Go the Fuck Home!!

This is how my week transpired, starting Monday;

I went in to work, and began working on whatever it was that I had to do... so far, no problem...

The Fly was helping a customer, as well as juggling two other customers who only wanted to deal with him, and trying to help a few other folks who were holding on various phone lines... in short, he was jumping through his ass...

The customer that he was helping, and with whom he was seconds away from finishing the transaction, and, therefore, seconds away from sending happily along his way... thereby freeing him (the fly) to clear the phone lines and the counter (which is the pressure that we are always under... "Clear the counter!" "Who's holding on line 16?!" "Clear that line!").. anyway.. the customer was, as I said, mere seconds from heading out the door, when he asked the Fly for a price on a particular product. I could see the Fly almost imperceptibly deflate... he was getting it from every direction... (Monday mornings, right?). He said to the customer, "Give me a few seconds, let me just clear these phone lines, these folks have been waiting patiently". I could tell that the customer that he was talking to didn't want to hear this.... after all, everybody is the star of their own show, and with our customer base, which is primarily building contractors and roofers, this is doubly so for some reason.... so the short version is that the customer was slightly miffed at being told that he had to wait...

So. I checked the price on the computer and gave it to the customer. He thanked me and out the door he went.

A few seconds later, the Fly went out into the yard, and some moments after that, he came back into the office.

Fly: "Bear, did you give a price to that customer?!"

Me: "Yah,... why? ... ... ??!!??"

Fly: "The price in the computer is wrong!"

Me: "Oh. I, ah... yikes... Sorry! I didn't know..."

Fly: "It's Nose's job to update the prices... you couldn't have known.."

Me: "... ... ... "

The Fly went back to the Nose's office and apparently told him that I had given out the price as shown in the computer... The Nose sort of likes to snag folks screwing something up and making them sweat about it... or trying to, anyway...

Conversely, he absolutely hates when anybody does this to him! (No surprise there, I suppose... )

I heard his chair creak, which told me that he had just un-assed it... (great!), and a quarter-of-a-second later, this was confirmed by my name being bellowed out at top volume... wonderful... above all things, I love this sort of thing the most... its right up there with drilling my own teeth and finding half of a large invertebrate in my sandwich... bollocks!

Nose: "BEAR!!"

Me: ...

Nose: "BEAR!!!"

Me: [sigh..] "Yeah, Nose..."

Nose: "The next time you don't know a fucking price... you ASK someone! Got it!?!!"

Me: "Well... sure... but, I thought I did know the price... I got it out of the computer..."

Nose: "WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW A FUCKING PRICE, YOU ASK SOMEONE!!"

Me: (Taken slighly aback at this hitherto unattained level of unreasonableness).. "I just told you that I was under the impression that I knew the price, since it was in the computer.. "

Nose: (Leaning close and putting his face into mine.. I suppose this is supposed to be intimidating...) "THAT PRICE IS WRONG! YOU FUCKIN' ASK NEXT TIME WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW A PRICE!!"

Me: "So... you want me to ask you the price on everything??"

Nose: "No, ASSHOLE!!, You ask A FUCK-ING PRICE WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE PRICE IS!!"

Me: "But, since it was in the computer, I thought I DID know the price... why don't you put the correct price of things like you're supposed to... and then we won't have this problem??"

Nose: "I don't have the right price yet! You just ASK the fucking price when you don't know it!! Got it?!?!"

Me: "Then why don't you just take the price out altogether, if the price in the computer is wrong, and put zero in there... NO information is better than BAD information.. so, just take the price out, very simple, then it will force us to find the correct price, and we won't have this problem in the future?!?! You can't expect us to just know that a price is wrong.. that doesn't make any sense! How are we supposed to know that a price is no longer valid??"

Nose: "I'm NOT taking the price out... you have to have SOMETHING to go on!"

Me: (!! WHAT!?!? !) WHAT?!?! What does that even mean??! "You have to have something to go on?? Just take the price out, Nose, problem solved!! Why are you being like this??"

Nose: (Screaming into my face...) "I'M NOT TAKING THE FUCKING PRICE OUT!! ALL I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU IS THAT YOU'LL ASK THE FUCKING PRICE WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW IT!!"

Me: "You can be very frustrating at times... do you know that?

Nose: "OH YEAH!?!"

Me: "Well.. yes, actually... I just told you that I got the price from the computer, that there is no way to tell whether a price is valid simply by looking at it, and I asked you whether you wanted me to ask you the price of everything.. each and every time which we both know is not workable... I suggested a very simple solution that would solve the problem until you have a valid price, and you refused to accept it... and you are demanding that I do something that isn't possible to do... so, YEAH!! You are! ... Very!"

Nose: "SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH, AND JUST SAY YOU'LL ASK THE PRICE WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW IT!! THAT'S ALL I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!"

Me: "Yeah.. Sure, Nose... No problem... I'll do just that."

Nose: "That's right, cause you're garbage and you'll do what you're fucking told. You speak when you're spoken to, and you do what the fuck you're told. Period.

Me: "Whatever..."

