Embarrassed Out Of Work

Embarrassed Out Of Work 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.

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!

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".

3.
"WHOLE FOODS"

OUTRAGEOUS PRICES
I got a job working at "Whole Foods", and at first I was thrilled about the idea of working at a "health food store" since I was into health, but the prices at "Whole Foods" were so high that it made me embarrassed to work there!

Even the managers at "Whole Foods" were so embarrassed about their prices that they would purposely not even have price tags on ridiculously expensive items. (Hoping that customers would just put those items in their carts without even knowing or caring what they cost.)

But of course, a lot of customers would want to know how much the items with no price tags cost. So they would ask me, "How much does this cost?" and when I would tell them the answer, I would have to deal with the bulging eyes and the "ARE YOU SHITTING ME???" responses from customers who felt outraged and even "insulted" by our high prices.

As a shy and sensitive person, I dread having to be the "bearer of bad tidings". So having to be the one to break the news to a customer that a tomato they want to buy cost $7.00, was just as uncomfortable for me as it would be for a doctor to have to break the news to a patient that they have cancer!

The "Whole Foods" that I worked at offered a lot of unique health foods that couldn't be found in any of the other local grocery stores, but I felt that they were also giving customers the belief that, "If you want to eat healthy, you have to be a millionaire." (Hence the nickname "Whole Paycheck" that I would have to hear over-and-over again anytime I had the unfortunate duty of running a cash register at "Whole Foods" and I had to be the one to tell people how much their total was.)

And because I would constantly hear about "inflation" anytime that I turned on the News back then, as well as the threat of "hyperinflation" in the near future where the cost of a loaf of bread could be as high as 10 dollars at regular grocery stores, I started having nightmares at night about how bad the prices at "Whole Foods" might get.

SIGN ARTIST
Working at "Whole Foods" wasn't all bad, and I actually managed to have a lot of fun during my time working there.

Instead of using normal signs like other stores did, "Whole Foods" would use chalkboards and colored chalk to create artistic signs throughout their store. And since I was an artist, the managers let me draw a lot of the signs in the store. But the signs I would make were kind of strange. (Like the picture below that I drew of "Big Bird's" foot falling asleep and that I put in the cheese department.)

One time they asked me to draw a sign for a big display of pickles that had been imported from all over the world, and the jars of pickles were embarrassingly expensive. (One of them was from Brazil and cost over $300!)

The managers asked me to make a sign for the display, but because my signs could get a bit "odd", they started getting strict about what I could and couldn't do. And for this sign, they told me to just keep it simple and just write the words "Imported Pickles" and not to draw anything, so I said I would. But because the pickles were so expensive, I wrote the word "Important" instead of "Imported" as a joke.

I made the sign and hung it up for everyone to see, and what was funny to me was that nobody even noticed the misspelling.

Everyone who worked there was so used to seeing the word "imported" on expensive products, that I guess their minds would just kind of "auto-correct" the word "important" to "imported" whenever they saw the sign. (And even if the customers read the sign correctly, they probably just looked at the outrageous prices and thought to themselves, "Oh wow, these really are some "important" pickles"!)

The sign stayed up for months, and I thought it was hilarious that none of my co-workers could see what I actually wrote even though they were looking right at it. But it also made me stop and wonder how often my own mind would "auto-correct" things that I saw just so that the world would make more sense to me than it actually does.

THE FIRE
I lived on the 3rd floor of a big apartment complex, and one night I was woken up at 2:00 AM by the sounds of emergency sirens and people yelling outside. So, I got out of bed and looked out the window to see what was going on, and my apartment building was on fire!

Police and firefighters were outside pounding on people's doors and shouting for everyone to evacuate their apartments immediately, and I figured that I better hurry up, get dressed, and go outside.

But then a "CHANNEL 8 NEWS" van pulled into the parking lot, and I watched in horror as several cameramen jumped out of the news van and started filming the fire. And then a really beautiful female reporter with a microphone got out of the van and started interviewing all of my neighbors who had just been evacuated on live TV.

Because of how "camera shy" I was, I was just as afraid of the thought of being on TV as I was of the fire, so I felt trapped in my apartment, and I wasn't sure what to do...

