My plan, when I started this one, was to share one insane story from each of my main jobs throughout my life. But I quickly realized that it would translate into 10,000 words or something ludicrous. So, I’ll just do the West Virginia jobs — the stoopid early ones, when I was young, Jiffy-Popped, and adrift. Please feel free to adapt as you see fit, and share your stories in the comments. I attempted to come up with stories that were truly crazy, but for each job I could likely come up with five more. Hopefully I chose the right ones? Let’s get to it, shall we?
The paper route
One day I was doing the route and my friend Steve was with me. We saw some guy hide something in a space between two buildings on 16th Street. He kept looking around, all nervous and twitchy. After he disappeared we walked over there to investigate, and found a brown paper bag with a porno magazine inside. We were maybe 12 or 13 years old and had seen Playboy and Penthouse and things like that. But this was something far sleazier and way more graphic. We began flipping through it and it was grotesque. It made me want to go home and pet my dog, talk to my grandmother, or engage in some other wholesome activity. But we couldn’t look away. Finally we turned a page and there was a GIGANTIC close-up of a terrible vagina. I mean, we had no real frame of reference, but this thing was larger than life and… and something seemed off about it. After a split second of stunned silence both of us began howling in protest, “Oh God! Look at that thing! Look at it!!” It was like a monster. Or a zoomed-in plate of three-cheese manicotti or something. It was not erotic in the least, and seemed exploded and damaged. For some reason I think the magazine was German, but I’m not sure about that. We put it back in the hiding spot, and it wasn’t there the next time we looked. I was secretly relieved, but pretended to be disappointed and shouted, “Dammit!”
The toll bridge
I was on the overnight shift one evening, working by myself at the foot of the Dunbar Toll Bridge. I was out in the booth, probably looking at a book or magazine, when I heard the office door slam. What the?! It was probably 2:30 am… and somebody just went into the office? <Gulp> This was no good. And like some idiot in an ’80s slasher film I went to investigate. As I opened the door I remember my heart hammering in my chest, not knowing what I might be walking into. And inside the storage room I found a middle-aged woman in a fancy dress sitting on a large case of toilet paper. She was completely smashed. I asked if I could help her and she said she was waiting on Charlie, or some name like that. She was so drunk she could barely talk. I told her there’s nobody else around and she couldn’t stay in there. So she got up and began teetering down the middle of 10th Street on the sides of her shoes. After about 30 yards she turned, raised both middle fingers and shouted, “Fuuuuuuck you!!” Then she disappeared into the night.
Fas-Chek grocery store
One day a woman came in, filled a cart with groceries, placed a nickel in the front windowsill, and walked out the front door without paying. One of the managers, a guy named Skeeter, rocketed out of the elevated big-shot stand and went after her. He brought her back into the store, and began talking to her in the frozen food aisle. By this point a few of us had gathered round to see what the hell was going on. Skeeter asked her for an explanation and she was highly agitated and kept mentioning “kumquat money.” We all just looked at each other in confusion, but it apparently had something to do with the nickel she’d tried to leave behind. Skeeter said he had no idea what in the sweet and sour shit kumquat money is, and ordered somebody to call the police. That’s when things moved into a different phase. The woman — a large black lady, roughly 30 years old — let loose with a crazed shriek, and threw a roundhouse punch that connected squarely with Skeeter’s jaw. We tried to intervene but she was going wild and screeching like a mountain cat. She got Skeeter in a backwards bear-hug, and began spinning him round and round. Skeeter’s tiny feet were bicycling wildly, and he had a look of pure terror on his face. We finally got them separated and the police arrived moments later. They asked her for a name and she said it was “Secretariat.” I don’t know… Like with the German vagina referenced above, something was clearly askew here. I think the woman was suffering some kind of mental health issue, and I’m fairly certain the store opted not to press charges. But Skeeter never heard the end of it, and his prodigious mustache would twitch in agitation every time someone brought it up.
