I was working at Barnes and Noble and they had just hired on two new guys, one barely 18 and the other barely 21. Neither of them were worth a shiat. One day the younger of the two was working at the register. He asked one of the assistant managers if she would cover for him for a couple minutes so he could use the restroom. She agreed, and he wandered away toward the back. Almost half an hour later one of the managers saw the assistant manager at the register and asked her why. She explained and said she thought maybe he was ill or something. So the manager goes looking for the kid, and where does he find him? In the cafe, sitting, chatting, and eating with some friends from school. This same kid also had both of his "grandfathers die" while he worked there, each funeral was the night of a major party at school. He didn't last long. To top it off, he came back several times and tried to use his employee discount after being fired.

Some people should be taken out back and shot.

Not 100% on-topic, but perhaps interesting:

During the second year of law school (at least back in the days when there were plenty of jobs and lots of employers were actively recruiting), there are several weeks in the fall when law firms visit law school campuses to hire second-year students for "summer associate" positions for the next summer, which are basically law clerk jobs that required no work and paid lots of money (or at least they used to be that way). They were used to try out people to see if they wanted to hire them as real lawyers when they got out of law school.

During my second year of law school, not knowing what kind of response I would get, I dropped resumes for tons of firms, and as it turned out, I got interviews with all of them, because I was at the top of my class. I always got asked the same question at each interview: "To what to you attribute your academic success?" I always gave some bullshiat answer like "I work really hard at my studies" (which was completely false), when what I really wanted to say was "Well, most of my classmates are kind of dumb, so it's not that hard to be at the top," but of course, I never said that.

Anyway, this one firm from L.A. had decided to interview, among others, me and a classmate buddy of mine. I already had a bunch of job offers and wasn't really interested in this firm, but my friend was getting desperate because he had no offers at all, and hadn't even been called back for any second interviews. He was all pissed off because he figured they would offer me a job and ignore him. I told him that, since I was such a nice guy, I would intentionally tank the interview, which thrilled him.

So I showed up to the interview, and the interviewer who had come from L.A. introduced himself as "Robert Whateverhisnamewas," and I shook his hand and said something like, "Hey, Bob, how the hell are ya?" I put my feet up on the interviewer's desk, answered his questions in a smartass way, and generally acted like a dickhead who thought his shiat didn't stink. When the inevitable "to what do you attribute your academic success" question came, I answered, "Well, Bob, to tell you the truth, I think I'm just a hell of a lot smarter than most of the other people around here." I have to admit, it was a whole lot of fun. I told my friend about it (whose interview was right after mine), and we had a great laugh speculating about how the interview would tell his co-workers about the huge asshole he had just interviewed.

Of course, you can guess what happened--sort of like what happened in the scene from Office Space where Peter is interviewed by the two Bobs and they loved him. Before the interviewer even left my school, he called back to his office and made sure that they immediately called me and offered to fly me to L.A. for a call-back interview so that I could meet all of the partners, because he thought I was the "confident" and "aggressive" sort that they were looking for. I politely told them thanks but no thanks. My friend got the standard form rejection letter the next day anyway.

The moral of the story: assholes often are successful in the business world.

2003-10-10 12:22:05 PM Truly_Told
My favorite thing about working in a retail store:
You are standing there putting stuff on the shelves, you are making the shelves neat, you are wearing a name badge, and a blue vest saying "How may I help you", on the back and customers will come up to you and they will very seriuosly ask "Do you work here?".

I have the opposite problem. For some reason, I can be in just about any kind of store, from Home Depot to Circuit City to a video store, wearing anything from shorts and a t-shirt to a suit and tie, and some idiot will march up to me and start asking me some question about a product or where something is in the store. When I tell them I don't know, they get a puzzled look on their face and say "Don't you work here?" Yeah, you farking moron, unlike all of my fellow employees, I'm wearing a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap instead of a bright orange vest that says "Home Depot" on it--it's just an individual fashion statement for me. This happens to me all the time, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

My friend and I go into a McDonalds. My buddy orders a one of their "Super Value Meals" that costs about $5. The guy behind the counter rings it up and then goes to get the food. My friend has a $10 to pay for it with. The guy comes back and gives my friend his change, BEFORE he's payed. My friend points out the error and the guy apologizes, takes the money and gives him the change. He turns around, finished grabbing the food, puts in on the counter, and proceeds to give my friend his change AGAIN. This time my friend just took the money. You can only do so much.

Sorry if this story just pours salt in the wounds of the guy above who posted about being turned down for employment by Micky Dees.

Drat...I forgot to vote for myself.