I worked for the University's horse barn as a teenager. They had some pretty strict rules that I was not used to at other places. Like, the horses were only allowed outside for 2 hours, no matter what. Could be the most beautiful day and we would have to stop everything we we're doing to bring them into their stalls. They were only ever allowed 2 squirts of fly spray, which didn't cover their butts. Required to have their halters on 24/7, even when in the stalls at night.

Our "boss" had clearly zero experience with animals or if he did he just didn't care. One day while one of the horses was having his feet trimmed, my boss went to pull out a weed whacker from the bottom of the shelf directly next to where the horse was standing. A lot like Jenga, the entire closet of machinery fell onto the horse, causing him to kick the farrier and run.

Ever since that incident, the horse was a mess, so instead of hiring a trainer to fix the problem, they just locked him in the stall. All day 24/7. I quit shortly after that, but I still worry about how that horse is doing.

Image by

I make $13/ hour. On an ambulance. Everyday is an “I don’t get paid enough for this” moment.

Pixabay

When I was working as a cashier at Borders I threw my back out one day. I was in a lot of pain and there was only one position I could be in that didn't cause me pain.

I had been working there for like 5 months at that point and had never taken a day off, so I figured it was about time and I called in to let them know I wouldn't be coming in the next day because I hurt my back and I was going see a doctor. My manager's response was, "Can't you just take a couple of Tylenol and come in anyway, we need you?" Screw that, I was not going to come in and be miserable in pain at that job, so I said no and reminded her it was my first day off.

Her response to that was that she was disappointed because she thought I was a "team player."

Image by

Worked at a fast food place about 13 years ago. This lady in the drive thru claimed she was missing a sandwich. Our policy was to ask for the bags back to verify. I asked to see the bags (3 or 4, decent sized order) and instead of handing them back like a civilized human being she instantly started raging and throwing the food into the window while cussing me out!

Guess what one of the items that she threw at me was? Yep, said missing sandwich.

I walked into the bathroom, and someone had smeared poop on literally every single surface, wall, everything except one small part of the ceiling they couldn’t reach. Poocasso almost made me quit, but luckily my boss told me to lock it, not let anyone else use it, and he got someone to come with a pressure washer

We used to be paid half-salary to attend seminars related to our industry that grant Professional Development Hours. These seminars would often be at 7am at a hotel that was about a 2 hour drive for me (if I was lucky) in rush hour traffic to get to, but hey it was paid and had free breakfast, so waking up at 4:30 to attend wasn't the worst thing in the world.

The company announced that they believed attending the seminars was furthering our knowledge, therefore helping the company, and therefore helping us, so we would no longer be paid to attend them but were still expected to go?

I just said screw that and haven't attended a single one since then and delete all the invite emails.

I'm paid hourly, so taking the ~6 hours out of my day to drive and attend a seminar I am not being paid for is just plain stupid. I was asked why I haven't gone to any and told them I have a mortgage to pay. Haven't been asked to go again since.

My boss insisted that everybody be at their desks at 8:30am sharp. She made me take roll on an attendance sheet and hand it in to her everyday. She also made me do it at lunch time (when everybody left and came back) and when they left at night.

I couldn't fathom being asked to take attendance for a bunch of adults three times a day. I don't work there anymore.

I had an emergency, last minute 20,000 word translation that needed to be done in under 24 hours. The usual output for a translator is 2,000 words per day (including proofreading and editing). I don't know how, but I managed to bash it out. Not my best quality translation ever, but I got it done.

I'd like to point out that I did get many thanks from my actual boss. I also just remembered I did get a thank you email.

But still. If only I was paid per word!

When I worked at McDonald's, I found out we didn't get paid for closing. We got paid until the store closed, so if it took us an extra hour or two to close, that was unpaid. I wish I knew what I know now, because that is an open and shut case, but at the time, I was young and dumb.

When I got my first pay check, I noticed I had a ton of missing hours. So when I asked my boss about it, she told me we only get paid until the store closed.... So that night, I walked out when the store closed. They tried to guilt me into staying, because "the other team members need me." Screw. That. I don't work for free, sorry. Especially when I'm already making minimum wage. No thanks, not gonna happen.