WHAT TO WEAR???
As the fire raged on, the temperature in my apartment increased dramatically, and so did my desire to live, so I decided that I better go outside. But I was still in my underwear, so I ran to my closet to put something on first...

I went to grab a shirt from my closet, but because it was late at night, it was too dark to see exactly which shirt I was grabbing. And I couldn't just turn the light on because I knew that everyone outside would see the light come on and they would start filming my apartment.

I was too afraid to just put on a random shirt without knowing which shirt it was because most of the shirts that I owned were shirts that I was comfortable wearing when I was home alone, but that I wouldn't be comfortable wearing if I was going to be on television!

It then occurred to me that because I was a male, I could technically just go outside without a shirt on. But because of how beautiful the reporter was, I was too nervous to do that.

I then looked out the window again, and I noticed that several of my male neighbors who had just been evacuated were actually standing outside with no shirt on since they had just gotten out of bed and didn't have time to get dressed, and none of them seemed embarrassed. (They didn't even try to cover up their nipples whenever the beautiful reporter would walk up to one of them and start interviewing them!)

I then thought about "Charles Darwin", and thought to myself that if I died in the fire, it would be "natural selection", because a man who is too embarrassed to be seen by a woman without a shirt on probably isn't going to be able to reproduce and help keep the species going.

Then my apartment started to fill up with smoke, and I got so desperate that I called 911...

THE 911 CALL
I called 911, and a woman answered and asked me what my emergency was. So I told her that my apartment was on fire.

I then explained to her that the fire department was already there to put it out, but that I was really shy and there were a lot of people outside of my apartment (including people from the news who were filming everything) and I told her that I just wanted to know if it would be possible for her to get a hold of the police who were outside and ask them to please have everyone turn around and face the parking lot for just a minute or two so that I could leave my apartment without everyone staring at me...

But she didn't understand or empathize with my "social awkwardness" one bit, and she just started shouting at me in an angry and commanding voice, "IF YOUR APARTMENT IS ON FIRE, THAN YOU HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!!!"

Then the phone suddenly went dead due to the fire, and I'm guessing that she had traced my call and reported it to the fire department because less than a minute later a firefighter showed up at my door and started pounding on it while yelling...

"I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! COME ON OUT!! YOU HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!!!"

I was way too afraid to open the door, so I said nothing and hoped he would think there was no one home. But then he walked over to my living room window and punched it twice, and on the second punch the window shattered!

He then crawled into my apartment while shining a flashlight at me, and I tried to run away from him, but my apartment was so full of smoke that I couldn't see where I was going, and I ran right into a wall head first. (Which knocked me silly and caused me to fall to the ground.)

Then the firefighter (who was a very big and strong man) picked me up and hoisted me up on his shoulders. And then he carried me out of my apartment and down the outdoor apartment stairs while I had nothing on but a pair of underwear (and while I was kicking and screaming in terror, but also smiling and giggling like a little schoolgirl due to how ticklish I was) and of course, everyone was staring at me!

Once we got down the steps, he set me on the ground, and another firefighter came running over to me with a big gray "fire blanket", and he wrapped it around me so that only my head was showing. But then the beautiful female reporter came running over to interview me, so I quickly ducked my head down into the blanket to hide from her like a frightened turtle!

She attempted to interview me, but I kept my head down until she finally got the hint that I was shy and I heard the sound of her high-heeled shoes walking away across the pavement. Then I slowly raised my head back up and saw that my apartment was completely on fire!

Because I had appeared on the local News in my underwear, and because I was going to have to move anyway now that my apartment had been destroyed, I decided to move to a different city and get a different job.

4.
"LATE NIGHT GAS STATION ATTENDANT"
THE PROS AND CONS OF WORKING AT A GAS STATION LATE AT NIGHT
Pros
There weren't a lot of customers coming into the gas station late at night, so I was basically by myself most of the night and had no actual work to do. So, I started bringing art supplies with me to work and I was basically getting paid to draw most of the time.

