in the men's room of an overflowing toilet. Again the manager went in to see Doofus still on the can, unresponsive. The manager started making some noise about calling an ambulance and Doofus managed to utter something about 'being out in five minutes, I'm sure' and asking to be left alone. The manager again went out of the bathroom and started putting out Wet Floor signs and a mop. He also gave a call to 911 about this issue.

Three minutes later, Doofus made his run for freedom. He apparently caught the eye of the floor manager, who then saw the water leaking out of the bathroom, went inside, saw the damage, and took off after Doofus and narrowly missed him getting out of the parking lot. Apparently one of the side effects of Doofus's weight problem was a 'severe intestinal blockage' that had, after many weeks, had finally come loose while Doofus was on the way to TRU. Three and a half hours later, his problem was over and he decided to make a run for it.

From what the Roto Rooter guy said after he finished vomiting at the site, what Doofus had done is probably shit himself on the way there. After exerting himself to get to a toilet, he probably unleashed most of his waste there in a painful fashion and kept on 'going' well after the incident due to his system 'purge.'

The damage:


One broken toilet bowl (stress fractures from the weight)
One new plumbing system for both new bathrooms
New tile floor due to the chunky lime green overflow and water damage
New ceiling tile due to 'smell concerns'
Five bottles of concentrated Lysol to remove staining from various items within the bathrooms
One hefty charge from Roto Rooter due to the extraction of a pair of 4X Briefs that can only be found in your finer Big & Tall stores
One bent handicapped railing
One new black industrial toilet seat due to 'green staining'
One banned man from the store for lifeI actually saw the damage myself and it still haunts me to this day. An industrial toilet with green milkshake waste that piled out of the top of the bowl. I'm not sure where Doofus is now, but I hope to God he got help or at least died without any more pain. I never saw him after that.

Still, props to Roto Rooter for being the nicest and funniest guys at work that week. They are truly the bravest of the brave. :rock

[sspadowsky]

:lol

No one but Zbu gets to post in this thread from now on.

[Chojin]

I have to remember to never go to Michigan :<

[Zbu Manowar]

Yeah, it's nothing but library bathroom whoring and explosive bowel obstructions up here. ;)

[MarioRPG]

Zbu: Ceiling tile? Christ.
And wow, you've led a horrifying life. Please continue.

[Jeff The Ninja]

I hate work.

My first job was at a Zellers Store, (For you Americans, its the K-Mart to a Wal-Mart and for you Euro's, its a big store). My job was rounding up shopping carts from idiots trying to steal them and Stocking shelves. I sucked at it, but there was one part of my job that i excelled at, because i was the only person who would do it. It was washing the bathrooms. This is a story of one such cleansing.

Now, there were always two people in my position working, one to stock and one to fight fat people for the posession of the stores carts. I always got the carts, but that meant that i would be cleaning the shitters between cart runs.

So i get back from my 3rd run of the day, and one of the customer service ladies runs over and just screams at me to clean the womens washroom. Now i just did it when i got there, and it was only my third hour in (Washrooms get washed every 4 hours btw) and it was about time for my break. But sure, i do grab my bucket of bleach, a sponge and go in.

I walk through the door, and it hits me. The stink was unimaginable, like a mixture of shit, vomit and rotten potatoes. The air was fucking thick, i am not joking when i say that i could feel the air, it had weight and mass to it. So i trudge forward, and i see, seeping underneath the door of the stall, a bunch of Shit mixed with blood and slowly floating on top of that pile of mess, a used maxi pad.

That was the day i gave them my notice.

[TheBigMan045]

That is the most grottiest thing ive read

But still awsome

[Sebra]

this one time years ago i got fired for slapping a customer in the face with a bag full of clothes, but that kid totally had it coming to him
and another time at a shop
i amputated my fingertips and i was really embarrassed

[Chojin]

do you type with your nose now

[Sebra]

i make my mom type it for me now

[ZAKO the GREAT]

there was a day when i worked late in my office (till bout 11pm). Suddenly i receive a call from the receptionist's. when i picked up the phone, all i hear was buzzing noise. i thought someone must have been trying to play a prank on me so i decided to go check it out. Needless to say, there's nobody left in the office. and the door is locked. there's only 2 person who hold the key, and i'm one of them. (the other guy have gone holiday for the week.) so there's no way anyone could sneak in the office without the key. the more i think, the more i freak out. And i heard the phone rang, again, in MY FUCKING ROOM! (the call must first goes to the receptionist before it transfer to other departments). i was so fucking scared that i left the office immediately. till today i am not sure of why this would happen. and i doubt that i will.

[Zomboid]

:lol

No one but Zbu gets to post in this thread from now on.
Agreed. Truly wonderful stories.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

I have a lot of interesting work stories, being that I have held many unusual jobs.

I will share with you a tale from my first day on the job as an embalmer.

Things are going to get a little messy.

I was a fresh faced 16 year old with an interest in the macabre. I managed to finagle an assistant position at a local funeral home as part of my mandatory pre enrolment industry time. Before a school even considers a funeral services education applicant, a number of volunteer hours must be completed under the supervision of licensed director. This was my first day and I had never even seen a real deceased person before.

I can still remember walking into the cool and pungent embalming room. The Embalmer looked me over and reprimanded me on my choice of footwear. My old Doc Martens were the closest thing I had to dress shoes. I was fortunate to have a thin white shirt and black tie in the back of my closet. Anyway, the embalming of the first person to come in went smoothly.

