Well, the store I work for actually does a decent job for the employees, considering the restrictions Corporate puts on our managers. Yes, I do work six days a week, including the dreaded "clopening" shifts, but it is arranged that way to ensure all the people in my department gets full time hours and the accompanying benefits. Could it be better? Sure. But it could far, far worse.
And maybe it's me, but I've noticed a lot of people--especially if they're college age or younger--don't come to work with the expectation too, y'know, *work*. There's a real attitude of entitlement which leads people to expect to be paid for doing nothing and praised for showing up. I've had to train a lot of new employees who quit when they find out they have to DO something.
So many stories, so little time. I usually slam retail/fast food because I hate those jobs the most (To be honest I just don't like working with people, and the 'customer is god' retail mentality never really worked well with me.) but I've already told the worst of those stories in a previous thread here so I guess I'll point out the bad in some of the best jobs I've had this time instead.
One of my favorite jobs I worked as a young man was as a park ranger, at first glance it's a great job. Work outside, help find lost people and all that, but like everything else these days the think tanks of modern government just have to many rules and regulations that I hated enforcing on a daily basis. Just a few ironic policies.
Alabama and Georgia fall under the "Forever Wild" Initiative, which create laws prohibiting humans from straying from trails and exploring the wilds of STATE PARKS, backpacking and even camping outside of reserved campsites which are all crammed together forcing the people that come to the park to 'get away from it all' to stay with everyone else. I don't know, I just always felt there had to be better ways of protecting the environment than prohibiting human interaction with it; it gets tiring when your job is spent tracking campers and kicking them out of the park for enjoying nature when most of the people wanting to camp away from it all were more respectful of their environment than the day trippers who continually dropped wrappers and bottles along the trails without a care and got away with it because they were in and out of the park in a couple of hours anyway.
I guess I could understand it to a point, I mean there are a lot of crazies that come into state parks bringing in weapons, drugs and pretty much everything else you could think of. I remember one time in particular where this lady sat up on a ridge with a .22 bolt action rifle taking pot shots at vacationers wading in the riverbed below. Luckily no one actually got shot in that mess but the guy who tackled her off the ridge ended up breaking his ankle in the fall. Again though, she and most of the people like her don't try to camp or anything, they just kind of show up and act all crazy regardless. The worst thing most campers ever do is get caught blitzed in the middle of the night, though most of them don't do anything wrong other than trying to camp in the wrong place. I only lasted a few months at that job, though it's still my second favorite job I've ever worked it just ended up being way more dangerous than I'd thought it would be going in. It was actually the suicides that got me to quit though, not any of the other craziness. Apparently state parks are the place to go to off yourself which caused me to reevaluate my employment choice having struggled with suicidal depression throughout my youth... I still kinda miss it though. Nothing like getting paid to wander through nature communing with the animals and protecting good people who just want to do the same; there's just sadly to much craziness that crops up around them.
Before that(and then again long after) I worked as a Vet Tech at a vet/shelter, great job until the end of the month when you end up executing the older animals to make room for the new ones. Compounded by the idiocy of people bringing in labs, great Danes and mastiffs that "just got to big" after they got them as pups a year or so ago... people are just stupid, and sadly big dogs almost never get adopted at shelters. (I've seen three get adopted, two of which came home with me because they were just to awesome to let die and my conscience couldn't take it.) It's just to sad when a sweet old mutt has to die just because humans tend to be dumb and short-sighted, so I had to quit a great job to prevent myself from ending up on hoarders one day.
And maybe it's me, but I've noticed a lot of people--especially if they're college age or younger--don't come to work with the expectation too, y'know, *work*. There's a real attitude of entitlement which leads people to expect to be paid for doing nothing and praised for showing up. I've had to train a lot of new employees who quit when they find out they have to DO something.
Definitely a reality of the world we live in, I've seen tons of kids at their first job walk out for no other reason than that they felt 'work wasn't for them' and go back to living off of their parents. We're just to damn concerned with inflating egos... I mean raising self-esteem for our own good and end up with dependent kidults with no idea how the world works as a result. Then again, I myself haven't held down a single job for more than two years (unless you count stay at home parent as a job) so maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite but my debts and obligations are always paid at least.
I LOVE my current one. A past one wasn't so great though...
And yes, it was retail
A small shop, barely staying above the line in profit/loss margins. They hired me to try to turn it around, but the manager kept having me do so many irrelevant things and the relevant things I did do, often were undone anyway. For example, sorting stuff. He had me do it on one of the main tables downstairs. If customers came in and wanted to use that table, the stuff had to be cleared away.
