How I got fired from the pawn shop, or, what's the definition of "insubordination"?

In this thread I talked about a woman I hated whose stupidity caused me to be fired from the pawn shop. In that thread, Sal Ammoniac wanted to hear the story. Since I’m in a gut-spilling mood, I’d thought I throw a few feet of intestine your way with this story.

After The Tampa Fiasco (another thread for another day), I returned to Savannah in October of 1989. I had no place to live, hardly any money, and no job. I was forced to live with my parents for about 4 months until I got work. I went to the job agency where I’d gotten jobs before. I was sent to a locally-owned well-established pawn shop chain.

I didn’t know diddly about pawn shops other than that they were havens of crackheads selling stolen merchandise to support their evil habit (which, of course, is not true). I did know enough about computers and some home electronics, though, to at least make my hiring worthwhile. My main job was to write up pawns, pull deliquent pawned items out of storage, clean them up, and put them on display. I did some selling, but I was never very good at it.

I also was pretty good with math, so I ended up doing the daily reports, going to the bank, etc.

After about 3 years, I was made “assistant manager” of the downtown store. All this meant was I had to run the store when the manager was off. Simple stuff, but I never liked being in a position where I have to be in charge of other people. If I’m going to get my ass chewed because someone didn’t do something, I’d rather it be because I personally didn’t do it.

After about a year of that, I was made manager of the Westside store against my wishes. I didn’t want the job and they knew it. Since I didn’t have any other job options, I had to stick it out. Well, as many of you who have been managers well know, whatever goes wrong in your store is your fault even if it isn’t.

In my case, when sales were down, it was because I was rude to customers (although, oddly enough, no evidence of this was ever presented), for example.

One of my cow-orkers, the previously menitioned Jeri (that’s her real name, BTW. She’s dead. What’s she going to do?), was a royal pain in the ass. Whenever the opportunity arose to send her on chores outside the store, I was quick to give them to her.

Well, one day I sent to Sam’s Club to pick up a box of that big-ass greenbar paper (14-7/8x11). I told her (and I had a witness) specifically NOT to try and lift the box herself (she was in her late 50’s or so and those boxes are pretty heavy. I’m not that evil, ya know). I instructed her to ask for someone at Sam’s to help her load it in her van. I also told her to go to lunch while she out and to take as much time as she needed (hey, time to goof off for her and peace for me).

About two hours later, she comes in and she’s hobbling and has a distressed look on her face. I ask her what’s wrong and he says, “I think I hurt my back lifting that paper in my van.”

What the holy fuck, I’m thinking.

I said, “Didn’t I tell you to get help?”

“Well, I asked and there was no one to help.”

“Who did you ask?”

“The cashier.”

“Since when do the cashiers run the place. You should have asked someone at the customer service desk.”

“I know, but I was in a hurry.”

“I told you you take your time.”

Well, she had no answer for this and I sent her home. She calls the general manager (a macho dick of epic proportions - a minor rant in himself). Now I end up getting my ass chewed out for this incident. It didn’t matter what I had said to her. This was going to cost the company money in worker’s comp and lost sales (you see the “money is more important than life itself” trend here).

As the weeks go by, she would call in to see what was going on (mostly to see if the stuff she’d sold had come out of layaway so she could get her commission). She couldn’t come in because she was in “so much pain” (not so much that she couldn’t get in and out of a rowboat, mind you. And this “pain” netted her $35,000.). I would try to be as pleasant as possible, but keep the conversation as short as possible.

One week (on a Monday) we are having a manager’s meeting. It’s 5 minutes from being over and some alien presence takes over my brain. I ask the general manager if he’d heard from Jeri. He suggested that I call her to see how she was doing.

My reply?

“I don’t care if the bitch lives or dies.”

What’s that sound? Yes, it’s the sound that could only be made by the jaws of 5 grown men dropping to the floor.

During my time at the pawn shop, I never caused problems, never asked for special favors, or kissed the boss’ ass. The shock of what I said, when I said it, who I said it to, and when I said it was just too much for the GM.

I called the next day and apologized. Not for what I said, I meant that shit, but for when I said it.

As expected, I was fired the following Friday. I got two weeks severance pay and a have a nice life.

To be perfectly honest, I was relieved. As for the GM, his wife ended up leaving him for another woman. I found this to be the funniest thing I had heard in years. Not that lesbians are funny (I know, I’ve watched The L Word :D), it’s just that he was such a macho asshole. He would fire people and brag about it. Worse yet, he would try to get store managers to fire employees for him. This was a major blow to his overly inflated ego.

That was October 7, 1995.

When I went to collect unemployment. I was denied because I was fired for a legitimate reason - insubordination. What I did was express my opinion. Poorly, mind you, but I never refused to do anything I was told.

I could have fought it, but I figured it was best just to move on.

There, whaddya think?

The definition of “insubordination” is “anything the boss damn well pleases.” That’s what makes it such a useful concept.

It seems to me that, in my career (of after school and part-time get me through University jobs), I’ve had two types of bosses: the ones who remark to coworkers “If I don’t watch out, this one’ll have my job soon!” and smile, and the ones who threaten to fire me for insubordination. With one boss, it’s “Why are you doing (stupid job someone left behind)?” “Because f#$%face… I mean, Sarah… didn’t do it an it needs to be done”, at which point they’ll pat you on the back and help you out. Then there’s boss two, with whom conversations run like,

Me: I saw your paper stock order… when I did the order last week, I got 3 cases of baking sheet liners, and we’ve only gone through half of one since then. Maybe we don’t need another three?
Them: Yah well, I don’t see 2 and a half cases, do you?
Me: The bakers must have moved them, they were on that shelf yesterday. I’ll ask them.
Them: Um, no, we’re out, I’m ordering three cases.

