In order to fully tell the story of how I was fired, or told that I shouldn’t come back to finish off my last few days of work I will have to give you some back story about specific things

• The terrace – An enclosed setting that sits somewhat exposed to the elements simply becuase the caulking on the windows isn’t good and lets in cold air all the time. Thus people freak out when they get lead out there and ask to be moved indoors. I have been on the terrace probably 90% of my shifts this past week, which isn’t supposed to happen. Because of this I’ve talked with every manager about not being put out there so much.
• Socks – As per GAR spec they are white if you have shorts on, black if you’re wearing pants.
• Shirts – As per GAR spec you are supposed to change your entire uniform for every shift. However I have only had to do this once when I spilled something all over a shirt. I have never ever seen any manager ask someone to change their shirt they wore in the morning during the 2nd half of a double.

K now that that’s done I can tell the story.

When we first open the store we have a shift-meeting before it really ‘starts’, during which we learn the features of the day, learn what we’re going to focus on and just find out information about the shift. While walking to the host stand I saw everyone looking at the floorplan, so I asked where I was, jokingly saying “..the terrace again?” figuring they wouldn’t do what I had specifically told ’em not to. “Yep,” came the reply from various people. Oh…so that talking to I had with all the managers, guess it was pointless. So I half-freaked out “Great, the fucking terrace again.” At which point one of my managers starts to lay into me, asking why I have to be so negative so early, everyone’s in a good mood and why do I hafta ruin that. Well I’m sorry assface, I’m pissed off because I’ve asked repeatedly to not be there.

But I don’t say that to him, because he’d get his panties in a twist and probably freak out. I just let it go because he’s a useless shit and I’m not going to let him freak me out. However as soon as the shift meeting was over I’m talking with a friend about getting some webpages all setup for another friend and he comes up and asks “What color socks are you supposed to wear?” Oh why don’t you just tell me I’m supposed to wear black socks, we both know what spec is, you don’t have to be a cock about it.

This is our conversation after that:
“Black, but all my black socks are getting washed so I had nothing else to wear.”

“Could you go home on break and get some black ones?”

“I dunno, depends when I get out, I live out in Centreville so it takes me a while to get home.”

“Well if you can’t get home, then guess you’ll have to go to Target since that’s the closest thing, isn’t it?”

“Then guess I’m going home because I’m not buying any socks for this stupid place.” [Since afterall I’m quitting in about 4 days]

“Can you come here?” [away from my friend who I was talking to]

So I walk over to the side with him and he proceeds to try to lay into me. Wondering why I called work stupid. Hello asshole just because I call someplace stupid doesn’t necessarily impact my ability to work. I’m pretty sure everyone everywhere thinks their work is stupid in some manner and has called it such, it’s not the end of the fucking world.

During the conversation he asks if I’m so miserable at work why don’t I just not come back. I say fine, I won’t, but if that’s true why am I still there in the morning, why don’t I just go home now. To which he tells me he “needs” me. Needs me!? That’s fucking classic, you’re basically firing me but telling me I have to work today because you “need” me. What a bunch of fucking shit.

But whatever I’ll work today mostly because I want some money and just walking out isn’t my thing. However during the evening shift, after I’ve gone home and changed my socks, he proceeds to come up to me and tell me my shirt is too wrinkly and with Craig [a higher-up who I know and like, and likes me back] here we can’t have anyone’s uniform not up to spec. I just about lose it. You’re going to come after me and give me shit for something that’s not necessary when you already know I’m pissed at you, and about this close to just walking out and never coming back.

Well guess what I did? No I didn’t walk, or well not straight out. I did attempt to find a new shirt from people on the floor but no one had any. So then after I attempted to fulfill my part of what he asked, I got changed and walked the fuck out and didn’t look back.

Do I regret it? No, the company is run by a bunch of idiots who need to learn not to freak out about little things such as white socks as opposed to black ones. Sure being consistant is important, but that kind of shit doesn’t matter. I wore a different fucking uniform to Sweetwater for almost a month and a half and only one fucking customer ever asked me why I looked different. So I’m pretty sure most customers could give a shit less about someone’s sock color.

Wow this is a really long entry, guess it pissed me off more than I thought.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2005 at 10:11 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.