She was an elderly woman named Doris. She was cared for and loved by her family. She looked at peace and I watched my mentor go through the steps involved in the embalming process.

My mentor was a very tired looking man. He was overweight and you could see that he just didn’t care anymore and was just sick of death. He treated the entire event like he was taking out the trash. No emotion, rough hands and callous jokes. But he did his job and I watched intently. A couple of hours later he was done.

The next person, I assisted more handily in. I washed the body, prepped him, used the trocar ( a spear-like vacuum device) to pierce his organs and remove as much material from his abdomen as possible. Eventually made a small cut above his clavicle and started pumping the fluid into him. All went smoothly and all was legal under the supervision of a professional for purpose of instruction.

Now, the next fellow to be wheeled in was an obese gentleman who was in rough shape. He had been gone for a few days and was on the cusp of festering. He had been autopsied at his previous stop and his chest had been butterflied open with a ‘y’ cut. At this point, my mentor simply stood back, had a smoke, and started to guide me through a new procedure. I know now that what I did was highly illegal and to follow through on such a procedure a licence is required. He actually had me cut out the baseball stitches and open the guy up again. He then proceeded to give me an anatomy lesson as we rooted around in his innards.

Noting the time, my mentor left the room for a bit. He went across the street to grab us some lunch. When he returned he informed me that I would be eating my lunch in the embalming room with our portly friend. He handed me a couple of industry magazines and a sloppy sausage-on-a-bun sandwich.

So there I was. A greasy, animal intestine sandwich in one hand, an embalming magazine in the other and a 400 pound man spread open like a trout on a gurney right behind me. As I ate I eventually took a seat right in front of the occupied gurney, with my back to the body. I sort of left my body for awhile, in an attempt to forget where I was. I was too successful at it though and I leaned back on my chair, lost my balance, hit the gurney and proceeded to dump the splayed carcass onto the tiled floor.

Much like a bit of buttered toast the big guy landed open side down; I freaked.

This was my first day, what do I do? I’m going to be fired! My boss would be back any minute!

I could literally see all my career aspirations disappear. I frantically resolved to fix the situation. I knew I would not be able to lift the guy back onto the gurney but there was a hoist system in the corner of the room used to transfer body from table to table when a person was working solo. I started to drag the guy to the hoist. As I did so, he began to unravel. A rope of intestines and congealed blood smeared the floor like some horrific snail trail. Even worse, my shoes were slippery on the tiles and now gore soaked floor. I began to lose my footing as I became more and more frantic. I slipped and slid as I tried to push and pull the dead weight. Eventually I lost my footing and face planted right into the gore. As I tried to get up, well, it was reminiscent of a newly born calf trying to get his footing. I flopped again and again to the floor like some demented three stooges routine. Smeared with horrible grime, my white shirt resembled modern art and I finally got the guy to the hoist. I locked him in and got a table under him.

However, there was still the matter of about seven feet of intestine and human refuse littering the floor. At this point, I was completely manic and I just proceeded to stuff the guy like a turkey, not paying any attention to the placement of anything. I then hosed off the floor.

When my mentor returned, not two minutes later, there I was sandwich in hand, covered in disgust and ‘acting casual’. I pretended nothing happened despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He looked around, blank faced. He looked me up and down.

“You know,” he said “Bodies drop all the time. It’s no big deal”.

The best bit was being detained by police during the bus ride home. The driver called to cops due to my bloody clothing and they actually pulled up with the cherries flashing.

They had to call the funeral home to confirm my story.

[Fathom Zero]

What a good story!

My mum knows some folks who work at a mortuary and at this point in time, there was a double homicide. It's a rare occurance here in the sticks that something this bad happens. Normally it's just gang shootings outside the high school or some dumbass kid getting bit by a crazy dog.

It happened at a motel, one of those fleabags that make you cringe. Most of the news crews were on the scene. The juiciest part, though, was when the bags were taken out on the stretchers. So, here's my mom's friend, walking a body over to the vehicle, pushing the body bags over, and just smiling the goofiest smile he possibly could and waving to the camera.

It's very surreal, seeing something like that. You had to have been watching it, too. He looked like he was having the time of his life. I guess he enjoys his job.

[Sethomas]

My jobs have been uncouthly mundane. One of my friends always complains that I'm full of random stories, so I've taken to just alluding to odd aspects of them off-hand instead of telling them. I guess this makes me more mysterious? I mean, at my second job, in my first week I was sent down to get something out of a room having been given rather innocuous details of where to find it. When I arrived, the signs said under no uncertain terms that to enter the room at the wrong time would bring death. It was a particle accelerator, which I learned never came to full construction and was thus turned into storage. When I asked about that, my supervisor was all like, "eh, never mind that sign." That's about all the adventure I've got on the workplace.

HOWEVER! When one considers that he's a mere radiological tech in suburban Indiana, my dad's job is rife in adventure. So, in an odd generational role-reversal, I'll live vicariously through him.

As a resident of the Hoosier state, the Tom Petty song "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is of particular significance to everyone I know. I've read many many interpretations of what it means, but only in one of hundreds of posts on that song meanings website did I find an allusion to the story that my health/PE teacher gave me in high school. It goes like this: Indiana girl leads a wild life, tries to escape the banal country. Somewhere in the process, she ends up institutionalized in Indianapolis in the very hospital where I was born. As a long-term, stable resident, she was allowed on a trip to the observation deck of what was at the time (and probably still is) the tallest building in the city. Obviously, they tried to be careful about not letting them near windows, but observation decks are built around that concern. Eventually, she excused herself to the restroom, wherein she found an unguarded window and promptly jumped out.