There are a lot of other details, like being expected to work from home, but I won't be too specific here as the company is still going.
Withstood it for about 8 months before just stopping, as I wasn't being paid properly or on time anyway. Timesheets kept being adjusted and all that jazz. I was eventually paid in (mostly?) full though, so I've just not looked back since.
I think the only relevant things that have stayed to date are my graphics...
An older guy that worked for a chip vendor, "chip guy," would come in a few times a week to stock, kept whispering "I miss you" in my ear, and kept trying to ask me on dates and find out where I live.
A girl that worked at the store would always find out my schedule, and even on her days off, would wait for me to get there. Then she would follow me around the store all day.
The first one is creepy but I'm sorry for laughing since it was like, uhhh dude. lol. WTF. The second one is like, does she consider you as her senpai or something?
I love my current job. It has its ups and downs but the downs are really minor.
I only have horror stories from commissions. And oddly enough they are so samey in terms of issues.
Can't decide what they really want and I wouldn't work until they finalize. One of them decided to redo the graphics like 3~5x or something? or when they kept updating the character sheet like every month and the order list increases. I knew by then that my work would never see the light of the day. There was an argument and I left since it was impossible to get to them.
I always get the mentally/emotionally unstable ones before. One was clinically depressed (I didn't know if I had I wouldn't have worked with them) and would only hear what they want to hear. Or can't stop talking about themselves. I think I was at my college finals and they got so mad about we missed the deadline even though the engine was nowhere near done. One has a persecution, victim and delusion complex. Two would make up stories about me or twist what I say to get attention. I never said that but instead they did, and somehow it was suddenly me. lol.
And one has...some chuuni complex where they think they're an anime character which made talking really hard, and so much redos...also someone was a crazy perfectionist and I gtfo'd. When stuff hits the fan it always erupted to drama.
I'm glad I minimize the amount of commissions I have to do and most are chill dudes/dudettes now. It probably helps I'm not in school anymore and forced to disappear for months. The best learning experience was Dischan even if I didn't last long because of college. Having a 'mentor' who tells you that you suck in a good manner was a great experience to keep learning.
Oh my gosh, commission work. I think I had some sort of mental block for that. If you want to lose complete faith in humanity, doing commissions is how to do it. The stories I could tell. Good paying customers suddenly going completely insane on me when I pointed out terms of our contract were different than they thought. Some guy pointing out my own artwork as an example of how the stuff I was making him wasn't high enough quality. Paranoia that their "awesome game idea" was going to get stolen if they told me what it was so I could draw stuff for it. Other artists in the same group trying to get me fired by "proving" they were a better artist than I was (no one agreed). Sexism. Stolen work. Being underpaid. People walking off with the art without paying. Just about anything you can think of.
I used to work for a crazy princess dragon moon lady. She was off her rocker.
The business itself was amazing for what it was (A flavor manufacturing company that also made drink mixes and teas... Helloooo, almond tea and blackberry cocoa!)
I used to be a custodian/inventory taker. I used to have to take an inventory of different product each day of the week. (Example, monday was sweet production inventory, tuesday was liquids, wednesday was herbs and spices, thursday was salt, etc)
I'd like to take the time to mention that in this veritable Gerudo's Fortress, I was the only male in the entire company. The brains, the brawn, the heavy lifting muscle... were all women. I tried to help but was always turned down because "You'd just get in the way. " (Hey. Whatever works!)
One time, a woman approached me going "You inventory salt, right?"
I replied "Yes."
She sarcastically gestured to an empty vat of salt and exclaimed "WHAT HAPPENED HERE? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE BURGER SALT NOW?!" (The perk to working there was all the free product sampling you wanted. Burger salt was amazing in hamburgers and meatloaf. It had the oils of garlic, onion sage, rosemary and something else in it...)
I was floored that anyone would take such a tone with me, but whatever; I shrugged it off, going "I do salt inventory on Thursdays... I'll tell <bosslady> that you're out of table salt."
"NOT GOOD ENOUGH. I need salt NOW!"
"Obviously I can't get it for you."
"USELESS!"
Then I had to clean up the messes they'd leave behind, even though it was company policy that all production workers clean up after themselves. (Making guava flavor extract or pomegranate sugar was a surprisingly messy job)
I always had to do it. Hahahaha...
I got promoted (Yesssss) to Social Media Coordinator and doubled the attention the company got online. :3But there was a problem. Bosslady was getting too far ahead of herself.
We as an online company had over 1,500 products.