I work at Subway. Once, I got change thrown in my face at work because a man was upset we didn't have meatballs. Now if I'm working he'll come in, see me, and walk out.

The time I went to sleep under my desk at work at 5 am because I needed to be back at my desk for an 8am call.

I had promised myself a long time ago that I would never sleep under my desk. I would go home, or just work straight through, but I wouldn't do that. After all, I only live a 12 minute walk home, but that night I realized that getting those extra 24 minutes of sleep were worth not going home. I was so sad about it.

I am a corporate lawyer, we had been working (literally) around the clock for days on a deal that was going sideways. This was a Wednesday night into a Thursday morning, but I had been there until 3am Sunday night, 5am Monday night, 6am Tuesday night, and had been back in the office by 9am every day.

That's when I knew I needed to quit ...but I'm still here a year and change later.

An old man rushed inside our store, literally running to the bathroom, but still managed to crap himself all over the floor before he could make it. Right in the most open, spacious part of the store.

To add further detail, this was at a combination Circle K/Subway store. I work the Subway side. So it was one of the Circle K employees that actually cleaned it. And what I meant about it being out in the open, was that we're the busiest store in our district, so even with a pile of crap is on the ground, we've got people still trying to come in and out, and it's very visible, and it took a little while for my friend on the Circle K side to actually get the cleaning supplies together.

So a good chunk of people came in, saw the mess, shrugged it off and still got their pack of cigarettes, OR, saw it, did a double take and just went right back out the door. And we're in a big retirement area, so this kind of thing actually happens often, though most times, it's mainly something that happens in the bathroom itself.

I work as direct support staff for people with minor disabilities, making $13 an hour. I had a client go off the rails because he refused to take his schizophrenia pills. Was working the night shift when he gets up in the middle of the night and starts yelling random things, running around the house naked, peeing on everything, asking for me to put a cowboy hat on him. He is now in a nursing home, bless his soul.

I was one of 50 or so 12-17 year olds working on this farm harvesting. Most of the kids were illegal, but I was just 17 and homeless and couldn't get a job cause I didn't have an ID or any paperwork.

We got there at 6, lunch at one, leave at eight. It's summer and it's the heat of the day a couple hours after lunch and this young girl (not more than 14) working alongside me suddenly passes out and will not wake up. I called for help, and one of the guys watching over us walked over all slow and unconcerned.

"Can you wake her up?"

I said I couldn't.

"Alright. Lets bring her to the house."

I picked her up and carried her there. He had me set her down by a tree in the shade and then disappeared into the house. I didn't know what to do and I'm panicking, so I pour water on her forehead and take off her long sleeves (you have to cover every part of your skin when you harvest certain crops or else you'll get sick). A few minutes pass. She's breathing rapidly and shallowly and I'm still freaking out. So I yell to this other guy who's supervising us and he just says:

"Did someone call an ambulance?"

I said no.

So he calls the ambulance and then comes over and basically just watches me as I try to cool this girl down. As soon as they get there, all the supervisors tell me to go back to work and I don't get to talk to the EMTs. I never saw them ask any of the other Hispanic kids for her name or anything. I don't know if she came there alone or they just didn't notice. My supervisor later told me the EMTs said she was having a serious heat stroke. Never heard how she turned out.

I just went back to work. It was pretty good money compared to what I was used to.

They used to make us leave our water jugs by the barn because they thought we slowed down too much with all our hydration, allowing us about 10 minutes every two hours to drink up. We had to wear hot ass long sleeves and gloves and jeans. I remember drinking so much water I threw up, then drinking more cause I'd just lost it all lol. That really taught me how much a hat helps you when you're in the sun all day.

There were thousands of acres that all needed to be harvested and put up in less than two weeks. We did it in a little more than four days. Payment was $50 a day. That's the hardest I ever worked. Life isn't worth living if you work that hard. Those Hispanic kids, though, they were insane. Never saw them complain. They'd just sing and joke if they said anything. That girl was dead silent up till the heat stroke. I still remember that. I don't know if places like that are still around but they shouldn't be.