Exxon convenience store
I worked the overnight shift at this place as well, always with another person. One hardened redneck gentleman I was often paired with had some kind of personal issue with a guy on the 3 to 11 shift. Who the hell knows why? It was probably stemming from an argument about snuff or aftermarket mufflers. But he was stewing and grousing about this person for several days, vowing eventual hick revenge. And one day he came in snickering with excitement. I asked him what was going on and he showed me a large three-pronged hook. “You’re not going to kill him, are you?” I asked. And he just snickered like Muttley again. Later that evening, after the owners went home, he told me his plan. At the end of each shift the cash registers are zeroed out, a report is printed, and most of the money is placed inside a bank bag. And that bag is shoved through a mail slot in the locked manager’s office door. He was going to feed that hook and some fishing line through the mail slot, grab his nemesis’s bank bag, remove a hunk of cash and put it back. Then the guy would presumably get into trouble, and maybe even be fired. I just stood there blinking real fast, amazed by his sustained hatred and ingenuity. He went to work and it took a long time. At one point he emerged in a state of panic. He said he’d snagged a desk chair and couldn’t work it loose. The chair was now pulled all the way up against the door. I shrugged, having no suggestions for him. He went back and eventually came strutting out with the evening shift’s bank bag. He sat down behind the checkout counter, in a state of triumph, and began counting the cash. He pocketed more than $100, but some odd number like $116 or $133. Something like that. He asked if I wanted any and I told him no. So he put it back through the slot, and walked around with a glow of victory the rest of the night. I asked him about the desk chair and he said he’d shoved a broomstick through there and moved it back near the desk. Now, all there was to do was wait for the fallout. The guy’s drawer was now a complete disaster. This was going to be great! And yeah… not a word was ever said about it.
Like I said, I could come up with several other stories for each of those ridiculous jobs. But I hope you enjoyed the ones I chose. If you’d like to share one crazy story from one, some, or all of your jobs, please use the comments.
And I’m going to call it a day, my friends.
I’ll see you on the podcast side o’ things, and in the Friday email. Sign up here if you haven’t.
Have yourselves a wonderful week!
UPDATE: I told an alternate story from the four workplaces listed above on the latest episode of the podcast. Check it out here.
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Never experienced anything that crazy. A guy I worked with nightly at a gas station would send people to the airport instead of the concert stadium.
Indiana Street Grocery
I used to work at a small grocery store. The meat market was in the back. If you turned off the lights in the butcher’s area, you could see out of the meat case glass but the shoppers couldn’t see in. We would all run back there when a good looking woman would come into the store so we could check her out without her knowing. One day we were doing just that when I looked over and a kid about 14 was looking at the steaks. He glanced right and left and we are thinking he is going to steal one. We are just on the other side of the glass about 2 feet away waiting to bust this kid. He then sticks his hand in his pants and starts scratching his balls vigorously. He then takes his hand out, glances left and right and then smells his hand. We exploded and howled with disgust and laughter and he knew he was busted. The kid turned and ran out of the store. Gross!
Ah Jeff that was an amazing post! Please start doing stories from old jobs on the regular, that was a wonderful read! My brother stopped reading you probably a decade ago, but every once in a while I tell him to check out your latest post, and I think he’s gonna like this one.
I program touchpanel-based control systems. You’ve probably seen one if you’ve ever been in a corporate conference room. Crestron and AMX, for those in the know.
One. The warehouse guy Steve, who is dead so I’ll use his real name.
Me: Is there a touchpanel I could borrow for a day or two?
Steve: Dude, I don’t know what this stuff is. I’m an inventory guy. It could be pantyhose, or macaroni and cheese, I don’t know.
Two: Same warehouse, different year. I was walking through the warehouse from my desk, because you have to in order to get to the rest of the office, the “front.” As I entered, I saw the concrete slab floor undulating, like shaking out a carpet in slow motion. The garage door was open, and I saw one of the company vans boinging up and down. It was an earthquake, which is pretty unusual in northern Virginia.
Weekend job while in high school, they let some of us drive the forklifts – untrained and illegally – so long as we didn’t mess about. We messed about obviously, forklifts are a hoot on greasy wet tarmac. A school friend was driving one of the forklifts into the warehouse and forgot to lower the forks. The forks dug into the roof, and the forklift was stuck, tipped up on its rear bumper, all the wheels off the ground and wedged tight. We had to put trolley jacks under it to pop it loose, which it did with quite the thud, miraculously not maiming anyone. The roof was a mess.
The school kids couldn’t drive the forklifts after that.
