This story reminded me of a story a district manager told me.

I was a new store manager of a women’s clothing store in a mall. The district manager was going over security procedures with me. One of them was that employees could not put on their coats until they left the store. I asked why, and she gave me this explanation.

An employee had already put her coat on as she was leaving. The manager told the employee to take off her coat. It turned out that the employee had hidden a pair of jeans by pulling the legs down the sleeves of her coat and the top of the jeans down her back.

Yes, the employee was fired, and a security protocol was reinforced.

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I work in a restaurant with a line cook who we’ll call Maria. Maria is super chill and good at her job, so I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on her. But it is obvious that English is not her native language, and her English is a h*** of a lot better than my Spanish. This isn’t intended to be a dumb foreigner joke or anything like that, just a light-hearted story about something being lost in translation. And a fart joke.

I was grabbing some silverware back in the kitchen.

Maria: “Did you cut cheese?”

I was a bit confused; Maria does speak English fairly well but sometimes misses slang terms. (For non-Americans, “cutting the cheese” is slang for farting.)

I was trying to figure out whether she was speaking literally or figuratively, so my first response was:

Me: *Flatly* “What?”

She started asking me if I knew how to cut the cheese.

Maria: “Oh, if you don’t know how to cut the cheese, I will show you how.”

One of my coworkers walked by, overheard her asking me if I knew how to cut the cheese, and burst out laughing.

At that point, Maria realized that we were laughing at her.

Maria: “What’s so funny?”

We explained to her that she was kind of asking me if I knew how to fart. She was a bit embarrassed, but she laughed it off.

Poor Maria just wanted to know if I knew how to prep shredded cheddar; she just phrased it inartfully.

Maria is awesome.

One time, my bank screwed up and didn’t deposit my paycheck. This was pre-online banking, so I noticed when I got some overdraft notices in the mail. I called and complained, and they said that, since I had noticed, they would undo the overdraft fees.

There was no apology, and the implication was that if I hadn’t noticed and complained, they would have not refunded the fees even though it was completely their fault.

This happened quite a few years ago. I grew up in a very touristy beach town, and I spent my summers making insane money in the service industry as a busgirl, server, bartender, and whatever. This was at a very nice restaurant right on the beach boardwalk — the type of place where everyone wore all black and you had to memorize and recite the specials before you were allowed out on the floor. It was also only my second bartending job, my first being a different bar run by the same people — a big dive bar in a restaurant a town away that didn’t do as well. They liked my work ethic and offered me a job at this place after the season was over.

I have to say, although I didn’t stay there for an awful long time, I LOVED working at this place. The atmosphere managed to be both high-scale and comfortable, and the owners, a lesbian couple who owned several places in the state, obviously cared deeply about the quality of what they were serving. Every last ingredient, down to the salt, was hand-picked by them, and they were both there nightly to taste-test and make sure everything was running smoothly. They were also very good to their employees.

However, I worked with this older guy behind the bar who obviously didn’t appreciate me being there and asking questions. He was a career bartender and he knew his stuff, and he had worked hard to be where he was, so I can understand him not wanting to deal with a young college student who barely knew her way around a Bloody Mary recipe.

On the day in question, we were working together during a Sunday brunch special. A group of regulars came in who were notoriously good tippers but were also loud and a little rowdy. My bartender buddy grabbed some empty bottles and high-tailed it to the back, so I wandered over to take their orders.

They all ordered your typical brunch cocktails: screwdrivers, Bloody Marys, and, of course, mimosas. Great, no problem. Keep in mind, this was the first time I’d worked a brunch, and while we were semi-famous for our homemade Bloody Mary recipe, which I also made at the other restaurant, mimosas were not on our regular menu. For a few minutes, as I gathered the drinks I knew how to make, I considered going after my grumpy sidekick to ask him what we use for mimosas, but the bar was filling up, and I didn’t want to bother him. So, when I could stall no longer, I shrugged, grabbed the only bottle of champagne we kept stocked at the bar (a $250 bottle of Dom Perignon), and popped the cork.

Cue instant regret. INSTANT. It was like I’d been in a trance, and all of a sudden I came to, cold and pale, holding my week’s paycheck in front of a lady who was eagerly surprised at the sudden upgrade. But what was done was done. As there really was no way to hide what I’d so obviously screwed up, I poured the drinks and took care of the rest of the customers.

