Oh my, you’ve just reminded me of something I’d managed to forget - I worked a few hours a week at a McDonald’s my senior year of college. It was depressing, exhausting, and one of the people there was obnoxiously bossy, but that does NOT excuse my behavior; one day I simply stopped showing up. We had these horrid lime-green, polyester uniforms, and one day a few weeks later I went to the drive through window and handed the uniform to a very surprised employee.
That was 40 years ago but I’m ashamed. What on earth possessed me to be such a thoughtless asshole? Sorry, McDonald’s.
I did a brief part-time stint at McDonald’s in the early 80s. Same ugly lime-green uniforms. (I think they were trying to carry the “clown” concept just a little too far.) I quit that job in the normal way, giving my two weeks, but a few months after I left a story started going around about how I stormed out in the middle of a shift, yelling “I McQuit!” as I walked out the door.
At least you returned the uniform. When I was fired* from a pizza delivery job I kept one of the pouches pizzas were delivered in. It was semi-accidental, forgotten in the back of my car until a day or two later but on the other hand I said, “Fuck 'em,” when I found it.
*The sup who didn’t like me changed the day I was supposed to work without telling me plus I didn’t check the board like I was supposed to.
Ah, thoughtless youth. In college I worked one summer for Kelly Girl. I had 1-2 week assignments usually in business offices for special projects or to cover for someone’s vacation. Easy work and I got to read a lot. Then I was sent to a manufacturing plant to work in their office. Right off the bat the supervisor starting telling me that I would start with this thing, then in a few weeks I’d move up to another and down the line I’d be doing something else. I thought “oh, hell, no”. He showed me to my desk, I asked someone where the bathroom was and walked out of the building. It must have been near the end of the summer because I can’t imagine that Kelly Girl sent me on a new assignment after that.
I guess if you’re happy killing yourself so Bezos’s stock can go up a quarter of a point, that’s your business (well…Bezos’s technically).
I believe in hard work as much as the next guy. But I also like to reap the benefits of that work (I mean beyond simply having a livelihood subject to the whims of my overlords).
My suspicion is the the side effect that, in case of any sudden hiccup that slowed production towards the end of the day, the invariably found themselves with the worst performers rather than their best.
The company I worked for had the fire service contract for the local community college. They have at least forty buildings of various sizes scattered over the area. The contract stipulates that all fire alarm testing is done before 8.00am. These systems are tested twice a year. As we worked on this with the Facilities Dept guy, we had really worked the kinks out and it went pretty smoothly. With cooperation we were able to get this all done in one week. It was an all hands on deck operation though. The entire alarm dept knew about this and planned ahead for the early hours.
A new hire, who was known for at least four or five “sick days” a month was told about all of this a couple of months before it happened. When the schedule came out and he saw that he had four days scheduled for a 4.00am start he sent an email to the owner of the company stating that the scheduling was targeting him unfairly and that he should not be required to work off shift hours and that he was resigning effective immediately.
He had just built a new house and his wife was expecting their second child very soon. He did find a job with a small residential security company for about 2/3rds of what he was being paid and nothing like the benefits he had. All because he did not like to get up early for four working days twice a year.
I worked as a dishwasher in high school and one Saturday I was invited to a party. I called in and I couldn’t go in that day. The manager asked why I told him the truth instead of thinking up a lie. He just hung up.