As it would happen, my dad was a young X-ray tech at the time. When the body arrived at the morgue, the powers that be decided that it was an invaluable asset to science for her to have a post-mortum full body scan. My father was the attending tech.

As he described it, every inch of her body felt like a sponge. The fact that there was actually anything to be put on the examination table and not just in a couple of buckets came about because she happened to land on a tree planted on the mezzanine ceiling before plopping to the ground like a slinky.

Oddly enough, a few years ago he came home from work and described what he said was the most unpleasant experience of his career. An elderly man was walking through a door and tripped, but tried to catch himself by grabbing the frame. His bones being brittle, his forward momentum merely pulverized his shoulder and all the joints involved and his arm twisted backwards. He came to the hospital that way, afraid to move it back into position.

Other clients my dad has had include virtually everyone now in the NFL, an Egyptian mummy of a 12-year-old, and the world's tallest living woman.


Oh! I just remembered that a long time ago I posted somewhere random on these boards the story of how my older sister (now a doctor, then a subintern or whatever they're called) described her day. I'll post that again!

An old woman came into the emergency room complaining of stomach cramps. My sister did the routine checkup spiel as the family in the room debated with one another about whether or not to sign the DNR (do not resuscitate) forms for her. When my sister put her hand over the woman's chest, she felt a gentle bump and realized that the woman had hemorrhaged. In a panic, she called for the attending (knowing more or less that nothing could be done) and at that, the family of the old woman started screaming at each other over whether or not to sign the (now virtually redundant) DNR forms. That was the last thing the lady heard before she died.

[Guitar Woman]

:(

[sakura]

There's this freak of a lady that works the desk where I'm employed - she has this ugly-ass Hummer (supposedly she has two, as well as a $450,000 house out of state), has money up the ass as a result of a failed marriage to a rich sap, and of course, has no need for a job; you know, another reason alot of us with bills to worry about can't find employment.

I walk into our back room during lunch and see two of the guys eating a weird-looking pizza. There are several other employees, including the boss, with a slice in their hand. I make the deduction that this is the guys' pizza and they're sharing the yummy wealth in the middle of a hard day.

I ask for a slice. They oblige. It tasted like shit, but I hadn't eaten since around 6 the night before and I was fucking hungry. Naturally. I didn't want to bug them for a second slice so I asked if I could grab a loose pepperoni. Again, no problem. As I'm picking it off with the tips of my fingers, the now rapidly-cooled pizza causes the cheese to come off along with it. So I don't drop it back on there, I just eat what I picked.

That's when this woman walks in and makes this annoyed grunt. She sits at the table with the boss when the few others leave, and proceeds to exchange looks with her. Of course I can tell she's miffed about SOMETHING, although it better not be about me having permission to grab a 'roni. So I don't dick around, I ask what's up. She gripes that "it would have been ok if I had just TAKEN the slice, but the guy had no business giving away HER lunch. SHE paid for it.

So I explain I had no idea I somehow ruined her fantastic spread. I offered to pay her for my piece, I said I'd toss the offending slice into the trash - I even offered to purchase and pick up a new fucking pie... but no. Not good enough.

Forget that I tried to honestly remedy the situation, or that I wasn't to blame for not knowing her name was cryptically spelled in sausage. For some reason she must've felt it necessary to punish me with her looks of disgust and subsequent commentary on how disgusting I was to the boss when I then left the room and was therefore, in her pea brain, far out of earshot.

So that's when I got pissed off. They say the cheapest bastards are the ones with money, and now I have firsthand experience as to why. I mean, totally off the scale why... What's fucking morbid is that the bitch exhibits such an attitude right there over an $11 pizza after a person (who, to $11 is actually give or take, 1/14 of their meager earnings) is told by the one EATING IT: "yeah, you're on brake, it's lunchtime, everyone else had some, just take it."

Funny, as well, how nothing was said about the rest of the staff partaking in such a aristocratic feast. So, at the following week's company holiday party, I let out a quip as we passed her throne: "are you sure you wanna go up to the buffet now? I dont wanna have to taint the food."

Predictably, she bit it, hook and all. "It's a possibility." All the proof I needed. Apparently it wasn't about the food, it was somehow about me and the food. So, I proceeded to jab at her loud enough for the round table to partake in the squabble. She just tries to avert the attention and says, "don't start with me..."

No, bitch, you started. I would've loved to call her a bitch when I made that straight, but regardless, these people are like a disease infecting every corner of the Earth. And my job (and everyone else's party time) aren't going to suffer as a result of it.

My boss seems to wait until I'm in the office checking the schedule (when bitchola's working) to make comments on how "family-like" our establishment is, blah, fucking blah. When I was in high school, shit on, well, the grade-school-level, may have given me stomach aches. But it didn't those times. And that feels real fucking good. The boss is transferring next week- so remarks aren't a problem. Pizza bitch hasn't said a word to me since, which to me, is a good sign. If only there were a time limit on when that crap gets permanently rubbed from the front desk. In the meantime, she better keep her grimy nubs off my leftover Christmas cookies.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Man, the stories I could tell about the time I spent on the road with the carnival. It’s really a gypsy lifestyle. In Canada, the major expos are really spaced apart so, in an entire season, we would only do about 7 spots. But they were big. At the Calgary Stampede, for example, I would perform for and bring 5000 people through my joint each day, for two weeks -14 to 15 hours a day.

