this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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I thought of this question because someone joked about double-dipping their hands in the chocolate fountain at Golden Corral and boy did that invoke one of my least favorite paying-for-college memories.

Yes, someone did dip his hands into the chocolate fountain at the Golden Corral. Worse, he was a repeat offender, a man that was at least in his 30s if not older slurping it off of his fingers and all, sometimes while making eye contact with me or my coworkers. Worse, there was no enforced rule against doing so, at least at my location, so my manager just told me to let him do it, don't make a big deal out of it, and hope he doesn't bother anyone else.

That same manager once insisted on me making the place extra clean a little before Christmas, so they insisted that I use double the amount of cleaning bleach in the same bucket. I explained that's not how cleaning works or how OSHA compliance works. I got a write-up. I said that wasn't an offense that qualified for a write-up, and what they said was "thanks for the tip, I'll find something that is. Your word against mine." sus-torment

That same manager punched me out early without telling me, because the place wasn't perfect enough before I left over an hour late, missing my family waiting to pick me up outside by that long to go out to do holiday stuff. I did call that in on the supposedly anonymous tip line later, but you can guess what happens when an anonymous tip about wage theft is called in on a manager that already knows who would call in that tip in a "right to work" situation. joker-amerikkklap

That same manager was fired a week later for embezzlement, and not the cool kind. They were writing up and firing people for months for money missing from the register. I found out when collecting my last check and noticed someone new. ok

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I've worked as a substitute teacher, and once my job was to basically follow around a girl in the fourth grade and make sure that she got to her classes on time. She was nice, cool, wonderful, and seemed to do okay in class as far as I could tell, but she had major issues with transitions. She would have these crazy meltdowns, like screaming and crying for ten or fifteen minutes straight, when it was time to come inside from recess. It absolutely fucking sucked because as a dude, I am not allowed to touch the kids and I couldn't touch her. I wanted to hug her and pat her back and tell her that it was going to be okay, but I couldn't.

Finally, the end of the day rolls around. Her parents are supposed to pick her and her younger sister up, but nobody arrives. The buses come and go, the walkers leave the school, and nobody comes to get these two girls. Am I just supposed to hang out with her and her sister by the entrance until someone arrives? The principal tells me she'll take care of it (I actually hated that principal but this was a good thing she did) and that I can go. Without even thinking about it, I drive straight to the grocery store, pick up some wine and cheese, go home, and just destroy it. I was stress-eating and stress-drinking and didn't even realize it until I had finished. Generally I drink maybe a glass of wine a month so this was weird for me.

Later I found out that her parents were addicted to some kind of illicit drug. AFAIK her grandmother, who seemed to be more functional, adopted the kids and they moved away. I really hope they're doing better.

Just thinking about how this girl was living in such a shitty environment that was really damaging her emotionally and that she had done nothing to deserve any of this (does anyone really deserve to be abused? wouldn't we rather re-educate even the worst reactionaries if we had the resources to do so?) was extremely upsetting. I mean, I encounter all kinds of weird shit basically whenever I venture into any environment which requires me to spend time with large numbers of Americans, but this was pretty extreme. All of America's hatred of the poor and total disinterest in making anything better for anyone who isn't at least a millionaire really came down hard on this one girl. Thinking about her still upsets me. This was a year or two before the pandemic.