The Worst Job I Ever Had

I’ve had a pretty wide variety of jobs in my short life with varying degrees of quality and hardship. But it’s remarkable, no matter the difficulty of the job, how much difference management makes in whether a working environment is pleasant. Anyone who has been employed could likely tell you the same.

I’ve worked in machine shops and cut sheet metal. I’ve been a groundskeeper. I’ve worked numerous retail and sales jobs and dealt with customers from hell. I’ve been a business auditor. I’ve scrubbed pots and pans in cafeteria kitchens until my hands bled. I spent 6 months in Iraq with the Air Force handling explosives and “dodging mortars” in the mud (which humorously enough was a vacation compared to my home station at that time). Heck, the diversity of jobs the Air Force has tasked me to do is mind-boggling. They’ve had me on security detail sitting in a 7’x6’ box for 14 hours and also had me staring at penises and collecting urine samples for the Drug Reduction Program. But by far I consider the worst job I ever had to be when I stocked groceries.

Understand that this entry is not some pissing contest where people compete to see whose story can top the other guy's (see Brian Regan and the "That Ain't Nuthin'" segment of his stand-up). I hate those social interactions and I should hope you do as well. I am under no illusion that I have been dealt some grand, incomparable injustice in my employment history or that I've suffered somehow more than anyone else. I can guarantee you my father worked worse jobs than I ever have. Now that that is out of the way.

When I was 18/19 (I can’t recall my age exactly, but it was either the Autumn of 1999 or 2000) I worked for a supermarket chain in Florida called “Publix”. Many of my friends and family from Florida adore Publix for a variety of reasons, and to be fair, I can’t deny that Publix does put out quality products. However, having worked for them, I have a bit of a bias. I loathe that chain for how I was treated and refuse to shop there when I visit home. I off-handedly refer to Publix as “the concentration camp of grocery stores”. Excuse the hyperbole, but that’s how I feel about it.

It started when I applied to be a grocery stocker, or whatever the official term is. My application process was fairly smooth and I was interviewed by the Assistant Manager (hereafter referred to as “AM”), who was a pleasant enough fellow. We talked about your basic things during an interview, such as hours, pay, and what days I might be available. I specifically stated that I would not work Sunday, as to allow me to attend church. He agreed and signed me up, no problem. He also let me know that they did not hire people for full time employment right away- they had to go through a part-time probationary period to show their worth and then would be elevated to full time pay with benefits. Fair enough. After that, he gave me my work schedule and let me know when to report in. No problems there as far as I could tell.

According to my schedule, I still had a few days until my new job began, so I went about taking care of things and generally goofing off as I had always done. But then I got a call from Publix, asking why I was not at work. Naturally I was confused as I was going by the schedule the AM had given me. But I went in to try to clear things up.

I was introduced to the Grocery Manager, Mr. Dana Potter. A Grocery Manager is basically responsible for getting the product on the sales floor. I explained my confusion to Mr. Potter and how I was going by the schedule given to me. He explained that, as the Grocery Manager, he made the schedule for the stockers and to disregard the one given to me by the AM. I was a bit exasperated, but I took it in stride and made note of my new work schedule which had me working nights- which I had no problem with. What shocked me were the hours. I was easily working full time on part-time status. I was told this was part of the probationary period and that I would still be paid hourly but no full-time benefits. Given that I didn’t have any pressing schedule, I went with it. After all, those full time hours were what I had wanted anyway.

My work began fairly slowly as any job does as one picks up the ebb and flow of the workplace. I was introduced to the other stockers and the Stock Manager (I don’t recall the official title- only that he was the supervisor for the stockers). And from there I was put to work. They stuck me in the glass jar aisle for about a month which made me sorta slow as I tried not to break things and also figure out where stuff went.

