If it were up to me, the life of a human would be spent lying in the sand, sipping on silly little cocktails, and eating plump, seedless grapes off the vine. But unfortunately, we have to work. Even worse, sometimes we have to work with the most horrible people and companies.
1. "I was not there for the incident; a younger female coworker was. Apparently, one of our regulars got up out of his stool, wobbled a bit, and then fell over. He was pronounced dead as soon as the ambulance arrived. I got called in to cover because the poor 22-year-old girl who had just watched this man die was sobbing uncontrollably. While I was setting up to run the bar, the manager pulled me aside and point blank said, 'I don't think she's cut out for this job. Once she calms down, tell her to give you her keys, and I'll give her a good reference.'"
2. "My reason for quitting was the time I was held at gunpoint by an FBI/DEA joint task force because my boss, who was involved in drug trafficking in the '80s, was falling back into old habits."
3. "I ended up canceling a huge $15,000 family trip to Europe because I had a massive medical emergency (think stroke-plus-potentially-lethal-infection-at the-same-time kind of thing). My wife relayed what happened to my boss. My boss said, 'So, you’ll be coming in this week since you canceled your vacation…?'"
4. "I will never forget waking up from a grand mal seizure on the floor of the shitty bar I worked in and hearing my manager screaming, 'He was clocked out when that happened, make sure he's clocked out!!!'"
5. "A credit union I used to work at had a branch get robbed in a violent takeover, where two tellers were pistol-whipped and got sent to the hospital. An email went out hours later for two internal openings at that branch, probably before they mopped the blood off the floor. Credit unions are better than banks typically, but not always."
6. "Worked at a 'good' office job with little cubicles and office chairs and fun things on people’s desks like solar-powered dancing daisies. A 35-year-old coworker had a heart issue, and the ambulance came to take him away. He came back the next day and was furious, because while he was in the ER, the HR lady called him to ask if he was going to be back in time to make the CEO’s meeting. They will never care about you. If you’re looking for care, look to your friends."
7. "I was keeping a small rural hospital afloat. The only help I received was when I had taken a month off to see family overseas. I begged for help."
"They paid someone a year of my salary to cover three weeks that month. I offered to take a third of that and take a week back. They denied me. They would cover the other guy's absence at any cost but not pay me more for all I did. When I quit, they hired a group of six docs to replace me. That’s how burnout happens."