There was a small tray of pennies near the cash register that said, "Take A Penny, Leave A Penny", and it was to help out customers who needed a few extra cents to pay for their gas. And as a joke, I made a second tray and filled it up with "courtroom sketches" that I drew of "The Pillsburry Doughboy", and the tray said, "Take A Pillsburry Doughboy Courtroom Sketch, Leave A Pillsburry Doughboy Courtroom Sketch".

"The Pillsbury Doughboy Take The Oath"
The tray that I made would get a lot of strange looks from customers, and I would always keep a straight face and act like it wasn't meant to be funny. And sometimes customers would take one of my sketches home with them. (Which as an artist always gave me a big thrill.)

Cons
Although the people who would come to the gas station late at night were few and far between, they tended to be shady-looking individuals. And instead of bringing art supplies to work with him like I did, the guy who worked the night shift on my nights off would actually bring a gun to work, just in case quote, "shit hit the fan"!

The Night I Got Robbed
One night at around 2:00 in the morning, a man walked in the gas station and told me that he wanted a pack of cigarettes that were behind me. So I turned to get the cigarettes for him, but when I turned back around he had his hand in his coat and he started shouting that he had a gun and that he would pull it out and shoot me if I didn't give him all the money in the cash register!

I screamed and put my hands up while yelling, "Don't shoot, don't shoot!" and I even lied and told him that I had a wife and kid at home, but he just yelled, "Shut the fuck up and give me all the fucking money in the fucking cash register!" and I was so scared that I almost peed my pants.

Although he claimed to have a gun, I kind of suspected that he was just pointing his hand so that it would look like a gun under his coat. But I couldn't tell for sure, and I didn't want to risk getting shot, so I decided to just give him the money.

I went to open the register for him, but I was in such a state of shock and panic that my mind froze up on me, and I actually forgot how to open it until he got so frustrated that he pulled his hand out of his jacket (and while it was still shaped like a gun) and he pointed at the button that said "Open Register" and he yelled, "It's that fucking button!"

Then he realized that he had just exposed the fact that he didn't actually have a gun, so his eyes got all wide and he said, "Oh shit!" as he quickly put his hand back into his coat. Then he looked at me all paranoid as if he wasn't sure if he should just take off running or actually keep on pretending that he had a gun when he obviously didn't.

At that point, I almost peed my pants again. (But this time due to struggling not to laugh.) And because he was smaller than me, I felt confident that I could easily defend myself if I had to.

But because I also suffer from "secondhand embarrassment" (when seeing other people get embarrassed or make a fool of themselves makes you feel embarrassed as well) I actually started to feel really sorry for him. So, I decided to continue to act as scared as I could just so he would think that I still believed that he had a gun, and so he wouldn't have to spend the rest of his life cringing about the incident.

I put all of the money in a bag for him and handed it to him, but I guess that it wasn't nearly as much as he was hoping for, because he looked at it with disappointment. And because I felt so sorry for him, I actually pulled out my wallet to give him some more money out of sympathy.

He immediately grabbed my wallet, but then he looked at it strangely and asked, "Why is your wallet all wet?" Then he looked down at my pants and noticed that I had peed my pants. (I had felt so sorry for him that since I needed to pee anyway, I went ahead and peed my pants on purpose just for a "visual aid" to help make him believe that I believed he had a gun and was scared of him.)

He then got a really disgusted look on his face and he threw the wallet back at me while yelling, "You sick fuck!"

And when he threw the wallet, I quickly tried to move out of the way to avoid getting hit by it, and the wallet ended up just barely hitting my hand. But I moved so fast that I slipped on some of my urine that had gotten on the ground, and it caused my feet to go flying up in the air, and I literally did a backflip in the air and came crashing down hard to the ground.

But because there was a counter between me and the man, he couldn't see that there was urine on the ground, and therefore he thought that even though he had just barely hit my hand with the wallet it caused me to flip over like that!

At that point, it must have been just as obvious to the man that I didn't really have a wife and kids as it was obvious to me that he didn't really have a gun, because as I got back up to my feet he was looking at me in complete disbelief and asked me, "You said that you have a wife and kids???" so I said, "Ugh... Yeah." and then after several moments of awkward silence he just shook his head, grabbed the bag of money, and took off running.

