“60 Shocking First-Day Stories: What Made These Employees Walk Out for Good?”
Got a call shortly after getting home asking if I’d like an assembly line job in an air conditioned factory, never went back to the potato farm.
I got this job cold calling local businesses to sell them printer toner subscriptions. Weirdest, most awkward job prospect I’ve ever encountered.
* Came in at around 4pm. Place was an empty room with a desk against one wall, a PC, and a phone. Owner had an office in the back.
* Owner has me put together his office chair for him.
* Watch him try to write an email, he can barely write a coherent sentence.
* Finish the chair. Then instructs me to pull up a program on the PC and call the numbers, ask them if they want to buy toner subscriptions.
* Um, ok.
* Spend the next three hours awkwardly calling places, asking if they want to buy toner. No script, no product descriptions, no printer models, completely flying by the seat of my pants.
* Many ask if I will install it for them. IDK. No one on either side has any idea what’s going on.
* I leave, immediately text that I’m not coming back.
* Owner texts back that I’m not qualified for the position.
* Never got paid for the ~four hours.
I came in to be one of 4 retail managers for a museum with 4 stores. While training me I overheard multiple associates (who I would be managing) swearing and yelling at customers. Then one of the other managers training me to log the safe yelled and screamed at me that I didn’t know how to count cause the safe was $1 short (we later found the dollar on the floor behind the desk she had been counting at) then the district manager above me spent the entire day sitting at the cameras listing reasons to write up associates which included: seeing the outline of a girls phone through her back pocket even tho she never took it out, an associate going to the bathroom twice during his shift (they were only permitted one break apparently), and an associate not asking literal children to donate to the museum.
Great first day. Even better last day.
“15% of our female employees have reported harassment in the workplace” – shipping company
*this guy was right it was actually 25% working at shmed ex.
After 3 interviews, negotiations and tests, they agreed on my salary and we started on Monday. I come in, do all the paperwork and get assigned a pc, desk etc. Before coming in, I saw the red flag that they had a high turnover but they agreed on a really good salary for me. All of a sudden I get an email from CEO that he wants to “test me” again and gave me 3 complex tasks from his side business totally unrelated to my skills and position in the company, like asking a doctor to write a code. He told me just do it cause you’re working for me from now on. I stood up and went through the door. Half an hour later the HR calls me and asks to come back, I told her to have a good day and never contact me again.
At my new job, I have a colleague who worked there for one year. She started telling me crazy stories about the boss and the company. I didn’t dodge a bullet, but rather a rocket strike.
Two hours into my first shift at a glassware shop, I’d broken £175 worth of stuff by accident – while dusting the shelves, while wrapping items that a customer had just bought, and some things I swear broke just because I existed too closely to them. The owner, who was the artist/glassblower, to his infinite credit didn’t want to charge me or take it out of my pay – he actually said I did a great job with the customers and wanted me to stay – but my nerves couldn’t take it so I walked out. Carefully.
It was a hotel. Not a crappy one but not a fancy one either.
I was hired as housekeeping, I love cleaning and it paid decent so I was excited.
First room had a pile of toe nails on the beside table, gross but whatever, I’ve got gloves.
Second room someone p*ssed on THE PHONE! I asked where the replacements were and my trainer told me to just wipe it. It was a landline, there was p**s inside of it! WTF
Third room had c*m in the window sill. Another WTF. I noticed the window faced a playground across the street. I quit right there.
The owners daughter showed up to open 1.5 hours late. Said she thought her mom had given me keys. Proceeded to tell me to unload her car before I could come in and clock in. I locked her keys in her car and left.
I applied to a local newspaper for advertising sales, thinking I would be making a lot of cold calls, instead I was being trained on ways to sneak past things like front desk reception so that I could knock directly on a business owners office doors. This was in a small town where I knew a lot of the local business owners already and the thought of behaving that way around people I had known my whole life was just distasteful, that and learning there was no wage, just commission.
I did that first day of training and then at the end of the day gave them back all the training materials and apologized for wasting their time, but that I couldn’t see myself doing very well at that job.