My final year was by far the toughest as only myself and another individual drove, set up, ran and tore down two major attractions. Also the expos were planned very close together. I remember having to tear down our exhibits in Saskatoon jump to Toronto and set up in just two days. That drive is nearly 2000 miles – about 28 hours in and of itself. I was drunk on lack sleep by the end of that.

I drove an RV older than I was. Everything in it was broken.

Everything.

No heat, no air, no radio, no working wipers. Travelling was insane as the thing was on its last legs and would fail during every major excursion. I saw a lot of highway shoulders that year. The rear was gutted to make room for tent and banner line timber so there was no place to sleep comfortably. I would generally sleep in the odditorium, a space I shared with a mummy, a human shrunken head and a bust of Joseph Merrick. The boredom during the drive was the worst. My partner was driving a separate vehicle and I had no entertainment what-so-ever. Briefly, I had a chimpanzee co-pilot for a few days, and that was a hell of a lot of fun. I would get a lot of reaction pulling into gas bars with a chimp. I would walk Milo to the bathroom and change him. Sometimes the owners of the greasy spoons I stopped at would let him come into their establishments. That combined with the ‘Greatest Sideshow On Earth’ trailer I was pulling gathered a lot of small middle-of-nowhere townsfolk. I would perform a bit for them…maybe get a free slice of pie.

The carnival itself was pretty close knit then; things have changed a lot in a very short amount of time. The carnival is mostly corporate now. While the carnival was like a big family, I was really an outcast due to my profession and because I was constantly in character. I was the black sheep, the weirdo, I fronted the freakshow, I was the odditorium Bally and occasional performer. I wore a three piece suit in summer weather topped off with a bowler or top hat, in the evenings – I often wore a creepy getup. I always felt that I was not one of the gang, and I didn’t make much effort to change that opinion.

Then, at the Calgary stampede that year. I was proven wrong.

It was my last year with the carnival, fronting the odditorium as the bally man. It had been a pretty bust season. Bad crowds, bad attraction lot locations and poor new management. It was late at night and I was watching the big wheel. It was well past midnight but it was still lit. That meant the carnival was still open and thus, so was my attraction. I wasn’t doing my shpeel though; I was sort of just laying back. Now, because I was in a strange costume and I was back lit, it wasn’t unusual for people to mistake me for a statue. In fact, on long nights I revelled in frightening people by suddenly moving. It was a cheap scare that was infinitely easier than swallowing a sword or pounding a nail into my face. So this night, when a couple of college kids fuelled by booze, ran right past me into the attraction without paying I just shrugged and chalked it up to not being seen. I could have ran in after them, but I was tired and decided they would be out in a second or two.

You see, the odditorium was a museum. There were a lot of words in there. It’s sort of educational so I wagered these preppy jock boys would tire quickly and leave.

Then I heard glass breaking.

I ran in and witnessed them breaking out a second exhibit. They didn’t even see me as they ran, because when they got outside they stopped and laughed. It had been a long day and without even thinking I walked up to them and shoved the bigger one. We started arguing and it escalated quickly.

Now, I’m a pretty big dude. I was a power lifter in my youth and stand about 6’3 – 280lbs or so. This kid was bigger than me. Likely played football or something but I was pissed. I guess my three piece suit was deceiving as well because the jock laid into me with an elbow. I hit the guy as hard as I could and he dropped to his ass, his buddy grabbed me and I tripped him. But the big kid was back on his feet and he started to wrestle with me. I put my shoulder into him and backed him up, I actually slammed him into the Scrambler ride railing. Unfortunately, he was keeping my head pinned down and his buddy was wailing on my back and ribs. Then, a couple other guys showed up and they started to wail on me too. I was scared and started fighting for my life, I ended up pushing the Scrambler railing way back and slammed the big kid right over the side of it into the actual ride area. I then put my back to the railing and put up my fists. They swarmed me and really started to beat the shit out of me.

The ride operator, Shep, started yelling at us.

‘You kids, fight someplace else!’ he screamed as he approached. Shep was a rough carny, he had done some time. He had a huge facial scar and a bum eye. I had never said two words to this guy before but I looked at from under a pile of humanity as I swung wildly from my back. My top hat was gone, my suit was torn, my face bloody and makeup completely obscured – yet he recognized me.

‘What the fuck!’

He jumped the rail and started fighting. Then all the rides in the area slowed, shut down and the midway was quickly awash with red-coated carnies laying the boots to a bunch of punk kids. We eventually subdued the lot of them. And that’s how I ended up sitting on a the chest of a teenager in from of a crowd of a couple hundred people.

The cops showed up, surveyed the damage and took three of the kids, myself and Shep into makeshift HQ. The kid screamed that I attacked him. I showed the cops pictures of my brother the cop, my Cops for Cancer participation card and pictures of the 7 year old kid I was hanging out with as part of the Big Brother program. They asked me what I wanted to do. Now, I could have had him arrested, but it would have just been thrown out as there was no way I would be able to get back to Calgary for a trial. So I told them I wanted money. I wanted whatever the kid had.

