Thursday, November 19, 2009

Business as usual

The rains have finally come to the West Coast. I was starting to get nervous once the dry summer spread into the autumn. The winds have shook the remaining leaves from the trees, which somehow seem to find their way into the kitchen every day... I'm trying to find a segway into how I lost my job the other day. Leaves fall from trees which means a new season which means slow business which means no more job for me.

I was a bit upset because I found out that I had lost my job 20 minutes before I was due to close up shop. We have a "communications book" where usually the manager writes about new policies or the assistant manager writes about how we need some "fucking common sense, man. Fuck." I had just finished portioning 300+ bags of cheese curd for our poutine when I realized I hadn't looked at the book or the daily duties. First, I checked out the daily duties. No, I was not going to stamp the bags since we had enough to last us a few months. Now that that was out of the way, I opened the book to see what my manager had written.

Now, I realized that she had been acting a bit strange in the last couple of days. The day before, I called and asked if I could take a 20 dollar advance since my bank still had a hold on my cheque. She got really uncomfortable about it and said that it would have to come off the cheque that was being processed now. Since it seemed like such a big deal, I told her to just forget about it. I ended up making $14 in tips so it was okay. Anyway, the next day when I got on shift, she didn't stay to chit chat like she usually does. She grabbed her shit and ran out of there. I didn't think anything of it until I read her note.

I'm not paraphrasing because I can't remember verbatom what she wrote but it along the lines of, "Due to slow business, I need to cut some shifts. Don't take it personally, I love you guys and it was awesome working with you all! Cut offs start next week." I ran over to the calendar to see what shifts she had cut of mine.... ALL OF THEM! I no longer worked at Pirate chips!! I was so mad! How could I not take it personally? A piece of paper just layed me off.

So, I wrote a passive agressive not under her note, called her up and told her to officially lay me off so I could collect benefits (which I found out I'm not even eligible for anyway) and find someone else to work the late Saturday shift. Now I have 2 weeks until I go to Germany, and I will have 400 dollars less that I had anticipated and now way of getting it. I think she could have handled those 5 fucking shifts! Or at least she could've given me some warning.

This is why I don't feel bad about lying to my employers because they will fuck you over in an instant.