Wanna guess how many employees we had?
We had THREE FULL TIME EMPLOYEES, TWO OF THEM PRODUCTION PERSONNEL. ( I worked part time even though I had decent hours)
Oh, did I mention that we not only sold to average joes and janes, we also sold to businesses? We made TRUCKLOADS of product at a time. We even had a HUUUUUUUGE ribbon blender that held roughly 50 kilos. Guess who had to clean THAT up? Thaaaaat's right, me!
These things were designed to be hosed down. I HAD TO CLEAN IT WITH DAMP PAPER TOWELS! IDIOT MANAGEMENT...
Then I moved up to phones. A thousand facepalms ensued.
My most memorable calls went like this:
Customer: Hello dearie. Do your natural sea salts have sodium in them?
Me: .... I beg your pardon, could you repeat that?
C: Do. Your. Sea. Salts. Have. Sodium. In. Them.
Me: Um... Yes...?
C: ALL of them? (We sold sea salt in every color of the rainbow! We had a green jade sea salt infused with bamboo shoot extract... omg <3 )
Me: Yes...
C: Oh, that's no good. *click*
........
Customer: Your garlic salt is too salty! (Unlike most garlic salts that are half garlic, half salt, our garlic salt was all salt, but infused with pure garlic oil so it was potent stuff! )
Me: I'm.... sorry about that. It is salt, though.
C: But it's too salty.
Me: I...- *customer hangs up*
..............................
customer: Your orange cocoa... does that have chocolate in it?
Me: *repeats* Does our orange cocoa have any chocolate in it....? (At this point, the flavorist and the boss lady were screaming with laughter. I tried my best to keep a straight face.)
Uh... Why yes it does!
Customer: That sucks. I'm allergic to chocolate.
Me: Oh. I'm sorry to hear that.
Customer: Do you have any cocoa that doesn't have any chocolate in it? (At this point the entire staff were around me, waiting...)
Me: No... we don't have cocoa that doesn't have chocolate in it. (More uproarious laughter....)
Me: Just a minute... please. Brb. :3 <puts woman on hold>
OUT! OUT! NOSY HENS! BEAT IT! I'M TRYING TO WORK HERE!
Long story short, she kept insisting that we have chocolate-less cocoa. I ended up coercing her into buying a sweet orange latte though!
Me and another girl tag-teamed every other day of the week.
Some of the calls she got were amazing, too.
Customer: YOUR ROSE OIL TASTES LIKE POISON! (Yes, we sold pure essential oils too...)
Girl: Oh! You've tasted POISON before, Ma'am?
Me: .... You did not just say that...
When I got promoted, the production ladies were HORRIFIED to find out they'd have to clean up after themselves. One woman wailed so loudly a neighboring business called the cops on us. (I was off that day. Myahahahahaha.)
Oh, there's more...
Toward the end, the boss started to live lavishly and frivolously. AT OUR EXPENSES.
Our paychecks would start to bounce.
Soon we received CASH instead of paychecks.
THEN... THEN... We started getting CHUNKS of our paychecks. ( $20 here, $40 there... real BSical..)
Eventually I started to go without pay... Oh heyl no. I worked remotely, so I eventually just stopped working. It'd been FOUR WEEKS since I'd seen a paycheck and I told the bosswoman "I'm not gonna post another facebook post or answer another customer until I get my money. (At this point I was taken off of phones because we had a new permanent phone girl.)
She said: I don't have any money. I can't pay you what I don't have.
I said "Seeya. Talk to me when you have money again."
... Know why she was broke? She kept spending it on takeout for all 3 meals every day, for her family of five hungry adults... expensive nail salon appts, conventions (ie AX, Comic Con), outings... ON COMPANY MONEY. OUR PAYCHECKS.
Eventually I was laid off November two years ago.
.... I still have the company laptop. I went to clean it out the other day, and white dust flew EVERYWHERE. We used a white powder called Silicate (Anti caking. Common in food products. a 5 foot tall heavy duty industrial size bag only weighs 20 lbs, this stuff is lighter than air) in dry flavor powders (Dry versions of extracts. See why we had too many products? )
My room smelled of burning rubber bands, dust, and almonds.... Eugh.
And... that's my story of working for a crazy princess dragon moon lady.
EDIT: Don't even try to go to the site; the company shut down after the bosslady took customers' monies and didn't send them product after the company relocated 40 miles to the east. This went on for almost half a year after I was laid off until the company shut down. some SHAAAAAAAAADY gank went on there!
I've had similar myself. One person complimented my client on his artist ability when they saw my work in their gallery and told them they were superior to my skills.
