One summer during college, I was hired by a company that, in my opinion, was scamming people. I went to the county courthouse and looked in the public records for eviction notices. I then addressed envelopes and mailed flyers to the people who were being evicted (all stamps and supplies paid by the company). They flyers said that they should call the “Renters Rights Company” or some such for help. If the renters called, I would be sent out to “help.”
I was to essentially fill out forms for the people for a fee, something that they could do themselves for free if they knew how. One was a form to declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Another was an name/address collection form. (There is no John H. Smith living here, I am John G. Smith…this bought the renter an extra week or so while the landlord refiled in the correct name.) I was paid in cash and got to keep half of it.
After visiting three or four clients I realized that we were scamming people. I called the office and told them that I was quitting because I felt that they were dishonest. I gave them the money for the people that I visited and even trained my replacement.
I don’t know. Since you’ve asked, I’ve been googling around looking for who I used to work for (beats packing my office!)–which is kind of hard if one has forgetten the name!
I should mention that it was absolutely not “Texas Watch”, which (1) is most concerned with insurance companies and (2) was founded ca. 1998!
The only things I remember were that: (1) they had a suite in an office building off of Central Expressway in northish Dallas and there was a Guitar Center somewhat nearby; (2) that they claimed that Willie Nelson founded, or was a founder of, the organization (that was something you were supposed to mention to the marks… er, potential contributors); and (3) it had the word “Texas” in the title of the organization.
Two and a half weeks, roughly.
A restaurant on Liberty Avenue that had just changed ownership. The new owner painted a glorious picture of how the place was going to be jumping as soon as word got around. In the time I was there, I served one dinner, to a well-dressed couple. I fawned over them to no end, believe me. But most of the time I was smoking in the kitchen with the cook. One afternoon, I looked at my watch and realized that a) I was supposed to be there in twenty minutes, b) I was also at least a twenty minute bus ride, let alone walking and waiting time, away, c) the owner didn’t care if I showed up, and d) he didn’t much care if anyone showed up, including himself.
Half an hour.
I accepted the job, despite a bad premonition, because I had no other offers. Showed up in the morning and was told the owner would train me as soon as she got there. After half an hour of reading the company literature (which did nothing to dispel my foreboding) in the break room, I left. It was a relief, really, that they gave me that excuse.
Inky-: OUCH! Was it just severed once, or chopped to bits? Because upon thinking it over, one cut to such a poster could be overcome. It would lose its retail value, but if I owned it solely for the sake of owning it, I would tape it up again and accept the mishap as just one of those things that always seems to happen to valuable things. Well, I’d accept it after the frame shop did the repair for no charge!
AHunter3, I so feel for you!
(Even if you did block my e-mail once!)
hajario, I applaud your integrity, but why did you train a replacement so they could do the same thing?
About an hour. I was supposed to be a “runner” at a new bingo game at a synagogue near where I lived. We (the employees) were all there on the first night . . . and there were no players. At all. Zilch, zero, nada. That was the end of that.
So, what LC is saying here folks is that he doesn’t know how to choke his chicken …or he certainly didn’t need instructions on how to do it
BTW, when you write your future best selling book, the first sentance should be the opening line of your book. What Dramatic Tension! Bedlam ensues, I’m certain!
I held a job for one day, working at some smaller version of Linens and More for about three hours, sorting sheets and table clothes and the like. I realized that:
a)I did not care about these things at all.
b) the woman I worked with (Future Cat Lady and Ms. Dateless for 10,000 Saturdays in a Row) was not the kind of person that a hip teenager like me wanted to associate with.
Good question. The company was based in Los Angeles and I lived in San Diego (~150 miles away). The guy had driven all the way down to train me just a few days before and I felt bad. The boss tried to talk me into staying on and almost had me convinced that they weren’t really scamming people so I offered to train the replacement to get him to shut up. I did tell my replacement my reasons for quitting (nice guy, retired mail carrier.) At the time it seemed like the right way to go about things. It was totally legal, by the way. In fact, the business was run out of a law office.
