First in a series of true-life horror stories about working in America. Check back often for tales that will entertain you, mainly because they happened to someone other than you!
Horrible Bosses. The movie. Also, the life of Americans, or at least, most Americans I’ve ever known.
It took me precisely two jobs to figure out that working for someone else was a prescription for insanity. My first job wasn’t so bad. One might think it was horrible, knowing it was waiting table at a divey bar on eastern Long Island. I had replaced a humongously overweight woman who, so the owners told me, used to swing her legs up on the bar from time to time to treat the regulars to a vision of her oozing scabs. What were they from? Shit knows, and shit cares.
Anyway, the owners were so happy I was of normal size and had no scabs on my legs that they paid me fifty bucks a week extra under the table; Scab Lady had told them the tips were horrible. The tips were not horrible. At least, my tips were not horrible. Pretty good, actually. Plus the wonderful daytime bartender took me under his wing and protected me from the horror shows that sometimes frequented the establishment.
One such used to ask me for a kiss every time I walked by his perch at the end of the horseshoe bar with food for a table. One day, he grabbed my arm and said he wanted a kiss right then. I yelled to the bartender, “Uncle Al, this guy wants a kiss.”
Uncle Al―not a real uncle, but it sounded more serious that way―rose to his full 6’6”, reached across the bar, picked the guy up by the shoulders and planted a big one full on his lips.
The guy never returned. Al wasn’t the boss, just an employee. But the bosses, both named Ray, were great. I would never have believed in horrible bosses until the next summer. When I came home from college that year, I got a job in a very popular restaurant, not a mile from our house, on the way to the posh Hamptons. And that’s when I began to learn about horrible bosses.
Next, a laundry list of horrors, including:
- Knocking a plate out of my hand and stepping on it, food and all.
- Checking the bottom of one’s shoes for dirt
- The window curtain patrol
- Being forced to watch Jerry Springer (No, I’m NOT kidding.)
- And more.
These were not all from one job, needless to say. My longevity record in a job is three years; the boss was one of the few great guys. Of course, some of the other staff…well, anyway, they didn’t control my life and were therefore tolerable for three years. Just.
Next: Horror stories from the front lines -- New York
No comments:
Post a Comment