I was about 17 working the register at McDonalds on a pretty busy weekend. A nice family placed their order and a gentleman in their group began having a pretty violent epileptic fit. Scared the living daylights out of me. They just moved him to the side and took care of him while a lady in their group said “it’s ok, honey” to me while paying.
Years later, at IBM, I was walking back to my desk when I heard a lot of commotion and a girl I worked with was on the floor having an epileptic fit. She knew enough to roll over into a fetal position but man, when you witness one of those, it’s hair raising.
Please allow me to start off by saying that anytime I witness someone having seizures I get instantly erect. I’ve even had to say, “sorry about this here (pointing to my obvious erection). Sorry I’m hard. Let’s get him some help.” It’s inexplicable. I don’t think it’s a fetish. More like, the heavy feeling in the room sends blood rushing into my penis. Anyway, sorry I’m hard. It’s embarrassing.
Craziest work incident occurred at a day labor place about 20 years ago. It involved this guy that was obviously a bit off, and several people mocked him for it. One morning he came in and he was arguing with some guys about CDs and $20 then they started taunting him. He went out the back door, came back in a moment later and started shooting taunters and towards the end his targets were seemingly random. Shot the first guy in the head without saying a word. I think he killed four people that morning and wounded others. I’d always been kind to him and gave him cigarettes when I saw him and called him “Big Bird” which he seemed to like. Possibly saved my life. He locked eyes with me and passed me over. And I gotta tell y’all the truth, I’d never been more hard than I was right then. Sorry I’m hard.
Hooooly shit, I am pretty sure I would have kept that to myself. You were probably beating your dummy as you typed that.
Beating my dummy? Are you accusing me of self abuse? I’m opposed to the practice. I don’t allow it in my home or at the places I shop. No, I was simply pointing out my reaction to unsettling situations. Some people laugh hysterically, others vomit. And I end up with an erection.
Ain’t no jackin the beanstalk going on over here, I assure you.
Working in the places I work I see some freaky stuff. There are laws against sharing those stories.
However.
I once saw a woman hit by a deer in the parking lot at a place I used to work.
You might be thinking “Sure, people hit deer all the time, why not in the parking lot?” Allow me to elaborate.
First of all, the area where this happened is not in the least bit rural. It was in a suburb that was first built in the 50’s and 60s. There are 2 interstate highways within a mile or less and the area is mixed commercial and residential.
Next, the woman did not hit the deer. The deer hit her.
And B, she was ON FOOT.
I watched the incident on the security tape with a bunch of my coworkers immediately after the fact. The lady had parked her SUV about in the middle of the parking lot in a regular space. On getting out of the vehicle she walked around to the passenger side and removed her walker (yep, walker) and started moving toward the front of the truck. Just as she got to the front fender. from the other side of the screen we saw a young deer come from between two cars one aisle over, cross the aisle and run between the cars where the walker lady was walking.
The deer attempted to jump over her and didn’t make it. Its forelegs hit her across the shoulders. The lady was spun around 180 degrees. She lost her walker around 90 degree and it went spinning out of frame. The deer continued on towards the building, cracking a window and banging its hooves against the window of an unoccupied conference room. It bloodied itself a bit, probably when it hit the window. Then it ran off into a drainage area and disappeared.
The lady was unharmed other than a torn cardigan.
She had no idea what hit her until we told her. She said she thought someone hit her with a rock.
She was an employee and listening to her call her boss to say why she’d be late was hilarious.
She went to the Emergency Room to get checked out. I know someone who handles workman’s comp claims for that place and was told that her claim was denied and she was responsible for the medical bills.
“The lady was unharmed other than a torn cardigan” LMAO! Hemingway would be highly jealous of that line!
Hey madz, I’ve torn my cardigan, and it’s no laughing matter. I was unable to engage in sexual congress for weeks; even people in Congress don’t go that long. Hell, some of them have to move to recess around noon for a quickie. After the quickie, they engage in sexual congress. That’s how representative democracy keeps working, strangely enough.
jtb
I worked the same job for over 42 years, so I was rather limited with the pool of individuals who could provide crazy stories. However, there was one guy, we nicknamed him “the beast” due to his love of an eponymous rock band and his overall appearance. He was seeing one of our female coworkers and did not take the breakup well. He came into work with a sledge hammer and proceeded to smash out all of the windows in her car. Then, he got a heavy-duty construction chain from somewhere ( maybe his personal collection), threw it over his shoulder and came into the factory looking for her. It didn’t take long for the police to show up – HR had brought her into one of the offices to hide – and they were absolutely not gentle in their treatment of him as they poured him into the squad car. I heard that was just the beginning of a long string of legal encounters for this guy.
