Paranoid

Photos courtesy of Retail Life

I have had so many bad jobs in my life–especially since I started working when I was 15.  I had to get a work permit from school since I was a minor.

I have had bad co-workers, and even worse bosses.  The worst though, is when they team up against you.

I have had to miss work from being sick, and then being fired for it.  Companies will fire you over their policies, even if it’s just a technicality.  They don’t care.  I guess they feel even bilingual people can be easily replaced.

Working in retail, and customer service at call centers, is especially interesting. I love telling people what to do. That’s how my parents raised me. I was the big sister growing up. I had two younger brothers. I was the one that told them when to go home for dinner. I was the one bossing them around.  I loved it. I was basically raised like middle management.

I wasn’t raised to take orders, except if they came from the higher ups. I love telling people what to do mostly because I know better, and they don’t.  If I give you advice it’s because I care.  If you don’t take that advice, you are stupid.

Back when people used alpha numeric pagers, I remember taking a message from a client. We were the ones sending out the pages for customers.  He said to type: The squirrel is in the tree.

I knew he wasn’t a vet. I also remember sending out messages about the fall fashion line for a famous fashion designer.

But the worst job so far, was the one I had most recently, working for a financial services firm.  The co-worker I was stuck with at the front desk was so threatened by me, that she would purposely set me up to make mistakes on the same days that the boss would work.  Julie wanted me to look as bad as possible.

Her reason?  The only difference between us was that she had an accent when she spoke English, and I didn’t.  We were both bilingual, but that wasn’t good enough for her.

No, she had to speak perfect English.  Since she couldn’t, instead of improving on her skills, she decided she would set me up to fail at work.  Not like she needed the job or anything.  Her husband worked construction.  I was single, with no boyfriend, and no one to depend on, except for my elderly mother who only had a part-time job, and had health problems of her own.

Of course, once Julie found this out, it was too late.  That would be the last day that I worked.  The day that she made a veteran wait in the lobby for an hour, when she knew that his adviser had left early that day.  And Julie didn’t waste any time blaming me for that.

Julie even went to the extent of asking Marisela to check on me in the brake room.  I went to eat dinner early, so I took my break early, since I told her I had to take my medications by a certain time. I guess she didn’t believe I had diabetes.

I caught Marisela checking up on me.  The best part though, was when she realized that I knew that. She almost dropped the stake of papers she was carrying.  Wow.  Stupid.