EMBARRASSED INTO ENLIGHTENMENT

"EMBARRASSING WORK STORIES"

By
Jared Six

"A series of embarrassing jobs helps guide a young artist towards the dream job that he was meant for..."

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1.
"THE DRUG TEST"

When I was 18, I moved to the big city to find a job, and after doing some "job hunting" I found out that there was a new mall that was going to be opening soon, and they were going to be having a big "job fair" where anyone interested in working there could show up and apply for a job. So I decided to go to it.

A lot of other people showed up to the "job fair", and although I was usually nervous around people, I was actually handling the situation pretty well until they announced that all of us would be required to take a drug test before we left by peeing into a cup.

As soon as they announced the drug test, several people stood up and walked out because they knew that there was no way that they would pass the test, and I almost got up and walked out too... But not because I was on drugs (I had never taken a drug in my life) but because I have "bladder shyness", and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to pee in a cup!

When it was time to do the drug testing, they had all of us go into a big room with a small bathroom attached to it, and one by one they started calling everyone's name.

Once someone's name got called, that person would walk over to the bathroom where a large man who was standing outside the bathroom and wearing a shirt that said "SECURITY" on it would hand them a cup with their name on it. Then they would go inside the bathroom, pee in the cup, come back out and give the cup back to the security guard.

Everyone else was doing it with seemingly no problem whatsoever, but once it was my turn, I got my cup, went in the bathroom, and tried to pee, but I just couldn't do it!

I tried and tried, but it was simply too difficult for me to pee on command when I knew that there were a bunch of people right outside the door who were all waiting for me to finish.

The thought of going back out there with an empty cup was terrifying to me, so I resorted to every trick that I could think of to make myself pee...

- I tried turning on the sink to mimic the sound of urination.

- I tried closing my eyes and imagining a waterfall.

- I tried quietly humming the instrumental song "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (the song that the singer "Elvis Presley" and the wrestler "Ric Flair" used as their intro music) to give my urine some epic "theme music" to come out to.

But none of this was working, so I then tried putting my hand in the sink and running some warm water over it, and after a few minutes of feeling the warm water on my hand, I finally started to pee...

I was so "relieved" that I was able to pee and that I wasn't going to have to go back out there and tell everyone that I "couldn't go". But then just as the cup was almost full, there was a sudden and loud knock at the door which startled me so bad that I dropped the cup and spilled it on the floor.

Then the big man with the "SECURITY" shirt from behind the door yelled...

"ARE YOU OK IN THERE BUDDY???"

And I nervously shouted back to him...

"Ugh............ Yeah..........."

I then heard the sound of several of the other people who were waiting to be drug tested laughing about it, and I could even hear some of them imitating the way that I said, "Ugh............ Yeah..........."

I quickly bent down to pick up the cup, and then I tried my best to pee again, but I was so tense that I couldn't make myself go again.

And to make matters worse, I suddenly realized that the lid that came with the cup was now missing. (I couldn't remember if I had set the lid down somewhere, or if I was holding it and had dropped it when the man pounded on the door and startled me, but I couldn't find it anywhere!)

* The lid was actually in my pocket, but just like a man who is late for work and can't find his car keys even though they are in his pocket, my short term was severely impaired due to how much stress I was going through at that moment.

I didn't want to go back out there without a lid, because I imagined that the big "security" guy outside the door would be really mad about it (or at the very least really confused) and that he would probably yell, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST THE LID???" in front of everyone, and that everyone would laugh at me. (Including the people who were doing the actual hiring and who probably wouldn't want to hire me because of it.)

The thought of going back out there with an empty cup AND without the lid was mortifying, and to make matters worse, I then started to hear all of the people outside the door talking about me, and they were saying things like...

"What's taking this guy so long?"

"He's been in there forever!"

"What is he doing in there???"

Then I heard a woman (who judging by her gravelly voice was middle-aged and smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day) say, "Any man who needs this much time to pee in a cup can't find the little guy." which made EVERYONE outside the door burst out laughing into riotous laughter!

I felt so embarrassed and "insecure" about what she said that I instinctively looked down between my legs, and I then realized that when I had dropped the cup of urine on the floor, some of it spilled on my pants, and it looked just like I had peed my pants!

The big man then started pounding on the door again, but I was so "immobilized" with embarrassment that I couldn't speak. So he started pounding louder and louder, and all I could do was just get down on my hands and knees, crawl under the sink, and put my hands over my head like they teach you to do at school during a "tornado drill".