Because he wasn't wearing a mask or anything to disguise himself, and because there were cameras in the gas station that captured the whole incident on video, it probably would have been easy to find and prosecute him. But because I had acted so scared, I didn't want anyone else to see the video.

Then my overactive imagination started to worry that me and the robber might both end up on the TV show "World's Dumbest Criminals" and get laughed at by millions of people and that we would both have to spend the rest of our lives cringing about it!

So, I opened up my wallet (which actually had a lot of money in it) and I put all my money in the register so there wouldn't be any missing money and so my boss wouldn't have a good reason to want to watch the security camera footage, and then as soon as my boss showed up in the morning I quit just so he wouldn't have any time to watch the footage because he would be too busy trying to find someone to replace me.

5.
"SEARS"
CHAOS
I got a job working at "Sears", and although "Sears" used to be the #1 retail store in the United States, it was heading for bankruptcy when I started working there, and the writing was on the wall that the company wouldn't be around much longer.

I actually loved working at "Sears" though, because it was such a chaotic environment!

Because everyone believed that "Sears" was about to go out of business, it was hard to find people who wanted to work there, and the people who already worked there didn't believe that they would be there much longer so they didn't care, and employees were getting away with some "mind-blowing" behavior...

There was a lazy old guy who worked there named "Stanley", and one day one of the managers caught him inside a barber shop across the street getting his hair cut when he was on the clock and supposed to be in the "Sears" parking lot rounding up shopping carts. But because of how desperate they were for help, he didn't even get fired over it, and they just told him not to do it again.

There was also a cashier named "David" who the managers believed was stealing money because there was always cash missing from his register. So they started watching the security camera footage, and they caught him stealing money from the register on camera and he was fired over it.

But then he claimed that the only reason he was taking money from the store was that he wanted to start his own business, and he just needed the money to get his business going, and that once his business was successful he planned on paying "Sears" back all of the money that he had been "borrowing".

Everyone laughed and couldn't believe that he actually tried to use that as an excuse, but nobody was laughing two weeks later when he actually got his job back!

The other people I worked with would get really upset whenever someone would keep their job despite their bad behavior, but I just looked at it as "job security" and thought to myself that I had just found a job that I couldn't get fired from.

SHOPLIFTERS
Because of how understaffed we were, the "Sears" I worked at would get a lot of shoplifters. And although stealing is wrong, sometimes I would kind of route for the shoplifters.

For example, we had a big riding lawnmower on display in the "lawn care aisle", and one day a male customer grabbed a can of gasoline from the "automotive aisle" and poured it into the lawnmower. Then he got on the lawnmower, started it up, and simply drove it right out of the store!

I was kind of excited for the shoplifter just because I imagined that any time he was alone with someone and they couldn't think of anything to talk about, he could always tell them about the time he stole a riding lawnmower from "Sears" by literally just walking into the store and driving off with it. (I mean, what an incredible "icebreaker"!)

AS SEEN ON TV
"Sears" sold lots of products that would have a little red sticker on the label that said, "AS SEEN ON TV", and there was also a popular home work-out video series at the time called "Sweatin' to the Oldies" by "Richard Simmons" where people would work-out to classic songs from the old days.

And as a joke, I made a bunch of little red stickers that said "AS SEEN ON SWEATIN' TO THE OLDIES" and I secretly put them on random products all throughout the store that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with "Sweatin' to the Oldies". (Like "Mr. Potato Head" dolls, fingernail glue, and Halloween decorations.)

So, if you ever bought anything from "Sears" back in the day that had one of these stickers on it, now you know where it came from ;)

THE PROMOTION
One day, one of the managers at work quit, and because they were so desperate for help, I was actually offered the position. So I instantly said, "Yes" because it meant that for the first time in my life, I would have a job that I wasn't embarrassed to tell people about.

I could actually tell people that I was a "manager". (Sure, I would still be embarrassed to say that I was a manager at "Sears" since everyone knew that "Sears" was about to go out of business, but I could still proudly tell people that I was a "manager" and just hope that nobody asked, "Where at?")

