working title

Funny Things Happen

I quit smoking while working at one of my jobs. Some people try to quit on vacation or when they have time off, but working really helped me by keeping me busy and not thinking about it. That is, except for the one jerk who would blow smoke in my face and tell me I wouldn’t last. I showed him, though. Nine years smoke free and counting.

I thought I wasn’t getting paid once. The place switched to a new clocking system for employees to sign in and sign out. It was this fancy fingerprinting system that seemed way unnecessary, but I wasn’t paying for it, so whatever. Anyway, payday came and I didn’t have a deposit in my account. I went to the store and had to wait for the managers to come in (they were always late, but they often stayed late, so I guess I can’t blame them), then when they came in, they seemed to not care about it at all. They called the main office to find out what was going on and asked if I could give them some time to figure it out. I told them, “I’m not going home without my paycheck, or I’m not working again until I get it.” It worked out eventually, but it just bothered me that they seemed to care so little about whether I got my paycheck or not. That’s a good quality for a manager - not freaking out easily – but it sucks for an employee when it seems like no one cares.

I get stuck doing the worst jobs because I always volunteer for them. I seriously cannot say no to things. They ask, “Tonia, do you want to come in on your day off for 8 hours to stand in one place and give out free samples?” and I say, “Sure, I’ll do it!” They ask, “Hey, Tonia, do you want to spend a few weeks each Winter outside selling seafood in the freezing cold?” And I say, “Sounds like fun!” Because at the time, it sort of does. I get bored doing the same thing day after day after day, so I say yes to pretty much anything, which doesn’t often work out in my favor…

If you want to make a profit, you have to piss some people off. I wasn’t willing to do that, and that’s why owning my own business didn’t work out for me. I got upset at every critic’s harsh word, although I knew I had to ignore it.

Sometimes in customer service jobs, we complain that our customers treat us like their servants, like we’re not fellow human beings, but don’t we do the same thing to them? We treat them like they’re just another customer to get through so we can get back to what we were doing before. If we take the time to stop and treat them like fellow human beings, sometimes they’ll reciprocate the gesture.



I had a classic “horror movie” moment once. I had to go into the meat department’s walk-in cooler, which is scary enough. I don’t know about you, but I always have this slight fear of being locked inside one, and I had heard a rumor of people being locked inside this one. That safety handle on the inside had apparently broken and it wasn’t a high priority on the list of things that needed to be fixed. So, I was a little spooked walking into the cold storage cooler. First thing I saw was blood on the floor. Okay, that’s sort of normal, because it’s the meat department and the spot was in front of their grinder. They just hadn’t cleaned up yet. Then I felt a drip on my shoulder…

It was that classic moment, where my eyes slowly drifted upward, and I fully expected to see something horrible hanging from the ceiling!

It was just condensation from an air duct. I had a good laugh after I calmed my breathing down!

There was another time, not long after starting the job, I was carrying a chair up some stairs and into the break room. The manager of the store was in the break room speaking with some representative or something, and I forgot there was a little ledge going into the room, and I tripped. I caught myself before I fell flat on my face, but I looked (and felt) like a total fool in front of my new boss. That’s one way to make an impression, right