Fry those yams into crisp mini latkes, little smear of sour cream, some kippers, top with a dollop of apple compote- I need to go make some canapes right now.
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i’m full and you just made me hungry.
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Second job, age twenty. Factory work. Hated it. Eventually racked up (not intentionally!) three tardies. Bye-bye.
For those not familiar with factory work: it’s every bit as clockwork as you can imagine. It’s a to-the-minute tag-team operation, which is why being late not only counts against you, but why your co-workers will despise you for every extra minute they have to work to cover your late ass.
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Ah, but when you’re one of the few who works on quota (so as not to cause a logjam), it’s so sweet to be able to knock off early and chill in the breakroom!
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I worked in a factory when I dropped out of college (with just a semester left). It was boring and tedious. I applied for an opening in the office, and I was sabotaged by some hostile workers who claimed I told everyone that I was going to get the job. Apparently, I was also dating my supervisor, too, and he promised me the job. I think I spoke to him two whole times: once when I was first hired and then when he told me about the rumors that the other employees spread (one of them wanted the same position). I was so humiliated that I quit.
But I did get fired from a job by the business owner’s coke-addicted son. It was a copy place and he asked me to go get some reams of paper. Since I normally worked at their other store and I wasn’t wearing my contacts, I had to look closely at the reams of paper.
He made a snarky comment questioning my literacy: “You know, you have to have a 3.75 gpa to work here.” Having a solid B-average and thinking he was joking I replied, “I guess I shouldn’t work here, huh?” He told me to get the fuck out. At first, I thought he was joking, but he yelled at me again. So I left. He told his parents that I walked off the job. (At least, they paid me my two weeks severance.) He was a prince of a guy whose parents continued to enable him.
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I took a year off from university and worked full-time (retail, not manufacturing). I was enjoying the working adult life to the point that I almost decided not to go back. Then I’d think about my three months working at that factory.
Went back and completed my B.A.
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I used to work for a large ad agency, and rose up the ranks to be the Senior Creative Director, with a nice salary and my own office, lots of meetings and business trips to visit clients. The office hired more people, took on more work, it was a good time, and I won some fancy awards for big projects. As my ‘reward’, I was given my own team to work on specialized new tech projects, which the company was sure would pour in. Unfortunately they didn’t. After six months I went to my boss and said hey boss, we have no work to do. “I know, and that’s OK! Wait another six months. This is all a ruse. You’re in line to be executive VP. Just be cool, don’t make waves, and you’ll be a VP.” That sounded weird, but well, okay.
Six months later, I’m pulled into an office. “We’re letting you go. You didn’t play the game. You were supposed to take the CEO to golf, have martini lunches, that kind of thing. You’re clearly not up to being a VP,” I was told. But the real kicker came next. “Nobody likes you. You’re widely hated. Plus everyone thinks you’re “quirky” (air quotes). You’d be happier in a city with lots of “quirky” people like San Francisco,” they said, making a limp-wrist gesture just to be totally clear.
After eight years of being the star employee, I was given two weeks to leave with a generic “he’s leaving to pursue new opportunities” email and a brief goodbye at a karaoke bar. I was forced to quit, rather than be fired, so they wouldn’t have to pay any severance.
I immediately went freelance and was infinitely happier than I had been in years.
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Wow.
How is it not possible to sue someone for such overt discrimination? Not for money but because fuck them. Where is this company today? Don’t have to name names, I’m just hoping for at least a little bit of schadenfreude.
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I tried. I spoke to a lawyer, gave him the situation, but they just implied things, never said them outright. So it would’ve been a very hard and expensive legal fight that I wasn’t up for.
The other element here is that the city I was in had a law at the time that specifically allowed discrimination against people suspected to be gay or lesbian.
The company went through some bad times in the years after I left (they were already on the downswing) and eventually sold to a European conglomerate of some sort.
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