On my first day as "manager", some people from corporate came to the store to train me, and they started by walking with me around the store and explaining everything that they expected from me.

Everything was going great at first, but then we walked past an employee named "Eric" and the people from corporate pulled me aside and whispered, "We've had numerous complaints from customers about "Eric" over there because he has really strong body odor, his hair is always messy, and his clothes usually have stains on them. So, we're going to need you to have a little talk with him today about his "personal hygiene"."

They then handed me a piece of paper that I had to get "Eric" to sign which said that he had been talked to about his hygiene and that he promised to start showing up to work in a more presentable fashion. .

They told me that they were going upstairs to the office, and to meet them upstairs with the signed paperwork as soon as I finished having the big talk with "Eric". So, I started walking over to "Eric", and I felt radically uncomfortable because I knew that if I told him he smelled bad it would be awkward every single time that we ever saw each other in the future.

When he saw me approaching him, he got a big smile on his face and shouted "Boss Man!" Then he asked me, "How does it feel to be the big man in charge?" and I just put on a fake smile and told him, "Oh, It's going pretty well so far." Then I said, "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" and he said, "Sure what's up?" so I told him...

"I just want to tell you that you..................................."

Then there was a really long and awkward silence, because I just couldn't bring myself to say "stink" or "smell bad", or "need to take a bath", so I instead just said,

"I just want to tell you that you..............................are doing a very good job, and I just wanted to ask you to please keep up the good work for me."

I then turned and walked away from him, because I was simply too uncomfortable to tell him that he smelled bad. Then I went ahead and just walked out of the store and walked back home because I was also too uncomfortable to tell the people from corporate that I couldn't tell him that he stunk even though they had just given me this huge promotion.

So I lost my job at "Sears". (But I can still tell people that I used to be a "manager", even though it only lasted about 8 minutes.)

And the "Sears" that I worked at ended up going out of business shortly after I left anyway.

6.
"THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINE"
Because I had left all of my jobs on bad terms, I needed help finding a job, so I went to the "Unemployment Agency" one day and it was so crowded that I had to wait in line for over 2 hours. But shortly before it was my turn to be interviewed, I heard a loud and familiar voice enter the building, so I turned around and saw that an ex-co-worker of mine from "Sears" named "Jeff" had just walked into the building.

I quickly turned my head back around and started silently praying that he wouldn't see me because I was an extreme "introvert" and he was an extreme "extrovert".

He was a huge wrestling fan. (He would talk about wrestling all the time at work, and he even wore a "Hulk Hogan" t-shirt that day to the unemployment line!)

I actually kind of liked wrestling too, but I was too embarrassed to tell people that I liked it, because back then, wrestling fans were kind of looked down on by non-wrestling fans for being "gullible" and for believing that wrestling was real.

Sometimes I would watch wrestling on free TV, but it would usually just be hype to get viewers to order the big upcoming "pay-per-view" events, and the announcers would say things like, "Call your local cable company and tell them that you're a "Hulkamaniac", and that you want to watch "Hulk Hogan" and his friend "Brutus the Barber Beefcake" team up to battle the evil "Macho Man" and "The Genius Lanny Poffo" live in your living room!" and I would just be thinking to myself "Oh my God, it would be so embarrassing to call the cable company and tell them that!!!"

So I was a "closeted wrestling fan", but because I had worked so closely with "Jeff" and he talked about wrestling so much, I actually ended up telling him that I was a wrestling fan too.

But then the lady at the desk yelled, "Next" and it was my turn to be interviewed, so I stood up and "Jeff" spotted me from across the building and started shouting my name...

Because he was shouting so loudly, the whole building became silent and started staring at us. So I slowly turned around and gave him a forced smile and a nervous wave, and then in front of everyone he enthusiastically tugged at his belt and shouted, "OH MAN, DID YOU WATCH "SMACKDOWN" LAST NIGHT???"

I cringed with embarrassment because now everyone in the building thought that I was a wrestling fan!

I was so embarrassed that I quickly started walking to the "exit" door while using one hand to pull my shirt up high enough that nobody could see my face, and using my other hand to try to pull and stretch my shirt back down enough so that nobody could see my belly button.