Mike
FREE (FOR NOW) FRIDAY UPDATE: 4th TIME AROUND
I had the usual number of blue collar shit jobs before I finally went back to school and learned what they used to call a “trade”. Besides the really horrible ones like delivering telephone books and picking cucumbers and cleaning filthy houses for filthy landlords, I had a few half-decent ones. In a few cases I actually learned something. Nothing like Jeff’s hijinks, but a few involving minor gashes and muscle tears.
I worked for a long while in a warehouse associated with a big department store. Because I was young, people assumed I was strong, so they put me in the furniture and appliance section. The second week, I got the job of moving dozens of what looked like eight-foot-tall refrigerators (I was so much taller then, I’m shorter than that now) from the loading dock to the refer section. They had really good hand trucks (I didn’t know it then), but I couldn’t get any leverage, and things were starting to back up on the dock.
Then one of the 50-something warehouse guys who could have torn a phone book (or me) in half told me to get the fucking refers off the fucking dock and into the fucking warehouse (adjectival variety wasn’t his forte). He asked me if I’d like to learn how to move a refer. I said, “Yes, please.”
He grabbed the four-foot metal hook off the wall (which I had assumed was for gouging the druggies who hung around our alley) stuck the tongue of the hand truck under the boxed refer, and climbed the rungs on the hand truck. When he was 18″ clear of the top, he extended the 4-foot hook over the top of the boxed refer and threw his weight backwards. He landed on the ground and caught the handle of the truck just as it reached the balance point. It was fucking ballet. Then he used one rather muscular arm to demonstrate that he could move the heavy refer with one hand.
And that’s how I learned to move a boxed refrigerator (after a crushing or two). In a week, I could do it almost as well as he could, except I wasn’t very strong and my weight shift and leap resembled ballet not at all and I kept dropping the hook, which is a problem because you can’t exactly bend over and pick it up without dropping an expensive refer or starting over.
I’m sorry no animals or people were mauled or injured in this little story like the ones above. No gore, no violence. No sop, no taters. Only a 20-year-old guy who learned that he didn’t want to be doing this job when he was 50.
John
One summer, my brother and I had jobs at a plastics factory. It was “summer relief”: hire some kids to do this work, so the regular employees could go on vacation.
We made polycarbonate (Lexan) 4×8 sheets, as well as diamond-pattern acrylic (plexiglass) covers for office fluorescent lights. We called the regular full-time employees “lifers.” That job was a valuable experience, because it taught me that I didn’t want to end up a lifer.
I still ended up in a dead end job, but at least it’s “tech” and “professional” and pays a lot better than the plastic factory.
Chill, they’re all dead end jobs. Astronaut sounds pretty cool, but they retire you at 50 unless your name is John Glenn and if you choose to stay on you spend the rest of your life trudging from school to school trying to come up with a phrase synonym for “magnificent desolation”.
At least in IT you can explore a variety of companies. I’ve done police work, library work, sewage treatment, real estate, produce distribution, electric grid work, water distribution, forest product work, life insurance, property/casualty insurance, investment stuff, financial planning, equity trading, banking, and a few other kinds of business, all in ones and zeros. It’s all different and all not-so-different. Same shit, different year. Actually, I think the most fun was writing 8K CICS multiply reentrant modules. Yeah, 8K, and you used every byte. I also got to work on a System/7 with no teletype where you had to load memory using a cassette tape and toggle-in changes. They put the damn computer in the basement of a sewage treatment plant. I was young, but I knew what asking for trouble looked like when I saw it. Right above the rather bulky computer there was a claxon and an axe on the wall. The claxon was self-explanatory, but I never did figure out what you were supposed to do with an axe in a sewage treatment plant. I figured if it takes an axe there’s probably some kind of regional dietary problem, but who knows?