I was young. I would probably wouldn’t have done it the same way today but I would have known better than to even take a job like that today. I was so broke back then and it would have been easy, potentially tax free money so I am still proud of myself for what I did.
2 days as a seamstress. (8 hrs tops)
I was interviewed, accepted and shown around the shop.
Mind you most of my sewing experience is of the HAND variety. (except for a Home Ec. class in JrHigh 1979)
A coustomer came in needing a hem raised on a pair of pants. This was done on the surger, of which I was unfamiliar. I bumbled my way hrough it and thought it looked fine for something noone sees. The coustomer complained because the seam was uneven where it turned under!
I was polietly told to keep my inexperienced self home afterwards.
Never did get the paycheck either eventhough they did have my ss # and adress.
I had a job at which I worked zero hours, zero minutes.
I applied for a summer job in a greasy hamburger/hotdog restaurant, and was told to show up the next Monday. But the place was shut down on Saturday (by the Board of Health, I believe) and it never did re-open.
I dutifully showed up on Monday, but no one was there. A couple of phone calls later, I was looking for work again.
I worked for two days as a commercial construction laborer. I had been working in fast food for a few years (I was a manager). I was getting sick of the job and all the crap that went with it. When a new owner took over the franchise and screwed me out of several benefits I once had before I took the first job I could find. I thought it would be nice to get away from dealing with the public, but I wasn’t used to the work nor the working conditions and I hated every minute of it. I had other reasons to quit, too, which I won’t go into detail on here (I covered them in another recent thread similar to this one, don’t recall what it was titled). Anyway, I went three days without work after quitting that awful job before getting another job.
While I was young, stupid and in college (again, taking finance this time), I ran across an ad taped up on one of the bulletin boards in the halls advertising $300/week and, after 6 weeks, they’d train you for your Series 7 exam. I showed up for what I thought was going to be an interview and turned out to be group orientation. While the guy wasn’t quite as ferocious as Ben Affleck’s character, there were definite similarities. It turns out that we were supposed to cold call personel managers at companies around the state (MD) and tell them about this wonderful insurance plan that they had for their employees, something about supplemental insurance for workers comp. It wasn’t going to cost the employer anything but a little time, allowing one of the three head guys to come in and do a little presentation for the employees.
Well, not being a fan of telemarketers, I wasn’t all that thrilled when I heard that part. But when the guy stood there in front of all of us and said with perfect aplomb that he didn’t give a good goddamn if any of them bought the insurance. He was just using the insurance orientation as a way to get ahold of them to sell them stocks.
Desperately needing the money, I gave it a shot. It didn’t work out terribly well. I bailed at lunch.
18 days
Removing asbestos from industrial plants. The summer after high school, I didn’t have a job, so a family friend set me up to work at the company where he worked until I headed off to college. The first job wasn’t too assignment, we had to pull the aspestoes from a decommissioned steel plant. At least it was shut down. The second one was a working steel plant in Wheeling, WV. We were on a catwalk platform surrounded by boilers, 70 feet above where they were pouring molten steel. The area we were working was completely enclosed in plastic sheets and we were completely enclosed in full length Tyvek suits with hoods and respirators. We went into the enclosure for 20 minutes and then spent 40 outside. After 10 days I decided I could live with a little less beer money and went back to work at the gas station I had been working at all through high school.
I was desperately looking for a job the summer after my freshman year of college. I reluctantly took a job at an ice cream parlor that was run just like an old fashioned one from the 1950s.
Cool place, but not a cool place to work when you hate handling food, especially sticky food, and can’t eat it.
Anyway, a day before I was supposed to go in for training, my cousin told me I could have a job as an office assistant at the local distribution office of an absurdly large beverage company that sells a drink in red cans with white lettering.
So, I went in for training, told the owner that I had something better lined up and if it fell through, I would work at the ice cream parlor. But I didn’t want to waste time with training if it turned out I could have a better job. She was cool with it and let me go home before I even put on my apron.