The cops went in there and screamed at the kid for a couple of hours.

He coughed up $300.

It was enough to repair the damages and mend some of the bruising.



http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7550/thewowjv2.jpg
The Odditorium
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/3131/n5629052191498609163xx2.jpg
My two black eyes, a couple weeks after the incident. It's one of my favorite photos.

[Fathom Zero]

Would you say you've lived a full live? :lol

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Ha!

I've been around.

[MarioRPG]

I'm sorry, but JTP has my support now for best stories (as horrifying as they are).

[Chojin]

I'd expect JTP to be the king of stories around an internet forum :<

[comhcinc]

wow great stories. i work for a defense contractor. only three other people are allowed in my part of the building, thus i have no stories. i suck. a lot.

[Chojin]

but you like pie.

maybe you could elaborate on that.

before or after you drive us to suicide.

[comhcinc]

pie is damn tasty and not too sweet. cake is too sweet. i don't like cake. it's too sweet unlike pie. i like pie. i think blackberry is my favorite pie............................................... .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..................................... i can eat pie at work

[Chojin]

please don't stop

i'm almost there

[comhcinc]

do i A: continue with retard pie stuff B: ignore and move on C: say "that's what your mom said last night"

hmmm, nah i would just like to read more neat-o stories

[Emu]

This happened today. It didn't really happen to me but I saw it.

So this car comes around the back corner of the building from the street. It's a nondescript black Lumina or some other POS car and it's not doing anything out of the ordinary, except that it's being tailed by a cop car. It pulls in to the motel next door and parks in the parking lot as if nothing is going on. Then the cop car speeds up and turns on its lights, moving into position to block one of two possible escapes. The cop steps out of the squad car and moves to the other car, and I suppose asked them for ID. I couldn't see very well from my vantage point but something was definitely going down.

For about five minutes nothing of note happened, but then another squad car showed up and blocked the other exit. I get distracted with a phone call and I keep trying to keep an eye on what's going on.

I shit you not, gentlemen: Right as the lady on the phone asks me if the motel is located in a safe area, I see a cop leap on a young fellow trying desperately to escape, pin him to the ground and cuff him. Moments later, the men are led into the squad cars and their car is towed.

[Girl Drink Drunk]

I had these two people that came in and asked to help get a shopping cart down the escalator. Their eyes were all buggy and they looked like they were whacked out on something strong.

[Cosmo Electrolux]

do i A: continue with retard pie stuff B: ignore and move on C: say "that's what your mom said last night"

hmmm, nah i would just like to read more neat-o stories

for whom do you work, and it what city?

[Nick]

All these fantastic stories make my job seem even more boring.

[Emu]

A very large semi truck knocked over our brick fence today :\

[Emu]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/ikrsez/002-3.jpg

GOD

and then we had two women staying in one of the rooms over the weekend, and they completely trashed it, including this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/ikrsez/005-1.jpg

[Misdemonar]

Penaud, you are an awesome fellow!

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Ha, thanks, but I'm just living life.

Another carnival related story.

Usually, at the end of the season, we would be in Toronto at the CNE. The odditorium owner lived in Toronto and so he would host an ‘end of the season’ party. He would invite a select group of carnival folks to attend the festivities and we usually ended up with a rather unique group. A few years back it was no different. I was still on payroll so I’m counting this as a work story. I was more or less working security and making sure no one exited the residence with any valuables as my boss had a pretty impressive collection of the macabre.

Anyway.

I remember Fingers was there. He was an old time carnie. He was stick skinny, had a lazy eye, no teeth and he missing a bunch of fingers. I think he had five fingers in total spread across two hands. Way back in he used to work spook houses as an inside runner - before the carnival banned that sort of thing. I used to invite the guy over to the odditorium when I was working to shake hands with the folks waiting in line. Believe it or not, despite the looks of the guy he had a lady friend in just about every city we stopped in. Of course, I use the word lady loosely. The women were troglodytes but he was no George Clooney and wasn’t picky. I can remember that the woman he brought to this party was a whole new sort of gross. I could not, for the life of me, stare directly at her.

This coming from the guy who worked the freak show.

This was a small group and there were a few hot ladies as well. I was pretty much the center of attention as this was pretty much the first time I was out of character in the history of the carnival. So, while a lot of the ladies knew of me, few knew anything at all about me. I had the mysterious enigma factor working for me and I was working it.

About halfway through the night a fellow by the name of Levi showed up. Now Levi was a friend and was a professional strongman. He was the splitting image of a 1920’s strongman. He was bald-headed, sported a fine handlebar moustache and a portly gut. He was a salt of the earth type character and an easy going guy full of humour. He actually has a mistletoe sprig tattooed just below his navel.

Now, Levi brought along a friend of his and, for the life of me, I can’t remember his name. I knew him by reputation though. He was the epitome of every bad carnie stereotype. He was loud, rude, obnoxious, and constantly intoxicated. During the course of the night, he got worse and worse.

I eventually pulled Levi aside and asked him to watch his friend. He was a little embarrassed and promised to rein him in. Unfortunately, I eventually had to pull the bastard himself aside to warn him about his voice and antics. He responded by going into a tirade about how I was ‘hogging all the sluts’ and that I was nothing but a goon. Fingers stepped up and defended me, which just angered him further. He then threw a beer bottle at my head. Which connected with a thud, then bounced and shattered on the floor.