Nose: "WHAT WAS THAT?!"

Me: "I said you're an asshole."

Nose: "....!!!...???..."

...


Nose: "Just ask the fucking price next time... that's all..."

Me: "Whatever."

Nose: "Whatev..?!?! YOU FUCKIN' GOT SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT IT??!!"

Me: "You know what... you're just being a dick right now. I told you I would ask the price if I didn't know it. I'll do whatever you say, Nose. You're the boss, and you call the shots. However you want it is fine with me."

Nose: "JUST ASK THE FUCKING PRICE NEXT TIME."

Me: "Whatever."

Nose: "YOU DON'T LIKE IT?!!?!? GO THE FUCK HOME!! NOW!!"

So.. I packed up my few things, lunch, etc., ... and I left.

I had never actually been sent home before, so I wasn't sure precisely what that meant. I didn't know if it was a suspension, or whether I was fired, or what..

When I got home, I called Elysia/Marcheline (My wife for you new readers... ((as if!! I haven't posted in so long, I don't imagine that I have any readers anymore...)) .. to let her know what had happened...) and spent the rest of the day feeling sort of stressed out, mildly out of sorts, and, looking at job postings. I tweaked my resume, sent a few out, and basically felt like shit.

I don't like the way something so completely stupid ballooned out of control like that...

I began to wonder if there was more to it than simply the price issue. Did he simply want me gone, and use this to force me into a bad situation?? Am I that stupid to let myself be manipulated so openly??

I wasn't sure what to do, but I figured I would hear from The Nose when he settled down; either telling me that I was fired, or that I was not to come back for some period of time, or that I should come back to work the next day... or something.

Nobody called.

I waited all day Tuesday... looked at job postings... sent out resumes... and felt like shit. And... nobody called.

I spoke with a co-worker on Wednesday, and he said that The Nose was walking around asking everyone if he did the right thing, and that he was sort of being 'adamant' about the whole thing.... whatever that means.

On Thursday, I went in to the office to try to initiate some dialog, figuring that to let three days go by without showing my face there could give them ammunition to turn the situation around on me and claim that I had abandoned the job. Nose was very cold and distant and put me off... I had typed out a letter to the Department of Labor, with his signature block on it, stating that I had been employed there from start date to the the present date, and that my employment had been terminated through no fault of my own... which clears the way for an unemployment insurance claim to go through in my favor... and I asked him to sign it. He refused, saying that only the owner could sign it. I asked when he would be in, and was told 'later'.

I called the owner's brother, who works in the same office, and asked if he would have the owner contact me.

I spoke with the owner, finally, when he called me on Thursday night, and he agreed to direct The Nose to talk with me.. He agreed that the situation had gotten out of control, and that we should at least talk.

I spoke with The Nose on Friday evening, (he was initially supposed to call me early in the day, but said he would call around lunchtime, then when he didn't call I called the office, spoke with a co-worker, who said that The Nose would call at the end of the day, and, finally he did call.. and, surprisingly, he sounded like his usual normal self) and he wants to go to lunch with me on Monday and talk this over.

It will either mean that we will come to an understanding and I will return to work, or that we will come to an understanding, and I'll be out of a job.

I would prefer, I think, to return to work so that I can at least have some cash flow while I search for something better... but, at this point, I think the chips will most likely fall where they may...

I am sort of baffled at how he can demand that I somehow 'know' when a particular price, out of over 300,000 different items in the inventory, would be incorrect... since, for the most part, the price in the computer is the correct price!! Taking the price out and showing $0 is not without precedent... there are many items that we sell that show $0 because either the price changes radically due to price fluctuations in some commodity that is used to produce the item, or due to the fact that we have to call a manufacturer or distributor to get the price from them...

So, where does this leave me?? Well, the best-case scenario is that I return to work, and that I am out of a week's pay... a pretty hefty price to pay for speaking out-of-turn.

As of 1:00PM tommorrow... (Monday, 2 October) I will know whether my employment has been terminated, or whether I still have a job. I know that what he wants me to do is to simply shut up and do whatever he tells me to do, no matter whether it makes sense or not... and that I shouldn't talk back to him. Unfortunately, some flaw in my character makes this very difficult for me to do when what I am being told to do either makes no sense, or when it is so disrespectul and insulting that I rise to it and strike back.. I guess I have to learn to be a good little worker drone if I don't want to have to keep going through this sort of thing.

What I would like is to find a job where I can go in, do my work, do a good job at it, and go home. A job where the rules don't change at the whim of one person, and where, when I do what was initially agreed upon, it is viewed as doing a good job, instead of constantly expanding until it is no longer possible to do 'a good job'.

My guess is that no such job exists... but I can wish...


So... that was my week. I feel like a complete dick for giving my wife more shit to have to stress out about. To her everlasting credit and acclaim, I have to say that she never once berated me, jumped on me, or even blamed me. She said "Don't worry, we'll get through it." - which, honestly, is much easier said, than done.

On top of all of this... Thursday was our 4th wedding anniversary.

Nice job, Bear... sigh.