the straw that broke the camel's back

The queue was tailing out the door and it was manic, customers were getting cranky and some were just laughing with exasperation. Anyway in the middle of this the manager demon said "hurry up Ronan". I ignored it once. Then she said it again a minute later and I completely lost it, I've never gone so crazy in a job, I shouted at her and told all the customers the reason it was so slow was because she didn't have the common sense to break the rules and leave one person in the shop while the other went to get change. I then left the shop and had a cigarette outside.

She came out and asked me to come back in and I told her to fuck off and got the bus home and never went back.

i come into work one monday and my desk has been moved. out of the room with a senior who i got on with great and worked on a lot of projects with and the gorgeous traffic manger who i had a huge crush on. into a room with the smelliest doesn't-know-when-to-shut-up-and-let-me-fucking-work, mind-numbingly dull individual i had no business being in a section with.

so i shook everyone's hand and walked out of the job. they moved my desk. that was it. i had to leave.

Anyway, so I think it was actually St. Patrick's Day, and I was stuck on a shift, but that was okay, things weren't too bad, just make sammiches for drunk college kids, right? However, at the end of the night we got a big rush, and got slammed, and the place was a mess. We'd be there for another two hours cleaning up, probably, if it was just me and the student manager which, knowing that Lee was on the shift, it would be. So it's right before close, and this one student who I was friends with and who was in charge of all the audio equipment for the music department comes in - I'd been looking for him all day to get permission to use some monitors for a project. I stop cleaning up for twenty seconds to ask him a question, and behind my back Lee says something like "what are you doing? there's a huge mess here, get back to work!" I spin around, lay into him for being a lazy fuck who never lifted a finger to help, and walked out.

Needless to say I lost the job, and it probably wasn't the best way to handle things, but at that point I felt like, if he was going to try to put me on the spot like that, I had little choice.

Workplace situations are much more likely to fit the narrative requirements since people are often stuck in rather unpleasant situations but forced to sustain them in the pursuit of income.

I feel sorry for people who have lots of stories like this with friends or exes. That just seems like you've been putting yourself through too much.

He was working the till at a food piazza type thing (various fish, potato, burger, pizza, etc. places all in one big smelly room) and it was really busy, hot and stressful. He'd already been asked to work through his break and hadn't had a ciggie all day when the boss had a go at him because of the length of the queue.
He reached down and picked up the hanging "position closed" sign from under the counter and hung it around his neck. He then stood at his till for five minutes shouting "I'M SHUT! I'M FUCKING SHUT!" at every customer who approached him until he was allowed to take his break.

He still hates that I think this counts as a "funny story" :-)

So one day he was punching me on the shoulders and back and instead of defending myself or locking myself in my room, I just curled up and let him whale away at me because I really just felt sorry for him. I think he picked up on this and it made him madder, and he got in a good one near my kidney and right about then, he said, "Fuck, aren't you going to even fight back? What are you, a faggot?"

That was the straw. I uncurled and gave him a left hook, which broke his nose and pretty much splashed the wall with his blood. At the time I was glad to hear that the doctor didn't anesthetize him when they put the probe back in his sinus cavity to straighten out the pieces.

He didn't entirely stop pestering me after that, but he mostly did, not knowing when I'd pop my cork the next time but knowing I was surely capable.

So in the 10-minute break before band class one day, I'm having one of those capri-sun juice packets, as I was known to do at that age. Pave1 comes along, grabs it, and shoves it down the back of my uniform, squirting it with bright pink juice. All sorts of people are laughing at me, so I'm turning a similar shade. Then the snappage occurs.

I grab the package out of my shirt, throw it to the ground, walk up to him, grab him by the shoulders and ram my knee into his crotch as hard as I can. As a result, he was late for music class. It felt good.

Playing 5-a-side soccer, about 13 years old. This kid, a couple of years younger than me but patently a better footballer, hacks me down painfully as I'm about to shoot for goal (technically, he should be sent off for this, but it's not a fully competitive game so he isn't). I'm really pissed off - vicious nastiness from someone capable of getting the ball off me through skill.

Anyway, 5 minutes later he does it again. I've always been a bit intimidated by him, but this time I explode. I get up, grab him by the neck and throw him to the ground. I then proceed to kick him in the head and back several times. The ref run to intervene and I get sent off for the first and only time in my life.

After this, not only does he apologise but treats me completely different, with respect instead of snotty arrogance. Despite the fact he's a dick, I am really pleased he now thinks I'm cool.

(NB when I was younger I was totally not Barry-like at all - I was shy and pretty timid. This was totally out of character)

'what you just said to me actually killed a small part of me, and if it weren't for the fact
that i wish you got several papercuts a day for the rest of your life i'd wish you good luck
on being a total fucking cunt forever.'

and then i walked out never to return again. but it was the worst job i've ever had by far.

A 1300 calorie breakfast? What are they trying to do - execute him by slow heart failure?

OK, this is very poignant.

1. The choreography WAS NOT HARD. The whining and "suggestions" and outright derision would never have happened had the exact same choreography been suggested by a professional; in fact, a good 75% of it was cribbed from various routines put together by professional choreographers we'd used the past year for other songs.

2. The "ringleader" of the naysaying crowd was my best friend, a guy with whom I was DEEPLY competitive and I'm convinced was thinking he could have done just as good a job coming up with choreography as "the director's favorites" (which, if I'm honest, the four of us were).

Things came to a snapping point when I showed some simple move that involved the guys kneeling while the girls did a simple spin and sat on their knee. This got a big "Oh no, that will never work, what we should do is strike a pose with jazz hands and maybe have the girls cross behind"-type reaction and I just lost it and said, "No, we're going to do this the way I showed you." My friend asked, "Why?" and I said, "Because I said so." He then lost it and said, "I knew it! You think you're so much better than us! God, anybody could do this!"

The entire room glazed over as I got this huge head rush. I was also experiencing that sensation they show in movies where the camera zooms in on a character while the entire background ruchs far away, plus everything got all sparkly like I was about to pass out. In the midst of experiencing all of this, I suddenly noticed I was screaming "FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU! YOU DON'T GIVE ME ANY FUCKING RESPECT! YOU WOULDN'T TREAT A PROFESSIONAL LIKE THIS! I WAS ASKED TO DO THIS AND YOU WEREN'T, SO FUCKING DEAL WITH IT BUT DEAL WITH IT ON YOUR OWN TIME YOU SMALL-MINDED ASSHOLE!" I then ran out of the auditorium and declared that no one would listen to me because I was black. It was very melodramatic.

Going to seperate colleges saved my relationship with this friend, I'm convinced.

Well never mind, in the movie he will.

DEAR [GOOGLE-PROOF] BAKERY:

I QUIT.

XOXO
JESS

walked out in the middle of my shift and never looked back.

(though i ended up breaking up with her three weeks later when i found out she blew some co-worker behind the same hummus fridge from the story above)

(which is a whole nother camel's back story)

...Never mind.

(I smell DVD extras)

I SHOVELLED GRANOLA INTO LITTLE BAGS FOR YOU PEOPLE FOR THREE HOURS ONCE AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME.

I'll tell you what, that brainstorm is a lot more honest than the "I'll just go back next semester" one that usually comes as a follow-up.

My college education: Stillborn since '94, Baby! Woot! Woot!