Now, believe it or not, I was still pretty calm. I’ve had worse happen to me in my years as a bouncer. So, I simply asked him to leave. As I was doing this he swung at me. I dodged, punched him and knocked him on his ass. I started to wrestle with him for a bit. My main concern was that there were a lot of breakables in the place and there was a room filled with even more breakables to navigate before the front door. I eventually just worked my away around to his back. Got him in a bear hug, hoisted him off the ground and walked him, kicking and screaming to the front door. At that point I let him go and he immediately swung on me again. He connected and I lost it. I took him down and choked him out with a forearm.

So, I was on the front stoop, the majority of the party goers were watching me choke this guy out, listening to him gurgle, and a couple of people actually applauded. But the funniest bit of the evening was yet to come.

So we left Levi to console his buddy on the front porch. A few minutes later, the guy had come to and he started yelling. Calling me out and trashing my boss’s name (which he actually turned out to be right on). But this was about 2 am and his antics were really getting out of hand. He picked up a brick and was about to toss it when Levi finally grabbed him and tossed him like a bear slapping a salmon.

‘I can’t take you anywhere!” Levi screamed in anger. ‘You embarrass me!’

And with that Levi stretched his arms forward and began to slowly lumber towards his buddy. He had tears in his eyes as he clomped forward like Frankenstein’s Monster. He was going to choke the guy. He was going to choke the guy very slowly.

His buddy just looked at him, puzzled. Not really sure what was going on. Levi was about a foot away when the guy realized what was up but he got this look on his face and it was like he was frozen in fear.

Then, the world’s slowest strangling commenced.

To this day, I have never again seen a man be choked out in such a way. I was like something out of Ed Wood. Here was Tor Johnson neck wringing a drunk and barely flailing carnie while big tears streamed down his face. It was Of Mice and Men, it was epic and it was the funniest thing I have ever witnessed due to its sheer absurdity. As the drunkard's face turned more and more purple, his ineffective flailing ceased and he went limp.

Levi released the body of his best friend into a curb-side heap. He then just sat of the front step and listened to the gurgling of his unconscious chum.…and then the gentle giant sobbed uncontrollably.

[MarioRPG]

That final moment would make an excellent piece of art.

[Pihlak101]

These stories are gold. The only stories I can think of are all sad or involve me getting yelled at.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

That final moment would make an excellent piece of art.

The strangling, weeping or lumbering?

[MarioRPG]

The strangling while crying, is actually what I had in mind.
The weeping would be pretty good too though. :)

[saltshakermaniac]

JTP you are the tride and true king of all work related stories. Mine wont add up to much in comparison on the account that I work security and with the exception of dealing with the occaisanl "fruity" truck driver or some drunk its not that exciting. I should also meantion that I work security at a Auto assembly plant in the metro Detriot area. So down to my story, One night in July last year we got a call that there was a confrontion inside the plant so myself along with another guard went inside. This other person i was with is about 6'4 and weighs in at around 320 pounds while i stand at a healthy 6'1 230 pounds. Anyways by the time we got in there the verbal confrontaion had turned into a full blown fist fight, so me and the other guy go about trying to break it up and escort both of the people off the properity. My co-worker had no trouble pulling one of the people away but when I put my hand on the guys shoulder he turns and takes a swing at me, Ive trained as a Boxer so I instictvly blocked him and steped out of the way, this man decied to charge at me and i side step him and he flew head first into the steel handle of a large dolly that is used to haul windsheilds, needless to say he knocked himself out cold. So we had to call an ambulance in to haul this man away. Well after talking to all the avaible witness,I write my report, and call it a night. Well, about 2 weeks afterwords I got a court summons, Turns out the guy who knocked himself out was sueing me for healthcare exspensises. So I simply printed up a copy of the report and went to court. After the judge read my report and the statements of the witness he decied to throw it out shortly after reading it, So i guess there is a such thing as happy endings!!!!

[Jeff The Ninja]

JTP, how did you get a job working at the Odditorium. I love that little box on the side of the midway. Whenever i go to my cities carnival/annual gouge, i always make it a point to take my embarassed family and/or friends inside there.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Long story short, I used to perform a lot of sideshow stunts, theater and oratory gigs. I ended up falling in with Canada's last odditorium owner as the outside ticket taker and talker. We've really fallen out since then though.

Are you right in Saskatoon? I was there with the World of Wonders in the summer of '05.

[Phobetor]

Removed due to it's offensive nature.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

You sound like a dick. The monkey business stuff is fine. But the box cutter incident...

I would have ended you, and that's not me talking tough. I would have just lost it on you.

[Phobetor]

Yes, even I have to admit it wasn't one of my better moments.

[MLE]

a second ago, you thought it was one of your proudest achievements, due to your saying "The best part is..." right afterwards.

You are why people are no longer good.

[Chojin]

I was going to say pretty much verbatim what Pednaud did.

[MarioRPG]

The ape thing was cool.

[Sam]

I knew he was a dick the second I saw BLACK TEXT. >:

DICK DICK DICK DICK DICK DICK DICK

[Cosmo Electrolux]

the black letters represent his black heart.... :emofag

but, the gorilla suit story was pretty funny.....i lol'd.....:(

[Zbu Manowar]

Okay, I'll try to break out one more story. Not to get my crown back, but because this is just strange.