But because I was pulling my shirt so hard in opposite directions, right before I got to the door my shirt ripped completely in half and I was now shirtless in front of everyone!

Everyone was staring at me in shock, so I instinctually tried to tense my muscles so I would at least look muscular, and then I tried to make it look like I ripped my shirt on purpose by flexing like a bodybuilder and yelling, "Whatcha gonna do, when Hulkamania runs wild on you?"

But then I looked at "Jeff" and realized that I had just made myself look like a wrestling fan who even other wrestling fans would be embarrassed to be associated with, so I quickly walked out the door and got the hell out there!

Now that the people who worked at the unemployment agency had seen me do that, I was of course way too embarrassed to go back to them for help.

7.
"DISABILITY"
MUSIC
There was a "Target" store near my apartment that was open 24 hours a day, and I loved it because I could go there late at night when there weren't a lot of people around. Plus, they also had a "self-checkout" which meant that I could buy "embarrassing" things without feeling embarrassed about it.

But one night, I went to "Target", and as soon as I walked in, a man who was standing at the front door startled me by saying "Hello" to me, and I noticed that on his shirt he had a name badge that said "Professional Greeter". (Which meant that the store had actually hired him just to make "small talk" with people as they entered the building.)

The store had a "bargain bin" that I would often check out, and I found a CD in it that I had always wanted and that was on sale for only $1.00, so I decided to buy it.

I'd rather not say what CD it was, because I'm so embarrassed to admit what kind of music I like that one of my biggest fears about death is that when I die someone will go through my belongings and find out what kind of music I like, and then I will have to spend eternity rolling over in my grave out of embarrassment!

So I took the CD to the "self-checkout" and was able to buy it without anyone seeing what it was or judging me for it. But then I started walking towards the front door and I saw the "Professional Greeter" and started dreading the fact that I was going to have to say "Goodbye" to him.

Then I saw the "Greeter" asking a customer who was exiting the store if he could see their receipt just to make sure that they weren't shoplifting, and I panicked because it meant that he was probably going to look at my receipt and my CD and know what kind of music I like, and then I would never be able to face him again or shop there again!

So, I started looking around to see if there was another way out of the building and I spotted another door on the side of the building that said, "EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY", so I started walking towards it, but just as I got to the door I heard someone yell, "STOP RIGHT THERE!". So, I turned around and saw a security guard running towards me while yelling, "YOU CAN'T GO OUT THAT DOOR!" and then he asked, "DO YOU HAVE A RECEIPT FOR THAT CD?"

Even though I did have a receipt, I was too embarrassed to show it to him, so I quickly stuffed the CD down my pants and pushed open the "EMERGENCY EXIT DOOR" (which resulted in a loud alarm going off) and then I took off running down the street like I stole something!

The security guard was chasing me down the street, but I ended up losing him by running into a dark forest and hiding.

But about 20 minutes later the dark forest became illuminated with the flashing colors of blue and red police car lights and it caused me to have a seizure and pass out!

SHYNESS IS A DISEASE NOW
When I regained consciousness, I was in a hospital and after explaining to the doctors what happened I was sent to a female psychiatrist, and after telling her my life story, she diagnosed me as being "shy".

But instead of just using the word "shy" like people normally would in the past, she said that I was quote "suffering from crippling social anxiety disorder" and she suggested that I file for "disability".

So I applied for "disability" and I actually got it, which meant that I didn't have to have a job anymore and that I could be a full-time artist!

When I was being interviewed by the psychiatrist, she showed me a series of "inkblots", and I was so fascinated by them that I made my own inkblots at home, and I wallpapered my entire house with them for artistic inspiration.

In addition to the disability checks that I started getting in the mail, I also got a "handicapped parking permit" to hang on my car so that everyone would know that I was handicapped. But since I didn't have a car, I made a necklace in the shape of a handicapped symbol and I wore it any time I went out in public so that everyone would know that I was handicapped and so the disability checks would keep coming.

The artist known as "Elbow".

(Pictured above and below in his ink-blot test wallpapered house.)

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