People being told 'no' at any point usually results in an uproar. Commissioners were convinced that artists needed to become friends with them after payment. The initial phase being approved only to have the final rejected and told a detail was wrong after approval and to do it again from scratch.
I could go on for days about commissions. At one point I just flat out stopped and couldn't get started again. This is why I only do requests.
I had a couple bummers with comissions. They gave me scarce references and when I wouldn't get it looking as they wanted them, they told me that maybe I didn't make the sprites I claimed as my own, since the qiality was inferior to, say... my FF7's Cloud.
Like it's my fault I have a gazillion good references of how Cloud looks like and had ZERO about how their character is supposed to be.
My 'commission' experience ... What are the tile dimensions? Anything goes! Limited colour palette? Anything goes! Transparency? Full alpha channels! So, cool, I get to work on making a 16x16 tileset. When done, I hear 16x16 isn't possible, and the engine only reads 32x32. I simply told them to move them over by 8 pixels and poof, you have 32x32 objects, but apparently this was hard work for them. They also blamed me for having fuzzy lost pixels around objects (even showing me a screenshot that they were there) due to my use of 'magic wand' (untrue) - this ended up being complete bogus and simply due to an error because the engine couldn't read alpha channels correctly.
Ultimately, my perfectly fine tileset didn't get used, and I'm never working for them again. The funny thing is, I also created another tileset for them in a different artstyle, which they loved and had no problems with because they didn't realize I made that one, too. Honestly, I think they just really hated me and wanted me gone, it had nothing to do with my work being inadequate.
I was 18 when my uncle asked if I want to work part-time alongside him on some factory. They pay me an abysmally low 550php or around 13$ per day just to stand around doing nothing. It may sounds like its a good job being paid(although its pretty low) doing nothing but I thought that I my time spent there stand around can be used to something else.so I quit.
I worked for five years at a hospital as a security officer. Some of the stuff was both the best and worst stuff in my life. You can be the judge of which is good and which is bad:
1.)Got blood spit into my eye.
2.)Made two grown men (one an older biker guy, one an ex-marine with PTSD) literally poop themselves when I had to physically confront them. They were being violent (the biker guy was trying to show off to the nurse so he attacked me) so I had to subdue them. When you slam someone hard enough into a floor or wall and they are not prepared for it, they can poop, so be aware of this.
3.)Fought a 300lb transvestite who was attacking people with a ceiling lamp while standing on a hospital bed.
4.)Chased a suicidal guy through the parking lot, across the helipad and into a drainage swamp. He tried to drown himself in the disgusting water, but did not succeed. Then chased him through some woods where he somehow lost his pants. Caught him at the edge of the woods.
5.)Had to supervise same guy on a different visit in the Operating Room because he ate a bunch of rubber gloves and a toothbrush and they needed to get those items out of him. The first time he went to the OR he flipped out. Second time they had me in there and I had to watch the procedure.
6.)Had to guard a couple of kids who were taken away from their abusive parents for physical abuse. I still have the stickers the little boy gave to me.
7.)Part of the job was sitting in on court hearings for the psychiatric patients (they were commitment hearings). You typically don't know why most people are on the psyche floor, but in the court hearings you get to hear everything. One patient was there because neighbors found her dragging around her dead dog in her apartment. The dog had been dead for so long it was rotting and she had literally taped its leg back on and was dragging it around.
8.)Completely pantsed a large guy who was trying to escape the emergency room. Big guy as in fat and out of shape, not muscular. In the confrontation to prevent him from leaving, his pants fell off. He was so out of breath and wheezing after the brief struggle that he needed to be treated for asthma.
9.)Witnessed a charge nurse slam a patient's head into a sink. This charge nurse was accused of other type things before but nobody saw it or nobody above listened. In this case I went to the police and ultimately the charge nurse was fired, charged with assault, and took a guilty plea deal for 1 year probation. I think the hospital paid off the victim to not sue.
10.)More than once got covered in someone's blood from various physical altercations. People have this tendency to rip out their IV lines, which gets blood everywhere.
11.)On a couple occasions, someone tried to kill me by attempting to stab me with something (usually pens as they are easy to acquire). Luckily they were unsuccessful in their attempts.
12.)Mega large and strong lady tore a solid wood door off of the "quiet room" in the psych ward. This door weights probably around 100-200lbs. It took me and the maintenance worker on duty to carry the door away. She peeled it off the frame like wrapping paper.
^HOLY CRAP, DUDE. I think those stories pretty much destroy all of ours.