I work in childcare. There was one time we had one kid who had a diaper blowout and one kid who puked everywhere. There’s only two teachers so one has to handle the blowout and one the vomit, while also keeping the rest of the kids away from it all.

"I don't think you understand what a contract means, besides, this is an opportunity for you!" - when the new manager tried to move me to night shifts-weekend from my day shifts-working days despite my contract being very specific about when I worked.

"Hey, you were right, this is a big opportunity for me!" was how I opened when I told her I was quitting. The look of shock and 15 mins of silence on her part were hilarious and the best feeling interval of my entire life when she realized I had thrown her own stupid words back at her.

I was working late, like 2am in the office.

My manager said, "let's go to the convenience store to buy some snacks and smokes." She sits in the back and we drive there. After we get our food, she asks if we can we swing by [this street intersection] real quick.

When we get to that intersection, I guess she sees a car that belongs to someone she knows, parked in front of her boyfriend's house. She starts to wail, cry and kick around in the backseat while my bewildered butt just holds the steering wheel, with a stupid look on my face.

After 20 minutes of that nonsense, we drive back to the office. I drop her off and I go home.

I worked at an Eddie Bauer in the mall one summer in high school. Just working the floor, helping customers, keeping the displays stocked and tidy. Normal stuff.

A guy comes in and starts rifling through the cargo shorts, getting visibly flustered the longer he goes on. I, being the attentive worker that I was, ask him if I can help him with anything.

This was 18 years ago, and I remember this almost verbatim:

"Yeah, don't you guys carry any [bleeping] normal shorts? Not these ones with all these pockets. You know why they're used for, right? It's for all the [racial slurs] in the city to keep their [substances] in. They keep their [substance] in this pocket, and they have their hand in this pocket and they're playing with themselves! Yeah, those [racial slurs] stand on the street corner with their [substances] and they're playing with themselves!"

17-year-old me was dumbfounded. "Uhh, the regular khaki shorts are back this way..."

Used to work as a dental nurse. This was the first patient of the freaking day. The guy said he felt sick after having a local anaesthetic. He looked it. I grabbed the bin and told him if he needed to vomit, take the bin. He held it in his lap and turned, vomiting down the side of the chair, all over my pants and shoes. Of course I had to clean it up and of course they wouldn't let me go home to change.

Working at Target on Black Friday in the backroom without anyone else to help me pull the product and getting told I am not keeping up..... Weird how I got "sick" 2 hours into this nightmare 12 hour shift that I volunteered for to help you guys out.

Countless times at the go-kart place where I work I’ve had to deal with special needs kids whose caretakers or parents dropped them off and just drove off because they wanted a break from them. These kids (and adults) have mental ages anywhere from 3-15 and many times they are unable to follow the directions that we provide or even listen to us. They are not only a danger to themselves but to the other riders and to us the staff.

An easy solution to this would be for their parents to ride with them in a double and to drive for them allowing them to have fun without having to put anyone in danger. However that “costs more money” and “they don’t want to.” One parent even said, “Why can’t you just ride with him?” When I asked if her son would be comfortable with a stranger she said he wouldn't. I wanted to call her a bad parent but I didn’t want to lose my job.

We can’t deny them as they have the physical age to ride. But we are hopefully putting rules in place to require parents of children with special needs to ride with their kids.

I don't blame the kids at all, and I understand that parents need a break. But it's dangerous!

I work in security. A bit under a year ago, I worked at some kind of public TV event. My job was to keep people without passes out of a specific area which was intended for those working behind the scenes to kick back and relax and get their lunches and all that.

Anyway, the only ones I was supposed to grant entrance to were people with passes and other security folks. But then word from above came that an exception was to be made for some kind of supposedly famous child music group. I had no clue what they looked like.

So 4 kids and their parents walk up and I stop them. "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO THESE ARE?" the mom shouted. No, I don't, ma'am. Eventually it got cleared up...