My hours were much longer than the schedule dictated. It went far beyond full time work and I regularly made overtime pay. Hours for reporting in frequently, unpredictably changed. Sometimes I would report in at 10pm, others 2am. But nearly every day I would leave work around 12-14 hours later. Often times I would bleed over into the middle of the sales day, stocking groceries for customers when I should have been home hours before the store opened. The extra pay was nice, but the instability was not. Even so, this was manageable.

As I said earlier, management can make a huge difference in a working environment and I encountered a pretty hostile atmosphere. Even though I was part time, my work schedule was not negotiable and was always under threat of job loss. Once I got sick and was puking in an empty box. I couldn’t go home. Another time, my father had been hospitalized for a few days and needed me to pick him up early in the morning. I was told I couldn’t go get him unless I finished stocking. They told me to suck it up.
And then there was the issue with Sunday. As I said, I was hired with the AM clearly understanding that was a non-work day for me. Mr. Potter and the Stock Manager did not agree. They regularly took me aside and tried to press me to come in on Sunday. They told me how the other workers were resentful that I was off Sunday when they worked. They told me things such as “I think God will understand if you have to work.” This happened time and again, but I held my ground.

Speaking of the other workers- boy, what a crew. Some of them were civil, but most were passive aggressive. It was not a polite environment. I did find out that many of them did the same job for Wal-Mart and that was not much better than Publix in terms of work environment. So if you worked for Wal-mart, especially in stock, you have my sympathy.

All this paired with a pretty unsafe working environment. Maybe it’s me, but I always wondered how they didn’t get in trouble with OSHA. Anyone who has stocked groceries can tell you that stores over stack their pallets. These things are seriously top heavy and packed so full that they bind them in saran wrap, put metal cages around them and secure them with chains just so the pallets don’t burst. We would pull these teetering, oversized, top heavy things two at a time via pallet jacks out of the back of a tractor trailer onto a hydraulic lift 5 feet in the air. This lift was barely wide enough for two pallets and we were standing with our feet under them just to make sure we didn’t fall off the lift. Imagine standing on the edge of a cliff with a 300lb teetering mass touching your nose and you’ll get the picture.

Another time I was tasked to collect all the metal cages from the pallets that had accumulated over time and stack them all onto one pallet, bind them up with chains and send them on their way. Each cage weighed, if memory serves, anywhere from 30-50lbs. And I had an entire pallet of them fall on me. And I’m lying there under this mass of iron bars, bleeding and calling for help, and nobody is around. I managed to maneuver my way out, but that sucked.

I put up with this for 6 months. Christmas was coming up very soon and I had been watching the schedule very closely to see what my hours might be. Typically, schedules were posted a week or two in advance to allow for planning, etc. just like any other job. I had a girlfriend at the time and wanted to see when I could spend some time with her. But the schedule remained blank for weeks.

I asked Mr. Potter about the hours, whether I was working, or what was going on. He assured me to be patient and that the schedule would be posted soon. So I waited and still nothing came. I asked again and was given the same answer. And then Christmas arrived.

Since I had no hours to work on the schedule, and no consistent timeframe to work to allow me to predict when to report in, (remember, my hours fluctuated often for no apparent reason) I went by the Grocery Manager’s schedule just the way Mr. Potter had told me 6 months prior. And this schedule had me on a 5-day Christmas stretch of time off.

I took my time off and had a good time. But then five days turned into a week and I had no word from work. No phone calls or anything came my way. I went in during the day to get answers but nobody had any and my immediate bosses worked nights. So one night I went in around 2am. That seemed to be the most reliable time to potentially catch anyone at work. I was greeted by the Stock Manager who, with no hesitation, and even a measure of satisfaction in his voice, told me I was fired because I hadn’t shown up for work. I told him why, and he told me to take it up with Mr. Potter who just happened to be unavailable. I knew I had been screwed so I left. I didn’t want to deal with Mr. Potter or Publix any more. I had had enough. So I left and never heard a word from anyone there again.

So I was indirectly fired for following the schedule I was told to follow on my first day of work. Yeah, it’s a bit of a sore spot.