As soon as my guy came back, I ducked out and ran to the back office where one of the owners was doing inventory. I fessed up immediately, apologized profusely, and told her I would pay for the mistake. She had this funny look on her face as she watched me go through my spiel. Then, she shrugged and just told me we’d figure it out at the end of the brunch, and she sent me back out.

I spent the remainder of my shift convinced I was going to be fired. I practiced how I would handle it. I wouldn’t cry or beg or apologize; I’d just thank them for the chance to learn from such a great group of people and tell them how much I respected their obvious devotion to their work. I’d made a huge mistake, and I was willing to deal with the consequences.

The end of brunch came. I was only scheduled to work the brunch shift, but my bartender buddy was scheduled to work the rest of the day, which happened to be a special event for a wedding party, and another few servers and bartenders started to trickle in.

The owner who’d been there called me to the back office, and I walked in to find both owners looking at me with amused expressions on their faces. I promptly forgot everything I had coached myself on and began frantically apologizing again. They stopped me and told me it was no big deal, I should use it as a learning experience, and that the rest of the staff would appreciate having a glass of Dom Perignon at the end of the night, as they planned on serving it to everyone who worked the wedding party. They assured me that I wouldn’t have to pay for it and sent me on my way.

I ended up enlisting in the Navy a few months later and put in my notice. When I told them I was leaving, they both told me I’d do great things wherever I went, that I had an excellent work ethic, and they’d be happy to hire me back if I ever ended up back in town. They’re still the best people I’ve ever worked for.

Reading this story made me think about a time in my life when a similar situation happened. I cannot say when that story occurred, but mine happened in 1997. As my story happened over twenty-five years ago, it seems that nothing has changed, sadly.

I used to be the “go-to” guy. When management needed someone to work extra, they asked me. Much like the other story, I learned the hard way that saying “yes” once meant that you were on the hook to do anything extra. And much like the author of that story, I learned that for some reason you were treated worse by management if you agreed to help. Not to mention that you were treated badly by other employees because you were “sucking up” or “kissing the boss’s a**”.

I had been asked for five months straight to come in and work on my days off, take weekend shifts, and work double shifts. I never said “no” once — until one day.

That day, I was to come in at 5:00 pm and work until 9:00. But I was exhausted. I think I was in burnout and never even knew it existed. I was seventeen, for what it is worth. The boss started calling my house at 10:00 am. He called and didn’t ask for me; he asked for my mother. He tried to guilt trip her into talking me into working early. My mother told him I was asleep.

At 11:00, [Boss] called back asking to speak to my mother. My mother again said that I was asleep and trying to rest. At that point, [Boss] started getting snippy with my mother, asking her what kind of poor child she had, sleeping in until almost noon. My mother told him again that I was asleep, she wouldn’t speak for me, and she wouldn’t make arrangements — like about me coming in early — without talking to me first.

[Boss] called back at 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 pm. Every time, he got more and more angry with my mother. He continued to tell her what I terrible employee I was, that I was lazy, that I wasn’t a team player, etc. At 3:00 pm, my mother finally corrected my manager and reminded him that I worked every day they asked, pulled doubles, and came in on my days off to help. None of this was getting through to [Boss]. He just kept getting angrier and angrier.

He stopped calling after the 3:00 pm call, and I thought that was that. Oh, boy, was I wrong. 

I went to work at 5:00 pm, and I was immediately pulled into the office. My manager screamed at me. He called me a “little [censored]” a “worthless [censored]” and a few more names. He called me mother a wh*re for “disrespecting him” and not “making me come to work”.

He also gave me a write-up right then and there. It stated that I had come into work late that day and that I had been scheduled for 1:00 pm to 9:00 pm. I refused to sign the write-up because it was so bogus. I also had a copy of my schedule, and I noticed that the office one had been marked out with an ink pen and a new time was on the schedule. [Boss] hadn’t gotten to change it digitally yet, and I saved that, too.

I let him know that I wasn’t going to listen to this abuse and was going to the Regional Manager. He told me if I did this, he would fire me on the spot.

So, I called [Regional Manager], explained everything, and sent him all the information I had.

Then, I walked out the door and never looked back.

About six months later, I was driving around and passed my old store. It was closed. I wonder why?

Oh, and if anyone was wondering why [Boss] was such a jerk, it was because he was forty-seven years old and trying to date the new sixteen-year-old we had hired. (I might have told that to [Regional Manager], as well.) [Boss] apparently had bought tickets to a movie and wanted to take her that night.

Good times.

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