EDIT: On that note, I have another one!
I used to work at a ride called "Perilous Plunge". (If you ever rode it... I'm sorry.)
It was late night one night and close to closing. These dirty-talking, horny big ladies (about five of them) were making all kinds of guests uncomfortable with their sex jokes, and watching the structure vibrate and shake as a boat went dwn the drop (The 135 foot structure would shake, sway, vibrate, and convulse as the boat went throuth the turnaround and down that drop. Even the lift hill shimmied side to side. It was most unsettling.) aroused one one of them so much she started to (fake?) an orgasm. "I WANT THAT TO HAPPEN TO ME!" she screamed. >_<
So anyway, it happened to be a crew of all guys that night, save for our shift leader; she was at the control panel. She had the perviest mind out of all of us and even she was grossed out.
Fast forward 10 minutes; They got on, the ride did its thing, I could hear them all moaning loudly and crying. I mean WAILING. What did the leader (the dirtiest talker out of all of them) say?
"OMG! THAT HURT! THE VIBRATION! IT WAS SO ROUGH! THE RIDE WAS HARD! IT HURT!!!"
... >_<;;;
Now, some people from other countries don't know how to translate "Intense" so they call a ride that's scary or intense "hard" (And they also call rides "games".... which used to bug the hell out of me. Still does. >) BUT IT WAS CLEAR HERE WHAT THIS LADY MEANT.)
So yeah, that's the story of five horny middle aged chicks.
The job wasn't filled with all bad things. There were good days, too.
1.)Free food from various banquets/meetings/events around the hospital. Sometimes I would gather up the food and deliver it to the ER staff, or staff on other units.
2.)Got to spend a LOT of time doing whatever I wanted, including drawing on my laptop.
3.)Got to work with some cool people. I still run into one of the guys I used to work with at the gym we both go to.
4.)Got recognized and rewarded for hard work, usually with bonus checks.
5.)Got to get to know the local police.
6.)Preferential treatment if sick - not the same as being let into the ER first before the old lady who is dying, but the nursing staff and doctors are generally a lot nicer and more accommodating to fellow staff.
7.)Got hugged on several occasions by people who were in the ER due to suicidal ideation and basically just wanted someone to listen to them so they were acting out (which was why I was there to begin with). Doctors and nurses are super busy and don't always have time to chit-chat with patients, even if the patient is suicidal. My job was sometimes to just stand there, so there was no choice but to talk to them. After they talk and I listen for awhile, this usually helps them out greatly to the point where they cry with joy.
People just want to not be ignored when they are in pain, mental or physical.
8.)Motivation to lift heavy in the gym so that people wouldn't kill me in fights (I was 160lbs when I started the job, 250lbs after powerlifting for awhile).
9.)Got to investigate shady dealings, got some employees fired for being shady and doing shady things, got to escort a lot of nurses to their vehicles at night.
10.)Majority of my 2014 IGMC entry was made while in the security office.
One thing that I miss is that people genuinely look out for each other in that sort of environment. Not just other security people, but nurses, doctors, techs, etc. All very cool people who will all band together to confront threats, dangerous and sometimes life-threatening situations.
I hated working at Publix. The place was lovely. Everyone was so friendly. Co-workers would hug you and tell you what a great job you were doing.
People were understanding, and I never once had to deal with an upset customer. Why did I hate it you ask? Surely this job was heaven on earth?!
It was 2 hours away from my house. Every day I had to wake up at 3-4 am just to make it to my shift on time.
How it happened that I got the most perfect job ever, at such a distant location, when I applied at the one not twenty minutes away, still baffles me to this day.
It was like Sesame Street, and I was Oscar the Grouch.
Also not my job, but almost was. I applied for the night shift at racetrac to try and get a job that was close to home and fit my sleep schedule. I didn't get it for whatever reason.
Not a week later, two vehicles begin circling the gas station, it's a chase. The truck following the little van is driven by a shotgun wielding liquored up old man, and the
van being pursued is driven by two young men, a young woman, and a baby. He fires several shots and screams "Just who the (bleep) do you think you're dealing with?!"
before he realizes he's being filmed and retreats.
And that's just your average Tuesday 'round here. (Semi-Serious)
Just beat the last of us 2 last night and starting jedi: fallen order right now, both use unreal engine & when I say i knew 80% of jedi's buttons right away because they were the same buttons as TLOU2 its ridiculous, even the same narrow hallway crawl and barely-made-it jump they do. Unreal Engine is just big budget RPG Maker the way they make games nearly identical at its core lol.
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