John
FREE FOR NOW FRIDAY UPDATE: PLEDGING MY TIME
Naming of Parts
By Henry Reed (1942)
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.
Men are never more awake to the good in the world
than when they are furiously awake to the evil in the world.
G.K. Chesterton
While Jeff is away, I’d like to solicit some help from the WVSR brain trust: I had a brief job in Southern California working for a real estate development company. I ended up one night at two in the morning or so in a house with a view of some bright part of LA standing next to a fireplace with three Academy Awards on the mantle, but that’s another story. On the very edge of show business, I ran into someone who I still believe was a knowledgeable, legitimate entirely unknown actor. He told me (and a few close associates) that Jaye P. Morgan, singer, semi-actor, and game show panelist, slept with multiple male contestants on the Gong Show.
I happen to be a fan, or former fan, of the Gong Show; in particular I was a fan of bandleader Milton DeLugg and His Band With a Thug. Their version of Count Basie’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” was authentic and terrific. But I liked the rest of the show as well, and Jaye P. had her funny moments. Has anybody else heard this rumor? Did any WVSR Reporters appear on the Gong Show? Perhaps as one of the Popsicle Twins? (I guess that would be too much to hope for). Maybe somebody was a accountant or a gofer for a Harry Zimm type movie or TV producer.
I know it’s a long shot, but it would be nice to know while Jaye P. is still alive and, for that matter, while I am. It’s a serious question, although I’ll admit it doesn’t sound like one. Hell, Jeff knows movie stars; maybe when he returns he’ll have some inside information. Until then it’s up to you. Thanks, in advance, for helping with this worthwhile human history project.
John
I recall Jaye P., but I had not heard that rumor. Jumpin’ at the Woodside is an excellent song. The recording I first heard was from Asleep at the Wheel.
Today would have been Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday and we should acknowledge it. Wait a minute . . .all that shit he put in his body didn’t kill him. Dylan actually turns 80 in person, and we should recognize great art when we see or hear it.
Bob was visited by genius when I was an adolescent; the genius camped in his head for several years and flew away, as it does, only to return for a brief visit ten years later for Blood on the Tracks. Leonard Cohen said, “I feel embarrassed to take credit for a talent I can’t command, and which visits rarely.” Not Bob. He’s always been happy to take credit for his genius, even though it flew out the window decades ago. But what a stretch of productivity. Fourteen months, three beautiful albums, the American Songbook turned on its head, popular music veering into “singer/songwriter” and “folk/rock” like a mighty river deciding to turn left all at once. The man who charged the Pope $300,000 for a brief Vatican concert turns 80 today. L’chaim, Bob.
John
Saw him back in his glory days. November 1965 in D.C., when he started the show acoustic and ended electric, backed by the Hawks (The Band). Genius indeed.
City Parks and Rec Department, 1991
I was 18 years old, and worked every summer prepping baseball and softball fields for evening play. They always placed two of us normal teens with someone on some kind of mainstreaming intellectually disabled and financially disadvantaged students program that we were to supervise. My co-workers this year were my first cousin and a mildly intellectually disabled and poor, but otherwise normal (can we say that? Normal?) guy. Anyway, when the baseball season wound up and we had a couple of weeks until we had to leave for college they would give us other jobs to do to keep us busy until the summer wrapped up. On this particularly hot day in August, we were sent to a local public pool in the “bad” area of town to trim around the fence. It must have been 100 degrees in the shade, so my cousin stripped his shirt and jumped in the pool to cool off. He got out refreshed, and went back to weed eating. As soon as he was out, we heard a giant splash and our other co-worker had jumped off the diving board, surfaced for a split second, and sank to the bottom. As this poor kid was dying in front of us, my cousin and I argued about who should dive in to get him. My argument was that he was already wet, his argument was, I don’t want to do it. I eventually jumped in, pulled our co-worker up and to the side and wondered if it was too late. Neither my cousin or I knew CPR, so we just waited and watched. After what felt like 10 minutes (likely 10 seconds) our co-worker coughed, vomited up a quart of water, and asked what happened. I asked him why, if he couldn’t swim, would he jump off the diving board wearing long pants? He answered, with the sincerity of a federal judge, “Imma tell you the truth, I can swim a little bit…if the water ain’t over my head.”