Cut to two days later, when we’re all trying to figure out how to store 5 boxes of paper liners in our cramped space, but hey, at least we’ve got enough for another month! And then said boss whines about you to others, about how you’ve messed up inventory by over ordering. And all you can do is stammer “But… um, no because…” and realise it’s hopeless, and then smarten up and put in your two weeks notice.

I’ve found that Boss A usually worked their way to the “top”, where ever that is. Boss B is usually the husband of the sister of the blah blah blah nepotism-cakes, or in one case, the chick who slept with managers at each progressive level of the company until she ended up department manager.

Ah well, the real world’s nothing like this, right?

Right?

Hey, why are you laughing?

In the search of a slightly more firm definition than Doug gave, (though I admit that might be the truth of how it’s used in a business context,) I found 2 dictionary definitions of ‘insubordinate’:

  1. Disobedient to authority.

On this one, I’d agree that you weren’t insubordinate. As you said, you didn’t refuse an order.

  1. Not submissive to authority.

Here, there might be a case. Making a remark like that in response to a superior’s suggestion is not exactly submissive. (Then again, I do think that in a lot of businesses, you’re not exactly expected to be ‘submissive.’) It also seems a bit disrespectful, which is something that I think I mentally tie into ‘insubordination’ even though it wasn’t mentioned as such in the dictionary.

Of course, if that was the only time you’d said something that was somewhat disrespectful, and you apologized the next day, I’d say that being fired for insubordination over it is over the line. Sorry to hear that it happened to you.

I know I was young once, because I can clearly remember being surprised one day that I would actually get fired for calling the owner of the (somewhat large)business I worked for a “pork-fattened tool of capitalism.” I was surprised because I had shown restraint by not adding, “whose brains and ethics had a bet going to see which could fit inside a smaller pimple on his backside.”

If you express the opinion that you expressed about a subordinate, management might legitimately be seen as a poor career fit for you. Also, as you tell it, it could easily have looked as if you intentionally created the opportunity to get in a gratuitous as well as callous remark. Had you been asked, out of the blue, about poor Jeri, and said what you did, it would certainly have been grounds for a reprimand but might have stopped short of the red line on the FireMe meter. When someone goes to the trouble of constructing the gallows and tying the noose himself, as well as springing the trap, however, nobody’s going to rush to apply CPR.

You didn’t want the job and you made sure they knew it. They were willing to try to keep you long enough to maybe turn you around, and you were willing to take their money and stay. With this history, Jeri’s shortcomings and the GM’s personal flaws were pretty much irrelevant. Saying what you did amounted to an announcement that you didn’t want to be associated with the company any longer. And yes, it was reasonable to interpret what you said as a refusal to follow your GM’s instruction.

Try it this way: you kept your job, more legal issues with respect to Jeri’s injuries arise, some person or persons have the task of assessing the degree of your company’s responsibility, it comes out that her immediate supervisor’s position on his subordinate’s well-being was “I don’t care if the bitch lives or dies.” I can’t see a stampede of company officers each trying to be first to explain why they’re still employing you.

My opinion: you shouldn’t have been given the manager’s job in the first place, you were fired for good cause, too late, you didn’t deserve UC, you may or may not have learned how to behave since, you are too old now to still be bearing grudges against the people involved or attempting to justify what could be excused as rampant childishness if it were just admitted to be such.

So if I ask you about the Tampa Fiasco, will I have enough intestine to prepare Trippa alla Romana? Anyway, thanks.

This story seems to me like a reminder that getting fired is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you. If I recall correctly, you’re now in the hospital business – not a bad improvement, I’d say, though I doubt the people are so picturesque.

Well, DUH! I said that already.

I was ready was to leave, but not necessarily in that way. I never said anything about holding grudges or justifying anything. I related this story because another Doper was curious. I’m way over that now, but it’s easy to bring back the emotions because it was a rare occurence in my working life. As far as not deserving the UC, I could have fought the decision and probably have won if I could have convinced the other people he fired on whim to testify. The GM made quite a few enemies of his ex-employees.

Childish? Maybe. But you didn’t work for the egomaniac and witness his actions towards other employees. What I said or how/when/why/where I said it is irrelevent. That situation was reduced to a pissing contest with the GM because I wouldn’t kiss his ass like the other managers who were scared shitless of him. I lost a job I didn’t like. I got another job. He took a massive hit to his swollen ego and his firing of me might have made him feel better, but to the other managers, he looked like an idiot. To me, in that particular case, I won.

There were employees far worse than I was. There was one guy who came in drunk every other day and got into confrontations with managers and customers. Did they fire him? Nope. Why? He was black and they were afraid to because blacks made up a large part of their customer base (this came from the owner, btw). There was an employee they’d fired for stealing jewelry. They hired him back on two separate occasions. This was not a Fortune 500 company by any means, but it took me too long to figure it out. The GM could have fired me at any time without a reason by state law, but it was company policy to try to make someone quit if they didn’t have a “legitimate” reason. They’d put them in stores way out of their way or make them work with employees they knew the employee didn’t get along with.

The owner was deathly afraid of being sued again (he’d lost a big suit back in the 70s apparently that cost the company a ton of money).

The Tampa Fiasco is longer. I’ll probably have to split it up. It’s mostly a tale a stubborness, bad decisions, and semi-comedic events involving 1970 VW Bus.

I almost bought a pre-owned guitar from the pawn shop in downtown Savannah in the winter of '89. Wonder if that’s a pre-Dope connection, right there …

I was at the Midtown store, but it’s a pretty close connection.