I then just tried to take comfort in the words of wisdom that, "No storm lasts forever.".

Because I was non-responsive, they ended up calling 911, and the police had to come and take the bathroom door down just to get me out of there!

Needless to say, I didn't get hired, and after doing some more "job hunting" I started to feel that I would never be able to find a job because they all seemed to require a "drug test".

But luckily as I was walking down the street one day a man who was clearly on drugs approached me and asked if I did drugs. My first thought was that he was trying to sell me drugs, so I told him that I didn't do drugs. But then he explained to me that he was applying for a job, but that he smoked marijuana regularly, and he wanted to know if he could "buy" some of my clean urine to pass a drug test.

He then showed me a special bag that he had purchased which allows you to cheat on a drug test.

The way the bag worked was, that you would fill it up with the urine of someone who didn't do any drugs, then you would hide the bag under your pants when you had to be drug tested. The bag also had a small emptying tube that could be pulled out through the zipper of your pants and conveniently poured into a cup.

So, I let him have some of my urine, and he passed his drug test with it. And in exchange, he let me have one of these bags so I could hide some of my own "clean urine" under my pants and pass a drug test too, and I was able to get a job at a "Walmart" using the device.

I might be the only person in history who ever used their own urine to cheat on a drug test, but I have "bladder shyness" and it was the only way I could pass a test like that!

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2.
"WALMART"

THE WORLD OF THE 100,000 THINGS
The first job that I ever had was stocking shelves at a "Walmart", and it was one of their giant "supercenter stores" which sold over 100,000 different items.

When I first started working there, I of course didn't know where every one of the 100,000 different items were located. Plus, I was extremely shy and nervous around people. So I had a phobia of customers coming up to me and asking me where random things were located.

Sometimes a customer would ask me something easy like, "Where are the TVs at?" and I would confidently tell them where they were. But then a few minutes later it would suddenly hit me that I was wrong and that I had accidentally sent the customer in the completely wrong direction. Then I would start to worry that the customer might be really mad about it and that they might even be on their way back to confront me about it. So I would run to the employee bathroom and hide in a stall for half an hour just to avoid running into that customer again.

Although I was technically "stealing time" whenever I would hide from customers in the bathroom at work, I was supposed to be given two 15-minute breaks every day, but the managers would purposely make me work through both of them. So, as long as I didn't spend more than 30 minutes a day hiding from customers in the bathroom (or as long as I didn't average more than two and a half hours per week or 130 hours per year doing it) I didn't feel that I was doing anything "unethical".

MONKEYS ON TYPEWRITERS TYPING SHAKESPEARE
Working at "Walmart" wasn't all bad, and I actually managed to have a lot of fun during my time working there.

For example, because I was constantly getting asked where random items were located, I drew a really detailed map of the store and I put a big red "X" right where the blow driers were located. Then I put the map in my back pocket and brought it to work with me every single day until finally after about 5 months of always having it in my back pocket, a man came up to me and said, "Excuse me, but can you tell me where the blow driers are located?"

I was so excited that I quickly reached into my back pocket, pulled out the map, and then I handed it to him and walked away without saying a word...

About 10 minutes later, I was stocking shelves and I looked over my shoulder and saw that the man who I had given the map to was staring at me from a distance. He looked so confused, and it was obvious that he was trying to figure out how in the world I just happened to have a map to the blow driers in my pocket. (And why a map like that would even exist in the first place.)

A couple of days later he showed up at the store again, and it was obvious that he still really wanted to know how I did what I did because he walked up to me and nervously said, "Excuse me, but I just wanted to thank you for your help the other day when I couldn't find the blow driers." and then he just stood there as if he was anxiously waiting to see what I would say in response...

I then reached into my back pocket, pulled out another piece of paper, and then I handed it to him and walked away again without saying a word...

I had fully expected him to return, so the paper that I gave him this time was a realistic picture that I drew of him looking really confused and using a blow drier!

I'm guessing that the drawing really freaked him out because I never saw him in the store again after that. But several months later, I was at a gas station, and while I was putting gas in my car, a car pulled up to the pump next to me, and it was the customer who had asked me about the blow driers.

As soon as he got out of his car, he looked at me, gave me a casual nod and started to say "Good morning", but then he suddenly realized that it was me and a look of terror came over him as if he had just seen a ghost, and then he quickly jumped back into his car and sped off!

Because he was a lot bigger than me, it made me realize that I had the power to scare people by messing with their heads.