A few years ago I worked at an indie video store just outside of Ann Arbor in this little city with a bad water supply. The problem with this city is that it was close enough to Ann Arbor to eventually be enveloped by it thanks to urban sprawl. Before the sprawl, it was redneck heaven with tractor pulls and tons of farmland and houses that stretched back to the 1800s. After? It was still hickish but now had a lot of people imitating the rich people lifestyle as they saw it: tons of name brand clothing, expensive cars, expensive housing. Sadly, the income was nowhere near Ann Arbor levels. A fellow who moonlighted at the video store was a mailman by day and told everybody stories of how these big fancy houses with BMWs and the like were completely empty. One look inside would show a lack of furniture or anybody who lived there would put up or own. There was a TV, a chair, and nothing else.

This city--whose name I will not reveal for the obvious reasons--was essentially the epitome of pathetic yuppie excess without the money to back it up. And this included the mayor and the city council.

The reason the indie store was able to remain in business was due to two parts: we were the only ones who rented porn, and the head of the business was using it as a tax writeoff: we would only take in a hundred dollars of profit per night, even on the weekends. And everybody in that town, despite their newfound yuppie values and overt Christianity, loved the fucking porn. It wasn't even good porn, it was the cheapest that could be bought in bulk. But it was honey to a beehive, and that's how I made my bread.

Until one day when the Mayor's little snowflake of a daughter decided not to return a tape on time. For a week.

The charge was $20 and if nobody dicked us around with it, we would cut it in half. The Mayor, however, was one of those 'career professional women' who had the short annoying haircut and the business suit. She did not want to talk about this. She didn't even want to admit to it. She wanted it gone because she was the big bad mayor and she didn't think it was proper for someone in her position--as the mayor of a perfectly pathetic community--to pay for late fees. You know, because she was important and everything.

The owner of the business didn't give a right fuck what happened. The District Manager wasn't going to do anything about it. If it had to be sent to collections on principle, it was going to happen. So the letters of protest started: professional letters on the Mayor's letterhead, unprofessional and badly handwritten letters with vague threats taped to the door of our establishment, the whole works. Finally, the coup de grace. The Mayor walks into our store one day, tosses a letter on our counter, and walks out without a fucking word.

The letter inside was basically a typed threat (in businessese) noting how our business was now being investigated because of the rental of pornography to minors and various other shit. Because, you know, it was the mayor's daughter who didn't return it and since the Mayor was denying responsibility....

And this is when I snapped. The manager was my sister's boyfriend at the time, and I asked him if I could respond to this in a way that would benefit everybody involved. He agreed. And I set to my work.

A few days later the Mayor's office received a large package sent by registered mail. Within was a number of records we had since the business had opened. These were the records of every single movie rented and/or bought from our location since opening of every single member of the City Council, the Mayor, and various workers under the Mayor's employ that were unlucky enough to have their names listed at their offices. The movies rented were shown when they were rented and returned, how much the totals were, and the title of every single one in beautiful black and white. Also enclosed was a statement of our policy in regards to total compliance with the proper authorities in regards to situations such as these. We had the names, dates, and personal information of every single major person in power in that shithole city along with their rental records.

Guess how much of that was porn. No, rather, guess how much of that wasn't porn.

My final addition to this was on the letter itself. I'm sure such business types like that knew was cc: meant. As a final gag, I put in various email and snail address to the various news stations in the Detroit area who I knew would be fascinated with the story of the Mayor who tried to bully a small video store when her daughter wouldn't return her porn. And I was ready to send it, too, unless a deal could be made.

Her bill was paid off the next fucking day, in person. And the rest of the debts ran up by the city council just happened to get paid later that week as well. Odd that.

[Emu]

You are a god damn hero.

[Zomboid]

Wonderful.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

*removed under threat of unemployment*

[ZeldaQueen]

A few summers ago, my neighbor hired routinely as a babysitter for her young daughter and son. Things mostly went well, but there was one evening when things were a bit rocky.

The daughter had some sinus problems which meant that she was to be given a pill every night at bed. This was no problem. But that night, she apparently had a head cold and her mother told me that when I put the kids to bed, I was to give her a dose of medicine for her stuffy nose.

So, come bed time I get the kids to change their clothes, brush their teeth, etc. Then, I pour the dose of medicine and ask the girl to drink it. She goes nuts and starts sobbing that she doesn't want to take the medicine. I didn't get it myself. It wasn't like it was that nasty tasting (grape flavored, it was pretty much the only medicine I actually liked as a child). I try to get her to take it, her brother tries to convince her, nothing works. I decide to try to calm her down first, so I tell her it's alright, just get into bed. My plan was loosely to wait until she was in bed and tired and then get her to drink the medicine by pretending it was water or something. But at about the time she was in bed, her parents came home. I met them at the door and told them I was sorry but the girl wouldn't take the medicine. The mother told me not to worry, if she didn't want to take the medicine, she didn't have to.

This confused me a bit because in my life, I always figured that medicine was assigned to you for medical reasons and therefore if you wanted to stay healthy you just take it no matter how bad it tasted. In any case, I felt rather sorry for my own mom, as I still have memories of her holding me down to take Robitussin whenever I was sick as a child.

[Colonel Flagg]

These two stories gave me whiplash.