...and every time after that they kept bringing in more friends and family members and the same song and dance continued. Eugh.

Doing landscaping during the summers while in college. I rolled up a long piece of sod I had just cut and placed it in a wheel barrow. When I turn back around, there's a copperhead sitting in the wheelbarrow giving me the stank eye. Apparently I had rolled a copperhead up in the sod and carried it to the wheelbarrow before he was able to get out. I ended up having to kill 4 copperheads that day.

I was working the registers at a grocery store. About an hour before closing, a customer comes into my lane with two 48-egg cartons. She stumbles a bit putting them onto the belt, and before I can react the entire thing was on the ground.

The best part? Apparently the janitor had left already, so I got to spend the next hour cleaning up 96 broken eggs with nothing but paper towels.

My mother was moving interstate with my father and it was the last time I’d see either of my parents for months (I was 18 and had just graduated school). I explained this to my boss but he just said I would have to see her another time because he needed a fence put up over the weekend.

I told him I was leaving either way and he could put his own fence up and quit soon after that. He also accused me of lying and berated me multiple times for random things that I didn’t do and refused to pay me for weeks at a time.

I ended getting a doctor to write a letter citing mental health as the reason for leaving and my boss just sent me a message telling me I didn’t care about his family or my job. He then didn’t issue my final payment for almost a month and only payed it because I threatened legal action. Even then I only got about half of what I was owed but I was just happy to leave there and move on.

This was back in the late '90s. I was working at Walmart as my first job as a teenager. I was floated to the garden department one day and there was a guy looking at lawn fertilizer. So I walked over and asked if he needs help. He said, "Not now, just looking at the different kinds you have." Pretty standard reply from the guy, so I said, "Okay, let me know."

I walk away, and then swing back about 5 minutes later. This same guy has proceeded to rip open about 10 different kinds of fertilizer all over the ground and is rolling around in the stuff. He is also taste sampling the stuff. I called my manger because I did not want to deal with it. Security escorted the guy out the store and called an ambulance in case the ingestion of the fertilizer hurt him.

I worked in SROs (Single Resident Occupancies) in the middle of the roughest part of my city. I frequently have to identify dealers, report them, get them banned, and then enforce the ban. As you can imagine, I get threatened by them a lot, usually just with fists or knives. I don't mind that so much, if they come at me with a knife then the cops actually bust them and then they're out of my hair for good.

Well, one guy just kind of laughed at me and said I'd regret it if I kept getting in his way. Which people say, though usually more aggressively, and I don't put much stock into it. Then he gave me his name and just told me to Google him.

Turns out he's a son of one of the more violent crime families in the area. They're connected to like 40 targeted attacks, and a lot of them are guys like me getting run down in parking lots.

At that point I backed right off. $20 an hour is not enough to fight the entire mob.

A psycho summer camp director lost her mind on all of the lifeguards because we said we weren’t coming back next summer. The reality was we all had legit reasons. I was going to take summer courses to graduate early, another guard was moving to university and was going to work in that city, another guard got offered a head guard spot at a camp near her house, etc. Nothing that said we hated the current camp, just other things going on.

We were told in a group meeting if we weren’t happy there we could leave and she would find other guards.

The following Friday she calls us all in to tell us what a great job we are doing and how happy everyone is going to the lake.

The Tuesday after that she calls us in individually to tell us we aren’t working hard enough and she sees us slacking off all the time.

Lunchtime Tuesday all the guards walked into her office, told her to go screw herself in front of the owner of the camp, and we all piled into my Ford Focus and went for drinks.

Went home that night to a message from camp owner asking us to give him a call back (we all chatted and realized he had called all of us). Called him the following day, told him what went down. He asked us to reconsider and that he would give us a $5 an hour raise and report directly to him.

We discussed it and agreed on the condition that psycho director apologized to us at a collective staff meeting. She refused and had a tantrum. Camp owner fired her on the spot, escorted her off the property and we opened the lake back up.

Screw you Barb.