THE LADDER INCIDENT
The "Walmart" that I worked at was so big that the top shelves were about 20 feet in the air, and sometimes customers would ask me to get something for them that required a ladder to reach.

However, all of the managers at work had told me that I wasn't allowed to use a ladder due to how nervous and jumpy I was. So if a customer asked me for something that was on a high shelf, I would have to go and find another employee to actually climb up the ladder to get the product.

But one day, a very beautiful lady asked me if I could get a lawn chair for her that was way up on a top shelf (which was 20 feet up in the air) and because of how beautiful she was, I was too embarrassed to tell her that I wasn't allowed to use a ladder, so I decided to try to climb up the ladder myself!

I got a ladder from the back, and then I set it under the lawn chair she wanted and began climbing up to get it. (I was terrified of heights, but I really wanted to impress her, so I just kept climbing and told myself not to look down.)

When I finally made it to the top of the ladder, I grabbed the chair that she had pointed out, but then I heard her yell up to me that she changed her mind and that she wanted the one next to it, so I looked down to ask her if she meant the one on the left or the one on the right, but as soon as I saw just how high up in the air I was I instantly felt my legs go limp and I started to fall backward so I screamed and wrapped my arms around the ladder, hugging it for dear life!

After several moments of awkward silence, the lady yelled up to me, "Are you OK?" but I was so paralyzed with fear and embarrassment that I literally couldn't move or even respond to her question.

Once she realized that I was scared, she felt sorry for me and yelled up to me, "Oh, I'm so sorry that I had you go up that high... I didn't know that you were afraid of heights." and all I could do was just keep my face buried under my arms in embarrassment...

After what seemed like an eternity, I looked down again and noticed that the woman was gone, so I started to climb back down the ladder. But then she suddenly returned, and this time she had a manager with her named "Mark" (who was really mean) and as soon as he saw me on the ladder, he started yelling a bunch of embarrassing things at me, like...

"What the hell do you think you're doing on that ladder???"

"I told you that you are never to even touch a ladder!!!"

"Get down from there this instant, or you will be written up!!!"

Because he was yelling at me in front of a beautiful woman, I felt even more immobilized, and because he was yelling so loudly, several other customers started coming to the aisle to see what all the commotion was about, and before you knew it, there was a large crowd of customers gathered under the ladder looking up at me.

Because I was completely non-responsive, "Mark" pulled out his walkie-talkie and called for security, and then a big security guard showed up and had to climb up the ladder to try to "talk me down".

He climbed up the ladder until he was right below me, and he did his best to nicely ask me to come back down, but I just ignored him and kept my head covered without ever looking at him. So, he then reached up and grabbed my ankle, and it startled me so bad that I kicked my leg back as a reflex, and I accidentally kicked him right in the head, and it almost caused him to fall off the ladder!

As soon as I realized what I had done I looked down at him and told him that I was sorry, but he was understandably mad at me, and he shouted, "Look man, if you refuse to come down this ladder, then I'm going to have no choice but to call the actual police, and if you make me do that, then I'm going to tell them that you kicked me in the head, which is technically "assault" and you might even have to spend the night in jail over it!"

As soon as he said the part about me going to jail, I felt more scared than I had ever had in my entire life. And to make matters worse, I then looked down at the beautiful woman who I had tried so hard to impress by climbing up the ladder, and with a frightened expression on her face she turned to another female customer beside her and said, "Oh my God, can you imagine what would happen to that poor boy in jail?"

Then some of the male customers below started yelling up to me that I had better come back down because they had been to jail before and there was no way that a guy like me would survive a night in jail.

I then looked at the security guard with fearful eyes, and because he was used to dealing with criminals he could "smell fear" like a dog, and he knew what I was thinking, so he told me, "If you go to jail, the first thing that they'll do is take your "mug shot", then they'll "strip search" you, then you'll have to take a shower with a bunch of other naked men, and because you are so skinny and are the closest thing to a woman that some of them have seen in years..."

I then stopped him and said, "OK, OK, OK, I'LL COME BACK DOWN!!!"

My fear of going to jail was far worse than my fear of heights. (And honestly, I was so "camera shy" that just the thought of having to get my "mug shot" taken alone was enough to keep me "scared straight" for life!)

When I finally made it back down the ladder, the crowd of customers all started clapping and cheering over the fact that I wasn't going to have to spend a night in jail, and I had to just stand there and awkwardly pretend to appreciate the ovation, and then once the crowd died down I got fired by "Mark".

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TO BE CONTINUED

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