my cat is a brat and I love her

as is somehow Mandatory for jobs like these, anyone in a position of power made it their job to make everyone else’s lives as miserable as possible with constant micromanaging. like, i got told in a strongly worded email to reorder the $2 plastic shelves in my cubicle that i used to store spare paper. it was fucking dire.

but anyways. the reason i quit has to do with what im talking about in the original post. despite the fact that i was consistently at the top of our department leaderboards (yes, we had those, they were emailed out daily) my manager decided that because i couldn’t stay late one day because of a doctors appointment, i needed a Talking To.

he spent an entire day hounding me about this single event, saying that it was a “growing pattern of careless behavior” and that i “forced [my coworkers] to stay until 6 pm”

obviously i felt awful. i was friends with everybody on my team! i didnt want to inconvenience them!! even thought i knew that he was being too harsh, the guilt trip still got to me. but every time i tried to defend myself and explain what was actually going on, he would double down and make it an even bigger issue. this kept going and going until the situation got spun into me being a terrible employee who needed an Action Plan, and i was Ruining The Department, and Everyone Was Going To Stay Overtime Because Of Me.

while i was dealing with this instead of, yknow, actually doing the work that is apparently so dire, i realized… it wasn’t that serious. like, not even fuckin close. the things my coworkers had to do overtime to complete? folding papers. and while yes, it was shitty that they had to stay so late to finish up, i wasn’t the one who made them do it. my manager did! and there were literally dozens of other options to pick from instead, including just leaving the work for me to do the next day! the work we did was nowhere near time sensitive, and certainly not worth the overtime the company paid.

but because i wouldn’t just roll over and accept a chewing out that i didn’t deserve, my manager decided to keep laying on the pressure until i caved. man was assigning legitimately apocalyptic levels of intensity over folding papers. i went from being an asset to the team to getting yelled at by both him and his manager for my “poor performance.”

so i quit. because it’s not that serious.

this whole shitshow is a standard tactic that employers use to trick you into signing away more of your life to the job. make you feel stupid, make you feel like the menial tasks you perform have these dire consequences that simply do not exist. ramp up your anxiety over nothing. they will punish other people because you aren’t slaving away hard enough, and then say that it’s your fault in the first place. you’re not being a team player! you’re not pulling your weight! don’t you see that everyone else is doing their part? don’t you understand what will happen if you don’t contribute?

it is absolutely fucking vital that you don’t listen to any of it. it is even more so that you don’t fall for it when they try to pull this tactic to get you to turn against someone else. the most effective tactic to get someone to fall in line in a workplace is social ostracization. don’t be a tool for your boss to use to manipulate someone else.

Then one night he was coming home late and got mugged by a dude with a knife.

Apparently the look on the dude's face was amazing when he went in to gut the guy for his wallet and found out he was wearing medieval armor under his hoodie.

This convenience store was notorious for getting robbed in the evenings one or two times a month, so nobody wanted to work the night shift. The one fellow, he desperately needed a job, but he was also learning how to be a heavy fighter (sword & shield) in the SCA, so he had just finished a chainmail shirt, and asked if he could wear it under his uniform shirt, so long as it didn't show. The manager was just happy that he had someone willing to work nights, and said yeah, sure, so long as it doesn't show.

Guy starts working the night shifts, things are fine, he's getting used to everything, then late one night, a guy in a hoodie comes in, and asks for a pack of cigarettes. Our guy turns to get the pack, and feels a thump on his back. Turning around, scowling, he demands, "Did you just hit me??"

Guy in the hoodie widens his eyes, goes ash-gray, and faints. Clerk can't budge from behind the counter in case this is an attempt to distract and rob. But the guy remains out coold. Confused, our clerk calls the emergency services. EMTs come along and start checking out the patient, who is still out cold on the floor. While they're doing that, one of them comes up to the counter and asks what happened, exactly.

Our man tells the EMT, "Well, he just came in, looked around, came up to the counter and asked for a specific pack of cigarettes, so I turned to get them--"

And he demonstrates by turning his back to the EMT, who suddenly starts shouting, "--Sir! Sir! Are you okay? Don't move!"

Our man feels the EMT groping his upper back, and then the EMT asks,

"What the hell are you WEARING?"

"A chainmail shirt. I have to get used to the weight of it, so I wear it a lot. Why? Is something wrong?"

"You have a KNIFE in your back!"

"Uhh...no, I don't? I mean, I don't feel hurt? He only, like, punched me or something. There's no knife back there--I mean, I'd KNOW if there was a knife back there, right?"

EMT grabs the knife and pushes on his shoulder, yanking it out. "THIS knife! I'm going to need to examine your back!"

So they manage to get him out of his uniform shirt and out of the hauberk and out of the linen shirt under it (because chainmail bites suck, plus it's not nearly as fun as a Brazilian waxjob, because my SCA friend was hairy)...and it turns out he only had a very small scratch from the tip of the knife...which had gotten lodged in the riveted links.

...That was why the guy fainted. He'd stabbed the store clerk, who had turned around angrily, knife still lodged in his back.

do y'all remember when they found all that tf art in Osamu Tezuka's drawer post-mortem because I think about it often