I was once involved in a demonstration from a vendor trying to sell us a piece of fairly expensive ($50k) equipment. The vendor was a garage business, as far as I knew the only employee in his business. I was fairly new in my position, so I was reticent for most of the demo. However, it became clear to me after a half-hour or so that he was selling us smoke and mirrors. So I thought of a pretty good question to ask the guy that could expose the weakness in his equipment. I asked, and he looked ready to answer, when the Director of Operations looked at me and screamed (no hyperbole) at me to shut the hell up and let the guy do his demonstration, and stop asking stupid questions. I was so appalled by this situation that I clammed up - probably not what I would do at this point in my career, but there you go.

Later, the same director sees me in the hallway, and states that he was just trying to give me some "coaching".

As it shook out, the company wasted all told about $250k in goods, materials, software and hardware, and man-hours trying to generate useful information our of a device that I knew wouldn't work before it was purchased. As a sidebar, the DO was fired 2 years later for unethical business practices. Go figure.

[BillyBear]

hard day

[Dixie]

the first week of jersey boys i worked 76 hours or so
i love my job

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

I don't know what bothers me more at work:

1) When someone doesn't understand me and they answer with "Do wut Naaw?"

2) When I ask someone for the FIRST NAME and they answer with "Chad Stevenson"

[Tadao]

Sounds like a really challenging job. :rolleyes

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

It's really mentally taxing when you have to talk to the south. I don't know who came up with this fucking idea either: If you're from Jamaica and come to the united states to move to Jamaica, NY. I'm really good with different dialects and accents but Jamaican-English takes me a few minutes to get used to and they don't ever give you the time you need to adjust and just act like assholes right away.

[b_squared]

I have work stories from animal control job. Every now and again we get calls about large snakes. Usually boas or pythons which escaped their cages or set loose by owners tired of keeping them.
I had this one guy who was a reptile "expert" take the snakes we would impound. He was a short greasy, smelly sort of guy who tried to impress the ladies with his exotic hobby. Anyways he was called in to pick up a snake we caught, The snake was about 4 ft boa and it was aggressive. This snake would hiss and strike at the glass everytime someone would go into the room to clean. I warned this guy about the snake being aggressive. He said I didn't know a thing about snakes about since this species is known to be docile. He spent about 10 mins chatting me up and trying to impress me with his snake knowledge. He was able to get the hissing snake out of the cage and instead of putting it into another cage to carry out, he let it coil around his arm and started to walk out. Just as he was leaving two very pretty young ladies walked in looking to adopt a kitten. They see the snake and ask the guy a question about it. As he started into his "lets impress the ladies speech" about snakes, while petting the snake in the head. Suddenly the snake opened wide and bit his hand and latched on, and stared to tighten the coil around his arm. The ladies kinda giggled and asked him if it hurt...I walked over and asked if he needed help removing the snake or if he wanted me to call for medical help (I guess it did not help that I was laughing) Thru clenched teeth he said "No" and walked to his car with the snake still biting him, blood all over his hand, and his fingers turning blue. Good thing that species of snake was "docile".
Another time we had to impound two aggressive dogs who tore up some poor guy. Parts of this guy was shredded and about 1/3 of his scalp and ear were missing. After the dogs were impounded and put in the kennel one of the dogs horked up. Out came a peice of the guys scalp and ear. Gross. That scalp vomit had to be bagged up as evidence and we called to the Dr. to see if they could use it to be reattached. ( It couldn't ). The guy survived.

[Dimnos]

It's really mentally taxing when you have to talk to the south. I don't know who came up with this fucking idea either: If you're from Jamaica and come to the united states to move to Jamaica, NY. I'm really good with different dialects and accents but Jamaican-English takes me a few minutes to get used to and they don't ever give you the time you need to adjust and just act like assholes right away.

Just ask him "Do wut now?"

[ZeldaQueen]

I had this one guy who was a reptile "expert" take the snakes we would impound. He was a short greasy, smelly sort of guy who tried to impress the ladies with his exotic hobby. Anyways he was called in to pick up a snake we caught, The snake was about 4 ft boa and it was aggressive. This snake would hiss and strike at the glass everytime someone would go into the room to clean. I warned this guy about the snake being aggressive. He said I didn't know a thing about snakes about since this species is known to be docile. He spent about 10 mins chatting me up and trying to impress me with his snake knowledge. He was able to get the hissing snake out of the cage and instead of putting it into another cage to carry out, he let it coil around his arm and started to walk out. Just as he was leaving two very pretty young ladies walked in looking to adopt a kitten. They see the snake and ask the guy a question about it. As he started into his "lets impress the ladies speech" about snakes, while petting the snake in the head. Suddenly the snake opened wide and bit his hand and latched on, and stared to tighten the coil around his arm. The ladies kinda giggled and asked him if it hurt...I walked over and asked if he needed help removing the snake or if he wanted me to call for medical help (I guess it did not help that I was laughing) Thru clenched teeth he said "No" and walked to his car with the snake still biting him, blood all over his hand, and his fingers turning blue. Good thing that species of snake was "docile".

Well that's exactly the reason why guys shouldn't try to impress girls with their big snakes.

[LordSappington]

http://images.appshopper.com/screenshots/300/815084.jpg

[elx]

gamestopsux,end story:(

[The Leader]

Wouldn't that be against child labor laws?

[LordSappington]

Hey, when I was 15, I worked 12 hour shifts for $6 an hour at my Tae Kwon Do school.

[executioneer]

yeah you can work as young as 14 with the right permits from what i remember

[Fathom Zero]

I worked eight-hour days during school at the golf course. Still work there, though not for much longer.