Well, this is a fine kettle of fish.....
Yep. So, I quit my job today. No, I don't have another one lined up. No, I have nothing in savings, either. There was no retirement plan, and I'm pretty sure Unemployment is out of the question.
You know how I rant about how bad my job sucks? It got worse. Allow me to elucidate:
The last couple of weeks, we've been understaffed. People are dropping like flies; I am evidently no exception. At any rate, they had this girl coming in the mornings, and I was relieving her in the afternoons. Every single time I went to relieve her, there were at least 6 or 7 (extremely moderate estimate) orders lying around, waiting to be tagged in. No cleaning had been done, no hangers sorted or made, and her numbers were pretty low (about $350-ish in 4 hours, which isn't all that much when you're dealing with dry cleaning. On an average day I was pulling in anywhere between $700 and $1000 in a 6-8 hour shift, putting orders away off the truck, and waiting on customers who were strictly picking up -- which takes a chunk out of time that I could have been detailing or tagging. In addition to which I usually managed to at least dust or sweep.)
Then I discovered that not only was I being left orders to tag and hang up, but there was at least one occasion where this same girl took in an order that was supposed to be for same day rush -- the customer had told her specifically that they wanted it back that afternoon -- and detailed and tagged it for regular day (which would have been Tuesday, but the guy was leaving Monday morning, before we were even open, for a business trip. This then necessitated that the owners go digging through piles and piles of shirts, wash and press them, then hand-deliver the shirts to the customer at their home, most likely without charging them for it.) I had never made a mistake on that scale.
Then, Tuesday night (before Thanksgiving) this woman came into the store -- at less than 5 minutes till closing. I pulled up her name in the computer, then went to the back to get her stuff. I looked, and looked -- checked every single order, in fact -- and it was not there. The lady insisted she could see her clothes and wanted to come around the counter. Now, I was told when I started, in no uncertain terms, that I was not to let anyone go behind the counter for any reason whatsoever. So of course, I told her I wasn't allowed to let her go in the back. I looked right at the order to which she had pointed, and it was not her name on it. I called my manager, but got hold of the owner instead, and asked what I should do. All she could offer me was to keep looking and if I still couldn't find it, I should take the lady's phone number down and let her know we'd call her as soon as it turned up.
The next day, I came in and, after attending to the first few customers, checked the racks again. As I expected, they looked no different than when I had left the night before. I e-mailed my manager and told her I'd looked again, and still couldn't find them. She responded with a smart-assed "Well, have you looked in the computer?" So I did, and found that the order had been picked up. I told her that it was nice to have been notified, to which she only said that Larry and Carol (the owners) had been in that same morning and found the order hanging right where it was supposed to be. I responded with an admittedly flippant "Fine. Don't believe me; I don't care." That was pretty much the last I heard about the whole thing. Was off Thanksgiving, worked Friday, nobody said anything further about it.
Well, then I got to work today. My roommate (who is also my ride to work) asked why Sandie (the manager) was there. I told him it wasn't Sandie, because I was just looking in the store. He pointed at another car that had parked before we did, and sure enough, I saw Sandie get out of it. I knew something was up. Went inside, put my stuff down, and clocked in. Then I heard Sandie say "Oh, hi Larry!!!" And that's when I realized I was being railroaded.
Apparently, Larry thought I was a bad girl because of this particular incident. I was not rude to the customer, but somehow, she had decided between when she left that night and when she arrived to pick up her miraculously rediscovered clothes, that not only was I rude, but that I had cussed at her, too. Amazing how the mind can create any scenario you want it to. So I insisted that I wasn't rude, and was called a liar to my face. Also, apparently, I should have let the dumb cunt around the counter (which I was told never to do) to find her clothes herself. Whatever. I'm not working for some jackass who calls me a liar to my face. I told them on the night it happened that I could have been mistaken. I have bad eyesight, but apparently that's a lie, too.
So then I was told that I was untrustworthy for counter work. The plan was a weeklong "disciplinary layoff" and whatever position was available at the main plant (which is a good 30+ miles from where I live.) I thought "Wow, a week off and no more asshole customers? Bonus!" Then I was also told that they had determined, from this one singular incident, that I was "under the influence of something." WTF? Considering that only the foulest of controlled substances turn people into sadistic, raving lunatics, I was not only being called a liar, but also a crackhead? I was told that I was expected to get into a vehicle with Larry, and that he would then transport me to a facility they use for UA tests and accompany me the whole way. That set off red flags right there. There was no way I was getting into a car alone with Larry, or even with Larry and Sandie both. Maybe especially. (For the record, I didn't think they were going to kill me and leave my body somewhere, although I suppose that's possible, too. There's no telling what might have happened, though. Paranoid? Yes. Excessively so? I don't think so.)
What ended up happening was this: I told them that I didn't see any way I'd be able to get to and from Miamisburg every single day, so there was no point in doing all that. (I didn't want to just say "I refuse to get into a car with either of you.") If I wasn't going back to any of the stores, there's no reason to waste good money on a UA. So I signed their little disciplinary paper and went on my merry way.
What would have happened in my perfect fantasy world: I would have stood up abruptly, before we even got to the punitive portion of the show, and said, "I won't work for people who call me a liar." Then grabbed my stuff and walked out.
What would have happened in a Kevin Smith film: I'd have spent another hour arguing with Larry at the top of my lungs, making obscure Star Wars references to prove my points, and then Jay and Silent Bob would show up and just generally be weird to cover my escape.
So, on to the job hunt, I suppose.....